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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:24:51 -0700 |
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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/5102-0.txt b/5102-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55932c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/5102-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9534 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Path of a Star, by +Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + +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 Path of a Star + +Author: Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + +Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5102] +Last Updated: March 15, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF A STAR *** + + + + +Produced by Don Lainson + + + + + +THE PATH OF A STAR + + +By Mrs. Everard Cotes + +(AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + + +1899 + + + +CHAPTER I + + +She pushed the portiere aside with a curved hand and gracefully +separated fingers; it was a staccato movement and her body followed it +after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, +eyes inquiring and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who +was there. You would have been aware at once that she was an actress. +She entered the room with a little stride and then crossed it quickly, +the train of her morning gown--it cried out of luxury with the cheapest +voice--taking folds of great audacity as she bent her face in its loose +mass of hair over Laura Filbert, sitting on the edge of a bamboo sofa, +and said-- + +“You poor thing! Oh, you POOR thing!” + +She took Laura's hand as she spoke, and tried to keep it; but the hand +was neutral, and she let it go. “It is a hand,” she said to herself, +in one of those quick reflections that so often visited her ready-made, +“that turns the merely inquiring mind away. Nothing but feeling could +hold it.” + +Miss Filbert made the conventional effort to rise, but it came to +nothing, or to a mere embarrassed accent of their greeting. Then her +voice showed this feeling to be superficial, made nothing of it, pushed +it to one side. + +“I suppose you cannot see the foolishness of your pity,” she said. “Oh +Miss Howe, I am happier than you are--much happier.” Her bare feet, as +she spoke, nestled into the coarse Mirzapore rug on the floor, and her +eye lingered approvingly upon an Owari vase three feet high, and thick +with the gilded landscape of Japan, which stood near it, in the cheap +magnificence of the room. + +Hilda smiled. Her smile acquiesced in the world she had found, +acquiesced, with the gladness of an explorer, in Laura Filbert as a +feature of it. + +“Don't be too sure,” she cried; “I am very happy. It is such a pleasure +to see you.” + +Her gaze embraced Miss Filbert as a person, and Miss Filbert as a +pictorial fact, but that was because she could not help it. Her eyes +were really engaged only with the latter Miss Filbert. + +“Much happier than you are,” Laura repeated, slowly moving her head from +side to side as if to negative contradiction in advance. She smiled too; +it was as if she had remembered a former habit, from politeness. + +“Of course you are--of course!” Miss Howe acknowledged. The words were +mellow and vibrant; her voice seemed to dwell upon them with a kind of +rich affection. Her face covered itself with serious sweetness. “I can +imagine the beatitudes you feel--by your clothes.” + +The girl drew her feet under her, and her hand went up to the only +semi-conventional item of her attire. It was a brooch that exclaimed in +silver letters “Glory to His Name!” “It is the dress of the Army in this +country,” she said; “I would not change it for the wardrobe of a queen.” + +“That's just what I mean.” Miss Howe leaned back in her chair with her +head among its cushions, and sent her words fluently across the room, +straight and level with the glance from between her half-closed eyelids. +A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy +in the East clung about her. “To live on a plane that lifts you up like +that--so that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go +about the streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness of the +world--there must be something very consummate in it or you couldn't go +on. At least I couldn't.” + +“I suppose I do look odd to you.” Her voice took a curious, soft, +uplifted note. “I wear three garments only--the garments of my sisters +who plant the young shoots in the rice-fields, and carry bricks for the +building of rich men's houses, and gather the dung of the roadways to +burn for fuel. If the Army is to conquer India it must march bare-footed +and bare-headed all the way. All the way,” Laura repeated, with a +tremor of musical sadness. Her eyes were fixed in appeal upon the other +woman's. “And if the sun beats down upon my uncovered head, I think, 'It +struck more fiercely upon Calvary'; and if the way is sharp to my unshod +feet, I say, 'At least I have no cross to bear.'” The last words seemed +almost a chant, and her voice glided from them into singing-- + + + “The blessed Saviour died for me, + On the cross! On the cross! + He bore my sins at Calvary, + On the rugged cross!” + + +She sang softly, her body thrust a little forward in a tender swaying-- + + + “Behold His hands and feet and side, + The crown of thorns, the crimson tide, + 'Forgive them, Father!' loud He cried, + On the rugged cross!” + + +“Oh, thank you!” Miss Howe exclaimed. Then she murmured again, “That's +just what I mean.” + +A blankness came over the girl's face as a light cloud will cross the +moon. She regarded Hilda from behind it, with penetrant anxiety. “Did +you really enjoy that hymn?” she asked. + +“Indeed I did.” + +“Then, dear Miss Howe, I think you cannot be very far from the Kingdom.” + +“I? Oh, I have my part in a kingdom.” Her voice caressed the idea. “And +the curious thing is that we are all aristocrats who belong to it. Not +the vulgar kind, you understand--but no, you don't understand. You'll +have to take my word for it.” Miss Howe's eyes sought a red hibiscus +flower that looked in at the window half drowned in sunlight, and the +smile in them deepened. + +“Is it the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?” Laura Filbert's clear +glance was disturbed by a ray of curiosity, but the inflexible quality +of her tone more than counterbalanced this. + +“There's nothing about it in the Bible, if that's what you mean. And yet +I think the men who wrote 'The time of the singing of birds has come,' +and 'I will lift mine eyes unto the hills,' must have belonged to it.” + She paused, with an odd look of discomfiture. “But one shouldn't talk +about things like that--it takes the bloom off. Don't you feel that way +about your privileges now and then? Don't they look rather dusty and +battered to you after a day's exposure in Bow Bazar?” + +There came a light crunch of wheels on the red soorkee drive outside, +and a switch past the bunch of sword-ferns that grew beside the door. +The muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an inquiry +penetrated from beyond the portiere, and without further preliminary +Duff Lindsay came into the room. + +“Do I interrupt a rehearsal?” he asked; but there was nothing in the way +he walked across the room to Hilda Howe to suggest that the idea abashed +him. For her part she rose and made one short step to meet him, and then +received him as it were with both hands and all her heart. + +“How ridiculous you are!” she cried. “Of course not. And let me tell you +it is very nice of you to come this very first day when one was dying to +be welcomed. Miss Filbert came too, and we have been talking about our +respective walks in life. Let me introduce you. Miss Filbert--Captain +Filbert, of the Salvation Army--Mr. Duff Lindsay of Calcutta.” + +She watched with interest the gravity with which they bowed, and the +difference in it: his the simple formality of his class, Laura's a +repressed hostility to such an epitome of the world as he looked, +although any Bond Street tailor would have impeached his waistcoat, and +one shabby glove had manifestly never been on. Yet Miss Filbert's first +words seemed to show a slight unbending. “Won't you sit there?” she +said, indicating the sofa corner she had been occupying. “You get +the glare from the window where you are.” It was virtually a command, +delivered with a complete air of dignity and authority; and Lindsay, in +some confusion, found himself obeying. “Oh, thank you, thank you,” he +said. “One doesn't really mind in the least. Do you--do you object to +it? Shall I close the shutters?” + +“If you do,” said Miss Howe delightedly, “we shall not be able to see.” + +“Neither we should,” he assented; “the others are closed already. Very +badly built these Calcutta houses, aren't they? Have you been long in +India, Miss--Captain Filbert?” + +“I served a year up-country, and then fell ill and had to go home on +furlough. The native food didn't suit me. I am stationed in Calcutta +now, but I have only just come.” + +“Pleasant time of the year to arrive,” Mr. Lindsay remarked. + +“Yes; but we are not particular about that. We love all the times and +the seasons, since every one brings its appointed opportunity. Last +year, in Mugridabad, there were more souls saved in June than in any +other month.” + +“Really?” asked Mr. Lindsay; but he was not looking at her with those +speculations. The light had come back upon her face. + +“I will say good-bye now,” said Captain Filbert. “I have a meeting at +half-past five. Shall we have a word of prayer before I go?” + +She plainly looked for immediate acquiescence; but Miss Howe said, +“Another time, dear.” + +“Oh, why not?” exclaimed Duff Lindsay. Hilda put the semblance of a +rebuke into her glance at him, and said, “Certainly not.” + +“Oh,” Captain Filbert cried, “don't think you can escape that way! I +will pray for you long and late to-night, and ask my lieutenant to do +so too. Don't harden your heart, Miss Howe--the Lord is waiting to be +compassionate.” + +The two were silent, and Laura walked toward the door. Just where the +sun slanted into the room and made leaf-patterns on the floor she turned +and stood for an instant in the full tide of it; and it set all the +loose tendrils of her pale yellow hair in a little flame, and gave the +folds of the flesh-coloured sari that fell over her shoulder the texture +of draperies so often depicted as celestial. The sun sought into her +face, revealing nothing but great purity of line and a clear pallor +except where below the wide light blue eyes two ethereal shadows brushed +themselves. Under the intentness of their gaze she made as if she would +pass out without speaking; and the tender curves of her limbs, as she +wavered, could not have been matched out of mediaeval stained glass. But +her courage, or her conviction, came back to her at the door, and she +raised her hand and pointed at Hilda. + +“She's got a soul worth saving.” + +Then the portiere fell behind her, and nothing was said in the room +until the pad of her bare feet had ceased upon the stair. + +“She came out in the Bengal with us,” Hilda told him--this is not a +special instance of it, but she could always gratify Duff Lindsay in +advance--“and she was desperately seedy, poor girl. I looked after her a +little, but it was mistaken kindness, for now she's got me on her mind. +And as the two hundred and eighty million benighted souls of India are +her continual concern, I seem a superfluity. To think of being the two +hundred and eighty millionth and first oppresses one.” + +Lindsay listened with a look of accustomed happiness. + +“You weren't at that end of the ship?” he demanded. + +“Of course I was--we all were. And some of us--little Miss Stace, for +instance--thankful enough at the prospect of cold meat and sardines for +tea every night for a whole month. And, after Suez, ices for dinner on +Sundays. It was luxury.” + +Lindsay was pulling an aggrieved moustache. “I don't call it fair +or friendly,” he said, “when you know how easily it could have been +arranged. Your own sense of the fitness of things should have told you +that the second-class saloon was no place for you. For YOU!” + +Plainly she did not intend to argue the point. She poised her chin in +her hand and looked away over his head, and he could not help seeing, as +he had seen before, that her eyes were beautiful. But this had been so +long acknowledged between them that she could hardly have been conscious +that she was insisting on it afresh. Then by the time he might have +thought her launched upon a different meditation, her mind swept back to +his protest, like a whimsical bird. + +“I didn't want to extract anything from the mercantile community of +Calcutta in advance,” she said. “It would be most unbusinesslike. +Stanhope has been equal to bringing us out; but I quite see myself, as +leading lady, taking round the hat before the end of the season. Then I +think,” she said with defiance, “that I shall avoid you.” + +“And pray why?” + +“Because you would put too much in. According to your last letters you +are getting beastly rich. You would take all the tragedy out of the +situation, and my experience would vanish in your cheque.” + +“I don't know why my feelings should always be cuffed out of the way +of your experiences,” Lindsay said. She retorted, “Oh yes, you do”; +and they regarded each other through an instant's silence with visible +good-fellowship. + +“A reasonably strong company this time?” Lindsay asked. + +“Thank you. 'Company' is gratifying. For a month we have been a +'troupe'--in the first-class end. Fairish. Bad to middling. Fifteen +of us, and when we are not doing Hamlet and Ophelia we can please with +light comedy, or the latest thing in rainbow chiffon done on mirrors +with a thousand candlepower. Bradley and I will have to do most of the +serious work. But I have improved--oh, a lot. You wouldn't know my Lady +Whippleton.” + +It was a fervid announcement, but it carried an implication which +appeared to prevent Lindsay's kindling. + +“Then Bradley is here too?” he remarked. + +“Oh yes,” she said; and an instinct sheathed itself in her face. “But it +is much better than it was, really. He is hardly ever troublesome now. +He understands. And he teaches me a great deal more than I can tell you. +You know,” she asserted, with the effect of taking an independent view, +“as an artist he has my unqualified respect.” + +“You have a fine disregard for the fact that artists are men when they +are not women,” Duff said. “I don't believe their behaviour is a bit +more affected by their artistry than it would be by a knowledge of the +higher mathematics.” + +She turned indignant eyes on him. “Fancy YOUR saying that! Fancy your +having the impertinence to offer me so absurd a sophistry! At what +Calcutta dinner-table did you pick it up?” she cried derisively. +“Well, it shows that one can't trust one's best friend loose among the +conventions!” + +He had decided that it would be a trifle edged to say that such matters +were not often discussed at Calcutta dinner-tables, when she added, with +apparent inconsistency and real dejection, “It IS a hideous bore.” + +Lindsay saw his point admitted, and even in the way she brushed it +aside he felt that she was generous. Yet something in him--perhaps the +primitive hunting instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch impulse +to explore the very roots of every matter, tempted him to say, “He gives +up a good deal, doesn't he, for his present gratification?” + +“He gives up everything! That is the disgusting part of it. Leander +Morris offered him--But why should I tell you? It's humiliating enough +in the very back of one's mind.” + +“He is a clever fellow, no doubt.” + +“Not too clever to act with me! Oh, we go beautifully--we melt, we run +together. He has given me some essential things, and now I can give them +back to him. I begin to think that is what keeps him now. It must be +awfully satisfying to generate artistic life in--in anybody, and watch +it grow.” + +“Doubtless,” said Lindsay, with his eyes on the carpet; and her eyebrows +twitched together, but she said nothing. Although she knew his very +moderate power of analysis he seemed to look, with his eyes on the +carpet, straight into the subject, to perceive it with a cynical +clearness, and as Hilda watched him a little hardness came about her +mouth. “Well,” he said, visibly detaching himself from the matter, “it's +a satisfaction to have you back. I have been doing nothing, literally, +since you went away, but making money and playing tennis. Existence, +as I look back upon it, is connoted by a varying margin of profit and a +vast sward.” + +She looked at him with eyes in which sympathy stood remotely, +considering the advisability of returning. “It's a pity you can't act,” + she said; “then you could come away and let it all go.” + +Lindsay smiled at her across the gulf he saw fixed. “How simple life is +to you!” he said. “But anyway I couldn't act.” + +“Oh no, you couldn't, you couldn't! You are too intensely absorbent, you +are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would never consent even +for an instant to be the flame in anybody else--any of those people who, +for the purpose of the state, are called imaginary. Never!” + +It seemed a punishment, but all Lindsay said was: “I wish you would go +on. You can't think how gratifying it is--after the tennis.” + +“If I went on I have an idea that I might be disagreeable.” + +“Oh then, stop. We can't quarrel yet--I've hardly seen you. Are you +comfortable here? Would you like some French novels?” + +“Yes, thank you. Yes, please!” She grew before him into a light and +conventional person, apparently on her guard against freedom of speech. +He moved a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the spring she had +detached herself from, and after failing for a quarter of an hour he got +up to go. + +“I shan't bother you again before Saturday,” he said; “I know what a +week it will be at the theatre. Remember you are to give the man +his orders about the brougham. I can get on perfectly with the cart. +Good-bye! Calcutta is waiting for you.” + +“Calcutta is never impatient,” said Miss Howe. “It is waiting with yawns +and much whisky and soda.” She gave him a stately inclination with her +hand, and he overcame the temptation to lay his own on his heart in a +burlesque of it. At the door he remembered something, and turned. He +stood looking back precisely where Laura Filbert had stood, but the sun +was gone. “You might tell me more about your friend of the altruistic +army,” he said. + +“You saw, you heard, you know.” + +“But--” + +“Oh,” cried she, disregardingly, “you can discover her for yourself, at +the Army Headquarters in Bentinck Street--you man!” + +Lindsay closed the door behind him without replying, and half-way down +the stairs her voice appealed to him over the banisters. + +“You might as well forget that. I didn't particularly mean it.” + +“I know you didn't,” he returned. “You woman! But you yourself--you're +not going to play with your heavenly visitant?” + +Hilda leaned upon the banisters, her arms dropping over from the elbows. +“I suppose I may look at her,” she said; and her smile glowed down upon +him. + +“Do you think it really rewards attention?--the type, I mean.” + +“How you will talk of types! Didn't you see that she was unique? You +may come back if you like, for a quarter of an hour, and we will discuss +her.” + +Lindsay looked at his watch. “I would come back for a quarter of an hour +to discuss anything, or nothing,” he replied, “but there isn't time. I +am dining with the Archdeacon. I must go to church.” + +“Why not be original and dine with the Archdeacon without going to +church? Why not say on arrival: 'My dear Archdeacon, your sermon and +your mutton the same evening--c'est trop! I cannot so impose upon your +generosity. I have come for the mutton!'” + +Thus was Captain Laura Filbert superseded, as doubtless often before, +by an orthodox consideration. Duff Lindsay drove away in his cart; and +still, for an appreciable number of seconds, Miss Howe stood leaning +over the banisters, her eyes fixed full of speculation on the place +where he had stood. She was thinking of a scene--a dinner with an +Archdeacon--and of the permanent satisfactions to be got from it; and +she renounced almost with a palpable sigh the idea of the Archdeacon's +asking her. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +“Oh, her gift!” said Alicia Livingstone. “It is the lowest, isn't it--in +the scale of human endowment? Mimicry.” + +Miss Livingstone handed her brother his tea as she spoke, but turned +her eyes and her delicate chin up to Duff Lindsay with the protest. +Lindsay's cup was at his lips, and his eyebrows went up over it as if +they would answer before his voice was set at liberty. + +“Mimicry isn't a fair word,” he said. “The mimic doesn't interpret. He's +a mere thief of expression. You can always see him behind his stolen +mask. The actress takes a different rank. This one does, anyway.” + +“You're mixing her up with the apes and the monkeys,” remarked +Surgeon-Major Livingstone. + +“Mere imitators!” cried Mrs. Barberry. + +Alicia did not allow the argument to pursue her. She smiled upon their +energy and, so to speak, disappeared. It was one of her little ways, and +since it left seeming conquerors on her track nobody quarrelled with it. + +“I've met them in London,” she said. “Oh, I remember one hot little +North Kensington flat full of them, and their cigarettes--and they were +always disappointing. There seemed to be somehow no basis--nothing to go +upon.” + +She looked from one to the other of her party with a graceful +deprecating movement of her head, a head which people were unanimous in +calling more than merely pretty and more than ordinarily refined. That +was the cursory verdict, the superficial thing to see and say; it will +do to go on with. From the way Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he +might have been suspected of other discoveries, possible only to the +somewhat privileged in this blind world, where intimacy must lend a lens +to find out anything at all. + +“You found that they had no selves,” he said, and the manner of his +words was encouraging and provocative. His proposition was obscured +to him for the instant by his desire to obtain the very last of her +comment, and it might be seen that this was habitual with him. “But Miss +Hilda Howe has one.” + +“Is she a lady?” asked Mrs. Barberry. + +“I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to rest my claim for her on +that.” + +“Your claim to what?” trembled upon Miss Livingstone's lips, but +she closed them instead, and turned her head again to listen to Mrs. +Barberry. The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating the +conversations in which she was interested, imparting elegance and +relief. + +“I saw her in A Woman of Honour, last cold weather,” Mrs. Barberry said; +“I took a dinner-party of five girls and five subalterns from the Fort, +and I said, 'Never again!' Fortunately the girls were just out, and not +one of them understood, but those poor boys didn't know where to look! +And no more did I. So disgustingly real.” + +Alicia's eyes veiled themselves to rest on a ring on her finger, and a +little smile, which was inconsistent with the veiling, hovered about her +lips. + +“I was in England last year,” she said; “I--I saw A Woman of Honour in +London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian scratch +company in a Calcutta theatre! Imagination halts.” + +“Miss Howe did something with it,” observed Mr. Lindsay. “That and one +or two other things carried one through last cold weather. One supported +even the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, conscious that there +was something to fall back upon. I remember I went to the State ball, +and cheerfully.” + +“That's saying a good deal, isn't it?” commented Dr. Livingstone, +vaguely aware of an ironical intention. “By Jove! yes.” + +“Hamilton Bradley is good, too, isn't he?” Mrs. Barberry said. “Such a +magnificent head. I adore him in Shakespeare.” + +“He knows the conventions, and uses them with security,” Lindsay +replied, looking at Alicia; and she, with a little courageous air, +demanded-- + +“Is the story true?” + +“The story of their relations? I suppose there are fifty. One of them +is.” + +Mrs. Barberry frowned at Lindsay in a manner which was itself a +reminiscence of amateur theatricals. “Their relations!” she murmured to +Dr. Livingstone. “What awful things to talk about!” + +“The story I mean,” Alicia explained, “is to the effect that Mr. +Bradley, who is married, but unimportantly, made a heavy bet, when he +met this girl, that he would subdue her absolutely through her passion +for her art--I mean, of course, her affections--” + +“My dear girl, we know what you mean,” cried Mrs. Barberry, entering a +protest as it were, on behalf of the gentlemen. + +“And precisely the reverse happened.” + +“One imagines it was something like that,” Lindsay said. + +“Oh, did she know about the bet?” cried Mrs. Barberry. + +“That's as you like to believe. I fancy she knew about the man,” Lindsay +contributed again. + +“Tables turned, eh? Daresay it served him right,” remarked Dr. +Livingstone. “If you really want to come to the laboratory, Mrs. +Barberry, we ought to be off?” + +“He is going to show me a bacillus,” Mrs. Barberry announced with +enthusiasm. “Plague, or cholera, or something really bad. He caught +it two days ago, and put it in jelly for me--wasn't it dear of him! +Good-bye, you nice thing”--Mrs. Barberry addressed Alicia--“Good-bye, +Mr. Lindsay. Fancy--a live bacillus from Hong Kong! I should like it +better if it came from fascinating Japan, but still--goodbye.” + +With the lady's departure an air of wontedness seemed to repossess the +room, and the two people who were left. Things fell into their places, +one could observe relative beauty, on the walls and on the floor, in +Alicia's hair and in her skirt. Little meanings attached themselves--to +oval portraits of ladies, evidently ancestral, whose muslin sleeves were +tied with blue ribbon, to Byzantine-looking Persian paintings, to odd +brass bowls and faint-coloured embroideries. The air became full of +agreeable exhalations traceable to inanimate objects, or to a rose in +a vase of common country glass; and if one turned to Alicia one could +almost observe the process by which they were absorbed in her and given +forth again with a delicacy more vague. Lindsay sometimes thought of the +bee, and flowers and honey, but always abandoned the simile as a +trifle gross and material. Certainly as she sat there in her grace and +slenderness and pale clear tints--there was an effect of early +morning about her that made the full tide of other women's sunlight +vulgar--anyone would have been fastidious in the choice of a figure to +present her in. With a suspicion of haughtiness she was drawn for the +traditional marchioness; but she lifted her eyes and you saw that she +appealed instead. There was an art in the doing of her hair, a dainty +elaboration that spoke of the most approved conventions beneath, yet it +was impossible to mistake the freedom of spirit that lay in the lines of +her blouse. Even her gracefulness ran now and then into a downrightness +of movement which suggested the assertion of a primitive sincerity in a +personal world of many effects. Into her making of tea, for example, she +put nothing more sophisticated than sugar, and she ordered more bread +and butter in the worst possible rendering of her servants' tongue, +without a thought except that the bread and butter should be brought. +Lindsay liked to think that with him she was particularly simple +and direct, that he was of those who freed her from the pretty +consciousness, the elegant restraint that other people fixed upon her. +It must be admitted that this conviction had reason in establishing +itself, and it is perhaps not surprising that, in the security of it, +he failed to notice occasions when it would not have held, of which this +was plainly one. Alicia reflected, with her cheek against the Afghan +wolf-skins on the back of the chair. It was characteristic of her eyes +that one could usually see things being turned over in them. She would +sometimes keep people waiting while she thought. She thought perceptibly +about Hilda Howe, slanting her absent gaze between sheltering eyelids +to the floor. Presently she rearranged the rose in its green glass vase, +and said, “Then it's impossible not to be interested.” + +“I thought you would find it so.” + +Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small fragments of cress +sandwich upon a terrier. “Fancy your being so sure,” she said, “that you +could present her entertainingly!” She looked past him toward the light +that came in at the draped window, and he was not aware that her regard +held him fast by the way. + +“Anyone could,” he said cheerfully. “She presents herself. One is only +the humblest possible medium. And the most passive.” + +Alicia's eyes were still attracted by the light from the window. It +silhouetted a rare fern from Assam which certainly rewarded them. + +“I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some more.” + +“Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing her?” + +“Yes,” said Miss Livingstone, with conviction; “but I'm not a bit +satisfied. A few simple facts sometimes--sometimes are better. Wasn't it +a little difficult to make her acquaintance?” + +“Not in the very least. I saw her in A Woman of Honour, and was +charmed. Charmed in a new way. Next day I discovered her address--it's +obscure--and sent up my card for permission to tell her so. I explained +to her that one would have hesitated at home, but here one was protected +by the custom. And