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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5051-0.txt b/5051-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c25e685 --- /dev/null +++ b/5051-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10833 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5051] +Posting Date: April 19, 2009 +Last Updated: November 11, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE *** + + + + +Produced by Polly Stratton + + + + + + + + +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE + + +by William J. Locke + + + + + + + +PART I + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +For reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, in Verona, to +write the history of my extravagant adventure. I shall formulate and +expand the rough notes in my diary which lies open before me, and I +shall begin with a happy afternoon in May, six months ago. + + +May 20th. + +_London_:--To-day is the seventh anniversary of my release from +captivity. I will note it every year in my diary with a sigh of +unutterable thanksgiving. For seven long blessed years have I been +free from the degrading influences of Jones Minor and the First Book of +Euclid. Some men find the modern English boy stimulating, and the old +Egyptian humorous. Such are the born schoolmasters, and schoolmasters, +like poets, _nascuntur non fiunt_. What I was born passes my ingenuity +to fathom. Certainly not a schoolmaster--and my many years of +apprenticeship did not make me one. They only turned me into an +automaton, feared by myself, bantered by my colleagues, and sometimes +good-humouredly tolerated by the boys. + +Seven years ago the lawyer’s letter came. The post used to arrive just +before first school. I opened the letter in the class-room and sat down +at my desk, sick with horror. The awful wholesale destruction of my +relatives paralysed me. My form must have seen by my ghastly face that +something had happened, for, contrary to their usual practice, they sat, +thirty of them, in stony silence, waiting for me to begin the lesson. As +far as I remember anything, they waited the whole hour. The lesson over, +I passed along the cloister on my way to my rooms. I overheard one of my +urchins, clattering in front of me, shout to another: + +“I’m sure he’s got the sack!” + +Turning round he perceived me, and grew as red as a turkey-cock. I +laughed aloud. The boy’s yell was a clarion announcement from the +seventh heaven. I _had got the sack_! _I_ should never teach him +quadratic equations again. I should turn my back forever upon those +hateful walls and still more abominated playing-fields. And I was not +leaving my prison, as I had done once or twice before, in order to +continue my servitude elsewhere. I was free. I could go out into the +sunshine and look my fellow-man in the face, free from the haunting, +demoralising sense of incapacity. I was free. Until that urchin’s shriek +I had not realised it. My teeth chattered with the thrill. + +I was fortunately out of school the second hour. I employed most of +it in balancing myself. A perfectly reasonable creature, I visited the +chief. He was a chubby, rotund man, with a circular body and a circular +visage, and he wore great circular gold spectacles. He looked like a +figure in the Third Book of Euclid. But his eyes sparkled like bits of +glass in the sun. + +“Well, Ordeyne?” he inquired, looking up from letters to parents. + +“I have come to ask you to accept my resignation,” said I. “I would like +you to release me at once.” + +“Come, come, things are not as bad as all that,” said he, kindly. + +I looked stupidly at him for a moment. + +“Of course I know you’ve got one or two troublesome forms,” he +continued. + +Then I winced. His conjecture hurt me horribly. + +“Oh, it’s nothing to do with my incompetence,” I interrupted. + +“What is it, then?” + +“My grandfather, two uncles, two nephews and a valet were drowned a day +or two ago in the Mediterranean,” I answered, calmly. + +I have since been struck by the crudity of this announcement. It took my +chief’s breath away. + +“I deeply sympathise with you,” he said at last. + +“Thank you,” said I. + +“A terrible catastrophe. No wonder it has upset you. Horrible! Six +living human beings! Three generations of men!” + +“That’s just it,” said I. “Three generations of my family swept away, +leaving me now at the head of it.” + +At this moment the chief’s wife came into the library with the morning +paper in her hand. On seeing me she rushed forward. + +“Have you had bad news?” + +“Yes. Is it in the paper?” + +“I was coming to show my husband. The name is an uncommon one. I +wondered if they might be relatives of yours.” + +I bowed acquiescence. The chief looked at the paragraph below his wife’s +indicating thumb, then he looked at me as if I, too, had suffered a +seachange. + +“I had no idea--” he said. “Why, now--now you are Sir Marcus Ordeyne!” + +“It sounds idiotic, doesn’t it?” said I, with a smile. “But I suppose I +-am.” + +And so came my release from captivity. I was profoundly affected by the +awful disaster, but it would be sheer hypocrisy if I said that I felt +personal grief. I knew none of the dead, of whom I verily believe the +valet was the worthiest man. My grandfather and uncles had ignored +my existence. Not a helping hand had they stretched out to my widowed +mother in her poverty, when one kindly touch would have meant all. + +They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Ordeynes. What my +father, the youngest son, was like, I have no idea, as he died when +I was two years old, but my mother, who was somewhat stern and +puritanical, spoke of him very much as she would have spoken of the +prophet Joel, had he been a personal acquaintance. + +Seven years to-day have I been a free man. + +Feeling at peace with all the world I called this afternoon on my Aunt +Jessica, Mrs. Ordeyne, who has borne me no malice for stepping into the +place that should have been the inheritance of her husband and of her +son. Rather has she devised to adopt me, to guide my ambitions and to +point out my duties as the head of the house. If I refuse to be adopted, +avoid ambitions and disclaim duties, the fault lies not with her +good-will. She is a well-preserved worldly woman of fifty-five, and +having begun to dye her hair in the peroxide of hydrogen era has not +the curiosity to abandon the practice and see what colour will result. +I wish I could like her. I can’t. She purrs. Some day I feel she will +scratch. She received me graciously. + +“My dear Marcus. At last! Didn’t you know I have been in town ever since +Easter?” + +“No,” said I. “I am afraid I didn’t.” Which was true. “Why didn’t you +tell me?” + +“I would have asked you to dinner, but you will never come. As for +At Home cards I never dream of sending them to you. It is a waste of +precious half-penny stamps.” + +“You might have written me a nice little letter about nothing at all,” I +suggested. + +“For you to say ‘What is that woman worrying me with her silly letters +for?’ I know what you men are.” She looked arch. + +This is precisely what I should have said. As I am not an inventive +liar, I could only smile feebly. I am never at my ease with Aunt +Jessica. I am not the kind of person to afford her entertainment. I do +not belong to her world of opulence, and if even I desired it, which the +gods forbid, my means would not enable me to make the necessary display. +My uncle, thinking to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the title, amassed +enormous wealth as a company promoter, while I, on whom the title has +descended, am perfectly contented with its fallen fortunes. I have +scarcely a thought or taste in common with my aunt. In fact, I must bore +her exceedingly. Yet she hides her boredom beneath a radiant countenance +and leads me to understand that my society gives her inexpressible joy. +I wonder why. + +She is always be-guide-philosopher-and-friending me. I resent it. A man +of forty does not need the counsels of an elderly woman destitute of +intellect. I believe there are some women who are firmly convinced that +their sheer sex has imbued them with all the qualities of genius. To-day +my aunt tackled me on the subject of marriage. I ought to marry. I asked +why. It appeared it was every man’s duty. + +“From what point of view?” I asked. “The mere propagation of the human +race, or the providing of a superfluous young woman with a means of +livelihood? If it is the former, then, in my opinion, there are too +many people in the world already; and if the latter, I’m afraid I’m not +sufficiently altruistic.” + +“You are so _funny!_” laughed my aunt. + +I was not aware of being the least bit funny. + +“But, seriously,” she continued, “you _must_ marry.” She is a woman who +has an irritating way of speaking in Italics. “Are you aware that if you +have no son the title will become extinct?” + +“And if it does,” I cried, “who on this earth will care a +half-penny-bun?” + +I am growing tired of the title. At first it was rather amusing. Now +it appears it is registered in Heaven’s chancery and hedged about with +divine ordinances. Only the other day an unknown parson requested me to +open a church bazaar, and I gathered he had received his instructions +direct from the Almighty. + +“Why, every one would care,” exclaimed my aunt, genuinely shocked. “It +would be monstrous. You owe it to your descendants as well as to your +ancestors. Besides,” she added, with apparent irrelevance, “a man in +your position ought to live up to it.” + +“I do,” said I, “just up to it.” + +“Now you are pretending you don’t understand me. You ought to marry +money!” + +I smiled and shook my head. I don’t think my aunt likes me to smile +and shake my head, for I saw a flicker in her eyes. “No, my dear aunt; +emphatically no. It would be comfortless. If I kissed it, it would be +cold. If I put my arms round it, it would be full of sharp edges which +would hurt. If I tried to get any emotion out of it, it would only +jingle.” + +“What do you want then?” + +“Nothing. But if I must--let it be plain flesh and blood.” + +“Cannibal!” said my aunt. + +We both laughed. + +“But you can have plenty of flesh and blood, with money as well, for the +asking,” she insisted; and thereupon my two cousins, Dora and Gwendolen, +entered the drawingroom and interrupted the conversation. They are both +bouncing, fresh-faced girls, in the early twenties. They ride and shoot +and bicycle and golf and dance, and the elder writes little stories for +the magazines. As I do none of these things, I am convinced they regard +me as a poor sort of creature. When they hand me a cup of tea I almost +expect them to pat me on the head and say, “Good dog!” I am long, lean, +stooping, hatchet-faced, hawknosed, near-sighted. I have not the breezy +air of the jolly young stockbrokers they are in the habit of meeting. +They rather alarm me. Moreover, they have managed to rear a colossal +pile of wholly incorrect information on every subject under the sun, and +are addicted to letting chunks of it fall about one’s ears. This stuns +me, rendering conversation difficult. + +As I had not seen Dora since her return from Rome, where she had spent +the early spring, I asked, in some trepidation, for her impressions. +Before I could collect myself, I was listening to a lecture on St. +Peter’s. She told me it was built by Michael Angelo. I suggested that +some credit might be given to Bramante, not to speak of Rosellino, +Baldassare Peruzzi and the two San Gallo’s. + +“Oh!” said my young lady, with a superb air of omniscience. “It was +all Michael Angelo’s design. _The others only tinkered away at it +afterwards_.” + +After receiving this brickbat I took my leave. + +To console myself I looked up, during the evening, Michael Angelo’s +noble letter about Bramante. + +“One cannot deny,” says he, “that Bramante was as excellent in +architecture as any one has been from the ancients to now. He placed the +first stone of St. Peter’s, not full of confusion, but clear, neat, and +luminous, and isolated all round in such a way that it injured no +part of the palace, and was held to be a beautiful thing, as is still +apparent, in such a way that any one who has departed from the said +order of Bramante, as San Gallo has done, has departed from the truth.” + +Michael Angelo did not like San Gallo; neither did he like Bramante-who +was his senior by thirty years-but this makes his appreciation of the +elder’s work all the more generous. + +Tinkered away at it, indeed! + + +May 21st. + +I spent all the morning at work by the open window. + +I have a small house in Lingfield Terrace, on the north side of the +Regent’s Park, so that my drawing-room, on the first floor, has a +southern aspect. It has been warm and sunny for the past few days, and +the elms and plane-trees across the road are beginning to riot in their +green bravery, as if intoxicated with the golden wine of spring. My +French window is flung wide open, and on the balcony a triangular bit of +sunlight creeps round as the morning advances. My work-table is drawn +up to the window. I am busy over the first section of my “History of +Renaissance Morals,” for which I think my notes are completed. I have a +delicious sense of isolation from the world. Away over those tree-tops +is a faint purpurine pall, and below it lies London, with its strife and +its misery, its wickedness and its vanity. Twenty minutes would take +me into the heart of it. And if I chose I could be as struggling, as +wretched, as much imbued with wickedness and vanity as anybody. I could +gamble on the stock exchange, or play the muddy game of politics, or +hawk my precious title for sale among the young women of London society. +My Aunt Jessica once told me that London was at my feet. I am quite +content that it should stay there. I have much the same nervous dread +of it as I have of an angry sea breaking in surf on the shingle. If I +ventured out in it I should be tossed hither and thither and broken on +the rocks, and I should perish. I prefer to stand aloof and watch. If I +had a little more of daring in my nature I might achieve something. I am +afraid I am but a waster in the world’s factory; but kind Fate, instead +of pitching me on the rubbish-heap, has preserved me, perhaps has set me +under a glass case, in her own museum, as a curiosity. Well, I am happy +in my shelter. + +I was interrupted in my writing by the entrance of my cook and +housekeeper, Antoinette. She was sorry to disturb me, but did Monsieur +like sorrel? She was preparing some _veau a l’oseille_ for lunch, and +Stenson (my man) had informed her that it was disgusting stuff and that +Monsieur would not eat it. + +“Antoinette,” said I, “go and inform Stenson that as he looks after +my outside so do you look after my inside, and that I have implicit +confidence in both of you in your respective spheres of action.” + +“But does Monsieur like sorrel?” Antoinette inquired, anxiously. + +“I adore it even,” said I, and Antoinette made her exit in triumph. + +What a reverential care French women have for the insides of their +masters! At times it is pathetic. Before now, I have thrown dainty +morsels which I could not eat into the fire, so as to avoid hurting +Antoinette’s feelings. + +I came across her three years ago in a tiny hostelry in a tiny town +in the Loire district. She cooked the dinner and conversed about it +afterwards so touchingly that we soon became united in bonds of the +closest affection. Suddenly some money was stolen; Antoinette, accused, +was dismissed without notice. I had a shrewd suspicion of the thief--a +suspicion which was afterwards completely justified--and indignantly +championed Antoinette’s cause. + +But Antoinette, coming from a village some eighty miles away, was a +stranger and an alien. I was her only friend. It ended in my inviting +her to come to England, the land of the free and the refuge of the +downtrodden and oppressed, and become my housekeeper. She accepted, with +smiles and tears. And they were great big smiles, that went into creases +all over her fat red face, forming runnels for the great big tears which +dropped off at unexpected angles. She was alone in the world. Her only +son had died during his military service in Madagascar. Although her man +was dead, the law would not regard her as a widow because she had never +been married, and therefore refused to exempt her only son. “_On ne +peut-etre Jeune qu’une fois, n’est-ce pas, Monsieur?_” she said, in +extenuation of her early fault. + +“And Jean-Marie,” she added, “was as brave a fellow and as devoted a son +as if I had been married by the Saint-Pere himself.” + +I waved my hand in deprecation and told her it did not matter in the +least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of Verona for many generations, +were every man jack of them so parented. Even William the Conqueror-- + +“_Tiens_,” cried Antoinette, consoled, “and he became Emperor of +Germany--he and Bismarck!” + +Antoinette’s historical sense is rudimentary. I have not tried since to +develop it. + +When I brought my victim of foreign tyranny to Lingfield Terrace, +Stenson, I believe, nearly fainted. He is the correctest of English +valets, and his only vice, I believe, is the accordion, on which +he plays jaunty hymn-tunes when I am out of the house. When he had +recovered he asked me, respectfully, how they were to understand each +other. I explained that he would either have to learn French or teach +Antoinette English. What they have done, I gather, is to invent a +nightmare of a _lingua franca_ in which they appear to hold amicable +converse. Now and again they have differences of opinion, as to-day, +over my taste for _veau a l’oseille_; but, on the whole, their relations +are harmonious, and she keeps him in a good-humour: Naturally, she feeds +the brute. + +The duty-impulse, stimulated by my call yesterday on one aunt by +marriage, led my footsteps this afternoon to the house of the other, +Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne. She is of a different type from her sister-in-law, +being a devout Roman Catholic, and since the terrible affliction of two +years ago has concerned herself more deeply than ever in the affairs of +her religion. She lives in a gloomy little house in a sunless Kensington +by-street. Only my Cousin Rosalie was at home. She gave me tea made with +tepid water and talked about the Earl’s Court Exhibition, which she had +not visited, and a new novel, of which she had vaguely heard. I tried in +vain to infuse some life into the conversation. I don’t believe she is +interested in anything. She even spoke lukewarmly of Farm Street. + +I pity her intensely. She is thin, thirty, colourless, bosomless. I +should say she was passionless--a predestined spinster. She has never +drunk hot tea or lived in the sun or laughed a hearty laugh. I remember +once, at my wit’s end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore +Hook accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite request +that he might know whether he was anybody in particular. She said, +without a smile, “Yes, it was astonishing how rude some people could +be.” + +And her godfathers and godmothers gave her the name of Rosalie. Mine +might just as well have called me Hercules or Puck. + +She told me that her mother intended to ask me to dine with them one +evening next week. When was I free? I chose Thursday. Oddly enough I +enjoy dining there, although we are on the most formal terms, not having +got beyond the “Sir Marcus” and “Mrs. Ordeyne.” But both mother and +daughter are finely bred gentlewomen, and one meets few, oh, very, very +few among the ladies of to-day. + +I reached home about six and found a telegram awaiting me. + +“_Sorry can’t give you dinner. Cook in an impossible condition. Come +later._ Judith.” + +I must confess to a sigh of relief. I am fond of Judith and sorry +for her domestic infelicities, though why she should maintain that +alcoholized wretch in her kitchen passes my comprehension. If there is +one thing women do not understand it is the selection, the ordering, and +the treatment of domestic servants. The mere man manages much better. +But, that aside, Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith’s cook’s cookery. +I breathed a little sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform him +that I would dine at home. + +A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller arrived during +dinner. Among them were the nine volumes of Pietro Gianone’s _Istoria +Civile del Regno di Napoli_, a copy of which I ought to have possessed +long ago. It is dedicated to the “Most Puissant and Felicitous Prince +Charles VI, the Great, by God crowned Emperor of the Romans, King of +Germany, Spain, Naples, Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, _etcetera_.” Is there +a living soul in God’s universe who has a spark of admiration for this +most puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by God Emperor +and King of the greater part of Europe (and docked of most of +his pretensions by the Treaty of Utrecht)? We only remember the +forcible-feeble person by his Pragmatic Sanction, and otherwise his +personality has left in history not the remotest trace. And yet, on +the 12th February, 1723, a profoundly erudite, subtle, and picturesque +historian grovels before the man and subscribes himself “Of your Holy +Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most humble and most devoted and most +obsequious vassal and slave Pietro Gianone.” What ruthless judgments +posterity passes on once enormous reputations! In Gianone’s admirable +introduction we hear of “_il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a’ con +confini della sua Inghilterra volle in altri a piu lontani Paesi andav +rintracciando l’uso a l’autorita delle romane leggi ne’ nuovi domini de’ +Principi cristiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna Nazione volle ancora aver +conto: le ricerco nella vicina Scozia, e nell’ Ibernia; trapasso nella +Francia, e nella Spagna; in Germania, in Italia, a nel nostro Regno +ancora: si stese in oltre in Polonia, Boemia, in Ungheria, Danimarca, +nella Svezia, ed in piu remote parti_.” A devil of a fellow this +celebrated English Arthur Duck, who besides writing a learned treatise +_De Usu et Auth. Jur. Civ. Rom. in Dominiis Principum Christianorum_, +was a knight, a member of Parliament, chancellor of the diocese of +London, and a master in chancery. Gianone flattens himself out for a +couple of pages before this prodigy whom he lovingly calls _Ariuro_, as +who should say Raffaelo or Giordano; and now, where in the hearts of men +lingers Sir Arthur Duck? For one thing he had a bad name. Our English +sense of humour revolts from making a popular hero of a man called Duck. +Yet we made one of Drake. But there was something masculine about the +latter: in fact, everything. + +I am afraid it was rather late when I got to Judith. + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +May 22d. + +I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had lived in a garret “in +the brave days when I was twenty-one,” if I had undergone the lessons +of misery with the attendant compensations of “_une folle maitresse, de +francs amis et l’amour des chansons_,” and had joyous-heartedly mounted +my six flights of stairs. I lived modestly, it is true; but never for a +moment was I doubtful as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the +creature comforts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her +shawl curtain-wise across my window. Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish +she had. I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or spent my +lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal song. Often the +weary moments seemed a lifetime. + +And now that I am forty, “it is too late a week.” Boon companions, of +whom I am thankful to say I have none, would drive me crazy with their +intolerable heartiness. I once spent an evening at the Savage Club. +As for the _folle maitresse_--as a concomitant of my existence she +transcends imagination. + +“What are you thinking of?” asked Judith. + +“I was thinking how the _‘Dans un grenier qu’on est bien a vingt ans’_ +principle would have worked in my own case,” I answered truthfully, for +the above reflections had been Passing through my mind. + +Judith laughed. + +“You in a garret? Why, you haven’t got a temperament!” + +I suppose I haven’t. It never occurred to me before. Beranger omitted +that from his list of attendant compensations. + +“That’s the difference between us,” she added, after a pause. “I have a +temperament and you haven’t.” + +“I hope you find it a great comfort.” + +“It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. It is the bane of +one’s existence.” + +“Why be so proud of having it?” + +“You wouldn’t understand if I told you,” said Judith. + +I rose and walked to the window and gazed meditatively at the rain which +swept the uninspiring little street. Judith lives in Tottenham Mansions, +in the purlieus of the Tottenham Court Road. The ground floor of the +building is a public-house, and on summer evenings one can sit by the +open windows, and breathe in the health-giving fumes of beer and whisky, +and listen to the sweet, tuneless strains of itinerant musicians. When +my new fortunes enabled me to give the dear woman just the little help +that allowed her to move into a more commodious flat, she had the many +mansions of London to choose from. Why she insisted on this abominable +locality I could never understand. It isn’t as if the flat were +particularly cheap; indeed the fact of its being situated over a +public-house seems to enhance the rent. She said she liked the shape of +the knocker and the pattern of the bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that +it must have had something to do with the temperament. + +“It always seems to rain when we propose an outing together. This is the +fourth time since Easter,” I remarked. + +We had planned a sedate country jaunt, but as the day was pouring wet we +remained at home. + +“Perhaps this is the way the _bon Dieu_ has of expressing his +disapproval of us,” said Judith. + +“Why should he disapprove?” I asked. + +A shrug of her shoulders ended in a shiver. + +“I am chilled through.” + +“My dear girl,” I cried, “why on earth haven’t you lit the fire?” + +“The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy.” + +“But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogical woman,” I +exclaimed, searching my pockets for a match-box. + +I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel by her chair. +She stretched out her hand--she has delicate white hands with slender +fingers--and lightly touched my head. + +“How long have we known each other?” she asked. + +“About eight years.” + +“And how long shall we go on?” + +“As long as you like,” said I, intent on the fire. + +Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze +and crackle of the wood assured me of successful effort. + +“These are capital grates,” I said, cheerfully, drawing a comfortable +arm-chair to the front of the fire. + +“Excellent,” she replied, in a tone devoid of interest. + +There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great charms of human +intercourse. Is there not a legend that Tennyson and Carlyle spent the +most enjoyable evenings of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence +and tobacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob? A sort of Whistlerian +nocturne of golden fog! + +I offered Judith a cigarette. She declined it with a shake of the head. +I lit one myself and leaning back contentedly in my chair watched her +face in half-profile. Most people would call her plain. I can’t make up +my mind on the point. She is what is termed a negative blonde--that is +to say, one with very fair hair (in marvellous abundance--it is one of +her beauties), a sallow complexion and deep violet eyes. Her face is +thin, a little worn, that of the woman who has suffered--temperament +again! Her mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, is drawn +down at the corners. Her figure is slight but graceful. She has pretty +feet. One protruded from her skirt, and a slipper dangled from the tip. +At last it fell off. I knew it would. She has a craze for the minimum of +material in slippers--about an inch of leather (I suppose it’s leather) +from the toe. I picked the vain thing up and balanced it again on her +stocking-foot. + +“Will you do that eight years hence?” said Judith. + +“My dear, as I’ve done it eight thousand times the last eight years, I +suppose I shall,” I replied, laughing. “I’m a creature of habit.” + +“You may marry, Marcus.” + +“God forbid!” I ejaculated. + +“Some pretty fresh girl.” + +“I abominate pretty fresh girls. I would just as soon talk to a baby in +a perambulator.” + +“The women men are crazy to marry are not always those they particularly +delight to converse with, my friend,” said Judith. + +I lit another cigarette. “I think the sex feminine has marriage on the +brain,” I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly. “My Aunt Jessica was worrying me +about it the day before yesterday. As if it were any concern of hers!” + +Judith laughed below her breath and called me a simpleton. + +“Why?” I asked. + +“Because you haven’t got a temperament.” + +This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the question. I told +her so. She replied that she was years older than I, and had learned +the eternal relevance of all things. I pointed out that she was years +younger. + +“How many heart-beats have you had in your life--real, wild, pulsating +heart-beats--eternity in an hour?” + +“That’s Blake,” I murmured. + +“I’m aware of it. Answer my question.” + +“It’s a silly question.” + +“It isn’t. The next time you see a female baby in a perambulator, take +off your hat respectfully.” + +I am afraid I am clumsy at repartee. + +“And the next time you engage a cook, my dear Judith,” said I, “send for +a mere man.” + +She coloured up. I dissolved myself in apologies. Her wounded +susceptibilities required careful healing. The situation was somewhat +odd. She had not scrupled to attack the innermost weaknesses of my +character, and yet when I retaliated by a hit at externals, she was +deeply hurt, and made me feel a ruffianly blackguard. I really think if +Lisette had pinned up that curtain I should have learned something more +about female human nature. But Judith is the only woman I have known +intimately all my life long, and sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever +know her. I told her so once. She answered: “If you loved me you would +know me.” Very likely she was right. Honestly speaking, I don’t love +Judith. I am accustomed to her. She is a lady, born and bred. She is +an educated woman and takes quite an intelligent interest in the +Renaissance. Indeed she has a subtler appreciation of the Venetian +School of Painting than I have. She first opened my eyes, in Italy, to +the beauties, as a gorgeous colourist, of Palma Vecchio in his second or +Giorgionesque manner. She is in every way a sympathetic and entertaining +companion. Going deeper, to the roots of human instinct, I find she +represents to me--so chance has willed it--the _ewige weibliche_ which +must complement masculinity in order to produce normal existence. But as +for the “_zieht uns hinan_”--no. It would not attract me hence--out of +my sphere. I could commit an immortal folly for no woman who ever made +this planet more lustrous to its Bruderspharen. + +I don’t understand Judith. It doesn’t very greatly matter. Many things +I don’t understand, the spiritual attitude towards himself, for example, +of the intelligent juggler who expends his life’s energies in balancing +a cue and three billiard-balls on the tip of his nose. But I know that +Judith understands me, and therein lies the advantage I gain from our +intimacy. She gauges, to an absurdly subtle degree, the depth of my +affection. She is really an incomparable woman. So many insist upon +predilection masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing +theatrical about Judith. + +Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unsettled. She broke +another pleasant spell of fireside silence, that followed expiation of +my offence, by suddenly calling my name. + +“Yes?” said I, inquiringly. + +“I want to tell you something. Please promise me you won’t be vexed.” + +“My dear Judith,” said I, “my great and imperial namesake, in whose +meditations I have always found ineffable comfort, tells me this: ‘If +anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which +disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss +at once, if you please!’ So I promise to dismiss all my notions of your +disturbing communication and not to be vexed.” + +“If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is Marcus +Aurelius,” said Judith. + +I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which +protested, in a fire’s cheery, human way, against the depression of the +murky world outside, and to banter Judith. + +“I can quite understand it,” I said. “A man sucks in the consolations of +philosophy; a woman solaces herself with religion.” + +“I can do neither,” she replied, changing her attitude with an +exaggerated shaking down of skirts. “If I could, I shouldn’t want to go +away.” + +“Go away?” I echud. + +“Yes. You mustn’t be vexed with me. I haven’t got a cook--” + +“No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my dear.” + +The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and baggage, +last evening, when she was sober enough to walk. + +“And so it is a convenient opportunity,” Judith continued, ignoring my +compliment--and rightly so; for as soon as it had been uttered, I was +struck by an uneasy conviction that she had herself disturbed the French +caterers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath repose in order +to provide me with food. + +“I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never happy at the +beginning of a London season. I know I’m silly,” she went on, hurriedly. +“If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser--I +don’t mind the rest of the year; but in the season everybody is in +town--people I used to know and mix with--I meet them in the streets +and they cut me and it--hurts--and so I want to get away somewhere by +myself. When I get sick of solitude I’ll come back.” + +One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by my +side. She caught my hand. + +“For pity’s sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is.” + +I said, “I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith. I +didn’t guess. Of course I understand.” + +“If you didn’t, it would be impossible for us.” + +“Have no doubt,” said I, softly, and I kissed her hand. + +I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with--at eight +and twenty--and was patiently undergoing premature interment in a small +pension in Rome. How long her patience would have lasted I cannot say. +If circumstances had been different, what would have happened? is the +most futile of speculations. What did happen was the drifting together +of us two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for the simple reason +that there were no forces urging us apart. She was past all care for +social sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute having been flung over +the windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a world of shadows, +why should I have rejected the one warm hand that was held out to me? +As I said to her this afternoon, Why should the _bon Dieu_ disapprove? I +pay him the compliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity. + +When my fortune came, she remarked, “I am glad I am not free. If I were, +you would want to marry me, and that would be fatal.” + +The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour would compel the +offer. Its acceptance would bring disaster. + +Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, a _quid_ of +protection, maintenance, position and what not, for a _quo_ of the +various services that may be conveniently epitomized in the phrase _de +mensa et thoro_. The other, the only possible existence for two beings +whose passionate, mutual attraction demands the perfect fusion of their +two existences into a common life. Now to this passionate attraction +I have never become, and, having no temperament (thank Heaven!), shall +never become, a party. Before the turbulence therein involved I stand +affrighted as I do before London or the deep sea. I once read an epitaph +in a German churchyard: “I will awake, O Christ, when thou callest me; +but let me sleep awhile, for I am very weary.” Has the human soul ever +so poignantly expressed its craving for quietude? I fancy I should have +been a heart’s friend of that dead man, who, like myself, loved the cool +and quiet shadow, and was not allowed to enjoy it in this world. I may +not get the calm I desire, but at any rate my existence shall not +be turned upside down by mad passion for a woman. As for the +social-contract aspect of marriage, I want no better housekeeper than +Antoinette; and my dining-table having no guests does not need a lady to +grace its foot; I have no _a priori_ craving to add to the population. +“If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason +alone,” says Schopenhauer, “would the human race continue to exist? +Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation +as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it +upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?” By bringing +children into the world by means of a marriage of convenience I should +be imposing the burden of existence upon them in cold blood. I agree +with Schopenhauer. + +And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in the closest +physical and moral propinquity for one hundred and eighty-six hours +out of the week, each hour surcharged with an obligatory exchange of +responsibilities, interests, sacrifices of every kind, a being who is +not the utter brother of my thoughts and sister of my dreams--no, never! +_Au grand non, au grand jamais!_ + +Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the utter brother of my +thoughts and the sister of my dreams; nor am I of hers. + +But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, and my affection +fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate adjustment of reciprocals +is our sanction. Marriage, were it possible, would indeed be fatal. Our +pleasant, free relations, unruffled by storm, are ideal for us both. + +Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away for a change would +vex me? + +The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to me. Of all the +hateful attitudes towards a woman in which a decent man can view himself +that of the Turkish bashaw is the most detestable. Women seldom give men +credit for this distaste. + + +I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, and told her +not to doubt my understanding. She cried a little. + +“I don’t make your path rougher, Judith?” I whispered. + +She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonderfully. + +“You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it.” + +“Like a steam-roller,” said I. + +She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily to the kitchen +to help her get the tea ready. My assistance consisted in lighting the +gas-stove beneath a waterless kettle. After that I sprawled against +the dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin +bread-and-butter in a woman’s deliciously clumsy way. Once, as the +bright blade went perilously near her palm, I drew in my breath. + +“A man would never dream of doing it like that!” I cried, in rebuke. + +She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the knife and +loaf. + +“Do it your way,” she said, with a smile of mock humility. + +I did it my way, and cut my finger. + +“The devil’s in the knife!” I cried. “But that’s the right way.” + +Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the well-conducted +person of the ballad, went on cutting bread-and-butter. Her smile, +however, was provoking. + +“And all this time,” I said, half an hour later, “you haven’t told me +where you are going.” + +“Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere.” + +“I thought you said you wanted solitude.” + +I have met Delphine Carrere--_brave femme_ if ever there was one, and +the loyalest soul in the world, the only one of Judith’s early women +friends who has totally ignored the fact of the Sacred Cap of Good +Repute having been thrown over the windmills (indeed who knows whether +dear, golden-hearted Delphine herself could conscientiously write the +magic initials S.C.G.R. after her name?); but Delphine has never struck +me as a person in whose dwelling one could find conventual seclusion. +Judith, however, explained. + +“Delphine will be painting all day, and dissipating all night. I can’t +possibly disturb her in her studio, for she has to work tremendously +hard--and I’m decidedly not going to dissipate with her. So I shall have +my days and nights to my sequestered and meditative self.” + +I said nothing: but all the same I am tolerably certain that Judith, +being Judith, will enjoy prodigious merrymaking in Paris. She is +absolutely sincere in her intentions--the earth holds no sincerer +woman--but she is a self-deceiver. Her about-to-be-sequestered and +meditative self was at that moment sitting on the arm of a chair and +smoking a cigarette, with undisguised relish of the good things of this +life. The blue smoke wreathing itself amid her fair hair resembled, so I +told her in the relaxed intellectual frame of mind of the contented man, +incense mounting through the nimbus of a saint. She affected solicitude +lest the life-blood of my intelligence should be pouring out through my +cut finger. No, I am convinced that the _recueillement_ (that beautiful +French word for which we have no English equivalent, meaning the +gathering of the soul together within itself) of the rue Boissy +d’Anglais is the very happiest delusion wherewith Judith has hitherto +deluded herself. I am glad, exceedingly glad. Her temperament--I have +got reconciled to her affliction--craves the gaiety which London denies +her. + +“And when are you going?” I asked. + +“To-morrow.” + +“To-morrow?” + +“Why not? I wired Delphine this morning. I had to go out to get +something for lunch (my conviction, it appears, was right), and I +thought I might as well take an omnibus to Charing Cross and send a +telegram.” + +“But when are you going to pack?” + +“I did that last night. I didn’t get to bed till four this morning. I +only made up my mind after you had gone,” she added, in anticipation of +a possible question. + +It is better that we are not married. These sudden resolutions would +throw my existence out of gear. My moral upheaval would be that of a hen +in front of a motor-car. When I go abroad, I like at least a fortnight +to think of it. One has to attune one’s mind to new conditions, to map +out the pleasant scheme of days, to savour in anticipation the delights +that stand there, awaiting one’s tasting, either in the mystery of the +unknown or in the welcoming light of familiarity. I love the transition +that can be so subtly gradated by the spirit between one scene and +another. The man who awakens one fine morning in his London residence, +scratches his head, and says, “What shall I do to-day? By Jove! I’ll +start for Timbuctoo!” is to me an incomprehensible, incomplete being. He +lacks an aesthetic sense. + +I did not dare tell Judith she lacked an aesthetic sense. I might just +as well have accused her of stealing silver spoons. I said I should miss +her (which I certainly shall), and promised to write to her once a week. + +“And you,” said I, “will have heaps of time to write me the History of a +Sequestered and Meditative Self--meanwhile, let us go out somewhere and +dine.” + +When I got home, I found a card on my hall-table. “Mr. Sebastian +Pasquale.” + +I am sorry I missed Pasquale. I haven’t seen him for two or three years. +He is a fascinating youth, a study in reversion. I will ask him to +dinner here some day soon. It will be quieter than at the club. + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +May 24th. + +Something has happened. Something fantastic, inconceivable. I am in a +condition to be surprised at nothing. If a witch on a broomstick rode in +through my open window and lectured me on quaternions, I should accept +her visit as a normal occurrence. + +I have spent hours walking up and down this book-lined room, wondering +whether the universe or I were mad. Sometimes I laughed, for the thing +is sheerly ridiculous. Sometimes I cursed at the impertinence of the +thing in happening at all. Once I stumbled over a volume of Muratori +lying on the floor, and I kicked it across the room. Then I took it up, +and wept over the loosened binding. + +The question is: What on earth am I to do? Why has Judith chosen this +particular time to shut up her flat and sequester herself in Paris? +Why did my lawyers appoint this particular morning for me to sign their +silly documents? Why did I turn up three hours late? Why did I walk down +the Thames Embankment? And why, oh, why, did I seat myself on a bench in +the gardens below the terrace of the National Liberal Club? + +Yesterday was one of the most peaceful and happy days of my existence. I +worked contentedly at my history; I gossiped with Antoinette who came to +demand permission to keep a cat. + +“What kind of a cat?” I asked. + +“Perhaps Monsieur does not like cats?” she inquired, anxiously. + +“The cat was worshipped as a god by the ancient Egyptians,” I remarked. + +“But this one, Monsieur,” she said in breathless reassurance, “has only +one eye.” + +I would sooner talk to Antoinette than the tutorial staff of Girton. If +she woke up one morning and found she had a mind she would think it a +disease. + +In the afternoon I strolled into Regent’s Park and meeting the +McMurray’s nine-year-old son in charge of the housemaid, around whom +seemed to be hovering a sheepish individual in a bowler hat, I took him +off to the Zoological Gardens. On the way he told me, with great glee, +that his German governess was in bed with an awful sore throat; that he +wasn’t doing any lessons; that the sheepish hoverer was Milly’s young +man, and that the silly way they went on was enough to make one sick. +When he had fed everything feedable and ridden everything ridable, I +drove him to the Wellington Road and deposited him with his parents. I +love a couple of hours with a child when it is thoroughly happy and +on its best behaviour. And the enjoyment is enhanced by the feeling of +utter thankfulness that he is not my child, but somebody else’s. + +In the evening I read and meditated on the happiness of my lot. +The years of school drudgery have already lost their sharp edge of +remembered definition, and sometimes I wonder whether it is I who lived +through them. I had not a care in the world, not a want that I could not +gratify. I thought of Judith. I thought of Sebastian Pasquale. I +amused myself by seeking a Renaissance type of which he must be the +reincarnation. I fixed upon young Olgiati, one of the assassins of +Gian Galeazzo Sforza. Of the many hundreds of British youths who passed +before my eyes during my slavery, he is the only one who has sought +me out in his manhood. And strange to say we had only a few months +together, during my first year’s apprenticeship to the dismal craft, he +being in the sixth form, and but three or four years younger than I. He +was the maddest, oddest, most diabolical and most unpopular boy in the +school. The staff, to whom the conventional must of necessity be always +the Divine, loathed him. I alone took to the creature. I think now that +my quaint passion for the cinquecento Italian must have had something +to do with my attraction. In externals he is as English as I am, having +been brought up in England by an English mother, but there are thousands +of Hindoos who are more British than he. The McMurrays were telling me +dreadful stories about him this afternoon. Sighing after an obdurate +Viennese dancer, he had lured her coachman into helpless intoxication, +had invested himself in the domestic’s livery, and had driven off with +the lady in the darkness after the performance to the outskirts of the +town. What happened exactly, the McMurrays did not know; but there was +the devil to pay in Vienna. And yet this inconsequent libertine did the +following before my own eyes. We were walking down Piccadilly together +one afternoon in the hard winter of 1894. It was a black frost, +agonizingly cold. A shivering wretch held out matches for sale. His +hideous red toes protruded through his boots. “My God, my God!” cried +Pasquale, “I can’t stand this!” He jumped into a crawling hansom, tore +off his own boots, flung them to the petrified beggar and drove home +in his stocking-feet. I stood on the curb and, with mingled feelings, +watched the recipient, amid an interested group of bystanders, match the +small shapely sole against his huge foot, and with a grin tuck the boots +under his arm and march away with them to the nearest pawnbroker. If +Pasquale had been an equally compassionate Briton, he would have stopped +to think, and have tossed the man a sovereign. _But he didn’t stop to +think._ That was my cinquecento Pasquale. And I loved him for it. + +I went to bed last night, as I have indicated, the most contented +of created beings. I awoke this morning with no greater ruffle on my +consciousness than the appointment with my lawyers. The sun shone. A +thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows. The +tree, laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, saying: “See +how green I am, after Sunday’s rain.” Antoinette’s one eyed black cat +(a hideous beast) met me in the hall and arching its back welcomed me +affably to its new residence. And on my breakfast-table I found a +copy of the first edition of Cristoforo da Costa’s “_Elogi delle +Donne Illustri_,” a book which, in great diffidence, I had asked Lord +Carnforth, a perfect stranger, to allow me the privilege of consulting +in his library, and which Lord Carnforth, with a scholar’s splendid +courtesy, had sent me to use at my convenience. + +Filled with peace and good-will to all men, like a personification +of Christmas in May, I started out this morning to see my lawyers. I +reached them at three o’clock, having idled at second-hand bookstalls +and lunched on the road. I signed their unintelligible document, and +wandered through the Temple Gardens and along the Embankment. When I had +passed under Hungerford Bridge, it struck me that I was warm, a little +leg-weary, and the Victoria Embankment Gardens smiled an invitation +to repose. I struck the shady path beneath the terrace of the National +Liberal Club, and sat myself down on a comfortable bench. The only other +occupant was a female in black. As I take no interest in females +in black, I disregarded her presence, and gave myself up to the +contemplation, of the trim lawns and flower-beds, the green trees +masking the unsightly Surrey side of the river, and the back of the +statue of Sir Bartle Frere. A continued survey of the last not making +for edification (a statue that turns its back on you being one of +the dullest objects made by man), I took from my pocket a brown +leather-covered volume which I had fished out of a penny box: “_Suite de +l’Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise ou L’Histoire des Uscoques, par le +Sieur Houssaie, Amsterdam, MDCCV._” A whole complete scholarly history +of a forgotten people for a penny. The Uscoques were originally +Dalmatians who settled at Segna on the Adriatic and became the most +pestiferous colony of pirates and desperadoes of sixteenth century +Europe. I opened the yellow-stained pages and savoured their acrid musty +smell. How much learning, thought I, bought with the heart’s-blood, how +many million hours of fierce intellectual struggle appeal to mankind +nowadays but as an odour, an odour of decay, in the nostrils of here and +there a casual student. I thought this, and my eye caught, repeated many +times, the name of the Frangipani, once lords of Segna. As men, their +achievements are wiped out of commonly remembered history; but their +name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which perchance may be found +in the penny scent fountains of to-day. I was smiling over this quaint +olfactory coincidence, and wondering whether any human being alive at +that moment had ever read the Sieur Houssaie’s book, when a tug at my +arm, such as a neglected terrier gives with his paw, brought me back to +the workaday world. I turned sharply and met a pair of melting, brown, +piteous, imploring dog’s eyes, belonging not to a terrier, but to the +disregarded female in black. + +“Will you please, sir, to tell me what I must do.” + +I stared. She was not in the least like what my half-conscious glance at +the female in black had taken her to be. She was quite young, remarkably +good looking. Even at the first instant I was struck by her eyes and the +mass of bronze hair and the twitching of a childish mouth. But she +had an untidy, touzled, raffish appearance, due to I knew not what +investiture of disrepute. Her hands--for she wore no gloves--wanted +washing. + +“What a young girl like yourself must not do,” said I, “is to enter into +conversation with men in public places.” + +“Then I shall have to die,” she said, forlornly, edging away from my +side. + +She had the oddest little foreign accent. I looked at her again +more critically, and discovered what it was that made her look so +disreputable. She was wearing an old black dress many sizes too big for +her. Great pleats of it were secured by pins in unexpected places, so +that quaint chaos was made of the scheme of decoration--black velvet +and bugles--on the bodice. Instinctively I felt that a middle-aged, +fat, second-hand-clothes-dealing Jewess had built it many years ago +for synagogue wear. On the girlish figure it looked preposterous. +Preposterous too was her head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed in +black, with a cheap black feather drooping brokenly. + +Her eyes gave me a reproachful glance and turned away again. Then she +shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. My mother had a housemaid once +who always sniffed like that before beginning to cry. My position was +untenable. I could not remain stonily on the seat while this grotesquely +attired damsel wept; and for the life of me I could not get up and leave +her. She looked at me again. Those swimming, pleading eyes were scarcely +human. I capitulated. + +“Don’t cry. Tell me what I can do for you,” I said. + +She moved a few inches nearer. + +“I want to find Harry,” she said; “I have lost him.” + +“Who’s Harry?” I naturally inquired. + +“He is to be my husband.” + +“What’s his other name?” + +“I have forgotten,” she said, spreading out her hands. + +“Don’t you know any one else in London?” I asked. + +She shook her head mournfully. “And I am getting so hungry.” + +I suggested that there were restaurants in London. + +“But I have no money,” she objected. “No money and nothing at all but +this.” She designated her dress. “Isn’t it ugly?” + +“It is decidedly not becoming,” I admitted. + +“Well, what must I do? You tell me and I do it. If you don’t tell me, I +must die.” + +She leaned back placidly, having thus put upon my shoulders the +responsibility of her existence. I did not know which to admire +more, her cool assurance or the stoic fortitude with which she faced +dissolution. + +“I can give you some money to keep you going for a day or two,” said I, +“but as for finding Harry, without knowing his name--” + +“After all I don’t want so very much to find him,” said this amazing +young person. “He made me stay in my cabin all the time I was in the +steamer. At first I was glad, for it went up and down, side to side, and +I thought I would die, for I was so sick; but afterwards I got better--” + +“But where did you come from?” I asked. + +“From Alexandretta.” + +“What were you doing there?” + +“I used to sit in a tree and look over the wall--” + +“What wall?” + +“The wall of my house-my father’s house. He was not my father, but he +married my mother. I am English.” She announced the fact with a little +air of finality. + +“Indeed?” said I. + +“Yes. Father, mother--both English. He was Vice-Consul. He died before I +was born. Then his friend Hamdi Effendi took my mother and married her. +You see?” + +I confessed I did not. “Where does Harry come in?” I inquired. + +She looked puzzled. “Come in?” she echoed. + +I perceived her knowledge of the English vernacular was limited. I +turned my question differently. + +“Oh,” she said with more animation. “He used to pass by the wall, and I +talked to him when there was no one looking. He was so pretty--prettier +than you,” she paused. + +“Is it possible?” I said, ironically. + +“Oh, yes,” she replied with profound gravity. “He had a moustache, but +he was not so long.” + +“Well? You talked to Harry. What then?” + +In her artless way she told me. A refreshing story, as old as the +crusades, with the accessories of orthodox tradition; a European +disguise, purchased at a slop dealer’s by the precious Harry, a rope, a +midnight flitting, a passage taken on board an English ship; the +anchor weighed; and the lovers were free on the bounding main. A +most refreshing story! I put on a sudden air of sternness, and shot a +question at her like a bullet. + +“Are you making all this up, young woman?” + +She started-looked quite scared. + +“You mean I tell lies? But no. It is all true. Why shouldn’t it be true? +How else could I have come here?” + +The question was unanswerable. Her story was as preposterous as her +garments. But her garments were real enough. I looked long into her +great innocent eyes. Yes, she was telling me the truth. She babbled +on for a little. I gathered that her step-father, Hamdi Effendi, was a +Turkish official. She had spent all her life in the harem from which she +had eloped with this pretty young Englishman. + +“And what must I do?” she reiterated. + +I told her to give me time. One is not in the habit of meeting abducted +Lights of the Harem in the Embankment Gardens, beneath the National +Liberal Club. It was, in fact, a bewildering occurrence. I looked around +me. Nothing seemed to have happened during the last ten minutes. A pale +young man on the next bench, whom I had noticed when I entered, was +reading a dirty pink newspaper. Pigeons and sparrows hopped about +unconcernedly. On the file of cabs, just perceptible through the +foliage, the cabmen lolled in listless attitudes. Sir Bartle Frere +stolidly kept his back to me, not the least interested in this Gilbert +a Becket story. I always thought something was wrong with that man’s +character. + +What on earth could I tell her to do? The best course was to find the +infernal Harry. I asked her how she came to lose him. It appears he +escorted her ashore at Southampton, after having scarcely set eyes +on her during the voyage, put her into a railway carriage with strict +injunctions not to stir until he claimed her, and then disappeared into +space. + +“Did he give you your ticket?” + +“No.” + +“What a young blackguard!” I exclaimed. + +“I don’t like him at all,” she said. + +How she managed to elude the ticket collector at Vauxhall I could not +exactly discover. Apparently she told him, in her confiding manner, that +Harry had it, and when he found no Harry in the train and came back to +say so, she turned her dewy imploring eyes on him and the sentimental +varlet melted. At Waterloo a man had told her she must get out of the +carriage--she had travelled alone in it--and she had meekly obeyed. She +had wandered out of the station and across a bridge and had eventually +found herself in the Embankment Gardens. Then she had asked me how to +find Harry. Really she was ridiculously like Thomas a Becket’s Saracen +mother crying in London for Gilbert. And the most ludicrous part of the +resemblance was that she did not know the creature’s surname. + +“By the way,” said I, “what is your name?” + +“Carlotta.” + +“Carlotta what?” I asked. + +“I have no other name.” + +“Your father--the Vice-Consul--had one.” + +She wrinkled her young forehead in profound mental effort. + +“Ramsbotham,” she said at last, triumphantly. + +“Now look here, Miss Ramsbotham--no,” I broke off. “Such an appellation +is anachronistic, incongruous, and infinitely absurd. I can’t use it. I +must take the liberty of addressing you as Carlotta.” + +“But I’ve told you that Carlotta is my name,” she said, in +uncomprehending innocence. + +“And mine is Sir Marcus Ordeyne. People call me ‘Sir Marcus.’” + +“Seer Marcous,” said Carlotta. + +She did not seem at all impressed with the fact that she was talking to +a member of the baronetage. + +“Quite so,” said I. “Now, Carlotta,” I resumed, “our first plan is +to set out in search of Harry. He may have missed his train, and have +followed by a later one, and be even now rampaging about Waterloo +station. If we hear nothing of him, I will drive you to the Turkish +Consulate, give you in charge there, and they will see you safely home +to Alexandretta. The good Hamdi Effendi is doubtless distracted, and +will welcome you back with open arms.” + +I meant to be urbane and friendly. + +She rose to her feet, grew as white as paper, opened her great eyes, +opened her baby mouth, and in the middle of the Embankment Gardens +plumped on her knees before me and clasped her hands above her head. + +“For God’s sake get up!” I shrieked, wrenching her back acrobatically to +the bench beside me. “You mustn’t do things like that. You’ll have the +whole of London running to look at us.” + +Indeed the sight had so far roused the pale young man from his +lethargy that he laid his dirty pink paper on his knees. I kept hold of +Carlotta’s wrists. She began to moan incoherently. + +“You mustn’t send me back--Hamdi will kill me--oh please don’t send me +back--he will make me marry his friend Mustapha--Mustapha has only two +teeth--and he is seventy years old--and he has a wife already--I only +went with Harry to avoid Mustapha. Hamdi would kill me, he would beat +me, he would make me marry Mustapha.” + +That is what I gathered from her utterances. She was frightened out of +her wits, even into anticlimax. + +“But the Turkish Consul is your natural protector,” said I. + +“You wouldn’t be so cruel,” she sobbed. The guttural sonority with which +she rolled the “r” in “cruel” made the epithet appear one of revolting +barbarity. She fixed those confounded eyes upon me. + +I wonder whether such a fool as I has ever lived. + +I promised, on my honour, not to hand her over to the Turkish consulate. + +I took a four-wheeled cab from the rank on the Embankment and drove her +to Waterloo. On the way she reminded me that she was hungry. I gave her +food at the buffet. It appears she has a passion for hard-boiled eggs +and lemonade. She did not seem very much concerned about finding Harry, +but chattered to me about the appointments of the bar. The beer-pulls +amused her particularly. She made me order a glass of bitter (a beverage +which I loathe) in order to see again how it was done, and broke into +gleeful laughter. The smart but unimaginative barmaid stared at her in +bewilderment. The two or three bar-loafers also stared. I was glad to +escape to the platform. + +There, however, a group of idlers followed us about and stood in a ring +round us when we stopped to interview a railway official. The beautiful, +bronze-haired, ox-eyed young woman in her disreputable attire--I have +never seen a broken black feather waggle more shamelessly--was a sight +indeed to strike wonderment into the cockney mind. And perhaps her +association with myself added to the incongruity. I am long and lean and +unlovely, I know; but it is my consolation that I look irreproachably +respectable. Of the two I was infinitely the more disturbed by the +public attention. “Calm and unembarrassed as a fate” she returned the +popular gaze, and appeared somewhat bored by my efforts to find Harry. +In the midst of an earnest discussion with the station-master she begged +me for a penny to put into an automatic sweetmeat machine, which she had +seen a small boy work successfully. I refused, curtly, and turned to the +station-master. A roar of laughter interrupted me again. Carlotta, with +outstretched hand and pleading eyes, like an organ-grinder’s monkey, had +induced the boy to part with the sticky bit of toffee, and was in the +act of conveying it to her mouth. + +“I’ll call to-morrow morning,” said I hurriedly to the station-master. +“If the gentleman should come meanwhile, tell him to leave his name and +address.” + +Then I took Carlotta by the arm and, accompanied by my train of +satellites, I thrust her into the first hansom-cab I could see. + +There was no sign or token of Harry. No pretty young man was hanging +dejectedly about the station. None had torn his hair before the +officials asking for news of a lost female in frowsy black. There was no +Harry. There was no further need therefore to afford the British public +a gratuitous entertainment. + +“Drive,” said I to the cabman. “Drive like the devil.” + +“Where to, sir?” + +I gasped. Where should I drive? I lost my head. + +“Go on driving round and round till I tell you to stop.” The philosophic +cabman did not regard me as eccentric, for he whipped up his horse +cheerfully. When we had slid down the steep incline and got free of the +precincts of that hateful station, I breathed more freely and collected +my wits. Carlotta sucked her sticky thumbs and wiped them on her dress. + +“Where are we going?” she asked. + +“Across Waterloo Bridge,” said I. + +“What to do?” + +“To dispose of you somehow,” I replied, grimly. “But how, I haven’t a +notion. There’s a Home for Lost Dogs and a Home for Stray Cats, and a +Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard, but as you are neither a dog nor +a cat nor an umbrella, these refuges are unavailable.” + +The cab reached the Strand. + +“East or west, sir?” inquired the driver. + +“West,” said I, at random. + +We drove down the Strand at a leisurely pace. I passed through a phase +of agonised thought. By my side was a helpless, homeless, friendless, +penniless young woman, as beautiful as a goddess and as empty-minded +as a baby. What in the world could I do with her? I looked at her in +despair. She met my glance with a contented smile; just as if we were +old acquaintances and I were taking her out to dinner. The unfamiliar +roar and bustle of London impressed her no more than it would have +impressed a little dog who had found a kind master. + +“Suppose I gave you some money and put you down here and left you?” I +inquired. + +“I should die,” she answered, fatalistically. “Or, perhaps, I should +find another kind gentleman.” + +“I wonder if you have such a thing as a soul,” said I. + +She plucked at her gown. “I have only this--and it is very ugly,” she +remarked again. “I should like a pink dress.” + +We crossed Trafalgar Square, and I saw by Big Ben that it was a quarter +to six. I could not drive through London with her for an indefinite +period. Besides, my half past seven dinner awaited me. + +Why, oh, why has Judith gone to Paris? Had she been in town I could have +shot Carlotta into Tottenham Mansions, and gone home to my dinner and +Cristoforo da Costa with a light heart. Judith would have found Carlotta +vastly entertaining. She would have washed her body and analysed her +temperament. But Judith was in retreat with Delphine Carrere, and has +left me alone to bear the responsibilities of life--and Carlotta. + +The cab slowly mounted Waterloo Place. I had thought of my aunts as +possible helpers, and rejected the idea. I had thought of a police +station, a hotel, my lawyers (too late), a furnished lodging, a +hospital. My mind was an aching blank. + +“Where do you live?” asked Carlotta. + +I looked at her and groaned. It was the only solution. “Up Regent’s Park +way,” I replied, aware that she was none the wiser for the information. + +I gave the address to the cabman through the trap-door in the roof. + +“I’m going to take you home with me for to-night,” I said, severely. “I +have an excellent French housekeeper who will look after your comfort. +And to-morrow if that infernal young scoundrel of a lover of yours +is not found, it will not be the fault of the police force of Great +Britain.” + +She laid her grubby little hand on mine. It was very soft and cool. + +“You are cross with me. Why?” + +I removed her hand. + +“You mustn’t do that again,” said I. “No; I am not in the least +cross with you. But I hope you are aware that this event is of an +unprecedented character.” + +“What is an unprecedented character?” she asked, stumbling over the long +words. + +“A thing that has never happened before and I devoutly hope will not +happen again.” + +Her face was turned to me. The lower lip trembled a little. The dog-look +came into those wonderful eyes. + +“You will be kind to me?” she said, in her childish monosyllables, each +word carefully articulated with a long pause between. + +I felt I had behaved like a heartless brute, ever since I thrust her +into the cab at Waterloo. I relented and laughed. + +“If you are a good girl and do as I tell you,” said I. + +“Seer Marcous is my lord and I am his slave,” was her astounding reply. + +Then I realised that she had been brought up by Hamdi Effendi. There is +something salutary, after all, in the training of the harem. + +“I’m very glad to hear it,” I said. + +She closed her eyes. I saw now she was very tired. I thought she had +gone to sleep and I looked in front of me puzzling out the problem. +Presently the cab-doors were thrust violently open, and if I had net +held her back, she would have jumped out of the vehicle. + +“Look!” she cried, in great excitement. “There! There’s Harry’s name!” + +She pointed to a butcher’s cart immediately in front of us, bearing, in +large letters, the name of “E. Robinson.” + +“We must stop,” she went on. “He will tell us about Harry.” + +It took me from Oxford Circus to Portman Square to convince her +that there were many thousands of Robinsons in London and that the +probability of the butcher’s cart being a clue to Harry’s whereabouts +was exceedingly remote. + +At Baker Street station she asked, wearily: “Is it still far to your +house?” + +“No,” said I, encouragingly. “Not very far.” + +“But one can drive for many days through streets in London, and there +will be still streets, still houses? So they tell me in Alexandretta. +London is as big as the moon, not so?” + +I felt absurdly pleased. She was capable of an idea. I had begun to +wonder whether she were not merely half-witted. The fact of her being +able to read had already cheered me. + +“Many hours, yes,” I corrected, “not many days. London seems big to +you?” + +“Oh, yes,” she said, passing her hand over her eyes. “It makes all go +round in my head. One day you will take me for a drive through these +wonderful streets. Now I am too tired. They make my head ache.” + +Then she shut her eyes again and did not open them until we stopped +at Lingfield Terrace. I modified my first impression of her animal +unimpressionability. She is quite sane. If Boadicea were to be +brought back to life and be set down suddenly at Charing Cross, her +psychological condition would not be far removed from that of an idiot. +Yet in her own environment Boadicea was quite a sane and capable lady. + +My admirable man Stenson opened the door and admitted us without moving +a muscle. He would betray no incorrect astonishment if I brought home a +hippogriff to dinner. I have an admiration for the trained serving-man’s +imperturbability. It is the guardian angel of his self-respect. I +ordered him to send Antoinette to me in the drawing-room. + +“Antoinette,” said I, “this young lady has travelled all the way from +Asia Minor, where the good St. Paul had so many adventures, without +changing her things.” + +“_C’est y Dieu possible_!” said Antoinette. + +“Give her a nice hot bath, and perhaps you will have the kindness to +lend her the underlinen that your sex is in the habit of wearing. You +will put her into the spare bedroom, as she is going to pass the night +here, and you will look generally after her comfort.” + +“_Bien, M’sieu_,” said Antoinette, regarding Carlotta in stupefaction. + +“And put that hat and dress into the dust-bin.” + +“_Bien, M’sieu._” + +“And as Mademoiselle is broken with fatigue, having come without +stopping from Asia Minor, she will go to bed as soon as possible.” + +“The poor angel,” said Antoinette. “But will she not join Monsieur at +dinner?” + +“I think not,” said I, dryly. + +“But the young ducklings that are roasting for the dinner of Monsieur?” + +“If they were not roasting they might be growing up into ducks,” said I. + +“Oh, la, la!” murmured Antoinette, below her breath. + +“Carlotta,” said I, turning to the girl who had seated herself humbly +on a straight-backed chair, “you will go with Antoinette and do as she +tells you. She doesn’t talk English, but she is used to making people +understand her.” + +“_Mais, moi parley Francais un peu_,” said Carlotta. + +“Then you will win Antoinette’s heart, and she will lend you her finest. +Good-night,” said I, abruptly. “I hope you will have a pleasant rest.” + +She took my outstretched hand, and, to my great embarrassment, raised +it to her lips. Antoinette looked on, with a sentimental moisture in her +eyes. + +“The poor angel,” she repeated. + +Later, I gave Stenson a succinct account of what had occurred. I owed +it to my reputation. Then I went upstairs and dressed for dinner. I +consider I owe that to Stenson. It was eight o’clock before I sat down, +but Antoinette’s ducklings were delicious and brought consolation for +the upheaval of the day. I was unfolding the latest edition of _The +Westminster Gazette_ with which I always soothe the digestive half-hour +after dinner, when Antoinette entered to report progress. + +She was sound asleep, the poor little one. Oh, but she was tired. She +had eaten some _consomme_, a bit of fish and an omelette. But she was +beautiful, gentle as a lamb; and she had a skin _on dirait du satin_. +Had not Monsieur noticed it? + +I replied, with some over-emphasis, that I had not. + +“Monsieur rather regards the inside of his books,” said Antoinette. + +“They are generally more worth regarding,” said I. + +Antoinette said nothing; but there was a feminine quiver at the corners +of her fat lips. + +She was comfortably disposed of for the night. I drew a breath of +relief. To-morrow Great Scotland Yard should set out on the track of +the absconding Harry. Carlotta’s happy recollection of his surname +facilitated the search. I lit a cigarette and opened _The Westminster +Gazette_. + +A few moments later I was staring at the paper in blank horror and +dismay. + +Harry was found. There was no mistake. Harry Robinson, junior partner of +the firm of Robinson & Co., of Mincing Lane. Vain, indeed, would it be +to seek the help of Great Scotland Yard. Harry had blown out his brains +in the South Western Hotel at Southampton. + + +I have read the newspaper paragraph over and over again to-night. There +is no possible room for doubt that it is the same Harry. + +The ways of man are past interpretation. Here is an individual who +lures a girl from an oriental harem, attires her in disgusting garments, +smuggles her on board a steamer, where he claps her, so to speak, under +hatches, and has little if anything to do with her, sets her penniless +and ticketless in a London train, and then goes off and blows his brains +out. Where is the sense of it? + +I have not a spark of sympathy for Harry--a callow, egotistical dealer +in currants. He ought to have blown out his brains a year ago. He has +behaved in a most unconscionable manner. How does he expect me to break +the news to Carlotta? His selfishness is appalling. There he lies, +comfortably dead in the South Western Hotel, while Carlotta has +literally not a rag to her back, her horrific belongings having been +dropped into the dust-bin. Who does he think is going to provide +Carlotta with food and shelter and a pink dress? What does he imagine is +to become of the poor waif? In all my life I have never heard of a more +cynical suicide. + +I have walked about for hours, laughing and cursing and kicking the +binding loose of my precious Muratori. I have wondered whether the +universe or I were mad. For there is one thing that is clear to +me--Carlotta is here, and here Carlotta must remain. + +Devastating though it be to the well-ordered quietude of my life, I must +adopt Carlotta. + +There is no way out of it. + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +May 25th. + +Shall I be accused of harbouring a bevy of odalisques at No. 20 +Lingfield Terrace? Calumny and Exaggeration walk abroad, arm in arm, +even on the north side of Regent’s Park. If they had spied Carlotta at +my window this morning, they would have looked in for afternoon tea +at my Aunt Jessica’s and have waylaid Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne outside the +Oratory. The question is: Shall Truth anticipate them? I think not. +Every family has its irrepressible, impossible, unpractical member, its +_enfant terrible_, who is forever doing the wrong thing with the best +intentions. Truth is the _enfant terrible_ of the Virtues. Some times +it puts them to the blush and throws them into confusion; at others it +blusters like a blatant liar; at others, again, it stutters and stammers +like a detected thief. There is no knowing how Truth may behave, so I +shall not let it visit my relations. + +I must confess, however, that I feared the possible passing by of the +two decrepit cronies, when Carlotta stood at my open French window this +morning. She is really indecently beautiful. She was wearing a deep red +silk peignoir, open at the throat, unashamedly Parisian, which clung +to every salient curve of her figure. I wondered where, in the name of +morality, she had procured the garment. I learned later that it was the +joy and pride of Antoinette’s existence; for once, in the days long ago, +when she was _femme de chambre_ to a luminary of the cafes concerts, it +had met around her waist. She had treasured the cast-off finery of this +burned-out star--she beamed in the seventies--for all these years, and +now its immortal devilry transfigured Carlotta. She was also washed +specklessly clean. An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume could +give disengaged itself from her as she moved. Her gold-bronze hair +was superbly ordered. I noticed her arms which the sleeves of the gay +garment left bare to the elbows; the skin was like satin. “_Et sa peau! +On dirait du satin._” Confound Antoinette! She had the audacity, too, +to come down with bare feet. It was a revelation of pink, undreamed-of +loveliness in tus. + +I repeat she is indecently beautiful. A chit of a girl of eighteen (for +that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt the beauty that should +be the appanage of the woman of seven and twenty. She should be modestly +well-favoured, as becomes her childish stage of development. She +looked incongruous among my sober books, and I regarded her with some +resentment. I dislike the exotic. I prefer geraniums to orchids. I have +a row of pots of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of +Stenson, Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them +bloom; but I love the unassuming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a flaring +orchid and produces on my retina a sensation of disquiet. + + +I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could. I had news of +Harry, I said, gravely. She merely looked interested and asked me when +he was coming. + +“I’m afraid he will never come,” said I. + +“If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?” + +Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety. For the life of me I could not +avoid the ironical. + +“If you will condescend to dwell as a member of my family beneath my +humble roof.” + +The irony was lost on her. She uttered a joyous little cry and held out +both her hands to me. Her eyes danced. + +“Oh, I am glad he is not coming. I don’t like him any more. I love to +stay here with you.” + +I took both the hands in mine. Mortal man could not have done otherwise. + +“Have you thought why it is that you will never see Harry again?” + +She shook her beautiful head and held it to one side and puckered up her +brows, like a wistful terrier. + +“Is he dead?” + +“Would it grieve you, if he were?” + +“No-o,” she replied, thoughtfully. + +“Then,” said I, dropping her hands and turning away, “Harry is dead.” + +She stood silent for a couple of minutes, regarding the row of pink +toes that protruded beneath the peignoir. At last her bosom shook with a +sigh. She glanced up at me sweetly. + +“I am so glad,” she said. + + +That is all she has vouchsafed to say with regard to the unhappy young +man. “She was so glad!” She has not even asked how he met his death. She +has simply accepted my statement. Harry is dead. He has gone out of her +life like yesterday’s sunshine or yesterday’s frippery. If I had told +her that yesterday’s cab-horse had broken his neck, she could not be +more unconcerned. Nay, she is glad. Harry had not treated her nicely. He +had boxed her up in a cabin where she had been sick, and had subjected +her to various other discomforts. I, on the contrary, had surrounded her +with luxuries and dressed her in red silk. She rather dreaded Harry’s +coming. When she learned that this was improbable she was relieved. His +death had turned the improbable into the impossible. It was the end of +the matter. She was so glad! + +Yet there must have been some tender passage in their brief intercourse. +He must have kissed her during their flight from home to steamer. Her +young pulses must have throbbed a little faster at the sight of his +comely face. + +What kind of a mythological being am I housing? Did she come at all out +of Hamdi Effendi’s harem? Is she not rather some strange sea-creature +that clambered on board the vessel and bewitched the miserable boy, +sucked the soul out of him, and drove him to destruction? Or is she a +Vampire? Or a Succubus? Or a Hamadryad? Or a Salamander? + +One thing, I vow she is not human. + +If only Judith were here to advise me! And yet I have an uneasy feeling +that Judith will suggest, with a certain violence that is characteristic +of her, the one course which I cannot follow: to send Carlotta back to +Hamdi Effendi. But I cannot break my word. I would rather, far rather, +break Carlotta’s beautiful neck. I have not written to Judith. Nor, by +the way, have I received a letter from her. Delphine has been whirling +her off her legs, and she is ashamed to confess the delusion of the +sequestered life. I wish I were enjoying myself half as much as Judith. + + +“I have adopted Mademoiselle,” said I to Antoinette this morning. “If +she returned to Asia Minor they would put a string round her neck, tie +her up in a sack, and throw her into the sea.” + +“That would be a pity,” said Antoinette, warmly. + +“_Cela depend_,” said I. “Anyhow she is here, and here she remains.” + +“In that case,” said Antoinette, “has Monsieur considered that the poor +angel will need clothes and articles of toilette--and this and that and +the other?” + +“And shoes to hide her shameless tus,” I said. + +“They are the most beautiful toes I have ever seen!” cried Antoinette in +imbecile admiration. She has bewitched that old woman already. + +I put on my hat and went to Wellington Road to consult Mrs. McMurray. +Heaven be thanked, thought I, for letting me take her little boy the day +before yesterday to see the other animals, and thus winning a mother’s +heart. She will help me out of my dilemma. Unfortunately she was not +alone. Her husband, who is on the staff of a morning newspaper, was +breakfasting when I arrived. He is a great ruddy bearded giant with +a rumbling thunder of a laugh like the bass notes of an organ. His +assertion of the masculine principle in brawn and beard and bass +somewhat overpowers a non-muscular, clean-shaven, and tenor person like +myself. Mrs. McMurray, on the contrary, is a small, bright bird of a +woman. + +I told my amazing story from beginning to end, interrupted by many +Hoo-oo-oo-oo’s from McMurray. + +“You may laugh,” said I, “but to have a mythical being out of +Olympiodorus quartered on you for life is no jesting matter.” + +“Olymp--?” began McMurray. + +“Yes,” I snapped. + +“Bring her this afternoon, Sir Marcus, when this unsympathetic wretch +has gone to his club,” said his wife, “and I’ll take her out shopping.” + +“But, dear lady,” I cried in despair, “she has but one garment--and that +a silk dressing-gown of horrible depravity that belonged to a dancer of +the second Empire! She is also barefoot.” + +“Then I’ll come round myself and see what can be done.” + +“And by Jove, so will I!” cried McMurray. + +“You’ll do such thing,” said his wife + +“If I gave you a cheque for 100,” said I, “do you think you could get +her what she wants, to go on with?” + +“A hundred pounds!” The little lady uttered a delighted gasp and I +thought she would have kissed me. McMurray brought his sledgehammer of a +hand down on my shoulder. + +“Man!” he roared. “Do you know what you are doing--casting a respectable +wife and mother of a family loose among London drapery shops with a +hundred pounds in her pocket? Do you think she will henceforward give a +thought to her home or husband? Do you want to ruin my domestic peace, +drive me to drink, and wreck my household?” + +“If you do that again,” said I, rubbing my shoulder, “I’ll give her two +hundred.” + +When I returned Carlotta was sitting, Turkish fashion, on a sofa, +smoking a cigarette (to which she had helped herself out of my box) and +turning over the pages of a book. This sign of literary taste surprised +me. But I soon found it was the second volume of my _edition de luxe_ of +Louandre’s _Les Arts Somptuaires_, to whose place on the shelves sheer +feminine instinct must have guided her. I announced Mrs. McMurray’s +proposed visit. She jumped to her feet, ravished at the prospect, and +sent my beautiful book (it is bound in tree-calf and contains a couple +of hundred exquisitely coloured plates) flying onto the floor. I picked +it up tenderly, and laid it on my writing-table. + +“Carlotta,” said I, “the first thing you have to learn here is that +books in England are more precious than babies in Alexandretta. If you +pitch them about in this fashion you will murder them and I shall have +you hanged.” + +This checked her sumptuary excitement. It gave her food for reflection, +and she stood humbly penitent, while I went further into the subject of +clothes. + +“In fact,” I concluded, “you will be dressed like a lady.” She opened +the book at a gaudy picture, “_France, XVI(ieme) Siecle--Saltimbanque et +Bohemmienne_,” and pointed to the female mountebank. This young person +wore a bright green tunic, bordered with gold and finished off at +the elbows and waist with red, over an undergown of flaring pink, the +sleeves of which reached her wrist; she was crowned with red and white +carnations stuck in ivy. + +“I will get a dress like that,” said Carlotta. + +I wondered how far Mrs. McMurray possessed the colour-sense, and I +trembled. I tried to explain gently to Carlotta the undesirability of +such a costume for outdoor wear in London; but with tastes there is no +disputing, and I saw that she was but half-convinced. She will require +training in aesthetics. + +She is very submissive. I said, “Run away now to Antoinette,” and she +went with the cheerfulness of a child. I must rig up a sitting-room for +her, as I cannot have her in here. Also for the present she must take +her meals in her own apartments. I cannot shock the admirable Stenson +by sitting down at table with her in that improper peignoir. Besides, as +Antoinette informs me, the poor lamb eats meat with her fingers, after +the fashion of the East. I know what that is, having once been present +at an Egyptian dinner-party in Cairo, and pulled reeking lumps of flesh +out of the leg of mutton. Ugh! But as she has probably not sat down to a +meal with a man in her life, her banishment from my table will not hurt +her feelings. She must, however, be trained in Christian table-manners, +as well as in aesthetics; also in a great many other things. + + +Mrs. McMurray arrived with a tape-measure, a pencil, and a notebook. + +“First,” she announced, “I will measure her all over. Then I will go out +and procure her a set of out-door garments, and tomorrow we will spend +the whole livelong day in the shops. Do you mind if I use part of the +100 for the hire of a private brougham?” + +“Have a coach and six, my dear Mrs. McMurray,” I said. “It will +doubtless please Carlotta better.” + +I summoned Carlotta and performed the ceremony of introduction. To my +surprise she was perfectly at her ease and with the greatest courtesy of +manner invited the visitor to accompany her to her own apartments. + +When Mrs. McMurray returned to the drawing-room she wore an expression +that can only be described as indescribable. + +“What, my dear Sir Marcus, do you think is to be the ultimate destiny of +that young person?” + +“She shall learn type-writing,” said I, suddenly inspired, “and make a +fair copy of my Renaissance Morals.” + +“She would make a very fair copy indeed of Renaissance Morals,” returned +the lady, dryly. + +“Is she so very dreadful?” I asked in alarm. “The peignoir, I know--” + +“Perhaps that has something to do with it.” + +“Then, for heaven’s sake,” said I, “dress her in drabs and greys and +subfusc browns. Cut off her hair and give her a row of buttons down the +back.” + +My friend’s eyes sparkled. + +“I am going,” said she, “to have the day of my life tomorrow.” + + +Carlotta had already gone to sleep, so Antoinette informed me, when the +results of Mrs. McMurray’s shopping came home. I am glad she has early +habits. It appears she has spent a happy and fully occupied afternoon +over a pile of French illustrated comic papers in the possession of my +excellent housekeeper. + +I wonder whether it is quite judicious to make French comic papers her +initiation into the ideas of Western civilisation. Into this I must +inquire. I must also talk seriously to her with a view to her ultimate +destiny. But as my view would be distorted by the red dressing-gown, I +shall wait until she is decently clad. I think I shall have to set apart +certain hours of the day for instructive conversation with Carlotta. +I shall have to develop her mind, of which she distinctly has the +rudiments. For the rest of the day she must provide entertainment out of +her own resources. This her oriental habits of seclusion will render an +easy task, for I will wager that Hamdi Effendi did not concern himself +greatly as to the way in which the ladies of his harem filled up their +time. And now I come to think of it, he certainly did not allow Carlotta +to sprawl about his own private and particular drawing-room. I will +not westernise her too rapidly. The Turkish educational system has its +merits. + +This, in its way is comforting. If only I could accept her as a human +creature. But when I think of her callous reception of the tidings of +the unhappy boy’s death, my spirit fails me. Such a being would run a +carving-knife into you, as you slept, without any compunction, and when +you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at her base ingratitude to the good +Hamdi Effendi, who took her in before she was born and has treated her +as a daughter all her life. No: her spiritual attitude all through has +been that of the ladies who used to visit St. Anthony--in the leisure +moments when they were not actively engaged in temptation. I don’t +believe her father was an English vice-consul. He was Satan. + +I wonder what she told Mrs. McMurray. + +I have been thinking over the matter to-night. The good lady was +wrong. Whatever were the morals of the Renaissance, personalities were +essentially positive. They were devilishly wicked or angelically good. +There was nothing _rosse_, non-moral about the Renaissance Italian. +The women were strongly tempered. I love to believe the story told by +Machiavelli and Muratori of Catherine Sforza in the citadel of Forli. +“Surrender or we slay your children which we hold as hostages,” cried +the besiegers. “Kill them if you like. I can breed more to avenge them.” + It is the speech of a giant nature. It awakens something enthusiastic +within me; although such a lady would be an undesirable helpmeet for a +mild mannered man like myself. + +And then again there is Bonna, the woman for whose career I desired to +consult the prime authority Cristoforo da Costa. I have been sketching +her into my chapter tonight. Here is a peasant girl caught up to his +saddle-bow by a condottiere, Brunoro, during some village raid. She +fights like a soldier by his side. He is imprisoned in Valencia by +Alfonso of Naples, languishes in a dungeon for ten years. And for +ten years Bonna goes from court to court in Europe and from prince to +prince, across seas and mountains, unwearying, unyielding, with the +passion of heaven in her heart and the courage of hell in her soul, +urging and soliciting her man’s release. After ten long years she +succeeds. And then they are married. What were her tumultuous feelings +as she stood by that altar? The old historian does not say; but the very +glory of God must have flooded her being when, in the silence of the +bare church, the little bell tinkled to tell her that the Host was +raised, and her love was made blessed for all eternity. And then she +goes away with him and fights in the old way by his side for fifteen +years. When he is killed, she languishes and dies within the year. +Porcelli sees them in 1455. Brunoro, an old, squinting, paralysed man. +Bonna, a little shrivelled, yellow old woman, with a quiver on her +shoulder, a bow in her hand; her grey hair is covered by a helmet +and she wears great military boots. The picture is magical. There is +infinite pathos in the sight of the two withered, crippled, grotesque +forms from which all the glamour of manhood and beauty have departed, +and infinite awe in the thought of the holy communion of the +unconquerable and passionate souls. I wonder it has not come down to us +as one of the great love-stories of the world. + +Elements such as these sway the Morals of the Renaissance. + +But I am taking Mrs. McMurray too seriously; and it is really not a bad +idea to have Carlotta taught type-writing. + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +May 26th. + +This morning a letter from Judith. + +“Do not laugh at me,” she writes. “The road to Paris is paved with good +intentions. I really could not help it. Delphine put her great arm round +my would-be sequestered and meditative self and carried it off bodily, +and here it is in the midst of lunches, picture-shows, dinners, suppers, +theatres and dances; and if you laugh, you will make me humiliated when +I confess that it is thoroughly enjoying itself.” + +Laugh at her, dear woman? I am only too glad that she can fling her +Winter Garment of Repentance into the Fires of Paris Springtide. She has +little enough enjoyment in friendless London. Fill your heart with it, +my dear, and lay up a store for use in the dull months to come. For my +part, however, I am content to be beyond the reach of Delphine’s great +arm. I must write to Judith. I shall have to explain Carlotta; but for +that I think I shall wait until she becomes a little more explicable. +In dealing with women it is well to employ discrimination. You are never +quite sure whether they are not merely simple geese or the most complex +of created beings. Perhaps they are such a curious admixture that you +cannot tell at a given moment which side, the simple or the complex, +you are touching. May not there be the deepest of all allegories in Eve +standing midway between the innocent apple and the guileful serpent? I +shall have to see more of Carlotta before I can safely explain her to +Judith. + +At any rate she is no longer attired like an odalisque of the Second +Empire, and Mrs. McMurray has saved her from the lamentable errors of +taste shown by the female mountebank of sixteenth century France. My +excellent friend safely delivered up an exhausted and bewildered charge +at half-past seven last evening, assuring me that her task had been +easy, and that her anticipations of it being the day of her life +had been fulfilled. It had been like dressing a doll, she explained, +beaming. + +An edifying pastime for an adult woman! I did not utter this sentiment, +for she would rightly have styled me the most ungrateful of unhung +wretches. + +Carlotta, then, had followed her about like a perambulatory doll, +upon which she had fitted all the finery she could lay her hands on. +Apparently the atmosphere of the great shops had acted on Carlotta like +an anaesthetic. She had moved in a sensuous dream of drapery, wherein +the choice-impulse was paralysed. The only articles upon which, in an +unclouded moment, she had set her heart--and that with a sudden passion +of covetousness--were a pair of red, high-heeled shoes and a cheap red +parasol. + +“You have no idea what it means,” said Mrs. McMurray, “to buy +_everything_ that a woman needs.” + +I replied that I had a respectful distaste for transcendental +philosophy. + +“From a paper of pins to an opera-cloak,” she continued. + +“I’m afraid, dear Mrs. McMurray, an opera-cloak is not the superior +limit of a woman’s needs,” said I. “I wish it were.” + +She called me a cynic and went. + +This morning Carlotta interrupted me in my work. + +“Will Seer Marcous come to my room and see my pretty things?” + +In summer blouse and plain skirt she looked as demure as any damsel in +St. John’s Wood. She hung her head a little to one side. For the moment +I felt paternal, and indulgently consented. Words of man cannot describe +the mass of millinery and chiffonery in that chamber. The spaces that +were not piled high with vesture gave resting spots for cardboard boxes +and packing-paper. Antoinette stood in a corner gazing at the spoil with +a smile of beatific idiocy. I strode through the cardboard boxes +which crackled like bracken, and remained dumb as a fish before these +mysteries. Carlotta tried on hats. She shewed me patent leather shoes. +She exhibited blouses and petticoats until my eyes ached. She brandished +something in her hand. + +“Tell me if I must wear it” (I believe the sophisticated call it +“them”). “Mrs. McMurray says all ladies do. But we never wear it in +Alexandretta, and it hurts.” + +She clasped herself pathetically and turned her great imploring eyes on +me. + +“_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_,” I said. + +“But with the figure of Mademoiselle, it is stupid!” cried Antoinette. + +“It is outrageous that I should be called upon to express an opinion on +such matters,” I said, loftily. And so it was. My assertion of dignity +impressed them. + +Then, with characteristic frankness, my young lady shakes out before me +things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, diaphaneity, which the ordinary +man only examines through shop-front windows when a philosophic mood +induces him to speculate on the unfathomable vanity of woman. + +“_Les beaux dessous!_” breathed Antoinette. + +“The same ejaculation,” I murmured, “was doubtless uttered by an +enraptured waiting-maid, when she beheld the stout linen smocks of the +ladies of the Heptameron.” + +I reflected on the relativity of things mundane. The waiting-maid no +doubt wore some horror made of hemp against her skin. If Carlotta’s +gossamer follies had been thrown into the vagabond court of the Queen +of Navarre, I wonder whether those delectable stories would have been +written? + +As Antoinette does not understand literary English, and as Carlotta +did not know what in the world I was talking about, I was master of the +conversational situation. Carlotta went to the mantel-piece and returned +with a glutinous mass of sweet stuff between her fingers. + +“Will Seer Marcous have some? It is nougat.” I declined. “Oh!” she said, +tragically disappointed. “It is good.” + +There is something in that silly creature’s eyes that I cannot resist. +She put the abominable morsel into my mouth--it was far too sticky for +me to hold--and laughingly licked her own fingers. + +I went down to work again with an uneasy feeling of imperilled dignity. + + +May 29th. + +I sent her word that I would take her for a drive this afternoon. She +was to be ready at three o’clock. It will be wholesome for her to regard +her outings with me as rare occurrences to be highly valued. Ordinarily +she will go out with Antoinette--for the present at least--as she did +yesterday. + +At three o’clock Stenson informed me that the cab was at the door. + +“Go up and call Mademoiselle,” said I. + +In two or three minutes she came down. I have not had such a shock in my +life. I uttered exclamations of amazement in several languages. I have +never seen on the stage or off such a figure as she presented. Her +cheeks were white with powder, her lips dyed a pomegranate scarlet, her +eyebrows and lashes blackened. In her ears she wore large silver-gilt +earrings. She entered the room with an air of triumph, as who should +say: “See how captivatingly beautiful I am!” + +At my stare of horror her face fell. At my command to go upstairs and +wash herself clean, she wept. + +“For heaven’s sake, don’t cry,” I exclaimed, “or you will look like a +rainbow.” + +“I did it to please you,” she sobbed. + +“It is only the lowest class of dancing-women who paint their faces in +England,” said I, _splendide mendax._ “And you know what they are in +Alexandretta.” + +“They came to Aziza-Zaza’s wedding,” said Carlotta, behind her +handkerchief. “But all our ladies do this when they want to make +themselves look nice. And I have put on this nasty thing that hurts me, +just to please Seer Marcous.” + +I felt I had been brutal. She must have spent hours over her adornment. +Yet I could not have taken her out into the street. She looked like +Jezebel, who without her paint must have been, like Carlotta, a +remarkably handsome person. + +“It strikes me, Carlotta,” said I, “that you will find England is +Alexandretta upside down. What is wrong there is right here, and vice +versa. Now if you want to please me run away and clean yourself and take +off those barbaric and Brummagem earrings.” + +She went and was absent a short while. She returned in dismay. Water +would not get it off. I rang for Antoinette, but Antoinette had gone +out. It being too delicate a matter for Stenson, I fetched a pot of +vaseline from my own room, and as Carlotta did not know what to make of +it, I with my own hands cleansed Carlotta. She screamed with delight, +thinking it vastly amusing. Her emotions are facile. I cannot deny that +it amused me too. But I am in a responsible position, and I am wondering +what the deuce I shall be doing next. + +I enjoyed the drive to Richmond, where I gave her tea at the Star and +Garter and was relieved to see her drink normally from the cup, instead +of lapping from the saucer like a kitten. She was much more intelligent +than during our first drive on Tuesday. The streets have grown more +familiar, and the traffic does not make her head ache. She asks me the +ingenuous questions of a child of ten. The tall guardsmen we passed +particularly aroused her enthusiasm. She had never seen anything so +beautiful. I asked her if she would like me to buy one and give it her +to play with. + +“Oh, would you, Seer Marcous?” she exclaimed, seizing my hand +rapturously. I verily believe she thought I was in earnest, for when I +turned aside my jest, she pouted in disappointment and declared that it +was wrong to tell lies. + +“I am glad you have some elementary notions of ethics,” said I. It +was during our drive that it occurred to me to ask her where she +had procured the paint and earrings. She explained, cheerfully, that +Antoinette had supplied the funds. I must talk seriously to +Antoinette. Her attitude towards Carlotta savours too much of idolatry. +Demoralisation will soon set in, and the utter ruin of Carlotta and +my digestion will be the result. I must also make Carlotta a small +allowance. + +During tea she said to me, suddenly: + +“Seer Marcous is not married?” + +I said, no. She asked, why not? The devil seems to be driving all +womankind to ask me that question. + +“Because wives are an unmitigated nuisance,” said I. + +A curious smile came over Carlotta’s face. It was as knowing as Dame +Quickly’s. + +“Then-” + +“Have one of these cakes,” said I, hurriedly. “There is chocolate +outside and the inside is chock-full of custard.” + +She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and forgot my +matrimonial affairs. I was relieved. With her oriental training there is +no telling what Carlotta might have said. + + +May 31st. + +To-day I have had a curious interview. Who should call on me but the +father of the hapless Harry Robinson. My first question was a natural +one. How on earth did he connect me with the death of his son? How did +he contrive to identify me as the befriender of the young Turkish girl +whose interests, he declared, were the object of his visit? It appeared +that the police had given him the necessary information, my adventures +at Waterloo having rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter. +I had been wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper reports of the +inquest. No mention was made, as I had nervously anticipated, of +the mysterious lady for whom the deceased had bought a ticket at +Alexandretta, and with whom he had come ashore. Very little evidence +appeared to have been taken, and the jury contented themselves with +giving the usual verdict of temporary insanity. I touched on this as +delicately as I could. “We succeeded in hushing things up,” said my +visitor, an old man with iron-grey whiskers and a careworn sensitive +face. “I have some influence myself, and his wife’s relations--” + +“His wife!” I ejaculated. The ways of men are further than ever from +interpretation. The fellow was actually married! + +“Yes,” he sighed. “That is what would have made such a terrible scandal. +Her relatives are powerful people. We averted it, thank Heaven, and his +poor wife will never know. My boy is dead. No public investigation into +motives would bring him back to life again.” + +I murmured words of condolence. + +“He must have been out of his mind, poor lad, when he induced the girl +to run away with him. But, as my son has ruined her,” he set his teeth +as if the boy’s sin stabbed him, “I must look after her welfare.” + +“You may set your mind at rest on that point,” said I. “He smuggled her +at once aboard the ship, and seems scarcely to have said how d’ye do to +her afterwards. That is the mad part of it.” + +“Can I be sure?” + +“I would stake my life on it,” said I. + +“How do you know?” + +“Frankness--I may say embarrassing frankness is one of the young lady’s +drawbacks.” + +He looked greatly relieved. I acquainted him with Carlotta’s +antecedents, and outlined the part I had played in the story. + +“Then,” said he, “I will see the child back to her home. I will take +her there myself. I cannot allow you any longer to have the burden of +befriending her, when it is my duty to repair my boy’s wrongdoing.” + +I explained to him the terror of Hamdi Effendi’s clutches, and told him +of my promise. + +“Then what is to be done?” he asked. + +“If any kind people could be found to receive her into their family, and +bring her up like a Christian, I should hand her over with the greatest +of pleasure. If there is one thing I do not require in this house, it is +an idle and irresponsible female. But philanthropists are rare. Who will +take her?” + +“I’m afraid I’m not prepared to do that.” + +“I never dreamed of having the bad taste to propose it,” said I. “I +merely stated the only alternative to my guardianship.” + +“I should be willing--only too willing--to contribute towards her +support,” said Mr. Robinson. + +I thanked him. But of course this was impossible. I might as well have +allowed the good man to pay my gas bill. + +“I know of a nice convent home kept by the Little Sisters of St. +Bridget,” said he, tentatively. + +“If it were St. Bridget herself,” said I, “I would agree with pleasure. +She is a saint for whom I have a great fascination. She could work +miracles. When an Irish chieftain made her a facetious grant of as much +land as she could cover with her mantle, she bade four of her nuns +each take a corner and run north, west, south and east, until her cloak +covered several roods. She could have done the same with the soul of +Carlotta. But the age of miracles is past, and I fear the Little Sisters +would only break their gentle hearts over her. She is an extraordinary +creature.” + +I know I ought to have given some consideration to the proposal; but I +think I must suffer from chronic inflammation of the logical faculty. +It revolted against the suggested congruity of Carlotta and the Little +Sisters of St. Bridget. + +“What can she be like?” asked the old man, wonderingly. + +“Would it pain you to see her?” I asked. + +“Yes,” he said, in a low voice. “It would. But perhaps it would bring me +nearer to my unhappy boy. He seems so far away.” + +I rang the bell and summoned Carlotta. + +“Perhaps you had better not say who you are,” I suggested. + +When Carlotta entered, he rose and looked at her---oh, so wistfully. + +“This, Carlotta,” said I, “is a friend of mine, who would like to make +your acquaintance.” + +She advanced shyly and held out a timid hand. Obviously she was on +her best behaviour. I thanked heaven she had tried her unsuccessful +experiment of powder and paint on my vile body and not on that of a +stranger. + +“Do you--do you like England?” asked the old man. + +“Oh, very--very much. Every one is so kind to me. It is a nice place.” + +“It is the best place in the world to be young in,” said he. + +“Is it?” said Carlotta, with the simplicity of a baby. + +“The very best.” + +“But is it not good to be old in?” + +“No country is good for that.” + +The old man sighed and took his leave. I accompanied him to the front +door. + +“I don’t know what to say, Sir Marcus. She moves me strangely. I never +expected such sweet innocence. For my boy’s sake, I would take her +in--but his mother knows nothing about it--save that the boy is dead. It +would kill her.” + +The tears rolled down the old man’s cheeks. I grasped him by the hand. + +“She shall come to no manner of harm beneath my roof,” said I. + +Carlotta was waiting for me in the drawing-room. She looked at me in a +perplexed, pitiful way. + +“Seer Marcous?” + +“Yes?” + +“Am I to marry him?” + +“Marry whom?” + +“That old gentleman. I must, if you tell me. But I do not want to marry +him.” + +It took me a minute or two to arrive at her oriental point of view. +No woman could be shown off to a man except in the light of a possible +bride. I think it sometimes good to administer a shock to Carlotta, by +way of treatment. + +“Do you know who that old gentleman was?” said I. + +“No.” + +“It was Harry’s father.” + +“Oh!” she said, with a grimace. “I am sorry I was so nice to him.” + +What the deuce am I to do with her? + +I lectured her for a quarter of an hour on the ethics of the situation. +I think I only succeeded in giving her the impression that I was in +a bad temper. So much did I sympathise with Harry that I forbore to +acquaint her with the fact that he was a married man when he enticed her +away from Alexandretta. + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +June 1st + +Sebastian Pasquale dined with me this evening. Antoinette, forgetful +of idolatrous practices, devoted the concentration of her being to the +mysteries of her true religion. The excellence of the result affected +Pasquale so strongly that with his customary disregard of convention he +insisted on Antoinette being summoned to receive his congratulations. +He rose, made her a bow as if she were a Marquise of pre-revolutionary +days. + +“It is a meal,” said he, bunching up his fingers to his mouth and +kissing them open, “that one should have taken not sitting, but +kneeling.” + +“You stole that from Heine,” said I, when the enraptured creature had +gone, “and you gave it out to Antoinette as if it were your own.” + +“My good Ordeyne,” said he, “did you ever hear of a man giving anything +authentic to a woman?” + +“You know much more about the matter than I do,” I replied, and Pasquale +laughed. + +It has been a pleasure to see him again--a creature of abounding +vitality whom time cannot alter. He is as lithe-limbed as when he was a +boy, and as lithe-witted. I don’t know how his consciousness could +have arrived at appreciation of Antoinette’s cooking, for he talked +all through dinner, giving me an account of his mirific adventures in +foreign cities. Among other things, he had been playing juvenile lead, +it appears, in the comic opera of Bulgarian politics. I also heard of +the Viennese dancer. My own little chronicle, which he insisted on my +unfolding, compared with his was that of a caged canary compared with +a sparrowhawk’s. Besides, I am not so expansive as Pasquale, and on +certain matters I am silent. He also gesticulates freely, a thing +which is totally foreign to my nature. As Judith would say, he has a +temperament. His moustaches curl fiercely upward until the points +are nearly on a level with his flashing dark eyes. Another point of +dissimilarity between us is that he seems to have been poured molten +into his clothes, whereas mine hang as from pegs clumsily arranged about +my person. By no conceivable freak of outer circumstance could I have +the adventures of Pasquale. + +And yet he thinks them tame! Lord! If I found myself hatching +conspiracies in Sofia on a nest made of loaded revolvers, I should feel +that the wild whirl of Bedlam had broken loose around me. + +“But man alive!” I cried. “What in the name of tornadoes do you want?” + +“I want to fight,” said he. “The earth has grown too grey and peaceful. +Life is anaemic. We need colour--good red splashes of it--good wholesome +bloodshed.” + +Said I, “All you have to do is to go into a Berlin cafe and pull the +noses of all the lieutenants you see there. In that way you’ll get as +much gore as your heart could desire.” + +“By Jove!” said he, springing to his feet. “What a cause for a man to +devote his life to--the extermination of Prussian lieutenants!” + +I leaned back in my arm-chair--it was after dinner--and smiled at +his vehemence. The ordinary man does not leap about like that during +digestion. + +“You would have been happy as an Uscoque,” said I. (I have just finished +the prim narrative.) + +“What’s that?” he asked. I told him. + +“The interesting thing about the Uscoques,” I added, “is that they were +a Co-operative Pirate Society of the sixteenth century, in which priests +and monks and greengrocers and women and children--the general public, +in fact, of Senga--took shares and were paid dividends. They were also +a religious people, and the setting out of the pirate fleet at the +festivals of Easter and Christmas was attended by ecclesiastical +ceremony. Then they scoured the high seas, captured argosies, +murdered the crews--their only weapons were hatchets and daggers and +arquebuses--landed on undefended shores, ravaged villages and carried +off comely maidens to replenish their stock of womenkind at home. They +must have been a live lot of people.” + +“What a second-hand old brigand you are,” cried Pasquale, who during my +speech had been examining the carpet by the side of his chair. + +I laughed. “Hasn’t a phase of the duality of our nature ever struck +you? We have a primary or everyday nature--a thing of habit, tradition, +circumstance; and we also have a secondary nature which clamours for +various sensations and is quite contented with vicarious gratification. +There are delicately fibred novelists who satisfy a sort of secondary +Berserkism by writing books whose pages reek with bloodshed. The most +placid, benevolent, gold-spectacled paterfamilias I know, a man who +thinks it cruel to eat live oysters, has a curious passion for crime and +gratifies it by turning his study into a _musee maccabre_ of murderers’ +relics. From the thumb-joint of a notorious criminal he can savour +exquisitely morbid emotions, while the blood-stains on an assassin’s +knife fill him with the delicious lust of slaughter. In the same way +predestined spinsters obtain vicarious enjoyment of the tender passion +by reading highly coloured love-stories.” + +“Just as that philosophical old stick, Sir Marcus Ordeyne, dus from this +sort of thing,” said Pasquale. + +And he fished from the side of his chair, and held up by the tip of a +monstrous heel, the most audacious, high-instepped, red satin slipper I +ever saw. + +I eyed the thing with profound disgust. I would have given a hundred +pounds for it to have vanished. In its red satin essence it was +reprehensible, and in its feminine assertion it was compromising. +How did it come there? I conjectured that Carlotta must have been +trespassing in the drawing-room and dropped it, Cinderella-like, in her +flight, when she heard me enter the house before dinner. + +Pasquale held it up and regarded me quizzically. I pretend to no +austerity of morals; but a burglar unjustly accused of theft suffers +acuter qualms of indignation than if he were a virtuous person. +I regretted not having asked Pasquale to dinner at the club. I +particularly did not intend to explain Carlotta to Pasquale. In fact, I +see no reason at all for me to proclaim her to my acquaintance. She is +merely an accident of my establishment. + +I rose and rang the bell. + +“That slipper,” said I, “does not belong to me, and it certainly ought +not to be here.” + +Pasquale surrendered it to my outstretched hand. + +“It must fit a remarkably pretty foot,” said he. + +“I assure you, my dear Pasquale,” I replied dryly, “I have never looked +at the foot that it may fit.” Nor had I. A row of pink toes is not a +foot. + +“Stenson,” said I, when my man appeared, “take this to Miss Carlotta +and say with my compliments she should not have left it in the +drawing-room.” + +Stenson, thinking I had rung for whisky, had brought up decanter and +glasses. As he set the tray upon the small table, I noticed Pasquale +look with some curiosity at my man’s impassive face. But he said nothing +more about the slipper. I poured out his whisky and soda. He drank a +deep draught, curled up his swaggering moustache and suddenly broke into +one of his disconcerting peals of laughter. + +“I haven’t told you of the Grefin von Wentzel; I don’t know what put her +into my head. There has been nothing like it since the world began. Mind +you--a real live aristocratic Grefin with a hundred quarterings!” + +He proceeded to relate a most scandalous, but highly amusing story. An +amazing, incredible tale; but it seemed familiar. + +“That,” said I, at last, “is incident for incident a scene out of +_L’Histoire Comique de Francion._” + +“Never heard of it,” said Pasquale, flashing. + +“It was the first French novel of manners published about 1620 and +written by a man called Sorel. I don’t dream of accusing you of +plagiarism, my dear fellow--that’s absurd. But the ridiculous +coincidence struck me. You and the Grefin and the rest of you were +merely reenacting a three hundred year old farce.” + +“Rubbish!” said Pasquale. + +“I’ll show you,” said I. + +After wandering for a moment or two round my shelves, I remembered that +the book was in the dining-room. I left Pasquale and went downstairs. +I knew it was on one of the top shelves near the ceiling. Now, my +dining-room is lit by one shaded electrolier over the table, so that +the walls of the room are in deep shadow. This has annoyed me many times +when I have been book-hunting. I really must have some top lights +put in. To stand on a chair and burn wax matches in order to find +a particular book is ignominious and uncomfortable. The successive +illumination of four wax matches did not shed itself upon _L’Histoire +Comique de Francion_. + +If there is one thing that frets me more than another, it is not to be +able to lay my hand upon a book. I knew Francion was there on the top +shelves, and rather than leave it undiscovered, I would have spent the +whole night in search. I suppose every one has a harmless lunacy. This +is mine. I must have hunted for that book for twenty minutes, pulling +out whole blocks of volumes and peering with lighted matches behind, +until my hands were covered with dust. At last I found it had fallen to +the rear of a ragged regiment of French novels, and in triumph I took it +to the area of light on the table and turned up the scene in question. +Keeping my thumb in the place I returned to the drawing-room. + +“I’m sorry to have--” I began. I stopped short. I could scarcely believe +my eyes. There, conversing with Pasquale and lolling on the sofa, as if +she had known him for years, was Carlotta. + +She must have seen righteous disapprobation on my face, for she came +running up to me. + +“You see, I’ve made Miss Carlotta’s acquaintance,” said Pasquale. + +“So I perceive,” said I. + +“Stenson told me you wanted me to come to the drawing-room in my red +slippers,” said Carlotta. + +“I am afraid Stenson must have misdelivered my message,” said I. + +“Then you do not want me at all, and I must go away?” + +Oh, those eyes! I am growing so tired of them. I hesitated, and was +lost. + +“Please let me stay and talk to Pasquale.” + +“Mr. Pasquale,” I corrected. + +She echoed my words with a cooing laugh, and taking my consent for +granted, curled herself up in a corner of the sofa. I resumed my seat +with a sigh. It would have been boorish to turn her out. + +“This is much nicer than Alexandretta, isn’t it?” said Pasquale +familiarly. “And Sir Marcus is an improvement on Hamdi Effendi.” + +“Oh, yes. Seer Marcous lets me do whatever I like,” said Carlotta. + +“I’m shot if I do,” I exclaimed. “The confinement of your existence in +the East makes you exaggerate the comparative immunity from restriction +which you enjoy in England.” + +I notice that Carlotta is always impressed when I use high sounding +words. + +“Still, if you could make love over garden walls, you must have had a +pretty slack time, even in Alexandretta,” said Pasquale. + +Obviously Carlotta had saved me the trouble of explaining her. + +“I once met our friend Hamdi,” Pasquale continued. “He was the politest +old ruffian that ever had a long nose and was pitted with smallpox.” + +“Yes, yes!” cried Carlotta, delighted. “That is Hamdi.” + +“Is there any disreputable foreigner that you are not familiar with?” I +asked, somewhat sarcastically. + +“I hope not,” he laughed. “You must know I had got into a deuce of a +row at Aleppo, about eighteen months ago, and had to take to my heels. +Alexandretta is the port of Aleppo and Hamdi is a sort of boss policeman +there.” + +“He is very rich.” + +“He ought to be. My interview with him cost me a thousand pounds--the +bald-headed scoundrel!” + +“He is a shocking bad man,” said Carlotta, gravely. + +“I’m afraid it is Mr. Pasquale who is the shocking bad man,” I said, +amused. “What had you been doing in Aleppo?” + +“_Maxime debetur_,” said he. + +“English are very wicked when they go to Syria,” she remarked. + +“How can you possibly know?” I said. + +“Oh, I know,” replied Carlotta, with a toss of her chin. + +“My friend,” said Pasquale, lighting a cigarette, “I have travelled much +in the East, and have had considerable adventures by the way; and I +can assure you that what the oriental lady doesn’t know about essential +things is not worth knowing. Their life from the cradle to the grave is +a concentration of all their faculties, mortal and immortal, upon the +two vital questions, digestion and sex.” + +“What is sex?” asked Carlotta. + +“It is the Fundamental Blunder of Creation,” said I. + +“I do not understand,” said Carlotta. + +“Nobody tries to understand Sir Marcus,” said Pasquale, cheerfully. “We +just let him drivel on until he is aware no one is listening.” + +“Seer Marcous is very wise,” said Carlotta, in serious defence of her +lord and master. “All day he reads in big books and writes on paper.” + +I have been wondering since whether that is not as ironical a judgment +as ever was passed. Am I wise? Is wisdom attained by reading in big +books and writing on paper? Solomon remarks that wisdom dwells with +prudence and finds out knowledge of witty inventions; that the wisdom of +the prudent is to understand his way; that wisdom and understanding keep +one from the strange woman and the stranger which flattereth with her +words. Now, I have not been saved from the strange young woman who has +begun to flatter with her words; I don’t in the least understand my way, +since I have no notion what I shall do with her; and in taking her in +and letting her loll upon my sofa of evenings, so as to show off her red +slippers to my guests, I have thrown prudence to the winds; and my +only witty invention was the idea of teaching her typewriting, which +is futile. If the philosophy of the excellent aphorist is sound, I +certainly have not much wisdom to boast of; and none of the big books +will tell me what a wise man would have done had he met Carlotta in the +Embankment Gardens. + +I did not think, however, that my wisdom was a proper subject for +discussion. I jerked back the conversation by asking Carlotta why she +called Hamdi Effendi a shocking bad man. Her reply was startling. + +“My mother told me. She used to cry all day long. She was sorry she +married Hamdi.” + +“Poor thing!” said I. “Did he ill-treat her?” + +“Oh, ye-es. She had small-pox, too, and she was no longer pretty, so +Hamdi took other wives and she did not like them. They were so fat and +cruel. She used to tell me I must kill myself before I married a Turk. +Hamdi was going to make me marry Mohammed Ali one--two years ago; but he +died. When I said I was so glad” (that seems to be her usual formula of +acknowledgment of news relating to the disasters of her acquaintance), +“Hamdi shut me up in a dark room. Then he said I must marry Mustapha. +That is why I ran away with Harry. See? Oh, Hamdi is shocking bad.” + +From this and from other side-lights Carlotta has thrown on her +upbringing, I can realise the poor, pretty weak-willed baby of a thing +that was her mother, taking the line of least resistance, the husband +dead and the babe in her womb, and entering the shelter offered by the +amorous Turk. And I can picture her during the fourteen years of her +imprisoned life, the disillusion, the heart-break, the despair. No +wonder the invertebrate soul could do no more for her daughter than +teach her monosyllabic English and the rudiments of reading and writing. +Doubtless she babbled of western life with its freedom and joyousness +for women; but four years have elapsed since her death, and her stories +are only elusive memories in Carlotta’s mind. + +It is strange that among the deadening influences of the harem she has +kept the hereditary alertness of the Englishwoman. She has a baby mouth, +it is true; she pleads to you with the eyes of a dog; her pretty ways +are those of a young child; but she has not the dull, soulless, sensual +look of the pure-bred Turkish woman, such as I have seen in Cairo +through the transparent veils. In them there is no attraction save of +the flesh; and that only for the male who, deformity aside, reckons +women as merely so much cubical content of animated matter placed +by Allah at his disposal for the satisfaction of his desires and the +procreation of children. I cannot for the life of me understand an +Englishman falling in love with a Turkish woman. But I can quite +understand him falling in love with Carlotta. The hereditary qualities +are there, though they have been forced into the channel of sex, and +become a sort of diabolical witchery whereof I am not quite sure whether +she is conscious. For all that, I don’t think she can have a soul. +I have made up my mind that she hasn’t, and I don’t like having my +convictions disturbed. + +Until I saw her perched in the corner of the sofa, with her legs tucked +up under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid the reds and +golds and browns of her hair, while she cheerily discoursed to us of +Hamdi’s villainy, I never noticed the dull decorum of this room. I was +struck with the decorative value of mere woman. + +I must break myself of the habit of wandering off on a meditative +tangent to the circle of conversation. I was brought back by hearing +Pasquale say: + +“So you’re going to marry an Englishman. It’s all fixed and settled, +eh?” + +“Of course,” laughed Carlotta. + +“Have you made up your mind what he is to be like?” + +I could see the unconscionable Don Juan instinctively preen himself +peacock fashion. + +“I am going to marry Seer Marcous,” said Carlotta, calmly. + +She made this announcement not as a jest, not as a wish, but as the +commonplace statement of a fact. There was a moment of stupefied +silence. Pasquale who had just struck a match to light a cigarette +stared at me and let the flame burn his fingers. I stared at Carlotta, +speechless. The colossal impudence of it! + +“I am sorry to contradict you,” said I, at last, with some acidity, “but +you are going to do no such thing.” + +“I am not going to marry you?” + +“Certainly not.” + +“Oh!” said Carlotta, in a tone of disappointment. + +Pasquale rose, brought his heels together, put his hand on his heart and +made her a low bow. + +“Will you have me instead of this stray bit of Stonehenge?” + +“Very well,” said Carlotta. + +I seized Pasquale by the arm. “For goodness sake, don’t jest with her! +She has about as much sense of humour as a prehistoric cave-dweller. +She thinks you have made her a serious offer of marriage.” He made her +another bow. + +“You hear what Sir Granite says? He forbids our union. If I married you +without his consent, he would flay me alive, dip me in boiling oil and +read me aloud his History of Renaissance Morals. So I’m afraid it is no +good.” + +“Then I mustn’t marry him either?” asked Carlotta, looking at me. + +“No!” I cried, “you are not going to marry anybody. You seem to have +hymenomania. People don’t marry in this casual way in England. They +think over it for a couple of years and then they come together in a +sober, God-fearing, respectable manner.” + +“They marry at leisure and repent in haste,” interposed Pasquale. + +“Precisely,” said I. + +“What we call a marriage-bed repentance,” said Pasquale. + +“I told you this poor child had no sense of humour,” I objected. + +“You might as well kill yourself as marry without it.” + +“You are not going to marry anybody, Carlotta,” said I, “until you can +see a joke.” + +“What is a joke?” inquired Carlotta. + +“Mr. Pasquale asked you to marry him. He didn’t mean it. That was a +joke. It was enormously funny, and you should have laughed.” + +“Then I must laugh when any one asks me to marry him?” + +“As loud as you can,” said I. + +“You are so strange in England,” sighed Carlotta. + +I smiled, for I did not want to make her unhappy, and I spoke to her +intelligibly. + +“Well, well, when you have quite learned all the English ways, I’ll try +and find you a nice husband. Now you had better go to bed.” + +She retired, quite consoled. When the door closed behind her, Pasquale +shook his head at me. + +“Wasted! Criminally wasted!” + +“What?” + +“That,” he answered, pointing to the door. “That bundle of bewildering +fascination.” + +“That,” said I, “is an horrible infliction which only my cultivated +sense of altruism enables me to tolerate.” + +“Her name ought to be Margarita.” + +“Why?” I asked. + +“_Ante porcos_,” said he. + + +Certainly Pasquale has a pretty wit and I admire it as I admire most +of his brilliant qualities, but I fail to see the aptness of this last +gibe. At the club this afternoon I picked up an entertaining French +novel called _En felons des Perles_. On the illustrated cover was a row +of undraped damsels sitting in oyster-shells, and the text of the book +went to show how it was the hero’s ambition to make a rosary of these +pearls. Now I am a dull pig. Why? Because I do not add Carlotta to my +rosary. I never heard such a monstrous thing in my life. To begin with, +I have no rosary. + +I wish I had not read that French novel. I wish I had not gone +downstairs to hunt for its seventeenth century ancestor. I wish I had +given Pasquale dinner at the club. + +It is all the fault of Antoinette. Why can’t she cook in a middle-class, +unedifying way? All this comes from having in the house a woman whose +soul is in the stew-pot. + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +July 1st. + +She has been now over five weeks under my roof, and I have put off the +evil day of explaining her to Judith; and Judith returns to-morrow. + +I know it is odd for a philosophic bachelor to maintain in his +establishment a young and detached female of prepossessing appearance. +For the oddity I care not two pins. _Io son’ io_. But the question that +exercises me occasionally is: In what category are my relations with +Carlotta to be classified? I do not regard her as a daughter; still less +as a sister: not even as a deceased wife’s sister. For a secretary she +is too abysmally ignorant, too grotesquely incapable. What she knows +would be made to kick the beam against the erudition of a guinea-pig. +Yet she must be classified somehow. I must allude to her as something. +At present she fills the place in the house of a pretty (and expensive) +Persian cat; and like a cat she has made herself serenely at home. + +A governess, a fat-checked girl, who I am afraid takes too humorous +a view of the position, comes of mornings to instruct Carlotta in the +rudiments of education. When engaging Miss Griggs, I told her she must +be patient, firm and, above all, strong-minded. She replied that she +made a professional specialty of these qualities, one of her present +pupils being a young lady of the Alhambra ballet who desires the +particular shade of cultivation that will match a new brougham. She +teaches Carlotta to spell, to hold a knife and fork, and corrects such +erroneous opinions as that the sky is an inverted bowl over a nice flat +earth, and that the sun, moon, and stars are a sort of electric light +installation, put into the cosmos to illuminate Alexandretta and the +Regent’s Park. Her religious instruction I myself shall attend to, when +she is sufficiently advanced to understand my teaching. At present she +is a Mohammedan, if she is anything, and believes firmly in Allah. I +consider that a working Theism is quite enough for a young woman in her +position to go on with. In the afternoon she walks out with Antoinette. +Once she stole forth by herself, enjoyed herself hugely for a short +time, got lost, and was brought back thoroughly frightened by a +policeman. I wonder what the policeman thought of her? The rest of the +day she looks at picture-books and works embroidery. She is making +an elaborate bed-spread which will give her harmless occupation for a +couple of years. + +For an hour every evening, when I am at home, she comes into the +drawing-room and drinks coffee with me and listens to my improving +conversation. I take this opportunity to rebuke her for faults committed +during the day, or to commend her for especial good behaviour. I also +supplement the instruction in things in general that is given her by the +excellent Miss Griggs. Oddly enough I am beginning to look forward to +these evening hours. She is so docile, so good-humoured, so spontaneous. +If she has a pain in her stomach, she says so with the most engaging +frankness. Sometimes I think of her only, in Pasquale’s words, as a +bundle of fascination, and forget that she has no soul. Nearly always, +however, something happens to remind me. She loves me to tell her +stories. The other night I solemnly related the history of Cinderella. +She was enchanted. It gave me the idea of setting her to read “Lamb’s +Tales from Shakespeare.” I was turning this over in my mind while she +chewed the cud of her enjoyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would +like to hear a Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny stories. I +bade her proceed. She curled herself up in her favourite attitude on the +sofa and began. + +I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I should +have been a monster of depravity. Compared with it the worst of +Scheherazade’s, in Burton’s translation, were milk and water for a +nunnery. She seemed nonplussed when I told her to stop. + +“Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories?” I asked. + +“Why, yes,” she replied with a candid air of astonishment. “It is a +funny story.” + +“There is nothing funny whatever in it,” said I. “A girl like you +oughtn’t to know of the existence of such things.” + +“Why not?” asked Carlotta. + +I am always being caught up by her questions. I tried to explain; but +it was difficult. If I had told her that a maiden’s mind ought to be +as pure as the dewy rose she would not have understood me. Probably +she would have thought me a fool. And indeed I am inclined to +question whether it is an advantage to a maiden’s after career to +be dewy-roselike in her unsophistication. In order to play tunes +indifferently well on the piano she undergoes the weary training of many +years; but she is called upon to display the somewhat more important +accomplishment of bringing children into the world without an hour’s +educational preparation. The difficulty is, where to draw the line +between this dewy, but often disastrous, ignorance and Carlotta’s +knowledge. I find it a most delicate and embarrassing problem. In fact, +the problems connected with this young woman seem endless. Yet they do +not disturb me as much as I had anticipated. I really believe I should +miss my pretty Persian cat. A man must be devoid of all aesthetic sense +to deny that she is delightful to look at. + +And she has a thousand innocent coquetries and cajoling ways. She has a +manner of holding chocolate creams to her white teeth and talking to you +at the same time which is peculiarly fascinating. And she must have some +sense. To-night she asked me what I was writing. I replied, “A History +of the Morals of the Renaissance.” “What are morals and what is the +Renaissance?” asked Carlotta. When you come to think of it, it is a +profound question, which philosophers and historians have wasted vain +lives in trying to answer. I perceive that I too must try to answer +it with a certain amount of definition. I have spent the evening +remodelling my Introduction, so as to define the two terms axiomatically +with my subsequent argument, and I find it greatly improved. Now this is +due to Carlotta. + + +The quantity of chocolate creams the child eats cannot be good for her +digestion. I must see to this. + + +July 2d. + +A telegram from Judith to say she postpones her return to Monday. I have +been longing to see the dear woman again, and I am greatly disappointed. +At the same time it is a respite from an explanation that grows more +difficult every day. I hate myself for the sense of relief. + +This morning came an evening dress for Carlotta which has taken a month +in the making. This, I am given to understand, is delirious speed for +a London dress-maker. To celebrate the occasion I engaged a box at the +Empire for this evening and invited her to dine with me. I sent a note +of invitation round to Mrs. McMurray. + +Carlotta did not come down at half-past seven. We waited. At last Mrs. +McMurray went up to the room and presently returned shepherding a shy, +blushing, awkward, piteous young person who had evidently been crying. +My friend signed to me to take no notice. I attributed the child’s lack +of gaiety to the ordeal of sitting for the first time in her life at +a civilised dinner-table. She scarcely spoke and scarcely ate. I +complimented her on her appearance and she looked beseechingly at me, as +if I were scolding her. After dinner Mrs. McMurray told me the reason of +her distress. She had found Carlotta in tears. Never could she face me +in that low cut evening bodice. It outraged her modesty. It could not be +the practice of European women to bare themselves so immodestly before +men. It was only the evidence of her visitor’s own plump neck and +shoulders that convinced her, and she suffered herself to be led +downstairs in an agony of self-consciousness. + +When we entered the box at the Empire, a troupe of female acrobats were +doing their turn. Carlotta uttered a gasp of dismay, blushed burning +red, and shrank back to the door. There is no pretence about Carlotta. +She was shocked to the roots of her being. + +“They are naked!” she said, quiveringly. + +“For heaven’s sake, explain,” said I to Mrs. McMurray, and I beat a +hasty retreat to the promenade. + +When I returned, Carlotta had been soothed down. She was watching some +performing dogs with intense wonderment and delight. For the rest of +the evening she sat spell-bound. The exiguity of costume in the +ballet caused her indeed to glance in a frightened sort of way at Mrs. +McMurray, who reassured her with a friendly smile, but the music and the +maze of motion and the dazzle of colour soon held her senses captive, +and when the curtain came down she sighed like one awaking from a dream. + +As we drove home, she asked me: + +“Is it like that all day long? Oh, please to let me live there!” + +A nice English girl of eighteen would not flaunt unconcerned about my +drawing-room in a shameless dressing-gown, and crinkle up her toes in +front of me; still less would she tell me outrageous stories; but she +will wear low-necked dresses and gaze at ladies in tights without the +ghost of an immodest thought. I was right when I told Carlotta England +was Alexandretta upside-down. What is immoral here is moral there, and +vice-versa. There is no such thing as absolute morality. I am very glad +this has happened. It shows me that Carlotta is not devoid of the better +kind of feminine instincts. + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +July 4th. + +Judith has come back. I have seen her and I have explained Carlotta. + +All day long I felt like a respectable person about to be brought before +a magistrate for being drunk and disorderly. Now I have the uneasy +satisfaction of having been let off with a caution. I am innocent, but I +mustn’t do it again. + +As soon as I entered the room Judith embraced me, and said a number of +foolish things. I responded to the best of my ability. It is not usual +for our quiet lake of affection to be visited by such tornadoes. + +“Oh, I am glad, I am glad to be back with you again. I have longed for +you. I couldn’t write it. I did not know I could long for any one so +much.” + +“I have missed you immensely, my dear Judith,” said I. + +She looked at me queerly for a moment; then with a radiant smile: + +“I love you for not going into transports like a Frenchman. Oh, I +am tired of Frenchmen. You are my good English Marcus, and worth all +masculine Paris put together.” + +“I thank you, my dear, for the compliment,” said I, “but surely you must +exaggerate.” + +“To me you are worth the masculine universe,” said Judith, and she +seated me by her side on the sofa, held my hands, and said more foolish +things. + +When the tempest had abated, I laughed. + +“It is you that have acquired the art of transports in Paris,” said I. + +“Perhaps I have. Shall I teach you?” + +“You will have to learn moderation, my dear Judith,” I remarked. “You +have been living too rapidly of late and are looking tired.” + +“It is only the journey,” she replied. + +I am sure it is the unaccustomed dissipation. Judith is not a strong +woman, and late hours and eternal gadding about do not suit her +constitution. She has lost weight and there are faint circles under +her eyes. There are lines, too, on her face which only show in hours of +physical strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some length, +for I consider it well for women to have some one to counsel them +frankly in such matters, when she interrupted me with a gesture of +impatience. + +“There, there! Tell me what you have been doing with yourself. Your +letters gave me very little information.” + +“I am afraid,” said I, “I am a poor letter writer.” + +“I read each ten times over,” she said. + +I kissed her hand in acknowledgment. Then I rose, lit a cigarette and +walked about the room. Judith shook out her skirts and settled herself +comfortably among the sofa-cushions. + +“Well, what crimes have you been committing the past few weeks?” + +A wandering minstrel was harping “Love’s Sweet Dream” outside the +public-house below. I shut the window, hastily. + +“Nothing so bad as that,” said I. “He ought to be hung and his wild harp +hung behind him.” + +“You are developing nerves,” said Judith. “Is it a guilty conscience?” + She laughed. “You are hiding something from me. I’ve been aware of it +all the time.” + +“Indeed? How?” + +“By the sixth sense of woman!” + +Confound the sixth sense of woman! I suppose it has been developed like +a cat’s whiskers to supply the deficiency of a natural scent. Also, +like the whiskers, it is obtrusive, and a matter for much irritatingly +complacent pride. Judith regarded me with a mock magisterial air, and I +was put into the dock at once. + +“Something has happened,” I said, desperately. “A female woman has come +and taken up her residence at 26 Lingfield Terrace. A few weeks ago she +ate with her fingers and believed the earth was flat. I found her in the +Victoria Embankment Gardens beneath the terrace of the National Liberal +Club, and now she lives on chocolate creams and the ‘Child’s Guide to +Knowledge.’ She is eighteen and her name is Carlotta. There!” + +As my cigarette had gone out, I threw it with some peevishness into the +grate. Judith’s expression had changed from mock to real gravity. She +sat bolt upright and looked at me somewhat stonily. + +“What in the world do you mean, Marcus?” + +“What I say. I’m saddled with the responsibility of a child of nature +as unsophisticated and perplexing as Voltaire’s Huron. She’s English and +she came from a harem in Syria, and she is as beautiful as the houris +she believes in and is unfortunately precluded from joining. One of +these days I shall be teaching her her catechism. I have already +washed her face. Kindly pity me as the innocent victim of fantastic +circumstances.” + +“I don’t see why I should pity you,” said Judith. + +I felt I had not explained Carlotta tactfully. If there are ten ways of +doing a thing I have noticed that I invariably select the one way that +is wrong. I perceived that somehow or other the very contingency I had +feared had come to pass. I had prejudiced Judith against Carlotta. I had +aroused the Ishmaelite--her hand against every woman and every woman’s +hand against her--that survives in all her sex. + +“My dear Judith,” said I, “if a wicked fairy godmother had decreed that +a healthy rhinoceros should be my housemate you would have extended +me your sympathy. But because Fate has inflicted on me an equally +embarrassing guest in the shape of a young woman--” + +“My dear Marcus,” interrupted Judith, “the healthy rhinoceros would know +twenty times as much about women as you do.” This I consider one of the +silliest remarks Judith has ever made. “Do,” she continued, “tell me +something coherent about this young person you call Carlotta.” + +I told the story from beginning to end. + +“But why in the world did you keep it from me?” she asked. + +“I mistrusted the sixth sense of woman,” said I. + +“The most elementary sense of woman or any one else would have told you +that you were doing a very foolish thing.” + +“How would you have acted?” + +“I should have handed her over at once to the Turkish consulate.” + +“Not if you had seen her eyes.” + +Judith tossed her head. “Men are all alike,” she observed. + +“On the contrary,” said I, “that which characterises men as a sex is +their greater variation from type than women. It is a scientific fact. +You will find it stated by Darwin and more authoritatively still by +later writers. The highest common factor of a hundred women is far +greater than that of a hundred men. The abnormal is more frequent in the +male sex. There are more male monsters.” + +“That I can quite believe,” snapped Judith. + +“Then you agree with me that men are not all alike?” + +“I certainly don’t. Put any one of you before a pretty face and a pair +of silly girl’s eyes and he is a perfect idiot.” + +“My dear Judith,” said I, “I don’t care a hang for a pretty face--except +yours.” + +“Do you really care about mine?” she asked wistfully. + +“My dear,” said I, dropping on one knee by the sofa, and taking her +hand, “I’ve been longing for it for six weeks.” And I counted the weeks +on her fingers. + +This put her in a good humour. Now that I come to think of it, there +is something adorably infantile in grown up women. Shall man ever +understand them? I have seen babies (not many, I am glad to say) crow +with delight at having their toes pulled, with a “this little pig went +to market,” and so forth; Judith almost crowed at having the weeks told +off on her fingers. Queer! + +An hour was taken up with the account of her doings in Paris. She had +met all the nicest and naughtiest people. She had been courted and +flattered. An artist in a slouch hat, baggy corduroy breeches, floppy +tie and general 1830 misfit had made love to her on the top of the +Eiffel Tower. + + +“And he said,” laughed Judith, “‘_Partons ensemble. Comme on dit en +Anglais_--fly with me!’ I remarked that our state when we got to the +Champs de Mars would be an effective disguise. He didn’t understand, and +it was delicious!” + +I laughed. “All the same,” I observed, “I can’t see the fun of making +jokes which the person to whom you make them doesn’t see the point of.” + +“Why, that’s your own peculiar form of humour,” she retorted. “I caught +the trick from you.” + +Perhaps she is right. I have noticed that people are slow in their +appreciation of my witticisms. I must really be a very dull dog. If she +were not fond of me I don’t see how a bright woman like Judith could +tolerate my society for half an hour. + +I don’t think I contribute to the world’s humour; but the world’s +humour contributes much to my own entertainment, and things which appear +amusing to me do not appeal, when I point them out, to the risible +faculties of another. Every individual, I suppose, like every +civilisation, must have his own standard of humour. If I were a Roman +(instead of an English) Epicurean, I should have died with laughter +at the sight of a fat Christian martyr scudding round the arena while +chased by a hungry lion. At present I should faint with horror. Indeed, +I always feel tainted with savagery and enjoying a vicarious lust, when +I smile at the oft-repeated tale of the poor tiger in Dore’s picture +that hadn’t got a Christian. On the other hand, it tickles me immensely +to behold a plethoric commonplace Briton roar himself purple with +impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I perceive that all +my neighbours take him with the utmost seriousness. Again, your literary +journalist professes to wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane +Austen; to me she is the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed +the trivial. Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a +frock-coat and silk hat, when a passing member of the proletariat dug +his elbows in his comrade’s ribs and, quoting a music-hall tag of the +period, shouted “He’s got ‘em on!” whereupon both burst into peals of +robustious but inane laughter. Now, if I had turned to them, and said, +“He would be funnier if I hadn’t,” and paraphrased, however wittily, +Carlyle’s ironical picture of a nude court of St. James’s, they would +have punched my head under the confused idea that I was trying to +bamboozle them. Which brings me to my point of departure, my remark to +Judith as to the futility of jesting to unpercipient ears. + +I did not take up her retort. + +“And what was the end of the romance?” I asked. + +“He borrowed twenty francs of me to pay for the _dejeuner_, and his +_l’annee trente_ delicacy of soul compelled him to blot my existence +forever from his mind.” + +“He never repaid you?” I asked. + +“For a humouristic philosopher,” cried Judith, “you are delicious!” + +Judith is too fond of that word “delicious.” She uses it in season and +out of season. + +We have the richest language that ever a people has accreted, and we use +it as if it were the poorest. We hoard up our infinite wealth of words +between the boards of dictionaries and in speech dole out the worn +bronze coinage of our vocabulary. We are the misers of philological +history. And when we can save our pennies and pass the counterfeit coin +of slang, we are as happy as if we heard a blind beggar thank us for +putting a pewter sixpence into his hat. + +I said something of the sort to Judith, after she had resumed her seat +and I had opened the window, the minstrel having wandered to the next +hostelry, where the process of converting “Love’s Sweet Dream” into a +nightmare was still faintly audible. Judith looked at me whimsically, as +I stood breathing the comparatively fresh air and enjoying the relative +silence. + +“You are still the same, I am glad to see. Conversation with the young +savage from Syria hasn’t altered you in the least.” + +“In the first place,” said I, “savages do not grow in Syria; and in the +second, how could she have altered me?” + +“If the heavens were to open and the New Jerusalem to appear this moment +before you,” retorted Judith, with the relevant irrelevance of her +sex, “you would begin an unconcerned disquisition on the iconography of +angels.” + +I sat on the sofa end and touched one of her little pink ears. She +has pretty ears. They were the first of things physical about her that +attracted me to her years ago in the Roman pension--they and the mass of +silken flax that is her hair, and her violet eyes. + +“Did you learn that particular way of talking in Paris?” I asked. + +She had the effrontery to say she was imitating me and that it was a +very good imitation indeed. + + +We talked about the book. I touched upon the great problem that requires +solution--the harmonising and justifying of the contradictory opposites +in Renaissance character: Fra Lippo Lippi breaking his own vows and +breaking a nun’s for her; Perugino leading his money-grubbing, morose +life and painting ethereal saints and madonnas in his _bottega_, while +the Baglioni filled the streets outside with slaughter; Lorenzo de’ +Medici bleeding literally and figuratively his fellow-citizens, going +from that occupation to his Platonic Academy and disputing on the +immortality of the soul, winding up with orgies of sensual depravity +with his boon companion Pulci, and all the time making himself an +historic name for statecraft; Pope Sixtus IV, at the very heart of the +Pazzi conspiracy to murder the Medici-- + +“And Pope Nicholas V when drunk ordering a man to be executed, and being +sorry for it when sober,” said Judith. + +It is wonderful how Judith, with her quite unspecialised knowledge of +history can now and then put her finger upon something vital. I have +been racking my brain and searching my library for the past two or three +days for an illustration of just that nature. I had not thought of it. +Here is Tomaso da Sarzana, a quiet, retired schoolmaster, like myself, +an editor of classical texts, a peaceful librarian of Cosmo de’ Medici, +a scholar and a gentleman to the tips of his fingers; he is made Pope, a +King Log to save the cardinalate from a possible King Stork Colonna; the +Porcari conspiracy breaks out, is discovered and the conspirators are +hunted over Italy and put to death; a gentleman called Anguillara is +slightly inculpated; he is invited to Rome by Nicholas, and given +a safe-conduct; when he arrives the Pope is drunk (at least Stefano +Infessura, the contemporary diarist, says so); the next morning his +Holiness finds to his surprise and annoyance that the gentleman’s head +has been cut off by his orders. It is an amazing tale. To realise +how amazing it is, one must picture the fantastic possibility of it +happening at the Vatican nowadays. And the most astounding thing is +this: that if all the dead and gone popes were alive, and the soul of +the saintly Pontiff of to-day were to pass from him, the one who could +most undetected occupy his simulacrum would be this very Thomas of +Sarzana. + +“Pardon me, my dear Judith,” said I. “But this is a story lying somewhat +up one of the back-waters of history. Where did you come across it?” + +“I saw it the other day in a French comic paper,” replied Judith. + +I really don’t know which to admire the more: the inconsequent way in +which the French toss about scholarship, or the marvellous power of +assimilation possessed by Judith. + +Before we separated she returned to the subject of Carlotta. + +“Am I to see this young creature?” she asked. “That is just as you +choose,” said I. + +“Oh! as far as I am concerned, my dear Marcus, I am perfectly +indifferent,” replied Judith, assuming the supercilious expression with +which women invariably try to mask inordinate curiosity. + +“Then,” said I, with a touch of malice, “there is no reason why you +should make her acquaintance.” + +“I should be able to see through her tricks and put you on your guard.” + +“Against what?” + +She shrugged her shoulders as if it were vain to waste breath on so +obtuse a person. + +“You had better bring her round some afternoon,” she said. + +Have I acted wisely in confessing Carlotta to Judith? And why do I use +the word “confess”? Far from having committed an evil action, I consider +I have exhibited exemplary altruism. Did I want a “young savage from +Syria” to come and interfere with my perfectly ordered life? Judith +does not realise this. I had a presentiment of the prejudice she would +conceive against the poor girl, and now it has been verified. I wish I +had held my tongue. As Judith, for some feminine reason known only to +herself, has steadily declined to put her foot inside my house, she +might very well have remained unsuspicious of Carlotta’s existence. And +why not? The fact of the girl being my pensioner does not in the least +affect the personality which I bring to Judith. The idea is absurd. Why +wasn’t I wise before the event? I might have spared myself considerable +worry. + + +A letter from my Aunt Jessica enclosing a card for a fancy dress ball at +the Empress Rooms. The preposterous lady! + +“Do come. It is not right for a young man to lead the life of a recluse +of seventy. Here we are in the height of the London season, and I am +sure you haven’t been into ten houses, when a hundred of the very +best are open to you--” I loathe the term “best houses.” The tinsel +ineptitude of them! For entertainment I really would sooner attend a +mothers’ meeting or listen to the serious British Drama--Have I read so +and so’s novel? Am I going to Mrs. Chose’s dance? Do I ride in the Park? +Do I know young Thingummy of the Guards, who is going to marry Lady +Betty Something? What do I think of the Academy? As if one could have +any sentiment with regard to the Academy save regret at such profusion +of fresh paint! “You want shaking up,” continued my aunt. Silly woman! +If there is a thing I should abhor it would be to be shaken up. “Come +and dine with us at seven-thirty _in costume_, and I’ll promise you a +delightful time. And think how proud the girls would be of showing off +their _beau cousin_.” _Et patiti et patita._ I am again reminded that I +owe it to my position, my title. God ha’ mercy on us! To bedeck myself +like a decayed mummer in a booth and frisk about in a pestilential +atmosphere with a crowd of strange and uninteresting young females is +the correct way of fulfilling the obligations that the sovereign laid +upon the successors to the title, when he conferred the dignity of a +baronetcy on my great-grandfather! Now I come to think of it the +Prince Regent was that sovereign, and my ancestor did things for him +at Brighton. Perhaps after all there is a savage irony of truth in Aunt +Jessica’s suggestion! + +And a _beau cousin_ should I be indeed. What does she think I would +go as? A mousquetaire? or a troubadour in blue satin trunks and cloak, +white silk tights and shoes and a Grecian helmet, like Mr. Snodgrass at +Mrs. Leo Hunter’s _fete champetre?_ + +I wish I could fathom Aunt Jessica’s reasons for her attempts at +involving me in her social mountebankery. If the girls get no better +dance-partners than me, heaven help them! + +Only a fortnight ago I drove with them to Hurlingham. My aunt and +Gwendolen disappeared in an unaccountable manner with another man, +leaving me under an umbrella tent to take charge of Dora. I had an hour +and a half of undiluted Dora. The dose was too strong, and it made my +head ache. I think I prefer neat Carlotta. + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +July 5th + +I lunched at home, and read drowsily before the open window till four +o’clock. Then the splendour of the day invited me forth. Whither +should I go? I thought of Judith and Hampstead Heath; I also thought +of Carlotta and Hyde Park. The sound of the lions roaring for their +afternoon tea reached me through the still air, and I put from me a +strong temptation to wander alone and meditative in the Zoological +Gardens close by. I must not forget, I reflected, that I am responsible +for Carlotta’s education, whereas I am in no wise responsible for the +animals or for Judith. If Judith and I had claims one on the other, the +entire charm of our relationship would be broken. + +I resolved to take Carlotta to the park, in order to improve her mind. +She would see how well-bred Englishwomen comport themselves externally. +It would be a lesson in decorum. + +I do not despise convention. Indeed, I follow it up to the point when it +puts on the airs of revealed religion. My neighbours and I decide on +a certain code of manners which will enable us to meet without mutual +offence. I agree to put my handkerchief up to my nose when I sneeze in +his presence, and he contracts not to wipe muddy boots on my sofa. I +undertake not to shock his wife by parading my hideous immorality before +her eyes, and he binds himself not to aggravate my celibacy by beating +her or kissing her when I am paying a call. I agree, by wearing an +arbitrarily fixed costume when I dine with him, to brand myself with the +stamp of a certain class of society, so that his guests shall receive me +without question, and he in return gives me a well-ordered dinner +served with the minimum amount of inconvenience to myself that his +circumstances allow. Many folks make what they are pleased to call +unconventionality a mere cloak for selfish disregard of the feelings +and tastes of others. Bohemianism too often means piggish sloth or +slatternly ineptitude. + +Convention is solely a matter of manners. That is why I desire to instil +some convention into what, for want of a more accurate term, I may +allude to as Carlotta’s mind. It will save me much trouble in the +future. + +I summoned Carlotta. + +“Carlotta,” I said, “I am going to take you to Hyde Park and show +you the English aristocracy wearing their best clothes and their best +behaviour. You must do the same.” + +“My best clothes?” cried Carlotta, her face lighting up. + +“Your very best. Make haste.” + +I smiled. She ran from the room and in an incredibly short time +reappeared unblushingly bare-necked and bare-armed in the evening dress +that had caused her such dismay on Saturday. + +I jumped to my feet. There is no denying that she looked amazingly +beautiful. She looked, in fact, disconcertingly beautiful. I found it +hard to tell her to take the dress off again. + +“Is it wrong?” she asked Nvith a pucker of her baby lips. + +“Yes, indeed,” said I. “People would be shocked.” + +“But on Saturday evening--” she began. + +“I know, my child,” I interrupted. “In society you are scarcely +respectable unless you go about half naked at night; but to do so in the +daytime would be the grossest indecency. I’ll explain some other time.” + +“I shall never understand,” said Carlotta. + +Two great tears stood, one on each eyelid, and fell simultaneously down +her cheeks. + +“What on earth are you crying for?” I asked aghast. + +“You are not pleased with me,” said Carlotta, with a choke in her voice. + +The two tears fell like rain-drops on to her bosom, and she stood before +me a picture of exquisite woe. Then I did a very foolish thing. + +Last week a little gold brooch in a jeweller’s window caught my fancy. +I bought it with the idea of presenting it to Carlotta, when an occasion +offered, as a reward for peculiar merit. Now, however, to show her that +I was in no way angry, I abstracted the bauble from the drawer of my +writing-table, and put it in her hand. + +“You please me so much, Carlotta,” said I, “that I have bought this for +you.” + +Before I had completed the sentence, and before I knew what she was +after, her arms were round my neck and she was hugging me like a child. + +I have never experienced such an odd sensation in my life as the touch +of Carlotta’s fresh young arms upon my face and the perfume of spring +violets that emanated from her person. I released myself swiftly from +her indecorous demonstration. + +“You mustn’t do things like that,” said I, severely. “In England, young +women are only allowed to embrace their grandfathers.” Carlotta looked +at me wide-eyed, with the fox-terrier knitting of the forehead. + +“But you are so good to me, Seer Marcous,” she said. + +“I hope you’ll find many people good to you, Carlotta,” I answered. “But +if you continue that method of expressing your appreciation, you may +possibly be misunderstood.” + +I had recovered from the momentary shock to my senses, and I laughed. +She fluttered a sidelong glance at me, and a smile as inscrutable as the +Monna Lisa’s hovered over her lips. + +“What would they do if they did not understand?” + +“They would take you,” I replied, fixing her sternly with my gaze, “they +would take you for an unconscionable baggage.” + +“_Hou!_” laughed Carlotta, suddenly. And she ran from the room. + +In a moment she was back again. She came up to me demurely and plucked +my sleeve. + +“Come and show me what I must put on so as to please you.” + +I rang the bell for Antoinette, to whom I gave the necessary +instructions. Her next request would be that I should act the part of +lady’s-maid. I must maintain my dignity with Carlotta. + +The lovely afternoon had attracted many people to the park, and the +lawns were thronged. We found a couple of chairs at the edge of one +of the cross-paths and watched the elegant assembly. Carlotta, vastly +entertained, asked innumerable questions. How could I tell whether a +lady was married or unmarried? Did they all wear stays? Why did every +one look so happy? Did I think that old man was the young girl’s +husband? What were they all talking about? Wouldn’t I take her for a +drive in one of those beautiful carriages? Why hadn’t I a carriage? Then +suddenly, as if inspired, after a few minutes’ silent reflection: + +“Seer Marcous, is this the marriage market?” + +“The what?” I gasped. + +“The marriage market. I read it in a book, yesterday. Miss Griggs gave +it me to read aloud--Tack--Thack--” + +“Thackeray?” + +“Ye-es. They come here to sell the young girls to men who want wives.” + She edged away from me, with a little movement of alarm. “That is not +why you have brought me here--to sell me?” + +“How much do you think you would be worth?” I asked, sarcastically. + +She opened out her hands palms upward, throwing down her parasol, as she +did so, upon her neighbour’s little Belgian griffon, who yelped. + +“Ch, lots,” she said in her frank way. “I am very beautiful.” + +I picked up the parasol, bowed apologetically to the owner of the +stricken animal, and addressed Carlotta. + +“Listen, my good child. You are passably good-looking, but you are by +no means very beautiful. If I tried to sell you here, you might possibly +fetch half a crown--” + +“Two shillings and sixpence?” asked the literal Carlotta. + +“Yes. Just that. But as a matter of fact, no one would buy you. This is +not the marriage market. There is no such thing as a marriage market. +English mothers and fathers do not sell their daughters for money. Such +a thing is monstrous and impossible.” + +“Then it was all lies I read in the book?” + +“All lies,” said I. + +I hope the genial shade of the great satirist has forgiven me. + +“Why do they put lies in books?” + +“To accentuate the Truth, so that it shall prevail,” I answered. + +This was too hard a nut for Carlotta to crack. She was silent for a +moment. She reverted, ruefully, to the intelligible. + +“I thought I was beautiful,” she said. + +“Who told you so?” + +“Pasquale.” + +“Pasquale has no sense,” said I. “There are men to whom all women who +are not seventy and toothless and rheumy at the eyes are beautiful. +Pasquale has said the same to every woman he has met. He is a Lothario +and a Don Juan and a Caligula and a Faublas and a Casanova.” + +“And he tells lies, too?” + +“Millions of them,” said I. “He contracts with their father Beelzebub +for a hundred gross a day.” + +“Pasquale is very pretty and he makes me laugh and I like him,” said +Carlotta. + +“I am very sorry to hear it,” said I. + +The griffon, who had been sniffing at Carlotta’s skirts, suddenly leaped +into her lap. With a swift movement of her hand she swept the poor +little creature, as if it had been a noxious insect, yards away. + +“Carlotta!” I cried angrily, springing to my feet. + +The ladies who owned the beast rushed to their whining pet and looked +astonished daggers at Carlotta. When they picked it up, it sat dangling +a piteous paw. Carlotta rose, merely scared at my anger. I raised my +hat. + +“I am more than sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I hope the +little dog is not hurt. My ward, for whom I offer a thousand apologies, +is a Mohammedan, to whom all dogs are unclean. Please attribute the +accident to religious instinct.” + +The younger of the two, who had been examining the paw, looked up with a +smile. + +“Your ward is forgiven. Punch oughtn’t to jump on strange ladies’ laps, +whether they are Mohammedans or not. Oh! he is more frightened than +hurt. And I,” she added, with a twinkling eye, “am more hurt than +frightened, because Sir Marcus Ordeyne doesn’t recognise me.” + +So Carlotta had nearly killed the dog of an unrecalled acquaintance. + +“I do indeed recognise you now,” said I, mendaciously. I seem to have +been lying to-day through thick and thin. “But in the confusion of the +disaster--” + +“You sat next me at lunch one day last winter, at Mrs. Ordeyne’s,” + interrupted the lady, “and you talked to me of transcendental +mathematics.” + +I remembered. “The crime,” said I, “has lain heavily on my conscience.” + +“I don’t believe a word of it,” she laughed, dismissing me with a bow. I +raised my hat and joined Carlotta. + +It was a Miss Gascoigne, a flirtatious intimate of Aunt Jessica’s house. +To this irresponsible young woman I had openly avowed that I was the +guardian of a beautiful Mohammedan whose religious instinct compelled +her to destroy little dogs. I shall hear of this from my Aunt Jessica. + +I walked stonily away with Carlotta. + +“You are cross with me,” she whimpered. + +“Yes, I am. You might have killed the poor little beast. It was very +wicked and cruel of you.” + +Carlotta burst out crying in the midst of the promenade. + +The tears did not romantically come into her eyes as they had done an +hour before; but she wept copiously, after the unrestrained manner of +children, and used her pocket-handkerchief. From their seats women put +up their lorgnons to look at her, passers-by turned round and stared. +The whole of the gaily dressed throng seemed to be one amused gaze. In’ +a moment or two I became conscious that reprehensory glances were being +directed towards myself, calling me, as plain as eyes could call, an +ill-conditioned brute, for making the poor young creature, who was at +my mercy, thus break down in public. It was a charming situation for an +even-tempered philosopher. We walked stolidly on, I glaring in front +of me and Carlotta weeping. The malice of things arranged that ne. +neighbouring chair should be vacant, and that the path should be +unusually crowded. I had the satisfaction of hearing a young fellow say +to a girl: + +“He? That’s Ordeyne--came into the baronetcy--mad as a dingo dog.” + +I was giving myself a fine advertisement. + +“For heaven’s sake stop crying,” I said. Then a memory of far-off +childhood flashed its inspiration upon me. “If you don’t,” I added, +grimly, “I’ll take you out and give you to a policeman.” + +The effect was magical. She turned on me a scared look, gasped, pulled +down her veil, which she had raised so as to dab her eyes with her +pocket-handkerchief, and incontinently checked the fountain of her +tears. + +“A policeman?” + +“Yes,” said I, “a great, big, ugly blue policeman, who shuts up people +who misbehave themselves in prison, and takes off their clothes, and +shaves their heads, and feeds them on bread and water.” + +“I won’t cry any more,” she said, swallowing a sob. “Is it also wicked +to cry?” + +“Any of these ladies here would sooner be burned alive with dyspepsia or +cut in two with tight-lacing,” I replied severely. “Let us sit down.” + +We stepped over the low iron rail, and passing through the first two +rows of people, found seats behind where the crowd was thinner. + +“Is Seer Marcous still angry with me?” asked Carlotta, and the simple +plaintiveness of her voice would have melted the bust of Nero. I +lectured her on cruelty to animals. That one had duties of kindness +towards the lower creation appealed to her as a totally new idea. +Supposing the dog had broken all its legs and ribs, would she not have +been sorry? She answered frankly in the negative. It was a nasty little +dog. If she had hurt it badly, so much the better. What did it matter if +a dog was hurt? She was sorry now she had hurled it into space, because +it belonged to my friends, and that had made me cross with her. + +Of course I was shocked at the thoughtless cruelty of the action; but my +anger had also its roots in dismay at the public scandal it might have +caused, and in the discovery that I was known to the victim’s owner. +It is the sad fate of the instructors of youth that they must +hypocritically credit themselves with only the sublimest of motives. I +spoke to Carlotta like the good father in the “Swiss Family Robinson.” I +gave vent to such noble sentiments that in a quarter of an hour I glowed +with pride in my borrowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to +my bosom and addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the fly. I wonder +whether it is not through some such process as this that parsons manage +to keep themselves good. + +The soothing warmth of conscious merit restored me to good temper; and +when Carlotta slid her hand into mine and asked me if I had forgiven +her, I magnanimously assured her that all the past was forgotten. + +“Only,” said I, “you will have to get out of this habit of tears. A wise +man called Burton says in his ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ a beautiful book +which I’ll give you to read when you are sixty, ‘As much count may be +taken of a woman weeping as a goose going barefoot.’” + +“He was a nasty old man,” said Carlotta. “Women cry because they feel +very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men +don’t cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but +Hamdi!--” she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, “You would as +soon see a goose going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the +shoes--the fairy tale--as Hamdi crying. _Hou_!” + +Half an hour later, as we were driving homewards, she broke a rather +long silence which she had evidently been employing in meditation. + +“Seer Marcous.” + +“Yes?” + +She has a child’s engaging way of rubbing herself up against one when +she wants to be particularly ingratiating. + +“It was so nice to dine with you on Saturday.” + +“Really?” + +“Oh, ye-es. When are you going to let me dine with you again, to show me +you have forgiven me?” + +A hansom cab offers peculiar facilities for the aforesaid process of +ingratiation. + +“You shall dine with me this evening,” said I, and Carlotta cooed with +pleasure. + +I perceive that she is gradually growing westernised. + + +July 8th. + +In obedience to a peremptory note from Judith, I took Carlotta this +afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook hands with my hostess, turned +round and said + +“This, my dear Judith, is Carlotta.” + +“I am very pleased to see you,” said Judith. + +“So am I,” replied Carlotta, not to be outdone in politeness. + +She sat bolt upright, most correctly, on the edge of a chair, and +responded monosyllabically to Judith’s questions. Her demeanour could +not have been more impeccable had she been trained in a French convent. +Just before we arrived, she had been laughing immoderately because I had +ordered her to spit out a mass of horrible sweetmeat which she had found +it impossible to masticate, and she had challenged me to extract it with +my fingers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a Maenad. I +was entertained by Judith’s fruitless efforts to get behind this wall of +reserve. Carlotta said, “Oh, ye-es” or “No-o” to everything. It was +not a momentous conversation. As it was Carlotta in whom Judith was +particularly interested, I effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the +spasmodic talk, Carlotta said, very politely: + +“Mrs. Mainwaring has a beautiful house.” + +“It’s only a tiny flat. Would you like to look over it?” asked Judith, +eagerly, flashing me a glance that plainly said, “Now that I shall have +her to myself, you may trust me to get to the bottom of her.” + +“I would like it very much,” said Carlotta, rising. + +I held the door open for them to pass out, and lit a cigarette. +When they returned ten minutes afterwards, Carlotta was smiling and +self-possessed, evidently very well pleased with herself, but Judith had +a red spot on each of her cheeks. + +The sight of her smote me with an odd new feeling of pity. I cannot +dismiss the vision from my mind. All the evening I have seen the two +women standing side by side, a piteous parable. The light from the +window shone full upon them, and the dark curtain of the door was an +effective background. The one flaunted the sweet insolence of youth, +health, colour, beauty; of the bud just burst into full flower. The +other wore the stamp of care, of the much knowledge wherein is much +sorrow, and in her eyes dwelled the ghosts of dead years. She herself +looked like a ghost-dressed in white pique, which of itself drew +the colour from her white face and pale lips and mass of faint +straw-coloured hair, the pallor of all which was accentuated by the red +spots on her cheeks and her violet eyes. + +I saw that something had occurred to vex her. + +“Before we go,” I said, “I should like a word with you. Carlotta will +not mind.” + +We went into the dining-room. I took her hand which was cold, in spite +of the July warmth. + +“Well, my dear,” said I. “What do you think of my young savage from Asia +Minor?” + +Judith laughed--I am sure not naturally. + +“Is that all you wanted to say to me?” + +She withdrew her hand, and tidied her hair in the mirror of the +overmantel. + +“I think she is a most uninteresting young woman. I am disappointed. +I had anticipated something original. I had looked forward to +some amusement. But, really, my dear Marcus, she is _bete a +pleurer_--weepingly stupid.” + +“She certainly can weep,” said I. + +“Oh, can she?” said Judith, as if the announcement threw some light on +Carlotta’s character. “And when she cries, I suppose you, like a man, +give in and let her have her own way?” And Judith laughed again. + +“My dear Judith,” said I; “you have no idea of the wholesome discipline +at Lingfield Terrace.” + +Suddenly with one of her disconcerting changes of front, she turned and +caught me by the coat-lappels. + +“Marcus dear, I have been so lonely this week. When are you coming to +see me?” + +“We’ll have a whole day out on Sunday,” said I. + + +As I walked down the stairs with Carlotta, I reflected that Judith had +not accounted for the red spots. + +“I like her,” said Carlotta. “She is a nice old lady.” + +“Old lady! What on earth do you mean?” I was indeed startled. “She is a +young woman.” + +“Pouf!” cried Carlotta. “She is forty.” + +“She is no such thing,” I cried. “She is years younger than I.” + +“She would not tell me.” + +“You asked her age?” + +“Oh, ye-es,” said Carlotta. “I was very polite. I first asked if she was +married. She said yes. Then I asked how her husband was. She said she +didn’t know. That was funny. Why does she not know, Seer Marcous?” + +“Never mind,” said I, “go on telling me how polite you were.” + +“I asked how many children she had. She said she had none. I said it was +a pity. And then I said, ‘I am eighteen years old and I want to marry +quite soon and have children. How old are you?’ And she would not tell +me. I said, ‘You must be the same age as my mamma, if she were alive.’ +I said other things, about her husband, which I forget. Oh, I was very +polite.” + +She smiled up at me in quest of approbation. I checked a horrified +rebuke when I reflected that, according to the etiquette of the harem, +she had been “very polite.” But my poor Judith! Every artless question +had been a knife thrust in a sensitive spot. Her husband: the handsome +blackguard who had lured her into the divorce court, married her, and +after two unhappy years had left her broken; children: they would have +kept her life sweet, and did I not know how she had yearned for them? +Her age: it is only the very happily married woman who snaps her fingers +at the approach of forty, and even she does so with a disquieting sense +of bravado. And the sweet insolence of youth says: “I am eighteen: how +old are you?” + +My poor Judith! Once more, on our walk home, I discoursed to Carlotta on +the differences between East and West. + +“Seer Marcous,” said Carlotta this evening at dinner--“I have decided now +that she shall dine regularly with me; it is undoubtedly agreeable to +see her pretty face on the opposite side of the table and listen to her +irresponsible chatter: chatter which I keep within the bounds of decorum +when Stenson is present, so as to save his susceptibilities, by +the simple device, agreed upon between us (to her great delight) of +scratching the side of my somewhat prominent nose--Seer Marcous, why +does Mrs. Mainwaring keep your picture in her bedroom?” + +I am glad Stenson happened to be out of the room. His absence saved the +flaying of my nasal organ. I explained that it was the custom in England +for ladies to collect the photographs of their men friends, and use them +misguidedly for purposes of decoration. + +“But this,” said Carlotta, opening out her arms in an exaggerated way, +“is such a big one.” + +“Ah, that,” I answered, “is because I am very beautiful.” + +Carlotta shrieked with laughter. The exquisite comicality of the jest +occasioned bubbling comments of mirth during the rest of the meal, and +her original indiscreet question was happily forgotten. + + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +10th July. + +Judith and I have had our day in the country. We know a wayside station, +on a certain line of railway, about an hour and a half from town, where +we can alight, find eggs and bacon at the village inn and hayricks in +a solitary meadow, and where we can chew the cud of these delights with +the cattle in well-wooded pastures. Judith has a passion for eggs and +bacon and hayricks. My own rapture in their presence is tempered by +the philosophic calm of my disposition. She wore a cotton dress of a +forget-me-not blue which suits her pale colouring. She looked quite +pretty. When I told her so she blushed like a girl. I was glad to +see her in gay humour again. Of late months she has been subject to +moodiness, emotional variability, which has somewhat ruffled the smooth +surface of our companionship. But to-day there has been no trace of +“temperament.” She has shown herself the pleasant, witty Judith she +knows I like her to be, with a touch of coquetry thrown in on her +own account. She even spoke amiably of Carlotta. I have not had so +thoroughly enjoyable a day with Judith for a long time. + +I don’t think she set herself deliberately to please me. That I should +resent. I know that women in order to please an unsuspecting male will +walk weary miles by his side with blisters on their feet and a beatific +smile on their faces. But Judith has far too much commonsense. + +Another pleasing feature of the day’s jaunt has been the absence of +the appeal to sentimentality which Judith of late, especially since her +return from Paris, has been overfond of making. This idle habit of +mind, for such it is in reality, has been arrested by an intellectual +interest. One of her great friends is Willoughby, the economic +statistician, who in his humorous moments, writes articles for popular +magazines, illustrated by scale diagrams. He will draw, for instance, a +series of men representing the nations of the world, and varying in bulk +and stature according to the respective populations; and over against +these he will set a series of pigs whose sizes are proportionate to the +amount of pork per head eaten by the different nationalities. To these +queer minds that live on facts (I myself could as easily thrive on a +diet of egg-shells) this sort of pictorial information is peculiarly +fascinating. But Judith, who like most women has a freakish mental as +well as physical digestion, delights in knowing how many hogs a +cabinet minister will eat during a lifetime, and how much of the +earth’s surface could be scoured by the world’s yearly output of +scrubbing-brushes. I don’t blame her for it any more than I blame her +for a love of radishes, which make me ill; it is not as if she had no +wholesome tastes. On the contrary, I commend her. Now, Willoughby, it +seems, has found the public appetite so great for these thought-saving +boluses of knowledge--unpleasant drugs, as it were, put up into gelatine +capsules--that he needs assistance. He has asked Judith to devil for +him, and I have to-day persuaded her to accept his offer. It will be an +excellent thing for the dear woman. It will be an absorbing occupation. +It will divert the current of her thoughts from the sentimentality that +I deprecate, and provided she does not serve up hard-boiled facts to me +at dinner, she will be the pleasanter companion. + +The only return to it was when I kissed her at parting. + +“That is the first, Marcus, for twelve hours,” she said; very sweetly, +it is true--but still reproachfully. + +But Sacred Name of a Little Good Man! (as the depraved French people +say), what is the use of this continuous osculation between rational +beings of opposite sexes who set out to enjoy themselves? If only St. +Paul, in the famous passage when he says there is a time for this and a +time for that, had mentioned kissing, he would have done a great deal of +practical good. + + +July 13th. + +To-night, for the first time since I came into the family estates (such +as they are), I feel the paralysis of aspiration occasioned by poverty. +If I were very rich, I would buy the two next houses, pull them down and +erect on the site a tower forty foot high. At the very top would be one +comfortable room to be reached by a lift, and in this room I could have +my being, while it listed me, and be secure from all kinds of incursions +and interruptions. Antoinette’s one-eyed cat could not scratch for +admittance; Antoinette herself could not enter under pretext of domestic +economics and lure me into profitless gossip; and I could defy Carlotta, +who is growing to be as pervasive as the smell of pickles over Crosse +& Blackwell’s factory. She comes in without knocking, looks at +picture-books, sprawls about doing nothing, smokes my best cigarettes, +hums tunes which she has picked up from barrel-organs, bends over me to +see what I am writing, munching her eternal sweetmeats in my ear, and +laughs at me when I tell her she has irremediably broken the thread of +my ideas. Of course I might be brutal and turn her out. But somehow I +forget to do so, until I realise--too late--the havoc she has made with +my work. + +I did, however, think, when Miss Griggs mounted guard over Carlotta, +and Antoinette and her cat were busied with luncheon cook-pans, that +my solitude was unimperilled. I see now there is nothing for it but the +tower. And I cannot build the tower; so I am to be henceforward at the +mercy of anything feline or feminine that cares to swish its tail or its +skirts about my drawing-room. + +I was arranging my notes, I had an illuminating inspiration concerning +the life of Francois Villon and the contemporary court of Cosmo de’ +Medici; I was preparing to fix it in writing when the door opened and +Stenson announced: + +“Mrs. Ordeyne and Miss Ordeyne.” + +My Aunt Jessica and Dora came in and my inspiration went out. It hasn’t +come back yet. + +My aunt’s apologies and Dora’s draperies filled the room. I must forgive +the invasion. They knew they were disturbing my work. They hoped I +didn’t mind. + +“I wanted mamma to write, but she would come,” said Dora, in her hearty +voice. I murmured polite mendacities and offered chairs. Dora preferred +to stand and gaze about her with feminine curiosity. Women always seem +to sniff for Bluebeardism in a bachelor’s apartment. + +“Why, what two beautiful rooms you have. And the books! There isn’t an +inch of wall-space!” + +She went on a voyage of discovery round the shelves while my aunt +explained the object of their visit. Somebody, I forget who, had +lent them a yacht. They were making up a party for a summer cruise in +Norwegian fiords. The Thingummies and the So and So’s and Lord This and +Miss That had promised to come, but they were sadly in need of a man to +play host--I was to fancy three lone women at the mercy of the skipper. +I did, and I didn’t envy the skipper. What more natural, gushed my +aunt, than that they should turn to me, the head of the house, in their +difficulty? + +“I am afraid, my dear aunt,” said I, “that my acquaintance with +skipper-terrorising hosts is nil. I can’t suggest any one.” + +“But who asked you to suggest any one?” she laughed. “It is you yourself +that we want to persuade to have pity on us.” + +“I have--much pity,” said I, “for if it’s rough, you’ll all be horribly +seasick.” + +Dora ran across the room from the book-case she was inspecting. + +“I would like to shake him! He is only pretending he doesn’t understand. +I don’t know what we shall do if you won’t come with us.” + +“You can’t refuse, Marcus. It will be an ideal trip--and such a +comfortable yacht--and the deep blue fiords--and we’ve got a French +chef. You will be doing us such a favour.” + +“Come, say ‘Yes,’” said Dora. + +I wish she were not such a bouncing Juno of a girl. Large, athletic +women with hearty voices are difficult for one to deal with. I am a +match for my aunt, whom I can obfuscate with words. But Dora doesn’t +understand my satire; she gives a great, healthy laugh, and says, “Oh, +rot!” which scatters my intellectual armoury. + +“It is exceedingly kind of you to think of me,” I said to my aunt, “and +the proposal is tempting--the prospect is indeed fascinating--but--” + +“But what?” + +“I have so many engagements,” I answered feebly. + +My Aunt Jessica rose, smiling indulgently upon me, as if I were a spoilt +little boy, and took me on to the balcony, while Dora demurely retired +to the bookshelves in the farther room. “Can’t you manage to throw them +aside? Poor Dora will be inconsolable.” + +I stared at her for a moment and then at Dora’s broad back and sturdy +hips. Inconsolable? I can’t make out what the good lady is driving at. +If she were a vulgar woman trying to squeeze her way into society and +needed the lubricant of the family baronetcy, I could understand her +eagerness to parade me as her appanage. But titles in her drawing-room +are as common as tea-cups. And the inconsolability of Dora-- + +“If I did come she would be bored to death,” said I. + +“She is willing to risk it.” + +“But why should she seek martyrdom?” + +“There is another reason,” said my aunt, ignoring my pertinent question, +but glancing at me reassuringly “there is another reason why it would be +well for you to come on this cruise with us.” She sank her voice. “You +met Miss Gascoigne in the park last week--” + +“A very charming and kind young lady,” said I. + +“I am afraid you have been a little indiscreet. People have been +talking.” + +“Then theirs, not mine, is the indiscretion.” + +“But, my dear Marcus, when you spring a good-looking young person, whom +you introduce as your Mohammedan ward, upon London society, and she +makes a scene in public--why--what else have people got to talk about?” + +“They might fall back upon the doctrine of predestination or the price +of fish,” I replied urbanely. + +“But I assure you, Marcus, that there is a hint of scandal abroad. It is +actually said that she is living here.” + +“People will say anything, true or untrue,” said I. + +My aunt sighfully acquiesced, and for a while we discussed the depravity +of human nature. + +“I have been thinking,” she said at last, “that if you brought your +ward to see us, and she could accompany us on this cruise to Norway, the +scandal would be scotched outright.” + +She glanced at me very keenly, and beneath her indulgent smile I saw the +hardness of the old campaigner. It was a clever trap she had prepared +for me. + +I took her hand and in my noblest manner, like the exiled vicomte in +costume drama, bent over it and kissed her finger-tips. + +“I thank you, my dear aunt, for your generous faith in my integrity,” I +said, “and I assure you your confidence is well founded.” + +A loud, gay laugh from the other room interrupted me. + +“Are you two rehearsing private theatricals?” cried Dora. As I was +attired in a remarkably old college blazer and a pair of yellow Moorish +slippers bought a couple of years ago in Tangier, and as my hair was +straight on end, owing to a habit of passing my fingers through it while +I work, my attitude perhaps did not strike a spectator as being so noble +as I had imagined. I took advantage of the anti-climax, however, to +bring my aunt from the balcony to the centre of the room, where Dora +joined us. + +“Well, has mother prevailed?” + +“My dear Dora,” said I, politely, “how can you imagine it could possibly +be a question of persuasion?” + +“That might be taken two ways,” said Dora. “Like Palmerston’s ‘Dear Sir, +I’ll lose no time in reading your book.’” Dora is a minx. + +“I fear,” said I, “that my pedantic historical sense must venture to +correct you. It was Lord Beaconsfield.” + +“Well, he got it from Palmerston,” insisted Dora. + +“You children must not quarrel,” interposed my aunt, in the fond, +maternal tone which I find peculiarly unpleasant. “Marcus will see how +his engagements stand, and let us know in a day or two.” + +“When do you propose to start?” I asked. + +“Quite soon. On the 20th. + +“I will let you know finally in good time,” said I. + +As I accompanied them downstairs, I heard a door at the end of the +passage open, and turning I saw Carlotta’s pretty head thrust past the +jamb, and her eyes fixed on the visitors. I motioned her back, sharply, +and my aunt and Dora made an unsuspecting exit. The noise of their +departing chariot wheels was music to my ears. + +Carlotta came rushing out of her sitting-room followed by Miss Griggs, +protesting. + +“Who those fine ladies?” she cried, with her hands on my sleeve. + +“Who _are_ those ladies?” I corrected. + +“Who _are_ those ladies?” Carlotta repeated, like a demure parrot. + +“They are friends of mine.” + +Then came the eternal question. + +“Is she married, the young one?” + +“Miss Griggs,” said I, “kindly instil into Carlotta’s mind the fact that +no young English woman ever thinks about marriage until she is actually +engaged, and then her thoughts do not go beyond the wedding.” + +“But is she?” persisted Carlotta. + +“I wish to heaven she was,” I laughed, imprudently, “for then she would +not come and spoil my morning’s work.” + +“Oh, she wants to marry you,” said Carlotta. + +“Miss Griggs,” said I, “Carlotta will resume her studies,” and I went +upstairs, sighing for the beautiful tower with a lift outside. + + +July 14th. + +Pasquale came in about nine o’clock, and found us playing cards. + +He is a bird of passage with no fixed abode. Some weeks ago he gave up +his chambers in St. James’s, and went to live with an actor friend, a +grass-widower, who has a house in the St. John’s Wood Road close by. Why +Pasquale, who loves the palpitating centres of existence, should choose +to rusticate in this semi-arcadian district, I cannot imagine. He says +he can think better in St. John’s Wood. + +Pasquale think! As well might a salmon declare it could sing better in a +pond! The consequence of his propinquity, however, has been that he +has dropped in several times lately on his way home, but generally at a +later hour. + +“Oh, please don’t move and spoil the picture,” he cried. “Oh, you +idyllic pair! And what are you playing? Cribbage! If I had been +challenged to guess the game you would have selected for your +after-dinner entertainment, I should have sworn to cribbage!” + +“An excellent game,” said I. Indeed, it is the only game that I +remember. I dislike cards. They bore me to death. So dus chess. People +love to call them intellectual pastimes; but, surely, if a man +wants exercise for his intellect, there are enough problems in this +complicated universe for him to worry his brains over, with more profit +to himself and the world. And as for the pastime--I consider that when +two or more intelligent people sit down to play cards they are insulting +one another’s powers of conversation. These remarks do not apply to my +game with Carlotta, who is a child, and has to be amused. She has picked +up cribbage with remarkable quickness, and although this is only the +third evening we have played, she was getting the better of me when +Pasquale appeared. + +I repeated my statement. Cribbage certainly was an excellent game. +Pasquale laughed. + +“Of course it is. A venerable pastime. Darby and Joan have played it of +evenings for the last thousand years. Please go on.” + +But Carlotta threw her cards on the table and herself on the sofa and +said she would prefer to hear Pasquale talk. + +“He says such funny things.” + +Then she jumped from the sofa and handed him the box of chocolates that +is never far from her side. How lithe her movements are! + +“Pasquale says you were his schoolmaster, and used to beat him with a +big stick,” she remarked, turning her head toward me, while Pasquale +helped himself to a sweet. + +He was clumsy in his selection, and the box slipped from Carlotta’s +hand and the contents rolled upon the floor. They both went on hands and +knees to pick them up, and there was much laughing and whispering. + +It is curious that I cannot recall Pasquale having alluded, in +Carlotta’s presence, to our early days. It was on my tongue to ask +when he committed the mendacity--for in that school not only did the +assistant masters not have the power of the cane, but Pasquale, being +in the sixth form at the time I joined, was exempt from corporal +punishment--when they both rose flushed from their grovelling beneath +the table, and some merry remark from Pasquale put the question out of +my head. + + +All this is unimportant. The main result of Pasquale’s visit this +evening is a discovery. + +Now, is it, after all, a discovery, or only the non-moral intellect’s +sinister attribution of motives? + +“A baby in long clothes would have seen through it,” said Pasquale. +“Lord bless you, if I were in your position I would go on board that +yacht, I’d make violent love to every female there, like the gentleman +in Mr. Wycherley’s comedy, I’d fill a salmon fly-book with samples of +their hair, I’d make them hate one another like poison, and at the end +of the voyage I’d announce my engagement to Carlotta, and when they +all came to the wedding I’d make the fly-book the most conspicuous of +wedding presents on the table, from the bridegroom to the bride. By +George! I’d cure them of the taste for man-hunting!” + +I wonder what impelled me to tell Pasquale of the proposed yachting +cruise? We sat smoking by the open window, long after Carlotta had been +sent to bed, and looking at a full moon sailing over the tops of the +trees in the park; enveloped in that sensuous atmosphere of a warm +summer night which induces a languor in the body and in the will. On +such a night as this young Lorenzo, if he happens to have Jessica by his +side, makes a confounded idiot of himself, to his life’s undoing; and +on such a night as this a reserved philosopher commits the folly of +discussing his private affairs with a Sebastian Pasquale. + +But if he is correct in his surmise, I am much beholden to the relaxing +influences of the night. I have been warned of perils that encompass me: +perils that would infest the base and insidiously scale the sides of the +most inaccessible tower that man could build on the edge of the Regent’s +Park. A woman with a Matrimonial Purpose would be quite capable of +gaining access by balloon to my turret window. Is it not my Aunt +Jessica’s design melodramatically to abduct me in a yacht? + +“Once aboard the pirate lugger, and the man is ours!” she cries. + +But the man is not coming aboard the pirate lugger. He is going to keep +as far as he possibly can from the shore. Neither is he to be lured into +bringing his lovely Mohammedan ward with him, as an evidence of good +faith and unimpeachable morals. They can regard her as a Mohammedan ward +or a houri or a Princess of Babylon, just as they choose. + +Pasquale must be right. A hundred remembered incidents go to prove it. I +recollect now that Judith has rallied me on my obtuseness. + +The sole end of all my Aunt Jessica’s manoeuvring is to marry me to +Dora, and Dora, like Barkis, is willing. Marry Dora! The thought is a +febrifuge, a sudorific! She would be thumping discords on my wornout +strings all day long. In a month I should be a writhing madman. I would +sooner, infinitely sooner, marry Carlotta. Carlotta is nature; Dora +isn’t even art. Why, in the name of men and angels, should I marry Dora? +And why (save to call herself Lady Ordeyne) should she want to marry +me? I have not trifled with her virgin affections; and that she is +nourishing a romantic passion for me of spontaneous growth I decline to +believe. For aught I care she can be as inconsolable as Calypso. It +will do her good. She can write a little story about it in _The Sirens’ +Magazine_. + +I am shocked. For all her bouncing ways and animal health and incorrect +information, I thought Dora was a nice-minded girl. + +Do nice-minded girls hunt husbands? + +Good heavens! This looks like the subject of a silly-season +correspondence in _The Daily Telegraph_. + + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +July 19th. + +_Campsie, N.B._ Hither have I fled from my buccaneering relations. I +am seeking shelter in a manse in the midst of a Scotch moor, and the +village, half a mile away, is itself five miles from a railway station. +Here I can defy Aunt Jessica. + +After my conversation with Pasquale, I passed a restless night. My +slumbers were haunted by dreams of pirate yachts flying the jolly Roger, +on which the skull and crossbones melted grotesquely into a wedding-ring +and a true lovers’ knot. I awoke to the conviction that so long as the +vessel remained on English waters I could find no security in London. I +resolved on flight. But whither? + +Verily the high gods must hold me in peculiar favour. The first letter I +opened was from old Simon McQuhatty, my present host, a godfather of my +mother, who alone of mortals befriended us in the dark days of long ago. +He was old and infirm, he wrote, and Gossip Death was waiting for him +on the moor; but before he went to join him he would like to see Susan’s +boy again. I could come whenever I liked. A telegram from Euston before +I started would be sufficient notice. I sent Stenson out with a telegram +to say I was starting that very day by the two o’clock train, and I +wrote a polite letter to my Aunt Jessica informing her of my regret +at not being able to accept her kind invitation as I was summoned to +Scotland for an indefinite period. + +My old friend’s ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland is drawing to a +close; he has lived in this manse, a stone’s throw from his grave, +for fifty years, and the approaching change of habitat will cost him +nothing. He will still lie at the foot of his beloved hills, and the +purple moorland will spread around him for all eternity, and the smell +of the gorse and heather will fill his nostrils as he sleeps. He is +a bit of a pagan, old McQuhatty, in spite of Calvin and the Shorter +Catechism. I should not wonder if he were the original of the story of +the minister who prayed for the “puir Deil.” He planted a rowan tree by +his porch when he was first inducted into the manse, and it has grown +up with him and he loves it as if it were a human being. He has had +many bonny arguments with it, he says, on points of doctrine, and it +has brought comfort to him in times of doubt by shivering its delicate +leaves and whispering, “Dinna fash yoursel, McQuhatty. The Lord God is a +sensible body.” He declares that the words are articulate, and I suspect +that in the depths of his heart he believes that there are tongues in +trees and books in the running brooks, just as he is convinced that +there is good in everything. + +He is a ripe and whimsical scholar, and his talk, even in infirm old +age, is marked by a Doric virility which has rendered his companionship +for these five days as stimulating as the moorland air. How few men have +this gift of discharging intellectual invigoration. Indeed, I only +know old McQuhatty who has it, and a sportive Providence has carefully +excluded mankind from its benefits for half a century. Stay: it once +fostered a genius who arose in Campsie, and sent him strung with tonic +to Edinburgh to become a poet. But the poor lad drank whisky for two +years without cessation, so that he died, and McQuhatty’s inspiration +was wasted. What intellectual stimulus can he afford, for instance, to +Sandy McGrath, an elder of the kirk whom I saw coming up the brae on +Sunday? An old ram stood in the path and, as obstinate as he, refused +to budge. And as they looked dourly at each other, I wondered if the ram +were dressed in black broadcloth and McGrath in wool, whether either of +their mothers would notice the metamorphosis. Yet my host declares that +I see with the eyes of a Southron; that the Scotch peasant when he is +not drunk is intellectual, and that there is no occasion on which he is +not ready for theological disputation. + +“But I dinna mind telling you,” he added, “that I’d as lief talk with my +rowan tree. It does nae blaze into a conflagration at a comfortable wee +bit of false doctrine.” + +I should love to stay all the summer with my old friend, It seems that +only from such a remote solitude can one view things mundane in the +right perspective, and in their true proportion. One would see how +important or unimportant portent in the cosmos was the agricultural +ant’s dream of three millimetres and an aphis compared with the +aspirations of the English labourer. One would justly focus the South +African millionaire, Sandy McGrath and the ram, and bring them to their +real lowest common denominator. One would even be able to gauge the +value of a History of Renaissance Morals. The benefits I should derive +from a long sojourn are incalculable, but my new responsibilities call +me back to London and its refracting and distorting atmosphere. If I had +dwelt here for fifty years I should have perceived that Carlotta was +but a speck in the whirlwind of human dust whose ultimate destiny was +immaterial. As my five days’ visit, however, has not advanced me to that +pitch of wisdom, I am foolishly concerned in my mind as to her welfare, +and anxious to dissolve the triumvirate, Miss Griggs, Stenson, and +Antoinette, whom I have entrusted with the reins of government. + +A month ago, in similar circumstances, I should have railed at Fate and +anathematised Carlotta from the tip of her pink toes to the gold and +bronze glory of her hair. But I am growing more kindly disposed towards +Carlotta, and taking a keen interest in her spiritual development. + +An inner voice, an ironical, sardonic inner voice with which there is no +arguing, tells me that I am a hypocrite; that an interest in Carlotta’s +spiritual development is a nice, comforting, high-sounding phrase which +has deluded philosophic guardians of female youth for many generations. + +“What does it matter to you whether she has a soul or not,” says the +voice, “provided she can babble pleasantly at dinner and play cribbage +with you afterwards?” + +Well, what on earth does it matter? + + +July 21st. + +She was at Euston to meet me. As soon as she saw my face at the carriage +window she left Stenson and flew up the platform like a pretty tame +animal, and when I alighted hung on my arms and frisked and gamboled +around me in excess of joy. + +“So you are glad to have me back, Carlotta?” I asked, as we were driving +home. + +She sidled up against me in her terrier fashion. + +“Oh, ye-es,” she cooed. “The day was night without you.” + +“That is the oriental language of exaggeration,” I said. But all the +same it was pleasant to hear, and the soft notes of her voice coiled +themselves, as music sometimes dus, around my heart. + +“I love dear Seer Marcous,” she said. + +I put my arm round her waist for a moment, as one would do to a child. + +“You are a good little girl, Carlotta. That is to say,” I added, +remembering my responsibilities, “if you _have_ been good. Have you?” + +“Oh, so good. Antoinette has been teaching me how to cook, and I can +make a rice pudding. It is so nice to cook things. I like the smell. But +I burned myself. See.” + +She pulled off her glove and showed me a red mark on her hand. I kissed +it to make it well, and she laughed and was very happy. And I, too, was +happy. Something new and fresh and bright has come into my life. Stenson +is an admirable servant; but his impassive face and correct salute which +have hitherto greeted me at London railway termini, although suggestive +of material comfort, cannot be said to invest my arrival with a special +atmosphere of charm. Carlotta’s welcome has been a new sensation. I look +upon the house with different eyes. It was a pleasure, as I dressed for +dinner, to reflect that I should not go down to a solemn, solitary meal, +but would have my beautiful little witch to keep me company. + + +July 22d. + +It appears that her conduct has not been by any means irreproachable. +Miss Griggs reported that she took advantage of my absence to saturate +herself with scent, one of the most heinous crimes in our domestic +calendar. _Mulier bene olet dum nihil olet_ is the maxim written above +this article of our code. Once when she disobeyed my orders and came +into the drawing-room reeking of ylang-ylang, I sent her upstairs +to change all her things and have a bath, and not come near me till +Antoinette vouched for her scentlessness. And “Ah, monsieur,” I remember +Antoinette replied, “that would be impossible, for the sweet lamb smells +of spring flowers, _de son naturel_.” Which is true. Her use of violent +perfumes is thus a double offence. “There is something more serious,” + said Miss Griggs. + +“I can hardly believe there can be anything more serious than making +one’s self detestable to one’s fellow-creatures,” said I. + +“Unless it is making one’s self too agreeable,” said Miss Griggs, +pointedly. + +I asked her what she meant. + +“I have discovered,” she replied, “that Carlotta has been carrying on a +clandestine flirtation with the young man who calls for orders from the +grocer’s.” + +“I am glad it wasn’t the butcher’s boy,” I murmured. + +Miss Griggs giggled in a silly way, as if I were jesting. At my stern +request she recovered and unfolded the horrible tale. She had caught +Carlotta kissing her hand to him. She had also seen him smuggle a +three-cornered note between Carlotta’s fingers, and Carlotta had +definitely refused to surrender the billet-dour. + +“What is the modern course of treatment,” I asked, “prescribed for young +ladies who flirt with grocers’ assistants? In Renaissance times +she could be whipped. The wise Margaret of Navarre used to beat her +daughter, Jeanne d’Albrecht, soundly for far less culpable lapses from +duty. Or she could be sent to a convent and put into a cell with rats, +or she could be bidden to attend at a merry-making where the chief +attraction was roast grocer’s assistant. But nowadays--what do you +suggest?” + +The unimaginative creature could suggest nothing. She thought that I +would know how to deal with the offence. Perhaps preventive measures +would be more efficacious than punishment. But what do I know of the +repressory methods employed in seminaries for young ladies? Burton in +his “Anatomy” speaks cheerfully of blood-letting behind the ears. He +also quotes, I remember, Hippocrates or somebody, who narrates that a +noble maiden was cured of a flirtatious temperament by wearing down her +back for three weeks a leaden plate pierced with holes. This I told Miss +Griggs, who spoke contemptuously of the Father of Medicine. + +“He also recommends--whether for this complaint, or for something +similar I forget for the moment--” said I, “anointing the soles of the +feet with the fat of a dormouse, the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog; +and speaks highly of a ram’s lungs applied hot to the fore part of the +head. I am sorry these admirable remedies are out of date. There is a +rich Rabelaisianism about them. Instead of the satisfying jorums of our +forefathers we take tasteless pellets, which procure us no sensation at +the time, and even the good old hot mustard poultice is a thing of the +past.” + +“But what about Carlotta?” inquired Miss Griggs, anxiously. + +That is just like a woman, to interrupt a man when he is beginning to +talk comfortably on a subject that interests him. I sighed. + +“Send Carlotta up to me,” I said, resignedly. + +Another morning’s work spoiled. I turned to my writing-table. I had just +transcribed on my MS. the anecdote told with such glee by Machiavelli +about Zanobi del Pino, a sort of Admiral Byng of the early fifteenth +century, who was locked up and given nothing to eat but paper painted +with snakes, so that he died, fasting, in a few days. I had an apt +epigram on the subject of Renaissance humour trembling on my pen-point, +when Miss Griggs came in with her foolish gossip. I am sure the +platitude I wrote afterwards is not that original flash of wit. + +Carlotta entered and crossed the room to the side of my writing-chair, +her great dark eyes fixed on me, and her hands dutifully behind her +back. She looked a Greuze picture of innocence. I believed less than +ever in the enormity of the offence. + +“Do you know what you’re here for?” I asked, magisterially. + +She nodded. + +“Then you _have_ been making love to the young man from the grocer’s?” + +She nodded again. I began to conceive a violent dislike to the grocer’s +young man. It was one of the most humiliating sensations I have +experienced. I think I have seen the individual--a thick-set, +red-headed, freckled nondescript. + +“What did you do it for?” I asked. + +“He wanted to make love to me,” replied Carlotta. + +“He is a young scamp,” said I. + +“What is a scamp?” she asked sweetly. + +“I am not giving you a lesson in philology,” I remarked. “Do you know +that you have been behaving in a shocking manner?” + +“Now you are cross with me.” + +“Yes,” I said, “infernally angry.” + +And I was. I expected to see her burst into tears. She did nothing of +the kind; only looked at me with irritating demureness. She wore a red +blouse and a grey skirt, and the audacious high-heeled red slippers. I +began to feel the return of my early prejudice against her. Nobody so +alluring could possess a spark of virtue. + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said I. “I make many allowances +for your lack of knowledge of our Western customs, but for a young +lady to flirt with an ugly red-headed varlet of the lower orders is +reprehensible all the world over.” + +“He gave me dates and dried fruits with sugar all over them,” said +Carlotta. + +“Stolen from his employer,” I said. “I will have that young man locked +up in prison, and if you go on receiving his feloniously obtained +presents they will put you in prison too, and I shall be delighted.” + +Carlotta maintained her demure expression and extracted from her skirt +pocket a very dirty piece of paper. + +“He writes poetry--about me,” she remarked, handing me what I recognised +as the three-cornered note. + +I took the thing between finger and thumb, and glanced over the poem. I +have read much indifferent modern verse in my time--I sometimes take +a slush-bath after tea at the club--but I could not have imagined the +English language capable of such emulsion. It was execrable. The first +couplet alone contained an idea. + + “Thou art a lovely girl and so very nice + I dream till death upon your face.” + +To the wretch’s ear it was a rhyme! I destroyed the noisome thing and +cast it into the waste-paper basket. + +“Prison,” said I, “would be a luxurious reward for him. In a properly +civilised country he would be bastinadoed and hanged.” + +“Yes, he is dam bad,” said Carlotta, serenely. + +“Good heavens!” I cried, “the ruffian has even taught you to swear. If +you dare to say that wicked word again, I’ll punish you severely. What +is his horrid name?” + +“Pasquale,” said Carlotta. + +“Pasquale?” + +“Yes, he likes to hear me say ‘dam.’ Oh, the other? Oh, no, he is too +stupid. He does not say anything. His name is Timkins. I only play with +him. He is so funny. He can go and kill himself; I won’t care.” + +“Never mind about Timkins,” said I, “I want to hear about Pasquale. When +did he teach you that wicked, wicked word?” + +I think Carlotta flushed as she regarded the point of her red slipper. + +“I went for a walk and he met me at the corner and walked here by my +side. Was that wicked?” + +“What would the excellent Hamdi Effendi have said to it?” + +Woman-like she evaded my question. + +“I hope Hamdi is dead. Do you think so?” + +“I hope not. For if you behave in this naughty manner, I shall have to +send you back to him.” + +She had imperceptibly moved nearer my chair until she stood quite close +to my side, so that as I spoke the last words I looked up into her face. +She put her arm about my shoulders. It is one of her pretty, caressing +ways. + +“I will be good--very good,” she said. + +“You will have to,” said I, leaning back my head. + +She must have caught a relenting note in my voice; for what happened I +feel even now a curious shame in noting down. Her other arm flew under +my chin to join its fellow, and holding me a prisoner in my chair, she +bent down and kissed me. She also laid her cheek against mine. + +I am still aware of the indescribable, soft, warm pressure, although she +has gone to bed hours ago. + +I vow that a man must be less a man than a petrified egg to have +repulsed her. The touch of her lips was like the falling of dewy +rose-petals. Her breath was as fragrant as new-mown hay. Her hair +brushing my forehead had the odour of violets. + + +I sent her back to Miss Griggs. She ran out of the room laughing +merrily. She has received plenary absolution for her shameless coquetry +and her profane language. Worse than that she has discovered how to +obtain it in future. The witch has found her witchcraft, and having once +triumphantly exerted her powers, will take the earliest opportunity of +doing so again. I am fallen, both in my own eyes and hers, from my +high estate. Henceforward she will regard me only with good-humoured +tolerance; I shall be to her but a non-felonious Timkins. + +I was an idiot to have kissed her in return. + + +I have not seen her since. I lunched at the club, and paid a formal call +on Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne and my cousin Rosalie, in their sunless house in +Kensington. + +I met a singular lack of welcome. Rosalie gave me a limper hand than +usual, and took an early opportunity of leaving me tete-a-tete with her +mother, who conversed frigidly about the warm weather. The very tea, if +possible, was colder. + +I met Judith by appointment in Kensington Gardens, and walked with her +homewards. I mentioned my chilly reception. + +“My dear man,” she observed--I dislike this apostrophe, which Judith +always uses by way of introduction to an unpleasant remark--“My dear +man, I have no doubt that you have as unsavoury a reputation as any one +in London. You are credited with an establishment like Solomon’s--minus +the respectable counter-balance of the wives, and your devout relatives +are very properly shocked.” + +I said that it was monstrous. Judith retorted that I had brought the +calumny upon myself. + +“But what can I do?” I asked. + +“Board her out with a suburban family, as you should have done from the +first. Even I, who am not strait-laced, consider it highly improper for +you to have her alone with you in the house.” + +“My dear,” said I, “there is Antoinette.” + +“Tush”--or something like it--said Judith. + +“And Stenson. No one seeing Stenson could doubt the irreproachable +propriety of his master.” + +“I really have no patience with you,” said Judith. + +It is hopeless to discuss Carlotta with her. I shall do it no more. + +We sat for a while under the trees, and conversed on rational topics. +She likes her employment with Willoughby. The morning she spends among +blue books and other waste matter at the British Museum, and she devotes +the evening to sorting her information. Willoughby commends her highly. + +“And there is something I know you’ll be very pleased to hear,” she +continued. “Who do you think called on me yesterday? Mrs. Willoughby. +Her husband wants me to spend August and September at a place they +have taken in North Wales, and help him with his new book--as a private +secretary, you know. I said that I never went into society. I must tell +you this was the first time I had seen her. She put her hand on my arm +in the sweetest way in the world and said: ‘I know all about it, my +dear, and that is why I thought I’d come myself as Harold’s ambassador.’ +Wasn’t it beautiful of her?” + +She looked at me and her eyes were filled with tears. + +“Marcus dear, I am not a bad woman, am I?” + +“My dearest,” I answered, very deeply touched, “you are the best woman +in the world. So far from conferring a favour on you, Mrs. Willoughby +has gained for herself the inestimable privilege of your friendship.” + +“Ah!” said Judith, “a man cannot tell what it means.” + +Really men are not such dullard dunderheads as women are pleased +to imagine. I have the most crystalline perception of what Mrs. +Willoughby’s invitation means to Judith. Women appear to find a morbid +satisfaction in the fiction that their sex is actuated by a mysterious +nexus of emotions and motives which the grosser sense of man is +powerless to appreciate. In her heart of hearts it is a prodigious +comfort to a woman to feel herself misunderstood. Even she who is most +perfectly mated, and is intellectually convinced that the difference +of sex is no barrier to his complete knowledge of her, loves to cherish +some little secret bit of her nature, to which _he_, on account of his +masculinity, will be eternally blind. Of course there are dull men who +could not understand a tabbycat or a professional cricketer, let alone +an expert autothaumaturgist--a self-mystery-maker--like a woman. But +an intelligent and painstaking man should find no difficulty in +appreciating what, after all, is merely a point of view; for what women +see from that point of view they are as indiscreet in revealing as a +two-year-old babe. I have confessed before that I do not understand +Judith--that is to say the whole welter of contradictions in which her +ego consists--but that is solely because I have not taken the trouble +to subject her to special microscopic study. Such a scientific analysis +would, I think, be an immodest discourtesy towards any lady of my +acquaintance, especially towards one for whom I bear considerable +affection. It would be as unwarrantable for a decent-minded man to +speculate upon her exact spiritual dimensions as upon those portions +of her physical frame that are hidden beneath her attire. The charm +of human intercourse rests, to a great extent, on the vague, the +deliberately unperceived, the stimulating sense that an individual +possesses more attributes than flash upon the bodily or mental eye. But +this, I say, is deliberate. One knows perfectly well that beneath her +skirts any young woman you please does not melt away into the scaly tail +of a mermaid, but has a pair of ordinary commonplace legs. One knows +that when she has passed through certain well defined experiences in +life, a certain definite range of sentiments must exist behind whatever +mask of facial expression she may choose to adopt. It is sheer nonsense, +therefore, for Judith to say that I cannot enter into her feelings with +regard to Mrs. Willoughby’s invitation. + +I developed this theme very fully to Judith as we sat in Kensington +Gardens and during our subsequent, stroll diagonally through Hyde Park +to the Marble Arch. She listened with great attention, and when I had +finished regarded me in a pitying manner, a smile flickering over her +lips. + +“My dear Marcus,” she said, “there is no man, however humble-minded, who +has not one colossal vanity, his knowledge of women. He, at any rate, +has established the veritable Theory of Women. And we laugh at you, +my good friend, for the more you expound, the more do you reveal your +beautiful and artistic ignorance. Oh, Marcus, the idea of you setting up +as a feminine psychologist.” + +“And pray, why not?” I asked, somewhat nettled. + +“Because you are that dear, impossible, lovable thing known as Marcus +Ordeyne.” + +This was exceedingly pretty of Judith. But really woman is the Eternal +Philistine, as Matthew Arnold has defined the term. Her supreme +characteristic is inconvincibility. I had simply wasted my breath. + + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +August 3d. + +_Etretat, Seine-Injerieure_:--A young fellow on the Casino terrace this +evening caught my eye, looked at me queerly, and passed on. His face, +though unfamiliar, stirred some dormant association. What was it? +The profitless question pestered me for hours. At last, during the +performance at the theatre, I slapped my knee and said aloud, + +“I’ve got it!” + +“What?” asked Carlotta in alarm. + +“A fly,” I answered. Whereat Carlotta laughed, and bent forward to get a +view of the victim. I austerely directed her attention to the stage. It +was a metaphorical fly whose buzzing I had stopped. + +The young fellow was he who had pointed me out in Hyde Park to his +companion, and lightly assured her that I was as mad as a dingo dog. +From the moment after the phrase’s utterance to that of the slapping of +my knee, it had been altogether absent from my mind. Now it haunts me. +It reiterates itself after the manner of a glib phrase. I am glad I am +not in a railway carriage; the cranks would amuse the wheels with it all +night long. As it is, the surf tries to thunder it out on the shingle +just a few yards away from my window. I keep asking myself: why a dingo +dog? If I am mad it is in a gentle, Jaquesian, melancholy manner. I do +not dash at life, rabid and foaming at the mouth. + +I think the idiot simile must have been merely the misuse of language so +common among the half-educated youth of Great Britain. + +Yet when I come to consider my present condition, I have doubts as to my +complete sanity. Here am I, in a little, semi-fashionable French +seaside place, away from my books and my comforts and my habits, as much +interested in its vapid distractions as if the universe held no other +pursuits worth the attention of a rational man. And I have been here a +calendar month. + +To please Carlotta I wear white duck trousers, a pink shirt, and a +yachting-cap. I wired for them to my London tailor and they arrived +within a week. The first time I appeared in the maniacal costume I slunk +from the stony stare of a gendarme, as I was about to ascend the Casino +steps, and hid myself among the fishing-boats lower down on the beach. +Carlotta, however, was delighted and said that I looked pretty. Now I +have grown callous, seeing other fools similarly apparelled. But a +year ago, should I have dreamed it possible for me to strut about a +fashionable _plage_ in white ducks, a pink shirt, and a yachting-cap? +I trow not. They are signs of some sort of madness--whether that of a +Jaques or a dingo dog matters very little. + +Pasquale was the main cause of my taking Carlotta away from London. +He came far too frequently to the house, established far too great a +familiarity with my little girl. She quoted him far too readily. She +is at the impressionable age when young women fall easy victims to +the allurements of a fascinating creature like Pasquale. If he showed +himself in the light of a possible husband for Carlotta, I should have +nothing to say. I should give the pair my paternal benediction. But I +know my Renaissance and I know my Pasquale. Carlotta is merely a new +sensation--that’s all he seems to live for, the delectable scoundrel. +But I am not going to have her heart broken by any cinquecento wolf in +Poole’s clothing. I assume that Carlotta has a heart, even if she is not +possessed of a soul. As to the latter I am still in doubt. At all events +I resolved to withdraw Carlotta from his influence, put her in fresh +surroundings, and allow her to mix more freely among men and women, so +as to divert and possibly improve her mind. + +I perceive that Carlotta is becoming an occupation. Well, she is +quite as profitable as collecting postage-stamps, or golf, or amateur +photography. + +I have spent a pleasant month in this little place. It is the mouth of +a gorge in the midst of a cliff-bound coast. The bay, but a quarter of a +mile in sweep, is shut in at each end by a projecting wall of cliff cut +by a natural arch. Half the shingle beach is given up to fisherfolk and +their boats and tarred Noah’s arks where they keep their nets. The +other half suddenly rises into a digue or terrace on which is built a +primitive casino, and below the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are +staying at the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There +are no carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, +an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and +scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one’s passage. +Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the main building. I +inhabit the annexe, sleeping in a quaint, clean, bare little chamber +with a balconied window that looks over the Noah’s Arks and the +fishing-smacks and fisherfolk, away out to sea. This morning as I lay in +bed I saw our Channel fleet lie along the arc of the horizon. + +Antoinette dwells in continuous rapture at being in France again. +Carlotta assures me that the smile does not leave her great red face +even as she sleeps of nights. It is a little jest between us. She +peeped in once to see. The good soul has filled herself up with French +conversation as a starving hen gorges herself with corn. She has scraped +acquaintance with every washerwoman, fish-wife, _marchande_, bathing +woman and domestic servant on the beach. She is on intimate terms with +the whole male native population. When the three of us happen to walk +together it is a triumphal progress of bows and grins and nods. At +first I thought it was I for whom this homage was intended. I was soon +undeceived. It was Antoinette. She loves to parade Carlotta before +her friends. I came upon her once entertaining an admiring audience in +Carlotta’s presence with a detailed description of that young woman’s +physical perfections--a description which was marked by a singular +lack of reticence. The time of her glory is the bathing hour, when she +accompanies Carlotta from her cabin to the water’s edge, divests her of +_peignoir_ and _espadrilles_, but before revealing her to fashionable +Etretat, casts a preliminary glance around, as who should say: “Prepare +all men and women for the dazzling goddess I am about to unveil.” + Carlotta is undoubtedly bewitching in her bathing costume, and enjoys a +little triumph of beauty. People fall into a natural group in order to +look at her, while I, sitting on a camp-stool in my white ducks and +pink shirt and smoking a cigarette, cannot repress a complacent pride +of ownership. I do not object to her flicking her wet fingers at me when +she comes dripping out of the sea; and I do not even reproach her when +she puts her foot upon my sartorially immaculate knee, to show me a +pebble-cut on her glistening pink sole. + +Her conduct has been exemplary. I have allowed her to make the +acquaintance of two or three young fellows, her partners at the Casino +dances, and she walks up and down the terrace with them before meals. I +have forbidden her, under penalty of immediate return to London and +of my eternal displeasure, to mention the harem at Alexandretta. Young +fellows are gifted with a genius for misapprehension. She is an ordinary +young English lady, an orphan (which is true), and I am her guardian. +Of course she looks at them with imploring eyes, and pulls them by the +sleeve, and handles the lappels of their coats, and admits them to terms +of the frankest intimacy; but I can no more change these characteristics +than I can alter the shape of her body. She is the born coquette. Her +delighted conception of herself is that she is the object of every man’s +admiration. I noticed her this morning playing a tune with her fingers +on the old bathing-man’s arm, as he was preparing to take her into the +water, and I saw his mahogany face soften. In her indescribable childish +way she would coquet with a tax-collector or a rag-and-bone man or the +Archbishop of Canterbury. But she has committed no grave indiscretion, +and I am sufficiently her lord and master to exact obedience. + +I pretend, however, to be at her beck and call, and it is a delight to +minister to her radiant happiness--to feel her lean on my arm and hear +her cooing voice say: + +“You are so good. I should like to kiss you.” + +But I do not allow her to kiss me. Never again. + + +“Seer Marcous, let us go to the little horses.” + +She has a consuming passion for _petits chevaux_. I speak sagely of the +evils of gambling. She laughs. I weakly take lower ground. + +“What is the good? You have no money.” + +“Oh-h! But only two francs,” she says, holding out her hand. + +“Not one. Yesterday you lost.” + +“But to-day I shall win. I want to give you something I saw in a shop. +Oh, a beautiful thing.” Then I feel a hand steal into the pocket of my +dinner jacket where I carry loose silver for this very purpose, just +as a lover of horses carries lumps of sugar for the nose of a favourite +pony, and immediately it is withdrawn with a cry of joy and triumph, and +she skips back out of my reach. Then she takes my arm and leads me from +the sweet night-air into the hot little room with its crowd around the +nine gyrating animals. + +“I shall put it on 5. I always put on 5. He is a nice, clean, white, +pretty horse.” + +She stakes two francs, watches the turn in a tense agony of excitement; +she wins, comes running to me with sixteen francs clutched tight in her +hand. + +“See. I said I should win.” + +“Come away then and be happy.” + +But she makes a protesting grimace, and before I can stop her, runs back +to stake again on 5. In twenty minutes she is ruined and returns to me +wearing an expression of abject misery. She is too desolate even to try +the fortune of the dinner-jacket pocket. I take her outside and restore +her to beatitude with grenadine syrup and soda-water. She rejects the +straws. With her elbows on the marble table, the glass held in both +hands, she drinks sensuously, in little sips. + +And I, Marcus Ordeyne, sit by watching her, a most contented philosopher +of forty. A dingo dog could not be so contented. That young fellow, I +unhesitatingly assert, must be the most brainless of his type. I suffer +fools gladly, as a general rule, but if I see much of this one I shall +do him some injury. + + +After dejeuner we strolled to the top of the west cliff and lay on the +thick dry grass. The earth has never known a more perfect afternoon. A +day of turquoise and diamond. + +The air itself was diaphanous blue. Below us the tiny place slumbered in +the sunshine; scarcely a sign of life save specks of washer-women on the +beach bending over white patches which we knew were linen spread out to +dry. The ebb-tide lapped lazily on the shingle, where the sea changed +suddenly from ultramarine to a fringe of feathery white. A white sail +or two flecked the blue of the bay. A few white wisps of cirrus gleamed +above our heads. Around us, on the cliff-tops, the green pastures and +meadows and, farther inland, the cornfields stacked in harvest, and +great masses of trees. Lying on our backs, between sea and sky, we +seemed utterly alone. Carlotta and I were the sole inhabitants of the +earth. I dreamily disintegrated caramels from their sticky tissue-paper +wrappings for Carlotta’s consumption. + +After a while unconquerable drowsiness crept over me; and a little +later I had an odd sense of perfect quietude. I was lying amid moss and +violets. In a languorous way I wondered how my surroundings had changed, +and at last I awoke to find my head propped on Carlotta’s lap and +shaded by her red parasol, while she sat happy in full sunshine. I was +springing from this posture of impropriety when she laughed and laid +restraining hands on my shoulders. + +“No. You must not move. You look so pretty. And it is so nice. I put +your head there so that it should be soft. You have been sound asleep.” + +“I have also been abominably impolite,” said I. “I humbly beg your +pardon, Carlotta.” + +“Oh, I am not cross,” she laughed. Then still keeping her hands on me, +she settled her limbs into a more comfortable position. + +“There! Now I can play at being a good little Turkish wife.” She +fashioned into a fan the _Matin_ newspaper, which I had bought for the +luxurious purpose of not reading, and fanned me. “That is what Ayesha +used to do to Hamdi. And Ayesha used to tell him stories. But my lord +does not like his slave’s stories.” + +“Decidedly not,” said I. + +I have heard much of Ayesha, a pretty animal organism who appears to +have turned her elderly husband into a doting fool. I am beginning to +have a contempt for Hamdi Effendi. + +“They are what you call improper, eh?” she laughed, referring to the +tales. “I will sing you a Turkish song which you will not understand.” + +“Is it a suitable song?” + +“Kim bilir--who knows?” said Carlotta. + +She began a melancholy, crooning, guttural ditty; but broke off +suddenly. + +“Oh! but it is stupid. Like the Turkish dancing. Oh, everything +in Alexandretta was stupid! Sometimes I think I have never seen +Alexandretta--or Ayesha--or Hamdi. I think I always am with you.” + +This must be so, as of late she has spoken little of her harem life; she +talks chiefly of the small daily happenings, and already we have a store +of common interests. The present is her whole existence; the past but +a confused dream. The odd part of the matter is that she regards her +position with me as a perfectly natural one. No stray kitten adopted by +a kind family could have less sense of obligation, or a greater faith +in the serene ordering of the cosmos for its own private and peculiar +comfort. When I asked her a while ago what she would have done had +I left her on the bench in the Embankment Gardens, she shrugged her +shoulders and answered, as she had done before, that either she would +have died or some other nice gentleman would have taken care of her. + +“Do you think nice gentlemen go about London looking for homeless little +girls?” I asked on that occasion. + +“All gentlemen like beautiful girls,” she replied, which brought us to +an old argument. + +This afternoon, however, we did not argue. The day forbade it. I lay +with my head on Carlotta’s lap, looking up into the deep blue, and +feeling a most curious sensation of positive happiness. My attitude +towards life has hitherto been negative. I have avoided more than I have +sought. I have not drunk deep of life because I have been unathirst. To +me-- + + “To stand aloof and view the fight + Is all the pleasure of the game.” + +My interest even in Judith has been of a detached nature. I have been +like Faust. I might have said: + + _“Werd’ ich zum Augenblicke sagen + Werweile doch! Du bist so schon!_ + +Then may the devil take me and do what he likes with me!” + +I have never had the least inclination to apostrophise the moment in +this fashion and request it to tarry on account of its exceeding charm. +Never until this afternoon, when the deep summer enchantment of the +turquoise day was itself ensorcelised by the witchery of a girl’s +springtide. + +“You have three, four, five--oh, such a lot of grey hairs,” said +Carlotta, looking down on my reclining head. + +“Many people have grey hair at twenty,” said I. + +“But I have none.” + +“You are not yet twenty, Carlotta.” + +“Do you think I will have them then? Oh, it would be dreadful. No one +would care to have me.” + +“And I? Am I thus the object of every one’s disregard?” + +“Oh, you--you are a man. It is right for a man. It makes him look wise. +His wife says, ‘Behold, my husband has grey hair. He has wisdom. If I am +not good he will beat me. So I must obey him.”’ + +“She wouldn’t run off with a good-for-nothing scamp of two-and-twenty?” + +“Oh, no-o,” said Carlotta. “She would not be so wicked.” + +“I am glad,” said I, “that you think a sense of conjugal duty is an +ineradicable element of female nature. But suppose she fell in love with +the young scamp?” + +“Men fall in love,” she replied sagely. “Women only fall in love in +stories--Turkish stories. They love their husbands.” + +“You amaze me,” said I. + +“Ye-es,” said Carlotta. + +“But in England, a man wants a woman to love him before he marries her.” + +“How can she?” asked Carlotta. + +This was a staggering question. + +“I don’t know,” said I, “but she dus.” + +“Then before I marry a man in England I must love him? But I shall die +without a husband!” + +“I don’t think so,” said I. + +“I must begin soon,” said Carlotta, with a laugh. + +A sinuous motion of her serpentine young body enabled her to bend her +face down to mine. + +“Shall I love Seer Marcous? But how shall I know when I am in love?” + +“When you appreciate the exceeding impropriety of discussing the matter +with your humble servant,” I replied. + +“When a girl is in love she does not speak about it?” + +“No, my dear. She lets concealment like a worm i’ the bud feed on her +damask cheek.” + +“Then she gets ugly?” + +“That’s it,” I answered. “You keep on looking in the glass, and when you +perceive you are hideous then you’ll know you are in love.” + +“But when I am so ugly you will not want me,” she objected. “So it is no +use falling in love with you.” + +“You have a more logical mind than I imagined,” said I. + +“What is a logical mind?” asked Carlotta. + +“It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unreason whereby +true happiness is vivified.” + +“I do not understand,” she said. + +“I should be vastly surprised if you did,” I laughed. + +“Would you like me to marry and go away and leave you?” asked Carlotta, +after a long pause. + +“I suppose,” I said with a sigh, “that some tin-pot knight will drive +up one of these days to the castle in a hansom-cab and carry off my +princess.” + +“Then you’ll be sorry?” + +“My dear,” I answered, “do not let us discuss such gruesome things on an +afternoon like this.” + +“You would like better for me to go on playing at being your Turkish +wife?” + +“Infinitely,” said I. + + +Alas! The day is sped. I have asked the fleeting moment to tarry, and it +laughed, and shook its gossamer wings at me, and flew by on its mad race +into eternity. + + +As we lay, a cicada set up its shrilling quite close to us. I slipped my +head from Carlotta’s lap and idly parted the rank grass in search of the +noisy intruder, and by good luck I found him. I beckoned Carlotta, who +glided down, and there, with our heads together and holding our breath, +we watched the queerest little love drama imaginable. Our cicada stood +alert and spruce, waving his antenna with a sort of cavalier swagger, +and every now and then making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the +top of a blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet--a most reserved, +discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo’s +serenade. When he sang she put her head to one side and moved as if +uncertain whether to descend from her balcony. When he stopped, which +he did at frequent intervals, being as it were timorous and tongue-tied, +she took her foot from the ladder and waited, at first patiently and +then with an obvious air of boredom. Messer Romeo made a hop forward and +vibrated; Juliet grew tremulous. Alarmed at his boldness he halted and +made a hop back; Juliet looked disappointed. At last another cicada set +up a louder note some yards away and, without a nod or a sign, Juliet +skipped off into space, leaving the most disconsolate little Romeo of +a grasshopper you ever beheld. He gave vent to a dismal failure of a +vibration and hopped to the foot of the faithless lady’s bower. + +Carlotta broke into a merry laugh and clapped her hands. + +“I am so glad.” + +“She is the most graceless hussy imaginable,” I cried. “There was he +grinding his heart out for her, and just because a more brazen-throated +scoundrel came upon the scene she must needs leave our poor friend in +the lurch. She has no more heart than my boot, and she will come to a +bad end.” + +“But he was such a fool,” retorted my sage damsel, with a flash of +laughter in her dark eyes. “If he wanted her, why didn’t he go up and +take her?” + +“Because he is a gentleman, a cicada of fine and delicate feeling.” + +“_Hou!_” laughed Carlotta. “He was a fool. It served him right. She grew +tired of waiting.” + +“You believe, then,” said I, “in marriage by capture?” + +I explained and discoursed to her of the matrimonial habits of the +Tartar tribes. + +“Yes,” said Carlotta. “That is sense. And it must be such fun for the +girl. All that, what you call it?--wooing?--is waste of time. I like +things to happen, quick, quick, one after the other--or else--” + +“Or else what?” + +“To do nothing, nothing but lie in the sun, like this afternoon.” + +“Yes,” said I dreamily, after I had again thrown myself by her side. +“Like this afternoon.” + + +I sit at my window and look out upon the strip of beach, the hauled-up +fishing boats and the nets hung out to dry looming vague in the +starlight, and I hear the surf’s rhythmical moan a few yards beyond; +and it beats into my ears the idiot phrase that has recurred all the +evening. + +But why should I be mad? For filling my soul with God’s utmost glory of +earth and sea and sky? For filling my heart with purest pleasure in +the intimate companionship of fresh and fragrant maidenhood? For giving +myself up for once to a dream of sense clouded by never a thought that +was not serenely fair? + +For feeling young again? + + +I shall read myself to sleep with _La Dame de Monsoreau_, which I have +procured from the circulating library in the Rue Alphonse Karr--(the +literary horticulturist is the genius loci and the godfather of my +landlady)--and I will empty flagons with Pere Gorenflot and ride on +errands of life and death with Chicot, prince of jesters, and walk +lovingly between the valiant Bussy and Henri Quatre. By this, if by +nothing else, I recognise the beneficence of the high gods--they have +given us tired men Dumas. + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +September 30th. + +Something is wrong with Antoinette. The dinner she served up this +evening was all but uneatable. Something is wrong with Stenson, who has +taken to playing his lugubrious hymn-tunes on the concertina while I +am in the house; I won’t have it. Something is wrong with the cat. He +wanders round the house like a lost soul, sniffing at everything. This +evening he actually jumped onto the dinner-table, looked at me out of +his one eye, in which all the desolation of two was concentrated, and +miaowed heart-rendingly in my face. Something is wrong with the house, +with my pens which will not write, with my books which have the air of +dry bones in a charnel-house, with the MS. of my History of Renaissance +Morals, which stands on the writing-table like a dusty monument to the +futility of human endeavour. Something is wrong with me. + +Something, too, is wrong with Judith, who has just returned from her +stay with the Willoughbys. I have been to see her this evening and found +her of uncertain temper, and inclined to be contradictious. She accused +me of being dull. I answered that the autumn world outside was drenched +with miserable rain. How could man be sprightly under such conditions? + +“In this room,” said Judith, “with its bright fire and drawn curtains +there is no miserable rain, and no autumn save in our hearts.” + +“Why in our hearts?” I asked. + +“How you peg one down to precision,” said Judith, testily. “I wish I +were a Roman Catholic.” + +“Why?” + +“I could go into a convent.” + +“You had much better go to Delphine Carrere,” said I. + +“I have only been back a day, and you want to get rid of me already?” + she cried, using her woman’s swift logic of unreason. + +“I want you to be happy and contented, my dear Judith.” + +“H’m,” she said. + +Her slipper dangling as usual from the tip of her foot fell to the +ground. I declare I was only half conscious of the accident as my mind +was deep in other things. + +“You don’t even pick up my slipper,” she said. + +“Ten thousand pardons,” I exclaimed, springing forward. But she had +anticipated my intention. We remained staring into the fire and saying +nothing. As she professed to be tired I went away early. + +At the front door of the mansions, finding I had left my umbrella +behind, I remounted the stairs, and rang Judith’s bell. After a while +I saw her figure through the ground-glass panel approach the door, but +before she opened it, she turned out the light in the passage. + +“Marcus!” she cried, rather excitedly; and in the dimness of the +threshold her eyes looked strangely accusative of tears. “You have come +back!” + +“Yes,” said I, “for my umbrella.” + +She looked at me for a moment, laughed, clapped her hands to her throat, +turned away sharply, caught up my umbrella, and putting it into my hands +and thrusting me back shut the door in my face. In great astonishment I +went downstairs again. What is wrong with Judith? She said this evening +that all men are cruel. Now, I am a man. Therefore I am cruel. A perfect +syllogism. But how have I been cruel? + +I walked home. There is nothing so consoling to the depressed man as the +unmitigated misery of a walk through the London rain. One is not +mocked by any factitious gaiety. The mind is in harmony with the sodden +universe. It is well to have everything in the world wrong at one and +the same time. + + +I have changed my drenched garments for dressing-gown and slippers. I +find on my writing-table a letter addressed in a round childish hand. +It is from Carlotta, who for the last fortnight has been staying in +Cornwall with the McMurrays. I have known few fortnights so long. In +a ridiculous schoolboy way I have been counting the days to her +return--the day after to-morrow. + +The letter begins: “Seer Marcous dear.” The spelling is a little jest +between us. The inversion is a quaint invention of her own. “Mrs. +McMurray says, can you spare me for one more week? She wants to teach me +manners. She says I have shocked the top priest here--oh, you call him +a vikker--now I do remember--because I went out for a walk with a little +young pretty priest without a hat, and because it rained I put on his +hat and the vikker met us. But I did not flirt with the little priest. +Oh, no! I told him he must not make love to me like the young man from +the grocer’s. And I told him that if he wrote poetry you would beat him. +So I have been very good. And darling Seer Marcous, I want to come back +very much, but Mrs. McMurray says I must stay, and she is going to have +a baby and I am very happy and good, and Mr. McMurray says funny things +and makes me laugh. But I love my darling Seer Marcous best. Give +Antoinette and Polifemus (the one-eyed cat) two very nice kisses for me. +And here is one for Seer Marcous from his + +“CARLOTTA.” + + +How can I refuse? But I wish she were here. + + +31st October. + +I did not sleep last night. I have done no work to-day. The Renaissance +has receded into a Glacial Epoch wherein, as far as its humanity is +concerned, I have not a tittle of interest. I sought refuge in the +club. Why should an old sober University club be such a haven of unrest? +Ponting, an opinionated don of Corpus, seated himself at my luncheon +table, and discoursed on political economy and golf. I manifested a +polite ignorance of these high matters. He assured me that if I studied +the one and played at the other, I should be physically and mentally +more robust; whereupon he thumped his narrow chest, and put on a scowl +of intellectuality. I fear that Ponting, like most of the men here, +studies golf and plays at political economy. In serener moments I suffer +Ponting gladly. But to-day his boast that he had done the course at +Westward Ho! in seven, or seventeen, or seventy--how on earth should +I remember?--left me cold, and his crude economics interfered with my +digestion. + +Strolling forlornly down Piccadilly I, came face to face with my +sad-coloured Cousin Rosalie in a sad-coloured gown. She gave me a hasty +nod and would have passed on, but I arrested her. Her white face was +turned piteously upward and from her expressionless eyes flashed a +glance of fear. I felt myself in a brutal mood. + +“Why,” I asked, “are you avoiding me as if I were a pestilence?” + +She murmured that she was not avoiding me, but was in a hurry. + +“I don’t believe it,” said I. “People have been telling you that I am +a vile, wicked man who does unspeakable things, and like a good little +girl you are afraid to talk to me. Tell people, the next time you see +them, with my compliments, that they are malevolent geese.” + +I lifted my hat and relieving Rosalie of my terrifying presence, walked +away in dudgeon. I felt abominably and unreasonably angry. I bethought +me of my Aunt Jessica, whom I held responsible for her niece’s +behaviour. A militant mood prompted a call. After twenty minutes in +a hansom I found myself in her drawing-room. She was alone, the girls +being away on country-house visits. Her reception was glacial. I +expressed the hope that the yachting cruise had been a pleasant one. + +“Exceedingly pleasant,” snapped my aunt. + +“I trust Dora is well,” said I, keeping from my lips a smile that might +have hinted at the broken heart. + +“Very well, thank you.” + +As I do not enjoy a staccato conversation, I remained politely silent, +inviting her by my attitude to speak. + +“I rather wonder, Marcus,” she said at last, “at your referring to +Dora.” + +“Indeed? May I ask why?” + +“May I speak plainly?” + +“I beseech you.” + +“I have heard of you at Etretat with your ward.” + +“Well?” I asked. + +“_Verbum sap_,” said my aunt. + +“And you have let Mrs. Ralph and Rosalie know of my summer holiday +and given them to understand that I am a monster of depravity. I am +exceedingly obliged to you. I have just met Rosalie in the street, and +she shrank from me as if I were the reincarnation of original sin.” + +“I have no doubt that in her innocent mind you are,” replied my Aunt +Jessica. + +The indulgent smile wherewith she used to humour my eccentricities had +gone, and her face was hard and unpitying. + +“I am glad I have such charitable-minded relations,” said I. + +“I am a woman of the world,” my aunt retorted, “but I think that when +such things are flaunted in the face of society they become immoral.” + +I rose. “Do evil by stealth--as much as you like,” said I, “but blush to +find it fame.” + +With a gesture my aunt assented to the proposition. + +“On the other hand,” said I, heatedly, “I have been doing a certain +amount of good both by stealth and openly, and I naturally blush with +indignation to find it accounted infamous.” + +I looked narrowly into my aunt’s eyes and I read in them entire +disbelief in my protest. I swear, if I had proved my innocence beyond +the shadow of doubt, that woman would have been grievously disappointed. + +“Good-bye,” said I. + +She shook hands frigidly and turned to ring the bell. A moment later--I +really believe she was moved by a kindly impulse--she intercepted me at +the door. + +“I know you are odd and quixotic, Marcus,” she said in a softer tone. “I +hope you will do nothing rash.” + +“What do you mean?” I asked in a white heat of unreasonable rage. + +“I hope you won’t try to repair things by marrying this--young person.” + +“To make an honest woman of her, do you mean?” I asked grimly. + +“Yes,” said my aunt. + +Then suddenly the Devil leaped into me and stirred all the elements of +unrest, anger, and longing together in a cauldron which I suppose was my +heart. The result was explosion. I made a step forward with raised hands +and my aunt recoiled in alarm. + +“By heaven!” I cried, “I would give the soul out of my body to marry +her!” + +And I stumbled out of the house like a blind man. + + +From that moment of dazzling revelation till now I have nursed this +infinite desire. To say that I love Carlotta is to express Niagara in +terms of a fountain. I crave her with everything vital in heart and +brain. She is an obsession. The scent of her hair is in my nostrils, +the cooing dove-notes of her voice murmur in my ears, I shut my eyes +and feel the rose-petals of her lips on my cheek, the witchery of her +movements dances before my eyes. + +I cannot live without her. Until to-day the house was desolate enough--a +ghostly shell of a habitation. Henceforward, without her my very life +will be void. My heart has been crying for her these two weeks and I +knew it not. Now I know. I could stand on my balcony and lift up my +hands toward the south where she abides, and lift up my voice, and cry +for her passionately aloud. There is no infernal foolishness in the +world that I could not commit tonight. The maddest dingo dog, if he +could appreciate my state of being, would learn points in insanity. + + +It is two o’clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves Epictetus, +who might be expected to throw cold water on the most burning fever +of the mind. I have not read far before I come across this consolatory +apophthegm: “The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a +beginner in philosophy.” He is mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I +throw his book across the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner +in philosophy. No armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail +against Carlotta. I have no strength to smite. I am helpless. + +But by heaven! Am I mad? Is not this on the contrary the sanest hour +of my existence? I have lived like an automaton for forty years, and +I suddenly awake to find myself a man. I don’t care whether I sleep or +not. I feel gloriously, exultingly young. I am but twenty. As I have +never lived, I have never grown old. Life translates itself into +music--a wild “Invitation to the Waltz” by some Archangel Weber. I laugh +out loud. Polyphemus, who has been regarding me with his one bantering +eye from Carlotta’s corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and +grotesquely curvets round the room in a series of impish hops. Heigh, +old boy? Do the pulsations of the music throb in your veins, too? Come +along and let us make a night of it. To the Devil with sleep. We’ll go +together down to the cellar and find a bottle of Pommery, and we will +drink to Life and Youth and Love and the Splendour and the Joy thereof. + +He utters a little cry of delight and frisks around me. In the blackness +of the cellar his one eye gleams like a star and he purrs unutterable +rapture. My hand passed over his back produces a shower of sparks. +We return up the silent stairs, I carry a bottle of Pommery and a +milkjug--for you shall revel, too, Polyphemus; and as I have forgotten +to bring a saucer, you shall drink, as no cat has drunk before, from +an old precious platter bearing the arms of the Estes of Ferrara--over +which Lucrezia Borgia laughed when the world was young. It is a pity +cats don’t drink champagne. I would have made you to-night as drunk as +Bacchus. We drink, and in the stillness the glouglou of his tongue forms +a bass to the elfin notes of the Pommery in the soda-water tumbler. + +Ha! Twin purveyors of the milk of paradise, I wonder like Omar what +you buy one-half so precious as the stuff you sell. Motor-cars for Mrs. +Pommery and cakes for the little Grenos? I do not like to regard you as +common humans addicted to silk hats and umbrellas and the other vices of +respectability. Ye are rather beneficent demigods, Castor and Pollux of +the vine, dream entities who pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the +liquid gold of life’s joyousness. + +A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would bring her here +tomorrow night. But no. What is a week? Leaden-footed, it is an +eternity; but winged with the dove’s iris it is a mere moment. Besides, +I must accustom myself to my youth. I must investigate its follies, +I must learn the grammar of its wisdom. We’ll take counsel together, +Polyphemus, how to turn these chambers, fusty with decayed thought, into +a bridal bower radiant and fragrant with innumerable loves. Let us drink +again to her witchery. It is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly +Twins that foams against my lips. I would give the soul out of my body +to marry her, did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would +pledge the soul of the universe for a kiss. + +I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He +continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid +over his cups--which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be +shaken into enthusiasm. + +“I care not,” I cry, “for man or devil, Polyphemus. + + _‘Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu + Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!’_ + +You may say that it’s wrong, that the first line is a syllable short, +and that Triboulet said _‘colere’_ instead of _amour_. You always were +a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say _amour_-love, do you hear? I’ll +translate, if you like: + + ‘Now am I mighty, and my love of fire + To-night goes even with a god’s desire.’ + +Yes; I’ll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your hind +claws, Polyphemus.” + +There! Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle. The wine smells +of hyacinth. It is a revelation. Her hair smells of violets, but it is +the delicate odour of hyacinth that came from her bare young arms +when she clasped them round my neck; _et sa peau, on dirait du satin_. +Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery and her laughter and +her youth, and I drink Carlotta. + + _“Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?”_ + +To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I +visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of my glass into his +distended jaws. He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in +my chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter. + + +October 2d. + +I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened at six +o’clock and crept shivering to bed. I realise that Pommery and Greno +are not demi-gods at all, but mere commercial purveyors of a form of +alcohol, a quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed +tom-cat as boon companion, at two o’clock in the morning: + +But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night, so much the +better. I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when the inevitable +is the crown and joy of earthly things. For in sober truth I love her +infinitely. + + +October 6th. + +She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been devising a welcome. +The good soul has filled the house with flowers, and, usurping Stenson’s +functions, has polished furniture and book backs and silver and has hung +fresh blinds and scrubbed and scoured until I am afraid to walk about +or sit down lest I should tarnish the spotless brightness of my +surroundings. + +“You have forgotten one thing, Antoinette,” I remarked, satirically. +“You have omitted to strew the front steps with rose-leaves.” + +“I would cover them with my body for the dear angel to walk upon as she +entered,” said Antoinette. + +“That would scarcely be rose-leaves,” I murmured. + +Antoinette laughed. “And Monsieur then! He is just as bad. Has he not +put new curtains in the room of Mademoiselle, and a new toilette table, +and a set of silver brushes and combs and I know not what, as for the +toilette of a princess? And the eiderdown in pink satin? _Regardez-moi +ca!_ Monsieur can no longer say that it is I alone who spoil the dear +angel.” + +“Monsieur,” said I, at a loss for a better retort, “will say whatever +Monsieur pleases.” + +“It is indeed the right of Monsieur,” said Antoinette, respectfully, but +with a twinkle in her eye not devoid of significance. + +Does the crafty old woman suspect? Perhaps my preparations for +Carlotta’s return have been inordinate, for they have extended to the +transformation of the sitting-room downstairs into a lady’s boudoir. +I have been busy this happy week. But what care I? It will not be +long before I have to say to her, “Antoinette, there is going to be a +wedding.” + +I must be on my guard lest, in the transports of her joy, she clasp me +to her capacious bosom! + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +October 7th. + +At Paddington I came upon Sebastian Pasquale lounging about the arrival +platform. As I had not seen or heard of him since the end of July I had +concluded that he was wandering as usual over the globe. He greeted me +effusively, holding out both hands in his foreign fashion. + +“My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of meeting you here? What +wind blows you to Paddington?” + +“I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express.” + +“The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is she doing at Plymouth?” + +In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his watch. + +“By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch my train to Ealing. +I was just killing time about the station. I like seeing a train +come in--the gleam and smoke and rush and whirr of the evil-looking +thing--and the sudden metamorphosis of its sleek sides into mouths +belching forth humanity. I think of Hades. This, by the way, isn’t a bad +representation of it--the up-to-date Hades. They’ve got a railway bridge +now across the Styx, and Charon has a gold band around his cap, and this +might be the arrival platform of the damned souls.” + +“You forget,” said I, “that it is the arrival platform of Carlotta.” + +He threw back his head and laughed boyishly. + +“Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the ‘Earth, Hades +and Olympus Railway’ if you like. I’m off on a branch line to meet a +beauteous duchessa at Ealing--oh, an authentic one, I assure you.” + +“Why should I doubt it?” said I. + +Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta’s luggage, came up +and touched his hat. + +“Train just signalled, sir.” + +Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his watch. + +“I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one. I’ll drop in soon +and pay my respects. I am only just back in London, you know. _A +rivederci._” + +He waved me farewell and hurried off. The arrival of the train, the +exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her sidle up against me once +more in the cab while she poured out her story, and the subsequent +gaiety of the evening banished Pasquale from my mind. But it is odd that +I should have met him at Paddington. + +We parted on the landing to dress for dinner. A moment afterwards there +was a beating at my door. I opened it to behold Carlotta, in a glow of +wondering delight, brandishing a silver-backed brush in one hand and the +hand-mirror in the other. + +“Oh, my darling Seer Marcous! For me? All that for me?” + +“No. It is for Antoinette,” said I. + +“Oh-h!” + +She laughed and pulled me by the arm into her room and shut the door. + +“Oh, everything is beautiful, beautiful, and I shall die if I do not +kiss you.” + +“You must be kept alive at all hazards,” I laughed; and this time I did +not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An +inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a +passionate desire to gentleness. + +“There,” said I, after she had released herself and flown to open the +drawers of the new toilette table, where lay some odds and ends of +jewelry I had purchased for her. “You have been saved from extinction. +The next deadly peril is hunger. I give you a quarter of an hour.” + +She came down to dinner in a low-necked frock, wearing the necklace +and bangle; and, child that she is, in her hand she carried the +silver-backed mirror. I believe she has taken it to bed with her, as +a seven-year-old does its toy. She certainly kept it by her all the +evening and admired herself therein unashamedly like the traditional +Lady from the Sea. Once, desiring to show me the ravishing beauty of a +turquoise pendant, she bent her neck forward, as I sat, so as to come +within reach of my nearsighted eyes (it is a superstition of hers that +I am nearly blind without my glasses), and quite naturally slid onto +my knee. She has the warm russet complexion that suits her heavy bronze +hair, and there is a glow beneath the satin of her neck and arms. And +she is fragrant--I recognise it now--of hyacinths. The world can hold +nothing more alluring to the senses of man. My fingers that held +the turquoise trembled as they chanced to touch her--but she was all +unconcerned. Nay, further--she gazed into the mirror-- + +“It makes me look so white--oh, there was a girl at Bude who had a gold +locket--and it lay upon her bones--you could count them. I am glad I +have no bones. I am quite soft--feel.” + +She clasped my fingers and pressed their tips into the firm young flesh +below her throat. + +“Yes,” said I, with some huskiness in my voice, “your turquoise can +sleep there very pleasantly. See, I will kiss it to bring you good +luck.” + +She cooed with pleasure. “I don’t think any one kissed the locket of the +girl at Bude. She was too thin. And too old; she must have been thirty! +Now,” she added, lifting up the locket, “you will kiss the place, too, +where it is to lie.” + +I looked for a moment into her eyes. Seeing me hesitate, they grew +pathetic. + +“Oh-h,” she said, reproachfully. + +I know I am a fool. I know that Pasquale would have hurled his sarcasms +at me. I know that the whole of her deliciousness was mine for the +taking--mine for ever and ever. If I had loved her less passionately +I would have kissed her young throat lightly with a jest. But to have +kissed her thus with such longing as mine behind my lips would have been +an outrage. + +I lifted her to her feet, and rose and turned away, laughing unsteadily. + +“No, my dear,” said I, “that would be--unsuitable.” + +The bathos of the word made me laugh louder. Carlotta, aware that a joke +was in the air, joined in my mirth, and her laughter rang fresh. + +“What is the suitable way of kissing?” + +I took her hand and saluted it in an eighteenth century manner. + +“This,” said I. + +“Oh-h,” said Carlotta. “That is so dull.” She caught up Polyphemus and +buried her face in his fur. “That’s the way I should like to be kissed.” + +“The man you love, my dear,” said I, “will doubtless do it.” + +She made a little grimace. + +“Oh, then, I shall have to wait such a long time.” + +“You needn’t,” said I, taking her hands again and speaking very +seriously. “Can’t you learn to love a man, give him your whole heart and +all your best and sweetest thoughts?” + +“I would marry any nice man if you gave me to him,” she answered. + +“It would not matter who he was? Anyone would do?” + +“Why, of course,” said Carlotta. + +“And any one wanting to marry you could kiss you as you kissed +Polyphemus.” + +“Oh-h, he would have to be nice--not like Mustapha.” + +I turned away with a sigh and lit a cigarette, while Carlotta curled +herself up on the sofa and inspected her face and necklace in the silver +mirror. In a moment she was talking to the cat, who had jumped on her +lap and with arched back was rubbing himself against her. + +Soon the touch of sadness was lost in the happy sight of her and the +happy thought that my house was no longer left to me desolate. We +laughed away the evening. + +But now, sitting alone, I feel empty of soul; like a man stricken with +fierce hunger who, expecting food in a certain place, finds nothing but +a few delicate cakes that mock his craving. + + +October 14th. + +A week has passed. I have spent it chiefly in trying to win her love. + +Is she, after all, only a child, and is this love of mine but a +monstrous passion? + +What is to be done? Life is beginning to be a torture. If I send her +away, I shall eat my heart out. If she stays, fuel is but added to +the fire. Her caressing ways will drive me mad. To repulse her were +brutal--she loves to be fondled; she can scarcely speak to me without +touching me, leaning over me, thus filling me with the sense of her. She +treats me with an affectionate child’s innocence, as if I were sexless. +My happiest time with her is spent in public places, restaurants, and +theatres where her unclouded pleasure is reflected in my heart. + +I am letting her take music lessons with Herr Stuer, who lives close by +in the Avenue Road. Perhaps music may help in her development. + + +October 21st. + +To please her I am accustoming myself to this out-of-door life, which +once I despised so cordially. Pasquale has joined us two or three times. +Last night he gave a dinner in Carlotta’s honour at the Continental. The +ladies of the party have asked her to go to see them. She must have +some society, I suppose, and I must go with her. They belong to the +half smart set, eager to conceal beneath a show of raffishness +their plentiful lack of intellect and their fundamental bourgeois +respectability. In spite of Pasquale’s brilliance and Carlotta’s +rapturous enjoyment I sat mumchance and depressed, out of my element. + +My work is at a standstill, and Carlotta is my life. I fear I am +deteriorating. + +On Judith, whom I have seen once or twice since Carlotta’s return, I +called this afternoon. She is unhappy. Although I have not confessed to +my thraldom, her woman’s wit, I feel sure, has penetrated to the heart +of my mystery. There has been no deep emotion in our intercourse. +Its foundation has been real friendship sweetened with pleasant +sentimentality. And yet jealousy of Carlotta consumes her. Her _amour +propre_ is deeply wounded. She makes me feel as if I had played the part +of a brute. But O Judith, my dear, I have only been a man. “The same +thing,” I fancy I hear her answer. But no. I have never loved a woman, +my dear, in all my life before, and as I made no secret of it, I am +guiltless of anything like betrayal. In due season I will tell you +frankly of the new love; but how can I tell you now? How could I tell +any human being? + +I imagine myself as Panurge, taking counsel with a Pantagruelian friend. +“I am in love with Carlotta and desire to marry her.” “Then marry her,” + says Pantagruel. “But she does not love me.” “Then don’t marry,” says +Pantagruel. “But nay,” urges poor Panurge, “she would marry me according +to any rite, civil or ecclesiastical, to-morrow.” _“Mariez-vous doncques +de par dieu,”_ replies Pantagruel. “But I should be a villain to take +advantage of her innocence and submission.” “Then don’t marry.” “But +I can’t live without her,” says Panurge, desperately. “I am as a man +bewitched. If I don’t marry her I shall waste away with longing.” “Then +marry her in God’s name!” says Pantagruel. And I am no wiser by his +counsel, and I have paraded the complication of my folly before mocking +eyes. + + +October 23d. + +I perceive that the young man of the idiot metaphor was gifted with +piercing acumen. Beneath the Jaquesian melancholy of my temperament he +diagnosed the potentiality of canine rabidness. No rational being is +afflicted with this grotesque concentration of idea, this fierce hot +fury waxing in intensity day by day. + +I must consult a brain specialist. + + +October 25th. + +I went to Judith this afternoon, more to prove the loyalty of my +friendship than to seek comfort from her society. Over tea we discussed +the weather and books and her statistical work. It was dull, but +unembarrassing. The grey twilight crept into the room and there was a +pause in our talk. She broke it by asking, without looking at me: + +“When are we to have an evening together again?” + +“Whenever you like, my dear Judith.” + +“To-morrow?” + +“I am afraid not to-morrow,” said I. + +“Are you doing anything so very particular?” + +“I have arranged to take Carlotta to the Empire.” + +“Oh,” said Judith shortly, and I was left uncomfortable for another +spell of silence. + +“It would be very kind, Marcus, to ask me to accompany you,” she said at +last. + +“Carlotta and myself?” + +“Why not?” + +“My question arose from the stupidity of surprise,” said I. “I thought +you disliked Carlotta.” + +“By no means. I should be glad to make her further acquaintance. Any one +that interests you must also be interesting to me.” + +“In that case,” said I, “your coming will give us both the greatest +possible pleasure.” + +“I haven’t had a merry evening for ever so long.” + +“We will dine somewhere first and have supper afterwards. The whole +gamut of merriment. Toute la lyre. And you shall have,” I added, “some +of your favourite Veuve Cliquot.” + +“It will be charming,” said Judith, politely. + +In fact, politeness has been the dominant note of her attitude to-day, +a sober restraint of manner such as she would adopt when rather tired +towards an ordinary acquaintance. Has she reconciled herself to the +inevitable and taken this Empire frolic as a graceful method of showing +it? I should like to believe so, but the course is scarcely consistent +with that motor of illogic which she is pleased to call her temperament. +I am puzzled. + +Her smile as we parted sent a chill through me, being the smile of a +mask instead of a woman’s face; and it was not the face of Judith. I +don’t anticipate much merriment tomorrow evening. + + +At Carlotta’s suggestion, I have sent a line to Pasquale to ask him to +join us. His gay wit will lend to the entertainment a specious air of +revelry which Carlotta will take as genuine. + +I have often thought lately of the hopeless passion of Alfonso the +Magnanimous of Naples, as set forth by Pope Pius II in his Commentaries; +for I am beginning to take a morbid interest in the unhappy love affairs +of other men and to institute comparisons. If they have lived through +the torment, why should not I? But Alfonso sighed for Lucrezia d’Alagna, +a beautiful chaste statue of ice who loved him; whereas I crave the +warm-blooded thing that is mine for the taking, but no more loves me +than she loves the policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take +her. Something stronger than my passion opposes an adamantine barrier. I +love her with my soul as well as with my body, and my soul cries out for +the soul that the Almighty forgot when endowing her with entity. + +This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly Review. It would +give him great pleasure if I would contribute a Renaissance article, +taking as my text a German, a Russian, and an English attempt to +whitewash the Borgia family. Six months ago the compliment would have +filled me with gratification. To-day what to me are the whitewashed +Borgias or the solemn denizens of the Athenaeum reading-room who will +slumber over my account of the blameless poisonings of this amiable +family? They are vanity and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease. + +As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta in hastily +slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair streaming loose to her +waist, her bare feet flashing pink beneath her night-dress. + +“Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!” + +She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from my +chair. + +“What is the matter?” + +“There is a mouse in my bed.” + +Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the sofa and rubbing his +back against her feet. + +“Take the cat and tell him to kill it,” said I, “and go back to bed at +once.” + +I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with her great eyes full +of innocent reproach. + +“There, take up the cat and go,” I repeated. “You mustn’t come down here +looking like that.” + +“I thought I looked very pretty,” said Carlotta, moving a step nearer. + +I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my paper. + +“You are like a Houri that has been sent away from Paradise for +misbehaviour,” I said. + +She laughed her curious cooing laugh. + +“_Hou!_ Seer Marcous is shocked!” And she ran, away, rubbing +Polyphemus’s nose against her face. + + +I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up his centuries +and mistaking me for a mediaeval saint? Paphnutius for instance, who was +visited by such a seductress. What is the legend? To get rid of her he +burns off his hand, whereupon she falls dead. He prays and she returns +to life and becomes a nun. No, Messer Diavolo, I am not Paphnutius. I +will not maim myself, nor do I want Carlotta to fall dead; and I cannot +pray and effect a pietistic resurrection. I am simply a fool of a modern +man tempted out of his wits, who scarce knows what it is that he speaks +or writes. + +I am not superstitious, but I feel myself to-night on the brink of some +disaster. I walk restlessly about the room. On the mantel-piece are +three photographs in silver frames: Judith, Carlotta, Pasquale. That +which is of mockery in the spirit of each seems to-night to be hovering +round the portraits and to be making sport of me. An autumn gale is +howling among the trees outside, like a legion of lost souls. Listen. +Messer Diavolo himself might be riding by with a whoop of derision. + + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +October 26th. + +I knew something would happen. Messer Diavolo does not ride whooping to +no purpose by the windows of people whom he desires to torment; nor does +he inspire photographs for nothing with an active spirit of mockery. + +We dined at the Trocadero. Carlotta loves the band and the buzz of Babel +and the heavy scents and the clatter and the tumult and the glare of +light; otherwise I should have chosen a discreeter hostelry where the +footfalls of the waiting-men were noiseless and the walls in quiet +shadow, where there was nothing but the mellow talk of friends to +distract the mind from the consideration of exquisite flavours. But in +these palaces of clashing splendour, the stunned brain fails to receive +impressions from the glossopharyngeal nerve, and one eats unthinkingly +like a dog. But this matters little to Carlotta. Perhaps when I was +nineteen it mattered little to me. And to-night, also, it mattered +little, for my mind was preoccupied and a dinner with Lucullus would +have been savourless. + +If the Psalmist cried, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?” what +cry had he at the back of his head to utter concerning woman? Did he +leave her to be implicitly dealt with by Charles Darwin in his “Theory +of Sexual Selection”? Or did he in the good old oriental way regard +her as unimportant in the eyes of the Deity? If the latter, he was a +purblind prophet and missed the very fount of human tears. + +When I looked at Judith, I was smitten with a great pain. She had not +looked so young, so fresh, so fragilely fair for many months. She wore +a dress of corn-flower blue that deepened the violet of her eyes. In the +mass of flax hued thistle-down that is her hair a blue argus butterfly +completed the chord of colour. There was the faintest tinge of pink +in her cheek applied with delicate art. Her dress seemed made of +unsubstantial dream stuff--I believe they call it chiffon--and it +covered her bosom and arms like the spray of a fairy sea. She had the +air of an impalpable Undine, a creation of sea-foam and sea-flower; an +exquisite suggestion of the ethereal which floated beauty, as it were, +into her face. I know little of women, save what these past few grievous +months have taught me; but I know that hours of anxious thought and +desperate hope lay behind this effect of fragile loveliness. The wit of +woman could not have rendered a woman’s body a greater contrast to that +of her rival; and with infinite subtlety she had imbued the contrast +with the deeper significance of rare and spiritual things. I know this +was so. I know it was a challenge, a defiance, an ordeal by combat; and +the knowledge hurt me, so that I felt like a Dathan or Abiram who +had laid hand on the Ark of the Covenant (for the soul of a woman, by +heaven! is a holy thing), and I wished that the earth could open and +swallow me up. + +We sat down to table in the middle of the great room--a quiet corner +on the balcony away from the band is not to Carlotta’s taste--like any +conventional party of four, and at first talked of indifferent matters. +Conciergerie dinner-parties in the Terror always began with a discussion +of the latest cure for megrims, or the most fashionable cut of a panier. +Presently Pasquale who had been talking travel with Judith appealed to +me. + +“What year was it, Ordeyne, that I came home from Abyssinia?” + +“I forget,” said I. “I only remember you presenting me with that hideous +thing hanging in my passage, which you called a dulcimer.” + +_“Gage d’amour?”_ smiled Judith. + +Pasquale laughed and twirled his swaggering moustache. + +“I did get it from a damsel, and that is why I called it a dulcimer, but +she didn’t sing of Mount Abora. I wish I could remember the year.” + +“I think it was in 1894,” said Judith quietly. + +Pasquale, who had been completely unaware of Judith’s existence until +half an hour before, could not repress a stare of polite surprise. + +“I believe you are right. In fact, you are. But how can you tell?” + +“Through the kindness of Sir Marcus,” replied Judith graciously, “you +are a very old acquaintance. I could write you off-hand a nice +little obituary notice with all the adventures--well, I will not say +complete--but with all the dates accurate, I assure you. I have a head +for that sort of thing.” + +“Yes,” I cried, desiring to turn the conversation. “Don’t tell Mrs. +Mainwaring anything you wish forgotten. Facts are her passion. She +writes wonderful articles full of figures that make your head spin, and +publishes them in the popular magazines over the signature of Willoughby +the statistician. Allow me to present to you a statistical ghost.” + +But Pasquale’s subtle Italian brain was paying but half attention to me. +I could read his inferences from Judith’s observations, and I could +tell what she wanted him to infer. I seem to have worn my sensory system +outside instead of inside my skin this evening. + +“Ordeyne,” said he, “you are a pig, and the great-grandfather of pigs--” + +“Foul” cried Carlotta, seizing on an intelligible point of the +conversation. + +“Why didn’t you present me to Mrs. Mainwaring in 1894? I declare I have +thought myself allied to that man for twenty years in bonds of the most +intimate friendship, and he has never so much as mentioned you to me.” + +“Seer Marcous says that Pasquale is a bad lot,” remarked Carlotta, with +an air of sapience, after a sip of orangeade, a revolting beverage which +she loves to drink at her meals. + +Pasquale threw back his handsome head and laughed again like the +chartered libertine he is, and Judith smiled. + +“‘Out of the mouths of babes, etc.,’” said I, apologetically. + +“In all seriousness,” said Pasquale to Judith, “I had no idea that any +one was such a close friend of Ordeyne’s.” + +Judith turned to me, with a graceful gesture of her shoulders. + +“I think we have been close friends, Marcus?” + +“Oh, ye-es,” broke in Carlotta. “Mrs. Mainwaring has the picture of Seer +Marcous in her bedroom, and there is the picture of Mrs. Mainwaring in +our drawing-room. You have not seen it? But yes. You have not recognised +it, Pasquale? Mrs. Mainwaring is so pretty tonight. Much prettier than +the photograph. Yes, you are so pretty. I would like to put you on the +mantel-piece as an ornament instead of the picture.” + +“May I be allowed to endorse Carlotta’s sentiment of appreciation?” I +said, with a view to covering her indiscretion, for I saw a flash of +conjecture in Pasquale’s eyes and a sudden spot of real red in Judith’s +cheeks. She had evidently desired to suggest an old claim on my regard, +but to have it based on such intimate details as the enshrining of my +photograph was not to her fancy. + +“I am vastly beholden to you both,” said Judith, who has a graceful way +of receiving compliments. “But,” turning to Pasquale, “we have travelled +far from Abyssinia.” + +“To Sir Marcus’s mantel-piece. Suppose we stay there.” + +“There is you and me and Mrs. Mainwaring,” said the literal Carlotta, +“and I am the big one in the middle. It was made big--big,” she added, +extending her arms in her exaggerating way. “I was wearing this dress.” + +“Mr. Pasquale and I will have to enlarge our frames, Marcus,” said +Judith, “or we shall be jealous. We shall have to make common cause +together.” + +“We will declare an inoffensive alliance,” laughed Pasquale. + +“Offensive if you like,” said Judith. + +It may have been some effect of the glitter of lights, but I vow I saw +a swift interchange of glances. Pasquale immediately turned to Carlotta +with a jesting remark, and Judith engaged me in conversation on our old +days in Rome. Suddenly she swerved from the topic, and leaning forward, +indicated our companions with an imperceptible motion of her head. + +“Don’t you think,” she said in a low voice, “they are a well-matched +pair? Both young and picturesque; it would solve many things.” + +I glanced round. Carlotta, elbow on the table and chin in hand, was +looking deep into Pasquale’s eyes, just as she has looked into mine. Her +lips had the half-sensuous, half-childish pout provocative of kisses. + +“Do, and I will love you,” I heard her say. + +Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips! Oh, the horrible +fool passion that burns out my soul and brain and reduces me to rave +like a lovelorn early Victorian tailor! Which was worse I know not--the +spasm of jealousy or the spasm of self-contempt that followed it. At +that moment the music ceased suddenly on a loud crashing chord. + +The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, who was enjoying +herself prodigiously. Our three personalities appeared to vibrate +rudely one against the other. I was conscious that Judith read me, that +Pasquale read Judith, that again something telegraphic passed between +them. The waiter offered me partridge. Pasquale quickly turned from +Carlotta to his left-hand neighbour. + +“I think we ought to drink Faust’s health, don’t you?” + +I started. Had I not myself traced the analogy? + +“Faust?” queried Judith at a loss. + +“Our friend Faust opposite me,” said Pasquale, raising his champagne +glass. “Hasn’t he been transformed from the lean and elderly bookworm +into the gay, young gallant about the town? Once one could scarcely drag +him from his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now--has he told you +of his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring?” + +Judith smiled. “Have you been Mephistopheles?” + +“What is Mephistopheles?” asked Carlotta. + +“The devil,” said Pasquale, “who made Sir Marcus young again.” + +“Oh, that’s me,” cried Carlotta, clapping her hands. “He does not read +in big books any longer. Oh, I was so frightened when I first came.” (I +must say she hid her terrors pretty effectually.) “He was so wise, and +always reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty. And now he +is not wise at all, and he said two, three days ago I had made him +twenty-five.” + +“If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear,” Judith remarked in +her most charming manner, “in another year you will have brought him +down to long clothes and a feeding-bottle.” + +Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously. I laughed +too, out of courtesy, at Judith’s bitter sarcasm, and turned the +conversation, but Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast. + +“Here’s to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger every +day.” + +We clinked glasses. Judith sighed when the performance was concluded. + +“That is one of the many advantages of being a man. If you do sell your +soul to the devil you can see that you get proper payment. A woman is +paid in promissory notes, which are dishonoured when they fall due.” + +I contested the proposition. The irony of this peculiarly painful revel +lay in the air of gaiety it seemed necessary to maintain. A miserable +business is civilisation! + +“Did you ever hear of a woman getting youth out of such a bargain?” she +retorted with some vehemence. + +“As women systematically underpay cabmen,” said I, “so do they try to +underpay the devil; and he is one too many for them.” + +“I am afraid,” said Pasquale, “that the old days of shrewd bargains are +over. There is a glut in the soul-market and they only fetch the price +of old bones.” + +“He is talking foolish things that I do not understand,” said Carlotta, +putting her hand on my arm. + +“It is called sham cynicism, my dear,” said I, “and we all ought to be +ashamed of ourselves.” + +“What do you like best to talk about?” Judith asked sweetly. + +“Myself. And so does everybody,” replied Carlotta. + +We laughed, and for a time talk ceased to be allusive. But later, over +our coffee, while the band was playing loudly some new American march, +and Carlotta and Pasquale were laughing together, Judith drew near me. + +“You did not answer my question about those two, Marcus.” + +My fingers trembled as I lit a fresh cigarette. + +“He is not a man to whom any woman’s destiny should be entrusted.” + +“And is she a woman on whom a man should stake his life’s happiness?” + +“God knows,” said I, setting my teeth. + +It was not an enjoyable dinner-party. I longed for the evening to be +over, to have Carlotta safe back with me at home. I felt a curious dread +of the Empire. + +We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet. Carlotta, as soon +as she had taken her seat, leaned both elbows on the front of the box +and surrendered her senses to the stage. Pasquale talked to Judith. +Wishing for a few moments alone I left the box and sauntered moodily +along the promenade behind the First Circle. The occupants were either +leaning over the partitions and watching the spectacle or sitting with +drink before them at the little marble tables at the back. The gaudy, +gilded, tobacco-smoke and humanity-filled theatre seemed to be unreal, +the stage but a phantom cloud effect. I wondered why I, a creature from +the concrete world, was there. I had an insane impulse to fly from it +all, to go out into the streets, and wander, wander for ever, away from +the world. I was walking along the promenade, lost in this lunacy, when +I stumbled against a fellow-promenader and the shock brought me to my +senses. It was an elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez. He had a +long nose and small, crafty eyes, and was deeply pitted with smallpox. +I made profuse apologies and he accepted them with suavity. It then +occurring to me that I was he having in a discourteous and abjectly +absurd manner, I made my way back to the box. I drew a chair to Judith’s +side. + +“You are giving me a captivating evening,” she said, with a smile. + +“Whom are you captivating?” I asked, idly jesting. “Pasquale?” + +“You are cruel,” whispered Judith, with a flicker of her eyelids. + +I flushed, ashamed, not having weighed the significance of my words. +All I could say was: “I beg your pardon,” whereat Judith laughed +mirthlessly. I relapsed into silence. Turn followed turn on the stage. +While the curtain was lowered Carlotta sank back with a little sigh of +enjoyment, and nodded brightly at me. + +“Do you remember,” she said, turning to me, at a fresh fall of the +curtain, “when you brought me first? I said I should like to live here. +Wasn’t I silly?” + +She turned again, then suddenly rose to her feet and staggered back to +the back of the box, pointing outward, with an expression of wild terror +on her face. + +“Hamdi--he’s down there--he saw me.” + +I sprang to her assistance and put my arm around her. + +“Nonsense, dear,” said I. + +But Pasquale, looking around the house, cried: + +“By Jove! she’s right. I would recognise the old villain a thousand +years hence in Tartarus. There he is.” + +I left Carlotta, and the first person my eyes rested upon in the stalls +was my obese but suave Oriental, regarding the box with an impassive +countenance. + +“That’s Hamdi Effendi, all right,” said Pasquale. + +Carlotta clutched my arms as I joined her at the back of the box. + +“Oh, take me away, Seer Marcous, take me away,” she moaned piteously. My +poor child was white and shaken with fear. I again put my arm round her. + +“No harm can happen to you, dear,” I said, soothingly. + +“Oh, darling Seer Marcous, take me home,” cried Carlotta. + +“Very well,” said I. I helped her on with her wrap, and apologising to +the two others, begged them to remain. + +“We’ll all go together,” said Judith quietly. + +“And form a body-guard,” laughed Pasquale. + +Carlotta clinging to my arm we left the box and slipped through the +promenade and down the stairs. + +Hamdi Effendi, having anticipated our intention, cut off our retreat in +the vestibule. Carlotta shrank nearer to me. + +“I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but may I have the pleasure of a few words +with you about this young lady?” said he in the urbanest manner and the +most execrable French. + +“I hardly see the necessity,” said I. + +“Pardon me, but this young lady is a Turkish subject and my daughter. +My name is Hamdi Effendi, Prefect of Police at Aleppo, and my address in +London is the Hotel Metropole.” + +“I am charmed to make your acquaintance,” said I. “I have often heard +of you from Mademoiselle--but I believe both her father and mother were +English, so she is neither your daughter nor a Turkish subject.” + +“Ah, that we will see,” rejoined the polite Oriental. He addressed some +words rapidly in Turkish to Carlotta, who shudderingly replied in the +same language. + +“Mademoiselle unfortunately does not consent to accompany me,” he +interpreted with a smile. “So I am afraid I will have to take her back +without her consent.” + +“If you do, Hamdi Effendi,” said Pasquale in a light tone of +conversation, but with the ugliest snarl of the lips that I have ever +beheld, “I shall most certainly kill you.” + +Hamdi turned to him with a polite bow. + +“Ah, it is Monsieur Pasquale. I thought I recognised you.” + +“You have every reason to do so,” said Pasquale. + +“I saved you from prison.” + +“You accepted a bribe.” + +“For heaven’s sake,” cried Judith, “go on speaking in low voices, or we +shall have a scene here.” + +One or two idlers hung near with an air of curiosity and the huge +beuniformed commissionaire watched us with an uncertain eye. I kept a +tight hold of Carlotta and drew her more behind the screen of a palm +near which we happened to stand. + +“Madame is right,” said Hamdi. “We can discuss this little affair like +gentlemen.” + +“Then, in the most gentlemanly way in the world,” said Pasquale, “I +swear to you that if you touch this young lady, I will kill you.” + +“It appears, to be Monsieur,” said the obese Turk with a graceful wave +of the hand in my direction, “and not you, who has robbed my home of +its treasure, unless,” he added, and I shall always remember the hideous +leer of that pulpy-nosed and small-pox pitted face, “unless Monsieur has +relieved you of your responsibilities.” + +For a moment I was speechless. Pasquale put himself in front of me. + +“Steady on, Ordeyne.” + +“Sir,” said I, “I found this young lady destitute in the streets of +London. She is my wife and therefore a British subject; so you can take +yourself and your infamous insinuations to the devil, and the quicker +the better.” + +“Or there’ll be two of us engaged in the killing,” said Pasquale. + +Hamdi again exchanged a few sentences in Turkish with Carlotta, and then +smiled upon us with the same unruffled suavity. + +_“Au revoir, Mesdames et Messieurs.”_ With a courteous salute he +shuffled back towards the stall-entrance. + +The tension over, Carlotta broke from me and clutched Pasquale by the +arm. + +“Oh, kill him, kill him, kill him!” she cried in a passionate whisper. + +He freed himself gently and took out a cigarette case. + +“Scarcely necessary. He’ll soon die.” And turning to me he added: “Not +a sound organ in his body. Besides, it seems to me that if there is any +murdering to be done, it’s the business of Sir Marcus.” + +“There is going to be no murdering,” said I, profoundly disgusted, “and +don’t talk in that revolting way about the wretched man dying.” + +I regained possession of Carlotta who, seeing that I was angry, cast +a scared glance at me, and became docile as suddenly as she had grown +passionate. I turned to Judith. + +“Will you ever forgive me--” I began. + +But the sight of her face froze me. It was white and hard and haggard, +and the lips were drawn into a thin line, and the delicate colour she +had put upon her cheeks stood out in ghastly contrast. Her dress, like +the foam of a summer sea, mocked the winter in her face. + +“There is nothing to forgive,” she said, smiling icily. “I came for +a variety entertainment and I have not been disappointed. Good-bye. +Perhaps Mr. Pasquale will be so kind as to put me into a cab.” + +“I will drive you home, if you will allow me,” said Pasquale. + +We separated, shaking hands as if nothing had happened, as perfunctorily +as if we had been the most distant of acquaintances. + +On our way back we spoke very little. Carlotta nestled close against +me, seeking the shelter of my arm. She cried, I don’t know why, but it +seemed to afford comfort. I kissed her lips and her hair. + +At home, I drew the sofa near the fire--it has been a raw night and she +feels the cold like a tropical plant--and sat down by her side. + +“Did you hear what I said to Hamdi Effendi--that you were my wife?” + +“But that was only a lie,” she answered in her plain idiom. + +My petting and soothing together with the sense of home security and a +cup of French chocolate prepared by Antoinette, who, astonished at our +early return and seeing her darling in distress, had hastened to provide +culinary consolation, had restored her wonted serenity of demeanour. +Polyphemus also purred reassuringly upon her lap. + +“It was a lie this evening,” said I, “but in a few days I hope it will +be true.” + +“You are going to marry me?” she asked, suddenly sitting erect and +looking at me rather bewildered. + +“If you will have me, Carlotta.” + +“I will do what Seer Marcous tells me,” she answered. “Will you marry me +to-morrow?” + +“I think it hardly possible, my dear,” I answered. “But I shall lose no +time, I assure you. Once you are my wife neither Hamdi Effendi nor the +Sultan of Turkey can claim you. No one can take an Englishman’s wife +away from him.” + +“Hamdi is a devil,” said Carlotta. + +“We can laugh at him,” said I. + +“Did you ever see such an ugly mug?” + +Where she gets her occasional bits of slang from I do not know; but her +little foreign staccato pronunciation gives them unusual quaintness. I +laughed, and Carlotta, throwing Polyphemus off her lap, laughed too, and +sidled up against me. The cat regarded us for a moment with a disgusted +eye, then stretched himself as if he had quitted Carlotta of his own +accord, and walked away in a state of dignified boredom. + +“Hamdi is like a pig and an elephant and a great fat turkey,” said +Carlotta. + +“If all the world were beautiful,” I exclaimed, “such a thing as our +appreciation of beauty would not exist. I should not even be aware that +my Carlotta was beautiful.” + +She put her hands on my knees in her impulsive way, and bending forward +looked at me delightedly. + +“Oh, you do think so?” + +“You are the loveliest and most intoxicating creature on the earth, +Carlotta.” + +“Now I am sure, sure, sure,” she cried, enraptured. “You have never said +it before, Seer Marcous darling, and I must kiss you.” + +I checked her with my hands on her soft shoulders. + +“Only if you promise to marry me.” + +“Of course,” said Carlotta. + +She said it as thoughtlessly and light-heartedly as if I had asked her +to come out for a walk. Again I felt the odd spasm of pain. In my late +madness I had often pictured the scene: how I should hold her throbbing +beauty in my arms, my senses clouded with the fragrance of her, and how, +in burning words, I should pour out the litany of my passion. But to the +gods it seemed otherwise. No Quaker maiden’s betrothal kiss was chaster. +Cold grew the fever in my veins and the litany died on my lips. + + +Who and what is she whom I love? There have been days when her eyes have +carried in their depths the allurements of a sorceress, when her limbs +have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to +withstand. But tonight, when I take the greatest step and claim her +as mine till our lives’ end, she yields with the complaisance of an +ignorant child and raises up between us the barrier of her innocence. +When shall I learn the soul of her? + +Well, _jacta est alea_. The events of to-night have precipitated our +destiny. In all probability Hamdi is powerless to take her from my +protection, and this marriage is unnecessary as a safeguard. I have no +notion of the international law on such points--but at any rate it will +make the assurance of her safety absolute. No power on earth can take +her from me. Great Heaven! The thought of her gone forever out of +my life brings the cold sweat to my forehead. Without her, child, +enchantress, changeling that she is, how could I face existence? + +I shall have my heart’s desire. Why, I should be athrill with the joy +and the flame of youth! I should laugh and sing! I should perform the +happy antics of love’s exuberance! I should be transported to the realms +where the fairy tales end! + +Instead, I sit before a dying fire, as I sat last night, and am +oppressed with the sense of tragedy. It was not altogether Carlotta’s +innocence that formed the barrier between us. That which rendered it +impassable was Judith’s white face. + +Judith’s white face will haunt my dreams to-night. + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +October 27th + +I do not like living. It is thoroughly disagreeable. Today Judith +taunted me with never having lived, and I admitted the justice of +the taunt and regretted in poignant misery the change from my old +conditions. If to live is to have one’s reason cast down and trampled +under foot, one’s heart aflame with a besotted passion and one’s soul +racked with remorse, then am I living in good sooth--and I would +far rather be dead and suffering the milder pains of Purgatory. Men +differently constituted get used to it, as the eels to skinning. They +say _“mea culpa,”_ “damn,” or _“Kismet,”_ according to their various +traditions, and go forth comforted to their workaday pursuits. I envy +them. I enter this exquisite Torture Chamber, and I shriek at the first +twinge of the thumbscrew and faint at the preliminary embraces of the +scavenger’s daughter. + +I envy a fellow like Caesar Borgia. He could murder a friend, seduce +his widow, and rob the orphans all on a summer’s day, and go home +contentedly to supper; and after a little music he could sleep like a +man who has thoroughly earned his repose. What manner of creatures are +other men? They area blank mystery to me; and I am writing--or have been +writing--a sociological study of the most subtle generation of them that +has ever existed! I am an empty fool. I know absolutely nothing. I can +no more account for the peaceful slumbers of that marvellous young man +of five-and-twenty than I can predicate the priority of the first hen or +the first egg. I, with never a murder or a seduction or a robbery on my +conscience, could not sleep last night. I doubt whether I shall sleep +to-night. I feel as if I shall remain awake through the centuries with a +rat gnawing my vitals. + + +So unhappy looking a woman as Judith, when I called on her early this +forenoon, I have never beheld. Gone was the elaborate coquetry of +yesterday; gone the quiet roguishness of yesteryear; gone was all the +Judith that I knew, and in her place stood a hollow-eyed woman shaking +at gates eternally barred. + +“I--thought you would come this morning. I had that lingering faith in +you.” + +“Your face haunted me all night,” I said. “I was bound to come.” + +“So, this is the end of it all,” she remarked, stonily. + +“No,” said I. “It only marks the transition from a very ill-defined +relationship to as loyal a friendship as ever man could offer woman.” + +She gave a quivering little shrug of disgust and turned away. + +“Oh, don’t talk like that ‘I can’t offer you bread, but I’ll give you a +nice round polished stone.’ Friendship! What has a woman like me got to +do with friendship?” + +“Have I ever given you much more?” + +“God knows what you have given me,” she cried, bitterly. She stared out +of the window at the sodden street and murky air. I went to her side and +touched her wrist. + +“For heaven’s sake, Judith, tell me what I can do.” + +“What’s done is done,” she said, between her teeth. “When did you marry +her?” + +I explained briefly the condition of affairs. She looked at me hard +and long; then stared out of the window again, and scarce heeded what I +said. + +“It was to set myself right with you on this point,” I added, “that I +have visited you at such an hour.” + +She remained silent. I took a few turns about the familiar room that was +filled with the associations of many years. The piano we chose together. +The copy of the Botticelli Tondo--the crowned Madonna of the Uffizi--I +gave her in Florence. We had ransacked London together to find the +Chippendale bookcase; and on its shelves stood books that had formed +a bond between us, and copies of old reviews containing my fugitive +contributions. A spurious Japanese dragon in faence, an inartistic +monstrosity dear to her heart, at which I had often railed, grinned +forgivingly at me from the mantel-piece. I have never realised how +closely bound up with my habits was this drawing-room of Judith’s. I +stopped once more by her side. + +“I can’t leave you altogether, dear,” I said, gently. “A bit of myself +is in this room.” + +Her bosom shook with unhappy laughter. + +“A bit?” Then she turned suddenly on me. “Are you simply dull or sheerly +cruel?” + +“I am dull,” said I. “Why do you refuse my friendship? Our relation has +been scarcely more. It has not touched the deep things in us. We agreed +at the start that it should not. The words ‘I love you’ have never +passed between us. We have been loyal to our compact. Now that love +has come into my life--and Heaven knows I have striven against it--what +would you have me do?” + +“And what would you have me do?” said Judith, tonelessly. + +“Forgive me for breaking off the old, and trust me to make the new +pleasant to you.” + +She made no answer, but stood still staring out of the window like a +woman of stone. Presently she shivered and crossed to the fire, before +which she crouched on a low chair. I remained by the window, anxious, +puzzled, oppressed. + +“Marcus,” she said at last, in a low voice. I obeyed her summons. She +motioned me to a chair, and without looking at me began to speak. + +“You said there was a bit of you in this room. There is everything of +you. Your whole being is for me in this room. You are with me wherever +I go. You are the beginning and end of life to me. I love you with a +passion that is killing me. I am an emotional woman. I made shipwreck +of myself because I thought I loved a man. But, as God hears me, you are +the only man I have loved. You came to me like a breath of Heaven while +I was in Purgatory--and you have been Heaven to me ever since. It has +been play to you--but to me--” + +I fell on my knees beside her. Each of the low half-whispered words was +a red hot iron. I had received last night the message of her white face +with incredulity. I had reviewed our past life together and had found +little warrant in it for that message. It could not come from the +depths. It was staggeringly impossible. And now the impossible was the +flaming fact. + +I fell on my knees beside her. + +“Not play, Judith--” + +She put out her hand to check me, and the words died on my lips. What +could I say? + +“For you it was a detached pleasant sentiment, if you like; for me the +deadliest earnest. I was a fool too. You never said you loved me, but I +thought you did. You were not as other men, you knew nothing of the +ways of the world or of women or of passion--you were reserved, +intellectual--you viewed things in a queer light of your own. I +felt that the touch of a chain would fret you. I gave you absolute +freedom--often when I craved for you. I made no demands. I assented to +your philosophic analysis of the situation--it is your way to moralise +whimsically on everything, as if you were a disconnected intelligence +outside the universe--and I paid no attention to it. I used to laugh at +you--oh, not unkindly, but lovingly, happily, victoriously. Oh, yes, +I was a fool--what woman in love isn’t? I thought I gave you all you +needed. I was content, secure. I magnified every little demonstration. +When you touched my ear it was more to me than the embrace of another +man might have been. I have lived on one kiss of yours for a week. To +you the kiss was of no more value than a cigarette. I wish,” she added +in a whisper, “I wish I were dead!” + +She had spoken in a low, monotonous voice, staring haggardly at the +fire, while I knelt by her side. I murmured some banal apologia, +miserably aware that one set of words is as futile as another when one +has broken a woman’s heart. + +“You never knew I loved you?” she went on in the same bitter undertone. +“What kind of woman did you take me for? I have accepted help from you +to enable me to live in this flat--do you imagine I could have done such +a thing without loving you? I should have thought it was obvious in a +thousand ways.” + +The fire getting low, she took up the scoop for coals. Mechanically I +relieved her of the thing and fulfilled the familiar task. Neither spoke +for a long time. She remained there and I went to the window. It had +begun to rain. A barrel-organ below was playing some horrible music-hall +air, and every vibrant note was like a hammer on one’s nerves. The +grinder’s bedraggled Italian wife perceiving me at the window grinned up +at me with the national curve of the palm. She had a black eye which the +cacophonous fiend had probably given her, and she grinned like a happy +child of nature. Men in my position do not blacken women’s eyes; but +it is only a question of manners. Was I, for that, less of a brute male +than the scowling beast at the organ? + +The sudden sound of a sob made me turn to Judith, who had broken down +and was crying bitterly, her face hidden in her hands. I bent and +touched her shoulder. + +“Judith--” + +She flung her arms around my neck. + +“I can’t give you up, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” she cried, wildly. + +For the first time in my life I heard a woman give abandoned, incoherent +utterance to an agony of passion; and it sounded horrible, like the cry +of an animal wounded to death. + +A guilt-stricken creature, scarce daring to meet her eyes, I bade her +farewell. She had recovered her composure. + +“Make me one little promise, Marcus, do me one little favour,” she said, +with quivering lip, and letting her cold hand remain in mine. “Stay +away from her to-day. I couldn’t bear to think of you and her together, +happy, love-making, after what I’ve said this morning. I should writhe +with the shame and the torture of it. Give me your thoughts to-day. Wear +a little mourning for the dead. It is all I ask of you.” + +“I should have done what you ask without the asking,” I replied. + +I kissed her hand, and went out into the street. + +I had walked but a few blind steps when I became aware of the presence +and voice of Pasquale. + +“Coming from Mrs. Mainwaring’s? I am just on my way there to restore +her opera-glasses which I ran away with last night. What’s her number? I +forget. I dropped in at Lingfield Terrace to inquire, but found you had +already started.” + +“Seventeen,” I answered, mechanically. + +“You are not looking well, my good friend,” said he. “I hope last night +has not upset you. It’s all bluff, you know, on the part of the precious +Hamdi.” + +“I dare say it was,” I assented. + +“And bluff on your part, too. I have never given your imaginative +faculties sufficient credit. It bowled Hamdi out clean.” + +“Yes,” said I. “It bowled him out clean.” + +“Serve him right,” said Pasquale. “He’s the wickedest old thief unhung.” + +“Quite so,” said I, “the wickedest old thief unhung.” + +Pasquale shook me by the arm. + +“Are you a man or a phonograph? What on earth has happened to you?” + +I think I envied the laughter in his handsome, dark face, and the +careless grace of the fellow as he stood beneath the dripping umbrella +debonair as a young prince, in perfectly fitting blue serge-he wore no +overcoat; mine was buttoned up to the chin, and immaculate suede gloves. + +“What is it?” he repeated, gaily. + +“I didn’t sleep last night,” said I, “my breakfast disagreed with me, +and it’s raining in the most unpleasant manner.” + +Even while I was speaking he left my side and darted across the road. +In some astonishment I watched him for a moment from the kerb, and then +made my way slowly to the other side. I found him in conversation with +an emaciated, bedraggled woman standing by an enormous bundle, about +three times her own cubic bulk, which she had rested on the slimy +pavement. One hand pressed a panting bosom. + +“You are going to carry that in your arms all the way to South +Kensington?” I heard him cry as I approached. + +“Yes, sir,” said the woman. + +“Then you shan’t. I’m not going to allow it. Catch hold of this.” + +The umbrella which he thrust out at her she clutched automatically, +to prevent it falling about her ears. The veto she received with a +wonderment which deepened into stupefaction when she saw him lift the +huge bundle in his arms and stalk away with it down the street. She +turned a scared face at me. + +“It’s washing,” she said. + +Pasquale paused, looked round and motioned her onward. She followed +without a word, holding the trim silver mounted umbrella, and I +mechanically brought up the rear. It had all happened so quickly that I +too was confused. The scanty populace in the rain-filled street stared +and gaped. A shambling fellow in corduroys bawled an obscene jest. +Pasquale put down his bundle. + +“Do you want to be sent to hell by lightning?” he asked, with the evil +snarl of the lips. + +“No,” said the man, sheering off. + +“I’m glad,” remarked Pasquale, picking up the bundle. And we resumed our +progress. + +Luckily a four-wheeled cab overtook us. Pasquale stopped it, squeezed +the bundle inside, and held the door open for the faltering and +bewildered woman, as if she had been the authentic duchessa at Ealing. + +“You were saying, Ordeyne,” he observed, as the cabman drove off with +three shillings and his incoherent fare, “you were saying that your +breakfast disagreed with you.” + + +In spite of my heaviness of heart, I laughed and loved the man. There +was something fantastically chivalrous in the action; something superb +in the contempt of convention; something whimsical, adventurous, +unexpected; and something divine in the wrathful pity; and something +irresistible in his impudent apostrophe to myself. It has been the one +flash of comfort during this long and desolate day. + + +I have kept my promise to Judith. I have lunched and dined at the club, +and in the library of the club I have tried to while away the hours. +I intended this morning to make the necessary arrangements for the +marriage. After my interview with Judith I had not the heart. I put it +off till to-morrow. I have observed the day as a day of mourning. I have +worn sackcloth and ashes. I have done such penance as I could for the +grievous fault I have committed. Carlotta is in bed and asleep. She went +early, says Antoinette, having a bad headache. No wonder, poor child. + +A few moments ago I was tempted to peep into her room and satisfy myself +that she was not ailing. A headache is the common precursor to many +maladies. But I remembered my promise and refrained. The cooing notes of +the voice would have called me to her side, and her arms would have been +around my neck and I should have forgotten Judith. + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +October 28th. + +I rose late this morning. When I went down to breakfast I found that +Carlotta had already gone for her music lesson. + +I drove at once to the Temple to see my lawyers and to make arrangements +for a marriage by special license. + +I returned at one o’clock. Stenson met me in the hall. + +“I beg your pardon, Sir Marcus, but Mademoiselle hasn’t come back yet.” + +I waited an uneasy hour. Such a lengthy absence from home was +unprecedented. At two o’clock I went round to Herr Stuer in the Avenue +Road--a five minutes’ walk. + +He entered the sitting-room into which I had been ushered, wiping his +lips. + +“I am sorry to disturb you, Herr Stuer,” said I, “but will you kindly +tell me when Miss Carlotta left you, this morning?” + +“Miss Carlotta came not at all this morning,” he replied. + +“But it was her regular day?” + +“At ten o’clock. She did not come. At eleven I have another pupil. She +has not before missed one lesson.” + +I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing face would meet +me there and dispel a dread that chilled me like an icy wind. + +There was no Carlotta. + +There has been no Carlotta all this awful day. + +There will never be a Carlotta again. + +I drove to the police station. + +“What do you think has happened?” asked the Inspector. + +It was only too horribly obvious. Any man but myself would have kept her +under lock and key and established a guard round the house. Any man but +myself would have never let her out of his sight until he had married +her, until he had tracked Hamdi and his myrmidons back to Alexandretta. + +“Abduction has happened,” I cried wildly. “Between Lingfield Terrace and +Avenue Road she has been caught, thrust into a closed carriage, gagged +and carried God knows where by the wiliest old thief in Asia. He is the +Prefect of Police in Aleppo. His name is Hamdi Effendi and he is staying +at the Hotel Metropole.” + +The Inspector questioned me. Heaven knows how I answered. I saw the +scene. The waiting carriage. The unfrequented bit of road. My heart’s +darling, her face a radiant flower in the grey morning, tripping +lightheartedly along. The sudden dash, the struggle, the swiftly closed +door. It was a matter of a few seconds. My brain grew dizzy with the +vision. + +“You say that he threatened to abduct her?” asked the Inspector. + +“Yes,” said I, “and a friend of mine promised to kill him. Heaven grant +he keep his promise!” + +“Be careful, Sir Marcus,” smiled the Inspector. “Or if there is a murder +committed you will be an accessory before the fact.” + +I intimated my disregard of the contingency. What did it matter? Nothing +in the world mattered save the recovery of the light and meaning of my +existence. My friend’s name? Sebastian Pasquale, He lived near by in the +St. John’s Wood Road. + +“The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus,” said the Inspector, “is to get +hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him with you to Scotland Yard. Perhaps +two heads will be better than one. In the meanwhile we shall +communicate with headquarters and make the necessary inquiries in the +neighbourhood.” + +I drove to St. John’s Wood Road, and learned to my dismay that Pasquale +had given up his rooms there a week ago. All his letters were addressed +to his club in Piccadilly. I drove thither. How has mankind contented +itself for these thousands of years with a horse as its chief means of +locomotion? Oh, the exasperation I suffered behind that magnified snail! +I dashed into the club. Mr. Pasquale had not been there all day. No, he +was not staying there. It was against the rules to give members’ private +addresses. + +“But it’s a matter of life and death!” I cried. + +“To tell you the truth, sir,” said the hall porter, “Mr. Pasquale’s only +permanent address is his banker’s, and we really don’t know where he is +staying at present.” + +I wrote a hurried line: + +“Hamdi has abducted Carlotta. I am half crazed. As you love me give me +your help. Oh, God! man, why aren’t you here?” + +I left it with the porter, and crawled to Scotland Yard. The cabman at +my invectives against his sauntering beast waxed indignant; it was a +three-quarter blood mare and one of the fastest trotters in London. + +“She passes everything,” said he. + +“It is because everything is standing still or going backward or turned +upside down,” said I. + +No doubt he thought me mad. Mad as a dingo dog. The thought of the +words, the summer and the sun sent a spasm of hunger through my heart. +Then I murmured to myself: “‘Save my soul from hell and my darling from +the power of the dog.’ Which dog? Not the dingo dog.” I verily believe +my brain worked wrong to-day. + +Great Scotland Yard at last. I went through passages. I found myself in +a nondescript room where a courteous official seated at a desk held me +on the rack for half an hour. I had to describe Carlotta: not in the +imagery wherein only one could create an impression of her sweetness, +but in the objective terms of the police report. What was she wearing? A +hat, and jacket, a skirt, shoes; of course she wore gloves; possibly she +carried a muff. Impatient of such commonplace details, I described her +fully. But the glory of her bronze hair, her great dark brown eyes, +the quivering sensitiveness of her lips; her intoxicating compound of +Botticelli and the Venusberg; the dove-notes of her voice; all was a +matter of boredom to Scotland Yard. They clamoured for the colour of +her feathers and the material of which her dress was made; her height in +vulgar figures and the sizes of her gloves and shoes. + +“How on earth can I tell you?” I cried in desperation. + +“Perhaps one of your servants can give the necessary information,” + replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have +viewed my plight with more inhuman blandness! + +A miracle happened. As I was writing a summons to Stenson to obtain +these details from Antoinette and attend at once, a policeman entered +and I learned that my confidential man was at the door. My heart +leapt within me. He had tracked me hither and had come to tell me that +Carlotta was safe. But the first glance at his face killed the wild +hope. He had tracked me hither, it is true; but only apologetically to +offer what information might be useful. “It is a very great liberty, Sir +Marcus, and I will retire at once if I have overstepped my duties, but +there are important details, sir, in catastrophes of this nature with +which my experience has taught me only servants can be acquainted.” + +There must be a book of ten thousand pages entitled “The Perfect Valet,” + dealing with every contingency of domestic life which this admirable +fellow has by heart. He uttered his Ciceronian sentence with the gravity +of a pasteboard figure in the toy theatre of one’s childhood. + +“Can you describe the young lady’s dress?” asked the official. + +“I have made it my business,” said Stenson, “to obtain accurate +information as to every detail of Mademoiselle Carlotta’s attire when +she left the house this morning.” + +I faded into insignificance. Stenson was a man after the Inspector’s +heart. A few eager questions brought the desired result. A dark red +toque with a grey bird’s wing; a wine-coloured zouave jacket and skirt, +black braided; a dark blue bodice; a plain gold brooch (the first +trinket I had given her--the occasion of her first clasp of arms around +my neck) fastening her collar; a silver fox necklet and muff; patent +leather shoes and brown suede gloves. + +“Any special mark or characteristics?” + +“A white scar above the left temple,” said Stenson. + +Lord have mercy! The man has lived day by day for five months with +Carlotta’s magical beauty, and all he has noticed as characteristic is +the little white scar--she fell on marble steps as a child--the only +flaw, if flaw can be in a thing so imperceptible, in her perfect +loveliness. + +“Mademoiselle has also a tiny mole behind her right ear,” said Stenson. + +The Inspector’s conception of Stenson expanded into an apotheosis. He +paid him deference. His pen wrote greedily every syllable the inspired +creature uttered. When the fount of inspiration ran dry, Stenson turned +to me with his imperturbable, profoundly respectful air. + +“Shall I return home, Sir Marcus, or have you any further need of my +service?” + +I bade him go home. He withdrew. The Inspector smiled cheerfully. +“Now we can get along,” said he. “It’s a pity Mr.--Mr. Pasquale” (he +consulted his notes) “is out of touch with us for the moment. He might +have given us great assistance.” + +He rose from his chair. “I think we shall very soon trace the +young lady. An accurate personal description like this, you see, is +invaluable.” + +He handed me the printed form which he had filled in. In spite of my +misery I almost laughed at the fatuity of the man in thinking that those +mere unimaginative statistics applicable to five hundred thousand young +females in London, could in any way express Carlotta. + +“This is all very well,” said I; “but the first thing to do is to lay +that Turkish devil by the heels.” + +“You can count on our making the most prompt and thorough +investigation,” said he. + +“And in the mean time what can I do?” + +“Your best course, Sir Marcus,” he answered, “is to go home and leave +things in our hands. As soon as ever we have the slightest clue, we +shall communicate with you.” + +He bowed me out politely. In a few moments I found myself in the +greyness of the autumn afternoon wandering on the Thames Embankment like +a lost soul on the banks of Phlegethon. It seemed as if I had never seen +the sun, should never see the sun again. I was drifting sans purpose +into eternity. + +I passed by some railings. A colossal figure looming through the misty +air struck me with a sense of familiarity. It was the statue of Sir +Bartle Frere, and these were the gardens beneath the terrace of the +National Liberal Club. It was here that I had first met her. The +dripping trees seemed to hold the echo of the words spoken when their +leaves were green: “Will you please to tell me what I shall do?” I +strained my eyes to see the bench on which I had sat, and my eyes +tricked me into translating a blurr at the end of the seat into the +ghostly form of Carlotta. My misery overwhelmed me; and through my +misery shot a swift pang of remorse at having treated her harshly on +that sweet and memorable afternoon in May. + +I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down the desolate +gardens. The benches were empty, the trees were bare, “and no birds +sang.” I crossed the road. + +The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly open, and from the +pavement one could see the warmth and colour of the vestibule. Here was +staying the Arch-Devil who had robbed me of my life. I stood for a moment +under the portico shaking with rage. I must have lost consciousness for +a few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs. +I found myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not +left. They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search +of him departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big +caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol. “Would to heaven +it were a gaol,” I muttered to myself, “and this were the number of +Hamdi Effendi!” + +A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, effusively +saluted me by name. I stared at him. He recalled our acquaintance at +Etretat. I fished him up from the deeps of a previous incarnation and +vaguely remembered him as a young American floral decorator who used to +preach to me the eternal doctrine of hustle. I shook hands with him and +hoped that he was well. + +“Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I’m full up +with work. But you don’t hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old +country. Men lunch. In New York all the lunch one has time for is to +swallow a plasmon lozenge in a street-car.” + +His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears for an +illimitable time. I answered occasionally with the fringe of my mind. +Could my agonised state of being have remained unperceived by any human +creature save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York floral +decorator? + +“Since we met, guess how many times I’ve crossed the Atlantic. Four +times!” + +Long-suffering Atlantic! + +“And about yourself. Still going _piano, piano_ with books and things?” + +“Yes, books and things,” I echud. + +The page came up and announced Hamdi’s intention of immediate +appearance. + +“And how is that charming young lady, your ward, Miss Carlotta?” + continued my tormentor. + +“Yes,” I answered hurriedly. “A charming young lady. You used to give +her sweets. Have you noticed that a fondness for sugar plums induces an +equanimity of character? It also spoils the teeth. That is why the front +teeth of all American women are so bad.” + +I must be endowed with the low cunning of the fox, who, I am told, by +a swift turn puts his pursuers off the scent. The learned term the +rhetorical device an _ignoratio elenchi_. My young friend’s patriotism +rose in furious defence of his countrywomen’s beauty. I looked round the +luxuriously furnished vestibule, wondering from which of the many +doors the object of my hatred would emerge, and my young friend’s talk +continued to ruffle the fringe of my mind. + +“I’m afraid you’re expecting some one rather badly,” he remarked with +piercing perceptiveness. + +“A dull acquaintance,” said I. “I shall be sorry when his arrival puts +an end to our engaging conversation.” + +Then the lift door opened and Hamdi stepped out like the Devil in an +Alhambra ballet. + +He looked at my card and looked at me. He bowed politely. + +“I did not know whom I should have the pleasure of seeing,” said he in +his execrable French. “In what way can I be of service to Sir Marcus +Ordeyne?” + +“What have you done with Carlotta?” I asked, glaring at him. + +His ignoble small-pox pitted face assumed an expression of bland +inquiry. + +“Carlotta?” + +“Yes,” said I. “Where have you taken her to?” + +“Explain yourself, Monsieur,” said Hamdi. “Do I understand that Lady +Ordeyne has disappeared?” + +“Tell me what you have done with her.” + +His crafty features grew satanic; his long fleshy nose squirmed like the +proboscis of one of Orcagna’s fiends. + +“Really, Monsieur,” said he, with a hideous leer--oh, words are impotent +to express the ugliness of that face! “Really, Monsieur, supposing I +had stolen Miladi, you would be the last person I should inform of her +whereabouts. You are simple, Monsieur. I had always heard that England +was a country of arcadian innocence, so unlike my own black, wicked +country, and now--” he shrugged his shoulders blandly, “_j’en suis +convaincu_.” + +“You may jeer, Hamdi Effendi,” said I in a white passion of anger. “But +the English police you will not find so arcadian.” + +“Ah, so you have been to the police?” said the suave villain. “You +have gone to Scotland--Scotland Place Scotland--n’importe. They are +investigating the affair? I thank you for the friendly warning.” + +“Warning!” I cried, choked with indignation. He held up a soft, fat +palm. + +“Ah--it is not a warning? Then, Monsieur, I am afraid you have committed +an indiscretion which your friends in Scotland Place will not pardon +you. You would not make a good police agent. I am of the profession, so +I know.” + +I advanced a step. He recoiled, casting a quick look backward at the +lift just then standing idle with open doors. + +“Hamdi Effendi,” I cried, “by the living God, if you do not restore me +my wife--” + +But then I stopped short. Hamdi had stepped quickly backward into the +lift, and given a sign to the attendant. The door slammed and all I +could do was to shake my fist at Hamdi’s boots as they disappeared +upwards. + +I remember once in Italy seeing a cat playing with a partially stunned +bat which, flying low, she had brought to the ground. She crouched, +patted it, made it move a little, patted it again and retired on her +haunches preparing for a spring. Suddenly the bat shot vertically into +the air. + +I stared at the ascending lift with the cat’s expression of impotent +dismay and stupefaction. It was inconceivably grotesque. It brought into +my tragedy an element of infernal farce. I became conscious of peals +of laughter, and looking round beheld the American doubled up in a +saddlebag chair. I fled from the vestibule of the hotel clothed from +head to foot in derision. + + +I am at home, sitting at my work-table, walking restlessly about the +room, stepping out into the raw air on the balcony and looking for +a sign down the dark and silent road. I curse myself for my folly in +entering the Hotel Metropole. The damned Turk held me in the palm of his +hand. He made mock of me to his heart’s content.... And Carlotta is in +his power. I grow white with terror when I think of _her_ terror. She +is somewhere, locked up in a room, in this great city. My God! Where can +she be? + +The police must find her. London is not mediaeval Italy for women to be +gagged and carried off to inaccessible strongholds in defiance of laws +and government. I repeat to myself that she must come back, that the +sober working of English institutions will restore her to my arms, that +my agony is a matter of a day or two at most, that the special license +obtained this morning and now lying before me is not the document of +irony it seems, and that in a week’s time we shall look back on this +nightmare of a day with a smile, and look forward to the future with +laughter in our hearts. + +But to-night I am very lonely. “Loneliness,” says Epictetus, “is a +certain condition of the helpless man.” And I am helpless. All my aid +lies in the learning in those books; and all the learning in all +those books on all sides from floor to ceiling cannot render me one +infinitesimal grain of practical assistance. If only Pasquale, man of +action, swift intelligence, were here! I can only trust to the trained +methods of the unimaginative machine who has set out to trace Carlotta +by means of the scar on her forehead and the mole behind her ear. And +meanwhile I am very lonely. My sole friend, to whom I could have turned, +Mrs. McMurray, is still at Bude. She is to have a child, I understand, +in the near future, and will stay in Cornwall till the confinement is +over. Her husband, even were he not amid the midnight stress of his +newspaper office, I should shrink from seeking. He is a Niagara of a +man. Judith--I can go to her no more. And though Antoinette has wept +her heart out all day long, poor soul, and Stenson has conveyed by +his manner his respectful sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own +servants. I have gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried my +face in his fur--where Carlotta’s face has been buried. “That’s the way +I should like to be kissed!” Oh, my dear, my dear, were you here now, +that is the way I should kiss you! + +I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room. Antoinette has +prepared it for her reception to-night, as usual. The corner of the +bedclothes is turned down, and her night-dress, a gossamer thing with +cherry ribbons, laid out across the bed. At the foot lie the familiar +red slippers with the audacious heels; her dressing-gown is thrown in +readiness over the back of a chair; even the brass hot water can stands +in the basin--and it is still hot. And I know that the foolish woman is +wide-awake overhead waiting for her darling. I kissed the pillow still +fragrant of her where her head rested last night, and I went downstairs +with a lump in my throat. + +Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from going mad with +suspense, jot down in my diary* the things that have happened. Put in +bald words they scarcely seem credible. + + + * It will be borne in mind that I am writing these actual + pages, afterwards, at Verona, amplifying the rough notes in + my diary. M. O. + + +A sudden clattering, nerve-shaking, strident peal at the front-door +bell. + +I flew down the stairs. It was news of Carlotta. It was Carlotta herself +brought back to me. My heart swelled with joy as if it would burst. I +knew that as I opened the door Carlotta would fall laughing, weeping, +sobbing into my arms. + +I opened the door. It was only a police officer in plain clothes. + +“Sir Marcus Ordeyne?” + +“Yes.” + +“We have traced the young lady all right. She left London by the +two-twenty Continental express from Victoria with Mr. Sebastian +Pasquale.” + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +November 1st. + +Five days ago the blow fell, and I am only now recovering; only now +awakening to the horrible pain of it. + +I have gone about like a man in a dream. Blurred visages of men with +far-away voices have saluted me at the club. Innumerable lines of print +which my eyes have scanned have been destitute of meaning. I have forced +myself to the mechanical task of copying piles of rough notes for my +History; I have been able to bring thereto not an atom of intelligence; +popes, princes, painters are a category of disassociated names, less +evocative of ideas than the columns in the Post Office London Directory. +I have stared stupidly into the fire or at the dripping branches of the +trees opposite my windows. I have walked the streets in dull misery. I +have sought solace in the Zoological Gardens. + +There is a kindly brown bear who pleads humanly for buns, and her I have +fed into a sort of friendship. I stand vacantly in front of the cage +finding in the beast an odd companionable sympathy. She turns her head +on one side, regards me with melting brown eyes, and squatting on her +haunches thrusts her paws beseechingly through the bars. Just so did +Carlotta beseech and plead. I have bemused myself with gnostic and +metempsychosic speculations. Carlotta as an ordinary human being with +an immortal soul did not exist, and what I had known and loved was but +a simulacrum of female form containing an elemental spirit doomed to +be ever seeking a fresh habitat. It was but the lingering ghost of the +humanised shell of air that was seen at Victoria station. The fateful +spirit, untrammelled by the conventions of men and actuated by destinies +unintelligible to mortal mind, had informed the carcass of this +little brown bear, which looks at me so strangely, so coaxingly, with +Carlotta’s eyes and Carlotta’s gestures. I asked her yesterday to come +back to me. I said that the house was empty; that the rooms ached for +the want of her. I pleaded so passionately and the eyes before me so +melted that I thought her heart was touched. But in the midst of it all +another visitor came up and the creature uttered a whining plaint and +put out her paw for buns--by which token I felt indeed that it was +Carlotta. + + +I have accepted the blow silently. As yet I have told no one. I have +made no inquiries. When a man is betrayed by his best friend and +deserted by the woman he loves, time and solitude are the only +comforters. Besides, to whom should I go for comfort? I have lived too +remote from my kind, and my kind heeds me not. + +Not a line has reached me from Carlotta. She has gone out of my life as +lightly and as remorselessly as she went out of Hamdi Effendi’s; as she +went, for aught she knew, out of that of the unhappy boy who lured her +from Alexandretta. If she heard I was dead, I wonder whether she would +say: “I am so glad!” + +Whether the flight was planned between them, or whether Pasquale waylaid +her on her way to the Avenue Road and then and there proposed that she +should accompany him, I do not know. It matters very little. She is +gone. That is the one awful fact that signifies. No explanations, pleas +for forgiveness could make me suffer less. Were she different I might +find it in my heart to hate her. This I cannot do. How can one hate +a thing devoid of heart and soul? But one can love it--God knows how +blindly. So I have locked the door of Carlotta’s room and the key is in +my possession. It shall not be touched. It shall remain just as she left +it--and I shall mourn for her as for one dead. + +For Pasquale--if I were of his own reversionary type, I should follow +him half across Europe till we met, and then one of us would kill the +other. In one respect he resembles Carlotta. He is destitute of the +moral sense. How else to solve the enigma? How else to reconcile his +flamboyant chivalry towards the consumptive washer-woman with the black +treachery towards me, in which even at that very moment his mind must +have been steeped? I knew that he had betrayed many, that where women +were concerned no considerations of honour or friendship had stood +between him and his desires; but I believed--for what reason save my own +egregious vanity, I know not--that for me he had a peculiar regard. +I believed that it was an idiosyncrasy of this wolf to look upon my +sheepfold as sacred from his depredations. I was ashamed of any doubts +that crossed my mind as to his loyalty, and did not hesitate to thrust +my lamb between his jaws. And while he was giving the lie direct to my +faith, I, poor fool, in my despair was seeking madly for his aid in the +deliverance of my darling from the power of the dog. + +I have felt I owe Hamdi Effendi an apology; for it is well that, in the +midst of this buffoon tragedy I find myself playing, I should observe +occasionally the decencies of conduct. But, on the other hand, was he +not amply repaid for moral injury by the pure joy he must have felt +while torturing me with his banter? For all the deeper suffering, I +am conscious of writhing under lacerated vanity when I think of that +grotesque and humiliating blunder in the Hotel Metropole. + + +November 2d. + +I have received news of the death of old Simon McQuhatty. In my +few lucid moments of late I had been thinking of seeking his kindly +presence. Now Gossip Death has taken him out across the moor. Now, dear +old pagan, he is + + “Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course + With rocks and stones and trees.” + + +November 3d. + +Antoinette came up this morning with a large cardboard box addressed to +Carlotta. The messenger who brought it was waiting downstairs. + +“I came to Monsieur to know whether I should send it back,” said +Antoinette, on the verge of tears. + +“No,” said I, “leave it here.” + +From the furrier’s label, I saw that the box contained some furs I had +ordered for Carlotta a fortnight ago--she shivered so, poor child, in +this wintry climate. + +“But, Monsieur,” began Antoinette, “the poor angel--” + +“May want it in heaven,” said I. + +The good woman stared. + +“We’ll be like the ancient Egyptians, Antoinette,” I explained, “who +placed food and wine and raiment and costly offerings in the tombs of +the departed, so that their shades could come and enjoy them for all +eternity. We’ll have to make believe, Antoinette, that this is a +tomb, for one can’t rear a pyramid in London, though it is a desert +sufficiently vast; and the little second floor room is the inner +sanctuary where the body lies in silence embalmed with sweet spices and +swathed in endless bands of linen.” + +“But Mademoiselle is not dead?” cried Antoinette, with a shiver. “How +can Monsieur talk of such things? It makes me fear, the way Monsieur +speaks.” + +“It makes me fear, too, Antoinette,” said I, gravely. + +When she had gone I took the box of furs upstairs and laid it unopened +on Carlotta’s bed and came away, relocking the door behind me. + + +November 9th. + +I have formed a great resolution. I have devoted the week to the +envisagement of things, and while I lay awake last night the solution +came to me as something final and irrevocable. Mistrusting the counsels +of the night, when the brain is unduly excited by nervous insomnia, I +have applied the test of a day’s cold reason. + +I have broken a woman’s heart. I have spurned the passionate love of a +woman who has been near and dear to me; a woman of great nature; a woman +of subtle brain who has been my chosen companion, my equal partner in +any intellectual path I chose to tread; a sensitive lady, with all the +graciousness of soul that term conveys. Heaven knows what a woman can +see in me to love. I look in the glass at my bony, hawk-like face, on +which the stamp of futility seems eternally set, and I am seized with a +prodigious wonder; but the fact remains that to me unlovely and unworthy +has been given that thing without price, a woman’s love. I remember +Pasquale laughing merrily at this valuation. He said the love of women +was as cheap as dirt, and the only use for it was to make mud pies. The +damned cynical villain! “Always reflect,” said he, on another occasion, +“that although a man may be as ugly as sin, the probability is that he +is just as pleasant. Beauties will find hitherto unsuspected amenities +in Beasts till the end of time.” But I am such a poor and sorry Beast, +without the chance of a transformation; a commonplace Beast, dull and +didactic; a besotted, purblind, despicable Beast! Yet Judith loved me. +Instead of thanking on my knees the high gods for the boon conferred, I +rejected it, and went mad for craving of the infinitely lesser glory of +Carlotta’s baby lips and gold-bronze hair. I have broken Judith’s heart. +I will expiate the crime I have committed. + +Expiate the crime! The realisation of the meaning of the words covers +me with shame. As if what I propose will be a sorry penance! That is the +danger of a man thinking, as I have always done, in metaphors. It has +given me my loose, indirect views of life, of myself, of those around +me. If I had advice to offer to a young man, I should say: “Learn to +think straight.” Expiate, indeed! I will go to her and make confession. +I will tell her that awful loneliness is crushing my soul. I will kneel +before her and beseech her of her great woman’s goodness to give me her +love again, and to be my helpmeet and my companion who will be cherished +with all that there is of loyalty in me to her life’s end. She will pity +me a little, for I have suffered, and I will pity her tenderly, in deep +sincerity, and our life together will be based on that all-understanding +which signifies all-forgiveness. And it shall be a real life together. +I used to smile, in a superior way, at her dread of solitude. Heaven +forgive me. I did not then know its terrors. It comforted for the first +few benumbed days, but now it is gathering around me like a mysterious +and appalling force. I crave the human presence in my home. I need the +woman’s presence in my heart. + +We shall live together then as man and wife, in defiance of the world. +Let the moralists blame us. We shall not care. It will make little +social difference to Judith, and as for myself, have I not already +inflicted public outrage on society? does not my Aunt Jessica regard me +as a wringer of the public conscience, and does not my Cousin Rosalie +mention me with a shudder of horror in her tepid prayers? If I really +give them cause for reprobation they will be neither wiser, nor better, +nor sorrier. And if the baronetcy flickers out in unseemly odour, I +for one shall know that the odour is sweeter than that wherein it was +lighted, when my great-grandfather earned the radiance by services +rendered at Brighton to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. This is +the only way in which I can make Judith reparation, the only way in +which I can find comfort. We shall travel. Italy, beloved of Judith, is +calling me. Probably Florence will be our settled home. I shall give +up this house of madness. The clean sweet love of Judith will purify my +heart of this poisonous passion, and in the end there will be peace. + + +I have taken Carlotta’s photograph from its frame and cast it into the +fire, thus burning her for her witchcraft. I watched the flames leap and +curl. The last look she gave me before they licked away her face had its +infinite allurement, its devilish sorcery so intensified in the fierce +yellow light, that the yearning for her clutched me by the throat and +shook me through all my being. + + +But it is over now. I have done with Carlotta. If she thinks I am going +to sit and let the wind which comes over Primrose Hill drive me mad +like Gastibelza, _l’homme a la carabine_, in Victor Hugo’s poem, she is +vastly mistaken. From this hour henceforth I swear she is nothing to me; +I will eat and sleep and laugh as if she had never existed. Polyphemus, +curled up in Carlotta’s old place on the sofa, regards me with his +sardonic eye. He is an evil, incredulous, mocking beast, who a few +centuries ago would have been burned with his late mistress. + +I am sane and happier now that I have come to my irrevocable +determination. + +To-morrow I go to Judith. + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +November 10th. + + +I had to ring twice before Judith’s servant opened the flat door. + +“Mrs. Mainwaring is engaged just at present, Sir Marcus.” + +“Ask her if I can come in and wait, as I have something of importance to +say to her.” + +She left me standing in the passage, a thing that had never before +occurred to me in Judith’s establishment, and presently returned with +her answer. Would I mind waiting in the dining-room? I entered. The +table was littered with sheets of her statistical work and odd bits of +silk’ and lining. A type-writer stood at one end and a sewing-machine at +the other. On the writing-desk by the window, in the midst of a mass of +letters and account-books, rested a large bowl filled with magnificent +blooms of white and yellow chrysanthemums. A volume of Dante lay +open face downwards on the corner. It did my heart good to see this +untidiness, so characteristic of Judith, so familiar, so intimate. She +had taken her trouble bravely, I reflected. The ordinary daily task had +not been left undone. Through all she had preserved her valiant sanity. +I felt rebuked for my own loss of self-control. + +I was about to turn away from the litter of the desk, when my eye caught +sight of an envelope bearing a French stamp and addressed in Pasquale’s +unmistakable handwriting. As there seemed to be a letter inside, I did +not take it up to examine it more closely. The glance was enough to +assure me that it came from Pasquale. Why should he be corresponding +with Judith? I walked away puzzled. Was it a justification, a +confession, a plea to her as my friend to obtain my forgiveness? +If there is one thing more irritating than another it is to +light accidentally upon a mystery affecting oneself in a friend’s +correspondence. One can no more probe deeply into it than one can steal +the friend’s spoons. It seems an indiscretion to have noticed it, an +unpardonable impertinence to subject it to conjecture. In spite of my +abhorring the impulse of curiosity, the sweeping, flaunting, swaggering +handwriting of Pasquale worried me. + +Judith came in, looking much as she had done on the occasion of my last +visit, worn and anxious, with a strange expression in her eyes. + +“I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said, extending a lifeless +hand. + +I raised it to my lips. + +“I would have gladly waited all day to see you, Judith,” I said. + +“Really?” + +She laughed in an odd way. + +“And idle speech from me to you at the present time would be an +outrage,” I answered. “I have passed through much since I saw you last.” + +“So have I,” said Judith. “More than you imagine. Well,” she continued +as I bowed my head accepting the rebuke, “what have you got so important +to tell me?” + +“Much,” said I. “In the first place you must be aware of what has +happened, for I can’t help seeing there a letter from Pasquale.” + +She glanced swiftly at the desk and back again at me. + +“Yes,” she replied, “he is in Paris.” + +I was amazed at her nonchalance. + +“Has he told you nothing?” + +“Perhaps Sir Marcus Ordeyne would like to see his letter,” she said, +ironically. + +“You know perfectly well that I would not read it,” said I. + +Judith laughed again, and rolled her handkerchief into a little ball +between her nervous fingers. + +“Forgive me,” she said. “I like to see the _grand seigneur_ in you now +and then. It puts me in mind of happier days. But about Pasquale--the +only thing he tells me is that he is not able to execute a commission +for me. He told me on the night he drove me home that he was going to +Paris, and I asked him to get me some cosmetic. Carmine Badouin, if you +want to know. I have got to rouge now before I am fit to be seen in the +street. I am quite frank about it.” + +“Then you know nothing of Carlotta?” I cried. + +“Carlotta?” + +“She eloped with that double-dyed, damned, infernal villain, the day +after I saw you.” + +Judith looked at me for a moment, then closed her eyes and turned her +head away, resting her hand on the table. My indignation waxed hot +against the scoundrel. How dare he write casual letters to Judith about +Carmine Badouin with his treachery on his conscience? I know the terms +of flippant grace in which the knave couched this precious epistle. And +I could see Carlotta reading over his shoulder and clapping her hands +and cooing: “Oh, that is so funny!” + +When I had told Judith the outlines of the story, pacing up and down the +little room while she remained motionless by the table, she put out her +hand to me, and in a low voice, and with still averted eyes said that +she was sorry, deeply sorry. Her tone rang so true and loyal that my +heart throbbed with quick appreciation of her high nature, and I wrung +her outstretched hand. + +“God bless you, Judith,” I cried, fervently. “Bless you for your sweet +sympathy. Be sorry for me only as for a man who has passed through the +horrors of delirium. But for me as I stand before you now, I ask you not +to be sorry. I have come to bring you, if I can, dear Judith, a measure +of gladness, perhaps of happiness.” + +She wrenched herself free from me, and a terrified cry of “Marcus!” + checked my dithyrambic appeal. She shrank away so that a great corner of +the dining-table separated us, and she stared at me as though my words +hats been the affrighting utterance of a madman. + +“Marcus! What do you mean?” she cried, with an unnatural shrillness in +her voice. + +“I mean,” said I, “I mean--I mean that ‘crushed by three days’ pressure, +my three days’ love lies slain.’ Time has withered him at the root. I +have buried him deep in unconsecrated ground, like a vampire, with a +stake through his heart. And I have come back to you, Judith, humbly +to crave your forgiveness and your love--to tell you I have changed, +dear--to offer you all I have in the world if you will but take it--to +give you my life, my daily, hourly devotion. My God!” I cried, “don’t +you believe me?” + +She still stared at me in a frightened way, leaning heavier on the +table. Her lips twitched before they could frame the words, + +“Yes, I believe you. You have never lied to me.” + +“Then in the name of love and heaven,” I cried, “why do you look at me +like that?” + +She trembled, evidently suppressing something with intense effort, +whether bitter laughter, indignation or a passionate outburst I could +not tell. + +“You ask why?” she said, unsteadily. “Because you seem like the angel of +the flaming vengeance.” + +At these astounding words it was my turn to look amazed. + +“Vengeance?” I echud. “What wrong have you done me or any living +creature? Come, my dear,” and I moved nearer by seating myself on the +corner of the table, close to the type-writer, and leaning towards her, +“let us look at this thing soberly. If ever a man had need of woman I +have need of you. I can live alone no longer. We must share one home +henceforth together. We can snap our fingers at the world, you and I. +If you have anything to say against the proposal, let us discuss it +calmly.” + +Judith’s slender figure vibrated like a cord strung to breaking-point. +Her voice vibrated. + +“Yes, let us discuss it calmly. But not here. The sight of you +sitting in the middle of my life, between the sewing-machine and the +type-writer, is getting on my nerves. Let us go into the drawing-room. +There is an atmosphere of calm there--” her voice quavered in a queer +little choke--“of sabbatical calm.” + +I slid quickly from the table and put my arm round her waist. + +“Tell me, Judith, what is amiss with you.” + +She broke away from me roughly, thrusting me back. + +“Nothing. A woman’s nothing, if you understand what that means. Come +into the drawing-room.” + +I opened the door; she passed out and I followed her along the passage. +She preceded me into the drawing-room, and I stayed for a moment to +close the door, fumbling with the handle which has been loose for some +months. When I turned and had made a couple of steps forward, I halted +involuntarily under the shock of a considerable surprise. + +We were not alone. Standing on the hearth-rug, his hands behind his +back, his brows bent on me benevolently was a man in clerical attire. He +looked ostentatiously, exaggeratedly clerical. His clerical frock-coat +was of inordinate length; his boots were aggravatingly clump-soled; by +a very large white tie, masking the edges of a turned-down collar, he +proclaimed himself Evangelical. An otherwise clean-shaven florid face +was adorned with brown side-whiskers growing rather long. A bald, shiny +head topped a fringe of brown hair. + +I stared at this unexpected gentleman for a second or two, and then, +recovering my self-possession, looked enquiringly at Judith. + +“Sir Marcus,” she said, “let me introduce my husband, Mr. Rupert +Mainwaring.” + +Her husband! This benevolent Evangelical parson her husband! But the +brilliant gallant who had dazzled her eyes? The dissolute scoundrel +that had wrecked her life? Where was he? Dumfounded, I managed to bow +politely enough, but my stupefaction was covered by Judith rushing +across the room and uttering a strange sound which resolved itself into +a shrill, hysterical laugh as she reached the door which she opened and +slammed behind her. I heard her scream hysterically in the passage; +then the slam of another door; and the silence told me that she had shut +herself in her bedroom. Disregarding the new husband’s presence, I rang +the bell, and the servant who had left her kitchen on hearing the scream +entered immediately. + +“Go to your mistress. She is ill,” said I. + +The maid hurriedly departed. The parson and I looked at one another. + +“I am afraid,” said I, “that my presence is unhappily an intrusion. I +hope to make your better acquaintance on another occasion.” + +“Oh, please don’t go,” said he, “my wife is only a little upset and will +soon recover. I beg that you will excuse her. Besides, I should like to +have a talk with you.” + +He offered me a chair, my own chair, the comfortable, broad-seated +Empire chair I had given Judith as a birthday present years ago, the +chair in which I had invariably sat. He did it with the manner of the +master of the house, a most courteous gentleman. The situation was +fantastic. Some ingenious devil must have conceived it by way of +pandering to the after-dinner humour of the high gods. As I sat down I +rubbed my eyes. Was this brown-whiskered, bald-headed clerical gentleman +real? The rubbing of my eyes dispelled no hallucination. He was flesh +and blood and still regarded me urbanely. It was horrible. The desertion +of the scoundrelly husband, who I thought was lost somewhere in the +cesspool of Europe, was the basis, the sanction of the relations +between Judith and myself; and here was this reverend, respectable man +apologising for his wife and begging me to be seated in my own chair. +The remark of Judith’s that I should find sabbatical calm in the +drawing-room occurred to me, and I had to grip the arms of the chair to +prevent myself from joining Judith in her hysterics. + +The appearance of the husband in his legendary colours of rascality +would have been a shock. The sudden scattering of my plans for Judith’s +happiness I should have viewed with consternation. But it would have +been normal. For him, however, to appear in the guise of an Evangelical +clergyman, the very last kind of individual to be associated with +Judith, was, I repeat, horribly fantastic. + +“I believe, Sir Marcus,” said he, deliberately parting the tails of his +exaggerated frock-coat and sitting down near me, “that you are a very +great friend of my wife.” + +I murmured that I had known Mrs. Mainwaring for some years. + +“You are doubtless acquainted with her unhappy history.” + +“I have heard her speak of it,” said I. + +“You must then share her surprise in seeing me here to-day. I should +like to assure you, as representing her friends and society and that +sort of thing, as I have assured her, that I have not taken this step +without earnest prayer and seeking the counsel of Almighty God.” + +I am by no means a bigoted pietist, but to hear a person talk lightly +about seeking the counsel of Almighty God jars upon my sense of taste. I +stiffened at the sanctimonious tone in which the words were uttered. + +“You have without doubt very good reasons for coming back into the +circle of her life,” said I. + +“The best of all reasons,” he replied, caressing a brown whisker, +“namely, that I am a Christian.” + +I liked him less and less. + +“Is that the reason, may I ask, why you remained away from her all these +years?” + +“I deserve the scoff,” said he: “Those were days of sin. I deserve every +humiliation that can be put upon me. But I have since found the grace +of God. I found it at three o’clock in the afternoon on the eighth of +January, eighteen hundred and--” + +“Never mind the year,” I interrupted. + +My gorge rose. The man was a sanctimonious Chadband. He had come with +nefarious designs on Judith’s slender capital. I saw knavery in the +whites of his upturned eyes. + +“I should be glad,” I continued quickly, “if you would come to the point +of the conversation you desire to have with me. I presume it concerns +Mrs. Mainwaring. She has reconciled herself to circumstances and has +found means to regulate her life with a certain measure of contentment +and comfort until now, when you suddenly introduce a disturbing factor. +You appear to wish to tell me your reasons for doing so--and I can’t see +what the grace of God has to do with it.” + +He sprang to his feet and shot out both hands in the awkward gesture of +an inspired English prophet. + +“But it has everything to do with it! It is the beginning and end, core +and kernel, root and branch of the matter. It is the grace of God that +checked me in the full career of my wickedness. It is the grace of God +that has lighted my path ever since to holier things. It is the grace of +God that has changed me from what I was to what I am. It is the grace +of God that has brought me here to ask pardon on my knees of the woman +I have wronged. The grace of God and of his son our Lord Jesus Christ, +which came upon me in a great light on that January afternoon even as it +did upon Saul of Tarsus. The grace of God has everything to do with it.” + +“Mr. Mainwaring,” said I, “such talk is either blasphemous or--” + +He did not allow me to state the alternative, but caught up the word in +a great cry. + +“Blasphemous! Why, man alive! for what are you taking me? Do you think +this is some unholy jest? Can’t you see that I am in deadly earnest? +Come and see me where I live--” he caught me by the arm, as if he would +drag me away then and there, “among the poor in Hoxton. You scarcely +know where Hoxton is--I didn’t when I was a man of ease like +yourself--that wilderness of grey despair where the sun of the world +scarcely shines, let alone the Light of God. Come and see for yourself, +man, whether I am lying!” + +Then it dawned upon me that the man had been talking from innermost +depths, that he was almost terrifyingly sincere. + +“I must ask you to pardon me,” said I, “for appearing to doubt your good +faith. You must attribute it to my entire unfamiliarity with the terms +of Evangelical piety.” + +He looked at me queerly for a moment, and then, in the quiet tones of a +man of the world, said, smiling pleasantly: + +“Very many years ago I had the pleasure of knowing your grandfather, the +late baronet. May I say that you remind me of him?” + +I have never heard an apology more gracefully and tactfully accepted. +For an unregenerate second he had become the gallant Rupert Mainwaring +again, and showed me wherein might lie his attraction. + +“Pray be seated,” said he, more gravely, “and allow me to explain.” + +He unfolded his story. It was well, said he, that an outsider (I an +outsider in that familiar room!) should hear it. I was at liberty to +make it public. Indeed, publicity was what he earnestly craved. As far +as my memory serves me, for my wits were whirling as I listened, the +following is an epitome of his narrative: + +He had been a man of sin--not only in the vague ecclesiastical sense, +but in downright, practical earnest. He had committed every imaginable +crime, save the odd few that lead to penal servitude and the gallows. He +drank, he betrayed women, he cheated at cards, he had an evil reputation +on the turf. His companions were chosen from the harlotry and knavery +of the civilised world. He had lured Judith from her first husband, thus +breaking his heart, poor man, so that he died soon after. He had married +Judith, and had deserted her for a barmaid whom in her turn he had +abandoned. He wallowed, to use his own expression, in the trough +of iniquity. He was, as I had always understood, about as choice a +blackguard as it would be possible to meet outside a gaol. One day +a pretty girl, whom he had been following in the street, unwittingly +enticed him into a revivalist meeting. He described that meeting so +vividly that had my stupefied mind been capable of fresh emotions, I too +might have been converted at second hand by the revivalist preacher. +He repeated parts of the sermon, rose to his feet, waved his arms, +thundered out the commonplaces of Salvation Army Christianity, as if +he had made an amazing theological discovery. It was pathetic. It was +ludicrous. It was also inconceivably painful. At last he mopped his +forehead and shiny head. + +“Before that meeting was over I was on my knees praying beside the girl +whom I had designed to ruin. I went into the streets a converted man, +filled with the grace of God. I resolved to devote my life to saving +souls for Christ. My old habits of sin fell away from me like a garment. +I studied for the ministry. I am now in deacon’s orders, and I am the +incumbent of a little tin mission church in Hoxton. God moves in a +mysterious way, Sir Marcus.” + +“He is generally credited with doing so,” said I, stupidly. + +“You are doubtless wondering, Sir Marcus,” he went on, “why I placed +such a long interval between my awakening and my communicating with my +wife. I set myself a period of probation. I desired to be assured of +God’s will. It was essential that I should test my strength of purpose, +and my power of making a life’s atonement, as far as the things of this +world are concerned, for the wrongs I have inflicted on her. I have come +now to offer her a Christian home.” + +I looked at him open-mouthed. + +“Do you expect Judith to go and live with you as your wife, in Hoxton?” + I asked, bluntly. + +“Why not? She is my wife.” + +I rose and walked about the room in agitation. Somehow such a +contingency had not entered my bewildered head. + +“Why not, Sir Marcus?” he repeated. + +“Because Judith isn’t that kind of woman at all,” I said, desperately. +“She doesn’t like Hoxton, and would be as much out of place in a +tin-mission church as I should be in a cavalry charge.” + +“God will see to her fitness,” said he, gravely. “To him all things are +easy.” + +“But she has considerable philosophic doubt as to his personal +existence,” I cried. + +He smiled prophetically and waved away her doubt with a gesture. + +“I have no fears on that score,” he observed. + +“But it is preposterous,” I objected once more, changing my ground; +“Judith craves the arrears of gaiety and laughter which your conduct +caused life to leave owing to her. She loves bright dresses, cigarettes, +and wine and the things that are anathema in an Evangelical household.” + +“My wife will find the gaiety and laughter of holiness,” replied +the fanatic. “She will not be stinted of money to dress herself with +becoming modesty; and as for alcohol and tobacco, no one knows better +than myself how easy it is to give them up.” + +“You seem as merciless in your virtues as you were in your vices,” said +I. + +“I have to bring souls to Christ,” he answered. + +“That doesn’t appear to be the way,” I retorted, “to bring them.” + +“Pray remember, Sir Marcus,” said he, bending his brows upon me, “that I +did not ask you for suggestions as to the conduct of my ministry.” + +“The general methods you adopt in the case of your congregation,” said +I, “are matters of perfect indifference to me. But I cannot see Judith +imprisoned for life in a tin church without a protest. Your proposal +reminds me of the Siennese who owed a victorious general more than they +could possibly repay. The legend goes that they hanged him, in order to +make him a saint after his death by way of reward. I object to this sort +of canonisation of Judith. And she will object, too. You seem to leave +her out of account altogether. She is mistress of her own actions. She +has a will of her own. She is not going to give up her comfortable flat +off the Tottenham Court Road in order to dwell in Hoxton. She won’t go +back to you under your conditions.” + +He smiled indulgently and held out his hand to signify that the +interview was over. + +“She will, Sir Marcus.” + +Was there ever such a Torquemada of a creature? I respect religion. I +respect this man’s intense conviction of the reality of his conversion. +I can respect even the long frock coat and the long brown whiskers, +which in the case of so dashing a worldling as Rupert Mainwaring were +a deliberate and daily mortification of the flesh. But I hold in +shuddering detestation “the thumb-screw and the rack for the glory of +the Lord,” which he cheerfully contemplated applying to Judith. + +“Why on earth can’t you let the poor woman alone?” I asked, ignoring his +hand. + +“I am doing my duty to God and to her,” said he. + +“With the result that you have driven her into hysterics.” + +“She’ll get over them,” said he. + +“I wish you good-day,” said I. “We might talk together for a thousand +years without understanding each other.” + +“Pardon me,” he retorted, with the utmost urbanity. “I understand you +perfectly.” + +He accompanied me to the dining-room where I had left my hat and +umbrella, and to the flat door which he politely opened. When it shut +behind me I felt inclined to batter it open again and to take Judith +by main force from under his nose. But I suppose I am pusillanimous. I +found myself in the street brandishing my umbrella like a flaming sword +and vowing to perform all sorts of Paladin exploits, which I knew in my +heart were futile. + +I hailed an omnibus in the Tottenham Court Road, and clambered to the +top, though a slight drizzle was falling. Why I did it I have not +the remotest idea, for I abhor those locomotive engines of exquisite +discomfort. I had no preconceived notion of destination. It was a moving +thing that would carry me away from the Tottenham Court Road, away +from the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring, away from myself. I was the solitary +occupant of the omnibus roof. The rain fell, softly, persistently, +soakingly. I laughed aloud. + +I recognised the predestined irony of things that at every corner checks +the course of the ineffectual man. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +November 11th. + +I wrote Judith a long letter last night, urging her to disregard the +forfeited claims of her husband and to join her life definitely with +mine. I was cynical enough to feel that if such a proceeding annoyed +the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring it would serve him right. The fact of a man’s +finding religion and abjuring sack does not in itself exculpate him from +wrongs which he has inflicted on his fellow-creatures in unregenerate +days. Mainwaring deserved some punishment of which he seemed to have had +remarkably little; for, mind you, his sack-cloth and ashes at Hoxton, +although sincerely worn, are not much of a punishment to a man in his +exalted mood. Now, on the contrary, Judith deserved compensation, such +as I alone was prepared to offer her in spite of conventional morality +and the feelings of the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring. Indeed, it seemed to +be the only way of saving Judith from being worried out of her life by +frantic appeals to embrace both himself and Primitive Christianity. +Her position was that of Andromeda. Mine that of an unheroic Perseus, +destined to deliver her from the monster--the monster whose lair is a +little tin mission church in Hoxton. + +I wrote the letter in one of those periods of semi-vitality when the +pulses of emotion throb weakly, and sensitiveness is dulled. To-day +I have felt differently. My nerves have been restrung. Something +ironically vulgar, sordidly tragic has seemed to creep into my relations +with Judith. + +To my great surprise Judith brought her answer in person this evening. +It is the first time she has entered my house; and her first words, as +she looked all around her with a wistful smile referred to the fact. + +“It is almost just as I have pictured it--and I have pictured it--do you +know how often?” + +She was calmer, if not happier. The haggard expression had given place +to one of resignation. I wheeled an arm-chair close to the fire, for she +was cold, and she sank into it with a sigh of weariness. I knelt beside +her. She drew off her gloves and put one hand on my head in the old way. +The touch brought me great comfort. I thought that we had reached the +quiet haven at last. + +“So you have come to me, Judith,” I whispered. + +“I have come, dear,” she said, “to tell you that I can’t come.” + +My heart sank. + +“Why?” I asked. + +We fenced a little. She gave half reasons, womanlike, of which I proved +the inadequacy. I recapitulated the arguments I had used in my letter. +She met them with hints and vague allusions. At last she cut the knot. + +“I am going back to my husband.” + +I rose to my feet and echud the words. She repeated them in a tone so +mournfully distinct, that they had the finality of a death-knell. I had +nothing to say. + +“Before we part I must make my peace with you, Marcus,” she said. “I +have suddenly developed a conscience. I always had the germs of it.” + +“You were always the best and dearest woman in the world,” I cried. + +“And I betrayed you, dear. That letter from Pasquale told me about his +flight with Carlotta. I lied to you--but I was in a state bordering on +madness.” + +I rested my elbow on the mantel-piece and looked down on her. She +appeared so sweet and fragile, like a piece of Dresden china, incapable +of base actions. As I did not speak she went on: “I did not mean to play +into Pasquale’s hands, Marcus. Heaven knows I didn’t--but I did play +into them. Do you remember that awful night and our talk the next +morning? I asked you not to see her all day--to mourn our dead love. I +knew you would keep your promise. You are a man of sensitive honour. If +all men were like you, the world would be a beautiful place.” + +“It would go to smash in a few weeks through universal incompetence,” I +murmured, with some bitterness. + +“There would be no meanness and treachery and despicable underhand +doings. Marcus, you must forgive me--I was a desperate woman fighting +for my life’s happiness. I thought I would try one forlorn hope. I kept +you out of the way and came up here to see Carlotta. Don’t interrupt me, +Marcus; let me finish. I happened to meet her a hundred yards down the +road, and we went into the Regent’s Park. We sat down and I told her +about ourselves, and my love for you, and asked her to give you up. I +don’t believe she understood, Marcus. She laughed and threw stones at a +little dog. I recovered my senses and left her there and went home sick +with shame and humiliation. I knew Pasquale was in love with her, for he +had told me so the night before, and asked me how the marriage could be +stopped. He didn’t believe in your announcement to Hamdi Effendi. But I +never mentioned Pasquale to Carlotta, or hinted there might be another +than you. I was loyal so far, Marcus. And two or three days afterwards +came Pasquale’s letter. And I waited for you, in a fearful joy. I knew +you would come to me--and I was mad enough to think that time would +heal--that you would forget--that we could have the dear past again--and +I would teach you to love me. But then, suddenly, without a word of +warning--it has always been his way--appeared my husband. After that, +you came with your offer of shelter and comfort--and you seemed like the +angel of the flaming vengeance. For I had wronged you, dear--robbed you +of your happiness. If I hadn’t prepared her mind for leaving you, she +would never have run away. If I had not done this, or if on the other +hand you loved me, Marcus, I should perhaps have looked at things +differently. I am beginning to believe in God and to see his hand in +it all. I couldn’t come and live with you as your wife, Marcus. Things +stronger even than my love for you forbid it. Our life together would +not be the sweet and gracious thing it has always been to me. We have +come to the parting of the ways. I must follow my husband.” + +I knew she spoke rightly. When she is not swept away to hysterical +action by her temperament, she has a perception exquisitely keen into +the heart of truth. + +“The parting of the ways?” said I. “Yes; but can’t you rest at the +cross-roads? Can’t you lead your present life--your husband and myself, +both, just your friends?” + +“Rupert has need of me,” she replied very quickly. “He is a man in +torment of soul. He has gone to this extreme of religious fanaticism +because he is still uncertain of himself. We had another long talk +to-day. I may help him.” + +“Does he deserve the sacrifice of your life?” + +She did not take up my question directly; but sat for a few minutes with +her chin on her hand looking into the fire. + +“He is a man of evil passions,” she resumed, at last. “Drink and women +mainly dragged him down. I knew the hell of it during the short time of +our married life. If he falls away now, he believes he is damned to all +eternity. He believes in the material torture--flames and devils and +pitchforks--of damned souls. He says in me alone lies his salvation. I +must go. If the tin church gets too awful, I shall run over to Delphine +Carrere for a week to steady my nerves.” + +What could I say? The abomination of desolation lay around about me. +I might have prated to her of my needs, wrung her heart with the +piteousness of my appeal. _Cui bono?_ _I_ can’t whine to women--or to +men either, for the matter of that. When I am by myself I can curse and +swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza out-Heroding all +the Herods that ever Heroded. But before others--no. I believe my +great-grandfather, before he qualified for his baronetcy, was a +gentleman. + +“But on these occasions,” said I, “you will avoid a sequestered and +meditative self.” + +Her laugh got choked by a sob. + +“Do you remember that? It is not so long ago--and yet it seems many, +many years.” + +We moralised generally, after the way of humans, who desire to postpone +a moment of anguished speech. She made the tour of my book-shelves. Many +of the books she had borrowed, and she recognised them as old friends. + +“Is that where Benvenuto Cellini has always lived?” + +“Yes,” said I, running my hand along the row. “He is in his century, +among his companions. He would be unhappy anywhere else.” + +“And the History--how far has it gone?” + +I showed her the pile of finished manuscript, of which she glanced at a +few pages. She put it down hurriedly and turned away. + +“I can’t see to read, just now, Marcus.” + +Then she paused in front of her own photograph, the only one now on the +mantel-piece. + +“Will you give me that back?” + +“Why should I?” I asked. + +“I would rather--I should not like you to burn it.” + +“Burn it? All I have left of you?” + +She turned swimming eyes on me. + +“You are good, Marcus--after what I have told you--you do not feel +bitterly against me?” + +“For what? For being quixotic? For going to martyrdom for an ideal?” + +“You did not listen when I spoke about Carlotta?” + +“Oh, my dear!” said I. + +And now she has gone. We kissed at parting--a kiss of remembrance and +renunciation. Shall we ever meet again? + +Darkness gathers round me, and I am tired, tired, and I would that I +could sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and awake an old man, with an old man’s +passionless resignation; or better, awake not at all. Such poor fools as +I are better dead. + +I look back and see all my philosophy refuted, all my prim little +opinions lying prone like dolls with the sawdust knocked out of them. +All these years I have been judging Judith with an ignorance as cruel as +it has been complacent. Verily I have been the fag end of wisdom. So I +forbear to judge her now. + +If I had loved Judith with the great passion of a man’s love for woman, +not all the converted rascals in Christendom could have come between us. + +And her seeing Carlotta--poor woman--what does it matter? What did she +say about Carlotta? “She laughed and threw stones at a little dog.” + +Oh, my God! + + +November 12th + +This way madness lies. I will leave the house in charge of Stenson and +Antoinette and go abroad. Something has put Verona into my head. One +place is as good as another, so long as it is not this house--this house +of death and madness and crime--and Verona is in Italy, where I have +always found peace. + +I will confess my madness. This book is a record of my morals--the +finished version of the farce the high gods have called on meto play. I +thought last night the curtain was rung down. I was wrong. Listen, and +laugh as I do--if you can. + +I fixed myself to work to-day. After all, I am not an idler. I earn my +right to live. When I publish my History the world will be the richer by +_something_, poor though it may be. I vow I have been more greatly, +more nobly employed of late years, than I was when I earned my living +at school-slavery teaching to children the most useless, the most +disastrous, the most soul-cramping branch of knowledge wherewith +pedagogues in their insensate folly have crippled the minds and +blasted the lives of thousands of their fellow-creatures--elementary +mathematics. There is no more reason for any human being on God’s +earth to be acquainted with the Binomial Theorem or the Solution of +Triangles--unless he is a professional scientist, when he can begin +to specialise in mathematics at the same age as the lawyer begins to +specialise in law or the surgeon in anatomy--than for him to be an +expert in Choctaw, the Cabala or the Book of Mormon. I look back with +feelings of shame and degradation to the days when, for the sake of a +crust of bread, I prostituted my intelligence to wasting the precious +hours of impressionable childhood, which could have been filled with +so many beautiful and meaningful things, over this utterly futile and +inhuman subject. It trains the mind--it teaches boys to think, they say. +It doesn’t. In reality it is a cut and dried subject easy to fit into a +school curriculum. Its sacrosanctity saves educationalists an enormous +amount of trouble, and its chief use is to enable mindless young men +from the universities to make a dishonest living by teaching it to +others, who in their turn may teach it to a future generation. + +I am mad to-night--why have I indulged in this diatribe against +mathematics? I must find some vent, I suppose. I see now. I was +saying that I earned my right to live, that I am not an idler. I cling +strenuously to the claim. A man cannot command respect, even his own, by +the mere reason of his _vie sentimentale_. And, after what I have done +to-day, I must force my claim to the respect which on other grounds I +have forfeited. + +I spent, then, my day in unremitting toil. But this evening the horrible +craving for her came over me. Such a little thing brought it about. +Antoinette, who disapproves of the amorphous British lumps of sugar, has +found some emporium where she can buy the regular parallelopiped of +the Continent, and these she provides for my afterdinner coffee. +Absent-mindedly I dipped the edge of the piece of sugar into the liquid, +before dropping it, and watched the brown moisture rise through the +white crystals. Then I remembered. It was an invariable practice of +Carlotta’s. She would keep the lump in the coffee to saturation-point +between her fingers, and then hastily put it into her mouth, so that it +should not crumble to pieces on the way. If it did, there would be much +laughter and wiping of skirts; and there would be a search through my +dinner-jacket pockets for a handkerchief to dry the pink tips of +her fingers. She called the dripping lump a canard, like the French +children. It was such a trivial thing; but it brought back with a rush +all the thousand dainty, foolish, captivating intimacies that made up +the maddening charm of Carlotta. + +Yes, I am aware that there is no language spoken under heaven that can +fitly express the doting folly of a man who can be driven mad by a piece +of sugar soaked in coffee. There is a ghastly French phrase not to be +found in Lamartine, Chateaubriand, or any of the polite sentimentalists +_avoir les sangs tournes de quelqu’un_. It is so with me. _J’ai les +sangs tournes d’elle_. Somebody has said something somewhere about the +passion of a man of forty. It must have to do with the French phrase. + +I pushed my coffee aside untasted, and buried my head in my hands, +longing, longing; eating my heart out for her. The hours passed. When +the servants were abed, I stole upstairs to her room, left as it was on +the night when Antoinette, hoping against hope, had prepared it for her +reception. I broke down. Heaven knows what I did. + +I returned to the drawing-room filled with the blind rage that makes +a man curse God and wish that he could die. The fire was black, and I +mechanically took up the poker to stir it. A tempest of impotent anger +shook my soul. I saw things red before my eyes. I had an execrable lust +to kill. I was alone amid a multitude of gibbering fiends. As I stooped +before the grate I felt something scrabble my shoulders. I leapt back +with a shriek, and saw standing on the mantel-shelf a black, one-eyed +thing regarding me with an expression of infinite malice. Before I knew +what I had done, I had brought the iron down, with all my force, upon +its skull, and it had fallen dead at my feet. + +_Finis coronat opus._ + + +November 22d. + +Verona:--I have abandoned the “History of Renaissance Morals.” The +dog’s-eared MS. and the dusty pile of notes I have shot into a lumber +heap in a corner of this room, where I sit and shiver by a little stove. +It is immense, marble, cold, comfortless, suggestive of “the vasty halls +of death.” I have been here a week to-day. I thought I should find rest. +I should breathe the atmosphere of Italy again. I should ease my heart +among the masterworks of Girolamo dai Libri and Cavazzola, and, in +the presence of the blue castellated mountains they loved to paint, +my spirit would even be as theirs. In this old-world city, I fondly +imagined, I should forget the Regent’s Park, and attune my mind to the +life that once filled its narrow streets. + +But nothing have I found save solitude. I stood to-day before the +mutilated fresco of Morone, my rapture of six years ago, and hated +it with unreasoning hatred. The Madonna belied the wreath-supported +inscription above her head, _“Miseratrix virginum Regina nostri +miserere,”_ and greeted me with a pitiless simper. The unidentified +martyr on the left stared straight in front of him with callous +indifference, and St. Roch looked aggravatingly plump for all his +ostentatious plague-spot. The picture was worse than meaningless. It was +insulting. It drove me out of the Public Gallery. Outside a grey mist +veiled the hills and a fine penetrating rain was falling. I crept home, +and for the fiftieth time since I have been here, opened my “History of +Renaissance Morals.” I threw it, with a final curse, into the corner. + +I loathe it. I care not a fig for the Renaissance or its morals. I count +its people but a pestilent herd of daubers, rhymers, cutthroats, and +courtesans. Their _hubris_ has lost its glamour of beauty and has +coarsened into vulgar insolence. They offend me by their riotous +swagger, their insistence on the animal joy of living; chiefly by their +perpetual reminiscence of Pasquale. + +Yet once they interested me greatly, filling with music and with colour +the grey void of my life. Whence has come the change? + +In myself. To myself I have become a subject of excruciating interest. +To myself I am a vastly more picturesque personage than any debonair +hooligan of quattro-cento Verona. He has faded into the dullest (and +most offensive) dog of a ghost. I only exist. This sounds like the +colossal vanity of Bedlam. Heaven knows it is not. If you are racked +with toothache from ear to ear, from crown to chin, and from eyeball +to cerebellum, is not the whole universe concentrated in that head of +yours? Are you not to yourself in that hour of torture the most vitally +important of created beings? And no one blames you for it. Let me +therefore be without blame in my hour of moral toothache. + +In the days gone by I was the victim of a singular hallucination. I +flattered myself on being the one individual in the world not summoned +to play his part in the comedy of Life. I sat alone in the great +auditorium like the mad king of Bavaria, watching with little zest what +seemed but a sorry spectacle. I thought myself secure in my solitary +stall. But I had not counted on the high gods who crowd shadowy into the +silent seats and are jealous of a mortal in their midst. Without warning +was I wrested from my place, hurled onto the stage, and before my +dazzled eyes could accustom themselves to the footlights, I found +myself enmeshed in intolerable drama. I was unprepared. I knew my part +imperfectly. I missed my cues. I had the blighting self-consciousness +of the amateur. And yet the idiot mummery was intensely real. Amid the +laughter of the silent shadowy gods I thought to flee from the stage. +I came to Verona and find I am still acting my part. I have always been +acting. I have been acting since I was born. The reason of our being +is to amuse the high gods with our histrionics. The earth itself is the +stage, and the starry ether the infinite auditorium. + +The high gods have granted to their troupe of mimes one boon. Each has +it in his power to make the final exit at any moment. For myself I feel +that moment is at hand. One last soliloquy, and then like the pagliacco +I can say with a sigh, _“La commedia e finita_--the play is played out,” + and the rest will be silence. At all events I will tell my own story. My +“History of Renaissance Morals” can lie in its corner and rot, whilst I +shall concern myself with a far more vital theme--The Morals of Marcus +Ordeyne. The rough entries in my diary have been a habit of many futile +years; but they have never sufficed for self-expression. I have not +needed it till now. But now, with Judith and Carlotta gone from me, my +one friend, Pasquale, cut for ever from my life, even the sympathetic +Polyphemus driven into eternity by my murderous hand, I feel the +irresistible craving to express myself fully and finally for the first +and last time of my life. It will be my swan song. What becomes of it +afterwards I care not. + +And when the last word is written, I shall go to the Pinacoteca and +stand again before the Morone fresco, and if the _Miseratrix Virginum +Regina_ still simpers at me, I shall take it as a sign and a token. I +shall return to this marble cavern and make my final exit. It will +be theatrically artistic--that I vow and declare--which no doubt will +afford immense pleasure to the high gods in their gallery. + + + + + +PART II + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It is some two years since I stood for the second time in the Pinacoteca +of Verona and sought to read my fate in the simpering countenance +of Morone’s _Miseratrix Virginum Regina_. I met what might have been +expected by a person of any sense--the self-same expression on the +painted face as I had angrily found there two months before when I began +to write the foregoing pages. But as I had no sense at all in those days +I accepted the poor battered Madonna’s lack of sympathy for a sign and a +token, went home, and prepared for dissolution. + +Two years ago! It is only for the last few months that I have been able +to look back on that nightmare of a time in Verona with philosophic +equanimity. And this morning is the first occasion on which I have felt +that dispassionate attitude towards a past self which enables a man to +set down without the heartache the memories of days that are gone. I sit +upon the flat roof of this house in Mogador on the Morocco coast, shaded +by an awning from the bright African sun which glints in myriad sparkles +on the sea visible beyond the house-tops. The atmosphere last night was +somewhat heavy with the languorous, indescribable, and unforgettable +smell of the East; but the morning is deliciously wind-swept by the +Atlantic breeze, and the air tastes sweet. And it is clear, dazzlingly +clear. The white square houses and the cupolas of the mosques stand +out sharp against a sky of intense, ungradated blue. I am away from the +centre of the busy sea-port and the noise of its streets thronged with +grain-laden camels and shouting drivers and picturesque, quarrelling, +squabbling, haggling Moors and Jews and desert Arabs, and I am enveloped +in the peace of the infinite azure. Besides, yesterday afternoon, as +I rode back to Mogador, across the tongue of desert which separates it +from the Palm Tree House, and the town rose on the horizon, a dream city +of pure snow set in the clear sunset amethyst against the still, pale +lapis lazuli of the bay--something happened. And yesterday evening more +happened still. + + +Two years ago, then, I faced in Verona the dissolution of my ineffectual +existence. I could see no reason for living. My theory of myself in my +relation to the cosmos had been upset by practical phenomena. No other +theory based on surer grounds presented itself. But what about life, +said I, without a theory? Already it was life without a purpose, without +work, without friends, without Judith and without Carlotta. I could not +endure it without even a theory to console me. Beings do exist devoid of +loves or theories. But of such, I thought, are the beasts that perish. +I reflected further. Supposing, on extended investigation, I found a new +theory. How far would it profit me? How far could I trust it not to lead +me through another series of fantastic emotions and futile endeavours +to the sublime climax of murdering a one-eyed cat? Self-abomination and +contempt smote me as I thought of poor Polyphemus stretched dead on the +hearthrug, and myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, +with the poker in my hand. + +I walked up and down the vast cold room of the marble palazzo, arraying +before me in overwhelming numbers the arguments for selfdestruction. On +a table in the middle of the room stood a phial of prussic acid which I +had procured long before in London, it being a conviction of mine that +every man ought to have ready to hand a sure means of exit from the +world. I paused many times in front of the little blue phial. One lift +of the hand, one toss of the head, and all would be over. At last I +extracted the cork, and the faint smell of almonds reached my nostrils. +I recorked the phial and lit a cigarette. This I threw away half smoked +and again approached the table of death. I began to feel a strong +natural disinclination to swallow the stuff. “This,” said I, “is sheer +animal cowardice.” I again uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter +appeared to me. “It is the act of a craven to shirk the responsibilities +of life. Can you be such a meanspirited creature as not even to have +the courage to live?” “No,” said I, “I have a valiant spirit,” and I +set down the bottle. “Bah,” whispered the familiar imp of suicide at my +elbow. “You are just afraid to die.” I took up the bottle again. But the +other taunter had an argument equally strong, and once more I put the +phial uncorked on the table. + +Thus between two cowardices, one of which I must choose, stood I, like +the ass of Buridan. I lit another cigarette and excogitated the problem. +I smoked two cigarettes, walking up and down that vast, chill apartment, +while the air grew sickly sweet with the smell of almonds, which +intensified the physical repugnance the first faint odour had +occasioned. I began to shiver with cold. The stove had burned out before +I entered, and I had not considered it worth while to have it filled for +the few minutes that would remain to me to live. I had not reckoned on +the ass’s bundles of cowardice. + +“I may as well be warm,” thought I, “while I prove to my complete +satisfaction that it is more cowardly to live than to die. There is no +very great hurry.” + +I caught up a travelling-rug with which I had tried to soften the +asperities of an imitation Louis XV couch, and throwing it over my +shoulders, resumed my pilgrimage. I soon lost myself in the problem and +did not notice a corner of the rug gradually slipping down towards the +floor. + +“I’ll do it!” I cried at last, making a sudden dive towards the table. +But the ironical corner of the rug had reached the ground. I stepped on +it, tripped, and instinctively caught the table to steady myself. The +table, a rickety gueridon, overbalanced, and away rolled my uncorked +phial of prussic acid and fell into a hundred pieces on the tessellated +floor. + +“_Solvitur_,” said I, grimly, “_ambulando_.” + +Looking back now, I am inclined to treat myself tenderly. Whether I +should have drunk the poison, if the accident had not occurred, I +cannot say. At the moment of my rush I intended to do so. After the +catastrophe, which I attributed to the curse of ineffectuality that +pursued me, I must confess that I was glad. Not that life looked more +attractive than before, but that the decision had been taken out of my +hands. I could not go about the shops of Verona buying prussic acid +or revolvers or metres of stout rope. And my razors (without Stenson’s +care) were benignantly blunt, and I would not condescend to braces. +I groaned and pished and pshawed, but as it was written that I was to +live, I resigned myself to a barren and theoryless existence. + +After a day or two the vital instinct asserted itself more strongly. I +became inspired by an illuminating revelation. I had a preliminary aim +in life. I would go out into the world in search of a theory. When found +I would apply it to the regulation of the score and a half years during +which I might possibly expect to remain on this planet. I must take my +chances of it leading me to the corpse of another Polyphemus. + +As it struck me I should not find my theory in Italy, I packed up my +belongings and hastened from Verona. At Naples I picked up a Messageries +Maritimes steamer and began a circular tour in the Levant. At +Alexandretta I went ashore, and inquired my way to the dwelling of the +Prefect of Police. I did not call on Hamdi Effendi. But I wandered round +the walls and wondered in a moody, heart-achey way where it was that +Carlotta sat when Harry came along and whistled her like a tame falcon +to his arm. It was a white palace of a house with a closed balcony +supported on rude corbels and tightly shuttered. At the back spread +a large garden surrounded by the famous wall. There was no doubt that +Hamdi was a wealthy personage, and that Carlotta’s nurture had been as +gentle as that of any lady in Syria. But the place wherein Carlotta’s +childhood had been sheltered had an air of impenetrable mystery. I stood +baffled before it, as I had stood so often before Carlotta’s soul. The +result of this portion of my search was the discovery, not of a new +theory, but of an old pain. I went back to the ship in a despondent +mood, and caused deep distress to one of the gentlest creatures I have +ever met. He was a lean, elderly German, who no matter what the occasion +or what the temperature wore a long, tight-buttoned frock-coat, a narrow +black tie, and a little bluish-grey felt hat adorned with a partridge’s +feather which gave him an air of forlorn rakishness. His name was Doctor +Anastasius Dose, and he spent a blameless life in travelling up and +down the world, on behalf of a Leipsic firm of which he was a member, +in search of rare and curious books. For there are copies of books which +have a well-known pedigree like famous jewels, and whose acquisition, +a matter of infinite tact, gives rise, I was told by Herr Dose, to +the most exquisite thrill known to man. He brought me on that morose +afternoon a copy of the “Synonima,” in Italian and French, of St. +Fliscus, printed by Simon Magniagus of Milan in 1480, and opened the +vellum covers with careful fingers. + +“In all the assemblage of human atoms that inhabit this vessel,” said +he, “there is but one who is imbued with reverence for the past and +a sense of the preciousness of the unique. I need not tell you, Herr +Baronet, who are a scholar, that of this book only two copies exist in +this ink-sodden universe. One is in the University Library of Bologna; +the other is before your eyes. It is also the only book known to have +been printed by Magniagus. See the beautiful, small Roman type--a +masterpiece. Ach, Herr Baronet! to have accomplished one such work in +a lifetime, and then to sit among the blessed saints and look down on +earth and know that the two sole copies in existence are cherished by +the elect, what a reward, what eternal happiness!” + +I turned over the pages. The faint perfume of mouldy lore ascended and +I remembered the smell of the “Histoire des Uscoques” in the Embankment +Gardens. + +“The _odor di femina_ in the nostrils of the scholar,” said I. + +“_Famina?_ Woman?” he cried, scandalised. + +“Yes, my friend,” said I. “All things sublunar can be translated into +terms of woman. St. Fliscus wrote because he hadn’t a wife; Simon +Magniagus stopped printing because he got married and devoted his +existence to reproducing himself instead of St. Fliscus.” + +“Ach, that is very interesting,” said he. “Could you tell me the date of +Magniagus’s marriage?” + +“I never heard of him till this moment, my dear Herr Doctor. But depend +upon it, he was either married or was going to be married, and she ran +away from him and left him without the heart to print for posterity, and +when he took his seat among the saints she said she was so glad; he was +a stupid old ink-sodden fellow!” + +He departed sorrowingly from the deck, clasping the precious volume to +his heart. Allusive or discursive speech scared him like indecency; and +I had used his gem but as a peg whereon flauntingly to hang it. It took +me three days to tame him and to induce him to show me another of his +treasures, recently acquired in Athens. Ioannes Georgius Godelmann’s +_Tractate de Lamiis_, printed by Nicholas Bassaeus of Frankfurt. I read +him Keats’s poem about the young lady of Corinth, of which he had never +heard. His mental attitude towards it was the indulgent one of an old +diplomatist towards a child’s woolly lamb. For him literature had never +existed and printing ended in the year 1600. But I was sorry when he +left me at Constantinople, where he counted on striking the track of a +Bohemian herbal, printed at Prague, and never more to be read by any of +the sons of man. In the summer he was going book-hunting in Iceland. By +chance I have learned since that he died there. Peace to his ashes! For +aught I could see he dwelt in a mild stupor of happiness, absorbed in +the intoxication of a tremulous pursuit. I wondered whether his soul +contained that antidote--the _odor di femina_. Perhaps he met it at +Reykjavic and he died of dismay. + +I thought that my landing at Alexandretta was alone responsible for +the continuance of my dotage, and hoped that fresh scenes would banish +Carlotta’s distracting image. But no, it was one of the many vain +reflections on which I based a false philosophy. Whether in Beyrout, or +the land of the “sweet singer of Persephone,” or Alexandria, or on the +Cannebiere of Marseilles, or in the queer half-Orient of Algiers whither +a restless pursuit of the Identical led me, or in Lisbon, or in the +mountainous republic of Andorre, where I hoped to find primitive wisdom +and to shape a theory from first principles, and whence I was ironically +driven by fleas--whether on land or sea, in cities or in solitudes, the +vanished hand harped on my heartstrings and the voice that was still (as +far as I was concerned) cooed its dove-notes into my ears. + +I remember overhearing myself described on a steamboat by a pretty +American girl of sixteen, as “a quaint gentle old guy who talks awful +rot which no one can understand, and is all the time thinking about +something else.” My sudden emergence from the companion-way, where I +was lighting a cigarette, brought red confusion into the young person’s +cheeks. + +“How old do you think I am?” I asked. + +“Oh, about sixty,” quoth the damsel. + +“I’m glad I’m quaint and gentle, even though I do talk rot,” said I. + +With the resourcefulness of her nation she linked her arm in mine and +started a confidential walk up and down the deck. + +“You are just a dear,” she remarked. + +She could not have said more to Anastasius Dose had he been there; +as far as I can recollect he must just then have been dying of the +Inevitable in Iceland. Perhaps the few months had brought me to resemble +him. Instinctively I put my hand to my head to reassure myself that I +was not wearing a rakish little soft felt hat with a partridge-feather, +and I reflected with some complacency that my rimless pince-nez did not +give me the owlish appearance produced by Anastasius Dose’s great round, +iron-rimmed goggles. From such crumbs of vanity are we sometimes reduced +to take comfort. + +“I just want to know what you are,” said my young American friend. + +Shall I confess my attraction? She brought a dim suggestion of Carlotta. +She had Carlotta’s colouring and Carlotta’s candour. But there the +resemblance stopped. The grey matter of her brain had been distilled +from the air of Wall Street, and there were precious few things between +earth and sky of which she hadn’t prescience. + +“I’m a broken-down philosopher,” said I. + +“Oh, that’s nothing. So is everybody as soon as they get sense. What +did you make your money in?” + +“I’ve not made any money,” I answered, meekly. + +“I thought all people who were knighted in your country had made piles +of money.” + +“Knighted!” I exclaimed. “What on earth do you think a quaint old guy +like myself could possibly have done to get knighted?” + +“Then you’re a baronet,” she said, severely. + +“I assure you it is not my fault.” + +“I thought all baronets were wicked. They are in the novels. Somehow you +don’t look like a baronet. You ought to have a black moustache and an +eyeglass and smoke a cigar and sneer. But, say, how do you fill up the +time if you do nothing to make money?” + +“I am going through the world,” said I, “on an adventurous quest, like a +knight--or a baronet, if you will--of the Round Table. I am in quest of +a Theory of Life.” + +“I guess I was born with it,” cried young New York. + +“I guess I’ll die without finding it,” said I. + + +London again. My quiet house. Antoinette and Stenson. The well-ordered +routine of comfort. My books. The dog’s-eared manuscript of the “History +of Renaissance Morals,” unpacked by Stenson and hid in its usual place +on the writing-table. Nothing changed, yet everything utterly different. + +A growing distaste for the forced acquaintanceships of travel and a +craving for home brought me back. Save perhaps in health I had profited +little by my journeyings. My bodily shell formed part of strange +landscapes and occurred in fortuitous gatherings of men, but my heart +was all the time in my Mausoleum by the Regent’s Park. I was drawn +thither by a force almost magnetic, irresistible. My two domestics +welcomed me home, but no one else. Only my lawyers knew of my arrival. +With them alone had I corresponded during the many months of my absence. +Stay; I did write one letter to Mrs. McMurray while I was at Verona, +in reply to an enquiry as to what had become of Carlotta and myself. +I answered courteously but briefly that Carlotta had run away with +Pasquale and that I should be abroad for an indefinite period. But not +even a letter from my lawyers awaited me. I thought somewhat wistfully +that I would willingly have paid six and eight pence for it. But the +feeling was momentary. + +Then began a queer, untroubled life. Without definite resolve I became +a recluse, living forlornly from day to day. Like a bat I avoided the +outer sunshine and took my melancholy walks at night. I had a pride in +cherishing the habit of solitude. Were it not that I entertained a real +dislike of roots and water and the damp and manifold discomforts of +a cave, with which form of habitat the ministrations of Stenson and +Antoinette would have been inconsistent, I should have gone forth into +the nearest approach to a Thebaid I could discover. I was, in fact, +touched by the mild mania of the hermit. My club I never entered. A line +drawn from east to west, a tangent at the lowest point of the Zoological +Gardens formed the southern boundary of my wanderings. Once I spied +in the distance that very kind soul, Mrs. McMurray, and rushed into a +providential omnibus, so as to avoid recognition. My History remained +untouched. The glamour of the Renaissance had vanished. For occupation I +read the Neo-Platonists, Thaumaturgy, Demonology and the like, which +I had always found a fascinating although futile study. I regretted my +bowing acquaintance with modern science, which forbade my setting up +a laboratory with alembics and magic crystals wherewith to conduct +experiments for the finding of the Elixir Vitae and the Philosopher’s +Stone. + +I seldom read the newspapers. I had an idea, like an eminent personage +of the period, that a sort of war was going on, but it failed to +interest me greatly. I shrank from the noise of it. + +“Monsieur,” said Antoinette, “will get ill if he does not go out into +the sunshine.” + +“Monsieur,” said I, “regards the sunshine as an impertinent intrusion +into a soul that loves the twilight.” + +If I had made the same remark to an Englishwoman, she would have pitied +me for a poor, half-witted gentleman. But Antoinette has her nation’s +instinctive appreciation of soul-states, and her sympathy was none the +less comprehending when she shook her head mournfully and said that it +was bad for the stomach. + +“My good Antoinette,” I remarked, harking back in my mind to a +speculation of other days, “if you go on worrying me in this manner +about my stomach, I will build a tower forty feet high in the back +garden, and live on top, and have my meals sent up by a lift, and never +come down again.” + +“Monsieur might as well be in Paradise,” said Antoinette. + +“Ah,” said I. And I thought of the bottle of prussic acid with mingled +sentiments. + +All through these many months I had Judith dwelling, a pale ghost, +in the back of my mind. We had parted so finally that correspondence +between us had seemed impertinent. But although I had not written to +her, no small part of the infinite sadness that had fallen upon my life +was the shadow of her destiny. Sweet, wine-loving Judith! How many times +did I picture her sitting pinched and wistful in the little tin +mission church at Hoxton! Had I, Marcus Ordeyne, condemned her to that +penitentiary? Who can hold the balance of morals so truly as to decide? + +At last I received a letter from her on the anniversary of our parting. +She had found salvation in a strange thing which she called duty. “I am +fulfilling an appointed task,” she wrote, “and the measure of my success +is the measure of my happiness. I am bringing consolation to a wayward +and tormented spirit. A year has swept aside the petty feminine +vanities, the opera-glasses, so to speak, through which a woman +complacently views her influence over a man, and it has cleared my +vision. A year has proved beyond mortal question that without me this +wayward and tormented spirit would fail. I hold in my hands the very +soul of a man. What more dare a woman ask of the high gods? You see I +use your metaphors still. Dearest of all dear friends, do not pity me. +Beyond all the fires of love through which one passes there is the star +of Duty, and happy the individual who can live in its serenity.” + +This was astonishingly like the Theory of Life which I set out from +Verona to seek, and which had hitherto eluded me. It was not very +new, or subtle, or inspiring. But that is the way of things. No +matter through what realms of the fantastic you may travel, you arrive +inevitably at the commonplace. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +I answered Judith’s letter. After the long silence it seemed, at first, +strange to write to her; but soon I found myself opening my heart as I +had never done before to man or woman. The fact that, accident aside, +we were never to meet again, drew the spiritual elements in us nearer +together, and the tone of her letter loosened the bonds of my natural +reserve. I told her of my past year of life, of the locked memorial +chamber upstairs, of the madness through which I had passed, of my weary +pursuit of the Theory, and of my attitude towards her solution of the +problem. Having written the letter I felt comforted, knowing that Judith +would understand. + +I finished it about six o’clock one afternoon, and shrinking from giving +it to Stenson to post, as it was the first private letter I had written +since my arrival in London, I took it myself to the pillar-box. The +fresh air reproached me for the unreasonable indoor life I had been +leading, and invited me to remain outside. It was already dark. An early +touch of frost in the November air rendered it exhilarating. I walked +along the decorous, residential roads of St. John’s Wood feeling +less remote from my kind, more in sympathy with the humdrum dramas in +progress behind the rows of lighted windows. Now and then a garden gate +opened and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of +satin and frills and fur, emerged, stood for a moment in the shaft of +light cast by the open hall-door beyond, which framed the white-capped +and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting hansom, drove off into +the darkness whither my speculative fancy followed them. Now and then +silhouettes appeared upon the window-blinds, especially on the upper +floors, for it was the dressing hour and the cares of the day were being +thrown aside with the workaday garments. In one house, standing far +back from the road, the drawing-room curtains had not been drawn. As I +passed, I saw a man tossing up a delighted child in his arms, and the +mother standing by. _Ay de mi!_ A commonplace of ten thousand homes, +when the man returns from his toil. Yet it moved me. To earn +one’s bread; to perpetuate one’s species; to create duties and +responsibilities; to meet them like a brave man; to put the new +generation upon the right path; to look back upon it all and say, “I +have fulfilled my functions,” and pass forth quietly into the eternal +laboratory--is not that Life in its truth and its essence? And the +reward? The commonplace. The welcome of wife and children--and the +tossing of a crowing babe in one’s arms. And I had missed it all, lived +outside it all. I had spoken blasphemously in my besotted ignorance of +these sacred common things, and verily I had my recompense in a desolate +home and a life of about as much use to humanity as that of St. Simeon +Stylites on top of his pillar. + +So I walked along the streets on the track of the wisdom which Judith +had revealed to me, and I seemed to be on the point of reaching it when +I arrived at my own door. + +“But what the deuce shall I do with it when I get it?” I said, as I let +myself in with my latch-key. + +I had just put my stick in the stand and was taking off my overcoat, +when the door of the room next the diningroom opened, and Antoinette +rushed out upon me. + +“Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!” she cried, wringing her hands. “Oh, Monsieur! +How shall I tell you?” + +The good soul broke into sobbing and weeping. + +“What is the matter, Antoinette?” Z asked. + +“Monsieur must not be angry. Monsieur is good like the Bon Dieu. But it +will give pain to Monsieur.” + +“But what is it?” I cried, mystified. “Have you spoiled the dinner?” + +I was a million miles from any anticipation of her answer. + +_“Monsieur-she has come back!”_ + +I grew faint for a moment as from a blow over the heart. Antoinette +raised her great tear-stained face. + +“Monsieur must not drive her away.” + +I pushed her gently aside and entered the little room which I had +furnished once as her boudoir. + +On the couch sat Carlotta, white and pinched and poorly clad. At first +I was only conscious of her great brown eyes fixed upon me, the dog-like +appeal of our first meeting intensified to heart-breaking piteousness. +On seeing me she did not rise, but cowered as if I would strike her. I +looked at her, unable to speak. Antoinette stood sobbing in the doorway. + +“Well?” said I, at last. + +“I have come home,” said Carlotta. + +“You have been away a long time,” said I. + +“Ye-es,” said Carlotta. + +“Why have you come?” I asked. + +“I had no money,” said Carlotta, with her expressive gesture of upturned +palms. “I had nothing but that.” She pointed to a tiny travelling bag. +“Everything else was at the Mont de Piete--the pawnshop--and they would +not keep me any longer at the pension. I owed them for three weeks, and +then they lent me money to buy my ticket to London. I said Seer Marcous +would pay them back. So I came home.” + +“But where--where is Pasquale?” I asked. + +“He went five, six months ago. He gave me some money and said he would +send some more. But he did not send any. He went to South Africa. He +said there was a war and he wanted to fight, and he said he was sick of +me. Oh, he was very unkind,” she cried with the quiver of her baby lips. +“I wish I had never seen him.” + +“Are you married?” + +“No,” said Carlotta. + +“Damn him!” said I, between my teeth. + +“He was going to marry me, but then he said it did not matter in Paris. +At first he was so nice, but after a little--oh, Seer Marcous dear, he +was so cruel.” + +There was a short silence. Antoinette wept by the door, uttering little +half-audible exclamations _“la pauvre petite, le cher ange!”_ + +Carlotta regarded me wistfully. I saw a new look of suffering in her +eyes. For myself I felt numb with pain. + +“What kind of a pension were you living in?” I asked, unutterable +horrors coming into my head. + +“It was a French family, an old lady and two old daughters, and one fat +German professor. Pasquale put me there. It was very respectable,” she +added, with a wan smile, “and so dull. Madame Champet would scarcely let +me go into the street by myself.” + +“Thank heaven you did not fall into worse hands,” said I. + +Carlotta unpinned her old straw hat, quite a different garment from the +dainty head-wear she delighted in a year before, and threw it on the +couch beside her. A tress of her glorious bronze hair fell loose across +her forehead, adding to the woebegone expression of her face. She rose, +and as she did so I seemed to notice a curious change in her. She came +to me with extended hands. + +“Seer Marcous--” she whispered. + +I took her hands in mine. + +“Oh, my dear,” said I, “why did you leave me?” + +“I was wicked. And I was a little fool,” said Carlotta. + +I sighed, released her, walked a bit apart. There was a blubber from the +egregious old woman in the threshold. + +“Oh, Monsieur is not going to drive her away.” + +I turned upon her. + +“Instead of standing there weeping like a fountain and doing nothing, +why aren’t you getting Mademoiselle’s room ready for her?” + +“Because Monsieur has the key,” wailed Antoinette. + +“That’s true,” said I. + +Then I reflected on the futility of converting bedchambers into +mausoleums for the living. The room shut up for a year would not be +habitable. It would be damp and inch-deep in dust. + +“Mademoiselle shall sleep in my room to-night,” I said, “and Stenson can +make me up a bed and put what I want here. Go and arrange it with him.” + +Antoinette departed. I turned to Carlotta. + +“Are you very tired, my child?” + +“Oh, yes--so tired.” + +“Why didn’t you write, so that things could have been got ready for +you?” + +“I don’t know. I was too unhappy. Seer Marcous--” she said after a +little pause and then stopped. + +“Yes?” + +“I am going to have a baby.” + +She said it in the old, childlike way, oblivious of difference of sex; +with her little foreign insistence on the final consonants. I glanced +hurriedly at her. The fact was obvious. She stood with her hands +helplessly outspread. The pathos of her would have wrung the heart of a +devil. + +“Thank God, you’ve come home,” said I, huskily. + +She began to cry softly. I put my arm round her shoulders, and comforted +her. She sobbed out incoherent things. She wished she had never seen +Pasquale. I was good. She would stay with me always. She would never run +away again. + +I took her upstairs, and opened the door of her room with the key that I +had carried for a year on my bunch, and turned on the electric light. + +“See what are still usable of your old things,” said I, “and I will send +Antoinette up to you.” + +She looked around her, somewhat puzzled. + +“Why should I sleep in your room when this one is ready for me--my night +dress--even the hot water?” + +“My dear,” said I, “that hot water was put for you a year ago. It must +be cold now.” + +“And my red slippers--and my dressing-gown!” she cried, quaveringly. + +Then sinking in a heap on the floor beside the dusty bed, she burst into +a passion of tears. + +I stole away and sent Antoinette to minister to her. + +A year before I had raved and ranted, deeming life intolerable and +cursing the high gods; I suffered then, it is true; but I hope I may +never again go through the suffering of that first night of Carlotta’s +return. Even now I can close my eyes and feel the icy grip on my heart. + +She came down to dinner about an hour later, dressed in a pink wrapper, +one of the last things she had bought, which Antoinette (as she +explained to excuse her delay) had been airing before the fire. She sat +opposite me, in her old place, penitent, subdued, yet not shy or ill +at ease. Stenson waited on us, grave and imperturbable as if we had put +back the clock of time a twelvemonth. The only covert reference he made +to the event was to murmur discreetly in my ear: + +“I have brought up a bottle of the Pommery, Sir Marcus, in the hope you +would drink some.” + +I was touched, for the good fellow had no other way of showing his +solicitude. + +Carlotta allowed him to fill her glass. She sipped the wine, and +declared that it did her good. She was no longer a teetotaller, she +explained. Once she drank too much, and the next day had a headache. + +“Why should one have a headache?” + +“Nemesis,” said I. + +“What is Nemesis?” + +I found myself answering her question in the old half-jesting way. And +in her old way she replied: + +“I do not understand.” + +How vividly familiar it was, and yet how agonisingly strange! + +“Where is Polyphemus?” she asked. + +“Dead,” said I. + +“Oh-h! How did poor Polyphemus die?” + +“He was smitten by Destiny at the end of the last act of a farcical +tragedy.” + +The ghost of a “_hou!_” came from Carlotta. She composed herself +immediately. + +“I often used to think of Polyphemus and Seer Marcous and Antoinette,” + she said, musingly. “And then I wished I was back. I have been very +wicked.” + +She put her elbows on the table, and framing her face with her hands +looked at me, and shook her head. + +“Oh, you are good! Oh, you are good!” + +“Go on with your dinner, my child,” said I, “and wonder at the genius +of Antoinette who has managed to cook it and look after you at the same +time.” + +She obeyed meekly. I watched her eat. She was famished. I learned that +she had had nothing since the early morning coffee and roll. In spite of +pain, I was curiously flattered by her return. I represented _something_ +to her, after all--even though the instinct of the prodigal cat had +driven her hither. I am sure it had never crossed her mind that my doors +might be shut against her. Her first words were, “I have come home.” The +first thing she did when we went into the drawing-room after dinner +was to fondle my hand and lay it against her cheek and say, with a deep +sigh: + +“I am so happy.” + +However shallow her butterfly nature was, these things came from its +depths. No man can help feeling pleased at a child’s or an animal’s +implicit trust in him. And the pleasure is of the purest. He feels that +unreasoning intuition has penetrated to some latent germ of good in his +nature, and for the moment he is disarmed of evil. Carlotta, then, +came blindly to what was best in me. In her thoughts she sandwiched +me between the cat and the cook: well, in most sandwiches the +mid-ingredient is the most essential. + +She curled herself up in the familiar sofa-corner, and as it was a +chilly night I sent for a wrap which I threw over her limbs. + +“See, I have the dear red slippers,” she remarked, arching her instep. + +“And I have my dear Carlotta,” said I. + +I drew my chair near her, and gradually I learned all the unhappy story. + +Pasquale had made love to her from the very first minute of their +acquaintance--even while I was hunting for the _L’Histoire Comique +de Francion_. He had met her many times unknown to me. They had +corresponded, her letters being addressed to a little stationer’s shop +close by. She did not love him. Of that I have an absolute conviction. +But he was young, he was handsome, he had the libertine’s air and +manner. She was docile. And she was ever positively truthful. If I had +questioned her she would have confessed frankly. But I never questioned, +as I never suspected. I wondered sometimes at her readiness in quoting +him. I noticed odd coincidences; but I was too ineffectual to draw +inferences from phenomena. His appearance on the Paddington platform was +prearranged; his duchessa at Ealing a myth. + +Apparently he had dallied with his fancy. The fruit was his any day +for the plucking. Perhaps a rudimentary sentiment of loyalty towards +me restrained him. Who can tell? The night of our meeting with Hamdi +brought the crisis. The Turk’s threats had alarmed both Carlotta and +myself. It was necessary for him to strike at once. He saw her the next +day--would to heaven I had remained at home!--told her I was marrying +her to save her from Hamdi. I loved the other woman. He would save her +equally well from Hamdi. The other woman met her soon after parting from +Pasquale and besought her to give me up. She did not know what to do. +Poor child, how should she have known? On the previous evening I had +told her she was to marry me. She was ready to obey. She went to bed +thinking that she was to marry me. In the morning she went for her music +lesson. Pasquale was waiting for her. They walked for some distance down +the road. He hailed a cab and drove away with her. + +“He said he loved me,” said Carlotta, “and he kissed me, and he told +me I must go away with him to Paris and marry him. And I felt all weak, +like that--” she dropped her arms helplessly in an expressive gesture, +“and so what could I do?” + +“Didn’t you think, Carlotta, that I might be sorry--perhaps unhappy?” I +asked as gently as I could. + +“He said you would be quite happy with the other woman.” + +“Did you believe him?” + +“That’s why I said I have been very wicked,” Carlotta answered, simply. + +She went on with her story--an old, miserable, detestable, execrable +story. At first all went merrily. Then she fell ill in Paris. It was +her first acquaintance with the northern winter. Her throat proved to be +delicate and she was laid up with bronchitis. To men of Pasquale’s type, +a woman ill is of no more use than a spavined horse or a broken-down +motor-car. More than that, she becomes an infernal nuisance. It was +in his temperament to perform sporadic acts of fantastic chivalry. It +appealed to something romantic, theatrical, in his facile nature. But to +devote himself to a woman in sickness--that was different. The fifteenth +century Italian hated like the devil continued association with pain. He +would have thrown his boots to a beggar, but he would have danced in his +palace over the dungeons where his brother rotted in obscurity. + +So poor Carlotta was neglected, and began to eat the bread of +disillusion. When she got well, there was a faint recrudescence of +affection. Has not this story been written a million miserable +times? Why should I rend my heart again by retelling it? Wild rages, +jealousies, quarrels, tears-- + +“And then one day he said, ‘You damned little fool, I am sick to death +of you,’ and he went away, and I never saw him again. He wrote and he +sent his valet to put me in the pension.” + +“And yet, Carlotta,” said I bitterly, “you would go back to him if he +sent for you?” + +She sprang forward and gripped me by the arm--I was sitting quite close +to her--and her face wore the terror-stricken expression of a child +frightened with bogies. + +“Go back? After what he has done to me? You would not send me back? Seer +Marcous, darling, you will keep me with you? I will be good, good, good. +But go back to Pasquale? Oh, no-o-o!” + +She fell back in her sofa-corner, and fixed her great, deep imploring +eyes on me. + +“My dear,” said I, “you know this is your home as long as ever you +choose to stay in it--but--” and I stroked her hair gently--“if he +comes back when your child is born--his child--” + +She drew herself up superbly. + +“It is my child--my very, very own,” cried Carlotta. “It is mine, +mine--and I shall not allow any one to touch it--” and then her face +softened--“except Seer Marcous.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Behold Carlotta again installed in my house which she regarded as her +home. Heaven forbid that I should sow any doubt thereof in her mind. + +I had learned perhaps one lesson: the meaning of love. The love that +is desire alone, though sung in all romance of all the ages, is of the +brute nature and is doomed to perish. The love that pardons, endures +through wrong, contents itself in abnegation, is of the imperishable +things that draw weak man a little nearer to the angels. When Carlotta +wept upon my shoulder during those few first moments of her return I +knew that all resentment was gone from my heart, that it would have +been a poor, ignoble thing. Had she come back to me leprous of body and +abominable of spirit, it would not have mattered. I would have forgiven +her, loved her, cherished her just the same. It was a question, not +of reason, not of human pity, not of quixotism; not of any argument or +sentiment for which I could be responsible. I was helpless, obeying a +reflex action of the soul. + +The days passed tranquilly. In spite of pain I felt an odd happiness. I +had nothing selfishly to hope for. Perhaps I had aged five years in one, +and I viewed life differently. It was enough for me that she had come +home, to the haven where no harm could befall her. She was my appointed +task, even as her husband was Judith’s. I recognised in myself the man +with the one talent. The deep wisdom of the parable can be taken to +inmost heart for comfort only by men of little destinies. With infinite +love and patience to mould Carlotta into a sweet, good woman, a wise +mother of the child that was to be--that was the inglorious task which +Providence had set me to accomplish. In its proportion to the aggregate +of human effort it was infinitesimal. But who shall say that it was not +worth the doing? Save writing a useless book, in what other sphere of +sublunar energy could I have been effectual? I did not thus analyse my +attitude at the time; the man who does so is a poser, a mime to his +own audience; but looking back, I think I was guided by some such +unformulated considerations. + +Although my hermit mania was in itself radically cured, yet I altered +nothing in my relations with the outside world. I wrote to Judith a +brief account of what had occurred and received from her a sympathetic +answer. My reading among the Mystics and Thaumaturgists put me on the +track of Arabic. I found that Carlotta knew enough of the language to +give me elementary instruction, and thus the whirligig of time brought +in its revenge by constituting me her pupil, to our joint edification. + +After a while the unhappiness of the past seemed to have faded from her +mind. She spoke little of Paris, less of the dull pension, and never of +Pasquale. She bore towards him an animal’s silent animosity against a +human being who has done it an unforgettable injury. On the other hand, +as I have since discovered, she was slowly developing, and had begun to +realise that in giving herself light-heartedly to a man whom she did not +love, she had committed a crime against her sex, for which she had +paid a heavy penalty: a sentiment, however, which did not mitigate her +resentment against him. Often I saw her sitting with knitted brows, +her needlework idle on her lap, evidently unravelling some complicated +problem; presently she would either shake her head sadly as if the +intellectual process were too hard for her and resume her needle, or if +she happened to catch my glance, she would start, smile reassuringly at +me, and apply herself with exaggerated zeal to her work. These fits of +abstraction were not those of a woman speculating on mysteries of the +near future. Such Carlotta also indulged in, and they were easy to +recognise, by the dreaminess of her eyes and the faint smile flickering +about her lips. The moods of knitted brows were periods of soul-travail, +and I wondered what they would bring forth. + +One afternoon I came home and found her weeping over a book. When I bent +down to see what she was reading--she had acquired a taste for novels +during the dull pension time in Paris--she caught my head with both +hands. + +“Oh, Seer Marcous, do you think they ought to make me wear a great ‘A’?” + +“What do you mean?” I asked. + +“Like Hester Prynne--see.” + +She showed me Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter.” + +“What made you take this out of the shelves?” + +“The title,” she replied, simply. “I am so fond of red things; but I +should not like that great red ‘A’.” + +“Those were days,” said I, “when people thought they could only be good +by being very cruel.” + +“They would have been more cruel if Hester had not loved the minister,” + said Carlotta, looking at me wistfully. + +“My dear little girl,” said I, seeing whither her thoughts were tending, +“do not bother your brain with psychological problems.” + +“What are--?” began Carlotta. + +I pinched the question, as it were, out of her cheek and smiled and took +away the book. + +“They are a dreadful disease my little girl has been afflicted with +for some time. When you sit and wrinkle your forehead like this,” and I +scowled forbiddingly, whereat Carlotta laughed, “you are suffering from +acute psychological problem.” + +“Then I am thinking,” said Carlotta, reflectively. + +“Don’t think too much, dear, just now,” said I. “It is best for you to +be happy and calm and contented. Otherwise I’ll have to tell the doctor, +and he’ll give you the blackest and nastiest physic you have ever +tasted.” + +“To cure me of a what-you-call-it problem?” + +“Yes,” said I, emphatically. + +“_Hou!_” laughed Carlotta in a superior way, “physic can’t cure that.” + +“You are relying on an exploded fallacy immortalised in a hackneyed +Shakespearian quotation,” I remarked. + +“Go on,” said Carlotta, encouragingly. + +“What do you mean?” I asked, taken aback. + +“Oh, you darling Seer Marcous,” cried Carlotta. “It is so lovely to hear +you talk!” + +So I went on talking, and the distress occasioned by the “Scarlet +Letter” was forgotten. + +I have mentioned Carlotta’s needlework. This was undertaken at the +sapient instigation of Antoinette, who in her turn, I am sure, neglected +the ladle for the scissors, and cast many of her duties upon the +silent but sympathetic Stenson. Carlotta herself delighted in these +preparations. She was never happier than when curled up on the sofa, +a box of chocolates by her side, her work-basket frothing over, like a +great dish of _oeufs a la neige_, with lawn or mull or what-not, and +(I verily believe to complete her content) my ungainly figure and +hatchet-face within her purview. She would eat and sew industriously. +Sometimes she would press too hard on a sweetmeat and with a little cry +would hold up a sticky finger and thumb. + +“Look,” she would say, puckering up her face. + +And to save from soilure the dainty fabric she was working at, I would +rise and wipe her fingers with my handkerchief; whereupon she would +coo out the sweetest “thank you,” in the world, and perhaps hold up a +diminutive garment. + +“Isn’t it pretty?” + +“Yes, my dear,” I would say, and I would turn aside wondering at the +exquisite refinements of pain that men were sometimes called upon to +bear. + + +At last the time came. I sat up all night in a torture of suspense, +having got it into my foolish head that Carlotta might die. The doctor +came upon me at six in the morning sitting half frozen at the bottom of +the stairs. When he gave me his cheery news he seemed to develop from a +middle-aged, commonplace man into a radiant archangel. + +I met Antoinette soon afterwards, busy, important, exultant. She +nevertheless graciously accorded me a brief interview. + +“And to think, Monsieur,” she exclaimed, as if the crowning triumph of a +million ions of evolution had at, last been attained, “to think that it +is a boy!” + +“You would have been just as pleased if it had been a girl,” said I. + +She shook her wise, fat head. “Women _ca ne vaut pas grand’ chose._” + +Let it be remembered that “women are of no great account” is a sentiment +expressed, not by me, but by Antoinette. But all the same I soon found +myself a cipher in the house, where the triumvirate of the negligible +sex, Antoinette, the nurse and Carlotta, reigned despotically. + +To write much of Carlotta’s happiness would be to treat of sacred things +at which I can only guess. She dwelt in rapture. The joy and meaning of +the universe were concentrated in the tiny bundle of pink flesh that lay +on her bosom. I used to sit by her side while she talked unwearyingly of +him. He was a thing of infinite perfections. He had such a lot of hair. + +“She won’t believe, sir,” said the nurse, “that it will all drop off and +a new crop come.” + +“Oh-h!” said Carlotta. “It can’t be so cruel. For it is my hair--see, +Seer Marcous, darling; isn’t it just my hair?” + +It was her great solicitude that the boy should resemble her. + +“I don’t know about his nose,” she remarked critically. “There is so +little of it yet and it is so soft--feel how soft it is. But his eyes +are brown like mine, and his mouth--now look, aren’t they just the +same?” + +She put her cheek next to the child’s and invited me to compare the two +adjacent baby mouths. They were, of a truth, very much alike. + +She was jealous of the baby, desirous of having it always with her to +tend and fondle, impatient of the nurse and Antoinette. It was a thing +so intensely hers that she resented other hands touching it. Oddly +enough, of me she made an exception. Nothing delighted her more than to +put the little creature into my awkward and nervous arms, and watch me +carry it about the room. I think she wanted to give me something, and +this share in the babe was the most precious gift she could devise. + +Of Pasquale she continued to say nothing. In her intense joy of +motherhood he seemed to have become the dim creature of a dream. I had +registered the birth without consulting her--in the legal names of the +parents. + +“What are you going to call him, Carlotta?” I asked one day. + +“_Mon petit chou._ That’s what Antoinette says. It’s a beautiful name.” + +“There are many points in calling an infant one’s little cabbage,” I +admitted, “but soon he’ll grow up to be as old as I am, and--” I sighed, +“who would call me their _petit chow_?” + +Carlotta laughed. + +“That is true. We shall have to find a name.” She reflected for a few +moments; then put her arms round my neck and continued her reflections. + +“He shall be Marcus--another Marcus Ordeyne. Then perhaps some day he +will be ‘Seer Marcous’ like you.” + +“Do you mean when I die?” I asked. + +“Oh, not for years and years and years!” she cried, tightening her clasp +in alarm. “But the child lives longer than the father. It is fate. He +will live longer than I.” + +“Let us hope so, dear,” I answered. “But it is just because I am not his +father that he can’t be Sir Marcus when I die. He can have my name; but +my title--” + +“Who will have it?” + +“No one.” + +“It will die too?” + +“It will be quite dead.” + +“You are his father, you know, _really_,” she whispered. + +“The law of England takes no count, unfortunately, of things of the +spirit,” said I. + +“What are things of the spirit?” + +“The things, my dear,” said I, “that you are beginning to understand.” I +bent down and kissed the child as it lay on her lap. “Poor little Marcus +Ordeyne,” I said. “My poor quaintly fathered little son, I’m afraid +there is much trouble ahead of you, but I’ll do my best to help you +through it.” + +“Bless you, dear,” said Carlotta, softly. + +I looked at her in wonder. She had spoken for the first time like a +grown woman--like a woman with a soul. + + +A few weeks later. + +We were sitting at breakfast. The morning newspaper contained the +account of a battle and the lists of British officers killed. I scanned +as usual the melancholy columns, when a name among the dead caught my +eye--and I stared at it stupidly. Pasquale was dead, killed outright +by a Boer bullet. The wild, bright life was ended. It seemed a horrible +thing, and, much as he had wronged me, my first sentiment was one of +dismay. He was too gallant and beautiful a creature for death. + +Carlotta poured out my tea and came round with the cup which she +deposited by my side. To prevent her peeping over my shoulder at the +paper, as she usually did, I laid it on the table; but her quick eye had +already read the great headlines. + +“Great Battle. British officers killed. Oh, let me see, Seer Marcous.” + +“No, dear,” said I. “Go and eat your breakfast.” + +She looked at me strangely. I tried to smile; but as I am an incompetent +actor my grimace was a proclamation of disingenuousness. + +“Why shouldn’t I read it?” she asked, quickly. + +“Because I say you mustn’t, Carlotta.” + +She continued to look at me. She had suddenly grown pale. I stirred my +tea and made a pretence of sipping it. + +“Go on with your breakfast, my child,” I repeated. + +“There is something--something about him in the paper,” said Carlotta. +“He is a British officer.” + +In the face of her intuition further concealment appeared useless. +Besides, sooner or later she would have to know. + +“He is a British officer no longer, dear,” said I. + +“Is he dead?” + +My mind flew back to an evening long ago--long, long ago it seemed--when +another newspaper had told of another death, and my ears caught the echo +of the identical question that had then fallen from her lips. I dreaded +lest she should say again, “I am so glad.” + +I beckoned her to my side, and pointing with my finger to the name +watched her face anxiously. She read, stared for a bit in front of her +and turned to me with a piteous look. I drew her to me, and she laid her +face against my shoulder. + +“I don’t know why I’m crying, Seer Marcous, dear,” she said, after a +while. + +I made her drink some of my tea, but she would eat nothing, and +presently she went upstairs. She had not said that she was glad. She had +wept and not known the reason for her tears. I railed at myself for my +doubts of her. + +She was subdued and thoughtful all the day. In the evening, instead of +curling herself up in the sofa-corner among the cushions, she sat on +a stool by my feet as I read, one hand supporting her chin, the other +resting on my knee. + +“I am glad he was a brave man,” she said at last, alluding to Pasquale +for the first time since the morning. “I like brave men.” + +“_Dulce et decorum est._ He died for his country,” said I. + +“It does not hurt me now so much to think of him,” said Carlotta. + +I could not help feeling a miserable pang of jealousy at Pasquale’s +posthumous rehabilitation as a hero in Carlotta’s heart. Yet, was it not +natural? Was it not the way of women? I saw myself far remote from her, +and though she never spoke of him again I divined that her thoughts +dwelt not untenderly on his memory. I was absurd, I know. But I had +begun almost to believe in my make-believe paternity, and I was jealous +of the rightful claims of the dead man. + +And yet had he lived he might have come back one day with his conquering +air and his irresistible laugh, and carried them both away from me. In +sparing me this crowning humiliation I thanked the high gods. + +But never to this day has she mentioned his name again. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +How shall I set down that which happened not long afterwards? + +The death of a baby is so commonplace, so unimportant. Few reasoning +people, viewing the matter in the abstract, can do otherwise than +rejoice that a human being is saved from the weariness of the tired +years that make up life. For who shall disprove the pessimist’s +assertion that it is better not to have been born than to come into the +world, and that it is better to die than to live? But those from whom +the single hope of their existence is ravished find little consolation +in reason. Grief is the most intensely egotistical of emotions. I have +lost all that makes life beautiful to me. Is not that enough for the +stricken soul? + +To Carlotta it meant a passage through the valley of the shadow. To me, +at first, it meant the life of Carlotta, and then a blank in my newly +ordered scheme of things. The curse of ineffectuality still pursued +me. I had allotted to myself my humble task--the development of the new +generation in the form of Carlotta’s boy, and even that small usefulness +was I denied by Fate. + +A chill, a touch of croup, an agonised watching, and the tiny thing lay +dead. Antoinette and I had to drag it stone cold from Carlotta’s bosom. +I alone carried it to burial. The little white coffin rested on the +opposite seat of the hired brougham, and on it was a bunch of white +flowers given by Antoinette. In the cemetery chapel another fragment of +humanity awaited sepulture, and the funeral service was read over both +bodies. I stood alone by the little white coffin. A crowd of mourners +were grouped beside the black one. I glanced at the inscription as +I passed: “Jane Elliot, in the eighty-sixth year of her age.” The +officiant referred in the service to “our dear brother and sister, here +departed.” It was either an awful jest or an awful verity. + +My “quaintly fathered little son” had small need of my help through the +troubles of his life. His mother needed all that I could give. Without +me she would have died. That I verily believe. I was her solitary +plank in the welter wherein she would have been submerged. She clung to +me--literally clung to me. I sat for hours with her grasp upon me. To +feel assured of my physical presence alone seemed to bring her calm. + +Recent as are those sleepless days and nights, their memory is all +confused. The light burning dimly in the familiar chamber which I had +once sealed up as a tomb; the shadows on the wall; the fevered face +and great hollow eyes of Carlotta against the pillows; her little hand +clutching mine in desperation; the soft tread of the nurse, that is all +I remember. And when she recovered her wits and grew sane, although for +a long time she spoke little, and scarcely noticed me otherwise, +she claimed me by her side. She was still dazed by the misery of her +darkness. It was only then that I realised the part the child had +played in her development. Her nature had been stirred to the quick; the +capacity for emotion had been awakened. She had left me without a qualm. +She had given herself to Pasquale without a glimmer of passion. She had +returned to me like a wounded animal seeking its home. For the child +alone the passionate human love had sprung flaming from the seed hidden +in her soul. And now the child was dead, and the sun had gone from her +sky, and she was benumbed with the icy blackness of the world. + +Then came a time when her speech was loosened and she talked to me +incessantly of the child, until one day she spoke of it as living and +clamoured for it, and relapsed into her fever. + +At last one morning she awakened from a sound sleep and found me +watching; for I had relieved the nurse at six o’clock. She smiled at +me for the first time since the child fell sick, and took my hand and +kissed it. + +“It is like waking into heaven to see your face, Seer Marcous, darling,” + she whispered. + +“I hope heaven is peopled by a better-looking set of fellows,” I said. + +“_Hou!_” laughed Carlotta. “Don’t you know you are beautiful?” + +“You mustn’t throw an old jest in my teeth, Carlotta,” said I, and I +reminded her how she had once screamed with laughter when I had told her +I was very beautiful. + +Carlotta listened patiently until I had ended, and then she said, with a +little sigh: + +“You cannot understand, Seer Marcous, darling. I have been thinking of +my little baby and the angels--and all the angels are like you.” + +To cover the embarrassment my modesty underwent, I laughed and drew the +picture of myself with long flaxen hair and white wings. + +“My angels hadn’t got wings,” said Carlotta, seriously. “They all wore +dressing-gowns. They were real angels. And the one that was most like +you brought my baby in his arms for me to kiss; and when he put it on a +white cloud to sleep, and took me up in his arms instead and carried me +away, away, away through the air, I didn’t cry at leaving baby. Wasn’t +that funny? I snuggled up close to him--like that”--she illustrated the +action of “snuggling” beneath the bed-clothes--“and it was so comfy.” + +The pale sunshine of a fine February morning filtered into the room from +behind the curtains. I turned off the dimmed electric lamp and let full +daylight into the room. + +“Oh!” cried Carlotta, turning to the window, “how lovely the good +sun is! It is more like heaven than ever. Do you know,” she added, +mysteriously, “just before I woke it was all dark, and I had lost my +angels and I was looking for them.” + +I counselled her sagely to look for no more members of the Hierarchy _en +deshabille_, but to content herself with the humbler denizens of this +planet. She pressed my hand. + +“I’ll try to be contented, Seer Marcous, darling.” + +She did her best, poor child, when I was by; but I heard that often she +would sit by a little pile of garments and take them up one by one and +cry her heart out--so that though she quickly recovered, her cheeks +remained wan and drawn, and pain lingered in her eyes. The weather +changed to fog and damp and she spent the days crouching by the fire, +sometimes not stirring a muscle for an hour together. Her favourite seat +was the fender-stool in the drawing-room. Her own boudoir downstairs, +where she used to receive instruction from the excellent Miss Griggs, +she scarcely entered. + +She broke one of these fits suddenly and called me by her own pet +version of my name. I looked up from the writing-table where I was +studying the Arabic grammar. + +“Yes?” + +“I have been thinking--oh, thinking, thinking so long. I’ve been +thinking that you must love me very much.” + +“Yes, Carlotta,” said I, with a half smile. “I suppose I do.” + +“As much as I loved my baby,” she said, seriously, + +“I used to love you in a different way, perhaps.” + +“And now?” + +“Perhaps in the same sort of way, Carlotta.” + +“I loved my baby because it was mine,” she remarked, looking at the +flames through one hand’s delicate fingers. “I wanted to do everything +for him and didn’t want him to do anything for me. I would have died +for him. It is so strange. Yes, I think you must love me like that, Seer +Marcous. Why?” + +“Because when I found you in the Embankment Gardens nearly two years +ago you were about as helpless as your little baby,” I replied, somewhat +disingenuously. + +Carlotta gave me a quick glance. + +“You thought me then what you call an infernal nuisance. Oh, I know now. +I have grown wise. But you were always good. You looked good when you +sat on the seat. You were reading a dirty little book.” + +“_L’Histoire des Uscoques,_” I murmured. How far away it seemed. + +There was a pause. I regarded her for a moment or two. She was sunk +again in serious reflection. I sighed--at the general dismalness of +life, I suppose--and resumed my Arabic. + +“Seer Marcous.” + +“Yes?” + +“Why didn’t you drive me away when I came back?” + +I shut up the Arabic grammar and went and sat beside her on the +fenderstool. + +“My dear little girl--what a question! How could I drive you away from +your own home?” + +She flashed a queer, scared look at me, then at the fire, then at me +again and then burst out crying, her head and arms on her knees. + +I muttered a man’s words of awkward comfort, saying something about the +baby. + +“It isn’t baby I’m crying about,” sobbed Carlotta. “It’s me! And it’s +you! And it’s all the things I’m beginning to understand.” + +I patted her head and lit a cigarette and wandered about the room, +rather puzzled by Carlotta’s psychological development, and yet stirred +by a faint thrill at her recognition of my affection. At the same time +the sad “too late, too late,” was knelled in my ears, and I thought of +the might-have-been, and rode the merry-go-round of regret’s banalities. +I had grown old. Passion had died. Hope--the hope of hearing the +patter of a child’s feet about my house, the hope of pride in a +quasi-paternity, of handing on, vicariously though it were, the torch of +life--hope was dead and it was buried in a little white coffin. Only a +great, quiet love remained. I was a tired old man, and Carlotta was to +me an infinitely loved sister--or daughter--or granddaughter even--so +old did I feel. And when I raised her from the fender-stool, and kissed +the tears from her eyes, it was as grandfatherly a kiss as had ever been +given in this world. + + +The same old problem again. What the deuce to do with Carlotta? Yet not +quite the same: rather, what the deuce to do with Carlotta and myself? +In our strange relationship we were inextricably bound together. + +First, she needed sunshine--instead of the forlorn bleakness of an +English spring--and a change from this house of pain and death. And +then I, too, felt the need of wider horizons. London had grown to be a +nightmare city which I never entered. Its restless ambitions were not +mine. Its pleasures pleased me not. With not five of its five million +inhabitants dared I speak heart to heart. Judith had gone out of my +life. My aunts and cousins regarded me as beyond the moral pale. Mrs. +McMurray was still unaware of my return to England. I confess to shabby +treatment of my kind friend. I know she would have flown to aid Carlotta +in her troubles; but would she have understood Carlotta? Reasoning now +I am convinced that she would: in those days I did not reason. I shrank +like a snail into its shell. The simile is commonplace; but so was +I--the most commonplace human snail that ever occupied a commonplace +ten-roomed shell. And now the house and its useless books and its +million-fold more useless manuscript “History of Renaissance Morals,” + all its sombre memories and its haunting ghosts of ineffectualities, +became an unwholesome prison in which I was wasting away a feeble +existence. I resolved to quit it, to leave my books, to abjure +Renaissance morals, and to go forth with Carlotta into the wilderness +and the sunshine, there to fulfil whatever destiny the high gods should +decree. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Again I sit on the housetop in Mogador on the Morocco coast, where a +month ago I began to write these latter pages. Time has passed quickly +since that day. + +I said then that on the previous afternoon something had happened. It +was something which I might have foreseen, which, in fact, with my habit +of putting the telescope to my blind eye, I obstinately had refused +to foresee. During our wanderings I had watched the flowering of her +splendid beauty as she drank in health from the glow of her own Orient. +I had noted the widening of her intellect, the quickening of her +sympathies. I had been conscious of the expansion of her soul in the +great silences when the stars flamed over the infinite sea of sand. But +a growing wistfulness that was no longer the old doglike pleading of her +glorious eyes, a gathering sadness that was not an aftermath of grief +for the child that had gone--into this, if I did remark it, I did +not choose to inquire. Instead, I continued my study of Arabic and +cultivated the acquaintance of a learned Moor whose conversation +afforded--and still affords--me peculiar pleasure. One of these days I +shall make a book of his Table-talk. But now I have to tell of Carlotta. + +She accepted with alacrity my proposal that morning to ride over to the +Palm Tree House for luncheon, as we had done several times before. To +please me, I think, she had resolutely overcome her natural indolence. +So much so that she had come to love the nomad life of steamers and +caravans, and had grown restless, eager for fresh scenes, craving +new impressions. It was I who had cried a halt at Mogador where this +furnished house to let, belonging to a German merchant absent in Europe, +tempted me to rest awhile. I am not so young as Carlotta, and I awakened +to the fact of a circumambient universe so many years ago that I have +grown slumberous. Carlotta, if left to herself, would have gone on +riding camels through Africa to the end of time. She had changed in many +essentials. Instead of regarding me as an amiable purveyor of sweetmeats +and other necessaries of life to which by the grace of her being +Carlotta she was entitled, she treated me with human affection and +sympathy, keeping her own wants in the background, anxious only to +anticipate mine. But she still loved sweetmeats and would eat horrible +Moorish messes with an avidity only equalled by my repugnance. She +was still the same Carlotta. On the other hand again, she had of late +abandoned her caressing habits. If she laid her hand on my arm, she did +it timorously--whereat I would laugh and she would grow confused. Once +she had driven me to frenzy with her fondling. Those days had passed. +I told myself that I was as old as the sphinx we had moralised over in +Egypt. + +We lunched, then, at the Palm Tree House and rode back in the cool of +the afternoon to Mogador. We were alone, as we knew the path across the +tongue of desert, and had no need of a guide and the rabble of sore-eyed +urchins who, like their attendant flies, infest the tourist on his +journeyings. On our right the desert rose to meet a near horizon; on our +left sandhills and boulders cut off the view; ahead the shimmering line +beyond which the sea and city lay. We were enveloped by solitude and +stillness. In the clear African air objects detached themselves against +the sky with startling definition. + +I had unconsciously ridden a bit ahead of Carlotta, thinking my +own thoughts, and sighing as a man often does sigh, for the vague +unattainable which is happiness. Suddenly I missed her by my side, and +turning round saw a sight that made my heart beat with its sheer beauty. +It was only Carlotta on her barbarically betrapped and besaddled mule. +But it was Carlotta glorified in colour. She held above her head a +cotton parasol, which she had bought to her delight and my disgust +in Mogador; an impossible thing, all deep cherry reds and yellows; +a hateful thing made for a pantomime--or for this African afternoon. +Outspread and luminous in the white sunlight its cherry reds and yellows +floated like translucences of wine above Carlotta’s bronze hair crowned +by a white sun hat, her warm flesh-tints, and the dazzling white of her +surah silk blouse; the whole picture cut out vivid against the indigo of +the sky. It was a radiant vision. I stared openmouthed, smitten with +the pang that sudden and transient loveliness can sometimes deal, as +Carlotta approached, her figure swaying with the jog of her barbaric +beast. Her eyes were fixed on mine. She halted, and for a moment we +looked at one another; and in those wonderful eyes I saw for the first +time a beautiful sadness, a spiritual appeal. The moment passed. We +started again, side by side, neither speaking. I did not look at her, +conscious of a vague trouble. Things that I had thought dead stirred in +my heart. + +Presently like a dawn of infinite delicacy rose the city before us. Its +fairy minarets and towers gleamed first white in an atmosphere of pale +amethyst toning through shades of green to the blue of the zenith. And +the lazy sea lay at the city’s foot a pavement of lapis lazuli. But +all was faint, unreal. Far, far away a group of palms caught opalescent +reflections. A slight breeze had sprung up, raising minute particles of +sand which caused the elfland on the horizon to quiver like a mirage. + +“It is a dream-city,” said I, in admiration. + +Carlotta did not reply. I thought she had not heard. We jogged on a +little in silence. At last she drew very close to me. + +“Shall we ever get there?” she asked, pointing ahead with the hand that +held the reins. + +“To Mogador? Yes, I hope so,” I answered with a laugh. I thought she was +tired. + +“No, not Mogador. The dream-city--where every one wants to get.” + +“You have travelled far, my dear,” said I, “to hanker now after +dream-cities and the unattainable. I knew a little girl once who would +have asked: ‘What is a dream-city?” + +“She doesn’t ask now because she knows,” replied Carlotta. “No. We shall +never get there. It looks as if we were riding straight into it--but +when we get close, it will just be Mogador.” + +“Aren’t you happy, Carlotta?” I asked. + +“Are you, Seer Marcous?” + +“I? I am a philosopher, my child, and a happy philosopher would be a +_lusus naturae_, a freak, a subject for a Barnum & Bailey Show. If +they caught him they would put him between the hairy man and the living +skeleton.” + +“I suppose I’m getting to be a philosopher, too,” said Carlotta, “and +I hate it! Sometimes I think I hate everything and everybody--save you, +Seer Marcous, darling. It’s wicked of me. I must have been born wicked. +But I used to be happy. I never wanted to go to dream-cities. I was just +like a cat. Like Polyphemus. Do you remember Polyphemus?” + +“Yes,” said I. And then set off my balance by this strange conversation +with Carlotta, I added: “I killed him.” + +She turned a startled face to me. + +“You killed him? Why?” + +“He laughed at me because I was unhappy,” said I. + +“Through me?” + +“Yes; through you. But that’s neither here nor there. We were not +discussing the death of Polyphemus. We were talking about being +philosophers, and you said that as a philosopher you hated everything +and everybody except me. Why do you exclude me, Carlotta?” + +We were riding so near together that my leg rubbed her saddle-girth. +I looked hard at her. She turned away her head and put the pantomime +parasol between us. I heard a little choking sob. + +“Let us get off--and sit down a little--I want to cry. + +“The end of all feminine philosophy,” I said, somewhat brutally. “No. +It’s getting late. That’s only Mogador in front of us. Let us go to it.” + +Carlotta shifted her parasol quickly. + +“What has happened to you, Seer Marcous? You have never spoken to me +like that before.” + +“The very deuce seems to have happened,” said I, angrily--though why I +should have felt angry, heaven only knows. “First you turn yourself into +a Royal Academy picture with that unspeakable umbrella of yours and the +trumpery blue sky and sunshine, and make my sentimental soul ache; and +then you--” + +“It’s a very pretty umbrella,” said Carlotta, looking upwards at it +demurely. + +“Give it to me,” I said. + +She yielded it with her usual docility. I cast it upon the desert. Being +open it gave one or two silly rebounds, then lay still. Carlotta reined +up her mule. + +“Oh-h!” she said, in her old way. + +I dismounted hurriedly, and helped her down and passed my arm through +the two bridles. + +“My dear child,” said I, “what is the meaning of all this? Here we have +been living for months the most tranquil and unruffled existence, and +now suddenly you begin to talk about dream-cities and the impossibility +of getting there, and I turn angry and heave parasols about Africa. What +is the meaning of it?” + +The most extraordinary part of it was that I should be treating Carlotta +as a grown-up woman, after the fashion of the hero of a modern French +novel. Perhaps I was younger than I thought. + +She kept her eyes fixed downward. + +“Why are you angry with me?” she asked in a low voice. + +“I haven’t the remotest idea,” said I. + +She lifted her eyelids slowly--oh, very, very slowly, glanced +quiveringly at me, while the shadow of a smile fluttered round her lips. +I verily believe the baggage exulted in her feminine heart. I turned +away, leading the two animals, and picked up the parasol which I closed +and restored to her. + +“I thought you wanted to cry,” I remarked. + +“I can’t,” said Carlotta, plaintively. + +“And you won’t tell me why you exclude me from your universal hatred?” + +Carlotta dug up the sand with the point of her foot. The sight of it +recalled the row of pink toes thrust unashamedly before my eyes on the +second day of her arrival in London. An old hope, an old fear, an old +struggle renewed themselves. She was more adorably beautiful even than +the Carlotta of the pink tus, and spiritually she was reborn. I heard +her whisper: + +“I can’t.” + +Now I had sworn to myself all the oaths that a man can swear that I +should be Carlotta’s grandfather to the end of time. Hitherto I had +felt the part. Now suddenly grey beard and slippered pantaloons are cast +aside and I am young again with a glow in my heart which beats fast at +her beauty. I shut my teeth. + +“No,” said I to myself. “The curtain shall not rise on that farcical +tragedy again.” + +I threw the reins on the neck of Carlotta’s mule, which with its +companion had been regarding us with bland stupidity. + +“I think we had better ride on, Carlotta,” I said. “Mount.” + +She meekly gave me her little foot and I hoisted her into the saddle. + +We did not exchange a word till we reached Mogador. But each of us felt +that something had happened. + +At dinner we met as usual. Carlotta spoke somewhat feverishly of our +travels, and asked me numberless questions, betraying an unprecedented +thirst for information. I never gave her historical instruction with +less zest. + +After the meal we went onto the flat roof. Carlotta poured out my coffee +at the small table beside the long Madeira cane chair which was my +accustomed seat. The starlit night was blue and languorous. From some +cafe came the monotonous strains of Moorish music, the harsh strings and +harsh men’s voices softened by the distance. Carlotta took my coffee-cup +when I had finished and set it down in her granddaughterly way. Then she +stood in front of me. + +“Won’t you make a little room for me on your chair, Seer Marcous, +darling?” + +I shifted my feet from the foot-rest and she sat down. I may observe +that I was not, in oriental bashawdom, occupying the one and only chair +on the housetop. + +“Tell me about the stars,” she said. + +I knew what she meant. She loved the old Greek myths; their poetry, +obscured though it was through my matter-of-fact prose, appealed to +her young imagination. She was passing through an exquisite phase of +development. + +I scanned the heavens for a text and found one in the Pleiades. And I +told her how these were seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione who herself +was the daughter of the Sea, and how they were all pure maidens, save +one, and were the companions of Artemis; how Orion the hunter, who was +afterwards slain by Artemis and whose three-starred girdle gleamed up +there in the sky, pursued them with evil intent, and how they prayed the +gods for deliverance and were changed into the everlasting stars; and, +lastly, how the one who was not a maiden, for she loved a mortal, shrank +away from her sisters through shame and was invisible to the eye of man. + +“She was ashamed,” said Carlotta in a low voice, “because she loved some +one afterwards, one of the gods, who would not look at her because +she had given herself to a mortal. A woman then has a fire here”--she +clasped her hands to her bosom--“and wishes she could burn away to +nothing, nothing, just to air, and become invisible.” + +She was rising hurriedly on the last word, but I brought my hands down +on her shoulders. + +“Carlotta, my child,” said I, “what do you mean?” + +She seized my wrists and struggling to rise, panted out in desperation: + +“You are one of the gods, and I wish I were changed into an invisible +star.” + +“I don’t,” said I, huskily. + +By main force I drew her to me and our lips met. She yielded, and this +time the whole soul of Carlotta came to me in the kiss. + +“It’s beautiful to snuggle up against you again,” said my ever direct +Carlotta, after a while. “I haven’t done it--oh, for such a long time.” + She sighed contentedly. “Seer Marcous--” + +“You must call me Marcus now,” said I, somewhat fatuously. + +She shook her head as it lay on my shoulder. “No. You are Marcus--or Sir +Marcus--to everybody. To me you are always Seer Marcous. Seer Marcous, +darling,” she half whispered after a pause. “Once I did not know the +difference between a god and a mortal. It was only that morning when I +woke up--” + +“You took me for a saint in a dressing-gown,” said I. + +“It’s the same thing,” she retorted. And then taking up her parable, +she told me in her artless way the inner history of her heart since that +morning; but what she said is sacred. Also, a man feels himself to be a +pitiful dog of a god when a woman relates how she came to establish him +on her High Altar. + +Later we struck a lighter vein and spoke of the present, the enchantment +of the hour, the scented air, the African stars. + +“It seems, my dear,” said I, “that we have got to Nephelococcygia after +all.” + +“What is Nephelococcygia?” asked Carlotta. + +I relented. “It’s a base Aristophanic libel on our dream-city,” said I. + + +Thus out of evil has come good; out of pain has grown happiness; out of +horror has sprung an everlasting love. Many a man will say that in all +my relations with Carlotta I have comported myself as a fool, and that +my marriage is the crowning folly. Well, I pretend not unto wisdom. +Wisdom would have married me to five thousand a year, a position in +fashionable society, my Cousin Dora and premature old age antecedent to +eternal destruction. I hold that my salvation has lain the way of folly. +Again, it may be urged against me that I have squandered my life, that +with all my learning, such as it is, I have achieved nothing. I once +thought so. I boasted of it in my diary when I complacently styled +myself a waster in Earth’s factory. Oh, that diary! Let me here solemnly +retract and abjure every crude and idiot opinion and reflection of life +set forth in that frenetic record! I regard myself not as a waster--I +remember a passage in Epictetus treating of the ways of Providence: + +“For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? If then +I were a nightingale I would do the part of a nightingale: if I were +a swan, I would do like a swan. But now I am a rational creature and I +ought to praise God; this is my work, I do it, nor will I desert this +post so long as I am allowed to keep it; and I exhort you to join in +this same song.” + +No, I am neither nightingale nor swan, and cannot add, as they do, +to the beauty of the earth. The lame old man has his limitations; but +within them, he can, by cleaving to his post and praising God, fulfil +his destiny. + +Carlotta coming onto the housetop to summon me to lunch looks over my +shoulder as I write these words. + +“But you are not a lame old man!” she cries in indignation. “You are the +youngest and strongest and cleverest man in the world!” + +“What am I to do with these miraculous gifts?” I ask, laughing. + +“You are to become famous,” she says, with conviction. + +“Very well, my dear. We will have to go to some new land where attaining +fame is easier for a beginner than in London; and we’ll send for +Antoinette and Stenson to help us.” + +“That will be very nice,” she observes. + +So I am to become famous. _Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut_. And +Carlotta has got a soul of her own now and means to make the most of +it. It will lead me upward somewhere. But whether I am to be king of +New Babylon or Prime Minister of New Zealand or lawgiver to a Polynesian +tribe is a secret as yet hidden in the lap of the gods, whence Carlotta +doubtless will snatch it in her own good time. + +“You are writing a lot of rubbish,” says Carlotta. + +“And a little truth. The mixture is Life,” I answer. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/5051-0.zip b/5051-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..de59e57 --- /dev/null +++ b/5051-0.zip diff --git a/5051-h.zip b/5051-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f23be33 --- /dev/null +++ b/5051-h.zip diff --git a/5051-h/5051-h.htm b/5051-h/5051-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ba441f --- /dev/null +++ b/5051-h/5051-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13205 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. Locke + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: April 19, 2009 [EBook #5051] +Last Updated: November 11, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE *** + + + + +Produced by Polly Stratton, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + by William J. Locke + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_PART"> <b>PART I</b> </a><br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_PART2"> <b>PART II</b> </a><br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PART" id="link2H_PART"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + PART I + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + For reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, in Verona, to + write the history of my extravagant adventure. I shall formulate and + expand the rough notes in my diary which lies open before me, and I shall + begin with a happy afternoon in May, six months ago. + </p> + <p> + May 20th. + </p> + <p> + <i>London</i>:—To-day is the seventh anniversary of my release from + captivity. I will note it every year in my diary with a sigh of + unutterable thanksgiving. For seven long blessed years have I been free + from the degrading influences of Jones Minor and the First Book of Euclid. + Some men find the modern English boy stimulating, and the old Egyptian + humorous. Such are the born schoolmasters, and schoolmasters, like poets, + <i>nascuntur non fiunt</i>. What I was born passes my ingenuity to fathom. + Certainly not a schoolmaster—and my many years of apprenticeship did + not make me one. They only turned me into an automaton, feared by myself, + bantered by my colleagues, and sometimes good-humouredly tolerated by the + boys. + </p> + <p> + Seven years ago the lawyer’s letter came. The post used to arrive just + before first school. I opened the letter in the class-room and sat down at + my desk, sick with horror. The awful wholesale destruction of my relatives + paralysed me. My form must have seen by my ghastly face that something had + happened, for, contrary to their usual practice, they sat, thirty of them, + in stony silence, waiting for me to begin the lesson. As far as I remember + anything, they waited the whole hour. The lesson over, I passed along the + cloister on my way to my rooms. I overheard one of my urchins, clattering + in front of me, shout to another: + </p> + <p> + “I’m sure he’s got the sack!” + </p> + <p> + Turning round he perceived me, and grew as red as a turkey-cock. I laughed + aloud. The boy’s yell was a clarion announcement from the seventh heaven. + I <i>had got the sack</i>! <i>I</i> should never teach him quadratic + equations again. I should turn my back forever upon those hateful walls + and still more abominated playing-fields. And I was not leaving my prison, + as I had done once or twice before, in order to continue my servitude + elsewhere. I was free. I could go out into the sunshine and look my + fellow-man in the face, free from the haunting, demoralising sense of + incapacity. I was free. Until that urchin’s shriek I had not realised it. + My teeth chattered with the thrill. + </p> + <p> + I was fortunately out of school the second hour. I employed most of it in + balancing myself. A perfectly reasonable creature, I visited the chief. He + was a chubby, rotund man, with a circular body and a circular visage, and + he wore great circular gold spectacles. He looked like a figure in the + Third Book of Euclid. But his eyes sparkled like bits of glass in the sun. + </p> + <p> + “Well, Ordeyne?” he inquired, looking up from letters to parents. + </p> + <p> + “I have come to ask you to accept my resignation,” said I. “I would like + you to release me at once.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come, things are not as bad as all that,” said he, kindly. + </p> + <p> + I looked stupidly at him for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “Of course I know you’ve got one or two troublesome forms,” he continued. + </p> + <p> + Then I winced. His conjecture hurt me horribly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it’s nothing to do with my incompetence,” I interrupted. + </p> + <p> + “What is it, then?” + </p> + <p> + “My grandfather, two uncles, two nephews and a valet were drowned a day or + two ago in the Mediterranean,” I answered, calmly. + </p> + <p> + I have since been struck by the crudity of this announcement. It took my + chief’s breath away. + </p> + <p> + “I deeply sympathise with you,” he said at last. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “A terrible catastrophe. No wonder it has upset you. Horrible! Six living + human beings! Three generations of men!” + </p> + <p> + “That’s just it,” said I. “Three generations of my family swept away, + leaving me now at the head of it.” + </p> + <p> + At this moment the chief’s wife came into the library with the morning + paper in her hand. On seeing me she rushed forward. + </p> + <p> + “Have you had bad news?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Is it in the paper?” + </p> + <p> + “I was coming to show my husband. The name is an uncommon one. I wondered + if they might be relatives of yours.” + </p> + <p> + I bowed acquiescence. The chief looked at the paragraph below his wife’s + indicating thumb, then he looked at me as if I, too, had suffered a + seachange. + </p> + <p> + “I had no idea—” he said. “Why, now—now you are Sir Marcus + Ordeyne!” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds idiotic, doesn’t it?” said I, with a smile. “But I suppose I + -am.” + </p> + <p> + And so came my release from captivity. I was profoundly affected by the + awful disaster, but it would be sheer hypocrisy if I said that I felt + personal grief. I knew none of the dead, of whom I verily believe the + valet was the worthiest man. My grandfather and uncles had ignored my + existence. Not a helping hand had they stretched out to my widowed mother + in her poverty, when one kindly touch would have meant all. + </p> + <p> + They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Ordeynes. What my + father, the youngest son, was like, I have no idea, as he died when I was + two years old, but my mother, who was somewhat stern and puritanical, + spoke of him very much as she would have spoken of the prophet Joel, had + he been a personal acquaintance. + </p> + <p> + Seven years to-day have I been a free man. + </p> + <p> + Feeling at peace with all the world I called this afternoon on my Aunt + Jessica, Mrs. Ordeyne, who has borne me no malice for stepping into the + place that should have been the inheritance of her husband and of her son. + Rather has she devised to adopt me, to guide my ambitions and to point out + my duties as the head of the house. If I refuse to be adopted, avoid + ambitions and disclaim duties, the fault lies not with her good-will. She + is a well-preserved worldly woman of fifty-five, and having begun to dye + her hair in the peroxide of hydrogen era has not the curiosity to abandon + the practice and see what colour will result. I wish I could like her. I + can’t. She purrs. Some day I feel she will scratch. She received me + graciously. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Marcus. At last! Didn’t you know I have been in town ever since + Easter?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I. “I am afraid I didn’t.” Which was true. “Why didn’t you tell + me?” + </p> + <p> + “I would have asked you to dinner, but you will never come. As for At Home + cards I never dream of sending them to you. It is a waste of precious + half-penny stamps.” + </p> + <p> + “You might have written me a nice little letter about nothing at all,” I + suggested. + </p> + <p> + “For you to say ‘What is that woman worrying me with her silly letters + for?’ I know what you men are.” She looked arch. + </p> + <p> + This is precisely what I should have said. As I am not an inventive liar, + I could only smile feebly. I am never at my ease with Aunt Jessica. I am + not the kind of person to afford her entertainment. I do not belong to her + world of opulence, and if even I desired it, which the gods forbid, my + means would not enable me to make the necessary display. My uncle, + thinking to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the title, amassed enormous + wealth as a company promoter, while I, on whom the title has descended, am + perfectly contented with its fallen fortunes. I have scarcely a thought or + taste in common with my aunt. In fact, I must bore her exceedingly. Yet + she hides her boredom beneath a radiant countenance and leads me to + understand that my society gives her inexpressible joy. I wonder why. + </p> + <p> + She is always be-guide-philosopher-and-friending me. I resent it. A man of + forty does not need the counsels of an elderly woman destitute of + intellect. I believe there are some women who are firmly convinced that + their sheer sex has imbued them with all the qualities of genius. To-day + my aunt tackled me on the subject of marriage. I ought to marry. I asked + why. It appeared it was every man’s duty. + </p> + <p> + “From what point of view?” I asked. “The mere propagation of the human + race, or the providing of a superfluous young woman with a means of + livelihood? If it is the former, then, in my opinion, there are too many + people in the world already; and if the latter, I’m afraid I’m not + sufficiently altruistic.” + </p> + <p> + “You are so <i>funny!</i>” laughed my aunt. + </p> + <p> + I was not aware of being the least bit funny. + </p> + <p> + “But, seriously,” she continued, “you <i>must</i> marry.” She is a woman + who has an irritating way of speaking in Italics. “Are you aware that if + you have no son the title will become extinct?” + </p> + <p> + “And if it does,” I cried, “who on this earth will care a half-penny-bun?” + </p> + <p> + I am growing tired of the title. At first it was rather amusing. Now it + appears it is registered in Heaven’s chancery and hedged about with divine + ordinances. Only the other day an unknown parson requested me to open a + church bazaar, and I gathered he had received his instructions direct from + the Almighty. + </p> + <p> + “Why, every one would care,” exclaimed my aunt, genuinely shocked. “It + would be monstrous. You owe it to your descendants as well as to your + ancestors. Besides,” she added, with apparent irrelevance, “a man in your + position ought to live up to it.” + </p> + <p> + “I do,” said I, “just up to it.” + </p> + <p> + “Now you are pretending you don’t understand me. You ought to marry + money!” + </p> + <p> + I smiled and shook my head. I don’t think my aunt likes me to smile and + shake my head, for I saw a flicker in her eyes. “No, my dear aunt; + emphatically no. It would be comfortless. If I kissed it, it would be + cold. If I put my arms round it, it would be full of sharp edges which + would hurt. If I tried to get any emotion out of it, it would only + jingle.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you want then?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. But if I must—let it be plain flesh and blood.” + </p> + <p> + “Cannibal!” said my aunt. + </p> + <p> + We both laughed. + </p> + <p> + “But you can have plenty of flesh and blood, with money as well, for the + asking,” she insisted; and thereupon my two cousins, Dora and Gwendolen, + entered the drawingroom and interrupted the conversation. They are both + bouncing, fresh-faced girls, in the early twenties. They ride and shoot + and bicycle and golf and dance, and the elder writes little stories for + the magazines. As I do none of these things, I am convinced they regard me + as a poor sort of creature. When they hand me a cup of tea I almost expect + them to pat me on the head and say, “Good dog!” I am long, lean, stooping, + hatchet-faced, hawknosed, near-sighted. I have not the breezy air of the + jolly young stockbrokers they are in the habit of meeting. They rather + alarm me. Moreover, they have managed to rear a colossal pile of wholly + incorrect information on every subject under the sun, and are addicted to + letting chunks of it fall about one’s ears. This stuns me, rendering + conversation difficult. + </p> + <p> + As I had not seen Dora since her return from Rome, where she had spent the + early spring, I asked, in some trepidation, for her impressions. Before I + could collect myself, I was listening to a lecture on St. Peter’s. She + told me it was built by Michael Angelo. I suggested that some credit might + be given to Bramante, not to speak of Rosellino, Baldassare Peruzzi and + the two San Gallo’s. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said my young lady, with a superb air of omniscience. “It was all + Michael Angelo’s design. <i>The others only tinkered away at it afterwards</i>.” + </p> + <p> + After receiving this brickbat I took my leave. + </p> + <p> + To console myself I looked up, during the evening, Michael Angelo’s noble + letter about Bramante. + </p> + <p> + “One cannot deny,” says he, “that Bramante was as excellent in + architecture as any one has been from the ancients to now. He placed the + first stone of St. Peter’s, not full of confusion, but clear, neat, and + luminous, and isolated all round in such a way that it injured no part of + the palace, and was held to be a beautiful thing, as is still apparent, in + such a way that any one who has departed from the said order of Bramante, + as San Gallo has done, has departed from the truth.” + </p> + <p> + Michael Angelo did not like San Gallo; neither did he like Bramante-who + was his senior by thirty years-but this makes his appreciation of the + elder’s work all the more generous. + </p> + <p> + Tinkered away at it, indeed! + </p> + <p> + May 21st. + </p> + <p> + I spent all the morning at work by the open window. + </p> + <p> + I have a small house in Lingfield Terrace, on the north side of the + Regent’s Park, so that my drawing-room, on the first floor, has a southern + aspect. It has been warm and sunny for the past few days, and the elms and + plane-trees across the road are beginning to riot in their green bravery, + as if intoxicated with the golden wine of spring. My French window is + flung wide open, and on the balcony a triangular bit of sunlight creeps + round as the morning advances. My work-table is drawn up to the window. I + am busy over the first section of my “History of Renaissance Morals,” for + which I think my notes are completed. I have a delicious sense of + isolation from the world. Away over those tree-tops is a faint purpurine + pall, and below it lies London, with its strife and its misery, its + wickedness and its vanity. Twenty minutes would take me into the heart of + it. And if I chose I could be as struggling, as wretched, as much imbued + with wickedness and vanity as anybody. I could gamble on the stock + exchange, or play the muddy game of politics, or hawk my precious title + for sale among the young women of London society. My Aunt Jessica once + told me that London was at my feet. I am quite content that it should stay + there. I have much the same nervous dread of it as I have of an angry sea + breaking in surf on the shingle. If I ventured out in it I should be + tossed hither and thither and broken on the rocks, and I should perish. I + prefer to stand aloof and watch. If I had a little more of daring in my + nature I might achieve something. I am afraid I am but a waster in the + world’s factory; but kind Fate, instead of pitching me on the + rubbish-heap, has preserved me, perhaps has set me under a glass case, in + her own museum, as a curiosity. Well, I am happy in my shelter. + </p> + <p> + I was interrupted in my writing by the entrance of my cook and + housekeeper, Antoinette. She was sorry to disturb me, but did Monsieur + like sorrel? She was preparing some <i>veau a l’oseille</i> for lunch, and + Stenson (my man) had informed her that it was disgusting stuff and that + Monsieur would not eat it. + </p> + <p> + “Antoinette,” said I, “go and inform Stenson that as he looks after my + outside so do you look after my inside, and that I have implicit + confidence in both of you in your respective spheres of action.” + </p> + <p> + “But does Monsieur like sorrel?” Antoinette inquired, anxiously. + </p> + <p> + “I adore it even,” said I, and Antoinette made her exit in triumph. + </p> + <p> + What a reverential care French women have for the insides of their + masters! At times it is pathetic. Before now, I have thrown dainty morsels + which I could not eat into the fire, so as to avoid hurting Antoinette’s + feelings. + </p> + <p> + I came across her three years ago in a tiny hostelry in a tiny town in the + Loire district. She cooked the dinner and conversed about it afterwards so + touchingly that we soon became united in bonds of the closest affection. + Suddenly some money was stolen; Antoinette, accused, was dismissed without + notice. I had a shrewd suspicion of the thief—a suspicion which was + afterwards completely justified—and indignantly championed + Antoinette’s cause. + </p> + <p> + But Antoinette, coming from a village some eighty miles away, was a + stranger and an alien. I was her only friend. It ended in my inviting her + to come to England, the land of the free and the refuge of the downtrodden + and oppressed, and become my housekeeper. She accepted, with smiles and + tears. And they were great big smiles, that went into creases all over her + fat red face, forming runnels for the great big tears which dropped off at + unexpected angles. She was alone in the world. Her only son had died + during his military service in Madagascar. Although her man was dead, the + law would not regard her as a widow because she had never been married, + and therefore refused to exempt her only son. “<i>On ne peut-etre Jeune + qu’une fois, n’est-ce pas, Monsieur?</i>” she said, in extenuation of her + early fault. + </p> + <p> + “And Jean-Marie,” she added, “was as brave a fellow and as devoted a son + as if I had been married by the Saint-Pere himself.” + </p> + <p> + I waved my hand in deprecation and told her it did not matter in the + least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of Verona for many generations, + were every man jack of them so parented. Even William the Conqueror— + </p> + <p> + “<i>Tiens</i>,” cried Antoinette, consoled, “and he became Emperor of + Germany—he and Bismarck!” + </p> + <p> + Antoinette’s historical sense is rudimentary. I have not tried since to + develop it. + </p> + <p> + When I brought my victim of foreign tyranny to Lingfield Terrace, Stenson, + I believe, nearly fainted. He is the correctest of English valets, and his + only vice, I believe, is the accordion, on which he plays jaunty + hymn-tunes when I am out of the house. When he had recovered he asked me, + respectfully, how they were to understand each other. I explained that he + would either have to learn French or teach Antoinette English. What they + have done, I gather, is to invent a nightmare of a <i>lingua franca</i> in + which they appear to hold amicable converse. Now and again they have + differences of opinion, as to-day, over my taste for <i>veau a l’oseille</i>; + but, on the whole, their relations are harmonious, and she keeps him in a + good-humour: Naturally, she feeds the brute. + </p> + <p> + The duty-impulse, stimulated by my call yesterday on one aunt by marriage, + led my footsteps this afternoon to the house of the other, Mrs. Ralph + Ordeyne. She is of a different type from her sister-in-law, being a devout + Roman Catholic, and since the terrible affliction of two years ago has + concerned herself more deeply than ever in the affairs of her religion. + She lives in a gloomy little house in a sunless Kensington by-street. Only + my Cousin Rosalie was at home. She gave me tea made with tepid water and + talked about the Earl’s Court Exhibition, which she had not visited, and a + new novel, of which she had vaguely heard. I tried in vain to infuse some + life into the conversation. I don’t believe she is interested in anything. + She even spoke lukewarmly of Farm Street. + </p> + <p> + I pity her intensely. She is thin, thirty, colourless, bosomless. I should + say she was passionless—a predestined spinster. She has never drunk + hot tea or lived in the sun or laughed a hearty laugh. I remember once, at + my wit’s end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore Hook + accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite request that he + might know whether he was anybody in particular. She said, without a + smile, “Yes, it was astonishing how rude some people could be.” + </p> + <p> + And her godfathers and godmothers gave her the name of Rosalie. Mine might + just as well have called me Hercules or Puck. + </p> + <p> + She told me that her mother intended to ask me to dine with them one + evening next week. When was I free? I chose Thursday. Oddly enough I enjoy + dining there, although we are on the most formal terms, not having got + beyond the “Sir Marcus” and “Mrs. Ordeyne.” But both mother and daughter + are finely bred gentlewomen, and one meets few, oh, very, very few among + the ladies of to-day. + </p> + <p> + I reached home about six and found a telegram awaiting me. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Sorry can’t give you dinner. Cook in an impossible condition. Come + later.</i> Judith.” + </p> + <p> + I must confess to a sigh of relief. I am fond of Judith and sorry for her + domestic infelicities, though why she should maintain that alcoholized + wretch in her kitchen passes my comprehension. If there is one thing women + do not understand it is the selection, the ordering, and the treatment of + domestic servants. The mere man manages much better. But, that aside, + Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith’s cook’s cookery. I breathed a little + sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform him that I would dine at + home. + </p> + <p> + A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller arrived during + dinner. Among them were the nine volumes of Pietro Gianone’s <i>Istoria + Civile del Regno di Napoli</i>, a copy of which I ought to have possessed + long ago. It is dedicated to the “Most Puissant and Felicitous Prince + Charles VI, the Great, by God crowned Emperor of the Romans, King of + Germany, Spain, Naples, Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, <i>etcetera</i>.” Is + there a living soul in God’s universe who has a spark of admiration for + this most puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by God Emperor and + King of the greater part of Europe (and docked of most of his pretensions + by the Treaty of Utrecht)? We only remember the forcible-feeble person by + his Pragmatic Sanction, and otherwise his personality has left in history + not the remotest trace. And yet, on the 12th February, 1723, a profoundly + erudite, subtle, and picturesque historian grovels before the man and + subscribes himself “Of your Holy Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most + humble and most devoted and most obsequious vassal and slave Pietro + Gianone.” What ruthless judgments posterity passes on once enormous + reputations! In Gianone’s admirable introduction we hear of “<i>il celebre + Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a’ con confini della sua Inghilterra volle in + altri a piu lontani Paesi andav rintracciando l’uso a l’autorita delle + romane leggi ne’ nuovi domini de’ Principi cristiani; e di quelle di + ciascheduna Nazione volle ancora aver conto: le ricerco nella vicina + Scozia, e nell’ Ibernia; trapasso nella Francia, e nella Spagna; in + Germania, in Italia, a nel nostro Regno ancora: si stese in oltre in + Polonia, Boemia, in Ungheria, Danimarca, nella Svezia, ed in piu remote + parti</i>.” A devil of a fellow this celebrated English Arthur Duck, who + besides writing a learned treatise <i>De Usu et Auth. Jur. Civ. Rom. in + Dominiis Principum Christianorum</i>, was a knight, a member of + Parliament, chancellor of the diocese of London, and a master in chancery. + Gianone flattens himself out for a couple of pages before this prodigy + whom he lovingly calls <i>Ariuro</i>, as who should say Raffaelo or + Giordano; and now, where in the hearts of men lingers Sir Arthur Duck? For + one thing he had a bad name. Our English sense of humour revolts from + making a popular hero of a man called Duck. Yet we made one of Drake. But + there was something masculine about the latter: in fact, everything. + </p> + <p> + I am afraid it was rather late when I got to Judith. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + May 22d. + </p> + <p> + I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had lived in a garret “in + the brave days when I was twenty-one,” if I had undergone the lessons of + misery with the attendant compensations of “<i>une folle maitresse, de + francs amis et l’amour des chansons</i>,” and had joyous-heartedly mounted + my six flights of stairs. I lived modestly, it is true; but never for a + moment was I doubtful as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the + creature comforts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her + shawl curtain-wise across my window. Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish + she had. I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or spent my + lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal song. Often the + weary moments seemed a lifetime. + </p> + <p> + And now that I am forty, “it is too late a week.” Boon companions, of whom + I am thankful to say I have none, would drive me crazy with their + intolerable heartiness. I once spent an evening at the Savage Club. As for + the <i>folle maitresse</i>—as a concomitant of my existence she + transcends imagination. + </p> + <p> + “What are you thinking of?” asked Judith. + </p> + <p> + “I was thinking how the <i>‘Dans un grenier qu’on est bien a vingt ans’’</i> + principle would have worked in my own case,” I answered truthfully, for + the above reflections had been Passing through my mind. + </p> + <p> + Judith laughed. + </p> + <p> + “You in a garret? Why, you haven’t got a temperament!” + </p> + <p> + I suppose I haven’t. It never occurred to me before. Beranger omitted that + from his list of attendant compensations. + </p> + <p> + “That’s the difference between us,” she added, after a pause. “I have a + temperament and you haven’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you find it a great comfort.” + </p> + <p> + “It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. It is the bane of + one’s existence.” + </p> + <p> + “Why be so proud of having it?” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn’t understand if I told you,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + I rose and walked to the window and gazed meditatively at the rain which + swept the uninspiring little street. Judith lives in Tottenham Mansions, + in the purlieus of the Tottenham Court Road. The ground floor of the + building is a public-house, and on summer evenings one can sit by the open + windows, and breathe in the health-giving fumes of beer and whisky, and + listen to the sweet, tuneless strains of itinerant musicians. When my new + fortunes enabled me to give the dear woman just the little help that + allowed her to move into a more commodious flat, she had the many mansions + of London to choose from. Why she insisted on this abominable locality I + could never understand. It isn’t as if the flat were particularly cheap; + indeed the fact of its being situated over a public-house seems to enhance + the rent. She said she liked the shape of the knocker and the pattern of + the bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that it must have had something to do + with the temperament. + </p> + <p> + “It always seems to rain when we propose an outing together. This is the + fourth time since Easter,” I remarked. + </p> + <p> + We had planned a sedate country jaunt, but as the day was pouring wet we + remained at home. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps this is the way the <i>bon Dieu</i> has of expressing his + disapproval of us,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + “Why should he disapprove?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + A shrug of her shoulders ended in a shiver. + </p> + <p> + “I am chilled through.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear girl,” I cried, “why on earth haven’t you lit the fire?” + </p> + <p> + “The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy.” + </p> + <p> + “But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogical woman,” I + exclaimed, searching my pockets for a match-box. + </p> + <p> + I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel by her chair. She + stretched out her hand—she has delicate white hands with slender + fingers—and lightly touched my head. + </p> + <p> + “How long have we known each other?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “About eight years.” + </p> + <p> + “And how long shall we go on?” + </p> + <p> + “As long as you like,” said I, intent on the fire. + </p> + <p> + Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze + and crackle of the wood assured me of successful effort. + </p> + <p> + “These are capital grates,” I said, cheerfully, drawing a comfortable + arm-chair to the front of the fire. + </p> + <p> + “Excellent,” she replied, in a tone devoid of interest. + </p> + <p> + There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great charms of human + intercourse. Is there not a legend that Tennyson and Carlyle spent the + most enjoyable evenings of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence + and tobacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob? A sort of Whistlerian + nocturne of golden fog! + </p> + <p> + I offered Judith a cigarette. She declined it with a shake of the head. I + lit one myself and leaning back contentedly in my chair watched her face + in half-profile. Most people would call her plain. I can’t make up my mind + on the point. She is what is termed a negative blonde—that is to + say, one with very fair hair (in marvellous abundance—it is one of + her beauties), a sallow complexion and deep violet eyes. Her face is thin, + a little worn, that of the woman who has suffered—temperament again! + Her mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, is drawn down at + the corners. Her figure is slight but graceful. She has pretty feet. One + protruded from her skirt, and a slipper dangled from the tip. At last it + fell off. I knew it would. She has a craze for the minimum of material in + slippers—about an inch of leather (I suppose it’s leather) from the + toe. I picked the vain thing up and balanced it again on her + stocking-foot. + </p> + <p> + “Will you do that eight years hence?” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, as I’ve done it eight thousand times the last eight years, I + suppose I shall,” I replied, laughing. “I’m a creature of habit.” + </p> + <p> + “You may marry, Marcus.” + </p> + <p> + “God forbid!” I ejaculated. + </p> + <p> + “Some pretty fresh girl.” + </p> + <p> + “I abominate pretty fresh girls. I would just as soon talk to a baby in a + perambulator.” + </p> + <p> + “The women men are crazy to marry are not always those they particularly + delight to converse with, my friend,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + I lit another cigarette. “I think the sex feminine has marriage on the + brain,” I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly. “My Aunt Jessica was worrying me + about it the day before yesterday. As if it were any concern of hers!” + </p> + <p> + Judith laughed below her breath and called me a simpleton. + </p> + <p> + “Why?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Because you haven’t got a temperament.” + </p> + <p> + This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the question. I told her + so. She replied that she was years older than I, and had learned the + eternal relevance of all things. I pointed out that she was years younger. + </p> + <p> + “How many heart-beats have you had in your life—real, wild, + pulsating heart-beats—eternity in an hour?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s Blake,” I murmured. + </p> + <p> + “I’m aware of it. Answer my question.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a silly question.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t. The next time you see a female baby in a perambulator, take off + your hat respectfully.” + </p> + <p> + I am afraid I am clumsy at repartee. + </p> + <p> + “And the next time you engage a cook, my dear Judith,” said I, “send for a + mere man.” + </p> + <p> + She coloured up. I dissolved myself in apologies. Her wounded + susceptibilities required careful healing. The situation was somewhat odd. + She had not scrupled to attack the innermost weaknesses of my character, + and yet when I retaliated by a hit at externals, she was deeply hurt, and + made me feel a ruffianly blackguard. I really think if Lisette had pinned + up that curtain I should have learned something more about female human + nature. But Judith is the only woman I have known intimately all my life + long, and sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever know her. I told her so + once. She answered: “If you loved me you would know me.” Very likely she + was right. Honestly speaking, I don’t love Judith. I am accustomed to her. + She is a lady, born and bred. She is an educated woman and takes quite an + intelligent interest in the Renaissance. Indeed she has a subtler + appreciation of the Venetian School of Painting than I have. She first + opened my eyes, in Italy, to the beauties, as a gorgeous colourist, of + Palma Vecchio in his second or Giorgionesque manner. She is in every way a + sympathetic and entertaining companion. Going deeper, to the roots of + human instinct, I find she represents to me—so chance has willed it—the + <i>ewige weibliche</i> which must complement masculinity in order to + produce normal existence. But as for the “<i>zieht uns hinan</i>”—no. + It would not attract me hence—out of my sphere. I could commit an + immortal folly for no woman who ever made this planet more lustrous to its + Bruderspharen. + </p> + <p> + I don’t understand Judith. It doesn’t very greatly matter. Many things I + don’t understand, the spiritual attitude towards himself, for example, of + the intelligent juggler who expends his life’s energies in balancing a cue + and three billiard-balls on the tip of his nose. But I know that Judith + understands me, and therein lies the advantage I gain from our intimacy. + She gauges, to an absurdly subtle degree, the depth of my affection. She + is really an incomparable woman. So many insist upon predilection + masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing theatrical about + Judith. + </p> + <p> + Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unsettled. She broke + another pleasant spell of fireside silence, that followed expiation of my + offence, by suddenly calling my name. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said I, inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + “I want to tell you something. Please promise me you won’t be vexed.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Judith,” said I, “my great and imperial namesake, in whose + meditations I have always found ineffable comfort, tells me this: ‘If + anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which + disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at + once, if you please!’ So I promise to dismiss all my notions of your + disturbing communication and not to be vexed.” + </p> + <p> + “If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is Marcus + Aurelius,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which + protested, in a fire’s cheery, human way, against the depression of the + murky world outside, and to banter Judith. + </p> + <p> + “I can quite understand it,” I said. “A man sucks in the consolations of + philosophy; a woman solaces herself with religion.” + </p> + <p> + “I can do neither,” she replied, changing her attitude with an exaggerated + shaking down of skirts. “If I could, I shouldn’t want to go away.” + </p> + <p> + “Go away?” I echud. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You mustn’t be vexed with me. I haven’t got a cook—” + </p> + <p> + “No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my dear.” + </p> + <p> + The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and baggage, last + evening, when she was sober enough to walk. + </p> + <p> + “And so it is a convenient opportunity,” Judith continued, ignoring my + compliment—and rightly so; for as soon as it had been uttered, I was + struck by an uneasy conviction that she had herself disturbed the French + caterers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath repose in order to + provide me with food. + </p> + <p> + “I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never happy at the + beginning of a London season. I know I’m silly,” she went on, hurriedly. + “If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser—I + don’t mind the rest of the year; but in the season everybody is in town—people + I used to know and mix with—I meet them in the streets and they cut + me and it—hurts—and so I want to get away somewhere by myself. + When I get sick of solitude I’ll come back.” + </p> + <p> + One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by my side. + She caught my hand. + </p> + <p> + “For pity’s sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is.” + </p> + <p> + I said, “I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith. I didn’t + guess. Of course I understand.” + </p> + <p> + “If you didn’t, it would be impossible for us.” + </p> + <p> + “Have no doubt,” said I, softly, and I kissed her hand. + </p> + <p> + I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with—at + eight and twenty—and was patiently undergoing premature interment in + a small pension in Rome. How long her patience would have lasted I cannot + say. If circumstances had been different, what would have happened? is the + most futile of speculations. What did happen was the drifting together of + us two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for the simple reason that + there were no forces urging us apart. She was past all care for social + sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute having been flung over the + windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a world of shadows, why + should I have rejected the one warm hand that was held out to me? As I + said to her this afternoon, Why should the <i>bon Dieu</i> disapprove? I + pay him the compliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity. + </p> + <p> + When my fortune came, she remarked, “I am glad I am not free. If I were, + you would want to marry me, and that would be fatal.” + </p> + <p> + The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour would compel the offer. + Its acceptance would bring disaster. + </p> + <p> + Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, a <i>quid</i> of + protection, maintenance, position and what not, for a <i>quo</i> of the + various services that may be conveniently epitomized in the phrase <i>de + mensa et thoro</i>. The other, the only possible existence for two beings + whose passionate, mutual attraction demands the perfect fusion of their + two existences into a common life. Now to this passionate attraction I + have never become, and, having no temperament (thank Heaven!), shall never + become, a party. Before the turbulence therein involved I stand affrighted + as I do before London or the deep sea. I once read an epitaph in a German + churchyard: “I will awake, O Christ, when thou callest me; but let me + sleep awhile, for I am very weary.” Has the human soul ever so poignantly + expressed its craving for quietude? I fancy I should have been a heart’s + friend of that dead man, who, like myself, loved the cool and quiet + shadow, and was not allowed to enjoy it in this world. I may not get the + calm I desire, but at any rate my existence shall not be turned upside + down by mad passion for a woman. As for the social-contract aspect of + marriage, I want no better housekeeper than Antoinette; and my + dining-table having no guests does not need a lady to grace its foot; I + have no <i>a priori</i> craving to add to the population. “If children + were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone,” says + Schopenhauer, “would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man + rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the + burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose + that burden upon it in cold blood?” By bringing children into the world by + means of a marriage of convenience I should be imposing the burden of + existence upon them in cold blood. I agree with Schopenhauer. + </p> + <p> + And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in the closest physical + and moral propinquity for one hundred and eighty-six hours out of the + week, each hour surcharged with an obligatory exchange of + responsibilities, interests, sacrifices of every kind, a being who is not + the utter brother of my thoughts and sister of my dreams—no, never! + <i>Au grand non, au grand jamais!</i> + </p> + <p> + Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the utter brother of my + thoughts and the sister of my dreams; nor am I of hers. + </p> + <p> + But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, and my affection + fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate adjustment of reciprocals is + our sanction. Marriage, were it possible, would indeed be fatal. Our + pleasant, free relations, unruffled by storm, are ideal for us both. + </p> + <p> + Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away for a change would + vex me? + </p> + <p> + The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to me. Of all the + hateful attitudes towards a woman in which a decent man can view himself + that of the Turkish bashaw is the most detestable. Women seldom give men + credit for this distaste. + </p> + <p> + I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, and told her not + to doubt my understanding. She cried a little. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t make your path rougher, Judith?” I whispered. + </p> + <p> + She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonderfully. + </p> + <p> + “You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it.” + </p> + <p> + “Like a steam-roller,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily to the kitchen + to help her get the tea ready. My assistance consisted in lighting the + gas-stove beneath a waterless kettle. After that I sprawled against the + dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin + bread-and-butter in a woman’s deliciously clumsy way. Once, as the bright + blade went perilously near her palm, I drew in my breath. + </p> + <p> + “A man would never dream of doing it like that!” I cried, in rebuke. + </p> + <p> + She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the knife and + loaf. + </p> + <p> + “Do it your way,” she said, with a smile of mock humility. + </p> + <p> + I did it my way, and cut my finger. + </p> + <p> + “The devil’s in the knife!” I cried. “But that’s the right way.” + </p> + <p> + Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the well-conducted + person of the ballad, went on cutting bread-and-butter. Her smile, + however, was provoking. + </p> + <p> + “And all this time,” I said, half an hour later, “you haven’t told me + where you are going.” + </p> + <p> + “Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you said you wanted solitude.” + </p> + <p> + I have met Delphine Carrere—<i>brave femme</i> if ever there was + one, and the loyalest soul in the world, the only one of Judith’s early + women friends who has totally ignored the fact of the Sacred Cap of Good + Repute having been thrown over the windmills (indeed who knows whether + dear, golden-hearted Delphine herself could conscientiously write the + magic initials S.C.G.R. after her name?); but Delphine has never struck me + as a person in whose dwelling one could find conventual seclusion. Judith, + however, explained. + </p> + <p> + “Delphine will be painting all day, and dissipating all night. I can’t + possibly disturb her in her studio, for she has to work tremendously hard—and + I’m decidedly not going to dissipate with her. So I shall have my days and + nights to my sequestered and meditative self.” + </p> + <p> + I said nothing: but all the same I am tolerably certain that Judith, being + Judith, will enjoy prodigious merrymaking in Paris. She is absolutely + sincere in her intentions—the earth holds no sincerer woman—but + she is a self-deceiver. Her about-to-be-sequestered and meditative self + was at that moment sitting on the arm of a chair and smoking a cigarette, + with undisguised relish of the good things of this life. The blue smoke + wreathing itself amid her fair hair resembled, so I told her in the + relaxed intellectual frame of mind of the contented man, incense mounting + through the nimbus of a saint. She affected solicitude lest the life-blood + of my intelligence should be pouring out through my cut finger. No, I am + convinced that the <i>recueillement</i> (that beautiful French word for + which we have no English equivalent, meaning the gathering of the soul + together within itself) of the rue Boissy d’Anglais is the very happiest + delusion wherewith Judith has hitherto deluded herself. I am glad, + exceedingly glad. Her temperament—I have got reconciled to her + affliction—craves the gaiety which London denies her. + </p> + <p> + “And when are you going?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? I wired Delphine this morning. I had to go out to get something + for lunch (my conviction, it appears, was right), and I thought I might as + well take an omnibus to Charing Cross and send a telegram.” + </p> + <p> + “But when are you going to pack?” + </p> + <p> + “I did that last night. I didn’t get to bed till four this morning. I only + made up my mind after you had gone,” she added, in anticipation of a + possible question. + </p> + <p> + It is better that we are not married. These sudden resolutions would throw + my existence out of gear. My moral upheaval would be that of a hen in + front of a motor-car. When I go abroad, I like at least a fortnight to + think of it. One has to attune one’s mind to new conditions, to map out + the pleasant scheme of days, to savour in anticipation the delights that + stand there, awaiting one’s tasting, either in the mystery of the unknown + or in the welcoming light of familiarity. I love the transition that can + be so subtly gradated by the spirit between one scene and another. The man + who awakens one fine morning in his London residence, scratches his head, + and says, “What shall I do to-day? By Jove! I’ll start for Timbuctoo!” is + to me an incomprehensible, incomplete being. He lacks an aesthetic sense. + </p> + <p> + I did not dare tell Judith she lacked an aesthetic sense. I might just as + well have accused her of stealing silver spoons. I said I should miss her + (which I certainly shall), and promised to write to her once a week. + </p> + <p> + “And you,” said I, “will have heaps of time to write me the History of a + Sequestered and Meditative Self—meanwhile, let us go out somewhere + and dine.” + </p> + <p> + When I got home, I found a card on my hall-table. “Mr. Sebastian + Pasquale.” + </p> + <p> + I am sorry I missed Pasquale. I haven’t seen him for two or three years. + He is a fascinating youth, a study in reversion. I will ask him to dinner + here some day soon. It will be quieter than at the club. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + May 24th. + </p> + <p> + Something has happened. Something fantastic, inconceivable. I am in a + condition to be surprised at nothing. If a witch on a broomstick rode in + through my open window and lectured me on quaternions, I should accept her + visit as a normal occurrence. + </p> + <p> + I have spent hours walking up and down this book-lined room, wondering + whether the universe or I were mad. Sometimes I laughed, for the thing is + sheerly ridiculous. Sometimes I cursed at the impertinence of the thing in + happening at all. Once I stumbled over a volume of Muratori lying on the + floor, and I kicked it across the room. Then I took it up, and wept over + the loosened binding. + </p> + <p> + The question is: What on earth am I to do? Why has Judith chosen this + particular time to shut up her flat and sequester herself in Paris? Why + did my lawyers appoint this particular morning for me to sign their silly + documents? Why did I turn up three hours late? Why did I walk down the + Thames Embankment? And why, oh, why, did I seat myself on a bench in the + gardens below the terrace of the National Liberal Club? + </p> + <p> + Yesterday was one of the most peaceful and happy days of my existence. I + worked contentedly at my history; I gossiped with Antoinette who came to + demand permission to keep a cat. + </p> + <p> + “What kind of a cat?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps Monsieur does not like cats?” she inquired, anxiously. + </p> + <p> + “The cat was worshipped as a god by the ancient Egyptians,” I remarked. + </p> + <p> + “But this one, Monsieur,” she said in breathless reassurance, “has only + one eye.” + </p> + <p> + I would sooner talk to Antoinette than the tutorial staff of Girton. If + she woke up one morning and found she had a mind she would think it a + disease. + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon I strolled into Regent’s Park and meeting the McMurray’s + nine-year-old son in charge of the housemaid, around whom seemed to be + hovering a sheepish individual in a bowler hat, I took him off to the + Zoological Gardens. On the way he told me, with great glee, that his + German governess was in bed with an awful sore throat; that he wasn’t + doing any lessons; that the sheepish hoverer was Milly’s young man, and + that the silly way they went on was enough to make one sick. When he had + fed everything feedable and ridden everything ridable, I drove him to the + Wellington Road and deposited him with his parents. I love a couple of + hours with a child when it is thoroughly happy and on its best behaviour. + And the enjoyment is enhanced by the feeling of utter thankfulness that he + is not my child, but somebody else’s. + </p> + <p> + In the evening I read and meditated on the happiness of my lot. The years + of school drudgery have already lost their sharp edge of remembered + definition, and sometimes I wonder whether it is I who lived through them. + I had not a care in the world, not a want that I could not gratify. I + thought of Judith. I thought of Sebastian Pasquale. I amused myself by + seeking a Renaissance type of which he must be the reincarnation. I fixed + upon young Olgiati, one of the assassins of Gian Galeazzo Sforza. Of the + many hundreds of British youths who passed before my eyes during my + slavery, he is the only one who has sought me out in his manhood. And + strange to say we had only a few months together, during my first year’s + apprenticeship to the dismal craft, he being in the sixth form, and but + three or four years younger than I. He was the maddest, oddest, most + diabolical and most unpopular boy in the school. The staff, to whom the + conventional must of necessity be always the Divine, loathed him. I alone + took to the creature. I think now that my quaint passion for the + cinquecento Italian must have had something to do with my attraction. In + externals he is as English as I am, having been brought up in England by + an English mother, but there are thousands of Hindoos who are more British + than he. The McMurrays were telling me dreadful stories about him this + afternoon. Sighing after an obdurate Viennese dancer, he had lured her + coachman into helpless intoxication, had invested himself in the + domestic’s livery, and had driven off with the lady in the darkness after + the performance to the outskirts of the town. What happened exactly, the + McMurrays did not know; but there was the devil to pay in Vienna. And yet + this inconsequent libertine did the following before my own eyes. We were + walking down Piccadilly together one afternoon in the hard winter of 1894. + It was a black frost, agonizingly cold. A shivering wretch held out + matches for sale. His hideous red toes protruded through his boots. “My + God, my God!” cried Pasquale, “I can’t stand this!” He jumped into a + crawling hansom, tore off his own boots, flung them to the petrified + beggar and drove home in his stocking-feet. I stood on the curb and, with + mingled feelings, watched the recipient, amid an interested group of + bystanders, match the small shapely sole against his huge foot, and with a + grin tuck the boots under his arm and march away with them to the nearest + pawnbroker. If Pasquale had been an equally compassionate Briton, he would + have stopped to think, and have tossed the man a sovereign. <i>But he + didn’t stop to think.</i> That was my cinquecento Pasquale. And I loved + him for it. + </p> + <p> + I went to bed last night, as I have indicated, the most contented of + created beings. I awoke this morning with no greater ruffle on my + consciousness than the appointment with my lawyers. The sun shone. A + thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows. The tree, + laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, saying: “See how + green I am, after Sunday’s rain.” Antoinette’s one eyed black cat (a + hideous beast) met me in the hall and arching its back welcomed me affably + to its new residence. And on my breakfast-table I found a copy of the + first edition of Cristoforo da Costa’s “<i>Elogi delle Donne Illustri</i>,” + a book which, in great diffidence, I had asked Lord Carnforth, a perfect + stranger, to allow me the privilege of consulting in his library, and + which Lord Carnforth, with a scholar’s splendid courtesy, had sent me to + use at my convenience. + </p> + <p> + Filled with peace and good-will to all men, like a personification of + Christmas in May, I started out this morning to see my lawyers. I reached + them at three o’clock, having idled at second-hand bookstalls and lunched + on the road. I signed their unintelligible document, and wandered through + the Temple Gardens and along the Embankment. When I had passed under + Hungerford Bridge, it struck me that I was warm, a little leg-weary, and + the Victoria Embankment Gardens smiled an invitation to repose. I struck + the shady path beneath the terrace of the National Liberal Club, and sat + myself down on a comfortable bench. The only other occupant was a female + in black. As I take no interest in females in black, I disregarded her + presence, and gave myself up to the contemplation, of the trim lawns and + flower-beds, the green trees masking the unsightly Surrey side of the + river, and the back of the statue of Sir Bartle Frere. A continued survey + of the last not making for edification (a statue that turns its back on + you being one of the dullest objects made by man), I took from my pocket a + brown leather-covered volume which I had fished out of a penny box: “<i>Suite + de l’Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise ou L’Histoire des Uscoques, par le + Sieur Houssaie, Amsterdam, MDCCV.</i>” A whole complete scholarly history + of a forgotten people for a penny. The Uscoques were originally Dalmatians + who settled at Segna on the Adriatic and became the most pestiferous + colony of pirates and desperadoes of sixteenth century Europe. I opened + the yellow-stained pages and savoured their acrid musty smell. How much + learning, thought I, bought with the heart’s-blood, how many million hours + of fierce intellectual struggle appeal to mankind nowadays but as an + odour, an odour of decay, in the nostrils of here and there a casual + student. I thought this, and my eye caught, repeated many times, the name + of the Frangipani, once lords of Segna. As men, their achievements are + wiped out of commonly remembered history; but their name is distilled into + a sensuous perfume which perchance may be found in the penny scent + fountains of to-day. I was smiling over this quaint olfactory coincidence, + and wondering whether any human being alive at that moment had ever read + the Sieur Houssaie’s book, when a tug at my arm, such as a neglected + terrier gives with his paw, brought me back to the workaday world. I + turned sharply and met a pair of melting, brown, piteous, imploring dog’s + eyes, belonging not to a terrier, but to the disregarded female in black. + </p> + <p> + “Will you please, sir, to tell me what I must do.” + </p> + <p> + I stared. She was not in the least like what my half-conscious glance at + the female in black had taken her to be. She was quite young, remarkably + good looking. Even at the first instant I was struck by her eyes and the + mass of bronze hair and the twitching of a childish mouth. But she had an + untidy, touzled, raffish appearance, due to I knew not what investiture of + disrepute. Her hands—for she wore no gloves—wanted washing. + </p> + <p> + “What a young girl like yourself must not do,” said I, “is to enter into + conversation with men in public places.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I shall have to die,” she said, forlornly, edging away from my side. + </p> + <p> + She had the oddest little foreign accent. I looked at her again more + critically, and discovered what it was that made her look so disreputable. + She was wearing an old black dress many sizes too big for her. Great + pleats of it were secured by pins in unexpected places, so that quaint + chaos was made of the scheme of decoration—black velvet and bugles—on + the bodice. Instinctively I felt that a middle-aged, fat, + second-hand-clothes-dealing Jewess had built it many years ago for + synagogue wear. On the girlish figure it looked preposterous. Preposterous + too was her head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed in black, with a cheap + black feather drooping brokenly. + </p> + <p> + Her eyes gave me a reproachful glance and turned away again. Then she + shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. My mother had a housemaid once who + always sniffed like that before beginning to cry. My position was + untenable. I could not remain stonily on the seat while this grotesquely + attired damsel wept; and for the life of me I could not get up and leave + her. She looked at me again. Those swimming, pleading eyes were scarcely + human. I capitulated. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t cry. Tell me what I can do for you,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She moved a few inches nearer. + </p> + <p> + “I want to find Harry,” she said; “I have lost him.” + </p> + <p> + “Who’s Harry?” I naturally inquired. + </p> + <p> + “He is to be my husband.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s his other name?” + </p> + <p> + “I have forgotten,” she said, spreading out her hands. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you know any one else in London?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + She shook her head mournfully. “And I am getting so hungry.” + </p> + <p> + I suggested that there were restaurants in London. + </p> + <p> + “But I have no money,” she objected. “No money and nothing at all but + this.” She designated her dress. “Isn’t it ugly?” + </p> + <p> + “It is decidedly not becoming,” I admitted. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what must I do? You tell me and I do it. If you don’t tell me, I + must die.” + </p> + <p> + She leaned back placidly, having thus put upon my shoulders the + responsibility of her existence. I did not know which to admire more, her + cool assurance or the stoic fortitude with which she faced dissolution. + </p> + <p> + “I can give you some money to keep you going for a day or two,” said I, + “but as for finding Harry, without knowing his name—” + </p> + <p> + “After all I don’t want so very much to find him,” said this amazing young + person. “He made me stay in my cabin all the time I was in the steamer. At + first I was glad, for it went up and down, side to side, and I thought I + would die, for I was so sick; but afterwards I got better—” + </p> + <p> + “But where did you come from?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “From Alexandretta.” + </p> + <p> + “What were you doing there?” + </p> + <p> + “I used to sit in a tree and look over the wall—” + </p> + <p> + “What wall?” + </p> + <p> + “The wall of my house-my father’s house. He was not my father, but he + married my mother. I am English.” She announced the fact with a little air + of finality. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Father, mother—both English. He was Vice-Consul. He died + before I was born. Then his friend Hamdi Effendi took my mother and + married her. You see?” + </p> + <p> + I confessed I did not. “Where does Harry come in?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + She looked puzzled. “Come in?” she echoed. + </p> + <p> + I perceived her knowledge of the English vernacular was limited. I turned + my question differently. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said with more animation. “He used to pass by the wall, and I + talked to him when there was no one looking. He was so pretty—prettier + than you,” she paused. + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible?” I said, ironically. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes,” she replied with profound gravity. “He had a moustache, but he + was not so long.” + </p> + <p> + “Well? You talked to Harry. What then?” + </p> + <p> + In her artless way she told me. A refreshing story, as old as the + crusades, with the accessories of orthodox tradition; a European disguise, + purchased at a slop dealer’s by the precious Harry, a rope, a midnight + flitting, a passage taken on board an English ship; the anchor weighed; + and the lovers were free on the bounding main. A most refreshing story! I + put on a sudden air of sternness, and shot a question at her like a + bullet. + </p> + <p> + “Are you making all this up, young woman?” + </p> + <p> + She started-looked quite scared. + </p> + <p> + “You mean I tell lies? But no. It is all true. Why shouldn’t it be true? + How else could I have come here?” + </p> + <p> + The question was unanswerable. Her story was as preposterous as her + garments. But her garments were real enough. I looked long into her great + innocent eyes. Yes, she was telling me the truth. She babbled on for a + little. I gathered that her step-father, Hamdi Effendi, was a Turkish + official. She had spent all her life in the harem from which she had + eloped with this pretty young Englishman. + </p> + <p> + “And what must I do?” she reiterated. + </p> + <p> + I told her to give me time. One is not in the habit of meeting abducted + Lights of the Harem in the Embankment Gardens, beneath the National + Liberal Club. It was, in fact, a bewildering occurrence. I looked around + me. Nothing seemed to have happened during the last ten minutes. A pale + young man on the next bench, whom I had noticed when I entered, was + reading a dirty pink newspaper. Pigeons and sparrows hopped about + unconcernedly. On the file of cabs, just perceptible through the foliage, + the cabmen lolled in listless attitudes. Sir Bartle Frere stolidly kept + his back to me, not the least interested in this Gilbert a Becket story. I + always thought something was wrong with that man’s character. + </p> + <p> + What on earth could I tell her to do? The best course was to find the + infernal Harry. I asked her how she came to lose him. It appears he + escorted her ashore at Southampton, after having scarcely set eyes on her + during the voyage, put her into a railway carriage with strict injunctions + not to stir until he claimed her, and then disappeared into space. + </p> + <p> + “Did he give you your ticket?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “What a young blackguard!” I exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t like him at all,” she said. + </p> + <p> + How she managed to elude the ticket collector at Vauxhall I could not + exactly discover. Apparently she told him, in her confiding manner, that + Harry had it, and when he found no Harry in the train and came back to say + so, she turned her dewy imploring eyes on him and the sentimental varlet + melted. At Waterloo a man had told her she must get out of the carriage—she + had travelled alone in it—and she had meekly obeyed. She had + wandered out of the station and across a bridge and had eventually found + herself in the Embankment Gardens. Then she had asked me how to find + Harry. Really she was ridiculously like Thomas a Becket’s Saracen mother + crying in London for Gilbert. And the most ludicrous part of the + resemblance was that she did not know the creature’s surname. + </p> + <p> + “By the way,” said I, “what is your name?” + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta what?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I have no other name.” + </p> + <p> + “Your father—the Vice-Consul—had one.” + </p> + <p> + She wrinkled her young forehead in profound mental effort. + </p> + <p> + “Ramsbotham,” she said at last, triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + “Now look here, Miss Ramsbotham—no,” I broke off. “Such an + appellation is anachronistic, incongruous, and infinitely absurd. I can’t + use it. I must take the liberty of addressing you as Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “But I’ve told you that Carlotta is my name,” she said, in uncomprehending + innocence. + </p> + <p> + “And mine is Sir Marcus Ordeyne. People call me ‘Sir Marcus.’” + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + She did not seem at all impressed with the fact that she was talking to a + member of the baronetage. + </p> + <p> + “Quite so,” said I. “Now, Carlotta,” I resumed, “our first plan is to set + out in search of Harry. He may have missed his train, and have followed by + a later one, and be even now rampaging about Waterloo station. If we hear + nothing of him, I will drive you to the Turkish Consulate, give you in + charge there, and they will see you safely home to Alexandretta. The good + Hamdi Effendi is doubtless distracted, and will welcome you back with open + arms.” + </p> + <p> + I meant to be urbane and friendly. + </p> + <p> + She rose to her feet, grew as white as paper, opened her great eyes, + opened her baby mouth, and in the middle of the Embankment Gardens plumped + on her knees before me and clasped her hands above her head. + </p> + <p> + “For God’s sake get up!” I shrieked, wrenching her back acrobatically to + the bench beside me. “You mustn’t do things like that. You’ll have the + whole of London running to look at us.” + </p> + <p> + Indeed the sight had so far roused the pale young man from his lethargy + that he laid his dirty pink paper on his knees. I kept hold of Carlotta’s + wrists. She began to moan incoherently. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn’t send me back—Hamdi will kill me—oh please don’t + send me back—he will make me marry his friend Mustapha—Mustapha + has only two teeth—and he is seventy years old—and he has a + wife already—I only went with Harry to avoid Mustapha. Hamdi would + kill me, he would beat me, he would make me marry Mustapha.” + </p> + <p> + That is what I gathered from her utterances. She was frightened out of her + wits, even into anticlimax. + </p> + <p> + “But the Turkish Consul is your natural protector,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn’t be so cruel,” she sobbed. The guttural sonority with which + she rolled the “r” in “cruel” made the epithet appear one of revolting + barbarity. She fixed those confounded eyes upon me. + </p> + <p> + I wonder whether such a fool as I has ever lived. + </p> + <p> + I promised, on my honour, not to hand her over to the Turkish consulate. + </p> + <p> + I took a four-wheeled cab from the rank on the Embankment and drove her to + Waterloo. On the way she reminded me that she was hungry. I gave her food + at the buffet. It appears she has a passion for hard-boiled eggs and + lemonade. She did not seem very much concerned about finding Harry, but + chattered to me about the appointments of the bar. The beer-pulls amused + her particularly. She made me order a glass of bitter (a beverage which I + loathe) in order to see again how it was done, and broke into gleeful + laughter. The smart but unimaginative barmaid stared at her in + bewilderment. The two or three bar-loafers also stared. I was glad to + escape to the platform. + </p> + <p> + There, however, a group of idlers followed us about and stood in a ring + round us when we stopped to interview a railway official. The beautiful, + bronze-haired, ox-eyed young woman in her disreputable attire—I have + never seen a broken black feather waggle more shamelessly—was a + sight indeed to strike wonderment into the cockney mind. And perhaps her + association with myself added to the incongruity. I am long and lean and + unlovely, I know; but it is my consolation that I look irreproachably + respectable. Of the two I was infinitely the more disturbed by the public + attention. “Calm and unembarrassed as a fate” she returned the popular + gaze, and appeared somewhat bored by my efforts to find Harry. In the + midst of an earnest discussion with the station-master she begged me for a + penny to put into an automatic sweetmeat machine, which she had seen a + small boy work successfully. I refused, curtly, and turned to the + station-master. A roar of laughter interrupted me again. Carlotta, with + outstretched hand and pleading eyes, like an organ-grinder’s monkey, had + induced the boy to part with the sticky bit of toffee, and was in the act + of conveying it to her mouth. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll call to-morrow morning,” said I hurriedly to the station-master. “If + the gentleman should come meanwhile, tell him to leave his name and + address.” + </p> + <p> + Then I took Carlotta by the arm and, accompanied by my train of + satellites, I thrust her into the first hansom-cab I could see. + </p> + <p> + There was no sign or token of Harry. No pretty young man was hanging + dejectedly about the station. None had torn his hair before the officials + asking for news of a lost female in frowsy black. There was no Harry. + There was no further need therefore to afford the British public a + gratuitous entertainment. + </p> + <p> + “Drive,” said I to the cabman. “Drive like the devil.” + </p> + <p> + “Where to, sir?” + </p> + <p> + I gasped. Where should I drive? I lost my head. + </p> + <p> + “Go on driving round and round till I tell you to stop.” The philosophic + cabman did not regard me as eccentric, for he whipped up his horse + cheerfully. When we had slid down the steep incline and got free of the + precincts of that hateful station, I breathed more freely and collected my + wits. Carlotta sucked her sticky thumbs and wiped them on her dress. + </p> + <p> + “Where are we going?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Across Waterloo Bridge,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What to do?” + </p> + <p> + “To dispose of you somehow,” I replied, grimly. “But how, I haven’t a + notion. There’s a Home for Lost Dogs and a Home for Stray Cats, and a Lost + Property Office at Scotland Yard, but as you are neither a dog nor a cat + nor an umbrella, these refuges are unavailable.” + </p> + <p> + The cab reached the Strand. + </p> + <p> + “East or west, sir?” inquired the driver. + </p> + <p> + “West,” said I, at random. + </p> + <p> + We drove down the Strand at a leisurely pace. I passed through a phase of + agonised thought. By my side was a helpless, homeless, friendless, + penniless young woman, as beautiful as a goddess and as empty-minded as a + baby. What in the world could I do with her? I looked at her in despair. + She met my glance with a contented smile; just as if we were old + acquaintances and I were taking her out to dinner. The unfamiliar roar and + bustle of London impressed her no more than it would have impressed a + little dog who had found a kind master. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose I gave you some money and put you down here and left you?” I + inquired. + </p> + <p> + “I should die,” she answered, fatalistically. “Or, perhaps, I should find + another kind gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if you have such a thing as a soul,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She plucked at her gown. “I have only this—and it is very ugly,” she + remarked again. “I should like a pink dress.” + </p> + <p> + We crossed Trafalgar Square, and I saw by Big Ben that it was a quarter to + six. I could not drive through London with her for an indefinite period. + Besides, my half past seven dinner awaited me. + </p> + <p> + Why, oh, why has Judith gone to Paris? Had she been in town I could have + shot Carlotta into Tottenham Mansions, and gone home to my dinner and + Cristoforo da Costa with a light heart. Judith would have found Carlotta + vastly entertaining. She would have washed her body and analysed her + temperament. But Judith was in retreat with Delphine Carrere, and has left + me alone to bear the responsibilities of life—and Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + The cab slowly mounted Waterloo Place. I had thought of my aunts as + possible helpers, and rejected the idea. I had thought of a police + station, a hotel, my lawyers (too late), a furnished lodging, a hospital. + My mind was an aching blank. + </p> + <p> + “Where do you live?” asked Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I looked at her and groaned. It was the only solution. “Up Regent’s Park + way,” I replied, aware that she was none the wiser for the information. + </p> + <p> + I gave the address to the cabman through the trap-door in the roof. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going to take you home with me for to-night,” I said, severely. “I + have an excellent French housekeeper who will look after your comfort. And + to-morrow if that infernal young scoundrel of a lover of yours is not + found, it will not be the fault of the police force of Great Britain.” + </p> + <p> + She laid her grubby little hand on mine. It was very soft and cool. + </p> + <p> + “You are cross with me. Why?” + </p> + <p> + I removed her hand. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn’t do that again,” said I. “No; I am not in the least cross with + you. But I hope you are aware that this event is of an unprecedented + character.” + </p> + <p> + “What is an unprecedented character?” she asked, stumbling over the long + words. + </p> + <p> + “A thing that has never happened before and I devoutly hope will not + happen again.” + </p> + <p> + Her face was turned to me. The lower lip trembled a little. The dog-look + came into those wonderful eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You will be kind to me?” she said, in her childish monosyllables, each + word carefully articulated with a long pause between. + </p> + <p> + I felt I had behaved like a heartless brute, ever since I thrust her into + the cab at Waterloo. I relented and laughed. + </p> + <p> + “If you are a good girl and do as I tell you,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous is my lord and I am his slave,” was her astounding reply. + </p> + <p> + Then I realised that she had been brought up by Hamdi Effendi. There is + something salutary, after all, in the training of the harem. + </p> + <p> + “I’m very glad to hear it,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She closed her eyes. I saw now she was very tired. I thought she had gone + to sleep and I looked in front of me puzzling out the problem. Presently + the cab-doors were thrust violently open, and if I had net held her back, + she would have jumped out of the vehicle. + </p> + <p> + “Look!” she cried, in great excitement. “There! There’s Harry’s name!” + </p> + <p> + She pointed to a butcher’s cart immediately in front of us, bearing, in + large letters, the name of “E. Robinson.” + </p> + <p> + “We must stop,” she went on. “He will tell us about Harry.” + </p> + <p> + It took me from Oxford Circus to Portman Square to convince her that there + were many thousands of Robinsons in London and that the probability of the + butcher’s cart being a clue to Harry’s whereabouts was exceedingly remote. + </p> + <p> + At Baker Street station she asked, wearily: “Is it still far to your + house?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I, encouragingly. “Not very far.” + </p> + <p> + “But one can drive for many days through streets in London, and there will + be still streets, still houses? So they tell me in Alexandretta. London is + as big as the moon, not so?” + </p> + <p> + I felt absurdly pleased. She was capable of an idea. I had begun to wonder + whether she were not merely half-witted. The fact of her being able to + read had already cheered me. + </p> + <p> + “Many hours, yes,” I corrected, “not many days. London seems big to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes,” she said, passing her hand over her eyes. “It makes all go + round in my head. One day you will take me for a drive through these + wonderful streets. Now I am too tired. They make my head ache.” + </p> + <p> + Then she shut her eyes again and did not open them until we stopped at + Lingfield Terrace. I modified my first impression of her animal + unimpressionability. She is quite sane. If Boadicea were to be brought + back to life and be set down suddenly at Charing Cross, her psychological + condition would not be far removed from that of an idiot. Yet in her own + environment Boadicea was quite a sane and capable lady. + </p> + <p> + My admirable man Stenson opened the door and admitted us without moving a + muscle. He would betray no incorrect astonishment if I brought home a + hippogriff to dinner. I have an admiration for the trained serving-man’s + imperturbability. It is the guardian angel of his self-respect. I ordered + him to send Antoinette to me in the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “Antoinette,” said I, “this young lady has travelled all the way from Asia + Minor, where the good St. Paul had so many adventures, without changing + her things.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>C’est y Dieu possible</i>!” said Antoinette. + </p> + <p> + “Give her a nice hot bath, and perhaps you will have the kindness to lend + her the underlinen that your sex is in the habit of wearing. You will put + her into the spare bedroom, as she is going to pass the night here, and + you will look generally after her comfort.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Bien, M’sieu</i>,” said Antoinette, regarding Carlotta in + stupefaction. + </p> + <p> + “And put that hat and dress into the dust-bin.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Bien, M’sieu.</i>” + </p> + <p> + “And as Mademoiselle is broken with fatigue, having come without stopping + from Asia Minor, she will go to bed as soon as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “The poor angel,” said Antoinette. “But will she not join Monsieur at + dinner?” + </p> + <p> + “I think not,” said I, dryly. + </p> + <p> + “But the young ducklings that are roasting for the dinner of Monsieur?” + </p> + <p> + “If they were not roasting they might be growing up into ducks,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, la, la!” murmured Antoinette, below her breath. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta,” said I, turning to the girl who had seated herself humbly on a + straight-backed chair, “you will go with Antoinette and do as she tells + you. She doesn’t talk English, but she is used to making people understand + her.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Mais, moi parley Francais un peu</i>,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Then you will win Antoinette’s heart, and she will lend you her finest. + Good-night,” said I, abruptly. “I hope you will have a pleasant rest.” + </p> + <p> + She took my outstretched hand, and, to my great embarrassment, raised it + to her lips. Antoinette looked on, with a sentimental moisture in her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + “The poor angel,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + Later, I gave Stenson a succinct account of what had occurred. I owed it + to my reputation. Then I went upstairs and dressed for dinner. I consider + I owe that to Stenson. It was eight o’clock before I sat down, but + Antoinette’s ducklings were delicious and brought consolation for the + upheaval of the day. I was unfolding the latest edition of <i>The + Westminster Gazette</i> with which I always soothe the digestive half-hour + after dinner, when Antoinette entered to report progress. + </p> + <p> + She was sound asleep, the poor little one. Oh, but she was tired. She had + eaten some <i>consomme</i>, a bit of fish and an omelette. But she was + beautiful, gentle as a lamb; and she had a skin <i>on dirait du satin</i>. + Had not Monsieur noticed it? + </p> + <p> + I replied, with some over-emphasis, that I had not. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur rather regards the inside of his books,” said Antoinette. + </p> + <p> + “They are generally more worth regarding,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Antoinette said nothing; but there was a feminine quiver at the corners of + her fat lips. + </p> + <p> + She was comfortably disposed of for the night. I drew a breath of relief. + To-morrow Great Scotland Yard should set out on the track of the + absconding Harry. Carlotta’s happy recollection of his surname facilitated + the search. I lit a cigarette and opened <i>The Westminster Gazette</i>. + </p> + <p> + A few moments later I was staring at the paper in blank horror and dismay. + </p> + <p> + Harry was found. There was no mistake. Harry Robinson, junior partner of + the firm of Robinson & Co., of Mincing Lane. Vain, indeed, would it be + to seek the help of Great Scotland Yard. Harry had blown out his brains in + the South Western Hotel at Southampton. + </p> + <p> + I have read the newspaper paragraph over and over again to-night. There is + no possible room for doubt that it is the same Harry. + </p> + <p> + The ways of man are past interpretation. Here is an individual who lures a + girl from an oriental harem, attires her in disgusting garments, smuggles + her on board a steamer, where he claps her, so to speak, under hatches, + and has little if anything to do with her, sets her penniless and + ticketless in a London train, and then goes off and blows his brains out. + Where is the sense of it? + </p> + <p> + I have not a spark of sympathy for Harry—a callow, egotistical + dealer in currants. He ought to have blown out his brains a year ago. He + has behaved in a most unconscionable manner. How does he expect me to + break the news to Carlotta? His selfishness is appalling. There he lies, + comfortably dead in the South Western Hotel, while Carlotta has literally + not a rag to her back, her horrific belongings having been dropped into + the dust-bin. Who does he think is going to provide Carlotta with food and + shelter and a pink dress? What does he imagine is to become of the poor + waif? In all my life I have never heard of a more cynical suicide. + </p> + <p> + I have walked about for hours, laughing and cursing and kicking the + binding loose of my precious Muratori. I have wondered whether the + universe or I were mad. For there is one thing that is clear to me—Carlotta + is here, and here Carlotta must remain. + </p> + <p> + Devastating though it be to the well-ordered quietude of my life, I must + adopt Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + There is no way out of it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + May 25th. + </p> + <p> + Shall I be accused of harbouring a bevy of odalisques at No. 20 Lingfield + Terrace? Calumny and Exaggeration walk abroad, arm in arm, even on the + north side of Regent’s Park. If they had spied Carlotta at my window this + morning, they would have looked in for afternoon tea at my Aunt Jessica’s + and have waylaid Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne outside the Oratory. The question is: + Shall Truth anticipate them? I think not. Every family has its + irrepressible, impossible, unpractical member, its <i>enfant terrible</i>, + who is forever doing the wrong thing with the best intentions. Truth is + the <i>enfant terrible</i> of the Virtues. Some times it puts them to the + blush and throws them into confusion; at others it blusters like a blatant + liar; at others, again, it stutters and stammers like a detected thief. + There is no knowing how Truth may behave, so I shall not let it visit my + relations. + </p> + <p> + I must confess, however, that I feared the possible passing by of the two + decrepit cronies, when Carlotta stood at my open French window this + morning. She is really indecently beautiful. She was wearing a deep red + silk peignoir, open at the throat, unashamedly Parisian, which clung to + every salient curve of her figure. I wondered where, in the name of + morality, she had procured the garment. I learned later that it was the + joy and pride of Antoinette’s existence; for once, in the days long ago, + when she was <i>femme de chambre</i> to a luminary of the cafes concerts, + it had met around her waist. She had treasured the cast-off finery of this + burned-out star—she beamed in the seventies—for all these + years, and now its immortal devilry transfigured Carlotta. She was also + washed specklessly clean. An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume + could give disengaged itself from her as she moved. Her gold-bronze hair + was superbly ordered. I noticed her arms which the sleeves of the gay + garment left bare to the elbows; the skin was like satin. “<i>Et sa peau! + On dirait du satin.</i>” Confound Antoinette! She had the audacity, too, + to come down with bare feet. It was a revelation of pink, undreamed-of + loveliness in tus. + </p> + <p> + I repeat she is indecently beautiful. A chit of a girl of eighteen (for + that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt the beauty that should be + the appanage of the woman of seven and twenty. She should be modestly + well-favoured, as becomes her childish stage of development. She looked + incongruous among my sober books, and I regarded her with some resentment. + I dislike the exotic. I prefer geraniums to orchids. I have a row of pots + of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of Stenson, + Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them bloom; but I + love the unassuming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a flaring orchid and + produces on my retina a sensation of disquiet. + </p> + <p> + I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could. I had news of + Harry, I said, gravely. She merely looked interested and asked me when he + was coming. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid he will never come,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety. For the life of me I could not + avoid the ironical. + </p> + <p> + “If you will condescend to dwell as a member of my family beneath my + humble roof.” + </p> + <p> + The irony was lost on her. She uttered a joyous little cry and held out + both her hands to me. Her eyes danced. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I am glad he is not coming. I don’t like him any more. I love to stay + here with you.” + </p> + <p> + I took both the hands in mine. Mortal man could not have done otherwise. + </p> + <p> + “Have you thought why it is that you will never see Harry again?” + </p> + <p> + She shook her beautiful head and held it to one side and puckered up her + brows, like a wistful terrier. + </p> + <p> + “Is he dead?” + </p> + <p> + “Would it grieve you, if he were?” + </p> + <p> + “No-o,” she replied, thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said I, dropping her hands and turning away, “Harry is dead.” + </p> + <p> + She stood silent for a couple of minutes, regarding the row of pink toes + that protruded beneath the peignoir. At last her bosom shook with a sigh. + She glanced up at me sweetly. + </p> + <p> + “I am so glad,” she said. + </p> + <p> + That is all she has vouchsafed to say with regard to the unhappy young + man. “She was so glad!” She has not even asked how he met his death. She + has simply accepted my statement. Harry is dead. He has gone out of her + life like yesterday’s sunshine or yesterday’s frippery. If I had told her + that yesterday’s cab-horse had broken his neck, she could not be more + unconcerned. Nay, she is glad. Harry had not treated her nicely. He had + boxed her up in a cabin where she had been sick, and had subjected her to + various other discomforts. I, on the contrary, had surrounded her with + luxuries and dressed her in red silk. She rather dreaded Harry’s coming. + When she learned that this was improbable she was relieved. His death had + turned the improbable into the impossible. It was the end of the matter. + She was so glad! + </p> + <p> + Yet there must have been some tender passage in their brief intercourse. + He must have kissed her during their flight from home to steamer. Her + young pulses must have throbbed a little faster at the sight of his comely + face. + </p> + <p> + What kind of a mythological being am I housing? Did she come at all out of + Hamdi Effendi’s harem? Is she not rather some strange sea-creature that + clambered on board the vessel and bewitched the miserable boy, sucked the + soul out of him, and drove him to destruction? Or is she a Vampire? Or a + Succubus? Or a Hamadryad? Or a Salamander? + </p> + <p> + One thing, I vow she is not human. + </p> + <p> + If only Judith were here to advise me! And yet I have an uneasy feeling + that Judith will suggest, with a certain violence that is characteristic + of her, the one course which I cannot follow: to send Carlotta back to + Hamdi Effendi. But I cannot break my word. I would rather, far rather, + break Carlotta’s beautiful neck. I have not written to Judith. Nor, by the + way, have I received a letter from her. Delphine has been whirling her off + her legs, and she is ashamed to confess the delusion of the sequestered + life. I wish I were enjoying myself half as much as Judith. + </p> + <p> + “I have adopted Mademoiselle,” said I to Antoinette this morning. “If she + returned to Asia Minor they would put a string round her neck, tie her up + in a sack, and throw her into the sea.” + </p> + <p> + “That would be a pity,” said Antoinette, warmly. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Cela depend</i>,” said I. “Anyhow she is here, and here she remains.” + </p> + <p> + “In that case,” said Antoinette, “has Monsieur considered that the poor + angel will need clothes and articles of toilette—and this and that + and the other?” + </p> + <p> + “And shoes to hide her shameless tus,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “They are the most beautiful toes I have ever seen!” cried Antoinette in + imbecile admiration. She has bewitched that old woman already. + </p> + <p> + I put on my hat and went to Wellington Road to consult Mrs. McMurray. + Heaven be thanked, thought I, for letting me take her little boy the day + before yesterday to see the other animals, and thus winning a mother’s + heart. She will help me out of my dilemma. Unfortunately she was not + alone. Her husband, who is on the staff of a morning newspaper, was + breakfasting when I arrived. He is a great ruddy bearded giant with a + rumbling thunder of a laugh like the bass notes of an organ. His assertion + of the masculine principle in brawn and beard and bass somewhat overpowers + a non-muscular, clean-shaven, and tenor person like myself. Mrs. McMurray, + on the contrary, is a small, bright bird of a woman. + </p> + <p> + I told my amazing story from beginning to end, interrupted by many + Hoo-oo-oo-oo’s from McMurray. + </p> + <p> + “You may laugh,” said I, “but to have a mythical being out of Olympiodorus + quartered on you for life is no jesting matter.” + </p> + <p> + “Olymp—?” began McMurray. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I snapped. + </p> + <p> + “Bring her this afternoon, Sir Marcus, when this unsympathetic wretch has + gone to his club,” said his wife, “and I’ll take her out shopping.” + </p> + <p> + “But, dear lady,” I cried in despair, “she has but one garment—and + that a silk dressing-gown of horrible depravity that belonged to a dancer + of the second Empire! She is also barefoot.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’ll come round myself and see what can be done.” + </p> + <p> + “And by Jove, so will I!” cried McMurray. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll do such thing,” said his wife + </p> + <p> + “If I gave you a cheque for 100,” said I, “do you think you could get her + what she wants, to go on with?” + </p> + <p> + “A hundred pounds!” The little lady uttered a delighted gasp and I thought + she would have kissed me. McMurray brought his sledgehammer of a hand down + on my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Man!” he roared. “Do you know what you are doing—casting a + respectable wife and mother of a family loose among London drapery shops + with a hundred pounds in her pocket? Do you think she will henceforward + give a thought to her home or husband? Do you want to ruin my domestic + peace, drive me to drink, and wreck my household?” + </p> + <p> + “If you do that again,” said I, rubbing my shoulder, “I’ll give her two + hundred.” + </p> + <p> + When I returned Carlotta was sitting, Turkish fashion, on a sofa, smoking + a cigarette (to which she had helped herself out of my box) and turning + over the pages of a book. This sign of literary taste surprised me. But I + soon found it was the second volume of my <i>edition de luxe</i> of + Louandre’s <i>Les Arts Somptuaires</i>, to whose place on the shelves + sheer feminine instinct must have guided her. I announced Mrs. McMurray’s + proposed visit. She jumped to her feet, ravished at the prospect, and sent + my beautiful book (it is bound in tree-calf and contains a couple of + hundred exquisitely coloured plates) flying onto the floor. I picked it up + tenderly, and laid it on my writing-table. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta,” said I, “the first thing you have to learn here is that books + in England are more precious than babies in Alexandretta. If you pitch + them about in this fashion you will murder them and I shall have you + hanged.” + </p> + <p> + This checked her sumptuary excitement. It gave her food for reflection, + and she stood humbly penitent, while I went further into the subject of + clothes. + </p> + <p> + “In fact,” I concluded, “you will be dressed like a lady.” She opened the + book at a gaudy picture, “<i>France, XVI(ieme) Siecle—Saltimbanque + et Bohemmienne</i>,” and pointed to the female mountebank. This young + person wore a bright green tunic, bordered with gold and finished off at + the elbows and waist with red, over an undergown of flaring pink, the + sleeves of which reached her wrist; she was crowned with red and white + carnations stuck in ivy. + </p> + <p> + “I will get a dress like that,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I wondered how far Mrs. McMurray possessed the colour-sense, and I + trembled. I tried to explain gently to Carlotta the undesirability of such + a costume for outdoor wear in London; but with tastes there is no + disputing, and I saw that she was but half-convinced. She will require + training in aesthetics. + </p> + <p> + She is very submissive. I said, “Run away now to Antoinette,” and she went + with the cheerfulness of a child. I must rig up a sitting-room for her, as + I cannot have her in here. Also for the present she must take her meals in + her own apartments. I cannot shock the admirable Stenson by sitting down + at table with her in that improper peignoir. Besides, as Antoinette + informs me, the poor lamb eats meat with her fingers, after the fashion of + the East. I know what that is, having once been present at an Egyptian + dinner-party in Cairo, and pulled reeking lumps of flesh out of the leg of + mutton. Ugh! But as she has probably not sat down to a meal with a man in + her life, her banishment from my table will not hurt her feelings. She + must, however, be trained in Christian table-manners, as well as in + aesthetics; also in a great many other things. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. McMurray arrived with a tape-measure, a pencil, and a notebook. + </p> + <p> + “First,” she announced, “I will measure her all over. Then I will go out + and procure her a set of out-door garments, and tomorrow we will spend the + whole livelong day in the shops. Do you mind if I use part of the 100 for + the hire of a private brougham?” + </p> + <p> + “Have a coach and six, my dear Mrs. McMurray,” I said. “It will doubtless + please Carlotta better.” + </p> + <p> + I summoned Carlotta and performed the ceremony of introduction. To my + surprise she was perfectly at her ease and with the greatest courtesy of + manner invited the visitor to accompany her to her own apartments. + </p> + <p> + When Mrs. McMurray returned to the drawing-room she wore an expression + that can only be described as indescribable. + </p> + <p> + “What, my dear Sir Marcus, do you think is to be the ultimate destiny of + that young person?” + </p> + <p> + “She shall learn type-writing,” said I, suddenly inspired, “and make a + fair copy of my Renaissance Morals.” + </p> + <p> + “She would make a very fair copy indeed of Renaissance Morals,” returned + the lady, dryly. + </p> + <p> + “Is she so very dreadful?” I asked in alarm. “The peignoir, I know—” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps that has something to do with it.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, for heaven’s sake,” said I, “dress her in drabs and greys and + subfusc browns. Cut off her hair and give her a row of buttons down the + back.” + </p> + <p> + My friend’s eyes sparkled. + </p> + <p> + “I am going,” said she, “to have the day of my life tomorrow.” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta had already gone to sleep, so Antoinette informed me, when the + results of Mrs. McMurray’s shopping came home. I am glad she has early + habits. It appears she has spent a happy and fully occupied afternoon over + a pile of French illustrated comic papers in the possession of my + excellent housekeeper. + </p> + <p> + I wonder whether it is quite judicious to make French comic papers her + initiation into the ideas of Western civilisation. Into this I must + inquire. I must also talk seriously to her with a view to her ultimate + destiny. But as my view would be distorted by the red dressing-gown, I + shall wait until she is decently clad. I think I shall have to set apart + certain hours of the day for instructive conversation with Carlotta. I + shall have to develop her mind, of which she distinctly has the rudiments. + For the rest of the day she must provide entertainment out of her own + resources. This her oriental habits of seclusion will render an easy task, + for I will wager that Hamdi Effendi did not concern himself greatly as to + the way in which the ladies of his harem filled up their time. And now I + come to think of it, he certainly did not allow Carlotta to sprawl about + his own private and particular drawing-room. I will not westernise her too + rapidly. The Turkish educational system has its merits. + </p> + <p> + This, in its way is comforting. If only I could accept her as a human + creature. But when I think of her callous reception of the tidings of the + unhappy boy’s death, my spirit fails me. Such a being would run a + carving-knife into you, as you slept, without any compunction, and when + you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at her base ingratitude to the good + Hamdi Effendi, who took her in before she was born and has treated her as + a daughter all her life. No: her spiritual attitude all through has been + that of the ladies who used to visit St. Anthony—in the leisure + moments when they were not actively engaged in temptation. I don’t believe + her father was an English vice-consul. He was Satan. + </p> + <p> + I wonder what she told Mrs. McMurray. + </p> + <p> + I have been thinking over the matter to-night. The good lady was wrong. + Whatever were the morals of the Renaissance, personalities were + essentially positive. They were devilishly wicked or angelically good. + There was nothing <i>rosse</i>, non-moral about the Renaissance Italian. + The women were strongly tempered. I love to believe the story told by + Machiavelli and Muratori of Catherine Sforza in the citadel of Forli. + “Surrender or we slay your children which we hold as hostages,” cried the + besiegers. “Kill them if you like. I can breed more to avenge them.” It is + the speech of a giant nature. It awakens something enthusiastic within me; + although such a lady would be an undesirable helpmeet for a mild mannered + man like myself. + </p> + <p> + And then again there is Bonna, the woman for whose career I desired to + consult the prime authority Cristoforo da Costa. I have been sketching her + into my chapter tonight. Here is a peasant girl caught up to his + saddle-bow by a condottiere, Brunoro, during some village raid. She fights + like a soldier by his side. He is imprisoned in Valencia by Alfonso of + Naples, languishes in a dungeon for ten years. And for ten years Bonna + goes from court to court in Europe and from prince to prince, across seas + and mountains, unwearying, unyielding, with the passion of heaven in her + heart and the courage of hell in her soul, urging and soliciting her man’s + release. After ten long years she succeeds. And then they are married. + What were her tumultuous feelings as she stood by that altar? The old + historian does not say; but the very glory of God must have flooded her + being when, in the silence of the bare church, the little bell tinkled to + tell her that the Host was raised, and her love was made blessed for all + eternity. And then she goes away with him and fights in the old way by his + side for fifteen years. When he is killed, she languishes and dies within + the year. Porcelli sees them in 1455. Brunoro, an old, squinting, + paralysed man. Bonna, a little shrivelled, yellow old woman, with a quiver + on her shoulder, a bow in her hand; her grey hair is covered by a helmet + and she wears great military boots. The picture is magical. There is + infinite pathos in the sight of the two withered, crippled, grotesque + forms from which all the glamour of manhood and beauty have departed, and + infinite awe in the thought of the holy communion of the unconquerable and + passionate souls. I wonder it has not come down to us as one of the great + love-stories of the world. + </p> + <p> + Elements such as these sway the Morals of the Renaissance. + </p> + <p> + But I am taking Mrs. McMurray too seriously; and it is really not a bad + idea to have Carlotta taught type-writing. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + May 26th. + </p> + <p> + This morning a letter from Judith. + </p> + <p> + “Do not laugh at me,” she writes. “The road to Paris is paved with good + intentions. I really could not help it. Delphine put her great arm round + my would-be sequestered and meditative self and carried it off bodily, and + here it is in the midst of lunches, picture-shows, dinners, suppers, + theatres and dances; and if you laugh, you will make me humiliated when I + confess that it is thoroughly enjoying itself.” + </p> + <p> + Laugh at her, dear woman? I am only too glad that she can fling her Winter + Garment of Repentance into the Fires of Paris Springtide. She has little + enough enjoyment in friendless London. Fill your heart with it, my dear, + and lay up a store for use in the dull months to come. For my part, + however, I am content to be beyond the reach of Delphine’s great arm. I + must write to Judith. I shall have to explain Carlotta; but for that I + think I shall wait until she becomes a little more explicable. In dealing + with women it is well to employ discrimination. You are never quite sure + whether they are not merely simple geese or the most complex of created + beings. Perhaps they are such a curious admixture that you cannot tell at + a given moment which side, the simple or the complex, you are touching. + May not there be the deepest of all allegories in Eve standing midway + between the innocent apple and the guileful serpent? I shall have to see + more of Carlotta before I can safely explain her to Judith. + </p> + <p> + At any rate she is no longer attired like an odalisque of the Second + Empire, and Mrs. McMurray has saved her from the lamentable errors of + taste shown by the female mountebank of sixteenth century France. My + excellent friend safely delivered up an exhausted and bewildered charge at + half-past seven last evening, assuring me that her task had been easy, and + that her anticipations of it being the day of her life had been fulfilled. + It had been like dressing a doll, she explained, beaming. + </p> + <p> + An edifying pastime for an adult woman! I did not utter this sentiment, + for she would rightly have styled me the most ungrateful of unhung + wretches. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta, then, had followed her about like a perambulatory doll, upon + which she had fitted all the finery she could lay her hands on. Apparently + the atmosphere of the great shops had acted on Carlotta like an + anaesthetic. She had moved in a sensuous dream of drapery, wherein the + choice-impulse was paralysed. The only articles upon which, in an + unclouded moment, she had set her heart—and that with a sudden + passion of covetousness—were a pair of red, high-heeled shoes and a + cheap red parasol. + </p> + <p> + “You have no idea what it means,” said Mrs. McMurray, “to buy <i>everything</i> + that a woman needs.” + </p> + <p> + I replied that I had a respectful distaste for transcendental philosophy. + </p> + <p> + “From a paper of pins to an opera-cloak,” she continued. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid, dear Mrs. McMurray, an opera-cloak is not the superior limit + of a woman’s needs,” said I. “I wish it were.” + </p> + <p> + She called me a cynic and went. + </p> + <p> + This morning Carlotta interrupted me in my work. + </p> + <p> + “Will Seer Marcous come to my room and see my pretty things?” + </p> + <p> + In summer blouse and plain skirt she looked as demure as any damsel in St. + John’s Wood. She hung her head a little to one side. For the moment I felt + paternal, and indulgently consented. Words of man cannot describe the mass + of millinery and chiffonery in that chamber. The spaces that were not + piled high with vesture gave resting spots for cardboard boxes and + packing-paper. Antoinette stood in a corner gazing at the spoil with a + smile of beatific idiocy. I strode through the cardboard boxes which + crackled like bracken, and remained dumb as a fish before these mysteries. + Carlotta tried on hats. She shewed me patent leather shoes. She exhibited + blouses and petticoats until my eyes ached. She brandished something in + her hand. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me if I must wear it” (I believe the sophisticated call it “them”). + “Mrs. McMurray says all ladies do. But we never wear it in Alexandretta, + and it hurts.” + </p> + <p> + She clasped herself pathetically and turned her great imploring eyes on + me. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Il faut souffrir pour etre belle</i>,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “But with the figure of Mademoiselle, it is stupid!” cried Antoinette. + </p> + <p> + “It is outrageous that I should be called upon to express an opinion on + such matters,” I said, loftily. And so it was. My assertion of dignity + impressed them. + </p> + <p> + Then, with characteristic frankness, my young lady shakes out before me + things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, diaphaneity, which the ordinary + man only examines through shop-front windows when a philosophic mood + induces him to speculate on the unfathomable vanity of woman. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Les beaux dessous!</i>” breathed Antoinette. + </p> + <p> + “The same ejaculation,” I murmured, “was doubtless uttered by an + enraptured waiting-maid, when she beheld the stout linen smocks of the + ladies of the Heptameron.” + </p> + <p> + I reflected on the relativity of things mundane. The waiting-maid no doubt + wore some horror made of hemp against her skin. If Carlotta’s gossamer + follies had been thrown into the vagabond court of the Queen of Navarre, I + wonder whether those delectable stories would have been written? + </p> + <p> + As Antoinette does not understand literary English, and as Carlotta did + not know what in the world I was talking about, I was master of the + conversational situation. Carlotta went to the mantel-piece and returned + with a glutinous mass of sweet stuff between her fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Will Seer Marcous have some? It is nougat.” I declined. “Oh!” she said, + tragically disappointed. “It is good.” + </p> + <p> + There is something in that silly creature’s eyes that I cannot resist. She + put the abominable morsel into my mouth—it was far too sticky for me + to hold—and laughingly licked her own fingers. + </p> + <p> + I went down to work again with an uneasy feeling of imperilled dignity. + </p> + <p> + May 29th. + </p> + <p> + I sent her word that I would take her for a drive this afternoon. She was + to be ready at three o’clock. It will be wholesome for her to regard her + outings with me as rare occurrences to be highly valued. Ordinarily she + will go out with Antoinette—for the present at least—as she + did yesterday. + </p> + <p> + At three o’clock Stenson informed me that the cab was at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Go up and call Mademoiselle,” said I. + </p> + <p> + In two or three minutes she came down. I have not had such a shock in my + life. I uttered exclamations of amazement in several languages. I have + never seen on the stage or off such a figure as she presented. Her cheeks + were white with powder, her lips dyed a pomegranate scarlet, her eyebrows + and lashes blackened. In her ears she wore large silver-gilt earrings. She + entered the room with an air of triumph, as who should say: “See how + captivatingly beautiful I am!” + </p> + <p> + At my stare of horror her face fell. At my command to go upstairs and wash + herself clean, she wept. + </p> + <p> + “For heaven’s sake, don’t cry,” I exclaimed, “or you will look like a + rainbow.” + </p> + <p> + “I did it to please you,” she sobbed. + </p> + <p> + “It is only the lowest class of dancing-women who paint their faces in + England,” said I, <i>splendide mendax.</i> “And you know what they are in + Alexandretta.” + </p> + <p> + “They came to Aziza-Zaza’s wedding,” said Carlotta, behind her + handkerchief. “But all our ladies do this when they want to make + themselves look nice. And I have put on this nasty thing that hurts me, + just to please Seer Marcous.” + </p> + <p> + I felt I had been brutal. She must have spent hours over her adornment. + Yet I could not have taken her out into the street. She looked like + Jezebel, who without her paint must have been, like Carlotta, a remarkably + handsome person. + </p> + <p> + “It strikes me, Carlotta,” said I, “that you will find England is + Alexandretta upside down. What is wrong there is right here, and vice + versa. Now if you want to please me run away and clean yourself and take + off those barbaric and Brummagem earrings.” + </p> + <p> + She went and was absent a short while. She returned in dismay. Water would + not get it off. I rang for Antoinette, but Antoinette had gone out. It + being too delicate a matter for Stenson, I fetched a pot of vaseline from + my own room, and as Carlotta did not know what to make of it, I with my + own hands cleansed Carlotta. She screamed with delight, thinking it vastly + amusing. Her emotions are facile. I cannot deny that it amused me too. But + I am in a responsible position, and I am wondering what the deuce I shall + be doing next. + </p> + <p> + I enjoyed the drive to Richmond, where I gave her tea at the Star and + Garter and was relieved to see her drink normally from the cup, instead of + lapping from the saucer like a kitten. She was much more intelligent than + during our first drive on Tuesday. The streets have grown more familiar, + and the traffic does not make her head ache. She asks me the ingenuous + questions of a child of ten. The tall guardsmen we passed particularly + aroused her enthusiasm. She had never seen anything so beautiful. I asked + her if she would like me to buy one and give it her to play with. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, would you, Seer Marcous?” she exclaimed, seizing my hand rapturously. + I verily believe she thought I was in earnest, for when I turned aside my + jest, she pouted in disappointment and declared that it was wrong to tell + lies. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad you have some elementary notions of ethics,” said I. It was + during our drive that it occurred to me to ask her where she had procured + the paint and earrings. She explained, cheerfully, that Antoinette had + supplied the funds. I must talk seriously to Antoinette. Her attitude + towards Carlotta savours too much of idolatry. Demoralisation will soon + set in, and the utter ruin of Carlotta and my digestion will be the + result. I must also make Carlotta a small allowance. + </p> + <p> + During tea she said to me, suddenly: + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous is not married?” + </p> + <p> + I said, no. She asked, why not? The devil seems to be driving all + womankind to ask me that question. + </p> + <p> + “Because wives are an unmitigated nuisance,” said I. + </p> + <p> + A curious smile came over Carlotta’s face. It was as knowing as Dame + Quickly’s. + </p> + <p> + “Then-” + </p> + <p> + “Have one of these cakes,” said I, hurriedly. “There is chocolate outside + and the inside is chock-full of custard.” + </p> + <p> + She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and forgot my matrimonial + affairs. I was relieved. With her oriental training there is no telling + what Carlotta might have said. + </p> + <p> + May 31st. + </p> + <p> + To-day I have had a curious interview. Who should call on me but the + father of the hapless Harry Robinson. My first question was a natural one. + How on earth did he connect me with the death of his son? How did he + contrive to identify me as the befriender of the young Turkish girl whose + interests, he declared, were the object of his visit? It appeared that the + police had given him the necessary information, my adventures at Waterloo + having rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter. I had been + wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper reports of the inquest. No + mention was made, as I had nervously anticipated, of the mysterious lady + for whom the deceased had bought a ticket at Alexandretta, and with whom + he had come ashore. Very little evidence appeared to have been taken, and + the jury contented themselves with giving the usual verdict of temporary + insanity. I touched on this as delicately as I could. “We succeeded in + hushing things up,” said my visitor, an old man with iron-grey whiskers + and a careworn sensitive face. “I have some influence myself, and his + wife’s relations—” + </p> + <p> + “His wife!” I ejaculated. The ways of men are further than ever from + interpretation. The fellow was actually married! + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he sighed. “That is what would have made such a terrible scandal. + Her relatives are powerful people. We averted it, thank Heaven, and his + poor wife will never know. My boy is dead. No public investigation into + motives would bring him back to life again.” + </p> + <p> + I murmured words of condolence. + </p> + <p> + “He must have been out of his mind, poor lad, when he induced the girl to + run away with him. But, as my son has ruined her,” he set his teeth as if + the boy’s sin stabbed him, “I must look after her welfare.” + </p> + <p> + “You may set your mind at rest on that point,” said I. “He smuggled her at + once aboard the ship, and seems scarcely to have said how d’ye do to her + afterwards. That is the mad part of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Can I be sure?” + </p> + <p> + “I would stake my life on it,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “Frankness—I may say embarrassing frankness is one of the young + lady’s drawbacks.” + </p> + <p> + He looked greatly relieved. I acquainted him with Carlotta’s antecedents, + and outlined the part I had played in the story. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said he, “I will see the child back to her home. I will take her + there myself. I cannot allow you any longer to have the burden of + befriending her, when it is my duty to repair my boy’s wrongdoing.” + </p> + <p> + I explained to him the terror of Hamdi Effendi’s clutches, and told him of + my promise. + </p> + <p> + “Then what is to be done?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “If any kind people could be found to receive her into their family, and + bring her up like a Christian, I should hand her over with the greatest of + pleasure. If there is one thing I do not require in this house, it is an + idle and irresponsible female. But philanthropists are rare. Who will take + her?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid I’m not prepared to do that.” + </p> + <p> + “I never dreamed of having the bad taste to propose it,” said I. “I merely + stated the only alternative to my guardianship.” + </p> + <p> + “I should be willing—only too willing—to contribute towards + her support,” said Mr. Robinson. + </p> + <p> + I thanked him. But of course this was impossible. I might as well have + allowed the good man to pay my gas bill. + </p> + <p> + “I know of a nice convent home kept by the Little Sisters of St. Bridget,” + said he, tentatively. + </p> + <p> + “If it were St. Bridget herself,” said I, “I would agree with pleasure. + She is a saint for whom I have a great fascination. She could work + miracles. When an Irish chieftain made her a facetious grant of as much + land as she could cover with her mantle, she bade four of her nuns each + take a corner and run north, west, south and east, until her cloak covered + several roods. She could have done the same with the soul of Carlotta. But + the age of miracles is past, and I fear the Little Sisters would only + break their gentle hearts over her. She is an extraordinary creature.” + </p> + <p> + I know I ought to have given some consideration to the proposal; but I + think I must suffer from chronic inflammation of the logical faculty. It + revolted against the suggested congruity of Carlotta and the Little + Sisters of St. Bridget. + </p> + <p> + “What can she be like?” asked the old man, wonderingly. + </p> + <p> + “Would it pain you to see her?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said, in a low voice. “It would. But perhaps it would bring me + nearer to my unhappy boy. He seems so far away.” + </p> + <p> + I rang the bell and summoned Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you had better not say who you are,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + When Carlotta entered, he rose and looked at her—-oh, so wistfully. + </p> + <p> + “This, Carlotta,” said I, “is a friend of mine, who would like to make + your acquaintance.” + </p> + <p> + She advanced shyly and held out a timid hand. Obviously she was on her + best behaviour. I thanked heaven she had tried her unsuccessful experiment + of powder and paint on my vile body and not on that of a stranger. + </p> + <p> + “Do you—do you like England?” asked the old man. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, very—very much. Every one is so kind to me. It is a nice + place.” + </p> + <p> + “It is the best place in the world to be young in,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “Is it?” said Carlotta, with the simplicity of a baby. + </p> + <p> + “The very best.” + </p> + <p> + “But is it not good to be old in?” + </p> + <p> + “No country is good for that.” + </p> + <p> + The old man sighed and took his leave. I accompanied him to the front + door. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what to say, Sir Marcus. She moves me strangely. I never + expected such sweet innocence. For my boy’s sake, I would take her in—but + his mother knows nothing about it—save that the boy is dead. It + would kill her.” + </p> + <p> + The tears rolled down the old man’s cheeks. I grasped him by the hand. + </p> + <p> + “She shall come to no manner of harm beneath my roof,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta was waiting for me in the drawing-room. She looked at me in a + perplexed, pitiful way. + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “Am I to marry him?” + </p> + <p> + “Marry whom?” + </p> + <p> + “That old gentleman. I must, if you tell me. But I do not want to marry + him.” + </p> + <p> + It took me a minute or two to arrive at her oriental point of view. No + woman could be shown off to a man except in the light of a possible bride. + I think it sometimes good to administer a shock to Carlotta, by way of + treatment. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know who that old gentleman was?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “It was Harry’s father.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she said, with a grimace. “I am sorry I was so nice to him.” + </p> + <p> + What the deuce am I to do with her? + </p> + <p> + I lectured her for a quarter of an hour on the ethics of the situation. I + think I only succeeded in giving her the impression that I was in a bad + temper. So much did I sympathise with Harry that I forbore to acquaint her + with the fact that he was a married man when he enticed her away from + Alexandretta. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + June 1st + </p> + <p> + Sebastian Pasquale dined with me this evening. Antoinette, forgetful of + idolatrous practices, devoted the concentration of her being to the + mysteries of her true religion. The excellence of the result affected + Pasquale so strongly that with his customary disregard of convention he + insisted on Antoinette being summoned to receive his congratulations. He + rose, made her a bow as if she were a Marquise of pre-revolutionary days. + </p> + <p> + “It is a meal,” said he, bunching up his fingers to his mouth and kissing + them open, “that one should have taken not sitting, but kneeling.” + </p> + <p> + “You stole that from Heine,” said I, when the enraptured creature had + gone, “and you gave it out to Antoinette as if it were your own.” + </p> + <p> + “My good Ordeyne,” said he, “did you ever hear of a man giving anything + authentic to a woman?” + </p> + <p> + “You know much more about the matter than I do,” I replied, and Pasquale + laughed. + </p> + <p> + It has been a pleasure to see him again—a creature of abounding + vitality whom time cannot alter. He is as lithe-limbed as when he was a + boy, and as lithe-witted. I don’t know how his consciousness could have + arrived at appreciation of Antoinette’s cooking, for he talked all through + dinner, giving me an account of his mirific adventures in foreign cities. + Among other things, he had been playing juvenile lead, it appears, in the + comic opera of Bulgarian politics. I also heard of the Viennese dancer. My + own little chronicle, which he insisted on my unfolding, compared with his + was that of a caged canary compared with a sparrowhawk’s. Besides, I am + not so expansive as Pasquale, and on certain matters I am silent. He also + gesticulates freely, a thing which is totally foreign to my nature. As + Judith would say, he has a temperament. His moustaches curl fiercely + upward until the points are nearly on a level with his flashing dark eyes. + Another point of dissimilarity between us is that he seems to have been + poured molten into his clothes, whereas mine hang as from pegs clumsily + arranged about my person. By no conceivable freak of outer circumstance + could I have the adventures of Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + And yet he thinks them tame! Lord! If I found myself hatching conspiracies + in Sofia on a nest made of loaded revolvers, I should feel that the wild + whirl of Bedlam had broken loose around me. + </p> + <p> + “But man alive!” I cried. “What in the name of tornadoes do you want?” + </p> + <p> + “I want to fight,” said he. “The earth has grown too grey and peaceful. + Life is anaemic. We need colour—good red splashes of it—good + wholesome bloodshed.” + </p> + <p> + Said I, “All you have to do is to go into a Berlin cafe and pull the noses + of all the lieutenants you see there. In that way you’ll get as much gore + as your heart could desire.” + </p> + <p> + “By Jove!” said he, springing to his feet. “What a cause for a man to + devote his life to—the extermination of Prussian lieutenants!” + </p> + <p> + I leaned back in my arm-chair—it was after dinner—and smiled + at his vehemence. The ordinary man does not leap about like that during + digestion. + </p> + <p> + “You would have been happy as an Uscoque,” said I. (I have just finished + the prim narrative.) + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” he asked. I told him. + </p> + <p> + “The interesting thing about the Uscoques,” I added, “is that they were a + Co-operative Pirate Society of the sixteenth century, in which priests and + monks and greengrocers and women and children—the general public, in + fact, of Senga—took shares and were paid dividends. They were also a + religious people, and the setting out of the pirate fleet at the festivals + of Easter and Christmas was attended by ecclesiastical ceremony. Then they + scoured the high seas, captured argosies, murdered the crews—their + only weapons were hatchets and daggers and arquebuses—landed on + undefended shores, ravaged villages and carried off comely maidens to + replenish their stock of womenkind at home. They must have been a live lot + of people.” + </p> + <p> + “What a second-hand old brigand you are,” cried Pasquale, who during my + speech had been examining the carpet by the side of his chair. + </p> + <p> + I laughed. “Hasn’t a phase of the duality of our nature ever struck you? + We have a primary or everyday nature—a thing of habit, tradition, + circumstance; and we also have a secondary nature which clamours for + various sensations and is quite contented with vicarious gratification. + There are delicately fibred novelists who satisfy a sort of secondary + Berserkism by writing books whose pages reek with bloodshed. The most + placid, benevolent, gold-spectacled paterfamilias I know, a man who thinks + it cruel to eat live oysters, has a curious passion for crime and + gratifies it by turning his study into a <i>musee maccabre</i> of + murderers’ relics. From the thumb-joint of a notorious criminal he can + savour exquisitely morbid emotions, while the blood-stains on an + assassin’s knife fill him with the delicious lust of slaughter. In the + same way predestined spinsters obtain vicarious enjoyment of the tender + passion by reading highly coloured love-stories.” + </p> + <p> + “Just as that philosophical old stick, Sir Marcus Ordeyne, dus from this + sort of thing,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + And he fished from the side of his chair, and held up by the tip of a + monstrous heel, the most audacious, high-instepped, red satin slipper I + ever saw. + </p> + <p> + I eyed the thing with profound disgust. I would have given a hundred + pounds for it to have vanished. In its red satin essence it was + reprehensible, and in its feminine assertion it was compromising. How did + it come there? I conjectured that Carlotta must have been trespassing in + the drawing-room and dropped it, Cinderella-like, in her flight, when she + heard me enter the house before dinner. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale held it up and regarded me quizzically. I pretend to no austerity + of morals; but a burglar unjustly accused of theft suffers acuter qualms + of indignation than if he were a virtuous person. I regretted not having + asked Pasquale to dinner at the club. I particularly did not intend to + explain Carlotta to Pasquale. In fact, I see no reason at all for me to + proclaim her to my acquaintance. She is merely an accident of my + establishment. + </p> + <p> + I rose and rang the bell. + </p> + <p> + “That slipper,” said I, “does not belong to me, and it certainly ought not + to be here.” + </p> + <p> + Pasquale surrendered it to my outstretched hand. + </p> + <p> + “It must fit a remarkably pretty foot,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “I assure you, my dear Pasquale,” I replied dryly, “I have never looked at + the foot that it may fit.” Nor had I. A row of pink toes is not a foot. + </p> + <p> + “Stenson,” said I, when my man appeared, “take this to Miss Carlotta and + say with my compliments she should not have left it in the drawing-room.” + </p> + <p> + Stenson, thinking I had rung for whisky, had brought up decanter and + glasses. As he set the tray upon the small table, I noticed Pasquale look + with some curiosity at my man’s impassive face. But he said nothing more + about the slipper. I poured out his whisky and soda. He drank a deep + draught, curled up his swaggering moustache and suddenly broke into one of + his disconcerting peals of laughter. + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t told you of the Grefin von Wentzel; I don’t know what put her + into my head. There has been nothing like it since the world began. Mind + you—a real live aristocratic Grefin with a hundred quarterings!” + </p> + <p> + He proceeded to relate a most scandalous, but highly amusing story. An + amazing, incredible tale; but it seemed familiar. + </p> + <p> + “That,” said I, at last, “is incident for incident a scene out of <i>L’Histoire + Comique de Francion.</i>” + </p> + <p> + “Never heard of it,” said Pasquale, flashing. + </p> + <p> + “It was the first French novel of manners published about 1620 and written + by a man called Sorel. I don’t dream of accusing you of plagiarism, my + dear fellow—that’s absurd. But the ridiculous coincidence struck me. + You and the Grefin and the rest of you were merely reenacting a three + hundred year old farce.” + </p> + <p> + “Rubbish!” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll show you,” said I. + </p> + <p> + After wandering for a moment or two round my shelves, I remembered that + the book was in the dining-room. I left Pasquale and went downstairs. I + knew it was on one of the top shelves near the ceiling. Now, my + dining-room is lit by one shaded electrolier over the table, so that the + walls of the room are in deep shadow. This has annoyed me many times when + I have been book-hunting. I really must have some top lights put in. To + stand on a chair and burn wax matches in order to find a particular book + is ignominious and uncomfortable. The successive illumination of four wax + matches did not shed itself upon <i>L’Histoire Comique de Francion</i>. + </p> + <p> + If there is one thing that frets me more than another, it is not to be + able to lay my hand upon a book. I knew Francion was there on the top + shelves, and rather than leave it undiscovered, I would have spent the + whole night in search. I suppose every one has a harmless lunacy. This is + mine. I must have hunted for that book for twenty minutes, pulling out + whole blocks of volumes and peering with lighted matches behind, until my + hands were covered with dust. At last I found it had fallen to the rear of + a ragged regiment of French novels, and in triumph I took it to the area + of light on the table and turned up the scene in question. Keeping my + thumb in the place I returned to the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry to have—” I began. I stopped short. I could scarcely + believe my eyes. There, conversing with Pasquale and lolling on the sofa, + as if she had known him for years, was Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + She must have seen righteous disapprobation on my face, for she came + running up to me. + </p> + <p> + “You see, I’ve made Miss Carlotta’s acquaintance,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + “So I perceive,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Stenson told me you wanted me to come to the drawing-room in my red + slippers,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid Stenson must have misdelivered my message,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Then you do not want me at all, and I must go away?” + </p> + <p> + Oh, those eyes! I am growing so tired of them. I hesitated, and was lost. + </p> + <p> + “Please let me stay and talk to Pasquale.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Pasquale,” I corrected. + </p> + <p> + She echoed my words with a cooing laugh, and taking my consent for + granted, curled herself up in a corner of the sofa. I resumed my seat with + a sigh. It would have been boorish to turn her out. + </p> + <p> + “This is much nicer than Alexandretta, isn’t it?” said Pasquale + familiarly. “And Sir Marcus is an improvement on Hamdi Effendi.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. Seer Marcous lets me do whatever I like,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “I’m shot if I do,” I exclaimed. “The confinement of your existence in the + East makes you exaggerate the comparative immunity from restriction which + you enjoy in England.” + </p> + <p> + I notice that Carlotta is always impressed when I use high sounding words. + </p> + <p> + “Still, if you could make love over garden walls, you must have had a + pretty slack time, even in Alexandretta,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + Obviously Carlotta had saved me the trouble of explaining her. + </p> + <p> + “I once met our friend Hamdi,” Pasquale continued. “He was the politest + old ruffian that ever had a long nose and was pitted with smallpox.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes!” cried Carlotta, delighted. “That is Hamdi.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there any disreputable foreigner that you are not familiar with?” I + asked, somewhat sarcastically. + </p> + <p> + “I hope not,” he laughed. “You must know I had got into a deuce of a row + at Aleppo, about eighteen months ago, and had to take to my heels. + Alexandretta is the port of Aleppo and Hamdi is a sort of boss policeman + there.” + </p> + <p> + “He is very rich.” + </p> + <p> + “He ought to be. My interview with him cost me a thousand pounds—the + bald-headed scoundrel!” + </p> + <p> + “He is a shocking bad man,” said Carlotta, gravely. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid it is Mr. Pasquale who is the shocking bad man,” I said, + amused. “What had you been doing in Aleppo?” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Maxime debetur</i>,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “English are very wicked when they go to Syria,” she remarked. + </p> + <p> + “How can you possibly know?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know,” replied Carlotta, with a toss of her chin. + </p> + <p> + “My friend,” said Pasquale, lighting a cigarette, “I have travelled much + in the East, and have had considerable adventures by the way; and I can + assure you that what the oriental lady doesn’t know about essential things + is not worth knowing. Their life from the cradle to the grave is a + concentration of all their faculties, mortal and immortal, upon the two + vital questions, digestion and sex.” + </p> + <p> + “What is sex?” asked Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “It is the Fundamental Blunder of Creation,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I do not understand,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Nobody tries to understand Sir Marcus,” said Pasquale, cheerfully. “We + just let him drivel on until he is aware no one is listening.” + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous is very wise,” said Carlotta, in serious defence of her lord + and master. “All day he reads in big books and writes on paper.” + </p> + <p> + I have been wondering since whether that is not as ironical a judgment as + ever was passed. Am I wise? Is wisdom attained by reading in big books and + writing on paper? Solomon remarks that wisdom dwells with prudence and + finds out knowledge of witty inventions; that the wisdom of the prudent is + to understand his way; that wisdom and understanding keep one from the + strange woman and the stranger which flattereth with her words. Now, I + have not been saved from the strange young woman who has begun to flatter + with her words; I don’t in the least understand my way, since I have no + notion what I shall do with her; and in taking her in and letting her loll + upon my sofa of evenings, so as to show off her red slippers to my guests, + I have thrown prudence to the winds; and my only witty invention was the + idea of teaching her typewriting, which is futile. If the philosophy of + the excellent aphorist is sound, I certainly have not much wisdom to boast + of; and none of the big books will tell me what a wise man would have done + had he met Carlotta in the Embankment Gardens. + </p> + <p> + I did not think, however, that my wisdom was a proper subject for + discussion. I jerked back the conversation by asking Carlotta why she + called Hamdi Effendi a shocking bad man. Her reply was startling. + </p> + <p> + “My mother told me. She used to cry all day long. She was sorry she + married Hamdi.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor thing!” said I. “Did he ill-treat her?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, ye-es. She had small-pox, too, and she was no longer pretty, so Hamdi + took other wives and she did not like them. They were so fat and cruel. + She used to tell me I must kill myself before I married a Turk. Hamdi was + going to make me marry Mohammed Ali one—two years ago; but he died. + When I said I was so glad” (that seems to be her usual formula of + acknowledgment of news relating to the disasters of her acquaintance), + “Hamdi shut me up in a dark room. Then he said I must marry Mustapha. That + is why I ran away with Harry. See? Oh, Hamdi is shocking bad.” + </p> + <p> + From this and from other side-lights Carlotta has thrown on her + upbringing, I can realise the poor, pretty weak-willed baby of a thing + that was her mother, taking the line of least resistance, the husband dead + and the babe in her womb, and entering the shelter offered by the amorous + Turk. And I can picture her during the fourteen years of her imprisoned + life, the disillusion, the heart-break, the despair. No wonder the + invertebrate soul could do no more for her daughter than teach her + monosyllabic English and the rudiments of reading and writing. Doubtless + she babbled of western life with its freedom and joyousness for women; but + four years have elapsed since her death, and her stories are only elusive + memories in Carlotta’s mind. + </p> + <p> + It is strange that among the deadening influences of the harem she has + kept the hereditary alertness of the Englishwoman. She has a baby mouth, + it is true; she pleads to you with the eyes of a dog; her pretty ways are + those of a young child; but she has not the dull, soulless, sensual look + of the pure-bred Turkish woman, such as I have seen in Cairo through the + transparent veils. In them there is no attraction save of the flesh; and + that only for the male who, deformity aside, reckons women as merely so + much cubical content of animated matter placed by Allah at his disposal + for the satisfaction of his desires and the procreation of children. I + cannot for the life of me understand an Englishman falling in love with a + Turkish woman. But I can quite understand him falling in love with + Carlotta. The hereditary qualities are there, though they have been forced + into the channel of sex, and become a sort of diabolical witchery whereof + I am not quite sure whether she is conscious. For all that, I don’t think + she can have a soul. I have made up my mind that she hasn’t, and I don’t + like having my convictions disturbed. + </p> + <p> + Until I saw her perched in the corner of the sofa, with her legs tucked up + under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid the reds and golds + and browns of her hair, while she cheerily discoursed to us of Hamdi’s + villainy, I never noticed the dull decorum of this room. I was struck with + the decorative value of mere woman. + </p> + <p> + I must break myself of the habit of wandering off on a meditative tangent + to the circle of conversation. I was brought back by hearing Pasquale say: + </p> + <p> + “So you’re going to marry an Englishman. It’s all fixed and settled, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” laughed Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Have you made up your mind what he is to be like?” + </p> + <p> + I could see the unconscionable Don Juan instinctively preen himself + peacock fashion. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to marry Seer Marcous,” said Carlotta, calmly. + </p> + <p> + She made this announcement not as a jest, not as a wish, but as the + commonplace statement of a fact. There was a moment of stupefied silence. + Pasquale who had just struck a match to light a cigarette stared at me and + let the flame burn his fingers. I stared at Carlotta, speechless. The + colossal impudence of it! + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry to contradict you,” said I, at last, with some acidity, “but + you are going to do no such thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not going to marry you?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Carlotta, in a tone of disappointment. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale rose, brought his heels together, put his hand on his heart and + made her a low bow. + </p> + <p> + “Will you have me instead of this stray bit of Stonehenge?” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I seized Pasquale by the arm. “For goodness sake, don’t jest with her! She + has about as much sense of humour as a prehistoric cave-dweller. She + thinks you have made her a serious offer of marriage.” He made her another + bow. + </p> + <p> + “You hear what Sir Granite says? He forbids our union. If I married you + without his consent, he would flay me alive, dip me in boiling oil and + read me aloud his History of Renaissance Morals. So I’m afraid it is no + good.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I mustn’t marry him either?” asked Carlotta, looking at me. + </p> + <p> + “No!” I cried, “you are not going to marry anybody. You seem to have + hymenomania. People don’t marry in this casual way in England. They think + over it for a couple of years and then they come together in a sober, + God-fearing, respectable manner.” + </p> + <p> + “They marry at leisure and repent in haste,” interposed Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + “Precisely,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What we call a marriage-bed repentance,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + “I told you this poor child had no sense of humour,” I objected. + </p> + <p> + “You might as well kill yourself as marry without it.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not going to marry anybody, Carlotta,” said I, “until you can see + a joke.” + </p> + <p> + “What is a joke?” inquired Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Pasquale asked you to marry him. He didn’t mean it. That was a joke. + It was enormously funny, and you should have laughed.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I must laugh when any one asks me to marry him?” + </p> + <p> + “As loud as you can,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “You are so strange in England,” sighed Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I smiled, for I did not want to make her unhappy, and I spoke to her + intelligibly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well, when you have quite learned all the English ways, I’ll try + and find you a nice husband. Now you had better go to bed.” + </p> + <p> + She retired, quite consoled. When the door closed behind her, Pasquale + shook his head at me. + </p> + <p> + “Wasted! Criminally wasted!” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “That,” he answered, pointing to the door. “That bundle of bewildering + fascination.” + </p> + <p> + “That,” said I, “is an horrible infliction which only my cultivated sense + of altruism enables me to tolerate.” + </p> + <p> + “Her name ought to be Margarita.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Ante porcos</i>,” said he. + </p> + <p> + Certainly Pasquale has a pretty wit and I admire it as I admire most of + his brilliant qualities, but I fail to see the aptness of this last gibe. + At the club this afternoon I picked up an entertaining French novel called + <i>En felons des Perles</i>. On the illustrated cover was a row of + undraped damsels sitting in oyster-shells, and the text of the book went + to show how it was the hero’s ambition to make a rosary of these pearls. + Now I am a dull pig. Why? Because I do not add Carlotta to my rosary. I + never heard such a monstrous thing in my life. To begin with, I have no + rosary. + </p> + <p> + I wish I had not read that French novel. I wish I had not gone downstairs + to hunt for its seventeenth century ancestor. I wish I had given Pasquale + dinner at the club. + </p> + <p> + It is all the fault of Antoinette. Why can’t she cook in a middle-class, + unedifying way? All this comes from having in the house a woman whose soul + is in the stew-pot. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + July 1st. + </p> + <p> + She has been now over five weeks under my roof, and I have put off the + evil day of explaining her to Judith; and Judith returns to-morrow. + </p> + <p> + I know it is odd for a philosophic bachelor to maintain in his + establishment a young and detached female of prepossessing appearance. For + the oddity I care not two pins. <i>Io son’ io</i>. But the question that + exercises me occasionally is: In what category are my relations with + Carlotta to be classified? I do not regard her as a daughter; still less + as a sister: not even as a deceased wife’s sister. For a secretary she is + too abysmally ignorant, too grotesquely incapable. What she knows would be + made to kick the beam against the erudition of a guinea-pig. Yet she must + be classified somehow. I must allude to her as something. At present she + fills the place in the house of a pretty (and expensive) Persian cat; and + like a cat she has made herself serenely at home. + </p> + <p> + A governess, a fat-checked girl, who I am afraid takes too humorous a view + of the position, comes of mornings to instruct Carlotta in the rudiments + of education. When engaging Miss Griggs, I told her she must be patient, + firm and, above all, strong-minded. She replied that she made a + professional specialty of these qualities, one of her present pupils being + a young lady of the Alhambra ballet who desires the particular shade of + cultivation that will match a new brougham. She teaches Carlotta to spell, + to hold a knife and fork, and corrects such erroneous opinions as that the + sky is an inverted bowl over a nice flat earth, and that the sun, moon, + and stars are a sort of electric light installation, put into the cosmos + to illuminate Alexandretta and the Regent’s Park. Her religious + instruction I myself shall attend to, when she is sufficiently advanced to + understand my teaching. At present she is a Mohammedan, if she is + anything, and believes firmly in Allah. I consider that a working Theism + is quite enough for a young woman in her position to go on with. In the + afternoon she walks out with Antoinette. Once she stole forth by herself, + enjoyed herself hugely for a short time, got lost, and was brought back + thoroughly frightened by a policeman. I wonder what the policeman thought + of her? The rest of the day she looks at picture-books and works + embroidery. She is making an elaborate bed-spread which will give her + harmless occupation for a couple of years. + </p> + <p> + For an hour every evening, when I am at home, she comes into the + drawing-room and drinks coffee with me and listens to my improving + conversation. I take this opportunity to rebuke her for faults committed + during the day, or to commend her for especial good behaviour. I also + supplement the instruction in things in general that is given her by the + excellent Miss Griggs. Oddly enough I am beginning to look forward to + these evening hours. She is so docile, so good-humoured, so spontaneous. + If she has a pain in her stomach, she says so with the most engaging + frankness. Sometimes I think of her only, in Pasquale’s words, as a bundle + of fascination, and forget that she has no soul. Nearly always, however, + something happens to remind me. She loves me to tell her stories. The + other night I solemnly related the history of Cinderella. She was + enchanted. It gave me the idea of setting her to read “Lamb’s Tales from + Shakespeare.” I was turning this over in my mind while she chewed the cud + of her enjoyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would like to hear a + Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny stories. I bade her proceed. + She curled herself up in her favourite attitude on the sofa and began. + </p> + <p> + I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I should have been + a monster of depravity. Compared with it the worst of Scheherazade’s, in + Burton’s translation, were milk and water for a nunnery. She seemed + nonplussed when I told her to stop. + </p> + <p> + “Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes,” she replied with a candid air of astonishment. “It is a funny + story.” + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing funny whatever in it,” said I. “A girl like you oughtn’t + to know of the existence of such things.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” asked Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I am always being caught up by her questions. I tried to explain; but it + was difficult. If I had told her that a maiden’s mind ought to be as pure + as the dewy rose she would not have understood me. Probably she would have + thought me a fool. And indeed I am inclined to question whether it is an + advantage to a maiden’s after career to be dewy-roselike in her + unsophistication. In order to play tunes indifferently well on the piano + she undergoes the weary training of many years; but she is called upon to + display the somewhat more important accomplishment of bringing children + into the world without an hour’s educational preparation. The difficulty + is, where to draw the line between this dewy, but often disastrous, + ignorance and Carlotta’s knowledge. I find it a most delicate and + embarrassing problem. In fact, the problems connected with this young + woman seem endless. Yet they do not disturb me as much as I had + anticipated. I really believe I should miss my pretty Persian cat. A man + must be devoid of all aesthetic sense to deny that she is delightful to + look at. + </p> + <p> + And she has a thousand innocent coquetries and cajoling ways. She has a + manner of holding chocolate creams to her white teeth and talking to you + at the same time which is peculiarly fascinating. And she must have some + sense. To-night she asked me what I was writing. I replied, “A History of + the Morals of the Renaissance.” “What are morals and what is the + Renaissance?” asked Carlotta. When you come to think of it, it is a + profound question, which philosophers and historians have wasted vain + lives in trying to answer. I perceive that I too must try to answer it + with a certain amount of definition. I have spent the evening remodelling + my Introduction, so as to define the two terms axiomatically with my + subsequent argument, and I find it greatly improved. Now this is due to + Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + The quantity of chocolate creams the child eats cannot be good for her + digestion. I must see to this. + </p> + <p> + July 2d. + </p> + <p> + A telegram from Judith to say she postpones her return to Monday. I have + been longing to see the dear woman again, and I am greatly disappointed. + At the same time it is a respite from an explanation that grows more + difficult every day. I hate myself for the sense of relief. + </p> + <p> + This morning came an evening dress for Carlotta which has taken a month in + the making. This, I am given to understand, is delirious speed for a + London dress-maker. To celebrate the occasion I engaged a box at the + Empire for this evening and invited her to dine with me. I sent a note of + invitation round to Mrs. McMurray. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta did not come down at half-past seven. We waited. At last Mrs. + McMurray went up to the room and presently returned shepherding a shy, + blushing, awkward, piteous young person who had evidently been crying. My + friend signed to me to take no notice. I attributed the child’s lack of + gaiety to the ordeal of sitting for the first time in her life at a + civilised dinner-table. She scarcely spoke and scarcely ate. I + complimented her on her appearance and she looked beseechingly at me, as + if I were scolding her. After dinner Mrs. McMurray told me the reason of + her distress. She had found Carlotta in tears. Never could she face me in + that low cut evening bodice. It outraged her modesty. It could not be the + practice of European women to bare themselves so immodestly before men. It + was only the evidence of her visitor’s own plump neck and shoulders that + convinced her, and she suffered herself to be led downstairs in an agony + of self-consciousness. + </p> + <p> + When we entered the box at the Empire, a troupe of female acrobats were + doing their turn. Carlotta uttered a gasp of dismay, blushed burning red, + and shrank back to the door. There is no pretence about Carlotta. She was + shocked to the roots of her being. + </p> + <p> + “They are naked!” she said, quiveringly. + </p> + <p> + “For heaven’s sake, explain,” said I to Mrs. McMurray, and I beat a hasty + retreat to the promenade. + </p> + <p> + When I returned, Carlotta had been soothed down. She was watching some + performing dogs with intense wonderment and delight. For the rest of the + evening she sat spell-bound. The exiguity of costume in the ballet caused + her indeed to glance in a frightened sort of way at Mrs. McMurray, who + reassured her with a friendly smile, but the music and the maze of motion + and the dazzle of colour soon held her senses captive, and when the + curtain came down she sighed like one awaking from a dream. + </p> + <p> + As we drove home, she asked me: + </p> + <p> + “Is it like that all day long? Oh, please to let me live there!” + </p> + <p> + A nice English girl of eighteen would not flaunt unconcerned about my + drawing-room in a shameless dressing-gown, and crinkle up her toes in + front of me; still less would she tell me outrageous stories; but she will + wear low-necked dresses and gaze at ladies in tights without the ghost of + an immodest thought. I was right when I told Carlotta England was + Alexandretta upside-down. What is immoral here is moral there, and + vice-versa. There is no such thing as absolute morality. I am very glad + this has happened. It shows me that Carlotta is not devoid of the better + kind of feminine instincts. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + July 4th. + </p> + <p> + Judith has come back. I have seen her and I have explained Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + All day long I felt like a respectable person about to be brought before a + magistrate for being drunk and disorderly. Now I have the uneasy + satisfaction of having been let off with a caution. I am innocent, but I + mustn’t do it again. + </p> + <p> + As soon as I entered the room Judith embraced me, and said a number of + foolish things. I responded to the best of my ability. It is not usual for + our quiet lake of affection to be visited by such tornadoes. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I am glad, I am glad to be back with you again. I have longed for + you. I couldn’t write it. I did not know I could long for any one so + much.” + </p> + <p> + “I have missed you immensely, my dear Judith,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She looked at me queerly for a moment; then with a radiant smile: + </p> + <p> + “I love you for not going into transports like a Frenchman. Oh, I am tired + of Frenchmen. You are my good English Marcus, and worth all masculine + Paris put together.” + </p> + <p> + “I thank you, my dear, for the compliment,” said I, “but surely you must + exaggerate.” + </p> + <p> + “To me you are worth the masculine universe,” said Judith, and she seated + me by her side on the sofa, held my hands, and said more foolish things. + </p> + <p> + When the tempest had abated, I laughed. + </p> + <p> + “It is you that have acquired the art of transports in Paris,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I have. Shall I teach you?” + </p> + <p> + “You will have to learn moderation, my dear Judith,” I remarked. “You have + been living too rapidly of late and are looking tired.” + </p> + <p> + “It is only the journey,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + I am sure it is the unaccustomed dissipation. Judith is not a strong + woman, and late hours and eternal gadding about do not suit her + constitution. She has lost weight and there are faint circles under her + eyes. There are lines, too, on her face which only show in hours of + physical strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some length, + for I consider it well for women to have some one to counsel them frankly + in such matters, when she interrupted me with a gesture of impatience. + </p> + <p> + “There, there! Tell me what you have been doing with yourself. Your + letters gave me very little information.” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid,” said I, “I am a poor letter writer.” + </p> + <p> + “I read each ten times over,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I kissed her hand in acknowledgment. Then I rose, lit a cigarette and + walked about the room. Judith shook out her skirts and settled herself + comfortably among the sofa-cushions. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what crimes have you been committing the past few weeks?” + </p> + <p> + A wandering minstrel was harping “Love’s Sweet Dream” outside the + public-house below. I shut the window, hastily. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing so bad as that,” said I. “He ought to be hung and his wild harp + hung behind him.” + </p> + <p> + “You are developing nerves,” said Judith. “Is it a guilty conscience?” She + laughed. “You are hiding something from me. I’ve been aware of it all the + time.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed? How?” + </p> + <p> + “By the sixth sense of woman!” + </p> + <p> + Confound the sixth sense of woman! I suppose it has been developed like a + cat’s whiskers to supply the deficiency of a natural scent. Also, like the + whiskers, it is obtrusive, and a matter for much irritatingly complacent + pride. Judith regarded me with a mock magisterial air, and I was put into + the dock at once. + </p> + <p> + “Something has happened,” I said, desperately. “A female woman has come + and taken up her residence at 26 Lingfield Terrace. A few weeks ago she + ate with her fingers and believed the earth was flat. I found her in the + Victoria Embankment Gardens beneath the terrace of the National Liberal + Club, and now she lives on chocolate creams and the ‘Child’s Guide to + Knowledge.’ She is eighteen and her name is Carlotta. There!” + </p> + <p> + As my cigarette had gone out, I threw it with some peevishness into the + grate. Judith’s expression had changed from mock to real gravity. She sat + bolt upright and looked at me somewhat stonily. + </p> + <p> + “What in the world do you mean, Marcus?” + </p> + <p> + “What I say. I’m saddled with the responsibility of a child of nature as + unsophisticated and perplexing as Voltaire’s Huron. She’s English and she + came from a harem in Syria, and she is as beautiful as the houris she + believes in and is unfortunately precluded from joining. One of these days + I shall be teaching her her catechism. I have already washed her face. + Kindly pity me as the innocent victim of fantastic circumstances.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see why I should pity you,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + I felt I had not explained Carlotta tactfully. If there are ten ways of + doing a thing I have noticed that I invariably select the one way that is + wrong. I perceived that somehow or other the very contingency I had feared + had come to pass. I had prejudiced Judith against Carlotta. I had aroused + the Ishmaelite—her hand against every woman and every woman’s hand + against her—that survives in all her sex. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Judith,” said I, “if a wicked fairy godmother had decreed that a + healthy rhinoceros should be my housemate you would have extended me your + sympathy. But because Fate has inflicted on me an equally embarrassing + guest in the shape of a young woman—” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Marcus,” interrupted Judith, “the healthy rhinoceros would know + twenty times as much about women as you do.” This I consider one of the + silliest remarks Judith has ever made. “Do,” she continued, “tell me + something coherent about this young person you call Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + I told the story from beginning to end. + </p> + <p> + “But why in the world did you keep it from me?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I mistrusted the sixth sense of woman,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “The most elementary sense of woman or any one else would have told you + that you were doing a very foolish thing.” + </p> + <p> + “How would you have acted?” + </p> + <p> + “I should have handed her over at once to the Turkish consulate.” + </p> + <p> + “Not if you had seen her eyes.” + </p> + <p> + Judith tossed her head. “Men are all alike,” she observed. + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary,” said I, “that which characterises men as a sex is their + greater variation from type than women. It is a scientific fact. You will + find it stated by Darwin and more authoritatively still by later writers. + The highest common factor of a hundred women is far greater than that of a + hundred men. The abnormal is more frequent in the male sex. There are more + male monsters.” + </p> + <p> + “That I can quite believe,” snapped Judith. + </p> + <p> + “Then you agree with me that men are not all alike?” + </p> + <p> + “I certainly don’t. Put any one of you before a pretty face and a pair of + silly girl’s eyes and he is a perfect idiot.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Judith,” said I, “I don’t care a hang for a pretty face—except + yours.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really care about mine?” she asked wistfully. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” said I, dropping on one knee by the sofa, and taking her hand, + “I’ve been longing for it for six weeks.” And I counted the weeks on her + fingers. + </p> + <p> + This put her in a good humour. Now that I come to think of it, there is + something adorably infantile in grown up women. Shall man ever understand + them? I have seen babies (not many, I am glad to say) crow with delight at + having their toes pulled, with a “this little pig went to market,” and so + forth; Judith almost crowed at having the weeks told off on her fingers. + Queer! + </p> + <p> + An hour was taken up with the account of her doings in Paris. She had met + all the nicest and naughtiest people. She had been courted and flattered. + An artist in a slouch hat, baggy corduroy breeches, floppy tie and general + 1830 misfit had made love to her on the top of the Eiffel Tower. + </p> + <p> + “And he said,” laughed Judith, “‘<i>Partons ensemble. Comme on dit en + Anglais</i>—fly with me!’ I remarked that our state when we got to + the Champs de Mars would be an effective disguise. He didn’t understand, + and it was delicious!” + </p> + <p> + I laughed. “All the same,” I observed, “I can’t see the fun of making + jokes which the person to whom you make them doesn’t see the point of.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, that’s your own peculiar form of humour,” she retorted. “I caught + the trick from you.” + </p> + <p> + Perhaps she is right. I have noticed that people are slow in their + appreciation of my witticisms. I must really be a very dull dog. If she + were not fond of me I don’t see how a bright woman like Judith could + tolerate my society for half an hour. + </p> + <p> + I don’t think I contribute to the world’s humour; but the world’s humour + contributes much to my own entertainment, and things which appear amusing + to me do not appeal, when I point them out, to the risible faculties of + another. Every individual, I suppose, like every civilisation, must have + his own standard of humour. If I were a Roman (instead of an English) + Epicurean, I should have died with laughter at the sight of a fat + Christian martyr scudding round the arena while chased by a hungry lion. + At present I should faint with horror. Indeed, I always feel tainted with + savagery and enjoying a vicarious lust, when I smile at the oft-repeated + tale of the poor tiger in Dore’s picture that hadn’t got a Christian. On + the other hand, it tickles me immensely to behold a plethoric commonplace + Briton roar himself purple with impassioned platitude at a political + meeting; but I perceive that all my neighbours take him with the utmost + seriousness. Again, your literary journalist professes to wriggle in his + chair over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is the dullest lady that + ever faithfully photographed the trivial. Years ago I happened to be + crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock-coat and silk hat, when a passing + member of the proletariat dug his elbows in his comrade’s ribs and, + quoting a music-hall tag of the period, shouted “He’s got ‘em on!” + whereupon both burst into peals of robustious but inane laughter. Now, if + I had turned to them, and said, “He would be funnier if I hadn’t,” and + paraphrased, however wittily, Carlyle’s ironical picture of a nude court + of St. James’s, they would have punched my head under the confused idea + that I was trying to bamboozle them. Which brings me to my point of + departure, my remark to Judith as to the futility of jesting to + unpercipient ears. + </p> + <p> + I did not take up her retort. + </p> + <p> + “And what was the end of the romance?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “He borrowed twenty francs of me to pay for the <i>dejeuner</i>, and his + <i>l’annee trente</i> delicacy of soul compelled him to blot my existence + forever from his mind.” + </p> + <p> + “He never repaid you?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “For a humouristic philosopher,” cried Judith, “you are delicious!” + </p> + <p> + Judith is too fond of that word “delicious.” She uses it in season and out + of season. + </p> + <p> + We have the richest language that ever a people has accreted, and we use + it as if it were the poorest. We hoard up our infinite wealth of words + between the boards of dictionaries and in speech dole out the worn bronze + coinage of our vocabulary. We are the misers of philological history. And + when we can save our pennies and pass the counterfeit coin of slang, we + are as happy as if we heard a blind beggar thank us for putting a pewter + sixpence into his hat. + </p> + <p> + I said something of the sort to Judith, after she had resumed her seat and + I had opened the window, the minstrel having wandered to the next + hostelry, where the process of converting “Love’s Sweet Dream” into a + nightmare was still faintly audible. Judith looked at me whimsically, as I + stood breathing the comparatively fresh air and enjoying the relative + silence. + </p> + <p> + “You are still the same, I am glad to see. Conversation with the young + savage from Syria hasn’t altered you in the least.” + </p> + <p> + “In the first place,” said I, “savages do not grow in Syria; and in the + second, how could she have altered me?” + </p> + <p> + “If the heavens were to open and the New Jerusalem to appear this moment + before you,” retorted Judith, with the relevant irrelevance of her sex, + “you would begin an unconcerned disquisition on the iconography of + angels.” + </p> + <p> + I sat on the sofa end and touched one of her little pink ears. She has + pretty ears. They were the first of things physical about her that + attracted me to her years ago in the Roman pension—they and the mass + of silken flax that is her hair, and her violet eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Did you learn that particular way of talking in Paris?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + She had the effrontery to say she was imitating me and that it was a very + good imitation indeed. + </p> + <p> + We talked about the book. I touched upon the great problem that requires + solution—the harmonising and justifying of the contradictory + opposites in Renaissance character: Fra Lippo Lippi breaking his own vows + and breaking a nun’s for her; Perugino leading his money-grubbing, morose + life and painting ethereal saints and madonnas in his <i>bottega</i>, + while the Baglioni filled the streets outside with slaughter; Lorenzo de’ + Medici bleeding literally and figuratively his fellow-citizens, going from + that occupation to his Platonic Academy and disputing on the immortality + of the soul, winding up with orgies of sensual depravity with his boon + companion Pulci, and all the time making himself an historic name for + statecraft; Pope Sixtus IV, at the very heart of the Pazzi conspiracy to + murder the Medici— + </p> + <p> + “And Pope Nicholas V when drunk ordering a man to be executed, and being + sorry for it when sober,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + It is wonderful how Judith, with her quite unspecialised knowledge of + history can now and then put her finger upon something vital. I have been + racking my brain and searching my library for the past two or three days + for an illustration of just that nature. I had not thought of it. Here is + Tomaso da Sarzana, a quiet, retired schoolmaster, like myself, an editor + of classical texts, a peaceful librarian of Cosmo de’ Medici, a scholar + and a gentleman to the tips of his fingers; he is made Pope, a King Log to + save the cardinalate from a possible King Stork Colonna; the Porcari + conspiracy breaks out, is discovered and the conspirators are hunted over + Italy and put to death; a gentleman called Anguillara is slightly + inculpated; he is invited to Rome by Nicholas, and given a safe-conduct; + when he arrives the Pope is drunk (at least Stefano Infessura, the + contemporary diarist, says so); the next morning his Holiness finds to his + surprise and annoyance that the gentleman’s head has been cut off by his + orders. It is an amazing tale. To realise how amazing it is, one must + picture the fantastic possibility of it happening at the Vatican nowadays. + And the most astounding thing is this: that if all the dead and gone popes + were alive, and the soul of the saintly Pontiff of to-day were to pass + from him, the one who could most undetected occupy his simulacrum would be + this very Thomas of Sarzana. + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me, my dear Judith,” said I. “But this is a story lying somewhat + up one of the back-waters of history. Where did you come across it?” + </p> + <p> + “I saw it the other day in a French comic paper,” replied Judith. + </p> + <p> + I really don’t know which to admire the more: the inconsequent way in + which the French toss about scholarship, or the marvellous power of + assimilation possessed by Judith. + </p> + <p> + Before we separated she returned to the subject of Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Am I to see this young creature?” she asked. “That is just as you + choose,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! as far as I am concerned, my dear Marcus, I am perfectly + indifferent,” replied Judith, assuming the supercilious expression with + which women invariably try to mask inordinate curiosity. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said I, with a touch of malice, “there is no reason why you should + make her acquaintance.” + </p> + <p> + “I should be able to see through her tricks and put you on your guard.” + </p> + <p> + “Against what?” + </p> + <p> + She shrugged her shoulders as if it were vain to waste breath on so obtuse + a person. + </p> + <p> + “You had better bring her round some afternoon,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Have I acted wisely in confessing Carlotta to Judith? And why do I use the + word “confess”? Far from having committed an evil action, I consider I + have exhibited exemplary altruism. Did I want a “young savage from Syria” + to come and interfere with my perfectly ordered life? Judith does not + realise this. I had a presentiment of the prejudice she would conceive + against the poor girl, and now it has been verified. I wish I had held my + tongue. As Judith, for some feminine reason known only to herself, has + steadily declined to put her foot inside my house, she might very well + have remained unsuspicious of Carlotta’s existence. And why not? The fact + of the girl being my pensioner does not in the least affect the + personality which I bring to Judith. The idea is absurd. Why wasn’t I wise + before the event? I might have spared myself considerable worry. + </p> + <p> + A letter from my Aunt Jessica enclosing a card for a fancy dress ball at + the Empress Rooms. The preposterous lady! + </p> + <p> + “Do come. It is not right for a young man to lead the life of a recluse of + seventy. Here we are in the height of the London season, and I am sure you + haven’t been into ten houses, when a hundred of the very best are open to + you—” I loathe the term “best houses.” The tinsel ineptitude of + them! For entertainment I really would sooner attend a mothers’ meeting or + listen to the serious British Drama—Have I read so and so’s novel? + Am I going to Mrs. Chose’s dance? Do I ride in the Park? Do I know young + Thingummy of the Guards, who is going to marry Lady Betty Something? What + do I think of the Academy? As if one could have any sentiment with regard + to the Academy save regret at such profusion of fresh paint! “You want + shaking up,” continued my aunt. Silly woman! If there is a thing I should + abhor it would be to be shaken up. “Come and dine with us at seven-thirty + <i>in costume</i>, and I’ll promise you a delightful time. And think how + proud the girls would be of showing off their <i>beau cousin</i>.” <i>Et + patiti et patita.</i> I am again reminded that I owe it to my position, my + title. God ha’ mercy on us! To bedeck myself like a decayed mummer in a + booth and frisk about in a pestilential atmosphere with a crowd of strange + and uninteresting young females is the correct way of fulfilling the + obligations that the sovereign laid upon the successors to the title, when + he conferred the dignity of a baronetcy on my great-grandfather! Now I + come to think of it the Prince Regent was that sovereign, and my ancestor + did things for him at Brighton. Perhaps after all there is a savage irony + of truth in Aunt Jessica’s suggestion! + </p> + <p> + And a <i>beau cousin</i> should I be indeed. What does she think I would + go as? A mousquetaire? or a troubadour in blue satin trunks and cloak, + white silk tights and shoes and a Grecian helmet, like Mr. Snodgrass at + Mrs. Leo Hunter’s <i>fete champetre?</i> + </p> + <p> + I wish I could fathom Aunt Jessica’s reasons for her attempts at involving + me in her social mountebankery. If the girls get no better dance-partners + than me, heaven help them! + </p> + <p> + Only a fortnight ago I drove with them to Hurlingham. My aunt and + Gwendolen disappeared in an unaccountable manner with another man, leaving + me under an umbrella tent to take charge of Dora. I had an hour and a half + of undiluted Dora. The dose was too strong, and it made my head ache. I + think I prefer neat Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + July 5th + </p> + <p> + I lunched at home, and read drowsily before the open window till four + o’clock. Then the splendour of the day invited me forth. Whither should I + go? I thought of Judith and Hampstead Heath; I also thought of Carlotta + and Hyde Park. The sound of the lions roaring for their afternoon tea + reached me through the still air, and I put from me a strong temptation to + wander alone and meditative in the Zoological Gardens close by. I must not + forget, I reflected, that I am responsible for Carlotta’s education, + whereas I am in no wise responsible for the animals or for Judith. If + Judith and I had claims one on the other, the entire charm of our + relationship would be broken. + </p> + <p> + I resolved to take Carlotta to the park, in order to improve her mind. She + would see how well-bred Englishwomen comport themselves externally. It + would be a lesson in decorum. + </p> + <p> + I do not despise convention. Indeed, I follow it up to the point when it + puts on the airs of revealed religion. My neighbours and I decide on a + certain code of manners which will enable us to meet without mutual + offence. I agree to put my handkerchief up to my nose when I sneeze in his + presence, and he contracts not to wipe muddy boots on my sofa. I undertake + not to shock his wife by parading my hideous immorality before her eyes, + and he binds himself not to aggravate my celibacy by beating her or + kissing her when I am paying a call. I agree, by wearing an arbitrarily + fixed costume when I dine with him, to brand myself with the stamp of a + certain class of society, so that his guests shall receive me without + question, and he in return gives me a well-ordered dinner served with the + minimum amount of inconvenience to myself that his circumstances allow. + Many folks make what they are pleased to call unconventionality a mere + cloak for selfish disregard of the feelings and tastes of others. + Bohemianism too often means piggish sloth or slatternly ineptitude. + </p> + <p> + Convention is solely a matter of manners. That is why I desire to instil + some convention into what, for want of a more accurate term, I may allude + to as Carlotta’s mind. It will save me much trouble in the future. + </p> + <p> + I summoned Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta,” I said, “I am going to take you to Hyde Park and show you the + English aristocracy wearing their best clothes and their best behaviour. + You must do the same.” + </p> + <p> + “My best clothes?” cried Carlotta, her face lighting up. + </p> + <p> + “Your very best. Make haste.” + </p> + <p> + I smiled. She ran from the room and in an incredibly short time reappeared + unblushingly bare-necked and bare-armed in the evening dress that had + caused her such dismay on Saturday. + </p> + <p> + I jumped to my feet. There is no denying that she looked amazingly + beautiful. She looked, in fact, disconcertingly beautiful. I found it hard + to tell her to take the dress off again. + </p> + <p> + “Is it wrong?” she asked Nvith a pucker of her baby lips. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, indeed,” said I. “People would be shocked.” + </p> + <p> + “But on Saturday evening—” she began. + </p> + <p> + “I know, my child,” I interrupted. “In society you are scarcely + respectable unless you go about half naked at night; but to do so in the + daytime would be the grossest indecency. I’ll explain some other time.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall never understand,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + Two great tears stood, one on each eyelid, and fell simultaneously down + her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “What on earth are you crying for?” I asked aghast. + </p> + <p> + “You are not pleased with me,” said Carlotta, with a choke in her voice. + </p> + <p> + The two tears fell like rain-drops on to her bosom, and she stood before + me a picture of exquisite woe. Then I did a very foolish thing. + </p> + <p> + Last week a little gold brooch in a jeweller’s window caught my fancy. I + bought it with the idea of presenting it to Carlotta, when an occasion + offered, as a reward for peculiar merit. Now, however, to show her that I + was in no way angry, I abstracted the bauble from the drawer of my + writing-table, and put it in her hand. + </p> + <p> + “You please me so much, Carlotta,” said I, “that I have bought this for + you.” + </p> + <p> + Before I had completed the sentence, and before I knew what she was after, + her arms were round my neck and she was hugging me like a child. + </p> + <p> + I have never experienced such an odd sensation in my life as the touch of + Carlotta’s fresh young arms upon my face and the perfume of spring violets + that emanated from her person. I released myself swiftly from her + indecorous demonstration. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn’t do things like that,” said I, severely. “In England, young + women are only allowed to embrace their grandfathers.” Carlotta looked at + me wide-eyed, with the fox-terrier knitting of the forehead. + </p> + <p> + “But you are so good to me, Seer Marcous,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you’ll find many people good to you, Carlotta,” I answered. “But + if you continue that method of expressing your appreciation, you may + possibly be misunderstood.” + </p> + <p> + I had recovered from the momentary shock to my senses, and I laughed. She + fluttered a sidelong glance at me, and a smile as inscrutable as the Monna + Lisa’s hovered over her lips. + </p> + <p> + “What would they do if they did not understand?” + </p> + <p> + “They would take you,” I replied, fixing her sternly with my gaze, “they + would take you for an unconscionable baggage.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Hou!</i>” laughed Carlotta, suddenly. And she ran from the room. + </p> + <p> + In a moment she was back again. She came up to me demurely and plucked my + sleeve. + </p> + <p> + “Come and show me what I must put on so as to please you.” + </p> + <p> + I rang the bell for Antoinette, to whom I gave the necessary instructions. + Her next request would be that I should act the part of lady’s-maid. I + must maintain my dignity with Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + The lovely afternoon had attracted many people to the park, and the lawns + were thronged. We found a couple of chairs at the edge of one of the + cross-paths and watched the elegant assembly. Carlotta, vastly + entertained, asked innumerable questions. How could I tell whether a lady + was married or unmarried? Did they all wear stays? Why did every one look + so happy? Did I think that old man was the young girl’s husband? What were + they all talking about? Wouldn’t I take her for a drive in one of those + beautiful carriages? Why hadn’t I a carriage? Then suddenly, as if + inspired, after a few minutes’ silent reflection: + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous, is this the marriage market?” + </p> + <p> + “The what?” I gasped. + </p> + <p> + “The marriage market. I read it in a book, yesterday. Miss Griggs gave it + me to read aloud—Tack—Thack—” + </p> + <p> + “Thackeray?” + </p> + <p> + “Ye-es. They come here to sell the young girls to men who want wives.” She + edged away from me, with a little movement of alarm. “That is not why you + have brought me here—to sell me?” + </p> + <p> + “How much do you think you would be worth?” I asked, sarcastically. + </p> + <p> + She opened out her hands palms upward, throwing down her parasol, as she + did so, upon her neighbour’s little Belgian griffon, who yelped. + </p> + <p> + “Ch, lots,” she said in her frank way. “I am very beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + I picked up the parasol, bowed apologetically to the owner of the stricken + animal, and addressed Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Listen, my good child. You are passably good-looking, but you are by no + means very beautiful. If I tried to sell you here, you might possibly + fetch half a crown—” + </p> + <p> + “Two shillings and sixpence?” asked the literal Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Just that. But as a matter of fact, no one would buy you. This is + not the marriage market. There is no such thing as a marriage market. + English mothers and fathers do not sell their daughters for money. Such a + thing is monstrous and impossible.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it was all lies I read in the book?” + </p> + <p> + “All lies,” said I. + </p> + <p> + I hope the genial shade of the great satirist has forgiven me. + </p> + <p> + “Why do they put lies in books?” + </p> + <p> + “To accentuate the Truth, so that it shall prevail,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + This was too hard a nut for Carlotta to crack. She was silent for a + moment. She reverted, ruefully, to the intelligible. + </p> + <p> + “I thought I was beautiful,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Who told you so?” + </p> + <p> + “Pasquale.” + </p> + <p> + “Pasquale has no sense,” said I. “There are men to whom all women who are + not seventy and toothless and rheumy at the eyes are beautiful. Pasquale + has said the same to every woman he has met. He is a Lothario and a Don + Juan and a Caligula and a Faublas and a Casanova.” + </p> + <p> + “And he tells lies, too?” + </p> + <p> + “Millions of them,” said I. “He contracts with their father Beelzebub for + a hundred gross a day.” + </p> + <p> + “Pasquale is very pretty and he makes me laugh and I like him,” said + Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry to hear it,” said I. + </p> + <p> + The griffon, who had been sniffing at Carlotta’s skirts, suddenly leaped + into her lap. With a swift movement of her hand she swept the poor little + creature, as if it had been a noxious insect, yards away. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta!” I cried angrily, springing to my feet. + </p> + <p> + The ladies who owned the beast rushed to their whining pet and looked + astonished daggers at Carlotta. When they picked it up, it sat dangling a + piteous paw. Carlotta rose, merely scared at my anger. I raised my hat. + </p> + <p> + “I am more than sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I hope the little + dog is not hurt. My ward, for whom I offer a thousand apologies, is a + Mohammedan, to whom all dogs are unclean. Please attribute the accident to + religious instinct.” + </p> + <p> + The younger of the two, who had been examining the paw, looked up with a + smile. + </p> + <p> + “Your ward is forgiven. Punch oughtn’t to jump on strange ladies’ laps, + whether they are Mohammedans or not. Oh! he is more frightened than hurt. + And I,” she added, with a twinkling eye, “am more hurt than frightened, + because Sir Marcus Ordeyne doesn’t recognise me.” + </p> + <p> + So Carlotta had nearly killed the dog of an unrecalled acquaintance. + </p> + <p> + “I do indeed recognise you now,” said I, mendaciously. I seem to have been + lying to-day through thick and thin. “But in the confusion of the disaster—” + </p> + <p> + “You sat next me at lunch one day last winter, at Mrs. Ordeyne’s,” + interrupted the lady, “and you talked to me of transcendental + mathematics.” + </p> + <p> + I remembered. “The crime,” said I, “has lain heavily on my conscience.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe a word of it,” she laughed, dismissing me with a bow. I + raised my hat and joined Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + It was a Miss Gascoigne, a flirtatious intimate of Aunt Jessica’s house. + To this irresponsible young woman I had openly avowed that I was the + guardian of a beautiful Mohammedan whose religious instinct compelled her + to destroy little dogs. I shall hear of this from my Aunt Jessica. + </p> + <p> + I walked stonily away with Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “You are cross with me,” she whimpered. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am. You might have killed the poor little beast. It was very + wicked and cruel of you.” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta burst out crying in the midst of the promenade. + </p> + <p> + The tears did not romantically come into her eyes as they had done an hour + before; but she wept copiously, after the unrestrained manner of children, + and used her pocket-handkerchief. From their seats women put up their + lorgnons to look at her, passers-by turned round and stared. The whole of + the gaily dressed throng seemed to be one amused gaze. In’ a moment or two + I became conscious that reprehensory glances were being directed towards + myself, calling me, as plain as eyes could call, an ill-conditioned brute, + for making the poor young creature, who was at my mercy, thus break down + in public. It was a charming situation for an even-tempered philosopher. + We walked stolidly on, I glaring in front of me and Carlotta weeping. The + malice of things arranged that ne. neighbouring chair should be vacant, + and that the path should be unusually crowded. I had the satisfaction of + hearing a young fellow say to a girl: + </p> + <p> + “He? That’s Ordeyne—came into the baronetcy—mad as a dingo + dog.” + </p> + <p> + I was giving myself a fine advertisement. + </p> + <p> + “For heaven’s sake stop crying,” I said. Then a memory of far-off + childhood flashed its inspiration upon me. “If you don’t,” I added, + grimly, “I’ll take you out and give you to a policeman.” + </p> + <p> + The effect was magical. She turned on me a scared look, gasped, pulled + down her veil, which she had raised so as to dab her eyes with her + pocket-handkerchief, and incontinently checked the fountain of her tears. + </p> + <p> + “A policeman?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I, “a great, big, ugly blue policeman, who shuts up people who + misbehave themselves in prison, and takes off their clothes, and shaves + their heads, and feeds them on bread and water.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t cry any more,” she said, swallowing a sob. “Is it also wicked to + cry?” + </p> + <p> + “Any of these ladies here would sooner be burned alive with dyspepsia or + cut in two with tight-lacing,” I replied severely. “Let us sit down.” + </p> + <p> + We stepped over the low iron rail, and passing through the first two rows + of people, found seats behind where the crowd was thinner. + </p> + <p> + “Is Seer Marcous still angry with me?” asked Carlotta, and the simple + plaintiveness of her voice would have melted the bust of Nero. I lectured + her on cruelty to animals. That one had duties of kindness towards the + lower creation appealed to her as a totally new idea. Supposing the dog + had broken all its legs and ribs, would she not have been sorry? She + answered frankly in the negative. It was a nasty little dog. If she had + hurt it badly, so much the better. What did it matter if a dog was hurt? + She was sorry now she had hurled it into space, because it belonged to my + friends, and that had made me cross with her. + </p> + <p> + Of course I was shocked at the thoughtless cruelty of the action; but my + anger had also its roots in dismay at the public scandal it might have + caused, and in the discovery that I was known to the victim’s owner. It is + the sad fate of the instructors of youth that they must hypocritically + credit themselves with only the sublimest of motives. I spoke to Carlotta + like the good father in the “Swiss Family Robinson.” I gave vent to such + noble sentiments that in a quarter of an hour I glowed with pride in my + borrowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to my bosom and + addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the fly. I wonder whether it is + not through some such process as this that parsons manage to keep + themselves good. + </p> + <p> + The soothing warmth of conscious merit restored me to good temper; and + when Carlotta slid her hand into mine and asked me if I had forgiven her, + I magnanimously assured her that all the past was forgotten. + </p> + <p> + “Only,” said I, “you will have to get out of this habit of tears. A wise + man called Burton says in his ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ a beautiful book + which I’ll give you to read when you are sixty, ‘As much count may be + taken of a woman weeping as a goose going barefoot.’” + </p> + <p> + “He was a nasty old man,” said Carlotta. “Women cry because they feel very + unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men don’t cry. + My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but Hamdi!—” she + broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, “You would as soon see a goose + going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the shoes—the fairy + tale—as Hamdi crying. <i>Hou</i>!” + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later, as we were driving homewards, she broke a rather long + silence which she had evidently been employing in meditation. + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + She has a child’s engaging way of rubbing herself up against one when she + wants to be particularly ingratiating. + </p> + <p> + “It was so nice to dine with you on Saturday.” + </p> + <p> + “Really?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, ye-es. When are you going to let me dine with you again, to show me + you have forgiven me?” + </p> + <p> + A hansom cab offers peculiar facilities for the aforesaid process of + ingratiation. + </p> + <p> + “You shall dine with me this evening,” said I, and Carlotta cooed with + pleasure. + </p> + <p> + I perceive that she is gradually growing westernised. + </p> + <p> + July 8th. + </p> + <p> + In obedience to a peremptory note from Judith, I took Carlotta this + afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook hands with my hostess, turned + round and said + </p> + <p> + “This, my dear Judith, is Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “I am very pleased to see you,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + “So am I,” replied Carlotta, not to be outdone in politeness. + </p> + <p> + She sat bolt upright, most correctly, on the edge of a chair, and + responded monosyllabically to Judith’s questions. Her demeanour could not + have been more impeccable had she been trained in a French convent. Just + before we arrived, she had been laughing immoderately because I had + ordered her to spit out a mass of horrible sweetmeat which she had found + it impossible to masticate, and she had challenged me to extract it with + my fingers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a Maenad. I was + entertained by Judith’s fruitless efforts to get behind this wall of + reserve. Carlotta said, “Oh, ye-es” or “No-o” to everything. It was not a + momentous conversation. As it was Carlotta in whom Judith was particularly + interested, I effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the spasmodic talk, + Carlotta said, very politely: + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Mainwaring has a beautiful house.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s only a tiny flat. Would you like to look over it?” asked Judith, + eagerly, flashing me a glance that plainly said, “Now that I shall have + her to myself, you may trust me to get to the bottom of her.” + </p> + <p> + “I would like it very much,” said Carlotta, rising. + </p> + <p> + I held the door open for them to pass out, and lit a cigarette. When they + returned ten minutes afterwards, Carlotta was smiling and self-possessed, + evidently very well pleased with herself, but Judith had a red spot on + each of her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + The sight of her smote me with an odd new feeling of pity. I cannot + dismiss the vision from my mind. All the evening I have seen the two women + standing side by side, a piteous parable. The light from the window shone + full upon them, and the dark curtain of the door was an effective + background. The one flaunted the sweet insolence of youth, health, colour, + beauty; of the bud just burst into full flower. The other wore the stamp + of care, of the much knowledge wherein is much sorrow, and in her eyes + dwelled the ghosts of dead years. She herself looked like a ghost-dressed + in white pique, which of itself drew the colour from her white face and + pale lips and mass of faint straw-coloured hair, the pallor of all which + was accentuated by the red spots on her cheeks and her violet eyes. + </p> + <p> + I saw that something had occurred to vex her. + </p> + <p> + “Before we go,” I said, “I should like a word with you. Carlotta will not + mind.” + </p> + <p> + We went into the dining-room. I took her hand which was cold, in spite of + the July warmth. + </p> + <p> + “Well, my dear,” said I. “What do you think of my young savage from Asia + Minor?” + </p> + <p> + Judith laughed—I am sure not naturally. + </p> + <p> + “Is that all you wanted to say to me?” + </p> + <p> + She withdrew her hand, and tidied her hair in the mirror of the + overmantel. + </p> + <p> + “I think she is a most uninteresting young woman. I am disappointed. I had + anticipated something original. I had looked forward to some amusement. + But, really, my dear Marcus, she is <i>bete a pleurer</i>—weepingly + stupid.” + </p> + <p> + “She certainly can weep,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, can she?” said Judith, as if the announcement threw some light on + Carlotta’s character. “And when she cries, I suppose you, like a man, give + in and let her have her own way?” And Judith laughed again. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Judith,” said I; “you have no idea of the wholesome discipline at + Lingfield Terrace.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly with one of her disconcerting changes of front, she turned and + caught me by the coat-lappels. + </p> + <p> + “Marcus dear, I have been so lonely this week. When are you coming to see + me?” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll have a whole day out on Sunday,” said I. + </p> + <p> + As I walked down the stairs with Carlotta, I reflected that Judith had not + accounted for the red spots. + </p> + <p> + “I like her,” said Carlotta. “She is a nice old lady.” + </p> + <p> + “Old lady! What on earth do you mean?” I was indeed startled. “She is a + young woman.” + </p> + <p> + “Pouf!” cried Carlotta. “She is forty.” + </p> + <p> + “She is no such thing,” I cried. “She is years younger than I.” + </p> + <p> + “She would not tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “You asked her age?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, ye-es,” said Carlotta. “I was very polite. I first asked if she was + married. She said yes. Then I asked how her husband was. She said she + didn’t know. That was funny. Why does she not know, Seer Marcous?” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind,” said I, “go on telling me how polite you were.” + </p> + <p> + “I asked how many children she had. She said she had none. I said it was a + pity. And then I said, ‘I am eighteen years old and I want to marry quite + soon and have children. How old are you?’ And she would not tell me. I + said, ‘You must be the same age as my mamma, if she were alive.’ I said + other things, about her husband, which I forget. Oh, I was very polite.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled up at me in quest of approbation. I checked a horrified rebuke + when I reflected that, according to the etiquette of the harem, she had + been “very polite.” But my poor Judith! Every artless question had been a + knife thrust in a sensitive spot. Her husband: the handsome blackguard who + had lured her into the divorce court, married her, and after two unhappy + years had left her broken; children: they would have kept her life sweet, + and did I not know how she had yearned for them? Her age: it is only the + very happily married woman who snaps her fingers at the approach of forty, + and even she does so with a disquieting sense of bravado. And the sweet + insolence of youth says: “I am eighteen: how old are you?” + </p> + <p> + My poor Judith! Once more, on our walk home, I discoursed to Carlotta on + the differences between East and West. + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous,” said Carlotta this evening at dinner—“I have decided + now that she shall dine regularly with me; it is undoubtedly agreeable to + see her pretty face on the opposite side of the table and listen to her + irresponsible chatter: chatter which I keep within the bounds of decorum + when Stenson is present, so as to save his susceptibilities, by the simple + device, agreed upon between us (to her great delight) of scratching the + side of my somewhat prominent nose—Seer Marcous, why does Mrs. + Mainwaring keep your picture in her bedroom?” + </p> + <p> + I am glad Stenson happened to be out of the room. His absence saved the + flaying of my nasal organ. I explained that it was the custom in England + for ladies to collect the photographs of their men friends, and use them + misguidedly for purposes of decoration. + </p> + <p> + “But this,” said Carlotta, opening out her arms in an exaggerated way, “is + such a big one.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that,” I answered, “is because I am very beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta shrieked with laughter. The exquisite comicality of the jest + occasioned bubbling comments of mirth during the rest of the meal, and her + original indiscreet question was happily forgotten. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X + </h2> + <p> + 10th July. + </p> + <p> + Judith and I have had our day in the country. We know a wayside station, + on a certain line of railway, about an hour and a half from town, where we + can alight, find eggs and bacon at the village inn and hayricks in a + solitary meadow, and where we can chew the cud of these delights with the + cattle in well-wooded pastures. Judith has a passion for eggs and bacon + and hayricks. My own rapture in their presence is tempered by the + philosophic calm of my disposition. She wore a cotton dress of a + forget-me-not blue which suits her pale colouring. She looked quite + pretty. When I told her so she blushed like a girl. I was glad to see her + in gay humour again. Of late months she has been subject to moodiness, + emotional variability, which has somewhat ruffled the smooth surface of + our companionship. But to-day there has been no trace of “temperament.” + She has shown herself the pleasant, witty Judith she knows I like her to + be, with a touch of coquetry thrown in on her own account. She even spoke + amiably of Carlotta. I have not had so thoroughly enjoyable a day with + Judith for a long time. + </p> + <p> + I don’t think she set herself deliberately to please me. That I should + resent. I know that women in order to please an unsuspecting male will + walk weary miles by his side with blisters on their feet and a beatific + smile on their faces. But Judith has far too much commonsense. + </p> + <p> + Another pleasing feature of the day’s jaunt has been the absence of the + appeal to sentimentality which Judith of late, especially since her return + from Paris, has been overfond of making. This idle habit of mind, for such + it is in reality, has been arrested by an intellectual interest. One of + her great friends is Willoughby, the economic statistician, who in his + humorous moments, writes articles for popular magazines, illustrated by + scale diagrams. He will draw, for instance, a series of men representing + the nations of the world, and varying in bulk and stature according to the + respective populations; and over against these he will set a series of + pigs whose sizes are proportionate to the amount of pork per head eaten by + the different nationalities. To these queer minds that live on facts (I + myself could as easily thrive on a diet of egg-shells) this sort of + pictorial information is peculiarly fascinating. But Judith, who like most + women has a freakish mental as well as physical digestion, delights in + knowing how many hogs a cabinet minister will eat during a lifetime, and + how much of the earth’s surface could be scoured by the world’s yearly + output of scrubbing-brushes. I don’t blame her for it any more than I + blame her for a love of radishes, which make me ill; it is not as if she + had no wholesome tastes. On the contrary, I commend her. Now, Willoughby, + it seems, has found the public appetite so great for these thought-saving + boluses of knowledge—unpleasant drugs, as it were, put up into + gelatine capsules—that he needs assistance. He has asked Judith to + devil for him, and I have to-day persuaded her to accept his offer. It + will be an excellent thing for the dear woman. It will be an absorbing + occupation. It will divert the current of her thoughts from the + sentimentality that I deprecate, and provided she does not serve up + hard-boiled facts to me at dinner, she will be the pleasanter companion. + </p> + <p> + The only return to it was when I kissed her at parting. + </p> + <p> + “That is the first, Marcus, for twelve hours,” she said; very sweetly, it + is true—but still reproachfully. + </p> + <p> + But Sacred Name of a Little Good Man! (as the depraved French people say), + what is the use of this continuous osculation between rational beings of + opposite sexes who set out to enjoy themselves? If only St. Paul, in the + famous passage when he says there is a time for this and a time for that, + had mentioned kissing, he would have done a great deal of practical good. + </p> + <p> + July 13th. + </p> + <p> + To-night, for the first time since I came into the family estates (such as + they are), I feel the paralysis of aspiration occasioned by poverty. If I + were very rich, I would buy the two next houses, pull them down and erect + on the site a tower forty foot high. At the very top would be one + comfortable room to be reached by a lift, and in this room I could have my + being, while it listed me, and be secure from all kinds of incursions and + interruptions. Antoinette’s one-eyed cat could not scratch for admittance; + Antoinette herself could not enter under pretext of domestic economics and + lure me into profitless gossip; and I could defy Carlotta, who is growing + to be as pervasive as the smell of pickles over Crosse & Blackwell’s + factory. She comes in without knocking, looks at picture-books, sprawls + about doing nothing, smokes my best cigarettes, hums tunes which she has + picked up from barrel-organs, bends over me to see what I am writing, + munching her eternal sweetmeats in my ear, and laughs at me when I tell + her she has irremediably broken the thread of my ideas. Of course I might + be brutal and turn her out. But somehow I forget to do so, until I realise—too + late—the havoc she has made with my work. + </p> + <p> + I did, however, think, when Miss Griggs mounted guard over Carlotta, and + Antoinette and her cat were busied with luncheon cook-pans, that my + solitude was unimperilled. I see now there is nothing for it but the + tower. And I cannot build the tower; so I am to be henceforward at the + mercy of anything feline or feminine that cares to swish its tail or its + skirts about my drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + I was arranging my notes, I had an illuminating inspiration concerning the + life of Francois Villon and the contemporary court of Cosmo de’ Medici; I + was preparing to fix it in writing when the door opened and Stenson + announced: + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Ordeyne and Miss Ordeyne.” + </p> + <p> + My Aunt Jessica and Dora came in and my inspiration went out. It hasn’t + come back yet. + </p> + <p> + My aunt’s apologies and Dora’s draperies filled the room. I must forgive + the invasion. They knew they were disturbing my work. They hoped I didn’t + mind. + </p> + <p> + “I wanted mamma to write, but she would come,” said Dora, in her hearty + voice. I murmured polite mendacities and offered chairs. Dora preferred to + stand and gaze about her with feminine curiosity. Women always seem to + sniff for Bluebeardism in a bachelor’s apartment. + </p> + <p> + “Why, what two beautiful rooms you have. And the books! There isn’t an + inch of wall-space!” + </p> + <p> + She went on a voyage of discovery round the shelves while my aunt + explained the object of their visit. Somebody, I forget who, had lent them + a yacht. They were making up a party for a summer cruise in Norwegian + fiords. The Thingummies and the So and So’s and Lord This and Miss That + had promised to come, but they were sadly in need of a man to play host—I + was to fancy three lone women at the mercy of the skipper. I did, and I + didn’t envy the skipper. What more natural, gushed my aunt, than that they + should turn to me, the head of the house, in their difficulty? + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid, my dear aunt,” said I, “that my acquaintance with + skipper-terrorising hosts is nil. I can’t suggest any one.” + </p> + <p> + “But who asked you to suggest any one?” she laughed. “It is you yourself + that we want to persuade to have pity on us.” + </p> + <p> + “I have—much pity,” said I, “for if it’s rough, you’ll all be + horribly seasick.” + </p> + <p> + Dora ran across the room from the book-case she was inspecting. + </p> + <p> + “I would like to shake him! He is only pretending he doesn’t understand. I + don’t know what we shall do if you won’t come with us.” + </p> + <p> + “You can’t refuse, Marcus. It will be an ideal trip—and such a + comfortable yacht—and the deep blue fiords—and we’ve got a + French chef. You will be doing us such a favour.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, say ‘Yes,’” said Dora. + </p> + <p> + I wish she were not such a bouncing Juno of a girl. Large, athletic women + with hearty voices are difficult for one to deal with. I am a match for my + aunt, whom I can obfuscate with words. But Dora doesn’t understand my + satire; she gives a great, healthy laugh, and says, “Oh, rot!” which + scatters my intellectual armoury. + </p> + <p> + “It is exceedingly kind of you to think of me,” I said to my aunt, “and + the proposal is tempting—the prospect is indeed fascinating—but—” + </p> + <p> + “But what?” + </p> + <p> + “I have so many engagements,” I answered feebly. + </p> + <p> + My Aunt Jessica rose, smiling indulgently upon me, as if I were a spoilt + little boy, and took me on to the balcony, while Dora demurely retired to + the bookshelves in the farther room. “Can’t you manage to throw them + aside? Poor Dora will be inconsolable.” + </p> + <p> + I stared at her for a moment and then at Dora’s broad back and sturdy + hips. Inconsolable? I can’t make out what the good lady is driving at. If + she were a vulgar woman trying to squeeze her way into society and needed + the lubricant of the family baronetcy, I could understand her eagerness to + parade me as her appanage. But titles in her drawing-room are as common as + tea-cups. And the inconsolability of Dora— + </p> + <p> + “If I did come she would be bored to death,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “She is willing to risk it.” + </p> + <p> + “But why should she seek martyrdom?” + </p> + <p> + “There is another reason,” said my aunt, ignoring my pertinent question, + but glancing at me reassuringly “there is another reason why it would be + well for you to come on this cruise with us.” She sank her voice. “You met + Miss Gascoigne in the park last week—” + </p> + <p> + “A very charming and kind young lady,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid you have been a little indiscreet. People have been talking.” + </p> + <p> + “Then theirs, not mine, is the indiscretion.” + </p> + <p> + “But, my dear Marcus, when you spring a good-looking young person, whom + you introduce as your Mohammedan ward, upon London society, and she makes + a scene in public—why—what else have people got to talk + about?” + </p> + <p> + “They might fall back upon the doctrine of predestination or the price of + fish,” I replied urbanely. + </p> + <p> + “But I assure you, Marcus, that there is a hint of scandal abroad. It is + actually said that she is living here.” + </p> + <p> + “People will say anything, true or untrue,” said I. + </p> + <p> + My aunt sighfully acquiesced, and for a while we discussed the depravity + of human nature. + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking,” she said at last, “that if you brought your ward + to see us, and she could accompany us on this cruise to Norway, the + scandal would be scotched outright.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced at me very keenly, and beneath her indulgent smile I saw the + hardness of the old campaigner. It was a clever trap she had prepared for + me. + </p> + <p> + I took her hand and in my noblest manner, like the exiled vicomte in + costume drama, bent over it and kissed her finger-tips. + </p> + <p> + “I thank you, my dear aunt, for your generous faith in my integrity,” I + said, “and I assure you your confidence is well founded.” + </p> + <p> + A loud, gay laugh from the other room interrupted me. + </p> + <p> + “Are you two rehearsing private theatricals?” cried Dora. As I was attired + in a remarkably old college blazer and a pair of yellow Moorish slippers + bought a couple of years ago in Tangier, and as my hair was straight on + end, owing to a habit of passing my fingers through it while I work, my + attitude perhaps did not strike a spectator as being so noble as I had + imagined. I took advantage of the anti-climax, however, to bring my aunt + from the balcony to the centre of the room, where Dora joined us. + </p> + <p> + “Well, has mother prevailed?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Dora,” said I, politely, “how can you imagine it could possibly + be a question of persuasion?” + </p> + <p> + “That might be taken two ways,” said Dora. “Like Palmerston’s ‘Dear Sir, + I’ll lose no time in reading your book.’” Dora is a minx. + </p> + <p> + “I fear,” said I, “that my pedantic historical sense must venture to + correct you. It was Lord Beaconsfield.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he got it from Palmerston,” insisted Dora. + </p> + <p> + “You children must not quarrel,” interposed my aunt, in the fond, maternal + tone which I find peculiarly unpleasant. “Marcus will see how his + engagements stand, and let us know in a day or two.” + </p> + <p> + “When do you propose to start?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Quite soon. On the 20th. + </p> + <p> + “I will let you know finally in good time,” said I. + </p> + <p> + As I accompanied them downstairs, I heard a door at the end of the passage + open, and turning I saw Carlotta’s pretty head thrust past the jamb, and + her eyes fixed on the visitors. I motioned her back, sharply, and my aunt + and Dora made an unsuspecting exit. The noise of their departing chariot + wheels was music to my ears. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta came rushing out of her sitting-room followed by Miss Griggs, + protesting. + </p> + <p> + “Who those fine ladies?” she cried, with her hands on my sleeve. + </p> + <p> + “Who <i>are</i> those ladies?” I corrected. + </p> + <p> + “Who <i>are</i> those ladies?” Carlotta repeated, like a demure parrot. + </p> + <p> + “They are friends of mine.” + </p> + <p> + Then came the eternal question. + </p> + <p> + “Is she married, the young one?” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Griggs,” said I, “kindly instil into Carlotta’s mind the fact that + no young English woman ever thinks about marriage until she is actually + engaged, and then her thoughts do not go beyond the wedding.” + </p> + <p> + “But is she?” persisted Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “I wish to heaven she was,” I laughed, imprudently, “for then she would + not come and spoil my morning’s work.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, she wants to marry you,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Griggs,” said I, “Carlotta will resume her studies,” and I went + upstairs, sighing for the beautiful tower with a lift outside. + </p> + <p> + July 14th. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale came in about nine o’clock, and found us playing cards. + </p> + <p> + He is a bird of passage with no fixed abode. Some weeks ago he gave up his + chambers in St. James’s, and went to live with an actor friend, a + grass-widower, who has a house in the St. John’s Wood Road close by. Why + Pasquale, who loves the palpitating centres of existence, should choose to + rusticate in this semi-arcadian district, I cannot imagine. He says he can + think better in St. John’s Wood. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale think! As well might a salmon declare it could sing better in a + pond! The consequence of his propinquity, however, has been that he has + dropped in several times lately on his way home, but generally at a later + hour. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please don’t move and spoil the picture,” he cried. “Oh, you idyllic + pair! And what are you playing? Cribbage! If I had been challenged to + guess the game you would have selected for your after-dinner + entertainment, I should have sworn to cribbage!” + </p> + <p> + “An excellent game,” said I. Indeed, it is the only game that I remember. + I dislike cards. They bore me to death. So dus chess. People love to call + them intellectual pastimes; but, surely, if a man wants exercise for his + intellect, there are enough problems in this complicated universe for him + to worry his brains over, with more profit to himself and the world. And + as for the pastime—I consider that when two or more intelligent + people sit down to play cards they are insulting one another’s powers of + conversation. These remarks do not apply to my game with Carlotta, who is + a child, and has to be amused. She has picked up cribbage with remarkable + quickness, and although this is only the third evening we have played, she + was getting the better of me when Pasquale appeared. + </p> + <p> + I repeated my statement. Cribbage certainly was an excellent game. + Pasquale laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Of course it is. A venerable pastime. Darby and Joan have played it of + evenings for the last thousand years. Please go on.” + </p> + <p> + But Carlotta threw her cards on the table and herself on the sofa and said + she would prefer to hear Pasquale talk. + </p> + <p> + “He says such funny things.” + </p> + <p> + Then she jumped from the sofa and handed him the box of chocolates that is + never far from her side. How lithe her movements are! + </p> + <p> + “Pasquale says you were his schoolmaster, and used to beat him with a big + stick,” she remarked, turning her head toward me, while Pasquale helped + himself to a sweet. + </p> + <p> + He was clumsy in his selection, and the box slipped from Carlotta’s hand + and the contents rolled upon the floor. They both went on hands and knees + to pick them up, and there was much laughing and whispering. + </p> + <p> + It is curious that I cannot recall Pasquale having alluded, in Carlotta’s + presence, to our early days. It was on my tongue to ask when he committed + the mendacity—for in that school not only did the assistant masters + not have the power of the cane, but Pasquale, being in the sixth form at + the time I joined, was exempt from corporal punishment—when they + both rose flushed from their grovelling beneath the table, and some merry + remark from Pasquale put the question out of my head. + </p> + <p> + All this is unimportant. The main result of Pasquale’s visit this evening + is a discovery. + </p> + <p> + Now, is it, after all, a discovery, or only the non-moral intellect’s + sinister attribution of motives? + </p> + <p> + “A baby in long clothes would have seen through it,” said Pasquale. “Lord + bless you, if I were in your position I would go on board that yacht, I’d + make violent love to every female there, like the gentleman in Mr. + Wycherley’s comedy, I’d fill a salmon fly-book with samples of their hair, + I’d make them hate one another like poison, and at the end of the voyage + I’d announce my engagement to Carlotta, and when they all came to the + wedding I’d make the fly-book the most conspicuous of wedding presents on + the table, from the bridegroom to the bride. By George! I’d cure them of + the taste for man-hunting!” + </p> + <p> + I wonder what impelled me to tell Pasquale of the proposed yachting + cruise? We sat smoking by the open window, long after Carlotta had been + sent to bed, and looking at a full moon sailing over the tops of the trees + in the park; enveloped in that sensuous atmosphere of a warm summer night + which induces a languor in the body and in the will. On such a night as + this young Lorenzo, if he happens to have Jessica by his side, makes a + confounded idiot of himself, to his life’s undoing; and on such a night as + this a reserved philosopher commits the folly of discussing his private + affairs with a Sebastian Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + But if he is correct in his surmise, I am much beholden to the relaxing + influences of the night. I have been warned of perils that encompass me: + perils that would infest the base and insidiously scale the sides of the + most inaccessible tower that man could build on the edge of the Regent’s + Park. A woman with a Matrimonial Purpose would be quite capable of gaining + access by balloon to my turret window. Is it not my Aunt Jessica’s design + melodramatically to abduct me in a yacht? + </p> + <p> + “Once aboard the pirate lugger, and the man is ours!” she cries. + </p> + <p> + But the man is not coming aboard the pirate lugger. He is going to keep as + far as he possibly can from the shore. Neither is he to be lured into + bringing his lovely Mohammedan ward with him, as an evidence of good faith + and unimpeachable morals. They can regard her as a Mohammedan ward or a + houri or a Princess of Babylon, just as they choose. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale must be right. A hundred remembered incidents go to prove it. I + recollect now that Judith has rallied me on my obtuseness. + </p> + <p> + The sole end of all my Aunt Jessica’s manoeuvring is to marry me to Dora, + and Dora, like Barkis, is willing. Marry Dora! The thought is a febrifuge, + a sudorific! She would be thumping discords on my wornout strings all day + long. In a month I should be a writhing madman. I would sooner, infinitely + sooner, marry Carlotta. Carlotta is nature; Dora isn’t even art. Why, in + the name of men and angels, should I marry Dora? And why (save to call + herself Lady Ordeyne) should she want to marry me? I have not trifled with + her virgin affections; and that she is nourishing a romantic passion for + me of spontaneous growth I decline to believe. For aught I care she can be + as inconsolable as Calypso. It will do her good. She can write a little + story about it in <i>The Sirens’ Magazine</i>. + </p> + <p> + I am shocked. For all her bouncing ways and animal health and incorrect + information, I thought Dora was a nice-minded girl. + </p> + <p> + Do nice-minded girls hunt husbands? + </p> + <p> + Good heavens! This looks like the subject of a silly-season correspondence + in <i>The Daily Telegraph</i>. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI + </h2> + <p> + July 19th. + </p> + <p> + <i>Campsie, N.B.</i> Hither have I fled from my buccaneering relations. I + am seeking shelter in a manse in the midst of a Scotch moor, and the + village, half a mile away, is itself five miles from a railway station. + Here I can defy Aunt Jessica. + </p> + <p> + After my conversation with Pasquale, I passed a restless night. My + slumbers were haunted by dreams of pirate yachts flying the jolly Roger, + on which the skull and crossbones melted grotesquely into a wedding-ring + and a true lovers’ knot. I awoke to the conviction that so long as the + vessel remained on English waters I could find no security in London. I + resolved on flight. But whither? + </p> + <p> + Verily the high gods must hold me in peculiar favour. The first letter I + opened was from old Simon McQuhatty, my present host, a godfather of my + mother, who alone of mortals befriended us in the dark days of long ago. + He was old and infirm, he wrote, and Gossip Death was waiting for him on + the moor; but before he went to join him he would like to see Susan’s boy + again. I could come whenever I liked. A telegram from Euston before I + started would be sufficient notice. I sent Stenson out with a telegram to + say I was starting that very day by the two o’clock train, and I wrote a + polite letter to my Aunt Jessica informing her of my regret at not being + able to accept her kind invitation as I was summoned to Scotland for an + indefinite period. + </p> + <p> + My old friend’s ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland is drawing to a + close; he has lived in this manse, a stone’s throw from his grave, for + fifty years, and the approaching change of habitat will cost him nothing. + He will still lie at the foot of his beloved hills, and the purple + moorland will spread around him for all eternity, and the smell of the + gorse and heather will fill his nostrils as he sleeps. He is a bit of a + pagan, old McQuhatty, in spite of Calvin and the Shorter Catechism. I + should not wonder if he were the original of the story of the minister who + prayed for the “puir Deil.” He planted a rowan tree by his porch when he + was first inducted into the manse, and it has grown up with him and he + loves it as if it were a human being. He has had many bonny arguments with + it, he says, on points of doctrine, and it has brought comfort to him in + times of doubt by shivering its delicate leaves and whispering, “Dinna + fash yoursel, McQuhatty. The Lord God is a sensible body.” He declares + that the words are articulate, and I suspect that in the depths of his + heart he believes that there are tongues in trees and books in the running + brooks, just as he is convinced that there is good in everything. + </p> + <p> + He is a ripe and whimsical scholar, and his talk, even in infirm old age, + is marked by a Doric virility which has rendered his companionship for + these five days as stimulating as the moorland air. How few men have this + gift of discharging intellectual invigoration. Indeed, I only know old + McQuhatty who has it, and a sportive Providence has carefully excluded + mankind from its benefits for half a century. Stay: it once fostered a + genius who arose in Campsie, and sent him strung with tonic to Edinburgh + to become a poet. But the poor lad drank whisky for two years without + cessation, so that he died, and McQuhatty’s inspiration was wasted. What + intellectual stimulus can he afford, for instance, to Sandy McGrath, an + elder of the kirk whom I saw coming up the brae on Sunday? An old ram + stood in the path and, as obstinate as he, refused to budge. And as they + looked dourly at each other, I wondered if the ram were dressed in black + broadcloth and McGrath in wool, whether either of their mothers would + notice the metamorphosis. Yet my host declares that I see with the eyes of + a Southron; that the Scotch peasant when he is not drunk is intellectual, + and that there is no occasion on which he is not ready for theological + disputation. + </p> + <p> + “But I dinna mind telling you,” he added, “that I’d as lief talk with my + rowan tree. It does nae blaze into a conflagration at a comfortable wee + bit of false doctrine.” + </p> + <p> + I should love to stay all the summer with my old friend, It seems that + only from such a remote solitude can one view things mundane in the right + perspective, and in their true proportion. One would see how important or + unimportant portent in the cosmos was the agricultural ant’s dream of + three millimetres and an aphis compared with the aspirations of the + English labourer. One would justly focus the South African millionaire, + Sandy McGrath and the ram, and bring them to their real lowest common + denominator. One would even be able to gauge the value of a History of + Renaissance Morals. The benefits I should derive from a long sojourn are + incalculable, but my new responsibilities call me back to London and its + refracting and distorting atmosphere. If I had dwelt here for fifty years + I should have perceived that Carlotta was but a speck in the whirlwind of + human dust whose ultimate destiny was immaterial. As my five days’ visit, + however, has not advanced me to that pitch of wisdom, I am foolishly + concerned in my mind as to her welfare, and anxious to dissolve the + triumvirate, Miss Griggs, Stenson, and Antoinette, whom I have entrusted + with the reins of government. + </p> + <p> + A month ago, in similar circumstances, I should have railed at Fate and + anathematised Carlotta from the tip of her pink toes to the gold and + bronze glory of her hair. But I am growing more kindly disposed towards + Carlotta, and taking a keen interest in her spiritual development. + </p> + <p> + An inner voice, an ironical, sardonic inner voice with which there is no + arguing, tells me that I am a hypocrite; that an interest in Carlotta’s + spiritual development is a nice, comforting, high-sounding phrase which + has deluded philosophic guardians of female youth for many generations. + </p> + <p> + “What does it matter to you whether she has a soul or not,” says the + voice, “provided she can babble pleasantly at dinner and play cribbage + with you afterwards?” + </p> + <p> + Well, what on earth does it matter? + </p> + <p> + July 21st. + </p> + <p> + She was at Euston to meet me. As soon as she saw my face at the carriage + window she left Stenson and flew up the platform like a pretty tame + animal, and when I alighted hung on my arms and frisked and gamboled + around me in excess of joy. + </p> + <p> + “So you are glad to have me back, Carlotta?” I asked, as we were driving + home. + </p> + <p> + She sidled up against me in her terrier fashion. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, ye-es,” she cooed. “The day was night without you.” + </p> + <p> + “That is the oriental language of exaggeration,” I said. But all the same + it was pleasant to hear, and the soft notes of her voice coiled + themselves, as music sometimes dus, around my heart. + </p> + <p> + “I love dear Seer Marcous,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I put my arm round her waist for a moment, as one would do to a child. + </p> + <p> + “You are a good little girl, Carlotta. That is to say,” I added, + remembering my responsibilities, “if you <i>have</i> been good. Have you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so good. Antoinette has been teaching me how to cook, and I can make + a rice pudding. It is so nice to cook things. I like the smell. But I + burned myself. See.” + </p> + <p> + She pulled off her glove and showed me a red mark on her hand. I kissed it + to make it well, and she laughed and was very happy. And I, too, was + happy. Something new and fresh and bright has come into my life. Stenson + is an admirable servant; but his impassive face and correct salute which + have hitherto greeted me at London railway termini, although suggestive of + material comfort, cannot be said to invest my arrival with a special + atmosphere of charm. Carlotta’s welcome has been a new sensation. I look + upon the house with different eyes. It was a pleasure, as I dressed for + dinner, to reflect that I should not go down to a solemn, solitary meal, + but would have my beautiful little witch to keep me company. + </p> + <p> + July 22d. + </p> + <p> + It appears that her conduct has not been by any means irreproachable. Miss + Griggs reported that she took advantage of my absence to saturate herself + with scent, one of the most heinous crimes in our domestic calendar. <i>Mulier + bene olet dum nihil olet</i> is the maxim written above this article of + our code. Once when she disobeyed my orders and came into the drawing-room + reeking of ylang-ylang, I sent her upstairs to change all her things and + have a bath, and not come near me till Antoinette vouched for her + scentlessness. And “Ah, monsieur,” I remember Antoinette replied, “that + would be impossible, for the sweet lamb smells of spring flowers, <i>de + son naturel</i>.” Which is true. Her use of violent perfumes is thus a + double offence. “There is something more serious,” said Miss Griggs. + </p> + <p> + “I can hardly believe there can be anything more serious than making one’s + self detestable to one’s fellow-creatures,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Unless it is making one’s self too agreeable,” said Miss Griggs, + pointedly. + </p> + <p> + I asked her what she meant. + </p> + <p> + “I have discovered,” she replied, “that Carlotta has been carrying on a + clandestine flirtation with the young man who calls for orders from the + grocer’s.” + </p> + <p> + “I am glad it wasn’t the butcher’s boy,” I murmured. + </p> + <p> + Miss Griggs giggled in a silly way, as if I were jesting. At my stern + request she recovered and unfolded the horrible tale. She had caught + Carlotta kissing her hand to him. She had also seen him smuggle a + three-cornered note between Carlotta’s fingers, and Carlotta had + definitely refused to surrender the billet-dour. + </p> + <p> + “What is the modern course of treatment,” I asked, “prescribed for young + ladies who flirt with grocers’ assistants? In Renaissance times she could + be whipped. The wise Margaret of Navarre used to beat her daughter, Jeanne + d’Albrecht, soundly for far less culpable lapses from duty. Or she could + be sent to a convent and put into a cell with rats, or she could be bidden + to attend at a merry-making where the chief attraction was roast grocer’s + assistant. But nowadays—what do you suggest?” + </p> + <p> + The unimaginative creature could suggest nothing. She thought that I would + know how to deal with the offence. Perhaps preventive measures would be + more efficacious than punishment. But what do I know of the repressory + methods employed in seminaries for young ladies? Burton in his “Anatomy” + speaks cheerfully of blood-letting behind the ears. He also quotes, I + remember, Hippocrates or somebody, who narrates that a noble maiden was + cured of a flirtatious temperament by wearing down her back for three + weeks a leaden plate pierced with holes. This I told Miss Griggs, who + spoke contemptuously of the Father of Medicine. + </p> + <p> + “He also recommends—whether for this complaint, or for something + similar I forget for the moment—” said I, “anointing the soles of + the feet with the fat of a dormouse, the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog; + and speaks highly of a ram’s lungs applied hot to the fore part of the + head. I am sorry these admirable remedies are out of date. There is a rich + Rabelaisianism about them. Instead of the satisfying jorums of our + forefathers we take tasteless pellets, which procure us no sensation at + the time, and even the good old hot mustard poultice is a thing of the + past.” + </p> + <p> + “But what about Carlotta?” inquired Miss Griggs, anxiously. + </p> + <p> + That is just like a woman, to interrupt a man when he is beginning to talk + comfortably on a subject that interests him. I sighed. + </p> + <p> + “Send Carlotta up to me,” I said, resignedly. + </p> + <p> + Another morning’s work spoiled. I turned to my writing-table. I had just + transcribed on my MS. the anecdote told with such glee by Machiavelli + about Zanobi del Pino, a sort of Admiral Byng of the early fifteenth + century, who was locked up and given nothing to eat but paper painted with + snakes, so that he died, fasting, in a few days. I had an apt epigram on + the subject of Renaissance humour trembling on my pen-point, when Miss + Griggs came in with her foolish gossip. I am sure the platitude I wrote + afterwards is not that original flash of wit. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta entered and crossed the room to the side of my writing-chair, her + great dark eyes fixed on me, and her hands dutifully behind her back. She + looked a Greuze picture of innocence. I believed less than ever in the + enormity of the offence. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know what you’re here for?” I asked, magisterially. + </p> + <p> + She nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Then you <i>have</i> been making love to the young man from the + grocer’s?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded again. I began to conceive a violent dislike to the grocer’s + young man. It was one of the most humiliating sensations I have + experienced. I think I have seen the individual—a thick-set, + red-headed, freckled nondescript. + </p> + <p> + “What did you do it for?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “He wanted to make love to me,” replied Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “He is a young scamp,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What is a scamp?” she asked sweetly. + </p> + <p> + “I am not giving you a lesson in philology,” I remarked. “Do you know that + you have been behaving in a shocking manner?” + </p> + <p> + “Now you are cross with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I said, “infernally angry.” + </p> + <p> + And I was. I expected to see her burst into tears. She did nothing of the + kind; only looked at me with irritating demureness. She wore a red blouse + and a grey skirt, and the audacious high-heeled red slippers. I began to + feel the return of my early prejudice against her. Nobody so alluring + could possess a spark of virtue. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said I. “I make many allowances for + your lack of knowledge of our Western customs, but for a young lady to + flirt with an ugly red-headed varlet of the lower orders is reprehensible + all the world over.” + </p> + <p> + “He gave me dates and dried fruits with sugar all over them,” said + Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Stolen from his employer,” I said. “I will have that young man locked up + in prison, and if you go on receiving his feloniously obtained presents + they will put you in prison too, and I shall be delighted.” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta maintained her demure expression and extracted from her skirt + pocket a very dirty piece of paper. + </p> + <p> + “He writes poetry—about me,” she remarked, handing me what I + recognised as the three-cornered note. + </p> + <p> + I took the thing between finger and thumb, and glanced over the poem. I + have read much indifferent modern verse in my time—I sometimes take + a slush-bath after tea at the club—but I could not have imagined the + English language capable of such emulsion. It was execrable. The first + couplet alone contained an idea. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Thou art a lovely girl and so very nice + I dream till death upon your face.” + </pre> + <p> + To the wretch’s ear it was a rhyme! I destroyed the noisome thing and cast + it into the waste-paper basket. + </p> + <p> + “Prison,” said I, “would be a luxurious reward for him. In a properly + civilised country he would be bastinadoed and hanged.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he is dam bad,” said Carlotta, serenely. + </p> + <p> + “Good heavens!” I cried, “the ruffian has even taught you to swear. If you + dare to say that wicked word again, I’ll punish you severely. What is his + horrid name?” + </p> + <p> + “Pasquale,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Pasquale?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he likes to hear me say ‘dam.’ Oh, the other? Oh, no, he is too + stupid. He does not say anything. His name is Timkins. I only play with + him. He is so funny. He can go and kill himself; I won’t care.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind about Timkins,” said I, “I want to hear about Pasquale. When + did he teach you that wicked, wicked word?” + </p> + <p> + I think Carlotta flushed as she regarded the point of her red slipper. + </p> + <p> + “I went for a walk and he met me at the corner and walked here by my side. + Was that wicked?” + </p> + <p> + “What would the excellent Hamdi Effendi have said to it?” + </p> + <p> + Woman-like she evaded my question. + </p> + <p> + “I hope Hamdi is dead. Do you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “I hope not. For if you behave in this naughty manner, I shall have to + send you back to him.” + </p> + <p> + She had imperceptibly moved nearer my chair until she stood quite close to + my side, so that as I spoke the last words I looked up into her face. She + put her arm about my shoulders. It is one of her pretty, caressing ways. + </p> + <p> + “I will be good—very good,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “You will have to,” said I, leaning back my head. + </p> + <p> + She must have caught a relenting note in my voice; for what happened I + feel even now a curious shame in noting down. Her other arm flew under my + chin to join its fellow, and holding me a prisoner in my chair, she bent + down and kissed me. She also laid her cheek against mine. + </p> + <p> + I am still aware of the indescribable, soft, warm pressure, although she + has gone to bed hours ago. + </p> + <p> + I vow that a man must be less a man than a petrified egg to have repulsed + her. The touch of her lips was like the falling of dewy rose-petals. Her + breath was as fragrant as new-mown hay. Her hair brushing my forehead had + the odour of violets. + </p> + <p> + I sent her back to Miss Griggs. She ran out of the room laughing merrily. + She has received plenary absolution for her shameless coquetry and her + profane language. Worse than that she has discovered how to obtain it in + future. The witch has found her witchcraft, and having once triumphantly + exerted her powers, will take the earliest opportunity of doing so again. + I am fallen, both in my own eyes and hers, from my high estate. + Henceforward she will regard me only with good-humoured tolerance; I shall + be to her but a non-felonious Timkins. + </p> + <p> + I was an idiot to have kissed her in return. + </p> + <p> + I have not seen her since. I lunched at the club, and paid a formal call + on Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne and my cousin Rosalie, in their sunless house in + Kensington. + </p> + <p> + I met a singular lack of welcome. Rosalie gave me a limper hand than + usual, and took an early opportunity of leaving me tete-a-tete with her + mother, who conversed frigidly about the warm weather. The very tea, if + possible, was colder. + </p> + <p> + I met Judith by appointment in Kensington Gardens, and walked with her + homewards. I mentioned my chilly reception. + </p> + <p> + “My dear man,” she observed—I dislike this apostrophe, which Judith + always uses by way of introduction to an unpleasant remark—“My dear + man, I have no doubt that you have as unsavoury a reputation as any one in + London. You are credited with an establishment like Solomon’s—minus + the respectable counter-balance of the wives, and your devout relatives + are very properly shocked.” + </p> + <p> + I said that it was monstrous. Judith retorted that I had brought the + calumny upon myself. + </p> + <p> + “But what can I do?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Board her out with a suburban family, as you should have done from the + first. Even I, who am not strait-laced, consider it highly improper for + you to have her alone with you in the house.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” said I, “there is Antoinette.” + </p> + <p> + “Tush”—or something like it—said Judith. + </p> + <p> + “And Stenson. No one seeing Stenson could doubt the irreproachable + propriety of his master.” + </p> + <p> + “I really have no patience with you,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + It is hopeless to discuss Carlotta with her. I shall do it no more. + </p> + <p> + We sat for a while under the trees, and conversed on rational topics. She + likes her employment with Willoughby. The morning she spends among blue + books and other waste matter at the British Museum, and she devotes the + evening to sorting her information. Willoughby commends her highly. + </p> + <p> + “And there is something I know you’ll be very pleased to hear,” she + continued. “Who do you think called on me yesterday? Mrs. Willoughby. Her + husband wants me to spend August and September at a place they have taken + in North Wales, and help him with his new book—as a private + secretary, you know. I said that I never went into society. I must tell + you this was the first time I had seen her. She put her hand on my arm in + the sweetest way in the world and said: ‘I know all about it, my dear, and + that is why I thought I’d come myself as Harold’s ambassador.’ Wasn’t it + beautiful of her?” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me and her eyes were filled with tears. + </p> + <p> + “Marcus dear, I am not a bad woman, am I?” + </p> + <p> + “My dearest,” I answered, very deeply touched, “you are the best woman in + the world. So far from conferring a favour on you, Mrs. Willoughby has + gained for herself the inestimable privilege of your friendship.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Judith, “a man cannot tell what it means.” + </p> + <p> + Really men are not such dullard dunderheads as women are pleased to + imagine. I have the most crystalline perception of what Mrs. Willoughby’s + invitation means to Judith. Women appear to find a morbid satisfaction in + the fiction that their sex is actuated by a mysterious nexus of emotions + and motives which the grosser sense of man is powerless to appreciate. In + her heart of hearts it is a prodigious comfort to a woman to feel herself + misunderstood. Even she who is most perfectly mated, and is intellectually + convinced that the difference of sex is no barrier to his complete + knowledge of her, loves to cherish some little secret bit of her nature, + to which <i>he</i>, on account of his masculinity, will be eternally + blind. Of course there are dull men who could not understand a tabbycat or + a professional cricketer, let alone an expert autothaumaturgist—a + self-mystery-maker—like a woman. But an intelligent and painstaking + man should find no difficulty in appreciating what, after all, is merely a + point of view; for what women see from that point of view they are as + indiscreet in revealing as a two-year-old babe. I have confessed before + that I do not understand Judith—that is to say the whole welter of + contradictions in which her ego consists—but that is solely because + I have not taken the trouble to subject her to special microscopic study. + Such a scientific analysis would, I think, be an immodest discourtesy + towards any lady of my acquaintance, especially towards one for whom I + bear considerable affection. It would be as unwarrantable for a + decent-minded man to speculate upon her exact spiritual dimensions as upon + those portions of her physical frame that are hidden beneath her attire. + The charm of human intercourse rests, to a great extent, on the vague, the + deliberately unperceived, the stimulating sense that an individual + possesses more attributes than flash upon the bodily or mental eye. But + this, I say, is deliberate. One knows perfectly well that beneath her + skirts any young woman you please does not melt away into the scaly tail + of a mermaid, but has a pair of ordinary commonplace legs. One knows that + when she has passed through certain well defined experiences in life, a + certain definite range of sentiments must exist behind whatever mask of + facial expression she may choose to adopt. It is sheer nonsense, + therefore, for Judith to say that I cannot enter into her feelings with + regard to Mrs. Willoughby’s invitation. + </p> + <p> + I developed this theme very fully to Judith as we sat in Kensington + Gardens and during our subsequent, stroll diagonally through Hyde Park to + the Marble Arch. She listened with great attention, and when I had + finished regarded me in a pitying manner, a smile flickering over her + lips. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Marcus,” she said, “there is no man, however humble-minded, who + has not one colossal vanity, his knowledge of women. He, at any rate, has + established the veritable Theory of Women. And we laugh at you, my good + friend, for the more you expound, the more do you reveal your beautiful + and artistic ignorance. Oh, Marcus, the idea of you setting up as a + feminine psychologist.” + </p> + <p> + “And pray, why not?” I asked, somewhat nettled. + </p> + <p> + “Because you are that dear, impossible, lovable thing known as Marcus + Ordeyne.” + </p> + <p> + This was exceedingly pretty of Judith. But really woman is the Eternal + Philistine, as Matthew Arnold has defined the term. Her supreme + characteristic is inconvincibility. I had simply wasted my breath. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII + </h2> + <p> + August 3d. + </p> + <p> + <i>Etretat, Seine-Injerieure</i>:—A young fellow on the Casino + terrace this evening caught my eye, looked at me queerly, and passed on. + His face, though unfamiliar, stirred some dormant association. What was + it? The profitless question pestered me for hours. At last, during the + performance at the theatre, I slapped my knee and said aloud, + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got it!” + </p> + <p> + “What?” asked Carlotta in alarm. + </p> + <p> + “A fly,” I answered. Whereat Carlotta laughed, and bent forward to get a + view of the victim. I austerely directed her attention to the stage. It + was a metaphorical fly whose buzzing I had stopped. + </p> + <p> + The young fellow was he who had pointed me out in Hyde Park to his + companion, and lightly assured her that I was as mad as a dingo dog. From + the moment after the phrase’s utterance to that of the slapping of my + knee, it had been altogether absent from my mind. Now it haunts me. It + reiterates itself after the manner of a glib phrase. I am glad I am not in + a railway carriage; the cranks would amuse the wheels with it all night + long. As it is, the surf tries to thunder it out on the shingle just a few + yards away from my window. I keep asking myself: why a dingo dog? If I am + mad it is in a gentle, Jaquesian, melancholy manner. I do not dash at + life, rabid and foaming at the mouth. + </p> + <p> + I think the idiot simile must have been merely the misuse of language so + common among the half-educated youth of Great Britain. + </p> + <p> + Yet when I come to consider my present condition, I have doubts as to my + complete sanity. Here am I, in a little, semi-fashionable French seaside + place, away from my books and my comforts and my habits, as much + interested in its vapid distractions as if the universe held no other + pursuits worth the attention of a rational man. And I have been here a + calendar month. + </p> + <p> + To please Carlotta I wear white duck trousers, a pink shirt, and a + yachting-cap. I wired for them to my London tailor and they arrived within + a week. The first time I appeared in the maniacal costume I slunk from the + stony stare of a gendarme, as I was about to ascend the Casino steps, and + hid myself among the fishing-boats lower down on the beach. Carlotta, + however, was delighted and said that I looked pretty. Now I have grown + callous, seeing other fools similarly apparelled. But a year ago, should I + have dreamed it possible for me to strut about a fashionable <i>plage</i> + in white ducks, a pink shirt, and a yachting-cap? I trow not. They are + signs of some sort of madness—whether that of a Jaques or a dingo + dog matters very little. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale was the main cause of my taking Carlotta away from London. He + came far too frequently to the house, established far too great a + familiarity with my little girl. She quoted him far too readily. She is at + the impressionable age when young women fall easy victims to the + allurements of a fascinating creature like Pasquale. If he showed himself + in the light of a possible husband for Carlotta, I should have nothing to + say. I should give the pair my paternal benediction. But I know my + Renaissance and I know my Pasquale. Carlotta is merely a new sensation—that’s + all he seems to live for, the delectable scoundrel. But I am not going to + have her heart broken by any cinquecento wolf in Poole’s clothing. I + assume that Carlotta has a heart, even if she is not possessed of a soul. + As to the latter I am still in doubt. At all events I resolved to withdraw + Carlotta from his influence, put her in fresh surroundings, and allow her + to mix more freely among men and women, so as to divert and possibly + improve her mind. + </p> + <p> + I perceive that Carlotta is becoming an occupation. Well, she is quite as + profitable as collecting postage-stamps, or golf, or amateur photography. + </p> + <p> + I have spent a pleasant month in this little place. It is the mouth of a + gorge in the midst of a cliff-bound coast. The bay, but a quarter of a + mile in sweep, is shut in at each end by a projecting wall of cliff cut by + a natural arch. Half the shingle beach is given up to fisherfolk and their + boats and tarred Noah’s arks where they keep their nets. The other half + suddenly rises into a digue or terrace on which is built a primitive + casino, and below the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are staying at + the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There are no carpets + on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, an untiring + chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and scrubbing-brush + and smilingly removes the traces of one’s passage. Carlotta and Antoinette + have adjoining rooms in the main building. I inhabit the annexe, sleeping + in a quaint, clean, bare little chamber with a balconied window that looks + over the Noah’s Arks and the fishing-smacks and fisherfolk, away out to + sea. This morning as I lay in bed I saw our Channel fleet lie along the + arc of the horizon. + </p> + <p> + Antoinette dwells in continuous rapture at being in France again. Carlotta + assures me that the smile does not leave her great red face even as she + sleeps of nights. It is a little jest between us. She peeped in once to + see. The good soul has filled herself up with French conversation as a + starving hen gorges herself with corn. She has scraped acquaintance with + every washerwoman, fish-wife, <i>marchande</i>, bathing woman and domestic + servant on the beach. She is on intimate terms with the whole male native + population. When the three of us happen to walk together it is a triumphal + progress of bows and grins and nods. At first I thought it was I for whom + this homage was intended. I was soon undeceived. It was Antoinette. She + loves to parade Carlotta before her friends. I came upon her once + entertaining an admiring audience in Carlotta’s presence with a detailed + description of that young woman’s physical perfections—a description + which was marked by a singular lack of reticence. The time of her glory is + the bathing hour, when she accompanies Carlotta from her cabin to the + water’s edge, divests her of <i>peignoir</i> and <i>espadrilles</i>, but + before revealing her to fashionable Etretat, casts a preliminary glance + around, as who should say: “Prepare all men and women for the dazzling + goddess I am about to unveil.” Carlotta is undoubtedly bewitching in her + bathing costume, and enjoys a little triumph of beauty. People fall into a + natural group in order to look at her, while I, sitting on a camp-stool in + my white ducks and pink shirt and smoking a cigarette, cannot repress a + complacent pride of ownership. I do not object to her flicking her wet + fingers at me when she comes dripping out of the sea; and I do not even + reproach her when she puts her foot upon my sartorially immaculate knee, + to show me a pebble-cut on her glistening pink sole. + </p> + <p> + Her conduct has been exemplary. I have allowed her to make the + acquaintance of two or three young fellows, her partners at the Casino + dances, and she walks up and down the terrace with them before meals. I + have forbidden her, under penalty of immediate return to London and of my + eternal displeasure, to mention the harem at Alexandretta. Young fellows + are gifted with a genius for misapprehension. She is an ordinary young + English lady, an orphan (which is true), and I am her guardian. Of course + she looks at them with imploring eyes, and pulls them by the sleeve, and + handles the lappels of their coats, and admits them to terms of the + frankest intimacy; but I can no more change these characteristics than I + can alter the shape of her body. She is the born coquette. Her delighted + conception of herself is that she is the object of every man’s admiration. + I noticed her this morning playing a tune with her fingers on the old + bathing-man’s arm, as he was preparing to take her into the water, and I + saw his mahogany face soften. In her indescribable childish way she would + coquet with a tax-collector or a rag-and-bone man or the Archbishop of + Canterbury. But she has committed no grave indiscretion, and I am + sufficiently her lord and master to exact obedience. + </p> + <p> + I pretend, however, to be at her beck and call, and it is a delight to + minister to her radiant happiness—to feel her lean on my arm and + hear her cooing voice say: + </p> + <p> + “You are so good. I should like to kiss you.” + </p> + <p> + But I do not allow her to kiss me. Never again. + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous, let us go to the little horses.” + </p> + <p> + She has a consuming passion for <i>petits chevaux</i>. I speak sagely of + the evils of gambling. She laughs. I weakly take lower ground. + </p> + <p> + “What is the good? You have no money.