she received me warmly. She gave me to understand +that she was not overwhelmed with tribute of that kind from Calcutta. +The truthful ring of it was pathetic, poor dear.” + +“That was in--” + +“In February.” + +“In February we were at Nice,” Alicia said, musingly. Then she took up +her divining-rod again. “One can imagine that she was grateful. People +of that kind--how snobbish I sound, but you know what I mean--are rather +stranded in Calcutta, aren't they? They haven't any world here;” and, +with the quick glance which deprecated her timid clevernesses, she +added, “The arts conspire to be absent.” + +“Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any gratitude it was all mine. +But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of +life will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of that +sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if she +admitted it.” + +“What is her theory of life?” Alicia demanded quickly. “I should be glad +of a new one.” + +Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a little, as at the touch +of a finger light, but cold. + +“I don't think she has ever told me,” he said. “No, I am sure she has +not.” His reflection was: “It is her garment--how could it fit another +woman!” + +“But you have divined it--she has let you do that! You can give me your +impression.” + +He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon impalpabilities, but +not without a shade of embarrassment. + +“Perhaps. But having perceived, to pass on--it doesn't follow that one +can. I don't seem able to lay my hand upon the signs and symbols.” + +The faintest look of disappointment, the lightest cloud of submission, +appeared upon Miss Livingstone's face. + +“Oh, I know!” she said. “You are making me feel dreadfully out of it, +but I know. It surrounds her like a kind of atmosphere, an intellectual +atmosphere. Though I confess that is the part I don't understand in +connection with an actress.” + +There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. Alicia lay back +upon her wolf-skins like a long-stemmed flower cast down among them, and +looked away from the subject at the teacups. Duff picked up his hat. He +had the subtlest intimations with women. + +“It's an intoxicating atmosphere,” he said. “My continual wonder is that +I'm not in love with her. A fellow in a novel, now, in my situation, +would be embroiled with half his female relations by this time, and +taking his third refusal with a haggard eye.” + +Alicia still contemplated the teacups, but with intentness. She lifted +her head to look at them; one might have imagined a beauty suddenly +revealed. + +“Why aren't you?” she said. “I wonder, too.” + +“I should like it enormously,” he laughed. “I've lain awake at nights +trying to find out why it isn't so. Perhaps you'll be able to tell me. I +think it must be because she's such a confoundedly good fellow.” + +Alicia turned her face toward him sweetly, and the soft grey fur made a +shadow on the whiteness of her throat. Her buffeting was over; she was +full of an impulse to stand again in the sun. + +“Oh, you mustn't depend on me,” she said. “But why are you going? Don't +go. Stay and have another cup of tea.” + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The fact that Stephen Arnold and Duff Lindsay had spent the same terms +at New College, and now found themselves again together in the social +poverty of the Indian capital, would not necessarily explain their +walking in company through the early dusk of a December evening in +Bentinck Street. It seems desirable to supply a reason why anyone should +be walking there, to begin with, anyone, at all events, not a Chinaman, +or a coolie, a dealer in second-hand furniture, or an able-bodied seaman +luxuriously fingering wages in both trouser pockets, and describing +an erratic line of doubtful temper toward the nearest glass of country +spirits. Or, to be quite comprehensive, a draggled person with a +Bulgarian, a Levantine, or a Japanese smile, who no longer possessed a +carriage, to whom the able-bodied seaman represented the whole port. +The cramped twisting thoroughfare was full of people like this; they +overflowed from the single narrow border of pavement to the left, and +walked indifferently upon the road among the straw-scatterings and +the dung-droppings; and when the tramcar swept through and past with +prodigious whistlings and ringings, they swerved as little as possible +aside. Three parts of the tide of them were neither white nor black, but +many shades of brown, written down in the census as “of mixed Mood,” and +wearing still, through the degenerating centuries, an eyebrow, a nostril +of the first Englishmen who came to conjugal ties of Hindustan. The +place sent up to the stars a vast noise of argument and anger and +laughter, of the rattling of hoofs and wheels; but the babel was ordered +in its exaggeration, the red turban of a policeman here and there +denoted little more than a unit in the crowd. There were gas-lamps, and +they sent a ripple of light like a sword-thrust along the gutter beside +the banquette, where a pariah dog nosed a dead rat and was silhouetted. +They picked out, too, the occasional pair of Corinthian columns, built +into the squalid stucco sheer with the road that made history for +Bentinck Street, and explained that whatever might be the present colour +of the little squat houses and the tall lean ones that loafed together +into the fog round the first bend, they were once agreeably pink and +yellow, with the magenta cornice, the blue capital, that fancy dictated. +There where the way narrowed with an out-jutting balcony high up, and +the fog thickened and the lights grew vague, the multitude of heads +passed into the blur beyond with an effect of mystery, pictorial, +remote; but where Arnold and Lindsay walked the squalor was warm, human, +practical. A torch flamed this way and that, stuck in the wall over the +head of a squatting bundle and his tray of three-cornered leaf-parcels +of betel, and an oiled rag in a tin pot sent up an unsteady little +flame, blue and yellow, beside a sweetmeat seller's basket, and showed +his heap of cakes that they were well-browned and full of butter. From +the “Cape of Good Cheer,” where many bottles glistened in rows inside, +came a braying upon the conch, and a flame of burnt brandy danced along +the bar to the honour and propitiation of Lakshmi, that the able-bodied +seaman might be thirsty when he came, for the “Cape of Good Cheer” did +not owe its prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any Providence of +our theology. But most of the brightness abode in the Chinamen's shoe +shops, where many lamps shone on the hammering and the stitching. There +were endless shoe shops, and they all belonged to Powson or Singson or +Samson, while one sign-board bore the broad impertinence “Macpherson.” + The proprietors stood in the door, the smell came out in the +street--that smell of Chinese personality steeped in fried oil and fresh +leather that out-fans even the south wind in Bentinck Street. They were +responsible but not anxious, the proprietors: they buried their fat +hands in their wide sleeves and looked up and down, stolid and smiling. +They stood in their alien petticoat trousers for the commercial +stability of the locality, and the rows of patent leather slippers that +glistened behind them testified to it further. Everything else shifted +and drifted, with a perpetual change of complexion, a perpetual +worsening of clothes. Only Powson bore a permanent yoke of prosperity. +It lay round his thick brown neck with the low clean line of his blue +cotton smock, and he carried it without offensive consciousness, looking +up and down by no means in search of customers, rather in the exercise +of the opaque, inscrutable philosophy tied up in his queue. + +Lindsay liked Bentinck Street as an occasional relapse from the scenic +standards of pillared and verandahed Calcutta, and made personal +business with his Chinaman for the sake of the racial impression thrown +into the transaction. Arnold, in his cassock, waited in the doorway with +his arms crossed behind him, and his thin face thrust as far as it would +go into the air outside. It is possible that some intelligences might +have seen in this priest a caricature of his profession, a figure to be +copied for the curate of burlesque, so accurately did he reproduce the +common signs of the ascetic school. His face would have been womanish +in its plainness but for the gravity that had grown upon it, only +occasionally dispersed by a smile of scholarliness and sweetness which +had the effect of being permitted, conceded. He had the long thin nose +which looked as if for preference it would be forever thrust among the +pages of the Fathers; and anyone might observe the width of his mouth +without perhaps detecting the patience and decision of the upper lip. +The indignity of spectacles he did not yet wear, but it hovered over +him; it was indispensable to his personality in the long-run. In +figure he was indifferently tall and thin and stooping, made to pass +unobservedly along a pavement or with the directness of humble but +important business among crowds. At Oxford he had interested some of his +friends and worried others by wistful inclinations toward the shelter of +that Mother Church which bids her children be at rest and leave to her +the responsibility. Lindsay, with his robust sense of a right to exist +on the old unmuddled fighting terms, to be a sane and decent animal, +under civilised moral governance a miserable sinner, was among those who +observed his waverings without prejudice or anything but an affectionate +solicitude that, whichever way Arnold went, he should find the +satisfactions he sought. The conviction that settled the matter was +accidental, the work of a moment, a free instinct and a thing made with +hands--the dead Shelley where the sea threw him and the sculptor fixed +him, under his memorial dome in the gardens of University College. Here +one leafy afternoon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his head +in confusion at the thought of the profane handicraftsman who might +claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by which +he saw deeply concealed in his bosom, and disguised with a host of +spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as the artistic +bias, the aesthetic point of view. The discovery worked upon him so that +he spent three days without consummated prayer at all, occupied in the +effort to find out whether he could yet indeed worship in purity of +spirit, or how far the paralysis of the ideal of mere beauty had crept +upon his devotions. In the end he cast the artistic bias, the aesthetic +point of view, as far from him as his will would carry, and walked away +in another direction, from which, if he turned his head, he could see +the Church of Rome sitting with her graven temptations gathered up in +her skirts, looking mournfully after him. He had been a priest of the +Clarke Mission to Calcutta, a “Clarke Brother,” six years when he stood +in the door of Ahsing's little shop in Bentinck Street, while Lindsay +explained to Ahsing his objection to patent leather toe-caps; six years +which had not worn or chilled him, because, as he would have cheerfully +admitted, he had recognised the facts and lowered his personal hopes of +achievement--lowered them with a heroism which took account of himself +as no more than a spiritual molecule rightly inspired and moving to +the great future already shining behind coming aeons of the universal +Kingdom. Indeed, his humility was scientific; he made his deductions +from the granular nature of all change, moral and material. He never +talked or thought of the Aryan souls that were to shine with peculiar +Oriental brightness as stars in the crown of his reward; he saw rather +the ego and the energy of him merged in a wave of blessed tendency in +this world, thankful if, in that which is to come, it was counted worthy +to survive at all. It should be understood that Arnold did not hope to +attain the simplicity of this by means equally simple. He held vastly, +on the contrary, to fast days and flagellations, to the ministry of +symbols, the use of rigours. The spiritual consummation which the eye +of faith enabled him to anticipate upon the horizon of Bengal should be +hastened, however imperceptibly, by all that he could do to purify and +intensify his infinitesimal share of the force that was to bring it +about. Meanwhile he made friends with the fathers of Bengali schoolboys, +who appreciated his manners, and sent him with urbanity flat baskets of +mangoes and nuts and oranges, pomegranates from Persia, and little round +boxes of white grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt upon the +converts that already testified to the success of the mission; it might +be gathered that he had ideas about premature fruition. + +As they stepped out together into the street, Lindsay thrust his hand +within Arnold's elbow. It was an impulse, and the analysis of it would +show elements like self-reproach, and a sense of value continually +renewed, and a vain desire for an absolutely common ground. The physical +nearness, the touch, was something, and each felt it in the remoteness +of his other world with satisfaction. There was absurdly little in what +they had to say to each other; they talked of the Viceroy's attack of +measles and the sanitary improvements in the cloth dealers' quarter. +Their bond was hardly more than a mutual decency of nature, niceness +of sentiment, clearness of eye. Such as it was, it was strong enough +to make both men wish it were stronger, a desire which was a vague +impatience on Lindsay's part with a concentration of hostility to +Arnold's soutane. It made its universal way for them, however, this +garment. Where the crowd was thickest people jostled and pressed with +one foot in the gutter for the convenience of the padre sahib. He, with +his eyes cast down, took the tribute with humility, as meet, in a +way that made Lindsay blaspheme inwardly at the persistence of +ecclesiastical tradition. + +Suddenly, as they passed, the irrelevant violence of tongues, the +broken, half-comprehensible tumult was smitten and divided by a wave of +rhythmic sound. It pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat sellers, and +mounted above the cracked bell that proclaimed the continual auction +of Kristo Dass and Friend, dealers in the second-hand. In its vivid +familiarity it seemed to make straight for the two Englishmen, to +surround and take possession of them, and they paused. The source of it +was plain--an open door under a vast white signboard dingily lettered +“The Salvation Army.” It loomed through the smoke and the streetlights +like a discovery. + +“Our peripatetic friends,” said Arnold, with his rare smile; and as if +the music seized and held them, they stood listening. + + + “I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + All day on Sunday and six days a week! + I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + Fifty-two weeks in the year.” + + +It was immensely vigorous; the men looked at each other with fresh +animation. Responding to the mere physical appeal of it, they picked +their steps across the street to the door, and there hesitated, revolted +in different ways. Perhaps, I have forgotten to say that Lindsay came +to Calcutta out of an Aberdeenshire manse, and had had a mother before +whose name, while she lived, people wrote “The Hon.” Besides, the +singing had stopped, and casual observation from the street was checked +by a screen. + +“I have wondered sometimes what their methods really are,” said Arnold. + +Their methods were just on the other side of the screen. A bullet-headed +youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulders, fingering a +cap, slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing the two men +beside the door, and a light, clear voice seemed to call after him-- + +“Ah! don't go away!” + +Lindsay was visited by a flash of memory and a whimsical speculation +whether now, at the week's end, the soul of Hilda Howe was still +pursuing the broad road to perdition. The desire to enter sprang up +in him: he was reminded of a vista of some interest which had recently +revealed itself by an accident, and which he had not explored. It had +almost passed out of his memory; he grasped at it again with something +like excitement, and fell adroitly upon the half inclination in Arnold's +voice. + +“I suppose I can't expect you to go in?” he said. + +“Precisely why not?” Stephen retorted. “My dear fellow, we make broad +our sympathies, not our phylacteries.” + +At any other time Lindsay would have reflected how characteristic was +the gentle neatness of that, and might have resented with amusement the +pulpit tone of the little epigram. But this moment found him only aware +of the consent in it. His hand on Arnold's elbow clinched the agreement; +he half pushed the priest into the room, where they dropped into seats. +Stephen's hand went to his breast instinctively, for the words in the +air were holy by association, and stopped there, since even the breadth +of his sympathies did not enable him to cross himself before General +Booth. Though absent in body, the room was dominated by General Booth; +he loomed so large and cadaverous, so earnest and aquiline and bushy, +from a frame on the wall at the end of it. The texts on the other walls +seemed emanations from him; and the man in the short loose, collarless +red coat, with “Salvation Army” in crooked black letters on it, who +stood talking in high, rapid tones with his hands folded, had the look +of a puppet whose strings were pulled by the personality in the frame +above him. It was only by degrees that they observed the other objects +in the room--the big drum on the floor in the empty space where the +exhorters stood, the dozen wooden benches and the possible score of +people sitting on them, the dull kerosene lamps on the walls, lighting +up the curtness of the texts. There were half a dozen men of the Duke's +Own packed in a row like a formation, solid on their haunches; and three +or four unshaven and loose-garmented, from crews in the Hooghly, who +leaned well forwards their elbows on their knees, twirling battered +straw hats, with a pathetic look of being for the instant off the +defensive. One was a Scandinavian, another a Greek, with earrings. There +was a ship's cook, too, a full-blooded negro, very respectable with a +plaid tie and a silk hat; and beside, two East Indian girls of different +shades, tittering at the Duke's Own in an agony of propriety; a Bengali +boy, who spelled out the English on the cover of a hymn-book; and a very +clean Chinaman, who appreciated his privilege, since it included a +seat, a lamp, and a noise, though his perception of it possibly went no +further. The other odds and ends were of the mixed country blood, like +the girls, dingy, undecipherable. They made a shadow for the rest, lying +along the benches, shifting unnoticeably. + +Three people, two of them women, sat in the open space at the end of +the room where the smoky fog from outside thickened and hung visibly in +mid-air, and there was the empty seat of the man who was talking. Laura +Filbert was one of the women. She might have been flung upon her chair; +her head drooped over the back, buried in the curve of one arm. A +tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest her face; the other lay, +palm outward in its abandonment, among the folds that covered her limbs. +The folds hung from her waist, and she wore above them a short close +bodice like a Bengali woman. Her head covering had slipped, and +clung only to the knot of hair at the nape of her neck; she lacked, +pathetically, the conscious hand to draw it forward. She was unaware +even of the gaze of the Duke's Own, though it had fixity and absorption. + +The man with folded hands went on talking. He seemed to have caught as a +text the refrain of the hymn that had been sung. “Yes, indeed,” he said. +“I can tell heveryone 'ere this night, heveryone, that the Saviour is +mighty to keep. I 'ave got it out of my own personal experience, I 'ave. +Jesus don't only look after you on a Sunday, but six days a week, my +friends, six days a week. Fix your eye on Him and He'll keep His eye on +you--that's all your part of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble an' +fall into sin. There's times when the Devil will get the upper 'and, but +oh, my friends, I ask you, each an' hevery one of you, is that the fault +of Jesus? No, it is not 'Is fault, it is the fault of the person. The +person 'as been forgetting Jesus, forgetting 'is Bible an' 'is prayers; +what can you expect? And now I ask you, my friends, is Jesus a-keeping +you? And if He is not, oh, my friends, ain't it foolish to put off +any longer? 'Ere we are met together to-night; we may never all meet +together again. You and I may never 'ear each other speaking again or +see each other sitting there. Thank God,” the speaker continued, as his +eye rested on Arnold and Lindsay, “the vilest sinner may be saved, the +respectable sinner may be saved. We've got God's word for that. Now just +a little word of prayer from Ensign Sand 'ere--she's got God's ear, the +Ensign 'as, and she'll plead with 'im for all unconverted souls inside +these four walls to-night.” + +Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the other exhorters +on her knees on the floor. As she moved she bent upon the audience a +preoccupied gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, chances, from +a point remote and emotionally involved. Lindsay's impression was that +she looked at him as from behind a glass door. Then her eyes closed as +the other woman began, and through their lids, as it were, he could see +that she was again caught up, though her body remained abased, her hands +interlocked between her knees, swaying in unison with the petition. The +Ensign was a little meagre freckled woman, whose wisps of colourless +hair and tight drawn-down lips suggested that in the secular world she +would have been bedraggled and a nagger. She gained an elevation, it was +plain, from the Bengali dress; it kept her away from the temptation +of cheap plush and dirty cotton lace; and her business gave her a +complacency which was doubtless accepted as sanctification by her +fellow-officers, especially by her husband, who had announced her +influence with the Divine Being, and who was himself of an inferior +commission. She prayed in a complaining way, and in a strained minor +key that assumed a spiritual intimacy with all who listened, her key to +hearts. She told the Lord in confidence that however appearances might +be against it every soul before him was really longing to be gathered +within His almighty arms, and when she said this, Laura Filbert, on the +floor, threw back her head and cried “Hallelujah!” and Duff started. +The mothers broke in upon the Ensign with like exclamations. They had a +recurrent, perfunctory sound, and passed unnoticed; but when Laura again +cried “Praise the Lord!” Lindsay found himself holding in check a hasty +impulse to leave the premises. Then she rose, and he watched with the +Duke's Own to see what she would do next. The others looked at her too, +as she stood surprisingly fair and insistent among them, Ensign Sand +with humble eyes and disapproving lips. As she began to speak the +silence widened for her words, the ship's cook stopped shuffling his +feet. “Oh come,” she said, “Come and be saved!” Her voice seemed to +travel from her without effort, and to penetrate every corner and every +consciousness. There was a sudden dip in it like the fall of water, that +thrilled along the nerves. “Who am I that ask you? A poor weak woman, +ignorant, unknown. Never mind. It is not my voice but the voice in your +heart that entreats you 'Come and be saved!' You know that voice; it +speaks in the watches of the night; it began to speak when you were a +little, little child, with little joys and sorrows and little prayers +that you have forgotten now. Oh, it is a sweet voice, a tender +voice”--her own had dropped to the cooing of doves--“it is hard to +know why all the winds do not carry it, and all the leaves whisper +it! Strange, strange! But the world is full of the clamour of its own +foolishness, and the voice is lost in it, except in places where people +come to pray, as here to-night, and in those night watches. You hear +it now in the echo from my lips, 'Come and be saved.' Why must I beg of +you? Why do you not come hastening, running? Are you too wise? But when +did the wisdom of this world satisfy you about the next? Are you too +much occupied? But in the day of judgment what will you do?”-- + + + “When you come to Jordan's flood, + How will you do? How will you do?” + + +It was the voice and tambourine of Ensign Sand, quick upon her +opportunity. Laura gave her no glance of surprise--perhaps she was +disciplined to interruptions--but caught up her own tambourine, singing, +and instantly the chorus was general, the Big drum thumping out the +measure, all the tambourines shaking together. + + + “You who now contemn your God, + How will you do? How will you do?” + + +The Duke's Own sang lustily with a dogged enjoyment that made little of +the words. Some of them assumed a vacuity to counteract the sentiment, +but most of the sheepish countenances expressed that the tune was the +thing, one or two with a smile of jovial cynicism, and kept time with +their feet. Through the medley of voices--everybody sang except Arnold +and Lindsay and the Chinaman--Laura's seemed to flow, separate and +clear, threading the jangle upon melody, and turning the doggerel into +an appeal, direct, intense. When Lindsay presently saw it addressed to +him, in the unmistakable intention of her eyes, he caught his breath. + + + “Death will be a solemn day + When the soul is forced away, + It will be too late to pray; + How will you do?” + + +It was simple enough. All her supreme desire to convince, to turn, to +make awfully plain, had centred upon the single person in the room with +whom she had the advantage of acquaintance, whose face her own could +seek with a kind of right to response. But the sensation Duff Lindsay +tried to sit still under was not simple. It had the novelty, the shock, +of a plunge into the sea; behind his decorous countenance he gasped +and blinked, with unfamiliar sounds in his ears. His soul seemed +shudderingly repelling Laura's, yet the buffets themselves were +enthralling. In the strangeness of it he made a mechanical movement to +depart, picked up his stick, but Arnold was sitting holding his chin, +wrapped in quiet interest, and took no notice. The hymn stopped, and +he found a few minutes' respite, during which Ensign Sand addressed the +meeting, unveiling each heart to its possessor; while Laura turned over +the leaves of the hymn-book, looking, Lindsay was profoundly aware, +for airs and verses most likely to help the siege of the Army to his +untaken, sinful citadel. There was time to bring him calmness enough to +wonder whether these were the symptoms of emotional conversion, the sort +of thing these people went in for, and he resolved to watch his state +with interest. Then, before he knew it, they were all down on their +knees again, and Laura was praying; and he was not aware of the meaning +of a single word that she said, only that her voice was threading itself +in and out of his consciousness burdened with a passion that made it +exquisite to him. Her appeal lifted itself in the end into song, low and +sweet. + + + “Down at the Cross where my Saviour died, + Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, + There to my heart was the blood applied, + Glory to His name!” + + +They let her sing it alone, even the tempting chorus, and when it was +over Lindsay was almost certain that his were not the preliminary +pangs of conversion by the methods of the Salvation Army. Deliberately, +however, he postponed further analysis of them until after the meeting +was over. He would be compelled then to go away, back to the club to +dinner, or something; they would put out the lights and lock the place +up: he thought of that. He glanced at the lamps with a perception of the +finality that would come when they were extinguished--she would troop +away with the others into the darkness--and then at his watch to see how +much time there was left. More exhortation followed and more prayer; he +was only aware that she did not speak. She sat with her hand over her +eyes, and Lindsay had an excited conviction that she was still occupying +herself with him. He looked round almost furtively to detect whether +anyone else was aware of it, this connection that she was blazoning +between them, and then relapsed, staring at his hat, into a sense of +ungrammatical iterations beating through a room full of stuffy smells. +When Laura spoke again his eye leaped to hers in a rapt effort to tell +her that he perceived her intention. That he should be grateful, that he +should approve, was neither here nor there; the indispensable thing was +that she should know him conscious, receptive. She read three or four +sacred verses, a throb of tender longing from the very Christheart, +“Come unto Me.”... The words stole about the room like tears. Then she +would ask “all present,” she said, to engage for a moment in silent +prayer. There was a wordless interval, only the vague street noises +surging past the door. A thrill ran along the benches as Laura brought +it to an end with sudden singing. She was on her feet as the others +raised their heads, breaking forth clear and jubilant. + + + “I am so wondrously saved from sin, + Jesus so sweetly abides within; + There at the Cross where He took me in, + Glory to His name!” + + +She smiled as she sang. It was a happy confident smile, and it was +plain that she longed to believe it the glad reflection of the last +ten minutes' spiritual experience of many who heard her. Lindsay's +perception of this was immediate and keen, and when her eyes rested for +an instant of glad inquiry upon his in the chartered intimacy of her +calling, he felt a pang of compunction. It was a formless reproach, too +vague for anything like a charge, but it came nearest to defining itself +in the idea that he had gone too far--he who had not left his seat. When +the hymn was finished, and Ensign Sand said, “The meeting is now open +for testimonies,” he knew that all her hope was upon him, though she +looked at the screen above his head; and he sat abashed, with a prodigal +sense surging through him of what he would rejoice to do for her in +compensation. In the little chilly silence that followed he surprised +his own eyes moist with disappointment--it had all been so anxious and +so vain--and he felt relief and gratitude when the man who beat the drum +stood up and announced that he had been saved for eleven years, with +details about how badly he stood in need of it when it happened. + +“Hallelujah!” said Ensign Sand cheerfully, with a meretricious air +of hearing it for the first time. “Any more?” and a Norwegian sailor +lurched shamefacedly upon his feet. He had a couple of inches of +straggling yellow beard all round his face, and fingered an old felt +hat. + +“I haf' to say only dis word. I goin' sdop by Jesus. Long time I subbose +I sdop by Jesus. I subbose--” + +“Glory be to God!” remarked Ensign Sand again, spiking the guns of the +Duke's Own who were inclined to be amused. “That will do, thank you. +Now, is there nobody else? Speak up, friends. It'll do you no harm, none +whatever; it'll do you that much good you'll be surprised. Now, who'll +be the next to say a word for Jesus?” She was nodding encouragement at +the negro cook as if she knew him for a wavering soul, and he, sunk in +his gleaming white collar, was aware, in silent smiling misery, that the +expectations of the meeting were toward him. Laura had again hidden her +eyes in her hand. The negro fingered his watch chain foolishly, and +the prettiest of the East Indian half-castes tried hard to disguise her +perception that an African in his best clothes under conviction of sin +was the funniest thing in the world. The silence seemed to focus itself +upon the cook, who fumbled at his coat collar and cleared his voice. It +was a shock to all concerned when Stephen Arnold, picking up his hat, +got upon his feet instead. + +“I also,” he said, “would offer my humble testimony to the grace of +God--with all my heart.” + +It was as if he had repeated part of the creed in the performance of his +office. Then he turned and bent gravely to Lindsay, “Shall we go now?” + he whispered, and the two made their way to the door, leaving a silence +behind them which Lindsay imagined, on the part of Ensign Sand at least, +to be somewhat resentful. As they passed out a voice recovered itself, +and cried, “Hallelujah!” It was Laura's; and all the way to the +club--Arnold was dining with him there--Lindsay listened to his friend's +analysis of religious appeal to the emotions, but chiefly heard that +clear music above a sordid din, “Hallelujah!” “Hallelujah!” + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +When Alicia Livingstone, almost believing she liked it, drove to Number +Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and left cards upon Miss Hilda Howe, she was +only partially rewarded. Through the plaster gate-posts, badly in want +of repair, and bearing, sunk in one of them, a marble slab announcing +“Residence with Board,” she perceived the squalid attempt the place made +at respectability, the servants in dirty livery salaaming curiously, +the over-fed squirrel in a cage in the door, the pair of damaged wicker +chairs in the porch, suggesting the easiest intercourse after dinner, +the general discoloration. She observed with irritation that it was +a down-at-heels shrine for such a divinity, in spite of its six dusty +crotons in crumbling plaster urns, but the irritation was rather at her +own repulsion to the place than at any inconsistency it presented. What +she demanded and expected of herself was that Number Three, Lal Behari's +Lane should be pleasing, interesting, acceptable on its merits as a +cheap Calcutta boarding-house. She found herself so unable to perceive +its merits that it was almost a relief to see nothing of Miss Howe +either; Hilda had gone to rehearsal, to the “dance-house” the servant +said, eyeing the unusual landau. Alicia rolled back into streets with +Christian names, distressed by an uncertainty as to whether her visit +had been a disappointment or an escape. By the next day, however, she +was well pulled together in favour of the former conclusion--she could +nearly always persuade herself of such things in time--and wrote a frank +sweet little note in her picturesque hand--she never joined more than +two syllables--to say how sorry she had been, and would Miss Howe come +to lunch on Friday. “I should love to make it dinner,” she, said to +herself, as she sealed the envelope, “but before one knows how she will +behave in connection with the men--I suppose one must think of the other +people.” + +It was Friday, and Hilda was lunching. The two had met among the +faint-tinted draperies of Alicia's drawing-room--there was something +auroral even about the mantelpiece--a little like diplomatists using +a common tongue native to neither of them. Perhaps Alicia drew the +conventions round her with the greater fluency; Hilda had more to cover, +but was less particular about it. The only thing she was bent upon +making imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of Miss Livingstone's +effort to receive her as if she had been anybody else. Alicia was hardly +aware of what she wanted to conceal, unless it was her impression that +Miss Howe's dress was cut a trifle too low in the neck, that she was +almost too effective in that cream and yellow to be quite right. Alicia +remembered afterwards to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of +intercourse with Hilda Howe were dominated by a lively desire to set +Celine at her--with such a foundation to work upon what could Celine +not have done? She remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary things +Hilda said in that rich voice, even in the tempered drawing-room tones +of which resided a hint of the seats nearest the exit under the gallery, +and her wonder at the luxury of gesture that went with them, movements +which seemed to imply blank verse and to be thrown away upon two women +and a little furniture. A consciousness stood in the room between them, +and their commonplaces about the picturesqueness of the bazar rode on +long absorbed regards, one reading, the other anxious to read; yet the +encounter was so conventionally creditable to them both that they +might have smiled past each other under any circumstances next day and +acknowledged no demand for more than the smile. + +The cutlets had come before Hilda's impression was at the back of her +head, her defences withdrawn, her eyes free and content, her elbow on +the table. They had found a portrait-painter. + +“He has such an eye,” said Alicia, “for the possibilities of character.” + +“Such an eye that he develops them. I know one man he painted. I suppose +when the man was born he had an embryo soul, but in the meantime he and +everybody else had forgotten about it. All but Salter. Salter re-created +it on the original lines, and brought it up, and gave it a +lodging behind the man's, wrinkles. I saw the picture. It was +fantastic--psychologically.” + +“Pysychology has a lot to say to portrait-painting, I know,” Alicia said. +“Do let him give you a little more. It's only Moselle.” She felt +quite direct and simple too in uttering her postulate. Her eyes had a +friendly, unembarrassed look, there was nothing behind them but the joy +of talking intelligently about Salter. + +Hilda did not even glance away. She looked at her hostess instead, +with an expression of candour so admirable that one might easily have +mistaken it to be insincere. It was part of her that she could swim +in any current, and it was pleasant enough, for the moment, to swim in +Alicia's. Both the Moselle and the cutlets, moreover, were of excellent +quality. + +“It's everything to everything, don't you think? And especially, thank +Heaven, to my trade.” Her voice softened the brusqueness of this; the +way she said it gave it a right to be said in any terms. That was the +case with flagrancies of hers sometimes. + +“To discover motives and morals and passions and ambitions and to make +a picture of them with your own body--your face and hands and +voice--compare our plastic opportunity with the handling of a brush to +do it, or a pen or a chisel!” + +“I know what you mean,” said Alicia. She had a little flush, and an +excited hand among the wineglasses. “No, I don't want any; please don't +bother me!” to the man at her elbow with something in aspic. “It's much +more direct--your way.” + +“And, I think, so much more primitive, so much earlier sanctioned, +abiding so originally among the instincts! Oh yes! if we are lightly +esteemed it is because we are bad exponents. The ideal has dignity +enough. They charge us, in their unimaginable stupidity, with failing to +appreciate our lines, especially when they are Shakespeare's--with being +unliterary. You might--good Heavens!--as well accuse a painter of not +being a musician! Our business lies behind the words--they are our mere +medium! Rosalind wasn't literary--why should I be? But don't indulge me +in my shop, if it bores you,” Hilda added lightly, aware as she was that +Miss Livingstone was never further from being bored. + +“Oh, please go on! If you only knew,” her lifted eyebrows confessed +the tedium of Calcutta small talk. “But why do you say you are lightly +esteemed? Surely the public is a touchstone--and you hold the public in +the hollow of your hand!” + +Hilda smiled. “Dear old public! It does its best for us, doesn't it? +One loves it, you know, as sailors love the sea, never believing in +its treachery in the end. But I don't know why I say we are lightly +esteemed, or why I dogmatise about it at all. I've done nothing--I've +no right. In ten years perhaps--no, five--I'll write signed articles for +the New Review about modern dramatic tendencies. Meanwhile you'll have +to consider that the value of my opinions is prospective.” + +“But already you have succeeded--you have made a place.” + +“In Coolgardie, in Johannesburg, I think they remember me in +Trichinopoly too, and--yes, it may be so--in Manila. But that wasn't +legitimate drama,” and Hilda smiled again in a way that coloured her +unspoken reminiscence, to Alicia's eyes, in rose and gold. She waited +an instant for these tints to materialise, but Miss Howe's smile slid +discreetly into her wineglass instead. + +“There's immense picturesqueness in the Philippines,” she went on, her +look of thoughtful criticism contrasting in the queerest way with her +hat. “Real ecclesiastical tyranny with pure traditions. One wonders what +America will do with those friars, when she does go there.” + +“Do you think she is going?” asked Alicia vaguely. It was the merest +politeness--she did not wait for a reply. With a courageous air which +became her charmingly, she went on, “Don't you long to submit yourself +to London? I should.” + +“Oh, I must. I know I must. It's in the path of duty and +conscience--it's not to be put off for ever. But one dreads the chained +slavery of London”--she hesitated before the audacity of adding, “the +sordid hundred nights,” but Alicia divined it, and caught her breath as +if she had watched the other woman make a hazardous leap. + +“You are magnificently sure,” she said. Alicia herself felt curiously +buoyed up and capable, conscious of vague intuitions of immediate +achievement. The lunch-table still lay between the two, but it had +become in a manner intangible; the selves of them had drawn together, +and regarded each other with absorbent eyes. In Hilda's there was an +instant of consideration before she said--“I might as well tell you--you +won't misunderstand--that I AM sure. I expect things of myself. I hold a +kind of mortgage on my success; when I foreclose it will come, bringing +the long, steady, grasping chase of money and fame, eyes fixed, never +a day to live in, only to accomplish, every moment straddled with +calculation, an end to all the byways where one finds the colour of the +sun. The successful London actress, my dear--what existence has she? A +straight flight across the Atlantic in a record-breaker, so many nights +in New York, so many in Chicago, so many in a Pullman car, and the net +result in every newspaper--an existence of pure artificiality infested +by reporters. It's like living in the shell of your personality. It's +the house for ever on your back; at the last you are buried in it, +smirking in your coffin with a half-open eye on the floral offerings. +There never was reward so qualified by its conditions.” + +“Surely there would be some moments of splendid compensation?” + +“Oh yes; and for those in the end we are all willing to perish! But then +you know all, you have done all; there is nothing afterwards but the +eternal strain to keep even with yourself. I don't suppose I could +begin to make you see the joys of a strolling player--they aren't much +understood even in the profession--but there are so many, honestly, that +London being at the top of the hill, I'm not panting up. My way of +going has twice wound round the world already. But I'm talking like an +illustrated interview. You will grant the impertinence of all I've +been saying when I tell you that I've never yet had an illustrated +interview.” + +“Aren't they almost always vulgar?” Alicia asked. “Don't they make you +sit the wrong way on a chair, in tights?” + +Hilda threw her head back and laughed, almost, Alicia noted, like a man. +She certainly did not hide her mouth with her hands or her handkerchief, +as women often do in bursts of hilarity; she laughed freely, and as much +as she wanted to, and it was as clear as possible that tights presented +themselves quite preposterously to any discussion of her profession. +They were things to be taken for granted, like the curtain and the +wings; they had no relation to clothing in the world. + +Alicia laughed too. After all, they were absurd--her outsider's +prejudices. She said something like that, and Hilda seemed to soar +again for her point of view about the illustrated interviews. “They ARE +atrocities,” she said. “On their merits they ought to be cast out +of even the suburbs of art and literature. But they help to make +the atmosphere that gives us power to work, and if they do that, +of course--” and the pursed seriousness of her lips gave Alicia the +impression that, though the whole world took offence, the expediency of +the illustrated interview was beyond discussion. + +The servant brought them coffee. “Shall we smoke here,” said Miss +Livingstone, “or in the drawing-room?” + +“Oh, do you want to? Are you quite sure you like it? Please don't on my +account--you really mustn't. Suppose it should mike you ill?” If Hilda +felt any tinge of amusement she kept it out of her face. Nothing was +there but cheerful concern. + +“It won't make me ill.” Alicia lifted her chin with delicate +assertiveness. “I suppose you do smoke, don't you?” + +“Occasionally--with some people. Honestly, have you ever done it +before?” + +“Four times,” said Alicia, and then turned rose-colour with the +apprehension that it sounded amateurish to have counted them. “I thought +it was one of your privileges to do it always, just as you--” + +“Go to bed with our boots on and put ice down the back of some Serene +Highness's neck. I suppose it is, but now and then I prefer to dispense +with it. In my bath, for instance, and almost always in omnibuses.” + +“How absurd you are! Then we'll stay here.” + +Miss Howe softly manipulated her cigarette and watched Alicia sacrifice +two matches. + +“There's Rosa Norton of our company,” she went on. “Poor, dear old Rosy! +She's fifty-three--grey hair smooth back, you know, and a kind of look +of anxious mamma. And it gets into her eyes and chokes her, poor dear; +but blow her, if she won't be as Bohemian as anybody. I've seen her +smoke in a bonnet with strings tied under her chin. I got up and went +away.” + +“But I can't possibly affect you in that way,” said Alicia, putting her +cigarette down to finish, as an afterthought, a marron glace. “I'm not +old and I'm not grotesque.” + +“No, but--oh, all right. After you with the matches, please.” + +“I BEG your pardon. How thoughtless of me! Dear me, mine has gone out. +Do you suppose anything is wrong with them? Perhaps they're damp.” + +“Trifle dry, if anything,” Hilda returned, with the cigarette between +her lips, “but in excellent order, really.” She took it between her +first and second finger for a glance at the gold letters at the end, +leaned back and sent slow, luxurious spirals through her nostrils. It +was rather, Alicia reflected, like a horse on a cold day--she hoped Miss +Howe wouldn't do it again. But she presently saw that it was Miss Howe's +way of doing it. + +“No, you're not old and grotesque,” Hilda said contemplatively; “you're +young and beautiful.” The freedom seemed bred, imperceptibly and +enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever so +little under it, but took it without wincing. She had less than the +common palate for flattery of the obvious kind, but this was something +different--a mere casual and unprejudiced statement of fact. + +“Fairly,” she said, not without surprise at her own calmness; and there +was an instant of silence, during which the commonplace seemed to be +dismissed between them. + +“You made a vivid impression here last year,” said Alicia. She felt +delightfully terse and to the point. + +“You mean Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay is very impressionable. Do you know +him well?” + +Alicia closed her lips, and a faint line graved itself on each side of +them. Her whole face sounded a retreat, and her eyes were cold--it would +have annoyed her to know how cold--with distance. + +“He is an old friend of my brother's,” she said. Hilda had the sensation +of coming unexpectedly, through the lightest loam, upon a hard surface. +She looked attentively at the red heart of her cigarette crisped over +with grey, in its blackened calyx. + +“Most impressionable,” she went on, as if Alicia had not spoken. “As to +the rest of the people--bah! you can't rouse Calcutta. It is sunk in its +torpid liver, and imagines itself superior. It's really funny, you know, +the way hepatic influences can be idealised--made to serve ennobling +ends. But Mr. Lindsay is--different.” + +“Yes?” Miss Livingstone's intention was neutral, but, in spite of her, +the asking note was in the word. + +“We have done some interesting things together here. He has shown me the +queerest places. Yesterday he made me go with him to Wellesley Square, +to look at his latest enthusiasm standing in the middle of it.” + +“A statue?” + +“No, a woman, preaching and warbling to the people. She wasn't new to +me--I knew her before he did--but the picture was, and the performance. +She stood poised on a coolie's basket in the midst of a rabble of all +colours, like a fallen angel--I mean a dropped one. Light seemed to come +from her, from her hair or her eyes or something. I almost expected to +see her sail away over the palms into the sunset when it was ended.” + +“It sounds most unusual,” Alicia said, with a light smile. Her interest +was rather obviously curbed. + +“It happens every day, really, only one doesn't stop and look; one +doesn't go round the corner.” + +There was another little silence, full of the unwillingness of Miss +Livingstone's desire to be informed. + +Hilda knocked the ash of her cigarette into her finger-bowl, and waited. +The pause grew so stiff with embarrassment that she broke it herself. + +“And I regret to say it was I who introduced them,” she said. + +“Introduced whom?” + +“Mr. Lindsay and Miss Laura Filbert of the Salvation Army. They met at +Number Three; she had come after my soul. I think she was disappointed,” + Hilda went on tranquilly, “because I would only lend it to her while she +was there.” + +“Of the Salvation Army! I can't imagine why you should regret it. He is +always grateful to be amused.” + +“Oh, there is no reason to doubt his gratitude. He is rather intense +about it. And--I don't know that my regret is precisely on Mr. Lindsay's +account. Did I say so?” They were simple, amiable words, and +their pertinence was very far from insistent; but Alicia's crude +blush--everything else about her was so perfectly worked out--cried +aloud that it was too sharp a pull up. “Perhaps though,” Hilda hurried +on with a pang, “we generalise too much about the men.” + +What Miss Livingstone would have found to say--she had certainly no +generalisation to offer about Duff Lindsay--had not a servant brought +her a card at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. The card saved +her the necessity. She looked at it blankly for an instant, and then +exclaimed, “My cousin, Stephen Arnold! He's a reverend--a Clarke Mission +priest, and he will come straight in here. What shall we do with our +cigarettes?” + +Miss Howe had a pleasurable sense that the situation was developing. + +“Yours has gone out again, so it doesn't much matter, does it? Drown +the corpse in here, and I'll pretend it belongs to me.” She pushed +the finger-bowl across, and Alicia's discouraged remnant went into it. +“Don't ask me to sacrifice mine,” she added, and there was no time for +remonstrance; Arnold's voice was lifting itself at the door. + +“Pray may I come in?” he called from behind the portiere. + +Hilda, who sat with her back to it, smiled in enjoying recognition of +the thin, high academic note, the prim finish of the inflection. It +reminded her of a man she knew who “did” curates beautifully. + +Arnold walked past her with his quick, humble, clerical gait, and it +amused her to think that he bent over Alicia's hand as if he would bless +it. + +“You can't guess how badly I want a cup of coffee.” He flavoured what he +said, and made it pretty, like a woman. “Let me confess at once, that is +what brought me.” He stopped to laugh; there was a hint of formality +and self-sacrifice even in that. “It is coffee-time, isn't it?” Then +he turned and saw Hilda, and she was, at the moment, flushed with the +luxury of her sensations, a vision as splendid as she must have been +to him unusual. But he only closed his lips and thrust his chin out a +little, with his left hand behind him in one of his intensely clerical +attitudes, and so stood waiting. Hilda reflected afterwards that she +could hardly have expected him to exclaim, “Whom have we here?” with +upraised hands, but she had to acknowledge her flash of surprise at his +self-possession. She noted, too, his grave bow when Alicia mentioned +them to each other, that there was the habit of deference in it, yet +that it waved her courteously, so to speak, out of his life. It was all +as interesting as the materialisation of a quaint tradition, and she +decided not, after all, to begin a trivial comedy for herself and +Alicia, by asking the Reverend Stephen Arnold whether he objected to +tobacco. She had an instant's circling choice of the person she would +represent to this priest in the little intermingling half-hour of their +lives that lay shaken out before them, and dropped unerringly. It really +hardly mattered, but she always had such instants. She was aware of the +shadow of a regret at the opulence of her personal effect; her hand went +to her throat and drew the laces closer together there. An erectness +stole into her body as she sat, and a look into her eyes that divorced +her at a stroke from anything that could have spoken to him of too +general an accessibility, too unthinking a largesse. She went on +smoking, but almost immediately her cigarette took its proper note of +insignificance. Alicia, speaking of it once afterwards to Arnold, found +that he had forgotten it. + +“Even in College Street you have heard of Miss Howe,” Alicia said, and +the negative, very readable in Arnold's silent bow, brought Hilda a +flicker of happiness at her hostess's expense. + +“I don't think the posters carry us as far as College Street,” she +said, “but I am not difficult to explain, Mr. Arnold. I act with Mr. +Stanhope's Company. If you lived in Chowringhee you couldn't help +knowing all about me, the letters are so large.” The bounty of her +well-spring of kindness was in it under the candour and the simplicity; +it was one of those least of little things which are enough. + +Arnold smiled back at her, and she saw recognition leap through the +armour-plate of his ecclesiasticism. He glanced away again quickly, and +looked at the floor as he said he feared they were terribly out of it +in College Street, for which, however, he had evidently no apology to +offer. He continued to look at the floor with a careful air, as if it +presented points pertinent to the situation. Hilda felt herself--it +was an odd sensation--too sunny upon the nooked, retiring current that +flowed in him. He might have turned to the cool accustomed shadow that +Alicia made, but she was aware that he did not, that he was struggling +through her strangeness and his shyness for something to say to her. He +stirred his coffee, and once or twice his long upper lip trembled as if +he thought he had found it; but it was Alicia who talked, making light +accusations against the rigours of the Mission House, complaining of her +cousin that he was altogether given over to bonds and bands, that she +personally would soon cease to hold him in affection at all; she saw so +little of him it wasn't really worth while. + +This was old fencing ground between them, and Stephen parried her +pleasantly enough, but his eyes strayed speculatively to the other +end of the table, where, however, they rose no higher than the firm, +lightly-moulded hand that held the cigarette. + +“If I could found a monastic order,” Hilda said, “one of the rules +should be a week's compulsory retirement into the world four times a +year.” She spoke with a kind of grave brightness; it was difficult to +know whether she was altogether in jest. + +“There would be secession all over the place,” Arnold responded, with +his repressed smile. “You would get any number of probationers; I wonder +whether you would keep them!” + +“During that week,” Hilda went on, “they should be compelled to dine +and dance every night, to read a 'Problem' novel every morning before +luncheon, to marry and be given in marriage, and to go to all the +variety entertainments. Think of the austere bliss of the return to the +cloisters! All joy lies in a succession of sensations, they say. Do you +remember how Lord Ormont arranged his pleasures? Oh yes, my brotherhood +would be popular, as soon as it was understood.” + +Alicia hurried in with something palliating--she could remember +flippancies of her own that had been rebuked--but there was no sign +or token of disapproval in Arnold's face. What she might have +observed there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a slight +disarrangement, so to speak, of the placid priestly mask, and something +like the original undergraduate looking out from beneath. + +Hilda began to put on her gloves. The left one gaped at two finger-ends; +she buttoned it with the palm thrown up and outward, as if it were the +daintiest spoil of the Avenue de l'Opera. + +“Not yet!” Alicia cried. + +“Thanks, I must. To-night is our last full rehearsal, and I have to +dress the stage for the first act before six o'clock. And, after pulling +all that furniture about, I shall want an hour or two in bed.” + +“You! But it's monstrous. Is there nobody else?” + +“I wouldn't let anybody else,” Hilda laughed. “Don't forget, please, +that we are only strolling players, odds and ends of people, mostly +from the Antipodes. Don't confound our manners and customs with anything +you've heard about the Lyceum. Good-bye. It has been charming. Goodbye, +Mr. Arnold.” + +But Alicia held her hand. “The papers say it is to be The Offence of +Galilee, after all,” she said. + +“Yes. Hamilton Bradley is all right again, and we've found a pretty +fair local Judas--amateur. We couldn't possibly put it on without +Mr. Bradley. He takes the part of”--Hilda glanced at the hem of the +listening priestly robe--“of the chief character, you know.” + +“That was the great Nonconformist success at home last year, wasn't +it?” Arnold asked; “Leslie Patullo's play? I knew him at Oxford. I can't +imagine--he's a queer chap to be writing things like that.” + +“It works out better than you--than one might suppose,” Hilda returned, +moving toward the door. “Some of the situations are really almost novel, +in spite of all your centuries of preaching.” She sent a disarming +smile with that, looking over her shoulder in one of her most effective +hesitations, one hand holding back the portiere. + +“And next week?” cried Alicia. + +“Oh, next week we do L'Amourette de Giselle--Frank Golding's re-vamp. +Good-bye! Good-bye!” + +“I wonder very much what Patullo has done with The Offence of Galilee,” + Arnold said, after she had gone. + +“Come and see, Stephen. We have a box, and there will be heaps of room. +It's--suitable, isn't it?” + +“Oh, quite.” + +“Then dine with us--the Yardleys are coming--and go on. Why not?” + +“Thanks very much indeed. It is sure to reward one. I think I shall be +able to give myself that pleasure.” + +Arnold made a longer visit than usual; his cup of coffee, indeed, became +a cup of tea; and his talk, while he stayed, seemed to suffer less from +the limitations of his Order than it usually did. He was fluent and +direct; he allowed