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h! But only two francs,” she says, holding out her hand. + </p> + <p> + “Not one. Yesterday you lost.” + </p> + <p> + “But to-day I shall win. I want to give you something I saw in a shop. Oh, + a beautiful thing.” Then I feel a hand steal into the pocket of my dinner + jacket where I carry loose silver for this very purpose, just as a lover + of horses carries lumps of sugar for the nose of a favourite pony, and + immediately it is withdrawn with a cry of joy and triumph, and she skips + back out of my reach. Then she takes my arm and leads me from the sweet + night-air into the hot little room with its crowd around the nine gyrating + animals. + </p> + <p> + “I shall put it on 5. I always put on 5. He is a nice, clean, white, + pretty horse.” + </p> + <p> + She stakes two francs, watches the turn in a tense agony of excitement; + she wins, comes running to me with sixteen francs clutched tight in her + hand. + </p> + <p> + “See. I said I should win.” + </p> + <p> + “Come away then and be happy.” + </p> + <p> + But she makes a protesting grimace, and before I can stop her, runs back + to stake again on 5. In twenty minutes she is ruined and returns to me + wearing an expression of abject misery. She is too desolate even to try + the fortune of the dinner-jacket pocket. I take her outside and restore + her to beatitude with grenadine syrup and soda-water. She rejects the + straws. With her elbows on the marble table, the glass held in both hands, + she drinks sensuously, in little sips. + </p> + <p> + And I, Marcus Ordeyne, sit by watching her, a most contented philosopher + of forty. A dingo dog could not be so contented. That young fellow, I + unhesitatingly assert, must be the most brainless of his type. I suffer + fools gladly, as a general rule, but if I see much of this one I shall do + him some injury. + </p> + <p> + After dejeuner we strolled to the top of the west cliff and lay on the + thick dry grass. The earth has never known a more perfect afternoon. A day + of turquoise and diamond. + </p> + <p> + The air itself was diaphanous blue. Below us the tiny place slumbered in + the sunshine; scarcely a sign of life save specks of washer-women on the + beach bending over white patches which we knew were linen spread out to + dry. The ebb-tide lapped lazily on the shingle, where the sea changed + suddenly from ultramarine to a fringe of feathery white. A white sail or + two flecked the blue of the bay. A few white wisps of cirrus gleamed above + our heads. Around us, on the cliff-tops, the green pastures and meadows + and, farther inland, the cornfields stacked in harvest, and great masses + of trees. Lying on our backs, between sea and sky, we seemed utterly + alone. Carlotta and I were the sole inhabitants of the earth. I dreamily + disintegrated caramels from their sticky tissue-paper wrappings for + Carlotta’s consumption. + </p> + <p> + After a while unconquerable drowsiness crept over me; and a little later I + had an odd sense of perfect quietude. I was lying amid moss and violets. + In a languorous way I wondered how my surroundings had changed, and at + last I awoke to find my head propped on Carlotta’s lap and shaded by her + red parasol, while she sat happy in full sunshine. I was springing from + this posture of impropriety when she laughed and laid restraining hands on + my shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “No. You must not move. You look so pretty. And it is so nice. I put your + head there so that it should be soft. You have been sound asleep.” + </p> + <p> + “I have also been abominably impolite,” said I. “I humbly beg your pardon, + Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I am not cross,” she laughed. Then still keeping her hands on me, she + settled her limbs into a more comfortable position. + </p> + <p> + “There! Now I can play at being a good little Turkish wife.” She fashioned + into a fan the <i>Matin</i> newspaper, which I had bought for the + luxurious purpose of not reading, and fanned me. “That is what Ayesha used + to do to Hamdi. And Ayesha used to tell him stories. But my lord does not + like his slave’s stories.” + </p> + <p> + “Decidedly not,” said I. + </p> + <p> + I have heard much of Ayesha, a pretty animal organism who appears to have + turned her elderly husband into a doting fool. I am beginning to have a + contempt for Hamdi Effendi. + </p> + <p> + “They are what you call improper, eh?” she laughed, referring to the + tales. “I will sing you a Turkish song which you will not understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it a suitable song?” + </p> + <p> + “Kim bilir—who knows?” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + She began a melancholy, crooning, guttural ditty; but broke off suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! but it is stupid. Like the Turkish dancing. Oh, everything in + Alexandretta was stupid! Sometimes I think I have never seen Alexandretta—or + Ayesha—or Hamdi. I think I always am with you.” + </p> + <p> + This must be so, as of late she has spoken little of her harem life; she + talks chiefly of the small daily happenings, and already we have a store + of common interests. The present is her whole existence; the past but a + confused dream. The odd part of the matter is that she regards her + position with me as a perfectly natural one. No stray kitten adopted by a + kind family could have less sense of obligation, or a greater faith in the + serene ordering of the cosmos for its own private and peculiar comfort. + When I asked her a while ago what she would have done had I left her on + the bench in the Embankment Gardens, she shrugged her shoulders and + answered, as she had done before, that either she would have died or some + other nice gentleman would have taken care of her. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think nice gentlemen go about London looking for homeless little + girls?” I asked on that occasion. + </p> + <p> + “All gentlemen like beautiful girls,” she replied, which brought us to an + old argument. + </p> + <p> + This afternoon, however, we did not argue. The day forbade it. I lay with + my head on Carlotta’s lap, looking up into the deep blue, and feeling a + most curious sensation of positive happiness. My attitude towards life has + hitherto been negative. I have avoided more than I have sought. I have not + drunk deep of life because I have been unathirst. To me— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “To stand aloof and view the fight + Is all the pleasure of the game.” + </pre> + <p> + My interest even in Judith has been of a detached nature. I have been like + Faust. I might have said: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>“Werd’ ich zum Augenblicke sagen + Werweile doch! Du bist so schon!</i> +</pre> + <p> + Then may the devil take me and do what he likes with me!” + </p> + <p> + I have never had the least inclination to apostrophise the moment in this + fashion and request it to tarry on account of its exceeding charm. Never + until this afternoon, when the deep summer enchantment of the turquoise + day was itself ensorcelised by the witchery of a girl’s springtide. + </p> + <p> + “You have three, four, five—oh, such a lot of grey hairs,” said + Carlotta, looking down on my reclining head. + </p> + <p> + “Many people have grey hair at twenty,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “But I have none.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not yet twenty, Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I will have them then? Oh, it would be dreadful. No one + would care to have me.” + </p> + <p> + “And I? Am I thus the object of every one’s disregard?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you—you are a man. It is right for a man. It makes him look + wise. His wife says, ‘Behold, my husband has grey hair. He has wisdom. If + I am not good he will beat me. So I must obey him.”’ + </p> + <p> + “She wouldn’t run off with a good-for-nothing scamp of two-and-twenty?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no-o,” said Carlotta. “She would not be so wicked.” + </p> + <p> + “I am glad,” said I, “that you think a sense of conjugal duty is an + ineradicable element of female nature. But suppose she fell in love with + the young scamp?” + </p> + <p> + “Men fall in love,” she replied sagely. “Women only fall in love in + stories—Turkish stories. They love their husbands.” + </p> + <p> + “You amaze me,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Ye-es,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “But in England, a man wants a woman to love him before he marries her.” + </p> + <p> + “How can she?” asked Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + This was a staggering question. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said I, “but she dus.” + </p> + <p> + “Then before I marry a man in England I must love him? But I shall die + without a husband!” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think so,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I must begin soon,” said Carlotta, with a laugh. + </p> + <p> + A sinuous motion of her serpentine young body enabled her to bend her face + down to mine. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I love Seer Marcous? But how shall I know when I am in love?” + </p> + <p> + “When you appreciate the exceeding impropriety of discussing the matter + with your humble servant,” I replied. + </p> + <p> + “When a girl is in love she does not speak about it?” + </p> + <p> + “No, my dear. She lets concealment like a worm i’ the bud feed on her + damask cheek.” + </p> + <p> + “Then she gets ugly?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s it,” I answered. “You keep on looking in the glass, and when you + perceive you are hideous then you’ll know you are in love.” + </p> + <p> + “But when I am so ugly you will not want me,” she objected. “So it is no + use falling in love with you.” + </p> + <p> + “You have a more logical mind than I imagined,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What is a logical mind?” asked Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unreason whereby true + happiness is vivified.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not understand,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I should be vastly surprised if you did,” I laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Would you like me to marry and go away and leave you?” asked Carlotta, + after a long pause. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” I said with a sigh, “that some tin-pot knight will drive up + one of these days to the castle in a hansom-cab and carry off my + princess.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you’ll be sorry?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” I answered, “do not let us discuss such gruesome things on an + afternoon like this.” + </p> + <p> + “You would like better for me to go on playing at being your Turkish + wife?” + </p> + <p> + “Infinitely,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Alas! The day is sped. I have asked the fleeting moment to tarry, and it + laughed, and shook its gossamer wings at me, and flew by on its mad race + into eternity. + </p> + <p> + As we lay, a cicada set up its shrilling quite close to us. I slipped my + head from Carlotta’s lap and idly parted the rank grass in search of the + noisy intruder, and by good luck I found him. I beckoned Carlotta, who + glided down, and there, with our heads together and holding our breath, we + watched the queerest little love drama imaginable. Our cicada stood alert + and spruce, waving his antenna with a sort of cavalier swagger, and every + now and then making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the top of a + blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet—a most reserved, discreet + little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo’s serenade. When he + sang she put her head to one side and moved as if uncertain whether to + descend from her balcony. When he stopped, which he did at frequent + intervals, being as it were timorous and tongue-tied, she took her foot + from the ladder and waited, at first patiently and then with an obvious + air of boredom. Messer Romeo made a hop forward and vibrated; Juliet grew + tremulous. Alarmed at his boldness he halted and made a hop back; Juliet + looked disappointed. At last another cicada set up a louder note some + yards away and, without a nod or a sign, Juliet skipped off into space, + leaving the most disconsolate little Romeo of a grasshopper you ever + beheld. He gave vent to a dismal failure of a vibration and hopped to the + foot of the faithless lady’s bower. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta broke into a merry laugh and clapped her hands. + </p> + <p> + “I am so glad.” + </p> + <p> + “She is the most graceless hussy imaginable,” I cried. “There was he + grinding his heart out for her, and just because a more brazen-throated + scoundrel came upon the scene she must needs leave our poor friend in the + lurch. She has no more heart than my boot, and she will come to a bad + end.” + </p> + <p> + “But he was such a fool,” retorted my sage damsel, with a flash of + laughter in her dark eyes. “If he wanted her, why didn’t he go up and take + her?” + </p> + <p> + “Because he is a gentleman, a cicada of fine and delicate feeling.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Hou!</i>” laughed Carlotta. “He was a fool. It served him right. She + grew tired of waiting.” + </p> + <p> + “You believe, then,” said I, “in marriage by capture?” + </p> + <p> + I explained and discoursed to her of the matrimonial habits of the Tartar + tribes. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Carlotta. “That is sense. And it must be such fun for the + girl. All that, what you call it?—wooing?—is waste of time. I + like things to happen, quick, quick, one after the other—or else—” + </p> + <p> + “Or else what?” + </p> + <p> + “To do nothing, nothing but lie in the sun, like this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I dreamily, after I had again thrown myself by her side. “Like + this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + I sit at my window and look out upon the strip of beach, the hauled-up + fishing boats and the nets hung out to dry looming vague in the starlight, + and I hear the surf’s rhythmical moan a few yards beyond; and it beats + into my ears the idiot phrase that has recurred all the evening. + </p> + <p> + But why should I be mad? For filling my soul with God’s utmost glory of + earth and sea and sky? For filling my heart with purest pleasure in the + intimate companionship of fresh and fragrant maidenhood? For giving myself + up for once to a dream of sense clouded by never a thought that was not + serenely fair? + </p> + <p> + For feeling young again? + </p> + <p> + I shall read myself to sleep with <i>La Dame de Monsoreau</i>, which I + have procured from the circulating library in the Rue Alphonse Karr—(the + literary horticulturist is the genius loci and the godfather of my + landlady)—and I will empty flagons with Pere Gorenflot and ride on + errands of life and death with Chicot, prince of jesters, and walk + lovingly between the valiant Bussy and Henri Quatre. By this, if by + nothing else, I recognise the beneficence of the high gods—they have + given us tired men Dumas. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII + </h2> + <p> + September 30th. + </p> + <p> + Something is wrong with Antoinette. The dinner she served up this evening + was all but uneatable. Something is wrong with Stenson, who has taken to + playing his lugubrious hymn-tunes on the concertina while I am in the + house; I won’t have it. Something is wrong with the cat. He wanders round + the house like a lost soul, sniffing at everything. This evening he + actually jumped onto the dinner-table, looked at me out of his one eye, in + which all the desolation of two was concentrated, and miaowed + heart-rendingly in my face. Something is wrong with the house, with my + pens which will not write, with my books which have the air of dry bones + in a charnel-house, with the MS. of my History of Renaissance Morals, + which stands on the writing-table like a dusty monument to the futility of + human endeavour. Something is wrong with me. + </p> + <p> + Something, too, is wrong with Judith, who has just returned from her stay + with the Willoughbys. I have been to see her this evening and found her of + uncertain temper, and inclined to be contradictious. She accused me of + being dull. I answered that the autumn world outside was drenched with + miserable rain. How could man be sprightly under such conditions? + </p> + <p> + “In this room,” said Judith, “with its bright fire and drawn curtains + there is no miserable rain, and no autumn save in our hearts.” + </p> + <p> + “Why in our hearts?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “How you peg one down to precision,” said Judith, testily. “I wish I were + a Roman Catholic.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “I could go into a convent.” + </p> + <p> + “You had much better go to Delphine Carrere,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I have only been back a day, and you want to get rid of me already?” she + cried, using her woman’s swift logic of unreason. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to be happy and contented, my dear Judith.” + </p> + <p> + “H’m,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Her slipper dangling as usual from the tip of her foot fell to the ground. + I declare I was only half conscious of the accident as my mind was deep in + other things. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t even pick up my slipper,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Ten thousand pardons,” I exclaimed, springing forward. But she had + anticipated my intention. We remained staring into the fire and saying + nothing. As she professed to be tired I went away early. + </p> + <p> + At the front door of the mansions, finding I had left my umbrella behind, + I remounted the stairs, and rang Judith’s bell. After a while I saw her + figure through the ground-glass panel approach the door, but before she + opened it, she turned out the light in the passage. + </p> + <p> + “Marcus!” she cried, rather excitedly; and in the dimness of the threshold + her eyes looked strangely accusative of tears. “You have come back!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I, “for my umbrella.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me for a moment, laughed, clapped her hands to her throat, + turned away sharply, caught up my umbrella, and putting it into my hands + and thrusting me back shut the door in my face. In great astonishment I + went downstairs again. What is wrong with Judith? She said this evening + that all men are cruel. Now, I am a man. Therefore I am cruel. A perfect + syllogism. But how have I been cruel? + </p> + <p> + I walked home. There is nothing so consoling to the depressed man as the + unmitigated misery of a walk through the London rain. One is not mocked by + any factitious gaiety. The mind is in harmony with the sodden universe. It + is well to have everything in the world wrong at one and the same time. + </p> + <p> + I have changed my drenched garments for dressing-gown and slippers. I find + on my writing-table a letter addressed in a round childish hand. It is + from Carlotta, who for the last fortnight has been staying in Cornwall + with the McMurrays. I have known few fortnights so long. In a ridiculous + schoolboy way I have been counting the days to her return—the day + after to-morrow. + </p> + <p> + The letter begins: “Seer Marcous dear.” The spelling is a little jest + between us. The inversion is a quaint invention of her own. “Mrs. McMurray + says, can you spare me for one more week? She wants to teach me manners. + She says I have shocked the top priest here—oh, you call him a + vikker—now I do remember—because I went out for a walk with a + little young pretty priest without a hat, and because it rained I put on + his hat and the vikker met us. But I did not flirt with the little priest. + Oh, no! I told him he must not make love to me like the young man from the + grocer’s. And I told him that if he wrote poetry you would beat him. So I + have been very good. And darling Seer Marcous, I want to come back very + much, but Mrs. McMurray says I must stay, and she is going to have a baby + and I am very happy and good, and Mr. McMurray says funny things and makes + me laugh. But I love my darling Seer Marcous best. Give Antoinette and + Polifemus (the one-eyed cat) two very nice kisses for me. And here is one + for Seer Marcous from his + </p> + <p> + “CARLOTTA.” + </p> + <p> + How can I refuse? But I wish she were here. + </p> + <p> + 31st October. + </p> + <p> + I did not sleep last night. I have done no work to-day. The Renaissance + has receded into a Glacial Epoch wherein, as far as its humanity is + concerned, I have not a tittle of interest. I sought refuge in the club. + Why should an old sober University club be such a haven of unrest? + Ponting, an opinionated don of Corpus, seated himself at my luncheon + table, and discoursed on political economy and golf. I manifested a polite + ignorance of these high matters. He assured me that if I studied the one + and played at the other, I should be physically and mentally more robust; + whereupon he thumped his narrow chest, and put on a scowl of + intellectuality. I fear that Ponting, like most of the men here, studies + golf and plays at political economy. In serener moments I suffer Ponting + gladly. But to-day his boast that he had done the course at Westward Ho! + in seven, or seventeen, or seventy—how on earth should I remember?—left + me cold, and his crude economics interfered with my digestion. + </p> + <p> + Strolling forlornly down Piccadilly I, came face to face with my + sad-coloured Cousin Rosalie in a sad-coloured gown. She gave me a hasty + nod and would have passed on, but I arrested her. Her white face was + turned piteously upward and from her expressionless eyes flashed a glance + of fear. I felt myself in a brutal mood. + </p> + <p> + “Why,” I asked, “are you avoiding me as if I were a pestilence?” + </p> + <p> + She murmured that she was not avoiding me, but was in a hurry. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe it,” said I. “People have been telling you that I am a + vile, wicked man who does unspeakable things, and like a good little girl + you are afraid to talk to me. Tell people, the next time you see them, + with my compliments, that they are malevolent geese.” + </p> + <p> + I lifted my hat and relieving Rosalie of my terrifying presence, walked + away in dudgeon. I felt abominably and unreasonably angry. I bethought me + of my Aunt Jessica, whom I held responsible for her niece’s behaviour. A + militant mood prompted a call. After twenty minutes in a hansom I found + myself in her drawing-room. She was alone, the girls being away on + country-house visits. Her reception was glacial. I expressed the hope that + the yachting cruise had been a pleasant one. + </p> + <p> + “Exceedingly pleasant,” snapped my aunt. + </p> + <p> + “I trust Dora is well,” said I, keeping from my lips a smile that might + have hinted at the broken heart. + </p> + <p> + “Very well, thank you.” + </p> + <p> + As I do not enjoy a staccato conversation, I remained politely silent, + inviting her by my attitude to speak. + </p> + <p> + “I rather wonder, Marcus,” she said at last, “at your referring to Dora.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed? May I ask why?” + </p> + <p> + “May I speak plainly?” + </p> + <p> + “I beseech you.” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard of you at Etretat with your ward.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Verbum sap</i>,” said my aunt. + </p> + <p> + “And you have let Mrs. Ralph and Rosalie know of my summer holiday and + given them to understand that I am a monster of depravity. I am + exceedingly obliged to you. I have just met Rosalie in the street, and she + shrank from me as if I were the reincarnation of original sin.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no doubt that in her innocent mind you are,” replied my Aunt + Jessica. + </p> + <p> + The indulgent smile wherewith she used to humour my eccentricities had + gone, and her face was hard and unpitying. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad I have such charitable-minded relations,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I am a woman of the world,” my aunt retorted, “but I think that when such + things are flaunted in the face of society they become immoral.” + </p> + <p> + I rose. “Do evil by stealth—as much as you like,” said I, “but blush + to find it fame.” + </p> + <p> + With a gesture my aunt assented to the proposition. + </p> + <p> + “On the other hand,” said I, heatedly, “I have been doing a certain amount + of good both by stealth and openly, and I naturally blush with indignation + to find it accounted infamous.” + </p> + <p> + I looked narrowly into my aunt’s eyes and I read in them entire disbelief + in my protest. I swear, if I had proved my innocence beyond the shadow of + doubt, that woman would have been grievously disappointed. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She shook hands frigidly and turned to ring the bell. A moment later—I + really believe she was moved by a kindly impulse—she intercepted me + at the door. + </p> + <p> + “I know you are odd and quixotic, Marcus,” she said in a softer tone. “I + hope you will do nothing rash.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” I asked in a white heat of unreasonable rage. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you won’t try to repair things by marrying this—young + person.” + </p> + <p> + “To make an honest woman of her, do you mean?” I asked grimly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said my aunt. + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly the Devil leaped into me and stirred all the elements of + unrest, anger, and longing together in a cauldron which I suppose was my + heart. The result was explosion. I made a step forward with raised hands + and my aunt recoiled in alarm. + </p> + <p> + “By heaven!” I cried, “I would give the soul out of my body to marry her!” + </p> + <p> + And I stumbled out of the house like a blind man. + </p> + <p> + From that moment of dazzling revelation till now I have nursed this + infinite desire. To say that I love Carlotta is to express Niagara in + terms of a fountain. I crave her with everything vital in heart and brain. + She is an obsession. The scent of her hair is in my nostrils, the cooing + dove-notes of her voice murmur in my ears, I shut my eyes and feel the + rose-petals of her lips on my cheek, the witchery of her movements dances + before my eyes. + </p> + <p> + I cannot live without her. Until to-day the house was desolate enough—a + ghostly shell of a habitation. Henceforward, without her my very life will + be void. My heart has been crying for her these two weeks and I knew it + not. Now I know. I could stand on my balcony and lift up my hands toward + the south where she abides, and lift up my voice, and cry for her + passionately aloud. There is no infernal foolishness in the world that I + could not commit tonight. The maddest dingo dog, if he could appreciate my + state of being, would learn points in insanity. + </p> + <p> + It is two o’clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves Epictetus, + who might be expected to throw cold water on the most burning fever of the + mind. I have not read far before I come across this consolatory + apophthegm: “The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a beginner + in philosophy.” He is mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I throw his + book across the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner in philosophy. + No armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail against Carlotta. I + have no strength to smite. I am helpless. + </p> + <p> + But by heaven! Am I mad? Is not this on the contrary the sanest hour of my + existence? I have lived like an automaton for forty years, and I suddenly + awake to find myself a man. I don’t care whether I sleep or not. I feel + gloriously, exultingly young. I am but twenty. As I have never lived, I + have never grown old. Life translates itself into music—a wild + “Invitation to the Waltz” by some Archangel Weber. I laugh out loud. + Polyphemus, who has been regarding me with his one bantering eye from + Carlotta’s corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and grotesquely curvets + round the room in a series of impish hops. Heigh, old boy? Do the + pulsations of the music throb in your veins, too? Come along and let us + make a night of it. To the Devil with sleep. We’ll go together down to the + cellar and find a bottle of Pommery, and we will drink to Life and Youth + and Love and the Splendour and the Joy thereof. + </p> + <p> + He utters a little cry of delight and frisks around me. In the blackness + of the cellar his one eye gleams like a star and he purrs unutterable + rapture. My hand passed over his back produces a shower of sparks. We + return up the silent stairs, I carry a bottle of Pommery and a milkjug—for + you shall revel, too, Polyphemus; and as I have forgotten to bring a + saucer, you shall drink, as no cat has drunk before, from an old precious + platter bearing the arms of the Estes of Ferrara—over which Lucrezia + Borgia laughed when the world was young. It is a pity cats don’t drink + champagne. I would have made you to-night as drunk as Bacchus. We drink, + and in the stillness the glouglou of his tongue forms a bass to the elfin + notes of the Pommery in the soda-water tumbler. + </p> + <p> + Ha! Twin purveyors of the milk of paradise, I wonder like Omar what you + buy one-half so precious as the stuff you sell. Motor-cars for Mrs. + Pommery and cakes for the little Grenos? I do not like to regard you as + common humans addicted to silk hats and umbrellas and the other vices of + respectability. Ye are rather beneficent demigods, Castor and Pollux of + the vine, dream entities who pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the + liquid gold of life’s joyousness. + </p> + <p> + A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would bring her here tomorrow + night. But no. What is a week? Leaden-footed, it is an eternity; but + winged with the dove’s iris it is a mere moment. Besides, I must accustom + myself to my youth. I must investigate its follies, I must learn the + grammar of its wisdom. We’ll take counsel together, Polyphemus, how to + turn these chambers, fusty with decayed thought, into a bridal bower + radiant and fragrant with innumerable loves. Let us drink again to her + witchery. It is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly Twins that + foams against my lips. I would give the soul out of my body to marry her, + did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would pledge the soul + of the universe for a kiss. + </p> + <p> + I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He + continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid + over his cups—which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be + shaken into enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + “I care not,” I cry, “for man or devil, Polyphemus. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>‘Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu + Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!’’</i> +</pre> + <p> + You may say that it’s wrong, that the first line is a syllable short, and + that Triboulet said <i>‘colere’’</i> instead of <i>amour</i>. You always + were a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say <i>amour</i>-love, do you + hear? I’ll translate, if you like: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Now am I mighty, and my love of fire + To-night goes even with a god’s desire.’ +</pre> + <p> + Yes; I’ll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your hind + claws, Polyphemus.” + </p> + <p> + There! Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle. The wine smells of + hyacinth. It is a revelation. Her hair smells of violets, but it is the + delicate odour of hyacinth that came from her bare young arms when she + clasped them round my neck; <i>et sa peau, on dirait du satin</i>. + Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery and her laughter and + her youth, and I drink Carlotta. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>“Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?”</i> +</pre> + <p> + To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I + visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of my glass into his + distended jaws. He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in + my chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter. + </p> + <p> + October 2d. + </p> + <p> + I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened at six + o’clock and crept shivering to bed. I realise that Pommery and Greno are + not demi-gods at all, but mere commercial purveyors of a form of alcohol, + a quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed tom-cat as + boon companion, at two o’clock in the morning: + </p> + <p> + But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night, so much the + better. I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when the inevitable + is the crown and joy of earthly things. For in sober truth I love her + infinitely. + </p> + <p> + October 6th. + </p> + <p> + She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been devising a welcome. + The good soul has filled the house with flowers, and, usurping Stenson’s + functions, has polished furniture and book backs and silver and has hung + fresh blinds and scrubbed and scoured until I am afraid to walk about or + sit down lest I should tarnish the spotless brightness of my surroundings. + </p> + <p> + “You have forgotten one thing, Antoinette,” I remarked, satirically. “You + have omitted to strew the front steps with rose-leaves.” + </p> + <p> + “I would cover them with my body for the dear angel to walk upon as she + entered,” said Antoinette. + </p> + <p> + “That would scarcely be rose-leaves,” I murmured. + </p> + <p> + Antoinette laughed. “And Monsieur then! He is just as bad. Has he not put + new curtains in the room of Mademoiselle, and a new toilette table, and a + set of silver brushes and combs and I know not what, as for the toilette + of a princess? And the eiderdown in pink satin? <i>Regardez-moi ca!</i> + Monsieur can no longer say that it is I alone who spoil the dear angel.” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur,” said I, at a loss for a better retort, “will say whatever + Monsieur pleases.” + </p> + <p> + “It is indeed the right of Monsieur,” said Antoinette, respectfully, but + with a twinkle in her eye not devoid of significance. + </p> + <p> + Does the crafty old woman suspect? Perhaps my preparations for Carlotta’s + return have been inordinate, for they have extended to the transformation + of the sitting-room downstairs into a lady’s boudoir. I have been busy + this happy week. But what care I? It will not be long before I have to say + to her, “Antoinette, there is going to be a wedding.” + </p> + <p> + I must be on my guard lest, in the transports of her joy, she clasp me to + her capacious bosom! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV + </h2> + <p> + October 7th. + </p> + <p> + At Paddington I came upon Sebastian Pasquale lounging about the arrival + platform. As I had not seen or heard of him since the end of July I had + concluded that he was wandering as usual over the globe. He greeted me + effusively, holding out both hands in his foreign fashion. + </p> + <p> + “My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of meeting you here? What + wind blows you to Paddington?” + </p> + <p> + “I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express.” + </p> + <p> + “The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is she doing at Plymouth?” + </p> + <p> + In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his watch. + </p> + <p> + “By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch my train to Ealing. I + was just killing time about the station. I like seeing a train come in—the + gleam and smoke and rush and whirr of the evil-looking thing—and the + sudden metamorphosis of its sleek sides into mouths belching forth + humanity. I think of Hades. This, by the way, isn’t a bad representation + of it—the up-to-date Hades. They’ve got a railway bridge now across + the Styx, and Charon has a gold band around his cap, and this might be the + arrival platform of the damned souls.” + </p> + <p> + “You forget,” said I, “that it is the arrival platform of Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + He threw back his head and laughed boyishly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the ‘Earth, Hades and + Olympus Railway’ if you like. I’m off on a branch line to meet a beauteous + duchessa at Ealing—oh, an authentic one, I assure you.” + </p> + <p> + “Why should I doubt it?” said I. + </p> + <p> + Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta’s luggage, came up and + touched his hat. + </p> + <p> + “Train just signalled, sir.” + </p> + <p> + Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his watch. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one. I’ll drop in soon and pay + my respects. I am only just back in London, you know. <i>A rivederci.</i>” + </p> + <p> + He waved me farewell and hurried off. The arrival of the train, the + exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her sidle up against me once + more in the cab while she poured out her story, and the subsequent gaiety + of the evening banished Pasquale from my mind. But it is odd that I should + have met him at Paddington. + </p> + <p> + We parted on the landing to dress for dinner. A moment afterwards there + was a beating at my door. I opened it to behold Carlotta, in a glow of + wondering delight, brandishing a silver-backed brush in one hand and the + hand-mirror in the other. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my darling Seer Marcous! For me? All that for me?” + </p> + <p> + “No. It is for Antoinette,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h!” + </p> + <p> + She laughed and pulled me by the arm into her room and shut the door. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, everything is beautiful, beautiful, and I shall die if I do not kiss + you.” + </p> + <p> + “You must be kept alive at all hazards,” I laughed; and this time I did + not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An inner + flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a + passionate desire to gentleness. + </p> + <p> + “There,” said I, after she had released herself and flown to open the + drawers of the new toilette table, where lay some odds and ends of jewelry + I had purchased for her. “You have been saved from extinction. The next + deadly peril is hunger. I give you a quarter of an hour.” + </p> + <p> + She came down to dinner in a low-necked frock, wearing the necklace and + bangle; and, child that she is, in her hand she carried the silver-backed + mirror. I believe she has taken it to bed with her, as a seven-year-old + does its toy. She certainly kept it by her all the evening and admired + herself therein unashamedly like the traditional Lady from the Sea. Once, + desiring to show me the ravishing beauty of a turquoise pendant, she bent + her neck forward, as I sat, so as to come within reach of my nearsighted + eyes (it is a superstition of hers that I am nearly blind without my + glasses), and quite naturally slid onto my knee. She has the warm russet + complexion that suits her heavy bronze hair, and there is a glow beneath + the satin of her neck and arms. And she is fragrant—I recognise it + now—of hyacinths. The world can hold nothing more alluring to the + senses of man. My fingers that held the turquoise trembled as they chanced + to touch her—but she was all unconcerned. Nay, further—she + gazed into the mirror— + </p> + <p> + “It makes me look so white—oh, there was a girl at Bude who had a + gold locket—and it lay upon her bones—you could count them. I + am glad I have no bones. I am quite soft—feel.” + </p> + <p> + She clasped my fingers and pressed their tips into the firm young flesh + below her throat. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I, with some huskiness in my voice, “your turquoise can sleep + there very pleasantly. See, I will kiss it to bring you good luck.” + </p> + <p> + She cooed with pleasure. “I don’t think any one kissed the locket of the + girl at Bude. She was too thin. And too old; she must have been thirty! + Now,” she added, lifting up the locket, “you will kiss the place, too, + where it is to lie.” + </p> + <p> + I looked for a moment into her eyes. Seeing me hesitate, they grew + pathetic. + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h,” she said, reproachfully. + </p> + <p> + I know I am a fool. I know that Pasquale would have hurled his sarcasms at + me. I know that the whole of her deliciousness was mine for the taking—mine + for ever and ever. If I had loved her less passionately I would have + kissed her young throat lightly with a jest. But to have kissed her thus + with such longing as mine behind my lips would have been an outrage. + </p> + <p> + I lifted her to her feet, and rose and turned away, laughing unsteadily. + </p> + <p> + “No, my dear,” said I, “that would be—unsuitable.” + </p> + <p> + The bathos of the word made me laugh louder. Carlotta, aware that a joke + was in the air, joined in my mirth, and her laughter rang fresh. + </p> + <p> + “What is the suitable way of kissing?” + </p> + <p> + I took her hand and saluted it in an eighteenth century manner. + </p> + <p> + “This,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h,” said Carlotta. “That is so dull.” She caught up Polyphemus and + buried her face in his fur. “That’s the way I should like to be kissed.” + </p> + <p> + “The man you love, my dear,” said I, “will doubtless do it.” + </p> + <p> + She made a little grimace. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, then, I shall have to wait such a long time.” + </p> + <p> + “You needn’t,” said I, taking her hands again and speaking very seriously. + “Can’t you learn to love a man, give him your whole heart and all your + best and sweetest thoughts?” + </p> + <p> + “I would marry any nice man if you gave me to him,” she answered. + </p> + <p> + “It would not matter who he was? Anyone would do?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “And any one wanting to marry you could kiss you as you kissed + Polyphemus.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h, he would have to be nice—not like Mustapha.” + </p> + <p> + I turned away with a sigh and lit a cigarette, while Carlotta curled + herself up on the sofa and inspected her face and necklace in the silver + mirror. In a moment she was talking to the cat, who had jumped on her lap + and with arched back was rubbing himself against her. + </p> + <p> + Soon the touch of sadness was lost in the happy sight of her and the happy + thought that my house was no longer left to me desolate. We laughed away + the evening. + </p> + <p> + But now, sitting alone, I feel empty of soul; like a man stricken with + fierce hunger who, expecting food in a certain place, finds nothing but a + few delicate cakes that mock his craving. + </p> + <p> + October 14th. + </p> + <p> + A week has passed. I have spent it chiefly in trying to win her love. + </p> + <p> + Is she, after all, only a child, and is this love of mine but a monstrous + passion? + </p> + <p> + What is to be done? Life is beginning to be a torture. If I send her away, + I shall eat my heart out. If she stays, fuel is but added to the fire. Her + caressing ways will drive me mad. To repulse her were brutal—she + loves to be fondled; she can scarcely speak to me without touching me, + leaning over me, thus filling me with the sense of her. She treats me with + an affectionate child’s innocence, as if I were sexless. My happiest time + with her is spent in public places, restaurants, and theatres where her + unclouded pleasure is reflected in my heart. + </p> + <p> + I am letting her take music lessons with Herr Stuer, who lives close by in + the Avenue Road. Perhaps music may help in her development. + </p> + <p> + October 21st. + </p> + <p> + To please her I am accustoming myself to this out-of-door life, which once + I despised so cordially. Pasquale has joined us two or three times. Last + night he gave a dinner in Carlotta’s honour at the Continental. The ladies + of the party have asked her to go to see them. She must have some society, + I suppose, and I must go with her. They belong to the half smart set, + eager to conceal beneath a show of raffishness their plentiful lack of + intellect and their fundamental bourgeois respectability. In spite of + Pasquale’s brilliance and Carlotta’s rapturous enjoyment I sat mumchance + and depressed, out of my element. + </p> + <p> + My work is at a standstill, and Carlotta is my life. I fear I am + deteriorating. + </p> + <p> + On Judith, whom I have seen once or twice since Carlotta’s return, I + called this afternoon. She is unhappy. Although I have not confessed to my + thraldom, her woman’s wit, I feel sure, has penetrated to the heart of my + mystery. There has been no deep emotion in our intercourse. Its foundation + has been real friendship sweetened with pleasant sentimentality. And yet + jealousy of Carlotta consumes her. Her <i>amour propre</i> is deeply + wounded. She makes me feel as if I had played the part of a brute. But O + Judith, my dear, I have only been a man. “The same thing,” I fancy I hear + her answer. But no. I have never loved a woman, my dear, in all my life + before, and as I made no secret of it, I am guiltless of anything like + betrayal. In due season I will tell you frankly of the new love; but how + can I tell you now? How could I tell any human being? + </p> + <p> + I imagine myself as Panurge, taking counsel with a Pantagruelian friend. + “I am in love with Carlotta and desire to marry her.” “Then marry her,” + says Pantagruel. “But she does not love me.” “Then don’t marry,” says + Pantagruel. “But nay,” urges poor Panurge, “she would marry me according + to any rite, civil or ecclesiastical, to-morrow.” <i>“Mariez-vous doncques + de par dieu,”</i> replies Pantagruel. “But I should be a villain to take + advantage of her innocence and submission.” “Then don’t marry.” “But I + can’t live without her,” says Panurge, desperately. “I am as a man + bewitched. If I don’t marry her I shall waste away with longing.” “Then + marry her in God’s name!” says Pantagruel. And I am no wiser by his + counsel, and I have paraded the complication of my folly before mocking + eyes. + </p> + <p> + October 23d. + </p> + <p> + I perceive that the young man of the idiot metaphor was gifted with + piercing acumen. Beneath the Jaquesian melancholy of my temperament he + diagnosed the potentiality of canine rabidness. No rational being is + afflicted with this grotesque concentration of idea, this fierce hot fury + waxing in intensity day by day. + </p> + <p> + I must consult a brain specialist. + </p> + <p> + October 25th. + </p> + <p> + I went to Judith this afternoon, more to prove the loyalty of my + friendship than to seek comfort from her society. Over tea we discussed + the weather and books and her statistical work. It was dull, but + unembarrassing. The grey twilight crept into the room and there was a + pause in our talk. She broke it by asking, without looking at me: + </p> + <p> + “When are we to have an evening together again?” + </p> + <p> + “Whenever you like, my dear Judith.” + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid not to-morrow,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Are you doing anything so very particular?” + </p> + <p> + “I have arranged to take Carlotta to the Empire.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Judith shortly, and I was left uncomfortable for another spell + of silence. + </p> + <p> + “It would be very kind, Marcus, to ask me to accompany you,” she said at + last. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta and myself?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “My question arose from the stupidity of surprise,” said I. “I thought you + disliked Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “By no means. I should be glad to make her further acquaintance. Any one + that interests you must also be interesting to me.” + </p> + <p> + “In that case,” said I, “your coming will give us both the greatest + possible pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t had a merry evening for ever so long.” + </p> + <p> + “We will dine somewhere first and have supper afterwards. The whole gamut + of merriment. Toute la lyre. And you shall have,” I added, “some of your + favourite Veuve Cliquot.” + </p> + <p> + “It will be charming,” said Judith, politely. + </p> + <p> + In fact, politeness has been the dominant note of her attitude to-day, a + sober restraint of manner such as she would adopt when rather tired + towards an ordinary acquaintance. Has she reconciled herself to the + inevitable and taken this Empire frolic as a graceful method of showing + it? I should like to believe so, but the course is scarcely consistent + with that motor of illogic which she is pleased to call her temperament. I + am puzzled. + </p> + <p> + Her smile as we parted sent a chill through me, being the smile of a mask + instead of a woman’s face; and it was not the face of Judith. I don’t + anticipate much merriment tomorrow evening. + </p> + <p> + At Carlotta’s suggestion, I have sent a line to Pasquale to ask him to + join us. His gay wit will lend to the entertainment a specious air of + revelry which Carlotta will take as genuine. + </p> + <p> + I have often thought lately of the hopeless passion of Alfonso the + Magnanimous of Naples, as set forth by Pope Pius II in his Commentaries; + for I am beginning to take a morbid interest in the unhappy love affairs + of other men and to institute comparisons. If they have lived through the + torment, why should not I? But Alfonso sighed for Lucrezia d’Alagna, a + beautiful chaste statue of ice who loved him; whereas I crave the + warm-blooded thing that is mine for the taking, but no more loves me than + she loves the policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take her. + Something stronger than my passion opposes an adamantine barrier. I love + her with my soul as well as with my body, and my soul cries out for the + soul that the Almighty forgot when endowing her with entity. + </p> + <p> + This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly Review. It would + give him great pleasure if I would contribute a Renaissance article, + taking as my text a German, a Russian, and an English attempt to whitewash + the Borgia family. Six months ago the compliment would have filled me with + gratification. To-day what to me are the whitewashed Borgias or the solemn + denizens of the Athenaeum reading-room who will slumber over my account of + the blameless poisonings of this amiable family? They are vanity and + vexation of a spirit already sore at ease. + </p> + <p> + As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta in hastily slipped + on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair streaming loose to her waist, + her bare feet flashing pink beneath her night-dress. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!” + </p> + <p> + She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from my chair. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter?” + </p> + <p> + “There is a mouse in my bed.” + </p> + <p> + Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the sofa and rubbing his + back against her feet. + </p> + <p> + “Take the cat and tell him to kill it,” said I, “and go back to bed at + once.” + </p> + <p> + I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with her great eyes full + of innocent reproach. + </p> + <p> + “There, take up the cat and go,” I repeated. “You mustn’t come down here + looking like that.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought I looked very pretty,” said Carlotta, moving a step nearer. + </p> + <p> + I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my paper. + </p> + <p> + “You are like a Houri that has been sent away from Paradise for + misbehaviour,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She laughed her curious cooing laugh. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Hou!</i> Seer Marcous is shocked!” And she ran, away, rubbing + Polyphemus’s nose against her face. + </p> + <p> + I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up his centuries and + mistaking me for a mediaeval saint? Paphnutius for instance, who was + visited by such a seductress. What is the legend? To get rid of her he + burns off his hand, whereupon she falls dead. He prays and she returns to + life and becomes a nun. No, Messer Diavolo, I am not Paphnutius. I will + not maim myself, nor do I want Carlotta to fall dead; and I cannot pray + and effect a pietistic resurrection. I am simply a fool of a modern man + tempted out of his wits, who scarce knows what it is that he speaks or + writes. + </p> + <p> + I am not superstitious, but I feel myself to-night on the brink of some + disaster. I walk restlessly about the room. On the mantel-piece are three + photographs in silver frames: Judith, Carlotta, Pasquale. That which is of + mockery in the spirit of each seems to-night to be hovering round the + portraits and to be making sport of me. An autumn gale is howling among + the trees outside, like a legion of lost souls. Listen. Messer Diavolo + himself might be riding by with a whoop of derision. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV + </h2> + <p> + October 26th. + </p> + <p> + I knew something would happen. Messer Diavolo does not ride whooping to no + purpose by the windows of people whom he desires to torment; nor does he + inspire photographs for nothing with an active spirit of mockery. + </p> + <p> + We dined at the Trocadero. Carlotta loves the band and the buzz of Babel + and the heavy scents and the clatter and the tumult and the glare of + light; otherwise I should have chosen a discreeter hostelry where the + footfalls of the waiting-men were noiseless and the walls in quiet shadow, + where there was nothing but the mellow talk of friends to distract the + mind from the consideration of exquisite flavours. But in these palaces of + clashing splendour, the stunned brain fails to receive impressions from + the glossopharyngeal nerve, and one eats unthinkingly like a dog. But this + matters little to Carlotta. Perhaps when I was nineteen it mattered little + to me. And to-night, also, it mattered little, for my mind was preoccupied + and a dinner with Lucullus would have been savourless. + </p> + <p> + If the Psalmist cried, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?” what + cry had he at the back of his head to utter concerning woman? Did he leave + her to be implicitly dealt with by Charles Darwin in his “Theory of Sexual + Selection”? Or did he in the good old oriental way regard her as + unimportant in the eyes of the Deity? If the latter, he was a purblind + prophet and missed the very fount of human tears. + </p> + <p> + When I looked at Judith, I was smitten with a great pain. She had not + looked so young, so fresh, so fragilely fair for many months. She wore a + dress of corn-flower blue that deepened the violet of her eyes. In the + mass of flax hued thistle-down that is her hair a blue argus butterfly + completed the chord of colour. There was the faintest tinge of pink in her + cheek applied with delicate art. Her dress seemed made of unsubstantial + dream stuff—I believe they call it chiffon—and it covered her + bosom and arms like the spray of a fairy sea. She had the air of an + impalpable Undine, a creation of sea-foam and sea-flower; an exquisite + suggestion of the ethereal which floated beauty, as it were, into her + face. I know little of women, save what these past few grievous months + have taught me; but I know that hours of anxious thought and desperate + hope lay behind this effect of fragile loveliness. The wit of woman could + not have rendered a woman’s body a greater contrast to that of her rival; + and with infinite subtlety she had imbued the contrast with the deeper + significance of rare and spiritual things. I know this was so. I know it + was a challenge, a defiance, an ordeal by combat; and the knowledge hurt + me, so that I felt like a Dathan or Abiram who had laid hand on the Ark of + the Covenant (for the soul of a woman, by heaven! is a holy thing), and I + wished that the earth could open and swallow me up. + </p> + <p> + We sat down to table in the middle of the great room—a quiet corner + on the balcony away from the band is not to Carlotta’s taste—like + any conventional party of four, and at first talked of indifferent + matters. Conciergerie dinner-parties in the Terror always began with a + discussion of the latest cure for megrims, or the most fashionable cut of + a panier. Presently Pasquale who had been talking travel with Judith + appealed to me. + </p> + <p> + “What year was it, Ordeyne, that I came home from Abyssinia?” + </p> + <p> + “I forget,” said I. “I only remember you presenting me with that hideous + thing hanging in my passage, which you called a dulcimer.” + </p> + <p> + <i>“Gage d’amour?”</i> smiled Judith. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale laughed and twirled his swaggering moustache. + </p> + <p> + “I did get it from a damsel, and that is why I called it a dulcimer, but + she didn’t sing of Mount Abora. I wish I could remember the year.” + </p> + <p> + “I think it was in 1894,” said Judith quietly. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale, who had been completely unaware of Judith’s existence until half + an hour before, could not repress a stare of polite surprise. + </p> + <p> + “I believe you are right. In fact, you are. But how can you tell?” + </p> + <p> + “Through the kindness of Sir Marcus,” replied Judith graciously, “you are + a very old acquaintance. I could write you off-hand a nice little obituary + notice with all the adventures—well, I will not say complete—but + with all the dates accurate, I assure you. I have a head for that sort of + thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I cried, desiring to turn the conversation. “Don’t tell Mrs. + Mainwaring anything you wish forgotten. Facts are her passion. She writes + wonderful articles full of figures that make your head spin, and publishes + them in the popular magazines over the signature of Willoughby the + statistician. Allow me to present to you a statistical ghost.” + </p> + <p> + But Pasquale’s subtle Italian brain was paying but half attention to me. I + could read his inferences from Judith’s observations, and I could tell + what she wanted him to infer. I seem to have worn my sensory system + outside instead of inside my skin this evening. + </p> + <p> + “Ordeyne,” said he, “you are a pig, and the great-grandfather of pigs—” + </p> + <p> + “Foul” cried Carlotta, seizing on an intelligible point of the + conversation. + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you present me to Mrs. Mainwaring in 1894? I declare I have + thought myself allied to that man for twenty years in bonds of the most + intimate friendship, and he has never so much as mentioned you to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous says that Pasquale is a bad lot,” remarked Carlotta, with an + air of sapience, after a sip of orangeade, a revolting beverage which she + loves to drink at her meals. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale threw back his handsome head and laughed again like the chartered + libertine he is, and Judith smiled. + </p> + <p> + “‘Out of the mouths of babes, etc.,’” said I, apologetically. + </p> + <p> + “In all seriousness,” said Pasquale to Judith, “I had no idea that any one + was such a close friend of Ordeyne’s.” + </p> + <p> + Judith turned to me, with a graceful gesture of her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “I think we have been close friends, Marcus?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, ye-es,” broke in Carlotta. “Mrs. Mainwaring has the picture of Seer + Marcous in her bedroom, and there is the picture of Mrs. Mainwaring in our + drawing-room. You have not seen it? But yes. You have not recognised it, + Pasquale? Mrs. Mainwaring is so pretty tonight. Much prettier than the + photograph. Yes, you are so pretty. I would like to put you on the + mantel-piece as an ornament instead of the picture.” + </p> + <p> + “May I be allowed to endorse Carlotta’s sentiment of appreciation?” I + said, with a view to covering her indiscretion, for I saw a flash of + conjecture in Pasquale’s eyes and a sudden spot of real red in Judith’s + cheeks. She had evidently desired to suggest an old claim on my regard, + but to have it based on such intimate details as the enshrining of my + photograph was not to her fancy. + </p> + <p> + “I am vastly beholden to you both,” said Judith, who has a graceful way of + receiving compliments. “But,” turning to Pasquale, “we have travelled far + from Abyssinia.” + </p> + <p> + “To Sir Marcus’s mantel-piece. Suppose we stay there.” + </p> + <p> + “There is you and me and Mrs. Mainwaring,” said the literal Carlotta, “and + I am the big one in the middle. It was made big—big,” she added, + extending her arms in her exaggerating way. “I was wearing this dress.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Pasquale and I will have to enlarge our frames, Marcus,” said Judith, + “or we shall be jealous. We shall have to make common cause together.” + </p> + <p> + “We will declare an inoffensive alliance,” laughed Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + “Offensive if you like,” said Judith. + </p> + <p> + It may have been some effect of the glitter of lights, but I vow I saw a + swift interchange of glances. Pasquale immediately turned to Carlotta with + a jesting remark, and Judith engaged me in conversation on our old days in + Rome. Suddenly she swerved from the topic, and leaning forward, indicated + our companions with an imperceptible motion of her head. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you think,” she said in a low voice, “they are a well-matched pair? + Both young and picturesque; it would solve many things.” + </p> + <p> + I glanced round. Carlotta, elbow on the table and chin in hand, was + looking deep into Pasquale’s eyes, just as she has looked into mine. Her + lips had the half-sensuous, half-childish pout provocative of kisses. + </p> + <p> + “Do, and I will love you,” I heard her say. + </p> + <p> + Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips! Oh, the horrible + fool passion that burns out my soul and brain and reduces me to rave like + a lovelorn early Victorian tailor! Which was worse I know not—the + spasm of jealousy or the spasm of self-contempt that followed it. At that + moment the music ceased suddenly on a loud crashing chord. + </p> + <p> + The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, who was enjoying + herself prodigiously. Our three personalities appeared to vibrate rudely + one against the other. I was conscious that Judith read me, that Pasquale + read Judith, that again something telegraphic passed between them. The + waiter offered me partridge. Pasquale quickly turned from Carlotta to his + left-hand neighbour. + </p> + <p> + “I think we ought to drink Faust’s health, don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + I started. Had I not myself traced the analogy? + </p> + <p> + “Faust?” queried Judith at a loss. + </p> + <p> + “Our friend Faust opposite me,” said Pasquale, raising his champagne + glass. “Hasn’t he been transformed from the lean and elderly bookworm into + the gay, young gallant about the town? Once one could scarcely drag him + from his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now—has he told you of + his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring?” + </p> + <p> + Judith smiled. “Have you been Mephistopheles?” + </p> + <p> + “What is Mephistopheles?” asked Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “The devil,” said Pasquale, “who made Sir Marcus young again.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s me,” cried Carlotta, clapping her hands. “He does not read in + big books any longer. Oh, I was so frightened when I first came.” (I must + say she hid her terrors pretty effectually.) “He was so wise, and always + reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty. And now he is not wise at + all, and he said two, three days ago I had made him twenty-five.” + </p> + <p> + “If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear,” Judith remarked in her + most charming manner, “in another year you will have brought him down to + long clothes and a feeding-bottle.” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously. I laughed too, out + of courtesy, at Judith’s bitter sarcasm, and turned the conversation, but + Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast. + </p> + <p> + “Here’s to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger every + day.” + </p> + <p> + We clinked glasses. Judith sighed when the performance was concluded. + </p> + <p> + “That is one of the many advantages of being a man. If you do sell your + soul to the devil you can see that you get proper payment. A woman is paid + in promissory notes, which are dishonoured when they fall due.” + </p> + <p> + I contested the proposition. The irony of this peculiarly painful revel + lay in the air of gaiety it seemed necessary to maintain. A miserable + business is civilisation! + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever hear of a woman getting youth out of such a bargain?” she + retorted with some vehemence. + </p> + <p> + “As women systematically underpay cabmen,” said I, “so do they try to + underpay the devil; and he is one too many for them.” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid,” said Pasquale, “that the old days of shrewd bargains are + over. There is a glut in the soul-market and they only fetch the price of + old bones.” + </p> + <p> + “He is talking foolish things that I do not understand,” said Carlotta, + putting her hand on my arm. + </p> + <p> + “It is called sham cynicism, my dear,” said I, “and we all ought to be + ashamed of ourselves.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you like best to talk about?” Judith asked sweetly. + </p> + <p> + “Myself. And so does everybody,” replied Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + We laughed, and for a time talk ceased to be allusive. But later, over our + coffee, while the band was playing loudly some new American march, and + Carlotta and Pasquale were laughing together, Judith drew near me. + </p> + <p> + “You did not answer my question about those two, Marcus.” + </p> + <p> + My fingers trembled as I lit a fresh cigarette. + </p> + <p> + “He is not a man to whom any woman’s destiny should be entrusted.” + </p> + <p> + “And is she a woman on whom a man should stake his life’s happiness?” + </p> + <p> + “God knows,” said I, setting my teeth. + </p> + <p> + It was not an enjoyable dinner-party. I longed for the evening to be over, + to have Carlotta safe back with me at home. I felt a curious dread of the + Empire. + </p> + <p> + We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet. Carlotta, as soon as + she had taken her seat, leaned both elbows on the front of the box and + surrendered her senses to the stage. Pasquale talked to Judith. Wishing + for a few moments alone I left the box and sauntered moodily along the + promenade behind the First Circle. The occupants were either leaning over + the partitions and watching the spectacle or sitting with drink before + them at the little marble tables at the back. The gaudy, gilded, + tobacco-smoke and humanity-filled theatre seemed to be unreal, the stage + but a phantom cloud effect. I wondered why I, a creature from the concrete + world, was there. I had an insane impulse to fly from it all, to go out + into the streets, and wander, wander for ever, away from the world. I was + walking along the promenade, lost in this lunacy, when I stumbled against + a fellow-promenader and the shock brought me to my senses. It was an + elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez. He had a long nose and small, + crafty eyes, and was deeply pitted with smallpox. I made profuse apologies + and he accepted them with suavity. It then occurring to me that I was he + having in a discourteous and abjectly absurd manner, I made my way back to + the box. I drew a chair to Judith’s side. + </p> + <p> + “You are giving me a captivating evening,” she said, with a smile. + </p> + <p> + “Whom are you captivating?” I asked, idly jesting. “Pasquale?” + </p> + <p> + “You are cruel,” whispered Judith, with a flicker of her eyelids. + </p> + <p> + I flushed, ashamed, not having weighed the significance of my words. All I + could say was: “I beg your pardon,” whereat Judith laughed mirthlessly. I + relapsed into silence. Turn followed turn on the stage. While the curtain + was lowered Carlotta sank back with a little sigh of enjoyment, and nodded + brightly at me. + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember,” she said, turning to me, at a fresh fall of the + curtain, “when you brought me first? I said I should like to live here. + Wasn’t I silly?” + </p> + <p> + She turned again, then suddenly rose to her feet and staggered back to the + back of the box, pointing outward, with an expression of wild terror on + her face. + </p> + <p> + “Hamdi—he’s down there—he saw me.” + </p> + <p> + I sprang to her assistance and put my arm around her. + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense, dear,” said I. + </p> + <p> + But Pasquale, looking around the house, cried: + </p> + <p> + “By Jove! she’s right. I would recognise the old villain a thousand years + hence in Tartarus. There he is.” + </p> + <p> + I left Carlotta, and the first person my eyes rested upon in the stalls + was my obese but suave Oriental, regarding the box with an impassive + countenance. + </p> + <p> + “That’s Hamdi Effendi, all right,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta clutched my arms as I joined her at the back of the box. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, take me away, Seer Marcous, take me away,” she moaned piteously. My + poor child was white and shaken with fear. I again put my arm round her. + </p> + <p> + “No harm can happen to you, dear,” I said, soothingly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, darling Seer Marcous, take me home,” cried Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said I. I helped her on with her wrap, and apologising to the + two others, begged them to remain. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll all go together,” said Judith quietly. + </p> + <p> + “And form a body-guard,” laughed Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta clinging to my arm we left the box and slipped through the + promenade and down the stairs. + </p> + <p> + Hamdi Effendi, having anticipated our intention, cut off our retreat in + the vestibule. Carlotta shrank nearer to me. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but may I have the pleasure of a few words + with you about this young lady?” said he in the urbanest manner and the + most execrable French. + </p> + <p> + “I hardly see the necessity,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me, but this young lady is a Turkish subject and my daughter. My + name is Hamdi Effendi, Prefect of Police at Aleppo, and my address in + London is the Hotel Metropole.” + </p> + <p> + “I am charmed to make your acquaintance,” said I. “I have often heard of + you from Mademoiselle—but I believe both her father and mother were + English, so she is neither your daughter nor a Turkish subject.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that we will see,” rejoined the polite Oriental. He addressed some + words rapidly in Turkish to Carlotta, who shudderingly replied in the same + language. + </p> + <p> + “Mademoiselle unfortunately does not consent to accompany me,” he + interpreted with a smile. “So I am afraid I will have to take her back + without her consent.” + </p> + <p> + “If you do, Hamdi Effendi,” said Pasquale in a light tone of conversation, + but with the ugliest snarl of the lips that I have ever beheld, “I shall + most certainly kill you.” + </p> + <p> + Hamdi turned to him with a polite bow. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, it is Monsieur Pasquale. I thought I recognised you.” + </p> + <p> + “You have every reason to do so,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + “I saved you from prison.” + </p> + <p> + “You accepted a bribe.” + </p> + <p> + “For heaven’s sake,” cried Judith, “go on speaking in low voices, or we + shall have a scene here.” + </p> + <p> + One or two idlers hung near with an air of curiosity and the huge + beuniformed commissionaire watched us with an uncertain eye. I kept a + tight hold of Carlotta and drew her more behind the screen of a palm near + which we happened to stand. + </p> + <p> + “Madame is right,” said Hamdi. “We can discuss this little affair like + gentlemen.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, in the most gentlemanly way in the world,” said Pasquale, “I swear + to you that if you touch this young lady, I will kill you.” + </p> + <p> + “It appears, to be Monsieur,” said the obese Turk with a graceful wave of + the hand in my direction, “and not you, who has robbed my home of its + treasure, unless,” he added, and I shall always remember the hideous leer + of that pulpy-nosed and small-pox pitted face, “unless Monsieur has + relieved you of your responsibilities.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment I was speechless. Pasquale put himself in front of me. + </p> + <p> + “Steady on, Ordeyne.” + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” said I, “I found this young lady destitute in the streets of + London. She is my wife and therefore a British subject; so you can take + yourself and your infamous insinuations to the devil, and the quicker the + better.” + </p> + <p> + “Or there’ll be two of us engaged in the killing,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + Hamdi again exchanged a few sentences in Turkish with Carlotta, and then + smiled upon us with the same unruffled suavity. + </p> + <p> + <i>“Au revoir, Mesdames et Messieurs.”</i> With a courteous salute he + shuffled back towards the stall-entrance. + </p> + <p> + The tension over, Carlotta broke from me and clutched Pasquale by the arm. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, kill him, kill him, kill him!” she cried in a passionate whisper. + </p> + <p> + He freed himself gently and took out a cigarette case. + </p> + <p> + “Scarcely necessary. He’ll soon die.” And turning to me he added: “Not a + sound organ in his body. Besides, it seems to me that if there is any + murdering to be done, it’s the business of Sir Marcus.” + </p> + <p> + “There is going to be no murdering,” said I, profoundly disgusted, “and + don’t talk in that revolting way about the wretched man dying.” + </p> + <p> + I regained possession of Carlotta who, seeing that I was angry, cast a + scared glance at me, and became docile as suddenly as she had grown + passionate. I turned to Judith. + </p> + <p> + “Will you ever forgive me—” I began. + </p> + <p> + But the sight of her face froze me. It was white and hard and haggard, and + the lips were drawn into a thin line, and the delicate colour she had put + upon her cheeks stood out in ghastly contrast. Her dress, like the foam of + a summer sea, mocked the winter in her face. + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing to forgive,” she said, smiling icily. “I came for a + variety entertainment and I have not been disappointed. Good-bye. Perhaps + Mr. Pasquale will be so kind as to put me into a cab.” + </p> + <p> + “I will drive you home, if you will allow me,” said Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + We separated, shaking hands as if nothing had happened, as perfunctorily + as if we had been the most distant of acquaintances. + </p> + <p> + On our way back we spoke very little. Carlotta nestled close against me, + seeking the shelter of my arm. She cried, I don’t know why, but it seemed + to afford comfort. I kissed her lips and her hair. + </p> + <p> + At home, I drew the sofa near the fire—it has been a raw night and + she feels the cold like a tropical plant—and sat down by her side. + </p> + <p> + “Did you hear what I said to Hamdi Effendi—that you were my wife?” + </p> + <p> + “But that was only a lie,” she answered in her plain idiom. + </p> + <p> + My petting and soothing together with the sense of home security and a cup + of French chocolate prepared by Antoinette, who, astonished at our early + return and seeing her darling in distress, had hastened to provide + culinary consolation, had restored her wonted serenity of demeanour. + Polyphemus also purred reassuringly upon her lap. + </p> + <p> + “It was a lie this evening,” said I, “but in a few days I hope it will be + true.” + </p> + <p> + “You are going to marry me?” she asked, suddenly sitting erect and looking + at me rather bewildered. + </p> + <p> + “If you will have me, Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “I will do what Seer Marcous tells me,” she answered. “Will you marry me + to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “I think it hardly possible, my dear,” I answered. “But I shall lose no + time, I assure you. Once you are my wife neither Hamdi Effendi nor the + Sultan of Turkey can claim you. No one can take an Englishman’s wife away + from him.” + </p> + <p> + “Hamdi is a devil,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “We can laugh at him,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever see such an ugly mug?” + </p> + <p> + Where she gets her occasional bits of slang from I do not know; but her + little foreign staccato pronunciation gives them unusual quaintness. I + laughed, and Carlotta, throwing Polyphemus off her lap, laughed too, and + sidled up against me. The cat regarded us for a moment with a disgusted + eye, then stretched himself as if he had quitted Carlotta of his own + accord, and walked away in a state of dignified boredom. + </p> + <p> + “Hamdi is like a pig and an elephant and a great fat turkey,” said + Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “If all the world were beautiful,” I exclaimed, “such a thing as our + appreciation of beauty would not exist. I should not even be aware that my + Carlotta was beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + She put her hands on my knees in her impulsive way, and bending forward + looked at me delightedly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you do think so?” + </p> + <p> + “You are the loveliest and most intoxicating creature on the earth, + Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “Now I am sure, sure, sure,” she cried, enraptured. “You have never said + it before, Seer Marcous darling, and I must kiss you.” + </p> + <p> + I checked her with my hands on her soft shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Only if you promise to marry me.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + She said it as thoughtlessly and light-heartedly as if I had asked her to + come out for a walk. Again I felt the odd spasm of pain. In my late + madness I had often pictured the scene: how I should hold her throbbing + beauty in my arms, my senses clouded with the fragrance of her, and how, + in burning words, I should pour out the litany of my passion. But to the + gods it seemed otherwise. No Quaker maiden’s betrothal kiss was chaster. + Cold grew the fever in my veins and the litany died on my lips. + </p> + <p> + Who and what is she whom I love? There have been days when her eyes have + carried in their depths the allurements of a sorceress, when her limbs + have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to + withstand. But tonight, when I take the greatest step and claim her as + mine till our lives’ end, she yields with the complaisance of an ignorant + child and raises up between us the barrier of her innocence. When shall I + learn the soul of her? + </p> + <p> + Well, <i>jacta est alea</i>. The events of to-night have precipitated our + destiny. In all probability Hamdi is powerless to take her from my + protection, and this marriage is unnecessary as a safeguard. I have no + notion of the international law on such points—but at any rate it + will make the assurance of her safety absolute. No power on earth can take + her from me. Great Heaven! The thought of her gone forever out of my life + brings the cold sweat to my forehead. Without her, child, enchantress, + changeling that she is, how could I face existence? + </p> + <p> + I shall have my heart’s desire. Why, I should be athrill with the joy and + the flame of youth! I should laugh and sing! I should perform the happy + antics of love’s exuberance! I should be transported to the realms where + the fairy tales end! + </p> + <p> + Instead, I sit before a dying fire, as I sat last night, and am oppressed + with the sense of tragedy. It was not altogether Carlotta’s innocence that + formed the barrier between us. That which rendered it impassable was + Judith’s white face. + </p> + <p> + Judith’s white face will haunt my dreams to-night. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI + </h2> + <p> + October 27th + </p> + <p> + I do not like living. It is thoroughly disagreeable. Today Judith taunted + me with never having lived, and I admitted the justice of the taunt and + regretted in poignant misery the change from my old conditions. If to live + is to have one’s reason cast down and trampled under foot, one’s heart + aflame with a besotted passion and one’s soul racked with remorse, then am + I living in good sooth—and I would far rather be dead and suffering + the milder pains of Purgatory. Men differently constituted get used to it, + as the eels to skinning. They say <i>“mea culpa,”</i> “damn,” or <i>“Kismet,”</i> + according to their various traditions, and go forth comforted to their + workaday pursuits. I envy them. I enter this exquisite Torture Chamber, + and I shriek at the first twinge of the thumbscrew and faint at the + preliminary embraces of the scavenger’s daughter. + </p> + <p> + I envy a fellow like Caesar Borgia. He could murder a friend, seduce his + widow, and rob the orphans all on a summer’s day, and go home contentedly + to supper; and after a little music he could sleep like a man who has + thoroughly earned his repose. What manner of creatures are other men? They + area blank mystery to me; and I am writing—or have been writing—a + sociological study of the most subtle generation of them that has ever + existed! I am an empty fool. I know absolutely nothing. I can no more + account for the peaceful slumbers of that marvellous young man of + five-and-twenty than I can predicate the priority of the first hen or the + first egg. I, with never a murder or a seduction or a robbery on my + conscience, could not sleep last night. I doubt whether I shall sleep + to-night. I feel as if I shall remain awake through the centuries with a + rat gnawing my vitals. + </p> + <p> + So unhappy looking a woman as Judith, when I called on her early this + forenoon, I have never beheld. Gone was the elaborate coquetry of + yesterday; gone the quiet roguishness of yesteryear; gone was all the + Judith that I knew, and in her place stood a hollow-eyed woman shaking at + gates eternally barred. + </p> + <p> + “I—thought you would come this morning. I had that lingering faith + in you.” + </p> + <p> + “Your face haunted me all night,” I said. “I was bound to come.” + </p> + <p> + “So, this is the end of it all,” she remarked, stonily. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I. “It only marks the transition from a very ill-defined + relationship to as loyal a friendship as ever man could offer woman.” + </p> + <p> + She gave a quivering little shrug of disgust and turned away. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don’t talk like that ‘I can’t offer you bread, but I’ll give you a + nice round polished stone.’ Friendship! What has a woman like me got to do + with friendship?” + </p> + <p> + “Have I ever given you much more?” + </p> + <p> + “God knows what you have given me,” she cried, bitterly. She stared out of + the window at the sodden street and murky air. I went to her side and + touched her wrist. + </p> + <p> + “For heaven’s sake, Judith, tell me what I can do.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s done is done,” she said, between her teeth. “When did you marry + her?” + </p> + <p> + I explained briefly the condition of affairs. She looked at me hard and + long; then stared out of the window again, and scarce heeded what I said. + </p> + <p> + “It was to set myself right with you on this point,” I added, “that I have + visited you at such an hour.” + </p> + <p> + She remained silent. I took a few turns about the familiar room that was + filled with the associations of many years. The piano we chose together. + The copy of the Botticelli Tondo—the crowned Madonna of the Uffizi—I + gave her in Florence. We had ransacked London together to find the + Chippendale bookcase; and on its shelves stood books that had formed a + bond between us, and copies of old reviews containing my fugitive + contributions. A spurious Japanese dragon in faence, an inartistic + monstrosity dear to her heart, at which I had often railed, grinned + forgivingly at me from the mantel-piece. I have never realised how closely + bound up with my habits was this drawing-room of Judith’s. I stopped once + more by her side. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t leave you altogether, dear,” I said, gently. “A bit of myself is + in this room.” + </p> + <p> + Her bosom shook with unhappy laughter. + </p> + <p> + “A bit?” Then she turned suddenly on me. “Are you simply dull or sheerly + cruel?” + </p> + <p> + “I am dull,” said I. “Why do you refuse my friendship? Our relation has + been scarcely more. It has not touched the deep things in us. We agreed at + the start that it should not. The words ‘I love you’ have never passed + between us. We have been loyal to our compact. Now that love has come into + my life—and Heaven knows I have striven against it—what would + you have me do?” + </p> + <p> + “And what would you have me do?” said Judith, tonelessly. + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me for breaking off the old, and trust me to make the new + pleasant to you.” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer, but stood still staring out of the window like a woman + of stone. Presently she shivered and crossed to the fire, before which she + crouched on a low chair. I remained by the window, anxious, puzzled, + oppressed. + </p> + <p> + “Marcus,” she said at last, in a low voice. I obeyed her summons. She + motioned me to a chair, and without looking at me began to speak. + </p> + <p> + “You said there was a bit of you in this room. There is everything of you. + Your whole being is for me in this room. You are with me wherever I go. + You are the beginning and end of life to me. I love you with a passion + that is killing me. I am an emotional woman. I made shipwreck of myself + because I thought I loved a man. But, as God hears me, you are the only + man I have loved. You came to me like a breath of Heaven while I was in + Purgatory—and you have been Heaven to me ever since. It has been + play to you—but to me—” + </p> + <p> + I fell on my knees beside her. Each of the low half-whispered words was a + red hot iron. I had received last night the message of her white face with + incredulity. I had reviewed our past life together and had found little + warrant in it for that message. It could not come from the depths. It was + staggeringly impossible. And now the impossible was the flaming fact. + </p> + <p> + I fell on my knees beside her. + </p> + <p> + “Not play, Judith—” + </p> + <p> + She put out her hand to check me, and the words died on my lips. What + could I say? + </p> + <p> + “For you it was a detached pleasant sentiment, if you like; for me the + deadliest earnest. I was a fool too. You never said you loved me, but I + thought you did. You were not as other men, you knew nothing of the ways + of the world or of women or of passion—you were reserved, + intellectual—you viewed things in a queer light of your own. I felt + that the touch of a chain would fret you. I gave you absolute freedom—often + when I craved for you. I made no demands. I assented to your philosophic + analysis of the situation—it is your way to moralise whimsically on + everything, as if you were a disconnected intelligence outside the + universe—and I paid no attention to it. I used to laugh at you—oh, + not unkindly, but lovingly, happily, victoriously. Oh, yes, I was a fool—what + woman in love isn’t? I thought I gave you all you needed. I was content, + secure. I magnified every little demonstration. When you touched my ear it + was more to me than the embrace of another man might have been. I have + lived on one kiss of yours for a week. To you the kiss was of no more + value than a cigarette. I wish,” she added in a whisper, “I wish I were + dead!” + </p> + <p> + She had spoken in a low, monotonous voice, staring haggardly at the fire, + while I knelt by her side. I murmured some banal apologia, miserably aware + that one set of words is as futile as another when one has broken a + woman’s heart. + </p> + <p> + “You never knew I loved you?” she went on in the same bitter undertone. + “What kind of woman did you take me for? I have accepted help from you to + enable me to live in this flat—do you imagine I could have done such + a thing without loving you? I should have thought it was obvious in a + thousand ways.” + </p> + <p> + The fire getting low, she took up the scoop for coals. Mechanically I + relieved her of the thing and fulfilled the familiar task. Neither spoke + for a long time. She remained there and I went to the window. It had begun + to rain. A barrel-organ below was playing some horrible music-hall air, + and every vibrant note was like a hammer on one’s nerves. The grinder’s + bedraggled Italian wife perceiving me at the window grinned up at me with + the national curve of the palm. She had a black eye which the cacophonous + fiend had probably given her, and she grinned like a happy child of + nature. Men in my position do not blacken women’s eyes; but it is only a + question of manners. Was I, for that, less of a brute male than the + scowling beast at the organ? + </p> + <p> + The sudden sound of a sob made me turn to Judith, who had broken down and + was crying bitterly, her face hidden in her hands. I bent and touched her + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Judith—” + </p> + <p> + She flung her arms around my neck. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t give you up, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” she cried, wildly. + </p> + <p> + For the first time in my life I heard a woman give abandoned, incoherent + utterance to an agony of passion; and it sounded horrible, like the cry of + an animal wounded to death. + </p> + <p> + A guilt-stricken creature, scarce daring to meet her eyes, I bade her + farewell. She had recovered her composure. + </p> + <p> + “Make me one little promise, Marcus, do me one little favour,” she said, + with quivering lip, and letting her cold hand remain in mine. “Stay away + from her to-day. I couldn’t bear to think of you and her together, happy, + love-making, after what I’ve said this morning. I should writhe with the + shame and the torture of it. Give me your thoughts to-day. Wear a little + mourning for the dead. It is all I ask of you.” + </p> + <p> + “I should have done what you ask without the asking,” I replied. + </p> + <p> + I kissed her hand, and went out into the street. + </p> + <p> + I had walked but a few blind steps when I became aware of the presence and + voice of Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + “Coming from Mrs. Mainwaring’s? I am just on my way there to restore her + opera-glasses which I ran away with last night. What’s her number? I + forget. I dropped in at Lingfield Terrace to inquire, but found you had + already started.” + </p> + <p> + “Seventeen,” I answered, mechanically. + </p> + <p> + “You are not looking well, my good friend,” said he. “I hope last night + has not upset you. It’s all bluff, you know, on the part of the precious + Hamdi.” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say it was,” I assented. + </p> + <p> + “And bluff on your part, too. I have never given your imaginative + faculties sufficient credit. It bowled Hamdi out clean.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I. “It bowled him out clean.” + </p> + <p> + “Serve him right,” said Pasquale. “He’s the wickedest old thief unhung.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite so,” said I, “the wickedest old thief unhung.” + </p> + <p> + Pasquale shook me by the arm. + </p> + <p> + “Are you a man or a phonograph? What on earth has happened to you?” + </p> + <p> + I think I envied the laughter in his handsome, dark face, and the careless + grace of the fellow as he stood beneath the dripping umbrella debonair as + a young prince, in perfectly fitting blue serge-he wore no overcoat; mine + was buttoned up to the chin, and immaculate suede gloves. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he repeated, gaily. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t sleep last night,” said I, “my breakfast disagreed with me, and + it’s raining in the most unpleasant manner.” + </p> + <p> + Even while I was speaking he left my side and darted across the road. In + some astonishment I watched him for a moment from the kerb, and then made + my way slowly to the other side. I found him in conversation with an + emaciated, bedraggled woman standing by an enormous bundle, about three + times her own cubic bulk, which she had rested on the slimy pavement. One + hand pressed a panting bosom. + </p> + <p> + “You are going to carry that in your arms all the way to South + Kensington?” I heard him cry as I approached. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir,” said the woman. + </p> + <p> + “Then you shan’t. I’m not going to allow it. Catch hold of this.” + </p> + <p> + The umbrella which he thrust out at her she clutched automatically, to + prevent it falling about her ears. The veto she received with a wonderment + which deepened into stupefaction when she saw him lift the huge bundle in + his arms and stalk away with it down the street. She turned a scared face + at me. + </p> + <p> + “It’s washing,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale paused, looked round and motioned her onward. She followed + without a word, holding the trim silver mounted umbrella, and I + mechanically brought up the rear. It had all happened so quickly that I + too was confused. The scanty populace in the rain-filled street stared and + gaped. A shambling fellow in corduroys bawled an obscene jest. Pasquale + put down his bundle. + </p> + <p> + “Do you want to be sent to hell by lightning?” he asked, with the evil + snarl of the lips. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the man, sheering off. + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad,” remarked Pasquale, picking up the bundle. And we resumed our + progress. + </p> + <p> + Luckily a four-wheeled cab overtook us. Pasquale stopped it, squeezed the + bundle inside, and held the door open for the faltering and bewildered + woman, as if she had been the authentic duchessa at Ealing. + </p> + <p> + “You were saying, Ordeyne,” he observed, as the cabman drove off with + three shillings and his incoherent fare, “you were saying that your + breakfast disagreed with you.” + </p> + <p> + In spite of my heaviness of heart, I laughed and loved the man. There was + something fantastically chivalrous in the action; something superb in the + contempt of convention; something whimsical, adventurous, unexpected; and + something divine in the wrathful pity; and something irresistible in his + impudent apostrophe to myself. It has been the one flash of comfort during + this long and desolate day. + </p> + <p> + I have kept my promise to Judith. I have lunched and dined at the club, + and in the library of the club I have tried to while away the hours. I + intended this morning to make the necessary arrangements for the marriage. + After my interview with Judith I had not the heart. I put it off till + to-morrow. I have observed the day as a day of mourning. I have worn + sackcloth and ashes. I have done such penance as I could for the grievous + fault I have committed. Carlotta is in bed and asleep. She went early, + says Antoinette, having a bad headache. No wonder, poor child. + </p> + <p> + A few moments ago I was tempted to peep into her room and satisfy myself + that she was not ailing. A headache is the common precursor to many + maladies. But I remembered my promise and refrained. The cooing notes of + the voice would have called me to her side, and her arms would have been + around my neck and I should have forgotten Judith. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII + </h2> + <p> + October 28th. + </p> + <p> + I rose late this morning. When I went down to breakfast I found that + Carlotta had already gone for her music lesson. + </p> + <p> + I drove at once to the Temple to see my lawyers and to make arrangements + for a marriage by special license. + </p> + <p> + I returned at one o’clock. Stenson met me in the hall. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon, Sir Marcus, but Mademoiselle hasn’t come back yet.” + </p> + <p> + I waited an uneasy hour. Such a lengthy absence from home was + unprecedented. At two o’clock I went round to Herr Stuer in the Avenue + Road—a five minutes’ walk. + </p> + <p> + He entered the sitting-room into which I had been ushered, wiping his + lips. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry to disturb you, Herr Stuer,” said I, “but will you kindly tell + me when Miss Carlotta left you, this morning?” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Carlotta came not at all this morning,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “But it was her regular day?” + </p> + <p> + “At ten o’clock. She did not come. At eleven I have another pupil. She has + not before missed one lesson.” + </p> + <p> + I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing face would meet me + there and dispel a dread that chilled me like an icy wind. + </p> + <p> + There was no Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + There has been no Carlotta all this awful day. + </p> + <p> + There will never be a Carlotta again. + </p> + <p> + I drove to the police station. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think has happened?” asked the Inspector. + </p> + <p> + It was only too horribly obvious. Any man but myself would have kept her + under lock and key and established a guard round the house. Any man but + myself would have never let her out of his sight until he had married her, + until he had tracked Hamdi and his myrmidons back to Alexandretta. + </p> + <p> + “Abduction has happened,” I cried wildly. “Between Lingfield Terrace and + Avenue Road she has been caught, thrust into a closed carriage, gagged and + carried God knows where by the wiliest old thief in Asia. He is the + Prefect of Police in Aleppo. His name is Hamdi Effendi and he is staying + at the Hotel Metropole.” + </p> + <p> + The Inspector questioned me. Heaven knows how I answered. I saw the scene. + The waiting carriage. The unfrequented bit of road. My heart’s darling, + her face a radiant flower in the grey morning, tripping lightheartedly + along. The sudden dash, the struggle, the swiftly closed door. It was a + matter of a few seconds. My brain grew dizzy with the vision. + </p> + <p> + “You say that he threatened to abduct her?” asked the Inspector. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I, “and a friend of mine promised to kill him. Heaven grant he + keep his promise!” + </p> + <p> + “Be careful, Sir Marcus,” smiled the Inspector. “Or if there is a murder + committed you will be an accessory before the fact.” + </p> + <p> + I intimated my disregard of the contingency. What did it matter? Nothing + in the world mattered save the recovery of the light and meaning of my + existence. My friend’s name? Sebastian Pasquale, He lived near by in the + St. John’s Wood Road. + </p> + <p> + “The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus,” said the Inspector, “is to get + hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him with you to Scotland Yard. Perhaps two + heads will be better than one. In the meanwhile we shall communicate with + headquarters and make the necessary inquiries in the neighbourhood.” + </p> + <p> + I drove to St. John’s Wood Road, and learned to my dismay that Pasquale + had given up his rooms there a week ago. All his letters were addressed to + his club in Piccadilly. I drove thither. How has mankind contented itself + for these thousands of years with a horse as its chief means of + locomotion? Oh, the exasperation I suffered behind that magnified snail! I + dashed into the club. Mr. Pasquale had not been there all day. No, he was + not staying there. It was against the rules to give members’ private + addresses. + </p> + <p> + “But it’s a matter of life and death!” I cried. + </p> + <p> + “To tell you the truth, sir,” said the hall porter, “Mr. Pasquale’s only + permanent address is his banker’s, and we really don’t know where he is + staying at present.” + </p> + <p> + I wrote a hurried line: + </p> + <p> + “Hamdi has abducted Carlotta. I am half crazed. As you love me give me + your help. Oh, God! man, why aren’t you here?” + </p> + <p> + I left it with the porter, and crawled to Scotland Yard. The cabman at my + invectives against his sauntering beast waxed indignant; it was a + three-quarter blood mare and one of the fastest trotters in London. + </p> + <p> + “She passes everything,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “It is because everything is standing still or going backward or turned + upside down,” said I. + </p> + <p> + No doubt he thought me mad. Mad as a dingo dog. The thought of the words, + the summer and the sun sent a spasm of hunger through my heart. Then I + murmured to myself: “‘Save my soul from hell and my darling from the power + of the dog.’ Which dog? Not the dingo dog.” I verily believe my brain + worked wrong to-day. + </p> + <p> + Great Scotland Yard at last. I went through passages. I found myself in a + nondescript room where a courteous official seated at a desk held me on + the rack for half an hour. I had to describe Carlotta: not in the imagery + wherein only one could create an impression of her sweetness, but in the + objective terms of the police report. What was she wearing? A hat, and + jacket, a skirt, shoes; of course she wore gloves; possibly she carried a + muff. Impatient of such commonplace details, I described her fully. But + the glory of her bronze hair, her great dark brown eyes, the quivering + sensitiveness of her lips; her intoxicating compound of Botticelli and the + Venusberg; the dove-notes of her voice; all was a matter of boredom to + Scotland Yard. They clamoured for the colour of her feathers and the + material of which her dress was made; her height in vulgar figures and the + sizes of her gloves and shoes. + </p> + <p> + “How on earth can I tell you?” I cried in desperation. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps one of your servants can give the necessary information,” replied + the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have viewed my + plight with more inhuman blandness! + </p> + <p> + A miracle happened. As I was writing a summons to Stenson to obtain these + details from Antoinette and attend at once, a policeman entered and I + learned that my confidential man was at the door. My heart leapt within + me. He had tracked me hither and had come to tell me that Carlotta was + safe. But the first glance at his face killed the wild hope. He had + tracked me hither, it is true; but only apologetically to offer what + information might be useful. “It is a very great liberty, Sir Marcus, and + I will retire at once if I have overstepped my duties, but there are + important details, sir, in catastrophes of this nature with which my + experience has taught me only servants can be acquainted.” + </p> + <p> + There must be a book of ten thousand pages entitled “The Perfect Valet,” + dealing with every contingency of domestic life which this admirable + fellow has by heart. He uttered his Ciceronian sentence with the gravity + of a pasteboard figure in the toy theatre of one’s childhood. + </p> + <p> + “Can you describe the young lady’s dress?” asked the official. + </p> + <p> + “I have made it my business,” said Stenson, “to obtain accurate + information as to every detail of Mademoiselle Carlotta’s attire when she + left the house this morning.” + </p> + <p> + I faded into insignificance. Stenson was a man after the Inspector’s + heart. A few eager questions brought the desired result. A dark red toque + with a grey bird’s wing; a wine-coloured zouave jacket and skirt, black + braided; a dark blue bodice; a plain gold brooch (the first trinket I had + given her—the occasion of her first clasp of arms around my neck) + fastening her collar; a silver fox necklet and muff; patent leather shoes + and brown suede gloves. + </p> + <p> + “Any special mark or characteristics?” + </p> + <p> + “A white scar above the left temple,” said Stenson. + </p> + <p> + Lord have mercy! The man has lived day by day for five months with + Carlotta’s magical beauty, and all he has noticed as characteristic is the + little white scar—she fell on marble steps as a child—the only + flaw, if flaw can be in a thing so imperceptible, in her perfect + loveliness. + </p> + <p> + “Mademoiselle has also a tiny mole behind her right ear,” said Stenson. + </p> + <p> + The Inspector’s conception of Stenson expanded into an apotheosis. He paid + him deference. His pen wrote greedily every syllable the inspired creature + uttered. When the fount of inspiration ran dry, Stenson turned to me with + his imperturbable, profoundly respectful air. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I return home, Sir Marcus, or have you any further need of my + service?” + </p> + <p> + I bade him go home. He withdrew. The Inspector smiled cheerfully. “Now we + can get along,” said he. “It’s a pity Mr.—Mr. Pasquale” (he + consulted his notes) “is out of touch with us for the moment. He might + have given us great assistance.” + </p> + <p> + He rose from his chair. “I think we shall very soon trace the young lady. + An accurate personal description like this, you see, is invaluable.” + </p> + <p> + He handed me the printed form which he had filled in. In spite of my + misery I almost laughed at the fatuity of the man in thinking that those + mere unimaginative statistics applicable to five hundred thousand young + females in London, could in any way express Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “This is all very well,” said I; “but the first thing to do is to lay that + Turkish devil by the heels.” + </p> + <p> + “You can count on our making the most prompt and thorough investigation,” + said he. + </p> + <p> + “And in the mean time what can I do?” + </p> + <p> + “Your best course, Sir Marcus,” he answered, “is to go home and leave + things in our hands. As soon as ever we have the slightest clue, we shall + communicate with you.” + </p> + <p> + He bowed me out politely. In a few moments I found myself in the greyness + of the autumn afternoon wandering on the Thames Embankment like a lost + soul on the banks of Phlegethon. It seemed as if I had never seen the sun, + should never see the sun again. I was drifting sans purpose into eternity. + </p> + <p> + I passed by some railings. A colossal figure looming through the misty air + struck me with a sense of familiarity. It was the statue of Sir Bartle + Frere, and these were the gardens beneath the terrace of the National + Liberal Club. It was here that I had first met her. The dripping trees + seemed to hold the echo of the words spoken when their leaves were green: + “Will you please to tell me what I shall do?” I strained my eyes to see + the bench on which I had sat, and my eyes tricked me into translating a + blurr at the end of the seat into the ghostly form of Carlotta. My misery + overwhelmed me; and through my misery shot a swift pang of remorse at + having treated her harshly on that sweet and memorable afternoon in May. + </p> + <p> + I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down the desolate + gardens. The benches were empty, the trees were bare, “and no birds sang.” + I crossed the road. + </p> + <p> + The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly open, and from the + pavement one could see the warmth and colour of the vestibule. Here was + staying the Arch-Devil who had robbed me of my life. I stood for a moment + under the portico shaking with rage. I must have lost consciousness for a + few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs. I found + myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not left. They + thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search of him departed + with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big caravanserais where one + is a mere number, as in a gaol. “Would to heaven it were a gaol,” I + muttered to myself, “and this were the number of Hamdi Effendi!” + </p> + <p> + A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, effusively saluted + me by name. I stared at him. He recalled our acquaintance at Etretat. I + fished him up from the deeps of a previous incarnation and vaguely + remembered him as a young American floral decorator who used to preach to + me the eternal doctrine of hustle. I shook hands with him and hoped that + he was well. + </p> + <p> + “Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I’m full up with + work. But you don’t hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old country. + Men lunch. In New York all the lunch one has time for is to swallow a + plasmon lozenge in a street-car.” + </p> + <p> + His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears for an + illimitable time. I answered occasionally with the fringe of my mind. + Could my agonised state of being have remained unperceived by any human + creature save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York floral + decorator? + </p> + <p> + “Since we met, guess how many times I’ve crossed the Atlantic. Four + times!” + </p> + <p> + Long-suffering Atlantic! + </p> + <p> + “And about yourself. Still going <i>piano, piano</i> with books and + things?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, books and things,” I echud. + </p> + <p> + The page came up and announced Hamdi’s intention of immediate appearance. + </p> + <p> + “And how is that charming young lady, your ward, Miss Carlotta?” continued + my tormentor. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I answered hurriedly. “A charming young lady. You used to give her + sweets. Have you noticed that a fondness for sugar plums induces an + equanimity of character? It also spoils the teeth. That is why the front + teeth of all American women are so bad.” + </p> + <p> + I must be endowed with the low cunning of the fox, who, I am told, by a + swift turn puts his pursuers off the scent. The learned term the + rhetorical device an <i>ignoratio elenchi</i>. My young friend’s + patriotism rose in furious defence of his countrywomen’s beauty. I looked + round the luxuriously furnished vestibule, wondering from which of the + many doors the object of my hatred would emerge, and my young friend’s + talk continued to ruffle the fringe of my mind. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid you’re expecting some one rather badly,” he remarked with + piercing perceptiveness. + </p> + <p> + “A dull acquaintance,” said I. “I shall be sorry when his arrival puts an + end to our engaging conversation.” + </p> + <p> + Then the lift door opened and Hamdi stepped out like the Devil in an + Alhambra ballet. + </p> + <p> + He looked at my card and looked at me. He bowed politely. + </p> + <p> + “I did not know whom I should have the pleasure of seeing,” said he in his + execrable French. “In what way can I be of service to Sir Marcus Ordeyne?” + </p> + <p> + “What have you done with Carlotta?” I asked, glaring at him. + </p> + <p> + His ignoble small-pox pitted face assumed an expression of bland inquiry. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I. “Where have you taken her to?” + </p> + <p> + “Explain yourself, Monsieur,” said Hamdi. “Do I understand that Lady + Ordeyne has disappeared?” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me what you have done with her.” + </p> + <p> + His crafty features grew satanic; his long fleshy nose squirmed like the + proboscis of one of Orcagna’s fiends. + </p> + <p> + “Really, Monsieur,” said he, with a hideous leer—oh, words are + impotent to express the ugliness of that face! “Really, Monsieur, + supposing I had stolen Miladi, you would be the last person I should + inform of her whereabouts. You are simple, Monsieur. I had always heard + that England was a country of arcadian innocence, so unlike my own black, + wicked country, and now—” he shrugged his shoulders blandly, “<i>j’en + suis convaincu</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “You may jeer, Hamdi Effendi,” said I in a white passion of anger. “But + the English police you will not find so arcadian.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, so you have been to the police?” said the suave villain. “You have + gone to Scotland—Scotland Place Scotland—n’importe. They are + investigating the affair? I thank you for the friendly warning.” + </p> + <p> + “Warning!” I cried, choked with indignation. He held up a soft, fat palm. + </p> + <p> + “Ah—it is not a warning? Then, Monsieur, I am afraid you have + committed an indiscretion which your friends in Scotland Place will not + pardon you. You would not make a good police agent. I am of the + profession, so I know.” + </p> + <p> + I advanced a step. He recoiled, casting a quick look backward at the lift + just then standing idle with open doors. + </p> + <p> + “Hamdi Effendi,” I cried, “by the living God, if you do not restore me my + wife—” + </p> + <p> + But then I stopped short. Hamdi had stepped quickly backward into the + lift, and given a sign to the attendant. The door slammed and all I could + do was to shake my fist at Hamdi’s boots as they disappeared upwards. + </p> + <p> + I remember once in Italy seeing a cat playing with a partially stunned bat + which, flying low, she had brought to the ground. She crouched, patted it, + made it move a little, patted it again and retired on her haunches + preparing for a spring. Suddenly the bat shot vertically into the air. + </p> + <p> + I stared at the ascending lift with the cat’s expression of impotent + dismay and stupefaction. It was inconceivably grotesque. It brought into + my tragedy an element of infernal farce. I became conscious of peals of + laughter, and looking round beheld the American doubled up in a saddlebag + chair. I fled from the vestibule of the hotel clothed from head to foot in + derision. + </p> + <p> + I am at home, sitting at my work-table, walking restlessly about the room, + stepping out into the raw air on the balcony and looking for a sign down + the dark and silent road. I curse myself for my folly in entering the + Hotel Metropole. The damned Turk held me in the palm of his hand. He made + mock of me to his heart’s content.... And Carlotta is in his power. I grow + white with terror when I think of <i>her</i> terror. She is somewhere, + locked up in a room, in this great city. My God! Where can she be? + </p> + <p> + The police must find her. London is not mediaeval Italy for women to be + gagged and carried off to inaccessible strongholds in defiance of laws and + government. I repeat to myself that she must come back, that the sober + working of English institutions will restore her to my arms, that my agony + is a matter of a day or two at most, that the special license obtained + this morning and now lying before me is not the document of irony it + seems, and that in a week’s time we shall look back on this nightmare of a + day with a smile, and look forward to the future with laughter in our + hearts. + </p> + <p> + But to-night I am very lonely. “Loneliness,” says Epictetus, “is a certain + condition of the helpless man.” And I am helpless. All my aid lies in the + learning in those books; and all the learning in all those books on all + sides from floor to ceiling cannot render me one infinitesimal grain of + practical assistance. If only Pasquale, man of action, swift intelligence, + were here! I can only trust to the trained methods of the unimaginative + machine who has set out to trace Carlotta by means of the scar on her + forehead and the mole behind her ear. And meanwhile I am very lonely. My + sole friend, to whom I could have turned, Mrs. McMurray, is still at Bude. + She is to have a child, I understand, in the near future, and will stay in + Cornwall till the confinement is over. Her husband, even were he not amid + the midnight stress of his newspaper office, I should shrink from seeking. + He is a Niagara of a man. Judith—I can go to her no more. And though + Antoinette has wept her heart out all day long, poor soul, and Stenson has + conveyed by his manner his respectful sympathy, I cannot take counsel of + my own servants. I have gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried + my face in his fur—where Carlotta’s face has been buried. “That’s + the way I should like to be kissed!” Oh, my dear, my dear, were you here + now, that is the way I should kiss you! + </p> + <p> + I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room. Antoinette has prepared + it for her reception to-night, as usual. The corner of the bedclothes is + turned down, and her night-dress, a gossamer thing with cherry ribbons, + laid out across the bed. At the foot lie the familiar red slippers with + the audacious heels; her dressing-gown is thrown in readiness over the + back of a chair; even the brass hot water can stands in the basin—and + it is still hot. And I know that the foolish woman is wide-awake overhead + waiting for her darling. I kissed the pillow still fragrant of her where + her head rested last night, and I went downstairs with a lump in my + throat. + </p> + <p> + Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from going mad with + suspense, jot down in my diary* the things that have happened. Put in bald + words they scarcely seem credible. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * It will be borne in mind that I am writing these actual + pages, afterwards, at Verona, amplifying the rough notes in + my diary. M. O. +</pre> + <p> + A sudden clattering, nerve-shaking, strident peal at the front-door bell. + </p> + <p> + I flew down the stairs. It was news of Carlotta. It was Carlotta herself + brought back to me. My heart swelled with joy as if it would burst. I knew + that as I opened the door Carlotta would fall laughing, weeping, sobbing + into my arms. + </p> + <p> + I opened the door. It was only a police officer in plain clothes. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Marcus Ordeyne?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “We have traced the young lady all right. She left London by the + two-twenty Continental express from Victoria with Mr. Sebastian Pasquale.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII + </h2> + <p> + November 1st. + </p> + <p> + Five days ago the blow fell, and I am only now recovering; only now + awakening to the horrible pain of it. + </p> + <p> + I have gone about like a man in a dream. Blurred visages of men with + far-away voices have saluted me at the club. Innumerable lines of print + which my eyes have scanned have been destitute of meaning. I have forced + myself to the mechanical task of copying piles of rough notes for my + History; I have been able to bring thereto not an atom of intelligence; + popes, princes, painters are a category of disassociated names, less + evocative of ideas than the columns in the Post Office London Directory. I + have stared stupidly into the fire or at the dripping branches of the + trees opposite my windows. I have walked the streets in dull misery. I + have sought solace in the Zoological Gardens. + </p> + <p> + There is a kindly brown bear who pleads humanly for buns, and her I have + fed into a sort of friendship. I stand vacantly in front of the cage + finding in the beast an odd companionable sympathy. She turns her head on + one side, regards me with melting brown eyes, and squatting on her + haunches thrusts her paws beseechingly through the bars. Just so did + Carlotta beseech and plead. I have bemused myself with gnostic and + metempsychosic speculations. Carlotta as an ordinary human being with an + immortal soul did not exist, and what I had known and loved was but a + simulacrum of female form containing an elemental spirit doomed to be ever + seeking a fresh habitat. It was but the lingering ghost of the humanised + shell of air that was seen at Victoria station. The fateful spirit, + untrammelled by the conventions of men and actuated by destinies + unintelligible to mortal mind, had informed the carcass of this little + brown bear, which looks at me so strangely, so coaxingly, with Carlotta’s + eyes and Carlotta’s gestures. I asked her yesterday to come back to me. I + said that the house was empty; that the rooms ached for the want of her. I + pleaded so passionately and the eyes before me so melted that I thought + her heart was touched. But in the midst of it all another visitor came up + and the creature uttered a whining plaint and put out her paw for buns—by + which token I felt indeed that it was Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I have accepted the blow silently. As yet I have told no one. I have made + no inquiries. When a man is betrayed by his best friend and deserted by + the woman he loves, time and solitude are the only comforters. Besides, to + whom should I go for comfort? I have lived too remote from my kind, and my + kind heeds me not. + </p> + <p> + Not a line has reached me from Carlotta. She has gone out of my life as + lightly and as remorselessly as she went out of Hamdi Effendi’s; as she + went, for aught she knew, out of that of the unhappy boy who lured her + from Alexandretta. If she heard I was dead, I wonder whether she would + say: “I am so glad!” + </p> + <p> + Whether the flight was planned between them, or whether Pasquale waylaid + her on her way to the Avenue Road and then and there proposed that she + should accompany him, I do not know. It matters very little. She is gone. + That is the one awful fact that signifies. No explanations, pleas for + forgiveness could make me suffer less. Were she different I might find it + in my heart to hate her. This I cannot do. How can one hate a thing devoid + of heart and soul? But one can love it—God knows how blindly. So I + have locked the door of Carlotta’s room and the key is in my possession. + It shall not be touched. It shall remain just as she left it—and I + shall mourn for her as for one dead. + </p> + <p> + For Pasquale—if I were of his own reversionary type, I should follow + him half across Europe till we met, and then one of us would kill the + other. In one respect he resembles Carlotta. He is destitute of the moral + sense. How else to solve the enigma? How else to reconcile his flamboyant + chivalry towards the consumptive washer-woman with the black treachery + towards me, in which even at that very moment his mind must have been + steeped? I knew that he had betrayed many, that where women were concerned + no considerations of honour or friendship had stood between him and his + desires; but I believed—for what reason save my own egregious + vanity, I know not—that for me he had a peculiar regard. I believed + that it was an idiosyncrasy of this wolf to look upon my sheepfold as + sacred from his depredations. I was ashamed of any doubts that crossed my + mind as to his loyalty, and did not hesitate to thrust my lamb between his + jaws. And while he was giving the lie direct to my faith, I, poor fool, in + my despair was seeking madly for his aid in the deliverance of my darling + from the power of the dog. + </p> + <p> + I have felt I owe Hamdi Effendi an apology; for it is well that, in the + midst of this buffoon tragedy I find myself playing, I should observe + occasionally the decencies of conduct. But, on the other hand, was he not + amply repaid for moral injury by the pure joy he must have felt while + torturing me with his banter? For all the deeper suffering, I am conscious + of writhing under lacerated vanity when I think of that grotesque and + humiliating blunder in the Hotel Metropole. + </p> + <p> + November 2d. + </p> + <p> + I have received news of the death of old Simon McQuhatty. In my few lucid + moments of late I had been thinking of seeking his kindly presence. Now + Gossip Death has taken him out across the moor. Now, dear old pagan, he is + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course + With rocks and stones and trees.” + </pre> + <p> + November 3d. + </p> + <p> + Antoinette came up this morning with a large cardboard box addressed to + Carlotta. The messenger who brought it was waiting downstairs. + </p> + <p> + “I came to Monsieur to know whether I should send it back,” said + Antoinette, on the verge of tears. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I, “leave it here.” + </p> + <p> + From the furrier’s label, I saw that the box contained some furs I had + ordered for Carlotta a fortnight ago—she shivered so, poor child, in + this wintry climate. + </p> + <p> + “But, Monsieur,” began Antoinette, “the poor angel—” + </p> + <p> + “May want it in heaven,” said I. + </p> + <p> + The good woman stared. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll be like the ancient Egyptians, Antoinette,” I explained, “who + placed food and wine and raiment and costly offerings in the tombs of the + departed, so that their shades could come and enjoy them for all eternity. + We’ll have to make believe, Antoinette, that this is a tomb, for one can’t + rear a pyramid in London, though it is a desert sufficiently vast; and the + little second floor room is the inner sanctuary where the body lies in + silence embalmed with sweet spices and swathed in endless bands of linen.” + </p> + <p> + “But Mademoiselle is not dead?” cried Antoinette, with a shiver. “How can + Monsieur talk of such things? It makes me fear, the way Monsieur speaks.” + </p> + <p> + “It makes me fear, too, Antoinette,” said I, gravely. + </p> + <p> + When she had gone I took the box of furs upstairs and laid it unopened on + Carlotta’s bed and came away, relocking the door behind me. + </p> + <p> + November 9th. + </p> + <p> + I have formed a great resolution. I have devoted the week to the + envisagement of things, and while I lay awake last night the solution came + to me as something final and irrevocable. Mistrusting the counsels of the + night, when the brain is unduly excited by nervous insomnia, I have + applied the test of a day’s cold reason. + </p> + <p> + I have broken a woman’s heart. I have spurned the passionate love of a + woman who has been near and dear to me; a woman of great nature; a woman + of subtle brain who has been my chosen companion, my equal partner in any + intellectual path I chose to tread; a sensitive lady, with all the + graciousness of soul that term conveys. Heaven knows what a woman can see + in me to love. I look in the glass at my bony, hawk-like face, on which + the stamp of futility seems eternally set, and I am seized with a + prodigious wonder; but the fact remains that to me unlovely and unworthy + has been given that thing without price, a woman’s love. I remember + Pasquale laughing merrily at this valuation. He said the love of women was + as cheap as dirt, and the only use for it was to make mud pies. The damned + cynical villain! “Always reflect,” said he, on another occasion, “that + although a man may be as ugly as sin, the probability is that he is just + as pleasant. Beauties will find hitherto unsuspected amenities in Beasts + till the end of time.” But I am such a poor and sorry Beast, without the + chance of a transformation; a commonplace Beast, dull and didactic; a + besotted, purblind, despicable Beast! Yet Judith loved me. Instead of + thanking on my knees the high gods for the boon conferred, I rejected it, + and went mad for craving of the infinitely lesser glory of Carlotta’s baby + lips and gold-bronze hair. I have broken Judith’s heart. I will expiate + the crime I have committed. + </p> + <p> + Expiate the crime! The realisation of the meaning of the words covers me + with shame. As if what I propose will be a sorry penance! That is the + danger of a man thinking, as I have always done, in metaphors. It has + given me my loose, indirect views of life, of myself, of those around me. + If I had advice to offer to a young man, I should say: “Learn to think + straight.” Expiate, indeed! I will go to her and make confession. I will + tell her that awful loneliness is crushing my soul. I will kneel before + her and beseech her of her great woman’s goodness to give me her love + again, and to be my helpmeet and my companion who will be cherished with + all that there is of loyalty in me to her life’s end. She will pity me a + little, for I have suffered, and I will pity her tenderly, in deep + sincerity, and our life together will be based on that all-understanding + which signifies all-forgiveness. And it shall be a real life together. I + used to smile, in a superior way, at her dread of solitude. Heaven forgive + me. I did not then know its terrors. It comforted for the first few + benumbed days, but now it is gathering around me like a mysterious and + appalling force. I crave the human presence in my home. I need the woman’s + presence in my heart. + </p> + <p> + We shall live together then as man and wife, in defiance of the world. Let + the moralists blame us. We shall not care. It will make little social + difference to Judith, and as for myself, have I not already inflicted + public outrage on society? does not my Aunt Jessica regard me as a wringer + of the public conscience, and does not my Cousin Rosalie mention me with a + shudder of horror in her tepid prayers? If I really give them cause for + reprobation they will be neither wiser, nor better, nor sorrier. And if + the baronetcy flickers out in unseemly odour, I for one shall know that + the odour is sweeter than that wherein it was lighted, when my + great-grandfather earned the radiance by services rendered at Brighton to + His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. This is the only way in which I can + make Judith reparation, the only way in which I can find comfort. We shall + travel. Italy, beloved of Judith, is calling me. Probably Florence will be + our settled home. I shall give up this house of madness. The clean sweet + love of Judith will purify my heart of this poisonous passion, and in the + end there will be peace. + </p> + <p> + I have taken Carlotta’s photograph from its frame and cast it into the + fire, thus burning her for her witchcraft. I watched the flames leap and + curl. The last look she gave me before they licked away her face had its + infinite allurement, its devilish sorcery so intensified in the fierce + yellow light, that the yearning for her clutched me by the throat and + shook me through all my being. + </p> + <p> + But it is over now. I have done with Carlotta. If she thinks I am going to + sit and let the wind which comes over Primrose Hill drive me mad like + Gastibelza, <i>l’homme a la carabine</i>, in Victor Hugo’s poem, she is + vastly mistaken. From this hour henceforth I swear she is nothing to me; I + will eat and sleep and laugh as if she had never existed. Polyphemus, + curled up in Carlotta’s old place on the sofa, regards me with his + sardonic eye. He is an evil, incredulous, mocking beast, who a few + centuries ago would have been burned with his late mistress. + </p> + <p> + I am sane and happier now that I have come to my irrevocable + determination. + </p> + <p> + To-morrow I go to Judith. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX + </h2> + <p> + November 10th. + </p> + <p> + I had to ring twice before Judith’s servant opened the flat door. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Mainwaring is engaged just at present, Sir Marcus.” + </p> + <p> + “Ask her if I can come in and wait, as I have something of importance to + say to her.” + </p> + <p> + She left me standing in the passage, a thing that had never before + occurred to me in Judith’s establishment, and presently returned with her + answer. Would I mind waiting in the dining-room? I entered. The table was + littered with sheets of her statistical work and odd bits of silk’ and + lining. A type-writer stood at one end and a sewing-machine at the other. + On the writing-desk by the window, in the midst of a mass of letters and + account-books, rested a large bowl filled with magnificent blooms of white + and yellow chrysanthemums. A volume of Dante lay open face downwards on + the corner. It did my heart good to see this untidiness, so characteristic + of Judith, so familiar, so intimate. She had taken her trouble bravely, I + reflected. The ordinary daily task had not been left undone. Through all + she had preserved her valiant sanity. I felt rebuked for my own loss of + self-control. + </p> + <p> + I was about to turn away from the litter of the desk, when my eye caught + sight of an envelope bearing a French stamp and addressed in Pasquale’s + unmistakable handwriting. As there seemed to be a letter inside, I did not + take it up to examine it more closely. The glance was enough to assure me + that it came from Pasquale. Why should he be corresponding with Judith? I + walked away puzzled. Was it a justification, a confession, a plea to her + as my friend to obtain my forgiveness? If there is one thing more + irritating than another it is to light accidentally upon a mystery + affecting oneself in a friend’s correspondence. One can no more probe + deeply into it than one can steal the friend’s spoons. It seems an + indiscretion to have noticed it, an unpardonable impertinence to subject + it to conjecture. In spite of my abhorring the impulse of curiosity, the + sweeping, flaunting, swaggering handwriting of Pasquale worried me. + </p> + <p> + Judith came in, looking much as she had done on the occasion of my last + visit, worn and anxious, with a strange expression in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said, extending a lifeless + hand. + </p> + <p> + I raised it to my lips. + </p> + <p> + “I would have gladly waited all day to see you, Judith,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Really?” + </p> + <p> + She laughed in an odd way. + </p> + <p> + “And idle speech from me to you at the present time would be an outrage,” + I answered. “I have passed through much since I saw you last.” + </p> + <p> + “So have I,” said Judith. “More than you imagine. Well,” she continued as + I bowed my head accepting the rebuke, “what have you got so important to + tell me?” + </p> + <p> + “Much,” said I. “In the first place you must be aware of what has + happened, for I can’t help seeing there a letter from Pasquale.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced swiftly at the desk and back again at me. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she replied, “he is in Paris.” + </p> + <p> + I was amazed at her nonchalance. + </p> + <p> + “Has he told you nothing?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps Sir Marcus Ordeyne would like to see his letter,” she said, + ironically. + </p> + <p> + “You know perfectly well that I would not read it,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Judith laughed again, and rolled her handkerchief into a little ball + between her nervous fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me,” she said. “I like to see the <i>grand seigneur</i> in you + now and then. It puts me in mind of happier days. But about Pasquale—the + only thing he tells me is that he is not able to execute a commission for + me. He told me on the night he drove me home that he was going to Paris, + and I asked him to get me some cosmetic. Carmine Badouin, if you want to + know. I have got to rouge now before I am fit to be seen in the street. I + am quite frank about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you know nothing of Carlotta?” I cried. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta?” + </p> + <p> + “She eloped with that double-dyed, damned, infernal villain, the day after + I saw you.” + </p> + <p> + Judith looked at me for a moment, then closed her eyes and turned her head + away, resting her hand on the table. My indignation waxed hot against the + scoundrel. How dare he write casual letters to Judith about Carmine + Badouin with his treachery on his conscience? I know the terms of flippant + grace in which the knave couched this precious epistle. And I could see + Carlotta reading over his shoulder and clapping her hands and cooing: “Oh, + that is so funny!” + </p> + <p> + When I had told Judith the outlines of the story, pacing up and down the + little room while she remained motionless by the table, she put out her + hand to me, and in a low voice, and with still averted eyes said that she + was sorry, deeply sorry. Her tone rang so true and loyal that my heart + throbbed with quick appreciation of her high nature, and I wrung her + outstretched hand. + </p> + <p> + “God bless you, Judith,” I cried, fervently. “Bless you for your sweet + sympathy. Be sorry for me only as for a man who has passed through the + horrors of delirium. But for me as I stand before you now, I ask you not + to be sorry. I have come to bring you, if I can, dear Judith, a measure of + gladness, perhaps of happiness.” + </p> + <p> + She wrenched herself free from me, and a terrified cry of “Marcus!” + checked my dithyrambic appeal. She shrank away so that a great corner of + the dining-table separated us, and she stared at me as though my words + hats been the affrighting utterance of a madman. + </p> + <p> + “Marcus! What do you mean?” she cried, with an unnatural shrillness in her + voice. + </p> + <p> + “I mean,” said I, “I mean—I mean that ‘crushed by three days’ + pressure, my three days’ love lies slain.’ Time has withered him at the + root. I have buried him deep in unconsecrated ground, like a vampire, with + a stake through his heart. And I have come back to you, Judith, humbly to + crave your forgiveness and your love—to tell you I have changed, + dear—to offer you all I have in the world if you will but take it—to + give you my life, my daily, hourly devotion. My God!” I cried, “don’t you + believe me?” + </p> + <p> + She still stared at me in a frightened way, leaning heavier on the table. + Her lips twitched before they could frame the words, + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I believe you. You have never lied to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Then in the name of love and heaven,” I cried, “why do you look at me + like that?” + </p> + <p> + She trembled, evidently suppressing something with intense effort, whether + bitter laughter, indignation or a passionate outburst I could not tell. + </p> + <p> + “You ask why?” she said, unsteadily. “Because you seem like the angel of + the flaming vengeance.” + </p> + <p> + At these astounding words it was my turn to look amazed. + </p> + <p> + “Vengeance?” I echud. “What wrong have you done me or any living creature? + Come, my dear,” and I moved nearer by seating myself on the corner of the + table, close to the type-writer, and leaning towards her, “let us look at + this thing soberly. If ever a man had need of woman I have need of you. I + can live alone no longer. We must share one home henceforth together. We + can snap our fingers at the world, you and I. If you have anything to say + against the proposal, let us discuss it calmly.” + </p> + <p> + Judith’s slender figure vibrated like a cord strung to breaking-point. Her + voice vibrated. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, let us discuss it calmly. But not here. The sight of you sitting in + the middle of my life, between the sewing-machine and the type-writer, is + getting on my nerves. Let us go into the drawing-room. There is an + atmosphere of calm there—” her voice quavered in a queer little + choke—“of sabbatical calm.” + </p> + <p> + I slid quickly from the table and put my arm round her waist. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, Judith, what is amiss with you.” + </p> + <p> + She broke away from me roughly, thrusting me back. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. A woman’s nothing, if you understand what that means. Come into + the drawing-room.” + </p> + <p> + I opened the door; she passed out and I followed her along the passage. + She preceded me into the drawing-room, and I stayed for a moment to close + the door, fumbling with the handle which has been loose for some months. + When I turned and had made a couple of steps forward, I halted + involuntarily under the shock of a considerable surprise. + </p> + <p> + We were not alone. Standing on the hearth-rug, his hands behind his back, + his brows bent on me benevolently was a man in clerical attire. He looked + ostentatiously, exaggeratedly clerical. His clerical frock-coat was of + inordinate length; his boots were aggravatingly clump-soled; by a very + large white tie, masking the edges of a turned-down collar, he proclaimed + himself Evangelical. An otherwise clean-shaven florid face was adorned + with brown side-whiskers growing rather long. A bald, shiny head topped a + fringe of brown hair. + </p> + <p> + I stared at this unexpected gentleman for a second or two, and then, + recovering my self-possession, looked enquiringly at Judith. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Marcus,” she said, “let me introduce my husband, Mr. Rupert + Mainwaring.” + </p> + <p> + Her husband! This benevolent Evangelical parson her husband! But the + brilliant gallant who had dazzled her eyes? The dissolute scoundrel that + had wrecked her life? Where was he? Dumfounded, I managed to bow politely + enough, but my stupefaction was covered by Judith rushing across the room + and uttering a strange sound which resolved itself into a shrill, + hysterical laugh as she reached the door which she opened and slammed + behind her. I heard her scream hysterically in the passage; then the slam + of another door; and the silence told me that she had shut herself in her + bedroom. Disregarding the new husband’s presence, I rang the bell, and the + servant who had left her kitchen on hearing the scream entered + immediately. + </p> + <p> + “Go to your mistress. She is ill,” said I. + </p> + <p> + The maid hurriedly departed. The parson and I looked at one another. + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid,” said I, “that my presence is unhappily an intrusion. I hope + to make your better acquaintance on another occasion.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please don’t go,” said he, “my wife is only a little upset and will + soon recover. I beg that you will excuse her. Besides, I should like to + have a talk with you.” + </p> + <p> + He offered me a chair, my own chair, the comfortable, broad-seated Empire + chair I had given Judith as a birthday present years ago, the chair in + which I had invariably sat. He did it with the manner of the master of the + house, a most courteous gentleman. The situation was fantastic. Some + ingenious devil must have conceived it by way of pandering to the + after-dinner humour of the high gods. As I sat down I rubbed my eyes. Was + this brown-whiskered, bald-headed clerical gentleman real? The rubbing of + my eyes dispelled no hallucination. He was flesh and blood and still + regarded me urbanely. It was horrible. The desertion of the scoundrelly + husband, who I thought was lost somewhere in the cesspool of Europe, was + the basis, the sanction of the relations between Judith and myself; and + here was this reverend, respectable man apologising for his wife and + begging me to be seated in my own chair. The remark of Judith’s that I + should find sabbatical calm in the drawing-room occurred to me, and I had + to grip the arms of the chair to prevent myself from joining Judith in her + hysterics. + </p> + <p> + The appearance of the husband in his legendary colours of rascality would + have been a shock. The sudden scattering of my plans for Judith’s + happiness I should have viewed with consternation. But it would have been + normal. For him, however, to appear in the guise of an Evangelical + clergyman, the very last kind of individual to be associated with Judith, + was, I repeat, horribly fantastic. + </p> + <p> + “I believe, Sir Marcus,” said he, deliberately parting the tails of his + exaggerated frock-coat and sitting down near me, “that you are a very + great friend of my wife.” + </p> + <p> + I murmured that I had known Mrs. Mainwaring for some years. + </p> + <p> + “You are doubtless acquainted with her unhappy history.” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard her speak of it,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “You must then share her surprise in seeing me here to-day. I should like + to assure you, as representing her friends and society and that sort of + thing, as I have assured her, that I have not taken this step without + earnest prayer and seeking the counsel of Almighty God.” + </p> + <p> + I am by no means a bigoted pietist, but to hear a person talk lightly + about seeking the counsel of Almighty God jars upon my sense of taste. I + stiffened at the sanctimonious tone in which the words were uttered. + </p> + <p> + “You have without doubt very good reasons for coming back into the circle + of her life,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “The best of all reasons,” he replied, caressing a brown whisker, “namely, + that I am a Christian.” + </p> + <p> + I liked him less and less. + </p> + <p> + “Is that the reason, may I ask, why you remained away from her all these + years?” + </p> + <p> + “I deserve the scoff,” said he: “Those were days of sin. I deserve every + humiliation that can be put upon me. But I have since found the grace of + God. I found it at three o’clock in the afternoon on the eighth of + January, eighteen hundred and—” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind the year,” I interrupted. + </p> + <p> + My gorge rose. The man was a sanctimonious Chadband. He had come with + nefarious designs on Judith’s slender capital. I saw knavery in the whites + of his upturned eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I should be glad,” I continued quickly, “if you would come to the point + of the conversation you desire to have with me. I presume it concerns Mrs. + Mainwaring. She has reconciled herself to circumstances and has found + means to regulate her life with a certain measure of contentment and + comfort until now, when you suddenly introduce a disturbing factor. You + appear to wish to tell me your reasons for doing so—and I can’t see + what the grace of God has to do with it.” + </p> + <p> + He sprang to his feet and shot out both hands in the awkward gesture of an + inspired English prophet. + </p> + <p> + “But it has everything to do with it! It is the beginning and end, core + and kernel, root and branch of the matter. It is the grace of God that + checked me in the full career of my wickedness. It is the grace of God + that has lighted my path ever since to holier things. It is the grace of + God that has changed me from what I was to what I am. It is the grace of + God that has brought me here to ask pardon on my knees of the woman I have + wronged. The grace of God and of his son our Lord Jesus Christ, which came + upon me in a great light on that January afternoon even as it did upon + Saul of Tarsus. The grace of God has everything to do with it.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Mainwaring,” said I, “such talk is either blasphemous or—” + </p> + <p> + He did not allow me to state the alternative, but caught up the word in a + great cry. + </p> + <p> + “Blasphemous! Why, man alive! for what are you taking me? Do you think + this is some unholy jest? Can’t you see that I am in deadly earnest? Come + and see me where I live—” he caught me by the arm, as if he would + drag me away then and there, “among the poor in Hoxton. You scarcely know + where Hoxton is—I didn’t when I was a man of ease like yourself—that + wilderness of grey despair where the sun of the world scarcely shines, let + alone the Light of God. Come and see for yourself, man, whether I am + lying!” + </p> + <p> + Then it dawned upon me that the man had been talking from innermost + depths, that he was almost terrifyingly sincere. + </p> + <p> + “I must ask you to pardon me,” said I, “for appearing to doubt your good + faith. You must attribute it to my entire unfamiliarity with the terms of + Evangelical piety.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at me queerly for a moment, and then, in the quiet tones of a + man of the world, said, smiling pleasantly: + </p> + <p> + “Very many years ago I had the pleasure of knowing your grandfather, the + late baronet. May I say that you remind me of him?” + </p> + <p> + I have never heard an apology more gracefully and tactfully accepted. For + an unregenerate second he had become the gallant Rupert Mainwaring again, + and showed me wherein might lie his attraction. + </p> + <p> + “Pray be seated,” said he, more gravely, “and allow me to explain.” + </p> + <p> + He unfolded his story. It was well, said he, that an outsider (I an + outsider in that familiar room!) should hear it. I was at liberty to make + it public. Indeed, publicity was what he earnestly craved. As far as my + memory serves me, for my wits were whirling as I listened, the following + is an epitome of his narrative: + </p> + <p> + He had been a man of sin—not only in the vague ecclesiastical sense, + but in downright, practical earnest. He had committed every imaginable + crime, save the odd few that lead to penal servitude and the gallows. He + drank, he betrayed women, he cheated at cards, he had an evil reputation + on the turf. His companions were chosen from the harlotry and knavery of + the civilised world. He had lured Judith from her first husband, thus + breaking his heart, poor man, so that he died soon after. He had married + Judith, and had deserted her for a barmaid whom in her turn he had + abandoned. He wallowed, to use his own expression, in the trough of + iniquity. He was, as I had always understood, about as choice a blackguard + as it would be possible to meet outside a gaol. One day a pretty girl, + whom he had been following in the street, unwittingly enticed him into a + revivalist meeting. He described that meeting so vividly that had my + stupefied mind been capable of fresh emotions, I too might have been + converted at second hand by the revivalist preacher. He repeated parts of + the sermon, rose to his feet, waved his arms, thundered out the + commonplaces of Salvation Army Christianity, as if he had made an amazing + theological discovery. It was pathetic. It was ludicrous. It was also + inconceivably painful. At last he mopped his forehead and shiny head. + </p> + <p> + “Before that meeting was over I was on my knees praying beside the girl + whom I had designed to ruin. I went into the streets a converted man, + filled with the grace of God. I resolved to devote my life to saving souls + for Christ. My old habits of sin fell away from me like a garment. I + studied for the ministry. I am now in deacon’s orders, and I am the + incumbent of a little tin mission church in Hoxton. God moves in a + mysterious way, Sir Marcus.” + </p> + <p> + “He is generally credited with doing so,” said I, stupidly. + </p> + <p> + “You are doubtless wondering, Sir Marcus,” he went on, “why I placed such + a long interval between my awakening and my communicating with my wife. I + set myself a period of probation. I desired to be assured of God’s will. + It was essential that I should test my strength of purpose, and my power + of making a life’s atonement, as far as the things of this world are + concerned, for the wrongs I have inflicted on her. I have come now to + offer her a Christian home.” + </p> + <p> + I looked at him open-mouthed. + </p> + <p> + “Do you expect Judith to go and live with you as your wife, in Hoxton?” I + asked, bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “Why not? She is my wife.” + </p> + <p> + I rose and walked about the room in agitation. Somehow such a contingency + had not entered my bewildered head. + </p> + <p> + “Why not, Sir Marcus?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Because Judith isn’t that kind of woman at all,” I said, desperately. + “She doesn’t like Hoxton, and would be as much out of place in a + tin-mission church as I should be in a cavalry charge.” + </p> + <p> + “God will see to her fitness,” said he, gravely. “To him all things are + easy.” + </p> + <p> + “But she has considerable philosophic doubt as to his personal existence,” + I cried. + </p> + <p> + He smiled prophetically and waved away her doubt with a gesture. + </p> + <p> + “I have no fears on that score,” he observed. + </p> + <p> + “But it is preposterous,” I objected once more, changing my ground; + “Judith craves the arrears of gaiety and laughter which your conduct + caused life to leave owing to her. She loves bright dresses, cigarettes, + and wine and the things that are anathema in an Evangelical household.” + </p> + <p> + “My wife will find the gaiety and laughter of holiness,” replied the + fanatic. “She will not be stinted of money to dress herself with becoming + modesty; and as for alcohol and tobacco, no one knows better than myself + how easy it is to give them up.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem as merciless in your virtues as you were in your vices,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I have to bring souls to Christ,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + “That doesn’t appear to be the way,” I retorted, “to bring them.” + </p> + <p> + “Pray remember, Sir Marcus,” said he, bending his brows upon me, “that I + did not ask you for suggestions as to the conduct of my ministry.” + </p> + <p> + “The general methods you adopt in the case of your congregation,” said I, + “are matters of perfect indifference to me. But I cannot see Judith + imprisoned for life in a tin church without a protest. Your proposal + reminds me of the Siennese who owed a victorious general more than they + could possibly repay. The legend goes that they hanged him, in order to + make him a saint after his death by way of reward. I object to this sort + of canonisation of Judith. And she will object, too. You seem to leave her + out of account altogether. She is mistress of her own actions. She has a + will of her own. She is not going to give up her comfortable flat off the + Tottenham Court Road in order to dwell in Hoxton. She won’t go back to you + under your conditions.” + </p> + <p> + He smiled indulgently and held out his hand to signify that the interview + was over. + </p> + <p> + “She will, Sir Marcus.” + </p> + <p> + Was there ever such a Torquemada of a creature? I respect religion. I + respect this man’s intense conviction of the reality of his conversion. I + can respect even the long frock coat and the long brown whiskers, which in + the case of so dashing a worldling as Rupert Mainwaring were a deliberate + and daily mortification of the flesh. But I hold in shuddering detestation + “the thumb-screw and the rack for the glory of the Lord,” which he + cheerfully contemplated applying to Judith. + </p> + <p> + “Why on earth can’t you let the poor woman alone?” I asked, ignoring his + hand. + </p> + <p> + “I am doing my duty to God and to her,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “With the result that you have driven her into hysterics.” + </p> + <p> + “She’ll get over them,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you good-day,” said I. “We might talk together for a thousand + years without understanding each other.” + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me,” he retorted, with the utmost urbanity. “I understand you + perfectly.” + </p> + <p> + He accompanied me to the dining-room where I had left my hat and umbrella, + and to the flat door which he politely opened. When it shut behind me I + felt inclined to batter it open again and to take Judith by main force + from under his nose. But I suppose I am pusillanimous. I found myself in + the street brandishing my umbrella like a flaming sword and vowing to + perform all sorts of Paladin exploits, which I knew in my heart were + futile. + </p> + <p> + I hailed an omnibus in the Tottenham Court Road, and clambered to the top, + though a slight drizzle was falling. Why I did it I have not the remotest + idea, for I abhor those locomotive engines of exquisite discomfort. I had + no preconceived notion of destination. It was a moving thing that would + carry me away from the Tottenham Court Road, away from the Rev. Rupert + Mainwaring, away from myself. I was the solitary occupant of the omnibus + roof. The rain fell, softly, persistently, soakingly. I laughed aloud. + </p> + <p> + I recognised the predestined irony of things that at every corner checks + the course of the ineffectual man. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX + </h2> + <p> + November 11th. + </p> + <p> + I wrote Judith a long letter last night, urging her to disregard the + forfeited claims of her husband and to join her life definitely with mine. + I was cynical enough to feel that if such a proceeding annoyed the Rev. + Rupert Mainwaring it would serve him right. The fact of a man’s finding + religion and abjuring sack does not in itself exculpate him from wrongs + which he has inflicted on his fellow-creatures in unregenerate days. + Mainwaring deserved some punishment of which he seemed to have had + remarkably little; for, mind you, his sack-cloth and ashes at Hoxton, + although sincerely worn, are not much of a punishment to a man in his + exalted mood. Now, on the contrary, Judith deserved compensation, such as + I alone was prepared to offer her in spite of conventional morality and + the feelings of the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring. Indeed, it seemed to be the + only way of saving Judith from being worried out of her life by frantic + appeals to embrace both himself and Primitive Christianity. Her position + was that of Andromeda. Mine that of an unheroic Perseus, destined to + deliver her from the monster—the monster whose lair is a little tin + mission church in Hoxton. + </p> + <p> + I wrote the letter in one of those periods of semi-vitality when the + pulses of emotion throb weakly, and sensitiveness is dulled. To-day I have + felt differently. My nerves have been restrung. Something ironically + vulgar, sordidly tragic has seemed to creep into my relations with Judith. + </p> + <p> + To my great surprise Judith brought her answer in person this evening. It + is the first time she has entered my house; and her first words, as she + looked all around her with a wistful smile referred to the fact. + </p> + <p> + “It is almost just as I have pictured it—and I have pictured it—do + you know how often?” + </p> + <p> + She was calmer, if not happier. The haggard expression had given place to + one of resignation. I wheeled an arm-chair close to the fire, for she was + cold, and she sank into it with a sigh of weariness. I knelt beside her. + She drew off her gloves and put one hand on my head in the old way. The + touch brought me great comfort. I thought that we had reached the quiet + haven at last. + </p> + <p> + “So you have come to me, Judith,” I whispered. + </p> + <p> + “I have come, dear,” she said, “to tell you that I can’t come.” + </p> + <p> + My heart sank. + </p> + <p> + “Why?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + We fenced a little. She gave half reasons, womanlike, of which I proved + the inadequacy. I recapitulated the arguments I had used in my letter. She + met them with hints and vague allusions. At last she cut the knot. + </p> + <p> + “I am going back to my husband.” + </p> + <p> + I rose to my feet and echud the words. She repeated them in a tone so + mournfully distinct, that they had the finality of a death-knell. I had + nothing to say. + </p> + <p> + “Before we part I must make my peace with you, Marcus,” she said. “I have + suddenly developed a conscience. I always had the germs of it.” + </p> + <p> + “You were always the best and dearest woman in the world,” I cried. + </p> + <p> + “And I betrayed you, dear. That letter from Pasquale told me about his + flight with Carlotta. I lied to you—but I was in a state bordering + on madness.” + </p> + <p> + I rested my elbow on the mantel-piece and looked down on her. She appeared + so sweet and fragile, like a piece of Dresden china, incapable of base + actions. As I did not speak she went on: “I did not mean to play into + Pasquale’s hands, Marcus. Heaven knows I didn’t—but I did play into + them. Do you remember that awful night and our talk the next morning? I + asked you not to see her all day—to mourn our dead love. I knew you + would keep your promise. You are a man of sensitive honour. If all men + were like you, the world would be a beautiful place.” + </p> + <p> + “It would go to smash in a few weeks through universal incompetence,” I + murmured, with some bitterness. + </p> + <p> + “There would be no meanness and treachery and despicable underhand doings. + Marcus, you must forgive me—I was a desperate woman fighting for my + life’s happiness. I thought I would try one forlorn hope. I kept you out + of the way and came up here to see Carlotta. Don’t interrupt me, Marcus; + let me finish. I happened to meet her a hundred yards down the road, and + we went into the Regent’s Park. We sat down and I told her about + ourselves, and my love for you, and asked her to give you up. I don’t + believe she understood, Marcus. She laughed and threw stones at a little + dog. I recovered my senses and left her there and went home sick with + shame and humiliation. I knew Pasquale was in love with her, for he had + told me so the night before, and asked me how the marriage could be + stopped. He didn’t believe in your announcement to Hamdi Effendi. But I + never mentioned Pasquale to Carlotta, or hinted there might be another + than you. I was loyal so far, Marcus. And two or three days afterwards + came Pasquale’s letter. And I waited for you, in a fearful joy. I knew you + would come to me—and I was mad enough to think that time would heal—that + you would forget—that we could have the dear past again—and I + would teach you to love me. But then, suddenly, without a word of warning—it + has always been his way—appeared my husband. After that, you came + with your offer of shelter and comfort—and you seemed like the angel + of the flaming vengeance. For I had wronged you, dear—robbed you of + your happiness. If I hadn’t prepared her mind for leaving you, she would + never have run away. If I had not done this, or if on the other hand you + loved me, Marcus, I should perhaps have looked at things differently. I am + beginning to believe in God and to see his hand in it all. I couldn’t come + and live with you as your wife, Marcus. Things stronger even than my love + for you forbid it. Our life together would not be the sweet and gracious + thing it has always been to me. We have come to the parting of the ways. I + must follow my husband.” + </p> + <p> + I knew she spoke rightly. When she is not swept away to hysterical action + by her temperament, she has a perception exquisitely keen into the heart + of truth. + </p> + <p> + “The parting of the ways?” said I. “Yes; but can’t you rest at the + cross-roads? Can’t you lead your present life—your husband and + myself, both, just your friends?” + </p> + <p> + “Rupert has need of me,” she replied very quickly. “He is a man in torment + of soul. He has gone to this extreme of religious fanaticism because he is + still uncertain of himself. We had another long talk to-day. I may help + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Does he deserve the sacrifice of your life?” + </p> + <p> + She did not take up my question directly; but sat for a few minutes with + her chin on her hand looking into the fire. + </p> + <p> + “He is a man of evil passions,” she resumed, at last. “Drink and women + mainly dragged him down. I knew the hell of it during the short time of + our married life. If he falls away now, he believes he is damned to all + eternity. He believes in the material torture—flames and devils and + pitchforks—of damned souls. He says in me alone lies his salvation. + I must go. If the tin church gets too awful, I shall run over to Delphine + Carrere for a week to steady my nerves.” + </p> + <p> + What could I say? The abomination of desolation lay around about me. I + might have prated to her of my needs, wrung her heart with the piteousness + of my appeal. <i>Cui bono?</i> <i>I</i> can’t whine to women—or to + men either, for the matter of that. When I am by myself I can curse and + swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza out-Heroding all the + Herods that ever Heroded. But before others—no. I believe my + great-grandfather, before he qualified for his baronetcy, was a gentleman. + </p> + <p> + “But on these occasions,” said I, “you will avoid a sequestered and + meditative self.” + </p> + <p> + Her laugh got choked by a sob. + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember that? It is not so long ago—and yet it seems many, + many years.” + </p> + <p> + We moralised generally, after the way of humans, who desire to postpone a + moment of anguished speech. She made the tour of my book-shelves. Many of + the books she had borrowed, and she recognised them as old friends. + </p> + <p> + “Is that where Benvenuto Cellini has always lived?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I, running my hand along the row. “He is in his century, among + his companions. He would be unhappy anywhere else.” + </p> + <p> + “And the History—how far has it gone?” + </p> + <p> + I showed her the pile of finished manuscript, of which she glanced at a + few pages. She put it down hurriedly and turned away. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t see to read, just now, Marcus.” + </p> + <p> + Then she paused in front of her own photograph, the only one now on the + mantel-piece. + </p> + <p> + “Will you give me that back?” + </p> + <p> + “Why should I?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I would rather—I should not like you to burn it.” + </p> + <p> + “Burn it? All I have left of you?” + </p> + <p> + She turned swimming eyes on me. + </p> + <p> + “You are good, Marcus—after what I have told you—you do not + feel bitterly against me?” + </p> + <p> + “For what? For being quixotic? For going to martyrdom for an ideal?” + </p> + <p> + “You did not listen when I spoke about Carlotta?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my dear!” said I. + </p> + <p> + And now she has gone. We kissed at parting—a kiss of remembrance and + renunciation. Shall we ever meet again? + </p> + <p> + Darkness gathers round me, and I am tired, tired, and I would that I could + sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and awake an old man, with an old man’s + passionless resignation; or better, awake not at all. Such poor fools as I + are better dead. + </p> + <p> + I look back and see all my philosophy refuted, all my prim little opinions + lying prone like dolls with the sawdust knocked out of them. All these + years I have been judging Judith with an ignorance as cruel as it has been + complacent. Verily I have been the fag end of wisdom. So I forbear to + judge her now. + </p> + <p> + If I had loved Judith with the great passion of a man’s love for woman, + not all the converted rascals in Christendom could have come between us. + </p> + <p> + And her seeing Carlotta—poor woman—what does it matter? What + did she say about Carlotta? “She laughed and threw stones at a little + dog.” + </p> + <p> + Oh, my God! + </p> + <p> + November 12th + </p> + <p> + This way madness lies. I will leave the house in charge of Stenson and + Antoinette and go abroad. Something has put Verona into my head. One place + is as good as another, so long as it is not this house—this house of + death and madness and crime—and Verona is in Italy, where I have + always found peace. + </p> + <p> + I will confess my madness. This book is a record of my morals—the + finished version of the farce the high gods have called on meto play. I + thought last night the curtain was rung down. I was wrong. Listen, and + laugh as I do—if you can. + </p> + <p> + I fixed myself to work to-day. After all, I am not an idler. I earn my + right to live. When I publish my History the world will be the richer by + <i>something</i>, poor though it may be. I vow I have been more greatly, + more nobly employed of late years, than I was when I earned my living at + school-slavery teaching to children the most useless, the most disastrous, + the most soul-cramping branch of knowledge wherewith pedagogues in their + insensate folly have crippled the minds and blasted the lives of thousands + of their fellow-creatures—elementary mathematics. There is no more + reason for any human being on God’s earth to be acquainted with the + Binomial Theorem or the Solution of Triangles—unless he is a + professional scientist, when he can begin to specialise in mathematics at + the same age as the lawyer begins to specialise in law or the surgeon in + anatomy—than for him to be an expert in Choctaw, the Cabala or the + Book of Mormon. I look back with feelings of shame and degradation to the + days when, for the sake of a crust of bread, I prostituted my intelligence + to wasting the precious hours of impressionable childhood, which could + have been filled with so many beautiful and meaningful things, over this + utterly futile and inhuman subject. It trains the mind—it teaches + boys to think, they say. It doesn’t. In reality it is a cut and dried + subject easy to fit into a school curriculum. Its sacrosanctity saves + educationalists an enormous amount of trouble, and its chief use is to + enable mindless young men from the universities to make a dishonest living + by teaching it to others, who in their turn may teach it to a future + generation. + </p> + <p> + I am mad to-night—why have I indulged in this diatribe against + mathematics? I must find some vent, I suppose. I see now. I was saying + that I earned my right to live, that I am not an idler. I cling + strenuously to the claim. A man cannot command respect, even his own, by + the mere reason of his <i>vie sentimentale</i>. And, after what I have + done to-day, I must force my claim to the respect which on other grounds I + have forfeited. + </p> + <p> + I spent, then, my day in unremitting toil. But this evening the horrible + craving for her came over me. Such a little thing brought it about. + Antoinette, who disapproves of the amorphous British lumps of sugar, has + found some emporium where she can buy the regular parallelopiped of the + Continent, and these she provides for my afterdinner coffee. + Absent-mindedly I dipped the edge of the piece of sugar into the liquid, + before dropping it, and watched the brown moisture rise through the white + crystals. Then I remembered. It was an invariable practice of Carlotta’s. + She would keep the lump in the coffee to saturation-point between her + fingers, and then hastily put it into her mouth, so that it should not + crumble to pieces on the way. If it did, there would be much laughter and + wiping of skirts; and there would be a search through my dinner-jacket + pockets for a handkerchief to dry the pink tips of her fingers. She called + the dripping lump a canard, like the French children. It was such a + trivial thing; but it brought back with a rush all the thousand dainty, + foolish, captivating intimacies that made up the maddening charm of + Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + Yes, I am aware that there is no language spoken under heaven that can + fitly express the doting folly of a man who can be driven mad by a piece + of sugar soaked in coffee. There is a ghastly French phrase not to be + found in Lamartine, Chateaubriand, or any of the polite sentimentalists <i>avoir + les sangs tournes de quelqu’un</i>. It is so with me. <i>J’ai les sangs + tournes d’elle</i>. Somebody has said something somewhere about the + passion of a man of forty. It must have to do with the French phrase. + </p> + <p> + I pushed my coffee aside untasted, and buried my head in my hands, + longing, longing; eating my heart out for her. The hours passed. When the + servants were abed, I stole upstairs to her room, left as it was on the + night when Antoinette, hoping against hope, had prepared it for her + reception. I broke down. Heaven knows what I did. + </p> + <p> + I returned to the drawing-room filled with the blind rage that makes a man + curse God and wish that he could die. The fire was black, and I + mechanically took up the poker to stir it. A tempest of impotent anger + shook my soul. I saw things red before my eyes. I had an execrable lust to + kill. I was alone amid a multitude of gibbering fiends. As I stooped + before the grate I felt something scrabble my shoulders. I leapt back with + a shriek, and saw standing on the mantel-shelf a black, one-eyed thing + regarding me with an expression of infinite malice. Before I knew what I + had done, I had brought the iron down, with all my force, upon its skull, + and it had fallen dead at my feet. + </p> + <p> + <i>Finis coronat opus.</i> + </p> + <p> + November 22d. + </p> + <p> + Verona:—I have abandoned the “History of Renaissance Morals.” The + dog’s-eared MS. and the dusty pile of notes I have shot into a lumber heap + in a corner of this room, where I sit and shiver by a little stove. It is + immense, marble, cold, comfortless, suggestive of “the vasty halls of + death.” I have been here a week to-day. I thought I should find rest. I + should breathe the atmosphere of Italy again. I should ease my heart among + the masterworks of Girolamo dai Libri and Cavazzola, and, in the presence + of the blue castellated mountains they loved to paint, my spirit would + even be as theirs. In this old-world city, I fondly imagined, I should + forget the Regent’s Park, and attune my mind to the life that once filled + its narrow streets. + </p> + <p> + But nothing have I found save solitude. I stood to-day before the + mutilated fresco of Morone, my rapture of six years ago, and hated it with + unreasoning hatred. The Madonna belied the wreath-supported inscription + above her head, <i>“Miseratrix virginum Regina nostri miserere,”</i> and + greeted me with a pitiless simper. The unidentified martyr on the left + stared straight in front of him with callous indifference, and St. Roch + looked aggravatingly plump for all his ostentatious plague-spot. The + picture was worse than meaningless. It was insulting. It drove me out of + the Public Gallery. Outside a grey mist veiled the hills and a fine + penetrating rain was falling. I crept home, and for the fiftieth time + since I have been here, opened my “History of Renaissance Morals.” I threw + it, with a final curse, into the corner. + </p> + <p> + I loathe it. I care not a fig for the Renaissance or its morals. I count + its people but a pestilent herd of daubers, rhymers, cutthroats, and + courtesans. Their <i>hubris</i> has lost its glamour of beauty and has + coarsened into vulgar insolence. They offend me by their riotous swagger, + their insistence on the animal joy of living; chiefly by their perpetual + reminiscence of Pasquale. + </p> + <p> + Yet once they interested me greatly, filling with music and with colour + the grey void of my life. Whence has come the change? + </p> + <p> + In myself. To myself I have become a subject of excruciating interest. To + myself I am a vastly more picturesque personage than any debonair hooligan + of quattro-cento Verona. He has faded into the dullest (and most + offensive) dog of a ghost. I only exist. This sounds like the colossal + vanity of Bedlam. Heaven knows it is not. If you are racked with toothache + from ear to ear, from crown to chin, and from eyeball to cerebellum, is + not the whole universe concentrated in that head of yours? Are you not to + yourself in that hour of torture the most vitally important of created + beings? And no one blames you for it. Let me therefore be without blame in + my hour of moral toothache. + </p> + <p> + In the days gone by I was the victim of a singular hallucination. I + flattered myself on being the one individual in the world not summoned to + play his part in the comedy of Life. I sat alone in the great auditorium + like the mad king of Bavaria, watching with little zest what seemed but a + sorry spectacle. I thought myself secure in my solitary stall. But I had + not counted on the high gods who crowd shadowy into the silent seats and + are jealous of a mortal in their midst. Without warning was I wrested from + my place, hurled onto the stage, and before my dazzled eyes could accustom + themselves to the footlights, I found myself enmeshed in intolerable + drama. I was unprepared. I knew my part imperfectly. I missed my cues. I + had the blighting self-consciousness of the amateur. And yet the idiot + mummery was intensely real. Amid the laughter of the silent shadowy gods I + thought to flee from the stage. I came to Verona and find I am still + acting my part. I have always been acting. I have been acting since I was + born. The reason of our being is to amuse the high gods with our + histrionics. The earth itself is the stage, and the starry ether the + infinite auditorium. + </p> + <p> + The high gods have granted to their troupe of mimes one boon. Each has it + in his power to make the final exit at any moment. For myself I feel that + moment is at hand. One last soliloquy, and then like the pagliacco I can + say with a sigh, <i>“La commedia e finita</i>—the play is played + out,” and the rest will be silence. At all events I will tell my own + story. My “History of Renaissance Morals” can lie in its corner and rot, + whilst I shall concern myself with a far more vital theme—The Morals + of Marcus Ordeyne. The rough entries in my diary have been a habit of many + futile years; but they have never sufficed for self-expression. I have not + needed it till now. But now, with Judith and Carlotta gone from me, my one + friend, Pasquale, cut for ever from my life, even the sympathetic + Polyphemus driven into eternity by my murderous hand, I feel the + irresistible craving to express myself fully and finally for the first and + last time of my life. It will be my swan song. What becomes of it + afterwards I care not. + </p> + <p> + And when the last word is written, I shall go to the Pinacoteca and stand + again before the Morone fresco, and if the <i>Miseratrix Virginum Regina</i> + still simpers at me, I shall take it as a sign and a token. I shall return + to this marble cavern and make my final exit. It will be theatrically + artistic—that I vow and declare—which no doubt will afford + immense pleasure to the high gods in their gallery. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART II + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI + </h2> + <p> + It is some two years since I stood for the second time in the Pinacoteca + of Verona and sought to read my fate in the simpering countenance of + Morone’s <i>Miseratrix Virginum Regina</i>. I met what might have been + expected by a person of any sense—the self-same expression on the + painted face as I had angrily found there two months before when I began + to write the foregoing pages. But as I had no sense at all in those days I + accepted the poor battered Madonna’s lack of sympathy for a sign and a + token, went home, and prepared for dissolution. + </p> + <p> + Two years ago! It is only for the last few months that I have been able to + look back on that nightmare of a time in Verona with philosophic + equanimity. And this morning is the first occasion on which I have felt + that dispassionate attitude towards a past self which enables a man to set + down without the heartache the memories of days that are gone. I sit upon + the flat roof of this house in Mogador on the Morocco coast, shaded by an + awning from the bright African sun which glints in myriad sparkles on the + sea visible beyond the house-tops. The atmosphere last night was somewhat + heavy with the languorous, indescribable, and unforgettable smell of the + East; but the morning is deliciously wind-swept by the Atlantic breeze, + and the air tastes sweet. And it is clear, dazzlingly clear. The white + square houses and the cupolas of the mosques stand out sharp against a sky + of intense, ungradated blue. I am away from the centre of the busy + sea-port and the noise of its streets thronged with grain-laden camels and + shouting drivers and picturesque, quarrelling, squabbling, haggling Moors + and Jews and desert Arabs, and I am enveloped in the peace of the infinite + azure. Besides, yesterday afternoon, as I rode back to Mogador, across the + tongue of desert which separates it from the Palm Tree House, and the town + rose on the horizon, a dream city of pure snow set in the clear sunset + amethyst against the still, pale lapis lazuli of the bay—something + happened. And yesterday evening more happened still. + </p> + <p> + Two years ago, then, I faced in Verona the dissolution of my ineffectual + existence. I could see no reason for living. My theory of myself in my + relation to the cosmos had been upset by practical phenomena. No other + theory based on surer grounds presented itself. But what about life, said + I, without a theory? Already it was life without a purpose, without work, + without friends, without Judith and without Carlotta. I could not endure + it without even a theory to console me. Beings do exist devoid of loves or + theories. But of such, I thought, are the beasts that perish. I reflected + further. Supposing, on extended investigation, I found a new theory. How + far would it profit me? How far could I trust it not to lead me through + another series of fantastic emotions and futile endeavours to the sublime + climax of murdering a one-eyed cat? Self-abomination and contempt smote me + as I thought of poor Polyphemus stretched dead on the hearthrug, and + myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, with the poker in + my hand. + </p> + <p> + I walked up and down the vast cold room of the marble palazzo, arraying + before me in overwhelming numbers the arguments for selfdestruction. On a + table in the middle of the room stood a phial of prussic acid which I had + procured long before in London, it being a conviction of mine that every + man ought to have ready to hand a sure means of exit from the world. I + paused many times in front of the little blue phial. One lift of the hand, + one toss of the head, and all would be over. At last I extracted the cork, + and the faint smell of almonds reached my nostrils. I recorked the phial + and lit a cigarette. This I threw away half smoked and again approached + the table of death. I began to feel a strong natural disinclination to + swallow the stuff. “This,” said I, “is sheer animal cowardice.” I again + uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter appeared to me. “It is the + act of a craven to shirk the responsibilities of life. Can you be such a + meanspirited creature as not even to have the courage to live?” “No,” said + I, “I have a valiant spirit,” and I set down the bottle. “Bah,” whispered + the familiar imp of suicide at my elbow. “You are just afraid to die.” I + took up the bottle again. But the other taunter had an argument equally + strong, and once more I put the phial uncorked on the table. + </p> + <p> + Thus between two cowardices, one of which I must choose, stood I, like the + ass of Buridan. I lit another cigarette and excogitated the problem. I + smoked two cigarettes, walking up and down that vast, chill apartment, + while the air grew sickly sweet with the smell of almonds, which + intensified the physical repugnance the first faint odour had occasioned. + I began to shiver with cold. The stove had burned out before I entered, + and I had not considered it worth while to have it filled for the few + minutes that would remain to me to live. I had not reckoned on the ass’s + bundles of cowardice. + </p> + <p> + “I may as well be warm,” thought I, “while I prove to my complete + satisfaction that it is more cowardly to live than to die. There is no + very great hurry.” + </p> + <p> + I caught up a travelling-rug with which I had tried to soften the + asperities of an imitation Louis XV couch, and throwing it over my + shoulders, resumed my pilgrimage. I soon lost myself in the problem and + did not notice a corner of the rug gradually slipping down towards the + floor. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll do it!” I cried at last, making a sudden dive towards the table. But + the ironical corner of the rug had reached the ground. I stepped on it, + tripped, and instinctively caught the table to steady myself. The table, a + rickety gueridon, overbalanced, and away rolled my uncorked phial of + prussic acid and fell into a hundred pieces on the tessellated floor. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Solvitur</i>,” said I, grimly, “<i>ambulando</i>.” + </p> + <p> + Looking back now, I am inclined to treat myself tenderly. Whether I should + have drunk the poison, if the accident had not occurred, I cannot say. At + the moment of my rush I intended to do so. After the catastrophe, which I + attributed to the curse of ineffectuality that pursued me, I must confess + that I was glad. Not that life looked more attractive than before, but + that the decision had been taken out of my hands. I could not go about the + shops of Verona buying prussic acid or revolvers or metres of stout rope. + And my razors (without Stenson’s care) were benignantly blunt, and I would + not condescend to braces. I groaned and pished and pshawed, but as it was + written that I was to live, I resigned myself to a barren and theoryless + existence. + </p> + <p> + After a day or two the vital instinct asserted itself more strongly. I + became inspired by an illuminating revelation. I had a preliminary aim in + life. I would go out into the world in search of a theory. When found I + would apply it to the regulation of the score and a half years during + which I might possibly expect to remain on this planet. I must take my + chances of it leading me to the corpse of another Polyphemus. + </p> + <p> + As it struck me I should not find my theory in Italy, I packed up my + belongings and hastened from Verona. At Naples I picked up a Messageries + Maritimes steamer and began a circular tour in the Levant. At Alexandretta + I went ashore, and inquired my way to the dwelling of the Prefect of + Police. I did not call on Hamdi Effendi. But I wandered round the walls + and wondered in a moody, heart-achey way where it was that Carlotta sat + when Harry came along and whistled her like a tame falcon to his arm. It + was a white palace of a house with a closed balcony supported on rude + corbels and tightly shuttered. At the back spread a large garden + surrounded by the famous wall. There was no doubt that Hamdi was a wealthy + personage, and that Carlotta’s nurture had been as gentle as that of any + lady in Syria. But the place wherein Carlotta’s childhood had been + sheltered had an air of impenetrable mystery. I stood baffled before it, + as I had stood so often before Carlotta’s soul. The result of this portion + of my search was the discovery, not of a new theory, but of an old pain. I + went back to the ship in a despondent mood, and caused deep distress to + one of the gentlest creatures I have ever met. He was a lean, elderly + German, who no matter what the occasion or what the temperature wore a + long, tight-buttoned frock-coat, a narrow black tie, and a little + bluish-grey felt hat adorned with a partridge’s feather which gave him an + air of forlorn rakishness. His name was Doctor Anastasius Dose, and he + spent a blameless life in travelling up and down the world, on behalf of a + Leipsic firm of which he was a member, in search of rare and curious + books. For there are copies of books which have a well-known pedigree like + famous jewels, and whose acquisition, a matter of infinite tact, gives + rise, I was told by Herr Dose, to the most exquisite thrill known to man. + He brought me on that morose afternoon a copy of the “Synonima,” in + Italian and French, of St. Fliscus, printed by Simon Magniagus of Milan in + 1480, and opened the vellum covers with careful fingers. + </p> + <p> + “In all the assemblage of human atoms that inhabit this vessel,” said he, + “there is but one who is imbued with reverence for the past and a sense of + the preciousness of the unique. I need not tell you, Herr Baronet, who are + a scholar, that of this book only two copies exist in this ink-sodden + universe. One is in the University Library of Bologna; the other is before + your eyes. It is also the only book known to have been printed by + Magniagus. See the beautiful, small Roman type—a masterpiece. Ach, + Herr Baronet! to have accomplished one such work in a lifetime, and then + to sit among the blessed saints and look down on earth and know that the + two sole copies in existence are cherished by the elect, what a reward, + what eternal happiness!” + </p> + <p> + I turned over the pages. The faint perfume of mouldy lore ascended and I + remembered the smell of the “Histoire des Uscoques” in the Embankment + Gardens. + </p> + <p> + “The <i>odor di femina</i> in the nostrils of the scholar,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Famina?</i> Woman?” he cried, scandalised. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, my friend,” said I. “All things sublunar can be translated into + terms of woman. St. Fliscus wrote because he hadn’t a wife; Simon + Magniagus stopped printing because he got married and devoted his + existence to reproducing himself instead of St. Fliscus.” + </p> + <p> + “Ach, that is very interesting,” said he. “Could you tell me the date of + Magniagus’s marriage?” + </p> + <p> + “I never heard of him till this moment, my dear Herr Doctor. But depend + upon it, he was either married or was going to be married, and she ran + away from him and left him without the heart to print for posterity, and + when he took his seat among the saints she said she was so glad; he was a + stupid old ink-sodden fellow!” + </p> + <p> + He departed sorrowingly from the deck, clasping the precious volume to his + heart. Allusive or discursive speech scared him like indecency; and I had + used his gem but as a peg whereon flauntingly to hang it. It took me three + days to tame him and to induce him to show me another of his treasures, + recently acquired in Athens. Ioannes Georgius Godelmann’s <i>Tractate de + Lamiis</i>, printed by Nicholas Bassaeus of Frankfurt. I read him Keats’s + poem about the young lady of Corinth, of which he had never heard. His + mental attitude towards it was the indulgent one of an old diplomatist + towards a child’s woolly lamb. For him literature had never existed and + printing ended in the year 1600. But I was sorry when he left me at + Constantinople, where he counted on striking the track of a Bohemian + herbal, printed at Prague, and never more to be read by any of the sons of + man. In the summer he was going book-hunting in Iceland. By chance I have + learned since that he died there. Peace to his ashes! For aught I could + see he dwelt in a mild stupor of happiness, absorbed in the intoxication + of a tremulous pursuit. I wondered whether his soul contained that + antidote—the <i>odor di femina</i>. Perhaps he met it at Reykjavic + and he died of dismay. + </p> + <p> + I thought that my landing at Alexandretta was alone responsible for the + continuance of my dotage, and hoped that fresh scenes would banish + Carlotta’s distracting image. But no, it was one of the many vain + reflections on which I based a false philosophy. Whether in Beyrout, or + the land of the “sweet singer of Persephone,” or Alexandria, or on the + Cannebiere of Marseilles, or in the queer half-Orient of Algiers whither a + restless pursuit of the Identical led me, or in Lisbon, or in the + mountainous republic of Andorre, where I hoped to find primitive wisdom + and to shape a theory from first principles, and whence I was ironically + driven by fleas—whether on land or sea, in cities or in solitudes, + the vanished hand harped on my heartstrings and the voice that was still + (as far as I was concerned) cooed its dove-notes into my ears. + </p> + <p> + I remember overhearing myself described on a steamboat by a pretty + American girl of sixteen, as “a quaint gentle old guy who talks awful rot + which no one can understand, and is all the time thinking about something + else.” My sudden emergence from the companion-way, where I was lighting a + cigarette, brought red confusion into the young person’s cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “How old do you think I am?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, about sixty,” quoth the damsel. + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad I’m quaint and gentle, even though I do talk rot,” said I. + </p> + <p> + With the resourcefulness of her nation she linked her arm in mine and + started a confidential walk up and down the deck. + </p> + <p> + “You are just a dear,” she remarked. + </p> + <p> + She could not have said more to Anastasius Dose had he been there; as far + as I can recollect he must just then have been dying of the Inevitable in + Iceland. Perhaps the few months had brought me to resemble him. + Instinctively I put my hand to my head to reassure myself that I was not + wearing a rakish little soft felt hat with a partridge-feather, and I + reflected with some complacency that my rimless pince-nez did not give me + the owlish appearance produced by Anastasius Dose’s great round, + iron-rimmed goggles. From such crumbs of vanity are we sometimes reduced + to take comfort. + </p> + <p> + “I just want to know what you are,” said my young American friend. + </p> + <p> + Shall I confess my attraction? She brought a dim suggestion of Carlotta. + She had Carlotta’s colouring and Carlotta’s candour. But there the + resemblance stopped. The grey matter of her brain had been distilled from + the air of Wall Street, and there were precious few things between earth + and sky of which she hadn’t prescience. + </p> + <p> + “I’m a broken-down philosopher,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s nothing. So is everybody as soon as they get sense. What did + you make your money in?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve not made any money,” I answered, meekly. + </p> + <p> + “I thought all people who were knighted in your country had made piles of + money.” + </p> + <p> + “Knighted!” I exclaimed. “What on earth do you think a quaint old guy like + myself could possibly have done to get knighted?” + </p> + <p> + “Then you’re a baronet,” she said, severely. + </p> + <p> + “I assure you it is not my fault.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought all baronets were wicked. They are in the novels. Somehow you + don’t look like a baronet. You ought to have a black moustache and an + eyeglass and smoke a cigar and sneer. But, say, how do you fill up the + time if you do nothing to make money?” + </p> + <p> + “I am going through the world,” said I, “on an adventurous quest, like a + knight—or a baronet, if you will—of the Round Table. I am in + quest of a Theory of Life.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess I was born with it,” cried young New York. + </p> + <p> + “I guess I’ll die without finding it,” said I. + </p> + <p> + London again. My quiet house. Antoinette and Stenson. The well-ordered + routine of comfort. My books. The dog’s-eared manuscript of the “History + of Renaissance Morals,” unpacked by Stenson and hid in its usual place on + the writing-table. Nothing changed, yet everything utterly different. + </p> + <p> + A growing distaste for the forced acquaintanceships of travel and a + craving for home brought me back. Save perhaps in health I had profited + little by my journeyings. My bodily shell formed part of strange + landscapes and occurred in fortuitous gatherings of men, but my heart was + all the time in my Mausoleum by the Regent’s Park. I was drawn thither by + a force almost magnetic, irresistible. My two domestics welcomed me home, + but no one else. Only my lawyers knew of my arrival. With them alone had I + corresponded during the many months of my absence. Stay; I did write one + letter to Mrs. McMurray while I was at Verona, in reply to an enquiry as + to what had become of Carlotta and myself. I answered courteously but + briefly that Carlotta had run away with Pasquale and that I should be + abroad for an indefinite period. But not even a letter from my lawyers + awaited me. I thought somewhat wistfully that I would willingly have paid + six and eight pence for it. But the feeling was momentary. + </p> + <p> + Then began a queer, untroubled life. Without definite resolve I became a + recluse, living forlornly from day to day. Like a bat I avoided the outer + sunshine and took my melancholy walks at night. I had a pride in + cherishing the habit of solitude. Were it not that I entertained a real + dislike of roots and water and the damp and manifold discomforts of a + cave, with which form of habitat the ministrations of Stenson and + Antoinette would have been inconsistent, I should have gone forth into the + nearest approach to a Thebaid I could discover. I was, in fact, touched by + the mild mania of the hermit. My club I never entered. A line drawn from + east to west, a tangent at the lowest point of the Zoological Gardens + formed the southern boundary of my wanderings. Once I spied in the + distance that very kind soul, Mrs. McMurray, and rushed into a + providential omnibus, so as to avoid recognition. My History remained + untouched. The glamour of the Renaissance had vanished. For occupation I + read the Neo-Platonists, Thaumaturgy, Demonology and the like, which I had + always found a fascinating although futile study. I regretted my bowing + acquaintance with modern science, which forbade my setting up a laboratory + with alembics and magic crystals wherewith to conduct experiments for the + finding of the Elixir Vitae and the Philosopher’s Stone. + </p> + <p> + I seldom read the newspapers. I had an idea, like an eminent personage of + the period, that a sort of war was going on, but it failed to interest me + greatly. I shrank from the noise of it. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur,” said Antoinette, “will get ill if he does not go out into the + sunshine.” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur,” said I, “regards the sunshine as an impertinent intrusion into + a soul that loves the twilight.” + </p> + <p> + If I had made the same remark to an Englishwoman, she would have pitied me + for a poor, half-witted gentleman. But Antoinette has her nation’s + instinctive appreciation of soul-states, and her sympathy was none the + less comprehending when she shook her head mournfully and said that it was + bad for the stomach. + </p> + <p> + “My good Antoinette,” I remarked, harking back in my mind to a speculation + of other days, “if you go on worrying me in this manner about my stomach, + I will build a tower forty feet high in the back garden, and live on top, + and have my meals sent up by a lift, and never come down again.” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur might as well be in Paradise,” said Antoinette. + </p> + <p> + “Ah,” said I. And I thought of the bottle of prussic acid with mingled + sentiments. + </p> + <p> + All through these many months I had Judith dwelling, a pale ghost, in the + back of my mind. We had parted so finally that correspondence between us + had seemed impertinent. But although I had not written to her, no small + part of the infinite sadness that had fallen upon my life was the shadow + of her destiny. Sweet, wine-loving Judith! How many times did I picture + her sitting pinched and wistful in the little tin mission church at + Hoxton! Had I, Marcus Ordeyne, condemned her to that penitentiary? Who can + hold the balance of morals so truly as to decide? + </p> + <p> + At last I received a letter from her on the anniversary of our parting. + She had found salvation in a strange thing which she called duty. “I am + fulfilling an appointed task,” she wrote, “and the measure of my success + is the measure of my happiness. I am bringing consolation to a wayward and + tormented spirit. A year has swept aside the petty feminine vanities, the + opera-glasses, so to speak, through which a woman complacently views her + influence over a man, and it has cleared my vision. A year has proved + beyond mortal question that without me this wayward and tormented spirit + would fail. I hold in my hands the very soul of a man. What more dare a + woman ask of the high gods? You see I use your metaphors still. Dearest of + all dear friends, do not pity me. Beyond all the fires of love through + which one passes there is the star of Duty, and happy the individual who + can live in its serenity.” + </p> + <p> + This was astonishingly like the Theory of Life which I set out from Verona + to seek, and which had hitherto eluded me. It was not very new, or subtle, + or inspiring. But that is the way of things. No matter through what realms + of the fantastic you may travel, you arrive inevitably at the commonplace. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII + </h2> + <p> + I answered Judith’s letter. After the long silence it seemed, at first, + strange to write to her; but soon I found myself opening my heart as I had + never done before to man or woman. The fact that, accident aside, we were + never to meet again, drew the spiritual elements in us nearer together, + and the tone of her letter loosened the bonds of my natural reserve. I + told her of my past year of life, of the locked memorial chamber upstairs, + of the madness through which I had passed, of my weary pursuit of the + Theory, and of my attitude towards her solution of the problem. Having + written the letter I felt comforted, knowing that Judith would understand. + </p> + <p> + I finished it about six o’clock one afternoon, and shrinking from giving + it to Stenson to post, as it was the first private letter I had written + since my arrival in London, I took it myself to the pillar-box. The fresh + air reproached me for the unreasonable indoor life I had been leading, and + invited me to remain outside. It was already dark. An early touch of frost + in the November air rendered it exhilarating. I walked along the decorous, + residential roads of St. John’s Wood feeling less remote from my kind, + more in sympathy with the humdrum dramas in progress behind the rows of + lighted windows. Now and then a garden gate opened and a man in evening + dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of satin and frills and fur, + emerged, stood for a moment in the shaft of light cast by the open + hall-door beyond, which framed the white-capped and aproned parlour-maid, + and entering a waiting hansom, drove off into the darkness whither my + speculative fancy followed them. Now and then silhouettes appeared upon + the window-blinds, especially on the upper floors, for it was the dressing + hour and the cares of the day were being thrown aside with the workaday + garments. In one house, standing far back from the road, the drawing-room + curtains had not been drawn. As I passed, I saw a man tossing up a + delighted child in his arms, and the mother standing by. <i>Ay de mi!</i> + A commonplace of ten thousand homes, when the man returns from his toil. + Yet it moved me. To earn one’s bread; to perpetuate one’s species; to + create duties and responsibilities; to meet them like a brave man; to put + the new generation upon the right path; to look back upon it all and say, + “I have fulfilled my functions,” and pass forth quietly into the eternal + laboratory—is not that Life in its truth and its essence? And the + reward? The commonplace. The welcome of wife and children—and the + tossing of a crowing babe in one’s arms. And I had missed it all, lived + outside it all. I had spoken blasphemously in my besotted ignorance of + these sacred common things, and verily I had my recompense in a desolate + home and a life of about as much use to humanity as that of St. Simeon + Stylites on top of his pillar. + </p> + <p> + So I walked along the streets on the track of the wisdom which Judith had + revealed to me, and I seemed to be on the point of reaching it when I + arrived at my own door. + </p> + <p> + “But what the deuce shall I do with it when I get it?” I said, as I let + myself in with my latch-key. + </p> + <p> + I had just put my stick in the stand and was taking off my overcoat, when + the door of the room next the diningroom opened, and Antoinette rushed out + upon me. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!” she cried, wringing her hands. “Oh, Monsieur! + How shall I tell you?” + </p> + <p> + The good soul broke into sobbing and weeping. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter, Antoinette?” Z asked. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur must not be angry. Monsieur is good like the Bon Dieu. But it + will give pain to Monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “But what is it?” I cried, mystified. “Have you spoiled the dinner?” + </p> + <p> + I was a million miles from any anticipation of her answer. + </p> + <p> + <i>“Monsieur-she has come back!”</i> + </p> + <p> + I grew faint for a moment as from a blow over the heart. Antoinette raised + her great tear-stained face. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur must not drive her away.” + </p> + <p> + I pushed her gently aside and entered the little room which I had + furnished once as her boudoir. + </p> + <p> + On the couch sat Carlotta, white and pinched and poorly clad. At first I + was only conscious of her great brown eyes fixed upon me, the dog-like + appeal of our first meeting intensified to heart-breaking piteousness. On + seeing me she did not rise, but cowered as if I would strike her. I looked + at her, unable to speak. Antoinette stood sobbing in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said I, at last. + </p> + <p> + “I have come home,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “You have been away a long time,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Ye-es,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Why have you come?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I had no money,” said Carlotta, with her expressive gesture of upturned + palms. “I had nothing but that.” She pointed to a tiny travelling bag. + “Everything else was at the Mont de Piete—the pawnshop—and + they would not keep me any longer at the pension. I owed them for three + weeks, and then they lent me money to buy my ticket to London. I said Seer + Marcous would pay them back. So I came home.” + </p> + <p> + “But where—where is Pasquale?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “He went five, six months ago. He gave me some money and said he would + send some more. But he did not send any. He went to South Africa. He said + there was a war and he wanted to fight, and he said he was sick of me. Oh, + he was very unkind,” she cried with the quiver of her baby lips. “I wish I + had never seen him.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you married?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Damn him!” said I, between my teeth. + </p> + <p> + “He was going to marry me, but then he said it did not matter in Paris. At + first he was so nice, but after a little—oh, Seer Marcous dear, he + was so cruel.” + </p> + <p> + There was a short silence. Antoinette wept by the door, uttering little + half-audible exclamations <i>“la pauvre petite, le cher ange!”</i> + </p> + <p> + Carlotta regarded me wistfully. I saw a new look of suffering in her eyes. + For myself I felt numb with pain. + </p> + <p> + “What kind of a pension were you living in?” I asked, unutterable horrors + coming into my head. + </p> + <p> + “It was a French family, an old lady and two old daughters, and one fat + German professor. Pasquale put me there. It was very respectable,” she + added, with a wan smile, “and so dull. Madame Champet would scarcely let + me go into the street by myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank heaven you did not fall into worse hands,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta unpinned her old straw hat, quite a different garment from the + dainty head-wear she delighted in a year before, and threw it on the couch + beside her. A tress of her glorious bronze hair fell loose across her + forehead, adding to the woebegone expression of her face. She rose, and as + she did so I seemed to notice a curious change in her. She came to me with + extended hands. + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous—” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + I took her hands in mine. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my dear,” said I, “why did you leave me?” + </p> + <p> + “I was wicked. And I was a little fool,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I sighed, released her, walked a bit apart. There was a blubber from the + egregious old woman in the threshold. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Monsieur is not going to drive her away.” + </p> + <p> + I turned upon her. + </p> + <p> + “Instead of standing there weeping like a fountain and doing nothing, why + aren’t you getting Mademoiselle’s room ready for her?” + </p> + <p> + “Because Monsieur has the key,” wailed Antoinette. + </p> + <p> + “That’s true,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Then I reflected on the futility of converting bedchambers into mausoleums + for the living. The room shut up for a year would not be habitable. It + would be damp and inch-deep in dust. + </p> + <p> + “Mademoiselle shall sleep in my room to-night,” I said, “and Stenson can + make me up a bed and put what I want here. Go and arrange it with him.” + </p> + <p> + Antoinette departed. I turned to Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “Are you very tired, my child?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes—so tired.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you write, so that things could have been got ready for you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. I was too unhappy. Seer Marcous—” she said after a + little pause and then stopped. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “I am going to have a baby.” + </p> + <p> + She said it in the old, childlike way, oblivious of difference of sex; + with her little foreign insistence on the final consonants. I glanced + hurriedly at her. The fact was obvious. She stood with her hands + helplessly outspread. The pathos of her would have wrung the heart of a + devil. + </p> + <p> + “Thank God, you’ve come home,” said I, huskily. + </p> + <p> + She began to cry softly. I put my arm round her shoulders, and comforted + her. She sobbed out incoherent things. She wished she had never seen + Pasquale. I was good. She would stay with me always. She would never run + away again. + </p> + <p> + I took her upstairs, and opened the door of her room with the key that I + had carried for a year on my bunch, and turned on the electric light. + </p> + <p> + “See what are still usable of your old things,” said I, “and I will send + Antoinette up to you.” + </p> + <p> + She looked around her, somewhat puzzled. + </p> + <p> + “Why should I sleep in your room when this one is ready for me—my + night dress—even the hot water?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” said I, “that hot water was put for you a year ago. It must be + cold now.” + </p> + <p> + “And my red slippers—and my dressing-gown!” she cried, quaveringly. + </p> + <p> + Then sinking in a heap on the floor beside the dusty bed, she burst into a + passion of tears. + </p> + <p> + I stole away and sent Antoinette to minister to her. + </p> + <p> + A year before I had raved and ranted, deeming life intolerable and cursing + the high gods; I suffered then, it is true; but I hope I may never again + go through the suffering of that first night of Carlotta’s return. Even + now I can close my eyes and feel the icy grip on my heart. + </p> + <p> + She came down to dinner about an hour later, dressed in a pink wrapper, + one of the last things she had bought, which Antoinette (as she explained + to excuse her delay) had been airing before the fire. She sat opposite me, + in her old place, penitent, subdued, yet not shy or ill at ease. Stenson + waited on us, grave and imperturbable as if we had put back the clock of + time a twelvemonth. The only covert reference he made to the event was to + murmur discreetly in my ear: + </p> + <p> + “I have brought up a bottle of the Pommery, Sir Marcus, in the hope you + would drink some.” + </p> + <p> + I was touched, for the good fellow had no other way of showing his + solicitude. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta allowed him to fill her glass. She sipped the wine, and declared + that it did her good. She was no longer a teetotaller, she explained. Once + she drank too much, and the next day had a headache. + </p> + <p> + “Why should one have a headache?” + </p> + <p> + “Nemesis,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What is Nemesis?” + </p> + <p> + I found myself answering her question in the old half-jesting way. And in + her old way she replied: + </p> + <p> + “I do not understand.” + </p> + <p> + How vividly familiar it was, and yet how agonisingly strange! + </p> + <p> + “Where is Polyphemus?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Dead,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h! How did poor Polyphemus die?” + </p> + <p> + “He was smitten by Destiny at the end of the last act of a farcical + tragedy.” + </p> + <p> + The ghost of a “<i>hou!</i>” came from Carlotta. She composed herself + immediately. + </p> + <p> + “I often used to think of Polyphemus and Seer Marcous and Antoinette,” she + said, musingly. “And then I wished I was back. I have been very wicked.” + </p> + <p> + She put her elbows on the table, and framing her face with her hands + looked at me, and shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you are good! Oh, you are good!” + </p> + <p> + “Go on with your dinner, my child,” said I, “and wonder at the genius of + Antoinette who has managed to cook it and look after you at the same + time.” + </p> + <p> + She obeyed meekly. I watched her eat. She was famished. I learned that she + had had nothing since the early morning coffee and roll. In spite of pain, + I was curiously flattered by her return. I represented <i>something</i> to + her, after all—even though the instinct of the prodigal cat had + driven her hither. I am sure it had never crossed her mind that my doors + might be shut against her. Her first words were, “I have come home.” The + first thing she did when we went into the drawing-room after dinner was to + fondle my hand and lay it against her cheek and say, with a deep sigh: + </p> + <p> + “I am so happy.” + </p> + <p> + However shallow her butterfly nature was, these things came from its + depths. No man can help feeling pleased at a child’s or an animal’s + implicit trust in him. And the pleasure is of the purest. He feels that + unreasoning intuition has penetrated to some latent germ of good in his + nature, and for the moment he is disarmed of evil. Carlotta, then, came + blindly to what was best in me. In her thoughts she sandwiched me between + the cat and the cook: well, in most sandwiches the mid-ingredient is the + most essential. + </p> + <p> + She curled herself up in the familiar sofa-corner, and as it was a chilly + night I sent for a wrap which I threw over her limbs. + </p> + <p> + “See, I have the dear red slippers,” she remarked, arching her instep. + </p> + <p> + “And I have my dear Carlotta,” said I. + </p> + <p> + I drew my chair near her, and gradually I learned all the unhappy story. + </p> + <p> + Pasquale had made love to her from the very first minute of their + acquaintance—even while I was hunting for the <i>L’Histoire Comique + de Francion</i>. He had met her many times unknown to me. They had + corresponded, her letters being addressed to a little stationer’s shop + close by. She did not love him. Of that I have an absolute conviction. But + he was young, he was handsome, he had the libertine’s air and manner. She + was docile. And she was ever positively truthful. If I had questioned her + she would have confessed frankly. But I never questioned, as I never + suspected. I wondered sometimes at her readiness in quoting him. I noticed + odd coincidences; but I was too ineffectual to draw inferences from + phenomena. His appearance on the Paddington platform was prearranged; his + duchessa at Ealing a myth. + </p> + <p> + Apparently he had dallied with his fancy. The fruit was his any day for + the plucking. Perhaps a rudimentary sentiment of loyalty towards me + restrained him. Who can tell? The night of our meeting with Hamdi brought + the crisis. The Turk’s threats had alarmed both Carlotta and myself. It + was necessary for him to strike at once. He saw her the next day—would + to heaven I had remained at home!—told her I was marrying her to + save her from Hamdi. I loved the other woman. He would save her equally + well from Hamdi. The other woman met her soon after parting from Pasquale + and besought her to give me up. She did not know what to do. Poor child, + how should she have known? On the previous evening I had told her she was + to marry me. She was ready to obey. She went to bed thinking that she was + to marry me. In the morning she went for her music lesson. Pasquale was + waiting for her. They walked for some distance down the road. He hailed a + cab and drove away with her. + </p> + <p> + “He said he loved me,” said Carlotta, “and he kissed me, and he told me I + must go away with him to Paris and marry him. And I felt all weak, like + that—” she dropped her arms helplessly in an expressive gesture, + “and so what could I do?” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you think, Carlotta, that I might be sorry—perhaps unhappy?” + I asked as gently as I could. + </p> + <p> + “He said you would be quite happy with the other woman.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you believe him?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s why I said I have been very wicked,” Carlotta answered, simply. + </p> + <p> + She went on with her story—an old, miserable, detestable, execrable + story. At first all went merrily. Then she fell ill in Paris. It was her + first acquaintance with the northern winter. Her throat proved to be + delicate and she was laid up with bronchitis. To men of Pasquale’s type, a + woman ill is of no more use than a spavined horse or a broken-down + motor-car. More than that, she becomes an infernal nuisance. It was in his + temperament to perform sporadic acts of fantastic chivalry. It appealed to + something romantic, theatrical, in his facile nature. But to devote + himself to a woman in sickness—that was different. The fifteenth + century Italian hated like the devil continued association with pain. He + would have thrown his boots to a beggar, but he would have danced in his + palace over the dungeons where his brother rotted in obscurity. + </p> + <p> + So poor Carlotta was neglected, and began to eat the bread of disillusion. + When she got well, there was a faint recrudescence of affection. Has not + this story been written a million miserable times? Why should I rend my + heart again by retelling it? Wild rages, jealousies, quarrels, tears— + </p> + <p> + “And then one day he said, ‘You damned little fool, I am sick to death of + you,’ and he went away, and I never saw him again. He wrote and he sent + his valet to put me in the pension.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet, Carlotta,” said I bitterly, “you would go back to him if he sent + for you?” + </p> + <p> + She sprang forward and gripped me by the arm—I was sitting quite + close to her—and her face wore the terror-stricken expression of a + child frightened with bogies. + </p> + <p> + “Go back? After what he has done to me? You would not send me back? Seer + Marcous, darling, you will keep me with you? I will be good, good, good. + But go back to Pasquale? Oh, no-o-o!” + </p> + <p> + She fell back in her sofa-corner, and fixed her great, deep imploring eyes + on me. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” said I, “you know this is your home as long as ever you choose + to stay in it—but—” and I stroked her hair gently—“if he + comes back when your child is born—his child—” + </p> + <p> + She drew herself up superbly. + </p> + <p> + “It is my child—my very, very own,” cried Carlotta. “It is mine, + mine—and I shall not allow any one to touch it—” and then her + face softened—“except Seer Marcous.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII + </h2> + <p> + Behold Carlotta again installed in my house which she regarded as her + home. Heaven forbid that I should sow any doubt thereof in her mind. + </p> + <p> + I had learned perhaps one lesson: the meaning of love. The love that is + desire alone, though sung in all romance of all the ages, is of the brute + nature and is doomed to perish. The love that pardons, endures through + wrong, contents itself in abnegation, is of the imperishable things that + draw weak man a little nearer to the angels. When Carlotta wept upon my + shoulder during those few first moments of her return I knew that all + resentment was gone from my heart, that it would have been a poor, ignoble + thing. Had she come back to me leprous of body and abominable of spirit, + it would not have mattered. I would have forgiven her, loved her, + cherished her just the same. It was a question, not of reason, not of + human pity, not of quixotism; not of any argument or sentiment for which I + could be responsible. I was helpless, obeying a reflex action of the soul. + </p> + <p> + The days passed tranquilly. In spite of pain I felt an odd happiness. I + had nothing selfishly to hope for. Perhaps I had aged five years in one, + and I viewed life differently. It was enough for me that she had come + home, to the haven where no harm could befall her. She was my appointed + task, even as her husband was Judith’s. I recognised in myself the man + with the one talent. The deep wisdom of the parable can be taken to inmost + heart for comfort only by men of little destinies. With infinite love and + patience to mould Carlotta into a sweet, good woman, a wise mother of the + child that was to be—that was the inglorious task which Providence + had set me to accomplish. In its proportion to the aggregate of human + effort it was infinitesimal. But who shall say that it was not worth the + doing? Save writing a useless book, in what other sphere of sublunar + energy could I have been effectual? I did not thus analyse my attitude at + the time; the man who does so is a poser, a mime to his own audience; but + looking back, I think I was guided by some such unformulated + considerations. + </p> + <p> + Although my hermit mania was in itself radically cured, yet I altered + nothing in my relations with the outside world. I wrote to Judith a brief + account of what had occurred and received from her a sympathetic answer. + My reading among the Mystics and Thaumaturgists put me on the track of + Arabic. I found that Carlotta knew enough of the language to give me + elementary instruction, and thus the whirligig of time brought in its + revenge by constituting me her pupil, to our joint edification. + </p> + <p> + After a while the unhappiness of the past seemed to have faded from her + mind. She spoke little of Paris, less of the dull pension, and never of + Pasquale. She bore towards him an animal’s silent animosity against a + human being who has done it an unforgettable injury. On the other hand, as + I have since discovered, she was slowly developing, and had begun to + realise that in giving herself light-heartedly to a man whom she did not + love, she had committed a crime against her sex, for which she had paid a + heavy penalty: a sentiment, however, which did not mitigate her resentment + against him. Often I saw her sitting with knitted brows, her needlework + idle on her lap, evidently unravelling some complicated problem; presently + she would either shake her head sadly as if the intellectual process were + too hard for her and resume her needle, or if she happened to catch my + glance, she would start, smile reassuringly at me, and apply herself with + exaggerated zeal to her work. These fits of abstraction were not those of + a woman speculating on mysteries of the near future. Such Carlotta also + indulged in, and they were easy to recognise, by the dreaminess of her + eyes and the faint smile flickering about her lips. The moods of knitted + brows were periods of soul-travail, and I wondered what they would bring + forth. + </p> + <p> + One afternoon I came home and found her weeping over a book. When I bent + down to see what she was reading—she had acquired a taste for novels + during the dull pension time in Paris—she caught my head with both + hands. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Seer Marcous, do you think they ought to make me wear a great ‘A’?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Like Hester Prynne—see.” + </p> + <p> + She showed me Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter.” + </p> + <p> + “What made you take this out of the shelves?” + </p> + <p> + “The title,” she replied, simply. “I am so fond of red things; but I + should not like that great red ‘A’.” + </p> + <p> + “Those were days,” said I, “when people thought they could only be good by + being very cruel.” + </p> + <p> + “They would have been more cruel if Hester had not loved the minister,” + said Carlotta, looking at me wistfully. + </p> + <p> + “My dear little girl,” said I, seeing whither her thoughts were tending, + “do not bother your brain with psychological problems.” + </p> + <p> + “What are—?” began Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I pinched the question, as it were, out of her cheek and smiled and took + away the book. + </p> + <p> + “They are a dreadful disease my little girl has been afflicted with for + some time. When you sit and wrinkle your forehead like this,” and I + scowled forbiddingly, whereat Carlotta laughed, “you are suffering from + acute psychological problem.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I am thinking,” said Carlotta, reflectively. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t think too much, dear, just now,” said I. “It is best for you to be + happy and calm and contented. Otherwise I’ll have to tell the doctor, and + he’ll give you the blackest and nastiest physic you have ever tasted.” + </p> + <p> + “To cure me of a what-you-call-it problem?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I, emphatically. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Hou!</i>” laughed Carlotta in a superior way, “physic can’t cure + that.” + </p> + <p> + “You are relying on an exploded fallacy immortalised in a hackneyed + Shakespearian quotation,” I remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” said Carlotta, encouragingly. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” I asked, taken aback. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you darling Seer Marcous,” cried Carlotta. “It is so lovely to hear + you talk!” + </p> + <p> + So I went on talking, and the distress occasioned by the “Scarlet Letter” + was forgotten. + </p> + <p> + I have mentioned Carlotta’s needlework. This was undertaken at the sapient + instigation of Antoinette, who in her turn, I am sure, neglected the ladle + for the scissors, and cast many of her duties upon the silent but + sympathetic Stenson. Carlotta herself delighted in these preparations. She + was never happier than when curled up on the sofa, a box of chocolates by + her side, her work-basket frothing over, like a great dish of <i>oeufs a + la neige</i>, with lawn or mull or what-not, and (I verily believe to + complete her content) my ungainly figure and hatchet-face within her + purview. She would eat and sew industriously. Sometimes she would press + too hard on a sweetmeat and with a little cry would hold up a sticky + finger and thumb. + </p> + <p> + “Look,” she would say, puckering up her face. + </p> + <p> + And to save from soilure the dainty fabric she was working at, I would + rise and wipe her fingers with my handkerchief; whereupon she would coo + out the sweetest “thank you,” in the world, and perhaps hold up a + diminutive garment. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it pretty?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, my dear,” I would say, and I would turn aside wondering at the + exquisite refinements of pain that men were sometimes called upon to bear. + </p> + <p> + At last the time came. I sat up all night in a torture of suspense, having + got it into my foolish head that Carlotta might die. The doctor came upon + me at six in the morning sitting half frozen at the bottom of the stairs. + When he gave me his cheery news he seemed to develop from a middle-aged, + commonplace man into a radiant archangel. + </p> + <p> + I met Antoinette soon afterwards, busy, important, exultant. She + nevertheless graciously accorded me a brief interview. + </p> + <p> + “And to think, Monsieur,” she exclaimed, as if the crowning triumph of a + million ions of evolution had at, last been attained, “to think that it is + a boy!” + </p> + <p> + “You would have been just as pleased if it had been a girl,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She shook her wise, fat head. “Women <i>ca ne vaut pas grand’ chose.</i>” + </p> + <p> + Let it be remembered that “women are of no great account” is a sentiment + expressed, not by me, but by Antoinette. But all the same I soon found + myself a cipher in the house, where the triumvirate of the negligible sex, + Antoinette, the nurse and Carlotta, reigned despotically. + </p> + <p> + To write much of Carlotta’s happiness would be to treat of sacred things + at which I can only guess. She dwelt in rapture. The joy and meaning of + the universe were concentrated in the tiny bundle of pink flesh that lay + on her bosom. I used to sit by her side while she talked unwearyingly of + him. He was a thing of infinite perfections. He had such a lot of hair. + </p> + <p> + “She won’t believe, sir,” said the nurse, “that it will all drop off and a + new crop come.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h!” said Carlotta. “It can’t be so cruel. For it is my hair—see, + Seer Marcous, darling; isn’t it just my hair?” + </p> + <p> + It was her great solicitude that the boy should resemble her. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know about his nose,” she remarked critically. “There is so + little of it yet and it is so soft—feel how soft it is. But his eyes + are brown like mine, and his mouth—now look, aren’t they just the + same?” + </p> + <p> + She put her cheek next to the child’s and invited me to compare the two + adjacent baby mouths. They were, of a truth, very much alike. + </p> + <p> + She was jealous of the baby, desirous of having it always with her to tend + and fondle, impatient of the nurse and Antoinette. It was a thing so + intensely hers that she resented other hands touching it. Oddly enough, of + me she made an exception. Nothing delighted her more than to put the + little creature into my awkward and nervous arms, and watch me carry it + about the room. I think she wanted to give me something, and this share in + the babe was the most precious gift she could devise. + </p> + <p> + Of Pasquale she continued to say nothing. In her intense joy of motherhood + he seemed to have become the dim creature of a dream. I had registered the + birth without consulting her—in the legal names of the parents. + </p> + <p> + “What are you going to call him, Carlotta?” I asked one day. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Mon petit chou.</i> That’s what Antoinette says. It’s a beautiful + name.” + </p> + <p> + “There are many points in calling an infant one’s little cabbage,” I + admitted, “but soon he’ll grow up to be as old as I am, and—” I + sighed, “who would call me their <i>petit chow</i>?” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta laughed. + </p> + <p> + “That is true. We shall have to find a name.” She reflected for a few + moments; then put her arms round my neck and continued her reflections. + </p> + <p> + “He shall be Marcus—another Marcus Ordeyne. Then perhaps some day he + will be ‘Seer Marcous’ like you.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean when I die?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, not for years and years and years!” she cried, tightening her clasp + in alarm. “But the child lives longer than the father. It is fate. He will + live longer than I.” + </p> + <p> + “Let us hope so, dear,” I answered. “But it is just because I am not his + father that he can’t be Sir Marcus when I die. He can have my name; but my + title—” + </p> + <p> + “Who will have it?” + </p> + <p> + “No one.” + </p> + <p> + “It will die too?” + </p> + <p> + “It will be quite dead.” + </p> + <p> + “You are his father, you know, <i>really</i>,” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + “The law of England takes no count, unfortunately, of things of the + spirit,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “What are things of the spirit?” + </p> + <p> + “The things, my dear,” said I, “that you are beginning to understand.” I + bent down and kissed the child as it lay on her lap. “Poor little Marcus + Ordeyne,” I said. “My poor quaintly fathered little son, I’m afraid there + is much trouble ahead of you, but I’ll do my best to help you through it.” + </p> + <p> + “Bless you, dear,” said Carlotta, softly. + </p> + <p> + I looked at her in wonder. She had spoken for the first time like a grown + woman—like a woman with a soul. + </p> + <p> + A few weeks later. + </p> + <p> + We were sitting at breakfast. The morning newspaper contained the account + of a battle and the lists of British officers killed. I scanned as usual + the melancholy columns, when a name among the dead caught my eye—and + I stared at it stupidly. Pasquale was dead, killed outright by a Boer + bullet. The wild, bright life was ended. It seemed a horrible thing, and, + much as he had wronged me, my first sentiment was one of dismay. He was + too gallant and beautiful a creature for death. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta poured out my tea and came round with the cup which she deposited + by my side. To prevent her peeping over my shoulder at the paper, as she + usually did, I laid it on the table; but her quick eye had already read + the great headlines. + </p> + <p> + “Great Battle. British officers killed. Oh, let me see, Seer Marcous.” + </p> + <p> + “No, dear,” said I. “Go and eat your breakfast.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me strangely. I tried to smile; but as I am an incompetent + actor my grimace was a proclamation of disingenuousness. + </p> + <p> + “Why shouldn’t I read it?” she asked, quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Because I say you mustn’t, Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + She continued to look at me. She had suddenly grown pale. I stirred my tea + and made a pretence of sipping it. + </p> + <p> + “Go on with your breakfast, my child,” I repeated. + </p> + <p> + “There is something—something about him in the paper,” said + Carlotta. “He is a British officer.” + </p> + <p> + In the face of her intuition further concealment appeared useless. + Besides, sooner or later she would have to know. + </p> + <p> + “He is a British officer no longer, dear,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Is he dead?” + </p> + <p> + My mind flew back to an evening long ago—long, long ago it seemed—when + another newspaper had told of another death, and my ears caught the echo + of the identical question that had then fallen from her lips. I dreaded + lest she should say again, “I am so glad.” + </p> + <p> + I beckoned her to my side, and pointing with my finger to the name watched + her face anxiously. She read, stared for a bit in front of her and turned + to me with a piteous look. I drew her to me, and she laid her face against + my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know why I’m crying, Seer Marcous, dear,” she said, after a + while. + </p> + <p> + I made her drink some of my tea, but she would eat nothing, and presently + she went upstairs. She had not said that she was glad. She had wept and + not known the reason for her tears. I railed at myself for my doubts of + her. + </p> + <p> + She was subdued and thoughtful all the day. In the evening, instead of + curling herself up in the sofa-corner among the cushions, she sat on a + stool by my feet as I read, one hand supporting her chin, the other + resting on my knee. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad he was a brave man,” she said at last, alluding to Pasquale for + the first time since the morning. “I like brave men.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Dulce et decorum est.</i> He died for his country,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “It does not hurt me now so much to think of him,” said Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I could not help feeling a miserable pang of jealousy at Pasquale’s + posthumous rehabilitation as a hero in Carlotta’s heart. Yet, was it not + natural? Was it not the way of women? I saw myself far remote from her, + and though she never spoke of him again I divined that her thoughts dwelt + not untenderly on his memory. I was absurd, I know. But I had begun almost + to believe in my make-believe paternity, and I was jealous of the rightful + claims of the dead man. + </p> + <p> + And yet had he lived he might have come back one day with his conquering + air and his irresistible laugh, and carried them both away from me. In + sparing me this crowning humiliation I thanked the high gods. + </p> + <p> + But never to this day has she mentioned his name again. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV + </h2> + <p> + How shall I set down that which happened not long afterwards? + </p> + <p> + The death of a baby is so commonplace, so unimportant. Few reasoning + people, viewing the matter in the abstract, can do otherwise than rejoice + that a human being is saved from the weariness of the tired years that + make up life. For who shall disprove the pessimist’s assertion that it is + better not to have been born than to come into the world, and that it is + better to die than to live? But those from whom the single hope of their + existence is ravished find little consolation in reason. Grief is the most + intensely egotistical of emotions. I have lost all that makes life + beautiful to me. Is not that enough for the stricken soul? + </p> + <p> + To Carlotta it meant a passage through the valley of the shadow. To me, at + first, it meant the life of Carlotta, and then a blank in my newly ordered + scheme of things. The curse of ineffectuality still pursued me. I had + allotted to myself my humble task—the development of the new + generation in the form of Carlotta’s boy, and even that small usefulness + was I denied by Fate. + </p> + <p> + A chill, a touch of croup, an agonised watching, and the tiny thing lay + dead. Antoinette and I had to drag it stone cold from Carlotta’s bosom. I + alone carried it to burial. The little white coffin rested on the opposite + seat of the hired brougham, and on it was a bunch of white flowers given + by Antoinette. In the cemetery chapel another fragment of humanity awaited + sepulture, and the funeral service was read over both bodies. I stood + alone by the little white coffin. A crowd of mourners were grouped beside + the black one. I glanced at the inscription as I passed: “Jane Elliot, in + the eighty-sixth year of her age.” The officiant referred in the service + to “our dear brother and sister, here departed.” It was either an awful + jest or an awful verity. + </p> + <p> + My “quaintly fathered little son” had small need of my help through the + troubles of his life. His mother needed all that I could give. Without me + she would have died. That I verily believe. I was her solitary plank in + the welter wherein she would have been submerged. She clung to me—literally + clung to me. I sat for hours with her grasp upon me. To feel assured of my + physical presence alone seemed to bring her calm. + </p> + <p> + Recent as are those sleepless days and nights, their memory is all + confused. The light burning dimly in the familiar chamber which I had once + sealed up as a tomb; the shadows on the wall; the fevered face and great + hollow eyes of Carlotta against the pillows; her little hand clutching + mine in desperation; the soft tread of the nurse, that is all I remember. + And when she recovered her wits and grew sane, although for a long time + she spoke little, and scarcely noticed me otherwise, she claimed me by her + side. She was still dazed by the misery of her darkness. It was only then + that I realised the part the child had played in her development. Her + nature had been stirred to the quick; the capacity for emotion had been + awakened. She had left me without a qualm. She had given herself to + Pasquale without a glimmer of passion. She had returned to me like a + wounded animal seeking its home. For the child alone the passionate human + love had sprung flaming from the seed hidden in her soul. And now the + child was dead, and the sun had gone from her sky, and she was benumbed + with the icy blackness of the world. + </p> + <p> + Then came a time when her speech was loosened and she talked to me + incessantly of the child, until one day she spoke of it as living and + clamoured for it, and relapsed into her fever. + </p> + <p> + At last one morning she awakened from a sound sleep and found me watching; + for I had relieved the nurse at six o’clock. She smiled at me for the + first time since the child fell sick, and took my hand and kissed it. + </p> + <p> + “It is like waking into heaven to see your face, Seer Marcous, darling,” + she whispered. + </p> + <p> + “I hope heaven is peopled by a better-looking set of fellows,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Hou!</i>” laughed Carlotta. “Don’t you know you are beautiful?” + </p> + <p> + “You mustn’t throw an old jest in my teeth, Carlotta,” said I, and I + reminded her how she had once screamed with laughter when I had told her I + was very beautiful. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta listened patiently until I had ended, and then she said, with a + little sigh: + </p> + <p> + “You cannot understand, Seer Marcous, darling. I have been thinking of my + little baby and the angels—and all the angels are like you.” + </p> + <p> + To cover the embarrassment my modesty underwent, I laughed and drew the + picture of myself with long flaxen hair and white wings. + </p> + <p> + “My angels hadn’t got wings,” said Carlotta, seriously. “They all wore + dressing-gowns. They were real angels. And the one that was most like you + brought my baby in his arms for me to kiss; and when he put it on a white + cloud to sleep, and took me up in his arms instead and carried me away, + away, away through the air, I didn’t cry at leaving baby. Wasn’t that + funny? I snuggled up close to him—like that”—she illustrated + the action of “snuggling” beneath the bed-clothes—“and it was so + comfy.” + </p> + <p> + The pale sunshine of a fine February morning filtered into the room from + behind the curtains. I turned off the dimmed electric lamp and let full + daylight into the room. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” cried Carlotta, turning to the window, “how lovely the good sun is! + It is more like heaven than ever. Do you know,” she added, mysteriously, + “just before I woke it was all dark, and I had lost my angels and I was + looking for them.” + </p> + <p> + I counselled her sagely to look for no more members of the Hierarchy <i>en + deshabille</i>, but to content herself with the humbler denizens of this + planet. She pressed my hand. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll try to be contented, Seer Marcous, darling.” + </p> + <p> + She did her best, poor child, when I was by; but I heard that often she + would sit by a little pile of garments and take them up one by one and cry + her heart out—so that though she quickly recovered, her cheeks + remained wan and drawn, and pain lingered in her eyes. The weather changed + to fog and damp and she spent the days crouching by the fire, sometimes + not stirring a muscle for an hour together. Her favourite seat was the + fender-stool in the drawing-room. Her own boudoir downstairs, where she + used to receive instruction from the excellent Miss Griggs, she scarcely + entered. + </p> + <p> + She broke one of these fits suddenly and called me by her own pet version + of my name. I looked up from the writing-table where I was studying the + Arabic grammar. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking—oh, thinking, thinking so long. I’ve been + thinking that you must love me very much.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Carlotta,” said I, with a half smile. “I suppose I do.” + </p> + <p> + “As much as I loved my baby,” she said, seriously, + </p> + <p> + “I used to love you in a different way, perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + “And now?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps in the same sort of way, Carlotta.” + </p> + <p> + “I loved my baby because it was mine,” she remarked, looking at the flames + through one hand’s delicate fingers. “I wanted to do everything for him + and didn’t want him to do anything for me. I would have died for him. It + is so strange. Yes, I think you must love me like that, Seer Marcous. + Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Because when I found you in the Embankment Gardens nearly two years ago + you were about as helpless as your little baby,” I replied, somewhat + disingenuously. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta gave me a quick glance. + </p> + <p> + “You thought me then what you call an infernal nuisance. Oh, I know now. I + have grown wise. But you were always good. You looked good when you sat on + the seat. You were reading a dirty little book.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>L’Histoire des Uscoques,</i>” I murmured. How far away it seemed. + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. I regarded her for a moment or two. She was sunk again + in serious reflection. I sighed—at the general dismalness of life, I + suppose—and resumed my Arabic. + </p> + <p> + “Seer Marcous.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you drive me away when I came back?” + </p> + <p> + I shut up the Arabic grammar and went and sat beside her on the + fenderstool. + </p> + <p> + “My dear little girl—what a question! How could I drive you away + from your own home?” + </p> + <p> + She flashed a queer, scared look at me, then at the fire, then at me again + and then burst out crying, her head and arms on her knees. + </p> + <p> + I muttered a man’s words of awkward comfort, saying something about the + baby. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t baby I’m crying about,” sobbed Carlotta. “It’s me! And it’s you! + And it’s all the things I’m beginning to understand.” + </p> + <p> + I patted her head and lit a cigarette and wandered about the room, rather + puzzled by Carlotta’s psychological development, and yet stirred by a + faint thrill at her recognition of my affection. At the same time the sad + “too late, too late,” was knelled in my ears, and I thought of the + might-have-been, and rode the merry-go-round of regret’s banalities. I had + grown old. Passion had died. Hope—the hope of hearing the patter of + a child’s feet about my house, the hope of pride in a quasi-paternity, of + handing on, vicariously though it were, the torch of life—hope was + dead and it was buried in a little white coffin. Only a great, quiet love + remained. I was a tired old man, and Carlotta was to me an infinitely + loved sister—or daughter—or granddaughter even—so old + did I feel. And when I raised her from the fender-stool, and kissed the + tears from her eyes, it was as grandfatherly a kiss as had ever been given + in this world. + </p> + <p> + The same old problem again. What the deuce to do with Carlotta? Yet not + quite the same: rather, what the deuce to do with Carlotta and myself? In + our strange relationship we were inextricably bound together. + </p> + <p> + First, she needed sunshine—instead of the forlorn bleakness of an + English spring—and a change from this house of pain and death. And + then I, too, felt the need of wider horizons. London had grown to be a + nightmare city which I never entered. Its restless ambitions were not + mine. Its pleasures pleased me not. With not five of its five million + inhabitants dared I speak heart to heart. Judith had gone out of my life. + My aunts and cousins regarded me as beyond the moral pale. Mrs. McMurray + was still unaware of my return to England. I confess to shabby treatment + of my kind friend. I know she would have flown to aid Carlotta in her + troubles; but would she have understood Carlotta? Reasoning now I am + convinced that she would: in those days I did not reason. I shrank like a + snail into its shell. The simile is commonplace; but so was I—the + most commonplace human snail that ever occupied a commonplace ten-roomed + shell. And now the house and its useless books and its million-fold more + useless manuscript “History of Renaissance Morals,” all its sombre + memories and its haunting ghosts of ineffectualities, became an + unwholesome prison in which I was wasting away a feeble existence. I + resolved to quit it, to leave my books, to abjure Renaissance morals, and + to go forth with Carlotta into the wilderness and the sunshine, there to + fulfil whatever destiny the high gods should decree. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV + </h2> + <p> + Again I sit on the housetop in Mogador on the Morocco coast, where a month + ago I began to write these latter pages. Time has passed quickly since + that day. + </p> + <p> + I said then that on the previous afternoon something had happened. It was + something which I might have foreseen, which, in fact, with my habit of + putting the telescope to my blind eye, I obstinately had refused to + foresee. During our wanderings I had watched the flowering of her splendid + beauty as she drank in health from the glow of her own Orient. I had noted + the widening of her intellect, the quickening of her sympathies. I had + been conscious of the expansion of her soul in the great silences when the + stars flamed over the infinite sea of sand. But a growing wistfulness that + was no longer the old doglike pleading of her glorious eyes, a gathering + sadness that was not an aftermath of grief for the child that had gone—into + this, if I did remark it, I did not choose to inquire. Instead, I + continued my study of Arabic and cultivated the acquaintance of a learned + Moor whose conversation afforded—and still affords—me peculiar + pleasure. One of these days I shall make a book of his Table-talk. But now + I have to tell of Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + She accepted with alacrity my proposal that morning to ride over to the + Palm Tree House for luncheon, as we had done several times before. To + please me, I think, she had resolutely overcome her natural indolence. So + much so that she had come to love the nomad life of steamers and caravans, + and had grown restless, eager for fresh scenes, craving new impressions. + It was I who had cried a halt at Mogador where this furnished house to + let, belonging to a German merchant absent in Europe, tempted me to rest + awhile. I am not so young as Carlotta, and I awakened to the fact of a + circumambient universe so many years ago that I have grown slumberous. + Carlotta, if left to herself, would have gone on riding camels through + Africa to the end of time. She had changed in many essentials. Instead of + regarding me as an amiable purveyor of sweetmeats and other necessaries of + life to which by the grace of her being Carlotta she was entitled, she + treated me with human affection and sympathy, keeping her own wants in the + background, anxious only to anticipate mine. But she still loved + sweetmeats and would eat horrible Moorish messes with an avidity only + equalled by my repugnance. She was still the same Carlotta. On the other + hand again, she had of late abandoned her caressing habits. If she laid + her hand on my arm, she did it timorously—whereat I would laugh and + she would grow confused. Once she had driven me to frenzy with her + fondling. Those days had passed. I told myself that I was as old as the + sphinx we had moralised over in Egypt. + </p> + <p> + We lunched, then, at the Palm Tree House and rode back in the cool of the + afternoon to Mogador. We were alone, as we knew the path across the tongue + of desert, and had no need of a guide and the rabble of sore-eyed urchins + who, like their attendant flies, infest the tourist on his journeyings. On + our right the desert rose to meet a near horizon; on our left sandhills + and boulders cut off the view; ahead the shimmering line beyond which the + sea and city lay. We were enveloped by solitude and stillness. In the + clear African air objects detached themselves against the sky with + startling definition. + </p> + <p> + I had unconsciously ridden a bit ahead of Carlotta, thinking my own + thoughts, and sighing as a man often does sigh, for the vague unattainable + which is happiness. Suddenly I missed her by my side, and turning round + saw a sight that made my heart beat with its sheer beauty. It was only + Carlotta on her barbarically betrapped and besaddled mule. But it was + Carlotta glorified in colour. She held above her head a cotton parasol, + which she had bought to her delight and my disgust in Mogador; an + impossible thing, all deep cherry reds and yellows; a hateful thing made + for a pantomime—or for this African afternoon. Outspread and + luminous in the white sunlight its cherry reds and yellows floated like + translucences of wine above Carlotta’s bronze hair crowned by a white sun + hat, her warm flesh-tints, and the dazzling white of her surah silk + blouse; the whole picture cut out vivid against the indigo of the sky. It + was a radiant vision. I stared openmouthed, smitten with the pang that + sudden and transient loveliness can sometimes deal, as Carlotta + approached, her figure swaying with the jog of her barbaric beast. Her + eyes were fixed on mine. She halted, and for a moment we looked at one + another; and in those wonderful eyes I saw for the first time a beautiful + sadness, a spiritual appeal. The moment passed. We started again, side by + side, neither speaking. I did not look at her, conscious of a vague + trouble. Things that I had thought dead stirred in my heart. + </p> + <p> + Presently like a dawn of infinite delicacy rose the city before us. Its + fairy minarets and towers gleamed first white in an atmosphere of pale + amethyst toning through shades of green to the blue of the zenith. And the + lazy sea lay at the city’s foot a pavement of lapis lazuli. But all was + faint, unreal. Far, far away a group of palms caught opalescent + reflections. A slight breeze had sprung up, raising minute particles of + sand which caused the elfland on the horizon to quiver like a mirage. + </p> + <p> + “It is a dream-city,” said I, in admiration. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta did not reply. I thought she had not heard. We jogged on a little + in silence. At last she drew very close to me. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we ever get there?” she asked, pointing ahead with the hand that + held the reins. + </p> + <p> + “To Mogador? Yes, I hope so,” I answered with a laugh. I thought she was + tired. + </p> + <p> + “No, not Mogador. The dream-city—where every one wants to get.” + </p> + <p> + “You have travelled far, my dear,” said I, “to hanker now after + dream-cities and the unattainable. I knew a little girl once who would + have asked: ‘What is a dream-city?” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t ask now because she knows,” replied Carlotta. “No. We shall + never get there. It looks as if we were riding straight into it—but + when we get close, it will just be Mogador.” + </p> + <p> + “Aren’t you happy, Carlotta?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Are you, Seer Marcous?” + </p> + <p> + “I? I am a philosopher, my child, and a happy philosopher would be a <i>lusus + naturae</i>, a freak, a subject for a Barnum & Bailey Show. If they + caught him they would put him between the hairy man and the living + skeleton.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I’m getting to be a philosopher, too,” said Carlotta, “and I + hate it! Sometimes I think I hate everything and everybody—save you, + Seer Marcous, darling. It’s wicked of me. I must have been born wicked. + But I used to be happy. I never wanted to go to dream-cities. I was just + like a cat. Like Polyphemus. Do you remember Polyphemus?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I. And then set off my balance by this strange conversation + with Carlotta, I added: “I killed him.” + </p> + <p> + She turned a startled face to me. + </p> + <p> + “You killed him? Why?” + </p> + <p> + “He laughed at me because I was unhappy,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Through me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; through you. But that’s neither here nor there. We were not + discussing the death of Polyphemus. We were talking about being + philosophers, and you said that as a philosopher you hated everything and + everybody except me. Why do you exclude me, Carlotta?” + </p> + <p> + We were riding so near together that my leg rubbed her saddle-girth. I + looked hard at her. She turned away her head and put the pantomime parasol + between us. I heard a little choking sob. + </p> + <p> + “Let us get off—and sit down a little—I want to cry. + </p> + <p> + “The end of all feminine philosophy,” I said, somewhat brutally. “No. It’s + getting late. That’s only Mogador in front of us. Let us go to it.” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta shifted her parasol quickly. + </p> + <p> + “What has happened to you, Seer Marcous? You have never spoken to me like + that before.” + </p> + <p> + “The very deuce seems to have happened,” said I, angrily—though why + I should have felt angry, heaven only knows. “First you turn yourself into + a Royal Academy picture with that unspeakable umbrella of yours and the + trumpery blue sky and sunshine, and make my sentimental soul ache; and + then you—” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a very pretty umbrella,” said Carlotta, looking upwards at it + demurely. + </p> + <p> + “Give it to me,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She yielded it with her usual docility. I cast it upon the desert. Being + open it gave one or two silly rebounds, then lay still. Carlotta reined up + her mule. + </p> + <p> + “Oh-h!” she said, in her old way. + </p> + <p> + I dismounted hurriedly, and helped her down and passed my arm through the + two bridles. + </p> + <p> + “My dear child,” said I, “what is the meaning of all this? Here we have + been living for months the most tranquil and unruffled existence, and now + suddenly you begin to talk about dream-cities and the impossibility of + getting there, and I turn angry and heave parasols about Africa. What is + the meaning of it?” + </p> + <p> + The most extraordinary part of it was that I should be treating Carlotta + as a grown-up woman, after the fashion of the hero of a modern French + novel. Perhaps I was younger than I thought. + </p> + <p> + She kept her eyes fixed downward. + </p> + <p> + “Why are you angry with me?” she asked in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t the remotest idea,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She lifted her eyelids slowly—oh, very, very slowly, glanced + quiveringly at me, while the shadow of a smile fluttered round her lips. I + verily believe the baggage exulted in her feminine heart. I turned away, + leading the two animals, and picked up the parasol which I closed and + restored to her. + </p> + <p> + “I thought you wanted to cry,” I remarked. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t,” said Carlotta, plaintively. + </p> + <p> + “And you won’t tell me why you exclude me from your universal hatred?” + </p> + <p> + Carlotta dug up the sand with the point of her foot. The sight of it + recalled the row of pink toes thrust unashamedly before my eyes on the + second day of her arrival in London. An old hope, an old fear, an old + struggle renewed themselves. She was more adorably beautiful even than the + Carlotta of the pink tus, and spiritually she was reborn. I heard her + whisper: + </p> + <p> + “I can’t.” + </p> + <p> + Now I had sworn to myself all the oaths that a man can swear that I should + be Carlotta’s grandfather to the end of time. Hitherto I had felt the + part. Now suddenly grey beard and slippered pantaloons are cast aside and + I am young again with a glow in my heart which beats fast at her beauty. I + shut my teeth. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I to myself. “The curtain shall not rise on that farcical + tragedy again.” + </p> + <p> + I threw the reins on the neck of Carlotta’s mule, which with its companion + had been regarding us with bland stupidity. + </p> + <p> + “I think we had better ride on, Carlotta,” I said. “Mount.” + </p> + <p> + She meekly gave me her little foot and I hoisted her into the saddle. + </p> + <p> + We did not exchange a word till we reached Mogador. But each of us felt + that something had happened. + </p> + <p> + At dinner we met as usual. Carlotta spoke somewhat feverishly of our + travels, and asked me numberless questions, betraying an unprecedented + thirst for information. I never gave her historical instruction with less + zest. + </p> + <p> + After the meal we went onto the flat roof. Carlotta poured out my coffee + at the small table beside the long Madeira cane chair which was my + accustomed seat. The starlit night was blue and languorous. From some cafe + came the monotonous strains of Moorish music, the harsh strings and harsh + men’s voices softened by the distance. Carlotta took my coffee-cup when I + had finished and set it down in her granddaughterly way. Then she stood in + front of me. + </p> + <p> + “Won’t you make a little room for me on your chair, Seer Marcous, + darling?” + </p> + <p> + I shifted my feet from the foot-rest and she sat down. I may observe that + I was not, in oriental bashawdom, occupying the one and only chair on the + housetop. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about the stars,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I knew what she meant. She loved the old Greek myths; their poetry, + obscured though it was through my matter-of-fact prose, appealed to her + young imagination. She was passing through an exquisite phase of + development. + </p> + <p> + I scanned the heavens for a text and found one in the Pleiades. And I told + her how these were seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione who herself was + the daughter of the Sea, and how they were all pure maidens, save one, and + were the companions of Artemis; how Orion the hunter, who was afterwards + slain by Artemis and whose three-starred girdle gleamed up there in the + sky, pursued them with evil intent, and how they prayed the gods for + deliverance and were changed into the everlasting stars; and, lastly, how + the one who was not a maiden, for she loved a mortal, shrank away from her + sisters through shame and was invisible to the eye of man. + </p> + <p> + “She was ashamed,” said Carlotta in a low voice, “because she loved some + one afterwards, one of the gods, who would not look at her because she had + given herself to a mortal. A woman then has a fire here”—she clasped + her hands to her bosom—“and wishes she could burn away to nothing, + nothing, just to air, and become invisible.” + </p> + <p> + She was rising hurriedly on the last word, but I brought my hands down on + her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Carlotta, my child,” said I, “what do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + She seized my wrists and struggling to rise, panted out in desperation: + </p> + <p> + “You are one of the gods, and I wish I were changed into an invisible + star.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t,” said I, huskily. + </p> + <p> + By main force I drew her to me and our lips met. She yielded, and this + time the whole soul of Carlotta came to me in the kiss. + </p> + <p> + “It’s beautiful to snuggle up against you again,” said my ever direct + Carlotta, after a while. “I haven’t done it—oh, for such a long + time.” She sighed contentedly. “Seer Marcous—” + </p> + <p> + “You must call me Marcus now,” said I, somewhat fatuously. + </p> + <p> + She shook her head as it lay on my shoulder. “No. You are Marcus—or + Sir Marcus—to everybody. To me you are always Seer Marcous. Seer + Marcous, darling,” she half whispered after a pause. “Once I did not know + the difference between a god and a mortal. It was only that morning when I + woke up—” + </p> + <p> + “You took me for a saint in a dressing-gown,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the same thing,” she retorted. And then taking up her parable, she + told me in her artless way the inner history of her heart since that + morning; but what she said is sacred. Also, a man feels himself to be a + pitiful dog of a god when a woman relates how she came to establish him on + her High Altar. + </p> + <p> + Later we struck a lighter vein and spoke of the present, the enchantment + of the hour, the scented air, the African stars. + </p> + <p> + “It seems, my dear,” said I, “that we have got to Nephelococcygia after + all.” + </p> + <p> + “What is Nephelococcygia?” asked Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + I relented. “It’s a base Aristophanic libel on our dream-city,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Thus out of evil has come good; out of pain has grown happiness; out of + horror has sprung an everlasting love. Many a man will say that in all my + relations with Carlotta I have comported myself as a fool, and that my + marriage is the crowning folly. Well, I pretend not unto wisdom. Wisdom + would have married me to five thousand a year, a position in fashionable + society, my Cousin Dora and premature old age antecedent to eternal + destruction. I hold that my salvation has lain the way of folly. Again, it + may be urged against me that I have squandered my life, that with all my + learning, such as it is, I have achieved nothing. I once thought so. I + boasted of it in my diary when I complacently styled myself a waster in + Earth’s factory. Oh, that diary! Let me here solemnly retract and abjure + every crude and idiot opinion and reflection of life set forth in that + frenetic record! I regard myself not as a waster—I remember a + passage in Epictetus treating of the ways of Providence: + </p> + <p> + “For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? If then I + were a nightingale I would do the part of a nightingale: if I were a swan, + I would do like a swan. But now I am a rational creature and I ought to + praise God; this is my work, I do it, nor will I desert this post so long + as I am allowed to keep it; and I exhort you to join in this same song.” + </p> + <p> + No, I am neither nightingale nor swan, and cannot add, as they do, to the + beauty of the earth. The lame old man has his limitations; but within + them, he can, by cleaving to his post and praising God, fulfil his + destiny. + </p> + <p> + Carlotta coming onto the housetop to summon me to lunch looks over my + shoulder as I write these words. + </p> + <p> + “But you are not a lame old man!” she cries in indignation. “You are the + youngest and strongest and cleverest man in the world!” + </p> + <p> + “What am I to do with these miraculous gifts?” I ask, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “You are to become famous,” she says, with conviction. + </p> + <p> + “Very well, my dear. We will have to go to some new land where attaining + fame is easier for a beginner than in London; and we’ll send for + Antoinette and Stenson to help us.” + </p> + <p> + “That will be very nice,” she observes. + </p> + <p> + So I am to become famous. <i>Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut</i>. And + Carlotta has got a soul of her own now and means to make the most of it. + It will lead me upward somewhere. But whether I am to be king of New + Babylon or Prime Minister of New Zealand or lawgiver to a Polynesian tribe + is a secret as yet hidden in the lap of the gods, whence Carlotta + doubtless will snatch it in her own good time. + </p> + <p> + “You are writing a lot of rubbish,” says Carlotta. + </p> + <p> + “And a little truth. The mixture is Life,” I answer. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5051] +Posting Date: April 19, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE *** + + + + +Produced by Polly Stratton + + + + + + + + +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE + + +by William J. Locke + + + + + + + +PART I + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +For reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, in Verona, to +write the history of my extravagant adventure. I shall formulate and +expand the rough notes in my diary which lies open before me, and I +shall begin with a happy afternoon in May, six months ago. + + +May 20th. + +_London_:--To-day is the seventh anniversary of my release from +captivity. I will note it every year in my diary with a sigh of +unutterable thanksgiving. For seven long blessed years have I been +free from the degrading influences of Jones Minor and the First Book of +Euclid. Some men find the modern English boy stimulating, and the old +Egyptian humorous. Such are the born schoolmasters, and schoolmasters, +like poets, _nascuntur non fiunt_. What I was born passes my ingenuity +to fathom. Certainly not a schoolmaster--and my many years of +apprenticeship did not make me one. They only turned me into an +automaton, feared by myself, bantered by my colleagues, and sometimes +good-humouredly tolerated by the boys. + +Seven years ago the lawyer's letter came. The post used to arrive just +before first school. I opened the letter in the class-room and sat down +at my desk, sick with horror. The awful wholesale destruction of my +relatives paralysed me. My form must have seen by my ghastly face that +something had happened, for, contrary to their usual practice, they sat, +thirty of them, in stony silence, waiting for me to begin the lesson. As +far as I remember anything, they waited the whole hour. The lesson over, +I passed along the cloister on my way to my rooms. I overheard one of my +urchins, clattering in front of me, shout to another: + +"I'm sure he's got the sack!" + +Turning round he perceived me, and grew as red as a turkey-cock. I +laughed aloud. The boy's yell was a clarion announcement from the +seventh heaven. I _had got the sack_! _I_ should never teach him +quadratic equations again. I should turn my back forever upon those +hateful walls and still more abominated playing-fields. And I was not +leaving my prison, as I had done once or twice before, in order to +continue my servitude elsewhere. I was free. I could go out into the +sunshine and look my fellow-man in the face, free from the haunting, +demoralising sense of incapacity. I was free. Until that urchin's shriek +I had not realised it. My teeth chattered with the thrill. + +I was fortunately out of school the second hour. I employed most of +it in balancing myself. A perfectly reasonable creature, I visited the +chief. He was a chubby, rotund man, with a circular body and a circular +visage, and he wore great circular gold spectacles. He looked like a +figure in the Third Book of Euclid. But his eyes sparkled like bits of +glass in the sun. + +"Well, Ordeyne?" he inquired, looking up from letters to parents. + +"I have come to ask you to accept my resignation," said I. "I would like +you to release me at once." + +"Come, come, things are not as bad as all that," said he, kindly. + +I looked stupidly at him for a moment. + +"Of course I know you've got one or two troublesome forms," he +continued. + +Then I winced. His conjecture hurt me horribly. + +"Oh, it's nothing to do with my incompetence," I interrupted. + +"What is it, then?" + +"My grandfather, two uncles, two nephews and a valet were drowned a day +or two ago in the Mediterranean," I answered, calmly. + +I have since been struck by the crudity of this announcement. It took my +chief's breath away. + +"I deeply sympathise with you," he said at last. + +"Thank you," said I. + +"A terrible catastrophe. No wonder it has upset you. Horrible! Six +living human beings! Three generations of men!" + +"That's just it," said I. "Three generations of my family swept away, +leaving me now at the head of it." + +At this moment the chief's wife came into the library with the morning +paper in her hand. On seeing me she rushed forward. + +"Have you had bad news?" + +"Yes. Is it in the paper?" + +"I was coming to show my husband. The name is an uncommon one. I +wondered if they might be relatives of yours." + +I bowed acquiescence. The chief looked at the paragraph below his wife's +indicating thumb, then he looked at me as if I, too, had suffered a +seachange. + +"I had no idea--" he said. "Why, now--now you are Sir Marcus Ordeyne!" + +"It sounds idiotic, doesn't it?" said I, with a smile. "But I suppose I +-am." + +And so came my release from captivity. I was profoundly affected by the +awful disaster, but it would be sheer hypocrisy if I said that I felt +personal grief. I knew none of the dead, of whom I verily believe the +valet was the worthiest man. My grandfather and uncles had ignored +my existence. Not a helping hand had they stretched out to my widowed +mother in her poverty, when one kindly touch would have meant all. + +They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Ordeynes. What my +father, the youngest son, was like, I have no idea, as he died when +I was two years old, but my mother, who was somewhat stern and +puritanical, spoke of him very much as she would have spoken of the +prophet Joel, had he been a personal acquaintance. + +Seven years to-day have I been a free man. + +Feeling at peace with all the world I called this afternoon on my Aunt +Jessica, Mrs. Ordeyne, who has borne me no malice for stepping into the +place that should have been the inheritance of her husband and of her +son. Rather has she devised to adopt me, to guide my ambitions and to +point out my duties as the head of the house. If I refuse to be adopted, +avoid ambitions and disclaim duties, the fault lies not with her +good-will. She is a well-preserved worldly woman of fifty-five, and +having begun to dye her hair in the peroxide of hydrogen era has not +the curiosity to abandon the practice and see what colour will result. +I wish I could like her. I can't. She purrs. Some day I feel she will +scratch. She received me graciously. + +"My dear Marcus. At last! Didn't you know I have been in town ever since +Easter?" + +"No," said I. "I am afraid I didn't." Which was true. "Why didn't you +tell me?" + +"I would have asked you to dinner, but you will never come. As for +At Home cards I never dream of sending them to you. It is a waste of +precious half-penny stamps." + +"You might have written me a nice little letter about nothing at all," I +suggested. + +"For you to say 'What is that woman worrying me with her silly letters +for?' I know what you men are." She looked arch. + +This is precisely what I should have said. As I am not an inventive +liar, I could only smile feebly. I am never at my ease with Aunt +Jessica. I am not the kind of person to afford her entertainment. I do +not belong to her world of opulence, and if even I desired it, which the +gods forbid, my means would not enable me to make the necessary display. +My uncle, thinking to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the title, amassed +enormous wealth as a company promoter, while I, on whom the title has +descended, am perfectly contented with its fallen fortunes. I have +scarcely a thought or taste in common with my aunt. In fact, I must bore +her exceedingly. Yet she hides her boredom beneath a radiant countenance +and leads me to understand that my society gives her inexpressible joy. +I wonder why. + +She is always be-guide-philosopher-and-friending me. I resent it. A man +of forty does not need the counsels of an elderly woman destitute of +intellect. I believe there are some women who are firmly convinced that +their sheer sex has imbued them with all the qualities of genius. To-day +my aunt tackled me on the subject of marriage. I ought to marry. I asked +why. It appeared it was every man's duty. + +"From what point of view?" I asked. "The mere propagation of the human +race, or the providing of a superfluous young woman with a means of +livelihood? If it is the former, then, in my opinion, there are too +many people in the world already; and if the latter, I'm afraid I'm not +sufficiently altruistic." + +"You are so _funny!_" laughed my aunt. + +I was not aware of being the least bit funny. + +"But, seriously," she continued, "you _must_ marry." She is a woman who +has an irritating way of speaking in Italics. "Are you aware that if you +have no son the title will become extinct?" + +"And if it does," I cried, "who on this earth will care a +half-penny-bun?" + +I am growing tired of the title. At first it was rather amusing. Now +it appears it is registered in Heaven's chancery and hedged about with +divine ordinances. Only the other day an unknown parson requested me to +open a church bazaar, and I gathered he had received his instructions +direct from the Almighty. + +"Why, every one would care," exclaimed my aunt, genuinely shocked. "It +would be monstrous. You owe it to your descendants as well as to your +ancestors. Besides," she added, with apparent irrelevance, "a man in +your position ought to live up to it." + +"I do," said I, "just up to it." + +"Now you are pretending you don't understand me. You ought to marry +money!" + +I smiled and shook my head. I don't think my aunt likes me to smile +and shake my head, for I saw a flicker in her eyes. "No, my dear aunt; +emphatically no. It would be comfortless. If I kissed it, it would be +cold. If I put my arms round it, it would be full of sharp edges which +would hurt. If I tried to get any emotion out of it, it would only +jingle." + +"What do you want then?" + +"Nothing. But if I must--let it be plain flesh and blood." + +"Cannibal!" said my aunt. + +We both laughed. + +"But you can have plenty of flesh and blood, with money as well, for the +asking," she insisted; and thereupon my two cousins, Dora and Gwendolen, +entered the drawingroom and interrupted the conversation. They are both +bouncing, fresh-faced girls, in the early twenties. They ride and shoot +and bicycle and golf and dance, and the elder writes little stories for +the magazines. As I do none of these things, I am convinced they regard +me as a poor sort of creature. When they hand me a cup of tea I almost +expect them to pat me on the head and say, "Good dog!" I am long, lean, +stooping, hatchet-faced, hawknosed, near-sighted. I have not the breezy +air of the jolly young stockbrokers they are in the habit of meeting. +They rather alarm me. Moreover, they have managed to rear a colossal +pile of wholly incorrect information on every subject under the sun, and +are addicted to letting chunks of it fall about one's ears. This stuns +me, rendering conversation difficult. + +As I had not seen Dora since her return from Rome, where she had spent +the early spring, I asked, in some trepidation, for her impressions. +Before I could collect myself, I was listening to a lecture on St. +Peter's. She told me it was built by Michael Angelo. I suggested that +some credit might be given to Bramante, not to speak of Rosellino, +Baldassare Peruzzi and the two San Gallo's. + +"Oh!" said my young lady, with a superb air of omniscience. "It was +all Michael Angelo's design. _The others only tinkered away at it +afterwards_." + +After receiving this brickbat I took my leave. + +To console myself I looked up, during the evening, Michael Angelo's +noble letter about Bramante. + +"One cannot deny," says he, "that Bramante was as excellent in +architecture as any one has been from the ancients to now. He placed the +first stone of St. Peter's, not full of confusion, but clear, neat, and +luminous, and isolated all round in such a way that it injured no +part of the palace, and was held to be a beautiful thing, as is still +apparent, in such a way that any one who has departed from the said +order of Bramante, as San Gallo has done, has departed from the truth." + +Michael Angelo did not like San Gallo; neither did he like Bramante-who +was his senior by thirty years-but this makes his appreciation of the +elder's work all the more generous. + +Tinkered away at it, indeed! + + +May 21st. + +I spent all the morning at work by the open window. + +I have a small house in Lingfield Terrace, on the north side of the +Regent's Park, so that my drawing-room, on the first floor, has a +southern aspect. It has been warm and sunny for the past few days, and +the elms and plane-trees across the road are beginning to riot in their +green bravery, as if intoxicated with the golden wine of spring. My +French window is flung wide open, and on the balcony a triangular bit of +sunlight creeps round as the morning advances. My work-table is drawn +up to the window. I am busy over the first section of my "History of +Renaissance Morals," for which I think my notes are completed. I have a +delicious sense of isolation from the world. Away over those tree-tops +is a faint purpurine pall, and below it lies London, with its strife and +its misery, its wickedness and its vanity. Twenty minutes would take +me into the heart of it. And if I chose I could be as struggling, as +wretched, as much imbued with wickedness and vanity as anybody. I could +gamble on the stock exchange, or play the muddy game of politics, or +hawk my precious title for sale among the young women of London society. +My Aunt Jessica once told me that London was at my feet. I am quite +content that it should stay there. I have much the same nervous dread +of it as I have of an angry sea breaking in surf on the shingle. If I +ventured out in it I should be tossed hither and thither and broken on +the rocks, and I should perish. I prefer to stand aloof and watch. If I +had a little more of daring in my nature I might achieve something. I am +afraid I am but a waster in the world's factory; but kind Fate, instead +of pitching me on the rubbish-heap, has preserved me, perhaps has set me +under a glass case, in her own museum, as a curiosity. Well, I am happy +in my shelter. + +I was interrupted in my writing by the entrance of my cook and +housekeeper, Antoinette. She was sorry to disturb me, but did Monsieur +like sorrel? She was preparing some _veau a l'oseille_ for lunch, and +Stenson (my man) had informed her that it was disgusting stuff and that +Monsieur would not eat it. + +"Antoinette," said I, "go and inform Stenson that as he looks after +my outside so do you look after my inside, and that I have implicit +confidence in both of you in your respective spheres of action." + +"But does Monsieur like sorrel?" Antoinette inquired, anxiously. + +"I adore it even," said I, and Antoinette made her exit in triumph. + +What a reverential care French women have for the insides of their +masters! At times it is pathetic. Before now, I have thrown dainty +morsels which I could not eat into the fire, so as to avoid hurting +Antoinette's feelings. + +I came across her three years ago in a tiny hostelry in a tiny town +in the Loire district. She cooked the dinner and conversed about it +afterwards so touchingly that we soon became united in bonds of the +closest affection. Suddenly some money was stolen; Antoinette, accused, +was dismissed without notice. I had a shrewd suspicion of the thief--a +suspicion which was afterwards completely justified--and indignantly +championed Antoinette's cause. + +But Antoinette, coming from a village some eighty miles away, was a +stranger and an alien. I was her only friend. It ended in my inviting +her to come to England, the land of the free and the refuge of the +downtrodden and oppressed, and become my housekeeper. She accepted, with +smiles and tears. And they were great big smiles, that went into creases +all over her fat red face, forming runnels for the great big tears which +dropped off at unexpected angles. She was alone in the world. Her only +son had died during his military service in Madagascar. Although her man +was dead, the law would not regard her as a widow because she had never +been married, and therefore refused to exempt her only son. "_On ne +peut-etre Jeune qu'une fois, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?_" she said, in +extenuation of her early fault. + +"And Jean-Marie," she added, "was as brave a fellow and as devoted a son +as if I had been married by the Saint-Pere himself." + +I waved my hand in deprecation and told her it did not matter in the +least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of Verona for many generations, +were every man jack of them so parented. Even William the Conqueror-- + +"_Tiens_," cried Antoinette, consoled, "and he became Emperor of +Germany--he and Bismarck!" + +Antoinette's historical sense is rudimentary. I have not tried since to +develop it. + +When I brought my victim of foreign tyranny to Lingfield Terrace, +Stenson, I believe, nearly fainted. He is the correctest of English +valets, and his only vice, I believe, is the accordion, on which +he plays jaunty hymn-tunes when I am out of the house. When he had +recovered he asked me, respectfully, how they were to understand each +other. I explained that he would either have to learn French or teach +Antoinette English. What they have done, I gather, is to invent a +nightmare of a _lingua franca_ in which they appear to hold amicable +converse. Now and again they have differences of opinion, as to-day, +over my taste for _veau a l'oseille_; but, on the whole, their relations +are harmonious, and she keeps him in a good-humour: Naturally, she feeds +the brute. + +The duty-impulse, stimulated by my call yesterday on one aunt by +marriage, led my footsteps this afternoon to the house of the other, +Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne. She is of a different type from her sister-in-law, +being a devout Roman Catholic, and since the terrible affliction of two +years ago has concerned herself more deeply than ever in the affairs of +her religion. She lives in a gloomy little house in a sunless Kensington +by-street. Only my Cousin Rosalie was at home. She gave me tea made with +tepid water and talked about the Earl's Court Exhibition, which she had +not visited, and a new novel, of which she had vaguely heard. I tried in +vain to infuse some life into the conversation. I don't believe she is +interested in anything. She even spoke lukewarmly of Farm Street. + +I pity her intensely. She is thin, thirty, colourless, bosomless. I +should say she was passionless--a predestined spinster. She has never +drunk hot tea or lived in the sun or laughed a hearty laugh. I remember +once, at my wit's end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore +Hook accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite request +that he might know whether he was anybody in particular. She said, +without a smile, "Yes, it was astonishing how rude some people could +be." + +And her godfathers and godmothers gave her the name of Rosalie. Mine +might just as well have called me Hercules or Puck. + +She told me that her mother intended to ask me to dine with them one +evening next week. When was I free? I chose Thursday. Oddly enough I +enjoy dining there, although we are on the most formal terms, not having +got beyond the "Sir Marcus" and "Mrs. Ordeyne." But both mother and +daughter are finely bred gentlewomen, and one meets few, oh, very, very +few among the ladies of to-day. + +I reached home about six and found a telegram awaiting me. + +"_Sorry can't give you dinner. Cook in an impossible condition. Come +later._ Judith." + +I must confess to a sigh of relief. I am fond of Judith and sorry +for her domestic infelicities, though why she should maintain that +alcoholized wretch in her kitchen passes my comprehension. If there is +one thing women do not understand it is the selection, the ordering, and +the treatment of domestic servants. The mere man manages much better. +But, that aside, Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith's cook's cookery. +I breathed a little sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform him +that I would dine at home. + +A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller arrived during +dinner. Among them were the nine volumes of Pietro Gianone's _Istoria +Civile del Regno di Napoli_, a copy of which I ought to have possessed +long ago. It is dedicated to the "Most Puissant and Felicitous Prince +Charles VI, the Great, by God crowned Emperor of the Romans, King of +Germany, Spain, Naples, Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, _etcetera_." Is there +a living soul in God's universe who has a spark of admiration for this +most puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by God Emperor +and King of the greater part of Europe (and docked of most of +his pretensions by the Treaty of Utrecht)? We only remember the +forcible-feeble person by his Pragmatic Sanction, and otherwise his +personality has left in history not the remotest trace. And yet, on +the 12th February, 1723, a profoundly erudite, subtle, and picturesque +historian grovels before the man and subscribes himself "Of your Holy +Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most humble and most devoted and most +obsequious vassal and slave Pietro Gianone." What ruthless judgments +posterity passes on once enormous reputations! In Gianone's admirable +introduction we hear of "_il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a' con +confini della sua Inghilterra volle in altri a piu lontani Paesi andav +rintracciando l'uso a l'autorita delle romane leggi ne' nuovi domini de' +Principi cristiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna Nazione volle ancora aver +conto: le ricerco nella vicina Scozia, e nell' Ibernia; trapasso nella +Francia, e nella Spagna; in Germania, in Italia, a nel nostro Regno +ancora: si stese in oltre in Polonia, Boemia, in Ungheria, Danimarca, +nella Svezia, ed in piu remote parti_." A devil of a fellow this +celebrated English Arthur Duck, who besides writing a learned treatise +_De Usu et Auth. Jur. Civ. Rom. in Dominiis Principum Christianorum_, +was a knight, a member of Parliament, chancellor of the diocese of +London, and a master in chancery. Gianone flattens himself out for a +couple of pages before this prodigy whom he lovingly calls _Ariuro_, as +who should say Raffaelo or Giordano; and now, where in the hearts of men +lingers Sir Arthur Duck? For one thing he had a bad name. Our English +sense of humour revolts from making a popular hero of a man called Duck. +Yet we made one of Drake. But there was something masculine about the +latter: in fact, everything. + +I am afraid it was rather late when I got to Judith. + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +May 22d. + +I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had lived in a garret "in +the brave days when I was twenty-one," if I had undergone the lessons +of misery with the attendant compensations of "_une folle maitresse, de +francs amis et l'amour des chansons_," and had joyous-heartedly mounted +my six flights of stairs. I lived modestly, it is true; but never for a +moment was I doubtful as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the +creature comforts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her +shawl curtain-wise across my window. Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish +she had. I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or spent my +lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal song. Often the +weary moments seemed a lifetime. + +And now that I am forty, "it is too late a week." Boon companions, of +whom I am thankful to say I have none, would drive me crazy with their +intolerable heartiness. I once spent an evening at the Savage Club. +As for the _folle maitresse_--as a concomitant of my existence she +transcends imagination. + +"What are you thinking of?" asked Judith. + +"I was thinking how the _'Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans'_ +principle would have worked in my own case," I answered truthfully, for +the above reflections had been Passing through my mind. + +Judith laughed. + +"You in a garret? Why, you haven't got a temperament!" + +I suppose I haven't. It never occurred to me before. Beranger omitted +that from his list of attendant compensations. + +"That's the difference between us," she added, after a pause. "I have a +temperament and you haven't." + +"I hope you find it a great comfort." + +"It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. It is the bane of +one's existence." + +"Why be so proud of having it?" + +"You wouldn't understand if I told you," said Judith. + +I rose and walked to the window and gazed meditatively at the rain which +swept the uninspiring little street. Judith lives in Tottenham Mansions, +in the purlieus of the Tottenham Court Road. The ground floor of the +building is a public-house, and on summer evenings one can sit by the +open windows, and breathe in the health-giving fumes of beer and whisky, +and listen to the sweet, tuneless strains of itinerant musicians. When +my new fortunes enabled me to give the dear woman just the little help +that allowed her to move into a more commodious flat, she had the many +mansions of London to choose from. Why she insisted on this abominable +locality I could never understand. It isn't as if the flat were +particularly cheap; indeed the fact of its being situated over a +public-house seems to enhance the rent. She said she liked the shape of +the knocker and the pattern of the bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that +it must have had something to do with the temperament. + +"It always seems to rain when we propose an outing together. This is the +fourth time since Easter," I remarked. + +We had planned a sedate country jaunt, but as the day was pouring wet we +remained at home. + +"Perhaps this is the way the _bon Dieu_ has of expressing his +disapproval of us," said Judith. + +"Why should he disapprove?" I asked. + +A shrug of her shoulders ended in a shiver. + +"I am chilled through." + +"My dear girl," I cried, "why on earth haven't you lit the fire?" + +"The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy." + +"But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogical woman," I +exclaimed, searching my pockets for a match-box. + +I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel by her chair. +She stretched out her hand--she has delicate white hands with slender +fingers--and lightly touched my head. + +"How long have we known each other?" she asked. + +"About eight years." + +"And how long shall we go on?" + +"As long as you like," said I, intent on the fire. + +Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze +and crackle of the wood assured me of successful effort. + +"These are capital grates," I said, cheerfully, drawing a comfortable +arm-chair to the front of the fire. + +"Excellent," she replied, in a tone devoid of interest. + +There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great charms of human +intercourse. Is there not a legend that Tennyson and Carlyle spent the +most enjoyable evenings of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence +and tobacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob? A sort of Whistlerian +nocturne of golden fog! + +I offered Judith a cigarette. She declined it with a shake of the head. +I lit one myself and leaning back contentedly in my chair watched her +face in half-profile. Most people would call her plain. I can't make up +my mind on the point. She is what is termed a negative blonde--that is +to say, one with very fair hair (in marvellous abundance--it is one of +her beauties), a sallow complexion and deep violet eyes. Her face is +thin, a little worn, that of the woman who has suffered--temperament +again! Her mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, is drawn +down at the corners. Her figure is slight but graceful. She has pretty +feet. One protruded from her skirt, and a slipper dangled from the tip. +At last it fell off. I knew it would. She has a craze for the minimum of +material in slippers--about an inch of leather (I suppose it's leather) +from the toe. I picked the vain thing up and balanced it again on her +stocking-foot. + +"Will you do that eight years hence?" said Judith. + +"My dear, as I've done it eight thousand times the last eight years, I +suppose I shall," I replied, laughing. "I'm a creature of habit." + +"You may marry, Marcus." + +"God forbid!" I ejaculated. + +"Some pretty fresh girl." + +"I abominate pretty fresh girls. I would just as soon talk to a baby in +a perambulator." + +"The women men are crazy to marry are not always those they particularly +delight to converse with, my friend," said Judith. + +I lit another cigarette. "I think the sex feminine has marriage on the +brain," I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly. "My Aunt Jessica was worrying me +about it the day before yesterday. As if it were any concern of hers!" + +Judith laughed below her breath and called me a simpleton. + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Because you haven't got a temperament." + +This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the question. I told +her so. She replied that she was years older than I, and had learned +the eternal relevance of all things. I pointed out that she was years +younger. + +"How many heart-beats have you had in your life--real, wild, pulsating +heart-beats--eternity in an hour?" + +"That's Blake," I murmured. + +"I'm aware of it. Answer my question." + +"It's a silly question." + +"It isn't. The next time you see a female baby in a perambulator, take +off your hat respectfully." + +I am afraid I am clumsy at repartee. + +"And the next time you engage a cook, my dear Judith," said I, "send for +a mere man." + +She coloured up. I dissolved myself in apologies. Her wounded +susceptibilities required careful healing. The situation was somewhat +odd. She had not scrupled to attack the innermost weaknesses of my +character, and yet when I retaliated by a hit at externals, she was +deeply hurt, and made me feel a ruffianly blackguard. I really think if +Lisette had pinned up that curtain I should have learned something more +about female human nature. But Judith is the only woman I have known +intimately all my life long, and sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever +know her. I told her so once. She answered: "If you loved me you would +know me." Very likely she was right. Honestly speaking, I don't love +Judith. I am accustomed to her. She is a lady, born and bred. She is +an educated woman and takes quite an intelligent interest in the +Renaissance. Indeed she has a subtler appreciation of the Venetian +School of Painting than I have. She first opened my eyes, in Italy, to +the beauties, as a gorgeous colourist, of Palma Vecchio in his second or +Giorgionesque manner. She is in every way a sympathetic and entertaining +companion. Going deeper, to the roots of human instinct, I find she +represents to me--so chance has willed it--the _ewige weibliche_ which +must complement masculinity in order to produce normal existence. But as +for the "_zieht uns hinan_"--no. It would not attract me hence--out of +my sphere. I could commit an immortal folly for no woman who ever made +this planet more lustrous to its Bruderspharen. + +I don't understand Judith. It doesn't very greatly matter. Many things +I don't understand, the spiritual attitude towards himself, for example, +of the intelligent juggler who expends his life's energies in balancing +a cue and three billiard-balls on the tip of his nose. But I know that +Judith understands me, and therein lies the advantage I gain from our +intimacy. She gauges, to an absurdly subtle degree, the depth of my +affection. She is really an incomparable woman. So many insist upon +predilection masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing +theatrical about Judith. + +Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unsettled. She broke +another pleasant spell of fireside silence, that followed expiation of +my offence, by suddenly calling my name. + +"Yes?" said I, inquiringly. + +"I want to tell you something. Please promise me you won't be vexed." + +"My dear Judith," said I, "my great and imperial namesake, in whose +meditations I have always found ineffable comfort, tells me this: 'If +anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which +disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss +at once, if you please!' So I promise to dismiss all my notions of your +disturbing communication and not to be vexed." + +"If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is Marcus +Aurelius," said Judith. + +I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which +protested, in a fire's cheery, human way, against the depression of the +murky world outside, and to banter Judith. + +"I can quite understand it," I said. "A man sucks in the consolations of +philosophy; a woman solaces herself with religion." + +"I can do neither," she replied, changing her attitude with an +exaggerated shaking down of skirts. "If I could, I shouldn't want to go +away." + +"Go away?" I echud. + +"Yes. You mustn't be vexed with me. I haven't got a cook--" + +"No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my dear." + +The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and baggage, +last evening, when she was sober enough to walk. + +"And so it is a convenient opportunity," Judith continued, ignoring my +compliment--and rightly so; for as soon as it had been uttered, I was +struck by an uneasy conviction that she had herself disturbed the French +caterers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath repose in order +to provide me with food. + +"I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never happy at the +beginning of a London season. I know I'm silly," she went on, hurriedly. +"If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser--I +don't mind the rest of the year; but in the season everybody is in +town--people I used to know and mix with--I meet them in the streets +and they cut me and it--hurts--and so I want to get away somewhere by +myself. When I get sick of solitude I'll come back." + +One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by my +side. She caught my hand. + +"For pity's sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is." + +I said, "I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith. I +didn't guess. Of course I understand." + +"If you didn't, it would be impossible for us." + +"Have no doubt," said I, softly, and I kissed her hand. + +I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with--at eight +and twenty--and was patiently undergoing premature interment in a small +pension in Rome. How long her patience would have lasted I cannot say. +If circumstances had been different, what would have happened? is the +most futile of speculations. What did happen was the drifting together +of us two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for the simple reason +that there were no forces urging us apart. She was past all care for +social sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute having been flung over +the windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a world of shadows, +why should I have rejected the one warm hand that was held out to me? +As I said to her this afternoon, Why should the _bon Dieu_ disapprove? I +pay him the compliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity. + +When my fortune came, she remarked, "I am glad I am not free. If I were, +you would want to marry me, and that would be fatal." + +The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour would compel the +offer. Its acceptance would bring disaster. + +Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, a _quid_ of +protection, maintenance, position and what not, for a _quo_ of the +various services that may be conveniently epitomized in the phrase _de +mensa et thoro_. The other, the only possible existence for two beings +whose passionate, mutual attraction demands the perfect fusion of their +two existences into a common life. Now to this passionate attraction +I have never become, and, having no temperament (thank Heaven!), shall +never become, a party. Before the turbulence therein involved I stand +affrighted as I do before London or the deep sea. I once read an epitaph +in a German churchyard: "I will awake, O Christ, when thou callest me; +but let me sleep awhile, for I am very weary." Has the human soul ever +so poignantly expressed its craving for quietude? I fancy I should have +been a heart's friend of that dead man, who, like myself, loved the cool +and quiet shadow, and was not allowed to enjoy it in this world. I may +not get the calm I desire, but at any rate my existence shall not +be turned upside down by mad passion for a woman. As for the +social-contract aspect of marriage, I want no better housekeeper than +Antoinette; and my dining-table having no guests does not need a lady to +grace its foot; I have no _a priori_ craving to add to the population. +"If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason +alone," says Schopenhauer, "would the human race continue to exist? +Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation +as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it +upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?" By bringing +children into the world by means of a marriage of convenience I should +be imposing the burden of existence upon them in cold blood. I agree +with Schopenhauer. + +And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in the closest +physical and moral propinquity for one hundred and eighty-six hours +out of the week, each hour surcharged with an obligatory exchange of +responsibilities, interests, sacrifices of every kind, a being who is +not the utter brother of my thoughts and sister of my dreams--no, never! +_Au grand non, au grand jamais!_ + +Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the utter brother of my +thoughts and the sister of my dreams; nor am I of hers. + +But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, and my affection +fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate adjustment of reciprocals +is our sanction. Marriage, were it possible, would indeed be fatal. Our +pleasant, free relations, unruffled by storm, are ideal for us both. + +Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away for a change would +vex me? + +The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to me. Of all the +hateful attitudes towards a woman in which a decent man can view himself +that of the Turkish bashaw is the most detestable. Women seldom give men +credit for this distaste. + + +I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, and told her +not to doubt my understanding. She cried a little. + +"I don't make your path rougher, Judith?" I whispered. + +She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonderfully. + +"You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it." + +"Like a steam-roller," said I. + +She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily to the kitchen +to help her get the tea ready. My assistance consisted in lighting the +gas-stove beneath a waterless kettle. After that I sprawled against +the dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin +bread-and-butter in a woman's deliciously clumsy way. Once, as the +bright blade went perilously near her palm, I drew in my breath. + +"A man would never dream of doing it like that!" I cried, in rebuke. + +She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the knife and +loaf. + +"Do it your way," she said, with a smile of mock humility. + +I did it my way, and cut my finger. + +"The devil's in the knife!" I cried. "But that's the right way." + +Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the well-conducted +person of the ballad, went on cutting bread-and-butter. Her smile, +however, was provoking. + +"And all this time," I said, half an hour later, "you haven't told me +where you are going." + +"Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere." + +"I thought you said you wanted solitude." + +I have met Delphine Carrere--_brave femme_ if ever there was one, and +the loyalest soul in the world, the only one of Judith's early women +friends who has totally ignored the fact of the Sacred Cap of Good +Repute having been thrown over the windmills (indeed who knows whether +dear, golden-hearted Delphine herself could conscientiously write the +magic initials S.C.G.R. after her name?); but Delphine has never struck +me as a person in whose dwelling one could find conventual seclusion. +Judith, however, explained. + +"Delphine will be painting all day, and dissipating all night. I can't +possibly disturb her in her studio, for she has to work tremendously +hard--and I'm decidedly not going to dissipate with her. So I shall have +my days and nights to my sequestered and meditative self." + +I said nothing: but all the same I am tolerably certain that Judith, +being Judith, will enjoy prodigious merrymaking in Paris. She is +absolutely sincere in her intentions--the earth holds no sincerer +woman--but she is a self-deceiver. Her about-to-be-sequestered and +meditative self was at that moment sitting on the arm of a chair and +smoking a cigarette, with undisguised relish of the good things of this +life. The blue smoke wreathing itself amid her fair hair resembled, so I +told her in the relaxed intellectual frame of mind of the contented man, +incense mounting through the nimbus of a saint. She affected solicitude +lest the life-blood of my intelligence should be pouring out through my +cut finger. No, I am convinced that the _recueillement_ (that beautiful +French word for which we have no English equivalent, meaning the +gathering of the soul together within itself) of the rue Boissy +d'Anglais is the very happiest delusion wherewith Judith has hitherto +deluded herself. I am glad, exceedingly glad. Her temperament--I have +got reconciled to her affliction--craves the gaiety which London denies +her. + +"And when are you going?" I asked. + +"To-morrow." + +"To-morrow?" + +"Why not? I wired Delphine this morning. I had to go out to get +something for lunch (my conviction, it appears, was right), and I +thought I might as well take an omnibus to Charing Cross and send a +telegram." + +"But when are you going to pack?" + +"I did that last night. I didn't get to bed till four this morning. I +only made up my mind after you had gone," she added, in anticipation of +a possible question. + +It is better that we are not married. These sudden resolutions would +throw my existence out of gear. My moral upheaval would be that of a hen +in front of a motor-car. When I go abroad, I like at least a fortnight +to think of it. One has to attune one's mind to new conditions, to map +out the pleasant scheme of days, to savour in anticipation the delights +that stand there, awaiting one's tasting, either in the mystery of the +unknown or in the welcoming light of familiarity. I love the transition +that can be so subtly gradated by the spirit between one scene and +another. The man who awakens one fine morning in his London residence, +scratches his head, and says, "What shall I do to-day? By Jove! I'll +start for Timbuctoo!" is to me an incomprehensible, incomplete being. He +lacks an aesthetic sense. + +I did not dare tell Judith she lacked an aesthetic sense. I might just +as well have accused her of stealing silver spoons. I said I should miss +her (which I certainly shall), and promised to write to her once a week. + +"And you," said I, "will have heaps of time to write me the History of a +Sequestered and Meditative Self--meanwhile, let us go out somewhere and +dine." + +When I got home, I found a card on my hall-table. "Mr. Sebastian +Pasquale." + +I am sorry I missed Pasquale. I haven't seen him for two or three years. +He is a fascinating youth, a study in reversion. I will ask him to +dinner here some day soon. It will be quieter than at the club. + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +May 24th. + +Something has happened. Something fantastic, inconceivable. I am in a +condition to be surprised at nothing. If a witch on a broomstick rode in +through my open window and lectured me on quaternions, I should accept +her visit as a normal occurrence. + +I have spent hours walking up and down this book-lined room, wondering +whether the universe or I were mad. Sometimes I laughed, for the thing +is sheerly ridiculous. Sometimes I cursed at the impertinence of the +thing in happening at all. Once I stumbled over a volume of Muratori +lying on the floor, and I kicked it across the room. Then I took it up, +and wept over the loosened binding. + +The question is: What on earth am I to do? Why has Judith chosen this +particular time to shut up her flat and sequester herself in Paris? +Why did my lawyers appoint this particular morning for me to sign their +silly documents? Why did I turn up three hours late? Why did I walk down +the Thames Embankment? And why, oh, why, did I seat myself on a bench in +the gardens below the terrace of the National Liberal Club? + +Yesterday was one of the most peaceful and happy days of my existence. I +worked contentedly at my history; I gossiped with Antoinette who came to +demand permission to keep a cat. + +"What kind of a cat?" I asked. + +"Perhaps Monsieur does not like cats?" she inquired, anxiously. + +"The cat was worshipped as a god by the ancient Egyptians," I remarked. + +"But this one, Monsieur," she said in breathless reassurance, "has only +one eye." + +I would sooner talk to Antoinette than the tutorial staff of Girton. If +she woke up one morning and found she had a mind she would think it a +disease. + +In the afternoon I strolled into Regent's Park and meeting the +McMurray's nine-year-old son in charge of the housemaid, around whom +seemed to be hovering a sheepish individual in a bowler hat, I took him +off to the Zoological Gardens. On the way he told me, with great glee, +that his German governess was in bed with an awful sore throat; that he +wasn't doing any lessons; that the sheepish hoverer was Milly's young +man, and that the silly way they went on was enough to make one sick. +When he had fed everything feedable and ridden everything ridable, I +drove him to the Wellington Road and deposited him with his parents. I +love a couple of hours with a child when it is thoroughly happy and +on its best behaviour. And the enjoyment is enhanced by the feeling of +utter thankfulness that he is not my child, but somebody else's. + +In the evening I read and meditated on the happiness of my lot. +The years of school drudgery have already lost their sharp edge of +remembered definition, and sometimes I wonder whether it is I who lived +through them. I had not a care in the world, not a want that I could not +gratify. I thought of Judith. I thought of Sebastian Pasquale. I +amused myself by seeking a Renaissance type of which he must be the +reincarnation. I fixed upon young Olgiati, one of the assassins of +Gian Galeazzo Sforza. Of the many hundreds of British youths who passed +before my eyes during my slavery, he is the only one who has sought +me out in his manhood. And strange to say we had only a few months +together, during my first year's apprenticeship to the dismal craft, he +being in the sixth form, and but three or four years younger than I. He +was the maddest, oddest, most diabolical and most unpopular boy in the +school. The staff, to whom the conventional must of necessity be always +the Divine, loathed him. I alone took to the creature. I think now that +my quaint passion for the cinquecento Italian must have had something +to do with my attraction. In externals he is as English as I am, having +been brought up in England by an English mother, but there are thousands +of Hindoos who are more British than he. The McMurrays were telling me +dreadful stories about him this afternoon. Sighing after an obdurate +Viennese dancer, he had lured her coachman into helpless intoxication, +had invested himself in the domestic's livery, and had driven off with +the lady in the darkness after the performance to the outskirts of the +town. What happened exactly, the McMurrays did not know; but there was +the devil to pay in Vienna. And yet this inconsequent libertine did the +following before my own eyes. We were walking down Piccadilly together +one afternoon in the hard winter of 1894. It was a black frost, +agonizingly cold. A shivering wretch held out matches for sale. His +hideous red toes protruded through his boots. "My God, my God!" cried +Pasquale, "I can't stand this!" He jumped into a crawling hansom, tore +off his own boots, flung them to the petrified beggar and drove home +in his stocking-feet. I stood on the curb and, with mingled feelings, +watched the recipient, amid an interested group of bystanders, match the +small shapely sole against his huge foot, and with a grin tuck the boots +under his arm and march away with them to the nearest pawnbroker. If +Pasquale had been an equally compassionate Briton, he would have stopped +to think, and have tossed the man a sovereign. _But he didn't stop to +think._ That was my cinquecento Pasquale. And I loved him for it. + +I went to bed last night, as I have indicated, the most contented +of created beings. I awoke this morning with no greater ruffle on my +consciousness than the appointment with my lawyers. The sun shone. A +thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows. The +tree, laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, saying: "See +how green I am, after Sunday's rain." Antoinette's one eyed black cat +(a hideous beast) met me in the hall and arching its back welcomed me +affably to its new residence. And on my breakfast-table I found a +copy of the first edition of Cristoforo da Costa's "_Elogi delle +Donne Illustri_," a book which, in great diffidence, I had asked Lord +Carnforth, a perfect stranger, to allow me the privilege of consulting +in his library, and which Lord Carnforth, with a scholar's splendid +courtesy, had sent me to use at my convenience. + +Filled with peace and good-will to all men, like a personification +of Christmas in May, I started out this morning to see my lawyers. I +reached them at three o'clock, having idled at second-hand bookstalls +and lunched on the road. I signed their unintelligible document, and +wandered through the Temple Gardens and along the Embankment. When I had +passed under Hungerford Bridge, it struck me that I was warm, a little +leg-weary, and the Victoria Embankment Gardens smiled an invitation +to repose. I struck the shady path beneath the terrace of the National +Liberal Club, and sat myself down on a comfortable bench. The only other +occupant was a female in black. As I take no interest in females +in black, I disregarded her presence, and gave myself up to the +contemplation, of the trim lawns and flower-beds, the green trees +masking the unsightly Surrey side of the river, and the back of the +statue of Sir Bartle Frere. A continued survey of the last not making +for edification (a statue that turns its back on you being one of +the dullest objects made by man), I took from my pocket a brown +leather-covered volume which I had fished out of a penny box: "_Suite de +l'Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise ou L'Histoire des Uscoques, par le +Sieur Houssaie, Amsterdam, MDCCV._" A whole complete scholarly history +of a forgotten people for a penny. The Uscoques were originally +Dalmatians who settled at Segna on the Adriatic and became the most +pestiferous colony of pirates and desperadoes of sixteenth century +Europe. I opened the yellow-stained pages and savoured their acrid musty +smell. How much learning, thought I, bought with the heart's-blood, how +many million hours of fierce intellectual struggle appeal to mankind +nowadays but as an odour, an odour of decay, in the nostrils of here and +there a casual student. I thought this, and my eye caught, repeated many +times, the name of the Frangipani, once lords of Segna. As men, their +achievements are wiped out of commonly remembered history; but their +name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which perchance may be found +in the penny scent fountains of to-day. I was smiling over this quaint +olfactory coincidence, and wondering whether any human being alive at +that moment had ever read the Sieur Houssaie's book, when a tug at my +arm, such as a neglected terrier gives with his paw, brought me back to +the workaday world. I turned sharply and met a pair of melting, brown, +piteous, imploring dog's eyes, belonging not to a terrier, but to the +disregarded female in black. + +"Will you please, sir, to tell me what I must do." + +I stared. She was not in the least like what my half-conscious glance at +the female in black had taken her to be. She was quite young, remarkably +good looking. Even at the first instant I was struck by her eyes and the +mass of bronze hair and the twitching of a childish mouth. But she +had an untidy, touzled, raffish appearance, due to I knew not what +investiture of disrepute. Her hands--for she wore no gloves--wanted +washing. + +"What a young girl like yourself must not do," said I, "is to enter into +conversation with men in public places." + +"Then I shall have to die," she said, forlornly, edging away from my +side. + +She had the oddest little foreign accent. I looked at her again +more critically, and discovered what it was that made her look so +disreputable. She was wearing an old black dress many sizes too big for +her. Great pleats of it were secured by pins in unexpected places, so +that quaint chaos was made of the scheme of decoration--black velvet +and bugles--on the bodice. Instinctively I felt that a middle-aged, +fat, second-hand-clothes-dealing Jewess had built it many years ago +for synagogue wear. On the girlish figure it looked preposterous. +Preposterous too was her head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed in +black, with a cheap black feather drooping brokenly. + +Her eyes gave me a reproachful glance and turned away again. Then she +shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. My mother had a housemaid once +who always sniffed like that before beginning to cry. My position was +untenable. I could not remain stonily on the seat while this grotesquely +attired damsel wept; and for the life of me I could not get up and leave +her. She looked at me again. Those swimming, pleading eyes were scarcely +human. I capitulated. + +"Don't cry. Tell me what I can do for you," I said. + +She moved a few inches nearer. + +"I want to find Harry," she said; "I have lost him." + +"Who's Harry?" I naturally inquired. + +"He is to be my husband." + +"What's his other name?" + +"I have forgotten," she said, spreading out her hands. + +"Don't you know any one else in London?" I asked. + +She shook her head mournfully. "And I am getting so hungry." + +I suggested that there were restaurants in London. + +"But I have no money," she objected. "No money and nothing at all but +this." She designated her dress. "Isn't it ugly?" + +"It is decidedly not becoming," I admitted. + +"Well, what must I do? You tell me and I do it. If you don't tell me, I +must die." + +She leaned back placidly, having thus put upon my shoulders the +responsibility of her existence. I did not know which to admire +more, her cool assurance or the stoic fortitude with which she faced +dissolution. + +"I can give you some money to keep you going for a day or two," said I, +"but as for finding Harry, without knowing his name--" + +"After all I don't want so very much to find him," said this amazing +young person. "He made me stay in my cabin all the time I was in the +steamer. At first I was glad, for it went up and down, side to side, and +I thought I would die, for I was so sick; but afterwards I got better--" + +"But where did you come from?" I asked. + +"From Alexandretta." + +"What were you doing there?" + +"I used to sit in a tree and look over the wall--" + +"What wall?" + +"The wall of my house-my father's house. He was not my father, but he +married my mother. I am English." She announced the fact with a little +air of finality. + +"Indeed?" said I. + +"Yes. Father, mother--both English. He was Vice-Consul. He died before I +was born. Then his friend Hamdi Effendi took my mother and married her. +You see?" + +I confessed I did not. "Where does Harry come in?" I inquired. + +She looked puzzled. "Come in?" she echoed. + +I perceived her knowledge of the English vernacular was limited. I +turned my question differently. + +"Oh," she said with more animation. "He used to pass by the wall, and I +talked to him when there was no one looking. He was so pretty--prettier +than you," she paused. + +"Is it possible?" I said, ironically. + +"Oh, yes," she replied with profound gravity. "He had a moustache, but +he was not so long." + +"Well? You talked to Harry. What then?" + +In her artless way she told me. A refreshing story, as old as the +crusades, with the accessories of orthodox tradition; a European +disguise, purchased at a slop dealer's by the precious Harry, a rope, a +midnight flitting, a passage taken on board an English ship; the +anchor weighed; and the lovers were free on the bounding main. A +most refreshing story! I put on a sudden air of sternness, and shot a +question at her like a bullet. + +"Are you making all this up, young woman?" + +She started-looked quite scared. + +"You mean I tell lies? But no. It is all true. Why shouldn't it be true? +How else could I have come here?" + +The question was unanswerable. Her story was as preposterous as her +garments. But her garments were real enough. I looked long into her +great innocent eyes. Yes, she was telling me the truth. She babbled +on for a little. I gathered that her step-father, Hamdi Effendi, was a +Turkish official. She had spent all her life in the harem from which she +had eloped with this pretty young Englishman. + +"And what must I do?" she reiterated. + +I told her to give me time. One is not in the habit of meeting abducted +Lights of the Harem in the Embankment Gardens, beneath the National +Liberal Club. It was, in fact, a bewildering occurrence. I looked around +me. Nothing seemed to have happened during the last ten minutes. A pale +young man on the next bench, whom I had noticed when I entered, was +reading a dirty pink newspaper. Pigeons and sparrows hopped about +unconcernedly. On the file of cabs, just perceptible through the +foliage, the cabmen lolled in listless attitudes. Sir Bartle Frere +stolidly kept his back to me, not the least interested in this Gilbert +a Becket story. I always thought something was wrong with that man's +character. + +What on earth could I tell her to do? The best course was to find the +infernal Harry. I asked her how she came to lose him. It appears he +escorted her ashore at Southampton, after having scarcely set eyes +on her during the voyage, put her into a railway carriage with strict +injunctions not to stir until he claimed her, and then disappeared into +space. + +"Did he give you your ticket?" + +"No." + +"What a young blackguard!" I exclaimed. + +"I don't like him at all," she said. + +How she managed to elude the ticket collector at Vauxhall I could not +exactly discover. Apparently she told him, in her confiding manner, that +Harry had it, and when he found no Harry in the train and came back to +say so, she turned her dewy imploring eyes on him and the sentimental +varlet melted. At Waterloo a man had told her she must get out of the +carriage--she had travelled alone in it--and she had meekly obeyed. She +had wandered out of the station and across a bridge and had eventually +found herself in the Embankment Gardens. Then she had asked me how to +find Harry. Really she was ridiculously like Thomas a Becket's Saracen +mother crying in London for Gilbert. And the most ludicrous part of the +resemblance was that she did not know the creature's surname. + +"By the way," said I, "what is your name?" + +"Carlotta." + +"Carlotta what?" I asked. + +"I have no other name." + +"Your father--the Vice-Consul--had one." + +She wrinkled her young forehead in profound mental effort. + +"Ramsbotham," she said at last, triumphantly. + +"Now look here, Miss Ramsbotham--no," I broke off. "Such an appellation +is anachronistic, incongruous, and infinitely absurd. I can't use it. I +must take the liberty of addressing you as Carlotta." + +"But I've told you that Carlotta is my name," she said, in +uncomprehending innocence. + +"And mine is Sir Marcus Ordeyne. People call me 'Sir Marcus.'" + +"Seer Marcous," said Carlotta. + +She did not seem at all impressed with the fact that she was talking to +a member of the baronetage. + +"Quite so," said I. "Now, Carlotta," I resumed, "our first plan is +to set out in search of Harry. He may have missed his train, and have +followed by a later one, and be even now rampaging about Waterloo +station. If we hear nothing of him, I will drive you to the Turkish +Consulate, give you in charge there, and they will see you safely home +to Alexandretta. The good Hamdi Effendi is doubtless distracted, and +will welcome you back with open arms." + +I meant to be urbane and friendly. + +She rose to her feet, grew as white as paper, opened her great eyes, +opened her baby mouth, and in the middle of the Embankment Gardens +plumped on her knees before me and clasped her hands above her head. + +"For God's sake get up!" I shrieked, wrenching her back acrobatically to +the bench beside me. "You mustn't do things like that. You'll have the +whole of London running to look at us." + +Indeed the sight had so far roused the pale young man from his +lethargy that he laid his dirty pink paper on his knees. I kept hold of +Carlotta's wrists. She began to moan incoherently. + +"You mustn't send me back--Hamdi will kill me--oh please don't send me +back--he will make me marry his friend Mustapha--Mustapha has only two +teeth--and he is seventy years old--and he has a wife already--I only +went with Harry to avoid Mustapha. Hamdi would kill me, he would beat +me, he would make me marry Mustapha." + +That is what I gathered from her utterances. She was frightened out of +her wits, even into anticlimax. + +"But the Turkish Consul is your natural protector," said I. + +"You wouldn't be so cruel," she sobbed. The guttural sonority with which +she rolled the "r" in "cruel" made the epithet appear one of revolting +barbarity. She fixed those confounded eyes upon me. + +I wonder whether such a fool as I has ever lived. + +I promised, on my honour, not to hand her over to the Turkish consulate. + +I took a four-wheeled cab from the rank on the Embankment and drove her +to Waterloo. On the way she reminded me that she was hungry. I gave her +food at the buffet. It appears she has a passion for hard-boiled eggs +and lemonade. She did not seem very much concerned about finding Harry, +but chattered to me about the appointments of the bar. The beer-pulls +amused her particularly. She made me order a glass of bitter (a beverage +which I loathe) in order to see again how it was done, and broke into +gleeful laughter. The smart but unimaginative barmaid stared at her in +bewilderment. The two or three bar-loafers also stared. I was glad to +escape to the platform. + +There, however, a group of idlers followed us about and stood in a ring +round us when we stopped to interview a railway official. The beautiful, +bronze-haired, ox-eyed young woman in her disreputable attire--I have +never seen a broken black feather waggle more shamelessly--was a sight +indeed to strike wonderment into the cockney mind. And perhaps her +association with myself added to the incongruity. I am long and lean and +unlovely, I know; but it is my consolation that I look irreproachably +respectable. Of the two I was infinitely the more disturbed by the +public attention. "Calm and unembarrassed as a fate" she returned the +popular gaze, and appeared somewhat bored by my efforts to find Harry. +In the midst of an earnest discussion with the station-master she begged +me for a penny to put into an automatic sweetmeat machine, which she had +seen a small boy work successfully. I refused, curtly, and turned to the +station-master. A roar of laughter interrupted me again. Carlotta, with +outstretched hand and pleading eyes, like an organ-grinder's monkey, had +induced the boy to part with the sticky bit of toffee, and was in the +act of conveying it to her mouth. + +"I'll call to-morrow morning," said I hurriedly to the station-master. +"If the gentleman should come meanwhile, tell him to leave his name and +address." + +Then I took Carlotta by the arm and, accompanied by my train of +satellites, I thrust her into the first hansom-cab I could see. + +There was no sign or token of Harry. No pretty young man was hanging +dejectedly about the station. None had torn his hair before the +officials asking for news of a lost female in frowsy black. There was no +Harry. There was no further need therefore to afford the British public +a gratuitous entertainment. + +"Drive," said I to the cabman. "Drive like the devil." + +"Where to, sir?" + +I gasped. Where should I drive? I lost my head. + +"Go on driving round and round till I tell you to stop." The philosophic +cabman did not regard me as eccentric, for he whipped up his horse +cheerfully. When we had slid down the steep incline and got free of the +precincts of that hateful station, I breathed more freely and collected +my wits. Carlotta sucked her sticky thumbs and wiped them on her dress. + +"Where are we going?" she asked. + +"Across Waterloo Bridge," said I. + +"What to do?" + +"To dispose of you somehow," I replied, grimly. "But how, I haven't a +notion. There's a Home for Lost Dogs and a Home for Stray Cats, and a +Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard, but as you are neither a dog nor +a cat nor an umbrella, these refuges are unavailable." + +The cab reached the Strand. + +"East or west, sir?" inquired the driver. + +"West," said I, at random. + +We drove down the Strand at a leisurely pace. I passed through a phase +of agonised thought. By my side was a helpless, homeless, friendless, +penniless young woman, as beautiful as a goddess and as empty-minded +as a baby. What in the world could I do with her? I looked at her in +despair. She met my glance with a contented smile; just as if we were +old acquaintances and I were taking her out to dinner. The unfamiliar +roar and bustle of London impressed her no more than it would have +impressed a little dog who had found a kind master. + +"Suppose I gave you some money and put you down here and left you?" I +inquired. + +"I should die," she answered, fatalistically. "Or, perhaps, I should +find another kind gentleman." + +"I wonder if you have such a thing as a soul," said I. + +She plucked at her gown. "I have only this--and it is very ugly," she +remarked again. "I should like a pink dress." + +We crossed Trafalgar Square, and I saw by Big Ben that it was a quarter +to six. I could not drive through London with her for an indefinite +period. Besides, my half past seven dinner awaited me. + +Why, oh, why has Judith gone to Paris? Had she been in town I could have +shot Carlotta into Tottenham Mansions, and gone home to my dinner and +Cristoforo da Costa with a light heart. Judith would have found Carlotta +vastly entertaining. She would have washed her body and analysed her +temperament. But Judith was in retreat with Delphine Carrere, and has +left me alone to bear the responsibilities of life--and Carlotta. + +The cab slowly mounted Waterloo Place. I had thought of my aunts as +possible helpers, and rejected the idea. I had thought of a police +station, a hotel, my lawyers (too late), a furnished lodging, a +hospital. My mind was an aching blank. + +"Where do you live?" asked Carlotta. + +I looked at her and groaned. It was the only solution. "Up Regent's Park +way," I replied, aware that she was none the wiser for the information. + +I gave the address to the cabman through the trap-door in the roof. + +"I'm going to take you home with me for to-night," I said, severely. "I +have an excellent French housekeeper who will look after your comfort. +And to-morrow if that infernal young scoundrel of a lover of yours +is not found, it will not be the fault of the police force of Great +Britain." + +She laid her grubby little hand on mine. It was very soft and cool. + +"You are cross with me. Why?" + +I removed her hand. + +"You mustn't do that again," said I. "No; I am not in the least +cross with you. But I hope you are aware that this event is of an +unprecedented character." + +"What is an unprecedented character?" she asked, stumbling over the long +words. + +"A thing that has never happened before and I devoutly hope will not +happen again." + +Her face was turned to me. The lower lip trembled a little. The dog-look +came into those wonderful eyes. + +"You will be kind to me?" she said, in her childish monosyllables, each +word carefully articulated with a long pause between. + +I felt I had behaved like a heartless brute, ever since I thrust her +into the cab at Waterloo. I relented and laughed. + +"If you are a good girl and do as I tell you," said I. + +"Seer Marcous is my lord and I am his slave," was her astounding reply. + +Then I realised that she had been brought up by Hamdi Effendi. There is +something salutary, after all, in the training of the harem. + +"I'm very glad to hear it," I said. + +She closed her eyes. I saw now she was very tired. I thought she had +gone to sleep and I looked in front of me puzzling out the problem. +Presently the cab-doors were thrust violently open, and if I had net +held her back, she would have jumped out of the vehicle. + +"Look!" she cried, in great excitement. "There! There's Harry's name!" + +She pointed to a butcher's cart immediately in front of us, bearing, in +large letters, the name of "E. Robinson." + +"We must stop," she went on. "He will tell us about Harry." + +It took me from Oxford Circus to Portman Square to convince her +that there were many thousands of Robinsons in London and that the +probability of the butcher's cart being a clue to Harry's whereabouts +was exceedingly remote. + +At Baker Street station she asked, wearily: "Is it still far to your +house?" + +"No," said I, encouragingly. "Not very far." + +"But one can drive for many days through streets in London, and there +will be still streets, still houses? So they tell me in Alexandretta. +London is as big as the moon, not so?" + +I felt absurdly pleased. She was capable of an idea. I had begun to +wonder whether she were not merely half-witted. The fact of her being +able to read had already cheered me. + +"Many hours, yes," I corrected, "not many days. London seems big to +you?" + +"Oh, yes," she said, passing her hand over her eyes. "It makes all go +round in my head. One day you will take me for a drive through these +wonderful streets. Now I am too tired. They make my head ache." + +Then she shut her eyes again and did not open them until we stopped +at Lingfield Terrace. I modified my first impression of her animal +unimpressionability. She is quite sane. If Boadicea were to be +brought back to life and be set down suddenly at Charing Cross, her +psychological condition would not be far removed from that of an idiot. +Yet in her own environment Boadicea was quite a sane and capable lady. + +My admirable man Stenson opened the door and admitted us without moving +a muscle. He would betray no incorrect astonishment if I brought home a +hippogriff to dinner. I have an admiration for the trained serving-man's +imperturbability. It is the guardian angel of his self-respect. I +ordered him to send Antoinette to me in the drawing-room. + +"Antoinette," said I, "this young lady has travelled all the way from +Asia Minor, where the good St. Paul had so many adventures, without +changing her things." + +"_C'est y Dieu possible_!" said Antoinette. + +"Give her a nice hot bath, and perhaps you will have the kindness to +lend her the underlinen that your sex is in the habit of wearing. You +will put her into the spare bedroom, as she is going to pass the night +here, and you will look generally after her comfort." + +"_Bien, M'sieu_," said Antoinette, regarding Carlotta in stupefaction. + +"And put that hat and dress into the dust-bin." + +"_Bien, M'sieu._" + +"And as Mademoiselle is broken with fatigue, having come without +stopping from Asia Minor, she will go to bed as soon as possible." + +"The poor angel," said Antoinette. "But will she not join Monsieur at +dinner?" + +"I think not," said I, dryly. + +"But the young ducklings that are roasting for the dinner of Monsieur?" + +"If they were not roasting they might be growing up into ducks," said I. + +"Oh, la, la!" murmured Antoinette, below her breath. + +"Carlotta," said I, turning to the girl who had seated herself humbly +on a straight-backed chair, "you will go with Antoinette and do as she +tells you. She doesn't talk English, but she is used to making people +understand her." + +"_Mais, moi parley Francais un peu_," said Carlotta. + +"Then you will win Antoinette's heart, and she will lend you her finest. +Good-night," said I, abruptly. "I hope you will have a pleasant rest." + +She took my outstretched hand, and, to my great embarrassment, raised +it to her lips. Antoinette looked on, with a sentimental moisture in her +eyes. + +"The poor angel," she repeated. + +Later, I gave Stenson a succinct account of what had occurred. I owed +it to my reputation. Then I went upstairs and dressed for dinner. I +consider I owe that to Stenson. It was eight o'clock before I sat down, +but Antoinette's ducklings were delicious and brought consolation for +the upheaval of the day. I was unfolding the latest edition of _The +Westminster Gazette_ with which I always soothe the digestive half-hour +after dinner, when Antoinette entered to report progress. + +She was sound asleep, the poor little one. Oh, but she was tired. She +had eaten some _consomme_, a bit of fish and an omelette. But she was +beautiful, gentle as a lamb; and she had a skin _on dirait du satin_. +Had not Monsieur noticed it? + +I replied, with some over-emphasis, that I had not. + +"Monsieur rather regards the inside of his books," said Antoinette. + +"They are generally more worth regarding," said I. + +Antoinette said nothing; but there was a feminine quiver at the corners +of her fat lips. + +She was comfortably disposed of for the night. I drew a breath of +relief. To-morrow Great Scotland Yard should set out on the track of +the absconding Harry. Carlotta's happy recollection of his surname +facilitated the search. I lit a cigarette and opened _The Westminster +Gazette_. + +A few moments later I was staring at the paper in blank horror and +dismay. + +Harry was found. There was no mistake. Harry Robinson, junior partner of +the firm of Robinson & Co., of Mincing Lane. Vain, indeed, would it be +to seek the help of Great Scotland Yard. Harry had blown out his brains +in the South Western Hotel at Southampton. + + +I have read the newspaper paragraph over and over again to-night. There +is no possible room for doubt that it is the same Harry. + +The ways of man are past interpretation. Here is an individual who +lures a girl from an oriental harem, attires her in disgusting garments, +smuggles her on board a steamer, where he claps her, so to speak, under +hatches, and has little if anything to do with her, sets her penniless +and ticketless in a London train, and then goes off and blows his brains +out. Where is the sense of it? + +I have not a spark of sympathy for Harry--a callow, egotistical dealer +in currants. He ought to have blown out his brains a year ago. He has +behaved in a most unconscionable manner. How does he expect me to break +the news to Carlotta? His selfishness is appalling. There he lies, +comfortably dead in the South Western Hotel, while Carlotta has +literally not a rag to her back, her horrific belongings having been +dropped into the dust-bin. Who does he think is going to provide +Carlotta with food and shelter and a pink dress? What does he imagine is +to become of the poor waif? In all my life I have never heard of a more +cynical suicide. + +I have walked about for hours, laughing and cursing and kicking the +binding loose of my precious Muratori. I have wondered whether the +universe or I were mad. For there is one thing that is clear to +me--Carlotta is here, and here Carlotta must remain. + +Devastating though it be to the well-ordered quietude of my life, I must +adopt Carlotta. + +There is no way out of it. + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +May 25th. + +Shall I be accused of harbouring a bevy of odalisques at No. 20 +Lingfield Terrace? Calumny and Exaggeration walk abroad, arm in arm, +even on the north side of Regent's Park. If they had spied Carlotta at +my window this morning, they would have looked in for afternoon tea +at my Aunt Jessica's and have waylaid Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne outside the +Oratory. The question is: Shall Truth anticipate them? I think not. +Every family has its irrepressible, impossible, unpractical member, its +_enfant terrible_, who is forever doing the wrong thing with the best +intentions. Truth is the _enfant terrible_ of the Virtues. Some times +it puts them to the blush and throws them into confusion; at others it +blusters like a blatant liar; at others, again, it stutters and stammers +like a detected thief. There is no knowing how Truth may behave, so I +shall not let it visit my relations. + +I must confess, however, that I feared the possible passing by of the +two decrepit cronies, when Carlotta stood at my open French window this +morning. She is really indecently beautiful. She was wearing a deep red +silk peignoir, open at the throat, unashamedly Parisian, which clung +to every salient curve of her figure. I wondered where, in the name of +morality, she had procured the garment. I learned later that it was the +joy and pride of Antoinette's existence; for once, in the days long ago, +when she was _femme de chambre_ to a luminary of the cafes concerts, it +had met around her waist. She had treasured the cast-off finery of this +burned-out star--she beamed in the seventies--for all these years, and +now its immortal devilry transfigured Carlotta. She was also washed +specklessly clean. An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume could +give disengaged itself from her as she moved. Her gold-bronze hair +was superbly ordered. I noticed her arms which the sleeves of the gay +garment left bare to the elbows; the skin was like satin. "_Et sa peau! +On dirait du satin._" Confound Antoinette! She had the audacity, too, +to come down with bare feet. It was a revelation of pink, undreamed-of +loveliness in tus. + +I repeat she is indecently beautiful. A chit of a girl of eighteen (for +that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt the beauty that should +be the appanage of the woman of seven and twenty. She should be modestly +well-favoured, as becomes her childish stage of development. She +looked incongruous among my sober books, and I regarded her with some +resentment. I dislike the exotic. I prefer geraniums to orchids. I have +a row of pots of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of +Stenson, Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them +bloom; but I love the unassuming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a flaring +orchid and produces on my retina a sensation of disquiet. + + +I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could. I had news of +Harry, I said, gravely. She merely looked interested and asked me when +he was coming. + +"I'm afraid he will never come," said I. + +"If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?" + +Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety. For the life of me I could not +avoid the ironical. + +"If you will condescend to dwell as a member of my family beneath my +humble roof." + +The irony was lost on her. She uttered a joyous little cry and held out +both her hands to me. Her eyes danced. + +"Oh, I am glad he is not coming. I don't like him any more. I love to +stay here with you." + +I took both the hands in mine. Mortal man could not have done otherwise. + +"Have you thought why it is that you will never see Harry again?" + +She shook her beautiful head and held it to one side and puckered up her +brows, like a wistful terrier. + +"Is he dead?" + +"Would it grieve you, if he were?" + +"No-o," she replied, thoughtfully. + +"Then," said I, dropping her hands and turning away, "Harry is dead." + +She stood silent for a couple of minutes, regarding the row of pink +toes that protruded beneath the peignoir. At last her bosom shook with a +sigh. She glanced up at me sweetly. + +"I am so glad," she said. + + +That is all she has vouchsafed to say with regard to the unhappy young +man. "She was so glad!" She has not even asked how he met his death. She +has simply accepted my statement. Harry is dead. He has gone out of her +life like yesterday's sunshine or yesterday's frippery. If I had told +her that yesterday's cab-horse had broken his neck, she could not be +more unconcerned. Nay, she is glad. Harry had not treated her nicely. He +had boxed her up in a cabin where she had been sick, and had subjected +her to various other discomforts. I, on the contrary, had surrounded her +with luxuries and dressed her in red silk. She rather dreaded Harry's +coming. When she learned that this was improbable she was relieved. His +death had turned the improbable into the impossible. It was the end of +the matter. She was so glad! + +Yet there must have been some tender passage in their brief intercourse. +He must have kissed her during their flight from home to steamer. Her +young pulses must have throbbed a little faster at the sight of his +comely face. + +What kind of a mythological being am I housing? Did she come at all out +of Hamdi Effendi's harem? Is she not rather some strange sea-creature +that clambered on board the vessel and bewitched the miserable boy, +sucked the soul out of him, and drove him to destruction? Or is she a +Vampire? Or a Succubus? Or a Hamadryad? Or a Salamander? + +One thing, I vow she is not human. + +If only Judith were here to advise me! And yet I have an uneasy feeling +that Judith will suggest, with a certain violence that is characteristic +of her, the one course which I cannot follow: to send Carlotta back to +Hamdi Effendi. But I cannot break my word. I would rather, far rather, +break Carlotta's beautiful neck. I have not written to Judith. Nor, by +the way, have I received a letter from her. Delphine has been whirling +her off her legs, and she is ashamed to confess the delusion of the +sequestered life. I wish I were enjoying myself half as much as Judith. + + +"I have adopted Mademoiselle," said I to Antoinette this morning. "If +she returned to Asia Minor they would put a string round her neck, tie +her up in a sack, and throw her into the sea." + +"That would be a pity," said Antoinette, warmly. + +"_Cela depend_," said I. "Anyhow she is here, and here she remains." + +"In that case," said Antoinette, "has Monsieur considered that the poor +angel will need clothes and articles of toilette--and this and that and +the other?" + +"And shoes to hide her shameless tus," I said. + +"They are the most beautiful toes I have ever seen!" cried Antoinette in +imbecile admiration. She has bewitched that old woman already. + +I put on my hat and went to Wellington Road to consult Mrs. McMurray. +Heaven be thanked, thought I, for letting me take her little boy the day +before yesterday to see the other animals, and thus winning a mother's +heart. She will help me out of my dilemma. Unfortunately she was not +alone. Her husband, who is on the staff of a morning newspaper, was +breakfasting when I arrived. He is a great ruddy bearded giant with +a rumbling thunder of a laugh like the bass notes of an organ. His +assertion of the masculine principle in brawn and beard and bass +somewhat overpowers a non-muscular, clean-shaven, and tenor person like +myself. Mrs. McMurray, on the contrary, is a small, bright bird of a +woman. + +I told my amazing story from beginning to end, interrupted by many +Hoo-oo-oo-oo's from McMurray. + +"You may laugh," said I, "but to have a mythical being out of +Olympiodorus quartered on you for life is no jesting matter." + +"Olymp--?" began McMurray. + +"Yes," I snapped. + +"Bring her this afternoon, Sir Marcus, when this unsympathetic wretch +has gone to his club," said his wife, "and I'll take her out shopping." + +"But, dear lady," I cried in despair, "she has but one garment--and that +a silk dressing-gown of horrible depravity that belonged to a dancer of +the second Empire! She is also barefoot." + +"Then I'll come round myself and see what can be done." + +"And by Jove, so will I!" cried McMurray. + +"You'll do such thing," said his wife + +"If I gave you a cheque for 100," said I, "do you think you could get +her what she wants, to go on with?" + +"A hundred pounds!" The little lady uttered a delighted gasp and I +thought she would have kissed me. McMurray brought his sledgehammer of a +hand down on my shoulder. + +"Man!" he roared. "Do you know what you are doing--casting a respectable +wife and mother of a family loose among London drapery shops with a +hundred pounds in her pocket? Do you think she will henceforward give a +thought to her home or husband? Do you want to ruin my domestic peace, +drive me to drink, and wreck my household?" + +"If you do that again," said I, rubbing my shoulder, "I'll give her two +hundred." + +When I returned Carlotta was sitting, Turkish fashion, on a sofa, +smoking a cigarette (to which she had helped herself out of my box) and +turning over the pages of a book. This sign of literary taste surprised +me. But I soon found it was the second volume of my _edition de luxe_ of +Louandre's _Les Arts Somptuaires_, to whose place on the shelves sheer +feminine instinct must have guided her. I announced Mrs. McMurray's +proposed visit. She jumped to her feet, ravished at the prospect, and +sent my beautiful book (it is bound in tree-calf and contains a couple +of hundred exquisitely coloured plates) flying onto the floor. I picked +it up tenderly, and laid it on my writing-table. + +"Carlotta," said I, "the first thing you have to learn here is that +books in England are more precious than babies in Alexandretta. If you +pitch them about in this fashion you will murder them and I shall have +you hanged." + +This checked her sumptuary excitement. It gave her food for reflection, +and she stood humbly penitent, while I went further into the subject of +clothes. + +"In fact," I concluded, "you will be dressed like a lady." She opened +the book at a gaudy picture, "_France, XVI(ieme) Siecle--Saltimbanque et +Bohemmienne_," and pointed to the female mountebank. This young person +wore a bright green tunic, bordered with gold and finished off at +the elbows and waist with red, over an undergown of flaring pink, the +sleeves of which reached her wrist; she was crowned with red and white +carnations stuck in ivy. + +"I will get a dress like that," said Carlotta. + +I wondered how far Mrs. McMurray possessed the colour-sense, and I +trembled. I tried to explain gently to Carlotta the undesirability of +such a costume for outdoor wear in London; but with tastes there is no +disputing, and I saw that she was but half-convinced. She will require +training in aesthetics. + +She is very submissive. I said, "Run away now to Antoinette," and she +went with the cheerfulness of a child. I must rig up a sitting-room for +her, as I cannot have her in here. Also for the present she must take +her meals in her own apartments. I cannot shock the admirable Stenson +by sitting down at table with her in that improper peignoir. Besides, as +Antoinette informs me, the poor lamb eats meat with her fingers, after +the fashion of the East. I know what that is, having once been present +at an Egyptian dinner-party in Cairo, and pulled reeking lumps of flesh +out of the leg of mutton. Ugh! But as she has probably not sat down to a +meal with a man in her life, her banishment from my table will not hurt +her feelings. She must, however, be trained in Christian table-manners, +as well as in aesthetics; also in a great many other things. + + +Mrs. McMurray arrived with a tape-measure, a pencil, and a notebook. + +"First," she announced, "I will measure her all over. Then I will go out +and procure her a set of out-door garments, and tomorrow we will spend +the whole livelong day in the shops. Do you mind if I use part of the +100 for the hire of a private brougham?" + +"Have a coach and six, my dear Mrs. McMurray," I said. "It will +doubtless please Carlotta better." + +I summoned Carlotta and performed the ceremony of introduction. To my +surprise she was perfectly at her ease and with the greatest courtesy of +manner invited the visitor to accompany her to her own apartments. + +When Mrs. McMurray returned to the drawing-room she wore an expression +that can only be described as indescribable. + +"What, my dear Sir Marcus, do you think is to be the ultimate destiny of +that young person?" + +"She shall learn type-writing," said I, suddenly inspired, "and make a +fair copy of my Renaissance Morals." + +"She would make a very fair copy indeed of Renaissance Morals," returned +the lady, dryly. + +"Is she so very dreadful?" I asked in alarm. "The peignoir, I know--" + +"Perhaps that has something to do with it." + +"Then, for heaven's sake," said I, "dress her in drabs and greys and +subfusc browns. Cut off her hair and give her a row of buttons down the +back." + +My friend's eyes sparkled. + +"I am going," said she, "to have the day of my life tomorrow." + + +Carlotta had already gone to sleep, so Antoinette informed me, when the +results of Mrs. McMurray's shopping came home. I am glad she has early +habits. It appears she has spent a happy and fully occupied afternoon +over a pile of French illustrated comic papers in the possession of my +excellent housekeeper. + +I wonder whether it is quite judicious to make French comic papers her +initiation into the ideas of Western civilisation. Into this I must +inquire. I must also talk seriously to her with a view to her ultimate +destiny. But as my view would be distorted by the red dressing-gown, I +shall wait until she is decently clad. I think I shall have to set apart +certain hours of the day for instructive conversation with Carlotta. +I shall have to develop her mind, of which she distinctly has the +rudiments. For the rest of the day she must provide entertainment out of +her own resources. This her oriental habits of seclusion will render an +easy task, for I will wager that Hamdi Effendi did not concern himself +greatly as to the way in which the ladies of his harem filled up their +time. And now I come to think of it, he certainly did not allow Carlotta +to sprawl about his own private and particular drawing-room. I will +not westernise her too rapidly. The Turkish educational system has its +merits. + +This, in its way is comforting. If only I could accept her as a human +creature. But when I think of her callous reception of the tidings of +the unhappy boy's death, my spirit fails me. Such a being would run a +carving-knife into you, as you slept, without any compunction, and when +you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at her base ingratitude to the good +Hamdi Effendi, who took her in before she was born and has treated her +as a daughter all her life. No: her spiritual attitude all through has +been that of the ladies who used to visit St. Anthony--in the leisure +moments when they were not actively engaged in temptation. I don't +believe her father was an English vice-consul. He was Satan. + +I wonder what she told Mrs. McMurray. + +I have been thinking over the matter to-night. The good lady was +wrong. Whatever were the morals of the Renaissance, personalities were +essentially positive. They were devilishly wicked or angelically good. +There was nothing _rosse_, non-moral about the Renaissance Italian. +The women were strongly tempered. I love to believe the story told by +Machiavelli and Muratori of Catherine Sforza in the citadel of Forli. +"Surrender or we slay your children which we hold as hostages," cried +the besiegers. "Kill them if you like. I can breed more to avenge them." +It is the speech of a giant nature. It awakens something enthusiastic +within me; although such a lady would be an undesirable helpmeet for a +mild mannered man like myself. + +And then again there is Bonna, the woman for whose career I desired to +consult the prime authority Cristoforo da Costa. I have been sketching +her into my chapter tonight. Here is a peasant girl caught up to his +saddle-bow by a condottiere, Brunoro, during some village raid. She +fights like a soldier by his side. He is imprisoned in Valencia by +Alfonso of Naples, languishes in a dungeon for ten years. And for +ten years Bonna goes from court to court in Europe and from prince to +prince, across seas and mountains, unwearying, unyielding, with the +passion of heaven in her heart and the courage of hell in her soul, +urging and soliciting her man's release. After ten long years she +succeeds. And then they are married. What were her tumultuous feelings +as she stood by that altar? The old historian does not say; but the very +glory of God must have flooded her being when, in the silence of the +bare church, the little bell tinkled to tell her that the Host was +raised, and her love was made blessed for all eternity. And then she +goes away with him and fights in the old way by his side for fifteen +years. When he is killed, she languishes and dies within the year. +Porcelli sees them in 1455. Brunoro, an old, squinting, paralysed man. +Bonna, a little shrivelled, yellow old woman, with a quiver on her +shoulder, a bow in her hand; her grey hair is covered by a helmet +and she wears great military boots. The picture is magical. There is +infinite pathos in the sight of the two withered, crippled, grotesque +forms from which all the glamour of manhood and beauty have departed, +and infinite awe in the thought of the holy communion of the +unconquerable and passionate souls. I wonder it has not come down to us +as one of the great love-stories of the world. + +Elements such as these sway the Morals of the Renaissance. + +But I am taking Mrs. McMurray too seriously; and it is really not a bad +idea to have Carlotta taught type-writing. + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +May 26th. + +This morning a letter from Judith. + +"Do not laugh at me," she writes. "The road to Paris is paved with good +intentions. I really could not help it. Delphine put her great arm round +my would-be sequestered and meditative self and carried it off bodily, +and here it is in the midst of lunches, picture-shows, dinners, suppers, +theatres and dances; and if you laugh, you will make me humiliated when +I confess that it is thoroughly enjoying itself." + +Laugh at her, dear woman? I am only too glad that she can fling her +Winter Garment of Repentance into the Fires of Paris Springtide. She has +little enough enjoyment in friendless London. Fill your heart with it, +my dear, and lay up a store for use in the dull months to come. For my +part, however, I am content to be beyond the reach of Delphine's great +arm. I must write to Judith. I shall have to explain Carlotta; but for +that I think I shall wait until she becomes a little more explicable. +In dealing with women it is well to employ discrimination. You are never +quite sure whether they are not merely simple geese or the most complex +of created beings. Perhaps they are such a curious admixture that you +cannot tell at a given moment which side, the simple or the complex, +you are touching. May not there be the deepest of all allegories in Eve +standing midway between the innocent apple and the guileful serpent? I +shall have to see more of Carlotta before I can safely explain her to +Judith. + +At any rate she is no longer attired like an odalisque of the Second +Empire, and Mrs. McMurray has saved her from the lamentable errors of +taste shown by the female mountebank of sixteenth century France. My +excellent friend safely delivered up an exhausted and bewildered charge +at half-past seven last evening, assuring me that her task had been +easy, and that her anticipations of it being the day of her life +had been fulfilled. It had been like dressing a doll, she explained, +beaming. + +An edifying pastime for an adult woman! I did not utter this sentiment, +for she would rightly have styled me the most ungrateful of unhung +wretches. + +Carlotta, then, had followed her about like a perambulatory doll, +upon which she had fitted all the finery she could lay her hands on. +Apparently the atmosphere of the great shops had acted on Carlotta like +an anaesthetic. She had moved in a sensuous dream of drapery, wherein +the choice-impulse was paralysed. The only articles upon which, in an +unclouded moment, she had set her heart--and that with a sudden passion +of covetousness--were a pair of red, high-heeled shoes and a cheap red +parasol. + +"You have no idea what it means," said Mrs. McMurray, "to buy +_everything_ that a woman needs." + +I replied that I had a respectful distaste for transcendental +philosophy. + +"From a paper of pins to an opera-cloak," she continued. + +"I'm afraid, dear Mrs. McMurray, an opera-cloak is not the superior +limit of a woman's needs," said I. "I wish it were." + +She called me a cynic and went. + +This morning Carlotta interrupted me in my work. + +"Will Seer Marcous come to my room and see my pretty things?" + +In summer blouse and plain skirt she looked as demure as any damsel in +St. John's Wood. She hung her head a little to one side. For the moment +I felt paternal, and indulgently consented. Words of man cannot describe +the mass of millinery and chiffonery in that chamber. The spaces that +were not piled high with vesture gave resting spots for cardboard boxes +and packing-paper. Antoinette stood in a corner gazing at the spoil with +a smile of beatific idiocy. I strode through the cardboard boxes +which crackled like bracken, and remained dumb as a fish before these +mysteries. Carlotta tried on hats. She shewed me patent leather shoes. +She exhibited blouses and petticoats until my eyes ached. She brandished +something in her hand. + +"Tell me if I must wear it" (I believe the sophisticated call it +"them"). "Mrs. McMurray says all ladies do. But we never wear it in +Alexandretta, and it hurts." + +She clasped herself pathetically and turned her great imploring eyes on +me. + +"_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_," I said. + +"But with the figure of Mademoiselle, it is stupid!" cried Antoinette. + +"It is outrageous that I should be called upon to express an opinion on +such matters," I said, loftily. And so it was. My assertion of dignity +impressed them. + +Then, with characteristic frankness, my young lady shakes out before me +things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, diaphaneity, which the ordinary +man only examines through shop-front windows when a philosophic mood +induces him to speculate on the unfathomable vanity of woman. + +"_Les beaux dessous!_" breathed Antoinette. + +"The same ejaculation," I murmured, "was doubtless uttered by an +enraptured waiting-maid, when she beheld the stout linen smocks of the +ladies of the Heptameron." + +I reflected on the relativity of things mundane. The waiting-maid no +doubt wore some horror made of hemp against her skin. If Carlotta's +gossamer follies had been thrown into the vagabond court of the Queen +of Navarre, I wonder whether those delectable stories would have been +written? + +As Antoinette does not understand literary English, and as Carlotta +did not know what in the world I was talking about, I was master of the +conversational situation. Carlotta went to the mantel-piece and returned +with a glutinous mass of sweet stuff between her fingers. + +"Will Seer Marcous have some? It is nougat." I declined. "Oh!" she said, +tragically disappointed. "It is good." + +There is something in that silly creature's eyes that I cannot resist. +She put the abominable morsel into my mouth--it was far too sticky for +me to hold--and laughingly licked her own fingers. + +I went down to work again with an uneasy feeling of imperilled dignity. + + +May 29th. + +I sent her word that I would take her for a drive this afternoon. She +was to be ready at three o'clock. It will be wholesome for her to regard +her outings with me as rare occurrences to be highly valued. Ordinarily +she will go out with Antoinette--for the present at least--as she did +yesterday. + +At three o'clock Stenson informed me that the cab was at the door. + +"Go up and call Mademoiselle," said I. + +In two or three minutes she came down. I have not had such a shock in my +life. I uttered exclamations of amazement in several languages. I have +never seen on the stage or off such a figure as she presented. Her +cheeks were white with powder, her lips dyed a pomegranate scarlet, her +eyebrows and lashes blackened. In her ears she wore large silver-gilt +earrings. She entered the room with an air of triumph, as who should +say: "See how captivatingly beautiful I am!" + +At my stare of horror her face fell. At my command to go upstairs and +wash herself clean, she wept. + +"For heaven's sake, don't cry," I exclaimed, "or you will look like a +rainbow." + +"I did it to please you," she sobbed. + +"It is only the lowest class of dancing-women who paint their faces in +England," said I, _splendide mendax._ "And you know what they are in +Alexandretta." + +"They came to Aziza-Zaza's wedding," said Carlotta, behind her +handkerchief. "But all our ladies do this when they want to make +themselves look nice. And I have put on this nasty thing that hurts me, +just to please Seer Marcous." + +I felt I had been brutal. She must have spent hours over her adornment. +Yet I could not have taken her out into the street. She looked like +Jezebel, who without her paint must have been, like Carlotta, a +remarkably handsome person. + +"It strikes me, Carlotta," said I, "that you will find England is +Alexandretta upside down. What is wrong there is right here, and vice +versa. Now if you want to please me run away and clean yourself and take +off those barbaric and Brummagem earrings." + +She went and was absent a short while. She returned in dismay. Water +would not get it off. I rang for Antoinette, but Antoinette had gone +out. It being too delicate a matter for Stenson, I fetched a pot of +vaseline from my own room, and as Carlotta did not know what to make of +it, I with my own hands cleansed Carlotta. She screamed with delight, +thinking it vastly amusing. Her emotions are facile. I cannot deny that +it amused me too. But I am in a responsible position, and I am wondering +what the deuce I shall be doing next. + +I enjoyed the drive to Richmond, where I gave her tea at the Star and +Garter and was relieved to see her drink normally from the cup, instead +of lapping from the saucer like a kitten. She was much more intelligent +than during our first drive on Tuesday. The streets have grown more +familiar, and the traffic does not make her head ache. She asks me the +ingenuous questions of a child of ten. The tall guardsmen we passed +particularly aroused her enthusiasm. She had never seen anything so +beautiful. I asked her if she would like me to buy one and give it her +to play with. + +"Oh, would you, Seer Marcous?" she exclaimed, seizing my hand +rapturously. I verily believe she thought I was in earnest, for when I +turned aside my jest, she pouted in disappointment and declared that it +was wrong to tell lies. + +"I am glad you have some elementary notions of ethics," said I. It +was during our drive that it occurred to me to ask her where she +had procured the paint and earrings. She explained, cheerfully, that +Antoinette had supplied the funds. I must talk seriously to +Antoinette. Her attitude towards Carlotta savours too much of idolatry. +Demoralisation will soon set in, and the utter ruin of Carlotta and +my digestion will be the result. I must also make Carlotta a small +allowance. + +During tea she said to me, suddenly: + +"Seer Marcous is not married?" + +I said, no. She asked, why not? The devil seems to be driving all +womankind to ask me that question. + +"Because wives are an unmitigated nuisance," said I. + +A curious smile came over Carlotta's face. It was as knowing as Dame +Quickly's. + +"Then-" + +"Have one of these cakes," said I, hurriedly. "There is chocolate +outside and the inside is chock-full of custard." + +She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and forgot my +matrimonial affairs. I was relieved. With her oriental training there is +no telling what Carlotta might have said. + + +May 31st. + +To-day I have had a curious interview. Who should call on me but the +father of the hapless Harry Robinson. My first question was a natural +one. How on earth did he connect me with the death of his son? How did +he contrive to identify me as the befriender of the young Turkish girl +whose interests, he declared, were the object of his visit? It appeared +that the police had given him the necessary information, my adventures +at Waterloo having rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter. +I had been wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper reports of the +inquest. No mention was made, as I had nervously anticipated, of +the mysterious lady for whom the deceased had bought a ticket at +Alexandretta, and with whom he had come ashore. Very little evidence +appeared to have been taken, and the jury contented themselves with +giving the usual verdict of temporary insanity. I touched on this as +delicately as I could. "We succeeded in hushing things up," said my +visitor, an old man with iron-grey whiskers and a careworn sensitive +face. "I have some influence myself, and his wife's relations--" + +"His wife!" I ejaculated. The ways of men are further than ever from +interpretation. The fellow was actually married! + +"Yes," he sighed. "That is what would have made such a terrible scandal. +Her relatives are powerful people. We averted it, thank Heaven, and his +poor wife will never know. My boy is dead. No public investigation into +motives would bring him back to life again." + +I murmured words of condolence. + +"He must have been out of his mind, poor lad, when he induced the girl +to run away with him. But, as my son has ruined her," he set his teeth +as if the boy's sin stabbed him, "I must look after her welfare." + +"You may set your mind at rest on that point," said I. "He smuggled her +at once aboard the ship, and seems scarcely to have said how d'ye do to +her afterwards. That is the mad part of it." + +"Can I be sure?" + +"I would stake my life on it," said I. + +"How do you know?" + +"Frankness--I may say embarrassing frankness is one of the young lady's +drawbacks." + +He looked greatly relieved. I acquainted him with Carlotta's +antecedents, and outlined the part I had played in the story. + +"Then," said he, "I will see the child back to her home. I will take +her there myself. I cannot allow you any longer to have the burden of +befriending her, when it is my duty to repair my boy's wrongdoing." + +I explained to him the terror of Hamdi Effendi's clutches, and told him +of my promise. + +"Then what is to be done?" he asked. + +"If any kind people could be found to receive her into their family, and +bring her up like a Christian, I should hand her over with the greatest +of pleasure. If there is one thing I do not require in this house, it is +an idle and irresponsible female. But philanthropists are rare. Who will +take her?" + +"I'm afraid I'm not prepared to do that." + +"I never dreamed of having the bad taste to propose it," said I. "I +merely stated the only alternative to my guardianship." + +"I should be willing--only too willing--to contribute towards her +support," said Mr. Robinson. + +I thanked him. But of course this was impossible. I might as well have +allowed the good man to pay my gas bill. + +"I know of a nice convent home kept by the Little Sisters of St. +Bridget," said he, tentatively. + +"If it were St. Bridget herself," said I, "I would agree with pleasure. +She is a saint for whom I have a great fascination. She could work +miracles. When an Irish chieftain made her a facetious grant of as much +land as she could cover with her mantle, she bade four of her nuns +each take a corner and run north, west, south and east, until her cloak +covered several roods. She could have done the same with the soul of +Carlotta. But the age of miracles is past, and I fear the Little Sisters +would only break their gentle hearts over her. She is an extraordinary +creature." + +I know I ought to have given some consideration to the proposal; but I +think I must suffer from chronic inflammation of the logical faculty. +It revolted against the suggested congruity of Carlotta and the Little +Sisters of St. Bridget. + +"What can she be like?" asked the old man, wonderingly. + +"Would it pain you to see her?" I asked. + +"Yes," he said, in a low voice. "It would. But perhaps it would bring me +nearer to my unhappy boy. He seems so far away." + +I rang the bell and summoned Carlotta. + +"Perhaps you had better not say who you are," I suggested. + +When Carlotta entered, he rose and looked at her---oh, so wistfully. + +"This, Carlotta," said I, "is a friend of mine, who would like to make +your acquaintance." + +She advanced shyly and held out a timid hand. Obviously she was on +her best behaviour. I thanked heaven she had tried her unsuccessful +experiment of powder and paint on my vile body and not on that of a +stranger. + +"Do you--do you like England?" asked the old man. + +"Oh, very--very much. Every one is so kind to me. It is a nice place." + +"It is the best place in the world to be young in," said he. + +"Is it?" said Carlotta, with the simplicity of a baby. + +"The very best." + +"But is it not good to be old in?" + +"No country is good for that." + +The old man sighed and took his leave. I accompanied him to the front +door. + +"I don't know what to say, Sir Marcus. She moves me strangely. I never +expected such sweet innocence. For my boy's sake, I would take her +in--but his mother knows nothing about it--save that the boy is dead. It +would kill her." + +The tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. I grasped him by the hand. + +"She shall come to no manner of harm beneath my roof," said I. + +Carlotta was waiting for me in the drawing-room. She looked at me in a +perplexed, pitiful way. + +"Seer Marcous?" + +"Yes?" + +"Am I to marry him?" + +"Marry whom?" + +"That old gentleman. I must, if you tell me. But I do not want to marry +him." + +It took me a minute or two to arrive at her oriental point of view. +No woman could be shown off to a man except in the light of a possible +bride. I think it sometimes good to administer a shock to Carlotta, by +way of treatment. + +"Do you know who that old gentleman was?" said I. + +"No." + +"It was Harry's father." + +"Oh!" she said, with a grimace. "I am sorry I was so nice to him." + +What the deuce am I to do with her? + +I lectured her for a quarter of an hour on the ethics of the situation. +I think I only succeeded in giving her the impression that I was in +a bad temper. So much did I sympathise with Harry that I forbore to +acquaint her with the fact that he was a married man when he enticed her +away from Alexandretta. + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +June 1st + +Sebastian Pasquale dined with me this evening. Antoinette, forgetful +of idolatrous practices, devoted the concentration of her being to the +mysteries of her true religion. The excellence of the result affected +Pasquale so strongly that with his customary disregard of convention he +insisted on Antoinette being summoned to receive his congratulations. +He rose, made her a bow as if she were a Marquise of pre-revolutionary +days. + +"It is a meal," said he, bunching up his fingers to his mouth and +kissing them open, "that one should have taken not sitting, but +kneeling." + +"You stole that from Heine," said I, when the enraptured creature had +gone, "and you gave it out to Antoinette as if it were your own." + +"My good Ordeyne," said he, "did you ever hear of a man giving anything +authentic to a woman?" + +"You know much more about the matter than I do," I replied, and Pasquale +laughed. + +It has been a pleasure to see him again--a creature of abounding +vitality whom time cannot alter. He is as lithe-limbed as when he was a +boy, and as lithe-witted. I don't know how his consciousness could +have arrived at appreciation of Antoinette's cooking, for he talked +all through dinner, giving me an account of his mirific adventures in +foreign cities. Among other things, he had been playing juvenile lead, +it appears, in the comic opera of Bulgarian politics. I also heard of +the Viennese dancer. My own little chronicle, which he insisted on my +unfolding, compared with his was that of a caged canary compared with +a sparrowhawk's. Besides, I am not so expansive as Pasquale, and on +certain matters I am silent. He also gesticulates freely, a thing +which is totally foreign to my nature. As Judith would say, he has a +temperament. His moustaches curl fiercely upward until the points +are nearly on a level with his flashing dark eyes. Another point of +dissimilarity between us is that he seems to have been poured molten +into his clothes, whereas mine hang as from pegs clumsily arranged about +my person. By no conceivable freak of outer circumstance could I have +the adventures of Pasquale. + +And yet he thinks them tame! Lord! If I found myself hatching +conspiracies in Sofia on a nest made of loaded revolvers, I should feel +that the wild whirl of Bedlam had broken loose around me. + +"But man alive!" I cried. "What in the name of tornadoes do you want?" + +"I want to fight," said he. "The earth has grown too grey and peaceful. +Life is anaemic. We need colour--good red splashes of it--good wholesome +bloodshed." + +Said I, "All you have to do is to go into a Berlin cafe and pull the +noses of all the lieutenants you see there. In that way you'll get as +much gore as your heart could desire." + +"By Jove!" said he, springing to his feet. "What a cause for a man to +devote his life to--the extermination of Prussian lieutenants!" + +I leaned back in my arm-chair--it was after dinner--and smiled at +his vehemence. The ordinary man does not leap about like that during +digestion. + +"You would have been happy as an Uscoque," said I. (I have just finished +the prim narrative.) + +"What's that?" he asked. I told him. + +"The interesting thing about the Uscoques," I added, "is that they were +a Co-operative Pirate Society of the sixteenth century, in which priests +and monks and greengrocers and women and children--the general public, +in fact, of Senga--took shares and were paid dividends. They were also +a religious people, and the setting out of the pirate fleet at the +festivals of Easter and Christmas was attended by ecclesiastical +ceremony. Then they scoured the high seas, captured argosies, +murdered the crews--their only weapons were hatchets and daggers and +arquebuses--landed on undefended shores, ravaged villages and carried +off comely maidens to replenish their stock of womenkind at home. They +must have been a live lot of people." + +"What a second-hand old brigand you are," cried Pasquale, who during my +speech had been examining the carpet by the side of his chair. + +I laughed. "Hasn't a phase of the duality of our nature ever struck +you? We have a primary or everyday nature--a thing of habit, tradition, +circumstance; and we also have a secondary nature which clamours for +various sensations and is quite contented with vicarious gratification. +There are delicately fibred novelists who satisfy a sort of secondary +Berserkism by writing books whose pages reek with bloodshed. The most +placid, benevolent, gold-spectacled paterfamilias I know, a man who +thinks it cruel to eat live oysters, has a curious passion for crime and +gratifies it by turning his study into a _musee maccabre_ of murderers' +relics. From the thumb-joint of a notorious criminal he can savour +exquisitely morbid emotions, while the blood-stains on an assassin's +knife fill him with the delicious lust of slaughter. In the same way +predestined spinsters obtain vicarious enjoyment of the tender passion +by reading highly coloured love-stories." + +"Just as that philosophical old stick, Sir Marcus Ordeyne, dus from this +sort of thing," said Pasquale. + +And he fished from the side of his chair, and held up by the tip of a +monstrous heel, the most audacious, high-instepped, red satin slipper I +ever saw. + +I eyed the thing with profound disgust. I would have given a hundred +pounds for it to have vanished. In its red satin essence it was +reprehensible, and in its feminine assertion it was compromising. +How did it come there? I conjectured that Carlotta must have been +trespassing in the drawing-room and dropped it, Cinderella-like, in her +flight, when she heard me enter the house before dinner. + +Pasquale held it up and regarded me quizzically. I pretend to no +austerity of morals; but a burglar unjustly accused of theft suffers +acuter qualms of indignation than if he were a virtuous person. +I regretted not having asked Pasquale to dinner at the club. I +particularly did not intend to explain Carlotta to Pasquale. In fact, I +see no reason at all for me to proclaim her to my acquaintance. She is +merely an accident of my establishment. + +I rose and rang the bell. + +"That slipper," said I, "does not belong to me, and it certainly ought +not to be here." + +Pasquale surrendered it to my outstretched hand. + +"It must fit a remarkably pretty foot," said he. + +"I assure you, my dear Pasquale," I replied dryly, "I have never looked +at the foot that it may fit." Nor had I. A row of pink toes is not a +foot. + +"Stenson," said I, when my man appeared, "take this to Miss Carlotta +and say with my compliments she should not have left it in the +drawing-room." + +Stenson, thinking I had rung for whisky, had brought up decanter and +glasses. As he set the tray upon the small table, I noticed Pasquale +look with some curiosity at my man's impassive face. But he said nothing +more about the slipper. I poured out his whisky and soda. He drank a +deep draught, curled up his swaggering moustache and suddenly broke into +one of his disconcerting peals of laughter. + +"I haven't told you of the Grefin von Wentzel; I don't know what put her +into my head. There has been nothing like it since the world began. Mind +you--a real live aristocratic Grefin with a hundred quarterings!" + +He proceeded to relate a most scandalous, but highly amusing story. An +amazing, incredible tale; but it seemed familiar. + +"That," said I, at last, "is incident for incident a scene out of +_L'Histoire Comique de Francion._" + +"Never heard of it," said Pasquale, flashing. + +"It was the first French novel of manners published about 1620 and +written by a man called Sorel. I don't dream of accusing you of +plagiarism, my dear fellow--that's absurd. But the ridiculous +coincidence struck me. You and the Grefin and the rest of you were +merely reenacting a three hundred year old farce." + +"Rubbish!" said Pasquale. + +"I'll show you," said I. + +After wandering for a moment or two round my shelves, I remembered that +the book was in the dining-room. I left Pasquale and went downstairs. +I knew it was on one of the top shelves near the ceiling. Now, my +dining-room is lit by one shaded electrolier over the table, so that +the walls of the room are in deep shadow. This has annoyed me many times +when I have been book-hunting. I really must have some top lights +put in. To stand on a chair and burn wax matches in order to find +a particular book is ignominious and uncomfortable. The successive +illumination of four wax matches did not shed itself upon _L'Histoire +Comique de Francion_. + +If there is one thing that frets me more than another, it is not to be +able to lay my hand upon a book. I knew Francion was there on the top +shelves, and rather than leave it undiscovered, I would have spent the +whole night in search. I suppose every one has a harmless lunacy. This +is mine. I must have hunted for that book for twenty minutes, pulling +out whole blocks of volumes and peering with lighted matches behind, +until my hands were covered with dust. At last I found it had fallen to +the rear of a ragged regiment of French novels, and in triumph I took it +to the area of light on the table and turned up the scene in question. +Keeping my thumb in the place I returned to the drawing-room. + +"I'm sorry to have--" I began. I stopped short. I could scarcely believe +my eyes. There, conversing with Pasquale and lolling on the sofa, as if +she had known him for years, was Carlotta. + +She must have seen righteous disapprobation on my face, for she came +running up to me. + +"You see, I've made Miss Carlotta's acquaintance," said Pasquale. + +"So I perceive," said I. + +"Stenson told me you wanted me to come to the drawing-room in my red +slippers," said Carlotta. + +"I am afraid Stenson must have misdelivered my message," said I. + +"Then you do not want me at all, and I must go away?" + +Oh, those eyes! I am growing so tired of them. I hesitated, and was +lost. + +"Please let me stay and talk to Pasquale." + +"Mr. Pasquale," I corrected. + +She echoed my words with a cooing laugh, and taking my consent for +granted, curled herself up in a corner of the sofa. I resumed my seat +with a sigh. It would have been boorish to turn her out. + +"This is much nicer than Alexandretta, isn't it?" said Pasquale +familiarly. "And Sir Marcus is an improvement on Hamdi Effendi." + +"Oh, yes. Seer Marcous lets me do whatever I like," said Carlotta. + +"I'm shot if I do," I exclaimed. "The confinement of your existence in +the East makes you exaggerate the comparative immunity from restriction +which you enjoy in England." + +I notice that Carlotta is always impressed when I use high sounding +words. + +"Still, if you could make love over garden walls, you must have had a +pretty slack time, even in Alexandretta," said Pasquale. + +Obviously Carlotta had saved me the trouble of explaining her. + +"I once met our friend Hamdi," Pasquale continued. "He was the politest +old ruffian that ever had a long nose and was pitted with smallpox." + +"Yes, yes!" cried Carlotta, delighted. "That is Hamdi." + +"Is there any disreputable foreigner that you are not familiar with?" I +asked, somewhat sarcastically. + +"I hope not," he laughed. "You must know I had got into a deuce of a +row at Aleppo, about eighteen months ago, and had to take to my heels. +Alexandretta is the port of Aleppo and Hamdi is a sort of boss policeman +there." + +"He is very rich." + +"He ought to be. My interview with him cost me a thousand pounds--the +bald-headed scoundrel!" + +"He is a shocking bad man," said Carlotta, gravely. + +"I'm afraid it is Mr. Pasquale who is the shocking bad man," I said, +amused. "What had you been doing in Aleppo?" + +"_Maxime debetur_," said he. + +"English are very wicked when they go to Syria," she remarked. + +"How can you possibly know?" I said. + +"Oh, I know," replied Carlotta, with a toss of her chin. + +"My friend," said Pasquale, lighting a cigarette, "I have travelled much +in the East, and have had considerable adventures by the way; and I +can assure you that what the oriental lady doesn't know about essential +things is not worth knowing. Their life from the cradle to the grave is +a concentration of all their faculties, mortal and immortal, upon the +two vital questions, digestion and sex." + +"What is sex?" asked Carlotta. + +"It is the Fundamental Blunder of Creation," said I. + +"I do not understand," said Carlotta. + +"Nobody tries to understand Sir Marcus," said Pasquale, cheerfully. "We +just let him drivel on until he is aware no one is listening." + +"Seer Marcous is very wise," said Carlotta, in serious defence of her +lord and master. "All day he reads in big books and writes on paper." + +I have been wondering since whether that is not as ironical a judgment +as ever was passed. Am I wise? Is wisdom attained by reading in big +books and writing on paper? Solomon remarks that wisdom dwells with +prudence and finds out knowledge of witty inventions; that the wisdom of +the prudent is to understand his way; that wisdom and understanding keep +one from the strange woman and the stranger which flattereth with her +words. Now, I have not been saved from the strange young woman who has +begun to flatter with her words; I don't in the least understand my way, +since I have no notion what I shall do with her; and in taking her in +and letting her loll upon my sofa of evenings, so as to show off her red +slippers to my guests, I have thrown prudence to the winds; and my +only witty invention was the idea of teaching her typewriting, which +is futile. If the philosophy of the excellent aphorist is sound, I +certainly have not much wisdom to boast of; and none of the big books +will tell me what a wise man would have done had he met Carlotta in the +Embankment Gardens. + +I did not think, however, that my wisdom was a proper subject for +discussion. I jerked back the conversation by asking Carlotta why she +called Hamdi Effendi a shocking bad man. Her reply was startling. + +"My mother told me. She used to cry all day long. She was sorry she +married Hamdi." + +"Poor thing!" said I. "Did he ill-treat her?" + +"Oh, ye-es. She had small-pox, too, and she was no longer pretty, so +Hamdi took other wives and she did not like them. They were so fat and +cruel. She used to tell me I must kill myself before I married a Turk. +Hamdi was going to make me marry Mohammed Ali one--two years ago; but he +died. When I said I was so glad" (that seems to be her usual formula of +acknowledgment of news relating to the disasters of her acquaintance), +"Hamdi shut me up in a dark room. Then he said I must marry Mustapha. +That is why I ran away with Harry. See? Oh, Hamdi is shocking bad." + +From this and from other side-lights Carlotta has thrown on her +upbringing, I can realise the poor, pretty weak-willed baby of a thing +that was her mother, taking the line of least resistance, the husband +dead and the babe in her womb, and entering the shelter offered by the +amorous Turk. And I can picture her during the fourteen years of her +imprisoned life, the disillusion, the heart-break, the despair. No +wonder the invertebrate soul could do no more for her daughter than +teach her monosyllabic English and the rudiments of reading and writing. +Doubtless she babbled of western life with its freedom and joyousness +for women; but four years have elapsed since her death, and her stories +are only elusive memories in Carlotta's mind. + +It is strange that among the deadening influences of the harem she has +kept the hereditary alertness of the Englishwoman. She has a baby mouth, +it is true; she pleads to you with the eyes of a dog; her pretty ways +are those of a young child; but she has not the dull, soulless, sensual +look of the pure-bred Turkish woman, such as I have seen in Cairo +through the transparent veils. In them there is no attraction save of +the flesh; and that only for the male who, deformity aside, reckons +women as merely so much cubical content of animated matter placed +by Allah at his disposal for the satisfaction of his desires and the +procreation of children. I cannot for the life of me understand an +Englishman falling in love with a Turkish woman. But I can quite +understand him falling in love with Carlotta. The hereditary qualities +are there, though they have been forced into the channel of sex, and +become a sort of diabolical witchery whereof I am not quite sure whether +she is conscious. For all that, I don't think she can have a soul. +I have made up my mind that she hasn't, and I don't like having my +convictions disturbed. + +Until I saw her perched in the corner of the sofa, with her legs tucked +up under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid the reds and +golds and browns of her hair, while she cheerily discoursed to us of +Hamdi's villainy, I never noticed the dull decorum of this room. I was +struck with the decorative value of mere woman. + +I must break myself of the habit of wandering off on a meditative +tangent to the circle of conversation. I was brought back by hearing +Pasquale say: + +"So you're going to marry an Englishman. It's all fixed and settled, +eh?" + +"Of course," laughed Carlotta. + +"Have you made up your mind what he is to be like?" + +I could see the unconscionable Don Juan instinctively preen himself +peacock fashion. + +"I am going to marry Seer Marcous," said Carlotta, calmly. + +She made this announcement not as a jest, not as a wish, but as the +commonplace statement of a fact. There was a moment of stupefied +silence. Pasquale who had just struck a match to light a cigarette +stared at me and let the flame burn his fingers. I stared at Carlotta, +speechless. The colossal impudence of it! + +"I am sorry to contradict you," said I, at last, with some acidity, "but +you are going to do no such thing." + +"I am not going to marry you?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Oh!" said Carlotta, in a tone of disappointment. + +Pasquale rose, brought his heels together, put his hand on his heart and +made her a low bow. + +"Will you have me instead of this stray bit of Stonehenge?" + +"Very well," said Carlotta. + +I seized Pasquale by the arm. "For goodness sake, don't jest with her! +She has about as much sense of humour as a prehistoric cave-dweller. +She thinks you have made her a serious offer of marriage." He made her +another bow. + +"You hear what Sir Granite says? He forbids our union. If I married you +without his consent, he would flay me alive, dip me in boiling oil and +read me aloud his History of Renaissance Morals. So I'm afraid it is no +good." + +"Then I mustn't marry him either?" asked Carlotta, looking at me. + +"No!" I cried, "you are not going to marry anybody. You seem to have +hymenomania. People don't marry in this casual way in England. They +think over it for a couple of years and then they come together in a +sober, God-fearing, respectable manner." + +"They marry at leisure and repent in haste," interposed Pasquale. + +"Precisely," said I. + +"What we call a marriage-bed repentance," said Pasquale. + +"I told you this poor child had no sense of humour," I objected. + +"You might as well kill yourself as marry without it." + +"You are not going to marry anybody, Carlotta," said I, "until you can +see a joke." + +"What is a joke?" inquired Carlotta. + +"Mr. Pasquale asked you to marry him. He didn't mean it. That was a +joke. It was enormously funny, and you should have laughed." + +"Then I must laugh when any one asks me to marry him?" + +"As loud as you can," said I. + +"You are so strange in England," sighed Carlotta. + +I smiled, for I did not want to make her unhappy, and I spoke to her +intelligibly. + +"Well, well, when you have quite learned all the English ways, I'll try +and find you a nice husband. Now you had better go to bed." + +She retired, quite consoled. When the door closed behind her, Pasquale +shook his head at me. + +"Wasted! Criminally wasted!" + +"What?" + +"That," he answered, pointing to the door. "That bundle of bewildering +fascination." + +"That," said I, "is an horrible infliction which only my cultivated +sense of altruism enables me to tolerate." + +"Her name ought to be Margarita." + +"Why?" I asked. + +"_Ante porcos_," said he. + + +Certainly Pasquale has a pretty wit and I admire it as I admire most +of his brilliant qualities, but I fail to see the aptness of this last +gibe. At the club this afternoon I picked up an entertaining French +novel called _En felons des Perles_. On the illustrated cover was a row +of undraped damsels sitting in oyster-shells, and the text of the book +went to show how it was the hero's ambition to make a rosary of these +pearls. Now I am a dull pig. Why? Because I do not add Carlotta to my +rosary. I never heard such a monstrous thing in my life. To begin with, +I have no rosary. + +I wish I had not read that French novel. I wish I had not gone +downstairs to hunt for its seventeenth century ancestor. I wish I had +given Pasquale dinner at the club. + +It is all the fault of Antoinette. Why can't she cook in a middle-class, +unedifying way? All this comes from having in the house a woman whose +soul is in the stew-pot. + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +July 1st. + +She has been now over five weeks under my roof, and I have put off the +evil day of explaining her to Judith; and Judith returns to-morrow. + +I know it is odd for a philosophic bachelor to maintain in his +establishment a young and detached female of prepossessing appearance. +For the oddity I care not two pins. _Io son' io_. But the question that +exercises me occasionally is: In what category are my relations with +Carlotta to be classified? I do not regard her as a daughter; still less +as a sister: not even as a deceased wife's sister. For a secretary she +is too abysmally ignorant, too grotesquely incapable. What she knows +would be made to kick the beam against the erudition of a guinea-pig. +Yet she must be classified somehow. I must allude to her as something. +At present she fills the place in the house of a pretty (and expensive) +Persian cat; and like a cat she has made herself serenely at home. + +A governess, a fat-checked girl, who I am afraid takes too humorous +a view of the position, comes of mornings to instruct Carlotta in the +rudiments of education. When engaging Miss Griggs, I told her she must +be patient, firm and, above all, strong-minded. She replied that she +made a professional specialty of these qualities, one of her present +pupils being a young lady of the Alhambra ballet who desires the +particular shade of cultivation that will match a new brougham. She +teaches Carlotta to spell, to hold a knife and fork, and corrects such +erroneous opinions as that the sky is an inverted bowl over a nice flat +earth, and that the sun, moon, and stars are a sort of electric light +installation, put into the cosmos to illuminate Alexandretta and the +Regent's Park. Her religious instruction I myself shall attend to, when +she is sufficiently advanced to understand my teaching. At present she +is a Mohammedan, if she is anything, and believes firmly in Allah. I +consider that a working Theism is quite enough for a young woman in her +position to go on with. In the afternoon she walks out with Antoinette. +Once she stole forth by herself, enjoyed herself hugely for a short +time, got lost, and was brought back thoroughly frightened by a +policeman. I wonder what the policeman thought of her? The rest of the +day she looks at picture-books and works embroidery. She is making +an elaborate bed-spread which will give her harmless occupation for a +couple of years. + +For an hour every evening, when I am at home, she comes into the +drawing-room and drinks coffee with me and listens to my improving +conversation. I take this opportunity to rebuke her for faults committed +during the day, or to commend her for especial good behaviour. I also +supplement the instruction in things in general that is given her by the +excellent Miss Griggs. Oddly enough I am beginning to look forward to +these evening hours. She is so docile, so good-humoured, so spontaneous. +If she has a pain in her stomach, she says so with the most engaging +frankness. Sometimes I think of her only, in Pasquale's words, as a +bundle of fascination, and forget that she has no soul. Nearly always, +however, something happens to remind me. She loves me to tell her +stories. The other night I solemnly related the history of Cinderella. +She was enchanted. It gave me the idea of setting her to read "Lamb's +Tales from Shakespeare." I was turning this over in my mind while she +chewed the cud of her enjoyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would +like to hear a Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny stories. I +bade her proceed. She curled herself up in her favourite attitude on the +sofa and began. + +I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I should +have been a monster of depravity. Compared with it the worst of +Scheherazade's, in Burton's translation, were milk and water for a +nunnery. She seemed nonplussed when I told her to stop. + +"Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories?" I asked. + +"Why, yes," she replied with a candid air of astonishment. "It is a +funny story." + +"There is nothing funny whatever in it," said I. "A girl like you +oughtn't to know of the existence of such things." + +"Why not?" asked Carlotta. + +I am always being caught up by her questions. I tried to explain; but +it was difficult. If I had told her that a maiden's mind ought to be +as pure as the dewy rose she would not have understood me. Probably +she would have thought me a fool. And indeed I am inclined to +question whether it is an advantage to a maiden's after career to +be dewy-roselike in her unsophistication. In order to play tunes +indifferently well on the piano she undergoes the weary training of many +years; but she is called upon to display the somewhat more important +accomplishment of bringing children into the world without an hour's +educational preparation. The difficulty is, where to draw the line +between this dewy, but often disastrous, ignorance and Carlotta's +knowledge. I find it a most delicate and embarrassing problem. In fact, +the problems connected with this young woman seem endless. Yet they do +not disturb me as much as I had anticipated. I really believe I should +miss my pretty Persian cat. A man must be devoid of all aesthetic sense +to deny that she is delightful to look at. + +And she has a thousand innocent coquetries and cajoling ways. She has a +manner of holding chocolate creams to her white teeth and talking to you +at the same time which is peculiarly fascinating. And she must have some +sense. To-night she asked me what I was writing. I replied, "A History +of the Morals of the Renaissance." "What are morals and what is the +Renaissance?" asked Carlotta. When you come to think of it, it is a +profound question, which philosophers and historians have wasted vain +lives in trying to answer. I perceive that I too must try to answer +it with a certain amount of definition. I have spent the evening +remodelling my Introduction, so as to define the two terms axiomatically +with my subsequent argument, and I find it greatly improved. Now this is +due to Carlotta. + + +The quantity of chocolate creams the child eats cannot be good for her +digestion. I must see to this. + + +July 2d. + +A telegram from Judith to say she postpones her return to Monday. I have +been longing to see the dear woman again, and I am greatly disappointed. +At the same time it is a respite from an explanation that grows more +difficult every day. I hate myself for the sense of relief. + +This morning came an evening dress for Carlotta which has taken a month +in the making. This, I am given to understand, is delirious speed for +a London dress-maker. To celebrate the occasion I engaged a box at the +Empire for this evening and invited her to dine with me. I sent a note +of invitation round to Mrs. McMurray. + +Carlotta did not come down at half-past seven. We waited. At last Mrs. +McMurray went up to the room and presently returned shepherding a shy, +blushing, awkward, piteous young person who had evidently been crying. +My friend signed to me to take no notice. I attributed the child's lack +of gaiety to the ordeal of sitting for the first time in her life at +a civilised dinner-table. She scarcely spoke and scarcely ate. I +complimented her on her appearance and she looked beseechingly at me, as +if I were scolding her. After dinner Mrs. McMurray told me the reason of +her distress. She had found Carlotta in tears. Never could she face me +in that low cut evening bodice. It outraged her modesty. It could not be +the practice of European women to bare themselves so immodestly before +men. It was only the evidence of her visitor's own plump neck and +shoulders that convinced her, and she suffered herself to be led +downstairs in an agony of self-consciousness. + +When we entered the box at the Empire, a troupe of female acrobats were +doing their turn. Carlotta uttered a gasp of dismay, blushed burning +red, and shrank back to the door. There is no pretence about Carlotta. +She was shocked to the roots of her being. + +"They are naked!" she said, quiveringly. + +"For heaven's sake, explain," said I to Mrs. McMurray, and I beat a +hasty retreat to the promenade. + +When I returned, Carlotta had been soothed down. She was watching some +performing dogs with intense wonderment and delight. For the rest of +the evening she sat spell-bound. The exiguity of costume in the +ballet caused her indeed to glance in a frightened sort of way at Mrs. +McMurray, who reassured her with a friendly smile, but the music and the +maze of motion and the dazzle of colour soon held her senses captive, +and when the curtain came down she sighed like one awaking from a dream. + +As we drove home, she asked me: + +"Is it like that all day long? Oh, please to let me live there!" + +A nice English girl of eighteen would not flaunt unconcerned about my +drawing-room in a shameless dressing-gown, and crinkle up her toes in +front of me; still less would she tell me outrageous stories; but she +will wear low-necked dresses and gaze at ladies in tights without the +ghost of an immodest thought. I was right when I told Carlotta England +was Alexandretta upside-down. What is immoral here is moral there, and +vice-versa. There is no such thing as absolute morality. I am very glad +this has happened. It shows me that Carlotta is not devoid of the better +kind of feminine instincts. + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +July 4th. + +Judith has come back. I have seen her and I have explained Carlotta. + +All day long I felt like a respectable person about to be brought before +a magistrate for being drunk and disorderly. Now I have the uneasy +satisfaction of having been let off with a caution. I am innocent, but I +mustn't do it again. + +As soon as I entered the room Judith embraced me, and said a number of +foolish things. I responded to the best of my ability. It is not usual +for our quiet lake of affection to be visited by such tornadoes. + +"Oh, I am glad, I am glad to be back with you again. I have longed for +you. I couldn't write it. I did not know I could long for any one so +much." + +"I have missed you immensely, my dear Judith," said I. + +She looked at me queerly for a moment; then with a radiant smile: + +"I love you for not going into transports like a Frenchman. Oh, I +am tired of Frenchmen. You are my good English Marcus, and worth all +masculine Paris put together." + +"I thank you, my dear, for the compliment," said I, "but surely you must +exaggerate." + +"To me you are worth the masculine universe," said Judith, and she +seated me by her side on the sofa, held my hands, and said more foolish +things. + +When the tempest had abated, I laughed. + +"It is you that have acquired the art of transports in Paris," said I. + +"Perhaps I have. Shall I teach you?" + +"You will have to learn moderation, my dear Judith," I remarked. "You +have been living too rapidly of late and are looking tired." + +"It is only the journey," she replied. + +I am sure it is the unaccustomed dissipation. Judith is not a strong +woman, and late hours and eternal gadding about do not suit her +constitution. She has lost weight and there are faint circles under +her eyes. There are lines, too, on her face which only show in hours of +physical strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some length, +for I consider it well for women to have some one to counsel them +frankly in such matters, when she interrupted me with a gesture of +impatience. + +"There, there! Tell me what you have been doing with yourself. Your +letters gave me very little information." + +"I am afraid," said I, "I am a poor letter writer." + +"I read each ten times over," she said. + +I kissed her hand in acknowledgment. Then I rose, lit a cigarette and +walked about the room. Judith shook out her skirts and settled herself +comfortably among the sofa-cushions. + +"Well, what crimes have you been committing the past few weeks?" + +A wandering minstrel was harping "Love's Sweet Dream" outside the +public-house below. I shut the window, hastily. + +"Nothing so bad as that," said I. "He ought to be hung and his wild harp +hung behind him." + +"You are developing nerves," said Judith. "Is it a guilty conscience?" +She laughed. "You are hiding something from me. I've been aware of it +all the time." + +"Indeed? How?" + +"By the sixth sense of woman!" + +Confound the sixth sense of woman! I suppose it has been developed like +a cat's whiskers to supply the deficiency of a natural scent. Also, +like the whiskers, it is obtrusive, and a matter for much irritatingly +complacent pride. Judith regarded me with a mock magisterial air, and I +was put into the dock at once. + +"Something has happened," I said, desperately. "A female woman has come +and taken up her residence at 26 Lingfield Terrace. A few weeks ago she +ate with her fingers and believed the earth was flat. I found her in the +Victoria Embankment Gardens beneath the terrace of the National Liberal +Club, and now she lives on chocolate creams and the 'Child's Guide to +Knowledge.' She is eighteen and her name is Carlotta. There!" + +As my cigarette had gone out, I threw it with some peevishness into the +grate. Judith's expression had changed from mock to real gravity. She +sat bolt upright and looked at me somewhat stonily. + +"What in the world do you mean, Marcus?" + +"What I say. I'm saddled with the responsibility of a child of nature +as unsophisticated and perplexing as Voltaire's Huron. She's English and +she came from a harem in Syria, and she is as beautiful as the houris +she believes in and is unfortunately precluded from joining. One of +these days I shall be teaching her her catechism. I have already +washed her face. Kindly pity me as the innocent victim of fantastic +circumstances." + +"I don't see why I should pity you," said Judith. + +I felt I had not explained Carlotta tactfully. If there are ten ways of +doing a thing I have noticed that I invariably select the one way that +is wrong. I perceived that somehow or other the very contingency I had +feared had come to pass. I had prejudiced Judith against Carlotta. I had +aroused the Ishmaelite--her hand against every woman and every woman's +hand against her--that survives in all her sex. + +"My dear Judith," said I, "if a wicked fairy godmother had decreed that +a healthy rhinoceros should be my housemate you would have extended +me your sympathy. But because Fate has inflicted on me an equally +embarrassing guest in the shape of a young woman--" + +"My dear Marcus," interrupted Judith, "the healthy rhinoceros would know +twenty times as much about women as you do." This I consider one of the +silliest remarks Judith has ever made. "Do," she continued, "tell me +something coherent about this young person you call Carlotta." + +I told the story from beginning to end. + +"But why in the world did you keep it from me?" she asked. + +"I mistrusted the sixth sense of woman," said I. + +"The most elementary sense of woman or any one else would have told you +that you were doing a very foolish thing." + +"How would you have acted?" + +"I should have handed her over at once to the Turkish consulate." + +"Not if you had seen her eyes." + +Judith tossed her head. "Men are all alike," she observed. + +"On the contrary," said I, "that which characterises men as a sex is +their greater variation from type than women. It is a scientific fact. +You will find it stated by Darwin and more authoritatively still by +later writers. The highest common factor of a hundred women is far +greater than that of a hundred men. The abnormal is more frequent in the +male sex. There are more male monsters." + +"That I can quite believe," snapped Judith. + +"Then you agree with me that men are not all alike?" + +"I certainly don't. Put any one of you before a pretty face and a pair +of silly girl's eyes and he is a perfect idiot." + +"My dear Judith," said I, "I don't care a hang for a pretty face--except +yours." + +"Do you really care about mine?" she asked wistfully. + +"My dear," said I, dropping on one knee by the sofa, and taking her +hand, "I've been longing for it for six weeks." And I counted the weeks +on her fingers. + +This put her in a good humour. Now that I come to think of it, there +is something adorably infantile in grown up women. Shall man ever +understand them? I have seen babies (not many, I am glad to say) crow +with delight at having their toes pulled, with a "this little pig went +to market," and so forth; Judith almost crowed at having the weeks told +off on her fingers. Queer! + +An hour was taken up with the account of her doings in Paris. She had +met all the nicest and naughtiest people. She had been courted and +flattered. An artist in a slouch hat, baggy corduroy breeches, floppy +tie and general 1830 misfit had made love to her on the top of the +Eiffel Tower. + + +"And he said," laughed Judith, "'_Partons ensemble. Comme on dit en +Anglais_--fly with me!' I remarked that our state when we got to the +Champs de Mars would be an effective disguise. He didn't understand, and +it was delicious!" + +I laughed. "All the same," I observed, "I can't see the fun of making +jokes which the person to whom you make them doesn't see the point of." + +"Why, that's your own peculiar form of humour," she retorted. "I caught +the trick from you." + +Perhaps she is right. I have noticed that people are slow in their +appreciation of my witticisms. I must really be a very dull dog. If she +were not fond of me I don't see how a bright woman like Judith could +tolerate my society for half an hour. + +I don't think I contribute to the world's humour; but the world's +humour contributes much to my own entertainment, and things which appear +amusing to me do not appeal, when I point them out, to the risible +faculties of another. Every individual, I suppose, like every +civilisation, must have his own standard of humour. If I were a Roman +(instead of an English) Epicurean, I should have died with laughter +at the sight of a fat Christian martyr scudding round the arena while +chased by a hungry lion. At present I should faint with horror. Indeed, +I always feel tainted with savagery and enjoying a vicarious lust, when +I smile at the oft-repeated tale of the poor tiger in Dore's picture +that hadn't got a Christian. On the other hand, it tickles me immensely +to behold a plethoric commonplace Briton roar himself purple with +impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I perceive that all +my neighbours take him with the utmost seriousness. Again, your literary +journalist professes to wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane +Austen; to me she is the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed +the trivial. Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a +frock-coat and silk hat, when a passing member of the proletariat dug +his elbows in his comrade's ribs and, quoting a music-hall tag of the +period, shouted "He's got 'em on!" whereupon both burst into peals of +robustious but inane laughter. Now, if I had turned to them, and said, +"He would be funnier if I hadn't," and paraphrased, however wittily, +Carlyle's ironical picture of a nude court of St. James's, they would +have punched my head under the confused idea that I was trying to +bamboozle them. Which brings me to my point of departure, my remark to +Judith as to the futility of jesting to unpercipient ears. + +I did not take up her retort. + +"And what was the end of the romance?" I asked. + +"He borrowed twenty francs of me to pay for the _dejeuner_, and his +_l'annee trente_ delicacy of soul compelled him to blot my existence +forever from his mind." + +"He never repaid you?" I asked. + +"For a humouristic philosopher," cried Judith, "you are delicious!" + +Judith is too fond of that word "delicious." She uses it in season and +out of season. + +We have the richest language that ever a people has accreted, and we use +it as if it were the poorest. We hoard up our infinite wealth of words +between the boards of dictionaries and in speech dole out the worn +bronze coinage of our vocabulary. We are the misers of philological +history. And when we can save our pennies and pass the counterfeit coin +of slang, we are as happy as if we heard a blind beggar thank us for +putting a pewter sixpence into his hat. + +I said something of the sort to Judith, after she had resumed her seat +and I had opened the window, the minstrel having wandered to the next +hostelry, where the process of converting "Love's Sweet Dream" into a +nightmare was still faintly audible. Judith looked at me whimsically, as +I stood breathing the comparatively fresh air and enjoying the relative +silence. + +"You are still the same, I am glad to see. Conversation with the young +savage from Syria hasn't altered you in the least." + +"In the first place," said I, "savages do not grow in Syria; and in the +second, how could she have altered me?" + +"If the heavens were to open and the New Jerusalem to appear this moment +before you," retorted Judith, with the relevant irrelevance of her +sex, "you would begin an unconcerned disquisition on the iconography of +angels." + +I sat on the sofa end and touched one of her little pink ears. She +has pretty ears. They were the first of things physical about her that +attracted me to her years ago in the Roman pension--they and the mass of +silken flax that is her hair, and her violet eyes. + +"Did you learn that particular way of talking in Paris?" I asked. + +She had the effrontery to say she was imitating me and that it was a +very good imitation indeed. + + +We talked about the book. I touched upon the great problem that requires +solution--the harmonising and justifying of the contradictory opposites +in Renaissance character: Fra Lippo Lippi breaking his own vows and +breaking a nun's for her; Perugino leading his money-grubbing, morose +life and painting ethereal saints and madonnas in his _bottega_, while +the Baglioni filled the streets outside with slaughter; Lorenzo de' +Medici bleeding literally and figuratively his fellow-citizens, going +from that occupation to his Platonic Academy and disputing on the +immortality of the soul, winding up with orgies of sensual depravity +with his boon companion Pulci, and all the time making himself an +historic name for statecraft; Pope Sixtus IV, at the very heart of the +Pazzi conspiracy to murder the Medici-- + +"And Pope Nicholas V when drunk ordering a man to be executed, and being +sorry for it when sober," said Judith. + +It is wonderful how Judith, with her quite unspecialised knowledge of +history can now and then put her finger upon something vital. I have +been racking my brain and searching my library for the past two or three +days for an illustration of just that nature. I had not thought of it. +Here is Tomaso da Sarzana, a quiet, retired schoolmaster, like myself, +an editor of classical texts, a peaceful librarian of Cosmo de' Medici, +a scholar and a gentleman to the tips of his fingers; he is made Pope, a +King Log to save the cardinalate from a possible King Stork Colonna; the +Porcari conspiracy breaks out, is discovered and the conspirators are +hunted over Italy and put to death; a gentleman called Anguillara is +slightly inculpated; he is invited to Rome by Nicholas, and given +a safe-conduct; when he arrives the Pope is drunk (at least Stefano +Infessura, the contemporary diarist, says so); the next morning his +Holiness finds to his surprise and annoyance that the gentleman's head +has been cut off by his orders. It is an amazing tale. To realise +how amazing it is, one must picture the fantastic possibility of it +happening at the Vatican nowadays. And the most astounding thing is +this: that if all the dead and gone popes were alive, and the soul of +the saintly Pontiff of to-day were to pass from him, the one who could +most undetected occupy his simulacrum would be this very Thomas of +Sarzana. + +"Pardon me, my dear Judith," said I. "But this is a story lying somewhat +up one of the back-waters of history. Where did you come across it?" + +"I saw it the other day in a French comic paper," replied Judith. + +I really don't know which to admire the more: the inconsequent way in +which the French toss about scholarship, or the marvellous power of +assimilation possessed by Judith. + +Before we separated she returned to the subject of Carlotta. + +"Am I to see this young creature?" she asked. "That is just as you +choose," said I. + +"Oh! as far as I am concerned, my dear Marcus, I am perfectly +indifferent," replied Judith, assuming the supercilious expression with +which women invariably try to mask inordinate curiosity. + +"Then," said I, with a touch of malice, "there is no reason why you +should make her acquaintance." + +"I should be able to see through her tricks and put you on your guard." + +"Against what?" + +She shrugged her shoulders as if it were vain to waste breath on so +obtuse a person. + +"You had better bring her round some afternoon," she said. + +Have I acted wisely in confessing Carlotta to Judith? And why do I use +the word "confess"? Far from having committed an evil action, I consider +I have exhibited exemplary altruism. Did I want a "young savage from +Syria" to come and interfere with my perfectly ordered life? Judith +does not realise this. I had a presentiment of the prejudice she would +conceive against the poor girl, and now it has been verified. I wish I +had held my tongue. As Judith, for some feminine reason known only to +herself, has steadily declined to put her foot inside my house, she +might very well have remained unsuspicious of Carlotta's existence. And +why not? The fact of the girl being my pensioner does not in the least +affect the personality which I bring to Judith. The idea is absurd. Why +wasn't I wise before the event? I might have spared myself considerable +worry. + + +A letter from my Aunt Jessica enclosing a card for a fancy dress ball at +the Empress Rooms. The preposterous lady! + +"Do come. It is not right for a young man to lead the life of a recluse +of seventy. Here we are in the height of the London season, and I am +sure you haven't been into ten houses, when a hundred of the very +best are open to you--" I loathe the term "best houses." The tinsel +ineptitude of them! For entertainment I really would sooner attend a +mothers' meeting or listen to the serious British Drama--Have I read so +and so's novel? Am I going to Mrs. Chose's dance? Do I ride in the Park? +Do I know young Thingummy of the Guards, who is going to marry Lady +Betty Something? What do I think of the Academy? As if one could have +any sentiment with regard to the Academy save regret at such profusion +of fresh paint! "You want shaking up," continued my aunt. Silly woman! +If there is a thing I should abhor it would be to be shaken up. "Come +and dine with us at seven-thirty _in costume_, and I'll promise you a +delightful time. And think how proud the girls would be of showing off +their _beau cousin_." _Et patiti et patita._ I am again reminded that I +owe it to my position, my title. God ha' mercy on us! To bedeck myself +like a decayed mummer in a booth and frisk about in a pestilential +atmosphere with a crowd of strange and uninteresting young females is +the correct way of fulfilling the obligations that the sovereign laid +upon the successors to the title, when he conferred the dignity of a +baronetcy on my great-grandfather! Now I come to think of it the +Prince Regent was that sovereign, and my ancestor did things for him +at Brighton. Perhaps after all there is a savage irony of truth in Aunt +Jessica's suggestion! + +And a _beau cousin_ should I be indeed. What does she think I would +go as? A mousquetaire? or a troubadour in blue satin trunks and cloak, +white silk tights and shoes and a Grecian helmet, like Mr. Snodgrass at +Mrs. Leo Hunter's _fete champetre?_ + +I wish I could fathom Aunt Jessica's reasons for her attempts at +involving me in her social mountebankery. If the girls get no better +dance-partners than me, heaven help them! + +Only a fortnight ago I drove with them to Hurlingham. My aunt and +Gwendolen disappeared in an unaccountable manner with another man, +leaving me under an umbrella tent to take charge of Dora. I had an hour +and a half of undiluted Dora. The dose was too strong, and it made my +head ache. I think I prefer neat Carlotta. + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +July 5th + +I lunched at home, and read drowsily before the open window till four +o'clock. Then the splendour of the day invited me forth. Whither +should I go? I thought of Judith and Hampstead Heath; I also thought +of Carlotta and Hyde Park. The sound of the lions roaring for their +afternoon tea reached me through the still air, and I put from me a +strong temptation to wander alone and meditative in the Zoological +Gardens close by. I must not forget, I reflected, that I am responsible +for Carlotta's education, whereas I am in no wise responsible for the +animals or for Judith. If Judith and I had claims one on the other, the +entire charm of our relationship would be broken. + +I resolved to take Carlotta to the park, in order to improve her mind. +She would see how well-bred Englishwomen comport themselves externally. +It would be a lesson in decorum. + +I do not despise convention. Indeed, I follow it up to the point when it +puts on the airs of revealed religion. My neighbours and I decide on +a certain code of manners which will enable us to meet without mutual +offence. I agree to put my handkerchief up to my nose when I sneeze in +his presence, and he contracts not to wipe muddy boots on my sofa. I +undertake not to shock his wife by parading my hideous immorality before +her eyes, and he binds himself not to aggravate my celibacy by beating +her or kissing her when I am paying a call. I agree, by wearing an +arbitrarily fixed costume when I dine with him, to brand myself with the +stamp of a certain class of society, so that his guests shall receive me +without question, and he in return gives me a well-ordered dinner +served with the minimum amount of inconvenience to myself that his +circumstances allow. Many folks make what they are pleased to call +unconventionality a mere cloak for selfish disregard of the feelings +and tastes of others. Bohemianism too often means piggish sloth or +slatternly ineptitude. + +Convention is solely a matter of manners. That is why I desire to instil +some convention into what, for want of a more accurate term, I may +allude to as Carlotta's mind. It will save me much trouble in the +future. + +I summoned Carlotta. + +"Carlotta," I said, "I am going to take you to Hyde Park and show +you the English aristocracy wearing their best clothes and their best +behaviour. You must do the same." + +"My best clothes?" cried Carlotta, her face lighting up. + +"Your very best. Make haste." + +I smiled. She ran from the room and in an incredibly short time +reappeared unblushingly bare-necked and bare-armed in the evening dress +that had caused her such dismay on Saturday. + +I jumped to my feet. There is no denying that she looked amazingly +beautiful. She looked, in fact, disconcertingly beautiful. I found it +hard to tell her to take the dress off again. + +"Is it wrong?" she asked Nvith a pucker of her baby lips. + +"Yes, indeed," said I. "People would be shocked." + +"But on Saturday evening--" she began. + +"I know, my child," I interrupted. "In society you are scarcely +respectable unless you go about half naked at night; but to do so in the +daytime would be the grossest indecency. I'll explain some other time." + +"I shall never understand," said Carlotta. + +Two great tears stood, one on each eyelid, and fell simultaneously down +her cheeks. + +"What on earth are you crying for?" I asked aghast. + +"You are not pleased with me," said Carlotta, with a choke in her voice. + +The two tears fell like rain-drops on to her bosom, and she stood before +me a picture of exquisite woe. Then I did a very foolish thing. + +Last week a little gold brooch in a jeweller's window caught my fancy. +I bought it with the idea of presenting it to Carlotta, when an occasion +offered, as a reward for peculiar merit. Now, however, to show her that +I was in no way angry, I abstracted the bauble from the drawer of my +writing-table, and put it in her hand. + +"You please me so much, Carlotta," said I, "that I have bought this for +you." + +Before I had completed the sentence, and before I knew what she was +after, her arms were round my neck and she was hugging me like a child. + +I have never experienced such an odd sensation in my life as the touch +of Carlotta's fresh young arms upon my face and the perfume of spring +violets that emanated from her person. I released myself swiftly from +her indecorous demonstration. + +"You mustn't do things like that," said I, severely. "In England, young +women are only allowed to embrace their grandfathers." Carlotta looked +at me wide-eyed, with the fox-terrier knitting of the forehead. + +"But you are so good to me, Seer Marcous," she said. + +"I hope you'll find many people good to you, Carlotta," I answered. "But +if you continue that method of expressing your appreciation, you may +possibly be misunderstood." + +I had recovered from the momentary shock to my senses, and I laughed. +She fluttered a sidelong glance at me, and a smile as inscrutable as the +Monna Lisa's hovered over her lips. + +"What would they do if they did not understand?" + +"They would take you," I replied, fixing her sternly with my gaze, "they +would take you for an unconscionable baggage." + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta, suddenly. And she ran from the room. + +In a moment she was back again. She came up to me demurely and plucked +my sleeve. + +"Come and show me what I must put on so as to please you." + +I rang the bell for Antoinette, to whom I gave the necessary +instructions. Her next request would be that I should act the part of +lady's-maid. I must maintain my dignity with Carlotta. + +The lovely afternoon had attracted many people to the park, and the +lawns were thronged. We found a couple of chairs at the edge of one +of the cross-paths and watched the elegant assembly. Carlotta, vastly +entertained, asked innumerable questions. How could I tell whether a +lady was married or unmarried? Did they all wear stays? Why did every +one look so happy? Did I think that old man was the young girl's +husband? What were they all talking about? Wouldn't I take her for a +drive in one of those beautiful carriages? Why hadn't I a carriage? Then +suddenly, as if inspired, after a few minutes' silent reflection: + +"Seer Marcous, is this the marriage market?" + +"The what?" I gasped. + +"The marriage market. I read it in a book, yesterday. Miss Griggs gave +it me to read aloud--Tack--Thack--" + +"Thackeray?" + +"Ye-es. They come here to sell the young girls to men who want wives." +She edged away from me, with a little movement of alarm. "That is not +why you have brought me here--to sell me?" + +"How much do you think you would be worth?" I asked, sarcastically. + +She opened out her hands palms upward, throwing down her parasol, as she +did so, upon her neighbour's little Belgian griffon, who yelped. + +"Ch, lots," she said in her frank way. "I am very beautiful." + +I picked up the parasol, bowed apologetically to the owner of the +stricken animal, and addressed Carlotta. + +"Listen, my good child. You are passably good-looking, but you are by +no means very beautiful. If I tried to sell you here, you might possibly +fetch half a crown--" + +"Two shillings and sixpence?" asked the literal Carlotta. + +"Yes. Just that. But as a matter of fact, no one would buy you. This is +not the marriage market. There is no such thing as a marriage market. +English mothers and fathers do not sell their daughters for money. Such +a thing is monstrous and impossible." + +"Then it was all lies I read in the book?" + +"All lies," said I. + +I hope the genial shade of the great satirist has forgiven me. + +"Why do they put lies in books?" + +"To accentuate the Truth, so that it shall prevail," I answered. + +This was too hard a nut for Carlotta to crack. She was silent for a +moment. She reverted, ruefully, to the intelligible. + +"I thought I was beautiful," she said. + +"Who told you so?" + +"Pasquale." + +"Pasquale has no sense," said I. "There are men to whom all women who +are not seventy and toothless and rheumy at the eyes are beautiful. +Pasquale has said the same to every woman he has met. He is a Lothario +and a Don Juan and a Caligula and a Faublas and a Casanova." + +"And he tells lies, too?" + +"Millions of them," said I. "He contracts with their father Beelzebub +for a hundred gross a day." + +"Pasquale is very pretty and he makes me laugh and I like him," said +Carlotta. + +"I am very sorry to hear it," said I. + +The griffon, who had been sniffing at Carlotta's skirts, suddenly leaped +into her lap. With a swift movement of her hand she swept the poor +little creature, as if it had been a noxious insect, yards away. + +"Carlotta!" I cried angrily, springing to my feet. + +The ladies who owned the beast rushed to their whining pet and looked +astonished daggers at Carlotta. When they picked it up, it sat dangling +a piteous paw. Carlotta rose, merely scared at my anger. I raised my +hat. + +"I am more than sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I hope the +little dog is not hurt. My ward, for whom I offer a thousand apologies, +is a Mohammedan, to whom all dogs are unclean. Please attribute the +accident to religious instinct." + +The younger of the two, who had been examining the paw, looked up with a +smile. + +"Your ward is forgiven. Punch oughtn't to jump on strange ladies' laps, +whether they are Mohammedans or not. Oh! he is more frightened than +hurt. And I," she added, with a twinkling eye, "am more hurt than +frightened, because Sir Marcus Ordeyne doesn't recognise me." + +So Carlotta had nearly killed the dog of an unrecalled acquaintance. + +"I do indeed recognise you now," said I, mendaciously. I seem to have +been lying to-day through thick and thin. "But in the confusion of the +disaster--" + +"You sat next me at lunch one day last winter, at Mrs. Ordeyne's," +interrupted the lady, "and you talked to me of transcendental +mathematics." + +I remembered. "The crime," said I, "has lain heavily on my conscience." + +"I don't believe a word of it," she laughed, dismissing me with a bow. I +raised my hat and joined Carlotta. + +It was a Miss Gascoigne, a flirtatious intimate of Aunt Jessica's house. +To this irresponsible young woman I had openly avowed that I was the +guardian of a beautiful Mohammedan whose religious instinct compelled +her to destroy little dogs. I shall hear of this from my Aunt Jessica. + +I walked stonily away with Carlotta. + +"You are cross with me," she whimpered. + +"Yes, I am. You might have killed the poor little beast. It was very +wicked and cruel of you." + +Carlotta burst out crying in the midst of the promenade. + +The tears did not romantically come into her eyes as they had done an +hour before; but she wept copiously, after the unrestrained manner of +children, and used her pocket-handkerchief. From their seats women put +up their lorgnons to look at her, passers-by turned round and stared. +The whole of the gaily dressed throng seemed to be one amused gaze. In' +a moment or two I became conscious that reprehensory glances were being +directed towards myself, calling me, as plain as eyes could call, an +ill-conditioned brute, for making the poor young creature, who was at +my mercy, thus break down in public. It was a charming situation for an +even-tempered philosopher. We walked stolidly on, I glaring in front +of me and Carlotta weeping. The malice of things arranged that ne. +neighbouring chair should be vacant, and that the path should be +unusually crowded. I had the satisfaction of hearing a young fellow say +to a girl: + +"He? That's Ordeyne--came into the baronetcy--mad as a dingo dog." + +I was giving myself a fine advertisement. + +"For heaven's sake stop crying," I said. Then a memory of far-off +childhood flashed its inspiration upon me. "If you don't," I added, +grimly, "I'll take you out and give you to a policeman." + +The effect was magical. She turned on me a scared look, gasped, pulled +down her veil, which she had raised so as to dab her eyes with her +pocket-handkerchief, and incontinently checked the fountain of her +tears. + +"A policeman?" + +"Yes," said I, "a great, big, ugly blue policeman, who shuts up people +who misbehave themselves in prison, and takes off their clothes, and +shaves their heads, and feeds them on bread and water." + +"I won't cry any more," she said, swallowing a sob. "Is it also wicked +to cry?" + +"Any of these ladies here would sooner be burned alive with dyspepsia or +cut in two with tight-lacing," I replied severely. "Let us sit down." + +We stepped over the low iron rail, and passing through the first two +rows of people, found seats behind where the crowd was thinner. + +"Is Seer Marcous still angry with me?" asked Carlotta, and the simple +plaintiveness of her voice would have melted the bust of Nero. I +lectured her on cruelty to animals. That one had duties of kindness +towards the lower creation appealed to her as a totally new idea. +Supposing the dog had broken all its legs and ribs, would she not have +been sorry? She answered frankly in the negative. It was a nasty little +dog. If she had hurt it badly, so much the better. What did it matter if +a dog was hurt? She was sorry now she had hurled it into space, because +it belonged to my friends, and that had made me cross with her. + +Of course I was shocked at the thoughtless cruelty of the action; but my +anger had also its roots in dismay at the public scandal it might have +caused, and in the discovery that I was known to the victim's owner. +It is the sad fate of the instructors of youth that they must +hypocritically credit themselves with only the sublimest of motives. I +spoke to Carlotta like the good father in the "Swiss Family Robinson." I +gave vent to such noble sentiments that in a quarter of an hour I glowed +with pride in my borrowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to +my bosom and addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the fly. I wonder +whether it is not through some such process as this that parsons manage +to keep themselves good. + +The soothing warmth of conscious merit restored me to good temper; and +when Carlotta slid her hand into mine and asked me if I had forgiven +her, I magnanimously assured her that all the past was forgotten. + +"Only," said I, "you will have to get out of this habit of tears. A wise +man called Burton says in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' a beautiful book +which I'll give you to read when you are sixty, 'As much count may be +taken of a woman weeping as a goose going barefoot.'" + +"He was a nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they feel +very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men +don't cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but +Hamdi!--" she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, "You would as +soon see a goose going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the +shoes--the fairy tale--as Hamdi crying. _Hou_!" + +Half an hour later, as we were driving homewards, she broke a rather +long silence which she had evidently been employing in meditation. + +"Seer Marcous." + +"Yes?" + +She has a child's engaging way of rubbing herself up against one when +she wants to be particularly ingratiating. + +"It was so nice to dine with you on Saturday." + +"Really?" + +"Oh, ye-es. When are you going to let me dine with you again, to show me +you have forgiven me?" + +A hansom cab offers peculiar facilities for the aforesaid process of +ingratiation. + +"You shall dine with me this evening," said I, and Carlotta cooed with +pleasure. + +I perceive that she is gradually growing westernised. + + +July 8th. + +In obedience to a peremptory note from Judith, I took Carlotta this +afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook hands with my hostess, turned +round and said + +"This, my dear Judith, is Carlotta." + +"I am very pleased to see you," said Judith. + +"So am I," replied Carlotta, not to be outdone in politeness. + +She sat bolt upright, most correctly, on the edge of a chair, and +responded monosyllabically to Judith's questions. Her demeanour could +not have been more impeccable had she been trained in a French convent. +Just before we arrived, she had been laughing immoderately because I had +ordered her to spit out a mass of horrible sweetmeat which she had found +it impossible to masticate, and she had challenged me to extract it with +my fingers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a Maenad. I +was entertained by Judith's fruitless efforts to get behind this wall of +reserve. Carlotta said, "Oh, ye-es" or "No-o" to everything. It was +not a momentous conversation. As it was Carlotta in whom Judith was +particularly interested, I effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the +spasmodic talk, Carlotta said, very politely: + +"Mrs. Mainwaring has a beautiful house." + +"It's only a tiny flat. Would you like to look over it?" asked Judith, +eagerly, flashing me a glance that plainly said, "Now that I shall have +her to myself, you may trust me to get to the bottom of her." + +"I would like it very much," said Carlotta, rising. + +I held the door open for them to pass out, and lit a cigarette. +When they returned ten minutes afterwards, Carlotta was smiling and +self-possessed, evidently very well pleased with herself, but Judith had +a red spot on each of her cheeks. + +The sight of her smote me with an odd new feeling of pity. I cannot +dismiss the vision from my mind. All the evening I have seen the two +women standing side by side, a piteous parable. The light from the +window shone full upon them, and the dark curtain of the door was an +effective background. The one flaunted the sweet insolence of youth, +health, colour, beauty; of the bud just burst into full flower. The +other wore the stamp of care, of the much knowledge wherein is much +sorrow, and in her eyes dwelled the ghosts of dead years. She herself +looked like a ghost-dressed in white pique, which of itself drew +the colour from her white face and pale lips and mass of faint +straw-coloured hair, the pallor of all which was accentuated by the red +spots on her cheeks and her violet eyes. + +I saw that something had occurred to vex her. + +"Before we go," I said, "I should like a word with you. Carlotta will +not mind." + +We went into the dining-room. I took her hand which was cold, in spite +of the July warmth. + +"Well, my dear," said I. "What do you think of my young savage from Asia +Minor?" + +Judith laughed--I am sure not naturally. + +"Is that all you wanted to say to me?" + +She withdrew her hand, and tidied her hair in the mirror of the +overmantel. + +"I think she is a most uninteresting young woman. I am disappointed. +I had anticipated something original. I had looked forward to +some amusement. But, really, my dear Marcus, she is _bete a +pleurer_--weepingly stupid." + +"She certainly can weep," said I. + +"Oh, can she?" said Judith, as if the announcement threw some light on +Carlotta's character. "And when she cries, I suppose you, like a man, +give in and let her have her own way?" And Judith laughed again. + +"My dear Judith," said I; "you have no idea of the wholesome discipline +at Lingfield Terrace." + +Suddenly with one of her disconcerting changes of front, she turned and +caught me by the coat-lappels. + +"Marcus dear, I have been so lonely this week. When are you coming to +see me?" + +"We'll have a whole day out on Sunday," said I. + + +As I walked down the stairs with Carlotta, I reflected that Judith had +not accounted for the red spots. + +"I like her," said Carlotta. "She is a nice old lady." + +"Old lady! What on earth do you mean?" I was indeed startled. "She is a +young woman." + +"Pouf!" cried Carlotta. "She is forty." + +"She is no such thing," I cried. "She is years younger than I." + +"She would not tell me." + +"You asked her age?" + +"Oh, ye-es," said Carlotta. "I was very polite. I first asked if she was +married. She said yes. Then I asked how her husband was. She said she +didn't know. That was funny. Why does she not know, Seer Marcous?" + +"Never mind," said I, "go on telling me how polite you were." + +"I asked how many children she had. She said she had none. I said it was +a pity. And then I said, 'I am eighteen years old and I want to marry +quite soon and have children. How old are you?' And she would not tell +me. I said, 'You must be the same age as my mamma, if she were alive.' +I said other things, about her husband, which I forget. Oh, I was very +polite." + +She smiled up at me in quest of approbation. I checked a horrified +rebuke when I reflected that, according to the etiquette of the harem, +she had been "very polite." But my poor Judith! Every artless question +had been a knife thrust in a sensitive spot. Her husband: the handsome +blackguard who had lured her into the divorce court, married her, and +after two unhappy years had left her broken; children: they would have +kept her life sweet, and did I not know how she had yearned for them? +Her age: it is only the very happily married woman who snaps her fingers +at the approach of forty, and even she does so with a disquieting sense +of bravado. And the sweet insolence of youth says: "I am eighteen: how +old are you?" + +My poor Judith! Once more, on our walk home, I discoursed to Carlotta on +the differences between East and West. + +"Seer Marcous," said Carlotta this evening at dinner--"I have decided now +that she shall dine regularly with me; it is undoubtedly agreeable to +see her pretty face on the opposite side of the table and listen to her +irresponsible chatter: chatter which I keep within the bounds of decorum +when Stenson is present, so as to save his susceptibilities, by +the simple device, agreed upon between us (to her great delight) of +scratching the side of my somewhat prominent nose--Seer Marcous, why +does Mrs. Mainwaring keep your picture in her bedroom?" + +I am glad Stenson happened to be out of the room. His absence saved the +flaying of my nasal organ. I explained that it was the custom in England +for ladies to collect the photographs of their men friends, and use them +misguidedly for purposes of decoration. + +"But this," said Carlotta, opening out her arms in an exaggerated way, +"is such a big one." + +"Ah, that," I answered, "is because I am very beautiful." + +Carlotta shrieked with laughter. The exquisite comicality of the jest +occasioned bubbling comments of mirth during the rest of the meal, and +her original indiscreet question was happily forgotten. + + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +10th July. + +Judith and I have had our day in the country. We know a wayside station, +on a certain line of railway, about an hour and a half from town, where +we can alight, find eggs and bacon at the village inn and hayricks in +a solitary meadow, and where we can chew the cud of these delights with +the cattle in well-wooded pastures. Judith has a passion for eggs and +bacon and hayricks. My own rapture in their presence is tempered by +the philosophic calm of my disposition. She wore a cotton dress of a +forget-me-not blue which suits her pale colouring. She looked quite +pretty. When I told her so she blushed like a girl. I was glad to +see her in gay humour again. Of late months she has been subject to +moodiness, emotional variability, which has somewhat ruffled the smooth +surface of our companionship. But to-day there has been no trace of +"temperament." She has shown herself the pleasant, witty Judith she +knows I like her to be, with a touch of coquetry thrown in on her +own account. She even spoke amiably of Carlotta. I have not had so +thoroughly enjoyable a day with Judith for a long time. + +I don't think she set herself deliberately to please me. That I should +resent. I know that women in order to please an unsuspecting male will +walk weary miles by his side with blisters on their feet and a beatific +smile on their faces. But Judith has far too much commonsense. + +Another pleasing feature of the day's jaunt has been the absence of +the appeal to sentimentality which Judith of late, especially since her +return from Paris, has been overfond of making. This idle habit of +mind, for such it is in reality, has been arrested by an intellectual +interest. One of her great friends is Willoughby, the economic +statistician, who in his humorous moments, writes articles for popular +magazines, illustrated by scale diagrams. He will draw, for instance, a +series of men representing the nations of the world, and varying in bulk +and stature according to the respective populations; and over against +these he will set a series of pigs whose sizes are proportionate to the +amount of pork per head eaten by the different nationalities. To these +queer minds that live on facts (I myself could as easily thrive on a +diet of egg-shells) this sort of pictorial information is peculiarly +fascinating. But Judith, who like most women has a freakish mental as +well as physical digestion, delights in knowing how many hogs a +cabinet minister will eat during a lifetime, and how much of the +earth's surface could be scoured by the world's yearly output of +scrubbing-brushes. I don't blame her for it any more than I blame her +for a love of radishes, which make me ill; it is not as if she had no +wholesome tastes. On the contrary, I commend her. Now, Willoughby, it +seems, has found the public appetite so great for these thought-saving +boluses of knowledge--unpleasant drugs, as it were, put up into gelatine +capsules--that he needs assistance. He has asked Judith to devil for +him, and I have to-day persuaded her to accept his offer. It will be an +excellent thing for the dear woman. It will be an absorbing occupation. +It will divert the current of her thoughts from the sentimentality that +I deprecate, and provided she does not serve up hard-boiled facts to me +at dinner, she will be the pleasanter companion. + +The only return to it was when I kissed her at parting. + +"That is the first, Marcus, for twelve hours," she said; very sweetly, +it is true--but still reproachfully. + +But Sacred Name of a Little Good Man! (as the depraved French people +say), what is the use of this continuous osculation between rational +beings of opposite sexes who set out to enjoy themselves? If only St. +Paul, in the famous passage when he says there is a time for this and a +time for that, had mentioned kissing, he would have done a great deal of +practical good. + + +July 13th. + +To-night, for the first time since I came into the family estates (such +as they are), I feel the paralysis of aspiration occasioned by poverty. +If I were very rich, I would buy the two next houses, pull them down and +erect on the site a tower forty foot high. At the very top would be one +comfortable room to be reached by a lift, and in this room I could have +my being, while it listed me, and be secure from all kinds of incursions +and interruptions. Antoinette's one-eyed cat could not scratch for +admittance; Antoinette herself could not enter under pretext of domestic +economics and lure me into profitless gossip; and I could defy Carlotta, +who is growing to be as pervasive as the smell of pickles over Crosse +& Blackwell's factory. She comes in without knocking, looks at +picture-books, sprawls about doing nothing, smokes my best cigarettes, +hums tunes which she has picked up from barrel-organs, bends over me to +see what I am writing, munching her eternal sweetmeats in my ear, and +laughs at me when I tell her she has irremediably broken the thread of +my ideas. Of course I might be brutal and turn her out. But somehow I +forget to do so, until I realise--too late--the havoc she has made with +my work. + +I did, however, think, when Miss Griggs mounted guard over Carlotta, +and Antoinette and her cat were busied with luncheon cook-pans, that +my solitude was unimperilled. I see now there is nothing for it but the +tower. And I cannot build the tower; so I am to be henceforward at the +mercy of anything feline or feminine that cares to swish its tail or its +skirts about my drawing-room. + +I was arranging my notes, I had an illuminating inspiration concerning +the life of Francois Villon and the contemporary court of Cosmo de' +Medici; I was preparing to fix it in writing when the door opened and +Stenson announced: + +"Mrs. Ordeyne and Miss Ordeyne." + +My Aunt Jessica and Dora came in and my inspiration went out. It hasn't +come back yet. + +My aunt's apologies and Dora's draperies filled the room. I must forgive +the invasion. They knew they were disturbing my work. They hoped I +didn't mind. + +"I wanted mamma to write, but she would come," said Dora, in her hearty +voice. I murmured polite mendacities and offered chairs. Dora preferred +to stand and gaze about her with feminine curiosity. Women always seem +to sniff for Bluebeardism in a bachelor's apartment. + +"Why, what two beautiful rooms you have. And the books! There isn't an +inch of wall-space!" + +She went on a voyage of discovery round the shelves while my aunt +explained the object of their visit. Somebody, I forget who, had +lent them a yacht. They were making up a party for a summer cruise in +Norwegian fiords. The Thingummies and the So and So's and Lord This and +Miss That had promised to come, but they were sadly in need of a man to +play host--I was to fancy three lone women at the mercy of the skipper. +I did, and I didn't envy the skipper. What more natural, gushed my +aunt, than that they should turn to me, the head of the house, in their +difficulty? + +"I am afraid, my dear aunt," said I, "that my acquaintance with +skipper-terrorising hosts is nil. I can't suggest any one." + +"But who asked you to suggest any one?" she laughed. "It is you yourself +that we want to persuade to have pity on us." + +"I have--much pity," said I, "for if it's rough, you'll all be horribly +seasick." + +Dora ran across the room from the book-case she was inspecting. + +"I would like to shake him! He is only pretending he doesn't understand. +I don't know what we shall do if you won't come with us." + +"You can't refuse, Marcus. It will be an ideal trip--and such a +comfortable yacht--and the deep blue fiords--and we've got a French +chef. You will be doing us such a favour." + +"Come, say 'Yes,'" said Dora. + +I wish she were not such a bouncing Juno of a girl. Large, athletic +women with hearty voices are difficult for one to deal with. I am a +match for my aunt, whom I can obfuscate with words. But Dora doesn't +understand my satire; she gives a great, healthy laugh, and says, "Oh, +rot!" which scatters my intellectual armoury. + +"It is exceedingly kind of you to think of me," I said to my aunt, "and +the proposal is tempting--the prospect is indeed fascinating--but--" + +"But what?" + +"I have so many engagements," I answered feebly. + +My Aunt Jessica rose, smiling indulgently upon me, as if I were a spoilt +little boy, and took me on to the balcony, while Dora demurely retired +to the bookshelves in the farther room. "Can't you manage to throw them +aside? Poor Dora will be inconsolable." + +I stared at her for a moment and then at Dora's broad back and sturdy +hips. Inconsolable? I can't make out what the good lady is driving at. +If she were a vulgar woman trying to squeeze her way into society and +needed the lubricant of the family baronetcy, I could understand her +eagerness to parade me as her appanage. But titles in her drawing-room +are as common as tea-cups. And the inconsolability of Dora-- + +"If I did come she would be bored to death," said I. + +"She is willing to risk it." + +"But why should she seek martyrdom?" + +"There is another reason," said my aunt, ignoring my pertinent question, +but glancing at me reassuringly "there is another reason why it would be +well for you to come on this cruise with us." She sank her voice. "You +met Miss Gascoigne in the park last week--" + +"A very charming and kind young lady," said I. + +"I am afraid you have been a little indiscreet. People have been +talking." + +"Then theirs, not mine, is the indiscretion." + +"But, my dear Marcus, when you spring a good-looking young person, whom +you introduce as your Mohammedan ward, upon London society, and she +makes a scene in public--why--what else have people got to talk about?" + +"They might fall back upon the doctrine of predestination or the price +of fish," I replied urbanely. + +"But I assure you, Marcus, that there is a hint of scandal abroad. It is +actually said that she is living here." + +"People will say anything, true or untrue," said I. + +My aunt sighfully acquiesced, and for a while we discussed the depravity +of human nature. + +"I have been thinking," she said at last, "that if you brought your +ward to see us, and she could accompany us on this cruise to Norway, the +scandal would be scotched outright." + +She glanced at me very keenly, and beneath her indulgent smile I saw the +hardness of the old campaigner. It was a clever trap she had prepared +for me. + +I took her hand and in my noblest manner, like the exiled vicomte in +costume drama, bent over it and kissed her finger-tips. + +"I thank you, my dear aunt, for your generous faith in my integrity," I +said, "and I assure you your confidence is well founded." + +A loud, gay laugh from the other room interrupted me. + +"Are you two rehearsing private theatricals?" cried Dora. As I was +attired in a remarkably old college blazer and a pair of yellow Moorish +slippers bought a couple of years ago in Tangier, and as my hair was +straight on end, owing to a habit of passing my fingers through it while +I work, my attitude perhaps did not strike a spectator as being so noble +as I had imagined. I took advantage of the anti-climax, however, to +bring my aunt from the balcony to the centre of the room, where Dora +joined us. + +"Well, has mother prevailed?" + +"My dear Dora," said I, politely, "how can you imagine it could possibly +be a question of persuasion?" + +"That might be taken two ways," said Dora. "Like Palmerston's 'Dear Sir, +I'll lose no time in reading your book.'" Dora is a minx. + +"I fear," said I, "that my pedantic historical sense must venture to +correct you. It was Lord Beaconsfield." + +"Well, he got it from Palmerston," insisted Dora. + +"You children must not quarrel," interposed my aunt, in the fond, +maternal tone which I find peculiarly unpleasant. "Marcus will see how +his engagements stand, and let us know in a day or two." + +"When do you propose to start?" I asked. + +"Quite soon. On the 20th. + +"I will let you know finally in good time," said I. + +As I accompanied them downstairs, I heard a door at the end of the +passage open, and turning I saw Carlotta's pretty head thrust past the +jamb, and her eyes fixed on the visitors. I motioned her back, sharply, +and my aunt and Dora made an unsuspecting exit. The noise of their +departing chariot wheels was music to my ears. + +Carlotta came rushing out of her sitting-room followed by Miss Griggs, +protesting. + +"Who those fine ladies?" she cried, with her hands on my sleeve. + +"Who _are_ those ladies?" I corrected. + +"Who _are_ those ladies?" Carlotta repeated, like a demure parrot. + +"They are friends of mine." + +Then came the eternal question. + +"Is she married, the young one?" + +"Miss Griggs," said I, "kindly instil into Carlotta's mind the fact that +no young English woman ever thinks about marriage until she is actually +engaged, and then her thoughts do not go beyond the wedding." + +"But is she?" persisted Carlotta. + +"I wish to heaven she was," I laughed, imprudently, "for then she would +not come and spoil my morning's work." + +"Oh, she wants to marry you," said Carlotta. + +"Miss Griggs," said I, "Carlotta will resume her studies," and I went +upstairs, sighing for the beautiful tower with a lift outside. + + +July 14th. + +Pasquale came in about nine o'clock, and found us playing cards. + +He is a bird of passage with no fixed abode. Some weeks ago he gave up +his chambers in St. James's, and went to live with an actor friend, a +grass-widower, who has a house in the St. John's Wood Road close by. Why +Pasquale, who loves the palpitating centres of existence, should choose +to rusticate in this semi-arcadian district, I cannot imagine. He says +he can think better in St. John's Wood. + +Pasquale think! As well might a salmon declare it could sing better in a +pond! The consequence of his propinquity, however, has been that he +has dropped in several times lately on his way home, but generally at a +later hour. + +"Oh, please don't move and spoil the picture," he cried. "Oh, you +idyllic pair! And what are you playing? Cribbage! If I had been +challenged to guess the game you would have selected for your +after-dinner entertainment, I should have sworn to cribbage!" + +"An excellent game," said I. Indeed, it is the only game that I +remember. I dislike cards. They bore me to death. So dus chess. People +love to call them intellectual pastimes; but, surely, if a man +wants exercise for his intellect, there are enough problems in this +complicated universe for him to worry his brains over, with more profit +to himself and the world. And as for the pastime--I consider that when +two or more intelligent people sit down to play cards they are insulting +one another's powers of conversation. These remarks do not apply to my +game with Carlotta, who is a child, and has to be amused. She has picked +up cribbage with remarkable quickness, and although this is only the +third evening we have played, she was getting the better of me when +Pasquale appeared. + +I repeated my statement. Cribbage certainly was an excellent game. +Pasquale laughed. + +"Of course it is. A venerable pastime. Darby and Joan have played it of +evenings for the last thousand years. Please go on." + +But Carlotta threw her cards on the table and herself on the sofa and +said she would prefer to hear Pasquale talk. + +"He says such funny things." + +Then she jumped from the sofa and handed him the box of chocolates that +is never far from her side. How lithe her movements are! + +"Pasquale says you were his schoolmaster, and used to beat him with a +big stick," she remarked, turning her head toward me, while Pasquale +helped himself to a sweet. + +He was clumsy in his selection, and the box slipped from Carlotta's +hand and the contents rolled upon the floor. They both went on hands and +knees to pick them up, and there was much laughing and whispering. + +It is curious that I cannot recall Pasquale having alluded, in +Carlotta's presence, to our early days. It was on my tongue to ask +when he committed the mendacity--for in that school not only did the +assistant masters not have the power of the cane, but Pasquale, being +in the sixth form at the time I joined, was exempt from corporal +punishment--when they both rose flushed from their grovelling beneath +the table, and some merry remark from Pasquale put the question out of +my head. + + +All this is unimportant. The main result of Pasquale's visit this +evening is a discovery. + +Now, is it, after all, a discovery, or only the non-moral intellect's +sinister attribution of motives? + +"A baby in long clothes would have seen through it," said Pasquale. +"Lord bless you, if I were in your position I would go on board that +yacht, I'd make violent love to every female there, like the gentleman +in Mr. Wycherley's comedy, I'd fill a salmon fly-book with samples of +their hair, I'd make them hate one another like poison, and at the end +of the voyage I'd announce my engagement to Carlotta, and when they +all came to the wedding I'd make the fly-book the most conspicuous of +wedding presents on the table, from the bridegroom to the bride. By +George! I'd cure them of the taste for man-hunting!" + +I wonder what impelled me to tell Pasquale of the proposed yachting +cruise? We sat smoking by the open window, long after Carlotta had been +sent to bed, and looking at a full moon sailing over the tops of the +trees in the park; enveloped in that sensuous atmosphere of a warm +summer night which induces a languor in the body and in the will. On +such a night as this young Lorenzo, if he happens to have Jessica by his +side, makes a confounded idiot of himself, to his life's undoing; and +on such a night as this a reserved philosopher commits the folly of +discussing his private affairs with a Sebastian Pasquale. + +But if he is correct in his surmise, I am much beholden to the relaxing +influences of the night. I have been warned of perils that encompass me: +perils that would infest the base and insidiously scale the sides of the +most inaccessible tower that man could build on the edge of the Regent's +Park. A woman with a Matrimonial Purpose would be quite capable of +gaining access by balloon to my turret window. Is it not my Aunt +Jessica's design melodramatically to abduct me in a yacht? + +"Once aboard the pirate lugger, and the man is ours!" she cries. + +But the man is not coming aboard the pirate lugger. He is going to keep +as far as he possibly can from the shore. Neither is he to be lured into +bringing his lovely Mohammedan ward with him, as an evidence of good +faith and unimpeachable morals. They can regard her as a Mohammedan ward +or a houri or a Princess of Babylon, just as they choose. + +Pasquale must be right. A hundred remembered incidents go to prove it. I +recollect now that Judith has rallied me on my obtuseness. + +The sole end of all my Aunt Jessica's manoeuvring is to marry me to +Dora, and Dora, like Barkis, is willing. Marry Dora! The thought is a +febrifuge, a sudorific! She would be thumping discords on my wornout +strings all day long. In a month I should be a writhing madman. I would +sooner, infinitely sooner, marry Carlotta. Carlotta is nature; Dora +isn't even art. Why, in the name of men and angels, should I marry Dora? +And why (save to call herself Lady Ordeyne) should she want to marry +me? I have not trifled with her virgin affections; and that she is +nourishing a romantic passion for me of spontaneous growth I decline to +believe. For aught I care she can be as inconsolable as Calypso. It +will do her good. She can write a little story about it in _The Sirens' +Magazine_. + +I am shocked. For all her bouncing ways and animal health and incorrect +information, I thought Dora was a nice-minded girl. + +Do nice-minded girls hunt husbands? + +Good heavens! This looks like the subject of a silly-season +correspondence in _The Daily Telegraph_. + + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +July 19th. + +_Campsie, N.B._ Hither have I fled from my buccaneering relations. I +am seeking shelter in a manse in the midst of a Scotch moor, and the +village, half a mile away, is itself five miles from a railway station. +Here I can defy Aunt Jessica. + +After my conversation with Pasquale, I passed a restless night. My +slumbers were haunted by dreams of pirate yachts flying the jolly Roger, +on which the skull and crossbones melted grotesquely into a wedding-ring +and a true lovers' knot. I awoke to the conviction that so long as the +vessel remained on English waters I could find no security in London. I +resolved on flight. But whither? + +Verily the high gods must hold me in peculiar favour. The first letter I +opened was from old Simon McQuhatty, my present host, a godfather of my +mother, who alone of mortals befriended us in the dark days of long ago. +He was old and infirm, he wrote, and Gossip Death was waiting for him +on the moor; but before he went to join him he would like to see Susan's +boy again. I could come whenever I liked. A telegram from Euston before +I started would be sufficient notice. I sent Stenson out with a telegram +to say I was starting that very day by the two o'clock train, and I +wrote a polite letter to my Aunt Jessica informing her of my regret +at not being able to accept her kind invitation as I was summoned to +Scotland for an indefinite period. + +My old friend's ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland is drawing to a +close; he has lived in this manse, a stone's throw from his grave, +for fifty years, and the approaching change of habitat will cost him +nothing. He will still lie at the foot of his beloved hills, and the +purple moorland will spread around him for all eternity, and the smell +of the gorse and heather will fill his nostrils as he sleeps. He is +a bit of a pagan, old McQuhatty, in spite of Calvin and the Shorter +Catechism. I should not wonder if he were the original of the story of +the minister who prayed for the "puir Deil." He planted a rowan tree by +his porch when he was first inducted into the manse, and it has grown +up with him and he loves it as if it were a human being. He has had +many bonny arguments with it, he says, on points of doctrine, and it +has brought comfort to him in times of doubt by shivering its delicate +leaves and whispering, "Dinna fash yoursel, McQuhatty. The Lord God is a +sensible body." He declares that the words are articulate, and I suspect +that in the depths of his heart he believes that there are tongues in +trees and books in the running brooks, just as he is convinced that +there is good in everything. + +He is a ripe and whimsical scholar, and his talk, even in infirm old +age, is marked by a Doric virility which has rendered his companionship +for these five days as stimulating as the moorland air. How few men have +this gift of discharging intellectual invigoration. Indeed, I only +know old McQuhatty who has it, and a sportive Providence has carefully +excluded mankind from its benefits for half a century. Stay: it once +fostered a genius who arose in Campsie, and sent him strung with tonic +to Edinburgh to become a poet. But the poor lad drank whisky for two +years without cessation, so that he died, and McQuhatty's inspiration +was wasted. What intellectual stimulus can he afford, for instance, to +Sandy McGrath, an elder of the kirk whom I saw coming up the brae on +Sunday? An old ram stood in the path and, as obstinate as he, refused +to budge. And as they looked dourly at each other, I wondered if the ram +were dressed in black broadcloth and McGrath in wool, whether either of +their mothers would notice the metamorphosis. Yet my host declares that +I see with the eyes of a Southron; that the Scotch peasant when he is +not drunk is intellectual, and that there is no occasion on which he is +not ready for theological disputation. + +"But I dinna mind telling you," he added, "that I'd as lief talk with my +rowan tree. It does nae blaze into a conflagration at a comfortable wee +bit of false doctrine." + +I should love to stay all the summer with my old friend, It seems that +only from such a remote solitude can one view things mundane in the +right perspective, and in their true proportion. One would see how +important or unimportant portent in the cosmos was the agricultural +ant's dream of three millimetres and an aphis compared with the +aspirations of the English labourer. One would justly focus the South +African millionaire, Sandy McGrath and the ram, and bring them to their +real lowest common denominator. One would even be able to gauge the +value of a History of Renaissance Morals. The benefits I should derive +from a long sojourn are incalculable, but my new responsibilities call +me back to London and its refracting and distorting atmosphere. If I had +dwelt here for fifty years I should have perceived that Carlotta was +but a speck in the whirlwind of human dust whose ultimate destiny was +immaterial. As my five days' visit, however, has not advanced me to that +pitch of wisdom, I am foolishly concerned in my mind as to her welfare, +and anxious to dissolve the triumvirate, Miss Griggs, Stenson, and +Antoinette, whom I have entrusted with the reins of government. + +A month ago, in similar circumstances, I should have railed at Fate and +anathematised Carlotta from the tip of her pink toes to the gold and +bronze glory of her hair. But I am growing more kindly disposed towards +Carlotta, and taking a keen interest in her spiritual development. + +An inner voice, an ironical, sardonic inner voice with which there is no +arguing, tells me that I am a hypocrite; that an interest in Carlotta's +spiritual development is a nice, comforting, high-sounding phrase which +has deluded philosophic guardians of female youth for many generations. + +"What does it matter to you whether she has a soul or not," says the +voice, "provided she can babble pleasantly at dinner and play cribbage +with you afterwards?" + +Well, what on earth does it matter? + + +July 21st. + +She was at Euston to meet me. As soon as she saw my face at the carriage +window she left Stenson and flew up the platform like a pretty tame +animal, and when I alighted hung on my arms and frisked and gamboled +around me in excess of joy. + +"So you are glad to have me back, Carlotta?" I asked, as we were driving +home. + +She sidled up against me in her terrier fashion. + +"Oh, ye-es," she cooed. "The day was night without you." + +"That is the oriental language of exaggeration," I said. But all the +same it was pleasant to hear, and the soft notes of her voice coiled +themselves, as music sometimes dus, around my heart. + +"I love dear Seer Marcous," she said. + +I put my arm round her waist for a moment, as one would do to a child. + +"You are a good little girl, Carlotta. That is to say," I added, +remembering my responsibilities, "if you _have_ been good. Have you?" + +"Oh, so good. Antoinette has been teaching me how to cook, and I can +make a rice pudding. It is so nice to cook things. I like the smell. But +I burned myself. See." + +She pulled off her glove and showed me a red mark on her hand. I kissed +it to make it well, and she laughed and was very happy. And I, too, was +happy. Something new and fresh and bright has come into my life. Stenson +is an admirable servant; but his impassive face and correct salute which +have hitherto greeted me at London railway termini, although suggestive +of material comfort, cannot be said to invest my arrival with a special +atmosphere of charm. Carlotta's welcome has been a new sensation. I look +upon the house with different eyes. It was a pleasure, as I dressed for +dinner, to reflect that I should not go down to a solemn, solitary meal, +but would have my beautiful little witch to keep me company. + + +July 22d. + +It appears that her conduct has not been by any means irreproachable. +Miss Griggs reported that she took advantage of my absence to saturate +herself with scent, one of the most heinous crimes in our domestic +calendar. _Mulier bene olet dum nihil olet_ is the maxim written above +this article of our code. Once when she disobeyed my orders and came +into the drawing-room reeking of ylang-ylang, I sent her upstairs +to change all her things and have a bath, and not come near me till +Antoinette vouched for her scentlessness. And "Ah, monsieur," I remember +Antoinette replied, "that would be impossible, for the sweet lamb smells +of spring flowers, _de son naturel_." Which is true. Her use of violent +perfumes is thus a double offence. "There is something more serious," +said Miss Griggs. + +"I can hardly believe there can be anything more serious than making +one's self detestable to one's fellow-creatures," said I. + +"Unless it is making one's self too agreeable," said Miss Griggs, +pointedly. + +I asked her what she meant. + +"I have discovered," she replied, "that Carlotta has been carrying on a +clandestine flirtation with the young man who calls for orders from the +grocer's." + +"I am glad it wasn't the butcher's boy," I murmured. + +Miss Griggs giggled in a silly way, as if I were jesting. At my stern +request she recovered and unfolded the horrible tale. She had caught +Carlotta kissing her hand to him. She had also seen him smuggle a +three-cornered note between Carlotta's fingers, and Carlotta had +definitely refused to surrender the billet-dour. + +"What is the modern course of treatment," I asked, "prescribed for young +ladies who flirt with grocers' assistants? In Renaissance times +she could be whipped. The wise Margaret of Navarre used to beat her +daughter, Jeanne d'Albrecht, soundly for far less culpable lapses from +duty. Or she could be sent to a convent and put into a cell with rats, +or she could be bidden to attend at a merry-making where the chief +attraction was roast grocer's assistant. But nowadays--what do you +suggest?" + +The unimaginative creature could suggest nothing. She thought that I +would know how to deal with the offence. Perhaps preventive measures +would be more efficacious than punishment. But what do I know of the +repressory methods employed in seminaries for young ladies? Burton in +his "Anatomy" speaks cheerfully of blood-letting behind the ears. He +also quotes, I remember, Hippocrates or somebody, who narrates that a +noble maiden was cured of a flirtatious temperament by wearing down her +back for three weeks a leaden plate pierced with holes. This I told Miss +Griggs, who spoke contemptuously of the Father of Medicine. + +"He also recommends--whether for this complaint, or for something +similar I forget for the moment--" said I, "anointing the soles of the +feet with the fat of a dormouse, the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog; +and speaks highly of a ram's lungs applied hot to the fore part of the +head. I am sorry these admirable remedies are out of date. There is a +rich Rabelaisianism about them. Instead of the satisfying jorums of our +forefathers we take tasteless pellets, which procure us no sensation at +the time, and even the good old hot mustard poultice is a thing of the +past." + +"But what about Carlotta?" inquired Miss Griggs, anxiously. + +That is just like a woman, to interrupt a man when he is beginning to +talk comfortably on a subject that interests him. I sighed. + +"Send Carlotta up to me," I said, resignedly. + +Another morning's work spoiled. I turned to my writing-table. I had just +transcribed on my MS. the anecdote told with such glee by Machiavelli +about Zanobi del Pino, a sort of Admiral Byng of the early fifteenth +century, who was locked up and given nothing to eat but paper painted +with snakes, so that he died, fasting, in a few days. I had an apt +epigram on the subject of Renaissance humour trembling on my pen-point, +when Miss Griggs came in with her foolish gossip. I am sure the +platitude I wrote afterwards is not that original flash of wit. + +Carlotta entered and crossed the room to the side of my writing-chair, +her great dark eyes fixed on me, and her hands dutifully behind her +back. She looked a Greuze picture of innocence. I believed less than +ever in the enormity of the offence. + +"Do you know what you're here for?" I asked, magisterially. + +She nodded. + +"Then you _have_ been making love to the young man from the grocer's?" + +She nodded again. I began to conceive a violent dislike to the grocer's +young man. It was one of the most humiliating sensations I have +experienced. I think I have seen the individual--a thick-set, +red-headed, freckled nondescript. + +"What did you do it for?" I asked. + +"He wanted to make love to me," replied Carlotta. + +"He is a young scamp," said I. + +"What is a scamp?" she asked sweetly. + +"I am not giving you a lesson in philology," I remarked. "Do you know +that you have been behaving in a shocking manner?" + +"Now you are cross with me." + +"Yes," I said, "infernally angry." + +And I was. I expected to see her burst into tears. She did nothing of +the kind; only looked at me with irritating demureness. She wore a red +blouse and a grey skirt, and the audacious high-heeled red slippers. I +began to feel the return of my early prejudice against her. Nobody so +alluring could possess a spark of virtue. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said I. "I make many allowances +for your lack of knowledge of our Western customs, but for a young +lady to flirt with an ugly red-headed varlet of the lower orders is +reprehensible all the world over." + +"He gave me dates and dried fruits with sugar all over them," said +Carlotta. + +"Stolen from his employer," I said. "I will have that young man locked +up in prison, and if you go on receiving his feloniously obtained +presents they will put you in prison too, and I shall be delighted." + +Carlotta maintained her demure expression and extracted from her skirt +pocket a very dirty piece of paper. + +"He writes poetry--about me," she remarked, handing me what I recognised +as the three-cornered note. + +I took the thing between finger and thumb, and glanced over the poem. I +have read much indifferent modern verse in my time--I sometimes take +a slush-bath after tea at the club--but I could not have imagined the +English language capable of such emulsion. It was execrable. The first +couplet alone contained an idea. + + "Thou art a lovely girl and so very nice + I dream till death upon your face." + +To the wretch's ear it was a rhyme! I destroyed the noisome thing and +cast it into the waste-paper basket. + +"Prison," said I, "would be a luxurious reward for him. In a properly +civilised country he would be bastinadoed and hanged." + +"Yes, he is dam bad," said Carlotta, serenely. + +"Good heavens!" I cried, "the ruffian has even taught you to swear. If +you dare to say that wicked word again, I'll punish you severely. What +is his horrid name?" + +"Pasquale," said Carlotta. + +"Pasquale?" + +"Yes, he likes to hear me say 'dam.' Oh, the other? Oh, no, he is too +stupid. He does not say anything. His name is Timkins. I only play with +him. He is so funny. He can go and kill himself; I won't care." + +"Never mind about Timkins," said I, "I want to hear about Pasquale. When +did he teach you that wicked, wicked word?" + +I think Carlotta flushed as she regarded the point of her red slipper. + +"I went for a walk and he met me at the corner and walked here by my +side. Was that wicked?" + +"What would the excellent Hamdi Effendi have said to it?" + +Woman-like she evaded my question. + +"I hope Hamdi is dead. Do you think so?" + +"I hope not. For if you behave in this naughty manner, I shall have to +send you back to him." + +She had imperceptibly moved nearer my chair until she stood quite close +to my side, so that as I spoke the last words I looked up into her face. +She put her arm about my shoulders. It is one of her pretty, caressing +ways. + +"I will be good--very good," she said. + +"You will have to," said I, leaning back my head. + +She must have caught a relenting note in my voice; for what happened I +feel even now a curious shame in noting down. Her other arm flew under +my chin to join its fellow, and holding me a prisoner in my chair, she +bent down and kissed me. She also laid her cheek against mine. + +I am still aware of the indescribable, soft, warm pressure, although she +has gone to bed hours ago. + +I vow that a man must be less a man than a petrified egg to have +repulsed her. The touch of her lips was like the falling of dewy +rose-petals. Her breath was as fragrant as new-mown hay. Her hair +brushing my forehead had the odour of violets. + + +I sent her back to Miss Griggs. She ran out of the room laughing +merrily. She has received plenary absolution for her shameless coquetry +and her profane language. Worse than that she has discovered how to +obtain it in future. The witch has found her witchcraft, and having once +triumphantly exerted her powers, will take the earliest opportunity of +doing so again. I am fallen, both in my own eyes and hers, from my +high estate. Henceforward she will regard me only with good-humoured +tolerance; I shall be to her but a non-felonious Timkins. + +I was an idiot to have kissed her in return. + + +I have not seen her since. I lunched at the club, and paid a formal call +on Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne and my cousin Rosalie, in their sunless house in +Kensington. + +I met a singular lack of welcome. Rosalie gave me a limper hand than +usual, and took an early opportunity of leaving me tete-a-tete with her +mother, who conversed frigidly about the warm weather. The very tea, if +possible, was colder. + +I met Judith by appointment in Kensington Gardens, and walked with her +homewards. I mentioned my chilly reception. + +"My dear man," she observed--I dislike this apostrophe, which Judith +always uses by way of introduction to an unpleasant remark--"My dear +man, I have no doubt that you have as unsavoury a reputation as any one +in London. You are credited with an establishment like Solomon's--minus +the respectable counter-balance of the wives, and your devout relatives +are very properly shocked." + +I said that it was monstrous. Judith retorted that I had brought the +calumny upon myself. + +"But what can I do?" I asked. + +"Board her out with a suburban family, as you should have done from the +first. Even I, who am not strait-laced, consider it highly improper for +you to have her alone with you in the house." + +"My dear," said I, "there is Antoinette." + +"Tush"--or something like it--said Judith. + +"And Stenson. No one seeing Stenson could doubt the irreproachable +propriety of his master." + +"I really have no patience with you," said Judith. + +It is hopeless to discuss Carlotta with her. I shall do it no more. + +We sat for a while under the trees, and conversed on rational topics. +She likes her employment with Willoughby. The morning she spends among +blue books and other waste matter at the British Museum, and she devotes +the evening to sorting her information. Willoughby commends her highly. + +"And there is something I know you'll be very pleased to hear," she +continued. "Who do you think called on me yesterday? Mrs. Willoughby. +Her husband wants me to spend August and September at a place they +have taken in North Wales, and help him with his new book--as a private +secretary, you know. I said that I never went into society. I must tell +you this was the first time I had seen her. She put her hand on my arm +in the sweetest way in the world and said: 'I know all about it, my +dear, and that is why I thought I'd come myself as Harold's ambassador.' +Wasn't it beautiful of her?" + +She looked at me and her eyes were filled with tears. + +"Marcus dear, I am not a bad woman, am I?" + +"My dearest," I answered, very deeply touched, "you are the best woman +in the world. So far from conferring a favour on you, Mrs. Willoughby +has gained for herself the inestimable privilege of your friendship." + +"Ah!" said Judith, "a man cannot tell what it means." + +Really men are not such dullard dunderheads as women are pleased +to imagine. I have the most crystalline perception of what Mrs. +Willoughby's invitation means to Judith. Women appear to find a morbid +satisfaction in the fiction that their sex is actuated by a mysterious +nexus of emotions and motives which the grosser sense of man is +powerless to appreciate. In her heart of hearts it is a prodigious +comfort to a woman to feel herself misunderstood. Even she who is most +perfectly mated, and is intellectually convinced that the difference +of sex is no barrier to his complete knowledge of her, loves to cherish +some little secret bit of her nature, to which _he_, on account of his +masculinity, will be eternally blind. Of course there are dull men who +could not understand a tabbycat or a professional cricketer, let alone +an expert autothaumaturgist--a self-mystery-maker--like a woman. But +an intelligent and painstaking man should find no difficulty in +appreciating what, after all, is merely a point of view; for what women +see from that point of view they are as indiscreet in revealing as a +two-year-old babe. I have confessed before that I do not understand +Judith--that is to say the whole welter of contradictions in which her +ego consists--but that is solely because I have not taken the trouble +to subject her to special microscopic study. Such a scientific analysis +would, I think, be an immodest discourtesy towards any lady of my +acquaintance, especially towards one for whom I bear considerable +affection. It would be as unwarrantable for a decent-minded man to +speculate upon her exact spiritual dimensions as upon those portions +of her physical frame that are hidden beneath her attire. The charm +of human intercourse rests, to a great extent, on the vague, the +deliberately unperceived, the stimulating sense that an individual +possesses more attributes than flash upon the bodily or mental eye. But +this, I say, is deliberate. One knows perfectly well that beneath her +skirts any young woman you please does not melt away into the scaly tail +of a mermaid, but has a pair of ordinary commonplace legs. One knows +that when she has passed through certain well defined experiences in +life, a certain definite range of sentiments must exist behind whatever +mask of facial expression she may choose to adopt. It is sheer nonsense, +therefore, for Judith to say that I cannot enter into her feelings with +regard to Mrs. Willoughby's invitation. + +I developed this theme very fully to Judith as we sat in Kensington +Gardens and during our subsequent, stroll diagonally through Hyde Park +to the Marble Arch. She listened with great attention, and when I had +finished regarded me in a pitying manner, a smile flickering over her +lips. + +"My dear Marcus," she said, "there is no man, however humble-minded, who +has not one colossal vanity, his knowledge of women. He, at any rate, +has established the veritable Theory of Women. And we laugh at you, +my good friend, for the more you expound, the more do you reveal your +beautiful and artistic ignorance. Oh, Marcus, the idea of you setting up +as a feminine psychologist." + +"And pray, why not?" I asked, somewhat nettled. + +"Because you are that dear, impossible, lovable thing known as Marcus +Ordeyne." + +This was exceedingly pretty of Judith. But really woman is the Eternal +Philistine, as Matthew Arnold has defined the term. Her supreme +characteristic is inconvincibility. I had simply wasted my breath. + + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +August 3d. + +_Etretat, Seine-Injerieure_:--A young fellow on the Casino terrace this +evening caught my eye, looked at me queerly, and passed on. His face, +though unfamiliar, stirred some dormant association. What was it? +The profitless question pestered me for hours. At last, during the +performance at the theatre, I slapped my knee and said aloud, + +"I've got it!" + +"What?" asked Carlotta in alarm. + +"A fly," I answered. Whereat Carlotta laughed, and bent forward to get a +view of the victim. I austerely directed her attention to the stage. It +was a metaphorical fly whose buzzing I had stopped. + +The young fellow was he who had pointed me out in Hyde Park to his +companion, and lightly assured her that I was as mad as a dingo dog. +From the moment after the phrase's utterance to that of the slapping of +my knee, it had been altogether absent from my mind. Now it haunts me. +It reiterates itself after the manner of a glib phrase. I am glad I am +not in a railway carriage; the cranks would amuse the wheels with it all +night long. As it is, the surf tries to thunder it out on the shingle +just a few yards away from my window. I keep asking myself: why a dingo +dog? If I am mad it is in a gentle, Jaquesian, melancholy manner. I do +not dash at life, rabid and foaming at the mouth. + +I think the idiot simile must have been merely the misuse of language so +common among the half-educated youth of Great Britain. + +Yet when I come to consider my present condition, I have doubts as to my +complete sanity. Here am I, in a little, semi-fashionable French +seaside place, away from my books and my comforts and my habits, as much +interested in its vapid distractions as if the universe held no other +pursuits worth the attention of a rational man. And I have been here a +calendar month. + +To please Carlotta I wear white duck trousers, a pink shirt, and a +yachting-cap. I wired for them to my London tailor and they arrived +within a week. The first time I appeared in the maniacal costume I slunk +from the stony stare of a gendarme, as I was about to ascend the Casino +steps, and hid myself among the fishing-boats lower down on the beach. +Carlotta, however, was delighted and said that I looked pretty. Now I +have grown callous, seeing other fools similarly apparelled. But a +year ago, should I have dreamed it possible for me to strut about a +fashionable _plage_ in white ducks, a pink shirt, and a yachting-cap? +I trow not. They are signs of some sort of madness--whether that of a +Jaques or a dingo dog matters very little. + +Pasquale was the main cause of my taking Carlotta away from London. +He came far too frequently to the house, established far too great a +familiarity with my little girl. She quoted him far too readily. She +is at the impressionable age when young women fall easy victims to +the allurements of a fascinating creature like Pasquale. If he showed +himself in the light of a possible husband for Carlotta, I should have +nothing to say. I should give the pair my paternal benediction. But I +know my Renaissance and I know my Pasquale. Carlotta is merely a new +sensation--that's all he seems to live for, the delectable scoundrel. +But I am not going to have her heart broken by any cinquecento wolf in +Poole's clothing. I assume that Carlotta has a heart, even if she is not +possessed of a soul. As to the latter I am still in doubt. At all events +I resolved to withdraw Carlotta from his influence, put her in fresh +surroundings, and allow her to mix more freely among men and women, so +as to divert and possibly improve her mind. + +I perceive that Carlotta is becoming an occupation. Well, she is +quite as profitable as collecting postage-stamps, or golf, or amateur +photography. + +I have spent a pleasant month in this little place. It is the mouth of +a gorge in the midst of a cliff-bound coast. The bay, but a quarter of a +mile in sweep, is shut in at each end by a projecting wall of cliff cut +by a natural arch. Half the shingle beach is given up to fisherfolk and +their boats and tarred Noah's arks where they keep their nets. The +other half suddenly rises into a digue or terrace on which is built a +primitive casino, and below the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are +staying at the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There +are no carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, +an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and +scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one's passage. +Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the main building. I +inhabit the annexe, sleeping in a quaint, clean, bare little chamber +with a balconied window that looks over the Noah's Arks and the +fishing-smacks and fisherfolk, away out to sea. This morning as I lay in +bed I saw our Channel fleet lie along the arc of the horizon. + +Antoinette dwells in continuous rapture at being in France again. +Carlotta assures me that the smile does not leave her great red face +even as she sleeps of nights. It is a little jest between us. She +peeped in once to see. The good soul has filled herself up with French +conversation as a starving hen gorges herself with corn. She has scraped +acquaintance with every washerwoman, fish-wife, _marchande_, bathing +woman and domestic servant on the beach. She is on intimate terms with +the whole male native population. When the three of us happen to walk +together it is a triumphal progress of bows and grins and nods. At +first I thought it was I for whom this homage was intended. I was soon +undeceived. It was Antoinette. She loves to parade Carlotta before +her friends. I came upon her once entertaining an admiring audience in +Carlotta's presence with a detailed description of that young woman's +physical perfections--a description which was marked by a singular +lack of reticence. The time of her glory is the bathing hour, when she +accompanies Carlotta from her cabin to the water's edge, divests her of +_peignoir_ and _espadrilles_, but before revealing her to fashionable +Etretat, casts a preliminary glance around, as who should say: "Prepare +all men and women for the dazzling goddess I am about to unveil." +Carlotta is undoubtedly bewitching in her bathing costume, and enjoys a +little triumph of beauty. People fall into a natural group in order to +look at her, while I, sitting on a camp-stool in my white ducks and +pink shirt and smoking a cigarette, cannot repress a complacent pride +of ownership. I do not object to her flicking her wet fingers at me when +she comes dripping out of the sea; and I do not even reproach her when +she puts her foot upon my sartorially immaculate knee, to show me a +pebble-cut on her glistening pink sole. + +Her conduct has been exemplary. I have allowed her to make the +acquaintance of two or three young fellows, her partners at the Casino +dances, and she walks up and down the terrace with them before meals. I +have forbidden her, under penalty of immediate return to London and +of my eternal displeasure, to mention the harem at Alexandretta. Young +fellows are gifted with a genius for misapprehension. She is an ordinary +young English lady, an orphan (which is true), and I am her guardian. +Of course she looks at them with imploring eyes, and pulls them by the +sleeve, and handles the lappels of their coats, and admits them to terms +of the frankest intimacy; but I can no more change these characteristics +than I can alter the shape of her body. She is the born coquette. Her +delighted conception of herself is that she is the object of every man's +admiration. I noticed her this morning playing a tune with her fingers +on the old bathing-man's arm, as he was preparing to take her into the +water, and I saw his mahogany face soften. In her indescribable childish +way she would coquet with a tax-collector or a rag-and-bone man or the +Archbishop of Canterbury. But she has committed no grave indiscretion, +and I am sufficiently her lord and master to exact obedience. + +I pretend, however, to be at her beck and call, and it is a delight to +minister to her radiant happiness--to feel her lean on my arm and hear +her cooing voice say: + +"You are so good. I should like to kiss you." + +But I do not allow her to kiss me. Never again. + + +"Seer Marcous, let us go to the little horses." + +She has a consuming passion for _petits chevaux_. I speak sagely of the +evils of gambling. She laughs. I weakly take lower ground. + +"What is the good? You have no money." + +"Oh-h! But only two francs," she says, holding out her hand. + +"Not one. Yesterday you lost." + +"But to-day I shall win. I want to give you something I saw in a shop. +Oh, a beautiful thing." Then I feel a hand steal into the pocket of my +dinner jacket where I carry loose silver for this very purpose, just +as a lover of horses carries lumps of sugar for the nose of a favourite +pony, and immediately it is withdrawn with a cry of joy and triumph, and +she skips back out of my reach. Then she takes my arm and leads me from +the sweet night-air into the hot little room with its crowd around the +nine gyrating animals. + +"I shall put it on 5. I always put on 5. He is a nice, clean, white, +pretty horse." + +She stakes two francs, watches the turn in a tense agony of excitement; +she wins, comes running to me with sixteen francs clutched tight in her +hand. + +"See. I said I should win." + +"Come away then and be happy." + +But she makes a protesting grimace, and before I can stop her, runs back +to stake again on 5. In twenty minutes she is ruined and returns to me +wearing an expression of abject misery. She is too desolate even to try +the fortune of the dinner-jacket pocket. I take her outside and restore +her to beatitude with grenadine syrup and soda-water. She rejects the +straws. With her elbows on the marble table, the glass held in both +hands, she drinks sensuously, in little sips. + +And I, Marcus Ordeyne, sit by watching her, a most contented philosopher +of forty. A dingo dog could not be so contented. That young fellow, I +unhesitatingly assert, must be the most brainless of his type. I suffer +fools gladly, as a general rule, but if I see much of this one I shall +do him some injury. + + +After dejeuner we strolled to the top of the west cliff and lay on the +thick dry grass. The earth has never known a more perfect afternoon. A +day of turquoise and diamond. + +The air itself was diaphanous blue. Below us the tiny place slumbered in +the sunshine; scarcely a sign of life save specks of washer-women on the +beach bending over white patches which we knew were linen spread out to +dry. The ebb-tide lapped lazily on the shingle, where the sea changed +suddenly from ultramarine to a fringe of feathery white. A white sail +or two flecked the blue of the bay. A few white wisps of cirrus gleamed +above our heads. Around us, on the cliff-tops, the green pastures and +meadows and, farther inland, the cornfields stacked in harvest, and +great masses of trees. Lying on our backs, between sea and sky, we +seemed utterly alone. Carlotta and I were the sole inhabitants of the +earth. I dreamily disintegrated caramels from their sticky tissue-paper +wrappings for Carlotta's consumption. + +After a while unconquerable drowsiness crept over me; and a little +later I had an odd sense of perfect quietude. I was lying amid moss and +violets. In a languorous way I wondered how my surroundings had changed, +and at last I awoke to find my head propped on Carlotta's lap and +shaded by her red parasol, while she sat happy in full sunshine. I was +springing from this posture of impropriety when she laughed and laid +restraining hands on my shoulders. + +"No. You must not move. You look so pretty. And it is so nice. I put +your head there so that it should be soft. You have been sound asleep." + +"I have also been abominably impolite," said I. "I humbly beg your +pardon, Carlotta." + +"Oh, I am not cross," she laughed. Then still keeping her hands on me, +she settled her limbs into a more comfortable position. + +"There! Now I can play at being a good little Turkish wife." She +fashioned into a fan the _Matin_ newspaper, which I had bought for the +luxurious purpose of not reading, and fanned me. "That is what Ayesha +used to do to Hamdi. And Ayesha used to tell him stories. But my lord +does not like his slave's stories." + +"Decidedly not," said I. + +I have heard much of Ayesha, a pretty animal organism who appears to +have turned her elderly husband into a doting fool. I am beginning to +have a contempt for Hamdi Effendi. + +"They are what you call improper, eh?" she laughed, referring to the +tales. "I will sing you a Turkish song which you will not understand." + +"Is it a suitable song?" + +"Kim bilir--who knows?" said Carlotta. + +She began a melancholy, crooning, guttural ditty; but broke off +suddenly. + +"Oh! but it is stupid. Like the Turkish dancing. Oh, everything +in Alexandretta was stupid! Sometimes I think I have never seen +Alexandretta--or Ayesha--or Hamdi. I think I always am with you." + +This must be so, as of late she has spoken little of her harem life; she +talks chiefly of the small daily happenings, and already we have a store +of common interests. The present is her whole existence; the past but +a confused dream. The odd part of the matter is that she regards her +position with me as a perfectly natural one. No stray kitten adopted by +a kind family could have less sense of obligation, or a greater faith +in the serene ordering of the cosmos for its own private and peculiar +comfort. When I asked her a while ago what she would have done had +I left her on the bench in the Embankment Gardens, she shrugged her +shoulders and answered, as she had done before, that either she would +have died or some other nice gentleman would have taken care of her. + +"Do you think nice gentlemen go about London looking for homeless little +girls?" I asked on that occasion. + +"All gentlemen like beautiful girls," she replied, which brought us to +an old argument. + +This afternoon, however, we did not argue. The day forbade it. I lay +with my head on Carlotta's lap, looking up into the deep blue, and +feeling a most curious sensation of positive happiness. My attitude +towards life has hitherto been negative. I have avoided more than I have +sought. I have not drunk deep of life because I have been unathirst. To +me-- + + "To stand aloof and view the fight + Is all the pleasure of the game." + +My interest even in Judith has been of a detached nature. I have been +like Faust. I might have said: + + _"Werd' ich zum Augenblicke sagen + Werweile doch! Du bist so schon!_ + +Then may the devil take me and do what he likes with me!" + +I have never had the least inclination to apostrophise the moment in +this fashion and request it to tarry on account of its exceeding charm. +Never until this afternoon, when the deep summer enchantment of the +turquoise day was itself ensorcelised by the witchery of a girl's +springtide. + +"You have three, four, five--oh, such a lot of grey hairs," said +Carlotta, looking down on my reclining head. + +"Many people have grey hair at twenty," said I. + +"But I have none." + +"You are not yet twenty, Carlotta." + +"Do you think I will have them then? Oh, it would be dreadful. No one +would care to have me." + +"And I? Am I thus the object of every one's disregard?" + +"Oh, you--you are a man. It is right for a man. It makes him look wise. +His wife says, 'Behold, my husband has grey hair. He has wisdom. If I am +not good he will beat me. So I must obey him."' + +"She wouldn't run off with a good-for-nothing scamp of two-and-twenty?" + +"Oh, no-o," said Carlotta. "She would not be so wicked." + +"I am glad," said I, "that you think a sense of conjugal duty is an +ineradicable element of female nature. But suppose she fell in love with +the young scamp?" + +"Men fall in love," she replied sagely. "Women only fall in love in +stories--Turkish stories. They love their husbands." + +"You amaze me," said I. + +"Ye-es," said Carlotta. + +"But in England, a man wants a woman to love him before he marries her." + +"How can she?" asked Carlotta. + +This was a staggering question. + +"I don't know," said I, "but she dus." + +"Then before I marry a man in England I must love him? But I shall die +without a husband!" + +"I don't think so," said I. + +"I must begin soon," said Carlotta, with a laugh. + +A sinuous motion of her serpentine young body enabled her to bend her +face down to mine. + +"Shall I love Seer Marcous? But how shall I know when I am in love?" + +"When you appreciate the exceeding impropriety of discussing the matter +with your humble servant," I replied. + +"When a girl is in love she does not speak about it?" + +"No, my dear. She lets concealment like a worm i' the bud feed on her +damask cheek." + +"Then she gets ugly?" + +"That's it," I answered. "You keep on looking in the glass, and when you +perceive you are hideous then you'll know you are in love." + +"But when I am so ugly you will not want me," she objected. "So it is no +use falling in love with you." + +"You have a more logical mind than I imagined," said I. + +"What is a logical mind?" asked Carlotta. + +"It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unreason whereby +true happiness is vivified." + +"I do not understand," she said. + +"I should be vastly surprised if you did," I laughed. + +"Would you like me to marry and go away and leave you?" asked Carlotta, +after a long pause. + +"I suppose," I said with a sigh, "that some tin-pot knight will drive +up one of these days to the castle in a hansom-cab and carry off my +princess." + +"Then you'll be sorry?" + +"My dear," I answered, "do not let us discuss such gruesome things on an +afternoon like this." + +"You would like better for me to go on playing at being your Turkish +wife?" + +"Infinitely," said I. + + +Alas! The day is sped. I have asked the fleeting moment to tarry, and it +laughed, and shook its gossamer wings at me, and flew by on its mad race +into eternity. + + +As we lay, a cicada set up its shrilling quite close to us. I slipped my +head from Carlotta's lap and idly parted the rank grass in search of the +noisy intruder, and by good luck I found him. I beckoned Carlotta, who +glided down, and there, with our heads together and holding our breath, +we watched the queerest little love drama imaginable. Our cicada stood +alert and spruce, waving his antenna with a sort of cavalier swagger, +and every now and then making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the +top of a blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet--a most reserved, +discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo's +serenade. When he sang she put her head to one side and moved as if +uncertain whether to descend from her balcony. When he stopped, which +he did at frequent intervals, being as it were timorous and tongue-tied, +she took her foot from the ladder and waited, at first patiently and +then with an obvious air of boredom. Messer Romeo made a hop forward and +vibrated; Juliet grew tremulous. Alarmed at his boldness he halted and +made a hop back; Juliet looked disappointed. At last another cicada set +up a louder note some yards away and, without a nod or a sign, Juliet +skipped off into space, leaving the most disconsolate little Romeo of +a grasshopper you ever beheld. He gave vent to a dismal failure of a +vibration and hopped to the foot of the faithless lady's bower. + +Carlotta broke into a merry laugh and clapped her hands. + +"I am so glad." + +"She is the most graceless hussy imaginable," I cried. "There was he +grinding his heart out for her, and just because a more brazen-throated +scoundrel came upon the scene she must needs leave our poor friend in +the lurch. She has no more heart than my boot, and she will come to a +bad end." + +"But he was such a fool," retorted my sage damsel, with a flash of +laughter in her dark eyes. "If he wanted her, why didn't he go up and +take her?" + +"Because he is a gentleman, a cicada of fine and delicate feeling." + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta. "He was a fool. It served him right. She grew +tired of waiting." + +"You believe, then," said I, "in marriage by capture?" + +I explained and discoursed to her of the matrimonial habits of the +Tartar tribes. + +"Yes," said Carlotta. "That is sense. And it must be such fun for the +girl. All that, what you call it?--wooing?--is waste of time. I like +things to happen, quick, quick, one after the other--or else--" + +"Or else what?" + +"To do nothing, nothing but lie in the sun, like this afternoon." + +"Yes," said I dreamily, after I had again thrown myself by her side. +"Like this afternoon." + + +I sit at my window and look out upon the strip of beach, the hauled-up +fishing boats and the nets hung out to dry looming vague in the +starlight, and I hear the surf's rhythmical moan a few yards beyond; +and it beats into my ears the idiot phrase that has recurred all the +evening. + +But why should I be mad? For filling my soul with God's utmost glory of +earth and sea and sky? For filling my heart with purest pleasure in +the intimate companionship of fresh and fragrant maidenhood? For giving +myself up for once to a dream of sense clouded by never a thought that +was not serenely fair? + +For feeling young again? + + +I shall read myself to sleep with _La Dame de Monsoreau_, which I have +procured from the circulating library in the Rue Alphonse Karr--(the +literary horticulturist is the genius loci and the godfather of my +landlady)--and I will empty flagons with Pere Gorenflot and ride on +errands of life and death with Chicot, prince of jesters, and walk +lovingly between the valiant Bussy and Henri Quatre. By this, if by +nothing else, I recognise the beneficence of the high gods--they have +given us tired men Dumas. + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +September 30th. + +Something is wrong with Antoinette. The dinner she served up this +evening was all but uneatable. Something is wrong with Stenson, who has +taken to playing his lugubrious hymn-tunes on the concertina while I +am in the house; I won't have it. Something is wrong with the cat. He +wanders round the house like a lost soul, sniffing at everything. This +evening he actually jumped onto the dinner-table, looked at me out of +his one eye, in which all the desolation of two was concentrated, and +miaowed heart-rendingly in my face. Something is wrong with the house, +with my pens which will not write, with my books which have the air of +dry bones in a charnel-house, with the MS. of my History of Renaissance +Morals, which stands on the writing-table like a dusty monument to the +futility of human endeavour. Something is wrong with me. + +Something, too, is wrong with Judith, who has just returned from her +stay with the Willoughbys. I have been to see her this evening and found +her of uncertain temper, and inclined to be contradictious. She accused +me of being dull. I answered that the autumn world outside was drenched +with miserable rain. How could man be sprightly under such conditions? + +"In this room," said Judith, "with its bright fire and drawn curtains +there is no miserable rain, and no autumn save in our hearts." + +"Why in our hearts?" I asked. + +"How you peg one down to precision," said Judith, testily. "I wish I +were a Roman Catholic." + +"Why?" + +"I could go into a convent." + +"You had much better go to Delphine Carrere," said I. + +"I have only been back a day, and you want to get rid of me already?" +she cried, using her woman's swift logic of unreason. + +"I want you to be happy and contented, my dear Judith." + +"H'm," she said. + +Her slipper dangling as usual from the tip of her foot fell to the +ground. I declare I was only half conscious of the accident as my mind +was deep in other things. + +"You don't even pick up my slipper," she said. + +"Ten thousand pardons," I exclaimed, springing forward. But she had +anticipated my intention. We remained staring into the fire and saying +nothing. As she professed to be tired I went away early. + +At the front door of the mansions, finding I had left my umbrella +behind, I remounted the stairs, and rang Judith's bell. After a while +I saw her figure through the ground-glass panel approach the door, but +before she opened it, she turned out the light in the passage. + +"Marcus!" she cried, rather excitedly; and in the dimness of the +threshold her eyes looked strangely accusative of tears. "You have come +back!" + +"Yes," said I, "for my umbrella." + +She looked at me for a moment, laughed, clapped her hands to her throat, +turned away sharply, caught up my umbrella, and putting it into my hands +and thrusting me back shut the door in my face. In great astonishment I +went downstairs again. What is wrong with Judith? She said this evening +that all men are cruel. Now, I am a man. Therefore I am cruel. A perfect +syllogism. But how have I been cruel? + +I walked home. There is nothing so consoling to the depressed man as the +unmitigated misery of a walk through the London rain. One is not +mocked by any factitious gaiety. The mind is in harmony with the sodden +universe. It is well to have everything in the world wrong at one and +the same time. + + +I have changed my drenched garments for dressing-gown and slippers. I +find on my writing-table a letter addressed in a round childish hand. +It is from Carlotta, who for the last fortnight has been staying in +Cornwall with the McMurrays. I have known few fortnights so long. In +a ridiculous schoolboy way I have been counting the days to her +return--the day after to-morrow. + +The letter begins: "Seer Marcous dear." The spelling is a little jest +between us. The inversion is a quaint invention of her own. "Mrs. +McMurray says, can you spare me for one more week? She wants to teach me +manners. She says I have shocked the top priest here--oh, you call him +a vikker--now I do remember--because I went out for a walk with a little +young pretty priest without a hat, and because it rained I put on his +hat and the vikker met us. But I did not flirt with the little priest. +Oh, no! I told him he must not make love to me like the young man from +the grocer's. And I told him that if he wrote poetry you would beat him. +So I have been very good. And darling Seer Marcous, I want to come back +very much, but Mrs. McMurray says I must stay, and she is going to have +a baby and I am very happy and good, and Mr. McMurray says funny things +and makes me laugh. But I love my darling Seer Marcous best. Give +Antoinette and Polifemus (the one-eyed cat) two very nice kisses for me. +And here is one for Seer Marcous from his + +"CARLOTTA." + + +How can I refuse? But I wish she were here. + + +31st October. + +I did not sleep last night. I have done no work to-day. The Renaissance +has receded into a Glacial Epoch wherein, as far as its humanity is +concerned, I have not a tittle of interest. I sought refuge in the +club. Why should an old sober University club be such a haven of unrest? +Ponting, an opinionated don of Corpus, seated himself at my luncheon +table, and discoursed on political economy and golf. I manifested a +polite ignorance of these high matters. He assured me that if I studied +the one and played at the other, I should be physically and mentally +more robust; whereupon he thumped his narrow chest, and put on a scowl +of intellectuality. I fear that Ponting, like most of the men here, +studies golf and plays at political economy. In serener moments I suffer +Ponting gladly. But to-day his boast that he had done the course at +Westward Ho! in seven, or seventeen, or seventy--how on earth should +I remember?--left me cold, and his crude economics interfered with my +digestion. + +Strolling forlornly down Piccadilly I, came face to face with my +sad-coloured Cousin Rosalie in a sad-coloured gown. She gave me a hasty +nod and would have passed on, but I arrested her. Her white face was +turned piteously upward and from her expressionless eyes flashed a +glance of fear. I felt myself in a brutal mood. + +"Why," I asked, "are you avoiding me as if I were a pestilence?" + +She murmured that she was not avoiding me, but was in a hurry. + +"I don't believe it," said I. "People have been telling you that I am +a vile, wicked man who does unspeakable things, and like a good little +girl you are afraid to talk to me. Tell people, the next time you see +them, with my compliments, that they are malevolent geese." + +I lifted my hat and relieving Rosalie of my terrifying presence, walked +away in dudgeon. I felt abominably and unreasonably angry. I bethought +me of my Aunt Jessica, whom I held responsible for her niece's +behaviour. A militant mood prompted a call. After twenty minutes in +a hansom I found myself in her drawing-room. She was alone, the girls +being away on country-house visits. Her reception was glacial. I +expressed the hope that the yachting cruise had been a pleasant one. + +"Exceedingly pleasant," snapped my aunt. + +"I trust Dora is well," said I, keeping from my lips a smile that might +have hinted at the broken heart. + +"Very well, thank you." + +As I do not enjoy a staccato conversation, I remained politely silent, +inviting her by my attitude to speak. + +"I rather wonder, Marcus," she said at last, "at your referring to +Dora." + +"Indeed? May I ask why?" + +"May I speak plainly?" + +"I beseech you." + +"I have heard of you at Etretat with your ward." + +"Well?" I asked. + +"_Verbum sap_," said my aunt. + +"And you have let Mrs. Ralph and Rosalie know of my summer holiday +and given them to understand that I am a monster of depravity. I am +exceedingly obliged to you. I have just met Rosalie in the street, and +she shrank from me as if I were the reincarnation of original sin." + +"I have no doubt that in her innocent mind you are," replied my Aunt +Jessica. + +The indulgent smile wherewith she used to humour my eccentricities had +gone, and her face was hard and unpitying. + +"I am glad I have such charitable-minded relations," said I. + +"I am a woman of the world," my aunt retorted, "but I think that when +such things are flaunted in the face of society they become immoral." + +I rose. "Do evil by stealth--as much as you like," said I, "but blush to +find it fame." + +With a gesture my aunt assented to the proposition. + +"On the other hand," said I, heatedly, "I have been doing a certain +amount of good both by stealth and openly, and I naturally blush with +indignation to find it accounted infamous." + +I looked narrowly into my aunt's eyes and I read in them entire +disbelief in my protest. I swear, if I had proved my innocence beyond +the shadow of doubt, that woman would have been grievously disappointed. + +"Good-bye," said I. + +She shook hands frigidly and turned to ring the bell. A moment later--I +really believe she was moved by a kindly impulse--she intercepted me at +the door. + +"I know you are odd and quixotic, Marcus," she said in a softer tone. "I +hope you will do nothing rash." + +"What do you mean?" I asked in a white heat of unreasonable rage. + +"I hope you won't try to repair things by marrying this--young person." + +"To make an honest woman of her, do you mean?" I asked grimly. + +"Yes," said my aunt. + +Then suddenly the Devil leaped into me and stirred all the elements of +unrest, anger, and longing together in a cauldron which I suppose was my +heart. The result was explosion. I made a step forward with raised hands +and my aunt recoiled in alarm. + +"By heaven!" I cried, "I would give the soul out of my body to marry +her!" + +And I stumbled out of the house like a blind man. + + +From that moment of dazzling revelation till now I have nursed this +infinite desire. To say that I love Carlotta is to express Niagara in +terms of a fountain. I crave her with everything vital in heart and +brain. She is an obsession. The scent of her hair is in my nostrils, +the cooing dove-notes of her voice murmur in my ears, I shut my eyes +and feel the rose-petals of her lips on my cheek, the witchery of her +movements dances before my eyes. + +I cannot live without her. Until to-day the house was desolate enough--a +ghostly shell of a habitation. Henceforward, without her my very life +will be void. My heart has been crying for her these two weeks and I +knew it not. Now I know. I could stand on my balcony and lift up my +hands toward the south where she abides, and lift up my voice, and cry +for her passionately aloud. There is no infernal foolishness in the +world that I could not commit tonight. The maddest dingo dog, if he +could appreciate my state of being, would learn points in insanity. + + +It is two o'clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves Epictetus, +who might be expected to throw cold water on the most burning fever +of the mind. I have not read far before I come across this consolatory +apophthegm: "The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a +beginner in philosophy." He is mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I +throw his book across the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner +in philosophy. No armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail +against Carlotta. I have no strength to smite. I am helpless. + +But by heaven! Am I mad? Is not this on the contrary the sanest hour +of my existence? I have lived like an automaton for forty years, and +I suddenly awake to find myself a man. I don't care whether I sleep or +not. I feel gloriously, exultingly young. I am but twenty. As I have +never lived, I have never grown old. Life translates itself into +music--a wild "Invitation to the Waltz" by some Archangel Weber. I laugh +out loud. Polyphemus, who has been regarding me with his one bantering +eye from Carlotta's corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and +grotesquely curvets round the room in a series of impish hops. Heigh, +old boy? Do the pulsations of the music throb in your veins, too? Come +along and let us make a night of it. To the Devil with sleep. We'll go +together down to the cellar and find a bottle of Pommery, and we will +drink to Life and Youth and Love and the Splendour and the Joy thereof. + +He utters a little cry of delight and frisks around me. In the blackness +of the cellar his one eye gleams like a star and he purrs unutterable +rapture. My hand passed over his back produces a shower of sparks. +We return up the silent stairs, I carry a bottle of Pommery and a +milkjug--for you shall revel, too, Polyphemus; and as I have forgotten +to bring a saucer, you shall drink, as no cat has drunk before, from +an old precious platter bearing the arms of the Estes of Ferrara--over +which Lucrezia Borgia laughed when the world was young. It is a pity +cats don't drink champagne. I would have made you to-night as drunk as +Bacchus. We drink, and in the stillness the glouglou of his tongue forms +a bass to the elfin notes of the Pommery in the soda-water tumbler. + +Ha! Twin purveyors of the milk of paradise, I wonder like Omar what +you buy one-half so precious as the stuff you sell. Motor-cars for Mrs. +Pommery and cakes for the little Grenos? I do not like to regard you as +common humans addicted to silk hats and umbrellas and the other vices of +respectability. Ye are rather beneficent demigods, Castor and Pollux of +the vine, dream entities who pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the +liquid gold of life's joyousness. + +A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would bring her here +tomorrow night. But no. What is a week? Leaden-footed, it is an +eternity; but winged with the dove's iris it is a mere moment. Besides, +I must accustom myself to my youth. I must investigate its follies, +I must learn the grammar of its wisdom. We'll take counsel together, +Polyphemus, how to turn these chambers, fusty with decayed thought, into +a bridal bower radiant and fragrant with innumerable loves. Let us drink +again to her witchery. It is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly +Twins that foams against my lips. I would give the soul out of my body +to marry her, did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would +pledge the soul of the universe for a kiss. + +I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He +continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid +over his cups--which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be +shaken into enthusiasm. + +"I care not," I cry, "for man or devil, Polyphemus. + + _'Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu + Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!'_ + +You may say that it's wrong, that the first line is a syllable short, +and that Triboulet said _'colere'_ instead of _amour_. You always were +a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say _amour_-love, do you hear? I'll +translate, if you like: + + 'Now am I mighty, and my love of fire + To-night goes even with a god's desire.' + +Yes; I'll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your hind +claws, Polyphemus." + +There! Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle. The wine smells +of hyacinth. It is a revelation. Her hair smells of violets, but it is +the delicate odour of hyacinth that came from her bare young arms +when she clasped them round my neck; _et sa peau, on dirait du satin_. +Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery and her laughter and +her youth, and I drink Carlotta. + + _"Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?"_ + +To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I +visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of my glass into his +distended jaws. He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in +my chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter. + + +October 2d. + +I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened at six +o'clock and crept shivering to bed. I realise that Pommery and Greno +are not demi-gods at all, but mere commercial purveyors of a form of +alcohol, a quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed +tom-cat as boon companion, at two o'clock in the morning: + +But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night, so much the +better. I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when the inevitable +is the crown and joy of earthly things. For in sober truth I love her +infinitely. + + +October 6th. + +She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been devising a welcome. +The good soul has filled the house with flowers, and, usurping Stenson's +functions, has polished furniture and book backs and silver and has hung +fresh blinds and scrubbed and scoured until I am afraid to walk about +or sit down lest I should tarnish the spotless brightness of my +surroundings. + +"You have forgotten one thing, Antoinette," I remarked, satirically. +"You have omitted to strew the front steps with rose-leaves." + +"I would cover them with my body for the dear angel to walk upon as she +entered," said Antoinette. + +"That would scarcely be rose-leaves," I murmured. + +Antoinette laughed. "And Monsieur then! He is just as bad. Has he not +put new curtains in the room of Mademoiselle, and a new toilette table, +and a set of silver brushes and combs and I know not what, as for the +toilette of a princess? And the eiderdown in pink satin? _Regardez-moi +ca!_ Monsieur can no longer say that it is I alone who spoil the dear +angel." + +"Monsieur," said I, at a loss for a better retort, "will say whatever +Monsieur pleases." + +"It is indeed the right of Monsieur," said Antoinette, respectfully, but +with a twinkle in her eye not devoid of significance. + +Does the crafty old woman suspect? Perhaps my preparations for +Carlotta's return have been inordinate, for they have extended to the +transformation of the sitting-room downstairs into a lady's boudoir. +I have been busy this happy week. But what care I? It will not be +long before I have to say to her, "Antoinette, there is going to be a +wedding." + +I must be on my guard lest, in the transports of her joy, she clasp me +to her capacious bosom! + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +October 7th. + +At Paddington I came upon Sebastian Pasquale lounging about the arrival +platform. As I had not seen or heard of him since the end of July I had +concluded that he was wandering as usual over the globe. He greeted me +effusively, holding out both hands in his foreign fashion. + +"My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of meeting you here? What +wind blows you to Paddington?" + +"I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express." + +"The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is she doing at Plymouth?" + +In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his watch. + +"By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch my train to Ealing. +I was just killing time about the station. I like seeing a train +come in--the gleam and smoke and rush and whirr of the evil-looking +thing--and the sudden metamorphosis of its sleek sides into mouths +belching forth humanity. I think of Hades. This, by the way, isn't a bad +representation of it--the up-to-date Hades. They've got a railway bridge +now across the Styx, and Charon has a gold band around his cap, and this +might be the arrival platform of the damned souls." + +"You forget," said I, "that it is the arrival platform of Carlotta." + +He threw back his head and laughed boyishly. + +"Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the 'Earth, Hades +and Olympus Railway' if you like. I'm off on a branch line to meet a +beauteous duchessa at Ealing--oh, an authentic one, I assure you." + +"Why should I doubt it?" said I. + +Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta's luggage, came up +and touched his hat. + +"Train just signalled, sir." + +Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his watch. + +"I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one. I'll drop in soon +and pay my respects. I am only just back in London, you know. _A +rivederci._" + +He waved me farewell and hurried off. The arrival of the train, the +exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her sidle up against me once +more in the cab while she poured out her story, and the subsequent +gaiety of the evening banished Pasquale from my mind. But it is odd that +I should have met him at Paddington. + +We parted on the landing to dress for dinner. A moment afterwards there +was a beating at my door. I opened it to behold Carlotta, in a glow of +wondering delight, brandishing a silver-backed brush in one hand and the +hand-mirror in the other. + +"Oh, my darling Seer Marcous! For me? All that for me?" + +"No. It is for Antoinette," said I. + +"Oh-h!" + +She laughed and pulled me by the arm into her room and shut the door. + +"Oh, everything is beautiful, beautiful, and I shall die if I do not +kiss you." + +"You must be kept alive at all hazards," I laughed; and this time I did +not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An +inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a +passionate desire to gentleness. + +"There," said I, after she had released herself and flown to open the +drawers of the new toilette table, where lay some odds and ends of +jewelry I had purchased for her. "You have been saved from extinction. +The next deadly peril is hunger. I give you a quarter of an hour." + +She came down to dinner in a low-necked frock, wearing the necklace +and bangle; and, child that she is, in her hand she carried the +silver-backed mirror. I believe she has taken it to bed with her, as +a seven-year-old does its toy. She certainly kept it by her all the +evening and admired herself therein unashamedly like the traditional +Lady from the Sea. Once, desiring to show me the ravishing beauty of a +turquoise pendant, she bent her neck forward, as I sat, so as to come +within reach of my nearsighted eyes (it is a superstition of hers that +I am nearly blind without my glasses), and quite naturally slid onto +my knee. She has the warm russet complexion that suits her heavy bronze +hair, and there is a glow beneath the satin of her neck and arms. And +she is fragrant--I recognise it now--of hyacinths. The world can hold +nothing more alluring to the senses of man. My fingers that held +the turquoise trembled as they chanced to touch her--but she was all +unconcerned. Nay, further--she gazed into the mirror-- + +"It makes me look so white--oh, there was a girl at Bude who had a gold +locket--and it lay upon her bones--you could count them. I am glad I +have no bones. I am quite soft--feel." + +She clasped my fingers and pressed their tips into the firm young flesh +below her throat. + +"Yes," said I, with some huskiness in my voice, "your turquoise can +sleep there very pleasantly. See, I will kiss it to bring you good +luck." + +She cooed with pleasure. "I don't think any one kissed the locket of the +girl at Bude. She was too thin. And too old; she must have been thirty! +Now," she added, lifting up the locket, "you will kiss the place, too, +where it is to lie." + +I looked for a moment into her eyes. Seeing me hesitate, they grew +pathetic. + +"Oh-h," she said, reproachfully. + +I know I am a fool. I know that Pasquale would have hurled his sarcasms +at me. I know that the whole of her deliciousness was mine for the +taking--mine for ever and ever. If I had loved her less passionately +I would have kissed her young throat lightly with a jest. But to have +kissed her thus with such longing as mine behind my lips would have been +an outrage. + +I lifted her to her feet, and rose and turned away, laughing unsteadily. + +"No, my dear," said I, "that would be--unsuitable." + +The bathos of the word made me laugh louder. Carlotta, aware that a joke +was in the air, joined in my mirth, and her laughter rang fresh. + +"What is the suitable way of kissing?" + +I took her hand and saluted it in an eighteenth century manner. + +"This," said I. + +"Oh-h," said Carlotta. "That is so dull." She caught up Polyphemus and +buried her face in his fur. "That's the way I should like to be kissed." + +"The man you love, my dear," said I, "will doubtless do it." + +She made a little grimace. + +"Oh, then, I shall have to wait such a long time." + +"You needn't," said I, taking her hands again and speaking very +seriously. "Can't you learn to love a man, give him your whole heart and +all your best and sweetest thoughts?" + +"I would marry any nice man if you gave me to him," she answered. + +"It would not matter who he was? Anyone would do?" + +"Why, of course," said Carlotta. + +"And any one wanting to marry you could kiss you as you kissed +Polyphemus." + +"Oh-h, he would have to be nice--not like Mustapha." + +I turned away with a sigh and lit a cigarette, while Carlotta curled +herself up on the sofa and inspected her face and necklace in the silver +mirror. In a moment she was talking to the cat, who had jumped on her +lap and with arched back was rubbing himself against her. + +Soon the touch of sadness was lost in the happy sight of her and the +happy thought that my house was no longer left to me desolate. We +laughed away the evening. + +But now, sitting alone, I feel empty of soul; like a man stricken with +fierce hunger who, expecting food in a certain place, finds nothing but +a few delicate cakes that mock his craving. + + +October 14th. + +A week has passed. I have spent it chiefly in trying to win her love. + +Is she, after all, only a child, and is this love of mine but a +monstrous passion? + +What is to be done? Life is beginning to be a torture. If I send her +away, I shall eat my heart out. If she stays, fuel is but added to +the fire. Her caressing ways will drive me mad. To repulse her were +brutal--she loves to be fondled; she can scarcely speak to me without +touching me, leaning over me, thus filling me with the sense of her. She +treats me with an affectionate child's innocence, as if I were sexless. +My happiest time with her is spent in public places, restaurants, and +theatres where her unclouded pleasure is reflected in my heart. + +I am letting her take music lessons with Herr Stuer, who lives close by +in the Avenue Road. Perhaps music may help in her development. + + +October 21st. + +To please her I am accustoming myself to this out-of-door life, which +once I despised so cordially. Pasquale has joined us two or three times. +Last night he gave a dinner in Carlotta's honour at the Continental. The +ladies of the party have asked her to go to see them. She must have +some society, I suppose, and I must go with her. They belong to the +half smart set, eager to conceal beneath a show of raffishness +their plentiful lack of intellect and their fundamental bourgeois +respectability. In spite of Pasquale's brilliance and Carlotta's +rapturous enjoyment I sat mumchance and depressed, out of my element. + +My work is at a standstill, and Carlotta is my life. I fear I am +deteriorating. + +On Judith, whom I have seen once or twice since Carlotta's return, I +called this afternoon. She is unhappy. Although I have not confessed to +my thraldom, her woman's wit, I feel sure, has penetrated to the heart +of my mystery. There has been no deep emotion in our intercourse. +Its foundation has been real friendship sweetened with pleasant +sentimentality. And yet jealousy of Carlotta consumes her. Her _amour +propre_ is deeply wounded. She makes me feel as if I had played the part +of a brute. But O Judith, my dear, I have only been a man. "The same +thing," I fancy I hear her answer. But no. I have never loved a woman, +my dear, in all my life before, and as I made no secret of it, I am +guiltless of anything like betrayal. In due season I will tell you +frankly of the new love; but how can I tell you now? How could I tell +any human being? + +I imagine myself as Panurge, taking counsel with a Pantagruelian friend. +"I am in love with Carlotta and desire to marry her." "Then marry her," +says Pantagruel. "But she does not love me." "Then don't marry," says +Pantagruel. "But nay," urges poor Panurge, "she would marry me according +to any rite, civil or ecclesiastical, to-morrow." _"Mariez-vous doncques +de par dieu,"_ replies Pantagruel. "But I should be a villain to take +advantage of her innocence and submission." "Then don't marry." "But +I can't live without her," says Panurge, desperately. "I am as a man +bewitched. If I don't marry her I shall waste away with longing." "Then +marry her in God's name!" says Pantagruel. And I am no wiser by his +counsel, and I have paraded the complication of my folly before mocking +eyes. + + +October 23d. + +I perceive that the young man of the idiot metaphor was gifted with +piercing acumen. Beneath the Jaquesian melancholy of my temperament he +diagnosed the potentiality of canine rabidness. No rational being is +afflicted with this grotesque concentration of idea, this fierce hot +fury waxing in intensity day by day. + +I must consult a brain specialist. + + +October 25th. + +I went to Judith this afternoon, more to prove the loyalty of my +friendship than to seek comfort from her society. Over tea we discussed +the weather and books and her statistical work. It was dull, but +unembarrassing. The grey twilight crept into the room and there was a +pause in our talk. She broke it by asking, without looking at me: + +"When are we to have an evening together again?" + +"Whenever you like, my dear Judith." + +"To-morrow?" + +"I am afraid not to-morrow," said I. + +"Are you doing anything so very particular?" + +"I have arranged to take Carlotta to the Empire." + +"Oh," said Judith shortly, and I was left uncomfortable for another +spell of silence. + +"It would be very kind, Marcus, to ask me to accompany you," she said at +last. + +"Carlotta and myself?" + +"Why not?" + +"My question arose from the stupidity of surprise," said I. "I thought +you disliked Carlotta." + +"By no means. I should be glad to make her further acquaintance. Any one +that interests you must also be interesting to me." + +"In that case," said I, "your coming will give us both the greatest +possible pleasure." + +"I haven't had a merry evening for ever so long." + +"We will dine somewhere first and have supper afterwards. The whole +gamut of merriment. Toute la lyre. And you shall have," I added, "some +of your favourite Veuve Cliquot." + +"It will be charming," said Judith, politely. + +In fact, politeness has been the dominant note of her attitude to-day, +a sober restraint of manner such as she would adopt when rather tired +towards an ordinary acquaintance. Has she reconciled herself to the +inevitable and taken this Empire frolic as a graceful method of showing +it? I should like to believe so, but the course is scarcely consistent +with that motor of illogic which she is pleased to call her temperament. +I am puzzled. + +Her smile as we parted sent a chill through me, being the smile of a +mask instead of a woman's face; and it was not the face of Judith. I +don't anticipate much merriment tomorrow evening. + + +At Carlotta's suggestion, I have sent a line to Pasquale to ask him to +join us. His gay wit will lend to the entertainment a specious air of +revelry which Carlotta will take as genuine. + +I have often thought lately of the hopeless passion of Alfonso the +Magnanimous of Naples, as set forth by Pope Pius II in his Commentaries; +for I am beginning to take a morbid interest in the unhappy love affairs +of other men and to institute comparisons. If they have lived through +the torment, why should not I? But Alfonso sighed for Lucrezia d'Alagna, +a beautiful chaste statue of ice who loved him; whereas I crave the +warm-blooded thing that is mine for the taking, but no more loves me +than she loves the policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take +her. Something stronger than my passion opposes an adamantine barrier. I +love her with my soul as well as with my body, and my soul cries out for +the soul that the Almighty forgot when endowing her with entity. + +This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly Review. It would +give him great pleasure if I would contribute a Renaissance article, +taking as my text a German, a Russian, and an English attempt to +whitewash the Borgia family. Six months ago the compliment would have +filled me with gratification. To-day what to me are the whitewashed +Borgias or the solemn denizens of the Athenaeum reading-room who will +slumber over my account of the blameless poisonings of this amiable +family? They are vanity and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease. + +As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta in hastily +slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair streaming loose to her +waist, her bare feet flashing pink beneath her night-dress. + +"Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!" + +She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from my +chair. + +"What is the matter?" + +"There is a mouse in my bed." + +Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the sofa and rubbing his +back against her feet. + +"Take the cat and tell him to kill it," said I, "and go back to bed at +once." + +I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with her great eyes full +of innocent reproach. + +"There, take up the cat and go," I repeated. "You mustn't come down here +looking like that." + +"I thought I looked very pretty," said Carlotta, moving a step nearer. + +I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my paper. + +"You are like a Houri that has been sent away from Paradise for +misbehaviour," I said. + +She laughed her curious cooing laugh. + +"_Hou!_ Seer Marcous is shocked!" And she ran, away, rubbing +Polyphemus's nose against her face. + + +I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up his centuries +and mistaking me for a mediaeval saint? Paphnutius for instance, who was +visited by such a seductress. What is the legend? To get rid of her he +burns off his hand, whereupon she falls dead. He prays and she returns +to life and becomes a nun. No, Messer Diavolo, I am not Paphnutius. I +will not maim myself, nor do I want Carlotta to fall dead; and I cannot +pray and effect a pietistic resurrection. I am simply a fool of a modern +man tempted out of his wits, who scarce knows what it is that he speaks +or writes. + +I am not superstitious, but I feel myself to-night on the brink of some +disaster. I walk restlessly about the room. On the mantel-piece are +three photographs in silver frames: Judith, Carlotta, Pasquale. That +which is of mockery in the spirit of each seems to-night to be hovering +round the portraits and to be making sport of me. An autumn gale is +howling among the trees outside, like a legion of lost souls. Listen. +Messer Diavolo himself might be riding by with a whoop of derision. + + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +October 26th. + +I knew something would happen. Messer Diavolo does not ride whooping to +no purpose by the windows of people whom he desires to torment; nor does +he inspire photographs for nothing with an active spirit of mockery. + +We dined at the Trocadero. Carlotta loves the band and the buzz of Babel +and the heavy scents and the clatter and the tumult and the glare of +light; otherwise I should have chosen a discreeter hostelry where the +footfalls of the waiting-men were noiseless and the walls in quiet +shadow, where there was nothing but the mellow talk of friends to +distract the mind from the consideration of exquisite flavours. But in +these palaces of clashing splendour, the stunned brain fails to receive +impressions from the glossopharyngeal nerve, and one eats unthinkingly +like a dog. But this matters little to Carlotta. Perhaps when I was +nineteen it mattered little to me. And to-night, also, it mattered +little, for my mind was preoccupied and a dinner with Lucullus would +have been savourless. + +If the Psalmist cried, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" what +cry had he at the back of his head to utter concerning woman? Did he +leave her to be implicitly dealt with by Charles Darwin in his "Theory +of Sexual Selection"? Or did he in the good old oriental way regard +her as unimportant in the eyes of the Deity? If the latter, he was a +purblind prophet and missed the very fount of human tears. + +When I looked at Judith, I was smitten with a great pain. She had not +looked so young, so fresh, so fragilely fair for many months. She wore +a dress of corn-flower blue that deepened the violet of her eyes. In the +mass of flax hued thistle-down that is her hair a blue argus butterfly +completed the chord of colour. There was the faintest tinge of pink +in her cheek applied with delicate art. Her dress seemed made of +unsubstantial dream stuff--I believe they call it chiffon--and it +covered her bosom and arms like the spray of a fairy sea. She had the +air of an impalpable Undine, a creation of sea-foam and sea-flower; an +exquisite suggestion of the ethereal which floated beauty, as it were, +into her face. I know little of women, save what these past few grievous +months have taught me; but I know that hours of anxious thought and +desperate hope lay behind this effect of fragile loveliness. The wit of +woman could not have rendered a woman's body a greater contrast to that +of her rival; and with infinite subtlety she had imbued the contrast +with the deeper significance of rare and spiritual things. I know this +was so. I know it was a challenge, a defiance, an ordeal by combat; and +the knowledge hurt me, so that I felt like a Dathan or Abiram who +had laid hand on the Ark of the Covenant (for the soul of a woman, by +heaven! is a holy thing), and I wished that the earth could open and +swallow me up. + +We sat down to table in the middle of the great room--a quiet corner +on the balcony away from the band is not to Carlotta's taste--like any +conventional party of four, and at first talked of indifferent matters. +Conciergerie dinner-parties in the Terror always began with a discussion +of the latest cure for megrims, or the most fashionable cut of a panier. +Presently Pasquale who had been talking travel with Judith appealed to +me. + +"What year was it, Ordeyne, that I came home from Abyssinia?" + +"I forget," said I. "I only remember you presenting me with that hideous +thing hanging in my passage, which you called a dulcimer." + +_"Gage d'amour?"_ smiled Judith. + +Pasquale laughed and twirled his swaggering moustache. + +"I did get it from a damsel, and that is why I called it a dulcimer, but +she didn't sing of Mount Abora. I wish I could remember the year." + +"I think it was in 1894," said Judith quietly. + +Pasquale, who had been completely unaware of Judith's existence until +half an hour before, could not repress a stare of polite surprise. + +"I believe you are right. In fact, you are. But how can you tell?" + +"Through the kindness of Sir Marcus," replied Judith graciously, "you +are a very old acquaintance. I could write you off-hand a nice +little obituary notice with all the adventures--well, I will not say +complete--but with all the dates accurate, I assure you. I have a head +for that sort of thing." + +"Yes," I cried, desiring to turn the conversation. "Don't tell Mrs. +Mainwaring anything you wish forgotten. Facts are her passion. She +writes wonderful articles full of figures that make your head spin, and +publishes them in the popular magazines over the signature of Willoughby +the statistician. Allow me to present to you a statistical ghost." + +But Pasquale's subtle Italian brain was paying but half attention to me. +I could read his inferences from Judith's observations, and I could +tell what she wanted him to infer. I seem to have worn my sensory system +outside instead of inside my skin this evening. + +"Ordeyne," said he, "you are a pig, and the great-grandfather of pigs--" + +"Foul" cried Carlotta, seizing on an intelligible point of the +conversation. + +"Why didn't you present me to Mrs. Mainwaring in 1894? I declare I have +thought myself allied to that man for twenty years in bonds of the most +intimate friendship, and he has never so much as mentioned you to me." + +"Seer Marcous says that Pasquale is a bad lot," remarked Carlotta, with +an air of sapience, after a sip of orangeade, a revolting beverage which +she loves to drink at her meals. + +Pasquale threw back his handsome head and laughed again like the +chartered libertine he is, and Judith smiled. + +"'Out of the mouths of babes, etc.,'" said I, apologetically. + +"In all seriousness," said Pasquale to Judith, "I had no idea that any +one was such a close friend of Ordeyne's." + +Judith turned to me, with a graceful gesture of her shoulders. + +"I think we have been close friends, Marcus?" + +"Oh, ye-es," broke in Carlotta. "Mrs. Mainwaring has the picture of Seer +Marcous in her bedroom, and there is the picture of Mrs. Mainwaring in +our drawing-room. You have not seen it? But yes. You have not recognised +it, Pasquale? Mrs. Mainwaring is so pretty tonight. Much prettier than +the photograph. Yes, you are so pretty. I would like to put you on the +mantel-piece as an ornament instead of the picture." + +"May I be allowed to endorse Carlotta's sentiment of appreciation?" I +said, with a view to covering her indiscretion, for I saw a flash of +conjecture in Pasquale's eyes and a sudden spot of real red in Judith's +cheeks. She had evidently desired to suggest an old claim on my regard, +but to have it based on such intimate details as the enshrining of my +photograph was not to her fancy. + +"I am vastly beholden to you both," said Judith, who has a graceful way +of receiving compliments. "But," turning to Pasquale, "we have travelled +far from Abyssinia." + +"To Sir Marcus's mantel-piece. Suppose we stay there." + +"There is you and me and Mrs. Mainwaring," said the literal Carlotta, +"and I am the big one in the middle. It was made big--big," she added, +extending her arms in her exaggerating way. "I was wearing this dress." + +"Mr. Pasquale and I will have to enlarge our frames, Marcus," said +Judith, "or we shall be jealous. We shall have to make common cause +together." + +"We will declare an inoffensive alliance," laughed Pasquale. + +"Offensive if you like," said Judith. + +It may have been some effect of the glitter of lights, but I vow I saw +a swift interchange of glances. Pasquale immediately turned to Carlotta +with a jesting remark, and Judith engaged me in conversation on our old +days in Rome. Suddenly she swerved from the topic, and leaning forward, +indicated our companions with an imperceptible motion of her head. + +"Don't you think," she said in a low voice, "they are a well-matched +pair? Both young and picturesque; it would solve many things." + +I glanced round. Carlotta, elbow on the table and chin in hand, was +looking deep into Pasquale's eyes, just as she has looked into mine. Her +lips had the half-sensuous, half-childish pout provocative of kisses. + +"Do, and I will love you," I heard her say. + +Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips! Oh, the horrible +fool passion that burns out my soul and brain and reduces me to rave +like a lovelorn early Victorian tailor! Which was worse I know not--the +spasm of jealousy or the spasm of self-contempt that followed it. At +that moment the music ceased suddenly on a loud crashing chord. + +The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, who was enjoying +herself prodigiously. Our three personalities appeared to vibrate +rudely one against the other. I was conscious that Judith read me, that +Pasquale read Judith, that again something telegraphic passed between +them. The waiter offered me partridge. Pasquale quickly turned from +Carlotta to his left-hand neighbour. + +"I think we ought to drink Faust's health, don't you?" + +I started. Had I not myself traced the analogy? + +"Faust?" queried Judith at a loss. + +"Our friend Faust opposite me," said Pasquale, raising his champagne +glass. "Hasn't he been transformed from the lean and elderly bookworm +into the gay, young gallant about the town? Once one could scarcely drag +him from his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now--has he told you +of his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring?" + +Judith smiled. "Have you been Mephistopheles?" + +"What is Mephistopheles?" asked Carlotta. + +"The devil," said Pasquale, "who made Sir Marcus young again." + +"Oh, that's me," cried Carlotta, clapping her hands. "He does not read +in big books any longer. Oh, I was so frightened when I first came." (I +must say she hid her terrors pretty effectually.) "He was so wise, and +always reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty. And now he +is not wise at all, and he said two, three days ago I had made him +twenty-five." + +"If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear," Judith remarked in +her most charming manner, "in another year you will have brought him +down to long clothes and a feeding-bottle." + +Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously. I laughed +too, out of courtesy, at Judith's bitter sarcasm, and turned the +conversation, but Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast. + +"Here's to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger every +day." + +We clinked glasses. Judith sighed when the performance was concluded. + +"That is one of the many advantages of being a man. If you do sell your +soul to the devil you can see that you get proper payment. A woman is +paid in promissory notes, which are dishonoured when they fall due." + +I contested the proposition. The irony of this peculiarly painful revel +lay in the air of gaiety it seemed necessary to maintain. A miserable +business is civilisation! + +"Did you ever hear of a woman getting youth out of such a bargain?" she +retorted with some vehemence. + +"As women systematically underpay cabmen," said I, "so do they try to +underpay the devil; and he is one too many for them." + +"I am afraid," said Pasquale, "that the old days of shrewd bargains are +over. There is a glut in the soul-market and they only fetch the price +of old bones." + +"He is talking foolish things that I do not understand," said Carlotta, +putting her hand on my arm. + +"It is called sham cynicism, my dear," said I, "and we all ought to be +ashamed of ourselves." + +"What do you like best to talk about?" Judith asked sweetly. + +"Myself. And so does everybody," replied Carlotta. + +We laughed, and for a time talk ceased to be allusive. But later, over +our coffee, while the band was playing loudly some new American march, +and Carlotta and Pasquale were laughing together, Judith drew near me. + +"You did not answer my question about those two, Marcus." + +My fingers trembled as I lit a fresh cigarette. + +"He is not a man to whom any woman's destiny should be entrusted." + +"And is she a woman on whom a man should stake his life's happiness?" + +"God knows," said I, setting my teeth. + +It was not an enjoyable dinner-party. I longed for the evening to be +over, to have Carlotta safe back with me at home. I felt a curious dread +of the Empire. + +We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet. Carlotta, as soon +as she had taken her seat, leaned both elbows on the front of the box +and surrendered her senses to the stage. Pasquale talked to Judith. +Wishing for a few moments alone I left the box and sauntered moodily +along the promenade behind the First Circle. The occupants were either +leaning over the partitions and watching the spectacle or sitting with +drink before them at the little marble tables at the back. The gaudy, +gilded, tobacco-smoke and humanity-filled theatre seemed to be unreal, +the stage but a phantom cloud effect. I wondered why I, a creature from +the concrete world, was there. I had an insane impulse to fly from it +all, to go out into the streets, and wander, wander for ever, away from +the world. I was walking along the promenade, lost in this lunacy, when +I stumbled against a fellow-promenader and the shock brought me to my +senses. It was an elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez. He had a +long nose and small, crafty eyes, and was deeply pitted with smallpox. +I made profuse apologies and he accepted them with suavity. It then +occurring to me that I was he having in a discourteous and abjectly +absurd manner, I made my way back to the box. I drew a chair to Judith's +side. + +"You are giving me a captivating evening," she said, with a smile. + +"Whom are you captivating?" I asked, idly jesting. "Pasquale?" + +"You are cruel," whispered Judith, with a flicker of her eyelids. + +I flushed, ashamed, not having weighed the significance of my words. +All I could say was: "I beg your pardon," whereat Judith laughed +mirthlessly. I relapsed into silence. Turn followed turn on the stage. +While the curtain was lowered Carlotta sank back with a little sigh of +enjoyment, and nodded brightly at me. + +"Do you remember," she said, turning to me, at a fresh fall of the +curtain, "when you brought me first? I said I should like to live here. +Wasn't I silly?" + +She turned again, then suddenly rose to her feet and staggered back to +the back of the box, pointing outward, with an expression of wild terror +on her face. + +"Hamdi--he's down there--he saw me." + +I sprang to her assistance and put my arm around her. + +"Nonsense, dear," said I. + +But Pasquale, looking around the house, cried: + +"By Jove! she's right. I would recognise the old villain a thousand +years hence in Tartarus. There he is." + +I left Carlotta, and the first person my eyes rested upon in the stalls +was my obese but suave Oriental, regarding the box with an impassive +countenance. + +"That's Hamdi Effendi, all right," said Pasquale. + +Carlotta clutched my arms as I joined her at the back of the box. + +"Oh, take me away, Seer Marcous, take me away," she moaned piteously. My +poor child was white and shaken with fear. I again put my arm round her. + +"No harm can happen to you, dear," I said, soothingly. + +"Oh, darling Seer Marcous, take me home," cried Carlotta. + +"Very well," said I. I helped her on with her wrap, and apologising to +the two others, begged them to remain. + +"We'll all go together," said Judith quietly. + +"And form a body-guard," laughed Pasquale. + +Carlotta clinging to my arm we left the box and slipped through the +promenade and down the stairs. + +Hamdi Effendi, having anticipated our intention, cut off our retreat in +the vestibule. Carlotta shrank nearer to me. + +"I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but may I have the pleasure of a few words +with you about this young lady?" said he in the urbanest manner and the +most execrable French. + +"I hardly see the necessity," said I. + +"Pardon me, but this young lady is a Turkish subject and my daughter. +My name is Hamdi Effendi, Prefect of Police at Aleppo, and my address in +London is the Hotel Metropole." + +"I am charmed to make your acquaintance," said I. "I have often heard +of you from Mademoiselle--but I believe both her father and mother were +English, so she is neither your daughter nor a Turkish subject." + +"Ah, that we will see," rejoined the polite Oriental. He addressed some +words rapidly in Turkish to Carlotta, who shudderingly replied in the +same language. + +"Mademoiselle unfortunately does not consent to accompany me," he +interpreted with a smile. "So I am afraid I will have to take her back +without her consent." + +"If you do, Hamdi Effendi," said Pasquale in a light tone of +conversation, but with the ugliest snarl of the lips that I have ever +beheld, "I shall most certainly kill you." + +Hamdi turned to him with a polite bow. + +"Ah, it is Monsieur Pasquale. I thought I recognised you." + +"You have every reason to do so," said Pasquale. + +"I saved you from prison." + +"You accepted a bribe." + +"For heaven's sake," cried Judith, "go on speaking in low voices, or we +shall have a scene here." + +One or two idlers hung near with an air of curiosity and the huge +beuniformed commissionaire watched us with an uncertain eye. I kept a +tight hold of Carlotta and drew her more behind the screen of a palm +near which we happened to stand. + +"Madame is right," said Hamdi. "We can discuss this little affair like +gentlemen." + +"Then, in the most gentlemanly way in the world," said Pasquale, "I +swear to you that if you touch this young lady, I will kill you." + +"It appears, to be Monsieur," said the obese Turk with a graceful wave +of the hand in my direction, "and not you, who has robbed my home of +its treasure, unless," he added, and I shall always remember the hideous +leer of that pulpy-nosed and small-pox pitted face, "unless Monsieur has +relieved you of your responsibilities." + +For a moment I was speechless. Pasquale put himself in front of me. + +"Steady on, Ordeyne." + +"Sir," said I, "I found this young lady destitute in the streets of +London. She is my wife and therefore a British subject; so you can take +yourself and your infamous insinuations to the devil, and the quicker +the better." + +"Or there'll be two of us engaged in the killing," said Pasquale. + +Hamdi again exchanged a few sentences in Turkish with Carlotta, and then +smiled upon us with the same unruffled suavity. + +_"Au revoir, Mesdames et Messieurs."_ With a courteous salute he +shuffled back towards the stall-entrance. + +The tension over, Carlotta broke from me and clutched Pasquale by the +arm. + +"Oh, kill him, kill him, kill him!" she cried in a passionate whisper. + +He freed himself gently and took out a cigarette case. + +"Scarcely necessary. He'll soon die." And turning to me he added: "Not +a sound organ in his body. Besides, it seems to me that if there is any +murdering to be done, it's the business of Sir Marcus." + +"There is going to be no murdering," said I, profoundly disgusted, "and +don't talk in that revolting way about the wretched man dying." + +I regained possession of Carlotta who, seeing that I was angry, cast +a scared glance at me, and became docile as suddenly as she had grown +passionate. I turned to Judith. + +"Will you ever forgive me--" I began. + +But the sight of her face froze me. It was white and hard and haggard, +and the lips were drawn into a thin line, and the delicate colour she +had put upon her cheeks stood out in ghastly contrast. Her dress, like +the foam of a summer sea, mocked the winter in her face. + +"There is nothing to forgive," she said, smiling icily. "I came for +a variety entertainment and I have not been disappointed. Good-bye. +Perhaps Mr. Pasquale will be so kind as to put me into a cab." + +"I will drive you home, if you will allow me," said Pasquale. + +We separated, shaking hands as if nothing had happened, as perfunctorily +as if we had been the most distant of acquaintances. + +On our way back we spoke very little. Carlotta nestled close against +me, seeking the shelter of my arm. She cried, I don't know why, but it +seemed to afford comfort. I kissed her lips and her hair. + +At home, I drew the sofa near the fire--it has been a raw night and she +feels the cold like a tropical plant--and sat down by her side. + +"Did you hear what I said to Hamdi Effendi--that you were my wife?" + +"But that was only a lie," she answered in her plain idiom. + +My petting and soothing together with the sense of home security and a +cup of French chocolate prepared by Antoinette, who, astonished at our +early return and seeing her darling in distress, had hastened to provide +culinary consolation, had restored her wonted serenity of demeanour. +Polyphemus also purred reassuringly upon her lap. + +"It was a lie this evening," said I, "but in a few days I hope it will +be true." + +"You are going to marry me?" she asked, suddenly sitting erect and +looking at me rather bewildered. + +"If you will have me, Carlotta." + +"I will do what Seer Marcous tells me," she answered. "Will you marry me +to-morrow?" + +"I think it hardly possible, my dear," I answered. "But I shall lose no +time, I assure you. Once you are my wife neither Hamdi Effendi nor the +Sultan of Turkey can claim you. No one can take an Englishman's wife +away from him." + +"Hamdi is a devil," said Carlotta. + +"We can laugh at him," said I. + +"Did you ever see such an ugly mug?" + +Where she gets her occasional bits of slang from I do not know; but her +little foreign staccato pronunciation gives them unusual quaintness. I +laughed, and Carlotta, throwing Polyphemus off her lap, laughed too, and +sidled up against me. The cat regarded us for a moment with a disgusted +eye, then stretched himself as if he had quitted Carlotta of his own +accord, and walked away in a state of dignified boredom. + +"Hamdi is like a pig and an elephant and a great fat turkey," said +Carlotta. + +"If all the world were beautiful," I exclaimed, "such a thing as our +appreciation of beauty would not exist. I should not even be aware that +my Carlotta was beautiful." + +She put her hands on my knees in her impulsive way, and bending forward +looked at me delightedly. + +"Oh, you do think so?" + +"You are the loveliest and most intoxicating creature on the earth, +Carlotta." + +"Now I am sure, sure, sure," she cried, enraptured. "You have never said +it before, Seer Marcous darling, and I must kiss you." + +I checked her with my hands on her soft shoulders. + +"Only if you promise to marry me." + +"Of course," said Carlotta. + +She said it as thoughtlessly and light-heartedly as if I had asked her +to come out for a walk. Again I felt the odd spasm of pain. In my late +madness I had often pictured the scene: how I should hold her throbbing +beauty in my arms, my senses clouded with the fragrance of her, and how, +in burning words, I should pour out the litany of my passion. But to the +gods it seemed otherwise. No Quaker maiden's betrothal kiss was chaster. +Cold grew the fever in my veins and the litany died on my lips. + + +Who and what is she whom I love? There have been days when her eyes have +carried in their depths the allurements of a sorceress, when her limbs +have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to +withstand. But tonight, when I take the greatest step and claim her +as mine till our lives' end, she yields with the complaisance of an +ignorant child and raises up between us the barrier of her innocence. +When shall I learn the soul of her? + +Well, _jacta est alea_. The events of to-night have precipitated our +destiny. In all probability Hamdi is powerless to take her from my +protection, and this marriage is unnecessary as a safeguard. I have no +notion of the international law on such points--but at any rate it will +make the assurance of her safety absolute. No power on earth can take +her from me. Great Heaven! The thought of her gone forever out of +my life brings the cold sweat to my forehead. Without her, child, +enchantress, changeling that she is, how could I face existence? + +I shall have my heart's desire. Why, I should be athrill with the joy +and the flame of youth! I should laugh and sing! I should perform the +happy antics of love's exuberance! I should be transported to the realms +where the fairy tales end! + +Instead, I sit before a dying fire, as I sat last night, and am +oppressed with the sense of tragedy. It was not altogether Carlotta's +innocence that formed the barrier between us. That which rendered it +impassable was Judith's white face. + +Judith's white face will haunt my dreams to-night. + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +October 27th + +I do not like living. It is thoroughly disagreeable. Today Judith +taunted me with never having lived, and I admitted the justice of +the taunt and regretted in poignant misery the change from my old +conditions. If to live is to have one's reason cast down and trampled +under foot, one's heart aflame with a besotted passion and one's soul +racked with remorse, then am I living in good sooth--and I would +far rather be dead and suffering the milder pains of Purgatory. Men +differently constituted get used to it, as the eels to skinning. They +say _"mea culpa,"_ "damn," or _"Kismet,"_ according to their various +traditions, and go forth comforted to their workaday pursuits. I envy +them. I enter this exquisite Torture Chamber, and I shriek at the first +twinge of the thumbscrew and faint at the preliminary embraces of the +scavenger's daughter. + +I envy a fellow like Caesar Borgia. He could murder a friend, seduce +his widow, and rob the orphans all on a summer's day, and go home +contentedly to supper; and after a little music he could sleep like a +man who has thoroughly earned his repose. What manner of creatures are +other men? They area blank mystery to me; and I am writing--or have been +writing--a sociological study of the most subtle generation of them that +has ever existed! I am an empty fool. I know absolutely nothing. I can +no more account for the peaceful slumbers of that marvellous young man +of five-and-twenty than I can predicate the priority of the first hen or +the first egg. I, with never a murder or a seduction or a robbery on my +conscience, could not sleep last night. I doubt whether I shall sleep +to-night. I feel as if I shall remain awake through the centuries with a +rat gnawing my vitals. + + +So unhappy looking a woman as Judith, when I called on her early this +forenoon, I have never beheld. Gone was the elaborate coquetry of +yesterday; gone the quiet roguishness of yesteryear; gone was all the +Judith that I knew, and in her place stood a hollow-eyed woman shaking +at gates eternally barred. + +"I--thought you would come this morning. I had that lingering faith in +you." + +"Your face haunted me all night," I said. "I was bound to come." + +"So, this is the end of it all," she remarked, stonily. + +"No," said I. "It only marks the transition from a very ill-defined +relationship to as loyal a friendship as ever man could offer woman." + +She gave a quivering little shrug of disgust and turned away. + +"Oh, don't talk like that 'I can't offer you bread, but I'll give you a +nice round polished stone.' Friendship! What has a woman like me got to +do with friendship?" + +"Have I ever given you much more?" + +"God knows what you have given me," she cried, bitterly. She stared out +of the window at the sodden street and murky air. I went to her side and +touched her wrist. + +"For heaven's sake, Judith, tell me what I can do." + +"What's done is done," she said, between her teeth. "When did you marry +her?" + +I explained briefly the condition of affairs. She looked at me hard +and long; then stared out of the window again, and scarce heeded what I +said. + +"It was to set myself right with you on this point," I added, "that I +have visited you at such an hour." + +She remained silent. I took a few turns about the familiar room that was +filled with the associations of many years. The piano we chose together. +The copy of the Botticelli Tondo--the crowned Madonna of the Uffizi--I +gave her in Florence. We had ransacked London together to find the +Chippendale bookcase; and on its shelves stood books that had formed +a bond between us, and copies of old reviews containing my fugitive +contributions. A spurious Japanese dragon in faence, an inartistic +monstrosity dear to her heart, at which I had often railed, grinned +forgivingly at me from the mantel-piece. I have never realised how +closely bound up with my habits was this drawing-room of Judith's. I +stopped once more by her side. + +"I can't leave you altogether, dear," I said, gently. "A bit of myself +is in this room." + +Her bosom shook with unhappy laughter. + +"A bit?" Then she turned suddenly on me. "Are you simply dull or sheerly +cruel?" + +"I am dull," said I. "Why do you refuse my friendship? Our relation has +been scarcely more. It has not touched the deep things in us. We agreed +at the start that it should not. The words 'I love you' have never +passed between us. We have been loyal to our compact. Now that love +has come into my life--and Heaven knows I have striven against it--what +would you have me do?" + +"And what would you have me do?" said Judith, tonelessly. + +"Forgive me for breaking off the old, and trust me to make the new +pleasant to you." + +She made no answer, but stood still staring out of the window like a +woman of stone. Presently she shivered and crossed to the fire, before +which she crouched on a low chair. I remained by the window, anxious, +puzzled, oppressed. + +"Marcus," she said at last, in a low voice. I obeyed her summons. She +motioned me to a chair, and without looking at me began to speak. + +"You said there was a bit of you in this room. There is everything of +you. Your whole being is for me in this room. You are with me wherever +I go. You are the beginning and end of life to me. I love you with a +passion that is killing me. I am an emotional woman. I made shipwreck +of myself because I thought I loved a man. But, as God hears me, you are +the only man I have loved. You came to me like a breath of Heaven while +I was in Purgatory--and you have been Heaven to me ever since. It has +been play to you--but to me--" + +I fell on my knees beside her. Each of the low half-whispered words was +a red hot iron. I had received last night the message of her white face +with incredulity. I had reviewed our past life together and had found +little warrant in it for that message. It could not come from the +depths. It was staggeringly impossible. And now the impossible was the +flaming fact. + +I fell on my knees beside her. + +"Not play, Judith--" + +She put out her hand to check me, and the words died on my lips. What +could I say? + +"For you it was a detached pleasant sentiment, if you like; for me the +deadliest earnest. I was a fool too. You never said you loved me, but I +thought you did. You were not as other men, you knew nothing of the +ways of the world or of women or of passion--you were reserved, +intellectual--you viewed things in a queer light of your own. I +felt that the touch of a chain would fret you. I gave you absolute +freedom--often when I craved for you. I made no demands. I assented to +your philosophic analysis of the situation--it is your way to moralise +whimsically on everything, as if you were a disconnected intelligence +outside the universe--and I paid no attention to it. I used to laugh at +you--oh, not unkindly, but lovingly, happily, victoriously. Oh, yes, +I was a fool--what woman in love isn't? I thought I gave you all you +needed. I was content, secure. I magnified every little demonstration. +When you touched my ear it was more to me than the embrace of another +man might have been. I have lived on one kiss of yours for a week. To +you the kiss was of no more value than a cigarette. I wish," she added +in a whisper, "I wish I were dead!" + +She had spoken in a low, monotonous voice, staring haggardly at the +fire, while I knelt by her side. I murmured some banal apologia, +miserably aware that one set of words is as futile as another when one +has broken a woman's heart. + +"You never knew I loved you?" she went on in the same bitter undertone. +"What kind of woman did you take me for? I have accepted help from you +to enable me to live in this flat--do you imagine I could have done such +a thing without loving you? I should have thought it was obvious in a +thousand ways." + +The fire getting low, she took up the scoop for coals. Mechanically I +relieved her of the thing and fulfilled the familiar task. Neither spoke +for a long time. She remained there and I went to the window. It had +begun to rain. A barrel-organ below was playing some horrible music-hall +air, and every vibrant note was like a hammer on one's nerves. The +grinder's bedraggled Italian wife perceiving me at the window grinned up +at me with the national curve of the palm. She had a black eye which the +cacophonous fiend had probably given her, and she grinned like a happy +child of nature. Men in my position do not blacken women's eyes; but +it is only a question of manners. Was I, for that, less of a brute male +than the scowling beast at the organ? + +The sudden sound of a sob made me turn to Judith, who had broken down +and was crying bitterly, her face hidden in her hands. I bent and +touched her shoulder. + +"Judith--" + +She flung her arms around my neck. + +"I can't give you up, I can't, I can't, I can't," she cried, wildly. + +For the first time in my life I heard a woman give abandoned, incoherent +utterance to an agony of passion; and it sounded horrible, like the cry +of an animal wounded to death. + +A guilt-stricken creature, scarce daring to meet her eyes, I bade her +farewell. She had recovered her composure. + +"Make me one little promise, Marcus, do me one little favour," she said, +with quivering lip, and letting her cold hand remain in mine. "Stay +away from her to-day. I couldn't bear to think of you and her together, +happy, love-making, after what I've said this morning. I should writhe +with the shame and the torture of it. Give me your thoughts to-day. Wear +a little mourning for the dead. It is all I ask of you." + +"I should have done what you ask without the asking," I replied. + +I kissed her hand, and went out into the street. + +I had walked but a few blind steps when I became aware of the presence +and voice of Pasquale. + +"Coming from Mrs. Mainwaring's? I am just on my way there to restore +her opera-glasses which I ran away with last night. What's her number? I +forget. I dropped in at Lingfield Terrace to inquire, but found you had +already started." + +"Seventeen," I answered, mechanically. + +"You are not looking well, my good friend," said he. "I hope last night +has not upset you. It's all bluff, you know, on the part of the precious +Hamdi." + +"I dare say it was," I assented. + +"And bluff on your part, too. I have never given your imaginative +faculties sufficient credit. It bowled Hamdi out clean." + +"Yes," said I. "It bowled him out clean." + +"Serve him right," said Pasquale. "He's the wickedest old thief unhung." + +"Quite so," said I, "the wickedest old thief unhung." + +Pasquale shook me by the arm. + +"Are you a man or a phonograph? What on earth has happened to you?" + +I think I envied the laughter in his handsome, dark face, and the +careless grace of the fellow as he stood beneath the dripping umbrella +debonair as a young prince, in perfectly fitting blue serge-he wore no +overcoat; mine was buttoned up to the chin, and immaculate suede gloves. + +"What is it?" he repeated, gaily. + +"I didn't sleep last night," said I, "my breakfast disagreed with me, +and it's raining in the most unpleasant manner." + +Even while I was speaking he left my side and darted across the road. +In some astonishment I watched him for a moment from the kerb, and then +made my way slowly to the other side. I found him in conversation with +an emaciated, bedraggled woman standing by an enormous bundle, about +three times her own cubic bulk, which she had rested on the slimy +pavement. One hand pressed a panting bosom. + +"You are going to carry that in your arms all the way to South +Kensington?" I heard him cry as I approached. + +"Yes, sir," said the woman. + +"Then you shan't. I'm not going to allow it. Catch hold of this." + +The umbrella which he thrust out at her she clutched automatically, +to prevent it falling about her ears. The veto she received with a +wonderment which deepened into stupefaction when she saw him lift the +huge bundle in his arms and stalk away with it down the street. She +turned a scared face at me. + +"It's washing," she said. + +Pasquale paused, looked round and motioned her onward. She followed +without a word, holding the trim silver mounted umbrella, and I +mechanically brought up the rear. It had all happened so quickly that I +too was confused. The scanty populace in the rain-filled street stared +and gaped. A shambling fellow in corduroys bawled an obscene jest. +Pasquale put down his bundle. + +"Do you want to be sent to hell by lightning?" he asked, with the evil +snarl of the lips. + +"No," said the man, sheering off. + +"I'm glad," remarked Pasquale, picking up the bundle. And we resumed our +progress. + +Luckily a four-wheeled cab overtook us. Pasquale stopped it, squeezed +the bundle inside, and held the door open for the faltering and +bewildered woman, as if she had been the authentic duchessa at Ealing. + +"You were saying, Ordeyne," he observed, as the cabman drove off with +three shillings and his incoherent fare, "you were saying that your +breakfast disagreed with you." + + +In spite of my heaviness of heart, I laughed and loved the man. There +was something fantastically chivalrous in the action; something superb +in the contempt of convention; something whimsical, adventurous, +unexpected; and something divine in the wrathful pity; and something +irresistible in his impudent apostrophe to myself. It has been the one +flash of comfort during this long and desolate day. + + +I have kept my promise to Judith. I have lunched and dined at the club, +and in the library of the club I have tried to while away the hours. +I intended this morning to make the necessary arrangements for the +marriage. After my interview with Judith I had not the heart. I put it +off till to-morrow. I have observed the day as a day of mourning. I have +worn sackcloth and ashes. I have done such penance as I could for the +grievous fault I have committed. Carlotta is in bed and asleep. She went +early, says Antoinette, having a bad headache. No wonder, poor child. + +A few moments ago I was tempted to peep into her room and satisfy myself +that she was not ailing. A headache is the common precursor to many +maladies. But I remembered my promise and refrained. The cooing notes of +the voice would have called me to her side, and her arms would have been +around my neck and I should have forgotten Judith. + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +October 28th. + +I rose late this morning. When I went down to breakfast I found that +Carlotta had already gone for her music lesson. + +I drove at once to the Temple to see my lawyers and to make arrangements +for a marriage by special license. + +I returned at one o'clock. Stenson met me in the hall. + +"I beg your pardon, Sir Marcus, but Mademoiselle hasn't come back yet." + +I waited an uneasy hour. Such a lengthy absence from home was +unprecedented. At two o'clock I went round to Herr Stuer in the Avenue +Road--a five minutes' walk. + +He entered the sitting-room into which I had been ushered, wiping his +lips. + +"I am sorry to disturb you, Herr Stuer," said I, "but will you kindly +tell me when Miss Carlotta left you, this morning?" + +"Miss Carlotta came not at all this morning," he replied. + +"But it was her regular day?" + +"At ten o'clock. She did not come. At eleven I have another pupil. She +has not before missed one lesson." + +I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing face would meet +me there and dispel a dread that chilled me like an icy wind. + +There was no Carlotta. + +There has been no Carlotta all this awful day. + +There will never be a Carlotta again. + +I drove to the police station. + +"What do you think has happened?" asked the Inspector. + +It was only too horribly obvious. Any man but myself would have kept her +under lock and key and established a guard round the house. Any man but +myself would have never let her out of his sight until he had married +her, until he had tracked Hamdi and his myrmidons back to Alexandretta. + +"Abduction has happened," I cried wildly. "Between Lingfield Terrace and +Avenue Road she has been caught, thrust into a closed carriage, gagged +and carried God knows where by the wiliest old thief in Asia. He is the +Prefect of Police in Aleppo. His name is Hamdi Effendi and he is staying +at the Hotel Metropole." + +The Inspector questioned me. Heaven knows how I answered. I saw the +scene. The waiting carriage. The unfrequented bit of road. My heart's +darling, her face a radiant flower in the grey morning, tripping +lightheartedly along. The sudden dash, the struggle, the swiftly closed +door. It was a matter of a few seconds. My brain grew dizzy with the +vision. + +"You say that he threatened to abduct her?" asked the Inspector. + +"Yes," said I, "and a friend of mine promised to kill him. Heaven grant +he keep his promise!" + +"Be careful, Sir Marcus," smiled the Inspector. "Or if there is a murder +committed you will be an accessory before the fact." + +I intimated my disregard of the contingency. What did it matter? Nothing +in the world mattered save the recovery of the light and meaning of my +existence. My friend's name? Sebastian Pasquale, He lived near by in the +St. John's Wood Road. + +"The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus," said the Inspector, "is to get +hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him with you to Scotland Yard. Perhaps +two heads will be better than one. In the meanwhile we shall +communicate with headquarters and make the necessary inquiries in the +neighbourhood." + +I drove to St. John's Wood Road, and learned to my dismay that Pasquale +had given up his rooms there a week ago. All his letters were addressed +to his club in Piccadilly. I drove thither. How has mankind contented +itself for these thousands of years with a horse as its chief means of +locomotion? Oh, the exasperation I suffered behind that magnified snail! +I dashed into the club. Mr. Pasquale had not been there all day. No, he +was not staying there. It was against the rules to give members' private +addresses. + +"But it's a matter of life and death!" I cried. + +"To tell you the truth, sir," said the hall porter, "Mr. Pasquale's only +permanent address is his banker's, and we really don't know where he is +staying at present." + +I wrote a hurried line: + +"Hamdi has abducted Carlotta. I am half crazed. As you love me give me +your help. Oh, God! man, why aren't you here?" + +I left it with the porter, and crawled to Scotland Yard. The cabman at +my invectives against his sauntering beast waxed indignant; it was a +three-quarter blood mare and one of the fastest trotters in London. + +"She passes everything," said he. + +"It is because everything is standing still or going backward or turned +upside down," said I. + +No doubt he thought me mad. Mad as a dingo dog. The thought of the +words, the summer and the sun sent a spasm of hunger through my heart. +Then I murmured to myself: "'Save my soul from hell and my darling from +the power of the dog.' Which dog? Not the dingo dog." I verily believe +my brain worked wrong to-day. + +Great Scotland Yard at last. I went through passages. I found myself in +a nondescript room where a courteous official seated at a desk held me +on the rack for half an hour. I had to describe Carlotta: not in the +imagery wherein only one could create an impression of her sweetness, +but in the objective terms of the police report. What was she wearing? A +hat, and jacket, a skirt, shoes; of course she wore gloves; possibly she +carried a muff. Impatient of such commonplace details, I described her +fully. But the glory of her bronze hair, her great dark brown eyes, +the quivering sensitiveness of her lips; her intoxicating compound of +Botticelli and the Venusberg; the dove-notes of her voice; all was a +matter of boredom to Scotland Yard. They clamoured for the colour of +her feathers and the material of which her dress was made; her height in +vulgar figures and the sizes of her gloves and shoes. + +"How on earth can I tell you?" I cried in desperation. + +"Perhaps one of your servants can give the necessary information," +replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have +viewed my plight with more inhuman blandness! + +A miracle happened. As I was writing a summons to Stenson to obtain +these details from Antoinette and attend at once, a policeman entered +and I learned that my confidential man was at the door. My heart +leapt within me. He had tracked me hither and had come to tell me that +Carlotta was safe. But the first glance at his face killed the wild +hope. He had tracked me hither, it is true; but only apologetically to +offer what information might be useful. "It is a very great liberty, Sir +Marcus, and I will retire at once if I have overstepped my duties, but +there are important details, sir, in catastrophes of this nature with +which my experience has taught me only servants can be acquainted." + +There must be a book of ten thousand pages entitled "The Perfect Valet," +dealing with every contingency of domestic life which this admirable +fellow has by heart. He uttered his Ciceronian sentence with the gravity +of a pasteboard figure in the toy theatre of one's childhood. + +"Can you describe the young lady's dress?" asked the official. + +"I have made it my business," said Stenson, "to obtain accurate +information as to every detail of Mademoiselle Carlotta's attire when +she left the house this morning." + +I faded into insignificance. Stenson was a man after the Inspector's +heart. A few eager questions brought the desired result. A dark red +toque with a grey bird's wing; a wine-coloured zouave jacket and skirt, +black braided; a dark blue bodice; a plain gold brooch (the first +trinket I had given her--the occasion of her first clasp of arms around +my neck) fastening her collar; a silver fox necklet and muff; patent +leather shoes and brown suede gloves. + +"Any special mark or characteristics?" + +"A white scar above the left temple," said Stenson. + +Lord have mercy! The man has lived day by day for five months with +Carlotta's magical beauty, and all he has noticed as characteristic is +the little white scar--she fell on marble steps as a child--the only +flaw, if flaw can be in a thing so imperceptible, in her perfect +loveliness. + +"Mademoiselle has also a tiny mole behind her right ear," said Stenson. + +The Inspector's conception of Stenson expanded into an apotheosis. He +paid him deference. His pen wrote greedily every syllable the inspired +creature uttered. When the fount of inspiration ran dry, Stenson turned +to me with his imperturbable, profoundly respectful air. + +"Shall I return home, Sir Marcus, or have you any further need of my +service?" + +I bade him go home. He withdrew. The Inspector smiled cheerfully. +"Now we can get along," said he. "It's a pity Mr.--Mr. Pasquale" (he +consulted his notes) "is out of touch with us for the moment. He might +have given us great assistance." + +He rose from his chair. "I think we shall very soon trace the +young lady. An accurate personal description like this, you see, is +invaluable." + +He handed me the printed form which he had filled in. In spite of my +misery I almost laughed at the fatuity of the man in thinking that those +mere unimaginative statistics applicable to five hundred thousand young +females in London, could in any way express Carlotta. + +"This is all very well," said I; "but the first thing to do is to lay +that Turkish devil by the heels." + +"You can count on our making the most prompt and thorough +investigation," said he. + +"And in the mean time what can I do?" + +"Your best course, Sir Marcus," he answered, "is to go home and leave +things in our hands. As soon as ever we have the slightest clue, we +shall communicate with you." + +He bowed me out politely. In a few moments I found myself in the +greyness of the autumn afternoon wandering on the Thames Embankment like +a lost soul on the banks of Phlegethon. It seemed as if I had never seen +the sun, should never see the sun again. I was drifting sans purpose +into eternity. + +I passed by some railings. A colossal figure looming through the misty +air struck me with a sense of familiarity. It was the statue of Sir +Bartle Frere, and these were the gardens beneath the terrace of the +National Liberal Club. It was here that I had first met her. The +dripping trees seemed to hold the echo of the words spoken when their +leaves were green: "Will you please to tell me what I shall do?" I +strained my eyes to see the bench on which I had sat, and my eyes +tricked me into translating a blurr at the end of the seat into the +ghostly form of Carlotta. My misery overwhelmed me; and through my +misery shot a swift pang of remorse at having treated her harshly on +that sweet and memorable afternoon in May. + +I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down the desolate +gardens. The benches were empty, the trees were bare, "and no birds +sang." I crossed the road. + +The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly open, and from the +pavement one could see the warmth and colour of the vestibule. Here was +staying the Arch-Devil who had robbed me of my life. I stood for a moment +under the portico shaking with rage. I must have lost consciousness for +a few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs. +I found myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not +left. They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search +of him departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big +caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol. "Would to heaven +it were a gaol," I muttered to myself, "and this were the number of +Hamdi Effendi!" + +A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, effusively +saluted me by name. I stared at him. He recalled our acquaintance at +Etretat. I fished him up from the deeps of a previous incarnation and +vaguely remembered him as a young American floral decorator who used to +preach to me the eternal doctrine of hustle. I shook hands with him and +hoped that he was well. + +"Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I'm full up +with work. But you don't hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old +country. Men lunch. In New York all the lunch one has time for is to +swallow a plasmon lozenge in a street-car." + +His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears for an +illimitable time. I answered occasionally with the fringe of my mind. +Could my agonised state of being have remained unperceived by any human +creature save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York floral +decorator? + +"Since we met, guess how many times I've crossed the Atlantic. Four +times!" + +Long-suffering Atlantic! + +"And about yourself. Still going _piano, piano_ with books and things?" + +"Yes, books and things," I echud. + +The page came up and announced Hamdi's intention of immediate +appearance. + +"And how is that charming young lady, your ward, Miss Carlotta?" +continued my tormentor. + +"Yes," I answered hurriedly. "A charming young lady. You used to give +her sweets. Have you noticed that a fondness for sugar plums induces an +equanimity of character? It also spoils the teeth. That is why the front +teeth of all American women are so bad." + +I must be endowed with the low cunning of the fox, who, I am told, by +a swift turn puts his pursuers off the scent. The learned term the +rhetorical device an _ignoratio elenchi_. My young friend's patriotism +rose in furious defence of his countrywomen's beauty. I looked round the +luxuriously furnished vestibule, wondering from which of the many +doors the object of my hatred would emerge, and my young friend's talk +continued to ruffle the fringe of my mind. + +"I'm afraid you're expecting some one rather badly," he remarked with +piercing perceptiveness. + +"A dull acquaintance," said I. "I shall be sorry when his arrival puts +an end to our engaging conversation." + +Then the lift door opened and Hamdi stepped out like the Devil in an +Alhambra ballet. + +He looked at my card and looked at me. He bowed politely. + +"I did not know whom I should have the pleasure of seeing," said he in +his execrable French. "In what way can I be of service to Sir Marcus +Ordeyne?" + +"What have you done with Carlotta?" I asked, glaring at him. + +His ignoble small-pox pitted face assumed an expression of bland +inquiry. + +"Carlotta?" + +"Yes," said I. "Where have you taken her to?" + +"Explain yourself, Monsieur," said Hamdi. "Do I understand that Lady +Ordeyne has disappeared?" + +"Tell me what you have done with her." + +His crafty features grew satanic; his long fleshy nose squirmed like the +proboscis of one of Orcagna's fiends. + +"Really, Monsieur," said he, with a hideous leer--oh, words are impotent +to express the ugliness of that face! "Really, Monsieur, supposing I +had stolen Miladi, you would be the last person I should inform of her +whereabouts. You are simple, Monsieur. I had always heard that England +was a country of arcadian innocence, so unlike my own black, wicked +country, and now--" he shrugged his shoulders blandly, "_j'en suis +convaincu_." + +"You may jeer, Hamdi Effendi," said I in a white passion of anger. "But +the English police you will not find so arcadian." + +"Ah, so you have been to the police?" said the suave villain. "You +have gone to Scotland--Scotland Place Scotland--n'importe. They are +investigating the affair? I thank you for the friendly warning." + +"Warning!" I cried, choked with indignation. He held up a soft, fat +palm. + +"Ah--it is not a warning? Then, Monsieur, I am afraid you have committed +an indiscretion which your friends in Scotland Place will not pardon +you. You would not make a good police agent. I am of the profession, so +I know." + +I advanced a step. He recoiled, casting a quick look backward at the +lift just then standing idle with open doors. + +"Hamdi Effendi," I cried, "by the living God, if you do not restore me +my wife--" + +But then I stopped short. Hamdi had stepped quickly backward into the +lift, and given a sign to the attendant. The door slammed and all I +could do was to shake my fist at Hamdi's boots as they disappeared +upwards. + +I remember once in Italy seeing a cat playing with a partially stunned +bat which, flying low, she had brought to the ground. She crouched, +patted it, made it move a little, patted it again and retired on her +haunches preparing for a spring. Suddenly the bat shot vertically into +the air. + +I stared at the ascending lift with the cat's expression of impotent +dismay and stupefaction. It was inconceivably grotesque. It brought into +my tragedy an element of infernal farce. I became conscious of peals +of laughter, and looking round beheld the American doubled up in a +saddlebag chair. I fled from the vestibule of the hotel clothed from +head to foot in derision. + + +I am at home, sitting at my work-table, walking restlessly about the +room, stepping out into the raw air on the balcony and looking for +a sign down the dark and silent road. I curse myself for my folly in +entering the Hotel Metropole. The damned Turk held me in the palm of his +hand. He made mock of me to his heart's content.... And Carlotta is in +his power. I grow white with terror when I think of _her_ terror. She +is somewhere, locked up in a room, in this great city. My God! Where can +she be? + +The police must find her. London is not mediaeval Italy for women to be +gagged and carried off to inaccessible strongholds in defiance of laws +and government. I repeat to myself that she must come back, that the +sober working of English institutions will restore her to my arms, that +my agony is a matter of a day or two at most, that the special license +obtained this morning and now lying before me is not the document of +irony it seems, and that in a week's time we shall look back on this +nightmare of a day with a smile, and look forward to the future with +laughter in our hearts. + +But to-night I am very lonely. "Loneliness," says Epictetus, "is a +certain condition of the helpless man." And I am helpless. All my aid +lies in the learning in those books; and all the learning in all +those books on all sides from floor to ceiling cannot render me one +infinitesimal grain of practical assistance. If only Pasquale, man of +action, swift intelligence, were here! I can only trust to the trained +methods of the unimaginative machine who has set out to trace Carlotta +by means of the scar on her forehead and the mole behind her ear. And +meanwhile I am very lonely. My sole friend, to whom I could have turned, +Mrs. McMurray, is still at Bude. She is to have a child, I understand, +in the near future, and will stay in Cornwall till the confinement is +over. Her husband, even were he not amid the midnight stress of his +newspaper office, I should shrink from seeking. He is a Niagara of a +man. Judith--I can go to her no more. And though Antoinette has wept +her heart out all day long, poor soul, and Stenson has conveyed by +his manner his respectful sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own +servants. I have gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried my +face in his fur--where Carlotta's face has been buried. "That's the way +I should like to be kissed!" Oh, my dear, my dear, were you here now, +that is the way I should kiss you! + +I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room. Antoinette has +prepared it for her reception to-night, as usual. The corner of the +bedclothes is turned down, and her night-dress, a gossamer thing with +cherry ribbons, laid out across the bed. At the foot lie the familiar +red slippers with the audacious heels; her dressing-gown is thrown in +readiness over the back of a chair; even the brass hot water can stands +in the basin--and it is still hot. And I know that the foolish woman is +wide-awake overhead waiting for her darling. I kissed the pillow still +fragrant of her where her head rested last night, and I went downstairs +with a lump in my throat. + +Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from going mad with +suspense, jot down in my diary* the things that have happened. Put in +bald words they scarcely seem credible. + + + * It will be borne in mind that I am writing these actual + pages, afterwards, at Verona, amplifying the rough notes in + my diary. M. O. + + +A sudden clattering, nerve-shaking, strident peal at the front-door +bell. + +I flew down the stairs. It was news of Carlotta. It was Carlotta herself +brought back to me. My heart swelled with joy as if it would burst. I +knew that as I opened the door Carlotta would fall laughing, weeping, +sobbing into my arms. + +I opened the door. It was only a police officer in plain clothes. + +"Sir Marcus Ordeyne?" + +"Yes." + +"We have traced the young lady all right. She left London by the +two-twenty Continental express from Victoria with Mr. Sebastian +Pasquale." + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +November 1st. + +Five days ago the blow fell, and I am only now recovering; only now +awakening to the horrible pain of it. + +I have gone about like a man in a dream. Blurred visages of men with +far-away voices have saluted me at the club. Innumerable lines of print +which my eyes have scanned have been destitute of meaning. I have forced +myself to the mechanical task of copying piles of rough notes for my +History; I have been able to bring thereto not an atom of intelligence; +popes, princes, painters are a category of disassociated names, less +evocative of ideas than the columns in the Post Office London Directory. +I have stared stupidly into the fire or at the dripping branches of the +trees opposite my windows. I have walked the streets in dull misery. I +have sought solace in the Zoological Gardens. + +There is a kindly brown bear who pleads humanly for buns, and her I have +fed into a sort of friendship. I stand vacantly in front of the cage +finding in the beast an odd companionable sympathy. She turns her head +on one side, regards me with melting brown eyes, and squatting on her +haunches thrusts her paws beseechingly through the bars. Just so did +Carlotta beseech and plead. I have bemused myself with gnostic and +metempsychosic speculations. Carlotta as an ordinary human being with +an immortal soul did not exist, and what I had known and loved was but +a simulacrum of female form containing an elemental spirit doomed to +be ever seeking a fresh habitat. It was but the lingering ghost of the +humanised shell of air that was seen at Victoria station. The fateful +spirit, untrammelled by the conventions of men and actuated by destinies +unintelligible to mortal mind, had informed the carcass of this +little brown bear, which looks at me so strangely, so coaxingly, with +Carlotta's eyes and Carlotta's gestures. I asked her yesterday to come +back to me. I said that the house was empty; that the rooms ached for +the want of her. I pleaded so passionately and the eyes before me so +melted that I thought her heart was touched. But in the midst of it all +another visitor came up and the creature uttered a whining plaint and +put out her paw for buns--by which token I felt indeed that it was +Carlotta. + + +I have accepted the blow silently. As yet I have told no one. I have +made no inquiries. When a man is betrayed by his best friend and +deserted by the woman he loves, time and solitude are the only +comforters. Besides, to whom should I go for comfort? I have lived too +remote from my kind, and my kind heeds me not. + +Not a line has reached me from Carlotta. She has gone out of my life as +lightly and as remorselessly as she went out of Hamdi Effendi's; as she +went, for aught she knew, out of that of the unhappy boy who lured her +from Alexandretta. If she heard I was dead, I wonder whether she would +say: "I am so glad!" + +Whether the flight was planned between them, or whether Pasquale waylaid +her on her way to the Avenue Road and then and there proposed that she +should accompany him, I do not know. It matters very little. She is +gone. That is the one awful fact that signifies. No explanations, pleas +for forgiveness could make me suffer less. Were she different I might +find it in my heart to hate her. This I cannot do. How can one hate +a thing devoid of heart and soul? But one can love it--God knows how +blindly. So I have locked the door of Carlotta's room and the key is in +my possession. It shall not be touched. It shall remain just as she left +it--and I shall mourn for her as for one dead. + +For Pasquale--if I were of his own reversionary type, I should follow +him half across Europe till we met, and then one of us would kill the +other. In one respect he resembles Carlotta. He is destitute of the +moral sense. How else to solve the enigma? How else to reconcile his +flamboyant chivalry towards the consumptive washer-woman with the black +treachery towards me, in which even at that very moment his mind must +have been steeped? I knew that he had betrayed many, that where women +were concerned no considerations of honour or friendship had stood +between him and his desires; but I believed--for what reason save my own +egregious vanity, I know not--that for me he had a peculiar regard. +I believed that it was an idiosyncrasy of this wolf to look upon my +sheepfold as sacred from his depredations. I was ashamed of any doubts +that crossed my mind as to his loyalty, and did not hesitate to thrust +my lamb between his jaws. And while he was giving the lie direct to my +faith, I, poor fool, in my despair was seeking madly for his aid in the +deliverance of my darling from the power of the dog. + +I have felt I owe Hamdi Effendi an apology; for it is well that, in the +midst of this buffoon tragedy I find myself playing, I should observe +occasionally the decencies of conduct. But, on the other hand, was he +not amply repaid for moral injury by the pure joy he must have felt +while torturing me with his banter? For all the deeper suffering, I +am conscious of writhing under lacerated vanity when I think of that +grotesque and humiliating blunder in the Hotel Metropole. + + +November 2d. + +I have received news of the death of old Simon McQuhatty. In my +few lucid moments of late I had been thinking of seeking his kindly +presence. Now Gossip Death has taken him out across the moor. Now, dear +old pagan, he is + + "Rolled round in earth's diurnal course + With rocks and stones and trees." + + +November 3d. + +Antoinette came up this morning with a large cardboard box addressed to +Carlotta. The messenger who brought it was waiting downstairs. + +"I came to Monsieur to know whether I should send it back," said +Antoinette, on the verge of tears. + +"No," said I, "leave it here." + +From the furrier's label, I saw that the box contained some furs I had +ordered for Carlotta a fortnight ago--she shivered so, poor child, in +this wintry climate. + +"But, Monsieur," began Antoinette, "the poor angel--" + +"May want it in heaven," said I. + +The good woman stared. + +"We'll be like the ancient Egyptians, Antoinette," I explained, "who +placed food and wine and raiment and costly offerings in the tombs of +the departed, so that their shades could come and enjoy them for all +eternity. We'll have to make believe, Antoinette, that this is a +tomb, for one can't rear a pyramid in London, though it is a desert +sufficiently vast; and the little second floor room is the inner +sanctuary where the body lies in silence embalmed with sweet spices and +swathed in endless bands of linen." + +"But Mademoiselle is not dead?" cried Antoinette, with a shiver. "How +can Monsieur talk of such things? It makes me fear, the way Monsieur +speaks." + +"It makes me fear, too, Antoinette," said I, gravely. + +When she had gone I took the box of furs upstairs and laid it unopened +on Carlotta's bed and came away, relocking the door behind me. + + +November 9th. + +I have formed a great resolution. I have devoted the week to the +envisagement of things, and while I lay awake last night the solution +came to me as something final and irrevocable. Mistrusting the counsels +of the night, when the brain is unduly excited by nervous insomnia, I +have applied the test of a day's cold reason. + +I have broken a woman's heart. I have spurned the passionate love of a +woman who has been near and dear to me; a woman of great nature; a woman +of subtle brain who has been my chosen companion, my equal partner in +any intellectual path I chose to tread; a sensitive lady, with all the +graciousness of soul that term conveys. Heaven knows what a woman can +see in me to love. I look in the glass at my bony, hawk-like face, on +which the stamp of futility seems eternally set, and I am seized with a +prodigious wonder; but the fact remains that to me unlovely and unworthy +has been given that thing without price, a woman's love. I remember +Pasquale laughing merrily at this valuation. He said the love of women +was as cheap as dirt, and the only use for it was to make mud pies. The +damned cynical villain! "Always reflect," said he, on another occasion, +"that although a man may be as ugly as sin, the probability is that he +is just as pleasant. Beauties will find hitherto unsuspected amenities +in Beasts till the end of time." But I am such a poor and sorry Beast, +without the chance of a transformation; a commonplace Beast, dull and +didactic; a besotted, purblind, despicable Beast! Yet Judith loved me. +Instead of thanking on my knees the high gods for the boon conferred, I +rejected it, and went mad for craving of the infinitely lesser glory of +Carlotta's baby lips and gold-bronze hair. I have broken Judith's heart. +I will expiate the crime I have committed. + +Expiate the crime! The realisation of the meaning of the words covers +me with shame. As if what I propose will be a sorry penance! That is the +danger of a man thinking, as I have always done, in metaphors. It has +given me my loose, indirect views of life, of myself, of those around +me. If I had advice to offer to a young man, I should say: "Learn to +think straight." Expiate, indeed! I will go to her and make confession. +I will tell her that awful loneliness is crushing my soul. I will kneel +before her and beseech her of her great woman's goodness to give me her +love again, and to be my helpmeet and my companion who will be cherished +with all that there is of loyalty in me to her life's end. She will pity +me a little, for I have suffered, and I will pity her tenderly, in deep +sincerity, and our life together will be based on that all-understanding +which signifies all-forgiveness. And it shall be a real life together. +I used to smile, in a superior way, at her dread of solitude. Heaven +forgive me. I did not then know its terrors. It comforted for the first +few benumbed days, but now it is gathering around me like a mysterious +and appalling force. I crave the human presence in my home. I need the +woman's presence in my heart. + +We shall live together then as man and wife, in defiance of the world. +Let the moralists blame us. We shall not care. It will make little +social difference to Judith, and as for myself, have I not already +inflicted public outrage on society? does not my Aunt Jessica regard me +as a wringer of the public conscience, and does not my Cousin Rosalie +mention me with a shudder of horror in her tepid prayers? If I really +give them cause for reprobation they will be neither wiser, nor better, +nor sorrier. And if the baronetcy flickers out in unseemly odour, I +for one shall know that the odour is sweeter than that wherein it was +lighted, when my great-grandfather earned the radiance by services +rendered at Brighton to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. This is +the only way in which I can make Judith reparation, the only way in +which I can find comfort. We shall travel. Italy, beloved of Judith, is +calling me. Probably Florence will be our settled home. I shall give +up this house of madness. The clean sweet love of Judith will purify my +heart of this poisonous passion, and in the end there will be peace. + + +I have taken Carlotta's photograph from its frame and cast it into the +fire, thus burning her for her witchcraft. I watched the flames leap and +curl. The last look she gave me before they licked away her face had its +infinite allurement, its devilish sorcery so intensified in the fierce +yellow light, that the yearning for her clutched me by the throat and +shook me through all my being. + + +But it is over now. I have done with Carlotta. If she thinks I am going +to sit and let the wind which comes over Primrose Hill drive me mad +like Gastibelza, _l'homme a la carabine_, in Victor Hugo's poem, she is +vastly mistaken. From this hour henceforth I swear she is nothing to me; +I will eat and sleep and laugh as if she had never existed. Polyphemus, +curled up in Carlotta's old place on the sofa, regards me with his +sardonic eye. He is an evil, incredulous, mocking beast, who a few +centuries ago would have been burned with his late mistress. + +I am sane and happier now that I have come to my irrevocable +determination. + +To-morrow I go to Judith. + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +November 10th. + + +I had to ring twice before Judith's servant opened the flat door. + +"Mrs. Mainwaring is engaged just at present, Sir Marcus." + +"Ask her if I can come in and wait, as I have something of importance to +say to her." + +She left me standing in the passage, a thing that had never before +occurred to me in Judith's establishment, and presently returned with +her answer. Would I mind waiting in the dining-room? I entered. The +table was littered with sheets of her statistical work and odd bits of +silk' and lining. A type-writer stood at one end and a sewing-machine at +the other. On the writing-desk by the window, in the midst of a mass of +letters and account-books, rested a large bowl filled with magnificent +blooms of white and yellow chrysanthemums. A volume of Dante lay +open face downwards on the corner. It did my heart good to see this +untidiness, so characteristic of Judith, so familiar, so intimate. She +had taken her trouble bravely, I reflected. The ordinary daily task had +not been left undone. Through all she had preserved her valiant sanity. +I felt rebuked for my own loss of self-control. + +I was about to turn away from the litter of the desk, when my eye caught +sight of an envelope bearing a French stamp and addressed in Pasquale's +unmistakable handwriting. As there seemed to be a letter inside, I did +not take it up to examine it more closely. The glance was enough to +assure me that it came from Pasquale. Why should he be corresponding +with Judith? I walked away puzzled. Was it a justification, a +confession, a plea to her as my friend to obtain my forgiveness? +If there is one thing more irritating than another it is to +light accidentally upon a mystery affecting oneself in a friend's +correspondence. One can no more probe deeply into it than one can steal +the friend's spoons. It seems an indiscretion to have noticed it, an +unpardonable impertinence to subject it to conjecture. In spite of my +abhorring the impulse of curiosity, the sweeping, flaunting, swaggering +handwriting of Pasquale worried me. + +Judith came in, looking much as she had done on the occasion of my last +visit, worn and anxious, with a strange expression in her eyes. + +"I am sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, extending a lifeless +hand. + +I raised it to my lips. + +"I would have gladly waited all day to see you, Judith," I said. + +"Really?" + +She laughed in an odd way. + +"And idle speech from me to you at the present time would be an +outrage," I answered. "I have passed through much since I saw you last." + +"So have I," said Judith. "More than you imagine. Well," she continued +as I bowed my head accepting the rebuke, "what have you got so important +to tell me?" + +"Much," said I. "In the first place you must be aware of what has +happened, for I can't help seeing there a letter from Pasquale." + +She glanced swiftly at the desk and back again at me. + +"Yes," she replied, "he is in Paris." + +I was amazed at her nonchalance. + +"Has he told you nothing?" + +"Perhaps Sir Marcus Ordeyne would like to see his letter," she said, +ironically. + +"You know perfectly well that I would not read it," said I. + +Judith laughed again, and rolled her handkerchief into a little ball +between her nervous fingers. + +"Forgive me," she said. "I like to see the _grand seigneur_ in you now +and then. It puts me in mind of happier days. But about Pasquale--the +only thing he tells me is that he is not able to execute a commission +for me. He told me on the night he drove me home that he was going to +Paris, and I asked him to get me some cosmetic. Carmine Badouin, if you +want to know. I have got to rouge now before I am fit to be seen in the +street. I am quite frank about it." + +"Then you know nothing of Carlotta?" I cried. + +"Carlotta?" + +"She eloped with that double-dyed, damned, infernal villain, the day +after I saw you." + +Judith looked at me for a moment, then closed her eyes and turned her +head away, resting her hand on the table. My indignation waxed hot +against the scoundrel. How dare he write casual letters to Judith about +Carmine Badouin with his treachery on his conscience? I know the terms +of flippant grace in which the knave couched this precious epistle. And +I could see Carlotta reading over his shoulder and clapping her hands +and cooing: "Oh, that is so funny!" + +When I had told Judith the outlines of the story, pacing up and down the +little room while she remained motionless by the table, she put out her +hand to me, and in a low voice, and with still averted eyes said that +she was sorry, deeply sorry. Her tone rang so true and loyal that my +heart throbbed with quick appreciation of her high nature, and I wrung +her outstretched hand. + +"God bless you, Judith," I cried, fervently. "Bless you for your sweet +sympathy. Be sorry for me only as for a man who has passed through the +horrors of delirium. But for me as I stand before you now, I ask you not +to be sorry. I have come to bring you, if I can, dear Judith, a measure +of gladness, perhaps of happiness." + +She wrenched herself free from me, and a terrified cry of "Marcus!" +checked my dithyrambic appeal. She shrank away so that a great corner of +the dining-table separated us, and she stared at me as though my words +hats been the affrighting utterance of a madman. + +"Marcus! What do you mean?" she cried, with an unnatural shrillness in +her voice. + +"I mean," said I, "I mean--I mean that 'crushed by three days' pressure, +my three days' love lies slain.' Time has withered him at the root. I +have buried him deep in unconsecrated ground, like a vampire, with a +stake through his heart. And I have come back to you, Judith, humbly +to crave your forgiveness and your love--to tell you I have changed, +dear--to offer you all I have in the world if you will but take it--to +give you my life, my daily, hourly devotion. My God!" I cried, "don't +you believe me?" + +She still stared at me in a frightened way, leaning heavier on the +table. Her lips twitched before they could frame the words, + +"Yes, I believe you. You have never lied to me." + +"Then in the name of love and heaven," I cried, "why do you look at me +like that?" + +She trembled, evidently suppressing something with intense effort, +whether bitter laughter, indignation or a passionate outburst I could +not tell. + +"You ask why?" she said, unsteadily. "Because you seem like the angel of +the flaming vengeance." + +At these astounding words it was my turn to look amazed. + +"Vengeance?" I echud. "What wrong have you done me or any living +creature? Come, my dear," and I moved nearer by seating myself on the +corner of the table, close to the type-writer, and leaning towards her, +"let us look at this thing soberly. If ever a man had need of woman I +have need of you. I can live alone no longer. We must share one home +henceforth together. We can snap our fingers at the world, you and I. +If you have anything to say against the proposal, let us discuss it +calmly." + +Judith's slender figure vibrated like a cord strung to breaking-point. +Her voice vibrated. + +"Yes, let us discuss it calmly. But not here. The sight of you +sitting in the middle of my life, between the sewing-machine and the +type-writer, is getting on my nerves. Let us go into the drawing-room. +There is an atmosphere of calm there--" her voice quavered in a queer +little choke--"of sabbatical calm." + +I slid quickly from the table and put my arm round her waist. + +"Tell me, Judith, what is amiss with you." + +She broke away from me roughly, thrusting me back. + +"Nothing. A woman's nothing, if you understand what that means. Come +into the drawing-room." + +I opened the door; she passed out and I followed her along the passage. +She preceded me into the drawing-room, and I stayed for a moment to +close the door, fumbling with the handle which has been loose for some +months. When I turned and had made a couple of steps forward, I halted +involuntarily under the shock of a considerable surprise. + +We were not alone. Standing on the hearth-rug, his hands behind his +back, his brows bent on me benevolently was a man in clerical attire. He +looked ostentatiously, exaggeratedly clerical. His clerical frock-coat +was of inordinate length; his boots were aggravatingly clump-soled; by +a very large white tie, masking the edges of a turned-down collar, he +proclaimed himself Evangelical. An otherwise clean-shaven florid face +was adorned with brown side-whiskers growing rather long. A bald, shiny +head topped a fringe of brown hair. + +I stared at this unexpected gentleman for a second or two, and then, +recovering my self-possession, looked enquiringly at Judith. + +"Sir Marcus," she said, "let me introduce my husband, Mr. Rupert +Mainwaring." + +Her husband! This benevolent Evangelical parson her husband! But the +brilliant gallant who had dazzled her eyes? The dissolute scoundrel +that had wrecked her life? Where was he? Dumfounded, I managed to bow +politely enough, but my stupefaction was covered by Judith rushing +across the room and uttering a strange sound which resolved itself into +a shrill, hysterical laugh as she reached the door which she opened and +slammed behind her. I heard her scream hysterically in the passage; +then the slam of another door; and the silence told me that she had shut +herself in her bedroom. Disregarding the new husband's presence, I rang +the bell, and the servant who had left her kitchen on hearing the scream +entered immediately. + +"Go to your mistress. She is ill," said I. + +The maid hurriedly departed. The parson and I looked at one another. + +"I am afraid," said I, "that my presence is unhappily an intrusion. I +hope to make your better acquaintance on another occasion." + +"Oh, please don't go," said he, "my wife is only a little upset and will +soon recover. I beg that you will excuse her. Besides, I should like to +have a talk with you." + +He offered me a chair, my own chair, the comfortable, broad-seated +Empire chair I had given Judith as a birthday present years ago, the +chair in which I had invariably sat. He did it with the manner of the +master of the house, a most courteous gentleman. The situation was +fantastic. Some ingenious devil must have conceived it by way of +pandering to the after-dinner humour of the high gods. As I sat down I +rubbed my eyes. Was this brown-whiskered, bald-headed clerical gentleman +real? The rubbing of my eyes dispelled no hallucination. He was flesh +and blood and still regarded me urbanely. It was horrible. The desertion +of the scoundrelly husband, who I thought was lost somewhere in the +cesspool of Europe, was the basis, the sanction of the relations +between Judith and myself; and here was this reverend, respectable man +apologising for his wife and begging me to be seated in my own chair. +The remark of Judith's that I should find sabbatical calm in the +drawing-room occurred to me, and I had to grip the arms of the chair to +prevent myself from joining Judith in her hysterics. + +The appearance of the husband in his legendary colours of rascality +would have been a shock. The sudden scattering of my plans for Judith's +happiness I should have viewed with consternation. But it would have +been normal. For him, however, to appear in the guise of an Evangelical +clergyman, the very last kind of individual to be associated with +Judith, was, I repeat, horribly fantastic. + +"I believe, Sir Marcus," said he, deliberately parting the tails of his +exaggerated frock-coat and sitting down near me, "that you are a very +great friend of my wife." + +I murmured that I had known Mrs. Mainwaring for some years. + +"You are doubtless acquainted with her unhappy history." + +"I have heard her speak of it," said I. + +"You must then share her surprise in seeing me here to-day. I should +like to assure you, as representing her friends and society and that +sort of thing, as I have assured her, that I have not taken this step +without earnest prayer and seeking the counsel of Almighty God." + +I am by no means a bigoted pietist, but to hear a person talk lightly +about seeking the counsel of Almighty God jars upon my sense of taste. I +stiffened at the sanctimonious tone in which the words were uttered. + +"You have without doubt very good reasons for coming back into the +circle of her life," said I. + +"The best of all reasons," he replied, caressing a brown whisker, +"namely, that I am a Christian." + +I liked him less and less. + +"Is that the reason, may I ask, why you remained away from her all these +years?" + +"I deserve the scoff," said he: "Those were days of sin. I deserve every +humiliation that can be put upon me. But I have since found the grace +of God. I found it at three o'clock in the afternoon on the eighth of +January, eighteen hundred and--" + +"Never mind the year," I interrupted. + +My gorge rose. The man was a sanctimonious Chadband. He had come with +nefarious designs on Judith's slender capital. I saw knavery in the +whites of his upturned eyes. + +"I should be glad," I continued quickly, "if you would come to the point +of the conversation you desire to have with me. I presume it concerns +Mrs. Mainwaring. She has reconciled herself to circumstances and has +found means to regulate her life with a certain measure of contentment +and comfort until now, when you suddenly introduce a disturbing factor. +You appear to wish to tell me your reasons for doing so--and I can't see +what the grace of God has to do with it." + +He sprang to his feet and shot out both hands in the awkward gesture of +an inspired English prophet. + +"But it has everything to do with it! It is the beginning and end, core +and kernel, root and branch of the matter. It is the grace of God that +checked me in the full career of my wickedness. It is the grace of God +that has lighted my path ever since to holier things. It is the grace of +God that has changed me from what I was to what I am. It is the grace +of God that has brought me here to ask pardon on my knees of the woman +I have wronged. The grace of God and of his son our Lord Jesus Christ, +which came upon me in a great light on that January afternoon even as it +did upon Saul of Tarsus. The grace of God has everything to do with it." + +"Mr. Mainwaring," said I, "such talk is either blasphemous or--" + +He did not allow me to state the alternative, but caught up the word in +a great cry. + +"Blasphemous! Why, man alive! for what are you taking me? Do you think +this is some unholy jest? Can't you see that I am in deadly earnest? +Come and see me where I live--" he caught me by the arm, as if he would +drag me away then and there, "among the poor in Hoxton. You scarcely +know where Hoxton is--I didn't when I was a man of ease like +yourself--that wilderness of grey despair where the sun of the world +scarcely shines, let alone the Light of God. Come and see for yourself, +man, whether I am lying!" + +Then it dawned upon me that the man had been talking from innermost +depths, that he was almost terrifyingly sincere. + +"I must ask you to pardon me," said I, "for appearing to doubt your good +faith. You must attribute it to my entire unfamiliarity with the terms +of Evangelical piety." + +He looked at me queerly for a moment, and then, in the quiet tones of a +man of the world, said, smiling pleasantly: + +"Very many years ago I had the pleasure of knowing your grandfather, the +late baronet. May I say that you remind me of him?" + +I have never heard an apology more gracefully and tactfully accepted. +For an unregenerate second he had become the gallant Rupert Mainwaring +again, and showed me wherein might lie his attraction. + +"Pray be seated," said he, more gravely, "and allow me to explain." + +He unfolded his story. It was well, said he, that an outsider (I an +outsider in that familiar room!) should hear it. I was at liberty to +make it public. Indeed, publicity was what he earnestly craved. As far +as my memory serves me, for my wits were whirling as I listened, the +following is an epitome of his narrative: + +He had been a man of sin--not only in the vague ecclesiastical sense, +but in downright, practical earnest. He had committed every imaginable +crime, save the odd few that lead to penal servitude and the gallows. He +drank, he betrayed women, he cheated at cards, he had an evil reputation +on the turf. His companions were chosen from the harlotry and knavery +of the civilised world. He had lured Judith from her first husband, thus +breaking his heart, poor man, so that he died soon after. He had married +Judith, and had deserted her for a barmaid whom in her turn he had +abandoned. He wallowed, to use his own expression, in the trough +of iniquity. He was, as I had always understood, about as choice a +blackguard as it would be possible to meet outside a gaol. One day +a pretty girl, whom he had been following in the street, unwittingly +enticed him into a revivalist meeting. He described that meeting so +vividly that had my stupefied mind been capable of fresh emotions, I too +might have been converted at second hand by the revivalist preacher. +He repeated parts of the sermon, rose to his feet, waved his arms, +thundered out the commonplaces of Salvation Army Christianity, as if +he had made an amazing theological discovery. It was pathetic. It was +ludicrous. It was also inconceivably painful. At last he mopped his +forehead and shiny head. + +"Before that meeting was over I was on my knees praying beside the girl +whom I had designed to ruin. I went into the streets a converted man, +filled with the grace of God. I resolved to devote my life to saving +souls for Christ. My old habits of sin fell away from me like a garment. +I studied for the ministry. I am now in deacon's orders, and I am the +incumbent of a little tin mission church in Hoxton. God moves in a +mysterious way, Sir Marcus." + +"He is generally credited with doing so," said I, stupidly. + +"You are doubtless wondering, Sir Marcus," he went on, "why I placed +such a long interval between my awakening and my communicating with my +wife. I set myself a period of probation. I desired to be assured of +God's will. It was essential that I should test my strength of purpose, +and my power of making a life's atonement, as far as the things of this +world are concerned, for the wrongs I have inflicted on her. I have come +now to offer her a Christian home." + +I looked at him open-mouthed. + +"Do you expect Judith to go and live with you as your wife, in Hoxton?" +I asked, bluntly. + +"Why not? She is my wife." + +I rose and walked about the room in agitation. Somehow such a +contingency had not entered my bewildered head. + +"Why not, Sir Marcus?" he repeated. + +"Because Judith isn't that kind of woman at all," I said, desperately. +"She doesn't like Hoxton, and would be as much out of place in a +tin-mission church as I should be in a cavalry charge." + +"God will see to her fitness," said he, gravely. "To him all things are +easy." + +"But she has considerable philosophic doubt as to his personal +existence," I cried. + +He smiled prophetically and waved away her doubt with a gesture. + +"I have no fears on that score," he observed. + +"But it is preposterous," I objected once more, changing my ground; +"Judith craves the arrears of gaiety and laughter which your conduct +caused life to leave owing to her. She loves bright dresses, cigarettes, +and wine and the things that are anathema in an Evangelical household." + +"My wife will find the gaiety and laughter of holiness," replied +the fanatic. "She will not be stinted of money to dress herself with +becoming modesty; and as for alcohol and tobacco, no one knows better +than myself how easy it is to give them up." + +"You seem as merciless in your virtues as you were in your vices," said +I. + +"I have to bring souls to Christ," he answered. + +"That doesn't appear to be the way," I retorted, "to bring them." + +"Pray remember, Sir Marcus," said he, bending his brows upon me, "that I +did not ask you for suggestions as to the conduct of my ministry." + +"The general methods you adopt in the case of your congregation," said +I, "are matters of perfect indifference to me. But I cannot see Judith +imprisoned for life in a tin church without a protest. Your proposal +reminds me of the Siennese who owed a victorious general more than they +could possibly repay. The legend goes that they hanged him, in order to +make him a saint after his death by way of reward. I object to this sort +of canonisation of Judith. And she will object, too. You seem to leave +her out of account altogether. She is mistress of her own actions. She +has a will of her own. She is not going to give up her comfortable flat +off the Tottenham Court Road in order to dwell in Hoxton. She won't go +back to you under your conditions." + +He smiled indulgently and held out his hand to signify that the +interview was over. + +"She will, Sir Marcus." + +Was there ever such a Torquemada of a creature? I respect religion. I +respect this man's intense conviction of the reality of his conversion. +I can respect even the long frock coat and the long brown whiskers, +which in the case of so dashing a worldling as Rupert Mainwaring were +a deliberate and daily mortification of the flesh. But I hold in +shuddering detestation "the thumb-screw and the rack for the glory of +the Lord," which he cheerfully contemplated applying to Judith. + +"Why on earth can't you let the poor woman alone?" I asked, ignoring his +hand. + +"I am doing my duty to God and to her," said he. + +"With the result that you have driven her into hysterics." + +"She'll get over them," said he. + +"I wish you good-day," said I. "We might talk together for a thousand +years without understanding each other." + +"Pardon me," he retorted, with the utmost urbanity. "I understand you +perfectly." + +He accompanied me to the dining-room where I had left my hat and +umbrella, and to the flat door which he politely opened. When it shut +behind me I felt inclined to batter it open again and to take Judith +by main force from under his nose. But I suppose I am pusillanimous. I +found myself in the street brandishing my umbrella like a flaming sword +and vowing to perform all sorts of Paladin exploits, which I knew in my +heart were futile. + +I hailed an omnibus in the Tottenham Court Road, and clambered to the +top, though a slight drizzle was falling. Why I did it I have not +the remotest idea, for I abhor those locomotive engines of exquisite +discomfort. I had no preconceived notion of destination. It was a moving +thing that would carry me away from the Tottenham Court Road, away +from the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring, away from myself. I was the solitary +occupant of the omnibus roof. The rain fell, softly, persistently, +soakingly. I laughed aloud. + +I recognised the predestined irony of things that at every corner checks +the course of the ineffectual man. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +November 11th. + +I wrote Judith a long letter last night, urging her to disregard the +forfeited claims of her husband and to join her life definitely with +mine. I was cynical enough to feel that if such a proceeding annoyed +the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring it would serve him right. The fact of a man's +finding religion and abjuring sack does not in itself exculpate him from +wrongs which he has inflicted on his fellow-creatures in unregenerate +days. Mainwaring deserved some punishment of which he seemed to have had +remarkably little; for, mind you, his sack-cloth and ashes at Hoxton, +although sincerely worn, are not much of a punishment to a man in his +exalted mood. Now, on the contrary, Judith deserved compensation, such +as I alone was prepared to offer her in spite of conventional morality +and the feelings of the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring. Indeed, it seemed to +be the only way of saving Judith from being worried out of her life by +frantic appeals to embrace both himself and Primitive Christianity. +Her position was that of Andromeda. Mine that of an unheroic Perseus, +destined to deliver her from the monster--the monster whose lair is a +little tin mission church in Hoxton. + +I wrote the letter in one of those periods of semi-vitality when the +pulses of emotion throb weakly, and sensitiveness is dulled. To-day +I have felt differently. My nerves have been restrung. Something +ironically vulgar, sordidly tragic has seemed to creep into my relations +with Judith. + +To my great surprise Judith brought her answer in person this evening. +It is the first time she has entered my house; and her first words, as +she looked all around her with a wistful smile referred to the fact. + +"It is almost just as I have pictured it--and I have pictured it--do you +know how often?" + +She was calmer, if not happier. The haggard expression had given place +to one of resignation. I wheeled an arm-chair close to the fire, for she +was cold, and she sank into it with a sigh of weariness. I knelt beside +her. She drew off her gloves and put one hand on my head in the old way. +The touch brought me great comfort. I thought that we had reached the +quiet haven at last. + +"So you have come to me, Judith," I whispered. + +"I have come, dear," she said, "to tell you that I can't come." + +My heart sank. + +"Why?" I asked. + +We fenced a little. She gave half reasons, womanlike, of which I proved +the inadequacy. I recapitulated the arguments I had used in my letter. +She met them with hints and vague allusions. At last she cut the knot. + +"I am going back to my husband." + +I rose to my feet and echud the words. She repeated them in a tone so +mournfully distinct, that they had the finality of a death-knell. I had +nothing to say. + +"Before we part I must make my peace with you, Marcus," she said. "I +have suddenly developed a conscience. I always had the germs of it." + +"You were always the best and dearest woman in the world," I cried. + +"And I betrayed you, dear. That letter from Pasquale told me about his +flight with Carlotta. I lied to you--but I was in a state bordering on +madness." + +I rested my elbow on the mantel-piece and looked down on her. She +appeared so sweet and fragile, like a piece of Dresden china, incapable +of base actions. As I did not speak she went on: "I did not mean to play +into Pasquale's hands, Marcus. Heaven knows I didn't--but I did play +into them. Do you remember that awful night and our talk the next +morning? I asked you not to see her all day--to mourn our dead love. I +knew you would keep your promise. You are a man of sensitive honour. If +all men were like you, the world would be a beautiful place." + +"It would go to smash in a few weeks through universal incompetence," I +murmured, with some bitterness. + +"There would be no meanness and treachery and despicable underhand +doings. Marcus, you must forgive me--I was a desperate woman fighting +for my life's happiness. I thought I would try one forlorn hope. I kept +you out of the way and came up here to see Carlotta. Don't interrupt me, +Marcus; let me finish. I happened to meet her a hundred yards down the +road, and we went into the Regent's Park. We sat down and I told her +about ourselves, and my love for you, and asked her to give you up. I +don't believe she understood, Marcus. She laughed and threw stones at a +little dog. I recovered my senses and left her there and went home sick +with shame and humiliation. I knew Pasquale was in love with her, for he +had told me so the night before, and asked me how the marriage could be +stopped. He didn't believe in your announcement to Hamdi Effendi. But I +never mentioned Pasquale to Carlotta, or hinted there might be another +than you. I was loyal so far, Marcus. And two or three days afterwards +came Pasquale's letter. And I waited for you, in a fearful joy. I knew +you would come to me--and I was mad enough to think that time would +heal--that you would forget--that we could have the dear past again--and +I would teach you to love me. But then, suddenly, without a word of +warning--it has always been his way--appeared my husband. After that, +you came with your offer of shelter and comfort--and you seemed like the +angel of the flaming vengeance. For I had wronged you, dear--robbed you +of your happiness. If I hadn't prepared her mind for leaving you, she +would never have run away. If I had not done this, or if on the other +hand you loved me, Marcus, I should perhaps have looked at things +differently. I am beginning to believe in God and to see his hand in +it all. I couldn't come and live with you as your wife, Marcus. Things +stronger even than my love for you forbid it. Our life together would +not be the sweet and gracious thing it has always been to me. We have +come to the parting of the ways. I must follow my husband." + +I knew she spoke rightly. When she is not swept away to hysterical +action by her temperament, she has a perception exquisitely keen into +the heart of truth. + +"The parting of the ways?" said I. "Yes; but can't you rest at the +cross-roads? Can't you lead your present life--your husband and myself, +both, just your friends?" + +"Rupert has need of me," she replied very quickly. "He is a man in +torment of soul. He has gone to this extreme of religious fanaticism +because he is still uncertain of himself. We had another long talk +to-day. I may help him." + +"Does he deserve the sacrifice of your life?" + +She did not take up my question directly; but sat for a few minutes with +her chin on her hand looking into the fire. + +"He is a man of evil passions," she resumed, at last. "Drink and women +mainly dragged him down. I knew the hell of it during the short time of +our married life. If he falls away now, he believes he is damned to all +eternity. He believes in the material torture--flames and devils and +pitchforks--of damned souls. He says in me alone lies his salvation. I +must go. If the tin church gets too awful, I shall run over to Delphine +Carrere for a week to steady my nerves." + +What could I say? The abomination of desolation lay around about me. +I might have prated to her of my needs, wrung her heart with the +piteousness of my appeal. _Cui bono?_ _I_ can't whine to women--or to +men either, for the matter of that. When I am by myself I can curse and +swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza out-Heroding all +the Herods that ever Heroded. But before others--no. I believe my +great-grandfather, before he qualified for his baronetcy, was a +gentleman. + +"But on these occasions," said I, "you will avoid a sequestered and +meditative self." + +Her laugh got choked by a sob. + +"Do you remember that? It is not so long ago--and yet it seems many, +many years." + +We moralised generally, after the way of humans, who desire to postpone +a moment of anguished speech. She made the tour of my book-shelves. Many +of the books she had borrowed, and she recognised them as old friends. + +"Is that where Benvenuto Cellini has always lived?" + +"Yes," said I, running my hand along the row. "He is in his century, +among his companions. He would be unhappy anywhere else." + +"And the History--how far has it gone?" + +I showed her the pile of finished manuscript, of which she glanced at a +few pages. She put it down hurriedly and turned away. + +"I can't see to read, just now, Marcus." + +Then she paused in front of her own photograph, the only one now on the +mantel-piece. + +"Will you give me that back?" + +"Why should I?" I asked. + +"I would rather--I should not like you to burn it." + +"Burn it? All I have left of you?" + +She turned swimming eyes on me. + +"You are good, Marcus--after what I have told you--you do not feel +bitterly against me?" + +"For what? For being quixotic? For going to martyrdom for an ideal?" + +"You did not listen when I spoke about Carlotta?" + +"Oh, my dear!" said I. + +And now she has gone. We kissed at parting--a kiss of remembrance and +renunciation. Shall we ever meet again? + +Darkness gathers round me, and I am tired, tired, and I would that I +could sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and awake an old man, with an old man's +passionless resignation; or better, awake not at all. Such poor fools as +I are better dead. + +I look back and see all my philosophy refuted, all my prim little +opinions lying prone like dolls with the sawdust knocked out of them. +All these years I have been judging Judith with an ignorance as cruel as +it has been complacent. Verily I have been the fag end of wisdom. So I +forbear to judge her now. + +If I had loved Judith with the great passion of a man's love for woman, +not all the converted rascals in Christendom could have come between us. + +And her seeing Carlotta--poor woman--what does it matter? What did she +say about Carlotta? "She laughed and threw stones at a little dog." + +Oh, my God! + + +November 12th + +This way madness lies. I will leave the house in charge of Stenson and +Antoinette and go abroad. Something has put Verona into my head. One +place is as good as another, so long as it is not this house--this house +of death and madness and crime--and Verona is in Italy, where I have +always found peace. + +I will confess my madness. This book is a record of my morals--the +finished version of the farce the high gods have called on meto play. I +thought last night the curtain was rung down. I was wrong. Listen, and +laugh as I do--if you can. + +I fixed myself to work to-day. After all, I am not an idler. I earn my +right to live. When I publish my History the world will be the richer by +_something_, poor though it may be. I vow I have been more greatly, +more nobly employed of late years, than I was when I earned my living +at school-slavery teaching to children the most useless, the most +disastrous, the most soul-cramping branch of knowledge wherewith +pedagogues in their insensate folly have crippled the minds and +blasted the lives of thousands of their fellow-creatures--elementary +mathematics. There is no more reason for any human being on God's +earth to be acquainted with the Binomial Theorem or the Solution of +Triangles--unless he is a professional scientist, when he can begin +to specialise in mathematics at the same age as the lawyer begins to +specialise in law or the surgeon in anatomy--than for him to be an +expert in Choctaw, the Cabala or the Book of Mormon. I look back with +feelings of shame and degradation to the days when, for the sake of a +crust of bread, I prostituted my intelligence to wasting the precious +hours of impressionable childhood, which could have been filled with +so many beautiful and meaningful things, over this utterly futile and +inhuman subject. It trains the mind--it teaches boys to think, they say. +It doesn't. In reality it is a cut and dried subject easy to fit into a +school curriculum. Its sacrosanctity saves educationalists an enormous +amount of trouble, and its chief use is to enable mindless young men +from the universities to make a dishonest living by teaching it to +others, who in their turn may teach it to a future generation. + +I am mad to-night--why have I indulged in this diatribe against +mathematics? I must find some vent, I suppose. I see now. I was +saying that I earned my right to live, that I am not an idler. I cling +strenuously to the claim. A man cannot command respect, even his own, by +the mere reason of his _vie sentimentale_. And, after what I have done +to-day, I must force my claim to the respect which on other grounds I +have forfeited. + +I spent, then, my day in unremitting toil. But this evening the horrible +craving for her came over me. Such a little thing brought it about. +Antoinette, who disapproves of the amorphous British lumps of sugar, has +found some emporium where she can buy the regular parallelopiped of +the Continent, and these she provides for my afterdinner coffee. +Absent-mindedly I dipped the edge of the piece of sugar into the liquid, +before dropping it, and watched the brown moisture rise through the +white crystals. Then I remembered. It was an invariable practice of +Carlotta's. She would keep the lump in the coffee to saturation-point +between her fingers, and then hastily put it into her mouth, so that it +should not crumble to pieces on the way. If it did, there would be much +laughter and wiping of skirts; and there would be a search through my +dinner-jacket pockets for a handkerchief to dry the pink tips of +her fingers. She called the dripping lump a canard, like the French +children. It was such a trivial thing; but it brought back with a rush +all the thousand dainty, foolish, captivating intimacies that made up +the maddening charm of Carlotta. + +Yes, I am aware that there is no language spoken under heaven that can +fitly express the doting folly of a man who can be driven mad by a piece +of sugar soaked in coffee. There is a ghastly French phrase not to be +found in Lamartine, Chateaubriand, or any of the polite sentimentalists +_avoir les sangs tournes de quelqu'un_. It is so with me. _J'ai les +sangs tournes d'elle_. Somebody has said something somewhere about the +passion of a man of forty. It must have to do with the French phrase. + +I pushed my coffee aside untasted, and buried my head in my hands, +longing, longing; eating my heart out for her. The hours passed. When +the servants were abed, I stole upstairs to her room, left as it was on +the night when Antoinette, hoping against hope, had prepared it for her +reception. I broke down. Heaven knows what I did. + +I returned to the drawing-room filled with the blind rage that makes +a man curse God and wish that he could die. The fire was black, and I +mechanically took up the poker to stir it. A tempest of impotent anger +shook my soul. I saw things red before my eyes. I had an execrable lust +to kill. I was alone amid a multitude of gibbering fiends. As I stooped +before the grate I felt something scrabble my shoulders. I leapt back +with a shriek, and saw standing on the mantel-shelf a black, one-eyed +thing regarding me with an expression of infinite malice. Before I knew +what I had done, I had brought the iron down, with all my force, upon +its skull, and it had fallen dead at my feet. + +_Finis coronat opus._ + + +November 22d. + +Verona:--I have abandoned the "History of Renaissance Morals." The +dog's-eared MS. and the dusty pile of notes I have shot into a lumber +heap in a corner of this room, where I sit and shiver by a little stove. +It is immense, marble, cold, comfortless, suggestive of "the vasty halls +of death." I have been here a week to-day. I thought I should find rest. +I should breathe the atmosphere of Italy again. I should ease my heart +among the masterworks of Girolamo dai Libri and Cavazzola, and, in +the presence of the blue castellated mountains they loved to paint, +my spirit would even be as theirs. In this old-world city, I fondly +imagined, I should forget the Regent's Park, and attune my mind to the +life that once filled its narrow streets. + +But nothing have I found save solitude. I stood to-day before the +mutilated fresco of Morone, my rapture of six years ago, and hated +it with unreasoning hatred. The Madonna belied the wreath-supported +inscription above her head, _"Miseratrix virginum Regina nostri +miserere,"_ and greeted me with a pitiless simper. The unidentified +martyr on the left stared straight in front of him with callous +indifference, and St. Roch looked aggravatingly plump for all his +ostentatious plague-spot. The picture was worse than meaningless. It was +insulting. It drove me out of the Public Gallery. Outside a grey mist +veiled the hills and a fine penetrating rain was falling. I crept home, +and for the fiftieth time since I have been here, opened my "History of +Renaissance Morals." I threw it, with a final curse, into the corner. + +I loathe it. I care not a fig for the Renaissance or its morals. I count +its people but a pestilent herd of daubers, rhymers, cutthroats, and +courtesans. Their _hubris_ has lost its glamour of beauty and has +coarsened into vulgar insolence. They offend me by their riotous +swagger, their insistence on the animal joy of living; chiefly by their +perpetual reminiscence of Pasquale. + +Yet once they interested me greatly, filling with music and with colour +the grey void of my life. Whence has come the change? + +In myself. To myself I have become a subject of excruciating interest. +To myself I am a vastly more picturesque personage than any debonair +hooligan of quattro-cento Verona. He has faded into the dullest (and +most offensive) dog of a ghost. I only exist. This sounds like the +colossal vanity of Bedlam. Heaven knows it is not. If you are racked +with toothache from ear to ear, from crown to chin, and from eyeball +to cerebellum, is not the whole universe concentrated in that head of +yours? Are you not to yourself in that hour of torture the most vitally +important of created beings? And no one blames you for it. Let me +therefore be without blame in my hour of moral toothache. + +In the days gone by I was the victim of a singular hallucination. I +flattered myself on being the one individual in the world not summoned +to play his part in the comedy of Life. I sat alone in the great +auditorium like the mad king of Bavaria, watching with little zest what +seemed but a sorry spectacle. I thought myself secure in my solitary +stall. But I had not counted on the high gods who crowd shadowy into the +silent seats and are jealous of a mortal in their midst. Without warning +was I wrested from my place, hurled onto the stage, and before my +dazzled eyes could accustom themselves to the footlights, I found +myself enmeshed in intolerable drama. I was unprepared. I knew my part +imperfectly. I missed my cues. I had the blighting self-consciousness +of the amateur. And yet the idiot mummery was intensely real. Amid the +laughter of the silent shadowy gods I thought to flee from the stage. +I came to Verona and find I am still acting my part. I have always been +acting. I have been acting since I was born. The reason of our being +is to amuse the high gods with our histrionics. The earth itself is the +stage, and the starry ether the infinite auditorium. + +The high gods have granted to their troupe of mimes one boon. Each has +it in his power to make the final exit at any moment. For myself I feel +that moment is at hand. One last soliloquy, and then like the pagliacco +I can say with a sigh, _"La commedia e finita_--the play is played out," +and the rest will be silence. At all events I will tell my own story. My +"History of Renaissance Morals" can lie in its corner and rot, whilst I +shall concern myself with a far more vital theme--The Morals of Marcus +Ordeyne. The rough entries in my diary have been a habit of many futile +years; but they have never sufficed for self-expression. I have not +needed it till now. But now, with Judith and Carlotta gone from me, my +one friend, Pasquale, cut for ever from my life, even the sympathetic +Polyphemus driven into eternity by my murderous hand, I feel the +irresistible craving to express myself fully and finally for the first +and last time of my life. It will be my swan song. What becomes of it +afterwards I care not. + +And when the last word is written, I shall go to the Pinacoteca and +stand again before the Morone fresco, and if the _Miseratrix Virginum +Regina_ still simpers at me, I shall take it as a sign and a token. I +shall return to this marble cavern and make my final exit. It will +be theatrically artistic--that I vow and declare--which no doubt will +afford immense pleasure to the high gods in their gallery. + + + + + +PART II + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It is some two years since I stood for the second time in the Pinacoteca +of Verona and sought to read my fate in the simpering countenance +of Morone's _Miseratrix Virginum Regina_. I met what might have been +expected by a person of any sense--the self-same expression on the +painted face as I had angrily found there two months before when I began +to write the foregoing pages. But as I had no sense at all in those days +I accepted the poor battered Madonna's lack of sympathy for a sign and a +token, went home, and prepared for dissolution. + +Two years ago! It is only for the last few months that I have been able +to look back on that nightmare of a time in Verona with philosophic +equanimity. And this morning is the first occasion on which I have felt +that dispassionate attitude towards a past self which enables a man to +set down without the heartache the memories of days that are gone. I sit +upon the flat roof of this house in Mogador on the Morocco coast, shaded +by an awning from the bright African sun which glints in myriad sparkles +on the sea visible beyond the house-tops. The atmosphere last night was +somewhat heavy with the languorous, indescribable, and unforgettable +smell of the East; but the morning is deliciously wind-swept by the +Atlantic breeze, and the air tastes sweet. And it is clear, dazzlingly +clear. The white square houses and the cupolas of the mosques stand +out sharp against a sky of intense, ungradated blue. I am away from the +centre of the busy sea-port and the noise of its streets thronged with +grain-laden camels and shouting drivers and picturesque, quarrelling, +squabbling, haggling Moors and Jews and desert Arabs, and I am enveloped +in the peace of the infinite azure. Besides, yesterday afternoon, as +I rode back to Mogador, across the tongue of desert which separates it +from the Palm Tree House, and the town rose on the horizon, a dream city +of pure snow set in the clear sunset amethyst against the still, pale +lapis lazuli of the bay--something happened. And yesterday evening more +happened still. + + +Two years ago, then, I faced in Verona the dissolution of my ineffectual +existence. I could see no reason for living. My theory of myself in my +relation to the cosmos had been upset by practical phenomena. No other +theory based on surer grounds presented itself. But what about life, +said I, without a theory? Already it was life without a purpose, without +work, without friends, without Judith and without Carlotta. I could not +endure it without even a theory to console me. Beings do exist devoid of +loves or theories. But of such, I thought, are the beasts that perish. +I reflected further. Supposing, on extended investigation, I found a new +theory. How far would it profit me? How far could I trust it not to lead +me through another series of fantastic emotions and futile endeavours +to the sublime climax of murdering a one-eyed cat? Self-abomination and +contempt smote me as I thought of poor Polyphemus stretched dead on the +hearthrug, and myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, +with the poker in my hand. + +I walked up and down the vast cold room of the marble palazzo, arraying +before me in overwhelming numbers the arguments for selfdestruction. On +a table in the middle of the room stood a phial of prussic acid which I +had procured long before in London, it being a conviction of mine that +every man ought to have ready to hand a sure means of exit from the +world. I paused many times in front of the little blue phial. One lift +of the hand, one toss of the head, and all would be over. At last I +extracted the cork, and the faint smell of almonds reached my nostrils. +I recorked the phial and lit a cigarette. This I threw away half smoked +and again approached the table of death. I began to feel a strong +natural disinclination to swallow the stuff. "This," said I, "is sheer +animal cowardice." I again uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter +appeared to me. "It is the act of a craven to shirk the responsibilities +of life. Can you be such a meanspirited creature as not even to have +the courage to live?" "No," said I, "I have a valiant spirit," and I +set down the bottle. "Bah," whispered the familiar imp of suicide at my +elbow. "You are just afraid to die." I took up the bottle again. But the +other taunter had an argument equally strong, and once more I put the +phial uncorked on the table. + +Thus between two cowardices, one of which I must choose, stood I, like +the ass of Buridan. I lit another cigarette and excogitated the problem. +I smoked two cigarettes, walking up and down that vast, chill apartment, +while the air grew sickly sweet with the smell of almonds, which +intensified the physical repugnance the first faint odour had +occasioned. I began to shiver with cold. The stove had burned out before +I entered, and I had not considered it worth while to have it filled for +the few minutes that would remain to me to live. I had not reckoned on +the ass's bundles of cowardice. + +"I may as well be warm," thought I, "while I prove to my complete +satisfaction that it is more cowardly to live than to die. There is no +very great hurry." + +I caught up a travelling-rug with which I had tried to soften the +asperities of an imitation Louis XV couch, and throwing it over my +shoulders, resumed my pilgrimage. I soon lost myself in the problem and +did not notice a corner of the rug gradually slipping down towards the +floor. + +"I'll do it!" I cried at last, making a sudden dive towards the table. +But the ironical corner of the rug had reached the ground. I stepped on +it, tripped, and instinctively caught the table to steady myself. The +table, a rickety gueridon, overbalanced, and away rolled my uncorked +phial of prussic acid and fell into a hundred pieces on the tessellated +floor. + +"_Solvitur_," said I, grimly, "_ambulando_." + +Looking back now, I am inclined to treat myself tenderly. Whether I +should have drunk the poison, if the accident had not occurred, I +cannot say. At the moment of my rush I intended to do so. After the +catastrophe, which I attributed to the curse of ineffectuality that +pursued me, I must confess that I was glad. Not that life looked more +attractive than before, but that the decision had been taken out of my +hands. I could not go about the shops of Verona buying prussic acid +or revolvers or metres of stout rope. And my razors (without Stenson's +care) were benignantly blunt, and I would not condescend to braces. +I groaned and pished and pshawed, but as it was written that I was to +live, I resigned myself to a barren and theoryless existence. + +After a day or two the vital instinct asserted itself more strongly. I +became inspired by an illuminating revelation. I had a preliminary aim +in life. I would go out into the world in search of a theory. When found +I would apply it to the regulation of the score and a half years during +which I might possibly expect to remain on this planet. I must take my +chances of it leading me to the corpse of another Polyphemus. + +As it struck me I should not find my theory in Italy, I packed up my +belongings and hastened from Verona. At Naples I picked up a Messageries +Maritimes steamer and began a circular tour in the Levant. At +Alexandretta I went ashore, and inquired my way to the dwelling of the +Prefect of Police. I did not call on Hamdi Effendi. But I wandered round +the walls and wondered in a moody, heart-achey way where it was that +Carlotta sat when Harry came along and whistled her like a tame falcon +to his arm. It was a white palace of a house with a closed balcony +supported on rude corbels and tightly shuttered. At the back spread +a large garden surrounded by the famous wall. There was no doubt that +Hamdi was a wealthy personage, and that Carlotta's nurture had been as +gentle as that of any lady in Syria. But the place wherein Carlotta's +childhood had been sheltered had an air of impenetrable mystery. I stood +baffled before it, as I had stood so often before Carlotta's soul. The +result of this portion of my search was the discovery, not of a new +theory, but of an old pain. I went back to the ship in a despondent +mood, and caused deep distress to one of the gentlest creatures I have +ever met. He was a lean, elderly German, who no matter what the occasion +or what the temperature wore a long, tight-buttoned frock-coat, a narrow +black tie, and a little bluish-grey felt hat adorned with a partridge's +feather which gave him an air of forlorn rakishness. His name was Doctor +Anastasius Dose, and he spent a blameless life in travelling up and +down the world, on behalf of a Leipsic firm of which he was a member, +in search of rare and curious books. For there are copies of books which +have a well-known pedigree like famous jewels, and whose acquisition, +a matter of infinite tact, gives rise, I was told by Herr Dose, to +the most exquisite thrill known to man. He brought me on that morose +afternoon a copy of the "Synonima," in Italian and French, of St. +Fliscus, printed by Simon Magniagus of Milan in 1480, and opened the +vellum covers with careful fingers. + +"In all the assemblage of human atoms that inhabit this vessel," said +he, "there is but one who is imbued with reverence for the past and +a sense of the preciousness of the unique. I need not tell you, Herr +Baronet, who are a scholar, that of this book only two copies exist in +this ink-sodden universe. One is in the University Library of Bologna; +the other is before your eyes. It is also the only book known to have +been printed by Magniagus. See the beautiful, small Roman type--a +masterpiece. Ach, Herr Baronet! to have accomplished one such work in +a lifetime, and then to sit among the blessed saints and look down on +earth and know that the two sole copies in existence are cherished by +the elect, what a reward, what eternal happiness!" + +I turned over the pages. The faint perfume of mouldy lore ascended and +I remembered the smell of the "Histoire des Uscoques" in the Embankment +Gardens. + +"The _odor di femina_ in the nostrils of the scholar," said I. + +"_Famina?_ Woman?" he cried, scandalised. + +"Yes, my friend," said I. "All things sublunar can be translated into +terms of woman. St. Fliscus wrote because he hadn't a wife; Simon +Magniagus stopped printing because he got married and devoted his +existence to reproducing himself instead of St. Fliscus." + +"Ach, that is very interesting," said he. "Could you tell me the date of +Magniagus's marriage?" + +"I never heard of him till this moment, my dear Herr Doctor. But depend +upon it, he was either married or was going to be married, and she ran +away from him and left him without the heart to print for posterity, and +when he took his seat among the saints she said she was so glad; he was +a stupid old ink-sodden fellow!" + +He departed sorrowingly from the deck, clasping the precious volume to +his heart. Allusive or discursive speech scared him like indecency; and +I had used his gem but as a peg whereon flauntingly to hang it. It took +me three days to tame him and to induce him to show me another of his +treasures, recently acquired in Athens. Ioannes Georgius Godelmann's +_Tractate de Lamiis_, printed by Nicholas Bassaeus of Frankfurt. I read +him Keats's poem about the young lady of Corinth, of which he had never +heard. His mental attitude towards it was the indulgent one of an old +diplomatist towards a child's woolly lamb. For him literature had never +existed and printing ended in the year 1600. But I was sorry when he +left me at Constantinople, where he counted on striking the track of a +Bohemian herbal, printed at Prague, and never more to be read by any of +the sons of man. In the summer he was going book-hunting in Iceland. By +chance I have learned since that he died there. Peace to his ashes! For +aught I could see he dwelt in a mild stupor of happiness, absorbed in +the intoxication of a tremulous pursuit. I wondered whether his soul +contained that antidote--the _odor di femina_. Perhaps he met it at +Reykjavic and he died of dismay. + +I thought that my landing at Alexandretta was alone responsible for +the continuance of my dotage, and hoped that fresh scenes would banish +Carlotta's distracting image. But no, it was one of the many vain +reflections on which I based a false philosophy. Whether in Beyrout, or +the land of the "sweet singer of Persephone," or Alexandria, or on the +Cannebiere of Marseilles, or in the queer half-Orient of Algiers whither +a restless pursuit of the Identical led me, or in Lisbon, or in the +mountainous republic of Andorre, where I hoped to find primitive wisdom +and to shape a theory from first principles, and whence I was ironically +driven by fleas--whether on land or sea, in cities or in solitudes, the +vanished hand harped on my heartstrings and the voice that was still (as +far as I was concerned) cooed its dove-notes into my ears. + +I remember overhearing myself described on a steamboat by a pretty +American girl of sixteen, as "a quaint gentle old guy who talks awful +rot which no one can understand, and is all the time thinking about +something else." My sudden emergence from the companion-way, where I +was lighting a cigarette, brought red confusion into the young person's +cheeks. + +"How old do you think I am?" I asked. + +"Oh, about sixty," quoth the damsel. + +"I'm glad I'm quaint and gentle, even though I do talk rot," said I. + +With the resourcefulness of her nation she linked her arm in mine and +started a confidential walk up and down the deck. + +"You are just a dear," she remarked. + +She could not have said more to Anastasius Dose had he been there; +as far as I can recollect he must just then have been dying of the +Inevitable in Iceland. Perhaps the few months had brought me to resemble +him. Instinctively I put my hand to my head to reassure myself that I +was not wearing a rakish little soft felt hat with a partridge-feather, +and I reflected with some complacency that my rimless pince-nez did not +give me the owlish appearance produced by Anastasius Dose's great round, +iron-rimmed goggles. From such crumbs of vanity are we sometimes reduced +to take comfort. + +"I just want to know what you are," said my young American friend. + +Shall I confess my attraction? She brought a dim suggestion of Carlotta. +She had Carlotta's colouring and Carlotta's candour. But there the +resemblance stopped. The grey matter of her brain had been distilled +from the air of Wall Street, and there were precious few things between +earth and sky of which she hadn't prescience. + +"I'm a broken-down philosopher," said I. + +"Oh, that's nothing. So is everybody as soon as they get sense. What +did you make your money in?" + +"I've not made any money," I answered, meekly. + +"I thought all people who were knighted in your country had made piles +of money." + +"Knighted!" I exclaimed. "What on earth do you think a quaint old guy +like myself could possibly have done to get knighted?" + +"Then you're a baronet," she said, severely. + +"I assure you it is not my fault." + +"I thought all baronets were wicked. They are in the novels. Somehow you +don't look like a baronet. You ought to have a black moustache and an +eyeglass and smoke a cigar and sneer. But, say, how do you fill up the +time if you do nothing to make money?" + +"I am going through the world," said I, "on an adventurous quest, like a +knight--or a baronet, if you will--of the Round Table. I am in quest of +a Theory of Life." + +"I guess I was born with it," cried young New York. + +"I guess I'll die without finding it," said I. + + +London again. My quiet house. Antoinette and Stenson. The well-ordered +routine of comfort. My books. The dog's-eared manuscript of the "History +of Renaissance Morals," unpacked by Stenson and hid in its usual place +on the writing-table. Nothing changed, yet everything utterly different. + +A growing distaste for the forced acquaintanceships of travel and a +craving for home brought me back. Save perhaps in health I had profited +little by my journeyings. My bodily shell formed part of strange +landscapes and occurred in fortuitous gatherings of men, but my heart +was all the time in my Mausoleum by the Regent's Park. I was drawn +thither by a force almost magnetic, irresistible. My two domestics +welcomed me home, but no one else. Only my lawyers knew of my arrival. +With them alone had I corresponded during the many months of my absence. +Stay; I did write one letter to Mrs. McMurray while I was at Verona, +in reply to an enquiry as to what had become of Carlotta and myself. +I answered courteously but briefly that Carlotta had run away with +Pasquale and that I should be abroad for an indefinite period. But not +even a letter from my lawyers awaited me. I thought somewhat wistfully +that I would willingly have paid six and eight pence for it. But the +feeling was momentary. + +Then began a queer, untroubled life. Without definite resolve I became +a recluse, living forlornly from day to day. Like a bat I avoided the +outer sunshine and took my melancholy walks at night. I had a pride in +cherishing the habit of solitude. Were it not that I entertained a real +dislike of roots and water and the damp and manifold discomforts of +a cave, with which form of habitat the ministrations of Stenson and +Antoinette would have been inconsistent, I should have gone forth into +the nearest approach to a Thebaid I could discover. I was, in fact, +touched by the mild mania of the hermit. My club I never entered. A line +drawn from east to west, a tangent at the lowest point of the Zoological +Gardens formed the southern boundary of my wanderings. Once I spied +in the distance that very kind soul, Mrs. McMurray, and rushed into a +providential omnibus, so as to avoid recognition. My History remained +untouched. The glamour of the Renaissance had vanished. For occupation I +read the Neo-Platonists, Thaumaturgy, Demonology and the like, which +I had always found a fascinating although futile study. I regretted my +bowing acquaintance with modern science, which forbade my setting up +a laboratory with alembics and magic crystals wherewith to conduct +experiments for the finding of the Elixir Vitae and the Philosopher's +Stone. + +I seldom read the newspapers. I had an idea, like an eminent personage +of the period, that a sort of war was going on, but it failed to +interest me greatly. I shrank from the noise of it. + +"Monsieur," said Antoinette, "will get ill if he does not go out into +the sunshine." + +"Monsieur," said I, "regards the sunshine as an impertinent intrusion +into a soul that loves the twilight." + +If I had made the same remark to an Englishwoman, she would have pitied +me for a poor, half-witted gentleman. But Antoinette has her nation's +instinctive appreciation of soul-states, and her sympathy was none the +less comprehending when she shook her head mournfully and said that it +was bad for the stomach. + +"My good Antoinette," I remarked, harking back in my mind to a +speculation of other days, "if you go on worrying me in this manner +about my stomach, I will build a tower forty feet high in the back +garden, and live on top, and have my meals sent up by a lift, and never +come down again." + +"Monsieur might as well be in Paradise," said Antoinette. + +"Ah," said I. And I thought of the bottle of prussic acid with mingled +sentiments. + +All through these many months I had Judith dwelling, a pale ghost, +in the back of my mind. We had parted so finally that correspondence +between us had seemed impertinent. But although I had not written to +her, no small part of the infinite sadness that had fallen upon my life +was the shadow of her destiny. Sweet, wine-loving Judith! How many times +did I picture her sitting pinched and wistful in the little tin +mission church at Hoxton! Had I, Marcus Ordeyne, condemned her to that +penitentiary? Who can hold the balance of morals so truly as to decide? + +At last I received a letter from her on the anniversary of our parting. +She had found salvation in a strange thing which she called duty. "I am +fulfilling an appointed task," she wrote, "and the measure of my success +is the measure of my happiness. I am bringing consolation to a wayward +and tormented spirit. A year has swept aside the petty feminine +vanities, the opera-glasses, so to speak, through which a woman +complacently views her influence over a man, and it has cleared my +vision. A year has proved beyond mortal question that without me this +wayward and tormented spirit would fail. I hold in my hands the very +soul of a man. What more dare a woman ask of the high gods? You see I +use your metaphors still. Dearest of all dear friends, do not pity me. +Beyond all the fires of love through which one passes there is the star +of Duty, and happy the individual who can live in its serenity." + +This was astonishingly like the Theory of Life which I set out from +Verona to seek, and which had hitherto eluded me. It was not very +new, or subtle, or inspiring. But that is the way of things. No +matter through what realms of the fantastic you may travel, you arrive +inevitably at the commonplace. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +I answered Judith's letter. After the long silence it seemed, at first, +strange to write to her; but soon I found myself opening my heart as I +had never done before to man or woman. The fact that, accident aside, +we were never to meet again, drew the spiritual elements in us nearer +together, and the tone of her letter loosened the bonds of my natural +reserve. I told her of my past year of life, of the locked memorial +chamber upstairs, of the madness through which I had passed, of my weary +pursuit of the Theory, and of my attitude towards her solution of the +problem. Having written the letter I felt comforted, knowing that Judith +would understand. + +I finished it about six o'clock one afternoon, and shrinking from giving +it to Stenson to post, as it was the first private letter I had written +since my arrival in London, I took it myself to the pillar-box. The +fresh air reproached me for the unreasonable indoor life I had been +leading, and invited me to remain outside. It was already dark. An early +touch of frost in the November air rendered it exhilarating. I walked +along the decorous, residential roads of St. John's Wood feeling +less remote from my kind, more in sympathy with the humdrum dramas in +progress behind the rows of lighted windows. Now and then a garden gate +opened and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of +satin and frills and fur, emerged, stood for a moment in the shaft of +light cast by the open hall-door beyond, which framed the white-capped +and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting hansom, drove off into +the darkness whither my speculative fancy followed them. Now and then +silhouettes appeared upon the window-blinds, especially on the upper +floors, for it was the dressing hour and the cares of the day were being +thrown aside with the workaday garments. In one house, standing far +back from the road, the drawing-room curtains had not been drawn. As I +passed, I saw a man tossing up a delighted child in his arms, and the +mother standing by. _Ay de mi!_ A commonplace of ten thousand homes, +when the man returns from his toil. Yet it moved me. To earn +one's bread; to perpetuate one's species; to create duties and +responsibilities; to meet them like a brave man; to put the new +generation upon the right path; to look back upon it all and say, "I +have fulfilled my functions," and pass forth quietly into the eternal +laboratory--is not that Life in its truth and its essence? And the +reward? The commonplace. The welcome of wife and children--and the +tossing of a crowing babe in one's arms. And I had missed it all, lived +outside it all. I had spoken blasphemously in my besotted ignorance of +these sacred common things, and verily I had my recompense in a desolate +home and a life of about as much use to humanity as that of St. Simeon +Stylites on top of his pillar. + +So I walked along the streets on the track of the wisdom which Judith +had revealed to me, and I seemed to be on the point of reaching it when +I arrived at my own door. + +"But what the deuce shall I do with it when I get it?" I said, as I let +myself in with my latch-key. + +I had just put my stick in the stand and was taking off my overcoat, +when the door of the room next the diningroom opened, and Antoinette +rushed out upon me. + +"Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!" she cried, wringing her hands. "Oh, Monsieur! +How shall I tell you?" + +The good soul broke into sobbing and weeping. + +"What is the matter, Antoinette?" Z asked. + +"Monsieur must not be angry. Monsieur is good like the Bon Dieu. But it +will give pain to Monsieur." + +"But what is it?" I cried, mystified. "Have you spoiled the dinner?" + +I was a million miles from any anticipation of her answer. + +_"Monsieur-she has come back!"_ + +I grew faint for a moment as from a blow over the heart. Antoinette +raised her great tear-stained face. + +"Monsieur must not drive her away." + +I pushed her gently aside and entered the little room which I had +furnished once as her boudoir. + +On the couch sat Carlotta, white and pinched and poorly clad. At first +I was only conscious of her great brown eyes fixed upon me, the dog-like +appeal of our first meeting intensified to heart-breaking piteousness. +On seeing me she did not rise, but cowered as if I would strike her. I +looked at her, unable to speak. Antoinette stood sobbing in the doorway. + +"Well?" said I, at last. + +"I have come home," said Carlotta. + +"You have been away a long time," said I. + +"Ye-es," said Carlotta. + +"Why have you come?" I asked. + +"I had no money," said Carlotta, with her expressive gesture of upturned +palms. "I had nothing but that." She pointed to a tiny travelling bag. +"Everything else was at the Mont de Piete--the pawnshop--and they would +not keep me any longer at the pension. I owed them for three weeks, and +then they lent me money to buy my ticket to London. I said Seer Marcous +would pay them back. So I came home." + +"But where--where is Pasquale?" I asked. + +"He went five, six months ago. He gave me some money and said he would +send some more. But he did not send any. He went to South Africa. He +said there was a war and he wanted to fight, and he said he was sick of +me. Oh, he was very unkind," she cried with the quiver of her baby lips. +"I wish I had never seen him." + +"Are you married?" + +"No," said Carlotta. + +"Damn him!" said I, between my teeth. + +"He was going to marry me, but then he said it did not matter in Paris. +At first he was so nice, but after a little--oh, Seer Marcous dear, he +was so cruel." + +There was a short silence. Antoinette wept by the door, uttering little +half-audible exclamations _"la pauvre petite, le cher ange!"_ + +Carlotta regarded me wistfully. I saw a new look of suffering in her +eyes. For myself I felt numb with pain. + +"What kind of a pension were you living in?" I asked, unutterable +horrors coming into my head. + +"It was a French family, an old lady and two old daughters, and one fat +German professor. Pasquale put me there. It was very respectable," she +added, with a wan smile, "and so dull. Madame Champet would scarcely let +me go into the street by myself." + +"Thank heaven you did not fall into worse hands," said I. + +Carlotta unpinned her old straw hat, quite a different garment from the +dainty head-wear she delighted in a year before, and threw it on the +couch beside her. A tress of her glorious bronze hair fell loose across +her forehead, adding to the woebegone expression of her face. She rose, +and as she did so I seemed to notice a curious change in her. She came +to me with extended hands. + +"Seer Marcous--" she whispered. + +I took her hands in mine. + +"Oh, my dear," said I, "why did you leave me?" + +"I was wicked. And I was a little fool," said Carlotta. + +I sighed, released her, walked a bit apart. There was a blubber from the +egregious old woman in the threshold. + +"Oh, Monsieur is not going to drive her away." + +I turned upon her. + +"Instead of standing there weeping like a fountain and doing nothing, +why aren't you getting Mademoiselle's room ready for her?" + +"Because Monsieur has the key," wailed Antoinette. + +"That's true," said I. + +Then I reflected on the futility of converting bedchambers into +mausoleums for the living. The room shut up for a year would not be +habitable. It would be damp and inch-deep in dust. + +"Mademoiselle shall sleep in my room to-night," I said, "and Stenson can +make me up a bed and put what I want here. Go and arrange it with him." + +Antoinette departed. I turned to Carlotta. + +"Are you very tired, my child?" + +"Oh, yes--so tired." + +"Why didn't you write, so that things could have been got ready for +you?" + +"I don't know. I was too unhappy. Seer Marcous--" she said after a +little pause and then stopped. + +"Yes?" + +"I am going to have a baby." + +She said it in the old, childlike way, oblivious of difference of sex; +with her little foreign insistence on the final consonants. I glanced +hurriedly at her. The fact was obvious. She stood with her hands +helplessly outspread. The pathos of her would have wrung the heart of a +devil. + +"Thank God, you've come home," said I, huskily. + +She began to cry softly. I put my arm round her shoulders, and comforted +her. She sobbed out incoherent things. She wished she had never seen +Pasquale. I was good. She would stay with me always. She would never run +away again. + +I took her upstairs, and opened the door of her room with the key that I +had carried for a year on my bunch, and turned on the electric light. + +"See what are still usable of your old things," said I, "and I will send +Antoinette up to you." + +She looked around her, somewhat puzzled. + +"Why should I sleep in your room when this one is ready for me--my night +dress--even the hot water?" + +"My dear," said I, "that hot water was put for you a year ago. It must +be cold now." + +"And my red slippers--and my dressing-gown!" she cried, quaveringly. + +Then sinking in a heap on the floor beside the dusty bed, she burst into +a passion of tears. + +I stole away and sent Antoinette to minister to her. + +A year before I had raved and ranted, deeming life intolerable and +cursing the high gods; I suffered then, it is true; but I hope I may +never again go through the suffering of that first night of Carlotta's +return. Even now I can close my eyes and feel the icy grip on my heart. + +She came down to dinner about an hour later, dressed in a pink wrapper, +one of the last things she had bought, which Antoinette (as she +explained to excuse her delay) had been airing before the fire. She sat +opposite me, in her old place, penitent, subdued, yet not shy or ill +at ease. Stenson waited on us, grave and imperturbable as if we had put +back the clock of time a twelvemonth. The only covert reference he made +to the event was to murmur discreetly in my ear: + +"I have brought up a bottle of the Pommery, Sir Marcus, in the hope you +would drink some." + +I was touched, for the good fellow had no other way of showing his +solicitude. + +Carlotta allowed him to fill her glass. She sipped the wine, and +declared that it did her good. She was no longer a teetotaller, she +explained. Once she drank too much, and the next day had a headache. + +"Why should one have a headache?" + +"Nemesis," said I. + +"What is Nemesis?" + +I found myself answering her question in the old half-jesting way. And +in her old way she replied: + +"I do not understand." + +How vividly familiar it was, and yet how agonisingly strange! + +"Where is Polyphemus?" she asked. + +"Dead," said I. + +"Oh-h! How did poor Polyphemus die?" + +"He was smitten by Destiny at the end of the last act of a farcical +tragedy." + +The ghost of a "_hou!_" came from Carlotta. She composed herself +immediately. + +"I often used to think of Polyphemus and Seer Marcous and Antoinette," +she said, musingly. "And then I wished I was back. I have been very +wicked." + +She put her elbows on the table, and framing her face with her hands +looked at me, and shook her head. + +"Oh, you are good! Oh, you are good!" + +"Go on with your dinner, my child," said I, "and wonder at the genius +of Antoinette who has managed to cook it and look after you at the same +time." + +She obeyed meekly. I watched her eat. She was famished. I learned that +she had had nothing since the early morning coffee and roll. In spite of +pain, I was curiously flattered by her return. I represented _something_ +to her, after all--even though the instinct of the prodigal cat had +driven her hither. I am sure it had never crossed her mind that my doors +might be shut against her. Her first words were, "I have come home." The +first thing she did when we went into the drawing-room after dinner +was to fondle my hand and lay it against her cheek and say, with a deep +sigh: + +"I am so happy." + +However shallow her butterfly nature was, these things came from its +depths. No man can help feeling pleased at a child's or an animal's +implicit trust in him. And the pleasure is of the purest. He feels that +unreasoning intuition has penetrated to some latent germ of good in his +nature, and for the moment he is disarmed of evil. Carlotta, then, +came blindly to what was best in me. In her thoughts she sandwiched +me between the cat and the cook: well, in most sandwiches the +mid-ingredient is the most essential. + +She curled herself up in the familiar sofa-corner, and as it was a +chilly night I sent for a wrap which I threw over her limbs. + +"See, I have the dear red slippers," she remarked, arching her instep. + +"And I have my dear Carlotta," said I. + +I drew my chair near her, and gradually I learned all the unhappy story. + +Pasquale had made love to her from the very first minute of their +acquaintance--even while I was hunting for the _L'Histoire Comique +de Francion_. He had met her many times unknown to me. They had +corresponded, her letters being addressed to a little stationer's shop +close by. She did not love him. Of that I have an absolute conviction. +But he was young, he was handsome, he had the libertine's air and +manner. She was docile. And she was ever positively truthful. If I had +questioned her she would have confessed frankly. But I never questioned, +as I never suspected. I wondered sometimes at her readiness in quoting +him. I noticed odd coincidences; but I was too ineffectual to draw +inferences from phenomena. His appearance on the Paddington platform was +prearranged; his duchessa at Ealing a myth. + +Apparently he had dallied with his fancy. The fruit was his any day +for the plucking. Perhaps a rudimentary sentiment of loyalty towards +me restrained him. Who can tell? The night of our meeting with Hamdi +brought the crisis. The Turk's threats had alarmed both Carlotta and +myself. It was necessary for him to strike at once. He saw her the next +day--would to heaven I had remained at home!--told her I was marrying +her to save her from Hamdi. I loved the other woman. He would save her +equally well from Hamdi. The other woman met her soon after parting from +Pasquale and besought her to give me up. She did not know what to do. +Poor child, how should she have known? On the previous evening I had +told her she was to marry me. She was ready to obey. She went to bed +thinking that she was to marry me. In the morning she went for her music +lesson. Pasquale was waiting for her. They walked for some distance down +the road. He hailed a cab and drove away with her. + +"He said he loved me," said Carlotta, "and he kissed me, and he told +me I must go away with him to Paris and marry him. And I felt all weak, +like that--" she dropped her arms helplessly in an expressive gesture, +"and so what could I do?" + +"Didn't you think, Carlotta, that I might be sorry--perhaps unhappy?" I +asked as gently as I could. + +"He said you would be quite happy with the other woman." + +"Did you believe him?" + +"That's why I said I have been very wicked," Carlotta answered, simply. + +She went on with her story--an old, miserable, detestable, execrable +story. At first all went merrily. Then she fell ill in Paris. It was +her first acquaintance with the northern winter. Her throat proved to be +delicate and she was laid up with bronchitis. To men of Pasquale's type, +a woman ill is of no more use than a spavined horse or a broken-down +motor-car. More than that, she becomes an infernal nuisance. It was +in his temperament to perform sporadic acts of fantastic chivalry. It +appealed to something romantic, theatrical, in his facile nature. But to +devote himself to a woman in sickness--that was different. The fifteenth +century Italian hated like the devil continued association with pain. He +would have thrown his boots to a beggar, but he would have danced in his +palace over the dungeons where his brother rotted in obscurity. + +So poor Carlotta was neglected, and began to eat the bread of +disillusion. When she got well, there was a faint recrudescence of +affection. Has not this story been written a million miserable +times? Why should I rend my heart again by retelling it? Wild rages, +jealousies, quarrels, tears-- + +"And then one day he said, 'You damned little fool, I am sick to death +of you,' and he went away, and I never saw him again. He wrote and he +sent his valet to put me in the pension." + +"And yet, Carlotta," said I bitterly, "you would go back to him if he +sent for you?" + +She sprang forward and gripped me by the arm--I was sitting quite close +to her--and her face wore the terror-stricken expression of a child +frightened with bogies. + +"Go back? After what he has done to me? You would not send me back? Seer +Marcous, darling, you will keep me with you? I will be good, good, good. +But go back to Pasquale? Oh, no-o-o!" + +She fell back in her sofa-corner, and fixed her great, deep imploring +eyes on me. + +"My dear," said I, "you know this is your home as long as ever you +choose to stay in it--but--" and I stroked her hair gently--"if he +comes back when your child is born--his child--" + +She drew herself up superbly. + +"It is my child--my very, very own," cried Carlotta. "It is mine, +mine--and I shall not allow any one to touch it--" and then her face +softened--"except Seer Marcous." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Behold Carlotta again installed in my house which she regarded as her +home. Heaven forbid that I should sow any doubt thereof in her mind. + +I had learned perhaps one lesson: the meaning of love. The love that +is desire alone, though sung in all romance of all the ages, is of the +brute nature and is doomed to perish. The love that pardons, endures +through wrong, contents itself in abnegation, is of the imperishable +things that draw weak man a little nearer to the angels. When Carlotta +wept upon my shoulder during those few first moments of her return I +knew that all resentment was gone from my heart, that it would have +been a poor, ignoble thing. Had she come back to me leprous of body and +abominable of spirit, it would not have mattered. I would have forgiven +her, loved her, cherished her just the same. It was a question, not +of reason, not of human pity, not of quixotism; not of any argument or +sentiment for which I could be responsible. I was helpless, obeying a +reflex action of the soul. + +The days passed tranquilly. In spite of pain I felt an odd happiness. I +had nothing selfishly to hope for. Perhaps I had aged five years in one, +and I viewed life differently. It was enough for me that she had come +home, to the haven where no harm could befall her. She was my appointed +task, even as her husband was Judith's. I recognised in myself the man +with the one talent. The deep wisdom of the parable can be taken to +inmost heart for comfort only by men of little destinies. With infinite +love and patience to mould Carlotta into a sweet, good woman, a wise +mother of the child that was to be--that was the inglorious task which +Providence had set me to accomplish. In its proportion to the aggregate +of human effort it was infinitesimal. But who shall say that it was not +worth the doing? Save writing a useless book, in what other sphere of +sublunar energy could I have been effectual? I did not thus analyse my +attitude at the time; the man who does so is a poser, a mime to his +own audience; but looking back, I think I was guided by some such +unformulated considerations. + +Although my hermit mania was in itself radically cured, yet I altered +nothing in my relations with the outside world. I wrote to Judith a +brief account of what had occurred and received from her a sympathetic +answer. My reading among the Mystics and Thaumaturgists put me on the +track of Arabic. I found that Carlotta knew enough of the language to +give me elementary instruction, and thus the whirligig of time brought +in its revenge by constituting me her pupil, to our joint edification. + +After a while the unhappiness of the past seemed to have faded from her +mind. She spoke little of Paris, less of the dull pension, and never of +Pasquale. She bore towards him an animal's silent animosity against a +human being who has done it an unforgettable injury. On the other hand, +as I have since discovered, she was slowly developing, and had begun to +realise that in giving herself light-heartedly to a man whom she did not +love, she had committed a crime against her sex, for which she had +paid a heavy penalty: a sentiment, however, which did not mitigate her +resentment against him. Often I saw her sitting with knitted brows, +her needlework idle on her lap, evidently unravelling some complicated +problem; presently she would either shake her head sadly as if the +intellectual process were too hard for her and resume her needle, or if +she happened to catch my glance, she would start, smile reassuringly at +me, and apply herself with exaggerated zeal to her work. These fits of +abstraction were not those of a woman speculating on mysteries of the +near future. Such Carlotta also indulged in, and they were easy to +recognise, by the dreaminess of her eyes and the faint smile flickering +about her lips. The moods of knitted brows were periods of soul-travail, +and I wondered what they would bring forth. + +One afternoon I came home and found her weeping over a book. When I bent +down to see what she was reading--she had acquired a taste for novels +during the dull pension time in Paris--she caught my head with both +hands. + +"Oh, Seer Marcous, do you think they ought to make me wear a great 'A'?" + +"What do you mean?" I asked. + +"Like Hester Prynne--see." + +She showed me Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter." + +"What made you take this out of the shelves?" + +"The title," she replied, simply. "I am so fond of red things; but I +should not like that great red 'A'." + +"Those were days," said I, "when people thought they could only be good +by being very cruel." + +"They would have been more cruel if Hester had not loved the minister," +said Carlotta, looking at me wistfully. + +"My dear little girl," said I, seeing whither her thoughts were tending, +"do not bother your brain with psychological problems." + +"What are--?" began Carlotta. + +I pinched the question, as it were, out of her cheek and smiled and took +away the book. + +"They are a dreadful disease my little girl has been afflicted with +for some time. When you sit and wrinkle your forehead like this," and I +scowled forbiddingly, whereat Carlotta laughed, "you are suffering from +acute psychological problem." + +"Then I am thinking," said Carlotta, reflectively. + +"Don't think too much, dear, just now," said I. "It is best for you to +be happy and calm and contented. Otherwise I'll have to tell the doctor, +and he'll give you the blackest and nastiest physic you have ever +tasted." + +"To cure me of a what-you-call-it problem?" + +"Yes," said I, emphatically. + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta in a superior way, "physic can't cure that." + +"You are relying on an exploded fallacy immortalised in a hackneyed +Shakespearian quotation," I remarked. + +"Go on," said Carlotta, encouragingly. + +"What do you mean?" I asked, taken aback. + +"Oh, you darling Seer Marcous," cried Carlotta. "It is so lovely to hear +you talk!" + +So I went on talking, and the distress occasioned by the "Scarlet +Letter" was forgotten. + +I have mentioned Carlotta's needlework. This was undertaken at the +sapient instigation of Antoinette, who in her turn, I am sure, neglected +the ladle for the scissors, and cast many of her duties upon the +silent but sympathetic Stenson. Carlotta herself delighted in these +preparations. She was never happier than when curled up on the sofa, +a box of chocolates by her side, her work-basket frothing over, like a +great dish of _oeufs a la neige_, with lawn or mull or what-not, and +(I verily believe to complete her content) my ungainly figure and +hatchet-face within her purview. She would eat and sew industriously. +Sometimes she would press too hard on a sweetmeat and with a little cry +would hold up a sticky finger and thumb. + +"Look," she would say, puckering up her face. + +And to save from soilure the dainty fabric she was working at, I would +rise and wipe her fingers with my handkerchief; whereupon she would +coo out the sweetest "thank you," in the world, and perhaps hold up a +diminutive garment. + +"Isn't it pretty?" + +"Yes, my dear," I would say, and I would turn aside wondering at the +exquisite refinements of pain that men were sometimes called upon to +bear. + + +At last the time came. I sat up all night in a torture of suspense, +having got it into my foolish head that Carlotta might die. The doctor +came upon me at six in the morning sitting half frozen at the bottom of +the stairs. When he gave me his cheery news he seemed to develop from a +middle-aged, commonplace man into a radiant archangel. + +I met Antoinette soon afterwards, busy, important, exultant. She +nevertheless graciously accorded me a brief interview. + +"And to think, Monsieur," she exclaimed, as if the crowning triumph of a +million ions of evolution had at, last been attained, "to think that it +is a boy!" + +"You would have been just as pleased if it had been a girl," said I. + +She shook her wise, fat head. "Women _ca ne vaut pas grand' chose._" + +Let it be remembered that "women are of no great account" is a sentiment +expressed, not by me, but by Antoinette. But all the same I soon found +myself a cipher in the house, where the triumvirate of the negligible +sex, Antoinette, the nurse and Carlotta, reigned despotically. + +To write much of Carlotta's happiness would be to treat of sacred things +at which I can only guess. She dwelt in rapture. The joy and meaning of +the universe were concentrated in the tiny bundle of pink flesh that lay +on her bosom. I used to sit by her side while she talked unwearyingly of +him. He was a thing of infinite perfections. He had such a lot of hair. + +"She won't believe, sir," said the nurse, "that it will all drop off and +a new crop come." + +"Oh-h!" said Carlotta. "It can't be so cruel. For it is my hair--see, +Seer Marcous, darling; isn't it just my hair?" + +It was her great solicitude that the boy should resemble her. + +"I don't know about his nose," she remarked critically. "There is so +little of it yet and it is so soft--feel how soft it is. But his eyes +are brown like mine, and his mouth--now look, aren't they just the +same?" + +She put her cheek next to the child's and invited me to compare the two +adjacent baby mouths. They were, of a truth, very much alike. + +She was jealous of the baby, desirous of having it always with her to +tend and fondle, impatient of the nurse and Antoinette. It was a thing +so intensely hers that she resented other hands touching it. Oddly +enough, of me she made an exception. Nothing delighted her more than to +put the little creature into my awkward and nervous arms, and watch me +carry it about the room. I think she wanted to give me something, and +this share in the babe was the most precious gift she could devise. + +Of Pasquale she continued to say nothing. In her intense joy of +motherhood he seemed to have become the dim creature of a dream. I had +registered the birth without consulting her--in the legal names of the +parents. + +"What are you going to call him, Carlotta?" I asked one day. + +"_Mon petit chou._ That's what Antoinette says. It's a beautiful name." + +"There are many points in calling an infant one's little cabbage," I +admitted, "but soon he'll grow up to be as old as I am, and--" I sighed, +"who would call me their _petit chow_?" + +Carlotta laughed. + +"That is true. We shall have to find a name." She reflected for a few +moments; then put her arms round my neck and continued her reflections. + +"He shall be Marcus--another Marcus Ordeyne. Then perhaps some day he +will be 'Seer Marcous' like you." + +"Do you mean when I die?" I asked. + +"Oh, not for years and years and years!" she cried, tightening her clasp +in alarm. "But the child lives longer than the father. It is fate. He +will live longer than I." + +"Let us hope so, dear," I answered. "But it is just because I am not his +father that he can't be Sir Marcus when I die. He can have my name; but +my title--" + +"Who will have it?" + +"No one." + +"It will die too?" + +"It will be quite dead." + +"You are his father, you know, _really_," she whispered. + +"The law of England takes no count, unfortunately, of things of the +spirit," said I. + +"What are things of the spirit?" + +"The things, my dear," said I, "that you are beginning to understand." I +bent down and kissed the child as it lay on her lap. "Poor little Marcus +Ordeyne," I said. "My poor quaintly fathered little son, I'm afraid +there is much trouble ahead of you, but I'll do my best to help you +through it." + +"Bless you, dear," said Carlotta, softly. + +I looked at her in wonder. She had spoken for the first time like a +grown woman--like a woman with a soul. + + +A few weeks later. + +We were sitting at breakfast. The morning newspaper contained the +account of a battle and the lists of British officers killed. I scanned +as usual the melancholy columns, when a name among the dead caught my +eye--and I stared at it stupidly. Pasquale was dead, killed outright +by a Boer bullet. The wild, bright life was ended. It seemed a horrible +thing, and, much as he had wronged me, my first sentiment was one of +dismay. He was too gallant and beautiful a creature for death. + +Carlotta poured out my tea and came round with the cup which she +deposited by my side. To prevent her peeping over my shoulder at the +paper, as she usually did, I laid it on the table; but her quick eye had +already read the great headlines. + +"Great Battle. British officers killed. Oh, let me see, Seer Marcous." + +"No, dear," said I. "Go and eat your breakfast." + +She looked at me strangely. I tried to smile; but as I am an incompetent +actor my grimace was a proclamation of disingenuousness. + +"Why shouldn't I read it?" she asked, quickly. + +"Because I say you mustn't, Carlotta." + +She continued to look at me. She had suddenly grown pale. I stirred my +tea and made a pretence of sipping it. + +"Go on with your breakfast, my child," I repeated. + +"There is something--something about him in the paper," said Carlotta. +"He is a British officer." + +In the face of her intuition further concealment appeared useless. +Besides, sooner or later she would have to know. + +"He is a British officer no longer, dear," said I. + +"Is he dead?" + +My mind flew back to an evening long ago--long, long ago it seemed--when +another newspaper had told of another death, and my ears caught the echo +of the identical question that had then fallen from her lips. I dreaded +lest she should say again, "I am so glad." + +I beckoned her to my side, and pointing with my finger to the name +watched her face anxiously. She read, stared for a bit in front of her +and turned to me with a piteous look. I drew her to me, and she laid her +face against my shoulder. + +"I don't know why I'm crying, Seer Marcous, dear," she said, after a +while. + +I made her drink some of my tea, but she would eat nothing, and +presently she went upstairs. She had not said that she was glad. She had +wept and not known the reason for her tears. I railed at myself for my +doubts of her. + +She was subdued and thoughtful all the day. In the evening, instead of +curling herself up in the sofa-corner among the cushions, she sat on +a stool by my feet as I read, one hand supporting her chin, the other +resting on my knee. + +"I am glad he was a brave man," she said at last, alluding to Pasquale +for the first time since the morning. "I like brave men." + +"_Dulce et decorum est._ He died for his country," said I. + +"It does not hurt me now so much to think of him," said Carlotta. + +I could not help feeling a miserable pang of jealousy at Pasquale's +posthumous rehabilitation as a hero in Carlotta's heart. Yet, was it not +natural? Was it not the way of women? I saw myself far remote from her, +and though she never spoke of him again I divined that her thoughts +dwelt not untenderly on his memory. I was absurd, I know. But I had +begun almost to believe in my make-believe paternity, and I was jealous +of the rightful claims of the dead man. + +And yet had he lived he might have come back one day with his conquering +air and his irresistible laugh, and carried them both away from me. In +sparing me this crowning humiliation I thanked the high gods. + +But never to this day has she mentioned his name again. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +How shall I set down that which happened not long afterwards? + +The death of a baby is so commonplace, so unimportant. Few reasoning +people, viewing the matter in the abstract, can do otherwise than +rejoice that a human being is saved from the weariness of the tired +years that make up life. For who shall disprove the pessimist's +assertion that it is better not to have been born than to come into the +world, and that it is better to die than to live? But those from whom +the single hope of their existence is ravished find little consolation +in reason. Grief is the most intensely egotistical of emotions. I have +lost all that makes life beautiful to me. Is not that enough for the +stricken soul? + +To Carlotta it meant a passage through the valley of the shadow. To me, +at first, it meant the life of Carlotta, and then a blank in my newly +ordered scheme of things. The curse of ineffectuality still pursued +me. I had allotted to myself my humble task--the development of the new +generation in the form of Carlotta's boy, and even that small usefulness +was I denied by Fate. + +A chill, a touch of croup, an agonised watching, and the tiny thing lay +dead. Antoinette and I had to drag it stone cold from Carlotta's bosom. +I alone carried it to burial. The little white coffin rested on the +opposite seat of the hired brougham, and on it was a bunch of white +flowers given by Antoinette. In the cemetery chapel another fragment of +humanity awaited sepulture, and the funeral service was read over both +bodies. I stood alone by the little white coffin. A crowd of mourners +were grouped beside the black one. I glanced at the inscription as +I passed: "Jane Elliot, in the eighty-sixth year of her age." The +officiant referred in the service to "our dear brother and sister, here +departed." It was either an awful jest or an awful verity. + +My "quaintly fathered little son" had small need of my help through the +troubles of his life. His mother needed all that I could give. Without +me she would have died. That I verily believe. I was her solitary +plank in the welter wherein she would have been submerged. She clung to +me--literally clung to me. I sat for hours with her grasp upon me. To +feel assured of my physical presence alone seemed to bring her calm. + +Recent as are those sleepless days and nights, their memory is all +confused. The light burning dimly in the familiar chamber which I had +once sealed up as a tomb; the shadows on the wall; the fevered face +and great hollow eyes of Carlotta against the pillows; her little hand +clutching mine in desperation; the soft tread of the nurse, that is all +I remember. And when she recovered her wits and grew sane, although for +a long time she spoke little, and scarcely noticed me otherwise, +she claimed me by her side. She was still dazed by the misery of her +darkness. It was only then that I realised the part the child had +played in her development. Her nature had been stirred to the quick; the +capacity for emotion had been awakened. She had left me without a qualm. +She had given herself to Pasquale without a glimmer of passion. She had +returned to me like a wounded animal seeking its home. For the child +alone the passionate human love had sprung flaming from the seed hidden +in her soul. And now the child was dead, and the sun had gone from her +sky, and she was benumbed with the icy blackness of the world. + +Then came a time when her speech was loosened and she talked to me +incessantly of the child, until one day she spoke of it as living and +clamoured for it, and relapsed into her fever. + +At last one morning she awakened from a sound sleep and found me +watching; for I had relieved the nurse at six o'clock. She smiled at +me for the first time since the child fell sick, and took my hand and +kissed it. + +"It is like waking into heaven to see your face, Seer Marcous, darling," +she whispered. + +"I hope heaven is peopled by a better-looking set of fellows," I said. + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta. "Don't you know you are beautiful?" + +"You mustn't throw an old jest in my teeth, Carlotta," said I, and I +reminded her how she had once screamed with laughter when I had told her +I was very beautiful. + +Carlotta listened patiently until I had ended, and then she said, with a +little sigh: + +"You cannot understand, Seer Marcous, darling. I have been thinking of +my little baby and the angels--and all the angels are like you." + +To cover the embarrassment my modesty underwent, I laughed and drew the +picture of myself with long flaxen hair and white wings. + +"My angels hadn't got wings," said Carlotta, seriously. "They all wore +dressing-gowns. They were real angels. And the one that was most like +you brought my baby in his arms for me to kiss; and when he put it on a +white cloud to sleep, and took me up in his arms instead and carried me +away, away, away through the air, I didn't cry at leaving baby. Wasn't +that funny? I snuggled up close to him--like that"--she illustrated the +action of "snuggling" beneath the bed-clothes--"and it was so comfy." + +The pale sunshine of a fine February morning filtered into the room from +behind the curtains. I turned off the dimmed electric lamp and let full +daylight into the room. + +"Oh!" cried Carlotta, turning to the window, "how lovely the good +sun is! It is more like heaven than ever. Do you know," she added, +mysteriously, "just before I woke it was all dark, and I had lost my +angels and I was looking for them." + +I counselled her sagely to look for no more members of the Hierarchy _en +deshabille_, but to content herself with the humbler denizens of this +planet. She pressed my hand. + +"I'll try to be contented, Seer Marcous, darling." + +She did her best, poor child, when I was by; but I heard that often she +would sit by a little pile of garments and take them up one by one and +cry her heart out--so that though she quickly recovered, her cheeks +remained wan and drawn, and pain lingered in her eyes. The weather +changed to fog and damp and she spent the days crouching by the fire, +sometimes not stirring a muscle for an hour together. Her favourite seat +was the fender-stool in the drawing-room. Her own boudoir downstairs, +where she used to receive instruction from the excellent Miss Griggs, +she scarcely entered. + +She broke one of these fits suddenly and called me by her own pet +version of my name. I looked up from the writing-table where I was +studying the Arabic grammar. + +"Yes?" + +"I have been thinking--oh, thinking, thinking so long. I've been +thinking that you must love me very much." + +"Yes, Carlotta," said I, with a half smile. "I suppose I do." + +"As much as I loved my baby," she said, seriously, + +"I used to love you in a different way, perhaps." + +"And now?" + +"Perhaps in the same sort of way, Carlotta." + +"I loved my baby because it was mine," she remarked, looking at the +flames through one hand's delicate fingers. "I wanted to do everything +for him and didn't want him to do anything for me. I would have died +for him. It is so strange. Yes, I think you must love me like that, Seer +Marcous. Why?" + +"Because when I found you in the Embankment Gardens nearly two years +ago you were about as helpless as your little baby," I replied, somewhat +disingenuously. + +Carlotta gave me a quick glance. + +"You thought me then what you call an infernal nuisance. Oh, I know now. +I have grown wise. But you were always good. You looked good when you +sat on the seat. You were reading a dirty little book." + +"_L'Histoire des Uscoques,_" I murmured. How far away it seemed. + +There was a pause. I regarded her for a moment or two. She was sunk +again in serious reflection. I sighed--at the general dismalness of +life, I suppose--and resumed my Arabic. + +"Seer Marcous." + +"Yes?" + +"Why didn't you drive me away when I came back?" + +I shut up the Arabic grammar and went and sat beside her on the +fenderstool. + +"My dear little girl--what a question! How could I drive you away from +your own home?" + +She flashed a queer, scared look at me, then at the fire, then at me +again and then burst out crying, her head and arms on her knees. + +I muttered a man's words of awkward comfort, saying something about the +baby. + +"It isn't baby I'm crying about," sobbed Carlotta. "It's me! And it's +you! And it's all the things I'm beginning to understand." + +I patted her head and lit a cigarette and wandered about the room, +rather puzzled by Carlotta's psychological development, and yet stirred +by a faint thrill at her recognition of my affection. At the same time +the sad "too late, too late," was knelled in my ears, and I thought of +the might-have-been, and rode the merry-go-round of regret's banalities. +I had grown old. Passion had died. Hope--the hope of hearing the +patter of a child's feet about my house, the hope of pride in a +quasi-paternity, of handing on, vicariously though it were, the torch of +life--hope was dead and it was buried in a little white coffin. Only a +great, quiet love remained. I was a tired old man, and Carlotta was to +me an infinitely loved sister--or daughter--or granddaughter even--so +old did I feel. And when I raised her from the fender-stool, and kissed +the tears from her eyes, it was as grandfatherly a kiss as had ever been +given in this world. + + +The same old problem again. What the deuce to do with Carlotta? Yet not +quite the same: rather, what the deuce to do with Carlotta and myself? +In our strange relationship we were inextricably bound together. + +First, she needed sunshine--instead of the forlorn bleakness of an +English spring--and a change from this house of pain and death. And +then I, too, felt the need of wider horizons. London had grown to be a +nightmare city which I never entered. Its restless ambitions were not +mine. Its pleasures pleased me not. With not five of its five million +inhabitants dared I speak heart to heart. Judith had gone out of my +life. My aunts and cousins regarded me as beyond the moral pale. Mrs. +McMurray was still unaware of my return to England. I confess to shabby +treatment of my kind friend. I know she would have flown to aid Carlotta +in her troubles; but would she have understood Carlotta? Reasoning now +I am convinced that she would: in those days I did not reason. I shrank +like a snail into its shell. The simile is commonplace; but so was +I--the most commonplace human snail that ever occupied a commonplace +ten-roomed shell. And now the house and its useless books and its +million-fold more useless manuscript "History of Renaissance Morals," +all its sombre memories and its haunting ghosts of ineffectualities, +became an unwholesome prison in which I was wasting away a feeble +existence. I resolved to quit it, to leave my books, to abjure +Renaissance morals, and to go forth with Carlotta into the wilderness +and the sunshine, there to fulfil whatever destiny the high gods should +decree. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Again I sit on the housetop in Mogador on the Morocco coast, where a +month ago I began to write these latter pages. Time has passed quickly +since that day. + +I said then that on the previous afternoon something had happened. It +was something which I might have foreseen, which, in fact, with my habit +of putting the telescope to my blind eye, I obstinately had refused +to foresee. During our wanderings I had watched the flowering of her +splendid beauty as she drank in health from the glow of her own Orient. +I had noted the widening of her intellect, the quickening of her +sympathies. I had been conscious of the expansion of her soul in the +great silences when the stars flamed over the infinite sea of sand. But +a growing wistfulness that was no longer the old doglike pleading of her +glorious eyes, a gathering sadness that was not an aftermath of grief +for the child that had gone--into this, if I did remark it, I did +not choose to inquire. Instead, I continued my study of Arabic and +cultivated the acquaintance of a learned Moor whose conversation +afforded--and still affords--me peculiar pleasure. One of these days I +shall make a book of his Table-talk. But now I have to tell of Carlotta. + +She accepted with alacrity my proposal that morning to ride over to the +Palm Tree House for luncheon, as we had done several times before. To +please me, I think, she had resolutely overcome her natural indolence. +So much so that she had come to love the nomad life of steamers and +caravans, and had grown restless, eager for fresh scenes, craving +new impressions. It was I who had cried a halt at Mogador where this +furnished house to let, belonging to a German merchant absent in Europe, +tempted me to rest awhile. I am not so young as Carlotta, and I awakened +to the fact of a circumambient universe so many years ago that I have +grown slumberous. Carlotta, if left to herself, would have gone on +riding camels through Africa to the end of time. She had changed in many +essentials. Instead of regarding me as an amiable purveyor of sweetmeats +and other necessaries of life to which by the grace of her being +Carlotta she was entitled, she treated me with human affection and +sympathy, keeping her own wants in the background, anxious only to +anticipate mine. But she still loved sweetmeats and would eat horrible +Moorish messes with an avidity only equalled by my repugnance. She +was still the same Carlotta. On the other hand again, she had of late +abandoned her caressing habits. If she laid her hand on my arm, she did +it timorously--whereat I would laugh and she would grow confused. Once +she had driven me to frenzy with her fondling. Those days had passed. +I told myself that I was as old as the sphinx we had moralised over in +Egypt. + +We lunched, then, at the Palm Tree House and rode back in the cool of +the afternoon to Mogador. We were alone, as we knew the path across the +tongue of desert, and had no need of a guide and the rabble of sore-eyed +urchins who, like their attendant flies, infest the tourist on his +journeyings. On our right the desert rose to meet a near horizon; on our +left sandhills and boulders cut off the view; ahead the shimmering line +beyond which the sea and city lay. We were enveloped by solitude and +stillness. In the clear African air objects detached themselves against +the sky with startling definition. + +I had unconsciously ridden a bit ahead of Carlotta, thinking my +own thoughts, and sighing as a man often does sigh, for the vague +unattainable which is happiness. Suddenly I missed her by my side, and +turning round saw a sight that made my heart beat with its sheer beauty. +It was only Carlotta on her barbarically betrapped and besaddled mule. +But it was Carlotta glorified in colour. She held above her head a +cotton parasol, which she had bought to her delight and my disgust +in Mogador; an impossible thing, all deep cherry reds and yellows; +a hateful thing made for a pantomime--or for this African afternoon. +Outspread and luminous in the white sunlight its cherry reds and yellows +floated like translucences of wine above Carlotta's bronze hair crowned +by a white sun hat, her warm flesh-tints, and the dazzling white of her +surah silk blouse; the whole picture cut out vivid against the indigo of +the sky. It was a radiant vision. I stared openmouthed, smitten with +the pang that sudden and transient loveliness can sometimes deal, as +Carlotta approached, her figure swaying with the jog of her barbaric +beast. Her eyes were fixed on mine. She halted, and for a moment we +looked at one another; and in those wonderful eyes I saw for the first +time a beautiful sadness, a spiritual appeal. The moment passed. We +started again, side by side, neither speaking. I did not look at her, +conscious of a vague trouble. Things that I had thought dead stirred in +my heart. + +Presently like a dawn of infinite delicacy rose the city before us. Its +fairy minarets and towers gleamed first white in an atmosphere of pale +amethyst toning through shades of green to the blue of the zenith. And +the lazy sea lay at the city's foot a pavement of lapis lazuli. But +all was faint, unreal. Far, far away a group of palms caught opalescent +reflections. A slight breeze had sprung up, raising minute particles of +sand which caused the elfland on the horizon to quiver like a mirage. + +"It is a dream-city," said I, in admiration. + +Carlotta did not reply. I thought she had not heard. We jogged on a +little in silence. At last she drew very close to me. + +"Shall we ever get there?" she asked, pointing ahead with the hand that +held the reins. + +"To Mogador? Yes, I hope so," I answered with a laugh. I thought she was +tired. + +"No, not Mogador. The dream-city--where every one wants to get." + +"You have travelled far, my dear," said I, "to hanker now after +dream-cities and the unattainable. I knew a little girl once who would +have asked: 'What is a dream-city?" + +"She doesn't ask now because she knows," replied Carlotta. "No. We shall +never get there. It looks as if we were riding straight into it--but +when we get close, it will just be Mogador." + +"Aren't you happy, Carlotta?" I asked. + +"Are you, Seer Marcous?" + +"I? I am a philosopher, my child, and a happy philosopher would be a +_lusus naturae_, a freak, a subject for a Barnum & Bailey Show. If +they caught him they would put him between the hairy man and the living +skeleton." + +"I suppose I'm getting to be a philosopher, too," said Carlotta, "and +I hate it! Sometimes I think I hate everything and everybody--save you, +Seer Marcous, darling. It's wicked of me. I must have been born wicked. +But I used to be happy. I never wanted to go to dream-cities. I was just +like a cat. Like Polyphemus. Do you remember Polyphemus?" + +"Yes," said I. And then set off my balance by this strange conversation +with Carlotta, I added: "I killed him." + +She turned a startled face to me. + +"You killed him? Why?" + +"He laughed at me because I was unhappy," said I. + +"Through me?" + +"Yes; through you. But that's neither here nor there. We were not +discussing the death of Polyphemus. We were talking about being +philosophers, and you said that as a philosopher you hated everything +and everybody except me. Why do you exclude me, Carlotta?" + +We were riding so near together that my leg rubbed her saddle-girth. +I looked hard at her. She turned away her head and put the pantomime +parasol between us. I heard a little choking sob. + +"Let us get off--and sit down a little--I want to cry. + +"The end of all feminine philosophy," I said, somewhat brutally. "No. +It's getting late. That's only Mogador in front of us. Let us go to it." + +Carlotta shifted her parasol quickly. + +"What has happened to you, Seer Marcous? You have never spoken to me +like that before." + +"The very deuce seems to have happened," said I, angrily--though why I +should have felt angry, heaven only knows. "First you turn yourself into +a Royal Academy picture with that unspeakable umbrella of yours and the +trumpery blue sky and sunshine, and make my sentimental soul ache; and +then you--" + +"It's a very pretty umbrella," said Carlotta, looking upwards at it +demurely. + +"Give it to me," I said. + +She yielded it with her usual docility. I cast it upon the desert. Being +open it gave one or two silly rebounds, then lay still. Carlotta reined +up her mule. + +"Oh-h!" she said, in her old way. + +I dismounted hurriedly, and helped her down and passed my arm through +the two bridles. + +"My dear child," said I, "what is the meaning of all this? Here we have +been living for months the most tranquil and unruffled existence, and +now suddenly you begin to talk about dream-cities and the impossibility +of getting there, and I turn angry and heave parasols about Africa. What +is the meaning of it?" + +The most extraordinary part of it was that I should be treating Carlotta +as a grown-up woman, after the fashion of the hero of a modern French +novel. Perhaps I was younger than I thought. + +She kept her eyes fixed downward. + +"Why are you angry with me?" she asked in a low voice. + +"I haven't the remotest idea," said I. + +She lifted her eyelids slowly--oh, very, very slowly, glanced +quiveringly at me, while the shadow of a smile fluttered round her lips. +I verily believe the baggage exulted in her feminine heart. I turned +away, leading the two animals, and picked up the parasol which I closed +and restored to her. + +"I thought you wanted to cry," I remarked. + +"I can't," said Carlotta, plaintively. + +"And you won't tell me why you exclude me from your universal hatred?" + +Carlotta dug up the sand with the point of her foot. The sight of it +recalled the row of pink toes thrust unashamedly before my eyes on the +second day of her arrival in London. An old hope, an old fear, an old +struggle renewed themselves. She was more adorably beautiful even than +the Carlotta of the pink tus, and spiritually she was reborn. I heard +her whisper: + +"I can't." + +Now I had sworn to myself all the oaths that a man can swear that I +should be Carlotta's grandfather to the end of time. Hitherto I had +felt the part. Now suddenly grey beard and slippered pantaloons are cast +aside and I am young again with a glow in my heart which beats fast at +her beauty. I shut my teeth. + +"No," said I to myself. "The curtain shall not rise on that farcical +tragedy again." + +I threw the reins on the neck of Carlotta's mule, which with its +companion had been regarding us with bland stupidity. + +"I think we had better ride on, Carlotta," I said. "Mount." + +She meekly gave me her little foot and I hoisted her into the saddle. + +We did not exchange a word till we reached Mogador. But each of us felt +that something had happened. + +At dinner we met as usual. Carlotta spoke somewhat feverishly of our +travels, and asked me numberless questions, betraying an unprecedented +thirst for information. I never gave her historical instruction with +less zest. + +After the meal we went onto the flat roof. Carlotta poured out my coffee +at the small table beside the long Madeira cane chair which was my +accustomed seat. The starlit night was blue and languorous. From some +cafe came the monotonous strains of Moorish music, the harsh strings and +harsh men's voices softened by the distance. Carlotta took my coffee-cup +when I had finished and set it down in her granddaughterly way. Then she +stood in front of me. + +"Won't you make a little room for me on your chair, Seer Marcous, +darling?" + +I shifted my feet from the foot-rest and she sat down. I may observe +that I was not, in oriental bashawdom, occupying the one and only chair +on the housetop. + +"Tell me about the stars," she said. + +I knew what she meant. She loved the old Greek myths; their poetry, +obscured though it was through my matter-of-fact prose, appealed to +her young imagination. She was passing through an exquisite phase of +development. + +I scanned the heavens for a text and found one in the Pleiades. And I +told her how these were seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione who herself +was the daughter of the Sea, and how they were all pure maidens, save +one, and were the companions of Artemis; how Orion the hunter, who was +afterwards slain by Artemis and whose three-starred girdle gleamed up +there in the sky, pursued them with evil intent, and how they prayed the +gods for deliverance and were changed into the everlasting stars; and, +lastly, how the one who was not a maiden, for she loved a mortal, shrank +away from her sisters through shame and was invisible to the eye of man. + +"She was ashamed," said Carlotta in a low voice, "because she loved some +one afterwards, one of the gods, who would not look at her because +she had given herself to a mortal. A woman then has a fire here"--she +clasped her hands to her bosom--"and wishes she could burn away to +nothing, nothing, just to air, and become invisible." + +She was rising hurriedly on the last word, but I brought my hands down +on her shoulders. + +"Carlotta, my child," said I, "what do you mean?" + +She seized my wrists and struggling to rise, panted out in desperation: + +"You are one of the gods, and I wish I were changed into an invisible +star." + +"I don't," said I, huskily. + +By main force I drew her to me and our lips met. She yielded, and this +time the whole soul of Carlotta came to me in the kiss. + +"It's beautiful to snuggle up against you again," said my ever direct +Carlotta, after a while. "I haven't done it--oh, for such a long time." +She sighed contentedly. "Seer Marcous--" + +"You must call me Marcus now," said I, somewhat fatuously. + +She shook her head as it lay on my shoulder. "No. You are Marcus--or Sir +Marcus--to everybody. To me you are always Seer Marcous. Seer Marcous, +darling," she half whispered after a pause. "Once I did not know the +difference between a god and a mortal. It was only that morning when I +woke up--" + +"You took me for a saint in a dressing-gown," said I. + +"It's the same thing," she retorted. And then taking up her parable, +she told me in her artless way the inner history of her heart since that +morning; but what she said is sacred. Also, a man feels himself to be a +pitiful dog of a god when a woman relates how she came to establish him +on her High Altar. + +Later we struck a lighter vein and spoke of the present, the enchantment +of the hour, the scented air, the African stars. + +"It seems, my dear," said I, "that we have got to Nephelococcygia after +all." + +"What is Nephelococcygia?" asked Carlotta. + +I relented. "It's a base Aristophanic libel on our dream-city," said I. + + +Thus out of evil has come good; out of pain has grown happiness; out of +horror has sprung an everlasting love. Many a man will say that in all +my relations with Carlotta I have comported myself as a fool, and that +my marriage is the crowning folly. Well, I pretend not unto wisdom. +Wisdom would have married me to five thousand a year, a position in +fashionable society, my Cousin Dora and premature old age antecedent to +eternal destruction. I hold that my salvation has lain the way of folly. +Again, it may be urged against me that I have squandered my life, that +with all my learning, such as it is, I have achieved nothing. I once +thought so. I boasted of it in my diary when I complacently styled +myself a waster in Earth's factory. Oh, that diary! Let me here solemnly +retract and abjure every crude and idiot opinion and reflection of life +set forth in that frenetic record! I regard myself not as a waster--I +remember a passage in Epictetus treating of the ways of Providence: + +"For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? If then +I were a nightingale I would do the part of a nightingale: if I were +a swan, I would do like a swan. But now I am a rational creature and I +ought to praise God; this is my work, I do it, nor will I desert this +post so long as I am allowed to keep it; and I exhort you to join in +this same song." + +No, I am neither nightingale nor swan, and cannot add, as they do, +to the beauty of the earth. The lame old man has his limitations; but +within them, he can, by cleaving to his post and praising God, fulfil +his destiny. + +Carlotta coming onto the housetop to summon me to lunch looks over my +shoulder as I write these words. + +"But you are not a lame old man!" she cries in indignation. "You are the +youngest and strongest and cleverest man in the world!" + +"What am I to do with these miraculous gifts?" I ask, laughing. + +"You are to become famous," she says, with conviction. + +"Very well, my dear. We will have to go to some new land where attaining +fame is easier for a beginner than in London; and we'll send for +Antoinette and Stenson to help us." + +"That will be very nice," she observes. + +So I am to become famous. _Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut_. And +Carlotta has got a soul of her own now and means to make the most of +it. It will lead me upward somewhere. But whether I am to be king of +New Babylon or Prime Minister of New Zealand or lawgiver to a Polynesian +tribe is a secret as yet hidden in the lap of the gods, whence Carlotta +doubtless will snatch it in her own good time. + +"You are writing a lot of rubbish," says Carlotta. + +"And a little truth. The mixture is Life," I answer. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, by William J. 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Locke + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5051] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 10, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Polly Stratton. + +For italics, _.._ was used. + + + + +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE + + +by William J. Locke + + + + + + + PART I + + + + + CHAPTER I + + +For reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, in +Verona, to write the history of my extravagant adventure. I +shall formulate and expand the rough notes in my diary which lies +open before me, and I shall begin with a happy afternoon in May, +six months ago. + + +May 20th. + +_London_:--To-day is the seventh anniversary of my release from +captivity. I will note it every year in my diary with a sigh of +unutterable thanksgiving. For seven long blessed years have I +been free from the degrading influences of Jones Minor and the +First Book of Euclid. Some men find the modern English boy +stimulating, and the old Egyptian humorous. Such are the born +schoolmasters, and schoolmasters, like poets, _nascuntur non +fiunt_. What I was born passes my ingenuity to fathom. +Certainly not a schoolmaster--and my many years of apprenticeship +did not make me one. They only turned me into an automaton, +feared by myself, bantered by my colleagues, and sometimes good- +humouredly tolerated by the boys. + +Seven years ago the lawyer's letter came. The post used to +arrive just before first school. I opened the letter in the +class-room and sat down at my desk, sick with horror. The awful +wholesale destruction of my relatives paralysed me. My form must +have seen by my ghastly face that something had happened, for, +contrary to their usual practice, they sat, thirty of them, in +stony silence, waiting for me to begin the lesson. As far as I +remember anything, they waited the whole hour. The lesson over, +I passed along the cloister on my way to my rooms. I overheard +one of my urchins, clattering in front of me, shout to another: + +"I'm sure he's got the sack!" + +Turning round he perceived me, and grew as red as a turkey-cock. +I laughed aloud. The boy's yell was a clarion announcement from +the seventh heaven. I _had got the sack_! _I_ should never teach +him quadratic equations again. I should turn my back forever +upon those hateful walls and still more abominated playing- +fields. And I was not leaving my prison, as I had done once or +twice before, in order to continue my servitude elsewhere. I was +free. I could go out into the sunshine and look my fellow-man in +the face, free from the haunting, demoralising sense of +incapacity. I was free. Until that urchin's shriek I had not +realised it. My teeth chattered with the thrill. + +I was fortunately out of school the second hour. I employed most +of it in balancing myself. A perfectly reasonable creature, I +visited the chief. He was a chubby, rotund man, with a circular +body and a circular visage, and he wore great circular gold +spectacles. He looked like a figure in the Third Book of Euclid. +But his eyes sparkled like bits of glass in the sun. + +"Well, Ordeyne?" he inquired, looking up from letters to parents. + +"I have come to ask you to accept my resignation," said I. "I +would like you to release me at once." + +"Come, come, things are not as bad as all that," said he, +kindly. + +I looked stupidly at him for a moment. + +"Of course I know you've got one or two troublesome forms," he +continued. + +Then I winced. His conjecture hurt me horribly. + +"Oh, it's nothing to do with my incompetence," I interrupted. + +"What is it, then?" + +"My grandfather, two uncles, two nephews and a valet were drowned +a day or two ago in the Mediterranean," I answered, calmly. + +I have since been struck by the crudity of this announcement. It +took my chief's breath away. + +"I deeply sympathise with you," he said at last. + +"Thank you," said I. + +"A terrible catastrophe. No wonder it has upset you. Horrible! +Six living human beings! Three generations of men!" + +"That's just it," said I. "Three generations of my family swept +away, leaving me now at the head of it." + +At this moment the chief's wife came into the library with the +morning paper in her hand. On seeing me she rushed forward. + +"Have you had bad news?" + +"Yes. Is it in the paper?" + +"I was coming to show my husband. The name is an uncommon one. +I wondered if they might be relatives of yours." + +I bowed acquiescence. The chief looked at the paragraph below +his wife's indicating thumb, then he looked at me as if I, too, +had suffered a seachange. + +"I had no idea--" he said. "Why, now--now you are Sir Marcus +Ordeyne!" + +"It sounds idiotic, doesn't it? " said I, with a smile. "But I +suppose I -am." + +And so came my release from captivity. I was profoundly affected +by the awful disaster, but it would be sheer hypocrisy if I said +that I felt personal grief. I knew none of the dead, of whom I +verily believe the valet was the worthiest man. My grandfather +and uncles had ignored my existence. Not a helping hand had they +stretched out to my widowed mother in her poverty, when one +kindly touch would have meant all. + +They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Ordeynes. What +my father, the youngest son, was like, I have no idea, as he died +when I was two years old, but my mother, who was somewhat stern +and puritanical, spoke of him very much as she would have spoken +of the prophet Joel, had he been a personal acquaintance. + +Seven years to-day have I been a free man. + +Feeling at peace with all the world I called this afternoon on my +Aunt Jessica, Mrs. Ordeyne, who has borne me no malice for +stepping into the place that should have been the inheritance of +her husband and of her son. Rather has she devised to adopt me, +to guide my ambitions and to point out my duties as the head of +the house. If I refuse to be adopted, avoid ambitions and +disclaim duties, the fault lies not with her good-will. She is a +well-preserved worldly woman of fifty-five, and having begun to +dye her hair in the peroxide of hydrogen era has not the +curiosity to abandon the practice and see what colour will +result. I wish I could like her. I can't. She purrs. Some +day I feel she will scratch. She received me graciously. + +"My dear Marcus. At last! Didn't you know I have been in town +ever since Easter?" + +"No," said I. "I am afraid I didn't." Which was true. "Why +didn't you tell me?" + +"I would have asked you to dinner, but you will never come. As +for At Home cards I never dream of sending them to you. It is a +waste of precious half-penny stamps." + +"You might have written me a nice little letter about nothing at +all," I suggested. + +"For you to say 'What is that woman worrying me with her silly +letters for?' I know what you men are." She looked arch. + +This is precisely what I should have said. As I am not an +inventive liar, I could only smile feebly. I am never at my ease +with Aunt Jessica. I am not the kind of person to afford her +entertainment. I do not belong to her world of opulence, and if +even I desired it, which the gods forbid, my means would not +enable me to make the necessary display. My uncle, thinking to +retrieve the fallen fortunes of the title, amassed enormous +wealth as a company promoter, while I, on whom the title has +descended, am perfectly contented with its fallen fortunes. I +have scarcely a thought or taste in common with my aunt. In +fact, I must bore her exceedingly. Yet she hides her boredom +beneath a radiant countenance and leads me to understand that my +society gives her inexpressible joy. I wonder why. + +She is always be-guide-philosopher-and-friending me. I resent +it. A man of forty does not need the counsels of an elderly woman +destitute of intellect. I believe there are some women who are +firmly convinced that their sheer sex has imbued them with all +the qualities of genius. To-day my aunt tackled me on the +subject of marriage. I ought to marry. I asked why. It +appeared it was every man's duty. + +"From what point of view?" I asked. "The mere propagation of the +human race, or the providing of a superfluous young woman with a +means of livelihood? If it is the former, then, in my opinion, +there are too many people in the world already; and if the +latter, I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently altruistic." + +"You are so _funny!_" laughed my aunt. + +I was not aware of being the least bit funny. + +"But, seriously," she continued, "you _must_ marry." She is a +woman who has an irritating way of speaking in Italics. "Are you +aware that if you have no son the title will become extinct?" + +"And if it does," I cried, "who on this earth will care a +half-penny-bun?" + +I am growing tired of the title. At first it was rather amusing. +Now it appears it is registered in Heaven's chancery and hedged +about with divine ordinances. Only the other day an unknown +parson requested me to open a church bazaar, and I gathered he +had received his instructions direct from the Almighty. + +"Why, every one would care," exclaimed my aunt, genuinely +shocked. "It would be monstrous. You owe it to your descendants +as well as to your ancestors. Besides," she added, with apparent +irrelevance, "a man in your position ought to live up to it." + +"I do," said I, "just up to it." + +"Now you are pretending you don't understand me. You ought to +marry money!" + +I smiled and shook my head. I don't think my aunt likes me to +smile and shake my head, for I saw a flicker in her eyes. "No, +my dear aunt; emphatically no. It would be comfortless. If I +kissed it, it would be cold. If I put my arms round it, it would +be full of sharp edges which would hurt. If I tried to get any +emotion out of it, it would only jingle." + +"What do you want then?" + +"Nothing. But if I must--let it be plain flesh and blood." + +"Cannibal!" said my aunt. + +We both laughed. + +"But you can have plenty of flesh and blood, with money as well, +for the asking," she insisted; and thereupon my two cousins, Dora +and Gwendolen, entered the drawingroom and interrupted the +conversation. They are both bouncing, fresh-faced girls, in the +early twenties. They ride and shoot and bicycle and golf and +dance, and the elder writes little stories for the magazines. As +I do none of these things, I am convinced they regard me as a +poor sort of creature. When they hand me a cup of tea I almost +expect them to pat me on the head and say, "Good dog!" I am +long, lean, stooping, hatchet-faced, hawknosed, near-sighted. I +have not the breezy air of the jolly young stockbrokers they are +in the habit of meeting. They rather alarm me. Moreover, they +have managed to rear a colossal pile of wholly incorrect +information on every subject under the sun, and are addicted to +letting chunks of it fall about one's ears. This stuns me, +rendering conversation difficult. + +As I had not seen Dora since her return from Rome, where she had +spent the early spring, I asked, in some trepidation, for her +impressions. Before I could collect myself, I was listening to a +lecture on St. Peter's. She told me it was built by Michael +Angelo. I suggested that some credit might be given to Bramante, +not to speak of Rosellino, Baldassare Peruzzi and the two San +Gallo's. + +"Oh!" said my young lady, with a superb air of omniscience. "It +was all Michael Angelo's design. _The others only tinkered away +at it afterwards_." + +After receiving this brickbat I took my leave. + +To console myself I looked up, during the evening, Michael +Angelo's noble letter about Bramante. + +"One cannot deny," says he, "that Bramante was as excellent in +architecture as any one has been from the ancients to now. He +placed the first stone of St. Peter's, not full of confusion, but +clear, neat, and luminous, and isolated all round in such a way +that it injured no part of the palace, and was held to be a +beautiful thing, as is still apparent, in such a way that any +one who has departed from the said order of Bramante, as San +Gallo has done, has departed from the truth." + +Michael Angelo did not like San Gallo; neither did he like +Bramante-who was his senior by thirty years-but this makes his +appreciation of the elder's work all the more generous. + +Tinkered away at it, indeed! + + +May 21st. + +I spent all the morning at work by the open window. + +I have a small house in Lingfield Terrace, on the north side of +the Regent's Park, so that my drawing-room, on the first floor, +has a southern aspect. It has been warm and sunny for the past +few days, and the elms and plane-trees across the road are +beginning to riot in their green bravery, as if intoxicated with +the golden wine of spring. My French window is flung wide open, +and on the balcony a triangular bit of sunlight creeps round as +the morning advances. My work-table is drawn up to the window. +I am busy over the first section of my "History of Renaissance +Morals," for which I think my notes are completed. I have a +delicious sense of isolation from the world. Away over those +tree-tops is a faint purpurine pall, and below it lies London, +with its strife and its misery, its wickedness and its vanity. +Twenty minutes would take me into the heart of it. And if I +chose I could be as struggling, as wretched, as much imbued with +wickedness and vanity as anybody. I could gamble on the stock +exchange, or play the muddy game of politics, or hawk my precious +title for sale among the young women of London society. My Aunt +Jessica once told me that London was at my feet. I am quite +content that it should stay there. I have much the same nervous +dread of it as I have of an angry sea breaking in surf on the +shingle. If I ventured out in it I should be tossed hither and +thither and broken on the rocks, and I should perish. I prefer +to stand aloof and watch. If I had a little more of daring in my +nature I might achieve something. I am afraid I am but a waster +in the world's factory; but kind Fate, instead of pitching me on +the rubbish-heap, has preserved me, perhaps has set me under a +glass case, in her own museum, as a curiosity. Well, I am happy +in my shelter. + +I was interrupted in my writing by the entrance of my cook and +housekeeper, Antoinette. She was sorry to disturb me, but did +Monsieur like sorrel? She was preparing some _veau a l'oseille_ +for lunch, and Stenson (my man) had informed her that it was +disgusting stuff and that Monsieur would not eat it. + +"Antoinette," said I, "go and inform Stenson that as he looks +after my outside so do you look after my inside, and that I have +implicit confidence in both of you in your respective spheres of +action." + +"But does Monsieur like sorrel?" Antoinette inquired, anxiously. + +"I adore it even," said I, and Antoinette made her exit in +triumph. + +What a reverential care French women have for the insides of +their masters! At times it is pathetic. Before now, I have +thrown dainty morsels which I could not eat into the fire, so as +to avoid hurting Antoinette's feelings. + +I came across her three years ago in a tiny hostelry in a tiny +town in the Loire district. She cooked the dinner and conversed +about it afterwards so touchingly that we soon became united in +bonds of the closest affection. Suddenly some money was stolen; +Antoinette, accused, was dismissed without notice. I had a +shrewd suspicion of the thief--a suspicion which was afterwards +completely justified--and indignantly championed Antoinette's +cause. + +But Antoinette, coming from a village some eighty miles away, was +a stranger and an alien. I was her only friend. It ended in my +inviting her to come to England, the land of the free and the +refuge of the downtrodden and oppressed, and become my +housekeeper. She accepted, with smiles and tears. And they were +great big smiles, that went into creases all over her fat red +face, forming runnels for the great big tears which dropped off +at unexpected angles. She was alone in the world. Her only son +had died during his military service in Madagascar. Although her +man was dead, the law would not regard her as a widow because she +had never been married, and therefore refused to exempt her only +son. "_On ne peut-etre Jeune qu'une fois, n'est-ce pas, +Monsieur?_" she said, in extenuation of her early fault. + +"And Jean-Marie," she added, "was as brave a fellow and as +devoted a son as if I had been married by the Saint-Pere +himself." + +I waved my hand in deprecation and told her it did not matter in +the least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of Verona for many +generations, were every man jack of them so parented. Even +William the Conqueror-- + +"_Tiens_ cried Antoinette, consoled, "and he became Emperor of +Germany--he and Bismarck!" + +Antoinette's historical sense is rudimentary. I have not tried +since to develop it. + +When I brought my victim of foreign tyranny to Lingfield Terrace, +Stenson, I believe, nearly fainted. He is the correctest of +English valets, and his only vice, I believe, is the accordion, +on which he plays jaunty hymn-tunes when I am out of the house. +When he had recovered he asked me, respectfully, how they were to +understand each other. I explained that he would either have to +learn French or teach Antoinette English. What they have done, I +gather, is to invent a nightmare of a _lingua franca_ in which +they appear to hold amicable converse. Now and again they have +differences of opinion, as to-day, over my taste for _veau a +l'oseille_; but, on the whole, their relations are harmonious, +and she keeps him in a good-humour: Naturally, she feeds the +brute. + +The duty-impulse, stimulated by my call yesterday on one aunt by +marriage, led my footsteps this afternoon to the house of the +other, Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne. She is of a different type from her +sister-in-law, being a devout Roman Catholic, and since the +terrible affliction of two years ago has concerned herself more +deeply than ever in the affairs of her religion. She lives in a +gloomy little house in a sunless Kensington by-street. Only my +Cousin Rosalie was at home. She gave me tea made with tepid +water and talked about the Earl's Court Exhibition, which she had +not visited, and a new novel, of which she had vaguely heard. I +tried in vain to infuse some life into the conversation. I don't +believe she is interested in anything. She even spoke lukewarmly +of Farm Street. + +I pity her intensely. She is thin, thirty, colourless, +bosomless. I should say she was passionless--a predestined +spinster. She has never drunk hot tea or lived in the sun or +laughed a hearty laugh. I remember once, at my wit's end for +talk, telling her the old story of Theodore Hook accosting a +pompous stranger on the street with the polite request that he +might know whether he was anybody in particular. She said, +without a smile, "Yes, it was astonishing how rude some people +could be." + +And her godfathers and godmothers gave her the name of Rosalie. +Mine might just as well have called me Hercules or Puck. + +She told me that her mother intended to ask me to dine with them +one evening next week. When was I free? I chose Thursday. +Oddly enough I enjoy dining there, although we are on the most +formal terms, not having got beyond the "Sir Marcus" and "Mrs. +Ordeyne." But both mother and daughter are finely bred +gentlewomen, and one meets few, oh, very, very few among the +ladies of to-day. + +I reached home about six and found a telegram awaiting me. + +"_Sorry can't give you dinner. Cook in an impossible condition. +Come later._ Judith." + +I must confess to a sigh of relief. I am fond of Judith and +sorry for her domestic infelicities, though why she should +maintain that alcoholized wretch in her kitchen passes my +comprehension. If there is one thing women do not understand it +is the selection, the ordering, and the treatment of domestic +servants. The mere man manages much better. But, that aside, +Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith's cook's cookery. I +breathed a little sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform +him that I would dine at home. + +A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller arrived +during dinner. Among them were the nine volumes of Pietro +Gianone's _Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli_, a copy of which I +ought to have possessed long ago. It is dedicated to the "Most +Puissant and Felicitous Prince Charles VI, the Great, by God +crowned Emperor of the Romans, King of Germany, Spain, Naples, +Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, _etcetera_." Is there a living soul in +God's universe who has a spark of admiration for this most +puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by God Emperor and +King of the greater part of Europe (and docked of most of his +pretensions by the Treaty of Utrecht)? We only remember the +forcible-feeble person by his Pragmatic Sanction, and otherwise +his personality has left in history not the remotest trace. And +yet, on the 12th February, 1723, a profoundly erudite, subtle, +and picturesque historian grovels before the man and subscribes +himself "Of your Holy Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most +humble and most devoted and most obsequious vassal and slave +Pietro Gianone." What ruthless judgments posterity passes on +once enormous reputations! In Gianone's admirable introduction +we hear of "_il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a' con +confini della sua Inghilterra volle in altri a piu lontani Paesi +andav rintracciando l'uso a l'autorita delle romane leggi ne' +nuovi domini de' Principi cristiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna +Nazione volle ancora aver conto: le ricerco nella vicina Scozia, +e nell' Ibernia; trapasso nella Francia, e nella Spagna; in +Germania, in Italia, a nel nostro Regno ancora: si stese in oltre +in Polonia, Boemia, in Ungheria, Danimarca, nella Svezia, ed in +piu remote parti_." A devil of a fellow this celebrated English +Arthur Duck, who besides writing a learned treatise _De Usu et +Auth. Jur. Civ. Rom. in Dominiis Principum Christianorum_, was a +knight, a member of Parliament, chancellor of the diocese of +London, and a master in chancery. Gianone flattens himself out +for a couple of pages before this prodigy whom he lovingly calls +_Ariuro_, as who should say Raffaelo or Giordano; and now, where +in the hearts of men lingers Sir Arthur Duck? For one thing he +had a bad name. Our English sense of humour revolts from making +a popular hero of a man called Duck. Yet we made one of Drake. +But there was something masculine about the latter: in fact, +everything. + +I am afraid it was rather late when I got to Judith. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +May 22d. + +I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had lived in a +garret "in the brave days when I was twenty-one," if I had +undergone the lessons of misery with the attendant compensations +of "_une folle maitresse, de francs amis et l'amour des chansons_," + and had joyous-heartedly mounted my six flights of stairs. I +lived modestly, it is true; but never for a moment was I doubtful +as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the creature comforts +of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her shawl +curtain-wise across my window. Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish +she had. I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or +spent my lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal +song. Often the weary moments seemed a lifetime. + +And now that I am forty, "it is too late a week." Boon +companions, of whom I am thankful to say I have none, would drive +me crazy with their intolerable heartiness. I once spent an +evening at the Savage Club. As for the _folle maitresse_--as a +concomitant of my existence she transcends imagination. + +"What are you thinking of?" asked Judith. + +"I was thinking how the _'Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt +ans'_ principle would have worked in my own case," I answered +truthfully, for the above reflections had been Passing through my +mind. + +Judith laughed. + +"You in a garret? Why, you haven't got a temperament!" + +I suppose I haven't. It never occurred to me before. Beranger +omitted that from his list of attendant compensations. + +"That's the difference between us," she added, after a pause. "I +have a temperament and you haven't." + +"I hope you find it a great comfort." + +"It is ten times more uncomfortable than a conscience. It is the +bane of one's existence." + +"Why be so proud of having it?" + +"You wouldn't understand if I told you," said Judith. + +I rose and walked to the window and gazed meditatively at the +rain which swept the uninspiring little street. Judith lives in +Tottenham Mansions, in the purlieus of the Tottenham Court Road. +The ground floor of the building is a public-house, and on summer +evenings one can sit by the open windows, and breathe in the +health-giving fumes of beer and whisky, and listen to the sweet, +tuneless strains of itinerant musicians. When my new fortunes +enabled me to give the dear woman just the little help that +allowed her to move into a more commodious flat, she had the many +mansions of London to choose from. Why she insisted on this +abominable locality I could never understand. It isn't as if the +flat were particularly cheap; indeed the fact of its being +situated over a public-house seems to enhance the rent. She said +she liked the shape of the knocker and the pattern of the +bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that it must have had something +to do with the temperament. + +"It always seems to rain when we propose an outing together. +This is the fourth time since Easter," I remarked. + +We had planned a sedate country jaunt, but as the day was pouring +wet we remained at home. + +"Perhaps this is the way the _bon Dieu_ has of expressing his +disapproval of us," said Judith. + +"Why should he disapprove?" I asked. + +A shrug of her shoulders ended in a shiver. + +"I am chilled through." + +"My dear girl," I cried, "why on earth haven't you lit the fire?" + +"The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy." + +"But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogical +woman," I exclaimed, searching my pockets for a match-box. + +I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel by her +chair. She stretched out her hand--she has delicate white hands +with slender fingers--and lightly touched my head. + +"How long have we known each other?" she asked. + +"About eight years." + +"And how long shall we go on?" + +"As long as you like," said I, intent on the fire. + +Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the +merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured me of successful +effort. + +"These are capital grates," I said, cheerfully, drawing a +comfortable arm-chair to the front of the fire. + +"Excellent," she replied, in a tone devoid of interest. + +There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great charms +of human intercourse. Is there not a legend that Tennyson and +Carlyle spent the most enjoyable evenings of their lives +enveloped in impenetrable silence and tobacco-smoke, one on each +side of the hob? A sort of Whistlerian nocturne of golden fog! + +I offered Judith a cigarette. She declined it with a shake of +the head. I lit one myself and leaning back contentedly in my +chair watched her face in half-profile. Most people would call +her plain. I can't make up my mind on the point. She is what is +termed a negative blonde--that is to say, one with very fair hair +(in marvellous abundance--it is one of her beauties), a sallow +complexion and deep violet eyes. Her face is thin, a little +worn, that of the woman who has suffered--temperament again! Her +mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, is drawn down +at the corners. Her figure is slight but graceful. She has +pretty feet. One protruded from her skirt, and a slipper dangled +from the tip. At last it fell off. I knew it would. She has a +craze for the minimum of material in slippers--about an inch of +leather (I suppose it's leather) from the toe. I picked the vain +thing up and balanced it again on her stocking-foot. + +"Will you do that eight years hence?" said Judith. + +"My dear, as I've done it eight thousand times the last eight +years, I suppose I shall," I replied, laughing. "I'm a creature +of habit." + +"You may marry, Marcus." + +"God forbid!" I ejaculated. + +"Some pretty fresh girl." + +"I abominate pretty fresh girls. I would just as soon talk to a +baby in a perambulator." + +"The women men are crazy to marry are not always those they +particularly delight to converse with, my friend," said Judith. + +I lit another cigarette. "I think the sex feminine has marriage +on the brain," I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly. "My Aunt Jessica +was worrying me about it the day before yesterday. As if it were +any concern of hers!" + +Judith laughed below her breath and called me a simpleton. + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Because you haven't got a temperament." + +This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the question. I +told her so. She replied that she was years older than I, and +had learned the eternal relevance of all things. I pointed out +that she was years younger. + +"How many heart-beats have you had in your life--real, wild, +pulsating heart-beats--eternity in an hour?" + +"That's Blake," I murmured. + +"I'm aware of it. Answer my question." + +"It's a silly question." + +"It isn't. The next time you see a female baby in a +perambulator, take off your hat respectfully." + +I am afraid I am clumsy at repartee. + +"And the next time you engage a cook, my dear Judith," said I, +"send for a mere man." + +She coloured up. I dissolved myself in apologies. Her wounded +susceptibilities required careful healing. The situation was +somewhat odd. She had not scrupled to attack the innermost +weaknesses of my character, and yet when I retaliated by a hit at +externals, she was deeply hurt, and made me feel a ruffianly +blackguard. I really think if Lisette had pinned up that curtain +I should have learned something more about female human nature. +But Judith is the only woman I have known intimately all my life +long, and sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever know her. I +told her so once. She answered: "If you loved me you would know +me." Very likely she was right. Honestly speaking, I don't love +Judith. I am accustomed to her. She is a lady, born and bred. +She is an educated woman and takes quite an intelligent interest +in the Renaissance. Indeed she has a subtler appreciation of the +Venetian School of Painting than I have. She first opened my +eyes, in Italy, to the beauties, as a gorgeous colourist, of +Palma Vecchio in his second or Giorgionesque manner. She is in +every way a sympathetic and entertaining companion. Going +deeper, to the roots of human instinct, I find she represents to +me--so chance has willed it--the _ewige weibliche_ which must +complement masculinity in order to produce normal existence. But +as for the "_zieht uns hinan_"--no. It would not attract me +hence--out of my sphere. I could commit an immortal folly for no +woman who ever made this planet more lustrous to its +Bruderspharen. + +I don't understand Judith. It doesn't very greatly matter. Many +things I don't understand, the spiritual attitude towards +himself, for example, of the intelligent juggler who expends his +life's energies in balancing a cue and three billiard-balls on +the tip of his nose. But I know that Judith understands me, and +therein lies the advantage I gain from our intimacy. She gauges, +to an absurdly subtle degree, the depth of my affection. She is +really an incomparable woman. So many insist upon predilection +masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing theatrical +about Judith. + +Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unsettled. She +broke another pleasant spell of fireside silence, that followed +expiation of my offence, by suddenly calling my name. + +"Yes?" said I, inquiringly. + +"I want to tell you something. Please promise me you won't be +vexed." + +"My dear Judith," said I, "my great and imperial namesake, in +whose meditations I have always found ineffable comfort, tells me +this: 'If anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not +the thing which disturbs you, but your notion about it, which +notion you may dismiss at once, if you please!' So I promise to +dismiss all my notions of your disturbing communication and not +to be vexed." + +"If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is +Marcus Aurelius," said Judith. + +I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which +protested, in a fire's cheery, human way, against the depression +of the murky world outside, and to banter Judith. + +"I can quite understand it," I said. "A man sucks in the +consolations of philosophy; a woman solaces herself with +religion." + +"I can do neither," she replied, changing her attitude with an +exaggerated shaking down of skirts. "If I could, I shouldn't +want to go away." + +"Go away?" I echud. + +"Yes. You mustn't be vexed with me. I haven't got a cook--" + +"No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my +dear." + +The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and +baggage, last evening, when she was sober enough to walk. + +"And so it is a convenient opportunity," Judith continued, +ignoring my compliment--and rightly so; for as soon as it had +been uttered, I was struck by an uneasy conviction that she had +herself disturbed the French caterers in the Tottenham Court Road +from their Sabbath repose in order to provide me with food. + +"I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never happy at +the beginning of a London season. I know I'm silly," she went +on, hurriedly. "If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I +might be wiser--I don't mind the rest of the year; but in the +season everybody is in town--people I used to know and mix with +--I meet them in the streets and they cut me and it--hurts--and +so I want to get away somewhere by myself. When I get sick of +solitude I'll come back." + +One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by +my side. She caught my hand. + +"For pity's sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is." + +I said, "I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith. +I didn't guess. Of course I understand." + +"If you didn't, it would be impossible for us." + +"Have no doubt," said I, softly, and I kissed her hand. + +I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with +--at eight and twenty--and was patiently undergoing premature +interment in a small pension in Rome. How long her patience +would have lasted I cannot say. If circumstances had been +different, what would have happened? is the most futile of +speculations. What did happen was the drifting together of us +two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for the simple +reason that there were no forces urging us apart. She was past +all care for social sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute +having been flung over the windmills long before; and I, +friendless unit in a world of shadows, why should I have rejected +the one warm hand that was held out to me? As I said to her this +afternoon, Why should the _bon Dieu_ disapprove? I pay him the +compliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity. + +When my fortune came, she remarked, "I am glad I am not free. If +I were, you would want to marry me, and that would be fatal." + +The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour would compel +the offer. Its acceptance would bring disaster. + +Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, a _quid_ +of protection, maintenance, position and what not, for a _quo_ of +the various services that may be conveniently epitomized in the +phrase _de mensa et thoro_. The other, the only possible +existence for two beings whose passionate, mutual attraction +demands the perfect fusion of their two existences into a common +life. Now to this passionate attraction I have never become, +and, having no temperament (thank Heaven!), shall never become, a +party. Before the turbulence therein involved I stand affrighted +as I do before London or the deep sea. I once read an epitaph in +a German churchyard: "I will awake, O Christ, when thou callest +me; but let me sleep awhile, for I am very weary." Has the human +soul ever so poignantly expressed its craving for quietude? I +fancy I should have been a heart's friend of that dead man, who, +like myself, loved the cool and quiet shadow, and was not allowed +to enjoy it in this world. I may not get the calm I desire, but +at any rate my existence shall not be turned upside down by mad +passion for a woman. As for the social-contract aspect of +marriage, I want no better housekeeper than Antoinette; and my +dining-table having no guests does not need a lady to grace its +foot; I have no _a priori_ craving to add to the population. "If +children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason +alone," says Schopenhauer, "would the human race continue to +exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the +coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at +any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it +in cold blood?" By bringing children into the world by means of +a marriage of convenience I should be imposing the burden of +existence upon them in cold blood. I agree with Schopenhauer. + +And the dreadful bond of such a marriage! To have in the closest +physical and moral propinquity for one hundred and eighty-six +hours out of the week, each hour surcharged with an obligatory +exchange of responsibilities, interests, sacrifices of every +kind, a being who is not the utter brother of my thoughts and +sister of my dreams--no, never! _Au grand non, au grand jamais!_ + +Judith is an incomparable woman, but she is not the utter brother +of my thoughts and the sister of my dreams; nor am I of hers. + +But the comradeship she gives me is as food and drink, and my +affection fulfils a need in her nature. The delicate adjustment +of reciprocals is our sanction. Marriage, were it possible, +would indeed be fatal. Our pleasant, free relations, unruffled +by storm, are ideal for us both. + +Why, I wonder, did she think her proposal to go away for a change +would vex me? + +The idea implies a right of veto which is repugnant to me. Of +all the hateful attitudes towards a woman in which a decent man +can view himself that of the Turkish bashaw is the most +detestable. Women seldom give men credit for this distaste. + + +I kissed the white hand of Judith that touched my wrist, and told +her not to doubt my understanding. She cried a little. + +"I don't make your path rougher, Judith?" I whispered. + +She checked her tears and her eyes brightened wonderfully. + +"You? You do nothing but smooth it and level it." + +"Like a steam-roller," said I. + +She laughed, sprang to her feet, and carried me off gaily to the +kitchen to help her get the tea ready. My assistance consisted +in lighting the gas-stove beneath a waterless kettle. After that +I sprawled against the dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, +watched her cut thin bread-and-butter in a woman's deliciously +clumsy way. Once, as the bright blade went perilously near her +palm, I drew in my breath. + +"A man would never dream of doing it like that!" I cried, in +rebuke. + +She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the +knife and loaf. + +"Do it your way," she said, with a smile of mock humility. + +I did it my way, and cut my finger. + +"The devil's in the knife!" I cried. "But that's the right way." + +Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the +well-conducted person of the ballad, went on cutting +bread-and-butter. Her smile, however, was provoking. + +"And all this time," I said, half an hour later, "you haven't +told me where you are going." + +"Paris. To stay with Delphine Carrere." + +"I thought you said you wanted solitude." + +I have met Delphine Carrere -_brave femme_ if ever there was one, +and the loyalest soul in the world, the only one of Judith's +early women friends who has totally ignored the fact of the +Sacred Cap of Good Repute having been thrown over the windmills +(indeed who knows whether dear, golden-hearted Delphine herself +could conscientiously write the magic initials S.C.G.R. after her +name?); but Delphine has never struck me as a person in whose +dwelling one could find conventual seclusion. Judith, however, +explained. + +"Delphine will be painting all day, and dissipating all night. I +can't possibly disturb her in her studio, for she has to work +tremendously hard--and I'm decidedly not going to dissipate with +her. So I shall have my days and nights to my sequestered and +meditative self." + +I said nothing: but all the same I am tolerably certain that Judith, +being Judith, will enjoy prodigious merrymaking in Paris. She is +absolutely sincere in her intentions--the earth holds no sincerer +woman--but she is a self-deceiver. Her about-to-be-sequestered +and meditative self was at that moment sitting on the arm of a +chair and smoking a cigarette, with undisguised relish of the good +things of this life. The blue smoke wreathing itself amid her fair +hair resembled, so I told her in the relaxed intellectual frame of +mind of the contented man, incense mounting through the nimbus of +a saint. She affected solicitude lest the life-blood of my +intelligence should be pouring out through my cut finger. No, I +am convinced that the _recueillement_ (that beautiful French word +for which we have no English equivalent, meaning the gathering of +the soul together within itself) of the rue Boissy d'Anglais is +the very happiest delusion wherewith Judith has hitherto deluded +herself. I am glad, exceedingly glad. Her temperament--I have +got reconciled to her affliction--craves the gaiety which London +denies her. + +"And when are you going?" I asked. + +"To-morrow." + +"To-morrow?" + +"Why not? I wired Delphine this morning. I had to go out to get +something for lunch " (my conviction, it appears, was right), +"and I thought I might as well take an omnibus to Charing Cross +and send a telegram." + +"But when are you going to pack?" + +"I did that last night. I didn't get to bed till four this +morning. I only made up my mind after you had gone," she added, +in anticipation of a possible question. + +It is better that we are not married. These sudden resolutions +would throw my existence out of gear. My moral upheaval would be +that of a hen in front of a motor-car. When I go abroad, I like +at least a fortnight to think of it. One has to attune one's +mind to new conditions, to map out the pleasant scheme of days, +to savour in anticipation the delights that stand there, awaiting +one's tasting, either in the mystery of the unknown or in the +welcoming light of familiarity. I love the transition that can +be so subtly gradated by the spirit between one scene and +another. The man who awakens one fine morning in his London +residence, scratches his head, and says, "What shall I do to-day? +By Jove! I'll start for Timbuctoo!" is to me an +incomprehensible, incomplete being. He lacks an aesthetic sense. + +I did not dare tell Judith she lacked an aesthetic sense. I +might just as well have accused her of stealing silver spoons. I +said I should miss her (which I certainly shall), and promised to +write to her once a week. + +"And you," said I, "will have heaps of time to write me the +History of a Sequestered and Meditative Self--meanwhile, let us +go out somewhere and dine." + +When I got home, I found a card on my hall-table. "Mr. Sebastian +Pasquale." + +I am sorry I missed Pasquale. I haven't seen him for two or +three years. He is a fascinating youth, a study in reversion. I +will ask him to dinner here some day soon. It will be quieter +than at the club. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +May 24th. + +Something has happened. Something fantastic, inconceivable. I +am in a condition to be surprised at nothing. If a witch on a +broomstick rode in through my open window and lectured me on +quaternions, I should accept her visit as a normal occurrence. + +I have spent hours walking up and down this book-lined room, +wondering whether the universe or I were mad. Sometimes I +laughed, for the thing is sheerly ridiculous. Sometimes I cursed +at the impertinence of the thing in happening at all. Once I +stumbled over a volume of Muratori lying on the floor, and I +kicked it across the room. Then I took it up, and wept over the +loosened binding. + +The question is: What on earth am I to do? Why has Judith chosen +this particular time to shut up her flat and sequester herself in +Paris? Why did my lawyers appoint this particular morning for me +to sign their silly documents? Why did I turn up three hours +late? Why did I walk down the Thames Embankment? And why, oh, +why, did I seat myself on a bench in the gardens below the +terrace of the National Liberal Club? + +Yesterday was one of the most peaceful and happy days of my +existence. I worked contentedly at my history; I gossiped with +Antoinette who came to demand permission to keep a cat. + +"What kind of a cat?" I asked. + +"Perhaps Monsieur does not like cats?" she inquired, anxiously. + +"The cat was worshipped as a god by the ancient Egyptians," I +remarked. + +"But this one, Monsieur," she said in breathless reassurance, +"has only one eye." + +I would sooner talk to Antoinette than the tutorial staff of +Girton. If she woke up one morning and found she had a mind she +would think it a disease. + +In the afternoon I strolled into Regent's Park and meeting the +McMurray's nine-year-old son in charge of the housemaid, around +whom seemed to be hovering a sheepish individual in a bowler hat, +I took him off to the Zoological Gardens. On the way he told me, +with great glee, that his German governess was in bed with an +awful sore throat; that he wasn't doing any lessons; that the +sheepish hoverer was Milly's young man, and that the silly way +they went on was enough to make one sick. When he had fed +everything feedable and ridden everything ridable, I drove him to +the Wellington Road and deposited him with his parents. I love a +couple of hours with a child when it is thoroughly happy and on +its best behaviour. And the enjoyment is enhanced by the feeling +of utter thankfulness that he is not my child, but somebody +else's. + +In the evening I read and meditated on the happiness of my lot. +The years of school drudgery have already lost their sharp edge +of remembered definition, and sometimes I wonder whether it is I +who lived through them. I had not a care in the world, not a +want that I could not gratify. I thought of Judith. I thought +of Sebastian Pasquale. I amused myself by seeking a Renaissance +type of which he must be the reincarnation. I fixed upon young +Olgiati, one of the assassins of Gian Galeazzo Sforza. Of the +many hundreds of British youths who passed before my eyes during +my slavery, he is the only one who has sought me out in his +manhood. And strange to say we had only a few months together, +during my first year's apprenticeship to the dismal craft, he +being in the sixth form, and but three or four years younger than +I. He was the maddest, oddest, most diabolical and most +unpopular boy in the school. The staff, to whom the conventional +must of necessity be always the Divine, loathed him. I alone +took to the creature. I think now that my quaint passion for the +cinquecento Italian must have had something to do with my +attraction. In externals he is as English as I am, having been +brought up in England by an English mother, but there are +thousands of Hindoos who are more British than he. The McMurrays +were telling me dreadful stories about him this afternoon. +Sighing after an obdurate Viennese dancer, he had lured her +coachman into helpless intoxication, had invested himself in the +domestic's livery, and had driven off with the lady in the +darkness after the performance to the outskirts of the town. +What happened exactly, the McMurrays did not know; but there was +the devil to pay in Vienna. And yet this inconsequent libertine +did the following before my own eyes. We were walking down +Piccadilly together one afternoon in the hard winter of 1894. It +was a black frost, agonizingly cold. A shivering wretch held out +matches for sale. His hideous red toes protruded through his +boots. "My God, my God!" cried Pasquale, "I can't stand this!" +He jumped into a crawling hansom, tore off his own boots, flung +them to the petrified beggar and drove home in his stocking-feet. +I stood on the curb and, with mingled feelings, watched the +recipient, amid an interested group of bystanders, match the +small shapely sole against his huge foot, and with a grin tuck +the boots under his arm and march away with them to the nearest +pawnbroker. If Pasquale had been an equally compassionate +Briton, he would have stopped to think, and have tossed the man a +sovereign. _But he didn't stop to think._ That was my +cinquecento Pasquale. And I loved him for it. + +I went to bed last night, as I have indicated, the most contented +of created beings. I awoke this morning with no greater ruffle +on my consciousness than the appointment with my lawyers. The +sun shone. A thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my +bedroom windows. The tree, laughed and shook out its finery at +me like a woman, saying: "See how green I am, after Sunday's +rain." Antoinette's one eyed black cat (a hideous beast) met me +in the hall and arching its back welcomed me affably to its new +residence. And on my breakfast-table I found a copy of the first +edition of Cristoforo da Costa's "_Elogi delle Donne Illustri_," +a book which, in great diffidence, I had asked Lord Carnforth, a +perfect stranger, to allow me the privilege of consulting in his +library, and which Lord Carnforth, with a scholar's splendid +courtesy, had sent me to use at my convenience. + +Filled with peace and good-will to all men, like a +personification of Christmas in May, I started out this morning +to see my lawyers. I reached them at three o'clock, having idled +at second-hand bookstalls and lunched on the road. I signed +their unintelligible document, and wandered through the Temple +Gardens and along the Embankment. When I had passed under +Hungerford Bridge, it struck me that I was warm, a little leg- +weary, and the Victoria Embankment Gardens smiled an invitation +to repose. I struck the shady path beneath the terrace of the +National Liberal Club, and sat myself down on a comfortable +bench. The only other occupant was a female in black. As I take +no interest in females in black, I disregarded her presence, and +gave myself up to the contemplation, of the trim lawns and +flower-beds, the green trees masking the unsightly Surrey side of +the river, and the back of the statue of Sir Bartle Frere. A +continued survey of the last not making for edification (a statue +that turns its back on you being one of the dullest objects made +by man), I took from my pocket a brown leather-covered volume +which I had fished out of a penny box: "_Suite de l'Histoire du +Gouvernement de Venise ou L'Histoire des Uscoques, par le Sieur +Houssaie, Amsterdam, MDCCV._" A whole complete scholarly history +of a forgotten people for a penny. The Uscoques were originally +Dalmatians who settled at Segna on the Adriatic and became the +most pestiferous colony of pirates and desperadoes of sixteenth +century Europe. I opened the yellow-stained pages and savoured +their acrid musty smell. How much learning, thought I, bought +with the heart's-blood, how many million hours of fierce +intellectual struggle appeal to mankind nowadays but as an odour, +an odour of decay, in the nostrils of here and there a casual +student. I thought this, and my eye caught, repeated many times, +the name of the Frangipani, once lords of Segna. As men, their +achievements are wiped out of commonly remembered history; but +their name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which perchance +may be found in the penny scent fountains of to-day. I was +smiling over this quaint olfactory coincidence, and wondering +whether any human being alive at that moment had ever read the +Sieur Houssaie's book, when a tug at my arm, such as a neglected +terrier gives with his paw, brought me back to the workaday +world. I turned sharply and met a pair of melting, brown, +piteous, imploring dog's eyes, belonging not to a terrier, but to +the disregarded female in black. + +"Will you please, sir, to tell me what I must do." + +I stared. She was not in the least like what my half-conscious +glance at the female in black had taken her to be. She was quite +young, remarkably good looking. Even at the first instant I was +struck by her eyes and the mass of bronze hair and the twitching +of a childish mouth. But she had an untidy, touzled, raffish +appearance, due to I knew not what investiture of disrepute. Her +hands--for she wore no gloves--wanted washing. + +"What a young girl like yourself must not do," said I, "is to +enter into conversation with men in public places." + +"Then I shall have to die," she said, forlornly, edging away from +my side. + +She had the oddest little foreign accent. I looked at her again +more critically, and discovered what it was that made her look so +disreputable. She was wearing an old black dress many sizes too +big for her. Great pleats of it were secured by pins in +unexpected places, so that quaint chaos was made of the scheme of +decoration--black velvet and bugles--on the bodice. +Instinctively I felt that a middle-aged, fat, second-hand- +clothes-dealing Jewess had built it many years ago for synagogue +wear. On the girlish figure it looked preposterous. +Preposterous too was her head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed +in black, with a cheap black feather drooping brokenly. + +Her eyes gave me a reproachful glance and turned away again. +Then she shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. My mother had a +housemaid once who always sniffed like that before beginning to +cry. My position was untenable. I could not remain stonily on +the seat while this grotesquely attired damsel wept; and for the +life of me I could not get up and leave her. She looked at me +again. Those swimming, pleading eyes were scarcely human. I +capitulated. + +"Don't cry. Tell me what I can do for you," I said. + +She moved a few inches nearer. + +"I want to find Harry," she said; "I have lost him." + +"Who's Harry?" I naturally inquired. + +"He is to be my husband." + +"What's his other name?" + +"I have forgotten," she said, spreading out her hands. + +"Don't you know any one else in London?" I asked. + +She shook her head mournfully. "And I am getting so hungry." + +I suggested that there were restaurants in London. + +"But I have no money," she objected. "No money and nothing at +all but this." She designated her dress. "Isn't it ugly?" + +"It is decidedly not becoming," I admitted. + +"Well, what must I do? You tell me and I do it. If you don't +tell me, I must die." + +She leaned back placidly, having thus put upon my shoulders the +responsibility of her existence. I did not know which to admire +more, her cool assurance or the stoic fortitude with which she +faced dissolution. + +"I can give you some money to keep you going for a day or two," +said I, "but as for finding Harry, without knowing his name--" + +"After all I don't want so very much to find him," said this +amazing young person. "He made me stay in my cabin all the time +I was in the steamer. At first I was glad, for it went up and +down, side to side, and I thought I would die, for I was so sick; +but afterwards I got better--" + +"But where did you come from?" I asked. + +"From Alexandretta." + +"What were you doing there?" + +"I used to sit in a tree and look over the wall--" + +"What wall?" + +"The wall of my house-my father's house. He was not my father, +but he married my mother. I am English." She announced the fact +with a little air of finality. + +"Indeed?" said I. + +"Yes. Father, mother--both English. He was Vice-Consul. He +died before I was born. Then his friend Hamdi Effendi took my +mother and married her. You see?" + +I confessed I did not. "Where does Harry come in?" I inquired. + +She looked puzzled. "Come in?" she echoed. + +I perceived her knowledge of the English vernacular was limited. +I turned my question differently. + +"Oh," she said with more animation. "He used to pass by the +wall, and I talked to him when there was no one looking. He was +so pretty--prettier than you," she paused. + +"Is it possible?" I said, ironically. + +"Oh, yes," she replied with profound gravity. "He had a +moustache, but he was not so long." + +"Well? You talked to Harry. What then?" + +In her artless way she told me. A refreshing story, as old as +the crusades, with the accessories of orthodox tradition; a +European disguise, purchased at a slop dealer's by the precious +Harry, a rope, a midnight flitting, a passage taken on board an +English ship; the anchor weighed; and the lovers were free on the +bounding main. A most refreshing story! I put on a sudden air +of sternness, and shot a question at her like a bullet. + +"Are you making all this up, young woman?" + +She started-looked quite scared. + +"You mean I tell lies? But no. It is all true. Why shouldn't +it be true? How else could I have come here?" + +The question was unanswerable. Her story was as preposterous as +her garments. But her garments were real enough. I looked long +into her great innocent eyes. Yes, she was telling me the truth. +She babbled on for a little. I gathered that her step-father, +Hamdi Effendi, was a Turkish official. She had spent all her +life in the harem from which she had eloped with this pretty +young Englishman. + +"And what must I do?" she reiterated. + +I told her to give me time. One is not in the habit of meeting +abducted Lights of the Harem in the Embankment Gardens, beneath +the National Liberal Club. It was, in fact, a bewildering +occurrence. I looked around me. Nothing seemed to have happened +during the last ten minutes. A pale young man on the next bench, +whom I had noticed when I entered, was reading a dirty pink +newspaper. Pigeons and sparrows hopped about unconcernedly. On +the file of cabs, just perceptible through the foliage, the +cabmen lolled in listless attitudes. Sir Bartle Frere stolidly +kept his back to me, not the least interested in this Gilbert a +Becket story. I always thought something was wrong with that +man's character. + +What on earth could I tell her to do? The best course was to +find the infernal Harry. I asked her how she came to lose him. +It appears he escorted her ashore at Southampton, after having +scarcely set eyes on her during the voyage, put her into a +railway carriage with strict injunctions not to stir until he +claimed her, and then disappeared into space. + +"Did he give you your ticket?" + +"No." + +"What a young blackguard!" I exclaimed. + +"I don't like him at all," she said. + +How she managed to elude the ticket collector at Vauxhall I could +not exactly discover. Apparently she told him, in her confiding +manner, that Harry had it, and when he found no Harry in the +train and came back to say so, she turned her dewy imploring eyes +on him and the sentimental varlet melted. At Waterloo a man had +told her +she must get out of the carriage--she had travelled alone in it +--and she had meekly obeyed. She had wandered out of the station +and across a bridge and had eventually found herself in the +Embankment Gardens. Then she had asked me how to find Harry. +Really she was ridiculously like Thomas a Becket's Saracen mother +crying in London for Gilbert. And the most ludicrous part of the +resemblance was that she did not know the creature's surname. + +"By the way," said I, "what is your name?" + +"Carlotta." + +"Carlotta what? " I asked. + +"I have no other name." + +"Your father--the Vice-Consul--had one." + +She wrinkled her young forehead in profound mental effort. + +"Ramsbotham," she said at last, triumphantly. + +"Now look here, Miss Ramsbotham--no," I broke off. "Such an +appellation is anachronistic, incongruous, and infinitely absurd. +I can't use it. I must take the liberty of addressing you as +Carlotta." + +"But I've told you that Carlotta is my name," she said, in +uncomprehending innocence. + +"And mine is Sir Marcus Ordeyne. People call me 'Sir Marcus.'" + +"Seer Marcous," said Carlotta. + +She did not seem at all impressed with the fact that she was +talking to a member of the baronetage. + +"Quite so," said I. "Now, Carlotta," I resumed, "our first plan +is to set out in search of Harry. He may have missed his train, +and have followed by a later one, and be even now rampaging about +Waterloo station. If we hear nothing of him, I will drive you to +the Turkish Consulate, give you in charge there, and they will +see you safely home to Alexandretta. The good Hamdi Effendi is +doubtless distracted, and will welcome you back with open + +arms." + +I meant to be urbane and friendly. + +She rose to her feet, grew as white as paper, opened her great +eyes, opened her baby mouth, and in the middle of the Embankment +Gardens plumped on her knees before me and clasped her hands +above her head. + +"For God's sake get up!" I shrieked, wrenching her back +acrobatically to the bench beside me. "You mustn't do things +like that. You'll have the whole of London running to look at +us." + +Indeed the sight had so far roused the pale young man from his +lethargy that he laid his dirty pink paper on his knees. I kept +hold of Carlotta's wrists. She began to moan incoherently. + +"You mustn't send me back--Hamdi will kill me--oh please don't +send me back--he will make me marry his friend Mustapha--Mustapha +has only two teeth--and he is seventy years old--and he has a +wife already--I only went with Harry to avoid Mustapha. Hamdi +would kill me, he would beat me, he would make me marry +Mustapha." + +That is what I gathered from her utterances. She was frightened +out of her wits, even into anticlimax. + +"But the Turkish Consul is your natural protector," said I. + +"You wouldn't be so cruel," she sobbed. The guttural sonority +with which she rolled the "r" in "cruel" made the epithet appear +one of revolting barbarity. She fixed those confounded eyes upon +me. + +I wonder whether such a fool as I has ever lived. + +I promised, on my honour, not to hand her over to the Turkish +consulate. + +I took a four-wheeled cab from the rank on the Embankment and +drove her to Waterloo. On the way she reminded me that she was +hungry. I gave her food at the buffet. It appears she has a +passion for hard-boiled eggs and lemonade. She did not seem very +much concerned about finding Harry, but chattered to me about the +appointments of the bar. The beer-pulls amused her particularly. +She made me order a glass of bitter (a beverage which I loathe) +in order to see again how it was done, and broke into gleeful +laughter. The smart but unimaginative barmaid stared at her in +bewilderment. The two or three bar-loafers also stared. I was +glad to escape to the platform. + +There, however, a group of idlers followed us about and stood in +a ring round us when we stopped to interview a railway official. +The beautiful, bronze-haired, ox-eyed young woman in her +disreputable attire--I have never seen a broken black feather +waggle more shamelessly--was a sight indeed to strike wonderment +into the cockney mind. And perhaps her association with myself +added to the incongruity. I am long and lean and unlovely, I +know; but it is my consolation that I look irreproachably +respectable. Of the two I was infinitely the more disturbed by +the public attention. "Calm and unembarrassed as a fate" she +returned the popular gaze, and appeared somewhat bored by my +efforts to find Harry. In the midst of an earnest discussion +with the station-master she begged me for a penny to put into +an automatic sweetmeat machine, which she had seen a small +boy work successfully. I refused, curtly, and turned to the +station-master. A roar of laughter interrupted me again. +Carlotta, with outstretched hand and pleading eyes, like an +organ-grinder's monkey, had induced the boy to part with the +sticky bit of toffee, and was in the act of conveying it to +her mouth. + +"I'll call to-morrow morning," said I hurriedly to the +station-master. "If the gentleman should come meanwhile, +tell him to leave his name and address." + +Then I took Carlotta by the arm and, accompanied by my train of +satellites, I thrust her into the first hansom-cab I could see. + +There was no sign or token of Harry. No pretty young man was +hanging dejectedly about the station. None had torn his hair +before the officials asking for news of a lost female in frowsy +black. There was no Harry. There was no further need therefore +to afford the British public a gratuitous entertainment. + +"Drive," said I to the cabman. "Drive like the devil." + +"Where to, sir?" + +I gasped. Where should I drive? I lost my head. + +"Go on driving round and round till I tell you to stop." The +philosophic cabman did not regard me as eccentric, for he whipped +up his horse cheerfully. When we had slid down the steep incline +and got free of the precincts of that hateful station, I breathed +more freely and collected my wits. Carlotta sucked her sticky +thumbs and wiped them on her dress. + +"Where are we going?" she asked. + +"Across Waterloo Bridge," said I. + +"What to do?" + +"To dispose of you somehow," I replied, grimly. "But how, I +haven't a notion. There's a Home for Lost Dogs and a Home for +Stray Cats, and a Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard, but as +you are neither a dog nor a cat nor an umbrella, these refuges +are unavailable." + +The cab reached the Strand. + +"East or west, sir?" inquired the driver. + +"West," said I, at random. + +We drove down the Strand at a leisurely pace. I passed through a +phase of agonised thought. By my side was a helpless, homeless, +friendless, penniless young woman, as beautiful as a goddess and +as empty-minded as a baby. What in the world could I do with +her? I looked at her in despair. She met my glance with a +contented smile; just as if we were old acquaintances and I were +taking her out to dinner. The unfamiliar roar and bustle of +London impressed her no more than it would have impressed a +little dog who had found a kind master. + +"Suppose I gave you some money and put you down here and left +you?" I inquired. + +"I should die," she answered, fatalistically. "Or, perhaps, I +should find another kind gentleman." + +"I wonder if you have such a thing as a soul," said I. + +She plucked at her gown. "I have only this--and it is very +ugly," she remarked again. "I should like a pink dress." + +We crossed Trafalgar Square, and I saw by Big Ben that it was a +quarter to six. I could not drive through London with her for an +indefinite period. Besides, my half past seven dinner awaited +me. + +Why, oh, why has Judith gone to Paris? Had she been in town I +could have shot Carlotta into Tottenham Mansions, and gone home +to my dinner and Cristoforo da Costa with a light heart. Judith +would have found Carlotta vastly entertaining. She would have +washed her body and analysed her temperament. But Judith was in +retreat with Delphine Carrere, and has left me alone to bear the +responsibilities of life--and Carlotta. + +The cab slowly mounted Waterloo Place. I had thought of my aunts +as possible helpers, and rejected the idea. I had thought of a +police station, a hotel, my lawyers (too late), a furnished +lodging, a hospital. My mind was an aching blank. + +"Where do you live?" asked Carlotta. + +I looked at her and groaned. It was the only solution. "Up +Regent's Park way," I replied, aware that she was none the wiser +for the information. + +I gave the address to the cabman through the trap-door in the +roof. + +"I'm going to take you home with me for to-night," I said, +severely. "I have an excellent French housekeeper who will look +after your comfort. And to-morrow if that infernal young +scoundrel of a lover of yours is not found, it will not be the +fault of the police force of Great Britain." + +She laid her grubby little hand on mine. It was very soft and +cool. + +"You are cross with me. Why?" + +I removed her hand. + +"You mustn't do that again," said I. "No; I am not in the least +cross with you. But I hope you are aware that this event is of +an unprecedented character." + +"What is an unprecedented character?" she asked, stumbling over +the long words. + +"A thing that has never happened before and I devoutly hope will +not happen again." + +Her face was turned to me. The lower lip trembled a little. The +dog-look came into those wonderful eyes. + +"You will be kind to me?" she said, in her childish +monosyllables, each word carefully articulated with a long pause +between. + +I felt I had behaved like a heartless brute, ever since I thrust +her into the cab at Waterloo. I relented and laughed. + +"If you are a good girl and do as I tell you," said I. + +"Seer Marcous is my lord and I am his slave," was her astounding +reply. + +Then I realised that she had been brought up by Hamdi Effendi. +There is something salutary, after all, in the training of the +harem. + +"I'm very glad to hear it," I said. + +She closed her eyes. I saw now she was very tired. I thought +she had gone to sleep and I looked in front of me puzzling out +the problem. Presently the cab-doors were thrust violently open, +and if I had net held her back, she would have jumped out of the +vehicle. + +"Look!" she cried, in great excitement. "There! There's Harry's +name!" + +She pointed to a butcher's cart immediately in front of us, +bearing, in large letters, the name of "E. Robinson." + +"We must stop," she went on. "He will tell us about Harry." + +It took me from Oxford Circus to Portman Square to convince her +that there were many thousands of Robinsons in London and that +the probability of the butcher's cart being a clue to Harry's +whereabouts was exceedingly remote. + +At Baker Street station she asked, wearily: "Is it still far to +your house?" + +"No," said I, encouragingly. "Not very far." + +"But one can drive for many days through streets in London, and +there will be still streets, still houses? So they tell me in +Alexandretta. London is as big as the moon, not so?" + +I felt absurdly pleased. She was capable of an idea. I had +begun to wonder whether she were not merely half-witted. The +fact of her being able to read had already cheered me. + +"Many hours, yes," I corrected, "not many days. London seems big +to you?" + +"Oh, yes," she said, passing her hand over her eyes. "It makes +all go round in my head. One day you will take me for a drive +through these wonderful streets. Now I am too tired. They make +my head ache." + +Then she shut her eyes again and did not open them until we +stopped at Lingfield Terrace. I modified my first impression of +her animal unimpressionability. She is quite sane. If Boadicea +were to be brought back to life and be set down suddenly at +Charing Cross, her psychological condition would not be far +removed from that of an idiot. Yet in her own environment +Boadicea was quite a sane and capable lady. + +My admirable man Stenson opened the door and admitted us without +moving a muscle. He would betray no incorrect astonishment if I +brought home a hippogriff to dinner. I have an admiration for +the trained serving-man's imperturbability. It is the guardian +angel of his self-respect. I ordered him to send Antoinette to +me in the drawing-room. + +"Antoinette," said I, "this young lady has travelled all the way +from Asia Minor, where the good St. Paul had so many adventures, +without changing her things." + +_C'est y Dieu possible_!" said Antoinette. + +"Give her a nice hot bath, and perhaps you will have the kindness +to lend her the underlinen that your sex is in the habit of +wearing. You will put her into the spare bedroom, as she is +going to pass the night here, and you will look generally after +her comfort." + +"_Bien, M'sieu_," said Antoinette, regarding Carlotta in +stupefaction. + +"And put that hat and dress into the dust-bin." + +"_Bien, M'sieu._" + +"And as Mademoiselle is broken with fatigue, having come without +stopping from Asia Minor, she will go to bed as soon as +possible." + +"The poor angel," said Antoinette. "But will she not join +Monsieur at dinner?" + +"I think not," said I, dryly. + +"But the young ducklings that are roasting for the dinner of +Monsieur?" + +"If they were not roasting they might be growing up into ducks," +said I. + +"Oh, la, la!" murmured Antoinette, below her breath. + +"Carlotta," said I, turning to the girl who had seated herself +humbly on a straight-backed chair, "you will go with Antoinette +and do as she tells you. She doesn't talk English, but she is +used to making people understand her." + +"_Mais, moi parley Francais un peu_," said Carlotta. + +"Then you will win Antoinette's heart, and she will lend you her +finest. Good-night," said I, abruptly. "I hope you will have a +pleasant rest." + +She took my outstretched hand, and, to my great embarrassment, +raised it to her lips. Antoinette looked on, with a sentimental +moisture in her eyes. + +"The poor angel," she repeated. + +Later, I gave Stenson a succinct account of what had occurred. I +owed it to my reputation. Then I went upstairs and dressed for +dinner. I consider I owe that to Stenson. It was eight o'clock +before I sat down, but Antoinette's ducklings were delicious and +brought consolation for the upheaval of the day. I was unfolding +the latest edition of _The Westminster Gazette_ with which I +always soothe the digestive half-hour after dinner, when +Antoinette entered to report progress. + +She was sound asleep, the poor little one. Oh, but she was +tired. She had eaten some _consomme_, a bit of fish and an +omelette. But she was beautiful, gentle as a lamb; and she had a +skin _on dirait du satin_. Had not Monsieur noticed it? + +I replied, with some over-emphasis, that I had not. + +"Monsieur rather regards the inside of his books," said +Antoinette. + +"They are generally more worth regarding," said I. + +Antoinette said nothing; but there was a feminine quiver at the +corners of her fat lips. + +She was comfortably disposed of for the night. I drew a breath +of relief. To-morrow Great Scotland Yard should set out on the +track of the absconding Harry. Carlotta's happy recollection of +his surname facilitated the search. I lit a cigarette and opened +_The Westminster Gazette_. + +A few moments later I was staring at the paper in blank horror +and dismay. + +Harry was found. There was no mistake. Harry Robinson, junior +partner of the firm of Robinson & Co., of Mincing Lane. Vain, +indeed, would it be to seek the help of Great Scotland Yard. +Harry had blown out his brains in the South Western Hotel at +Southampton. + + +I have read the newspaper paragraph over and over again to-night. +There is no possible room for doubt that it is the same Harry. + +The ways of man are past interpretation. Here is an individual +who lures a girl from an oriental harem, attires her in +disgusting garments, smuggles her on board a steamer, where he +claps her, so to speak, under hatches, and has little if anything +to do with her, sets her penniless and ticketless in a London +train, and then goes off and blows his brains out. Where is the +sense of it? + +I have not a spark of sympathy for Harry--a callow, egotistical +dealer in currants. He ought to have blown out his brains a year +ago. He has behaved in a most unconscionable manner. How does he +expect me to break the news to Carlotta? His selfishness is +appalling. There he lies, comfortably dead in the South Western +Hotel, while Carlotta has literally not a rag to her back, her +horrific belongings having been dropped into the dust-bin. Who +does he think is going to provide Carlotta with food and shelter +and a pink dress? What does he imagine is to become of the poor +waif? In all my life I have never heard of a more cynical +suicide. + +I have walked about for hours, laughing and cursing and kicking +the binding loose of my precious Muratori. I have wondered +whether the universe or I were mad. For there is one thing that +is clear to me--Carlotta is here, and here Carlotta must remain. + +Devastating though it be to the well-ordered quietude of my life, +I must adopt Carlotta. + +There is no way out of it. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +May 25th. + +Shall I be accused of harbouring a bevy of odalisques at No. 20 +Lingfield Terrace? Calumny and Exaggeration walk abroad, arm in +arm, even on the north side of Regent's Park. If they had spied +Carlotta at my window this morning, they would have looked in for +afternoon tea at my Aunt Jessica's and have waylaid Mrs. Ralph +Ordeyne outside the Oratory. The question is: Shall Truth +anticipate them? I think not. Every family has its +irrepressible, impossible, unpractical member, its _enfant +terrible_, who is forever doing the wrong thing with the best +intentions. Truth is the _enfant terrible_ of the Virtues. Some +times it puts them to the blush and throws them into confusion; +at others it blusters like a blatant liar; at others, again, it +stutters and stammers like a detected thief. There is no knowing +how Truth may behave, so I shall not let it visit my relations. + +I must confess, however, that I feared the possible passing by of +the two decrepit cronies, when Carlotta stood at my open French +window this morning. She is really indecently beautiful. She +was wearing a deep red silk peignoir, open at the throat, +unashamedly Parisian, which clung to every salient curve of her +figure. I wondered where, in the name of morality, she had +procured the garment. I learned later that it was the joy and +pride of Antoinette's existence; for once, in the days long ago, +when she was _femme de chambre_ to a luminary of the cafes +concerts, it had met around her waist. She had treasured the +cast-off finery of this burned-out star--she beamed in the +seventies--for all these years, and now its immortal devilry +transfigured Carlotta. She was also washed specklessly clean. +An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume could give disengaged +itself from her as she moved. Her gold-bronze hair was superbly +ordered. I noticed her arms which the sleeves of the gay garment +left bare to the elbows; the skin was like satin. "_Et sa peau! +On dirait du satin._" Confound Antoinette! She had the +audacity, too, to come down with bare feet. It was a revelation +of pink, undreamed-of loveliness in tus. + +I repeat she is indecently beautiful. A chit of a girl of +eighteen (for that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt the +beauty that should be the appanage of the woman of seven and +twenty. She should be modestly well-favoured, as becomes her +childish stage of development. She looked incongruous among my +sober books, and I regarded her with some resentment. I dislike +the exotic. I prefer geraniums to orchids. I have a row of pots +of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of Stenson, +Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them +bloom; but I love the unassuming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a +flaring orchid and produces on my retina a sensation of disquiet. + + +I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could. I had +news of Harry, I said, gravely. She merely looked interested and +asked me when he was coming. + +"I'm afraid he will never come," said I. + +"If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?" + +Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety. For the life of me I +could not avoid the ironical. + +"If you will condescend to dwell as a member of my family beneath +my humble roof." + +The irony was lost on her. She uttered a joyous little cry and +held out both her hands to me. Her eyes danced. + +"Oh, I am glad he is not coming. I don't like him any more. I +love to stay here with you." + +I took both the hands in mine. Mortal man could not have done +otherwise. + +"Have you thought why it is that you will never see Harry again?" + +She shook her beautiful head and held it to one side and puckered +up her brows, like a wistful terrier. + +"Is he dead?" + +"Would it grieve you, if he were?" + +"No-o," she replied, thoughtfully. + +"Then," said I, dropping her hands and turning away, "Harry is +dead." + +She stood silent for a couple of minutes, regarding the row of +pink toes that protruded beneath the peignoir. At last her bosom +shook with a sigh. She glanced up at me sweetly. + +"I am so glad," she said. + + +That is all she has vouchsafed to say with regard to the unhappy +young man. "She was so glad!" She has not even asked how he met +his death. She has simply accepted my statement. Harry is dead. +He has gone out of her life like yesterday's sunshine or +yesterday's frippery. If I had told her that yesterday's cab- +horse had broken his neck, she could not be more unconcerned. +Nay, she is glad. Harry had not treated her nicely. He had +boxed her up in a cabin where she had been sick, and had +subjected her to various other discomforts. I, on the contrary, +had surrounded her with luxuries and dressed her in red silk. +She rather dreaded Harry's coming. When she learned that this +was improbable she was relieved. His death had turned the +improbable into the impossible. It was the end of the matter. +She was so glad! + +Yet there must have been some tender passage in their brief +intercourse. He must have kissed her during their flight from +home to steamer. Her young pulses must have throbbed a little +faster at the sight of his comely face. + +What kind of a mythological being am I housing? Did she come at +all out of Hamdi Effendi's harem? Is she not rather some strange +sea-creature that clambered on board the vessel and bewitched the +miserable boy, sucked the soul out of him, and drove him to +destruction? Or is she a Vampire? Or a Succubus? Or a +Hamadryad? Or a Salamander? + +One thing, I vow she is not human. + +If only Judith were here to advise me! And yet I have an uneasy +feeling that Judith will suggest, with a certain violence that is +characteristic of her, the one course which I cannot follow: to +send Carlotta back to Hamdi Effendi. But I cannot break my word. +I would rather, far rather, break Carlotta's beautiful neck. +I have not written to Judith. Nor, by the way, have I received a +letter from her. Delphine has been whirling her off her legs, +and she is ashamed to confess the delusion of the sequestered +life. I wish I were enjoying myself half as much as Judith. + + +"I have adopted Mademoiselle," said I to Antoinette this morning. +"If she returned to Asia Minor they would put a string round her +neck, tie her up in a sack, and throw her into the sea." + +"That would be a pity," said Antoinette, warmly. + +"_Cela depend_," said I. "Anyhow she is here, and here she +remains." + +"In that case," said Antoinette, "has Monsieur considered that +the poor angel will need clothes and articles of toilette--and +this and that and the other?" + +"And shoes to hide her shameless tus," I said. + +"They are the most beautiful toes I have ever seen!" cried +Antoinette in imbecile admiration. She has bewitched that old +woman already. + +I put on my hat and went to Wellington Road to consult Mrs. +McMurray. Heaven be thanked, thought I, for letting me take her +little boy the day before yesterday to see the other animals, and +thus winning a mother's heart. She will help me out of my +dilemma. Unfortunately she was not alone. Her husband, who is +on the staff of a morning newspaper, was breakfasting when I +arrived. He is a great ruddy bearded giant with a rumbling +thunder of a laugh like the bass notes of an organ. His +assertion of the masculine principle in brawn and beard and bass +somewhat overpowers a non-muscular, clean-shaven, and tenor +person like myself. Mrs. McMurray, on the contrary, is a small, +bright bird of a woman. + +I told my amazing story from beginning to end, interrupted by +many Hoo-oo-oo-oo's from McMurray. + +"You may laugh," said I, "but to have a mythical being out of +Olympiodorus quartered on you for life is no jesting matter." + +Olymp--?" began McMurray. + +"Yes," I snapped. + +"Bring her this afternoon, Sir Marcus, when this unsympathetic +wretch has gone to his club," said his wife, "and I'll take her +out shopping." + +"But, dear lady," I cried in despair, "she has but one garment +--and that a silk dressing-gown of horrible depravity that +belonged to a dancer of the second Empire! She is also barefoot." + +"Then I'll come round myself and see what can be done." + +"And by Jove, so will I!" cried McMurray. + +"You'll do such thing," said his wife + +"If I gave you a cheque for 100," said I, "do you think you +could get her what she wants, to go on with?" + +"A hundred pounds!" The little lady uttered a delighted gasp and +I thought she would have kissed me. McMurray brought his +sledgehammer of a hand down on my shoulder. + +"Man!" he roared. "Do you know what you are doing--casting a +respectable wife and mother of a family loose among London +drapery shops with a hundred pounds in her pocket? Do you think +she will henceforward give a thought to her home or husband? Do +you want to ruin my domestic peace, drive me to drink, and wreck +my household?" + +"If you do that again," said I, rubbing my shoulder, "I'll give +her two hundred." + +When I returned Carlotta was sitting, Turkish fashion, on a sofa, +smoking a cigarette (to which she had helped herself out of my +box) and turning over the pages of a book. This sign of literary +taste surprised me. But I soon found it was the second volume of +my _edition de luxe_ of Louandre's _Les Arts Somptuaires_, to +whose place on the shelves sheer feminine instinct must have +guided her. I announced Mrs. McMurray's proposed visit. She +jumped to her feet, ravished at the prospect, and sent my +beautiful book (it is bound in tree-calf and contains a couple of +hundred exquisitely coloured plates) flying onto the floor. I +picked it up tenderly, and laid it on my writing-table. + +"Carlotta," said I, "the first thing you have to learn here is +that books in England are more precious than babies in +Alexandretta. If you pitch them about in this fashion you will +murder them and I shall have you hanged." + +This checked her sumptuary excitement. It gave her food for +reflection, and she stood humbly penitent, while I went further +into the subject of clothes. + +"In fact," I concluded, "you will be dressed like a lady." She +opened the book at a gaudy picture, "_France, XVI(ieme) +Siecle--Saltimbanque et Bohemmienne_," and pointed to the female +mountebank. This young person wore a bright green tunic, +bordered with gold and finished off at the elbows and waist with +red, over an undergown of flaring pink, the sleeves of which +reached her wrist; she was crowned with red and white carnations +stuck in ivy. + +"I will get a dress like that," said Carlotta. + +I wondered how far Mrs. McMurray possessed the colour-sense, and +I trembled. I tried to explain gently to Carlotta the +undesirability of such a costume for outdoor wear in London; but +with tastes there is no disputing, and I saw that she was but +half-convinced. She will require training in aesthetics. + +She is very submissive. I said, "Run away now to Antoinette," +and she went with the cheerfulness of a child. I must rig up a +sitting-room for her, as I cannot have her in here. Also for the +present she must take her meals in her own apartments. I cannot +shock the admirable Stenson by sitting down at table with her in +that improper peignoir. Besides, as Antoinette informs me, the +poor lamb eats meat with her fingers, after the fashion of the +East. I know what that is, having once been present at an +Egyptian dinner-party in Cairo, and pulled reeking lumps of flesh +out of the leg of mutton. Ugh! But as she has probably not sat +down to a meal with a man in her life, her banishment from my +table will not hurt her feelings. She must, however, be trained +in Christian table-manners, as well as in aesthetics; also in a +great many other things. + + +Mrs. McMurray arrived with a tape-measure, a pencil, and a +notebook. + +"First," she announced, "I will measure her all over. Then I +will go out and procure her a set of out-door garments, and +tomorrow we will spend the whole livelong day in the shops. Do +you mind if I use part of the 100 for the hire of a private +brougham?" + +"Have a coach and six, my dear Mrs. McMurray," I said. "It will +doubtless please Carlotta better." + +I summoned Carlotta and performed the ceremony of introduction. +To my surprise she was perfectly at her ease and with the +greatest courtesy of manner invited the visitor to accompany her +to her own apartments. + +When Mrs. McMurray returned to the drawing-room she wore an +expression that can only be described as indescribable. + +"What, my dear Sir Marcus, do you think is to be the ultimate +destiny of that young person?" + +"She shall learn type-writing," said I, suddenly inspired, "and +make a fair copy of my Renaissance Morals." + +"She would make a very fair copy indeed of Renaissance Morals," +returned the lady, dryly. + +"Is she so very dreadful?" I asked in alarm. "The peignoir, I +know--" + +"Perhaps that has something to do with it." + +"Then, for heaven's sake," said I, "dress her in drabs and greys +and subfusc browns. Cut off her hair and give her a row of +buttons down the back." + +My friend's eyes sparkled. + +"I am going," said she, "to have the day of my life tomorrow." + + +Carlotta had already gone to sleep, so Antoinette informed me, +when the results of Mrs. McMurray's shopping came home. I am +glad she has early habits. It appears she has spent a happy and +fully occupied afternoon over a pile of French illustrated comic +papers in the possession of my excellent housekeeper. + +I wonder whether it is quite judicious to make French comic +papers her initiation into the ideas of Western civilisation. +Into this I must inquire. I must also talk seriously to her with +a view to her ultimate destiny. But as my view would be +distorted by the red dressing-gown, I shall wait until she is +decently clad. I think I shall have to set apart certain hours +of the day for instructive conversation with Carlotta. I shall +have to develop her mind, of which she distinctly has the +rudiments. For the rest of the day she must provide entertainment +out of her own resources. This her oriental habits of +seclusion will render an easy task, for I will wager that +Hamdi Effendi did not concern himself greatly as to the way in +which the ladies of his harem filled up their time. And now I +come to think of it, he certainly did not allow Carlotta to +sprawl about his own private and particular drawing-room. I will +not westernise her too rapidly. The Turkish educational system +has its merits. + +This, in its way is comforting. If only I could accept her as a +human creature. But when I think of her callous reception of the +tidings of the unhappy boy's death, my spirit fails me. Such a +being would run a carving-knife into you, as you slept, without +any compunction, and when you squeaked, she would laugh. Look at +her base ingratitude to the good Hamdi Effendi, who took her in +before she was born and has treated her as a daughter all her +life. No: her spiritual attitude all through has been that of +the ladies who used to visit St. Anthony--in the leisure moments +when they were not actively engaged in temptation. I don't +believe her father was an English vice-consul. He was Satan. + +I wonder what she told Mrs. McMurray. + +I have been thinking over the matter to-night. The good lady was +wrong. Whatever were the morals of the Renaissance, +personalities were essentially positive. They were devilishly +wicked or angelically good. There was nothing _rosse_, non-moral +about the Renaissance Italian. The women were strongly tempered. +I love to believe the story told by Machiavelli and Muratori of +Catherine Sforza in the citadel of Forli. "Surrender or we slay +your children which we hold as hostages," cried the besiegers. +"Kill them if you like. I can breed more to avenge them." It is +the speech of a giant nature. It awakens something enthusiastic +within me; although such a lady would be an undesirable helpmeet +for a mild mannered man like myself. + +And then again there is Bonna, the woman for whose career I +desired to consult the prime authority Cristoforo da Costa. I +have been sketching her into my chapter tonight. Here is a +peasant girl caught up to his saddle-bow by a condottiere, +Brunoro, during some village raid. She fights like a soldier by +his side. He is imprisoned in Valencia by Alfonso of Naples, +languishes in a dungeon for ten years. And for ten years Bonna +goes from court to court in Europe and from prince to prince, +across seas and mountains, unwearying, unyielding, with the +passion of heaven in her heart and the courage of hell in her +soul, urging and soliciting her man's release. After ten long +years she succeeds. And then they are married. What were her +tumultuous feelings as she stood by that altar? The old +historian does not say; but the very glory of God must have +flooded her being when, in the silence of the bare church, the +little bell tinkled to tell her that the Host was raised, and her +love was made blessed for all eternity. And then she goes away +with him and fights in the old way by his side for fifteen years. +When he is killed, she languishes and dies within the year. +Porcelli sees them in 1455. Brunoro, an old, squinting, +paralysed man. Bonna, a little shrivelled, yellow old woman, +with a quiver on her shoulder, a bow in her hand; her grey hair +is covered by a helmet and she wears great military boots. The +picture is magical. There is infinite pathos in the sight of the +two withered, crippled, grotesque forms from which all the +glamour of manhood and beauty have departed, and infinite awe in +the thought of the holy communion of the unconquerable and +passionate souls. I wonder it has not come down to us as one of +the great love-stories of the world. + +Elements such as these sway the Morals of the Renaissance. + +But I am taking Mrs. McMurray too seriously; and it is really not +a bad idea to have Carlotta taught type-writing. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +May 26th. + +This morning a letter from Judith. + +"Do not laugh at me," she writes. "The road to Paris is paved +with good intentions. I really could not help it. Delphine put +her great arm round my would-be sequestered and meditative self +and carried it off bodily, and here it is in the midst of +lunches, picture-shows, dinners, suppers, theatres and dances; +and if you laugh, you will make me humiliated when I confess that +it is thoroughly enjoying itself." + +Laugh at her, dear woman? I am only too glad that she can fling +her Winter Garment of Repentance into the Fires of Paris +Springtide. She has little enough enjoyment in friendless +London. Fill your heart with it, my dear, and lay up a store for +use in the dull months to come. For my part, however, I am +content to be beyond the reach of Delphine's great arm. I must +write to Judith. I shall have to explain Carlotta; but for that +I think I shall wait until she becomes a little more explicable. +In dealing with women it is well to employ discrimination. You +are never quite sure whether they are not merely simple geese or +the most complex of created beings. Perhaps they are such a +curious admixture that you cannot tell at a given moment which +side, the simple or the complex, you are touching. May not there +be the deepest of all allegories in Eve standing midway between +the innocent apple and the guileful serpent? I shall have to see +more of Carlotta before I can safely explain her to Judith. + +At any rate she is no longer attired like an odalisque of the +Second Empire, and Mrs. McMurray has saved her from the +lamentable errors of taste shown by the female mountebank of +sixteenth century France. My excellent friend safely delivered +up an exhausted and bewildered charge at half-past seven last +evening, assuring me that her task had been easy, and that her +anticipations of it being the day of her life had been fulfilled. +It had been like dressing a doll, she explained, beaming. + +An edifying pastime for an adult woman! I did not utter this +sentiment, for she would rightly have styled me the most +ungrateful of unhung wretches. + +Carlotta, then, had followed her about like a perambulatory doll, +upon which she had fitted all the finery she could lay her hands +on. Apparently the atmosphere of the great shops had acted on +Carlotta like an anaesthetic. She had moved in a sensuous dream +of drapery, wherein the choice-impulse was paralysed. The only +articles upon which, in an unclouded moment, she had set her +heart--and that with a sudden passion of covetousness--were a +pair of red, high-heeled shoes and a cheap red parasol. + +"You have no idea what it means," said Mrs. McMurray, "to buy +_everything_ that a woman needs." + +I replied that I had a respectful distaste for transcendental +philosophy. + +"From a paper of pins to an opera-cloak," she continued. + +"I'm afraid, dear Mrs. McMurray, an opera-cloak is not the +superior limit of a woman's needs," said I. "I wish it were." + +She called me a cynic and went. + +This morning Carlotta interrupted me in my work. + +"Will Seer Marcous come to my room and see my pretty things?" + +In summer blouse and plain skirt she looked as demure as any +damsel in St. John's Wood. She hung her head a little to one +side. For the moment I felt paternal, and indulgently consented. +Words of man cannot describe the mass of millinery and chiffonery +in that chamber. The spaces that were not piled high with +vesture gave resting spots for cardboard boxes and packing-paper. +Antoinette stood in a corner gazing at the spoil with a smile of +beatific idiocy. I strode through the cardboard boxes which +crackled like bracken, and remained dumb as a fish before these +mysteries. Carlotta tried on hats. She shewed me patent leather +shoes . She exhibited blouses and petticoats until my eyes ached. +She brandished something in her hand. + +"Tell me if I must wear it" (I believe the sophisticated call it +"them"). "Mrs. McMurray says all ladies do. But we never wear +it in Alexandretta, and it hurts." + +She clasped herself pathetically and turned her great imploring +eyes on me. + +"_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_," I said. + +"But with the figure of Mademoiselle, it is stupid!" cried +Antoinette. + +"It is outrageous that I should be called upon to express an +opinion on such matters," I said, loftily. And so it was. My +assertion of dignity impressed them. + +Then, with characteristic frankness, my young lady shakes out +before me things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, diaphaneity, +which the ordinary man only examines through shop-front windows +when a philosophic mood induces him to speculate on the +unfathomable vanity of woman. + +"_Les beaux dessous!_" breathed Antoinette. + +"The same ejaculation," I murmured, "was doubtless uttered by an +enraptured waiting-maid, when she beheld the stout linen smocks +of the ladies of the Heptameron." + +I reflected on the relativity of things mundane. The waiting- +maid no doubt wore some horror made of hemp against her skin. If +Carlotta's gossamer follies had been thrown into the vagabond +court of the Queen of Navarre, I wonder whether those delectable +stories would have been written? + +As Antoinette does not understand literary English, and as +Carlotta did not know what in the world I was talking about, I +was master of the conversational situation. Carlotta went to the +mantel-piece and returned with a glutinous mass of sweet stuff +between her fingers. + +"Will Seer Marcous have some? It is nougat." +I declined. +"Oh!" she said, tragically disappointed. "It is good." + +There is something in that silly creature's eyes that I cannot +resist. She put the abominable morsel into my mouth--it was far +too sticky for me to hold--and laughingly licked her own fingers. + +I went down to work again with an uneasy feeling of imperilled +dignity. + + +May 29th. + +I sent her word that I would take her for a drive this afternoon. +She was to be ready at three o'clock. It will be wholesome for +her to regard her outings with me as rare occurrences to be +highly valued. Ordinarily she will go out with Antoinette--for +the present at least--as she did yesterday. + +At three o'clock Stenson informed me that the cab was at the +door. + +"Go up and call Mademoiselle," said I. + +In two or three minutes she came down. I have not had such a +shock in my life. I uttered exclamations of amazement in several +languages. I have never seen on the stage or off such a figure +as she presented. Her cheeks were white with powder, her lips +dyed a pomegranate scarlet, her eyebrows and lashes blackened. +In her ears she wore large silver-gilt earrings. She entered the +room with an air of triumph, as who should say: "See how +captivatingly beautiful I am!" + +At my stare of horror her face fell. At my command to go +upstairs and wash herself clean, she wept. + +"For heaven's sake, don't cry," I exclaimed, "or you will look +like a rainbow." + +"I did it to please you," she sobbed. + +"It is only the lowest class of dancing-women who paint their +faces in England," said I, _splendide mendax._ "And you know +what they are in Alexandretta." + +"They came to Aziza-Zaza's wedding," said Carlotta, behind her +handkerchief. "But all our ladies do this when they want to make +themselves look nice. And I have put on this nasty thing that +hurts me, just to please Seer Marcous." + +I felt I had been brutal. She must have spent hours over her +adornment. Yet I could not have taken her out into the street. +She looked like Jezebel, who without her paint must have been, +like Carlotta, a remarkably handsome person. + +"It strikes me, Carlotta," said I, "that you will find England is +Alexandretta upside down. What is wrong there is right here, and +vice versa. Now if you want to please me run away and clean +yourself and take off those barbaric and Brummagem earrings." + +She went and was absent a short while. She returned in dismay. +Water would not get it off. I rang for Antoinette, but +Antoinette had gone out. It being too delicate a matter for +Stenson, I fetched a pot of vaseline from my own room, and as +Carlotta did not know what to make of it, I with my own hands +cleansed Carlotta. She screamed with delight, thinking it vastly +amusing. Her emotions are facile. I cannot deny that it amused +me too. But I am in a responsible position, and I am wondering +what the deuce I shall be doing next. + +I enjoyed the drive to Richmond, where I gave her tea at the Star +and Garter and was relieved to see her drink normally from the +cup, instead of lapping from the saucer like a kitten. She was +much more intelligent than during our first drive on Tuesday. +The streets have grown more familiar, and the traffic does not +make her head ache. She asks me the ingenuous questions of a +child of ten. The tall guardsmen we passed particularly aroused +her enthusiasm. She had never seen anything so beautiful. I +asked her if she would like me to buy one and give it her to play +with. + +"Oh, would you, Seer Marcous?" she exclaimed, seizing my hand +rapturously. I verily believe she thought I was in earnest, for +when I turned aside my jest, she pouted in disappointment and +declared that it was wrong to tell lies. + +"I am glad you have some elementary notions of ethics," said I. +It was during our drive that it occurred to me to ask her where +she had procured the paint and earrings. She explained, +cheerfully, that Antoinette had supplied the funds. I must talk +seriously to Antoinette. Her attitude towards Carlotta savours +too much of idolatry. Demoralisation will soon set in, and the +utter ruin of Carlotta and my digestion will be the result. I +must also make Carlotta a small allowance. + +During tea she said to me, suddenly: + +"Seer Marcous is not married?" + +I said, no. She asked, why not? The devil seems to be driving +all womankind to ask me that question. + +"Because wives are an unmitigated nuisance," said I. + +A curious smile came over Carlotta's face. It was as knowing as +Dame Quickly's. + +"Then-" + +"Have one of these cakes," said I, hurriedly. "There is +chocolate outside and the inside is chock-full of custard." + +She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and forgot my +matrimonial affairs. I was relieved. With her oriental training +there is no telling what Carlotta might have said. + + +May 31st. + +To-day I have had a curious interview. Who should call on me but +the father of the hapless Harry Robinson. My first question was +a natural one. How on earth did he connect me with the death of +his son? How did he contrive to identify me as the befriender of +the young Turkish girl whose interests, he declared, were the +object of his visit? It appeared that the police had given him +the necessary information, my adventures at Waterloo having +rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter. I had been +wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper reports of the +inquest. No mention was made, as I had nervously anticipated, of +the mysterious lady for whom the deceased had bought a ticket at +Alexandretta, and with whom he had come ashore. Very little +evidence appeared to have been taken, and the jury contented +themselves with giving the usual verdict of temporary insanity. +I touched on this as delicately as I could. +"We succeeded in hushing things up," said my visitor, an old man +with iron-grey whiskers and a careworn sensitive face. "I have +some influence myself, and his wife's relations--" + +"His wife!" I ejaculated. The ways of men are further than ever +from interpretation. The fellow was actually married! + +"Yes," he sighed. "That is what would have made such a terrible +scandal. Her relatives are powerful people. We averted it, +thank Heaven, and his poor wife will never know. My boy is dead. +No public investigation into motives would bring him back to life +again." + +I murmured words of condolence. + +"He must have been out of his mind, poor lad, when he induced the +girl to run away with him. But, as my son has ruined her," he +set his teeth as if the boy's sin stabbed him, "I must look after +her welfare." + +"You may set your mind at rest on that point," said I. "He +smuggled her at once aboard the ship, and seems scarcely to have +said how d'ye do to her afterwards. That is the mad part of it." + +" Can I be sure?" + +" I would stake my life on it," said I. + +"How do you know?" + +" Frankness--I may say embarrassing frankness is one of the young +lady's drawbacks." + +He looked greatly relieved. I acquainted him with Carlotta's +antecedents, and outlined the part I had played in the story. + +"Then," said he, "I will see the child back to her home. I will +take her there myself. I cannot allow you any longer to have the +burden of befriending her, when it is my duty to repair my boy's +wrongdoing." + +I explained to him the terror of Hamdi Effendi's clutches, and +told him of my promise. + +"Then what is to be done?" he asked. + +"If any kind people could be found to receive her into their +family, and bring her up like a Christian, I should hand her over +with the greatest of pleasure. If there is one thing I do not +require in this house, it is an idle and irresponsible female. +But philanthropists are rare. Who will take her?" + +"I'm afraid I'm not prepared to do that." + +"I never dreamed of having the bad taste to propose it," said I. +"I merely stated the only alternative to my guardianship." + +"I should be willing--only too willing--to contribute towards her +support," said Mr. Robinson. + +I thanked him. But of course this was impossible. I might as +well have allowed the good man to pay my gas bill. + +"I know of a nice convent home kept by the Little Sisters of St. +Bridget," said he, tentatively. + +"If it were St. Bridget herself," said I, "I would agree with +pleasure. She is a saint for whom I have a great fascination. +She could work miracles. When an Irish chieftain made her a +facetious grant of as much land as she could cover with her +mantle, she bade four of her nuns each take a corner and run +north, west, south and east, until her cloak covered several +roods. She could have done the same with the soul of Carlotta. +But the age of miracles is past, and I fear the Little Sisters +would only break their gentle hearts over her. She is an +extraordinary creature." + +I know I ought to have given some consideration to the proposal; +but I think I must suffer from chronic inflammation of the +logical faculty. It revolted against the suggested congruity of +Carlotta and the Little Sisters of St. Bridget. + +"What can she be like?" asked the old man, wonderingly. + +"Would it pain you to see her?" I asked. + +"Yes," he said, in a low voice. "It would. But perhaps it would +bring me nearer to my unhappy boy. He seems so far away." + +I rang the bell and summoned Carlotta. + +"Perhaps you had better not say who you are," I suggested. + +When Carlotta entered, he rose and looked at her---oh, so +wistfully. + +"This, Carlotta," said I, "is a friend of mine, who would like to +make your acquaintance." + +She advanced shyly and held out a timid hand. Obviously she was +on her best behaviour. I thanked heaven she had tried her +unsuccessful experiment of powder and paint on my vile body and +not on that of a stranger. + +"Do you--do you like England?" asked the old man. + +"Oh, very--very much. Every one is so kind to me. It is a nice +place." + +"It is the best place in the world to be young in," said he. + +"Is it?" said Carlotta, with the simplicity of a baby. + +"The very best." + +"But is it not good to be old in?" + +"No country is good for that." + +The old man sighed and took his leave. I accompanied him to the +front door. + +"I don't know what to say, Sir Marcus. She moves me strangely. +I never expected such sweet innocence. For my boy's sake, I +would take her in--but his mother knows nothing about it--save +that the boy is dead. It would kill her." + +The tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. I grasped him by the +hand. + +"She shall come to no manner of harm beneath my roof," said I. + +Carlotta was waiting for me in the drawing-room. She looked at +me in a perplexed, pitiful way. + +"Seer Marcous?" + +"Yes?" + +"Am I to marry him?" + +"Marry whom?" + +"That old gentleman. I must, if you tell me. But I do not want +to marry him." + +It took me a minute or two to arrive at her oriental point of +view. No woman could be shown off to a man except in the light +of a possible bride. I think it sometimes good to administer a +shock to Carlotta, by way of treatment. + +"Do you know who that old gentleman was?" said I. + +"No." + +"It was Harry's father." + +"Oh!" she said, with a grimace. "I am sorry I was so nice to +him." + +What the deuce am I to do with her? + +I lectured her for a quarter of an hour on the ethics of the +situation. I think I only succeeded in giving her the impression +that I was in a bad temper. So much did I sympathise with Harry +that I forbore to acquaint her with the fact that he was a +married man when he enticed her away from Alexandretta. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +June 1st + +Sebastian Pasquale dined with me this evening. Antoinette, +forgetful of idolatrous practices, devoted the concentration of +her being to the mysteries of her true religion. The excellence +of the result affected Pasquale so strongly that with his +customary disregard of convention he insisted on Antoinette being +summoned to receive his congratulations. He rose, made her a bow +as if she were a Marquise of pre-revolutionary days. + +"It is a meal," said he, bunching up his fingers to his mouth and +kissing them open, "that one should have taken not sitting, but +kneeling." + +"You stole that from Heine," said I, when the enraptured creature +had gone, "and you gave it out to Antoinette as if it were your +own." + +"My good Ordeyne," said he, "did you ever hear of a man giving +anything authentic to a woman?" + +"You know much more about the matter than I do," I replied, and +Pasquale laughed. + +It has been a pleasure to see him again--a creature of abounding +vitality whom time cannot alter. He is as lithe-limbed as when +he was a boy, and as lithe-witted. I don't know how his +consciousness could have arrived at appreciation of Antoinette's +cooking, for he talked all through dinner, giving me an account +of his mirific adventures in foreign cities. Among other things, +he had been playing juvenile lead, it appears, in the comic opera +of Bulgarian politics. I also heard of the Viennese dancer. My +own little chronicle, which he insisted on my unfolding, compared +with his was that of a caged canary compared with a +sparrowhawk's. Besides, I am not so expansive as Pasquale, and +on certain matters I am silent. He also gesticulates freely, a +thing which is totally foreign to my nature. As Judith would +say, he has a temperament. His moustaches curl fiercely upward +until the points are nearly on a level with his flashing dark +eyes. Another point of dissimilarity between us is that he seems +to have been poured molten into his clothes, whereas mine hang as +from pegs clumsily arranged about my person. By no conceivable +freak of outer circumstance could I have the adventures of +Pasquale. + +And yet he thinks them tame! Lord! If I found myself hatching +conspiracies in Sofia on a nest made of loaded revolvers, I +should feel that the wild whirl of Bedlam had broken loose around +me. + +"But man alive!" I cried. "What in the name of tornadoes do you +want?" + +"I want to fight," said he. "The earth has grown too grey and +peaceful. Life is anaemic. We need colour--good red splashes of +it--good wholesome bloodshed." + +Said I, "All you have to do is to go into a Berlin cafe and pull +the noses of all the lieutenants you see there. In that way +you'll get as much gore as your heart could desire." + +"By Jove!" said he, springing to his feet. "What a cause for a +man to devote his life to--the extermination of Prussian +lieutenants!" + +I leaned back in my arm-chair--it was after dinner--and smiled at +his vehemence. The ordinary man does not leap about like that +during digestion. + +"You would have been happy as an Uscoque," said I. (I have just +finished the prim narrative.) + +"What's that?" he asked. I told him. + +"The interesting thing about the Uscoques," I added, "is that +they were a Co-operative Pirate Society of the sixteenth century, +in which priests and monks and greengrocers and women and +children--the general public, in fact, of Senga--took shares and +were paid dividends. They were also a religious people, and the +setting out of the pirate fleet at the festivals of Easter and +Christmas was attended by ecclesiastical ceremony. Then they +scoured the high seas, captured argosies, murdered the crews +--their only weapons were hatchets and daggers and arquebuses +--landed on undefended shores, ravaged villages and carried off +comely maidens to replenish their stock of womenkind at home. +They must have been a live lot of people." + +"What a second-hand old brigand you are," cried Pasquale, who +during my speech had been examining the carpet by the side of his +chair. + +I laughed. "Hasn't a phase of the duality of our nature ever +struck you? We have a primary or everyday nature--a thing of +habit, tradition, circumstance; and we also have a secondary +nature which clamours for various sensations and is quite +contented with vicarious gratification. There are delicately +fibred novelists who satisfy a sort of secondary Berserkism by +writing books whose pages reek with bloodshed. The most placid, +benevolent, gold-spectacled paterfamilias I know, a man who +thinks it cruel to eat live oysters, has a curious passion for +crime and gratifies it by turning his study into a _musee +maccabre_ of murderers' relics. From the thumb-joint of a +notorious criminal he can savour exquisitely morbid emotions, +while the blood-stains on an assassin's knife fill him with the +delicious lust of slaughter. In the same way predestined +spinsters obtain vicarious enjoyment of the tender passion by +reading highly coloured love-stories." + +"Just as that philosophical old stick, Sir Marcus Ordeyne, dus +from this sort of thing," said Pasquale. + +And he fished from the side of his chair, and held up by the tip +of a monstrous heel, the most audacious, high-instepped, red +satin slipper I ever saw. + +I eyed the thing with profound disgust. I would have given a +hundred pounds for it to have vanished. In its red satin essence +it was reprehensible, and in its feminine assertion it was +compromising. How did it come there? I conjectured that +Carlotta must have been trespassing in the drawing-room and +dropped it, Cinderella-like, in her flight, when she heard me +enter the house before dinner. + +Pasquale held it up and regarded me quizzically. I pretend to no +austerity of morals; but a burglar unjustly accused of theft +suffers acuter qualms of indignation than if he were a virtuous +person. I regretted not having asked Pasquale to dinner at the +club. I particularly did not intend to explain Carlotta to +Pasquale. In fact, I see no reason at all for me to proclaim her +to my acquaintance. She is merely an accident of my +establishment. + +I rose and rang the bell. + +"That slipper," said I, "does not belong to me, and it certainly +ought not to be here." + +Pasquale surrendered it to my outstretched hand. + +"It must fit a remarkably pretty foot," said he. + +"I assure you, my dear Pasquale," I replied dryly, "I have never +looked at the foot that it may fit." Nor had I. A row of pink +toes is not a foot. + +"Stenson," said I, when my man appeared, "take this to Miss +Carlotta and say with my compliments she should not have left it +in the drawing-room." + +Stenson, thinking I had rung for whisky, had brought up decanter +and glasses. As he set the tray upon the small table, I noticed +Pasquale look with some curiosity at my man's impassive face. +But he said nothing more about the slipper. I poured out his +whisky and soda. He drank a deep draught, curled up his +swaggering moustache and suddenly broke into one of his +disconcerting peals of laughter. + +"I haven't told you of the Grfin von Wentzel; I don't know what +put her into my head. There has been nothing like it since the +world began. Mind you--a real live aristocratic Grfin with a +hundred quarterings!" + +He proceeded to relate a most scandalous, but highly amusing +story. An amazing, incredible tale; but it seemed familiar. + +"That," said I, at last, "is incident for incident a scene out of +_L'Histoire Comique de Francion._" + +"Never heard of it," said Pasquale, flashing. + +"It was the first French novel of manners published about 1620 +and written by a man called Sorel. I don't dream of accusing you +of plagiarism, my dear fellow--that's absurd. But the ridiculous +coincidence struck me. You and the Grfin and the rest of you +were merely reenacting a three hundred year old farce." + +"Rubbish!" said Pasquale. + +"I'll show you," said I. + +After wandering for a moment or two round my shelves, I +remembered that the book was in the dining-room. I left Pasquale +and went downstairs. I knew it was on one of the top shelves +near the ceiling. Now, my dining-room is lit by one shaded +electrolier over the table, so that the walls of the room are in +deep shadow. This has annoyed me many times when I have been +book-hunting. I really must have some top lights put in. To +stand on a chair and burn wax matches in order to find a +particular book is ignominious and uncomfortable. The successive +illumination of four wax matches did not shed itself upon +_L'Histoire Comique de Francion_. + +If there is one thing that frets me more than another, it is not +to be able to lay my hand upon a book. I knew Francion was there +on the top shelves, and rather than leave it undiscovered, I +would have spent the whole night in search. I suppose every one +has a harmless lunacy. This is mine. I must have hunted for +that book for twenty minutes, pulling out whole blocks of volumes +and peering with lighted matches behind, until my hands were +covered with dust. At last I found it had fallen to the rear of +a ragged regiment of French novels, and in triumph I took it to +the area of light on the table and turned up the scene in +question. Keeping my thumb in the place I returned to the +drawing-room. + +"I'm sorry to have--" I began. I stopped short. I could +scarcely believe my eyes. There, conversing with Pasquale and +lolling on the sofa, as if she had known him for years, was +Carlotta. + +She must have seen righteous disapprobation on my face, for she +came running up to me. + +"You see, I've made Miss Carlotta's acquaintance," said Pasquale. + +"So I perceive," said I. + +"Stenson told me you wanted me to come to the drawing-room in my +red slippers," said Carlotta. + +"I am afraid Stenson must have misdelivered my message," said I. + +"Then you do not want me at all, and I must go away?" + +Oh, those eyes! I am growing so tired of them. I hesitated, and +was lost. + +"Please let me stay and talk to Pasquale." + +"Mr. Pasquale," I corrected. + +She echoed my words with a cooing laugh, and taking my consent for +granted, curled herself up in a corner of the sofa. I resumed my +seat with a sigh. It would have been boorish to turn her out. + +"This is much nicer than Alexandretta, isn't it?" said Pasquale +familiarly. "And Sir Marcus is an improvement on Hamdi Effendi." + +"Oh, yes. Seer Marcous lets me do whatever I like," said +Carlotta. + +"I'm shot if I do," I exclaimed. "The confinement of your +existence in the East makes you exaggerate the comparative +immunity from restriction which you enjoy in England." + +I notice that Carlotta is always impressed when I use high +sounding words. + +"Still, if you could make love over garden walls, you must have +had a pretty slack time, even in Alexandretta," said Pasquale. + +Obviously Carlotta had saved me the trouble of explaining her. + +"I once met our friend Hamdi," Pasquale continued. "He was the +politest old ruffian that ever had a long nose and was pitted +with smallpox." + +"Yes, yes!" cried Carlotta, delighted. "That is Hamdi." + +"Is there any disreputable foreigner that you are not familiar +with?" I asked, somewhat sarcastically. + +"I hope not," he laughed. "You must know I had got into a deuce +of a row at Aleppo, about eighteen months ago, and had to take to +my heels. Alexandretta is the port of Aleppo and Hamdi is a sort +of boss policeman there." + +"He is very rich." + +"He ought to be. My interview with him cost me a thousand +pounds--the bald-headed scoundrel!" + +"He is a shocking bad man," said Carlotta, gravely. + +"I'm afraid it is Mr. Pasquale who is the shocking bad man," I +said, amused. "What had you been doing in Aleppo?" + +"_Maxime debetur_," said he. + +"English are very wicked when they go to Syria," she remarked. + +"How can you possibly know?" I said. + +"Oh, I know," replied Carlotta, with a toss of her chin. + +"My friend," said Pasquale, lighting a cigarette, "I have +travelled much in the East, and have had considerable adventures +by the way; and I can assure you that what the oriental lady +doesn't know about essential things is not worth knowing. Their +life from the cradle to the grave is a concentration of all their +faculties, mortal and immortal, upon the two vital questions, +digestion and sex." + +"What is sex?" asked Carlotta. + +"It is the Fundamental Blunder of Creation," said I. + +"I do not understand," said Carlotta. + +"Nobody tries to understand Sir Marcus," said Pasquale, +cheerfully. "We just let him drivel on until he is aware no one +is listening." + +"Seer Marcous is very wise," said Carlotta, in serious defence of +her lord and master. "All day he reads in big books and writes +on paper." + +I have been wondering since whether that is not as ironical a +judgment as ever was passed. Am I wise? Is wisdom attained by +reading in big books and writing on paper? Solomon remarks that +wisdom dwells with prudence and finds out knowledge of witty +inventions; that the wisdom of the prudent is to understand his +way; that wisdom and understanding keep one from the strange +woman and the stranger which flattereth with her words. Now, I +have not been saved from the strange young woman who has begun to +flatter with her words; I don't in the least understand my way, +since I have no notion what I shall do with her; and in taking +her in and letting her loll upon my sofa of evenings, so as to +show off her red slippers to my guests, I have thrown prudence to +the winds; and my only witty invention was the idea of teaching +her typewriting, which is futile. If the philosophy of the +excellent aphorist is sound, I certainly have not much wisdom to +boast of; and none of the big books will tell me what a wise man +would have done had he met Carlotta in the Embankment Gardens. + +I did not think, however, that my wisdom was a proper subject for +discussion. I jerked back the conversation by asking Carlotta +why she called Hamdi Effendi a shocking bad man. Her reply was +startling. + +"My mother told me. She used to cry all day long. She was sorry +she married Hamdi." + +"Poor thingl" said I. "Did he ill-treat her?" + +"Oh, ye-es. She had small-pox, too, and she was no longer +pretty, so Hamdi took other wives and she did not like them. +They were so fat and cruel. She used to tell me I must kill +myself before I married a Turk. Hamdi was going to make me marry +Mohammed Ali one--two years ago; but he died. When I said I was +so glad" (that seems to be her usual formula of acknowledgment of +news relating to the disasters of her acquaintance), "Hamdi shut +me up in a dark room. Then he said I must marry Mustapha. That +is why I ran away with Harry. See? Oh, Hamdi is shocking bad." + +From this and from other side-lights Carlotta has thrown on her +upbringing, I can realise the poor, pretty weak-willed baby of a +thing that was her mother, taking the line of least resistance, +the husband dead and the babe in her womb, and entering the +shelter offered by the amorous Turk. And I can picture her +during the fourteen years of her imprisoned life, the +disillusion, the heart-break, the despair. No wonder the +invertebrate soul could do no more for her daughter than teach +her monosyllabic English and the rudiments of reading and +writing. Doubtless she babbled of western life with its freedom +and joyousness for women; but four years have elapsed since her +death, and her stories are only elusive memories in Carlotta's +mind. + +It is strange that among the deadening influences of the harem +she has kept the hereditary alertness of the Englishwoman. She +has a baby mouth, it is true; she pleads to you with the eyes of +a dog; her pretty ways are those of a young child; but she has +not the dull, soulless, sensual look of the pure-bred Turkish +woman, such as I have seen in Cairo through the transparent +veils. In them there is no attraction save of the flesh; and +that only for the male who, deformity aside, reckons women as +merely so much cubical content of animated matter placed by Allah +at his disposal for the satisfaction of his desires and the +procreation of children. I cannot for the life of me understand +an Englishman falling in love with a Turkish woman. But I can +quite understand him falling in love with Carlotta. The +hereditary qualities are there, though they have been forced into +the channel of sex, and become a sort of diabolical witchery +whereof I am not quite sure whether she is conscious. For all +that, I don't think she can have a soul. I have made up my mind +that she hasn't, and I don't like having my convictions +disturbed. + +Until I saw her perched in the corner of the sofa, with her legs +tucked up under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid +the reds and golds and browns of her hair, while she cheerily +discoursed to us of Hamdi's villainy, I never noticed the dull +decorum of this room. I was struck with the decorative value of +mere woman. + +I must break myself of the habit of wandering off on a meditative +tangent to the circle of conversation. I was brought back by +hearing Pasquale say: + +"So you're going to marry an Englishman. It's all fixed and +settled, eh?" + +"Of course," laughed Carlotta. + +"Have you made up your mind what he is to be like?" + +I could see the unconscionable Don Juan instinctively preen +himself peacock fashion. + +"I am going to marry Seer Marcous," said Carlotta, calmly. + +She made this announcement not as a jest, not as a wish, but as +the commonplace statement of a fact. There was a moment of +stupefied silence. Pasquale who had just struck a match to light +a cigarette stared at me and let the flame burn his fingers. I +stared at Carlotta, speechless. The colossal impudence of it! + +"I am sorry to contradict you," said I, at last, with some +acidity, "but you are going to do no such thing." + +"I am not going to marry you?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Oh!" said Carlotta, in a tone of disappointment. + +Pasquale rose, brought his heels together, put his hand on his +heart and made her a low bow. + +"Will you have me instead of this stray bit of Stonehenge?" + +"Very well," said Carlotta. + +I seized Pasquale by the arm. "For goodness sake, don't jest +with her! She has about as much sense of humour as a prehistoric +cave-dweller. She thinks you have made her a serious offer of +marriage." +He made her another bow. + +"You hear what Sir Granite says? He forbids our union. If I +married you without his consent, he would flay me alive, dip me +in boiling oil and read me aloud his History of Renaissance +Morals. So I'm afraid it is no good." + +"Then I mustn't marry him either?" asked Carlotta, looking at me. + +"No!" I cried, "you are not going to marry anybody. You seem to +have hymenomania. People don't marry in this casual way in +England. They think over it for a couple of years and then they +come together in a sober, God-fearing, respectable manner." + +"They marry at leisure and repent in haste," interposed Pasquale. + +"Precisely," said I. + +"What we call a marriage-bed repentance," said Pasquale. + +"I told you this poor child had no sense of humour," I objected. + +"You might as well kill yourself as marry without it." + +"You are not going to marry anybody, Carlotta," said I, "until +you can see a joke." + +"What is a joke?" inquired Carlotta. + +"Mr. Pasquale asked you to marry him. He didn't mean it. That +was a joke. It was enormously funny, and you should have +laughed." + +"Then I must laugh when any one asks me to marry him?" + +"As loud as you can," said I. + +"You are so strange in England," sighed Carlotta. + +I smiled, for I did not want to make her unhappy, and I spoke to +her intelligibly. + +"Well, well, when you have quite learned all the English ways, +I'll try and find you a nice husband. Now you had better go to +bed." + +She retired, quite consoled. When the door closed behind her, +Pasquale shook his head at me. + +"Wasted! Criminally wasted!" + +"What?" + +"That," he answered, pointing to the door. "That bundle of +bewildering fascination." + +"That," said I, "is an horrible infliction which only my +cultivated sense of altruism enables me to tolerate." + +"Her name ought to be Margarita." + +"Why?" I asked. + +"_Ante porcos_," said he. + + +Certainly Pasquale has a pretty wit and I admire it as I admire +most of his brilliant qualities, but I fail to see the aptness of +this last gibe. At the club this afternoon I picked up an +entertaining French novel called _En felons des Perles_. On the +illustrated cover was a row of undraped damsels sitting in +oyster-shells, and the text of the book went to show how it was +the hero's ambition to make a rosary of these pearls. Now I am a +dull pig. Why? Because I do not add Carlotta to my rosary. I +never heard such a monstrous thing in my life. To begin with, I +have no rosary. + +I wish I had not read that French novel. I wish I had not gone +downstairs to hunt for its seventeenth century ancestor. I wish +I had given Pasquale dinner at the club. + +It is all the fault of Antoinette. Why can't she cook in a +middle-class, unedifying way? All this comes from having in the +house a woman whose soul is in the stew-pot. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +July 1st. + +She has been now over five weeks under my roof, and I have put +off the evil day of explaining her to Judith; and Judith returns +to-morrow. + +I know it is odd for a philosophic bachelor to maintain in his +establishment a young and detached female of prepossessing +appearance. For the oddity I care not two pins. _Io son' io_. +But the question that exercises me occasionally is: In what +category are my relations with Carlotta to be classified? I do +not regard her as a daughter; still less as a sister: not even as +a deceased wife's sister. For a secretary she is too abysmally +ignorant, too grotesquely incapable. What she knows would be +made to kick the beam against the erudition of a guinea-pig. Yet +she must be classified somehow. I must allude to her as +something. At present she fills the place in the house of a +pretty (and expensive) Persian cat; and like a cat she has made +herself serenely at home. + +A governess, a fat-checked girl, who I am afraid takes too +humorous a view of the position, comes of mornings to instruct +Carlotta in the rudiments of education. When engaging Miss +Griggs, I told her she must be patient, firm and, above all, +strong-minded. She replied that she made a professional +specialty of these qualities, one of her present pupils being a +young lady of the Alhambra ballet who desires the particular +shade of cultivation that will match a new brougham. She teaches +Carlotta to spell, to hold a knife and fork, and corrects such +erroneous opinions as that the sky is an inverted bowl over a +nice flat earth, and that the sun, moon, and stars are a sort of +electric light installation, put into the cosmos to illuminate +Alexandretta and the Regent's Park. Her religious instruction I +myself shall attend to, when she is sufficiently advanced to +understand my teaching. At present she is a Mohammedan, if she +is anything, and believes firmly in Allah. I consider that a +working Theism is quite enough for a young woman in her position +to go on with. In the afternoon she walks out with Antoinette. +Once she stole forth by herself, enjoyed herself hugely for a +short time, got lost, and was brought back thoroughly frightened +by a policeman. I wonder what the policeman thought of her? The +rest of the day she looks at picture-books and works embroidery. +She is making an elaborate bed-spread which will give her +harmless occupation for a couple of years. + +For an hour every evening, when I am at home, she comes into the +drawing-room and drinks coffee with me and listens to my +improving conversation. I take this opportunity to rebuke her +for faults committed during the day, or to commend her for +especial good behaviour. I also supplement the instruction in +things in general that is given her by the excellent Miss Griggs. +Oddly enough I am beginning to look forward to these evening +hours. She is so docile, so good-humoured, so spontaneous. If +she has a pain in her stomach, she says so with the most engaging +frankness. Sometimes I think of her only, in Pasquale's words, +as a bundle of fascination, and forget that she has no soul. +Nearly always, however, something happens to remind me. She +loves me to tell her stories. The other night I solemnly related +the history of Cinderella. She was enchanted. It gave me the +idea of setting her to read "Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare." I +was turning this over in my mind while she chewed the cud of her +enjoyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would like to hear a +Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny stories. I bade her +proceed. She curled herself up in her favourite attitude on the +sofa and began. + +I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I should +have been a monster of depravity. Compared with it the worst of +Scheherazade's, in Burton's translation, were milk and water for +a nunnery. She seemed nonplussed when I told her to stop. + +"Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories?" I +asked. + +"Why, yes," she replied with a candid air of astonishment. "It +is a funny story." + +"There is nothing funny whatever in it," said I. "A girl like +you oughtn't to know of the existence of such things." + +"Why not?" asked Carlotta. + +I am always being caught up by her questions. I tried to +explain; but it was difficult. If I had told her that a maiden's +mind ought to be as pure as the dewy rose she would not have +understood me. Probably she would have thought me a fool. And +indeed I am inclined to question whether it is an advantage to a +maiden's after career to be dewy-roselike in her +unsophistication. In order to play tunes indifferently well on +the piano she undergoes the weary training of many years; but she +is called upon to display the somewhat more important +accomplishment of bringing children into the world without an +hour's educational preparation. The difficulty is, where to draw +the line between this dewy, but often disastrous, ignorance and +Carlotta's knowledge. I find it a most delicate and embarrassing +problem. In fact, the problems connected with this young woman +seem endless. Yet they do not disturb me as much as I had +anticipated. I really believe I should miss my pretty Persian +cat. A man must be devoid of all aesthetic sense to deny that +she is delightful to look at. + +And she has a thousand innocent coquetries and cajoling ways. +She has a manner of holding chocolate creams to her white teeth +and talking to you at the same time which is peculiarly +fascinating. And she must have some sense. To-night she asked +me what I was writing. I replied, "A History of the Morals of +the Renaissance." +"What are morals and what is the Renaissance?" asked Carlotta. +When you come to think of it, it is a profound question, which +philosophers and historians have wasted vain lives in trying to +answer. I perceive that I too must try to answer it with a +certain amount of definition. I have spent the evening +remodelling my Introduction, so as to define the two terms +axiomatically with my subsequent argument, and I find it greatly +improved. Now this is due to Carlotta. + + +The quantity of chocolate creams the child eats cannot be good +for her digestion. I must see to this. + + +July 2d. + +A telegram from Judith to say she postpones her return to Monday. +I have been longing to see the dear woman again, and I am greatly +disappointed. At the same time it is a respite from an +explanation that grows more difficult every day. I hate myself +for the sense of relief. + +This morning came an evening dress for Carlotta which has taken a +month in the making. This, I am given to understand, is +delirious speed for a London dress-maker. To celebrate the +occasion I engaged a box at the Empire for this evening and +invited her to dine with me. I sent a note of invitation round +to Mrs. McMurray. + +Carlotta did not come down at half-past seven. We waited. At +last Mrs. McMurray went up to the room and presently returned +shepherding a shy, blushing, awkward, piteous young person who +had evidently been crying. My friend signed to me to take no +notice. I attributed the child's lack of gaiety to the ordeal +of sitting for the first time in her life at a civilised +dinner-table. She scarcely spoke and scarcely ate. I complimented +her on her appearance and she looked beseechingly at me, as if I +were scolding her. After dinner Mrs. McMurray told me the reason +of her distress. She had found Carlotta in tears. Never could she +face me in that low cut evening bodice. It outraged her modesty. +It could not be the practice of European women to bare themselves +so immodestly before men. It was only the evidence of her +visitor's own plump neck and shoulders that convinced her, and +she suffered herself to be led downstairs in an agony of self- +consciousness. + +When we entered the box at the Empire, a troupe of female +acrobats were doing their turn. Carlotta uttered a gasp of +dismay, blushed burning red, and shrank back to the door. There +is no pretence about Carlotta. She was shocked to the roots of +her being. + +"They are naked!" she said, quiveringly. + +"For heaven's sake, explain," said I to Mrs. McMurray, and I beat +a hasty retreat to the promenade. + +When I returned, Carlotta had been soothed down. She was +watching some performing dogs with intense wonderment and +delight. For the rest of the evening she sat spell-bound. The +exiguity of costume in the ballet caused her indeed to glance in +a frightened sort of way at Mrs. McMurray, who reassured her with +a friendly smile, but the music and the maze of motion and the +dazzle of colour soon held her senses captive, and when the +curtain came down she sighed like one awaking from a dream. + +As we drove home, she asked me: + +"Is it like that all day long? Oh, please to let me live there!" + +A nice English girl of eighteen would not flaunt unconcerned +about my drawing-room in a shameless dressing-gown, and crinkle +up her toes in front of me; still less would she tell me +outrageous stories; but she will wear low-necked dresses and gaze +at ladies in tights without the ghost of an immodest thought. I +was right when I told Carlotta England was Alexandretta upside- +down. What is immoral here is moral there, and vice-versa. +There is no such thing as absolute morality. I am very glad this +has happened. It shows me that Carlotta is not devoid of the +better kind of feminine instincts. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + +July 4th. + +Judith has come back. I have seen her and I have explained +Carlotta. + +All day long I felt like a respectable person about to be brought +before a magistrate for being drunk and disorderly. Now I have +the uneasy satisfaction of having been let off with a caution. I +am innocent, but I mustn't do it again. + +As soon as I entered the room Judith embraced me, and said a +number of foolish things. I responded to the best of my ability. +It is not usual for our quiet lake of affection to be visited by +such tornadoes. + +"Oh, I am glad, I am glad to be back with you again. I have +longed for you. I couldn't write it. I did not know I could +long for any one so much." + +"I have missed you immensely, my dear Judith," said I. + +She looked at me queerly for a moment; then with a radiant smile: + +"I love you for not going into transports like a Frenchman. Oh, +I am tired of Frenchmen. You are my good English Marcus, and +worth all masculine Paris put together." + +"I thank you, my dear, for the compliment," said I, "but surely +you must exaggerate." + +"To me you are worth the masculine universe," said Judith, and +she seated me by her side on the sofa, held my hands, and said +more foolish things. + +When the tempest had abated, I laughed. + +"It is you that have acquired the art of transports in Paris," +said I. + +"Perhaps I have. Shall I teach you?" + +"You will have to learn moderation, my dear Judith," I remarked. +"You have been living too rapidly of late and are looking tired." + +"It is only the journey," she replied. + +I am sure it is the unaccustomed dissipation. Judith is not a +strong woman, and late hours and eternal gadding about do not +suit her constitution. She has lost weight and there are faint +circles under her eyes. There are lines, too, on her face which +only show in hours of physical strain. I was proceeding to +expound this to her at some length, for I consider it well for +women to have some one to counsel them frankly in such matters, +when she interrupted me with a gesture of impatience. + +"There, there! Tell me what you have been doing with yourself. +Your letters gave me very little information." + +"I am afraid," said I, "I am a poor letter writer." + +"I read each ten times over," she said. + +I kissed her hand in acknowledgment. Then I rose, lit a +cigarette and walked about the room. Judith shook out her skirts +and settled herself comfortably among the sofa-cushions. + +"Well, what crimes have you been committing the past few weeks?" + +A wandering minstrel was harping "Love's Sweet Dream" outside the +public-house below. I shut the window, hastily. + +"Nothing so bad as that," said I. "He ought to be hung and his +wild harp hung behind him." + +"You are developing nerves," said Judith. "Is it a guilty +conscience?" She laughed. "You are hiding something from me. +I've been aware of it all the time." + +"Indeed? How?" + +"By the sixth sense of woman!" + +Confound the sixth sense of woman! I suppose it has been +developed like a cat's whiskers to supply the deficiency of a +natural scent. Also, like the whiskers, it is obtrusive, and a +matter for much irritatingly complacent pride. Judith regarded +me with a mock magisterial air, and I was put into the dock at +once. + +"Something has happened," I said, desperately. "A female woman +has come and taken up her residence at 26 Lingfield Terrace. A +few weeks ago she ate with her fingers and believed the earth was +flat. I found her in the Victoria Embankment Gardens beneath the +terrace of the National Liberal Club, and now she lives on +chocolate creams and the 'Child's Guide to Knowledge.' She is +eighteen and her name is Carlotta. There!" + +As my cigarette had gone out, I threw it with some peevishness +into the grate. Judith's expression had changed from mock to +real gravity. She sat bolt upright and looked at me somewhat +stonily. + +"What in the world do you mean, Marcus?" + +"What I say. I'm saddled with the responsibility of a child of +nature as unsophisticated and perplexing as Voltaire's Huron. +She's English and she came from a harem in Syria, and she is as +beautiful as the houris she believes in and is unfortunately +precluded from joining. One of these days I shall be teaching +her her catechism. I have already washed her face. Kindly pity +me as the innocent victim of fantastic circumstances." + +"I don't see why I should pity you," said Judith. + +I felt I had not explained Carlotta tactfully. If there are ten +ways of doing a thing I have noticed that I invariably select the +one way that is wrong. I perceived that somehow or other the +very contingency I had feared had come to pass. I had prejudiced +Judith against Carlotta. I had aroused the Ishmaelite--her hand +against every woman and every woman's hand against her--that +survives in all her sex. + +"My dear Judith," said I, "if a wicked fairy godmother had +decreed that a healthy rhinoceros should be my housemate you +would have extended me your sympathy. But because Fate has +inflicted on me an equally embarrassing guest in the shape of a +young woman--" + +"My dear Marcus," interrupted Judith, "the healthy rhinoceros +would know twenty times as much about women as you do." This I +consider one of the silliest remarks Judith has ever made. " +Do," she continued, "tell me something coherent about this young +person you call Carlotta." + +I told the story from beginning to end. + +"But why in the world did you keep it from me?" she asked. + +"I mistrusted the sixth sense of woman," said I. + +"The most elementary sense of woman or any one else would have +told you that you were doing a very foolish thing." + +"How would you have acted?" + +"I should have handed her over at once to the Turkish consulate." + +"Not if you had seen her eyes." + +Judith tossed her head. "Men are all alike," she observed. + +"On the contrary," said I, "that which characterises men as a sex +is their greater variation from type than women. It is a +scientific fact. You will find it stated by Darwin and more +authoritatively still by later writers. The highest common +factor of a hundred women is far greater than that of a hundred +men. The abnormal is more frequent in the male sex. There are +more male monsters." + +"That I can quite believe," snapped Judith. + +"Then you agree with me that men are not all alike?" + +"I certainly don't. Put any one of you before a pretty face and +a pair of silly girl's eyes and he is a perfect idiot." + +"My dear Judith," said I, "I don't care a hang for a pretty face- +-except yours." + +"Do you really care about mine?" she asked wistfully. + +"My dear," said I, dropping on one knee by the sofa, and taking +her hand, "I've been longing for it for six weeks." And I +counted the weeks on her fingers. + +This put her in a good humour. Now that I come to think of it, +there is something adorably infantile in grown up women. Shall +man ever understand them? I have seen babies (not many, I am +glad to say) crow with delight at having their toes pulled, with a +"this little pig went to market," and so forth; Judith almost +crowed at having the weeks told off on her fingers. Queer! + +An hour was taken up with the account of her doings in Paris. +She had met all the nicest and naughtiest people. She had been +courted and flattered. An artist in a slouch hat, baggy corduroy +breeches, floppy tie and general 1830 misfit had made love to her +on the top of the Eiffel Tower. + + +"And he said," laughed Judith, "'_Partons ensemble. Comme on dit +en Anglais_--fly with me!' I remarked that our state when we got +to the Champs de Mars would be an effective disguise. He didn't +understand, and it was delicious!" + +I laughed. "All the same," I observed, "I can't see the fun of +making jokes which the person to whom you make them doesn't see +the point of." + +"Why, that's your own peculiar form of humour," she retorted. "I +caught the trick from you." + +Perhaps she is right. I have noticed that people are slow in +their appreciation of my witticisms. I must really be a very +dull dog. If she were not fond of me I don't see how a bright +woman like Judith could tolerate my society for half an hour. + +I don't think I contribute to the world's humour; but the world's +humour contributes much to my own entertainment, and things which +appear amusing to me do not appeal, when I point them out, to the +risible faculties of another. Every individual, I suppose, like +every civilisation, must have his own standard of humour. If I +were a Roman (instead of an English) Epicurean, I should have +died with laughter at the sight of a fat Christian martyr +scudding round the arena while chased by a hungry lion. At +present I should faint with horror. Indeed, I always feel +tainted with savagery and enjoying a vicarious lust, when I smile +at the oft-repeated tale of the poor tiger in Dore's picture that +hadn't got a Christian. On the other hand, it tickles me +immensely to behold a plethoric commonplace Briton roar himself +purple with impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I +perceive that all my neighbours take him with the utmost +seriousness. Again, your literary journalist professes to +wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is +the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed the trivial. +Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock- +coat and silk hat, when a passing member of the proletariat dug +his elbows in his comrade's ribs and, quoting a music-hall tag of +the period, shouted "He's got 'em on!" whereupon both burst into +peals of robustious but inane laughter. Now, if I had turned to +them, and said, "He would be funnier if I hadn't," and +paraphrased, however wittily, Carlyle's ironical picture of a +nude court of St. James's, they would have punched my head under +the confused idea that I was trying to bamboozle them. Which +brings me to my point of departure, my remark to Judith as to the +futility of jesting to unpercipient ears. + +I did not take up her retort. + +"And what was the end of the romance?" I asked. + +"He borrowed twenty francs of me to pay for the _dejeuner_, and +his _l'annee trente_ delicacy of soul compelled him to blot my +existence forever from his mind." + +"He never repaid you?" I asked. + +"For a humouristic philosopher," cried Judith, "you are +delicious!" + +Judith is too fond of that word "delicious." She uses it in +season and out of season. + +We have the richest language that ever a people has accreted, and +we use it as if it were the poorest. We hoard up our infinite +wealth of words between the boards of dictionaries and in speech +dole out the worn bronze coinage of our vocabulary. We are the +misers of philological history. And when we can save our pennies +and pass the counterfeit coin of slang, we are as happy as if we +heard a blind beggar thank us for putting a pewter sixpence into +his hat. + +I said something of the sort to Judith, after she had resumed her +seat and I had opened the window, the minstrel having wandered to +the next hostelry, where the process of converting "Love's Sweet +Dream" into a nightmare was still faintly audible. Judith looked +at me whimsically, as I stood breathing the comparatively fresh +air and enjoying the relative silence. + +"You are still the same, I am glad to see. Conversation with the +young savage from Syria hasn't altered you in the least." + +"In the first place," said I, "savages do not grow in Syria; and +in the second, how could she have altered me?" + +"If the heavens were to open and the New Jerusalem to appear this +moment before you," retorted Judith, with the relevant +irrelevance of her sex, "you would begin an unconcerned +disquisition on the iconography of angels." + +I sat on the sofa end and touched one of her little pink ears. +She has pretty ears. They were the first of things physical +about her that attracted me to her years ago in the Roman +pension--they and the mass of silken flax that is her hair, and +her violet eyes. + +"Did you learn that particular way of talking in Paris?" I asked. + +She had the effrontery to say she was imitating me and that it +was a very good imitation indeed. + + +We talked about the book. I touched upon the great problem that +requires solution--the harmonising and justifying of the +contradictory opposites in Renaissance character: Fra Lippo Lippi +breaking his own vows and breaking a nun's for her; Perugino +leading his money-grubbing, morose life and painting ethereal +saints and madonnas in his _bottega_, while the Baglioni filled +the streets outside with slaughter; Lorenzo de' Medici bleeding +literally and figuratively his fellow-citizens, going from that +occupation to his Platonic Academy and disputing on the +immortality of the soul, winding up with orgies of sensual +depravity with his boon companion Pulci, and all the time making +himself an historic name for statecraft; Pope Sixtus IV, at the +very heart of the Pazzi conspiracy to murder the Medici-- + +"And Pope Nicholas V when drunk ordering a man to be executed, +and being sorry for it when sober," said Judith. + +It is wonderful how Judith, with her quite unspecialised +knowledge of history can now and then put her finger upon +something vital. I have been racking my brain and searching my +library for the past two or three days for an illustration of +just that nature. I had not thought of it. Here is Tomaso da +Sarzana, a quiet, retired schoolmaster, like myself, an editor of +classical texts, a peaceful librarian of Cosmo de' Medici, a +scholar and a gentleman to the tips of his fingers; he is made +Pope, a King Log to save the cardinalate from a possible King +Stork Colonna; the Porcari conspiracy breaks out, is discovered +and the conspirators are hunted over Italy and put to death; a +gentleman called Anguillara is slightly inculpated; he is invited +to Rome by Nicholas, and given a safe-conduct; when he arrives +the Pope is drunk (at least Stefano Infessura, the contemporary +diarist, says so); the next morning his Holiness finds to his +surprise and annoyance that the gentleman's head has been cut off +by his orders. It is an amazing tale. To realise how amazing it +is, one must picture the fantastic possibility of it happening at +the Vatican nowadays. And the most astounding thing is this: +that if all the dead and gone popes were alive, and the soul of +the saintly Pontiff of to-day were to pass from him, the one who +could most undetected occupy his simulacrum would be this very +Thomas of Sarzana. + +"Pardon me, my dear Judith," said I. "But this is a story lying +somewhat up one of the back-waters of history. Where did you +come across it?" + +"I saw it the other day in a French comic paper," replied Judith. + +I really don't know which to admire the more: the inconsequent +way in which the French toss about scholarship, or the marvellous +power of assimilation possessed by Judith. + +Before we separated she returned to the subject of Carlotta. + +"Am I to see this young creature?" she asked. + "That is just as you choose," said I. + +"Oh! as far as I am concerned, my dear Marcus, I am perfectly +indifferent," replied Judith, assuming the supercilious +expression with which women invariably try to mask inordinate +curiosity. + +"Then," said I, with a touch of malice, "there is no reason why +you should make her acquaintance." + +"I should be able to see through her tricks and put you on your +guard." + +"Against what?" + +She shrugged her shoulders as if it were vain to waste breath on +so obtuse a person. + +"You had better bring her round some afternoon," she said. + +Have I acted wisely in confessing Carlotta to Judith? And why do +I use the word "confess"? Far from having committed an evil +action, I consider I have exhibited exemplary altruism. Did I +want a "young savage from Syria" to come and interfere with my +perfectly ordered life? Judith does not realise this. I had a +presentiment of the prejudice she would conceive against the poor +girl, and now it has been verified. I wish I had held my tongue. +As Judith, for some feminine reason known only to herself, has +steadily declined to put her foot inside my house, she might very +well have remained unsuspicious of Carlotta's existence. And why +not? The fact of the girl being my pensioner does not in the +least affect the personality which I bring to Judith. The idea +is absurd. Why wasn't I wise before the event? I might have +spared myself considerable worry. + + +A letter from my Aunt Jessica enclosing a card for a fancy dress +ball at the Empress Rooms. The preposterous lady! + +"Do come. It is not right for a young man to lead the life of a +recluse of seventy. Here we are in the height of the London +season, and I am sure you haven't been into ten houses, when a +hundred of the very best are open to you--" I loathe the term +"best houses." The tinsel ineptitude of them! For entertainment +I really would sooner attend a mothers' meeting or listen to the +serious British Drama--Have I read so and so's novel? Am I going +to Mrs. Chose's dance? Do I ride in the Park? Do I know young +Thingummy of the Guards, who is going to marry Lady Betty +Something? What do I think of the Academy? As if one could have +any sentiment with regard to the Academy save regret at such +profusion of fresh paint! "You want shaking up," continued my +aunt. Silly woman! If there is a thing I should abhor it would +be to be shaken up. "Come and dine with us at seven-thirty _in +costume_, and I'll promise you a delightful time. And think how +proud the girls would be of showing off their _beau cousin_." _Et +patiti et patita._ I am again reminded that I owe it to my +position, my title. God ha' mercy on us! To bedeck myself like +a decayed mummer in a booth and frisk about in a pestilential +atmosphere with a crowd of strange and uninteresting young +females is the correct way of fulfilling the obligations that the +sovereign laid upon the successors to the title, when he +conferred the dignity of a baronetcy on my great-grandfather! +Now I come to think of it the Prince Regent was that sovereign, +and my ancestor did things for him at Brighton. Perhaps after +all there is a savage irony of truth in Aunt Jessica's +suggestion! + +And a _beau cousin_ should I be indeed. What does she think I +would go as? A mousquetaire? or a troubadour in blue satin +trunks and cloak, white silk tights and shoes and a Grecian +helmet, like Mr. Snodgrass at Mrs. Leo Hunter's _fete champetre?_ + +I wish I could fathom Aunt Jessica's reasons for her attempts at +involving me in her social mountebankery. If the girls get no +better dance-partners than me, heaven help them! + +Only a fortnight ago I drove with them to Hurlingham. My aunt +and Gwendolen disappeared in an unaccountable manner with another +man, leaving me under an umbrella tent to take charge of Dora. I +had an hour and a half of undiluted Dora. The dose was too +strong, and it made my head ache. I think I prefer neat +Carlotta. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +July 5th + +I lunched at home, and read drowsily before the open window till +four o'clock. Then the splendour of the day invited me forth. +Whither should I go? I thought of Judith and Hampstead Heath; I +also thought of Carlotta and Hyde Park. The sound of the lions +roaring for their afternoon tea reached me through the still air, +and I put from me a strong temptation to wander alone and +meditative in the Zoological Gardens close by. I must not +forget, I reflected, that I am responsible for Carlotta's +education, whereas I am in no wise responsible for the animals or +for Judith. If Judith and I had claims one on the other, the +entire charm of our relationship would be broken. + +I resolved to take Carlotta to the park, in order to improve her +mind. She would see how well-bred Englishwomen comport +themselves externally. It would be a lesson in decorum. + +I do not despise convention. Indeed, I follow it up to the point +when it puts on the airs of revealed religion. My neighbours and +I decide on a certain code of manners which will enable us to +meet without mutual offence. I agree to put my handkerchief up +to my nose when I sneeze in his presence, and he contracts not to +wipe muddy boots on my sofa. I undertake not to shock his wife +by parading my hideous immorality before her eyes, and he binds +himself not to aggravate my celibacy by beating her or kissing +her when I am paying a call. I agree, by wearing an arbitrarily +fixed costume when I dine with him, to brand myself with the +stamp of a certain class of society, so that his guests shall +receive me without question, and he in return gives me a +well-ordered dinner served with the minimum amount of inconvenience +to myself that his circumstances allow. Many folks make what they +are pleased to call unconventionality a mere cloak for selfish +disregard of the feelings and tastes of others. Bohemianism too +often means piggish sloth or slatternly ineptitude. + +Convention is solely a matter of manners. That is why I desire +to instil some convention into what, for want of a more accurate +term, I may allude to as Carlotta's mind. It will save me much +trouble in the future. + +I summoned Carlotta. + +"Carlotta," I said, "I am going to take you to Hyde Park and show +you the English aristocracy wearing their best clothes and their +best behaviour. You must do the same." + +"My best clothes?" cried Carlotta, her face lighting up. + +"Your very best. Make haste." + +I smiled. She ran from the room and in an incredibly short time +reappeared unblushingly bare-necked and bare-armed in the evening +dress that had caused her such dismay on Saturday. + +I jumped to my feet. There is no denying that she looked +amazingly beautiful. She looked, in fact, disconcertingly +beautiful. I found it hard to tell her to take the dress off +again. + +"Is it wrong?" she asked Nvith a pucker of her baby lips. + +"Yes, indeed," said I. "People would be shocked." + +"But on Saturday evening--"she began. + +"I know, my child," I interrupted. "In society you are scarcely +respectable unless you go about half naked at night; but to do so +in the daytime would be the grossest indecency. I'll explain +some other time." + +"I shall never understand," said Carlotta. + +Two great tears stood, one on each eyelid, and fell +simultaneously down her cheeks. + +"What on earth are you crying for?" I asked aghast. + +"You are not pleased with me," said Carlotta, with a choke in her +voice. + +The two tears fell like rain-drops on to her bosom, and she stood +before me a picture of exquisite woe. Then I did a very foolish +thing. + +Last week a little gold brooch in a jeweller's window caught my +fancy. I bought it with the idea of presenting it to Carlotta, +when an occasion offered, as a reward for peculiar merit. Now, +however, to show her that I was in no way angry, I abstracted the +bauble from the drawer of my writing-table, and put it in her +hand. + +"You please me so much, Carlotta," said I, "that I have bought +this for you." + +Before I had completed the sentence, and before I knew what she +was after, her arms were round my neck and she was hugging me +like a child. + +I have never experienced such an odd sensation in my life as the +touch of Carlotta's fresh young arms upon my face and the perfume +of spring violets that emanated from her person. I released +myself swiftly from her indecorous demonstration. + +"You mustn't do things like that," said I, severely. "In +England, young women are only allowed to embrace their +grandfathers." +Carlotta looked at me wide-eyed, with the fox-terrier knitting of +the forehead. + +"But you are so good to me, Seer Marcous," she said. + +"I hope you'll find many people good to you, Carlotta," I +answered. "But if you continue that method of expressing your +appreciation, you may possibly be misunderstood." + +I had recovered from the momentary shock to my senses, and I +laughed. She fluttered a sidelong glance at me, and a smile as +inscrutable as the Monna Lisa's hovered over her lips. + +"What would they do if they did not understand?" + +"They would take you," I replied, fixing her sternly with my +gaze, "they would take you for an unconscionable baggage." + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta, suddenly. And she ran from the room. + +In a moment she was back again. She came up to me demurely and +plucked my sleeve. + +"Come and show me what I must put on so as to please you." + +I rang the bell for Antoinette, to whom I gave the necessary +instructions. Her next request would be that I should act the +part of lady's-maid. I must maintain my dignity with Carlotta. + +The lovely afternoon had attracted many people to the park, and +the lawns were thronged. We found a couple of chairs at the edge +of one of the cross-paths and watched the elegant assembly. +Carlotta, vastly entertained, asked innumerable questions. How +could I tell whether a lady was married or unmarried? Did they +all wear stays? Why did every one look so happy? Did I think +that old man was the young girl's husband? What were they all +talking about? Wouldn't I take her for a drive in one of those +beautiful carriages? Why hadn't I a carriage? Then suddenly, as +if inspired, after a few minutes' silent reflection: + +"Seer Marcous, is this the marriage market?" + +"The what?" I gasped. + +"The marriage market. I read it in a book, yesterday. Miss +Griggs gave it me to read aloud--Tack--Thack--" + +"Thackeray?" + +"Ye-es. They come here to sell the young girls to men who want +wives." She edged away from me, with a little movement of alarm. +"That is not why you have brought me here--to sell me?" + +"How much do you think you would be worth?" I asked, +sarcastically. + +She opened out her hands palms upward, throwing down her parasol, +as she did so, upon her neighbour's little Belgian griffon, who +yelped. + +"Ch, lots," she said in her frank way. "I am very beautiful." + +I picked up the parasol, bowed apologetically to the owner of the +stricken animal, and addressed Carlotta. + +"Listen, my good child. You are passably good-looking, but you +are by no means very beautiful. If I tried to sell you here, you +might possibly fetch half a crown--" + +"Two shillings and sixpence?" asked the literal Carlotta. + +"Yes. Just that. But as a matter of fact, no one would buy you. +This is not the marriage market. There is no such thing as a +marriage market. English mothers and fathers do not sell their +daughters for money. Such a thing is monstrous and impossible." + +"Then it was all lies I read in the book?" + +"All lies," said I. + +I hope the genial shade of the great satirist has forgiven me. + +"Why do they put lies in books?" + +"To accentuate the Truth, so that it shall prevail," I answered. + +This was too hard a nut for Carlotta to crack. She was silent +for a moment. She reverted, ruefully, to the intelligible. + +"I thought I was beautiful," she said. + +"Who told you so?" + +"Pasquale." + +"Pasquale has no sense," said I. "There are men to whom all +women who are not seventy and toothless and rheumy at the eyes +are beautiful. Pasquale has said the same to every woman he has +met. He is a Lothario and a Don Juan and a Caligula and a +Faublas and a Casanova." + +"And he tells lies, too?" + +"Millions of them," said I. "He contracts with their father +Beelzebub for a hundred gross a day." + +"Pasquale is very pretty and he makes me laugh and I like him," +said Carlotta. + +"I am very sorry to hear it," said I. + +The griffon, who had been sniffing at Carlotta's skirts, suddenly +leaped into her lap. With a swift movement of her hand she swept +the poor little creature, as if it had been a noxious insect, +yards away. + +"Carlotta!" I cried angrily, springing to my feet. + +The ladies who owned the beast rushed to their whining pet and +looked astonished daggers at Carlotta. When they picked it up, +it sat dangling a piteous paw. Carlotta rose, merely scared at +my anger. I raised my hat. + +"I am more than sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I hope +the little dog is not hurt. My ward, for whom I offer a thousand +apologies, is a Mohammedan, to whom all dogs are unclean. Please +attribute the accident to religious instinct." + +The younger of the two, who had been examining the paw, looked up +with a smile. + +"Your ward is forgiven. Punch oughtn't to jump on strange +ladies' laps, whether they are Mohammedans or not. Oh! he is +more frightened than hurt. And I," she added, with a twinkling +eye, "am more hurt than frightened, because Sir Marcus Ordeyne +doesn't recognise me." + +So Carlotta had nearly killed the dog of an unrecalled +acquaintance. + +"I do indeed recognise you now," said I, mendaciously. I seem to +have been lying to-day through thick and thin. "But in the +confusion of the disaster--" + +"You sat next me at lunch one day last winter, at Mrs. +Ordeyne's," interrupted the lady, "and you talked to me of +transcendental mathematics." + +I remembered. "The crime," said I, "has lain heavily on my +conscience." + +"I don't believe a word of it," she laughed, dismissing me with a +bow. I raised my hat and joined Carlotta. + +It was a Miss Gascoigne, a flirtatious intimate of Aunt Jessica's +house. To this irresponsible young woman I had openly avowed +that I was the guardian of a beautiful Mohammedan whose religious +instinct compelled her to destroy little dogs. I shall hear of +this from my Aunt Jessica. + +I walked stonily away with Carlotta. + +"You are cross with me," she whimpered. + +"Yes, I am. You might have killed the poor little beast. It was +very wicked and cruel of you." + +Carlotta burst out crying in the midst of the promenade. + +The tears did not romantically come into her eyes as they had +done an hour before; but she wept copiously, after the +unrestrained manner of children, and used her pocket- +handkerchief. From their seats women put up their lorgnons to +look at her, passers-by turned round and stared. The whole of +the gaily dressed throng seemed to be one amused gaze. In' a +moment or two I became conscious that reprehensory glances were +being directed towards myself, calling me, as plain as eyes could +call, an ill-conditioned brute, for making the poor young +creature, who was at my mercy, thus break down in public. It was +a charming situation for an even-tempered philosopher. We walked +stolidly on, I glaring in front of me and Carlotta weeping. The +malice of things arranged that ne. neighbouring chair should be +vacant, and that the path should be unusually crowded. I had the +satisfaction of hearing a young fellow say to a girl: + +"He? That's Ordeyne--came into the baroaetcy--mad as a dingo +dog." + +I was giving myself a fine advertisement. + +"For heaven's sake stop crying," I said. Then a memory of +far-off childhood flashed its inspiration upon me. "If you don't," +I added, grimly, "I'll take you out and give you to a policeman." + +The effect was magical. She turned on me a scared look, gasped, +pulled down her veil, which she had raised so as to dab her eyes +with her pocket-handkerchief, and incontinently checked the +fountain of her tears. + +"A policeman?" + +"Yes," said I, "a great, big, ugly blue policeman, who shuts up +people who misbehave themselves in prison, and takes off their +clothes, and shaves their heads, and feeds them on bread and +water." + +"I won't cry any more," she said, swallowing a sob. "Is it also +wicked to cry?" + +"Any of these ladies here would sooner be burned alive with +dyspepsia or cut in two with tight-lacing," I replied severely. +"Let us sit down." + +We stepped over the low iron rail, and passing through the first +two rows of people, found seats behind where the crowd was +thinner. + +"Is Seer Marcous still angry with me?" asked Carlotta, and the +simple plaintiveness of her voice would have melted the bust of +Nero. I lectured her on cruelty to animals. That one had duties +of kindness towards the lower creation appealed to her as a +totally new idea. Supposing the dog had broken all its legs and +ribs, would she not have been sorry? She answered frankly in the +negative. It was a nasty little dog. If she had hurt it badly, +so much the better. What did it matter if a dog was hurt? She +was sorry now she had hurled it into space, because it belonged +to my friends, and that had made me cross with her. + +Of course I was shocked at the thoughtless cruelty of the action; +but my anger had also its roots in dismay at the public scandal +it might have caused, and in the discovery that I was known to +the victim's owner. It is the sad fate of the instructors of +youth that they must hypocritically credit themselves with only +the sublimest of motives. I spoke to Carlotta like the good +father in the "Swiss Family Robinson." I gave vent to such noble +sentiments that in a quarter of an hour I glowed with pride in my +borrowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to my bosom +and addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the fly. I wonder +whether it is not through some such process as this that parsons +manage to keep themselves good. + +The soothing warmth of conscious merit restored me to good +temper; and when Carlotta slid her hand into mine and asked me if +I had forgiven her, I magnanimously assured her that all the past +was forgotten. + +"Only," said I, "you will have to get out of this habit of tears. +A wise man called Burton says in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' a +beautiful book which I'll give you to read when you are sixty, +'As much count may be taken of a woman weeping as a goose going +barefoot.'" + +"He was a nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they +feel very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason +that men don't cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at +Alexandretta; but Hamdi!--" she broke into an adorable trill of +a chuckle, "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and +stockings, like the Puss in the shoes --the fairy tale--as Hamdi +crying. _Hou_!" + +Half an hour later, as we were driving homewards, she broke a +rather long silence which she had evidently been employing in +meditation. + +"Seer Marcous." + +"Yes?" + +She has a child's engaging way of rubbing herself up against one +when she wants to be particularly ingratiating. + +"It was so nice to dine with you on Saturday." + +"Really?" + +"Oh, ye-es. When are you going to let me dine with you again, to +show me you have forgiven me?" + +A hansom cab offers peculiar facilities for the aforesaid process +of ingratiation. + +"You shall dine with me this evening," said I, and Carlotta cooed +with pleasure. + +I perceive that she is gradually growing westernised. + + +July 8th. + +In obedience to a peremptory note from Judith, I took Carlotta +this afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook hands with my +hostess, turned round and said + +"This, my dear Judith, is Carlotta." + +"I am very pleased to see you," said Judith. + +"So am I," replied Carlotta, not to be outdone in politeness. + +She sat bolt upright, most correctly, on the edge of a chair, and +responded monosyllabically to Judith's questions. Her demeanour +could not have been more impeccable had she been trained in a +French convent. Just before we arrived, she had been laughing +immoderately because I had ordered her to spit out a mass of +horrible sweetmeat which she had found it impossible to +masticate, and she had challenged me to extract it with my +fingers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a +Maenad. I was entertained by Judith's fruitless efforts to get +behind this wall of reserve. Carlotta said," Oh, ye-es" or +"No-o" to everything. It was not a momentous conversation. As +it was Carlotta in whom Judith was particularly interested, I +effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the spasmodic talk, +Carlotta said, very politely: + +"Mrs. Mainwaring has a beautiful house." + +"It's only a tiny flat. Would you like to look over it?" asked +Judith, eagerly, flashing me a glance that plainly said, "Now +that I shall have her to myself, you may trust me to get to the +bottom of her." + +"I would like it very much," said Carlotta, rising. + +I held the door open for them to pass out, and lit a cigarette. +When they returned ten minutes afterwards, Carlotta was smiling +and self-possessed, evidently very well pleased with herself, but +Judith had a red spot on each of her cheeks. + +The sight of her smote me with an odd new feeling of pity. I +cannot dismiss the vision from my mind. All the evening I have +seen the two women standing side by side, a piteous parable. The +light from the window shone full upon them, and the dark curtain +of the door was an effective background. The one flaunted the +sweet insolence of youth, health, colour, beauty; of the bud just +burst into full flower. The other wore the stamp of care, of the +much knowledge wherein is much sorrow, and in her eyes dwelled +the ghosts of dead years. She herself looked like a ghost- +dressed in white pique, which of itself drew the colour from her +white face and pale lips and mass of faint straw-coloured hair, +the pallor of all which was accentuated by the red spots on her +cheeks and her violet eyes. + +I saw that something had occurred to vex her. + +"Before we go," I said, "I should like a word with you. Carlotta +will not mind." + +We went into the dining-room. I took her hand which was cold, in +spite of the July warmth. + +"Well, my dear," said I. "What do you think of my young savage +from Asia Minor?" + +Judith laughed--I am sure not naturally. + +"Is that all you wanted to say to me?" + +She withdrew her hand, and tidied her hair in the mirror of the +overmantel. + +"I think she is a most uninteresting young woman. I am +disappointed. I had anticipated something original. I had +looked forward to some amusement. But, really, my dear Marcus, +she is _bete a pleurer_--weepingly stupid." + +"She certainly can weep," said I. + +"Oh, can she?" said Judith, as if the announcement threw some +light on Carlotta's character. "And when she cries, I suppose +you, like a man, give in and let her have her own way?" And +Judith laughed again. + +"My dear Judith," said I; "you have no idea of the wholesome +discipline at Lingfield Terrace." + +Suddenly with one of her disconcerting changes of front, she +turned and caught me by the coat-lappels. + +"Marcus dear, I have been so lonely this week. When are you +coming to see me?" + +"We'll have a whole day out on Sunday," said I. + + +As I walked down the stairs with Carlotta, I reflected that +Judith had not accounted for the red spots. + +"I like her," said Carlotta. "She is a nice old lady." + +"Old lady! What on earth do you mean?" I was indeed startled. +"She is a young woman." + +"Pouf!" cried Carlotta. "She is forty." + +"She is no such thing," I cried. "She is years younger than I." + +"She would not tell me." + +"You asked her age?" + +"Oh, ye-es," said Carlotta. "I was very polite. I first asked +if she was married. She said yes. Then I asked how her husband +was. She said she didn't know. That was funny. Why does she not +know, Seer Marcous?" + +"Never mind," said I, "go on telling me how polite you were." + +"I asked how many children she had. She said she had none. I +said it was a pity. And then I said, 'I am eighteen years old +and I want to marry quite soon and have children. How old are +you?' And she would not tell me. I said, 'You must be the same +age as my mamma, if she were alive.' I said other things, about +her husband, which I forget. Oh, I was very polite." + +She smiled up at me in quest of approbation. I checked a +horrified rebuke when I reflected that, according to the +etiquette of the harem, she had been "very polite." But my poor +Judith! Every artless question had been a knife thrust in a +sensitive spot. Her husband: the handsome blackguard who had +lured her into the divorce court, married her, and after two +unhappy years had left her broken; children: they would have kept +her life sweet, and did I not know how she had yearned for them? +Her age: it is only the very happily married woman who snaps her +fingers at the approach of forty, and even she does so with a +disquieting sense of bravado. And the sweet insolence of youth +says: "I am eighteen: how old are you?" + +My poor Judith! Once more, on our walk home, I discoursed to +Carlotta on the differences between East and West. + +"Seer Marcous," said Carlotta this evening at dinner--I have +decided now that she shall dine regularly with me; it is +undoubtedly agreeable to see her pretty face on the opposite side +of the table and listen to her irresponsible chatter: chatter +which I keep within the bounds of decorum when Stenson is +present, so as to save his susceptibilities, by the simple +device, agreed upon between us (to her great delight) of +scratching the side of my somewhat prominent nose--" Seer +Marcous, why does Mrs. Mainwaring keep your picture in her +bedroom?" + +I am glad Stenson happened to be out of the room. His absence +saved the flaying of my nasal organ. I explained that it was the +custom in England for ladies to collect the photographs of their +men friends, and use them misguidedly for purposes of decoration. + +"But this," said Carlotta, opening out her arms in an exaggerated +way, "is such a big one." + +"Ah, that," I answered, "is because I am very beautiful." + +Carlotta shrieked with laughter. The exquisite comicality of the +jest occasioned bubbling comments of mirth during the rest of the +meal, and her original indiscreet question was happily forgotten. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + +l0th July. + +Judith and I have had our day in the country. We know a wayside +station, on a certain line of railway, about an hour and a half +from town, where we can alight, find eggs and bacon at the +village inn and hayricks in a solitary meadow, and where we can +chew the cud of these delights with the cattle in well-wooded +pastures. Judith has a passion for eggs and bacon and hayricks. +My own rapture in their presence is tempered by the philosophic +calm of my disposition.She wore a cotton dress of a forget-me-not +blue which suits her pale colouring. She looked quite pretty. +When I told her so she blushed like a girl. I was glad to see +her in gay humour again. Of late months she has been subject to +moodiness, emotional variability, which has somewhat ruffled the +smooth surface of our companionship. But to-day there has been +no trace of "temperament." She has shown herself the pleasant, +witty Judith she knows I like her to be, with a touch of coquetry +thrown in on her own account. She even spoke amiably of +Carlotta. I have not had so thoroughly enjoyable a day with +Judith for a long time. + +I don't think she set herself deliberately to please me. That I +should resent. I know that women in order to please an +unsuspecting male will walk weary miles by his side with blisters +on their feet and a beatific smile on their faces. But Judith +has far too much commonsense. + +Another pleaisng feature of the day's jaunt has been the absence +of the appeal to sentimentality which Judith of late, especially +since her return from Paris, has been overfond of making. This +idle habit of mind, for such it is in reality, has been arrested +by an intellectual interest. One of her great friends is +Willoughby, the economic statistician, who in his humorous +moments, writes articles for popular magazines, illustrated by +scale diagrams. He will draw, for instance, a series of men +representing the nations of the world, and varying in bulk and +stature according to the respective populations; and over against +these he will set a series of pigs whose sizes are proportionate +to the amount of pork per head eaten by the different +nationalities. To these queer minds that live on facts (I myself +could as easily thrive on a diet of egg-shells) this sort of +pictorial information is peculiarly fascinating. But Judith, who +like most women has a freakish mental as well as physical +digestion, delights in knowing how many hogs a cabinet minister +will eat during, a lifetime, and how much of the earth's surface +could be scoured by the world's yearly output of scrubbing- +brushes. I don't blame her for it any more than I blame her for +a love of radishes, which make me ill; it is not as if she had no +wholesome tastes. On the contrary, I commend her. Now, +Willoughby, it seems, has found the public appetite so great for +these thought-saving boluses of knowledge--unpleasant drugs, as +it were, put up into gelatine capsules--that he needs assistance. +He has asked Judith to devil for him, and I have to-day persuaded +her to accept his offer. It will be an excellent thing for the +dear woman. It will be an absorbing occupation. It will divert +the current of her thoughts from the sentimentality that I +deprecate, and provided she does not serve up hard-boiled facts to +me at dinner, she will be the pleasanter companion. + +The only return to it was when I kissed her at parting. + +"That is the first, Marcus, for twelve hours," she said; very +sweetly, it is true--but still reproachfully. + +But Sacred Name of a Little Good Man! (as the depraved French +people say), what is the use of this continuous osculation +between rational beings of opposite sexes who set out to enjoy +themselves? If only St. Paul, in the famous passage when he says +there is a time for this and a time for that, had mentioned +kissing, he would have done a great deal of practical good. + + +July 13th. + +To-night, for the first time since I came into the family estates +(such as they are), I feel the paralysis of aspiration occasioned +by poverty. If I were very rich, I would buy the two next +houses, pull them down and erect on the site a tower forty foot +high. At the very top would be one comfortable room to be +reached by a lift, and in this room I could have my being, while +it listed me, and be secure from all kinds of incursions and +interruptions. Antoinette's one-eyed cat could not scratch for +admittance; Antoinette herself could not enter under pretext of +domestic economics and lure me into profitless gossip; and I +could defy Carlotta, who is growing to be as pervasive as the +smell of pickles over Crosse & Blackwell's factory. She comes in +without knocking, looks at picture-books, sprawls about doing +nothing, smokes my best cigarettes, hums tunes which she has +picked up from barrel-organs, bends over me to see what I am +writing, munching her eternal sweetmeats in my ear, and laughs at +me when I tell her she has irremediably broken the thread of my +ideas. Of course I might be brutal and turn her out. But +somehow I forget to do so, until I realise--too late--the havoc +she has made with my work. + +I did, however, think, when Miss Griggs mounted guard over +Carlotta, and Antoinette and her cat were busied with luncheon +cook-pans, that my solitude was unimperilled. I see now there is +nothing for it but the tower. And I cannot build the tower; so I +am to be henceforward at the mercy of anything feline or feminine +that cares to swish its tail or its skirts about my drawing-room. + +I was arranging my notes, I had an illuminating inspiration +concerning the life of Francois Villon and the contemporary court +of Cosmo de' Medici; I was preparing to fix it in writing when +the door opened and Stenson announced: + +"Mrs. Ordeyne and Miss Ordeyne." + +My Aunt Jessica and Dora came in and my inspiration went out. It +hasn't come back yet. + +My aunt's apologies and Dora's draperies filled the room. I must +forgive the invasion. They knew they were disturbing my work. +They hoped I didn't mind. + +"I wanted mamma to write, but she would come," said Dora, in her +hearty voice. I murmured polite mendacities and offered chairs. +Dora preferred to stand and gaze about her with feminine +curiosity. Women always seem to sniff for Bluebeardism in a +bachelor's apartment. + +"Why, what two beautiful rooms you have. And the books! There +isn't an inch of wall-space!" + +She went on a voyage of discovery round the shelves while my aunt +explained the object of their visit. Somebody, I forget who, had +lent them a yacht. They were making up a party for a summer +cruise in Norwegian fiords. The Thingummies and the So and So's +and Lord This and Miss That had promised to come, but they were +sadly in need of a man to play host--I was to fancy three lone +women at the mercy of the skipper. I did, and I didn't envy the +skipper. What more natural, gushed my aunt, than that they +should turn to me, the head of the house, in their difficulty? + +"I am afraid, my dear aunt," said I, "that my acquaintance with +skipper-terrorising hosts is nil. I can't suggest any one." + +"But who asked you to suggest any one?" she laughed. "It is you +yourself that we want to persuade to have pity on us." + +"I have--much pity," said I, "for if it's rough, you'll all be +horribly seasick." + +Dora ran across the room from the book-case she was inspecting. + +"I would like to shake him! He is only pretending he doesn't +understand. I don't know what we shall do if you won't come with +us." + +"You can't refuse, Marcus. It will be an ideal trip--and such a +comfortable yacht--and the deep blue fiords--and we've got a +French chef. You will be doing us such a favour." + +"Come, say 'Yes,'" said Dora. + +I wish she were not such a bouncing Juno of a girl. Large, +athletic women with hearty voices are difficult for one to deal +with. I am a match for my aunt, whom I can obfuscate with words. +But Dora doesn't understand my satire; she gives a great, healthy +laugh, and says, "Oh, rot!" which scatters my intellectual +armoury. + +"It is exceedingly kind of you to think of me," I said to my +aunt, "and the proposal is tempting--the prospect is indeed +fascinating--but--" + +"But what?" + +"I have so many engagements," I answered feebly. + +My Aunt Jessica rose, smiling indulgently upon me, as if I were a +spoilt little boy, and took me on to the balcony, while Dora +demurely retired to the bookshelves in the farther room. +"Can't you manage to throw them aside? Poor Dora will be +inconsolable." + +I stared at her for a moment and then at Dora's broad back and +sturdy hips. Inconsolable? I can't make out what the good lady +is driving at. If she were a vulgar woman trying to squeeze her +way into society and needed the lubricant of the family +baronetcy, I could understand her eagerness to parade me as her +appanage. But titles in her drawing-room are as common as +tea-cups. And the inconsolability of Dora + +"If I did come she would be bored to death," said I. + +"She is willing to risk it." + +"But why should she seek martyrdom?" + +"There is another reason," said my aunt, ignoring my pertinent +question, but glancing at me reassuringly "there is another +reason why it would be well for you to come on this cruise with +us." She sank her voice. "You met Miss Gascoigne in the park +last week--" + +"A very charming and kind young lady," said I. + +"I am afraid you have been a little indiscreet. People have been +talking." + +"Then theirs, not mine, is the indiscretion." + +"But, my dear Marcus, when you spring a good-looking young +person, whom you introduce as your Mohammedan ward, upon London +society, and she makes a scene in public--why--what else have +people got to talk about?" + +"They might fall back upon the doctrine of predestination or the +price of fish," I replied urbanely. + +"But I assure you, Marcus, that there is a hint of scandal +abroad. It is actually said that she is living here." + +"People will say anything, true or untrue," said I. + +My aunt sighfully acquiesced, and for a while we discussed the +depravity of human nature. + +"I have been thinking," she said at last, "that if you brought +your ward to see us, and she could accompany us on this cruise to +Norway, the scandal would be scotched outright." + +She glanced at me very keenly, and beneath her indulgent smile I +saw the hardness of the old campaigner. It was a clever trap she +had prepared for me. + +I took her hand and in my noblest manner, like the exiled vicomte +in costume drama, bent over it and kissed her finger-tips. + +"I thank you, my dear aunt, for your generous faith in my +integrity," I said, "and I assure you your confidence is well +founded." + +A loud, gay laugh from the other room interrupted me. + +"Are you two rehearsing private theatricals?" cried Dora. As I +was attired in a remarkably old college blazer and a pair of +yellow Moorish slippers bought a couple of years ago in Tangier, +and as my hair was straight on end, owing to a habit of passing +my fingers through it while I work, my attitude perhaps did not +strike a spectator as being so noble as I had imagined. I took +advantage of the anti-climax, however, to bring my aunt from the +balcony to the centre of the room, where Dora joined us. + +"Well, has mother prevailed?" + +"My dear Dora," said I, politely, "how can you imagine it could +possibly be a question of persuasion?" + +"That might be taken two ways," said Dora. "Like Palmerston's +'Dear Sir, I'll lose no time in reading your book.'" +Dora is a minx. + +"I fear," said I, "that my pedantic historical sense must venture +to correct you. It was Lord Beaconsfield." + +"Well, he got it from Palmerston," insisted Dora. + +"You children must not quarrel," interposed my aunt, in the fond, +maternal tone which I find peculiarly unpleasant. "Marcus will +see how his engagements stand, and let us know in a day or two." + +"When do you propose to start?" I asked. + +"Quite soon. On the 20th. + +"I will let you know finally in good time," said I. + +As I accompanied them downstairs, I heard a door at the end of +the passage open, and turning I saw Carlotta's pretty head thrust +past the jamb, and her eyes fixed on the visitors. I motioned +her back, sharply, and my aunt and Dora made an unsuspecting +exit. The noise of their departing chariot wheels was music to +my ears. + +Carlotta came rushing out of her sitting-room followed by Miss +Griggs, protesting. + +"Who those fine ladies?" she cried, with her hands on my sleeve. + +"Who _are_ those ladies?" I corrected. + +"Who _are_ those ladies?" Carlotta repeated, like a demure +parrot. + +"They are friends of mine." + +Then came the eternal question. + +"Is she married, the young one?" + +"Miss Griggs," said I, "kindly instil into Carlotta's mind the +fact that no young English woman ever thinks about marriage until +she is actually engaged, and then her thoughts do not go beyond +the wedding." + +"But is she?" persisted Carlotta. + +"I wish to heaven she was," I laughed, imprudently, "for then she +would not come and spoil my morning's work." + +"Oh, she wants to marry you," said Carlotta. + +"Miss Griggs," said I, "Carlotta will resume her studies," and I +went upstairs, sighing for the beautiful tower with a lift +outside. + + +July 14th. + +Pasquale came in about nine o'clock, and found us playing cards. + +He is a bird of passage with no fixed abode. Some weeks ago he +gave up his chambers in St. James's, and went to live with an +actor friend, a grass-widower, who has a house in the St. John's +Wood Road close by. Why Pasquale, who loves the palpitating +centres of existence, should choose to rusticate in this +semi-arcadian district, I cannot imagine. He says he can think +better in St. John's Wood. + +Pasquale think! As well might a salmon declare it could sing +better in a pond! The consequence of his propinquity, however, +has been that he has dropped in several times lately on his way +home, but generally at a later hour. + +"Oh, please don't move and spoil the picture," he cried. "Oh, +you idyllic pair! And what are you playing? Cribbage! If I had +been challenged to guess the game you would have selected for +your after-dinner entertainment, I should have sworn to +cribbage!" + +"An excellent game," said I. Indeed, it is the only game that I +remember. I dislike cards. They bore me to death. So dus +chess. People love to call them intellectual pastimes; but, +surely, if a man wants exercise for his intellect, there are +enough problems in this complicated universe for him to worry his +brains over, with more profit to himself and the world. And as +for the pastime--I consider that when two or more intelligent +people sit down to play cards they are insulting one another's +powers of conversation. These remarks do not apply to my game +with Carlotta, who is a child, and has to be amused. She has +picked up cribbage with remarkable quickness, and although this +is only the third evening we have played, she was getting the +better of me when Pasquale appeared. + +I repeated my statement. Cribbage certainly was an excellent +game. Pasquale laughed. + +"Of course it is. A venerable pastime. Darby and Joan have +played it of evenings for the last thousand years. Please go +on." + +But Carlotta threw her cards on the table and herself on the sofa +and said she would prefer to hear Pasquale talk. + +"He says such funny things." + +Then she jumped from the sofa and handed him the box of +chocolates that is never far from her side. How lithe her +movements are! + +"Pasquale says you were his schoolmaster, and used to beat him +with a big stick," she remarked, turning her head toward me, +while Pasquale helped himself to a sweet. + +He was clumsy in his selection, and the box slipped from +Carlotta's hand and the contents rolled upon the floor. They +both went on hands and knees to pick them up, and there was much +laughing and whispering. + +It is curious that I cannot recall Pasquale having alluded, in +Carlotta's presence, to our early days. It was on my tongue to +ask when he committed the mendacity--for in that school not only +did the assistant masters not have the power of the cane, but +Pasquale, being in the sixth form at the time I joined, was +exempt from corporal punishment--when they both rose flushed from +their grovelling beneath the table, and some merry remark from +Pasquale put the question out of my head. + + +All this is unimportant. The main result of Pasquale's visit +this evening is a discovery. + +Now, is it, after all, a discovery, or only the non-moral +intellect's sinister attribution of motives? + +"A baby in long clothes would have seen through it," said +Pasquale. "Lord bless you, if I were in your position I would go +on board that yacht, I'd make violent love to every female there, +like the gentleman in Mr. Wycherley's comedy, I'd fill a salmon +fly-book with samples of their hair, I'd make them hate one +another like poison, and at the end of the voyage I'd announce my +engagement to Carlotta, and when they all came to the wedding I'd +make the fly-book the most conspicuous of wedding presents on the +table, from the bridegroom to the bride. By George! I'd cure +them of the taste for man-hunting!" + +I wonder what impelled me to tell Pasquale of the proposed +yachting cruise? We sat smoking by the open window, long after +Carlotta had been sent to bed, and looking at a full moon sailing +over the tops of the trees in the park; enveloped in that +sensuous atmosphere of a warm summer night which induces a +languor in the body and in the will. On such a night as this +young Lorenzo, if he happens to have Jessica by his side, makes a +confounded idiot of himself, to his life's undoing; and on such a +night as this a reserved philosopher commits the folly of +discussing his private affairs with a Sebastian Pasquale. + +But if he is correct in his surmise, I am much beholden to the +relaxing influences of the night. I have been warned of perils +that encompass me: perils that would infest the base and +insidiously scale the sides of the most inaccessible tower that +man could build on the edge of the Regent's Park. A woman with a +Matrimonial Purpose would be quite capable of gaining access by +balloon to my turret window. Is it not my Aunt Jessica's design +melodramatically to abduct me in a yacht? + +"Once aboard the pirate lugger, and the man is ours!" she cries. + +But the man is not coming aboard the pirate lugger. He is going +to keep as far as he possibly can from the shore. Neither is he +to be lured into bringing his lovely Mohammedan ward with him, as +an evidence of good faith and unimpeachable morals. They can +regard her as a Mohammedan ward or a houri or a Princess of +Babylon, just as they choose. + +Pasquale must be right. A hundred remembered incidents go to +prove it. I recollect now that Judith has rallied me on my +obtuseness. + +The sole end of all my Aunt Jessica's manoeuvring is to marry me +to Dora, and Dora, like Barkis, is willing. Marry Dora! The +thought is a febrifuge, a sudorific! She would be thumping +discords on my wornout strings all day long. In a month I should +be a writhing madman. I would sooner, infinitely sooner, marry +Carlotta. Carlotta is nature; Dora isn't even art. Why, in the +name of men and angels, should I marry Dora? And why (save to +call herself Lady Ordeyne) should she want to marry me? I have +not trifled with her virgin affections; and that she is +nourishing a romantic passion for me of spontaneous growth I +decline to believe. For aught I care she can be as inconsolable +as Calypso. It will do her good. She can write a little story +about it in _The Sirens' Magazine_. + +I am shocked. For all her bouncing ways and animal health and +incorrect information, I thought Dora was a nice-minded girl. + +Do nice-minded girls hunt husbands? + +Good heavens! This looks like the subject of a silly-season +correspondence in _The Daily Telegraph_. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + +July 19th. + +_Campsie, N.B._ Hither have I fled from my buccaneering +relations. I am seeking shelter in a manse in the midst of a +Scotch moor, and the village, half a mile away, is itself five +miles from a railway station. Here I can defy Aunt Jessica. + +After my conversation with Pasquale, I passed a restless night. +My slumbers were haunted by dreams of pirate yachts flying the +jolly Roger, on which the skull and crossbones melted grotesquely +into a wedding-ring and a true lovers' knot. I awoke to the +conviction that so long as the vessel remained on English waters +I could find no security in London. I resolved on flight. But +whither? + +Verily the high gods must hold me in peculiar favour. The first +letter I opened was from old Simon McQuhatty, my present host, a +godfather of my mother, who alone of mortals befriended us in the +dark days of long ago. He was old and infirm, he wrote, and +Gossip Death was waiting for him on the moor; but before he went +to join him he would like to see Susan's boy again. I could come +whenever I liked. A telegram from Euston before I started would +be sufficient notice. I sent Stenson out with a telegram to say +I was starting that very day by the two o'clock train, and I +wrote a polite letter to my Aunt Jessica informing her of my +regret at not being able to accept her kind invitation as I was +summoned to Scotland for an indefinite period. + +My old friend's ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland is drawing +to a close; he has lived in this manse, a stone's throw from his +grave, for fifty years, and the approaching change of habitat +will cost him nothing. He will still lie at the foot of his +beloved hills, and the purple moorland will spread around him for +all eternity, and the smell of the gorse and heather will fill +his nostrils as he sleeps. He is a bit of a pagan, old +McQuhatty, in spite of Calvin and the Shorter Catechism. I +should not wonder if he were the original of the story of the +minister who prayed for the "puir Deil." He planted a rowan tree +by his porch when he was first inducted into the manse, and it +has grown up with him and he loves it as if it were a human +being. He has had many bonny arguments with it, he says, on +points of doctrine, and it has brought comfort to him in times of +doubt by shivering its delicate leaves and whispering, "Dinna +fash yoursel, McQuhatty. The Lord God is a sensible body." He +declares that the words are articulate, and I suspect that in the +depths of his heart he believes that there are tongues in trees +and books in the running brooks, just as he is convinced that +there is good in everything. + +He is a ripe and whimsical scholar, and his talk, even in infirm +old age, is marked by a Doric virility which has rendered his +companionship for these five days as stimulating as the moorland +air. How few men have this gift of discharging intellectual +invigoration. Indeed, I only know old McQuhatty who has it, and +a sportive Providence has carefully excluded mankind from its +benefits for half a century. Stay: it once fostered a genius who +arose in Campsie, and sent him strung with tonic to Edinburgh to +become a poet. But the poor lad drank whisky for two years +without cessation, so that he died, and McQuhatty's inspiration +was wasted. What intellectual stimulus can he afford, for +instance, to Sandy McGrath, an elder of the kirk whom I saw +coming up the brae on Sunday? An old ram stood in the path and, +as obstinate as he, refused to budge. And as they looked dourly +at each other, I wondered if the ram were dressed in black +broadcloth and McGrath in wool, whether either of their mothers +would notice the metamorphosis. Yet my host declares that I see +with the eyes of a Southron; that the Scotch peasant when he is +not drunk is intellectual, and that there is no occasion on which +he is not ready for theological disputation. + +"But I dinna mind telling you," he added, "that I'd as lief talk +with my rowan tree. It does nae blaze into a conflagration at a +comfortable wee bit of false doctrine." + +I should love to stay all the summer with my old friend, It seems +that only from such a remote solitude can one view things mundane +in the right perspective, and in their true proportion. One +would see how important or unimportant portant in the cosmos was +the agricultural ant's dream of three millimetres and an aphis +compared with the aspirations of the English labourer. One would +justly focus the South African millionaire, Sandy McGrath and the +ram, and bring them to their real lowest common denominator. One +would even be able to gauge the value of a History of Renaissance +Morals. The benefits I should derive from a long sojourn are +incalculable, but my new responsibilities call me back to London +and its refracting and distorting atmosphere. If I had dwelt +here for fifty years I should have perceived that Carlotta was +but a speck in the whirlwind of human dust whose ultimate destiny +was immaterial. As my five days' visit, however, has not +advanced me to that pitch of wisdom, I am foolishly concerned in +my mind as to her welfare, and anxious to dissolve the +triumvirate, Miss Griggs, Stenson, and Antoinette, whom I have +entrusted with the reins of government. + +A month ago, in similar circumstances, I should have railed at +Fate and anathematised Carlotta from the tip of her pink toes to +the gold and bronze glory of her hair. But I am growing more +kindly disposed towards Carlotta, and taking a keen interest in +her spiritual development. + +An inner voice, an ironical, sardonic inner voice with which +there is no arguing, tells me that I am a hypocrite; that an +interest in Carlotta's spiritual development is a nice, +comforting, high-sounding phrase which has deluded philosophic +guardians of female youth for many generations. + +"What does it matter to you whether she has a soul or not," says +the voice, "provided she can babble pleasantly at dinner and play +cribbage with you afterwards?" + +Well, what on earth does it matter? + + +July 21st. + +She was at Euston to meet me. As soon as she saw my face at the +carriage window she left Stenson and flew up the platform like a +pretty tame animal, and when I alighted hung on my arms and +frisked and gamboled around me in excess of joy. + +"So you are glad to have me back, Carlotta?" I asked, as we were +driving home. + +She sidled up against me in her terrier fashion. + +"Oh, ye-es," she cooed. "The day was night without you." + +"That is the oriental language of exaggeration," I said. But all +the same it was pleasant to hear, and the soft notes of her voice +coiled themselves, as music sometimes dus, around my heart. + +"I love dear Seer Marcous," she said. + +I put my arm round her waist for a moment, as one would do to a +child. + +"You are a good little girl, Carlotta. That is to say," I added, +remembering my responsibilities, "if you _have_ been good. Have +you?" + +"Oh, so good. Antoinette has been teaching me how to cook, and I +can make a rice pudding. It is so nice to cook things. I like +the smell. But I burned myself. See." + +She pulled off her glove and showed me a red mark on her hand. I +kissed it to make it well, and she laughed and was very happy. +And I, too, was happy. Something new and fresh and bright has +come into my life. Stenson is an admirable servant; but his +impassive face and correct salute which have hitherto greeted me +at London railway termini, although suggestive of material +comfort, cannot be said to invest my arrival with a special +atmosphere of charm. Carlotta's welcome has been a new +sensation. I look upon the house with different eyes. It was a +pleasure, as I dressed for dinner, to reflect that I should not +go down to a solemn, solitary meal, but would have my beautiful +little witch to keep me company. + + +July 22d. + +It appears that her conduct has not been by any means +irreproachable. Miss Griggs reported that she took advantage of +my absence to saturate herself with scent, one of the most +heinous crimes in our domestic calendar. _Mulier bene olet dum +nihil olet_ is the maxim written above this article of our code. +Once when she disobeyed my orders and came into the drawing-room +reeking of ylang-ylang, I sent her upstairs to change all her +things and have a bath, and not come near me till Antoinette +vouched for her scentlessness. And "Ah, monsieur," I remember +Antoinette replied, "that would be impossible, for the sweet lamb +smells of spring flowers, _de son naturel_." Which is true. Her +use of violent perfumes is thus a double offence. "There is +something more serious," said Miss Griggs. + +"I can hardly believe there can be anything more serious than +making one's self detestable to one's fellow-creatures," said I. + +"Unless it is making one's self too agreeable," said Miss Griggs, +pointedly. + +I asked her what she meant. + +"I have discovered," she replied, "that Carlotta has been +carrying on a clandestine flirtation with the young man who calls +for orders from the grocer's." + +"I am glad it wasn't the butcher's boy," I murmured. + +Miss Griggs giggled in a silly way, as if I were jesting. At my +stern request she recovered and unfolded the horrible tale. She +had caught Carlotta kissing her hand to him. She had also seen +him smuggle a three-cornered note between Carlotta's fingers, and +Carlotta had definitely refused to surrender the billet-dour. + +"What is the modern course of treatment," I asked, "prescribed +for young ladies who flirt with grocers' assistants? In +Renaissance times she could be whipped. The wise Margaret of +Navarre used to beat her daughter, Jeanne d'Albrecht, soundly for +far less culpable lapses from duty. Or she could be sent to a +convent and put into a cell with rats, or she could be bidden to +attend at a merry-making where the chief attraction was roast +grocer's assistant. But nowadays--what do you suggest?" + +The unimaginative creature could suggest nothing. She thought +that I would know how to deal with the offence. Perhaps +preventive measures would be more efficacious than punishment. +But what do I know of the repressory methods employed in +seminaries for young ladies? Burton in his "Anatomy" speaks +cheerfully of blood-letting behind the ears. He also quotes, I +remember, Hippocrates or somebody, who narrates that a noble +maiden was cured of a flirtatious temperament by wearing down her +back for three weeks a leaden plate pierced with holes. This I +told Miss Griggs, who spoke contemptuously of the Father of +Medicine. + +"He also recommends--whether for this complaint, or for something +similar I forget for the moment--" said I, "anointing the soles +of the feet with the fat of a dormouse, the teeth with the ear- +wax of a dog; and speaks highly of a ram's lungs applied hot to +the fore part of the head. I am sorry these admirable remedies +are out of date. There is a rich Rabelaisianism about them. +Instead of the satisfying jorums of our forefathers we take +tasteless pellets, which procure us no sensation at the time, and +even the good old hot mustard poultice is a thing of the past." + +"But what about Carlotta?" inquired Miss Griggs, anxiously. + +That is just like a woman, to interrupt a man when he is +beginning to talk comfortably on a subject that interests him. I +sighed. + +"Send Carlotta up to me," I said, resignedly. + +Another morning's work spoiled. I turned to my writing-table. I +had just transcribed on my MS. the anecdote told with such glee +by Machiavelli about Zanobi del Pino, a sort of Admiral Byng of +the early fifteenth century, who was locked up and given nothing +to eat but paper painted with snakes, so that he died, fasting, +in a few days. I had an apt epigram on the subject of +Renaissance humour trembling on my pen-point, when Miss Griggs +came in with her foolish gossip. I am sure the platitude I wrote +afterwards is not that original flash of wit. + +Carlotta entered and crossed the room to the side of my writing- +chair, her great dark eyes fixed on me, and her hands dutifully +behind her back. She looked a Greuze picture of innocence. I +believed less than ever in the enormity of the offence. + +"Do you know what you're here for?" I asked, magisterially. + +She nodded. + +"Then you _have_ been making love to the young man from the +grocer's?" + +She nodded again. I began to conceive a violent dislike to the +grocer's young man. It was one of the most humiliating +sensations I have experienced. I think I have seen the +individual--a thick-set, red-headed, freckled nondescript. + +"What did you do it for?" I asked. + +"He wanted to make love to me," replied Carlotta. + +"He is a young scamp," said I. + +"What is a scamp?" she asked sweetly. + +"I am not giving you a lesson in philology," I remarked. "Do you +know that you have been behaving in a shocking manner?" + +"Now you are cross with me." + +"Yes," I said, "infernally angry." + +And I was. I expected to see her burst into tears. She did +nothing of the kind; only looked at me with irritating +demureness. She wore a red blouse and a grey skirt, and the +audacious high-heeled red slippers. I began to feel the return +of my early prejudice against her. Nobody so alluring could +possess a spark of virtue. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said I. "I make many +allowances for your lack of knowledge of our Western customs, but +for a young lady to flirt with an ugly red-headed varlet of the +lower orders is reprehensible all the world over." + +"He gave me dates and dried fruits with sugar all over them," +said Carlotta. + +"Stolen from his employer," I said. "I will have that young man +locked up in prison, and if you go on receiving his feloniously +obtained presents they will put you in prison too, and I shall be +delighted." + +Carlotta maintained her demure expression and extracted from her +skirt pocket a very dirty piece of paper. + +"He writes poetry--about me," she remarked, handing me what I +recognised as the three-cornered note. + +I took the thing between finger and thumb, and glanced over the +poem. I have read much indifferent modern verse in my time--I +sometimes take a slush-bath after tea at the club--but I could +not have imagined the English language capable of such emulsion. +It was execrable. The first couplet alone contained an idea. + + "Thou art a lovely girl and so very nice + I dream till death upon your face." + +To the wretch's ear it was a rhyme! I destroyed the noisome +thing and cast it into the waste-paper basket. + +"Prison," said I, "would be a luxurious reward for him. In a +properly civilised country he would be bastinadoed and hanged." + +"Yes, he is dam bad," said Carlotta, serenely. + +"Good heavens!" I cried, "the ruffian has even taught you to +swear. If you dare to say that wicked word again, I'll punish +you severely. What is his horrid name?" + +"Pasquale," said Carlotta. + +"Pasquale?" + +"Yes, he likes to hear me say 'dam.' Oh, the other? Oh, no, he +is too stupid. He does not say anything. His name is Timkins. I +only play with him. He is so funny. He can go and kill himself; +I won't care." + +"Never mind about Timkins," said I, "I want to hear about +Pasquale. When did he teach you that wicked, wicked word?" + +I think Carlotta flushed as she regarded the point of her red +slipper. + +"I went for a walk and he met me at the corner and walked here by +my side. Was that wicked?" + +"What would the excellent Hamdi Effendi have said to it?" + +Woman-like she evaded my question. + +"I hope Hamdi is dead. Do you think so?" + +"I hope not. For if you behave in this naughty manner, I shall +have to send you back to him." + +She had imperceptibly moved nearer my chair until she stood quite +close to my side, so that as I spoke the last words I looked up +into her face. She put her arm about my shoulders. It is one of +her pretty, caressing ways. + +"I will be good--very good," she said. + +"You will have to," said I, leaning back my head. + +She must have caught a relenting note in my voice; for what +happened I feel even now a curious shame in noting down. Her +other arm flew under my chin to join its fellow, and holding me a +prisoner in my chair, she bent down and kissed me. She also laid +her cheek against mine. + +I am still aware of the indescribable, soft, warm pressure, +although she has gone to bed hours ago. + +I vow that a man must be less a man than a petrified egg to have +repulsed her. The touch of her lips was like the falling of dewy +rose-petals. Her breath was as fragrant as new-mown hay. Her +hair brushing my forehead had the odour of violets. + + +I sent her back to Miss Griggs. She ran out of the room laughing +merrily. She has received plenary absolution for her shameless +coquetry and her profane language. Worse than that she has +discovered how to obtain it in future. The witch has found her +witchcraft, and having once triumphantly exerted her powers, will +take the earliest opportunity of doing so again. I am fallen, +both in my own eyes and hers, from my high estate. Henceforward +she will regard me only with good-humoured tolerance; I shall be +to her but a non-felonious Timkins. + +I was an idiot to have kissed her in return. + + +I have not seen her since. I lunched at the club, and paid a +formal call on Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne and my cousin Rosalie, in their +sunless house in Kensington. + +I met a singular lack of welcome. Rosalie gave me a limper +hand than usual, and took an early opportunity of leaving me +tete-a-tete with her mother, who conversed frigidly about the +warm weather. The very tea, if possible, was colder. + +I met Judith by appointment in Kensington Gardens, and walked +with her homewards. I mentioned my chilly reception. + +"My dear man," she observed--I dislike this apostrophe, which +Judith always uses by way of introduction to an unpleasant +remark--"My dear man, I have no doubt that you have as unsavoury +a reputation as any one in London. You are credited with an +establishment like Solomon's--minus the respectable counter-balance +of the wives, and your devout relatives are very properly shocked." + +I said that it was monstrous. Judith retorted that I had brought +the calumny upon myself. + +"But what can I do?" I asked. + +"Board her out with a suburban family, as you should have done +from the first. Even I, who am not strait-laced, consider it +highly improper for you to have her alone with you in the house." + +"My dear," said I, "there is Antoinette." + +"Tush"--or something like it--said Judith. + +"And Stenson. No one seeing Stenson could doubt the +irreproachable propriety of his master." + +"I really have no patience with you," said Judith. + +It is hopeless to discuss Carlotta with her. I shall do it no +more. + +We sat for a while under the trees, and conversed on rational +topics. She likes her employment with Willoughby. The morning +she spends among blue books and other waste matter at the British +Museum, and she devotes the evening to sorting her information. +Willoughby commends her highly. + +"And there is something I know you'll be very pleased to hear," +she continued. "Who do you think called on me yesterday? Mrs. +Willoughby. Her husband wants me to spend August and September +at a place they have taken in North Wales, and help him with his +new book--as a private secretary, you know. I said that I never +went into society. I must tell you this was the first time I had +seen her. She put her hand on my arm in the sweetest way in the +world and said: 'I know all about it, my dear, and that is why I +thought I'd come myself as Harold's ambassador.' Wasn't it +beautiful of her?" + +She looked at me and her eyes were filled with tears. + +"Marcus dear, I am not a bad woman, am I?" + +"My dearest," I answered, very deeply touched, "you are the best +woman in the world. So far from conferring a favour on you, Mrs. +Willoughby has gained for herself the inestimable privilege of +your friendship." + +"Ah!" said Judith, "a man cannot tell what it means." + +Really men are not such dullard dunderheads as women are pleased +to imagine. I have the most crystalline perception of what Mrs. +Willoughby's invitation means to Judith. Women appear to find a +morbid satisfaction in the fiction that their sex is actuated by +a mysterious nexus of emotions and motives which the grosser +sense of man is powerless to appreciate. In her heart of hearts +it is a prodigious comfort to a woman to feel herself +misunderstood. Even she who is most perfectly mated, and is +intellectually convinced that the difference of sex is no barrier +to his complete knowledge of her, loves to cherish some little +secret bit of her nature, to which _he_, on account of his +masculinity, will be eternally blind. Of course there are +dull men who could not understand a tabbycat or a professional +cricketer, let alone an expert autothaumaturgist--a +self-mystery-maker--like a woman. But an intelligent and +painstaking man should find no difficulty in appreciating what, +after all, is merely a point of view; for what women see from that +point of view they are as indiscreet in revealing as a two-year-old +babe. I have confessed before that I do not understand Judith +--that is to say the whole welter of contradictions in which her ego +consists--but that is solely because I have not taken the trouble +to subject her to special microscopic study. Such a scientific +analysis would, I think, be an immodest discourtesy towards any +lady of my acquaintance, especially towards one for whom I bear +considerable affection. It would be as unwarrantable for a +decent-minded man to speculate upon her exact spiritual +dimensions as upon those portions of her physical frame that are +hidden beneath her attire. The charm of human intercourse rests, +to a great extent, on the vague, the deliberately unperceived, +the stimulating sense that an individual possesses more +attributes than flash upon the bodily or mental eye. But this, I +say, is deliberate. One knows perfectly well that beneath her +skirts any young woman you please does not melt away into the +scaly tail of a mermaid, but has a pair of ordinary commonplace +legs. One knows that when she has passed through certain well +defined experiences in life, a certain definite range of +sentiments must exist behind whatever mask of facial expression +she may choose to adopt. It is sheer nonsense, therefore, for +Judith to say that I cannot enter into her feelings with regard +to Mrs. Willoughby's invitation. + +I developed this theme very fully to Judith as we sat in +Kensington Gardens and during our subsequent, stroll diagonally +through Hyde Park to the Marble Arch. She listened with great +attention, and when I had finished regarded me in a pitying +manner, a smile flickering over her lips. + +"My dear Marcus," she said, "there is no man, however +humble-minded, who has not one colossal vanity, his knowledge +of women. He, at any rate, has established the veritable Theory +of Women. And we laugh at you, my good friend, for the more +you expound, the more do you reveal your beautiful and artistic +ignorance. Oh, Marcus, the idea of you setting up as a feminine +psychologist." + +"And pray, why not?" I asked, somewhat nettled. + +"Because you are that dear, impossible, lovable thing known as +Marcus Ordeyne." + +This was exceedingly pretty of Judith. But really woman is the +Eternal Philistine, as Matthew Arnold has defined the term. Her +supreme characteristic is inconvincibility. I had simply wasted +my breath. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + +August 3d. + +_Etretat, Seine-Injerieure_:--A young fellow on the Casino +terrace this evening caught my eye, looked at me queerly, and +passed on. His face, though unfamiliar, stirred some dormant +association. What was it? The profitless question pestered me +for hours. At last, during the performance at the theatre, I +slapped my knee and said aloud + +"I've got it!" + +"What?" asked Carlotta in alarm. + +"A fly," I answered. Whereat Carlotta laughed, and bent forward +to get a view of the victim. I austerely directed her attention +to the stage. It was a metaphorical fly whose buzzing I had +stopped. + +The young fellow was he who had pointed me out in Hyde Park to +his companion, and lightly assured her that I was as mad as a +dingo dog. From the moment after the phrase's utterance to that +of the slapping of my knee, it had been altogether absent from my +mind. Now it haunts me. It reiterates itself after the manner +of a glib phrase. I am glad I am not in a railway carriage; the +cranks would amuse the wheels with it all night long. As it is, +the surf tries to thunder it out on the shingle just a few yards +away from my window. I keep asking myself: why a dingo dog? If +I am mad it is in a gentle, Jaquesian, melancholy manner. I do +not dash at life, rabid and foaming at the mouth. + +I think the idiot simile must have been merely the misuse of +language so common among the half-educated youth of Great +Britain. + +Yet when I come to consider my present condition, I have +doubts as to my complete sanity. Here am I, in a little, +semi-fashionable French seaside place, away from my books and +my comforts and my habits, as much interested in its vapid +distractions as if the universe held no other pursuits worth the +attention of a rational man. And I have been here a calendar +month. + +To please Carlotta I wear white duck trousers, a pink shirt, and +a yachting-cap. I wired for them to my London tailor and they +arrived within a week. The first time I appeared in the maniacal +costume I slunk from the stony stare of a gendarme, as I was +about to ascend the Casino steps, and hid myself among the +fishing-boats lower down on the beach. Carlotta, however, was +delighted and said that I looked pretty. Now I have grown +callous, seeing other fools similarly apparelled. But a year +ago, should I have dreamed it possible for me to strut about a +fashionable _plage_ in white ducks, a pink shirt, and a +yachting-cap? I trow not. They are signs of some sort of madness +--whether that of a Jaques or a dingo dog matters very little. + +Pasquale was the main cause of my taking Carlotta away from +London. He came far too frequently to the house, established far +too great a familiarity with my little girl. She quoted him far +too readily. She is at the impressionable age when young women +fall easy victims to the allurements of a fascinating creature +like Pasquale. If he showed himself in the light of a possible +husband for Carlotta, I should have nothing to say. I should +give the pair my paternal benediction. But I know my Renaissance +and I know my Pasquale. Carlotta is merely a new sensation--that's +all he seems to live for, the delectable scoundrel. But I am not +going to have her heart broken by any cinquecento wolf in +Poole's clothing. I assume that Carlotta has a heart, even if +she is not possessed of a soul. As to the latter I am still in +doubt. At all events I resolved to withdraw Carlotta from his +influence, put her in fresh surroundings, and allow her to mix +more freely among men and women, so as to divert and possibly +improve her mind. + +I perceive that Carlotta is becoming an occupation. Well, she is +quite as profitable as collecting postage-stamps, or golf, or +amateur photography. + +I have spent a pleasant month in this little place. It is the +mouth of a gorge in the midst of a cliff-bound coast. The bay, +but a quarter of a mile in sweep, is shut in at each end by a +projecting wall of cliff cut by a natural arch. Half the shingle +beach is given up to fisherfolk and their boats and tarred Noah's +arks where they keep their nets. The other half suddenly rises +into a digue or terrace on which is built a primitive casino, and +below the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are staying at the +most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There are no +carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, an +untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water +and scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one's +passage. Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the +main building. I inhabit the annexe, sleeping in a quaint, +clean, bare little chamber with a balconied window that looks +over the Noah's Arks and the fishing-smacks and fisherfolk, away +out to sea. This morning as I lay in bed I saw our Channel fleet +lie along the arc of the horizon. + +Antoinette dwells in continuous rapture at being in France again. +Carlotta assures me that the smile does not leave her great red +face even as she sleeps of nights. It is a little jest between +us. She peeped in once to see. The good soul has filled herself +up with French conversation as a starving hen gorges herself with +corn. She has scraped acquaintance with every washerwoman, +fish-wife, _marchande_, bathing woman and domestic servant on the +beach. She is on intimate terms with the whole male native +population. When the three of us happen to walk together it is a +triumphal progress of bows and grins and nods. At first I +thought it was I for whom this homage was intended. I was soon +undeceived. It was Antoinette. She loves to parade Carlotta +before her friends. I came upon her once entertaining an +admiring audience in Carlotta's presence with a detailed +description of that young woman's physical perfections--a +description which was marked by a singular lack of reticence. +The time of her glory is the bathing hour, when she accompanies +Carlotta from her cabin to the water's edge, divests her of +_peignoir_ and _espadrilles_, but before revealing her to +fashionable Etretat, casts a preliminary glance around, as who +should say: "Prepare all men and women for the dazzling goddess I +am about to unveil." Carlotta is undoubtedly bewitching in her +bathing costume, and enjoys a little triumph of beauty. People +fall into a natural group in order to look at her, while I, +sitting on a camp-stool in my white ducks and pink shirt and +smoking a cigarette, cannot repress a complacent pride of +ownership. I do not object to her flicking her wet fingers at me +when she comes dripping out of the sea; and I do not even +reproach her when she puts her foot upon my sartorially +immaculate knee, to show me a pebble-cut on her glistening pink +sole. + +Her conduct has been exemplary. I have allowed her to make the +acquaintance of two or three young fellows, her partners at the +Casino dances, and she walks up and down the terrace with them +before meals. I have forbidden her, under penalty of immediate +return to London and of my eternal displeasure, to mention the +harem at Alexandretta. Young fellows are gifted with a genius +for misapprehension. She is an ordinary young English lady, an +orphan (which is true), and I am her guardian. Of course she +looks at them with imploring eyes, and pulls them by the sleeve, +and handles the lappels of their coats, and admits them to terms +of the frankest intimacy; but I can no more change these +characteristics than I can alter the shape of her body. She is +the born coquette. Her delighted conception of herself is that +she is the object of every man's admiration. I noticed her this +morning playing a tune with her fingers on the old bathing-man's +arm, as he was preparing to take her into the water, and I saw +his mahogany face soften. In her indescribable childish way she +would coquet with a tax-collector or a rag-and-bone man or the +Archbishop of Canterbury. But she has committed no grave +indiscretion, and I am sufficiently her lord and master to exact +obedience. + +I pretend, however, to be at her beck and call, and it is a +delight to minister to her radiant happiness--to feel her lean on +my arm and hear her cooing voice say: + +"You are so good. I should like to kiss you." + +But I do not allow her to kiss me. Never again. + + +"Seer Marcous, let us go to the little horses." + +She has a consuming passion for _petits chevaux_. I speak sagely +of the evils of gambling. She laughs. I weakly take lower +ground. + +"What is the good? You have no money." + +"Oh-h! But only two francs," she says, holding out her hand. + +"Not one. Yesterday you lost." + +"But to-day I shall win. I want to give you something I saw in a +shop. Oh, a beautiful thing." Then I feel a hand steal into the +pocket of my dinner jacket where I carry loose silver for this +very purpose, just as a lover of horses carries lumps of sugar +for the nose of a favourite pony, and immediately it is withdrawn +with a cry of joy and triumph, and she skips back out of my +reach. Then she takes my arm and leads me from the sweet +night-air into the hot little room with its crowd around the +nine gyrating animals. + +"I shall put it on 5. I always put on 5. He is a nice, clean, +white, pretty horse." + +She stakes two francs, watches the turn in a tense agony of +excitement; she wins, comes running to me with sixteen francs +clutched tight in her hand. + +"See. I said I should win." + +"Come away then and be happy." + +But she makes a protesting grimace, and before I can stop her, +runs back to stake again on 5. In twenty minutes she is ruined +and returns to me wearing an expression of abject misery. She is +too desolate even to try the fortune of the dinner-jacket pocket. +I take her outside and restore her to beatitude with grenadine +syrup and soda-water. She rejects the straws. With her elbows +on the marble table, the glass held in both hands, she drinks +sensuously, in little sips. + +And I, Marcus Ordeyne, sit by watching her, a most contented +philosopher of forty. A dingo dog could not be so contented. +That young fellow, I unhesitatingly assert, must be the most +brainless of his type. I suffer fools gladly, as a general rule, +but if I see much of this one I shall do him some injury. + + +After dejeuner we strolled to the top of the west cliff and lay +on the thick dry grass. The earth has never known a more perfect +afternoon. A day of turquoise and diamond. + +The air itself was diaphanous blue. Below us the tiny place +slumbered in the sunshine; scarcely a sign of life save specks of +washer-women on the beach bending over white patches which we +knew were linen spread out to dry. The ebb-tide lapped lazily on +the shingle, where the sea changed suddenly from ultramarine to a +fringe of feathery white. A white sail or two flecked the blue +of the bay. A few white wisps of cirrus gleamed above our heads. +Around us, on the cliff-tops, the green pastures and meadows and, +farther inland, the cornfields stacked in harvest, and great +masses of trees. Lying on our backs, between sea and sky, we +seemed utterly alone. Carlotta and I were the sole inhabitants +of the earth. I dreamily disintegrated caramels from their +sticky tissue-paper wrappings for Carlotta's consumption. + +After a while unconquerable drowsiness crept over me; and a +little later I had an odd sense of perfect quietude. I was lying +amid moss and violets. In a languorous way I wondered how my +surroundings had changed, and at last I awoke to find my head +propped on Carlotta's lap and shaded by her red parasol, while +she sat happy in full sunshine. I was springing from this +posture of impropriety when she laughed and laid restraining +hands on my shoulders. + +"No. You must not move. You look so pretty. And it is so nice. +I put your head there so that it should be soft. You have been +sound asleep." + +"I have also been abominably impolite," said I. "I humbly beg +your pardon, Carlotta." + +"Oh, I am not cross," she laughed. Then still keeping her hands +on me, she settled her limbs into a more comfortable position. + +"There! Now I can play at being a good little Turkish wife." +She fashioned into a fan the _Matin_ newspaper, which I had +bought for the luxurious purpose of not reading, and fanned me. +"That is what Ayesha used to do to Hamdi. And Ayesha used to +tell him stories. But my lord does not like his slave's stories." + +"Decidedly not," said I. + +I have heard much of Ayesha, a pretty animal organism who appears +to have turned her elderly husband into a doting fool. I am +beginning to have a contempt for Hamdi Effendi. + +"They are what you call improper, eh?" she laughed, referring to +the tales. "I will sing you a Turkish song which you will not +understand." + +"Is it a suitable song?" + +"Kim bilir--who knows?" said Carlotta. + +She began a melancholy, crooning, guttural ditty; but broke off +suddenly. + +"Oh! but it is stupid. Like the Turkish dancing. Oh, +everything in Alexandretta was stupid! Sometimes I think I have +never seen Alexandretta--or Ayesha--or Hamdi. I think I always +am with you." + +This must be so, as of late she has spoken little of her harem +life; she talks chiefly of the small daily happenings, and +already we have a store of common interests. The present is her +whole existence; the past but a confused dream. The odd part of +the matter is that she regards her position with me as a +perfectly natural one. No stray kitten adopted by a kind family +could have less sense of obligation, or a greater faith in the +serene ordering of the cosmos for its own private and peculiar +comfort. When I asked her a while ago what she would have done +had I left her on the bench in the Embankment Gardens, she +shrugged her shoulders and answered, as she had done before, that +either she would have died or some other nice gentleman would +have taken care of her. + +"Do you think nice gentlemen go about London looking for homeless +little girls?" I asked on that occasion. + +"All gentlemen like beautiful girls," she replied, which brought +us to an old argument. + +This afternoon, however, we did not argue. The day forbade it. +I lay with my head on Carlotta's lap, looking up into the deep +blue, and feeling a most curious sensation of positive happiness. +My attitude towards life has hitherto been negative. I have +avoided more than I have sought. I have not drunk deep of life +because I have been unathirst. To me-- + + "To stand aloof and view the fight + Is all the pleasure of the game." + +My interest even in Judith has been of a detached nature. I have +been like Faust. I might have said: + + _"Werd' ich zum Augenblicke sagen + Werweile doch! Du bist so schon!_ + +Then may the devil take me and do what he likes with me!" + +I have never had the least inclination to apostrophise the moment +in this fashion and request it to tarry on account of its +exceeding charm. Never until this afternoon, when the deep +summer enchantment of the turquoise day was itself ensorcelised +by the witchery of a girl's springtide. + +"You have three, four, five--oh, such a lot of grey hairs," said +Carlotta, looking down on my reclining head. + +"Many people have grey hair at twenty," said I. + +"But I have none." + +"You are not yet twenty, Carlotta." + +"Do you think I will have them then? Oh, it would be dreadful. +No one would care to have me." + +"And I? Am I thus the object of every one's disregard?" + +"Oh, you--you are a man. It is right for a man. It makes him +look wise. His wife says, 'Behold, my husband has grey hair. He +has wisdom. If I am not good he will beat me. So I must obey +him."' + +"She wouldn't run off with a good-for-nothing scamp of +two-and-twenty?" + +"Oh, no-o," said Carlotta. "She would not be so wicked." + +"I am glad," said I, "that you think a sense of conjugal duty is +an ineradicable element of female nature. But suppose she fell +in love with the young scamp?" + +"Men fall in love," she replied sagely. "Women only fall in love +in stories--Turkish stories. They love their husbands." + +"You amaze me," said I. + +Ye-es," said Carlotta. + +"But in England, a man wants a woman to love him before he +marries her." + +"How can she?" asked Carlotta. + +This was a staggering question. + +"I don't know," said I, "but she dus." + +"Then before I marry a man in England I must love him? But I +shall die without a husband!" + +"I don't think so," said I. + +"I must begin soon," said Carlotta, with a laugh. + +A sinuous motion of her serpentine young body enabled her to bend +her face down to mine. + +"Shall I love Seer Marcous? But how shall I know when I am in +love?" + +"When you appreciate the exceeding impropriety of discussing the +matter with your humble servant," I replied. + +"When a girl is in love she does not speak about it?" + +"No, my dear. She lets concealment like a worm i' the bud feed +on her damask cheek." + +"Then she gets ugly?" + +"That's it," I answered. "You keep on looking in the glass, and +when you perceive you are hideous then you'll know you are in +love." + +"But when I am so ugly you will not want me," she objected. "So +it is no use falling in love with you." + +"You have a more logical mind than I imagined," said I. + +"What is a logical mind?" asked Carlotta. + +"It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unreason +whereby true happiness is vivified." + +"I do not understand," she said. + +"I should be vastly surprised if you did," I laughed. + +"Would you like me to marry and go away and leave you?" asked +Carlotta, after a long pause. + +"I suppose," I said with a sigh, "that some tin-pot knight will +drive up one of these days to the castle in a hansom-cab and +carry off my princess." + +"Then you'll be sorry?" + +"My dear," I answered, "do not let us discuss such gruesome +things on an afternoon like this." + +"You would like better for me to go on playing at being your +Turkish wife?" + +"Infinitely," said I. + + +Alas! The day is sped. I have asked the fleeting moment to +tarry, and it laughed, and shook its gossamer wings at me, and +flew by on its mad race into eternity. + + +As we lay, a cicada set up its shrilling quite close to us. I +slipped my head from Carlotta's lap and idly parted the rank +grass in search of the noisy intruder, and by good luck I found +him. I beckoned Carlotta, who glided down, and there, with our +heads together and holding our breath, we watched the queerest +little love drama imaginable. Our cicada stood alert and spruce, +waving his antenna with a sort of cavalier swagger, and every now +and then making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the top of +a blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet--a most reserved, +discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo's +serenade. When he sang she put her head to one side and moved as +if uncertain whether to descend from her balcony. When he +stopped, which he did at frequent intervals, being as it were +timorous and tongue-tied, she took her foot from the ladder and +waited, at first patiently and then with an obvious air of +boredom. Messer Romeo made a hop forward and vibrated; Juliet +grew tremulous. Alarmed at his boldness he halted and made a hop +back; Juliet looked disappointed. At last another cicada set up +a louder note some yards away and, without a nod or a sign, +Juliet skipped off into space, leaving the most disconsolate +little Romeo of a grasshopper you ever beheld. He gave vent to a +dismal failure of a vibration and hopped to the foot of the +faithless lady's bower. + +Carlotta broke into a merry laugh and clapped her hands. + +"I am so glad." + +"She is the most graceless hussy imaginable," I cried. "There +was he grinding his heart out for her, and just because a more +brazen-throated scoundrel came upon the scene she must needs +leave our poor friend in the lurch. She has no more heart than +my boot, and she will come to a bad end." + +"But he was such a fool," retorted my sage damsel, with a flash +of laughter in her dark eyes. "If he wanted her, why didn't he +go up and take her?" + +"Because he is a gentleman, a cicada of fine and delicate +feeling." + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta. "He was a fool. It served him right. +She grew tired of waiting." + +"You believe, then," said I, "in marriage by capture?" + +I explained and discoursed to her of the matrimonial habits of +the Tartar tribes. + +"Yes," said Carlotta. "That is sense. And it must be such fun +for the girl. All that, what you call it?--wooing?--is waste of +time. I like things to happen, quick, quick, one after the +other--or else--" + +"Or else what?" + +"To do nothing, nothing but lie in the sun, like this afternoon." + +"Yes," said I dreamily, after I had again thrown myself by her +side. "Like this afternoon." + + +I sit at my window and look out upon the strip of beach, the +hauled-up fishing boats and the nets hung out to dry looming +vague in the starlight, and I hear the surf's rhythmical moan a +few yards beyond; and it beats into my ears the idiot phrase that +has recurred all the evening. + +But why should I be mad? For filling my soul with God's utmost +glory of earth and sea and sky? For filling my heart with purest +pleasure in the intimate companionship of fresh and fragrant +maidenhood? For giving myself up for once to a dream of sense +clouded by never a thought that was not serenely fair? + +For feeling young again? + + +I shall read myself to sleep with _La Dame de Monsoreau_, which I +have procured from the circulating library in the Rue Alphonse +Karr--(the literary horticulturist is the genius loci and the +godfather of my landlady)--and I will empty flagons with Pere +Gorenflot and ride on errands of life and death with Chicot, +prince of jesters, and walk lovingly between the valiant Bussy +and Henri Quatre. By this, if by nothing else, I recognise the +beneficence of the high gods--they have given us tired men Dumas. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + +September 30th. + +Something is wrong with Antoinette. The dinner she served up +this evening was all but uneatable. Something is wrong with +Stenson, who has taken to playing his lugubrious hymn-tunes on +the concertina while I am in the house; I won't have it. +Something is wrong with the cat. He wanders round the house like +a lost soul, sniffing at everything. This evening he actually +jumped onto the dinner-table, looked at me out of his one eye, in +which all the desolation of two was concentrated, and miaowed +heart-rendingly in my face. Something is wrong with the house, +with my pens which will not write, with my books which have the +air of dry bones in a charnel-house, with the MS. of my History +of Renaissance Morals, which stands on the writing-table like a +dusty monument to the futility of human endeavour. Something is +wrong with me. + +Something, too, is wrong with Judith, who has just returned from +her stay with the Willoughbys. I have been to see her this +evening and found her of uncertain temper, and inclined to be +contradictious. She accused me of being dull. I answered that +the autumn world outside was drenched with miserable rain. How +could man be sprightly under such conditions? + +"In this room," said Judith, "with its bright fire and drawn +curtains there is no miserable rain, and no autumn save in our +hearts." + +"Why in our hearts?" I asked. + +"How you peg one down to precision," said Judith, testily. "I +wish I were a Roman Catholic." + +"Why?" + +"I could go into a convent." + +"You had much better go to Delphine Carrere," said I. + +"I have only been back a day, and you want to get rid of me +already?" she cried, using her woman's swift logic of unreason. + +"I want you to be happy and contented, my dear Judith." + +"H'm," she said. + +Her slipper dangling as usual from the tip of her foot fell to +the ground. I declare I was only half conscious of the accident +as my mind was deep in other things. + +"You don't even pick up my slipper," she said. + +"Ten thousand pardons," I exclaimed, springing forward. But she +had anticipated my intention. We remained staring into the fire +and saying nothing. As she professed to be tired I went away +early. + +At the front door of the mansions, finding I had left my umbrella +behind, I remounted the stairs, and rang Judith's bell. After a +while I saw her figure through the ground-glass panel approach +the door, but before she opened it, she turned out the light in +the passage. + +"Marcus!" she cried, rather excitedly; and in the dimness of the +threshold her eyes looked strangely accusative of tears. "You +have come back!" + +"Yes," said I, "for my umbrella." + +She looked at me for a moment, laughed, clapped her hands to her +throat, turned away sharply, caught up my umbrella, and putting +it into my hands and thrusting me back shut the door in my face. +In great astonishment I went downstairs again. What is wrong +with Judith? She said this evening that all men are cruel. Now, +I am a man. Therefore I am cruel. A perfect syllogism. But how +have I been cruel? + +I walked home. There is nothing so consoling to the depressed +man as the unmitigated misery of a walk through the London rain. +One is not mocked by any factitious gaiety. The mind is in +harmony with the sodden universe. It is well to have everything +in the world wrong at one and the same time. + + +I have changed my drenched garments for dressing-gown and +slippers. I find on my writing-table a letter addressed in a +round childish hand. It is from Carlotta, who for the last +fortnight has been staying in Cornwall with the McMurrays. I +have known few fortnights so long. In a ridiculous schoolboy +way I have been counting the days to her return--the day after +to-morrow. + +The letter begins: "Seer Marcous dear." The spelling is a little +jest between us. The inversion is a quaint invention of her own. +"Mrs. McMurray says, can you spare me for one more week? She +wants to teach me manners. She says I have shocked the top priest +here--oh, you call him a vikker--now I do remember--because I went +out for a walk with a little young pretty priest without a hat, +and because it rained I put on his hat and the vikker met us. But +I did not flirt with the little priest. Oh, no! I told him he +must not make love to me like the young man from the grocer's. +And I told him that if he wrote poetry you would beat him. So I +have been very good. And darling Seer Marcous, I want to come +back very much, but Mrs. McMurray says I must stay, and she is +going to have a baby and I am very happy and good, and Mr. McMurray +says funny things and makes me laugh. But I love my darling Seer +Marcous best. Give Antoinette and Polifemus [the one-eyed cat) +two very nice kisses for me. And here is one for Seer Marcous +from his + "CARLOTTA." + +How can I refuse? But I wish she were here. + + +31st October. + +I did not sleep last night. I have done no work to-day. The +Renaissance has receded into a Glacial Epoch wherein, as far as +its humanity is concerned, I have not a tittle of interest. I +sought refuge in the club. Why should an old sober University +club be such a haven of unrest? Ponting, an opinionated don of +Corpus, seated himself at my luncheon table, and discoursed on +political economy and golf. I manifested a polite ignorance of +these high matters. He assured me that if I studied the one and +played at the other, I should be physically and mentally more +robust; whereupon he thumped his narrow chest, and put on a scowl +of intellectuality. I fear that Ponting, like most of the men +here, studies golf and plays at political economy. In serener +moments I suffer Ponting gladly. But to-day his boast that he +had done the course at Westward Ho! in seven, or seventeen, or +seventy--how on earth should I remember?--left me cold, and his +crude economics interfered with my digestion. + +Strolling forlornly down Piccadilly I, came face to face with my +sad-coloured Cousin Rosalie in a sad-coloured gown. She gave me +a hasty nod and would have passed on, but I arrested her. Her +white face was turned piteously upward and from her +expressionless eyes flashed a glance of fear. I felt myself in a +brutal mood. + +"Why," I asked, "are you avoiding me as if I were a pestilence?" + +She murmured that she was not avoiding me, but was in a hurry. + +"I don't believe it," said I. "People have been telling you that +I am a vile, wicked man who does unspeakable things, and like a +good little girl you are afraid to talk to me. Tell people, the +next time you see them, with my compliments, that they are +malevolent geese." + +I lifted my hat and relieving Rosalie of my terrifying presence, +walked away in dudgeon. I felt abominably and unreasonably angry. +I bethought me of my Aunt Jessica, whom I held responsible for +her niece's behaviour. A militant mood prompted a call. After +twenty minutes in a hansom I found myself in her drawing-room. +She was alone, the girls being away on country- house visits. +Her reception was glacial. I expressed the hope that the +yachting cruise had been a pleasant one. + +"Exceedingly pleasant," snapped my aunt. + +"I trust Dora is well," said I, keeping from my lips a smile that +might have hinted at the broken heart. + +"Very well, thank you." + +As I do not enjoy a staccato conversation, I remained politely +silent, inviting her by my attitude to speak. + +"I rather wonder, Marcus," she said at last, "at your referring +to Dora." + +"Indeed? May I ask why?" + +"May I speak plainly?" + +"I beseech you." + +"I have heard of you at Etretat with your ward." + +"Well?" I asked. + +"_Verbum sap_," said my aunt. + +"And you have let Mrs. Ralph and Rosalie know of my summer +holiday and given them to understand that I am a monster of +depravity. I am exceedingly obliged to you. I have just met +Rosalie in the street, and she shrank from me as if I were the +reincarnation of original sin." + +"I have no doubt that in her innocent mind you are," replied my +Aunt Jessica. + +The indulgent smile wherewith she used to humour my +eccentricities had gone, and her face was hard and unpitying. + +"I am glad I have such charitable-minded relations," said I. + +"I am a woman of the world," my aunt retorted, "but I think that +when such things are flaunted in the face of society they become +immoral." + +I rose. "Do evil by stealth--as much as you like," said I, "but +blush to find it fame." + +With a gesture my aunt assented to the proposition. + +"On the other hand," said I, heatedly, "I have been doing a +certain amount of good both by stealth and openly, and I +naturally blush with indignation to find it accounted infamous." + +I looked narrowly into my aunt's eyes and I read in them entire +disbelief in my protest. I swear, if I had proved my innocence +beyond the shadow of doubt, that woman would have been grievously +disappointed. + +"Good-bye," said I. + +She shook hands frigidly and turned to ring the bell. A moment +later--I really believe she was moved by a kindly impulse--she +intercepted me at the door. + +"I know you are odd and quixotic, Marcus," she said in a softer +tone. "I hope you will do nothing rash." + +"What do you mean?" I asked in a white heat of unreasonable rage. + +"I hope you won't try to repair things by marrying this--young +person." + +"To make an honest woman of her, do you mean?" I asked grimly. + +"Yes," said my aunt. + +Then suddenly the Devil leaped into me and stirred all the +elements of unrest, anger, and longing together in a cauldron +which I suppose was my heart. The result was explosion. I made +a step forward with raised hands and my aunt recoiled in alarm. + +"By heaven!" I cried, "I would give the soul out of my body to +marry her!" + +And I stumbled out of the house like a blind man. + + +From that moment of dazzling revelation till now I have nursed +this infinite desire. To say that I love Carlotta is to express +Niagara in terms of a fountain. I crave her with everything +vital in heart and brain. She is an obsession. The scent of her +hair is in my nostrils, the cooing dove-notes of her voice murmur +in my ears, I shut my eyes and feel the rose-petals of her lips +on my cheek, the witchery of her movements dances before my eyes. + +I cannot live without her. Until to-day the house was desolate +enough--a ghostly shell of a habitation. Henceforward, without +her my very life will be void. My heart has been crying for her +these two weeks and I knew it not. Now I know. I could stand on +my balcony and lift up my hands toward the south where she +abides, and lift up my voice, and cry for her passionately aloud. +There is no infernal foolishness in the world that I could not +commit tonight. The maddest dingo dog, if he could appreciate my +state of being, would learn points in insanity. + + +It is two o'clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves +Epictetus, who might be expected to throw cold water on the most +burning fever of the mind. I have not read far before I come +across this consolatory apophthegm: "The contest is unequal +between a charming girl and a beginner in philosophy." He is +mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I throw his book across +the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner in philosophy. +No armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail against +Carlotta. I have no strength to smite. I am helpless. + +But by heaven! Am I mad? Is not this on the contrary the sanest +hour of my existence? I have lived like an automaton for forty +years, and I suddenly awake to find myself a man. I don't care +whether I sleep or not. I feel gloriously, exultingly young. I +am but twenty. As I have never lived, I have never grown old. +Life translates itself into music--a wild "Invitation to the +Waltz" by some Archangel Weber. I laugh out loud. Polyphemus, +who has been regarding me with his one bantering eye from +Carlotta's corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and +grotesquely curvets round the room in a series of impish hops. +Heigh, old boy? Do the pulsations of the music throb in your +veins, too? Come along and let us make a night of it. To the +Devil with sleep. We'll go together down to the cellar and find +a bottle of Pommery, and we will drink to Life and Youth and Love +and the Splendour and the Joy thereof. + +He utters a little cry of delight and frisks around me. In the +blackness of the cellar his one eye gleams like a star and he +purrs unutterable rapture. My hand passed over his back produces +a shower of sparks. We return up the silent stairs, I carry a +bottle of Pommery and a milkjug--for you shall revel, too, +Polyphemus; and as I have forgotten to bring a saucer, you shall +drink, as no cat has drunk before, from an old precious platter +bearing the arms of the Estes of Ferrara--over which Lucrezia +Borgia laughed when the world was young. It is a pity cats don't +drink champagne. I would have made you to-night as drunk as +Bacchus. We drink, and in the stillness the glouglou of his +tongue forms a bass to the elfin notes of the Pommery in the +soda-water tumbler. + +Ha! Twin purveyors of the milk of paradise, I wonder like Omar +what you buy one-half so precious as the stuff you sell. Motor- +cars for Mrs. Pommery and cakes for the little Grenos? I do not +like to regard you as common humans addicted to silk hats and +umbrellas and the other vices of respectability. Ye are rather +beneficent demigods, Castor and Pollux of the vine, dream +entities who pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the liquid +gold of life's joyousness. + +A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would bring her here +tomorrow night. But no. What is a week? Leaden-footed, it is +an eternity; but winged with the dove's iris it is a mere moment. +Besides, I must accustom myself to my youth. I must investigate +its follies, I must learn the grammar of its wisdom. We'll take +counsel together, Polyphemus, how to turn these chambers, fusty +with decayed thought, into a bridal bower radiant and fragrant +with innumerable loves. Let us drink again to her witchery. It +is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly Twins that foams +against my lips. I would give the soul out of my body to marry +her, did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would +pledge the soul of the universe for a kiss. + +I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs +dangle. He continues to lick his chops and looks at me +sardonically. He is stolid over his cups--which is somewhat +disappointing. No matter; he can be shaken into enthusiasm. + +"I care not," I cry, "for man or devil, Polyphemus. + + _'Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu + Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!'_ + +You may say that it's wrong, that the first line is a syllable +short, and that Triboulet said _'colere'_ instead of _amour_. +You always were a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say _amour_- +love, do you hear? I'll translate, if you like: + + 'Now am I mighty, and my love of fire + To-night goes even with a god's desire.' + +Yes; I'll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your +hind claws, Polyphemus." + +There! Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle. The wine +smells of hyacinth. It is a revelation. Her hair smells of +violets, but it is the delicate odour of hyacinth that came from +her bare young arms when she clasped them round my neck; _et sa +peau, on dirait du satin_. Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta +with her sorcery and her laughter and her youth, and I drink +Carlotta. + + _"Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?"_ + +To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before +have I visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of +my glass into his distended jaws. He springs away spitting and +coughing, and I lie back in my chair convulsed with +inextinguishable laughter. + + +October 2d. + +I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened +at six o'clock and crept shivering to bed. I realise that +Pommery and Greno are not demi-gods at all, but mere commercial +purveyors of a form of alcohol, a quart of which it is +injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed tom-cat as boon companion, +at two o'clock in the morning: + +But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night, so much +the better. I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when +the inevitable is the crown and joy of earthly things. For in +sober truth I love her infinitely. + + +October 6th. + +She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been devising a +welcome. The good soul has filled the house with flowers, and, +usurping Stenson's functions, has polished furniture and book +backs and silver and has hung fresh blinds and scrubbed and +scoured until I am afraid to walk about or sit down lest I should +tarnish the spotless brightness of my surroundings. + +"You have forgotten one thing, Antoinette," I remarked, +satirically. "You have omitted to strew the front steps with +rose-leaves." + +"I would cover them with my body for the dear angel to walk upon +as she entered," said Antoinette. + +"That would scarcely be rose-leaves," I murmured. + +Antoinette laughed. "And Monsieur then! He is just as bad. Has +he not put new curtains in the room of Mademoiselle, and a new +toilette table, and a set of silver brushes and combs and I know +not what, as for the toilette of a princess? And the eiderdown +in pink satin? _Regardez-moi ca!_ Monsieur can no longer say +that it is I alone who spoil the dear angel." + +"Monsieur," said I, at a loss for a better retort, "will say +whatever Monsieur pleases." + +"It is indeed the right of Monsieur," said Antoinette, +respectfully, but with a twinkle in her eye not devoid of +significance. + +does the crafty old woman suspect? Perhaps my preparations for +Carlotta's return have been inordinate, for they have extended to +the transformation of the sitting-room downstairs into a lady's +boudoir. I have been busy this happy week. But what care I? It +will not be long before I have to say to her, "Antoinette, there +is going to be a wedding." + +I must be on my guard lest, in the transports of her joy, she +clasp me to her capacious bosom.! + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + +October 7th. + +At Paddington I came upon Sebastian Pasquale lounging about the +arrival platform. As I had not seen or heard of him since the +end of July I had concluded that he was wandering as usual over +the globe. He greeted me effusively, holding out both hands in +his foreign fashion. + +"My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of meeting you here? +What wind blows you to Paddington?" + +"I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express." + +"The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is she doing at +Plymouth?" + +In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his watch. + +"By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch my train to +Ealing. I was just killing time about the station. I like +seeing a train come in--the gleam and smoke and rush and whirr of +the evil-looking thing--and the sudden metamorphosis of its sleek +sides into mouths belching forth humanity. I think of Hades. +This, by the way, isn't a bad representation of it--the up-to- +date Hades. They've got a railway bridge now across the Styx, +and Charon has a gold band around his cap, and this might be the +arrival platform of the damned souls." + +"You forget," said I, "that it is the arrival platform of +Carlotta." + +He threw back his head and laughed boyishly. + +"Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the 'Earth, Hades +and Olympus Railway' if you like. I'm off on a branch line to +meet a beauteous duchessa at Ealing--oh, an authentic one, I +assure you." + +"Why should I doubt it?" said I. + +Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta's luggage, +came up and touched his hat. + +"Train just signalled, sir." + +Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his watch. + +"I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one. I'll drop in +soon and pay my respects. I am only just back in London, you +know. _A rivederci._" + +He waved me farewell and hurried off. The arrival of the train, +the exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her sidle up +against me once more in the cab while she poured out her story, +and the subsequent gaiety of the evening banished Pasquale from +my mind. But it is odd that I should have met him at Paddington. + +We parted on the landing to dress for dinner. A moment +afterwards there was a beating at my door. I opened it to +behold Carlotta, in a glow of wondering delight, brandishing a +silver-backed brush in one hand and the hand-mirror in the other. + +"Oh, my darling Seer Marcous! For me? All that for me?" + +"No. It is for Antoinette," said I. + +"Oh-h!" + +She laughed and pulled me by the arm into her room and shut the +door. + +"Oh, everything is beautiful, beautiful, and I shall die if I do +not kiss you." + +"You must be kept alive at all hazards," I laughed; and this time +I did not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms +closed. An inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed +it, and changed a passionate desire to gentleness. + +"There," said I, after she had released herself and flown to open +the drawers of the new toilette table, where lay some odds and +ends of jewelry I had purchased for her. "You have been saved +from extinction. The next deadly peril is hunger. I give you a +quarter of an hour." + +She came down to dinner in a low-necked frock, wearing the +necklace and bangle; and, child that she is, in her hand she +carried the silver-backed mirror. I believe she has taken it to +bed with her, as a seven-year-old does its toy. She certainly +kept it by her all the evening and admired herself therein +unashamedly like the traditional Lady from the Sea. Once, +desiring to show me the ravishing beauty of a turquoise pendant, +she bent her neck forward, as I sat, so as to come within reach +of my nearsighted eyes (it is a superstition of hers that I am +nearly blind without my glasses), and quite naturally slid onto +my knee. She has the warm russet complexion that suits her heavy +bronze hair, and there is a glow beneath the satin of her neck +and arms. And she is fragrant--I recognise it now--of hyacinths. +The world can hold nothing more alluring to the senses of man. +My fingers that held the turquoise trembled as they chanced to +touch her--but she was all unconcerned. Nay, further--she gazed +into the mirror-- + +"It makes me look so white--oh, there was a girl at Bude who had +a gold locket--and it lay upon her bones--you could count them. +I am glad I have no bones. I am quite soft--feel." + +She clasped my fingers and pressed their tips into the firm young +flesh below her throat. + +"Yes," said I, with some huskiness in my voice, "your turquoise +can sleep there very pleasantly. See, I will kiss it to bring +you good luck." + +She cooed with pleasure. "I don't think any one kissed the locket +of the girl at Bude. She was too thin. And too old; she must +have been thirty! Now," she added, lifting up the locket, "you +will kiss the place, too, where it is to lie." + +I looked for a moment into her eyes. Seeing me hesitate, they +grew pathetic. + +"Oh-h," she said, reproachfully. + +I know I am a fool. I know that Pasquale would have hurled his +sarcasms at me. I know that the whole of her deliciousness was +mine for the taking--mine for ever and ever. If I had loved her +less passionately I would have kissed her young throat lightly +with a jest. But to have kissed her thus with such longing as +mine behind my lips would have been an outrage. + +I lifted her to her feet, and rose and turned away, laughing +unsteadily. + +"No, my dear," said I, "that would be--unsuitable." + +The bathos of the word made me laugh louder. Carlotta, aware +that a joke was in the air, joined in my mirth, and her laughter +rang fresh. + +"What is the suitable way of kissing?" + +I took her hand and saluted it in an eighteenth century manner. + +"This," said I. + +"Oh-h," said Carlotta. "That is so dull." She caught up +Polyphemus and buried her face in his fur. "That's the way I +should like to be kissed." + +"The man you love, my dear," said I, "will doubtless do it." + +She made a little grimace. + +"Oh, then, I shall have to wait such a long time." + +"You needn't," said I, taking her hands again and speaking very +seriously. "Can't you learn to love a man, give him your whole +heart and all your best and sweetest thoughts?" + +"I would marry any nice man if you gave me to him," she answered. + +"It would not matter who he was? Anyone would do?" + +"Why, of course," said Carlotta. + +"And any one wanting to marry you could kiss you as you kissed +Polyphemus." + +"Oh-h, he would have to be nice--not like Mustapha." + +I turned away with a sigh and lit a cigarette, while Carlotta +curled herself up on the sofa and inspected her face and necklace +in the silver mirror. In a moment she was talking to the cat, +who had jumped on her lap and with arched back was rubbing +himself against her. + +Soon the touch of sadness was lost in the happy sight of her and +the happy thought that my house was no longer left to me +desolate. We laughed away the evening. + +But now, sitting alone, I feel empty of soul; like a man stricken +with fierce hunger who, expecting food in a certain place, finds +nothing but a few delicate cakes that mock his craving. + + +October 14th. + +A week has passed. I have spent it chiefly in trying to win her +love. + +Is she, after all, only a child, and is this love of mine but a +monstrous passion? + +What is to be done? Life is beginning to be a torture. If I +send her away, I shall eat my heart out. If she stays, fuel is +but added to the fire. Her caressing ways will drive me mad. To +repulse her were brutal--she loves to be fondled; she can +scarcely speak to me without touching me, leaning over me, thus +filling me with the sense of her. She treats me with an +affectionate child's innocence, as if I were sexless. My +happiest time with her is spent in public places, restaurants, +and theatres where her unclouded pleasure is reflected in my +heart. + +I am letting her take music lessons with Herr Stuer, who lives +close by in the Avenue Road. Perhaps music may help in her +development. + + +October 21st. + +To please her I am accustoming myself to this out-of-door life, +which once I despised so cordially. Pasquale has joined us two +or three times. Last night he gave a dinner in Carlotta's honour +at the Continental. The ladies of the party have asked her to go +to see them. She must have some society, I suppose, and I must +go with her. They belong to the half smart set, eager to conceal +beneath a show of raffishness their plentiful lack of intellect +and their fundamental bourgeois respectability. In spite of +Pasquale's brilliance and Carlotta's rapturous enjoyment I sat +mumchance and depressed, out of my element. + +My work is at a standstill, and Carlotta is my life. I fear I am +deteriorating. + +On Judith, whom I have seen once or twice since Carlotta's +return, I called this afternoon. She is unhappy. Although I +have not confessed to my thraldom, her woman's wit, I feel sure, +has penetrated to the heart of my mystery. There has been no +deep emotion in our intercourse. Its foundation has been real +friendship sweetened with pleasant sentimentality. And yet +jealousy of Carlotta consumes her. Her _amour propre_ is deeply +wounded. She makes me feel as if I had played the part of a +brute. But O Judith, my dear, I have only been a man. "The same +thing," I fancy I hear her answer. But no. I have never loved a +woman, my dear, in all my life before, and as I made no secret of +it, I am guiltless of any. thing like betrayal. In due season I +will tell you frankly of the new love; but how can I tell you +now? How could I tell any human being? + +I imagine myself as Panurge, taking counsel with a Pantagruelian +friend. "I am in love with Carlotta and desire to marry her." +"Then marry her," says Pantagruel. "But she does not love me." +"Then don't marry," says Pantagruel. "But nay," urges poor +Panurge, "she would marry me according to any rite, civil or +ecclesiastical, to-morrow." _"Mariez-vous doncques de par dieu,"_ +replies Pantagruel. "But I should be a villain to take advantage +of her innocence and submission." "Then don't marry." "But I +can't live without her," says Panurge, desperately. "I am as a +man bewitched. If I don't marry her I shall waste away with +longing." "Then marry her in God's name!" says Pantagruel. And +I am no wiser by his counsel, and I have paraded the complication +of my folly before mocking eyes. + + +October 23d. + +I perceive that the young man of the idiot metaphor was gifted +with piercing acumen. Beneath the Jaquesian melancholy of my +temperament he diagnosed the potentiality of canine rabidness. +No rational being is afflicted with this grotesque concentration +of idea, this fierce hot fury waxing in intensity day by day. + +I must consult a brain specialist. + + +October 25th. + +I went to Judith this afternoon, more to prove the loyalty of my +friendship than to seek comfort from her society. Over tea we +discussed the weather and books and her statistical work. It was +dull, but unembarrassing. The grey twilight crept into the room +and there was a pause in our talk. She broke it by asking, +without looking at me: + +"When are we to have an evening together again?" + +"Whenever you like, my dear Judith." + +"To-morrow?" + +"I am afraid not to-morrow," said I. + +"Are you doing anything so very particular?" + +"I have arranged to take Carlotta to the Empire." + +"Oh," said Judith shortly, and I was left uncomfortable for +another spell of silence. + +"It would be very kind, Marcus, to ask me to accompany you," she +said at last. + +"Carlotta and myself?" + +"Why not?" + +"My question arose from the stupidity of surprise," said I. "I +thought you disliked Carlotta." + +"By no means. I should be glad to make her further acquaintance. +Any one that interests you must also be interesting to me." + +"In that case," said I, "your coming will give us both the +greatest possible pleasure." + +"I haven't had a merry evening for ever so long." + +"We will dine somewhere first and have supper afterwards. The +whole gamut of merriment. Toute la lyre. And you shall have," I +added, "some of your favourite Veuve Cliquot." + +"It will be charming," said Judith, politely. + +In fact, politeness has been the dominant note of her attitude +to-day, a sober restraint of manner such as she would adopt when +rather tired towards an ordinary acquaintance. Has she +reconciled herself to the inevitable and taken this Empire frolic +as a graceful method of showing it? I should like to believe so, +but the course is scarcely consistent with that motor of illogic +which she is pleased to call her temperament. I am puzzled. + +Her smile as we parted sent a chill through me, being the smile +of a mask instead of a woman's face; and it was not the face of +Judith. I don't anticipate much merriment tomorrow evening. + + +At Carlotta's suggestion, I have sent a line to Pasquale to ask +him to join us. His gay wit will lend to the entertainment a +specious air of revelry which Carlotta will take as genuine. + +I have often thought lately of the hopeless passion of Alfonso +the Magnanimous of Naples, as set forth by Pope Pius II in his +Commentaries; for I am beginning to take a morbid interest in the +unhappy love affairs of other men and to institute comparisons. +If they have lived through the torment, why should not I? But +Alfonso sighed for Lucrezia d'Alagna, a beautiful chaste statue +of ice who loved him; whereas I crave the warm-blooded thing that +is mine for the taking, but no more loves me than she loves the +policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take her. +Something stronger than my passion opposes an adamantine barrier. +I love her with my soul as well as with my body, and my soul +cries out for the soul that the Almighty forgot when endowing her +with entity. + +This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly Review. +It would give him great pleasure if I would contribute a +Renaissance article, taking as my text a German, a Russian, and +an English attempt to whitewash the Borgia family. Six months +ago the compliment would have filled me with gratification. To- +day what to me are the whitewashed Borgias or the solemn denizens +of the Athenaeum reading-room who will slumber over my account of +the blameless poisonings of this amiable family? They are vanity +and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease. + +As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta in +hastily slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair +streaming loose to her waist, her bare feet flashing pink beneath +her night-dress. + +"Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!" + +She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from +my chair. + +"What is the matter?" + +"There is a mouse in my bed." + +Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the sofa and +rubbing his back against her feet. + +"Take the cat and tell him to kill it," said I, "and go back to +bed at once." + +I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with her great +eyes full of innocent reproach. + +"There, take up the cat and go," I repeated. "You mustn't come +down here looking like that." + +"I thought I looked very pretty," said Carlotta, moving a step +nearer. + +I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my paper. + +"You are like a Houri that has been sent away from Paradise for +misbehaviour," I said. + +She laughed her curious cooing laugh. + +"_Hou!_ Seer Marcous is shocked!" And she ran, away, rubbing +Polyphemus's nose against her face. + + +I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up his +centuries and mistaking me for a mediaeval saint? Paphnutius for +instance, who was visited by such a seductress. What is the +legend? To get rid of her he burns off his hand, whereupon she +falls dead. He prays and she returns to life and becomes a nun. +No, Messer Diavolo, I am not Paphnutius. I will not maim myself, +nor do I want Carlotta to fall dead; and I cannot pray and effect +a pietistic resurrection. I am simply a fool of a modern man +tempted out of his wits, who scarce knows what it is that he +speaks or writes. + +I am not superstitious, but I feel myself to-night on the brink +of some disaster. I walk restlessly about the room. On the +mantel-piece are three photographs in silver frames: Judith, +Carlotta, Pasquale. That which is of mockery in the spirit of +each seems to-night to be hovering round the portraits and to be +making sport of me. An autumn gale is howling among the trees +outside, like a legion of lost souls. Listen. Messer Diavolo +himself might be riding by with a whoop of derision. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + +October 26th. + +I knew something would happen. Messer Diavolo does not ride +whooping to no purpose by the windows of people whom he desires +to torment; nor does he inspire photographs for nothing with an +active spirit of mockery. + +We dined at the Trocadero. Carlotta loves the band and the buzz +of Babel and the heavy scents and the clatter and the tumult and +the glare of light; otherwise I should have chosen a discreeter +hostelry where the footfalls of the waiting-men were noiseless +and the walls in quiet shadow, where there was nothing but +the mellow talk of friends to distract the mind from the +consideration of exquisite flavours. But in these palaces of +clashing splendour, the stunned brain fails to receive +impressions from the glossopharyngeal nerve, and one eats +unthinkingly like a dog. But this matters little to Carlotta. +Perhaps when I was nineteen it mattered little to me. And +to-night, also, it mattered little, for my mind was preoccupied +and a dinner with Lucullus would have been savourless. + +If the Psalmist cried, "What is man that Thou art mindful of +him?" what cry had he at the back of his head to utter concerning +woman? Did he leave her to be implicitly dealt with by Charles +Darwin in his "Theory of Sexual Selection"? Or did he in the +good old oriental way regard her as unimportant in the eyes of +the Deity? If the latter, he was a purblind prophet and missed +the very fount of human tears. + +When I looked at Judith, I was smitten with a great pain. She +had not looked so young, so fresh, so fragilely fair for many +months. She wore a dress of corn-flower blue that deepened the +violet of her eyes. In the mass of flax hued thistle-down that +is her hair a blue argus butterfly completed the chord of colour. +There was the faintest tinge of pink in her cheek applied with +delicate art. Her dress seemed made of unsubstantial dream +stuff--I believe they call it chiffon--and it covered her bosom +and arms like the spray of a fairy sea. She had the air of an +impalpable Undine, a creation of sea-foam and sea-flower; an +exquisite suggestion of the ethereal which floated beauty, as it +were, into her face. I know little of women, save what these +past few grievous months have taught me; but I know that hours of +anxious thought and desperate hope lay behind this effect of +fragile loveliness. The wit of woman could not have rendered a +woman's body a greater contrast to that of her rival; and with +infinite subtlety she had imbued the contrast with the deeper +significance of rare and spiritual things. I know this was so. +I know it was a challenge, a defiance, an ordeal by combat; and +the knowledge hurt me, so that I felt like a Dathan or Abiram who +had laid hand on the Ark of the Covenant (for the soul of a +woman, by heaven! is a holy thing), and I wished that the earth +could open and swallow me up. + +We sat down to table in the middle of the great room--a quiet +corner on the balcony away from the band is not to Carlotta's +taste--like any conventional party of four, and at first talked +of indifferent matters. Conciergerie dinner-parties in the +Terror always began with a discussion of the latest cure for +megrims, or the most fashionable cut of a panier. Presently +Pasquale who had been talking travel with Judith appealed to me. + +"What year was it, Ordeyne, that I came home from Abyssinia?" + +"I forget," said I. "I only remember you presenting me with that +hideous thing hanging in my passage, which you called a +dulcimer." + +_"Gage d'amour?"_ smiled Judith. + +Pasquale laughed and twirled his swaggering moustache. + +"I did get it from a damsel, and that is why I called it a +dulcimer, but she didn't sing of Mount Abora. I wish I could +remember the year." + +"I think it was in 1894," said Judith quietly. + +Pasquale, who had been completely unaware of Judith's existence +until half an hour before, could not repress a stare of polite +surprise. + +"I believe you are right. In fact, you are. But how can you +tell?" + +"Through the kindness of Sir Marcus," replied Judith graciously, +"you are a very old acquaintance. I could write you off-hand a +nice little obituary notice with all the adventures--well, I will +not say complete--but with all the dates accurate, I assure you. +I have a head for that sort of thing." + +"Yes," I cried, desiring to turn the conversation. "Don't tell +Mrs. Mainwaring anything you wish forgotten. Facts are her +passion. She writes wonderful articles full of figures that make +your head spin, and publishes them in the popular magazines over +the signature of Willoughby the statistician. Allow me to +present to you a statistical ghost." + +But Pasquale's subtle Italian brain was paying but half attention +to me. I could read his inferences from Judith's observations, +and I could tell what she wanted him to infer. I seem to have +worn my sensory system outside instead of inside my skin this +evening. + +"Ordeyne," said he, "you are a pig, and the great-grandfather of +pigs--" + +"Foul" cried Carlotta, seizing on an intelligible point of the +conversation. + +"Why didn't you present me to Mrs. Mainwaring in 1894.? I +declare I have thought myself allied to that man for twenty years +in bonds of the most intimate friendship, and he has never so +much as mentioned you to me." + +"Seer Marcous says that Pasquale is a bad lot," remarked +Carlotta, with an air of sapience, after a sip of orangeade, a +revolting beverage which she loves to drink at her meals. + +Pasquale threw back his handsome head and laughed again like the +chartered libertine he is, and Judith smiled. + +"'Out of the mouths of babes, etc.,"' said I, apologetically. + +"In all seriousness," said Pasquale to Judith, "I had no idea +that any one was such a close friend of Ordeyne's." + +Judith turned to me, with a graceful gesture of her shoulders. + +"I think we have been close friends, Marcus?" + +"Oh, ye-es," broke in Carlotta. "Mrs. Mainwaring has the picture +of Seer Marcous in her bedroom, and there is the picture of Mrs. +Mainwaring in our drawing-room. You have not seen it? But yes. +You have not recognised it, Pasquale? Mrs. Mainwaring is so +pretty tonight. Much prettier than the photograph. Yes, you are +so pretty. I would like to put you on the mantel-piece as an +ornament instead of the picture." + +"May I be allowed to endorse Carlotta's sentiment of +appreciation?" I said, with a view to covering her indiscretion, +for I saw a flash of conjecture in Pasquale's eyes and a sudden +spot of real red in Judith's cheeks. She had evidently desired +to suggest an old claim on my regard, but to have it based on +such intimate details as the enshrining of my photograph was not +to her fancy. + +"I am vastly beholden to you both," said Judith, who has a +graceful way of receiving compliments. "But," turning to +Pasquale, "we have travelled far from Abyssinia." + +"To Sir Marcus's mantel-piece. Suppose we stay there." + +"There is you and me and Mrs. Mainwaring," said the literal +Carlotta, "and I am the big one in the middle. It was made big-- +big," she added, extending her arms in her exaggerating way. "I +was wearing this dress." + +"Mr. Pasquale and I will have to enlarge our frames, Marcus," +said Judith, "or we shall be jealous. We shall have to make +common cause together." + +"We will declare an inoffensive alliance," laughed Pasquale. + +"Offensive if you like," said Judith. + +It may have been some effect of the glitter of lights, but I vow +I saw a swift interchange of glances. Pasquale immediately +turned to Carlotta with a jesting remark, and Judith engaged me +in conversation on our old days in Rome. Suddenly she swerved +from the topic, and leaning forward, indicated our companions +with an imperceptible motion of her head. + +"Don't you think," she said in a low voice, "they are a +well-matched pair? Both young and picturesque; it would solve +many things." + +I glanced round. Carlotta, elbow on the table and chin in hand, +was looking deep into Pasquale's eyes, just as she has looked +into mine. Her lips had the half-sensuous, half-childish pout +provocative of kisses. + +"Do, and I will love you," I heard her say. + +Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips! Oh, the +horrible fool passion that burns out my soul and brain and +reduces me to rave like a lovelorn early Victorian tailor! Which +was worse I know not--the spasm of jealousy or the spasm of +self-contempt that followed it. At that moment the music ceased +suddenly on a loud crashing chord. + +The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, who was +enjoying herself prodigiously. Our three personalities appeared +to vibrate rudely one against the other. I was conscious that +Judith read me, that Pasquale read Judith, that again something +telegraphic passed between them. The waiter offered me +partridge. Pasquale quickly turned from Carlotta to his +left-hand neighbour. + +"I think we ought to drink Faust's health, don't you?" + +I started. Had I not myself traced the analogy? + +"Faust?" queried Judith at a loss. + +"Our friend Faust opposite me," said Pasquale, raising his +champagne glass. "Hasn't he been transformed from the lean and +elderly bookworm into the gay, young gallant about the town? +Once one could scarcely drag him from his cell to the quietest of +dinners, and now--has he told you of his dissipations this past +month, Mrs. Mainwaring + +Judith smiled. "Have you been Mephistopheles?" + +"What is Mephistopheles?" asked Carlotta. + +"The devil," said Pasquale, "who made Sir Marcus young again." + +"Oh, that's me," cried Carlotta, clapping her hands. "He does not +read in big books any longer. Oh, I was so frightened when I +first came." (I must say she hid her terrors pretty +effectually.) "He was so wise, and always reading and writing, +and I thought he was fifty. And now he is not wise at all, and +he said two, three days ago I had made him twenty-five." + +"If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear," Judith +remarked in her most charming manner, "in another year you will +have brought him down to long clothes and a feeding-bottle." + +Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously. I laughed +too, out of courtesy, at Judith's bitter sarcasm, and turned the +conversation, but Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast. + +"Here's to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger +every day." + +We clinked glasses. Judith sighed when the performance was +concluded. + +"That is one of the many advantages of being a man. If you do +sell your soul to the devil you can see that you get proper +payment. A woman is paid in promissory notes, which are +dishonoured when they fall due." + +I contested the proposition. The irony of this peculiarly +painful revel lay in the air of gaiety it seemed necessary to +maintain. A miserable business is civilisation! + +"Did you ever hear of a woman getting youth out of such a +bargain?" she retorted with some vehemence. + +"As women systematically underpay cabmen," said I, "so do they +try to underpay the devil; and he is one too many for them." + +"I am afraid," said Pasquale, "that the old days of shrewd +bargains are over. There is a glut in the soul-market and they +only fetch the price of old bones." + +"He is talking foolish things that I do not understand," said +Carlotta, putting her hand on my arm. + +"It is called sham cynicism, my dear," said I, "and we all ought +to be ashamed of ourselves." + +"What do you like best to talk about?" Judith asked sweetly. + +"Myself. And so does everybody," replied Carlotta. + +We laughed, and for a time talk ceased to be allusive. But +later, over our coffee, while the band was playing loudly some +new American march, and Carlotta and Pasquale were laughing +together, Judith drew near me. + +"You did not answer my question about those two, Marcus." + +My fingers trembled as I lit a fresh cigarette. + +"He is not a man to whom any woman's destiny should be +entrusted." + +"And is she a woman on whom a man should stake his life's +happiness?" + +"God knows," said I, setting my teeth. + +It was not an enjoyable dinner-party. I longed for the evening +to be over, to have Carlotta safe back with me at home. I felt a +curious dread of the Empire. + +We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet. Carlotta, +as soon as she had taken her seat, leaned both elbows on the +front of the box and surrendered her senses to the stage. +Pasquale talked to Judith. Wishing for a few moments alone I +left the box and sauntered moodily along the promenade behind the +First Circle. The occupants were either leaning over the +partitions and watching the spectacle or sitting with drink +before them at the little marble tables at the back. The gaudy, +gilded, tobacco-smoke and humanity-filled theatre seemed to be +unreal, the stage but a phantom cloud effect. I wondered why I, +a creature from the concrete world, was there. I had an insane +impulse to fly from it all, to go out into the streets, and +wander, wander for ever, away from the world. I was walking +along the promenade, lost in this lunacy, when I stumbled against +a fellow-promenader and the shock brought me to my senses. It +was an elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez. He had a long +nose and small, crafty eyes, and was deeply pitted with smallpox. +I made profuse apologies and he accepted them with suavity. It +then occurring to me that I was be having in a discourteous and +abjectly absurd manner, I made my way back to the box. I drew a +chair to Judith's side. + +"You are giving me a captivating evening," she said, with a +smile. + +"Whom are you captivating?" I asked, idly jesting. "Pasquale?" + +"You are cruel," whispered Judith, with a flicker of her eyelids. + +I flushed, ashamed, not having weighed the significance of my +words. All I could say was: "I beg your pardon," whereat Judith +laughed mirthlessly. I relapsed into silence. Turn followed +turn on the stage. While the curtain was lowered Carlotta sank +back with a little sigh of enjoyment, and nodded brightly at me. + +"Do you remember," she said, turning to me, at a fresh fall of +the curtain, "when you brought me first? I said I should like to +live here. Wasn't I silly?" + +She turned again, then suddenly rose to her feet and staggered +back to the back of the box, pointing outward, with an expression +of wild terror on her face. + +"Hamdi--he's down there--he saw me." + +I sprang to her assistance and put my arm around her. + +"Nonsense, dear," said I. + +But Pasquale, looking around the house, cried: + +"By Jove! she's right. I would recognise the old villain a +thousand years hence in Tartarus. There he is." + +I left Carlotta, and the first person my eyes rested upon in the +stalls was my obese but suave Oriental, regarding the box with an +impassive countenance. + +"That's Hamdi Effendi, all right," said Pasquale. + +Carlotta clutched my arms as I joined her at the back of the box. + +"Oh, take me away, Seer Marcous, take me away," she moaned +piteously. My poor child was white and shaken with fear. I +again put my arm round her. + +"No harm can happen to you, dear," I said, soothingly. + +"Oh, darling Seer Marcous, take me home," cried Carlotta. + +"Very well," said I. I helped her on with her wrap, and +apologising to the two others, begged them to remain. + +"We'll all go together," said Judith quietly. + +"And form a body-guard," laughed Pasquale. + +Carlotta clinging to my arm we left the box and slipped through +the promenade and down the stairs. + +Hamdi Effendi, having anticipated our intention, cut off our +retreat in the vestibule. Carlotta shrank nearer to me. + +"I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but may I have the pleasure of a +few words with you about this young lady?" said he in the +urbanest manner and the most execrable French. + +"I hardly see the necessity," said I. + +"Pardon me, but this young lady is a Turkish subject and my +daughter. My name is Hamdi Effendi, Prefect of Police at Aleppo, +and my address in London is the Hotel Metropole." + +"I am charmed to make your acquaintance," said I. "I have often +heard of you from Mademoiselle--but I believe both her father and +mother were English, so she is neither your daughter nor a +Turkish subject." + +"Ah, that we will see," rejoined the polite Oriental. He +addressed some words rapidly in Turkish to Carlotta, who +shudderingly replied in the same language. + +"Mademoiselle unfortunately does not consent to accompany me," he +interpreted with a smile. "So I am afraid I will have to take +her back without her consent." + +"If you do, Hamdi Effendi," said Pasquale in a light tone of +conversation, but with the ugliest snarl of the lips that I have +ever beheld, "I shall most certainly kill you." + +Hamdi turned to him with a polite bow. + +"Ah, it is Monsieur Pasquale. I thought I recognised you." + +"You have every reason to do so," said Pasquale. + +"I saved you from prison." + +"You accepted a bribe." + +"For heaven's sake," cried Judith, "go on speaking in low voices, +or we shall have a scene here." + +One or two idlers hung near with an air of curiosity and the huge +beuniformed commissionaire watched us with an uncertain eye. I +kept a tight hold of Carlotta and drew her more behind the screen +of a palm near which we happened to stand. + +"Madame is right," said Hamdi. "We can discuss this little +affair like gentlemen." + +"Then, in the most gentlemanly way in the world," said Pasquale, +"I swear to you that if you touch this young lady, I will kill +you." + +"It appears, to be Monsieur," said the obese Turk with a graceful +wave of the hand in my direction, "and not you, who has robbed my +home of its treasure, unless," he added, and I shall always +remember the hideous leer of that pulpy-nosed and small-pox +pitted face, "unless Monsieur has relieved you of your +responsibilities." + +For a moment I was speechless. Pasquale put himself in front of +me. + +"Steady on, Ordeyne." + +"Sir," said I, "I found this young lady destitute in the streets +of London. She is my wife and therefore a British subject; so +you can take yourself and your infamous insinuations to the +devil, and the quicker the better." + +"Or there'll be two of us engaged in the killing," said Pasquale. + +Hamdi again exchanged a few sentences in Turkish with Carlotta, +and then smiled upon us with the same unruffeled suavity. + +_"Au revoir, Mesdames et Messieurs."_ With a courteous salute he +shuffled back towards the stall-entrance. + +The tension over, Carlotta broke from me and clutched Pasquale by +the arm. + +"Oh, kill him, kill him, kill him!" she cried in a passionate +whisper. + +He freed himself gently and took out a cigarette case. + +"Scarcely necessary. He'll soon die." And turning to me he +added: "Not a sound organ in his body. Besides, it seems to me +that if there is any murdering to be done, it's the business of +Sir Marcus." + +"There is going to be no murdering," said I, profoundly +disgusted, "and don't talk in that revolting way about the +wretched man dying." + +I regained possession of Carlotta who, seeing that I was angry, +cast a scared glance at me, and became docile as suddenly as she +had grown passionate. I turned to Judith. + +"Will you ever forgive me--" I began. + +But the sight of her face froze me. It was white and hard and +haggard, and the lips were drawn into a thin line, and the +delicate colour she had put upon her cheeks stood out in ghastly +contrast. Her dress, like the foam of a summer sea, mocked the +winter in her face. + +"There is nothing to forgive," she said, smiling icily. "I came +for a variety entertainment and I have not been disappointed. +Good-bye. Perhaps Mr. Pasquale will be so kind as to put me into +a cab." + +"I will drive you home, if you will allow me," said Pasquale. + +We separated, shaking hands as if nothing had happened, as +perfunctorily as if we had been the most distant of +acquaintances. + +On our way back we spoke very little. Carlotta nestled close +against me, seeking the shelter of my arm. She cried, I don't +know why, but it seemed to afford comfort. I kissed her lips and +her hair. + +At home, I drew the sofa near the fire--it has been a raw night +and she feels the cold like a tropical plant--and sat down by her +side. + +"Did you hear what I said to Hamdi Effendi--that you were my +wife?" + +"But that was only a lie," she answered in her plain idiom. + +My petting and soothing together with the sense of home security +and a cup of French chocolate prepared by Antoinette, who, +astonished at our early return and seeing her darling in +distress, had hastened to provide culinary consolation, had +restored her wonted serenity of demeanour. Polyphemus also +purred reassuringly upon her lap. + +"It was a lie this evening," said I, "but in a few days I hope it +will be true." + +"You are going to marry me?" she asked, suddenly sitting erect +and looking at me rather bewildered. + +"If you will have me, Carlotta." + +"I will do what Seer Marcous tells me," she answered. "Will you +marry me to-morrow?" + +"I think it hardly possible, my dear," I answered. "But I shall +lose no time, I assure you. Once you are my wife neither Hamdi +Effendi nor the Sultan of Turkey can claim you. No one can take +an Englishman's wife away from him." + +"Hamdi is a devil," said Carlotta. + +"We can laugh at him," said I. + +"Did you ever see such an ugly mug?" + +Where she gets her occasional bits of slang from I do not know; +but her little foreign staccato pronunciation gives them unusual +quaintness. I laughed, and Carlotta, throwing Polyphemus off her +lap, laughed too, and sidled up against me. The cat regarded us +for a moment with a disgusted eye, then stretched himself as if +he had quitted Carlotta of his own accord, and walked away in a +state of dignified boredom. + +"Hamdi is like a pig and an elephant and a great fat turkey," +said Carlotta. + +"If all the world were beautiful," I exclaimed, "such a thing as +our appreciation of beauty would not exist. I should not even be +aware that my Carlotta was beautiful." + +She put her hands on my knees in her impulsive way, and bending +forward looked at me delightedly. + +"Oh, you do think so?" + +"You are the loveliest and most intoxicating creature on the +earth, Carlotta." + +"Now I am sure, sure, sure," she cried, enraptured. "You have +never said it before, Seer Marcous darling, and I must kiss you." + +I checked her with my hands on her soft shoulders. + +"Only if you promise to marry me." + +"Of course," said Carlotta. + +She said it as thoughtlessly and light-heartedly as if I had +asked her to come out for a walk. Again I felt the odd spasm of +pain. In my late madness I had often pictured the scene: how I +should hold her throbbing beauty in my arms, my senses clouded +with the fragrance of her, and how, in burning words, I should +pour out the litany of my passion. But to the gods it seemed +otherwise. No Quaker maiden's betrothal kiss was chaster. Cold +grew the fever in my veins and the litany died on my lips. + + +Who and what is she whom I love? There have been days when her +eyes have carried in their depths the allurements of a sorceress, +when her limbs have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has +taken all my strength to withstand. But tonight, when I take the +greatest step and claim her as mine till our lives' end, she +yields with the complaisance of an ignorant child and raises up +between us the barrier of her innocence. When shall I learn the +soul of her? + +Well, _jacta est alea_. The events of to-night have precipitated +our destiny. In all probability Hamdi is powerless to take her +from my protection, and this marriage is unnecessary as a +safeguard. I have no notion of the international law on such +points--but at any rate it will make the assurance of her safety +absolute. No power on earth can take her from me. Great Heaven! +The thought of her gone forever out of my life brings the cold +sweat to my forehead. Without her, child, enchantress, +changeling that she is, how could I face existence? + +I shall have my heart's desire. Why, I should be athrill with +the joy and the flame of youth! I should laugh and sing! I +should perform the happy antics of love's exuberance! I should +be transported to the realms where the fairy tales end! + +Instead, I sit before a dying fire, as I sat last night, and am +oppressed with the sense of tragedy. It was not altogether +Carlotta's innocence that formed the barrier between us. That +which rendered it impassable was Judith's white face. + +Judith's white face will haunt my dreams to-night. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + +October 27th + +I do not like living. It is thoroughly disagreeable. Today +Judith taunted me with never having lived, and I admitted the +justice of the taunt and regretted in poignant misery the change +from my old conditions. If to live is to have one's reason cast +down and trampled under foot, one's heart aflame with a besotted +passion and one's soul racked with remorse, then am I living in +good sooth--and I would far rather be dead and suffering the +milder pains of Purgatory. Men differently constituted get used +to it, as the eels to skinning. They say _"mea culpa,"_ "damn," +or _"Kismet,"_ according to their various traditions, and go +forth comforted to their workaday pursuits. I envy them. I +enter this exquisite Torture Chamber, and I shriek at the first +twinge of the thumbscrew and faint at the preliminary embraces of +the scavenger's daughter. + +I envy a fellow like Caesar Borgia. He could murder a friend, +seduce his widow, and rob the orphans all on a summer's day, and +go home contentedly to supper; and after a little music he could +sleep like a man who has thoroughly earned his repose. What +manner of creatures are other men? They area blank mystery to +me; and I am writing--or have been writing--a sociological study +of the most subtle generation of them that has ever existed! I +am an empty fool. I know absolutely nothing. I can no more +account for the peaceful slumbers of that marvellous young man of +five-and-twenty than I can predicate the priority of the first +hen or the first egg. I, with never a murder or a seduction or a +robbery on my conscience, could not sleep last night. I doubt +whether I shall sleep to-night. I feel as if I shall remain +awake through the centuries with a rat gnawing my vitals. + + +So unhappy looking a woman as Judith, when I called on her early +this forenoon, I have never beheld. Gone was the elaborate +coquetry of yesterday; gone the quiet roguishness of yesteryear; +gone was all the Judith that I knew, and in her place stood a +hollow-eyed woman shaking at gates eternally barred. + +"I--thought you would come this morning. I had that lingering +faith in you." + +"Your face haunted me all night," I said. "I was bound to come." + +"So, this is the end of it all," she remarked, stonily. + +"No," said I. "It only marks the transition from a very +ill-defined relationship to as loyal a friendship as ever man +could offer woman." + +She gave a quivering little shrug of disgust and turned away. + +"Oh, don't talk like that 'I can't offer you bread, but I'll give +you a nice round polished stone.' Friendship! What has a woman +like me got to do with friendship?" + +"Have I ever given you much more?" + +"God knows what you have given me," she cried, bitterly. She +stared out of the window at the sodden street and murky air. I +went to her side and touched her wrist. + +"For heaven's sake, Judith, tell me what I can do." + +"What's done is done," she said, between her teeth. "When did +you marry her?" + +I explained briefly the condition of affairs. She looked at me +hard and long; then stared out of the window again, and scarce +heeded what I said. + +"It was to set myself right with you on this point," I added, +"that I have visited you at such an hour." + +She remained silent. I took a few turns about the familiar room +that was filled with the associations of many years. The piano +we chose together. The copy of the Botticelli Tondo--the crowned +Madonna of the Uffizi--I gave her in Florence. We had ransacked +London together to find the Chippendale bookcase; and on its +shelves stood books that had formed a bond between us, and copies +of old reviews containing my fugitive contributions. A spurious +Japanese dragon in faence, an inartistic monstrosity dear to her +heart, at which I had often railed, grinned forgivingly at me +from the mantel-piece. I have never realised how closely bound +up with my habits was this drawing-room of Judith's. I stopped +once more by her side. + +"I can't leave you altogether, dear," I said, gently. "A bit of +myself is in this room." + +Her bosom shook with unhappy laughter. + +"A bit?" Then she turned suddenly on me. "Are you simply dull +or sheerly cruel?" + +"I am dull," said I. "Why do you refuse my friendship? Our +relation has been scarcely more. It has not touched the deep +things in us. We agreed at the start that it should not. The +words 'I love you' have never passed between us. We have been +loyal to our compact. Now that love has come into my life--and +Heaven knows I have striven against it--what would you have me +do?" + +"And what would you have me do?" said Judith, tonelessly. + +"Forgive me for breaking off the old, and trust me to make the +new pleasant to you." + +She made no answer, but stood still staring out of the window +like a woman of stone. Presently she shivered and crossed to the +fire, before which she crouched on a low chair. I remained by +the window, anxious, puzzled, oppressod. + +"Marcus," she said at last, in a low voice. I obeyed her +summons. She motioned me to a chair, and without looking at me +began to speak. + +"You said there was a bit of you in this room. There is +everything of you. Your whole being is for me in this room. You +are with me wherever I go. You are the beginning and end of life +to me. I love you with a passion that is killing me. I am an +emotional woman. I made shipwreck of myself because I thought I +loved a man. But, as God hears me, you are the only man I have +loved. You came to me like a breath of Heaven while I was in +Purgatory--and you have been Heaven to me ever since. It has +been play to you--but to me--" + +I fell on my knees beside her. Each of the low half-whispered +words was a red hot iron. I had received last night the message +of her white face with incredulity. I had reviewed our past life +together and had found little warrant in it for that message. It +could not come from the depths. It was staggeringly impossible. +And now the impossible was the flaming fact. + +I fell on my knees beside her. + +"Not play, Judith--" + +She put out her hand to check me, and the words died on my lips. +What could I say? + +"For you it was a detached pleasant sentiment, if you like; for +me the deadliest earnest. I was a fool too. You never said you +loved me, but I thought you did. You were not as other men, you +knew nothing of the ways of the world or of women or of passion +--you were reserved, intellectual--you viewed things in a queer +light of your own. I felt that the touch of a chain would fret +you. I gave you +absolute freedom--often when I craved for you. I made no +demands. I assented to your philosophic analysis of the +situation--it is your way to moralise whimsically on everything, +as if you were a disconnected intelligence outside the universe +--and I paid no attention to it. I used to laugh at you--oh, not +unkindly, but lovingly, happily, victoriously. Oh, yes, I was a +fool--what woman in love isn't? I thought I gave you all you +needed. I was content, secure. I magnified every little +demonstration. When you touched my ear it was more to me than +the embrace of another man might have been. I have lived on one +kiss of yours for a week. To you the kiss was of no more value +than a cigarette. I wish," she added in a whisper, "I wish I +were dead!" + +She had spoken in a low, monotonous voice, staring haggardly at +the fire, while I knelt by her side. I murmured some banal +apologia, miserably aware that one set of words is as futile as +another when one has broken a woman's heart. + +"You never knew I loved you?" she went on in the same bitter +undertone. "What kind of woman did you take me for? I have +accepted help from you to enable me to live in this flat--do you +imagine I could have done such a thing without loving you? I +should have thought it was obvious in a thousand ways." + +The fire getting low, she took up the scoop for coals. +Mechanically I relieved her of the thing and fulfilled the +familiar task. Neither spoke for a long time. She remained +there and I went to the window. It had begun to rain. A +barrel-organ below was playing some horrible music-hall air, and +every vibrant note was like a hammer on one's nerves. The +grinder's bedraggled Italian wife perceiving me at the window +grinned up at me with the national curve of the palm. She had a +black eye which the cacophonous fiend had probably given her, and +she grinned like a happy child of nature. Men in my position do +not blacken women's eyes; but it is only a question of manners. +Was I, for that, less of a brute male than the scowling beast at +the organ? + +The sudden sound of a sob made me turn to Judith, who had broken +down and was crying bitterly, her face hidden in her hands. I +bent and touched her shoulder. + +"Judith--" + +She flung her arms around my neck. + +"I can't give you up, I can't, I can't, I can't," she cried, +wildly. + +For the first time in my life I heard a woman give abandoned, +incoherent utterance to an agony of passion; and it sounded +horrible, like the cry of an animal wounded to death. + +A guilt-stricken creature, scarce daring to meet her eyes, I bade +her farewell. She had recovered her composure. + +"Make me one little promise, Marcus, do me one little favour," +she said, with quivering lip, and letting her cold hand remain in +mine. "Stay away from her to-day. I couldn't bear to think of +you and her together, happy, love-making, after what I've said +this morning. I should writhe with the shame and the torture of +it. Give me your thoughts to-day. Wear a little mourning for +the dead. It is all I ask of you." + +"I should have done what you ask without the asking," I replied. + +I kissed her hand, and went out into the street. + +I had walked but a few blind steps when I became aware of the +presence and voice of Pasquale. + +"Coming from Mrs. Mainwaring's? I am just on my way there to +restore her opera-glasses which I ran away with last night. +What's her number? I forget. I dropped in at Lingfield Terrace +to inquire, but found you had already started." + +"Seventeen," I answered, mechanically. + +"You are not looking well, my good friend," said he. "I hope +last night has not upset you. It's all bluff, you know, on the +part of the precious Hamdi." + +"I dare say it was," I assented. + +"And bluff on your part, too. I have never given your +imaginative faculties sufficient credit. It bowled Hamdi out +clean." + +"Yes," said I. "It bowled him out clean." + +"Serve him right," said Pasquale. "He's the wickedest old thief +unhung." + +"Quite so," said I, "the wickedest old thief unhung." + +Pasquale shook me by the arm. + +"Are you a man or a phonograph? What on earth has happened to +you?" + +I think I envied the laughter in his handsome, dark face, and the +careless grace of the fellow as he stood beneath the dripping +umbrella debonair as a young prince, in perfectly fitting blue +serge-he wore no overcoat; mine was buttoned up to the chinand +immaculate suede gloves. + +"What is it?" he repeated, gaily. + +"I didn't sleep last night," said I, "my breakfast disagreed with +me, and it's raining in the most unpleasant manner." + +Even while I was speaking he left my side and darted across the +road. In some astonishment I watched him for a moment from the +kerb, and then made my way slowly to the other side. I found him +in conversation with an emaciated, bedraggled woman standing by +an enormous bundle, about three times her own cubic bulk, which +she had rested on the slimy pavement. One hand pressed a panting +bosom. + +"You are going to carry that in your arms all the way to South +Kensington?" I heard him cry as I approached. + +"Yes, sir," said the woman. + +"Then you shan't. I'm not going to allow it. Catch hold of +this." + +The umbrella which he thrust out at her she clutched +automatically, to prevent it falling about her ears. The veto +she received with a wonderment which deepened into stupefaction +when she saw him lift the huge bundle in his arms and stalk away +with it down the street. She turned a scared face at me. + +"It's washing," she said. + +Pasquale paused, looked round and motioned her onward. She +followed without a word, holding the trim silver mounted +umbrella, and I mechanically brought up the rear. It had all +happened so quickly that I too was confused. The scanty populace +in the rain-filled street stared and gaped. A shambling fellow +in corduroys bawled an obscene jest. Pasquale put down his +bundle. + +"Do you want to be sent to hell by lightning?" he asked, with the +evil snarl of the lips. + +"No," said the man, sheering off. + +"I'm glad," remarked Pasquale, picking up the bundle. And we +resumed our progress. + +Luckily a four-wheeled cab overtook us. Pasquale stopped it, +squeezed the bundle inside, and held the door open for the +faltering and bewildered woman, as if she had been the authentic +duchessa at Ealing. + +"You were saying, Ordeyne," he observed, as the cabman drove off +with three shillings and his incoherent fare, "you were saying +that your breakfast disagreed with you." + + +In spite of my heaviness of heart, I laughed and loved the man. +There was something fantastically chivalrous in the action; +something superb in the contempt of convention; something +whimsical, adventurous, unexpected; and something divine in the +wrathful pity; and something irresistible in his impudent +apostrophe to myself. It has been the one flash of comfort +during this long and desolate day. + + +I have kept my promise to Judith. I have lunched and dined at +the club, and in the library of the club I have tried to while +away the hours. I intended this morning to make the necessary +arrangements for the marriage. After my interview with Judith I +had not the heart. I put it off till to-morrow. I have observed +the day as a day of mourning. I have worn sackcloth and ashes. +I have done such penance as I could for the grievous fault I have +committed. Carlotta is in bed and asleep. She went early, says +Antoinette, having a bad headache. No wonder, poor child. + +A few moments ago I was tempted to peep into her room and satisfy +myself that she was not ailing. A headache is the common +precursor to many maladies. But I remembered my promise and +refrained. The cooing notes of the voice would have called me to +her side, and her arms would have been around my neck and I +should have forgotten Judith. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + +October 28th. + +I rose late this morning. When I went down to breakfast I found +that Carlotta had already gone for her music lesson. + +I drove at once to the Temple to see my lawyers and to make +arrangements for a marriage by special license. + +I returned at one o'clock. Stenson met me in the hall. + +"I beg your pardon, Sir Marcus, but Mademoiselle hasn't come back +yet." + +I waited an uneasy hour. Such a lengthy absence from home was +unprecedented. At two o'clock I went round to Herr Stuer in the +Avenue Road--a five minutes' walk. + +He entered the sitting-room into which I had been ushered, wiping +his lips. + +"I am sorry to disturb you, Herr Stuer," said I, "but will you +kindly tell me when Miss Carlotta left you, this morning?" + +"Miss Carlotta came not at all this morning," he replied. + +"But it was her regular day?" + +"At ten o'clock. She did not come. At eleven I have another +pupil. She has not before missed one lesson." + +I flew back home, in an agony of hope that her laughing face +would meet me there and dispel a dread that chilled me like an +icy wind. + +There was no Carlotta. + +There has been no Carlotta all this awful day. + +There will never be a Carlotta again. + +I drove to the police station. + +"What do you think has happened?" asked the Inspector. + +It was only too horribly obvious. Any man but myself would have +kept her under lock and key and established a guard round the +house. Any man but myself would have never let her out of his +sight until he had married her, until he had tracked Hamdi and +his myrmidons back to Alexandretta. + +"Abduction has happened," I cried wildly. "Between Lingfield +Terrace and Avenue Road she has been caught, thrust into a closed +carriage, gagged and carried God knows where by the wiliest old +thief in Asia. He is the Prefect of Police in Aleppo. His name +is Hamdi Effendi and he is staying at the Hotel Metropole." + +The Inspector questioned me. Heaven knows how I answered. I saw +the scene. The waiting carriage. The unfrequented bit of road. +My heart's darling, her face a radiant flower in the grey +morning, tripping lightheartedly along. The sudden dash, the +struggle, the swiftly closed door. It was a matter of a few +seconds. My brain grew dizzy with the vision. + +"You say that he threatened to abduct her?" asked the Inspector. + +"Yes," said I, "and a friend of mine promised to kill him. +Heaven grant he keep his promise!" + +"Be careful, Sir Marcus," smiled the Inspector. "Or if there is +a murder committed you will be an accessory before the fact." + +I intimated my disregard of the contingency. What did it matter? +Nothing in the world mattered save the recovery of the light and +meaning of my existence. My friend's name? Sebastian Pasquale, +He lived near by in the St. John's Wood Road. + +"The best thing you can do, Sir Marcus," said the Inspector, "is +to get hold of Mr. Pasquale and take him with you to Scotland +Yard. Perhaps two heads will be better than one. In the +meanwhile we shall communicate with headquarters and make the +necessary inquiries in the neighbourhood." + +I drove to St. John's Wood Road, and learned to my dismay that +Pasquale had given up his rooms there a week ago. All his +letters were addressed to his club in Piccadilly. I drove +thither. How has mankind contented itself for these thousands of +years with a horse as its chief means of locomotion? Oh, the +exasperation I suffered behind that magnified snail! I dashed +into the club. Mr. Pasquale had not been there all day. No, he +was not staying there. It was against the rules to give members' +private addresses. + +"But it's a matter of life and death!" I cried. + +"To tell you the truth, sir," said the hall porter, "Mr. +Pasquale's only permanent address is his banker's, and we really +don't know where he is staying at present." + +I wrote a hurried line: + +"Hamdi has abducted Carlotta. I am half crazed. As you love me +give me your help. Oh, God! man, why aren't you here?" + +I left it with the porter, and crawled to Scotland Yard. The +cabman at my invectives against his sauntering beast waxed +indignant; it was a three-quarter blood mare and one of the +fastest trotters in London. + +"She passes everything," said he. + +"It is because everything is standing still or going backward or +turned upside down," said I. + +No doubt he thought me mad. Mad as a dingo dog. The thought of +the words, the summer and the sun sent a spasm of hunger through +my heart. Then I murmured to myself: "'Save my soul from hell +and my darling from the power of the dog.' Which dog? Not the +dingo dog." +I verily believe my brain worked wrong to-day. + +Great Scotland Yard at last. I went through passages. I found +myself in a nondescript room where a courteous official seated at +a desk held me on the rack for half an hour. I had to describe +Carlotta: not in the imagery wherein only one could create an +impression of her sweetness, but in the objective terms of the +police report. What was she wearing? A hat, and jacket, a +skirt, shoes ; of course she wore gloves; possibly she carried a +muff. Impatient of such commonplace details, I described her +fully. But the glory of her bronze hair, her great dark brown +eyes, the quivering sensitiveness of her lips; her intoxicating +compound of Botticelli and the Venusberg; the dove-notes of her +voice; all was a matter of boredom to Scotland Yard. They +clamoured for the colour of her feathers and the material of +which her dress was made; her height in vulgar figures and the +sizes of her gloves and shoes . + +"How on earth can I tell you?" I cried in desperation. + +"Perhaps one of your servants can give the necessary +information," replied the urbane official. If I had lost an +umbrella he could not have viewed my plight with more inhuman +blandness! + +A miracle happened. As I was writing a summons to Stenson to +obtain these details from Antoinette and attend at once, a +policeman entered and I learned that my confidential man was at +the door. My heart leapt within me. He had tracked me hither +and had come to tell me that Carlotta was safe. But the first +glance at his face killed the wild hope. He had tracked me +hither, it is true; but only apologetically to offer what +information might be useful. +"It is a very great liberty, Sir Marcus, and I will retire at +once if I have overstepped my duties, but there are important +details, sir, in catastrophes of this nature with which my +experience has taught me only servants can be acquainted." + +There must be a book of ten thousand pages entitled "The Perfect +Valet," dealing with every contingency of domestic life which +this admirable fellow has by heart. He uttered his Ciceronian +sentence with the gravity of a pasteboard figure in the toy +theatre of one's childhood. + +"Can you describe the young lady's dress?" asked the official. + +"I have made it my business," said Stenson, "to obtain accurate +information as to every detail of Mademoiselle Carlotta's attire +when she left the house this morning." + +I faded into insignificance. Stenson was a man after the +Inspector's heart. A few eager questions brought the desired +result. A dark red toque with a grey bird's wing; a wine- +coloured zouave jacket and skirt, black braided; a dark blue +bodice; a plain gold brooch (the first trinket I had given her +--the occasion of her first clasp of arms around my neck) +fastening her collar; a silver fox necklet and muff; patent +leather shoes and brown suede gloves. + +"Any special mark or characteristics?" + +"A white scar above the left temple," said Stenson. + +Lord have mercy! The man has lived day by day for five months +with Carlotta's magical beauty, and all he has noticed as +characteristic is the little white scar--she fell on marble steps +as a child--the only flaw, if flaw can be in a thing so +imperceptible, in her perfect loveliness. + +"Mademoiselle has also a tiny mole behind her right ear," said +Stenson. + +The Inspector's conception of Stenson expanded into an +apotheosis. He paid him deference. His pen wrote greedily every +syllable the inspired creature uttered. When the fount of +inspiration ran dry, Stenson turned to me with his imperturbable, +profoundly respectful air. + +"Shall I return home, Sir Marcus, or have you any further need of +my service?" + +I bade him go home. He withdrew. The Inspector smiled +cheerfully. "Now we can get along," said he. "It's a pity Mr. +--Mr. Pasquale" (he consulted his notes) "is out of touch with us +for the moment. He might have given us great assistance." + +He rose from his chair. "I think we shall very soon trace the +young lady. An accurate personal description like this, you see, +is invaluable." + +He handed me the printed form which he had filled in. In spite +of my misery I almost laughed at the fatuity of the man in +thinking that those mere unimaginative statistics applicable to +five hundred thousand young females in London, could in any way +express Carlotta. + +"This is all very well," said I; "but the first thing to do is to +lay that Turkish devil by the heels." + +"You can count on our making the most prompt and thorough +investigation," said he. + +"And in the mean time what can I do?" + +"Your best course, Sir Marcus," he answered, "is to go home and +leave things in our hands. As soon as ever we have the slightest +clue, we shall communicate with you." + +He bowed me out politely. In a few moments I found myself in the +greyness of the autumn afternoon wandering on the Thames +Embankment like a lost soul on the banks of Phlegethon. It +seemed as if I had never seen the sun, should never see the sun +again. I was drifting sans purpose into eternity. + +I passed by some railings. A colossal figure looming through the +misty air struck me with a sense of familiarity. It was the +statue of Sir Bartle Frere, and these were the gardens beneath +the terrace of the National Liberal Club. It was here that I had +first met her. The dripping trees seemed to hold the echo of the +words spoken when their leaves were green: "Will you please to +tell me what I shall do?" I strained my eyes to see the bench on +which I had sat, and my eyes tricked me into translating a blurr +at the end of the seat into the ghostly form of Carlotta. My +misery overwhelmed me; and through my misery shot a swift pang of +remorse at having treated her harshly on that sweet and memorable +afternoon in May. + +I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down the +desolate gardens. The benches were empty, the trees were bare, +"and no birds sang." I crossed the road. + +The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly open, and +from the pavement one could see the warmth and colour of the +vestibule. Here was staying the ArchDevil who had robbed me of +my life. I stood for a moment under the portico shaking with +rage. I must have lost consciousness for a few seconds for I do +not remember entering or mounting the stairs. I found myself at +the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not left. They +thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search of him +departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big +caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol. "Would +to heaven it were a gaol," I muttered to myself, "and this were +the number of Hamdi Effendi!" + +A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, +effusively saluted me by name. I stared at him. He recalled our +acquaintance at Etretat. I fished him up from the deeps of a +previous incarnation and vaguely remembered him as a young +American floral decorator who used to preach to me the eternal +doctrine of hustle. I shook hands with him and hoped that he was +well. + +"Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I'm +full up with work. But you don't hurry around enough in this +dear, sleepy old country. Men lunch. In New York all the lunch +one has time for is to swallow a plasmon lozenge in a street-car." + +His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears +for an illimitable time. I answered occasionally with the fringe +of my mind. Could my agonised state of being have remained +unperceived by any human creature save this young, hustling, +dollar-centred New York floral decorator? + +"Since we met, guess how many times I've crossed the Atlantic. +Four times!" + +Long-suffering Atlantic! + +"And about yourself. Still going _piano, piano_ with books and +things?" + +"Yes, books and things," I echud. + +The page came up and announced Hamdi's intention of immediate +appearance. + +"And how is that charming young lady, your ward, Miss Carlotta?" +continued my tormentor. + +"Yes," I answered hurriedly. "A charming young lady. You used +to give her sweets. Have you noticed that a fondness for sugar +plums induces an equanimity of character? It also spoils the +teeth. That is why the front teeth of all American women are so +bad." + +I must be endowed with the low cunning of the fox, who, I am +told, by a swift turn puts his pursuers off the scent. The +learned term the rhetorical device an _ignoratio elenchi_. My +young friend's patriotism rose in furious defence of his +countrywomen's beauty. I looked round the luxuriously furnished +vestibule, wondering from which of the many doors the object of +my hatred would emerge, and my young friend's talk continued to +ruffle the fringe of my mind. + +"I'm afraid you're expecting some one rather badly," he remarked +with piercing perceptiveness. + +"A dull acquaintance," said I. "I shall be sorry when his +arrival puts an end to our engaging conversation." + +Then the lift door opened and Hamdi stepped out like the Devil in +an Alhambra ballet. + +He looked at my card and looked at me. He bowed politely. + +"I did not know whom I should have the pleasure of seeing," said +he in his execrable French. "In what way can I be of service to +Sir Marcus Ordeyne?" + +"What have you done with Carlotta?" I asked, glaring at him. + +His ignoble small-pox pitted face assumed an expression of bland +inquiry. + +"Carlotta?" + +"Yes," said I. "Where have you taken her to?" + +"Explain yourself, Monsieur," said Hamdi. "Do I understand that +Lady Ordeyne has disappeared?" + +"Tell me what you have done with her." + +His crafty features grew satanic; his long fleshy nose squirmed +like the proboscis of one of Orcagna's fiends. + +"Really, Monsieur," said he, with a hideous leer--oh, words +are impotent to express the ugliness of that face! "Really, +Monsieur, supposing I had stolen Miladi, you would be the last +person I should inform of her whereabouts. You are simple, +Monsieur. I had always heard that England was a country of +arcadian innocence, so unlike my own black, wicked country, and +now--" he shrugged his shoulders blandly, '_j'en suis convaincu_." + +"You may jeer, Hamdi Effendi," said I in a white passion of +anger. "But the English police you will not find so arcadian." + +"Ah, so you have been to the police?" said the suave villain. +"You have gone to Scotland--Scotland Place Scotland--n'importe. +They are investigating the affair? I thank you for the friendly +warning." + +"Warning!" I cried, choked with indignation. He held up a soft, +fat palm. + +"Ah--it is not a warning? Then, Monsieur, I am afraid you have +committed an indiscretion which your friends in Scotland Place +will not pardon you. You would not make a good police agent. I +am of the profession, so I know." + +I advanced a step. He recoiled, casting a quick look backward at +the lift just then standing idle with open doors. + +"Hamdi Effendi," I cried, "by the living God, if you do not +restore me my wife--" + +But then I stopped short. Hamdi had stepped quickly backward +into the lift, and given a sign to the attendant. The door +slammed and all I could do was to shake my fist at Hamdi's boots +as they disappeared upwards. + +I remember once in Italy seeing a cat playing with a partially +stunned bat which, flying low, she had brought to the ground. +She crouched, patted it, made it move a little, patted it again +and retired on her haunches preparing for a spring. Suddenly the +bat shot vertically into the air. + +I stared at the ascending lift with the cat's expression of +impotent dismay and stupefaction. It was inconceivably +grotesque. It brought into my tragedy an element of infernal +farce. I became conscious of peals of laughter, and looking +round beheld the American doubled up in a saddlebag chair. I +fled from the vestibule of the hotel clothed from head to foot in +derision. + + +I am at home, sitting at my work-table, walking restlessly about +the room, stepping out into the raw air on the balcony and +looking for a sign down the dark and silent road. I curse myself +for my folly in entering the Hotel Metropole. The damned Turk +held me in the palm of his hand. He made mock of me to his +heart's content .... And Carlotta is in his power. I grow white +with terror when I think of _her_ terror. She is somewhere, +locked up in a room, in this great city. My God! Where can she +be? + +The police must find her. London is not mediaeval Italy for +women to be gagged and carried off to inaccessible strongholds in +defiance of laws and government. I repeat to myself that she +must come back, that the sober working of English institutions +will restore her to my arms, that my agony is a matter of a day +or two at most, that the special license obtained this morning +and now lying before me is not the document of irony it seems, +and that in a week's time we shall look back on this nightmare of +a day with a smile, and look forward to the future with laughter +in our hearts. + +But to-night I am very lonely. "Loneliness," says Epictetus, "is +a certain condition of the helpless man." And I am helpless. +All my aid lies in the learning in those books; and all the +learning in all those books on all sides from floor to ceiling +cannot render me one infinitesimal grain of practical assistance. +If only Pasquale, man of action, swift intelligence, were here! +I can only trust to the trained methods of the unimaginative +machine who has set out to trace Carlotta by means of the scar on +her forehead and the mole behind her ear. And meanwhile I am +very lonely. My sole friend, to whom I could have turned, Mrs. +McMurray, is still at Bude. She is to have a child, I +understand, in the near future, and will stay in Cornwall till +the confinement is over. Her husband, even were he not amid the +midnight stress of his newspaper office, I should shrink from +seeking. He is a Niagara of a man. Judith--I can go to her no +more. And though Antoinette has wept her heart out all day long, +poor soul, and Stenson has conveyed by his manner his respectful +sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own servants. I have +gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried my face in his +fur--where Carlotta's face has been buried. "That's the way I +should like to be kissed!" Oh, my dear, my dear, were you here +now, that is the way I should kiss you ! + +I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room. Antoinette has +prepared it for her reception to-night, as usual. The corner of +the bedclothes is turned down, and her night-dress, a gossamer +thing with cherry ribbons, laid out across the bed. At the foot +lie the familiar red slippers with the audacious heels; her +dressing-gown is thrown in readiness over the back of a chair; +even the brass hot water can stands in the basin--and it is still +hot. And I know that the foolish woman is wide-awake overhead +waiting for her darling. I kissed the pillow still fragrant of +her where her head rested last night, and I went downstairs with +a lump in my throat. + +Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from going mad +with suspense, jot down in my diary* the things that have +happened. Put in bald words they scarcely seem credible. + + +* It will be borne in mind that I am writing these actual pages, +afterwards, at Verona, amplifying the rough notes in my diary. M. +O. + + +A sudden clattering, nerve-shaking, strident peal at the front- +door bell. + +I flew down the stairs. It was news of Carlotta. It was +Carlotta herself brought back to me. My heart swelled with joy +as if it would burst. I knew that as I opened the door Carlotta +would fall laughing, weeping, sobbing into my arms. + +I opened the door. It was only a police officer in plain +clothes. + +"Sir Marcus Ordeyne?" + +"Yes." + +"We have traced the young lady all right. She left London by the +two-twenty Continental express from Victoria with Mr. Sebastian +Pasquale." + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + +November 1st. + +Five days ago the blow fell, and I am only now recovering; only +now awakening to the horrible pain of it. + +I have gone about like a man in a dream. Blurred visages of men +with far-away voices have saluted me at the club. Innumerable +lines of print which my eyes have scanned have been destitute of +meaning. I have forced myself to the mechanical task of copying +piles of rough notes for my History; I have been able to bring +thereto not an atom of intelligence; popes, princes, painters are +a category of disassociated names, less evocative of ideas than +the columns in the Post Office London Directory. I have stared +stupidly into the fire or at the dripping branches of the trees +opposite my windows. I have walked the streets in dull misery. +I have sought solace in the Zoological Gardens. + +There is a kindly brown bear who pleads humanly for buns, and her +I have fed into a sort of friendship. I stand vacantly in front +of the cage finding in the beast an odd companionable sympathy. +She turns her head on one side, regards me with melting brown +eyes, and squatting on her haunches thrusts her paws beseechingly +through the bars. Just so did Carlotta beseech and plead. I +have bemused myself with gnostic and metempsychosic speculations. +Carlotta as an ordinary human being with an immortal soul did not +exist, and what I had known and loved was but a simulacrum of +female form containing an elemental spirit doomed to be ever +seeking a fresh habitat. It was but the lingering ghost of the +humanised shell of air that was seen at Victoria station. The +fateful spirit, untrammelled by the conventions of men and +actuated by destinies unintelligible to mortal mind, had informed +the carcass of this little brown bear, which looks at me so +strangely, so coaxingly, with Carlotta's eyes and Carlotta's +gestures. I asked her yesterday to come back to me. I said that +the house was empty; that the rooms ached for the want of her. I +pleaded so passionately and the eyes before me so melted that I +thought her heart was touched. But in the midst of it all +another visitor came up and the creature uttered a whining plaint +and put out her paw for buns--by which token I felt indeed that +it was Carlotta. + + +I have accepted the blow silently. As yet I have told no one. I +have made no inquiries. When a man is betrayed by his best +friend and deserted by the woman he loves, time and solitude are +the only comforters. Besides, to whom should I go for comfort? +I have lived too remote from my kind, and my kind heeds me not. + +Not a line has reached me from Carlotta. She has gone out of my +life as lightly and as remorselessly as she went out of Hamdi +Effendi's; as she went, for aught she knew, out of that of the +unhappy boy who lured her from Alexandretta. If she heard I was +dead, I wonder whether she would say: "I am so glad!" + +Whether the flight was planned between them, or whether Pasquale +waylaid her on her way to the Avenue Road and then and there +proposed that she should accompany him, I do not know. It +matters very little. She is gone. That is the one awful fact +that signifies. No explanations, pleas for forgiveness could +make me suffer less. Were she different I might find it in my +heart to hate her. This I cannot do. How can one hate a thing +devoid of heart and soul? But one can love it--God knows how +blindly. So I have locked the door of Carlotta's room and the +key is in my possession. It shall not be touched. It shall +remain just as she left it--and I shall mourn for her as for one +dead. + +For Pasquale--if I were of his own reversionary type, I should +follow him half across Europe till we met, and then one of us +would kill the other. In one respect he resembles Carlotta. He +is destitute of the moral sense. How else to solve the enigma? +How else to reconcile his flamboyant chivalry towards the +consumptive washer-woman with the black treachery towards me, in +which even at that very moment his mind must have been steeped? +I knew that he had betrayed many, that where women were concerned +no considerations of honour or friendship had stood between him +and his desires; but I believed--for what reason save my own +egregious vanity, I know not--that for me he had a peculiar +regard. I believed that it was an idiosyncrasy of this wolf to +look upon my sheepfold as sacred from his depredations. I was +ashamed of any doubts that crossed my mind as to his loyalty, and +did not hesitate to thrust my lamb between his jaws. And while +he was giving the lie direct to my faith, I, poor fool, in my +despair was seeking madly for his aid in the deliverance of my +darling from the power of the dog. + +I have felt I owe Hamdi Effendi an apology; for it is well that, +in the midst of this buffoon tragedy I find myself playing, I +should observe occasionally the decencies of conduct. But, on +the other hand, was he not amply repaid for moral injury by the +pure joy he must have felt while torturing me with his banter? +For all the deeper suffering, I am conscious of writhing under +lacerated vanity when I think of that grotesque and humiliating +blunder in the Hotel Metropole. + + +November 2d. + +I have received news of the death of old Simon McQuhatty. In my +few lucid moments of late I had been thinking of seeking his +kindly presence. Now Gossip Death has taken him out across the +moor. Now, dear old pagan, he is + + "Rolled round in earth's diurnal course + With rocks and stones and trees." + + +November 3d. + +Antoinette came up this morning with a large cardboard box +addressed to Carlotta. The messenger who brought it was waiting +downstairs. + +"I came to Monsieur to know whether I should send it back," said +Antoinette, on the verge of tears. + +"No," said I, "leave it here." + +From the furrier's label, I saw that the box contained some furs +I had ordered for Carlotta a fortnight ago--she shivered so, poor +child, in this wintry climate. + +"But, Monsieur," began Antoinette, "the poor angel--" + +"May want it in heaven," said I. + +The good woman stared. + +"We'll be like the ancient Egyptians, Antoinette," I explained, +"who placed food and wine and raiment and costly offerings in the +tombs of the departed, so that their shades could come and enjoy +them for all eternity. We'll have to make believe, Antoinette, +that this is a tomb, for one can't rear a pyramid in London, +though it is a desert sufficiently vast; and the little second +floor room is the inner sanctuary where the body lies in silence +embalmed with sweet spices and swathed in endless bands of +linen." + +"But Mademoiselle is not dead?" cried Antoinette, with a shiver. +"How can Monsieur talk of such things? It makes me fear, the way +Monsieur speaks." + +"It makes me fear, too, Antoinette," said I, gravely. + +When she had gone I took the box of furs upstairs and laid it +unopened on Carlotta's bed and came away, relocking the door +behind me. + + +November 9th. + +I have formed a great resolution. I have devoted the week to the +envisagement of things, and while I lay awake last night the +solution came to me as something final and irrevocable. +Mistrusting the counsels of the night, when the brain is unduly +excited by nervous insomnia, I have applied the test of a day's +cold reason. + +I have broken a woman's heart. I have spurned the passionate +love of a woman who has been near and dear to me; a woman of +great nature; a woman of subtle brain who has been my chosen +companion, my equal partner in any intellectual path I chose to +tread; a sensitive lady, with all the graciousness of soul that +term conveys. Heaven knows what a woman can see in me to love. +I look in the glass at my bony, hawk-like face, on which the +stamp of futility seems eternally set, and I am seized with a +prodigious wonder; but the fact remains that to me unlovely and +unworthy has been given that thing without price, a woman's love. +I remember Pasquale laughing merrily at this valuation. He said +the love of women was as cheap as dirt, and the only use for it +was to make mud pies. The damned cynical villain! "Always +reflect," said he, on another occasion, "that although a man may +be as ugly as sin, the probability is that he is just as +pleasant. Beauties will find hitherto unsuspected amenities in +Beasts till the end of time." But I am such a poor and sorry +Beast, without the chance of a transformation; a commonplace +Beast, dull and didactic; a besotted, purblind, despicable Beast! +Yet Judith loved me. Instead of thanking on my knees the high +gods for the boon conferred, I rejected it, and went mad for +craving of the infinitely lesser glory of Carlotta's baby lips +and gold-bronze hair. I have broken Judith's heart. I will +expiate the crime I have committed. + +Expiate the crime! The realisation of the meaning of the words +covers me with shame. As if what I propose will be a sorry +penance! That is the danger of a man thinking, as I have always +done, in metaphors. It has given me my loose, indirect views of +life, of myself, of those around me. If I had advice to offer to +a young man, I should say: "Learn to think straight." Expiate, +indeed! I will go to her and make confession. I will tell her +that awful loneliness is crushing my soul. I will kneel before +her and beseech her of her great woman's goodness to give me her +love again, and to be my helpmeet and my companion who will be +cherished with all that there is of loyalty in me to her life's +end. She will pity me a little, for I have suffered, and I will +pity her tenderly, in deep sincerity, and our life together will +be based on that all-understanding which signifies all- +forgiveness. And it shall be a real life together. I used to +smile, in a superior way, at her dread of solitude. Heaven +forgive me. I did not then know its terrors. It comforted for +the first few benumbed days, but now it is gathering around me +like a mysterious and appalling force. I crave the human +presence in my home. I need the woman's presence in my heart. + +We shall live together then as man and wife, in defiance of the +world. Let the moralists blame us. We shall not care. It will +make little social difference to Judith, and as for myself, have +I not already inflicted public outrage on society? does not my +Aunt Jessica regard me as a wringer of the public conscience, and +does not my Cousin Rosalie mention me with a shudder of horror in +her tepid prayers? If I really give them cause for reprobation +they will be neither wiser, nor better, nor sorrier. And if the +baronetcy flickers out in unseemly odour, I for one shall know +that the odour is sweeter than that wherein it was lighted, when +my great-grandfather earned the radiance by services rendered at +Brighton to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. This is the +only way in which I can make Judith reparation, the only way in +which I can find comfort. We shall travel. Italy, beloved of +Judith, is calling me. Probably Florence will be our settled +home. I shall give up this house of madness. The clean sweet +love of Judith will purify my heart of this poisonous passion, +and in the end there will be peace. + + +I have taken Carlotta's photograph from its frame and cast it +into the fire, thus burning her for her witchcraft. I watched +the flames leap and curl. The last look she gave me before they +licked away her face had its infinite allurement, its devilish +sorcery so intensified in the fierce yellow light, that the +yearning for her clutched me by the throat and shook me through +all my being. + + +But it is over now. I have done with Carlotta. If she thinks I +am going to sit and let the wind which comes over Primrose Hill +drive me mad like Gastibelza, _l'homme a la carabine_, in Victor +Hugo's poem, she is vastly mistaken. From this hour henceforth I +swear she is nothing to me; I will eat and sleep and laugh as if +she had never existed. Polyphemus, curled up in Carlotta's old +place on the sofa, regards me with his sardonic eye. He is an +evil, incredulous, mocking beast, who a few centuries ago would +have been burned with his late mistress + +I am sane and happier now that I have come to my irrevocable +determination. + +To-morrow I go to Judith. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + +November 10th. + + +I had to ring twice before Judith's servant opened the flat door. + +"Mrs. Mainwaring is engaged just at present, Sir Marcus." + +"Ask her if I can come in and wait, as I have something of +importance to say to her." + +She left me standing in the passage, a thing that had never +before occurred to me in Judith's establishment, and presently +returned with her answer. Would I mind waiting in the dining- +room? I entered. The table was littered with sheets of her +statistical work and odd bits of silk' and lining. A type-writer +stood at one end and a sewing-machine at the other. On the +writing-desk by the window, in the midst of a mass of letters and +account-books, rested a large bowl filled with magnificent blooms +of white and yellow chrysanthemums. A volume of Dante lay open +face downwards on the corner. It did my heart good to see this +untidiness, so characteristic of Judith, so familiar, so +intimate. She had taken her trouble bravely, I reflected. The +ordinary daily task had not been left undone. Through all she +had preserved her valiant sanity. I felt rebuked for my own loss +of self-control. + +I was about to turn away from the litter of the desk, when my eye +caught sight of an envelope bearing a French stamp and addressed +in Pasquale's unmistakable handwriting. As there seemed to be a +letter inside, I did not take it up to examine it more closely. +The glance was enough to assure me that it came from Pasquale. +Why should he be corresponding with Judith? I walked away +puzzled. Was it a justification, a confession, a plea to her as +my friend to obtain my forgiveness? If there is one thing more +irritating than another it is to light accidentally upon a +mystery affecting oneself in a friend's correspondence. One can +no more probe deeply into it than one can steal the friend's +spoons. It seems an indiscretion to have noticed it, an +unpardonable impertinence to subject it to conjecture. In spite +of my abhorring the impulse of curiosity, the sweeping, +flaunting, swaggering handwriting of Pasquale worried me. + +Judith came in, looking much as she had done on the occasion of +my last visit, worn and anxious, with a strange expression in her +eyes. + +"I am sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, extending a +lifeless hand. + +I raised it to my lips. + +"I would have gladly waited all day to see you, Judith," I said. + +"Really?" + +She laughed in an odd way. + +"And idle speech from me to you at the present time would be an +outrage," I answered. "I have passed through much since I saw +you last." + +"So have I," said Judith. "More than you imagine. Well," she +continued as I bowed my head accepting the rebuke, "what have you +got so important to tell me?" + +"Much," said I. "In the first place you must be aware of what +has happened, for I can't help seeing there a letter from +Pasquale." + +She glanced swiftly at the desk and back again at me. + +"Yes," she replied, "he is in Paris." + +I was amazed at her nonchalance. + +"Has he told you nothing?" + +"Perhaps Sir Marcus Ordeyne would like to see his letter," she +said, ironically. + +"You know perfectly well that I would not read it," said I. + +Judith laughed again, and rolled her handkerchief into a little +ball between her nervous fingers. + +"Forgive me," she said. "I like to see the _grand seigneur_ in +you now and then. It puts me in mind of happier days. But about +Pasquale--the only thing he tells me is that he is not able to +execute a commission for me. He told me on the night he drove me +home that he was going to Paris, and I asked him to get me some +cosmetic. Carmine Badouin, if you want to know. I have got to +rouge now before I am fit to be seen in the street. I am quite +frank about it." + +"Then you know nothing of Carlotta?" I cried. + +"Carlotta?" + +"She eloped with that double-dyed, damned, infernal villain, the +day after I saw you." + +Judith looked at me for a moment, then closed her eyes and turned +her head away, resting her hand on the table. My indignation +waxed hot against the scoundrel. How dare he write casual +letters to Judith about Carmine Badouin with his treachery on his +conscience? I know the terms of flippant grace in which the +knave couched this precious epistle. And I could see Carlotta +reading over his shoulder and clapping her hands and cooing: "Oh, +that is so funny!" + +When I had told Judith the outlines of the story, pacing up and +down the little room while she remained motionless by the table, +she put out her hand to me, and in a low voice, and with still +averted eyes said that she was sorry, deeply sorry. Her tone +rang so true and loyal that my heart throbbed with quick +appreciation of her high nature, and I wrung her outstretched +hand. + +"God bless you, Judith," I cried, fervently. "Bless you for your +sweet sympathy. Be sorry for me only as for a man who has passed +through the horrors of delirium. But for me as I stand before +you now, I ask you not to be sorry. I have come to bring you, if +I can, dear Judith, a measure of gladness, perhaps of happiness." + +She wrenched herself free from me, and a terrified cry of +"Marcus!" checked my dithyrambic appeal. She shrank away so that +a great corner of the dining-table separated us, and she stared +at me as though my words hats been the affrighting utterance of a +madman. + +"Marcus! What do you mean?" she cried, with an unnatural +shrillness in her voice. + +"I mean," said I, "I mean--I mean that 'crushed by three days' +pressure, my three days' love lies slain.' Time has withered him +at the root. I have buried him deep in unconsecrated ground, +like a vampire, with a stake through his heart. And I have come +back to you, Judith, humbly to crave your forgiveness and your +love--to tell you I have changed, dear--to offer you all I have +in the world if you will but take it--to give you my life, my +daily, hourly devotion. My God!" I cried, "don't you believe +me?" + +She still stared at me in a frightened way, leaning heavier on +the table. Her lips twitched before they could frame the words + +"Yes, I believe you. You have never lied to me." + +"Then in the name of love and heaven," I cried, "why do you look +at me like that?" + +She trembled, evidently suppressing something with intense +effort, whether bitter laughter, indignation or a passionate +outburst I could not tell. + +"You ask why?" she said, unsteadily. "Because you seem like the +angel of the flaming vengeance." + +At these astounding words it was my turn to look amazed. + +"Vengeance?" I echud. "What wrong have you done me or any living +creature? Come, my dear," and I moved nearer by seating myself +on the corner of the table, close to the type-writer, and leaning +towards her, "let us look at this thing soberly. If ever a man +had need of woman I have need of you. I can live alone no +longer. We must share one home henceforth together. We can snap +our fingers at the world, you and I. If you have anything to say +against the proposal, let us discuss it calmly." + +Judith's slender figure vibrated like a cord strung to +breaking-point. Her voice vibrated. + +"Yes, let us discuss it calmly. But not here. The sight of you +sitting in the middle of my life, between the sewing-machine and +the type-writer, is getting on my nerves. Let us go into the +drawing-room. There is an atmosphere of calm there--" her voice +quavered in a queer little choke--"of sabbatical calm." + +I slid quickly from the table and put my arm round her waist. + +"Tell me, Judith, what is amiss with you." + +She broke away from me roughly, thrusting me back. + +"Nothing. A woman's nothing, if you understand what that means. +Come into the drawing-room." + +I opened the door; she passed out and I followed her along the +passage. She preceded me into the drawing-room, and I stayed for +a moment to close the door, fumbling with the handle which has +been loose for some months. When I turned and had made a couple +of steps forward, I halted involuntarily under the shock of a +considerable surprise. + +We were not alone. Standing on the hearth-rug, his hands behind +his back, his brows bent on me benevolently was a man in clerical +attire. He looked ostentatiously, exaggeratedly clerical. His +clerical frock-coat was of inordinate length; his boots were +aggravatingly clump-soled; by a very large white tie, masking the +edges of a turned-down collar, he proclaimed himself Evangelical. +An otherwise clean-shaven florid face was adorned with brown +side-whiskers growing rather long. A bald, shiny head topped a +fringe of brown hair. + +I stared at this unexpected gentleman for a second or two, and +then, recovering my self-possession, looked enquiringly at +Judith. + +"Sir Marcus," she said, "let me introduce my husband, Mr. Rupert +Mainwaring." + +Her husband! This benevolent Evangelical parson her husband! +But the brilliant gallant who had dazzled her eyes? The +dissolute scoundrel that had wrecked her life? Where was he? +Dumfounded, I managed to bow politely enough, but my stupefaction +was covered by Judith rushing across the room and uttering a +strange sound which resolved itself into a shrill, hysterical +laugh as she reached the door which she opened and slammed behind +her. I heard her scream hysterically in the passage; then the +slam of another door; and the silence told me that she had shut +herself in her bedroom. Disregarding the new husband's presence, +I rang the bell, and the servant who had left her kitchen on +hearing the scream entered immediately. + +"Go to your mistress. She is ill," said I. + +The maid hurriedly departed. The parson and I looked at one +another. + +"I am afraid," said I, "that my presence is unhappily an +intrusion. I hope to make your better acquaintance on another +occasion." + +"Oh, please don't go," said he, "my wife is only a little upset +and will soon recover. I beg that you will excuse her. Besides, +I should like to have a talk with you." + +He offered me a chair, my own chair, the comfortable, broad- +seated Empire chair I had given Judith as a birthday present +years ago, the chair in which I had invariably sat. He did it +with the manner of the master of the house, a most courteous +gentleman. The situation was fantastic. Some ingenious devil +must have conceived it by way of pandering to the after-dinner +humour of the high gods. As I sat down I rubbed my eyes. Was +this brown-whiskered, bald-headed clerical gentleman real? The +rubbing of my eyes dispelled no hallucination. He was flesh and +blood and still regarded me urbanely. It was horrible. The +desertion of the scoundrelly husband, who I thought was lost +somewhere in the cesspool of Europe, was the basis, the sanction +of the relations between Judith and myself; and here was this +reverend, respectable man apologising for his wife and begging me +to be seated in my own chair. The remark of Judith's that I +should find sabbatical calm in the drawing-room occurred to me, +and I had to grip the arms of the chair to prevent myself from +joining Judith in her hysterics. + +The appearance of the husband in his legendary colours of +rascality would have been a shock. The sudden scattering of +my plans for Judith's happiness I should have viewed with +consternation. But it would have been normal. For him, however, +to appear in the guise of an Evangelical clergyman, the very last +kind of individual to be associated with Judith, was, I repeat, +horribly fantastic. + +"I believe, Sir Marcus," said he, deliberately parting the tails +of his exaggerated frock-coat and sitting down near me, " that +you are a very great friend of my wife." + +I murmured that I had known Mrs. Mainwaring for some years. + +"You are doubtless acquainted with her unhappy history." + +"I have heard her speak of it," said I. + +"You must then share her surprise in seeing me here to-day. I +should like to assure you, as representing her friends and +society and that sort of thing, as I have assured her, that I +have not taken this step without earnest prayer and seeking the +counsel of Almighty God." + +I am by no means a bigoted pietist, but to hear a person talk +lightly about seeking the counsel of Almighty God jars upon my +sense of taste. I stiffened at the sanctimonious tone in which +the words were uttered. + +"You have without doubt very good reasons for coming back into +the circle of her life," said I. + +"The best of all reasons," he replied, caressing a brown whisker, +"namely, that I am a Christian." + +I liked him less and less. + +"Is that the reason, may I ask, why you remained away from her +all these years?" + +"I deserve the scoff," said he: "Those were days of sin. I +deserve every humiliation that can be put upon me. But I have +since found the grace of God. I found it at three o'clock in the +afternoon on the eighth of January, eighteen hundred and--" + +"Never mind the year," I interrupted. + +My gorge rose. The man was a sanctimonious Chadband. He had +come with nefarious designs on Judith's slender capital. I saw +knavery in the whites of his upturned eyes. + +"I should be glad," I continued quickly, "if you would come to +the point of the conversation you desire to have with me. I +presume it concerns Mrs. Mainwaring. She has reconciled herself +to circumstances and has found means to regulate her life with a +certain measure of contentment and comfort until now, when you +suddenly introduce a disturbing factor. You appear to wish to +tell me your reasons for doing so--and I can't see what the grace +of God has to do with it." + +He sprang to his feet and shot out both hands in the awkward +gesture of an inspired English prophet. + +"But it has everything to do with it! It is the beginning and +end, core and kernel, root and branch of the matter. It is the +grace of God that checked me in the full career of my wickedness. +It is the grace of God that has lighted my path ever since to +holier things. It is the grace of God that has changed me from +what I was to what I am. It is the grace of God that has brought +me here to ask pardon on my knees of the woman I have wronged. +The grace of God and of his son our Lord Jesus Christ, which came +upon me in a great light on that January afternoon even as it did +upon Saul of Tarsus. The grace of God has everything to do with +it." + +"Mr. Mainwaring," said I, "such talk is either blasphemous or--" + +He did not allow me to state the alternative, but caught up the +word in a great cry. + +"Blasphemous! Why, man alive! for what are you taking me? Do +you think this is some unholy jest? Can't you see that I am in +deadly earnest? Come and see me where I live--" he caught me by +the arm, as if he would drag me away then and there, "among the +poor in Hoxton. You scarcely know where Hoxton is--I didn't when +I was a man of ease like yourself--that wilderness of grey +despair where the sun of the world scarcely shines, let alone the +Light of God. Come and see for yourself, man, whether I am +lying!" + +Then it dawned upon me that the man had been talking from +innermost depths, that he was almost terrifyingly sincere. + +"I must ask you to pardon me," said I, "for appearing to doubt +your good faith. You must attribute it to my entire +unfamiliarity with the terms of Evangelical piety." + +He looked at me queerly for a moment, and then, in the quiet +tones of a man of the world, said, smiling pleasantly: + +"Very many years ago I had the pleasure of knowing your +grandfather, the late baronet. May I say that you remind me of +him?" + +I have never heard an apology more gracefully and tactfully +accepted. For an unregenerate second he had become the gallant +Rupert Mainwaring again, and showed me wherein might lie his +attraction. + +"Pray be seated," said he, more gravely, "and allow me to +explain." + +He unfolded his story. It was well, said he, that an outsider (I +an outsider in that familiar room!) should hear it. I was at +liberty to make it public. Indeed, publicity was what he +earnestly craved. As far as my memory serves me, for my wits +were whirling as I listened, the following is an epitome of his +narrative: + +He had been a man of sin--not only in the vague ecclesiastical +sense, but in downright, practical earnest. He had committed +every imaginable crime, save the odd few that lead to penal +servitude and the gallows. He drank, he betrayed women, he +cheated at cards, he had an evil reputation on the turf. His +companions were chosen from the harlotry and knavery of the +civilised world. He had lured Judith from her first husband, +thus breaking his heart, poor man, so that he died soon after. +He had married Judith, and had deserted her for a barmaid whom in +her turn he had abandoned. He wallowed, to use his own +expression, in the trough of iniquity. He was, as I had always +understood, about as choice a blackguard as it would be possible +to meet outside a gaol. One day a pretty girl, whom he had been +following in the street, unwittingly enticed him into a +revivalist meeting. He described that meeting so vividly that +had my stupefied mind been capable of fresh emotions, I too might +have been converted at second hand by the revivalist preacher. +He repeated parts of the sermon, rose to his feet, waved his +arms, thundered out the commonplaces of Salvation Army +Christianity, as if he had made an amazing theological discovery. +It was pathetic. It was ludicrous. It was also inconceivably +painful. At last he mopped his forehead and shiny head. + +"Before that meeting was over I was on my knees praying beside +the girl whom I had designed to ruin. I went into the streets a +converted man, filled with the grace of God. I resolved to +devote my life to saving souls for Christ. My old habits of sin +fell away from me like a garment. I studied for the ministry. I +am now in deacon's orders, and I am the incumbent of a little tin +mission church in Hoxton. God moves in a mysterious way, Sir +Marcus." + +"He is generally credited with doing so," said I, stupidly. + +"You are doubtless wondering, Sir Marcus," he went on, "why I +placed such a long interval between my awakening and my +communicating with my wife. I set myself a period of probation. +I desired to be assured of God's will. It was essential that I +should test my strength of purpose, and my power of making a +life's atonement, as far as the things of this world are +concerned, for the wrongs I have inflicted on her. I have come +now to offer her a Christian home." + +I looked at him open-mouthed. + +"Do you expect Judith to go and live with you as your wife, in +Hoxton?" I asked, bluntly. + +"Why not? She is my wife." + +I rose and walked about the room in agitation. Somehow such a +contingency had not entered my bewildered head. + +"Why not, Sir Marcus?" he repeated. + +"Because Judith isn't that kind of woman at all," I said, +desperately. "She doesn't like Hoxton, and would be as much out +of place in a tin-mission church as I should be in a cavalry +charge." + +"God will see to her fitness," said he, gravely. "To him all +things are easy." + +"But she has considerable philosophic doubt as to his personal +existence," I cried. + +He smiled prophetically and waved away her doubt with a gesture. + +"I have no fears on that score," he observed. + +"But it is preposterous," I objected once more, changing my +ground; "Judith craves the arrears of gaiety and laughter which +your conduct caused life to leave owing to her. She loves bright +dresses, cigarettes, and wine and the things that are anathema in +an Evangelical household." + +"My wife will find the gaiety and laughter of holiness," replied +the fanatic. "She will not be stinted of money to dress herself +with becoming modesty; and as for alcohol and tobacco, no one +knows better than myself how easy it is to give them up." + +"You seem as merciless in your virtues as you were in your +vices," said I. + +"I have to bring souls to Christ," he answered. + +"That doesn't appear to be the way," I retorted, "to bring them." + +"Pray remember, Sir Marcus," said he, bending his brows upon me, +"that I did not ask you for suggestions as to the conduct of my +ministry." + +"The general methods you adopt in the case of your congregation," +said I, "are matters of perfect indifference to me. But I cannot +see Judith imprisoned for life in a tin church without a protest. +Your proposal reminds me of the Siennese who owed a victorious +general more than they could possibly repay. The legend goes that +they hanged him, in order to make him a saint after his death by +way of reward. I object to this sort of canonisation of Judith. +And she will object, too. You seem to leave her out of account +altogether. She is mistress of her own actions. She has a will +of her own. She is not going to give up her comfortable flat off +the Tottenham Court Road in order to dwell in Hoxton. She won't +go back to you under your conditions." + +He smiled indulgently and held out his hand to signify that the +interview was over. + +"She will, Sir Marcus." + +Was there ever such a Torquemada of a creature? I respect +religion. I respect this man's intense conviction of the reality +of his conversion. I can respect even the long frock coat and +the long brown whiskers, which in the case of so dashing a +worldling as Rupert Mainwaring were a deliberate and daily +mortification of the flesh. But I hold in shuddering detestation +"the thumb-screw and the rack for the glory of the Lord," which +he cheerfully contemplated applying to Judith. + +"Why on earth can't you let the poor woman alone?" I asked, +ignoring his hand. + +"I am doing my duty to God and to her," said he. + +"With the result that you have driven her into hysterics." + +"She'll get over them," said he. + +"I wish you good-day," said I. "We might talk together for a +thousand years without understanding each other." + +"Pardon me," he retorted, with the utmost urbanity. "I +understand you perfectly." + +He accompanied me to the dining-room where I had left my hat and +umbrella, and to the flat door which he politely opened. When it +shut behind me I felt inclined to batter it open again and to +take Judith by main force from under his nose. But I suppose I +am pusillanimous. I found myself in the street brandishing my +umbrella like a flaming sword and vowing to perform all sorts of +Paladin exploits, which I knew in my heart were futile. + +I hailed an omnibus in the Tottenham Court Road, and clambered to +the top, though a slight drizzle was falling. Why I did it I +have not the remotest idea, for I abhor those locomotive engines +of exquisite discomfort. I had no preconceived notion of +destination. It was a moving thing that would carry me away from +the Tottenham Court Road, away from the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring, +away from myself. I was the solitary occupant of the omnibus +roof. The rain fell, softly, persistently, soakingly. I laughed +aloud. + +I recognised the predestined irony of things that at every corner +checks the course of the ineffectual man. + + + +CBAPTER XX + + +November 11th. + +I wrote Judith a long letter last night, urging her to disregard +the forfeited claims of her husband and to join her life +definitely with mine. I was cynical enough to feel that if such +a proceeding annoyed the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring it would serve +him right. The fact of a man's finding religion and abjuring +sack does not in itself exculpate him from wrongs which he has +inflicted on his fellow-creatures in unregenerate days. +Mainwaring deserved some punishment of which he seemed to have +had remarkably little; for, mind you, his sack-cloth and ashes at +Hoxton, although sincerely worn, are not much of a punishment to +a man in his exalted mood. Now, on the contrary, Judith deserved +compensation, such as I alone was prepared to offer her in spite +of conventional morality and the feelings of the Rev. Rupert +Mainwaring. Indeed, it seemed to be the only way of saving +Judith from being worried out of her life by frantic appeals to +embrace both himself and Primitive Christianity. Her position +was that of Andromeda. Mine that of an unheroic Perseus, +destined to deliver her from the monster--the monster whose lair +is a little tin mission church in Hoxton. + +I wrote the letter in one of those periods of semi-vitality when +the pulses of emotion throb weakly, and sensitiveness is dulled. +To-day I have felt differently. My nerves have been restrung. +Something ironically vulgar, sordidly tragic has seemed to creep +into my relations with Judith. + +To my great surprise Judith brought her answer in person this +evening. It is the first time she has entered my house; and her +first words, as she looked all around her with a wistful smile +referred to the fact. + +"It is almost just as I have pictured it--and I have pictured it- +-do you know how often?" + +She was calmer, if not happier. The haggard expression had given +place to one of resignation. I wheeled an arm-chair close to the +fire, for she was cold, and she sank into it with a sigh of +weariness. I knelt beside her. She drew off her gloves and put +one hand on my head in the old way. The touch brought me great +comfort. I thought that we had reached the quiet haven at last. + +"So you have come to me, Judith," I whispered. + +"I have come, dear," she said, "to tell you that I can't come." + +My heart sank. + +"Why?" I asked. + +We fenced a little. She gave half reasons, womanlike, of which I +proved the inadequacy. I recapitulated the arguments I had used +in my letter. She met them with hints and vague allusions. At +last she cut the knot. + +"I am going back to my husband." + +I rose to my feet and echud the words. She repeated them in a +tone so mournfully distinct, that they had the finality of a +death-knell. I had nothing to say. + +"Before we part I must make my peace with you, Marcus," she said. +"I have suddenly developed a conscience. I always had the germs +of it." + +"You were always the best and dearest woman in the world," I +cried. + +"And I betrayed you, dear. That letter from Pasquale told me +about his flight with Carlotta. I lied to you--but I was in a +state bordering on madness." + +I rested my elbow on the mantel-piece and looked down on her. +She appeared so sweet and fragile, like a piece of Dresden china, +incapable of base actions. As I did not speak she went on: +"I did not mean to play into Pasquale's hands, Marcus. Heaven +knows I didn't--but I did play into them. Do you remember that +awful night and our talk the next morning? I asked you not to +see her all day--to mourn our dead love. I knew you would keep +your promise. You are a man of sensitive honour. If all men +were like you, the world would be a beautiful place." + +"It would go to smash in a few weeks through universal +incompetence," I murmured, with some bitterness. + +"There would be no meanness and treachery and despicable +underhand doings. Marcus, you must forgive me--I was a desperate +woman fighting for my life's happiness. I thought I would try +one forlorn hope. I kept you out of the way and came up here to +see Carlotta. Don't interrupt me, Marcus; let me finish. I +happened to meet her a hundred yards down the road, and we went +into the Regent's Park. We sat down and I told her about +ourselves, and my love for you, and asked her to give you up. I +don't believe she understood, Marcus. She laughed and threw +stones at a little dog. I recovered my senses and left her there +and went home sick with shame and humiliation. I knew Pasquale +was in love with her, for he had told me so the night before, and +asked me how the marriage could be stopped. He didn't believe in +your announcement to Hamdi Effendi. But I never mentioned +Pasquale to Carlotta, or hinted there might be another than you. +I was loyal so far, Marcus. And two or three days afterwards +came Pasquale's letter. And I waited for you, in a fearful joy. +I knew you would come to me--and I was mad enough to think that +time would heal--that you would forget--that we could have the +dear past again--and I would teach you to love me. But then, +suddenly, without a word of warning--it has always been his way +--appeared my husband. After that, you came with your offer of +shelter and comfort--and you seemed like the angel of the flaming +vengeance. For I had wronged you, dear--robbed you of your +happiness. If I hadn't prepared her mind for leaving you, she +would never have run away. If I had not done this, or if on the +other hand you loved me, Marcus, I should perhaps have looked at +things differently. I am beginning to believe in God and to see +his hand in it all. I couldn't come and live with you as your +wife, Marcus. Things stronger even than my love for you forbid +it. Our life together would not be the sweet and gracious thing +it has always been to me. We have come to the parting of the +ways. I must follow my husband." + +I knew she spoke rightly. When she is not swept away to +hysterical action by her temperament, she has a perception +exquisitely keen into the heart of truth. + +"The parting of the ways?" said I. "Yes; but can't you rest at +the cross-roads? Can't you lead your present life--your husband +and myself, both, just your friends?" + +"Rupert has need of me," she replied very quickly. "He is a man +in torment of soul. He has gone to this extreme of religious +fanaticism because he is still uncertain of himself. We had +another long talk to-day. I may help him." + +"does he deserve the sacrifice of your life?" + +She did not take up my question directly; but sat for a few +minutes with her chin on her hand looking into the fire. + +"He is a man of evil passions," she resumed, at last. "Drink and +women mainly dragged him down. I knew the hell of it during the +short time of our married life. If he falls away now, he +believes he is damned to all eternity. He believes in the +material torture--flames and devils and pitchforks--of damned +souls. He says in me alone lies his salvation. I must go. If +the tin church gets too awful, I shall run over to Delphine +Carrere for a week to steady my nerves." + +What could I say? The abomination of desolation lay around about +me. I might have prated to her of my needs, wrung her heart with +the piteousness of my appeal. _Cui bono?_ _I_ can't whine to +women--or to men either, for the matter of that. When I am by +myself I can curse and swear, play Termagant and rehearse an +extravaganza out-Heroding all the Herods that ever Heroded. But +before others--no. I believe my great-grandfather, before he +qualified for his baronetcy, was a gentleman. + +"But on these occasions," said I, "you will avoid a sequestered +and meditative self." + +Her laugh got choked by a sob. + +"Do you remember that? It is not so long ago--and yet it seems +many, many years." + +We moralised generally, after the way of humans, who desire to +postpone a moment of anguished speech. She made the tour of my +book-shelves. Many of the books she had borrowed, and she +recognised them as old friends. + +"Is that where Benvenuto Cellini has always lived?" + +"Yes," said I, running my hand along the row. "He is in his +century, among his companions. He would be unhappy anywhere +else." + +"And the History--how far has it gone?" + +I showed her the pile of finished manuscript, of which she +glanced at a few pages. She put it down hurriedly and turned +away. + +"I can't see to read, just now, Marcus." + +Then she paused in front of her own photograph, the only one now +on the mantel-piece. + +"Will you give me that back?" + +"Why should I?" I asked. + +"I would rather--I should not like you to burn it." + +"Burn it? All I have left of you?" + +She turned swimming eyes on me. + +"You are good, Marcus--after what I have told you--you do not +feel bitterly against me?" + +"For what? For being quixotic? For going to martyrdom for an +ideal?" + +"You did not listen when I spoke about Carlotta?" + +"Oh, my dear!" said I. + +And now she has gone. We kissed at parting--a kiss of +remembrance and renunciation. Shall we ever meet again? + +Darkness gathers round me, and I am tired, tired, and I would +that I could sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and awake an old man, +with an old man's passionless resignation; or better, awake not +at all. Such poor fools as I are better dead. + +I look back and see all my philosophy refuted, all my prim little +opinions lying prone like dolls with the sawdust knocked out of +them. All these years I have been judging Judith with an +ignorance as cruel as it has been complacent. Verily I have been +the fag end of wisdom. So I forbear to judge her now. + +If I had loved Judith with the great passion of a man's love for +woman, not all the converted rascals in Christendom could have +come between us. + +And her seeing Carlotta--poor woman--what does it matter? What +did she say about Carlotta? "She laughed and threw stones at a +little dog." + +Oh, my God! + + +November 12th + +This way madness lies. I will leave the house in charge of +Stenson and Antoinette and go abroad. Something has put Verona +into my head. One place is as good as another, so long as it is +not this house--this house of death and madness and crime--and +Verona is in Italy, where I have always found peace. + +I will confess my madness. This book is a record of my morals +--the finished version of the farce the high gods have called on +meto play. I thought last night the curtain was rung down. I +was wrong. Listen, and laugh as I do--if you can. + +I fixed myself to work to-day. After all, I am not an idler. I +earn my right to live. When I publish my History the world will +be the richer by _something_, poor though it may be. I vow I +have been more greatly, more nobly employed of late years, than I +was when I earned my living at school-slavery teaching to +children the most useless, the most disastrous, the most soul- +cramping branch of knowledge wherewith pedagogues in their +insensate folly have crippled the minds and blasted the lives of +thousands of their fellow-creatures--elementary mathematics. +There is no more reason for any human being on God's earth to be +acquainted with the Binomial Theorem or the Solution of +Triangles--unless he is a professional scientist, when he can +begin to specialise in mathematics at the same age as the lawyer +begins to specialise in law or the surgeon in anatomy--than for +him to be an expert in Choctaw, the Cabala or the Book of Mormon. +I look back with feelings of shame and degradation to the days +when, for the sake of a crust of bread, I prostituted my +intelligence to wasting the precious hours of impressionable +childhood, which could have been filled with so many beautiful +and meaningful things, over this utterly futile and inhuman +subject. It trains the mind--it teaches boys to think, they say. +It doesn't. In reality it is a cut and dried subject easy to fit +into a school curriculum. Its sacrosanctity saves +educationalists an enormous amount of trouble, and its chief use +is to enable mindless young men from the universities to make a +dishonest living by teaching it to others, who in their turn may +teach it to a future generation. + +I am mad to-night--why have I indulged in this diatribe against +mathematics? I must find some vent, I suppose. I see now. I +was saying that I earned my right to live, that I am not an +idler. I cling strenuously to the claim. A man cannot command +respect, even his own, by the mere reason of his _vie +sentimentale_. And, after what I have done to-day, I must force +my claim to the respect which on other grounds I have forfeited. + +I spent, then, my day in unremitting toil. But this evening the +horrible craving for her came over me. Such a little thing +brought it about. Antoinette, who disapproves of the amorphous +British lumps of sugar, has found some emporium where she can buy +the regular parallelopiped of the Continent, and these she +provides for my afterdinner coffee. Absent-mindedly I dipped the +edge of the piece of sugar into the liquid, before dropping it, +and watched the brown moisture rise through the white crystals. +Then I remembered. It was an invariable practice of Carlotta's. +She would keep the lump in the coffee to saturation-point between +her fingers, and then hastily put it into her mouth, so that it +should not crumble to pieces on the way. If it did, there would +be much laughter and wiping of skirts; and there would be a +search through my dinner-jacket pockets for a handkerchief to dry +the pink tips of her fingers. She called the dripping lump a +canard, like the French children. It was such a trivial thing; +but it brought back with a rush all the thousand dainty, foolish, +captivating intimacies that made up the maddening charm of +Carlotta. + +Yes, I am aware that there is no language spoken under heaven +that can fitly express the doting folly of a man who can be +driven mad by a piece of sugar soaked in coffee. There is a +ghastly French phrase not to be found in Lamartine, +Chateaubriand, or any of the polite sentimentalists _avoir les +sangs tournes de quelqu'un_. It is so with me. _J'ai les sangs +tournes d'elle_. Somebody has said something somewhere about the +passion of a man of forty. It must have to do with the French +phrase. + +I pushed my coffee aside untasted, and buried my head in my +hands, longing, longing; eating my heart out for her. The hours +passed. When the servants were abed, I stole upstairs to her +room, left as it was on the night when Antoinette, hoping against +hope, had prepared it for her reception. I broke down. Heaven +knows what I did. + +I returned to the drawing-room filled with the blind rage that +makes a man curse God and wish that he could die. The fire was +black, and I mechanically took up the poker to stir it. A +tempest of impotent anger shook my soul. I saw things red before +my eyes. I had an execrable lust to kill. I was alone amid a +multitude of gibbering fiends. As I stooped before the grate I +felt something scrabble my shoulders. I leapt back with a +shriek, and saw standing on the mantel-shelf a black, one-eyed +thing regarding me with an expression of infinite malice. Before +I knew what I had done, I had brought the iron down, with all my +force, upon its skull, and it had fallen dead at my feet. + +_Finis coronat opus._ + + +November 22d. + +Verona:--I have abandoned the"History of Renaissance Morals." +The dog's-eared MS. and the dusty pile of notes I have shot into +a lumber heap in a corner of this room, where I sit and shiver by +a little stove. It is immense, marble, cold, comfortless, +suggestive of "the vasty halls of death." I have been here a +week to-day. I thought I should find rest. I should breathe the +atmosphere of Italy again. I should ease my heart among the +masterworks of Girolamo dai Libri and Cavazzola, and, in the +presence of the blue castellated mountains they loved to paint, +my spirit would even be as theirs. In this old-world city, I +fondly imagined, I should forget the Regent's Park, and attune my +mind to the life that once filled its narrow streets. + +But nothing have I found save solitude. I stood to-day before +the mutilated fresco of Morone, my rapture of six years ago, +and hated it with unreasoning hatred. The Madonna belied the +wreath-supported inscription above her head, _"Miseratrix virginum +Regina nostri miserere,"_ and greeted me with a pitiless simper. +The unidentified martyr on the left stared straight in front of +him with callous indifference, and St. Roch looked aggravatingly +plump for all his ostentatious plague-spot. The picture was +worse than meaningless. It was insulting. It drove me out of +the Public Gallery. Outside a grey mist veiled the hills and a +fine penetrating rain was falling. I crept home, and for the +fiftieth time since I have been here, opened my "History of +Renaissance Morals." I threw it, with a final curse, into the +corner. + +I loathe it. I care not a fig for the Renaissance or its morals. +I count its people but a pestilent herd of daubers, rhymers, +cutthroats, and courtesans. Their _hubris_ has lost its glamour +of beauty and has coarsened into vulgar insolence. They offend +me by their riotous swagger, their insistence on the animal joy +of living; chiefly by their perpetual reminiscence of Pasquale. + +Yet once they interested me greatly, filling with music and with +colour the grey void of my life. Whence has come the change? + +In myself. To myself I have become a subject of excruciating +interest. To myself I am a vastly more picturesque personage +than any debonair hooligan of quattro-cento Verona. He has faded +into the dullest (and most offensive) dog of a ghost. I only +exist. This sounds like the colossal vanity of Bedlam. Heaven +knows it is not. If you are racked with toothache from ear to +ear, from crown to chin, and from eyeball to cerebellum, is not +the whole universe concentrated in that head of yours? Are you +not to yourself in that hour of torture the most vitally +important of created beings? And no one blames you for it. Let +me therefore be without blame in my hour of moral toothache. + +In the days gone by I was the victim of a singular hallucination. +I flattered myself on being the one individual in the world not +summoned to play his part in the comedy of Life. I sat alone in +the great auditorium like the mad king of Bavaria, watching with +little zest what seemed but a sorry spectacle. I thought myself +secure in my solitary stall. But I had not counted on the high +gods who crowd shadowy into the silent seats and are jealous of a +mortal in their midst. Without warning was I wrested from my +place, hurled onto the stage, and before my dazzled eyes could +accustom themselves to the footlights, I found myself enmeshed +in intolerable drama. I was unprepared. I knew my part +imperfectly. I missed my cues. I had the blighting +self-consciousness of the amateur. And yet the idiot mummery was +intensely real. Amid the laughter of the silent shadowy gods I +thought to flee from the stage. I came to Verona and find I am +still acting my part. I have always been acting. I have been +acting since I was born. The reason of our being is to amuse the +high gods with our histrionics. The earth itself is the stage, +and the starry ether the infinite auditorium. + +The high gods have granted to their troupe of mimes one boon. +Each has it in his power to make the final exit at any moment. +For myself I feel that moment is at hand. One last soliloquy, +and then like the pagliacco I can say with a sigh, _"La commedia +e finita_--the play is played out," and the rest will be silence. +At all events I will tell my own story. My "History of +Renaissance Morals" can lie in its corner and rot, whilst I shall +concern myself with a far more vital theme--The Morals of Marcus +Ordeyne. The rough entries in my diary have been a habit of many +futile years; but they have never sufficed for self-expression. +I have not needed it till now. But now, with Judith and Carlotta +gone from me, my one friend, Pasquale, cut for ever from my life, +even the sympathetic Polyphemus driven into eternity by my +murderous hand, I feel the irresistible craving to express myself +fully and finally for the first and last time of my life. It +will be my swan song. What becomes of it afterwards I care not. + +And when the last word is written, I shall go to the Pinacoteca +and stand again before the Morone fresco, and if the _Miseratrix +Virginum Regina_ still simpers at me, I shall take it as a sign +and a token. I shall return to this marble cavern and make my +final exit. It will be theatrically artistic--that I vow and +declare--which no doubt will afford immense pleasure to the high +gods in their gallery. + + + + +PART II + + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + +It is some two years since I stood for the second time in the +Pinacoteca of Verona and sought to read my fate in the simpering +countenance of Morone's _Miseratrix Virginum Regina_. I met what +might have been expected by a person of any sense--the self-same +expression on the painted face as I had angrily found there two +months before when I began to write the foregoing pages. But as +I had no sense at all in those days I accepted the poor battered +Madonna's lack of sympathy for a sign and a token, went home, and +prepared for dissolution. + +Two years ago! It is only for the last few months that I have +been able to look back on that nightmare of a time in Verona with +philosophic equanimity. And this morning is the first occasion +on which I have felt that dispassionate attitude towards a past +self which enables a man to set down without the heartache the +memories of days that are gone. I sit upon the flat roof of this +house in Mogador on the Morocco coast, shaded by an awning from +the bright African sun which glints in myriad sparkles on the sea +visible beyond the house-tops. The atmosphere last night was +somewhat heavy with the languorous, indescribable, and +unforgettable smell of the East; but the morning is deliciously +wind-swept by the Atlantic breeze, and the air tastes sweet. And +it is clear, dazzlingly clear. The white square houses and the +cupolas of the mosques stand out sharp against a sky of intense, +ungradated blue. I am away from the centre of the busy sea-port +and the noise of its streets thronged with grain-laden camels and +shouting drivers and picturesque, quarrelling, squabbling, +haggling Moors and Jews and desert Arabs, and I am enveloped in +the peace of the infinite azure. Besides, yesterday afternoon, +as I rode back to Mogador, across the tongue of desert which +separates it from the Palm Tree House, and the town rose on the +horizon, a dream city of pure snow set in the clear sunset +amethyst against the still, pale lapis lazuli of the bay +--something happened. And yesterday evening more happened still. + + +Two years ago, then, I faced in Verona the dissolution of my +ineffectual existence. I could see no reason for living. My +theory of myself in my relation to the cosmos had been upset by +practical phenomena. No other theory based on surer grounds +presented itself. But what about life, said I, without a theory? +Already it was life without a purpose, without work, without +friends, without Judith and without Carlotta. I could not endure +it without even a theory to console me. Beings do exist devoid +of loves or theories. But of such, I thought, are the beasts +that perish. I reflected further. Supposing, on extended +investigation, I found a new theory. How far would it profit me? +How far could I trust it not to lead me through another series of +fantastic emotions and futile endeavours to the sublime climax of +murdering a one-eyed cat? Self-abomination and contempt smote me +as I thought of poor Polyphemus stretched dead on the hearthrug, +and myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, with +the poker in my hand. + +I walked up and down the vast cold room of the marble palazzo, +arraying before me in overwhelming numbers the arguments for +selfdestruction. On a table in the middle of the room stood a +phial of prussic acid which I had procured long before in London, +it being a conviction of mine that every man ought to have ready +to hand a sure means of exit from the world. I paused many times +in front of the little blue phial. One lift of the hand, one +toss of the head, and all would be over. At last I extracted the +cork, and the faint smell of almonds reached my nostrils. I +recorked the phial and lit a cigarette. This I threw away half +smoked and again approached the table of death. I began to feel +a strong natural disinclination to swallow the stuff. "This," +said I, "is sheer animal cowardice." I again uncorked the phial. +A new phase of the matter appeared to me. "It is the act of a +craven to shirk the responsibilities of life. Can you be such a +meanspirited creature as not even to have the courage to live?" +"No," said I, "I have a valiant spirit," and I set down the +bottle. "Bah," whispered the familiar imp of suicide at my +elbow. "You are just afraid to die." I took up the bottle +again. But the other taunter had an argument equally strong, and +once more I put the phial uncorked on the table. + +Thus between two cowardices, one of which I must choose, stood I, +like the ass of Buridan. I lit another cigarette and excogitated +the problem. I smoked two cigarettes, walking up and down that +vast, chill apartment, while the air grew sickly sweet with the +smell of almonds, which intensified the physical repugnance the +first faint odour had occasioned. I began to shiver with cold. +The stove had burned out before I entered, and I had not +considered it worth while to have it filled for the few minutes +that would remain to me to live. I had not reckoned on the ass's +bundles of cowardice. + +"I may as well be warm," thought I, "while I prove to my complete +satisfaction that it is more cowardly to live than to die. There +is no very great hurry." + +I caught up a travelling-rug with which I had tried to soften the +asperities of an imitation Louis XV couch, and throwing it over +my shoulders, resumed my pilgrimage. I soon lost myself in the +problem and did not notice a corner of the rug gradually slipping +down towards the floor. + +"I'll do it!" I cried at last, making a sudden dive towards the +table. But the ironical corner of the rug had reached the +ground. I stepped on it, tripped, and instinctively caught the +table to steady myself. The table, a rickety gueridon, +overbalanced, and away rolled my uncorked phial of prussic acid +and fell into a hundred pieces on the tessellated floor. + +"_Solvitur_," said I, grimly, "_ambulando_." + +Looking back now, I am inclined to treat myself tenderly. +Whether I should have drunk the poison, if the accident had not +occurred, I cannot say. At the moment of my rush I intended to +do so. After the catastrophe, which I attributed to the curse of +ineffectuality that pursued me, I must confess that I was glad. +Not that life looked more attractive than before, but that the +decision had been taken out of my hands. I could not go about +the shops of Verona buying prussic acid or revolvers or metres of +stout rope. And my razors (without Stenson's care) were +benignantly blunt, and I would not condescend to braces. I +groaned and pished and pshawed, but as it was written that I was +to live, I resigned myself to a barren and theoryless existence. + +After a day or two the vital instinct asserted itself more +strongly. I became inspired by an illuminating revelation. I +had a preliminary aim in life. I would go out into the world in +search of a theory. When found I would apply it to the +regulation of the score and a half years during which I might +possibly expect to remain on this planet. I must take my chances +of it leading me to the corpse of another Polyphemus. + +As it struck me I should not find my theory in Italy, I packed up +my belongings and hastened from Verona. At Naples I picked up a +Messageries Maritimes steamer and began a circular tour in the +Levant. At Alexandretta I went ashore, and inquired my way to +the dwelling of the Prefect of Police. I did not call on Hamdi +Effendi. But I wandered round the walls and wondered in a moody, +heart-achey way where it was that Carlotta sat when Harry came +along and whistled her like a tame falcon to his arm. It was a +white palace of a house with a closed balcony supported on rude +corbels and tightly shuttered. At the back spread a large garden +surrounded by the famous wall. There was no doubt that Hamdi was +a wealthy personage, and that Carlotta's nurture had been as +gentle as that of any lady in Syria. But the place wherein +Carlotta's childhood had been sheltered had an air of +impenetrable mystery. I stood baffled before it, as I had stood +so often before Carlotta's soul. The result of this portion of +my search was the discovery, not of a new theory, but of an old +pain. I went back to the ship in a despondent mood, and caused +deep distress to one of the gentlest creatures I have ever met. +He was a lean, elderly German, who no matter what the occasion or +what the temperature wore a long, tight-buttoned frock-coat, a +narrow black tie, and a little bluish-grey felt hat adorned with +a partridge's feather which gave him an air of forlorn +rakishness. His name was Doctor Anastasius Dose, and he spent a +blameless life in travelling up and down the world, on behalf of +a Leipsic firm of which he was a member, in search of rare and +curious books. For there are copies of books which have a well- +known pedigree like famous jewels, and whose acquisition, a +matter of infinite tact, gives rise, I was told by Herr Dose, to +the most exquisite thrill known to man. He brought me on that +morose afternoon a copy of the "Synonima," in Italian and French, +of St. Fliscus, printed by Simon Magniagus of Milan in 1480, and +opened the vellum covers with careful fingers. + +"In all the assemblage of human atoms that inhabit this vessel," +said he, "there is but one who is imbued with reverence for the +past and a sense of the preciousness of the unique. I need not +tell you, Herr Baronet, who are a scholar, that of this book only +two copies exist in this ink-sodden universe. One is in the +University Library of Bologna; the other is before your eyes. It +is also the only book known to have been printed by Magniagus. +See the beautiful, small Roman type--a masterpiece. Ach, Herr +Baronet! to have accomplished one such work in a lifetime, and +then to sit among the blessed saints and look down on earth and +know that the two sole copies in existence are cherished by the +elect, what a reward, what eternal happiness!" + +I turned over the pages. The faint perfume of mouldy lore +ascended and I remembered the smell of the "Histoire des +Uscoques" in the Embankment Gardens. + +"The _odor di femina_ in the nostrils of the scholar," said I. + +"_Famina?_ Woman?" he cried, scandalised. + +"Yes, my friend," said I. "All things sublunar can be translated +into terms of woman. St. Fliscus wrote because he hadn't a wife; +Simon Magniagus stopped printing because he got married and +devoted his existence to reproducing himself instead of St. +Fliscus." + +"Ach, that is very interesting," said he. "Could you tell me the +date of Magniagus's marriage?" + +"I never heard of him till this moment, my dear Herr Doctor. But +depend upon it, he was either married or was going to be married, +and she ran away from him and left him without the heart to print +for posterity, and when he took his seat among the saints she +said she was so glad; he was a stupid old ink-sodden fellow!" + +He departed sorrowingly from the deck, clasping the precious +volume to his heart. Allusive or discursive speech scared him +like indecency; and I had used his gem but as a peg whereon +flauntingly to hang it. It took me three days to tame him and to +induce him to show me another of his treasures, recently acquired +in Athens. Ioannes Georgius Godelmann's _Tractate de Lamiis_, +printed by Nicholas Bassaeus of Frankfurt. I read him Keats's +poem about the young lady of Corinth, of which he had never heard. +His mental attitude towards it was the indulgent one of an old +diplomatist towards a child's woolly lamb. For him literature +had never existed and printing ended in the year 1600. But I was +sorry when he left me at Constantinople, where he counted on +striking the track of a Bohemian herbal, printed at Prague, and +never more to be read by any of the sons of man. In the summer +he was going book-hunting in Iceland. By chance I have learned +since that he died there. Peace to his ashes! For aught I could +see he dwelt in a mild stupor of happiness, absorbed in the +intoxication of a tremulous pursuit. I wondered whether his soul +contained that antidote--the _odor di femina_. Perhaps he met it +at Reykjavic and he died of dismay. + +I thought that my landing at Alexandretta was alone responsible +for the continuance of my dotage, and hoped that fresh scenes +would banish Carlotta's distracting image. But no, it was one of +the many vain reflections on which I based a false philosophy. +Whether in Beyrout, or the land of the "sweet singer of +Persephone," or Alexandria, or on the Cannebiere of Marseilles, +or in the queer half-Orient of Algiers whither a restless pursuit +of the Identical led me, or in Lisbon, or in the mountainous +republic of Andorre, where I hoped to find primitive wisdom and +to shape a theory from first principles, and whence I was +ironically driven by fleas--whether on land or sea, in cities or +in solitudes, the vanished hand harped on my heartstrings and +the voice that was still (as far as I was concerned) cooed its +dove-notes into my ears. + +I remember overhearing myself described on a steamboat by a +pretty American girl of sixteen, as "a quaint gentle old guy who +talks awful rot which no one can understand, and is all the time +thinking about something else." My sudden emergence from the +companion-way, where I was lighting a cigarette, brought red +confusion into the young person's cheeks. + +"How old do you think I am?" I asked. + +"Oh, about sixty," quoth the damsel. + +"I'm glad I'm quaint and gentle, even though I do talk rot," said +I. + +With the resourcefulness of her nation she linked her arm in mine +and started a confidential walk up and down the deck. + +"You are just a dear," she remarked. + +She could not have said more to Anastasius Dose had he been +there; as far as I can recollect he must just then have been +dying of the Inevitable in Iceland. Perhaps the few months had +brought me to resemble him. Instinctively I put my hand to my +head to reassure myself that I was not wearing a rakish little +soft felt hat with a partridge-feather, and I reflected with some +complacency that my rimless pince-nez did not give me the owlish +appearance produced by Anastasius Dose's great round, iron-rimmed +goggles. From such crumbs of vanity are we sometimes reduced to +take comfort. + +"I just want to know what you are," said my young American friend. + +Shall I confess my attraction? She brought a dim suggestion of +Carlotta. She had Carlotta's colouring and Carlotta's candour. +But there the resemblance stopped. The grey matter of her brain +had been distilled from the air of Wall Street, and there were +precious few things between earth and sky of which she hadn't +prescience. + +"I'm a broken-down philosopher," said I. + +" Oh, that's nothing. So is everybody as soon as they get sense. +What did you make your money in?" + +"I've not made any money," I answered, meekly. + +"I thought all people who were knighted in your country had made +piles of money." + +"Knighted!" I exclaimed. "What on earth do you think a quaint +old guy like myself could possibly have done to get knighted?" + +"Then you're a baronet," she said, severely. + +"I assure you it is not my fault." + +"I thought all baronets were wicked. They are in the novels. +Somehow you don't look like a baronet. You ought to have a black +moustache and an eyeglass and smoke a cigar and sneer. But, say, +how do you fill up the time if you do nothing to make money?" + +"I am going through the world," said I, "on an adventurous quest, +like a knight--or a baronet, if you will--of the Round Table. I +am in quest of a Theory of Life." + +"I guess I was born with it," cried young New York. + +"I guess I'll die without finding it," said I. + + +London again. My quiet house. Antoinette and Stenson. The +well-ordered routine of comfort. My books. The dog's-eared +manuscript of the "History of Renaissance Morals," unpacked by +Stenson and hid in its usual place on the writing-table. Nothing +changed, yet everything utterly different. + +A growing distaste for the forced acquaintanceships of travel and +a craving for home brought me back. Save perhaps in health I had +profited little by my journeyings. My bodily shell formed part +of strange landscapes and occurred in fortuitous gatherings of +men, but my heart was all the time in my Mausoleum by the +Regent's Park. I was drawn thither by a force almost magnetic, +irresistible. My two domestics welcomed me home, but no one +else. Only my lawyers knew of my arrival. With them alone had I +corresponded during the many months of my absence. Stay; I did +write one letter to Mrs. McMurray while I was at Verona, in reply +to an enquiry as to what had become of Carlotta and myself. I +answered courteously but briefly that Carlotta had run away with +Pasquale and that I should be abroad for an indefinite period. +But not even a letter from my lawyers awaited me. I thought +somewhat wistfully that I would willingly have paid six and eight +pence for it. But the feeling was momentary. + +Then began a queer, untroubled life. Without definite resolve I +became a recluse, living forlornly from day to day. Like a bat I +avoided the outer sunshine and took my melancholy walks at night. +I had a pride in cherishing the habit of solitude. Were it not +that I entertained a real dislike of roots and water and the damp +and manifold discomforts of a cave, with which form of habitat +the ministrations of Stenson and Antoinette would have been +inconsistent, I should have gone forth into the nearest approach +to a Thebaid I could discover. I was, in fact, touched by the +mild mania of the hermit. My club I never entered. A line drawn +from east to west, a tangent at the lowest point of the +Zoological Gardens formed the southern boundary of my wanderings. +Once I spied in the distance that very kind soul, Mrs. McMurray, +and rushed into a providential omnibus, so as to avoid +recognition. My History remained untouched. The glamour +of theRenaissance had vanished. For occupation I read the +Neo-Platonists, Thaumaturgy, Demonology and the like, which I had +always found a fascinating although futile study. I regretted my +bowing acquaintance with modern science, which forbade my setting +up a laboratory with alembics and magic crystals wherewith to +conduct experiments for the finding of the Elixir Vitae and the +Philosopher's Stone. + +I seldom read the newspapers. I had an idea, like an eminent +personage of the period, that a sort of war was going on, but it +failed to interest me greatly. I shrank from the noise of it. + +"Monsieur," said Antoinette, "will get ill if he does not go out +into the sunshine." + +"Monsieur," said I, "regards the sunshine as an impertinent +intrusion into a soul that loves the twilight." + +If I had made the same remark to an Englishwoman, she would have +pitied me for a poor, half-witted gentleman. But Antoinette has +her nation's instinctive appreciation of soul-states, and her +sympathy was none the less comprehending when she shook her head +mournfully and said that it was bad for the stomach. + +"My good Antoinette," I remarked, harking back in my mind to a +speculation of other days, "if you go on worrying me in this +manner about my stomach, I will build a tower forty feet high in +the back garden, and live on top, and have my meals sent up by a +lift, and never come down again." + +"Monsieur might as well be in Paradise," said Antoinette. + +"Ah," said I. And I thought of the bottle of prussic acid with +mingled sentiments. + +All through these many months I had Judith dwelling, a pale +ghost, in the back of my mind. We had parted so finally that +correspondence between us had seemed impertinent. But although I +had not written to her, no small part of the infinite sadness +that had fallen upon my life was the shadow of her destiny. +Sweet, wine-loving Judith! How many times did I picture her +sitting pinched and wistful in the little tin mission church at +Hoxton! Had I, Marcus Ordeyne, condemned her to that +penitentiary? Who can hold the balance of morals so truly as to +decide? + +At last I received a letter from her on the anniversary of our +parting. She had found salvation in a strange thing which she +called duty. "I am fulfilling an appointed task," she wrote, +"and the measure of my success is the measure of my happiness. I +am bringing consolation to a wayward and tormented spirit. A +year has swept aside the petty feminine vanities, the opera- +glasses, so to speak, through which a woman complacently views +her influence over a man, and it has cleared my vision. A year +has proved beyond mortal question that without me this wayward +and tormented spirit would fail. I hold in my hands the very +soul of a man. What more dare a woman ask of the high gods? You +see I use your metaphors still. Dearest of all dear friends, do +not pity me. Beyond all the fires of love through which one +passes there is the star of Duty, and happy the individual who +can live in its serenity," + +This was astonishingly like the Theory of Life which I set out +from Verona to seek, and which had hitherto eluded me. It was +not very new, or subtle, or inspiring. But that is the way of +things. No matter through what realms of the fantastic you may +travel, you arrive inevitably at the commonplace. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + + +I answered Judith's letter. After the long silence it seemed, at +first, strange to write to her; but soon I found myself opening +my heart as I had never done before to man or woman. The fact +that, accident aside, we were never to meet again, drew the +spiritual elements in us nearer together, and the tone of her +letter loosened the bonds of my natural reserve. I told her of +my past year of life, of the locked memorial chamber upstairs, of +the madness through which I had passed, of my weary pursuit of +the Theory, and of my attitude towards her solution of the +problem. Having written the letter I felt comforted, knowing +that Judith would understand. + +I finished it about six o'clock one afternoon, and shrinking from +giving it to Stenson to post, as it was the first private letter +I had written since my arrival in London, I took it myself to the +pillar-box. The fresh air reproached me for the unreasonable +indoor life I had been leading, and invited me to remain outside. +It was already dark. An early touch of frost in the November air +rendered it exhilarating. I walked along the decorous, +residential roads of St. John's Wood feeling less remote from my +kind, more in sympathy with the humdrum dramas in progress behind +the rows of lighted windows. Now and then a garden gate opened +and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of +satin and frills and fur, emerged, stood for a moment in the +shaft of light cast by the open hall-door beyond, which framed +the white-capped and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting +hansom, drove off into the darkness whither my speculative fancy +followed them. Now and then silhouettes appeared upon the +window-blinds, especially on the upper floors, for it was the +dressing hour and the cares of the day were being thrown aside +with the workaday garments. In one house, standing far back from +the road, the drawing-room curtains had not been drawn. As I +passed, I saw a man tossing up a delighted child in his arms, and +the mother standing by. _Ay de mi!_ A commonplace of ten +thousand homes, when the man returns from his toil. Yet it moved +me. To earn one's bread; to perpetuate one's species; to create +duties and responsibilities; to meet them like a brave man; to +put the new generation upon the right path; to look back upon it +all and say, "I have fulfilled my functions," and pass forth +quietly into the eternal laboratory--is not that Life in its +truth and its essence? And the reward? The commonplace. The +welcome of wife and children--and the tossing of a crowing babe +in one's arms. And I had missed it all, lived outside it all. I +had spoken blasphemously in my besotted ignorance of these sacred +common things, and verily I had my recompense in a desolate home +and a life of about as much use to humanity as that of St. Simeon +Stylites on top of his pillar. + +So I walked along the streets on the track of the wisdom which +Judith had revealed to me, and I seemed to be on the point of +reaching it when I arrived at my own door. + +"But what the deuce shall I do with it when I get it?" I said, as +I let myself in with my latch-key. + +I had just put my stick in the stand and was taking off my +overcoat, when the door of the room next the diningroom opened, +and Antoinette rushed out upon me. + +"Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!" she cried, wringing her hands. "Oh, +Monsieur! How shall I tell you?" + +The good soul broke into sobbing and weeping. + +"What is the matter, Antoinette?" Z asked. + +"Monsieur must not be angry. Monsieur is good like the Bon Dieu. +But it will give pain to Monsieur." + +"But what is it?" I cried, mystified. "Have you spoiled the +dinner?" + +I was a million miles from any anticipation of her answer. + +_"Monsieur-she has come back!"_ + +I grew faint for a moment as from a blow over the heart. +Antoinette raised her great tear-stained face. + +"Monsieur must not drive her away." + +I pushed her gently aside and entered the little room which I had +furnished once as her boudoir. + +On the couch sat Carlotta, white and pinched and poorly clad. At +first I was only conscious of her great brown eyes fixed upon me, +the dog-like appeal of our first meeting intensified to +heart-breaking piteousness. On seeing me she did not rise, but +cowered as if I would strike her. I looked at her, unable to +speak. Antoinette stood sobbing in the doorway. + +"Well?" said I, at last. + +"I have come home," said Carlotta. + +"You have been away a long time," said I. + +"Ye-es," said Carlotta. + +"Why have you come?" I asked. + +"I had no money," said Carlotta, with her expressive gesture of +upturned palms. "I had nothing but that." She pointed to a tiny +travelling bag. "Everything else was at the Mont de Piete--the +pawnshop--and they would not keep me any longer at the pension. +I owed them for three weeks, and then they lent me money to buy +my ticket to London. I said Seer Marcous would pay them back. +So I came home." + +"But where--where is Pasquale?" I asked. + +"He went five, six months ago. He gave me some money and said he +would send some more. But he did not send any. He went to South +Africa. He said there was a war and he wanted to fight, and he +said he was sick of me. Oh, he was very unkind," she cried with +the quiver of her baby lips. "I wish I had never seen him." + +"Are you married?" + +"No," said Carlotta. + +"Damn him!" said I, between my teeth. + +"He was going to marry me, but then he said it did not matter in +Paris. At first he was so nice, but after a little--oh, Seer +Marcous dear, he was so cruel." + +There was a short silence. Antoinette wept by the door, uttering +little half-audible exclamations _"la pauvre petite, le cher +ange!"_ + +Carlotta regarded me wistfully. I saw a new look of suffering in +her eyes. For myself I felt numb with pain. + +"What kind of a pension were you living in?" I asked, unutterable +horrors coming into my head. + +"It was a French family, an old lady and two old daughters, and +one fat German professor. Pasquale put me there. It was very +respectable," she added, with a wan smile, "and so dull. Madame +Champet would scarcely let me go into the street by myself." + +"Thank heaven you did not fall into worse hands," said I. + +Carlotta unpinned her old straw hat, quite a different garment +from the dainty head-wear she delighted in a year before, and +threw it on the couch beside her. A tress of her glorious bronze +hair fell loose across her forehead, adding to the woebegone +expression of her face. She rose, and as she did so I seemed to +notice a curious change in her. She came to me with extended +hands. + +"Seer Marcous--" she whispered. + +I took her hands in mine. + +"Oh, my dear," said I, "why did you leave me?" + +"I was wicked. And I was a little fool," said Carlotta. + +I sighed, released her, walked a bit apart. There was a blubber +from the egregious old woman in the threshold. + +"Oh, Monsieur is not going to drive her away." + +I turned upon her. + +"Instead of standing there weeping like a fountain and doing +nothing, why aren't you getting Mademoiselle's room ready for +her?" + +"Because Monsieur has the key," wailed Antoinette. + +"That's true," said I. + +Then I reflected on the futility of converting bedchambers into +mausoleums for the living. The room shut up for a year would not +be habitable. It would be damp and inch-deep in dust. + +"Mademoiselle shall sleep in my room to-night," I said, "and +Stenson can make me up a bed and put what I want here. Go and +arrange it with him." + +Antoinette departed. I turned to Carlotta. + +"Are you very tired, my child?" + +"Oh, yes--so tired." + +"Why didn't you write, so that things could have been got ready +for you?" + +"I don't know. I was too unhappy. Seer "Marcous--" she said +after a little pause and then stopped. + +"Yes?" + +"I am going to have a baby." + +She said it in the old, childlike way, oblivious of difference of +sex; with her little foreign insistence on the final consonants. +I glanced hurriedly at her. The fact was obvious. She stood +with her hands helplessly outspread. The pathos of her would +have wrung the heart of a devil. + +"Thank God, you've come home," said I, huskily. + +She began to cry softly. I put my arm round her shoulders, and +comforted her. She sobbed out incoherent things. She wished she +had never seen Pasquale. I was good. She would stay with me +always. She would never run away again. + +I took her upstairs, and opened the door of her room with the key +that I had carried for a year on my bunch, and turned on the +electric light. + +"See what are still usable of your old things," said I, "and I +will send Antoinette up to you." + +She looked around her, somewhat puzzled. + +"Why should I sleep in your room when this one is ready for me-- +my night dress--even the hot water?" + +"My dear," said I, "that hot water was put for you a year ago. +It must be cold now." + +"And my red slippers--and my dressing-gown!" she cried, +quaveringly. + +Then sinking in a heap on the floor beside the dusty bed, she +burst into a passion of tears. + +I stole away and sent Antoinette to minister to her. + +A year before I had raved and ranted, deeming life intolerable +and cursing the high gods; I suffered then, it is true; but I +hope I may never again go through the suffering of that first +night of Carlotta's return. Even now I can close my eyes and +feel the icy grip on my heart. + +She came down to dinner about an hour later, dressed in a pink +wrapper, one of the last things she had bought, which Antoinette +(as she explained to excuse her delay) had been airing before the +fire. She sat opposite me, in her old place, penitent, subdued, +yet not shy or ill at ease. Stenson waited on us, grave and +imperturbable as if we had put back the clock of time a +twelvemonth. The only covert reference he made to the event was +to murmur discreetly in my ear: + +"I have brought up a bottle of the Pommery, Sir Marcus, in the +hope you would drink some." + +I was touched, for the good fellow had no other way of showing +his solicitude. + +Carlotta allowed him to fill her glass. She sipped the wine, and +declared that it did her good. She was no longer a teetotaller, +she explained. Once she drank too much, and the next day had a +headache. + +"Why should one have a headache?" + +"Nemesis," said I. + +"What is Nemesis?" + +I found myself answering her question in the old half-jesting +way. And in her old way she replied: + +"I do not understand." + +How vividly familiar it was, and yet how agonisingly strange! + +"Where is Polyphemus?" she asked. + +"Dead," said I. + +"Oh-h! How did poor Polyphemus die?" + +"He was smitten by Destiny at the end of the last act of a +farcical tragedy." + +The ghost of a "_hou!_" came from Carlotta. She composed herself +immediately. + +"I often used to think of Polyphemus and Seer Marcous and +Antoinette," she said, musingly. "And then I wished I was back. +I have been very wicked." + +She put her elbows on the table, and framing her face with her +hands looked at me, and shook her head. + +"Oh, you are good! Oh, you are good!" + +"Go on with your dinner, my child," said I, "and wonder at the +genius of Antoinette who has managed to cook it and look after +you at the same time." + +She obeyed meekly. I watched her eat. She was famished. I +learned that she had had nothing since the early morning coffee +and roll. In spite of pain, I was curiously flattered by her +return. I represented _something_ to her, after all--even though +the instinct of the prodigal cat had driven her hither. I am +sure it had never crossed her mind that my doors might be shut +against her. Her first words were, "I have come home." The +first thing she did when we went into the drawing-room after +dinner was to fondle my hand and lay it against her cheek and +say, with a deep sigh: + +"I am so happy." + +However shallow her butterfly nature was, these things came from +its depths. No man can help feeling pleased at a child's or an +animal's implicit trust in him. And the pleasure is of the +purest. He feels that unreasoning intuition has penetrated to +some latent germ of good in his nature, and for the moment he is +disarmed of evil. Carlotta, then, came blindly to what was best +in me. In her thoughts she sandwiched me between the cat and the +cook: well, in most sandwiches the mid-ingredient is the most +essential. + +She curled herself up in the familiar sofa-corner, and as it was +a chilly night I sent for a wrap which I threw over her limbs. + +"See, I have the dear red slippers," she remarked, arching her +instep. + +"And I have my dear Carlotta," said I. + +I drew my chair near her, and gradually I learned all the unhappy +story. + +Pasquale had made love to her from the very first minute of their +acquaintance--even while I was hunting for the _L'Histoire +Comique de Francion_. He had met her many times unknown to me. +They had corresponded, her letters being addressed to a little +stationer's shop close by. She did not love him. Of that I have +an absolute conviction. But he was young, he was handsome, he +had the libertine's air and manner. She was docile. And she was +ever positively truthful. If I had questioned her she would have +confessed frankly. But I never questioned, as I never suspected. +I wondered sometimes at her readiness in quoting him. I noticed +odd coincidences; but I was too ineffectual to draw inferences +from phenomena. His appearance on the Paddington platform was +prearranged; his duchessa at Ealing a myth. + +Apparently he had dallied with his fancy. The fruit was his any +day for the plucking. Perhaps a rudimentary sentiment of loyalty +towards me restrained him. Who can tell? The night of our +meeting with Hamdi brought the crisis. The Turk's threats had +alarmed both Carlotta and myself. It was necessary for him to +strike at once. He saw her the next day--would to heaven I had +remained at home!--told her I was marrying her to save her from +Hamdi. I loved the other woman. He would save her equally well +from Hamdi. The other woman met her soon after parting from +Pasquale and besought her to give me up. She did not know what +to do. Poor child, how should she have known? On the previous +evening I had told her she was to marry me. She was ready to +obey. She went to bed thinking that she was to marry me. In the +morning she went for her music lesson. Pasquale was waiting for +her. They walked for some distance down the road. He hailed a +cab and drove away with her. + +"He said he loved me," said Carlotta, "and he kissed me, and he +told me I must go away with him to Paris and marry him. And I +felt all weak, like that--" she dropped her arms helplessly in an +expressive gesture, "and so what could I do?" + +"Didn't you think, Carlotta, that I might be sorry--perhaps +unhappy?" I asked as gently as I could. + +"He said you would be quite happy with the other woman." + +"Did you believe him?" + +"That's why I said I have been very wicked," Carlotta answered, +simply. + +She went on with her story--an old, miserable, detestable, +execrable story. At first all went merrily. Then she fell ill +in Paris. It was her first acquaintance with the northern +winter. Her throat proved to be delicate and she was laid up +with bronchitis. To men of Pasquale's type, a woman ill is of no +more use than a spavined horse or a broken-down motor-car. More +than that, she becomes an infernal nuisance. It was in his +temperament to perform sporadic acts of fantastic chivalry. It +appealed to something romantic, theatrical, in his facile nature. +But to devote himself to a woman in sickness--that was different. +The fifteenth century Italian hated like the devil continued +association with pain. He would have thrown his boots to a +beggar, but he would have danced in his palace over the dungeons +where his brother rotted in obscurity. + +So poor Carlotta was neglected, and began to eat the bread of +disillusion. When she got well, there was a faint recrudescence +of affection. Has not this story been written a million +miserable times? Why should I rend my heart again by retelling +it? Wild rages, jealousies, quarrels, tears-- + +"And then one day he said, 'You damned little fool, I am sick to +death of you,' and he went away, and I never saw him again. He +wrote and he sent his valet to put me in the pension." + +"And yet, Carlotta," said I bitterly, "you would go back to him +if he sent for you?" + +She sprang forward and gripped me by the arm--I was sitting quite +close to her--and her face wore the terror-stricken expression of +a child frightened with bogies. + +"Go back? After what he has done to me? You would not send me +back? Seer Marcous, darling, you will keep me with you? I will +be good, good, good. But go back to Pasquale? Oh, no-o-o!" + +She fell back in her sofa-corner, and fixed her great, deep +imploring eyes on me. + +"My dear," said I, "you know this is your home as long as ever +you choose to stay in it--but--" and I stroked her hair gently--" +if he comes back when your child is born--his child--" + +She drew herself up superbly. + +"It is my child--my very, very own," cried Carlotta. "It is +mine, mine--and I shall not allow any one to touch it--" and then +her face softened--"except Seer Marcous." + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + + +Behold Carlotta again installed in my house which she regarded as +her home. Heaven forbid that I should sow any doubt thereof in +her mind. + +I had learned perhaps one lesson: the meaning of love. The love +that is desire alone, though sung in all romance of all the ages, +is of the brute nature and is doomed to perish. The love that +pardons, endures through wrong, contents itself in abnegation, is +of the imperishable things that draw weak man a little nearer to +the angels. When Carlotta wept upon my shoulder during those few +first moments of her return I knew that all resentment was gone +from my heart, that it would have been a poor, ignoble thing. +Had she come back to me leprous of body and abominable of spirit, +it would not have mattered. I would have forgiven her, loved +her, cherished her just the same. It was a question, not of +reason, not of human pity, not of quixotism; not of any argument +or sentiment for which I could be responsible. I was helpless, +obeying a reflex action of the soul. + +The days passed tranquilly. In spite of pain I felt an odd +happiness. I had nothing selfishly to hope for. Perhaps I had +aged five years in one, and I viewed life differently. It was +enough for me that she had come home, to the haven where no harm +could befall her. She was my appointed task, even as her husband +was Judith's. I recognised in myself the man with the one +talent. The deep wisdom of the parable can be taken to inmost +heart for comfort only by men of little destinies. With infinite +love and patience to mould Carlotta into a sweet, good woman, a +wise mother of the child that was to be--that was the inglorious +task which Providence had set me to accomplish. In its +proportion to the aggregate of human effort it was infinitesimal. +But who shall say that it was not worth the doing? Save writing +a useless book, in what other sphere of sublunar energy could I +have been effectual? I did not thus analyse my attitude at the +time; the man who does so is a poser, a mime to his own audience; +but looking back, I think I was guided by some such unformulated +considerations. + +Although my hermit mania was in itself radically cured, yet I +altered nothing in my relations with the outside world. I wrote +to Judith a brief account of what had occurred and received from +her a sympathetic answer. My reading among the Mystics and +Thaumaturgists put me on the track of Arabic. I found that +Carlotta knew enough of the language to give me elementary +instruction, and thus the whirligig of time brought in its +revenge by constituting me her pupil, to our joint edification. + +After a while the unhappiness of the past seemed to have faded +from her mind. She spoke little of Paris, less of the dull +pension, and never of Pasquale. She bore towards him an animal's +silent animosity against a human being who has done it an +unforgettable injury. On the other hand, as I have since +discovered, she was slowly developing, and had begun to realise +that in giving herself light-heartedly to a man whom she did not +love, she had committed a crime against her sex, for which she +had paid a heavy penalty: a sentiment, however, which did not +mitigate her resentment against him. Often I saw her sitting +with knitted brows, her needlework idle on her lap, evidently +unravelling some complicated problem; presently she would either +shake her head sadly as if the intellectual process were too hard +for her and resume her needle, or if she happened to catch my +glance, she would start, smile reassuringly at me, and apply +herself with exaggerated zeal to her work. These fits of +abstraction were not those of a woman speculating on mysteries of +the near future. Such Carlotta also indulged in, and they were +easy to recognise, by the dreaminess of her eyes and the faint +smile flickering about her lips. The moods of knitted brows were +periods of soul-travail, and I wondered what they would bring +forth. + +One afternoon I came home and found her weeping over a book. +When I bent down to see what she was reading--she had acquired a +taste for novels during the dull pension time in Paris--she +caught my head with both hands. + +"Oh, Seer Marcous, do you think they ought to make me wear a +great 'A'?" + +"What do you mean?" I asked. + +"Like Hester Prynne--see." + +She showed me Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter." + +"What made you take this out of the shelves?" + +"The title," she replied, simply. "I am so fond of red things; +but I should not like that great red 'A'." + +"Those were days," said I, "when people thought they could only +be good by being very cruel." + +"They would have been more cruel if Hester had not loved the +minister," said Carlotta, looking at me wistfully. + +"My dear little girl," said I, seeing whither her thoughts were +tending, "do not bother your brain with psychological problems." + +"What are--?" began Carlotta. + +I pinched the question, as it were, out of her cheek and smiled +and took away the book. + +"They are a dreadful disease my little girl has been afflicted +with for some time. When you sit and wrinkle your forehead like +this," and I scowled forbiddingly, whereat Carlotta laughed, "you +are suffering from acute psychological problem." + +"Then I am thinking," said Carlotta, reflectively. + +"Don't think too much, dear, just now," said I. "It is best for +you to be happy and calm and contented. Otherwise I'll have to +tell the doctor, and he'll give you the blackest and nastiest +physic you have ever tasted." + +"To cure me of a what-you-call-it problem?" + +"Yes," said I, emphatically. + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta in a superior way, "physic can't cure +that." + +"You are relying on an exploded fallacy immortalised in a +hackneyed Shakespearian quotation," I remarked. + +"Go on," said Carlotta, encouragingly. + +"What do you mean?" I asked, taken aback. + +"Oh, you darling Seer Marcous," cried Carlotta. "It is so lovely +to hear you talk!" + +So I went on talking, and the distress occasioned by the "Scarlet +Letter" was forgotten. + +I have mentioned Carlotta's needlework. This was undertaken at +the sapient instigation of Antoinette, who in her turn, I am +sure, neglected the ladle for the scissors, and cast many of her +duties upon the silent but sympathetic Stenson. Carlotta herself +delighted in these preparations. She was never happier than when +curled up on the sofa, a box of chocolates by her side, her work- +basket frothing over, like a great dish of _oeufs a la neige_, +with lawn or mull or what-not, and (I verily believe to complete +her content) my ungainly figure and hatchet-face within her +purview. She would eat and sew industriously. Sometimes she +would press too hard on a sweetmeat and with a little cry would +hold up a sticky finger and thumb. + +"Look," she would say, puckering up her face. + +And to save from soilure the dainty fabric she was working at, I +would rise and wipe her fingers with my handkerchief; whereupon +she would coo out the sweetest "thank you," in the world, and +perhaps hold up a diminutive garment. + +"Isn't it pretty?" + +"Yes, my dear," I would say, and I would turn aside wondering at +the exquisite refinements of pain that men were sometimes called +upon to bear. + + +At last the time came. I sat up all night in a torture of +suspense, having got it into my foolish head that Carlotta might +die. The doctor came upon me at six in the morning sitting half +frozen at the bottom of the stairs. When he gave me his cheery +news he seemed to develop from a middle-aged, commonplace man +into a radiant archangel. + +I met Antoinette soon afterwards, busy, important, exultant. She +nevertheless graciously accorded me a brief interview. + +"And to think, Monsieur," she exclaimed, as if the crowning +triumph of a million ions of evolution had at, last been +attained, "to think that it is a boy!" + +"You would have been just as pleased if it had been a girl," said +I. + +She shook her wise, fat head. "Women _ca ne vaut pas grand' +chose._" + +Let it be remembered that "women are of no great account" is a +sentiment expressed, not by me, but by Antoinette. But all the +same I soon found myself a cipher in the house, where the +triumvirate of the negligible sex, Antoinette, the nurse and +Carlotta, reigned despotically. + +To write much of Carlotta's happiness would be to treat of sacred +things at which I can only guess. She dwelt in rapture. The joy +and meaning of the universe were concentrated in the tiny bundle +of pink flesh that lay on her bosom. I used to sit by her side +while she talked unwearyingly of him. He was a thing of infinite +perfections. He had such a lot of hair. + +"She won't believe, sir," said the nurse, "that it will all drop +off and a new crop come." + +"Oh-h!" said Carlotta. "It can't be so cruel. For it is my hair +--see, Seer Marcous, darling; isn't it just my hair?" + +It was her great solicitude that the boy should resemble her. + +"I don't know about his nose," she remarked critically. "There +is so little of it yet and it is so soft--feel how soft it is. +But his eyes are brown like mine, and his mouth--now look, aren't +they just the same?" + +She put her cheek next to the child's and invited me to compare +the two adjacent baby mouths. They were, of a truth, very much +alike. + +She was jealous of the baby, desirous of having it always with +her to tend and fondle, impatient of the nurse and Antoinette. +It was a thing so intensely hers that she resented other hands +touching it. Oddly enough, of me she made an exception. Nothing +delighted her more than to put the little creature into my +awkward and nervous arms, and watch me carry it about the room. +I think she wanted to give me something, and this share in the +babe was the most precious gift she could devise. + +Of Pasquale she continued to say nothing. In her intense joy of +motherhood he seemed to have become the dim creature of a dream. +I had registered the birth without consulting her--in the legal +names of the parents. + +"What are you going to call him, Carlotta?" I asked one day. + +"_Mon petit chou._ That's what Antoinette says. It's a +beautiful name." + +"There are many points in calling an infant one's little +cabbage," I admitted, "but soon he'll grow up to be as old as I +am, and--" I sighed, "who would call me their _petit chow_?" + +Carlotta laughed. + +"That is true. We shall have to find a name." She reflected for +a few moments; then put her arms round my neck and continued her +reflections. + +"He shall be Marcus--another Marcus Ordeyne. Then perhaps some +day he will be 'Seer Marcous' like you." + +"Do you mean when I die?" I asked. + +"Oh, not for years and years and years!" she cried, tightening +her clasp in alarm. "But the child lives longer than the father. +It is fate. He will live longer than I." + +"Let us hope so, dear," I answered. "But it is just because I am +not his father that he can't be Sir Marcus when I die. He can +have my name; but my title--" + +"Who will have it?" + +"No one." + +"It will die too?" + +"It will be quite dead." + +"You are his father, you know, _really_," she whispered. + +"The law of England takes no count, unfortunately, of things of +the spirit," said I. + +"What are things of the spirit?" + +"The things, my dear," said I, "that you are beginning to +understand." I bent down and kissed the child as it lay on her +lap. "Poor little Marcus Ordeyne," I said. "My poor quaintly +fathered little son, I'm afraid there is much trouble ahead of +you, but I'll do my best to help you through it." + +"Bless you, dear," said Carlotta, softly. + +I looked at her in wonder. She had spoken for the first time +like a grown woman--like a woman with a soul. + + +A few weeks later. + +We were sitting at breakfast. The morning newspaper contained +the account of a battle and the lists of British officers killed. +I scanned as usual the melancholy columns, when a name among the +dead caught my eye--and I stared at it stupidly. Pasquale was +dead, killed outright by a Boer bullet. The wild, bright life was +ended. It seemed a horrible thing, and, much as he had wronged +me, my first sentiment was one of dismay. He was too gallant and +beautiful a creature for death. + +Carlotta poured out my tea and came round with the cup which she +deposited by my side. To prevent her peeping over my shoulder at +the paper, as she usually did, I laid it on the table; but her +quick eye had already read the great headlines. + +"Great Battle. British officers killed. Oh, let me see, Seer +Marcous." + +"No, dear," said I. "Go and eat your breakfast." + +She looked at me strangely. I tried to smile; but as I am an +incompetent actor my grimace was a proclamation of +disingenuousness. + +"Why shouldn't I read it?" she asked, quickly. + +"Because I say you mustn't, Carlotta." + +She continued to look at me. She had suddenly grown pale. I +stirred my tea and made a pretence of sipping it. + +"Go on with your breakfast, my child," I repeated. + +"There is something--something about him in the paper," said +Carlotta. "He is a British officer." + +In the face of her intuition further concealment appeared +useless. Besides, sooner or later she would have to know. + +"He is a British officer no longer, dear," said I. + +"Is he dead?" + +My mind flew back to an evening long ago--long, long ago it +seemed +--when another newspaper had told of another death, and my ears +caught the echo of the identical question that had then fallen +from her lips. I dreaded lest she should say again, "I am so +glad." + +I beckoned her to my side, and pointing with my finger to the +name watched her face anxiously. She read, stared for a bit in +front of her and turned to me with a piteous look. I drew her to +me, and she laid her face against my shoulder. + +"I don't know why I'm crying, Seer Marcous, dear," she said, +after a while. + +I made her drink some of my tea, but she would eat nothing, and +presently she went upstairs. She had not said that she was glad. +She had wept and not known the reason for her tears. I railed at +myself for my doubts of her. + +She was subdued and thoughtful all the day. In the evening, +instead of curling herself up in the sofa-corner among the +cushions, she sat on a stool by my feet as I read, one hand +supporting her chin, the other resting on my knee. + +"I am glad he was a brave man," she said at last, alluding to +Pasquale for the first time since the morning. "I like brave +men." + +"_Dulce et decorum est._ He died for his country," said I. + +"It does not hurt me now so much to think of him," said Carlotta. + +I could not help feeling a miserable pang of jealousy at +Pasquale's posthumous rehabilitation as a hero in Carlotta's +heart. Yet, was it not natural? Was it not the way of women? I +saw myself far remote from her, and though she never spoke of him +again I divined that her thoughts dwelt not untenderly on his +memory. I was absurd, I know. But I had begun almost to believe +in my make-believe paternity, and I was jealous of the rightful +claims of the dead man. + +And yet had he lived he might have come back one day with his +conquering air and his irresistible laugh, and carried them both +away from me. In sparing me this crowning humiliation I thanked +the high gods. + +But never to this day has she mentioned his name again. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + + +How shall I set down that which happened not long afterwards? + +The death of a baby is so commonplace, so unimportant. Few +reasoning people, viewing the matter in the abstract, can do +otherwise than rejoice that a human being is saved from the +weariness of the tired years that make up life. For who shall +disprove the pessimist's assertion that it is better not to have +been born than to come into the world, and that it is better to +die than to live? But those from whom the single hope of their +existence is ravished find little consolation in reason. Grief +is the most intensely egotistical of emotions. I have lost all +that makes life beautiful to me. Is not that enough for the +stricken soul? + +To Carlotta it meant a passage through the valley of the shadow. +To me, at first, it meant the life of Carlotta, and then a blank +in my newly ordered scheme of things. The curse of +ineffectuality still pursued me. I had allotted to myself my +humble task--the development of the new generation in the form of +Carlotta's boy, and even that small usefulness was I denied by +Fate. + +A chill, a touch of croup, an agonised watching, and the tiny +thing lay dead. Antoinette and I had to drag it stone cold from +Carlotta's bosom. I alone carried it to burial. The little +white coffin rested on the opposite seat of the hired brougham, +and on it was a bunch of white flowers given by Antoinette. In +the cemetery chapel another fragment of humanity awaited +sepulture, and the funeral service was read over both bodies. I +stood alone by the little white coffin. A crowd of mourners were +grouped beside the black one. I glanced at the inscription as I +passed: "Jane Elliot, in the eighty-sixth year of her age." The +officiant referred in the service to "our dear brother and +sister, here departed." It was either an awful jest or an awful +verity. + +My "quaintly fathered little son" had small need of my help +through the troubles of his life. His mother needed all that I +could give. Without me she would have died. That I verily +believe. I was her solitary plank in the welter wherein she +would have been submerged. She clung to me--literally clung to +me. I sat for hours with her grasp upon me. To feel assured of +my physical presence alone seemed to bring her calm. + +Recent as are those sleepless days and nights, their memory is +all confused. The light burning dimly in the familiar chamber +which I had once sealed up as a tomb; the shadows on the wall; +the fevered face and great hollow eyes of Carlotta against the +pillows; her little hand clutching mine in desperation; the soft +tread of the nurse, that is all I remember. And when she +recovered her wits and grew sane, although for a long time she +spoke little, and scarcely noticed me otherwise, she claimed me +by her side. She was still dazed by the misery of her darkness. +It was only then that I realised the part the child had played in +her development. Her nature had been stirred to the quick; the +capacity for emotion had been awakened. She had left me without +a qualm. She had given herself to Pasquale without a glimmer of +passion. She had returned to me like a wounded animal seeking +its home. For the child alone the passionate human love had +sprung flaming from the seed hidden in her soul. And now the +child was dead, and the sun had gone from her sky, and she was +benumbed with the icy blackness of the world. + +Then came a time when her speech was loosened and she talked to +me incessantly of the child, until one day she spoke of it as +living and clamoured for it, and relapsed into her fever. + +At last one morning she awakened from a sound sleep and found me +watching; for I had relieved the nurse at six o'clock. She +smiled at me for the first time since the child fell sick, and +took my hand and kissed it. + +"It is like waking into heaven to see your face, Seer Marcous, +darling," she whispered. + +"I hope heaven is peopled by a better-looking set of fellows," I +said. + +"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta. "Don't you know you are beautiful?" + +"You mustn't throw an old jest in my teeth, Carlotta," said I, +and I reminded her how she had once screamed with laughter when I +had told her I was very beautiful. + +Carlotta listened patiently until I had ended, and then she said, +with a little sigh: + +"You cannot understand, Seer Marcous, darling. I have been +thinking of my little baby and the angels--and all the angels are +like you." + +To cover the embarrassment my modesty underwent, I laughed and +drew the picture of myself with long flaxen hair and white wings. + +"My angels hadn't got wings," said Carlotta, seriously. "They +all wore dressing-gowns. They were real angels. And the one +that was most like you brought my baby in his arms for me to +kiss; and when he put it on a white cloud to sleep, and took me +up in his arms instead and carried me away, away, away through +the air, I didn't cry at leaving baby. Wasn't that funny? I +snuggled up close to him--like that"--she illustrated the action +of "snuggling" beneath the bed-clothes--"and it was so comfy." + +The pale sunshine of a fine February morning filtered into the +room from behind the curtains. I turned off the dimmed electric +lamp and let full daylight into the room. + +"Oh!" cried Carlotta, turning to the window, "how lovely the good +sun is! It is more like heaven than ever. Do you know," she +added, mysteriously, "just before I woke it was all dark, and I +had lost my angels and I was looking for them." + +I counselled her sagely to look for no more members of the +Hierarchy _en deshabille_, but to content herself with the +humbler denizens of this planet. She pressed my hand. + +"I'll try to be contented, Seer Marcous, darling." + +She did her best, poor child, when I was by; but I heard that +often she would sit by a little pile of garments and take them up +one by one and cry her heart out--so that though she quickly +recovered, her cheeks remained wan and drawn, and pain lingered +in her eyes. The weather changed to fog and damp and she spent +the days crouching by the fire, sometimes not stirring a muscle +for an hour together. Her favourite seat was the fender-stool in +the drawing-room. Her own boudoir downstairs, where she used to +receive instruction from the excellent Miss Griggs, she scarcely +entered. + +She broke one of these fits suddenly and called me by her own pet +version of my name. I looked up from the writing-table where I +was studying the Arabic grammar. + +"Yes?" + +"I have been thinking--oh, thinking, thinking so long. I've been +thinking that you must love me very much." + +"Yes, Carlotta," said I, with a half smile. "I suppose I do." + +"As much as I loved my baby," she said, seriously, + +"I used to love you in a different way, perhaps," + +"And now?" + +"Perhaps in the same sort of way, Carlotta." + +"I loved my baby because it was mine," she remarked, looking at +the flames through one hand's delicate fingers. "I wanted to do +everything for him and didn't want him to do anything for me. I +would have died for him. It is so strange. Yes, I think you +must love me like that, Seer Marcous. Why?" + +"Because when I found you in the Embankment Gardens nearly two +years ago you were about as helpless as your little baby," I +replied, somewhat disingenuously. + +Carlotta gave me a quick glance. + +"You thought me then what you call an infernal nuisance. Oh, I +know now. I have grown wise. But you were always good. You +looked good when you sat on the seat. You were reading a dirty +little book." + +"_L'Histoire des Uscoques,_" I murmured. How far away it seemed. + +There was a pause. I regarded her for a moment or two. She was +sunk again in serious reflection. I sighed--at the general +dismalness of life, I suppose--and resumed my Arabic. + +"Seer Marcous." + +"Yes?" + +"Why didn't you drive me away when I came back?" + +I shut up the Arabic grammar and went and sat beside her on the +fenderstool. + +"My dear little girl--what a question! How could I drive you +away from your own home?" + +She flashed a queer, scared look at me, then at the fire, then at +me again and then burst out crying, her head and arms on her +knees. + +I muttered a man's words of awkward comfort, saying something +about the baby. + +"It isn't baby I'm crying about," sobbed Carlotta. "It's me! +And it's you! And it's all the things I'm beginning to +understand." + +I patted her head and lit a cigarette and wandered about the +room, rather puzzled by Carlotta's psychological development, and +yet stirred by a faint thrill at her recognition of my affection. +At the same time the sad "too late, too late," was knelled in my +ears, and I thought of the might-have-been, and rode the merry- +go-round of regret's banalities. I had grown old. Passion had +died. Hope--the hope of hearing the patter of a child's feet +about my house, the hope of pride in a quasi-paternity, of +handing on, vicariously though it were, the torch of life--hope +was dead and it was buried in a little white coffin. Only a +great, quiet love remained. I was a tired old man, and Carlotta +was to me an infinitely loved sister--or daughter--or +granddaughter even--so old did I feel. And when I raised her +from the fender-stool, and kissed the tears from her eyes, it was +as grandfatherly a kiss as had ever been given in this world. + + +The same old problem again. What the deuce to do with Carlotta? +Yet not quite the same: rather, what the deuce to do with +Carlotta and myself? In our strange relationship we were +inextricably bound together. + +First, she needed sunshine--instead of the forlorn bleakness of +an English spring--and a change from this house of pain and +death. And then I, too, felt the need of wider horizons. London +had grown to be a nightmare city which I never entered. Its +restless ambitions were not mine. Its pleasures pleased me not. +With not five of its five million inhabitants dared I speak heart +to heart. Judith had gone out of my life. My aunts and cousins +regarded me as beyond the moral pale. Mrs. McMurray was still +unaware of my return to England. I confess to shabby treatment +of my kind friend. I know she would have flown to aid Carlotta +in her troubles; but would she have understood Carlotta? +Reasoning now I am convinced that she would: in those days I did +not reason. I shrank like a snail into its shell. The simile is +commonplace; but so was I--the most commonplace human snail that +ever occupied a commonplace ten-roomed shell. And now the house +and its useless books and its million-fold more useless +manuscript "History of Renaissance Morals," all its sombre +memories and its haunting ghosts of ineffectualities, became an +unwholesome prison in which I was wasting away a feeble +existence. I resolved to quit it, to leave my books, to abjure +Renaissance morals, and to go forth with Carlotta into the +wilderness and the sunshine, there to fulfil whatever destiny the +high gods should decree. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV + + +Again I sit on the housetop in Mogador on the Morocco coast, +where a month ago I began to write these latter pages. Time has +passed quickly since that day. + +I said then that on the previous afternoon something had +happened. It was something which I might have foreseen, which, +in fact, with my habit of putting the telescope to my blind eye, +I obstinately had refused to foresee. During our wanderings I +had watched the flowering of her splendid beauty as she drank in +health from the glow of her own Orient. I had noted the widening +of her intellect, the quickening of her sympathies. I had been +conscious of the expansion of her soul in the great silences when +the stars flamed over the infinite sea of sand. But a growing +wistfulness that was no longer the old doglike pleading of her +glorious eyes, a gathering sadness that was not an aftermath of +grief for the child that had gone--into this, if I did remark it, +I did not choose to inquire. Instead, I continued my study of +Arabic and cultivated the acquaintance of a learned Moor whose +conversation afforded--and still affords--me peculiar pleasure. +One of these days I shall make a book of his Table-talk. But now +I have to tell of Carlotta. + +She accepted with alacrity my proposal that morning to ride over +to the Palm Tree House for luncheon, as we had done several times +before. To please me, I think, she had resolutely overcome her +natural indolence. So much so that she had come to love the +nomad life of steamers and caravans, and had grown restless, +eager for fresh scenes, craving new impressions. It was I who +had cried a halt at Mogador where this furnished house to let, +belonging to a German merchant absent in Europe, tempted me to +rest awhile. I am not so young as Carlotta, and I awakened to +the fact of a circumambient universe so many years ago that I +have grown slumberous. Carlotta, if left to herself, would have +gone on riding camels through Africa to the end of time. She had +changed in many essentials. Instead of regarding me as an +amiable purveyor of sweetmeats and other necessaries of life to +which by the grace of her being Carlotta she was entitled, she +treated me with human affection and sympathy, keeping her own +wants in the background, anxious only to anticipate mine. But +she still loved sweetmeats and would eat horrible Moorish messes +with an avidity only equalled by my repugnance. She was still +the same Carlotta. On the other hand again, she had of late +abandoned her caressing habits. If she laid her hand on my arm, +she did it timorously--whereat I would laugh and she would grow +confused. Once she had driven me to frenzy with her fondling. +Those days had passed. I told myself that I was as old as the +sphinx we had moralised over in Egypt. + +We lunched, then, at the Palm Tree House and rode back in the +cool of the afternoon to Mogador. We were alone, as we knew the +path across the tongue of desert, and had no need of a guide and +the rabble of sore-eyed urchins who, like their attendant flies, +infest the tourist on his journeyings. On our right the desert +rose to meet a near horizon; on our left sandhills and boulders +cut off the view; ahead the shimmering line beyond which the sea +and city lay. We were enveloped by solitude and stillness. In +the clear African air objects detached themselves against the sky +with startling definition. + +I had unconsciously ridden a bit ahead of Carlotta, thinking my +own thoughts, and sighing as a man often does sigh, for the vague +unattainable which is happiness. Suddenly I missed her by my +side, and turning round saw a sight that made my heart beat with +its sheer beauty. It was only Carlotta on her barbarically +betrapped and besaddled mule. But it was Carlotta glorified in +colour. She held above her head a cotton parasol, which she had +bought to her delight and my disgust in Mogador; an impossible +thing, all deep cherry reds and yellows; a hateful thing made for +a pantomime--or for this African afternoon. Outspread and +luminous in the white sunlight its cherry reds and yellows +floated like translucences of wine above Carlotta's bronze hair +crowned by a white sun hat, her warm +flesh-tints, and the dazzling white of her surah silk blouse; the +whole picture cut out vivid against the indigo of the sky. It +was a radiant vision. I stared openmouthed, smitten with the +pang that sudden and transient loveliness can sometimes deal, as +Carlotta approached, her figure swaying with the jog of her +barbaric beast. Her eyes were fixed on mine. She halted, and +for a moment we looked at one another; and in those wonderful +eyes I saw for the first time a beautiful sadness, a spiritual +appeal. The moment passed. We started again, side by side, +neither speaking. I did not look at her, conscious of a vague +trouble. Things that I had thought dead stirred in my heart. + +Presently like a dawn of infinite delicacy rose the city before +us. Its fairy minarets and towers gleamed first white in an +atmosphere of pale amethyst toning through shades of green to the +blue of the zenith. And the lazy sea lay at the city's foot a +pavement of lapis lazuli. But all was faint, unreal. Far, far +away a group of palms caught opalescent reflections. A slight +breeze had sprung up, raising minute particles of sand which +caused the elfland on the horizon to quiver like a mirage. + +"It is a dream-city," said I, in admiration. + +Carlotta did not reply. I thought she had not heard. We jogged +on a little in silence. At last she drew very close to me. + +"Shall we ever get there?" she asked, pointing ahead with the +hand that held the reins. + +"To Mogador? Yes, I hope so," I answered with a laugh. I +thought she was tired. + +"No, not Mogador. The dream-city--where every one wants to get." + +"You have travelled far, my dear," said I, "to hanker now after +dream-cities and the unattainable. I knew a little girl once who +would have asked: 'What is a dream-city?" + +"She doesn't ask now because she knows," replied Carlotta. "No. +We shall never get there. It looks as if we were riding straight +into it--but when we get close, it will just be Mogador." + +"Aren't you happy, Carlotta?" I asked. + +"Are you, Seer Marcous?" + +"I? I am a philosopher, my child, and a happy philosopher would +be a _lusus naturae_, a freak, a subject for a Barnum & Bailey +Show. If they caught him they would put him between the hairy +man and the living skeleton." + +"I suppose I'm getting to be a philosopher, too," said Carlotta, +"and I hate it! Sometimes I think I hate everything and +everybody +--save you, Seer Marcous, darling. It's wicked of me. I must +have been born wicked. But I used to be happy. I never wanted +to go to dream-cities. I was just like a cat. Like Polyphemus. +Do you remember Polyphemus?" + +"Yes," said I. And then set off my balance by this strange +conversation with Carlotta, I added: "I killed him." + +She turned a startled face to me. + +"You killed him? Why?" + +"He laughed at me because I was unhappy," said I. + +"Through me?" + +"Yes; through you. But that's neither here nor there. We were +not discussing the death of Polyphemus. We were talking about +being philosophers, and you said that as a philosopher you hated +everything and everybodyexcept me. Why do you exclude me, +Carlotta?" + +We were riding so near together that my leg rubbed her saddle- +girth. I looked hard at her. She turned away her head and put +the pantomime parasol between us. I heard a little choking sob. + +"Let us get off--and sit down a little--I want to cry. + +"The end of all feminine philosophy," I said, somewhat brutally. +"No. It's getting late. That's only Mogador in front of us. +Let us go to it." + +Carlotta shifted her parasol quickly. + +"What has happened to you, Seer Marcous? You have never spoken +to me like that before." + +"The very deuce seems to have happened," said I, angrily--though +why I should have felt angry, heaven only knows. "First you turn +yourself into a Royal Academy picture with that unspeakable +umbrella of yours and the trumpery blue sky and sunshine, and +make my sentimental soul ache; and then you--" + +"It's a very pretty umbrella," said Carlotta, looking upwards at +it demurely. + +"Give it to me," I said. + +She yielded it with her usual docility. I cast it upon the +desert. Being open it gave one or two silly rebounds, then lay +still. Carlotta reined up her mule. + +"Oh-h!" she said, in her old way. + +I dismounted hurriedly, and helped her down and passed my arm +through the two bridles. + +"My dear child," said I, "what is the meaning of all this? Here +we have been living for months the most tranquil and unruffled +existence, and now suddenly you begin to talk about dream-cities +and the impossibility of getting there, and I turn angry and +heave parasols about Africa. What is the meaning of it?" + +The most extraordinary part of it was that I should be treating +Carlotta as a grown-up woman, after the fashion of the hero of a +modern French novel. Perhaps I was younger than I thought. + +She kept her eyes fixed downward. + +"Why are you angry with me?" she asked in a low voice. + +"I haven't the remotest idea," said I. + +She lifted her eyelids slowly--oh, very, very slowly, glanced +quiveringly at me, while the shadow of a smile fluttered round +her lips. I verily believe the baggage exulted in her feminine +heart. I turned away, leading the two animals, and picked up the +parasol which I closed and restored to her. + +"I thought you wanted to cry," I remarked. + +"I can't," said Carlotta, plaintively. + +"And you won't tell me why you exclude me from your universal +hatred?" + +Carlotta dug up the sand with the point of her foot. The sight +of it recalled the row of pink toes thrust unashamedly before my +eyes on the second day of her arrival in London. An old hope, an +old fear, an old struggle renewed themselves. She was more +adorably beautiful even than the Carlotta of the pink tus, and +spiritually she was reborn. I heard her whisper: + +"I can't." + +Now I had sworn to myself all the oaths that a man can swear that +I should be Carlotta's grandfather to the end of time. Hitherto +I had felt the part. Now suddenly grey beard and slippered +pantaloons are cast aside and I am young again with a glow in my +heart which beats fast at her beauty. I shut my teeth. + +"No," said I to myself. "The curtain shall not rise on that +farcical tragedy again." + +I threw the reins on the neck of Carlotta's mule, which with its +companion had been regarding us with bland stupidity. + +"I think we had better ride on, Carlotta," I said. "Mount." + +She meekly gave me her little foot and I hoisted her into the +saddle. + +We did not exchange a word till we reached Mogador. But each of +us felt that something had happened. + +At dinner we met as usual. Carlotta spoke somewhat feverishly of +our travels, and asked me numberless questions, betraying an +unprecedented thirst for information. I never gave her +historical instruction with less zest. + +After the meal we went onto the flat roof. Carlotta poured out +my coffee at the small table beside the long Madeira cane chair +which was my accustomed seat. The starlit night was blue and +languorous. From some cafe came the monotonous strains of +Moorish music, the harsh strings and harsh men's voices softened +by the distance. Carlotta took my coffee-cup when I had finished +and set it down in her granddaughterly way. Then she stood in +front of me. + +"Won't you make a little room for me on your chair, Seer Marcous, +darling?" + +I shifted my feet from the foot-rest and she sat down. I may +observe that I was not, in oriental bashawdom, occupying the one +and only chair on the housetop. + +"Tell me about the stars," she said. + +I knew what she meant. She loved the old Greek myths; their +poetry, obscured though it was through my matter-of-fact prose, +appealed to her young imagination. She was passing through an +exquisite phase of development. + +I scanned the heavens for a text and found one in the Pleiades. +And I told her how these were seven daughters of Atlas and +Pleione who herself was the daughter of the Sea, and how they +were all pure maidens, save one, and were the companions of +Artemis; how Orion the hunter, who was afterwards slain by +Artemis and whose three-starred girdle gleamed up there in the +sky, pursued them with evil intent, and how they prayed the gods +for deliverance and were changed into the everlasting stars; and, +lastly, how the one who was not a maiden, for she loved a mortal, +shrank away from her sisters through shame and was invisible to +the eye of man. + +"She was ashamed," said Carlotta in a low voice, "because she +loved some one afterwards, one of the gods, who would not look at +her because she had given herself to a mortal. A woman then has +a fire here"--she clasped her hands to her bosom--"and wishes she +could burn away to nothing, nothing, just to air, and become +invisible." + +She was rising hurriedly on the last word, but I brought my hands +down on her shoulders. + +"Carlotta, my child," said I, "what do you mean?" + +She seized my wrists and struggling to rise, panted out in +desperation: + +"You are one of the gods, and I wish I were changed into an +invisible star." + +"I don't," said I, huskily. + +By main force I drew her to me and our lips met. She yielded, +and this time the whole soul of Carlotta came to me in the kiss. + +"It's beautiful to snuggle up against you again," said my ever +direct Carlotta, after a while. "I haven't done it--oh, for such +a long time." She sighed contentedly. "Seer Marcous--" + +" You must call me Marcus now," said I, somewhat fatuously. + +She shook her head as it lay on my shoulder. "No. You are +Marcus +--or Sir Marcus--to everybody. To me you are always Seer +Marcous. Seer Marcous, darling," she half whispered after a +pause. "Once I did not know the difference between a god and a +mortal. It was only that morning when I woke up--" + +"You took me for a saint in a dressing-gown," said I. + +"It's the same thing," she retorted. And then taking up her +parable, she told me in her artless way the inner history of her +heart since that morning; but what she said is sacred. Also, a +man feels himself to be a pitiful dog of a god when a woman +relates how she came to establish him on her High Altar. + +Later we struck a lighter vein and spoke of the present, the +enchantment of the hour, the scented air, the African stars. + +"It seems, my dear," said I, "that we have got to Nephelococcygia +after all." + +"What is Nephelococcygia?" asked Carlotta. + +I relented. "It's a base Aristophanic libel on our dream-city," +said I. + + +Thus out of evil has come good; out of pain has grown happiness; +out of horror has sprung an everlasting love. Many a man will +say that in all my relations with Carlotta I have comported +myself as a fool, and that my marriage is the crowning folly. +Well, I pretend not unto wisdom. Wisdom would have married me to +five thousand a year, a position in fashionable society, my +Cousin Dora and premature old age antecedent to eternal +destruction. I hold that my salvation has lain the way of folly. +Again, it may be urged against me that I have squandered my life, +that with all my learning, such as it is, I have achieved +nothing. I once thought so. I boasted of it in my diary when I +complacently styled myself a waster in Earth's factory. Oh, that +diary! Let me here solemnly retract and abjure every crude and +idiot opinion and reflection of life set forth in that frenetic +record! I regard myself not as a waster--I remember a passage in +Epictetus treating of the ways of Providence: + +"For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? +If then I were a nightingale I would do the part of a +nightingale: if I were a swan, I would do like a swan. But now I +am a rational creature and I ought to praise God; this is my +work, I do it, nor will I desert this post so long as I am +allowed to keep it; and I exhort you to join in this same song." + +No, I am neither nightingale nor swan, and cannot add, as they +do, to the beauty of the earth. The lame old man has his +limitations; but within them, he can, by cleaving to his post and +praising God, fulfil his destiny. + +Carlotta coming onto the housetop to summon me to lunch looks +over my shoulder as I write these words. + +"But you are not a lame old man!" she cries in indignation. "You +are the youngest and strongest and cleverest man in the world!" + +"What am I to do with these miraculous gifts?" I ask, laughing. + +"You are to become famous," she says, with conviction. + +"Very well, my dear. We will have to go to some new land where +attaining fame is easier for a beginner than in London; and we'll +send for Antoinette and Stenson to help us." + +"That will be very nice," she observes. + +So I am to become famous. _Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut_. And +Carlotta has got a soul of her own now and means to make the most +of it. It will lead me upward somewhere. But whether I am to be +king of New Babylon or Prime Minister of New Zealand or lawgiver +to a Polynesian tribe is a secret as yet hidden in the lap of the +gods, whence Carlotta doubtless will snatch it in her own good +time. + +"You are writing a lot of rubbish," says Carlotta. + +"And a little truth. The mixture is Life," I answer. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE *** + +This file should be named mmarc10.txt or mmarc10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mmarc11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mmarc10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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