it to appear that he read more than his prayers; that +his glance at the world had still a speculation in it; and when he went +away, he left Alicia with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, murmuring +a vague inward corollary upon her day-- + +“It pays! It pays!” + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's Company was not the only combination that +offered itself to the entertainment of Calcutta that December Saturday +night. The ever-popular Jimmy Finnigan and his “Surprise Party”--he +sailed up the Bay as regularly as the Viceroy descended from the +hills--had been advertising “Side-splitting begins at 9.30. Prices as +usual” with reference to this particular evening for a fortnight. In the +Athenian Theatre--it had a tin roof and nobody could hear the orchestra +when it rained--the Midgets were presenting the earlier collaborations +of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, every Midget guaranteed under nine +years of age. Colonel Pike's Great Occidental Circus had been in full +blast on the Maidan for a week. It became a great Occidental circus when +Colonel Pike married the proprietress. They were both staying at the +Grand Oriental Hotel at Singapore when she was made a relict through +cholera, and he had more time than he knew what to do with, to say +nothing of moustaches that predestined him to a box-office. And +certainly circumstances justified the lady's complaisance, for while +hitherto hers had been but a fleeting show, it was now, in the excusably +imaginative terms of Colonel Pike, an architectural feature of the cold +weather. There was the Mystic Bower, too, in an octagonal tent under a +pipal tree, which gave you by an arrangement of looking-glasses the +most unaccountable sensations for one rupee; and a signboard cried “Know +Thyself!” where a physiological display lurked from the eyes of the +police behind a perfectly respectable skeleton at one end of Peri +Chandra's Gully. Llewellyn Stanhope saw that there was competition, +sighed to think how much, as he stood in the foggy vestibule of the +Imperial Theatre wrapped in the impressive folds of his managerial cape, +and pulled his moustache and watched the occasional carriage that +rolled his way up the narrow lane from Chowringhee. He thought bitterly, +standing there, of Calcutta's recognition of the claims of legitimate +drama, for the dank darkness was full of the noise of wheels and the +flashing of lamps on the way to accord another season's welcome to +Jimmy Finnigan. “I might've learned this town well enough by now,” he +reflected, “to know that a bally minstrel show's about the size of it.” + Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. Finnigan's art of the large red lips and +the twanging banjo; his thought was scornful rather than envious. He +aspired, moreover, to be known as the pilot of stars, at least in the +incipience of their courses, to be taken seriously by association, since +nature had arranged that he never could be on his intrinsic merits. His +upper lip was too short for that, his yellow moustache too curly, while +the perpetual bullying he underwent at the hands of leading ladies gave +him an air of deference to everybody else which was sometimes painfully +misunderstood. The stars, it must be said regretfully, in connection +with so laudable an ambition, nearly always betrayed him, coming down +with an unmistakably meteoric descent, stony-broke in the uttermost +ends of the earth, with a strong inclination to bring the cause of that +misfortune before the Consular Courts. They seldom succeeded in this +design, since Llewellyn was usually able to prove to them in advance +that it would be fruitless and expensive, but the paths of Eastern +capitals were strewn with his compromises, in Japanese yen, Chinese +dollars, Indian rupees, for salaries which no amount of advertising +could wheedle into the box-office. When the climax came, Llewellyn +usually went to hospital and received the reporters of local papers in +pathetic audience there, which counteracted the effect of the astounding +statements the stars made in letters to the editor, and yet gave the +public clearly to understand that owing to its coldness and neglect a +number of ladies and gentlemen of very superior talents were subsisting +in their midst mainly upon brinjals and soda-water. “I'm in hospital,” + Mr. Stanhope would say to the reporters, “and I'm d---- glad of it,”--he +always insisted on the oath going in, it appealed so sympathetically to +the domiciled Englishman grown cold to superiority,--“for, upon my soul, +I don't know where I'd turn for a crust if I weren't.” In the end the +talented ladies and gentlemen usually went home by an inexpensive +line as the voluntary arrangement of a public to whom plain soda was a +ludicrous hardship, and native vegetables an abomination at any price. +Then Llewellyn and Rosa Norton--she had a small inalienable income, and +they were really married though they preferred for some inexplicable +reason to be thought guilty of less conventional behaviour--would depart +in another direction, full of gratification for the present and of +confidence for the future. Llewellyn usually made a parting statement to +the newspapers that although his aims were unalterably high he was not +above profiting by experience, and that next season he could be relied +upon to hit the taste of the community with precision. This year, as +we know, he had made a serious effort by insisting that at least a +proportion of his ladies and gentlemen should be high-kickers and equal +to an imitation, good enough for the Orient, of most things done by the +illustrious Mr. Chevalier. But the fact that Mr. Stanhope had selected +The Offence of Galilee to open with tells its own tale. He was +convinced, but not converted, and he stood there with his little legs +apart, chewing a straw above the three uncut emeralds that formed the +chaste decoration of his shirt-front, giving the public of Calcutta one +more chance to redeem itself. + +It began to look as if Calcutta were not wholly irredeemable. A +ticca-gharry deposited a sea-captain; three carriages arrived in +succession; an indefinite number of the Duke's Own, hardly any of them +drunk, filed in to the rupee seats under the gallery: an overflow from +Jimmy Finnigan, who could no longer give his patrons even standing room. +When this occurred Llewellyn turned and swung indifferently away in the +direction of the dressing-rooms. When Jimmy Finnigan closed his doors +so early there was no further cause for anxiety. Calcutta was abroad and +stirring, and would turn for amusement even to The Offence of Galilee. + +Eventually--that is, five minutes before the curtain rose--the +representatives of the leading Calcutta journals decided that they were +justified in describing the house as a large and fashionable audience. +The Viceroy had taken a box, and sent an Aide-de-Camp to sit in it, +also a pair of M.P.'s from the North of England, whom he was expected to +attend to in Calcutta, and the governess. The Commander-in-Chief had not +been solicited to be present, the theatrical season demanding an economy +in such personalities if they were to go round; but a Judge of the +High Court had a party in the front row, and a Secretary to the Bengal +Government sat behind him. To speak of unofficials, there must have been +quite forty lakhs of tea and jute and indigo in the house, very genial +and prosperous, to say nothing of hides and seeds, and the men who sold +money and bought diamonds with the profits, which shone in their wives' +hair. A duskiness prevailed in the bare arms and shoulders; much of the +hair was shining and abundant, and very black. A turn of the head showed +a lean Greek profile, an outline bulbous and Armenian, the smooth creamy +mask of a Jewess, while here and there glimmered something more opulent +and inviting still, which proclaimed, if it did not confess, the remote +motherhood of the zenana and the origin of the sun. An audience of +fluttering fans and wrinkled shirt collars--the evening was warm under +the gas-lights--sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. Not an +old woman in it from end to end, hardly a man turned fifty, and those +who were had the air and looked to have the habits of twenty-five--an +audience that might have got up and stretched itself but for good +manners, and walked out in childish boredom at having to wait for the +rise of the curtain, but sat on instead, diffusing an atmosphere of +affluence and delicate scents, and suggesting, with imperious chins, the +use of quick orders in a world of personal superiority. + +Thus the stalls--they were spindling cane-bottomed chairs--and +the boxes, in one of which the same spindling cane-bottomed chairs +supported, in more expensive seclusion, Surgeon-Major and Miss +Livingstone, the Reverend Stephen Arnold, and two or three other people. +The Duke's Own sat under the gallery, cheek by jowl with all the flotsam +and jetsam of an Eastern port, well on the look-out for offensive +personalities from the men of the ships, and spitting freely. Here, +too, was an ease of shoulder and a freedom from the cares of life--at +a venture the wives were taking in washing in Brixton, and the children +sent to Board School at the expense of the nation. And in a climate like +this it was a popular opinion that a man must either enjoy himself or +commit suicide. + +The Sphinx on the crooked curtain looked above and beyond them all. It +was a caricature of the Sphinx, but could not confine her gaze. + +Hilda's audience that night knew all about The Offence of Galilee from +the English illustrated papers. The illustrated papers had a great way +of ministering to the complacency of Calcutta audiences; they contained +photographs of almost every striking scene, composed at the leisure of +the cast, but so vividly supplemented with descriptions of the leading +lady's clothes that it hardly required any effort of the imagination to +conjure up the rest. The postures and the chief garments of Pilate--he +was eating pomegranates when the curtain rose, and listening to scandal +from his slave-maidens about Mary Magdalene--were at once recognised in +their resemblance to those of the photographs, and in the thrill of +this satisfaction any discrepancies in cut and texture passed generally +unobserved. A silent curiosity settled upon the house, half reverent, as +if with the Bible names came thronging a troop of sacred associations +to cluster about personalities brusquely torn out of church, and people +listened for familiar sentences with something like the composed gravity +with which they heard on Sundays the reading of the second lesson. +But as the stage-talk went on, the slave-maidens announcing themselves +without delay comfortably modern and commonplace, and Pilate a cynic and +a decadent, though as distinctively from Melbourne, it was possible to +note the breaking up of this sentiment. It was plain after all that no +standard of ideality was to be maintained or struggled after. The relief +was palpable; nevertheless, when Pilate's wife cast a shrewish gibe +at him over the shoulder of her exit, the audience showed but a faint +inclination to be amused. It was to be a play evidently like any other +play, the same coarse fibre, the same vivid and vulgar appeals. It is +doubtful whether this idea was critically present to anyone but Stephen +Arnold, but people unconsciously tasted the dramatic substance +offered them, and leaned back in their chairs with the usual patient +acknowledgment that one mustn't expect too much of a company that +found it worth while to come to Calcutta. The house grew submissive +and stolid, but one could see half-awakened prejudices sitting in the +dress-circle. The paper-chasing Secretary said to the most intelligent +of his party that on the whole he liked his theology neat, forgetting +that the preference belonged to Mr. Andrew Lang in connection with +a notable lady novelist; and the most intelligent--it was Mrs. +Barberry--replied that it did seem strange. The depths under the gallery +were critically attentive, though Llewellyn Stanhope felt them hostile +and longing for verbal brick-bats; and the Reverend Mr. Arnold shrank +into the farthest corner of Surgeon-Major Livingstone's box, and knew +all the misery of outrage. Pilate and the slave-maidens, Pilate's fat +wife, and an unspeakable comic centurion, offered as yet hardly more +than a prelude, but the monstrosity of the whole performance was already +projected upon Arnold's suffering imagination. This, then, was what +Patullo had done with it. But what other, he asked himself in quiet +anger, could Patullo have been expected to do? the fellow he remembered. +Arnold tilted his chair back and stared, with arms folded and sombre +brows, at the opposite wall. He looked once at the door, but some spirit +of self-torture kept him in his seat. If so much offence could be made +with the mere crust and envelope, so to speak, of the sacred story, +what sacrilege might not be committed with the divine personalities +concerned? He remembered, with the touch of almost physical nausea +that assailed him when he saw them, one or two pictures in recent Paris +exhibitions where the coveted accent of surprise had been produced by +representing the sacred figure in the trivial monde of the boulevards, +and fixed upon them as the source of Patullo's intolerable inspiration. +Certain muscles felt responsive at the thought of Patullo which Arnold +had forgotten he possessed; it was so seldom that a missionary priest, +even of athletic traditions, came in contact with anybody who required +to be kicked. + +Alicia was in front with the Yardleys, dropping her unfailing plummet +into the evening's experience. Arnold, hesitating over the rudeness of +departure, thought she was sufficiently absorbed; she would hardly mind. +The centurion slapped his tin armour, and made a jest, which reached +Stephen over his hostess's shoulder, and seemed to brand him where he +sat. He looked about for his hat and some excuse that would serve, and +while he looked the sound of applause rose from the house. It was a +demonstration without great energy, hardly more than a flutter from +stall to stall, with a vague, fundamental noise from the gallery; but +it had the quality which acclaimed something new. Arnold glanced at the +stage, and saw that while Pilate and the hollow-chested slaves and the +tin centurion were still on, they had somehow lost significance and +colour, and that all the meaning and the dominance of the situation +had gathered into the person of a woman of the East who danced. She was +almost discordant in her literalness, in her clear olive tints and +the kol smudges under her eyes, the string of coins in the mass of +her fallen hair, and her unfettered body. Beside her the slave-girls, +crouching, looked like painted shells. She danced before Pilate in +strange Eastern ways, in plastic weavings and gesturings that seemed +to be the telling of a tale; and from the orchestra only one unknown +instrument sobbed out to help her. The women of the people have ever +bought in Palestine, buy to-day in the Mousky, the coarse, thick +grey-blue cotton that fell about her limbs, and there was audacity in +the poverty of her beaten silver anklets and armlets. These shone and +twinkled with her movements; but her softly splendid eyes and reddened +lips had the immobility of the bazar. People looked at their playbills +to see whether it was really Hilda Howe or some nautch-queen borrowed +from a native theatre. By the time she sank before Pilate and placed his +foot upon her head a new spirit had breathed upon the house. Under the +unexpectedness of the representation it sat up straight, and there was a +keenness of desire to see what would happen next which plainly curtailed +the applause, as it does with children at a pantomime. + +“Have you ever seen anything like it before?” Alicia asked Captain +Yardley; and he said he thought he had once, in Algiers, but not nearly +so well done. Arnold rose again to go, but the Magdalene had begun the +well-known passage with Pilate, about which the newspapers absurdly +reported later that if Miss Howe had not been a Protestant, and so +impervious the Pope would have excommunicated her, and as he looked his +movement imperceptibly changed to afford him a better place. He put +an undecided hand upon a prop of the box that rose behind Alicia's +shoulder, and so stood leaning and looking, more conspicuous in the +straight lines and short shoulder cape of the frock of his Order than +he knew. Hilda, in one of those impenetrable regards which she threw +straight in front of her, while Pilate yawped and posed nearer and +nearer the desire of the Magdalene to be admitted to his household, +was at once aware of him. Presently he sat down again--it was still the +profane, the fabulous, the horrible Patullo, but a strain of pure gold +had come into the fabric worth holding in view, impossible, indeed, to +close the eyes upon. Far enough it was from any semblance to historical +fact, but almost possible, almost admissible, in the form of the woman, +as historical fiction. She dared to sit upon the floor now, in the +ungraceful huddled Eastern fashion, clasping her knees to her breast, +with her back half turned to her lord, the friend of Caesar, so that +he could not see the design that sat behind the mask of her sharp +indifference. She rested her chin upon her knees, and let the blankness +of her beauty exclaim upon the subtlety of her replies, plainly +measuring the power of her provocation against the impoverished quality +that camp and grove, court and schools, might leave upon august Roman +sensibilities. It was the old, old sophistication, so perfect in its +concentration behind the kol-brushed eyes and the brown breasts, the +igniting, flickering, raging of an instinct upon the stage. Alicia, when +it was over, said to Mrs. Yardley, “How the modern woman goes off upon +side issues!” to which that lady nodded a rather suspicious assent. + +Long before Hilda had begun to act for Arnold, to play to his special +consciousness, he was fastened to his chair, held down, so to speak, by +a whirlpool of conflicting impulses. She did so much more than “lift” + the inventive vulgarisation of the Bible story in the common sense; +she inspired and transfused it so that whenever she appeared people +irresistibly forgot the matter for her, or made private acknowledgments +to the effect that something was to be said even for an impious fantasy +which gave her so unique an opportunity. To Arnold her vivid embodiment +of an incident in that which was his morning and evening meditation +made special appeal, and though it was in a way as if she had thrust +her heathen torch into his Holy of Holies, he saw it lighted with +fascination, and could not close the door upon her. The moment of her +discovery of this came early, and it is only she, perhaps, who +could tell how the strange bond wove itself that drew her being--the +Magdalene's--to the priest who sat behind a lady in swansdown and +chiffon in the upper box nearest to the stage on the right. The +beginnings of such things are untraceable, but the fact may be +considered in connection with this one that Hamilton Bradley, who +represented, as we have been told he would, the Chief Character, did it +upon lines very recognisably those of the illustrations of sacred +books, very correct as to the hair and beard and pictured garment of +the Galilean; with every accent of hollow-eyed pallor and inscrutable +remoteness, with all the thin vagueness, too, of a popular engraving, +the limitations and the depression. Under it one saw the painful +inconsistency of the familiar Hamilton Bradley of other presentations, +and realised with irritation, which must have been tenfold in Hilda, how +he rebelled against the part. Perhaps this was enough in itself to +send her dramatic impulse to another focus, and the strangeness of the +adventure was a very thing she would delight in. Whatever may be said +about it, while yet the shock of the woman's earthly passion with its +divine object was receding from Arnold's mind before the exquisite charm +and faithfulness of the worshipping Magdalene, he became aware that in +some special way he sat judging and pitying her. She had hardly lifted +her eyes to him twice, yet it was he, intimately he, who responded as +if from afar off, to the touch of her infinite solicitude and abasement, +the joy and the shame of her love. As he watched and knew, his lips +tightened and his face paled with the throb of his own renunciation, he +folded his celibate arms in the habit of his brotherhood, and was caught +up into a knowledge and an imitation of how the spotless Original would +have looked upon a woman suffering and transported thus. The poverty of +the play faded out; he became almost unaware of the pinchbeck and the +fustian of Patullo's invention, and its insufferable mixture with the +fabric of which every thread was precious beyond imagination. He looked +down with tender patience and compassion upon the development of the +woman's intrigue in the palace, through the very flower of her crafts +and guiles, to save Him who had transfigured her from the hands of +the rabble and the high priests; he did not even shrink from the +inexpressibly grating note of the purified Magdalene's final passionate +tendering of her personal sacrifice to the enamoured Pilate as the price +of His freedom, and when at the last she wept at His feet where He lay +bound and delivered, and wrapped them, in the agony of her abandonment, +in the hair of her head, the priest's lips almost moved in words other +than those of the playwright--words that told her he knew the height +and the depth of her sacrifice and forgave it, “Neither do I condemn +thee....” In his exultation he saw what it was to perform miracles, +to remit sins. The spark of divinity that was in him glowed to a +white heat; the woman on the stage warmed her hands at it in two +consciousnesses. She was stirred through all her artistic sense in a +new and delicious way, and wakened in some dormant part of her to +a knowledge beautiful and surprising. She felt in every nerve the +exquisite quality of that which lay between them, and it thrilled her +through all her own perception of what she did, and all the applause at +how she did it. It was as if he, the priest, was borne out upon a deep +broad current that made toward solar spaces, toward infinite bounds, and +as if she, the actress, piloted him.... + +The Sphinx on the curtain--it had gone down in the old crooked +lines--again looked above and beyond them all. I have sometimes fancied +a trace of malignancy about her steady eyeballs, but perhaps that is +the accident or the design of the scene-painter; it does not show +in photographs. The audience was dispersing a trifle sedately; +the performance had been, as Mrs. Barberry told Mr. Justice Horne, +interesting but, depressing. “I hope,” said Alicia to Stephen, fastening +the fluffy-white collar of the wrap he put round her, “that I needn't +be sorry I asked you to come. I don't quite know. But she did redeem it, +didn't she? That last scene--” + +“Can you not be silent?” Arnold said, almost in a whisper; and her look +of astonishment showed her that there were tears in his eyes. He left +the theatre and walked light-headedly across Chowringhee and out into +the starlit empty darkness of the Maidan, where presently he stumbled +upon a wooden bench under a tree. There, after a little, sleep fell +upon his amazement, and he lay unconscious for an hour or two, while the +breeze stole across the grass from the river and the mast-head lights +watched beside the city. He woke chilled and normal, and when he reached +the Mission House in College Street his servant was surprised at the +unusual irritation of a necessary rebuke. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +While Alicia Livingstone fought with her imagination in accounting +for Lindsay's absence from the theatre on the first night of a notable +presentation by Miss Hilda Howe, he sat with his knees crossed on the +bench farthest back and the corner obscurest of the Salvation Army +Headquarters in Bentinck Street. It had become his accustomed place; +sitting there he had begun to feel like the adventurer under Niagara, +it was the only spot from which he could observe, try to understand and +cope with the torrential nature of his passion. Nearer to the fair charm +of his kneeling Laura, in the uncertain flare of the kerosene lamp and +the sound of the big drum, he grew blind, lost count, was carried away. +His persistent refusal of a better place also profited him in that it +brought to Ensign Sand and the other “officers” the divination that he +was one of those shyly anxious souls who have to be enticed into the +Kingdom of Heaven with wariness, and they made a great pretence of not +noticing him, going on with the exercises just as if he were not there, +a consideration which he was able richly to enhance when the plate came +round. After his first contribution, Mrs. Sand regarded his spiritual +interests with almost superstitious reverence, according them the +fullest privacy of which she was capable. The gravity which the +gentleman attached to his situation was sufficiently testified by the +“amount”; Mrs. Sand never wanted better evidence than the amount. Even +Laura, acting doubtless under instructions, seemed disposed to hold +away from him in her prayers and exhortations; only a very occasional +allusion passed her lips which Duff could appropriate. These, when they +fell, he gathered and set like flowers in his tenderest consciousness, +to visit and water them after the sun went down and for twenty-four +hours he would not see her again. Her intonation went with them and her +face; they lived on that. They stirred him, I mean, least of all in the +manner of their intention. After the first quarter of an hour, it is +to be feared, Lindsay suffered no more apprehensions on the score of +emotional hypnotism. He recognised his situation plainly enough, and +there was no appeal in it of which the Reverend Stephen Arnold, for +example, could properly suspect the genuineness or the permanence. + +On this Saturday night he sat through the meeting as he had sat through +other meetings, absorbed in his exquisite experience which he meditated +mostly with his eyes on the floor. His attitude was one quite adapted +to deceive Ensign Sand; if he had been occupied with the burden of his +transgressions it was one he might very well have fallen into. When +Laura knelt or sang he sometimes looked at her, at other times he looked +at the situation in the brightness of her presence at the other end of +the room. She gave forth there, for Lindsay, an illumination by which he +almost immediately began to read his life; and it was because he thought +he had done this with accuracy and intelligence that he came up behind +her that evening when the meeting was over as she followed the rest, +with her sari drawn over her head, out into the darkness of Bentinck +Street, and said with directness, “I should like to come and see you. +When may I? Any time that suits you. Have you half an hour to spare +to-morrow?” + +It was plain that she was tired, and that the brightness with which +she welcomed his advance was a trifle taught and perfunctory. Not the +frankness though, or the touch of “Now we are getting to business,” that +stood in her expression. She looked alert and pleased. + +“You would like to have a little talk, wouldn't you?” she said. Her +manner took Lindsay a trifle aback; it suggested that she conferred this +privilege so freely. “To-morrow--let me see, we march in the morning, +and I have an open-air at four in the afternoon--the Ensign takes the +evening meeting. Yes, I could see you to-morrow about two or about +seven, after I get back from the Square.” It was not unlike a +professional appointment. + +Lindsay considered. “Thanks,” he said, “I'll come at about seven--if you +are sure you won't be too exhausted to have me after such a day.” + +He saw that her lids as she raised them to answer were slightly reddened +at the edges, testifying to the acridity of Calcutta's road dust, and +a dry crack crept into the silver voice with which she said +matter-of-factly, “We are never too exhausted to attend to our Master's +business.” + +Lindsay's face expressed an instant's hesitation; he looked gravely the +other way. “And the address?” he said. + +“Almost next door--we all live within bugle-call. The entrance is in +Crooked Lane. Anybody will tell you.” + +At the door Ensign Sand was conspicuously waiting. Lindsay said “Thanks” + again, and passed out--she seemed to be holding it for him--and picked +his way over the gutters to the shop of his Chinaman opposite. From +there he watched the little company issue forth and turn into Crooked +Lane, where the entrance was. It gave him a sense that she had her part +in this squalor, which was not altogether distressful in that it also +localised her in the warm, living, habitable world, and helped to make +her thinkable and attainable. Then he went to his room at the club and +found there a note from Miss Howe, written apparently to forgive him in +advance, to say that she had not expected him. “Friendly creature!” he +said as he turned out the lamp, and smiled in the dark to think that +already there was one who guessed, who knew. + +One gropes in Crooked Lane after the lights of Bentinck Street have done +all that can be expected of them. There are various things to avoid, +washer-men's donkeys and pariah dogs, unyoked ticca-gharries, heaps +of rubbish, perhaps a leprous beggar. Lindsay, when he had surmounted +these, found himself at the entrance to a quadrangle which was +positively dark. He waylaid a sweeper slinking out, and the man showed +him where an open staircase ran down against the wall in one corner. It +was up there, he said, that the “tamasho-mems” * lived. There were three +tamasho-mems, he continued, responding to Lindsay's trivial coin, and +one sahib, but this was not the time for the tamasho--it was finished. +Lindsay mounted the first flight by faith, and paused at the landing to +avoid collision with a heavy body descending. He inquired Miss Filbert's +whereabouts from this person, who providentially lighted a cigar, +disclosing himself a bald Armenian in tusser silk trousers and a dirty +shirt, presumably, Lindsay thought, the landlord. At all events he +had the information, Lindsay was to keep straight on, it was the third +storey. Duff kept straight on in a spirit of caution, and just missed +treading upon the fattest rat in the heathen parish of St. John's. At +the top he saw a light and hastened; it shone from an open door at the +side of a passage. The partition in which the door was came considerably +short of the ceiling, and from the top of it to the window opposite +stretched a line of garments to dry, of pungent odour and infantile +pattern. Lindsay dared no farther, but lifted up his voice in the Indian +way to summon a servant, “Qui hai?”# he called, “Qui hai?” + + + * Festival-making women. + + # “Whoever is there?” + + +He heard somewhere within the noise of a chair pushed back, and a door +farther down the passage opened outwards, disclosing Laura Filbert +with her hand upon the handle. She made a supple, graceful picture. +“Good-evening, Mr. Lindsay,” she said as he advanced. “Won't you come +in?” She clung to the handle until he had passed into the room, then she +closed the door after him. “I was expecting you,” she said. “Mr. Harris, +let me make you acquainted with Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Harris.” + +Mr. Harris was sitting sideways on one of the three cheap little chairs. +He was a clumsily built youth, and he wore the private's garb of the +Salvation Army. It was apparent that he had been reading a newspaper; he +had a displeasing air of possession. At Laura's formula he looked up +and nodded without amiability, folded his journal the other side out and +returned to it. + +“Please take a seat,” Laura said, and Lindsay took one. He had a demon +of self-consciousness that possessed him often, here he felt dumb. +Nor did he in the very least expect Mr. Harris. He crossed his legs in +greater discomfort than he had dreamed possible, looking at Laura, who +sat down like a third stranger, curiously detached from any sense of +hospitality. + +“Mr. Lindsay is anxious about his soul, Mr. Harris,” she said +pleasantly. “I guess you can tell him what to do as well as I can.” + +“Oh!” Lindsay began, but Mr. Harris had the word. “Is he?” said Mr. +Harris, without looking up from his paper. “Well, what I've got to say +on that subject I say at the evenin' meetin', which is a proper an' a +public place. He can hear it there any day of the week.” + +“I think I have already heard,” remarked Lindsay, “what you have to +say.” + +“Then that's all right,” said Mr. Harris, with his eyes still upon his +newspaper. He appeared to devour it. Laura looked from one to the other +of them and fell upon an expedient. + +“If you'll excuse me,” she said, “I'll just get you that bicycle story +you were kind enough to lend me, Mr. Harris, and you can take it with +you. The Ensign's got it,” and she left the room. Lindsay glanced round, +and promptly announced to himself that he could not come there again. +It was taking too violent an advantage. The pursuit of an angel does not +imply that you may trap her in her corner under the Throne. The place +was divided by a calico curtain, over which plainly showed the top of a +mosquito curtain--she slept in there. On the walls were all tender texts +about loving and believing and bearing others' burdens, interspersed +with photographs, mostly of women with plain features and enthusiastic +eyes, dressed in some strange costume of the Army in Madras, Ceylon, +China. A little wooden table stood against the wall holding an album, +a Bible and hymn-books, a work-basket and an irrelevant Japanese doll +which seemed to stretch its absurd arms straight out in a gay little +ineffectual heathen protest. There was another more embarrassing table: +it had a coarse cloth; and was garnished with a loaf and butter-dish, a +plate of plantains and a tin of marmalade, knives and teacups for a meal +evidently impending. It was atrociously, sordidly intimate, with its +core in Harris, who when Miss Filbert had well gone from the room looked +up. “If you're here on private business,” he said to Lindsay, fixing his +eyes, however, on a point awkwardly to the left of him, “maybe you ain't +aware that the Ensign”--he threw his head back in the direction of the +next room--“is the person to apply to. She's in command here. Captain +Filbert's only under her.” + +“Indeed?” said Lindsay. “Thanks.” + +“It ain't like it is in the Queen's army,” Harris volunteered, still +searching Lindsay's vicinity for a point upon which his eyes could +permanently rest, “where, if you remember, Ensigns are the smallest +officer we have.” + +“The commission is, I think, abolished,” replied Lindsay, governing a +deep and irritated frown. + +“Maybe so. This Army don't pretend to pattern very close on the +other--not in discipline anyhow,” said Mr. Harris with ambiguity. “But +you'll find Ensign Sand very willing to do anything she can for you. +She's a hard-working officer.” + +A sharp wail smote the air from a point close to the lath and canvas +partition, on the other side, followed by hasty hushings and steps in +the opposite direction. It enabled Lindsay to observe that Mrs. Sand +seemed at present to be sufficiently engaged, at which Mr. Harris +shifted one heavy limb over the other, and lapsed into silence, looking +sternly at an advertisement. The air was full of their mutual annoyance, +although Duff tried to feel amused. They were raging as primitively, +under the red flannel shirt and the tan-coloured waistcoat with white +silk spots, as two cave-men on an Early British coast; their only +sophistication lay in Harris's newspaper and Lindsay's idea that he +ought to find this person humorous. Then Laura came back and resolved +the situation. + +“Here it is,” she said, handing the volume to Mr. Harris; “we have all +enjoyed it. Thank you very much.” There was in it the oddest mixture of +the supreme feminine and the superior officer. Harris, as he took the +book, had no alternative. + +“Good-evening, then, Captain,” said he, and went, stumbling at the door. + +“Mr. Harris,” said Laura equably, “found salvation about a month ago. He +is a very steady young man--foreman in one of the carriage works here. +He is now struggling with the tobacco habit, and he often drops in in +the evening.” + +“He seems to be a--a member of the corps,” said Lindsay. + +“He would be, only for the carriage works. He says he doesn't find +himself strong enough in grace to give up his situation yet. But he +wears the uniform at the meetings to show his sympathy, and the Ensign +doesn't think there's any objection.” + +Laura was sitting straight up in one of the cheap little chairs, her +sari drawn over her head, her hands folded in her lap. The native dress +clung to her limbs in sculpturable lines, and her consecrated ambitions +seemed more insistent than ever. She had nothing to do with anything +else, nothing to do with her room or its arrangements, nothing, Lindsay +felt profoundly, to do with him. Her personal zeal for him seemed to +resolve itself, at the point of contact, into something disappointingly +thin; he saw that she counted with him altogether as a unit in a +glorious total, and that he himself had no place in her knowledge or her +desire. This brought him, with something like a shock, to a sense of how +far he had depended on her interest for his soul's sake to introduce her +to a wider view of him. + +“But you have come to tell me about yourself,” she said, suddenly it +seemed to Lindsay, who was wrapped in the contemplation of her profile. +“Well, is there any special stumbling-block?” + +“There are some things I should certainly like you to know,” replied +Lindsay; “but you can't think how difficult--” he glanced at the +lath and plaster partition, but she to whom publicity was a condition +salutary, if not essential, to spiritual experience, naturally had no +interpretation for that. + +“I know it's sometimes hard to speak,” she said; “Satan ties our +tongues.” + +The misunderstanding was absurd, but he saw only its difficulties, +knitting his brows. + +“I fear you will find my story very strange and very mad,” he said. “I +cannot be sure that you will even listen to it.” + +“Oh,” Laura said simply, “do not be afraid! I have heard confessions! I +work at home, you see, a good deal among the hospitals, and--we do not +shrink, you know, in the Army, from things like that.” + +“Good God!” he exclaimed, staring, “you don't think--you don't +suppose--” + +“Ah! don't say that! It's so like swearing.” + +As he sat in helpless anger, trying to formulate something intelligible, +the curtain parted, and a sallow little Eurasian girl of eighteen, also +in the dress of the Army, came through from the bedroom part. She smiled +in a conscious, meaningless way, as she sidled past them. At the door +her smile broadened, and as she closed it after her she gave them a +little nod. + +“That's my lieutenant,” said Laura. + +“The place is like a warren,” Lindsay groaned. “How can we talk here?” + +Laura looked at him gravely, as one making a diagnosis. “Do you think,” + she said, “a word of prayer would help you?” + +“No,” said Lindsay. “No, thank you. What is making me miserable,” he +added quietly, “is the knowledge that we are being overheard. If you go +into the next room, I am quite certain you will find Mrs. Sand listening +by the wall.” + +“She's gone out! She and the Captain and Miss De Souza, to take the +evening meeting. Nobody is in there except the two children, and they +are asleep.” Her smile, he thought, made a Madonna of her. “Indeed, we +are quite alone, you and I, in the flat now. So please don't be afraid, +Mr. Lindsay! Say whatever is in your heart, and the mere saying--” + +“Oh,” Lindsay cried, “stop! Don't, for Heaven's sake, look at me in that +light any longer. I'm not penitent. I'm not--what do you call +it?--a soul under conviction. Nothing of the sort.” He waited with +considerateness for this to have its effect upon her; he could not go on +until he saw her emerge, gasping, from the inundation of it. But she was +not even staggered by it. She only looked down at her folded hands with +an added seriousness and a touch of sorrow. + +“Aren't you?” she said. “But at least you feel that you ought to be. I +thought it had been accomplished. But I will go on praying.” + +“Shall you be very angry if I tell you that I'd rather you didn't? I +want to come into your life differently--sincerely.” + +She looked at him with such absolute blankness that his resolution was +swiftly overturned, and showed him a different face. + +“I won't tell you anything about what I feel and what I want to-night +except this--I find that you are influencing all my thoughts and all my +days in what is to me a very new and a very happy way. You hear as much +as that often, and from many people, don't you? So there is nothing in +it that need startle you or make you uncomfortable.” He paused, and she +nodded in a visible effort to follow him. + +“So I am here to-night to ask you to let me do something for you just +for my own pleasure--there must be some way of helping you, and being +your friend--” + +“As Mr. Harris is,” she interrupted. “I do influence Mr. Harris for +good, I know. He says so.” + +“Influence me,” he begged, “in any way you like.” + +“I will pray for you,” she said. “I promise that.” + +“And you will let me see you sometimes?” he asked, conceding the point. + +“If I thought it would do you any good”--she looked at him doubtfully, +clasping and unclasping her hands; “I will see; I will ask for guidance. +Perhaps it is one of His own appointed ways. If you have no objection, +I will give you this little book, Almost Persuaded. I am sure you +are almost persuaded. Above all, I hope you will go on coming to the +meetings.” + +And in the course of the next two or three moments Lindsay found +himself, somewhat to his astonishment, again in the night of the +staircase, dismissed exactly as Mr. Harris had been, by the agency of a +printed volume. Only in his case a figure of much angelic beauty stood +at the top, holding a patent kerosene lamp high, to illumine his way. He +refrained from looking back lest she should see something too human +in his face, and vanish, leaving him in darkness which would be indeed +impenetrable. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +There was a panic in Dhurrumtolla; a “ticca-gharry”--the shabby +oblong box on wheels, dignified in municipal regulations as a hackney +carriage--was running away. Coolie mothers dragged naked children up +on the pavement with angry screams; drivers of ox-carts dug their lean +beasts in the side, and turned out of the way almost at a trot; only the +tram-car held on its course in conscious invincibility. A pariah tore +along beside the vehicle barking; crows flew up from the rubbish heaps +in the road by half-dozens, protesting shrilly; a pedlar of blue bead +necklaces just escaped being knocked down. Little groups of native +clerks and money-lenders stood looking after, laughing and speculating; +a native policeman, staring also, gave them sharp orders to disperse, +and they said to him, “Peace, brother.” To each other they said, +“Behold, the driver is a 'mut-wallah'” (or drunken person); and +presently, as the thing whirled farther up the emptied perspective, +“Lo! the syce has fallen.” The driver was certainly very drunk; his whip +circled perpetually above his head; the syce clinging behind was stiff +with terror, and fell off like a bundle of rags. Inside, Hilda Howe, +with a hand in the strap at each side and her feet against the opposite +seat, swayed violently and waited for what might happen, breathing +short. Whenever the gharry thrashed over the tram-lines, she closed her +eyes. There was a point near Cornwallis Street where she saw the +off front wheel make sickeningly queer revolutions; and another, +electrically close, when two tossing roan heads with pink noses appeared +in a gate to the left, heading smartly out, all unawares, at precisely +right angles to her own derelict equipage. That was the juncture of +the Reverend Stephen Arnold's interference, walking and discussing with +Amiruddin Khan, as he was, the comparative benefits of Catholic and +Mohammedan fasting. It would be easy to magnify what Stephen did in that +interruption of the considerate hearing he was giving to Amiruddin. The +ticca-gharry ponies were almost spent, and any resolute hand could +have impelled them away from the carriage-pole with which the roans +threatened to impale their wretched sides. The front wheel, however, +made him heroic, going off at a tangent into a cloth merchant's shop, +and precipitating a crash while he still clung to the reins. The door +flew open on the under side, and Hilda fell through, grasping at the +dust of the road; while the driver, discovering that his seat was no +longer horizontal, entered suddenly upon sobriety, and clamoured with +tears that the cloth-merchant should restore his wheel--was he not a +poor man? Hilda, struggling with her hat-pins, felt her dress brushed by +various lean hands of the bazar, and observed herself the central figure +in yet another situation. When she was in a condition to see, she saw +Arnold soothing the ponies; Amiruddin, before the vague possibility of +police complication having slipped away. Stephen had believed the gharry +empty. The sight of her, in her disordered draperies, was a revelation +and a reproach. + +“Is it possible!” he exclaimed, and was beside her. “You are not hurt?” + +“Only scraped, thanks. I am lucky to get off with this.” She held up her +right palm, broadly abraded round the base, where her hand had struck +the road. Arnold took it delicately in his own thin fingers to examine +it; an infinity of contrast rested in the touch. He looked at it with +anxiety so obviously deep and troubled, that Hilda silently smiled. +She who had been battered, as she said, twice round the world, found it +disproportionate. + +“It's the merest scratch,” she said, grave again to meet his glance. + +“Indeed, I fear not.” The priest made a solicitous bandage with his +handkerchief, while the circle about them solidified. “It is quite +unpleasantly deep. You must let me take you at once to the nearest +chemist's and get it properly washed and dressed, or it may give you a +vast amount of trouble--but I am walking.” + +“I will walk too,” Hilda said readily. “I should prefer it, truly.” With +her undamaged hand she produced a rupee from her pocket, where a few +coins chinked casually, looked at it, and groped for another. “I really +can't afford any more,” she said. “He can get his wheel mended with +that, can't he?” + +“It is three times his fare,” Arnold said austerely, “and he deserved +nothing--but a fine, perhaps.” The man was suppliant before them, +cringing, salaaming, holding joined palms open. Hilda lifted her head +and looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, where the sun stood +golden upon the roadside and two naked children played with a torn pink +kite. Something seemed to gather into her eyes as she looked, and when +she fixed them softly upon Arnold, to speak, as it had spoken before. + +“Ah,” she said. “Our deserts.” + +It was the merest echo, and she had done it on purpose, but he could +not know that, and as she dropped the rupees into the craving hands, and +turned and walked away with him, he was held in a frightened silence. +There was nothing perhaps that he wanted to talk of more than of +his experience at the theatre; he longed to have it simplified and +explained; yet in that space of her two words the impossibility of +mentioning it had sprung at him and overcome him. He hoped, with instant +fervour, that she would refrain from any allusion to The Offence of +Galilee. And for the time being she did refrain. She said, instead, +that her hand was smarting absurdly already, and did Arnold suppose the +chemist would use a carbolic lotion? Stephen, with a guarded look, +said very possibly not, but one never knew; and Hilda, thinking of +the far-off day when the little girl of her was brought tactfully to +disagreeable necessities; covered a preposterous impulse to cry with +another smile. + +A thudding of bare feet overtook them. It was the syce, with his arms +full of thin paper bags, the kind that hold cheap millinery. “Oh, the +good man!” Hilda exclaimed. “My parcels!” and looked on equably, while +Arnold took them by their puckered ends. “I have been buying gold lace +and things from Chunder Dutt for a costume,” she explained. The bags +dangled helplessly from Arnold's fingers; he looked very much aware of +them. “Let me carry at least one,” she begged. “I can perfectly with my +parasol hand;” but he refused her even one. “If I may be permitted to +take the responsibility,” he said happily, and she rejoined, “Oh, +I would trust you with things more fragile.” At which, such is the +discipline of these Orders, he looked steadily in front of him, and +seemed deaf with modesty. + +“But are you sure,” said Hilda, suddenly considerate, “that it looks +well?” + +“Is the gold lace then so very meretricious?” + +“It goes doubtfully with your cloth,” she laughed, and instantly looked +stricken with the conviction that she might better have said something +else. But Arnold appeared to take it simply and to see no gibe in it, +only a pleasant commonplace. + +“It might look queer in Chowringhee,” he said, “but this is not a +censorious public.” Then, as if to palliate the word, he added, “They +will think me no more mad to carry paper bags than to carry myself, when +it is plain that I might ride--and they see me doing that every day.” + +All the same the paper bags swinging beside the girdled black skirt did +impart a touch of comedy, which was in a way a pity, since humour goes +so far to destroy the picturesque. Hilda without the paper bags would +have been vastly enough for contrast. She walked--one is inclined to +dwell upon her steps and face the risk of being unintelligible--in a +wide-sleeved gown of peach-coloured silk, rather frayed at the seams; a +trifle spent in vulnerable places, surmounted by an extravagant collar +and a Paris hat. The dress was of artistic intention inexpensively +carried out, the hat had an accomplished chic; it had fallen to her in +the wreck and ruin of a too ambitious draper of Coolgardie. As a matter +of fact it was the only one she had. The wide sleeves ended a little +below the elbow, and she carried in compensation a pair of long +suede gloves, a compromise which only occasionally discovered itself +buttonless, and a most expensive umbrella, the tribute of a gentleman in +that line of business in Cape Town, whose standing advertisement is now +her note of appreciation. Arnold in his unvarying gait paced beside +her; he naturally shrank, so close to her opulence, into something +less impressive than he was; a mere intelligence he looked, in a quaint +uniform, with his long lip drawn down and pursed a little in this +accomplishment of duty, and his eyes steadily in front of him. Hilda's +lambent observation was everywhere, but most of all on him; a fleck of +the dust from the road still lay upon the warm bloom of her cheek, a +perpetual happy curve clung about her mouth. So they passed in streets +of the thronging people, where yards of new-dyed cotton, purple and +yellow, stretched drying in the sun, where a busy tom-tom called the +pious to leave coppers before a blood-red, golden-tongued Kali, half +visible through the door of a mud hut--where all the dealers in brass +dishes and glass armlets and silver-gilt stands for the comfortable +hubble-bubble, squatted in line upon their thresholds and accepted them +with indifference. So they passed, worthy of a glance from that divinity +who shapes our ends. + +They talked of the accident. “You stopped the horses, didn't you?” Hilda +said, and the speculation in her eyes was concerned with the extent to +which a muscular system might dwindle, in that climate, under sacerdotal +robes worn every day. + +“I told them to stop, poor things,” Arnold said; “they had hardly to be +persuaded.” + +“But you didn't save my life or anything like that, did you?” she +adventured like a vagrant in the sun. The blood was warm in her. She +did not weigh her words. “I shouldn't like having my life saved. The +necessity for feeling such a vast emotion--I shouldn't know how to cope +with it.” + +“I will claim to have saved your other hand,” he smiled. “You will be +quite grateful enough for that.” + +She noted that he did not hasten, behind blushes, into the shelter of +a general disavowal. The cassock seemed to cover an obligation to +acknowledge things. + +“I see,” she said, veering round. “You are quite right to circumscribe +me. There is nothing so boring as the gratitude that will out. It is +only the absence of it, too plainly expressed, that is unpleasant. But +you won't find that in me either.” She gave him a smile as she lowered +her parasol to turn into the shop of Lahiri Dey, licensed to sell +European drugs, that promised infinite possibilities of friendship; and, +he, following, took pleased and careful possession of it. + +An hour later, as they approached Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, Miss +Howe looked pale, which is not surprising since they had walked and +talked all the way. Their talk was a little strenuous too; it was as if +they had fallen upon an opportunity, and, mutually, consciously made the +most of it. + +“You must have some tea immediately,” Arnold said, before the battered +urns and the dusty crotons of her dwelling. + +“A little whisky and soda, I think. And you will come up, please, and +have some too. You must.” + +“Thanks,” he said, looking at his watch. “If I do--” + +“You'll have the soda without the whisky! All right!” she laughed, and +led the way. + +“This is vicious indulgence,” Arnold said of his beverage, sitting +under the inverted Japanese umbrellas. “I haven't been pitched out of a +ticca-gharry.” + +It is doubtful whether the indulgence was altogether in the soda, which +is, after all, ascetic in its quality, and only suitably effervescent, +like ecclesiastical humour. It may very probably be that there was no +indulgence; indeed, one is convinced that the word, like so many words, +says too much. The springs of Arnold's chair were bursting through +the bottom, and there were stains on its faded chintz-arms, but it +was comfortable, and he leaned back in it, looking up at the paper +umbrellas. You know the room; I took you into it with Duff Lindsay, who +did not come there from rigidities and rituals, and who had a qualified +pleasure in it. But there were lines in the folds of the flowered +window-curtains dragging half a yard upon the floor, which seemed to +disband Arnold's spirit, and a twinkle in the blue bead of a bamboo +screen where the light came through that released it altogether. The +shabby violent-coloured place encompassed him like an easy garment, +and the lady with her feet tucked up on a sofa and a cushion under her +tumbled head, was an unembarrassing invitation to the kind of happy +things he had not said for years. They sat in the coolness of the room +for half an hour, and then, after a little pause, Hilda said suddenly-- + +“I am glad you saw me in The Offence of Galilee on Saturday night. We +shall not play it again.” + +“It has been withdrawn?” + +“Yes. The rights, you know, really belong to Mr. Bradley; and he can't +endure his part.” + +“Is there no one else to--” + +“He objects to anyone else. We generally play together.” This was +inadvertent, but Stephen had no reason to imagine that she contracted +her eyebrows in any special irritation. “It is an atrocious piece,” she +added. + +“Is it?” he said absently, and then, “Yes, it is an atrocious piece. But +I am glad, too, that I saw you.” + +He looked away from her, reddening deeply, and stood up. He bade her a +measured and precise farewell. It seemed as if he hurried. She only half +rose to give him her unwounded hand, and when he was gone she sank back +again thoughtfully. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +“I have outstayed all the rest,” Lindsay said, with his hat and stick +in his hand, in Alicia Livingstone's drawing-room, “because I want +particularly to talk to you. They have left me precious little time,” he +added, glancing at his watch. + +She had wondered when he came, early in the formal Sunday noon hour for +men's calls, since he had more casual privileges; and wondered more when +he sat on with composure, as one who is master of the situation, while +Major-Generals and Deputy-Secretaries came and went. There was a mist in +her brain as she talked to the Major-Generals and Deputy-Secretaries--it +did not in the least obscure what she found to say--and in the midst of +it the formless idea that he must wish to attach a special importance to +his visit. This took shape and line when they were alone, and he spoke +of out-sitting the others. It impelled her to walk to the window and +open it. “You might stay to lunch,” she said, addressing a pair of crows +in altercation on the verandah. + +“There is nearly half an hour before lunch,” he said. “Can I convince +you in that time, I wonder, that I'm not an absolute fool?” + +Alicia turned and came back to her sofa. She may have had a prevision of +the need of support. “I hardly think,” she said, drawing the long breath +with which we try to subdue a tempest within, “that it would take +so long.” She looked with careful criticism at the violets in his +buttonhole. + +“I've had a supreme experience,” he said, “very strange and very lovely. +I am living in it, moving in it, speaking in it,” he added quickly, +watching her face; “so don't, for Heaven's sake, touch it roughly.” + +She lifted her hand in nervous, involuntary deprecation. “Why should +you suppose I would touch it roughly?” There was that in her voice which +cried out that she would rather not touch it at all; but Lindsay, on the +brink of his confidence, could not suppose it, did not hear it. He knew +her so well. + +“A great many people will,” he said. “I can't bear the thought of their +fingers. That is one reason that brings me to you.” + +She faced him fully at this; her eyelids quivered, but she looked +straight at him. It nerved her to be brought into his equation, even in +the form which should finally be eliminated. She contrived a smile. + +“I believe you know already,” Lindsay cried. + +“I have heard something. Don't be alarmed--not from people, from Miss +Howe.” + +“Wonderful woman! I haven't told her.” + +“Is that always necessary? She has intuitions. In this case,” Alicia +went on, with immense courage, “I didn't believe them.” + +“Why?” he asked enjoyingly. Anything to handle his delight--he would +even submit it to analysis. + +She hesitated--her business was in great waters, the next instant might +engulf her. “It's so curiously unlike you,” she faltered. “If she +had been a duchess--a very exquisite person, or somebody very +clever--remember I haven't seen her.” + +“You haven't, so I must forgive you invidious comparisons.” Lindsay +visaged the words with a smile, but they had an articulated hardness. + +Alicia raised her eyebrows. + +“What do you expect one to imagine?” she asked, with quietness. + +“A miracle,” he said sombrely. + +“Ah, that's difficult!” + +There was silence for a moment between them, then she added perversely-- + +“And, you know, faith is not what it was.” + +Duff sat biting his lips. Her dryness irritated him. He was accustomed +to find in her fields of delicately blooming enthusiasms, and running +watercourses where his satisfactions were ever reflected. Suddenly she +seemed to emerge to her own consciousness, upon a summit from which she +could look down upon the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to where he +stood. + +“Don't make a mistake,” she said. “Don't.” She thrust her hand for +a fraction of an instant toward him, and then swiftly withdrew it, +gathering herself together to meet what he might say. + +What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. “That's what everybody +will tell me; but I thought you might understand.” He tapped the toe of +his boot with his stick as if he counted the strokes. She looked down +and counted them too. + +“Then you won't help me to marry her?” he said, definitely, at last. + +“What could I do?” She twisted her sapphire ring. “Ask somebody else.” + +“Don't expect me to believe there is nothing you could do. Go to her as +my friend. It isn't such a monstrous thing to ask. Tell her any good +you know of me. At present her imagination paints me in all the lurid +colours of the lost.” + +The face she turned upon him was all little sharp white angles, and +the cloud of fair hair above her temples stood out stiffly, suggesting +Celine and the curling tongs. She did not lose her elegance; the poise +of her chin and shoulders was quite perfect, but he thought she +looked too amusedly at his difficulty. Her negative, too, was more +unsympathetic than he had any reason to expect. + +“No,” she said. “It must be somebody else. Don't ask me. I should become +involved--I might do harm.” She had surmounted her emotion; she was able +to look at the matter with surprising clearness and decision. “I should +do harm,” she repeated. + +“You don't count with her effect on you.” + +“You can't possibly imagine her effect on me. I'm not a man.” + +“But won't you take anything--about her--from me? You know I'm really +not a fool--not even very impressionable?” + +“Oh no!” she said impatiently. “No--of course not.” + +“Pray why?” + +“There are other things to reckon with.” She looked coldly beyond him +out of the window. “A man's intelligence when he is in love--how far can +one count on it?” + +There was nothing but silence for that, or perhaps the murmured, “Oh, I +don't agree,” with which Lindsay met it. He rode down her logic with a +simple appeal. “Then after all,” he said, “you're not my friend.” + +It goaded her into something like an impertinence. “After you have +married her,” she said, “you'll see.” + +“You will be hers then,” he declared. + +“I will be yours.” Her eyes leaped along the prospect and rested on a +brass-studded Tartar shield at the other end of the room. + +“And I thought you broad in these views,” Lindsay said, glancing at her +curiously. Her opportunity for defence was curtailed by a heavy step in +the hall, and the lifted portiere disclosed Surgeon Major Livingstone, +looking warm. He, whose other name was the soul of hospitality, made a +profound and feeling remonstrance against Lindsay's going before tiffin, +though Alicia, doing something to a bowl of nasturtiums, did not hear +it. Not that her added protest would have detained Lindsay, who took his +perturbation away with him as quickly as might be. Alicia saw the cloud +upon him as he shook hands with her, and found it but slightly consoling +to reflect that his sun would without doubt re-emerge in all effulgence +on the other side of the door. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +That same Sunday, Alicia had been able to say to Lindsay about Hilda +Howe, “We have not stood still--we know each other well now,” and when +he commented with some reserve upon this to follow it up. “But these +things have so little to do with mere length of time or number of +opportunities,” she declared. “One springs at some people.” + +A Major-General, interrupting, said he wished he had the chance; and +they talked about something else. But perhaps this is enough to explain +a note which went by messenger from the Livingstones' pillared palace in +Middleton Street to Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, on Monday morning. +It was a short note, making a definite demand with an absence of +colour and softness and emotion which was almost elaborate. Hilda, at +breakfast, tore off the blank half sheet, and wrote in pencil-- + +“I think I can arrange to get her here about five this afternoon. No +rehearsal--they're doing something to the gas-pipes at the theatre, so +you will find me, anyway. And I'll be delighted to see you.” + +She twisted it up and addressed it, reconsidered that, and made the +scrap more secure in a yellow envelope. It had an embossed post-office +stamp, which she sacrificed with resignation. Then she went back to an +extremely uninteresting vegetable curry, with the reflection--“Can she +possibly imagine that one doesn't see it yet?” + +Alicia came before five. She brought a novel of Gissing's, in order +apparently that they might without fail talk about Gissing. Hilda was +agreeable; she would talk about Gissing, or about anything, tipped on +the edge of her bed--Alicia had surmounted that degree of intimacy at +a bound by the declaration that she could no longer endure the blue +umbrellas--and clasping one knee, with an uncertain tenure of a chipped +bronze slipper deprived of its heel. Wonderful silk draperies fell about +her, with ink-spots on the sleeves; her hair was magnificent. + +“It's so curious to me,” she was saying of the novel, “that anyone +should learn all that life as you do, at a distance, in a book. It's +like looking at it through the little end of an opera-glass.” + +“I fancy that the most desirable way,” said Alicia, glancing at the +door. + +“Don't you believe it. The best way is to come out of it, to grow out +of it. Then all the rest has the charm of novelty and the value of +contrast, and the distinction of being the best. You, poor dear, were +born an artificial flower in a cardboard box. But you couldn't help it.” + +“Everybody doesn't grow out of it.” The concentration in Alicia's eyes +returned again with vacillating wings. + +“She can't be here for a quarter of an hour yet.” The slipper dropped at +this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again. She kept her foot in +her hands, and regarded it pensively. + +“Shoes are the one thing one shouldn't buy in the native quarter,” she +continued; “at all events, ready-made.” + +“You have an audacity--” Alicia ended abruptly in a wan smile. + +“Haven't I? Are you quite sure he wants to marry her?” + +“I know it.” + +“From him?” + +“From him.” + +“Oh!”--Hilda deliberated a moment nursing her slipper--“Really? Well, we +can't let that happen.” + +“Why not?” + +“You have a hardihood! Is no reason plain to you? Don't you see +anything?” + +Alicia smiled again painfully, as if against a tension of her lips. “I +see only one thing that matters--he wants it,” she said. + +“And won't be happy till he gets it! Rubbish, my dear! We are an +intolerably self-sacrificing sex.” Hilda felt about for pillows, and +stretched her length along the bed. “They've taught us well, the men; +it's a blood disease now, running everywhere in the female line. You may +be sure it was a barbarian princess that hesitated between the lady and +the tiger. A civilised one would have introduced the lady and given her +a dot, and retired to the nearest convent. Bah! It's a deformity, like +the dachshund's legs.” + +Alicia looked as if this would be a little troublesome, and not quite +worth while, to follow. + +“The happiness of his whole life is involved,” she said simply. + +“Oh dear yes--the old story! And what about the happiness of yours? Do +you imagine it's laudable, admirable, this attitude? Do you see yourself +in it with pleasure? Have you got a sacred satisfaction of self-praise?” + +Contempt accumulated in Miss Howe's voice, and sat in her eyes. To mark +her climax she kicked her slippers over the end of the bed. + +“It is idiotic--it's disgusting,” she said. + +Alicia caught a flash from her. “My attitude!” she cried. “What in the +world do you mean? Do you always think in poses? I take no attitude. I +care for him, and in that proportion I intend that he shall have what +he wants--so far as I can help him to it. You have never cared for +anybody--what do you know about it?” + +Hilda took a calm, unprejudiced view of the ceiling. “I assure you I'm +not an angel,” she cried. “Haven't I cared! Several times.” + +“Not really--not lastingly.” + +“I don't know about really; certainly not lastingly. I've never thought +the men should have a monopoly of nomadic susceptibilities. They entail +the prettiest experiences.” + +“Of course, in your profession--” + +“Don't be nasty, sweet lady. My affections have never taken the +opportunities of our profession. They haven't even carried me into +matrimony, though I remember once, at Sydney, they brought me to the +brink! We must contrive an escape for Duff Lindsay.” + +“You assume too much--a great deal too much. She must be beautiful--and +good.” + +“Give me a figure. She's a lily, and she draws the kind of beauty that +lilies have from her personal chastity and her religious enthusiasm. +Touch those things and bruise them, as--as marriage would touch and +bruise them--and she would be a mere fragment of stale vegetation. You +want him to clasp that to his bosom for the rest of his life?” + +“I won't believe you. You're coarse and you're cruel.” + +Tears flashed into Miss Livingstone's eyes with this. Hilda, still +regarding the ceiling, was aware of them, and turned an impatient +shoulder while they should be brushed undetected away. + +“I'm sorry, dear,” she said. “I forgot. You are usually so intelligent, +one can be coarse and cruel with comfort, talking to you. Go into the +bathroom and get my salts--they're on the washhand-stand--will you? I'm +quite faint with all I'm about to undergo.” + +Laura Filbert came in as Alicia emerged with the salts. Ignoring the +third person with the bottle, she went directly to the bedside and laid +her hand on Hilda's head. + +“Oh Miss Howe, I am so sorry you are sick--so sorry,” she said. It was a +cooing of professional concern, true to an ideal, to a necessity. + +“I am not very bad,” Hilda improvised. “Hardly more than a headache.” + +“She makes light of everything,” Miss Filbert said, smiling toward +Alicia, who stood silent, the prey of her impression. Discovering the +blue salts bottle, Laura walked over to her and took it from her hands. + +“And what,” said the barefooted Salvation Army girl to Miss Livingstone, +“might your name be?” + +There was an infinite calm interest in it--it was like a conventionality +of the other world, and before its assurance Alicia stood helpless. + +“Her name is Livingstone,” called Hilda from the bed, “and she is as +good as she is beautiful. You needn't be troubled about HER soul--she +takes Communion every Sunday morning at the Cathedral.” + +“Hallelujah!” said Captain Filbert, in a tone of dubious congratulation. + +“Much better,” said Hilda cheerfully, “to take it at the Cathedral, you +know, than nowhere.” + +Miss Filbert said nothing to this, but sat down upon the edge of the +bed, looking serious, and stroked Hilda's hair. + +“You don't seem to have much fever,” she said. “There was a poor fellow +in the Military Hospital this morning with a temperature of one hundred +and seven. I could hardly bear to touch him.” + +“What was the matter?” asked Hilda idly, occupied with hypotheses about +the third person in the room. + +“Oh, I don't know exactly. Some complication, I suppose, of Satan's +tribute--” + +“Divinest Laura!” Hilda interposed quickly, drawing her head back. “Do +take a chair. It will be even more soothing to see you comfortable.” + +Captain Filbert spoke again to Alicia, as she obeyed. “Miss Howe is more +thoughtful for others than some of our converted ones,” she said, with +vast kindness. “I have often told her so. I have had a long day.” + +“It may improve me in that character,” Hilda said, “to suggest that if +you will go about such people, a little carbolic disinfectant is a good +thing, or a crystal or two of permanganate of potash in your bath. Do +you use those things?” + +Laura shook her head. “Faith is better than disinfectants. I never get +any harm. My Master protects me.” + +“My goodness!” Hilda said. And in the silence that occurred, Captain +Filbert remarked that the only thing she used carbolic acid for was a +decayed tooth. Presently Alicia made a great effort. She laid hands on +Hilda's previous reference as a tangibility that remained with her. + +“Do you ever go to the Cathedral?” she said. + +The faintest shade of dogmatism crossed Captain Filbert's features, as +when on a day of cloud fleeces the sun withdraws for an instant from a +flower. Since her sect is proclaimed beyond the boundaries of dogma it +may have been some other obscurity, but that was the effect. + +“No. I never go there. We raise our own Ebenezer; we are a tabernacle to +ourselves.” + +“Isn't it exquisite--her way of speaking!” cried Hilda from the bed, and +Laura glanced at her with a deprecating, reproachful smile, in reproof +of an offence admittedly incorrigible. But she went on as if she were +conscious of a stimulus. + +“Wherever the morning sky bends or the stars cluster is sanctuary +enough,” she said; “a slum at noonday is as holy for us as daisied +fields; the Name of the Lord walks with us. The Army is His Army, He is +Lord of our hosts.” + +“A kind of chant,” murmured Hilda, and Miss Livingstone became aware +that she might if she liked play with the beginnings of magnetism. Then +that impression was carried away as it were on a puff of air, and it is +hardly likely that she thought of it again. + +“I suppose all the elite go to the Cathedral?” Laura said. The sanctity +of her face was hardly disturbed, but a curiosity rested upon it, and +behind the curiosity a far-off little, leaping tongue of some other +thing. Hilda on the bed named it the constant feminine, and narrowed her +eyes. + +“Dear me, yes,” she said for Alicia. “His Excellency the Viceroy and all +his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no end of military and their ladies, Secretaries +to the Government of India in rows, fully choral, Under-Secretaries so +thick they're kept in the vestibule till the bells stop. 'And make Thy +chosen people joyful'!” she intoned. “Not forgetting Surgeon-Major and +Miss Alicia Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to the right of the +main aisle, advantageously near the pulpit.” + +“You know already what a humbug she is,” Alicia said, but Captain +Filbert's inner eye seemed retained by that imaginary congregation. + +“Well, it wouldn't be any attraction for me,” she said, rising to go +through the little accustomed function of her departure. “I'll be going +now, I think. Ensign Sand has fever again, and I have to take her place +at the Believers' Meeting.” She took Hilda's hand in hers and held it +for an instant. “Good-bye, and God bless you--in the way you most need,” + she said, and turned to Alicia, “Good-bye. I am glad to know that we +will be one in the glad hereafter though our paths may diverge”--her eye +rested with acknowledgment upon Alicia's embroidered sleeves--“in this +world. To look at you I should have thought you were of the bowed down +ones, not yet fully assured, but perhaps you only want a little +more oxygen in the blood of your religion. Remember the word of the +Lord--'Rejoice! again I say unto you, rejoice!' Goodbye.” + +She drew her head-covering farther forward, and moved to the door. It +sloped to her shoulders and made them droop; her native clothes clung +about her breast and her hips in the cringing Oriental way. Miss Howe +looked after her guest with a curl of the lip as uncontrollable as it +was unreasonable. “A saved soul, perhaps. A woman--oh, assuredly,” she +said in the depths of her hair. + +The door had almost closed upon Captain Filbert when Alicia made +something like a dash at an object about to elude her. “Oh,” she +exclaimed, “wait a minute. Will you come and see me? I think--I think +you might do me good. I live at Number Ten, Middleton Street. Will you +come?” + +Laura came back into the room. There was a little stiffness in her air, +as if she repressed something. + +“I have no objection,” she said. + +“To-morrow afternoon--at five? Or--my brother is dining at the +club--would you rather come to dinner?” + +“Whichever is agreeable to you will suit me.” She spoke carefully, after +an instant's hesitation. + +“Then do come and dine--at eight,” Alicia said; and it was agreed. + +She stood staring at the door when Laura finally closed it, and only +turned when Hilda spoke. + +“You are going to have him to meet her,” she said. “May I come too?” + +“Certainly not.” Alicia's grasp was also by this time on the door +handle. + +“Are you going too? You daren't talk about her!” Hilda cried. + +“I'm going too. I've got the brougham. I'll drive her home,” said +Alicia, and went out swiftly. + +“My goodness!” Hilda remarked again. Then she got up and found her +slippers and wrote a note, which she addressed to the Reverend Stephen +Arnold, Clarke Mission House, College Street. “Thanks immensely,” it +ran, “for your delightful offer to introduce me to Father Jordan and +persuade him to show me the astronomical wonders he keeps in his tower +at St. Simeon's. An hour with a Jesuit is an hour of milk and honey, and +belonging to that charming Order, he won't mind my coming on a Sunday +evening--the first clear one.” + +Miss Howe signed her note and bit consideringly at the end of her pen. +Then she added: “If you have any influence with Duff Lindsay, it may +be news to you that you can exert it with advantage to keep him from +marrying a cheap ethereal little religieuse of the Salvation Army named +Filbert. It may seem more fitting that you should expostulate with her, +but I don't advise that.” + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The door of Ensign Sand's apartment stood open with a purposeful air +when Captain Filbert reached headquarters that evening; but in any case +it is likely that she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand walked the floor, +carrying a baby, a pale sticky baby with blotches, which had inherited +from its maternal parent a conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room +was also ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been selected at +random, and they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed +at the control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with +his father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain Captain +Sand audibly washed himself and brushed his hair. + +“What kind of meetin' did you have?” asked Mrs. Sand. “There--there now; +he shall have his bottle, so he shall!” + +“A beautiful meeting. Abraham Lincoln White, the Savannah negro, you +know, came as a believer for the first time, and so did Miss Rozario +from Whiteaway and Laidlaw's. We had such a happy time.” + +“What sort of collection?” + +Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted out some copper coins. + +“Only seven annas three pice! And you call that a good meeting! I don't +believe you exhorted them to give!” + +“Oh, I think I did!” Laura returned mechanically. + +“Seven annas and three pice! And you know what the Commissioner wrote +out about our last quarter's earnings! What did you say?” + +“I said--I said the collection would now be taken up,” Laura faltered. + +“Oh dear! oh dear! Leopold, stop clawing me! Couldn't you think of +anythin' more tellin' or more touchin' than that? Fever or no fever, it +does not do for me to stay away from the regular meetin's. One thing is +plain--HE wasn't there!” + +“Who?” + +“Well, you've never told me his name, but I expect you've got your +reasons.” Mrs. Sand's tone was not arch, but slightly resentful. “I mean +the gentleman that attends so regular and sits behind, under the window. +A society man, I should say, to look at him, though the officers of this +Army are no respecters of persons, and I don't suppose the Lord takes +any notice of his clothes.” + +“His name is Mr. Lindsay. No, he wasn't there.” + +The girl's tone was distant and cold. The rebuke about the collection +had gone home to a place raw with similar reproaches. + +“I hope you haven't been discouraging him?” + +Captain Filbert looked at her superior officer with astonishment. + +“I have entreated him to come to the meetings. But he never attends a +Believers' Rally. Why should he?” + +“What's his state of mind? He came to see you, didn't he, the other +night?” + +“Yes, he did. I don't think he's altogether careless.” + +“Ain't he seeking?” + +“He wouldn't admit it, but he may not know himself. The Lord has +different ways of working. What else should bring him, night after +night?” + +Mrs. Sand glanced meaningly at a point on the floor, with lifted +eyebrows, then at her officer, and finally hid a badly-disciplined smile +behind her baby's head. When she looked back again Laura had flushed +all over, and an embarrassment stood between them, which she felt was +absurd. + +“My!” she said,--scruples in breaking it could hardly perhaps have been +expected of her,--“you do look nice when you've got a little colour. But +if you can't see that it's you that brings him to the meetin's, you must +be blind, that's all.” + +Captain Filbert's confusion was dispelled, as by the wave of a wand. + +“Then I hope I may go on bringing him,” she said. “He couldn't come to a +better place.” + +“Well, you'll have to be careful,” said Mrs. Sand, as if with severe +intent. “But I don't say discourage him; I wouldn't say that. You may be +an influence for good. It may be His will that you should be pleasant to +the young man. But don't make free with him. Don't, on any account, have +him put his arm round your waist.” + +“Nobody has done that to me,” Laura replied austerely, “since I left +Putney, and so long as I am in the Army nobody will. Not that Mr. +Lindsay” (she blushed again) “would ever want to. The class he belongs +to look down on it.” + +“The class he belongs to do worse things. The Army doesn't look down on +it. It's only nature, and the Army believes in working with nature. If +it was Mr. Harris I wouldn't say a word--he marches under the Lord's +banner.” + +Captain Filbert listened without confusion; her expression was even +slightly complacent. + +“Well,” she said, “I told Mr. Harris last evening that the Lieutenant +and I couldn't go on giving him so much of our time, and he seemed to +think he'd been keeping company with me. I had to tell him I hadn't any +such idea.” + +“Did he seem much disappointed?” + +“He said he thought he would have more of the feeling of belonging to +the Army if he was married in it; but I told him he would have to learn +to walk alone.” + +Mrs. Sand speculatively bit her lips. + +“I don't know but what you did right,” she said. “By the grace of God +you converted him, and he hadn't ought to ask more of you. But I have a +kind of feeling that Mr. Lindsay 'll be harder to convince.” + +“I daresay.” + +“It would be splendid, though, to garner him in. He might be willing to +march with us and subscribe half his pay, like poor Captain Corby, of +the Queen's army, did in Rangoon.” + +“He might be proud to.” + +“We must all try and bring sin home to him,” Mrs. Sand remarked with +rising energy; “and don't you go saying anything to him hastily. If he's +gone on you--” + +“Oh Ensign! let us hope he is thinking of higher things! Let us both +pray for him. Let Captain Sand pray for him too, and I'll ask the +Lieutenant. Now that she's got Miss Rozario safe into the kingdom, I +don't think she has any special object.” + +“Oh yes, we'll pray for him,” Ensign Sand returned, as if that might +have gone without saying, “but you--” + +“And give me that precious baby. You must be completely worn out. I +should enjoy taking care of him; indeed I should.” + +“It's the first--the very first--time she ever took that draggin' child +out of my arms for an instant,” the Ensign remarked to her husband +and next in command later in the evening, but she resigned the infant +without protest at the time. Laura carried him into her own room with +something like gaiety, and there repeated to him more nursery rhymes, +dating from secular Putney, than she would have believed she remembered. + +The Believers' Rally, as will be understood, was a gathering of some +selectness. If the Chinaman came, it was because of the vagueness of +his perception of the privileges he claimed; and his ignorance of +all tongues but his own left no medium for turning him out. Qualms of +conscience, however, kept all Miss Rozario's young lady friends away, +and these also doubtless operated to detain Duff Lindsay. One does not +attend a Believers' Rally unless one's personal faith extends beyond +the lady in command of it, and one specially refrains if one's spiritual +condition is a delicate and debatable matter with her. In Wellesley +Square, later in the evening, the conditions were different. It would +not be easy to imagine a scene that suggested greater liberality of +sentiment. The moon shed her light upon it, and the palms threw fretted +shadows down. Beyond them, on four sides, lines of street-lamps shone, +and tram-drivers whistled bullock-carts off the lines, and street +pedlars lifted their cries. A torch marked the core of the group of +exhorters; it struck pale gold from Laura's hair, and made glorious the +buttons of the man who beat the drum. She talked to the people in their +own language; the “open air” was designed for the people. “Kiko! Kiko!” + (Why! Why!) Lindsay heard her cry, where he stood in the shadow, on +the edge of the crowd. He looked down at a coolie-woman with shrivelled +breasts crouched on her haunches upon the ground, bent with the toil +of half a century, and back at the girl beside the torch. “Do not +delay until to-morrow!” Laura besought them. “Kul ka dari mut karo!” A +sensation of disgust assailed him; he turned away. Then, in an impulse +of atonement--he felt already so responsible for her--he went back +and dropped a coin into the coolie creature's lap. But he grew more +miserable as he stood, and finally walked deliberately to a wooden bench +at a distance where he could not hear her voice. Only the hymn +pursued him; they sang presently a hymn. In the chorus the words were +distinguishable, borne in the robust accents of Captain Sand-- + + + “Us ki ho tarif, + Us ki ho tarif!” + + +The strange words, limping on the familiar air, made a barbarous jangle, +a discordance of a specially intolerable sort. + + + “Glory to His name! + Glory to His name!” + + +Lindsay wondered, with a poignancy of pity, whether the coolie-woman +were singing too, and found something like relief in the questionable +reflection that if she wasn't, in view of the rupee, she ought to be. + +His “Good-evening!” when the meeting was over, was a cheerful, general +salutation, and the familiarity of the sight of him was plain in the +response he got, equally general and equally cheerful. Lieutenant +Da Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had thought of +interpreting it, and there was overt amiability in the manner in which +Ensign Sand put her hymn-books together and packed everybody, including +her husband, whose arm she took, out of the way. + +“Wait for me,” Laura said, to whom a Eurasian beggar made elaborate +appeal, as they moved off. + +“I guess you've got company to see you home,” Mrs. Sand called out, and +they did not wait. As Lindsay came closer the East Indian paused in his +tale of the unburied wife for whom he could not afford a coffin, and +slipped away. + +“The Ensign knows she oughtn't to talk like that,” Laura said. Lindsay +marked with a surge of pleasure that she was flushed, and seemed +perturbed. + +“What she said was quite true,” he ventured. + +“But--anybody would think--” + +“What would anybody think? Shall we keep to this side of the road? It's +quieter. What would anybody think?” + +“Oh, silly things.” Laura threw up her head with a half laugh. “Things I +needn't mention.” + +Lindsay was silent for an instant. Then “Between us?” he asked, and she +nodded. + +Their side of the street, along the square, was nearly empty. He found +her hand and drew it through his arm. “Would you mind so very much,” he +said, “if those silly things were true?” He spoke as if to a child. His +passion was never more clearly a single object to him, divorced from all +complicating and non-essential impressions of her. “I would give all I +possess to have it so,” he told her, catching at any old foolish phrase +that would serve. + +“I don't believe you mean anything like all you say, Mr. Lindsay.” Her +head was bent and she kept her hand within his arm. He seemed to be +a circumstance that brought her reminiscences of how one behaved +sentimentally toward a young man with whom there was no serious +entanglement. It is not surprising that he saw only one thing, walls +going down before him, was aware only of something like invitation. +Existence narrowed itself to a single glowing point; as he looked it +came so near that he bounded to meet it. + +“Dear,” he said, “you can't know--there is no way of telling you--what I +mean. I suppose every man feels the same thing about the woman he loves; +but it seems to me that my life had never known the sun until I saw you. +I can't explain to you how poor it was, and I won't try; but I fancy God +sends every one of us, if we know it, some one blessed chance, and He +did more for me--He lifted the veil of my stupidity and let me see it, +passing by in its halo, trailing clouds of glory. I don't want to +make you understand, though--I want to make you promise. I want to be +absolutely sure from to-night that you'll marry me. Say that you'll +marry me--say it before we get to the crossing. Say it, Laura.” She +listened to his first words with a little half-controlled smile, then +made as if she would withdraw her hand, but he held it with his own, and +she heard him through, walking beside him formally on her bare feet, and +looking carefully at the asphalt pavement as they do in Putney. + +“I don't object to your calling me by my given name,” she said when he +had done, “but it can't go any further than that, Mr. Lindsay, and you +ought not to bring God into it--indeed you ought not. You are no son or +servant of His--you are among those whose very light is darkness, and +how great is your darkness!” + +“Don't,” he said shortly. “Never mind about that--now. You needn't be +afraid of me, Laura--there are decent chaps, you know, outside your +particular Kingdom of Heaven, and one of them wants you to marry him, +that's how it is. Will you?” + +“I don't wish to judge you, Mr. Lindsay, and I'm very much obliged, but +I couldn't dream of it.” + +“Don't dream of it; consider it, accept it. Why, dear creature, you are +mine already--don't you feel that?” + +Her arm was certainly warm within his and he had the possession of his +eyes in her. Her tired body even clung to him. “Are you quite sure you +haven't begun to think of loving me?” he demanded. + +“It isn't a question of love, Mr. Lindsay, it's a question of the Army. +You don't seem to think the Army counts for anything.” + +One is convinced that it wasn't a question of love, the least in the +world; but Lindsay detected an evasion in what she said, and the flame +in him leaped up. + +“Sweet, when love is concerned there is no other question.” + +“Is that a quotation?” she asked. She spoke coldly, and this time she +succeeded in withdrawing her hand. “I daresay you think the Army very +common, Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great and holy +crusade, and I march with it. You would not ask me to give up my +life-work?” + +“Only to take it into another sphere,” Duff said unreflectingly. He was +checked, but not discouraged; impatient, but in no wise cast down. She +had not flown, she walked beside him placidly. She had no intention +of flight. He tried to resign himself to the task of beating down her +trivial objections, curbing his athletic impulse to leap over them. + +“Another sphere,”--he caught a subtle pleasure in her enunciation. “I +suppose you mean high society; but it would never be the same.” + +“Not quite the same. You would have to drive to see your sinners in a +carriage and pair, and you might be obliged to dine with them in--what +do ladies generally dine in?--white satin and diamonds, or pearls. +I think I would rather see you in pearls.” He was aware of the +inexcusableness of the points he made, but he only stopped to laugh +inwardly at their impression, watching the absorbed turn of her head. + +“We might think it well to be a little select in our sinners--most of +them would be on Government House list, just as most of your present +ones are on the lists of the charitable societies or the police +magistrates. But you would find just as much to do for them.” + +“I should not even know how to act in such company.” + +“You can go home for a year, if you like, to be taught, to some people I +know; delightful people, who will understand. A year! You will learn in +three months--what odds and ends there are to know. I couldn't spare you +for a year.” + +Lindsay stopped. He had to. Captain Filbert was murmuring the cadences +of a hymn. She went through two stanzas, and covered her eyes for a +moment with her hand. When she spoke it was in a quiet, level, almost +mechanical way. “Yes,” she said. “The Cross and the Crown, the Crown and +the Cross. Father in heaven, I do not forget Thy will and Thy purpose, +that I should bring the word of Thy love to the poor and the lowly, the +outcast and those despised. And what I say to this man, who offers me +the gifts and the gladness of a world that had none for Thee, is the +answer Thou hast put in my heart--that the work is Thine and that I +am Thine, and he has no part or lot in me, nor can ever have. Here is +Crooked Lane. Good-night, Mr. Lindsay.” She had slipped into the devious +darkness of the place before he could find any reply, before he quite +realised, indeed, that they had reached her lodging. He could only utter +a vague “Goodnight,” after her, formulating more definite statements to +himself a few minutes later, in Bentinck Street. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Miss Howe was walking in the business quarter of Calcutta. It was the +business quarter, yet the air was gay with the dimpling of piano notes, +and looking up one saw the bright sunlight fall on yellow stuccoed flats +above the shops and the offices. There the pleasant north wind blew +banners of muslin curtains out of wide windows, and little gardens of +palms in pots showed behind the balustrades of the flat roofs whenever +a storey ran short. Everywhere was a subtle contagion of momentary +well-being, a sense of lifted burden. The stucco streets were too +slovenly to be purely joyous, but a warm satisfaction brooded in them, +the pariahs blinked at one genially, there was a note of cheer even in +the cheeling of the kites where they sat huddled on the roof-cornices or +circled against the high blue sky. It was enjoyable to be abroad, in +the brushing fellowship of the pavements, in touch with brown humility +half-clad and going afoot, since even brown humility seemed well +affected toward the world, alert and content. The air was full of the +comfortable flavour of food-stuffs and spiced luxuries, and the incense +of wayside trees; it was as if the sun laid a bland compelling hand upon +the city, bidding strange flowers bloom and strange fruits increase. +Brokers' gharries rattled past, each holding a pale young man +preoccupied with a notebook; where the bullock-carts gathered themselves +together and blocked the road the pale young men put excited heads out +of the gharry windows and used remarkable imprecations. One of them, as +Hilda turned into the compound of the Calcutta Chronicle, leaned out to +take off his hat, and sent her up to the office of that journal in the +pleasant reflection of his infinite interest in life. “Upon my word,” + she said to herself as she ascended the stairs behind the lean legs of +a Mussulman servant in a dirty shirt and an embroidered cap, “he's so +lighthearted, so genial, that one doubts the very tremendous effect even +of a failure like the one he contemplates.” + +She sent her card in to the manager-sahib by the lean Mussulman, and +followed it past the desks of two or three Bengali clerks, who hardly +lifted their well-oiled heads from their account-books to look at +her--so many mem sahibs to whose enterprises the Chronicle gave +prominence came to see the manager-sahib, and they were so much alike. +At all events they carried a passport to indifference in the fact that +they all wanted something, and it was clear to the meanest intelligence +that they appeared to be more magnificent than they were, visions in +dazzling complexions and long kid gloves, rattling up in third-class +ticca-gharries, with a wisp of fodder clinging to their skirts. It was +less interesting still when they belonged to the other class, the shabby +ladies, nearly always in black, with husbands in the Small Cause Court, +or sons before the police magistrate, who came to get it, if possible, +“kept out of the paper.” Successful or not these always wept on their +way out, and nothing could be more depressing. The only gleam of +entertainment to be got out of a lady visitor to the manager-sahib +occurred when the female form enshrined the majestic personality of a +boarding-house madam, whose asylum for respectable young men in leading +Calcutta firms had been maliciously traduced in the local columns of the +Chronicle--a lady who had never known what a bailiff looked like in the +lifetime of her first husband, or her second either. Then at the sound +of a pudgy blow upon a table, or high abusive accents in the rapid +elaborate cadences of the domiciled East Indian tongue, Hari Babu would +glance at Gobind Babu with a careful smile, for the manager-sahib who +dispensed so much galli* was now receiving the same, and defenceless. + + + * Abuse. + + +The manager sat at his desk when Hilda went in. He did not rise--he was +one of those highly sagacious little Scotchmen that Dundee exports in +such large numbers to fill small posts in the East, and she had come +on business. He gave her a nod, however, and an affectionate smile, and +indicated with his blue pencil a chair on the other side of the table. +He had once made three hundred rupees in tea shares, and that gave him +the air of a capitalist and speculator gamely shrewd. Tapping the table +with his blue pencil he asked Miss Howe how the world was using HER. + +“Let me see,” said Hilda, a trifle absent-mindedly, “were you here last +cold weather--I rather imagine you were, weren't you?” + +“I was; I had the pleasure of--” + +“To be sure. You got the place in December, when that poor fellow Baker +died. Baker was a country-bred I know, but he always kept his +contracts, while you got your po-lish in Glesca, and your name is +Macphairson--isn't it?” + +“I was never in Glasgow in my life, and my name is Macandrew,” said the +manager, putting with some aggressiveness a paper-weight on a pile of +bills. + +“Never mind,” said Hilda, again wrapped in thought, “don't +apologise--it's near enough. Well, Mr. Macandrew,”--her tone came to a +point,--“what is the Stanhope Company's advertisement worth a month to +the Chronicle?” + +“A hundred rupees maybe--there or thereabouts;” and Mr. Macandrew, with +a vast show of indifference, picked up a letter and began to tear at the +end of it. + +“One hundred and fifty-five I think, to be precise. That communication +will wait, won't it? What is it--Kally Nath Mitter's paper and stores +bill? You won't be able to pay it any quicker if we withdraw our +advertisement.” + +“Why should ye withdraw it?” + +“It was given to you on the understanding that notices should appear of +every Wednesday and Saturday's performance. For two Wednesdays there has +been no notice, and last Saturday night you sent a fool.” + +“So Muster Stanhope thinks o' withdrawin' his advertisement?” + +“He is very much of that mind.” + +The manager put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, leaned back +in his chair, and demonstrated the principle that had given him a gold +watch chain--“never be bluffed.” + +“Ye can withdraw it,” he said, with a warily experimental eye upon her. + +“How reasonable of you not to make a fuss! We'll have the order +to discontinue in writing, please. If you'll give me a pen and +paper--thanks--and I'll keep a copy.” + +“Stanhope has wanted to transfer it to the Market Gazette for some +time,” she went on as she wrote. + +“That's not a newspaper. You'll get no notices there.” + +“Cheaper on that account, probably.” + +“They charge like the very deevil. D'ye know the rates of them?” + +“I can't say I do.” + +“There's a man on our staff that doesn't like your show. We'll be able +to send him every night now.” + +“When we withdraw our advertisement?” + +“Just then.” + +“All right,” said Hilda. “It will be interesting to point out in the +Indian Empire the remarkable growth of independent criticism in the +Chronicle since Mr. Stanhope no longer uses the space at his disposal. I +hope your man will be very nasty indeed. You might as well hand over the +permanent passes--the gentleman will expect, I suppose, to pay.” + +“They'll be in the yeditorial department,” said Mr. Macandrew, but +he did not summon a messenger to go for them. Instead he raised his +eyebrows in a manner that expressed the necessity of making the best of +it, and humorously scratched his head. + +“We have four hundred pounds of new type coming out in the Almora--she's +due on Thursday,” he said. “Entirely for the advertisements. We'll have +a fine display next week. It's grand type--none of your Calcutta-made +stuff.” + +“Pays to bring it out, does it?” asked Hilda inattentively, copying her +letter. + +“Pays the advertisers.” There were ingratiating qualities in the +managerial smile. Hilda inspected them coldly. + +“There's your notice of withdrawal,” she said. “Good-morning.” + +“Think of that new type, and how lovely Jimmy Finnigan's ad will look in +it.” + +“That's all right. Good-morning.” Miss Howe approached the door, the +blue glance of Macandrew pursuant. + +“No notices for two Wednesdays, eh? We'll have to see about that. I +was thinkin' of transferrin' your space to the third page; it's a more +advantageous position--and no extra charge--but ye'll not mention it to +Jimmy.” + +Miss Howe lifted an arrogant chin. “Do I understand you'll do that, and +guarantee regular notices, if we leave the advertisement with you?” + +Mr. Macandrew looked at her expressively, and tore, with a gesture of +moderated recklessness, the notice of withdrawal in two. + +“Rest easy,” he said, “I'll see about it. I'd go the len'th of attendin' +myself to-night, if ye could spare two three extra places.” + +“Moderate Macandrew!” + +“Moderate enough. I've got some frien's stayin' in the same place with +me from Behar--indigo people. I was thinkin' I'd give them a treat, if +three places c'd be spared next to the Chronicle seats.” + +“We do Lady Whippleton to-night and the booking's been heavy. Five is +too many, Mr. Macandrew, even if you promised not to write the notice +yourself.” + +“I might pay for one;” Macandrew drew red cartwheels on his +blotting-pad. + +“Those seats are sure to be gone. I'll send you a box. Stanhope's as bad +as he can be with dysentery--you might make a local out of that. Be sure +to mention he can't see anybody--it's absurd the way Calcutta people +want to be paid.” + +“A box'll be Grand,” said Mr. Macandrew. “I'll see ye get plenty of +ancores. Can ye manage the door? Good-day, then.” + +Hilda stepped out on the landing. The heavy, regular thud of the presses +came up from below. They were printing the edition that took the world's +news to planters' bungalows in the jungle of Assam and the lonely +policeman on the edge of Manipore. The smell of the newspaper of to-day +and of yesterday, and of a year ago, stood in the air; through an open +door she saw the dusty, uneven edges of files of them, piled on the +floor. Three or four messengers squatted beside the wall, with slumbrous +heads between their knees. Occasionally a shout came from the room +inside, and one of them, crying “Hazur!” with instant alacrity, +stretched himself mightily, loafed upon his feet and went in, emerging a +moment later carrying written sheets, with which he disappeared into the +regions below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up; under it, +through an open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and +green leaves of a pipal tree, and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his +grey head in with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in +scarlet and gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet +with an official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high +ceilings, spoke between dusty yawns of the languor and the leisure which +might attend the manipulation of the business of life, and Hilda paused +for an instant to perceive what it said. Then she walked behind her card +into the next room, where a young gentleman, reading proofs in his +shirt sleeves, flung himself upon his coat and struggled into it at her +approach. He seemed to have the blackest hair and the softest eyes and +the neatest moustache available, all set in a complexion frankly +olive, amiable English cut, in amiable Oriental colour, and the whole +illumined, when once the coat was on and the collar perfectly turned +down, by the liveliest, most engaging smile. Standing with his head +slightly on one side and one hand resting on the table, while the +other saw that nothing was disarranged between collar and top waistcoat +button, he was an interjection point of invitation and attention. + +“The Editor of the Chronicle?” Hilda asked with diffident dignity, and +very well informed to the contrary. + +“NOT the editor--I am sorry to say.” The confession was delightfully +vivid--in the plenitude of his candour it was plain that he didn't +care who knew that he was sorry he was not the editor. “In journalistic +parlance, the sub editor,” he added. “Will you be seated, Miss Howe?” + and with a tasteful silk pocket handkerchief he whisked the bottom of a +chair for her. + +“Then you are Mr. Molyneux Sinclair,” Hilda declared. “You have been +pointed out to me on several first nights. Oh, I know very well where +the Chronicle seats are!” + +Mr. Sinclair bowed with infinite gratification, and tucked the silk +handkerchief back so that only a fold was visible. “We members of the +Fourth Estate are fairly well known, I'm afraid, in Calcutta,” he said. +“Personally, I could sometimes wish it were otherwise. But certainly not +in this instance.” + +Hilda gave him a gay little smile. “I suppose the editor,” she said, +with a casual glance about the room, “is hammering out his leader for +to-morrow's paper. Does he write half and do you write half, or how do +you manage?” + +A seriousness overspread Mr. Sinclair's countenance, which nevertheless +irradiated, as if he could not help it, with beaming eyes. “Ah, those +are the secrets of the prison-house, Miss Howe. Unfortunately it is +not etiquette for me to say in what proportion I contribute the leading +articles of the Chronicle. But I can tell you in confidence that if it +were not for the editor's prejudices--rank prejudices--it would be a +good deal larger.” + +“Ah, his prejudices! Why not be quite frank, Mr. Sinclair, and say that +he is just a little tiny bit jealous of his staff. All editors are, +you know.” Miss Howe shook her head in philosophical deprecation of the +peccadillo, and Mr. Sinclair cast a smiling, embarrassed glance at his +smart brown leather boot. The glance was radiant with what he couldn't +tell her as a sub-editor of honour about those cruel prejudices, but he +gave it no other medium. + +“I'm afraid you know the world, Miss Howe,” he said, with a noble +reserve, and that was all. + +“A corner of it here and there. But you are responsible for the whole of +the dramatic criticism,”--Hilda charged him roundly,--“the editor can't +claim any of THAT.” + +An inquiring brown face under an embroidered cap appeared at the door; +a brown hand thrust in a bunch of printed slips. Mr. Sinclair motioned +both away, and they vanished in silence. + +“That I can't deny,” he said. “It would be useless if I wished to +do so--my style betrays me--I must plead guilty. It is not one of my +legitimate duties--if I held this position on the Times, or say the +Daily Telegraph, our London contemporaries, it would not be required of +me. But in this country everything is piled upon the sub-editor. Many +a night, Miss Howe, I send down the last slips of a theatre notice at +midnight and am here in this chair”--Mr. Sinclair brought his open palm +down upon the arm of it--“by eleven the following day!” Mr. Sinclair's +chin was thrust passionately forward, moisture dimmed the velvety +brightness of those eyes which, in more dramatic moments, he confessed +to have inherited from a Nawab great-grandfather. “But I don't +complain,” he said, and drew in his chin. It seemed to bring his +argument to a climax, over which he looked at Hilda in warm, frank +expansion. + +“Overworked, too, I daresay,” she said, and then went on a trifle +hurriedly. “Well, I must tell you, Mr. Sinclair, how kind your criticism +always is, and how much I personally appreciate it. None of the little +points and effects one tries to make seem to escape you, and you are +always generous in the matter of space too.” + +Molyneux impartially threw out his hand. “I believe in it!” he +exclaimed. “Honour where honour is due, Miss Howe, and the Stanhope +Company has given me some very enjoyable evenings. And you'll hardly +believe me, but it is a fact, I assure you, I seldom get a free hand +with those notices. Suicidal to the interests of the paper as it is, the +editor insists as often as not on cutting down my theatre copy!” + +“Cuts it down, does he? The brute!” said Miss Howe. + +“I've known him sacrifice a third of it for an indigo market report. +Now, I ask you, who reads an indigo market report? Nobody. Who wants to +know how Jimmy Finnigan's--how the Stanhope Company's latest novelties +went off? Everybody. Of course, when he does that sort of thing, I make +it warm for him next morning?” + +The door again opened and admitted a harassed little Babu in spectacles, +bearing a sheaf of proof slips, who advanced timidly into the middle of +the room and paused. + +“In a few minutes, Babu,” said Mr. Sinclair; “I am engaged.” + +“It iss the Council isspeech of the Legal Member, sir, and it iss to go +at five p.m. to his house for last correction.” + +“Presently, Babu. Don't interrupt. As I was saying, Miss Howe, I make it +warm for him till he apologises. I must say he always apologises, and I +don't often ask more than that. But I was obliged to tell him the last +time that if it happened again one of us would have to go.” + +“What did he say to that?” + +“I don't exactly remember. But it had a tremendous effect--tremendous. +We became good friends almost immediately.” + +“Quite so. We miss you when you don't come, Mr. Sinclair--last Saturday +night, for example.” + +“I HAD to go to the Surprise Party. Jimmy came here with tears in his +eyes that morning. 'My show is tumbling to pieces,' he said. 'Sinclair, +you've got to come to-night.' Made me dine with him--wouldn't let me +out of his sight. We had to send a reporter to you and Llewellyn that +night.” + +“Mr. Sinclair, the notice made me weep.” + +“I know. All that about the costumes. But what can you expect? The man +is as black as your hat.” + +“We have to buy our own costumes,” said Hilda, with a glance at the +floor, “and we haven't any too much, you know, to do it on.” + +“The toilets in Her Second Son were simply magnificent. Not to be +surpassed on the boards of the Lyceum in tasteful design or richness +of material. They were ne plus ultra!” cried Mr. Sinclair. “You will +remember I said so in my critique.” + +“I remember. If I were you I wouldn't go so far another time. There's +a lot of cotton velvet and satin about it, you know, between ourselves, +and Finnigan's people will be getting the laugh on us. That's one of +the things I wanted to mention. Don't be quite so good to us. See? +Otherwise--well, you know how Calcutta talks, and what a pretty girl +Beryl Stace is, for example. Mrs. Sinclair mightn't like it, and I don't +blame her.” + +“As I said before, Miss Howe, you know the world,” Mr. Sinclair replied, +with infinite mellow humour, and as Miss Howe had risen he rose too, +pulling down his waistcoat. + +“There was just one other thing,” Hilda said, holding out her hand. +“Next Wednesday, you know, Rosa Norton takes her benefit. Rosy's as +well known here as the Ochterlony monument; she's been coming every cold +weather for ten years, poor old Rosy. Don't you think you could do her +a bit of an interview for Wednesday's paper? She'll write up very +well--get her on variety entertainments in the Australian bush.” + +Mr. Molyneux Sinclair looked pained to hesitate. “Personally,” he said +confidentially, “I should like it immensely, and I daresay I could get +it past the editor. But we're so short-handed.” + +Miss Howe held up a forefinger which seemed luminous with solution. +“Don't you bother,” she said, “I'll do it for you; I'll write it myself. +My 'prentice hand I'll try on Rosy, and you shall have the result ready +to print on Tuesday morning. Will that do?” + +That would do supremely. Mr. Sinclair could not conceal the admiration +he felt for such a combination of talents. He did not try; he +accompanied it to the door, expanding and expanding until it seemed more +than ever obvious that he found the sub-editorial sphere unreasonably +contracted. Hilda received his final bow from the threshold of what he +called his “sanctum,” and had hardly left the landing in descent when +a square-headed, collarless, red-faced male in shirt sleeves came +down, descending, as it seemed, in bounds from parts above. “Damn +it, Sinclair!” she heard, as he shot into the apartment she had +left, “here's the whole council meeting report set up and waiting +three-quarters of an hour--press blocked; and the printer Babu says +he can get nothing out of you. What the devil.... If the dak's* missed +again, by thunder!... paid to converse with itinerant females... seven +columns... infernal idiocy....” + + + * Country post. + + +Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with amusement as +she made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until his +lady visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for the editor. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything very +exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged themselves +between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the Reverend Stephen +Arnold, had it been aware of them; and I conclude reluctantly that it +would not. Reluctantly, because such imperviousness argues a lack of +perception, of flair in directions which any Continental centre would +recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable in a capital of such vaunted +sophistication as that which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be +shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta's sense of comedy you +must, for example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty +technical equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from +England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your +dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit. For the sex that does +not hunt jackals it is easier--you have only to be a little frivolous +and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in +the case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as +the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the +impression that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. The source of +these things is perennial, and the noise of laughter is ever in the air +of the Indian capital. Between the explosions, however, it is natural +enough that the affairs of a priest of College Street and an actress +of no address at all should slip unnoticed, especially as they did +not advertise it. Stephen mostly came, on afternoons when there was +no rehearsal, to tea. He, Stephen, had a perception of contrasts which +answered fairly well the purposes of a sense of humour, and nobody could +question hers; it operated obscurely to keep them in the house. + +She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had been sent to her to +take the place of Duff Lindsay, who had fallen to the snare of beauty; +although she mentioned to herself that he took it with a difference, +a vast temperamental difference which she was aware of not having yet +quite sounded. The depths of his faith of course--there she could only +scan and hesitate, but this was a brink upon which she did not often +find herself, away from which, indeed, he sometimes gently guided her. +The atmospheres of their talk were the more bracing ones of this world, +and it was here that Hilda looked when she would make him a parallel +for Lindsay, and here that she found her measure of disappointment. He +warmed himself and dried his wings in the opulence of her spirit, and +she was not on the whole the poorer by any exchange they made, but she +was sometimes pricked to the reflection that the freemasonry between +them was all hers, and the things she said to him had still the flavour +of adventure. She found herself inclined--and the experience was new--to +make an effort for a reward which was problematical and had to be +considered in averages, a reward put out in a thin and hesitating hand +under a sacerdotal robe, with a curious concentrated quality, and a +strange flavour of incense and the air of cold churches. There was also +the impression--was it too fantastic?--of words carried over a medium, +an invisible wire which brought the soul of them and left the body by +the way. Duff Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, came +running with open arms; in his rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a +midwife to one's idea. But the comparison was irritating, and after +a time she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, moreover, to +declare to the stars that she was less worried by the consideration of +Arnold's sex than she would have thought it possible to be--one hardly +paused to consider that he was a man at all; a reflection which would +certainly not have occurred to her about poor dear Duff. With regard to +Stephen Arnold, it was only, of course, another way of saying that she +was less oppressed, in his company, by the consideration of her own. +Perhaps it is already evident that this was her grievance with life, +when the joy of it left her time to think of a grievance, the attraction +of her personal lines, the reason of the hundred fetiches her body +claimed of her and found her willing to perform, the fact that it meant +more to her, for all her theories, that she should be looking her best +when she got up in the morning than was justifiable from any point +of view except the biological. She had no heroic quarrel with these +conditions--her experience had not been upon that plane--but she +bemoaned them with sincerity as too fundamental, too all pervading; one +came upon them at every turn, grinning in their pretty chains. It was +absurd, she construed, that a world of mankind and woman kind with +vastly interesting possibilities should be so essentially subjected. +So primitive, it was, she argued in her vivid candour, and so +interfering--so horribly interfering! Personally she did not see herself +one of the fugitive half of the race; she had her defences; but the +necessity of using them was matter for complaint when existence might +have been so delightful a boon without it, full of affinities and +communities in every direction. She had not, I am convinced, any of the +notions of a crusader upon this popular subject, nor may I portray her +either shocked or revolted, only rather bored, being a creature whom it +was unkind to hamper; and she would have explained quite in these simple +terms the reason why Stephen Arnold's saving neutrality of temperament +was to her a pervasive charm of his society. + +She had not yet felt at liberty to tell him that she could not classify +him, that she had never known anyone like him before; and there was in +this no doubt a vague perception that the confession showed a limitation +of experience on her part for which he might be inclined to call her to +account; since cultured young Oxonians with an altruistic bias, if they +do not exactly abound, are still often enough to be discovered if one +happens to belong to the sphere which they haunt, they and their ideals. +Not that any such consideration led her to gloss or to minimise the +disabilities of her own. She sat sometimes in gravest wonder, pinching +her lips, and watched the studiously modified interest of his glance +following her into its queer byways--her sphere's--full of spangles and +limelight, and the first-class hysteria of third-class rival artistry. +There was a fascination in bringing him out of his remoteness near to +those things, a speculation worth making as to what he might do. This +remained ungratified, for he never did anything. He only let it appear +by the most indefinite signs possible, that he saw what she saw, peering +over his paling, and she in the picturesque tangle outside found it +enough. + +He was there when she came back from the Chronicle office, patient under +the blue umbrellas; he had brought her a book, and they had told him she +would not be long in returning. He had gone so far as to order tea for +her, and it was waiting with him. “Make it,” she commanded; “why haven't +you had some already?” and while he bent over the battered Britannia +metal spout she sank into the nearest seat and let her hat make a frame +for her face against the back of it. She was too tired, she said, to +move, and her hands lay extended, one upon each arm of her chair, with +the air of being left there to be picked up at her convenience. Arnold, +over the teapot, agreed that walking in Calcutta was an insidious +pleasure--one gathered a lassitude--and brought her cup. She looked at +him for an instant as she took it. + +“But I am not too tired to hear what you have on your mind,” she said. +“Have Kally Nath Mitter's relations prevailed over his convictions? +Won't your landlord let you have your oratory on the roof after all?” + +“You get these things so out of perspective,” Stephen said, “that I +don't think I should tell you if they were so. But they're not. Kally +Nath is to be baptized to-morrow. We are certain to get our oratory.” + +“I am very glad,” Hilda interrupted. “When one prays for so long a +time together it must be better to have fresh air. It will certainly be +better for Brother Colquhoun. He seems to have such a weak chest.” + +“It will be better for us all.” Arnold seemed to reflect, across his +teacup, how much better it would be. Then he added, “I saw Lindsay last +night.” + +“Again? And--” + +“I think it is perfectly hopeless. I think he is making way.” + +“Sickening! I hoped you would not speak to him again. After all--another +man--it's naturally of no use!” + +“I spoke as a priest!” + +“Did he swear at you?” + +“Oh dear no! He was rather sympathetic. And I went very far. But I could +get him to see nothing--to feel nothing.” + +“How far did you go?” + +“I told him that she was consecrated, that he proposed to commit +sacrilege. He seemed to think he could make it up to her.” + +“If anyone else had said that to me I should have laughed--you don't +suspect the irony in it” Hilda said. “Pray who is to make it up to him?” + +“I suppose there is that point of view.” + +“I should think so, indeed! But taking it, I despair with you. I had her +here the other day and tried to make the substance of her appear before +him. I succeeded too--he gave me the most uncomfortable looks--but I +might as well have let it alone. The great end of nature,” Hilda went +on, putting down her cup, “reasonable beings in their normal state would +never lend themselves to. So she invents these temporary insanities. +And therein is nature cruel, for they might just as well be permanent. +That's a platitude, I know,” she added, “but it's irresistibly +suggested.” + +Stephen looked with some fixedness at a point on the other side of +the room. The platitude brought him, by some process of inversion, the +vision of a drawing-room in Addison Gardens, occupied by his mother and +sisters, engaged with whatever may be Kensington's substitutes at the +moment for the spinet and the tambour frame; and he had a disturbed +sense that they might characterise such a statement differently, if, +indeed, they would consent to characterise it at all. He looked at the +wall as if, being a solid and steadfast object, it might correct the +qualm--it was really something like that--which the wide sweep of her +cynicism brought him. + +“From what he told me last week I thought we shouldn't see it. He seemed +determined enough but depressed, and not hopeful. I fancied she was +being upheld--I thought she would easily pull through. Indeed, I wasn't +sure that there was any great temptation. Somebody must be helping him.” + +“The devil, no doubt,” Hilda replied concisely; “and with equal +certainty, Miss Alicia Livingstone.” + +Arnold gave her a look of surprise. “Surely not my cousin!” he +protested. “She can't understand.” + +“Oh, I beg of you, don't speak to HER! I think she understands. I think +she's only too tortuously intelligent.” + +Stephen kept an instant of nervous silence. “May I ask?--” he began, +formally. + +“Oh yes! It is almost an indecent thing to say of anyone so exquisitely +self-contained, but your cousin is very much in love with Mr. Lindsay +herself. It seems almost a liberty, doesn't it, to tell you such a thing +about a member of your family?” she went on, at Arnold's blush; “but +you asked me, you know. And she is making it her ecstatic agony to bring +this precious union about. I think she is taking a kindergarten method +with the girl--having her there constantly and showing her little +scented, luxurious bits of what she is so possessed to throw away. +People in Alicia's condition have no sense of immorality.” + +“That makes it all the more painful,” said Arnold; but the interest in +his tone was a little remote, and his gesture, too, which was not quite +a shrug, had a relegating effect upon any complication between Alicia +and Lindsay. He sat for a moment without saying more, covering his eyes +with his hand. + +“Why should you care so much?” Hilda asked gently. “You are at the very +antipodes of her sect. You can't endorse her methods--you don't trust +her results.” + +“Oh, all that! It's of the least consequence.” He spoke with a curious, +governed impulse coming from beneath his shaded eyes. “It's seeing +another ideal pulled down, gone under, something that held, as best it +could, a ray from the source. It's another glimpse of the strength of +the tide--terrible. It's a cruel hint that one lives above it in the +heaven of one's own hopes, by some mere blind accident. To have set +one's feeble hand to the spiritualising of the world and to feel the +possibility of that--” + +“I see,” said Hilda, and perhaps she did. But his words oppressed her. +She got up with a movement which almost shook them off, and went to +a promiscuous looking-glass to remove her hat. She was refreshed +and vivified--she wanted to talk of the warm world. She let a decent +interval elapse, however; she waited till he took his hand from his +eyes. Even then, to make the transition easier, she said, “You ought to +be lifted up to-day, if you are going to baptize Kally Nath to-morrow.” + +“The Brother Superior will do it. And I don't know--I don't know. The +young woman he is to marry withdraws, I believe, if he comes over to +us--” + +“The, young woman he is to marry! Oh my dear and reverend friend! Avec +ces gens la! I have had a most amusing afternoon,” she went on quickly. +“I have taken off my hat, now let me remove your halo.” She was safe +with her conceit; Arnold would always smile at any imputation of +saintship. He held himself a person of broad indulgences, and would +point openly to his consumption of tea-cakes. But this afternoon a +miasma hung over him. Hilda saw it, and bent herself, with her graphic +recital, to dispel it, perceived it thicken and settle down upon him, +and went bravely on to the end. Mr. Macandrew and Mr. Molyneux Sinclair +lived and spoke before him. It was comedy enough, in essence, to spread +over a matinee. + +“And that is the sort of thing you store up and value,” he said, when +she had finished. “These persons will add to your knowledge of life?” + +“Extremely,” she replied to all of it. + +“I suppose they will in their measure. But personally I could wish you +had not gone. Your work has no right to make such demands.” + +“Be reasonable,” she said, flushing. “Don't talk as if personal +dignity were within the reach of everybody. It's the most expensive of +privileges. And nothing to be so very proud of--generally the product +of somebody else's humiliations, handed down. But the humiliations must +have been successful, handed down in cash. My father drove a cab and +died in debt. His name was Cassidy. I shall be dignified some day--some +day! But you see I must make it possible myself, since nobody has done +it for me.” + +“Well, then, I'll alter my complaint. Why should you play with your +sincerity?” + +“I didn't play with it,” she flashed; “I abandoned it. I am an actress.” + +They often permitted themselves such candours; to all appearance their +discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain that Arnold +was not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted with the +tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his moving fingers. Presently +she spoke quietly, in a different key. + +“I sometimes think,” she said, “of a child I knew, in the other years. +She had the simplest nature, the finest instincts. Her impulses, within +her small limits, were noble--she was the keenest, loyalest little +person; her admirations rather made a fool of her. When I look at the +woman she is now I think the uses of life are hard, my friend--they are +hard.” + +He missed the personal note; he took what she said on its merits as an +illustration. + +“And yet,” he replied, “they can be turned to admirable purpose.” + +“I wonder!” Hilda exclaimed brightly. She had turned down the leaf of +that mood. “But we are not cheerful--let us be cheerful. For my part I +am rejoicing as I have not rejoiced since the first of December. Look at +this!” + +She opened a small black leather bag, and poured money out of it, in +notes and currency, into her lap. + +“Is it a legacy?” + +“It's pay,” she cried, with pleasure dimpling about her lips. “I have +been paid--we have all been paid! It's so unusual--it makes me +feel quite generous. Let me see. I'll give you this, and this, and +this,”--she counted into her open palm ten silver rupees,--“all those I +will give you for your mission. Prends!” and she clinked them together +and held them out to him. + +He had risen to go, and his face looked grey and small. Something in him +had mutinied at the levity, the quick change of her mood. He could +only draw into his shell; doubtless he thought that a legitimate and +inoffensive proceeding. + +“Thanks, no,” he said, “I think not. We desire people's prayers, rather +than their alms.” + +He went away immediately, and she glossed over his scandalous behaviour, +and said farewell to him as she always did, in spite of the unusual +look of consciousness in her eyes. She continued to hold the ten +rupees carefully and separately, as if she would later examine them in +diagnosing her pain. It was keener and profounder than any humiliation, +the new voice, crying out, of a trampled tenderness. She stood and +looked after him for a moment with startled eyes and her hand, in a +familiar gesture of her profession, upon her heart. Then she went to her +room, and deliberately loosened her garments and lay down upon her bed, +first to sob like that little child she remembered, and afterwards to +think, until the world came and knocked at her door and bade her come +out of herself and earn money. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The compulsion which took Stephen Arnold to Crooked Lane is hardly +ours to examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand +involved certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, but of +exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually cloistered, whatever its +other latitude. Among them was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult +enough to make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so voyant +in the Church militant, by a mere fighting soul without such straps and +buttons as might compel recognition upon equal terms. It is impossible +to know how far Stephen envisaged the visit as a duty--the priestly +horizon is perhaps not wholly free from mirage--or to what extent he +confessed it an indulgence. He was certainly aware of a stronger desire +than he could altogether account for that Captain Filbert should not +desert her post. The idea had an element of irritation oddly personal; +he could not bear to reflect upon it. It may be wondered whether in any +flight of venial imagination Arnold saw himself in a parallel situation +with a lady. I am sure he did not. It may be considered, however, that +among mirages there are unaccountable resemblances--resemblances without +shape or form. He might fix his gaze, at all events, upon the supreme +argument that those who were given to holy work, under any condition, +in any degree, should make no rededication of themselves. This had to +support him as best it could against the conviction that had Captain +Filbert been Sister Anastasia, for example, of the Baker Institution, +and Ensign Sand the Mother Superior of its Calcutta branch, it was +improbable that he would have ventured to announce his interest in the +matter by his card, or in any other way. + +It was a hesitating step, therefore, that carried him up to the +quarters, and a glance of some nervous distress that made him aware, as +he stood bowing upon her threshold, clasping with both hands his soft +felt hat to his breast, that Mrs. Sand was not displeased to see him. +She hastened, indeed, to give him a chair; she said she was very glad +he'd dropped in, if he didn't mind the room being so untidy--where there +were children you could spend the whole day picking up. They were out +at present, with Captain Sand, in the perambulator, not having more +servants than they could help. A sweeper and a cook they did with; it +would surprise the people in this country, who couldn't get along with +less than twenty, she often said. + +Mrs. Sand's tone was casual; her manner had a quality somewhat +aggressively democratic. It said that under her welcome lay the right +to criticise, which she would have exercised with equal freedom had her +visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta himself; and it made short +work of the idea that she might be over-gratified to receive Holy Orders +in any form. She was not unwilling, however, to show, as between Ensign +and man, reasonable satisfaction; presently, in fact, she went so far +as to say, still vaguely remarking upon his appearance there, that she +often thought there ought to be more sociability between the different +religious bodies; it would be better for the cause. There was nothing +narrow, she said, about her, nor yet about Captain Sand. And then, +with the distinct intimation that that would do, that she had gone far +enough, she crossed her hands in her lap and waited. It became her to +have it understood that this visit need have no further object than an +exchange of amiabilities; but there might be another, and Mrs. Sand's +folded hands seemed to indicate that she would not necessarily meet it +with opposition. + +Stephen made successive statements of assent. He sat grasping his hat +between his knees, his eyes fixed upon an infant's sock which lay upon +the floor immediately in front of him, looking at Mrs. Sand as seldom +and as briefly as possible, as if his glance took rather an unfair +advantage, which he would spare her. + +“Yes, yes,” he said. “Yes, certainly,” revolving his hat in his hands. +And when she spoke of the fraternity that might be fostered by such +visits, he looked for an instant as if he had found an opening, which +seemed, however, to converge and vanish in Mrs. Sand's folded hands. He +flushed to think afterwards, that it was she who was obliged to bring +his resolution to a head, her scent of his embarrassment sharpening her +curiosity. + +“And is there anything we Army officers can do for you, Mr. Arnold?” she +inquired. + +There was a hint in her voice that, whatever it was, they would have +done it more willingly if she had not been obliged to ask. + +“I am afraid,” he said, “my mission is not quite so simple. I could +wish it were. It is so easy to show our poor needs to one another; and +I should have confidence--” He paused, amazed at the duplicity that +grinned at him in his words. At what point more remote within the poles +was he likely to show himself with a personal request? + +“I have nothing to ask for myself,” he went on, with concentration +almost harsh. “I am here to see if you will consent to speak with me +about a matter which threatens your--your community--about your possible +loss of Miss Filbert.” + +Mrs. Sand looked blank. “The Captain isn't leavin' us, as far as I +know,” she said. + +“Oh--is it possible that you are not aware that--that very strong +efforts are being made to induce her to do so?” + +Mrs. Sand looked about her as if she expected to find an explanation +lying somewhere near her chair. Light came to her suddenly, and brought +her a conscious smile; it only lacked force to be a giggle. She glanced +at her lap as she smiled; her air was deprecating and off-putting, as if +she had detected in what Arnold said some suggestion of a gallant nature +aimed at herself. Happily, he was not looking. + +“You mean Mr. Lindsay!” she exclaimed, twisting her wedding-ring and its +coral guard. + +“I hope--I beg--that you will not think me meddlesome or impertinent. I +have the matter very much at heart. It seems to lie in my path. I must +see it. Surely you perceive some way of averting the disaster in it!” + +“I'm sure I don't know what you refer to.” Mrs. Sand's tone was prudish +and offended. “She hasn't said a word to me--she's a great one for +keeping things to herself--but if Mr. Lindsay don't mean marriage with +her--” + +“Why, of course!” Arnold, startled, turned furiously red, but Mrs. Sand +in her indignation did not reflect the tint. “Of course! Is not +that,” he went on after an instant's pause, “precisely what is to be +lamented--and prevented?” + +Mrs. Sand looked at her visitor with dry suspicion. “I suppose you are a +friend of his,” she said. + +“I have known him for years. Pray don't misunderstand me. There is +nothing against him--nothing whatever.” + +“Oh, I don't suppose there is, except that he is not on the Lord's side. +But I don't expect any of his friends are anxious for him to marry an +officer in the Salvation Army. Society people ain't fond of the Army, +and never will be.” + +“His people--he has only distant relatives living--are all at home,” + Stephen said vaguely. The situation had become slightly confused. + +“Then you speak for them, I suppose?” + +“Indeed not. I am in no communication with them whatever. I fancy they +know nothing about it. I am here entirely--ENTIRELY of my own accord. I +have come to place myself at your disposition if there is anything I can +do, any word I can say, to the end of preventing this catastrophe in a +spiritual life so pure and devoted; to ask you at all events to let me +join my prayers to yours that it shall not come about.” + +The squalor of the room seemed to lift before his eyes and be suffused +with light. At last he had made himself plain. But Mrs. Sand was not +transfigured. She seemed to sit, with her hands folded, in the midst of +a calculation. + +“Then he HAS put the question. I told her he would,” she said. + +“I believe he has asked her to marry him and she has refused, more than +once. But he is importunate, and I hear she needs help.” + +“Mr. Lindsay,” said Mrs. Sand, “is a very takin' young man.” + +“I suppose we must consider that. There is position too, and wealth. +These things count--we are all so human--even against the Divine +realities into possession of which Miss Filbert must have so perfectly +entered.” + +“I thought he must be pretty well off. Would he be one of them +Government officials?” + +“He is a broker.” + +“Oh, is he indeed?” Mrs. Sand's enlightenment was evidently doubtful. +“Well, if they get married Captain Filbert 'll have to resign. It's +against the regulations for her to marry outside of the Army.” + +“But is she not vowed to her work; isn't her life turned for ever +into that channel? Would it not be horrible to you to see the world +interfere?” + +“I won't say but what I'd be sorry to see her leave us. But I wouldn't +stand in her way either, and neither would Captain Sand.” + +“Stand in her way! In her way to material luxury, poverty of spirit, the +shirking of all the high alternatives, the common moral mediocrity of +the world. I would to God I could be that stumbling block! I have heard +her--I have seen the light in her that may so possibly be extinguished.” + +“I don't deny she has a kind of platform gift, but she's losin' her +voice. And she doesn't understand briskin' people up, if you know what I +mean.” + +“She will be pulled down--she will go under!” Arnold repeated in the +depths of his spirit. He stood up, fumbling with his hat. Mrs. Sand and +her apartment, her children out of doors in the perambulator, and the +whole organisation to which she appertained had grown oppressive and +unnecessary. He was aware of a desire to put his foot again in his own +world, where things were seen, were understood. He thought there might +be solace in relating the affair to Brother Colquhoun. + +“It's a case,” said Mrs. Sand judicially, “where I wouldn't think myself +called on to say one word. Such things everyone has a right to decide +for themselves. But you oughtn't to forget that a married woman”--she +looked at Arnold's celibate habit as if to hold it accountable for +much--“can have a great influence for good over him that she chooses. +I am pretty sure Captain Filbert's already got Mr. Lindsay almost +persuaded. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he joined the Army himself +when she's had a good chance at him.” + +Arnold put on his hat with a groan, and began the descent of the stairs. +“Good-afternoon then,” Mrs. Sand called out to him from the top. He +turned mechanically and bared his head. “I beg your pardon,” he said. +“Good-afternoon.” + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Mrs. Sand found it difficult to make up her mind upon several points +touching the visit of the Reverend Stephen Arnold. Its purport, of which +she could not deny her vague appreciation, drew a cloud across a rosy +prospect, and in this light his conduct showed unpardonable; on the +other hand it implied a compliment to the corps, it made the spiritual +position of an officer of the Army, a junior too, a matter of moment +in a wider world than might be suspected; and before this consideration +Mrs. Sand expanded. She reflected liberally that salvation was not +necessarily frustrated by the laying-on of hands; she had serene fancies +of a republic of the redeemed. She was a prey to further hesitations +regarding the expediency of mentioning the interview to Laura, and as +private and confidential it ministered for two days to her satisfactions +of superior officer. In the end, however, she had to sacrifice it to the +girl's imperturbable silence. She chose an intimate and a private hour, +and shut the door carefully upon herself and her captain, but she had +not at all decided, when she sat down on the edge of the bed, what +complexion to give to the matter, nor had she a very definite idea, when +she got up again, of what complexion she had given it. Laura, from the +first word, had upset her by an intense eagerness, a determination not +to lose a syllable. Captain Filbert insisted upon hearing all before +she would acknowledge anything; she hung upon the sentences Mrs. Sand +repeated, and joined them together as if they were parts of a puzzle; +she finally had possession of the conversation much as I have already +written it down. As Mrs. Sand afterward told her husband, Miss Filbert +sat there growing whiter and whiter, more and more worked up, and it was +impossible to take any comfort in talking to her. It seemed as if she, +the Ensign, might save herself the trouble of giving an opinion one way +or the other, and not a thing could she get the girl to say except that +it was true enough that the gentleman wanted to marry her, and she was +ashamed of having let it go so far. But she would never do it--never! +She declared she would write to this Mr. Arnold and thank him, and ask +him to pray for her, “and she as much as ordered me to go and do the +same,” concluded Mrs. Sand, with an inflection which made its own +comment upon such a subversion of discipline. + +Stephen, under uncomfortable compulsion, sent Laura's letter--she did +write--to Lindsay. “I cannot allow you to be in the dark about what I am +doing in the matter,” he explained; “though if I had not this +necessity for writing you might reasonably complain of an intrusive and +impertinent letter. But I must let you know that she has appealed to me, +and that as far as I can I will help her.” + +Duff read both communications--Laura's to the priest was brief and very +technical--between the business quarters of Ralli Brothers and the Delhi +and London Bank, with his feet in the opposite seat of his office-gharry +and his forehead puckered by an immediate calculation forward in rupee +paper. His irritation spoiled his transaction--there was a distinct +edge in the manager's manner when they parted, and it was perhaps a +pardonable weakness that led him to dash in blue pencil across the page +covered with Arnold's minute handwriting, “Then you have done with pasty +compromises--you have gone over to the Jesuits. I congratulate you,” and +readdressed the envelope to College Street. The brown tide of the crowd +brought him an instant messenger, and he stood in the doorway for a +moment afterwards frowning upon the yellow turbans that swung along +in the sunlight against the white wall opposite, across the narrow +commercial road. The flame of his indignation set forth his features +with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether the soft amused +well-being which was nearly always there. His lips set themselves +together, and Mrs. Sand would have been encouraged in any scheme of +practical utility by the lines that came about his mouth. A brother +in finance of some astuteness, who saw him scramble into his gharry, +divined that with regard to a weighty matter in jute mill shares +pending, Lindsay had decided upon a coup, and made his arrangements +accordingly. He also went upon his way with a fresh impression of +Lindsay's undeniable good looks, as sometimes in a coin new from +the mint one is struck with the beauty of a die dulled by use and +familiarity. + +Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed himself to feel distress, +but when he had read it, that emotion was lightened in him by another +sentiment. + +“A community admirable in many ways,” he murmured, refolding the page. +“Does he think he is insulting me?” + +Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, Lindsay was inclined +to concede to Stephen's intermediary, he was compelled to recognise +without delay that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of her profession, +had not neglected to acquire a knowledge of defensive operations. She +retired effectively, the quarters in Crooked Lane became her fortified +retreat, whence she issued only under escort and upon service strictly +obligatory. Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and +Lindsay felt it an anomaly in military tactics that the same agency +should bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with which +he strove to assault her position. Nor could Alicia induce any sortie +to Middleton Street. Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons +were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence and the +palest ink, always with the negative of a formal excuse. They loosed the +burden of her complicity from Miss Livingstone's shoulders, these notes +which bore so much the atmosphere of Crooked Lane, and at the same +time they formed the indictment against her which was, perhaps, best +calculated to weigh upon her conscience. She saw it, holding them at +arm's length, in enormous characters that ever stamped and blotted out +the careful, taught-looking writing, and the invariable “God bless you, +yours truly,” at the end. They were all there, aridly complete, the +limitations of the lady to whom she was helping Lindsay to bind himself +without a gleam of possibility of escape or a rift through which tiniest +hope could creep, to emerge smiling upon the other side. When she saw +him, in fatalistic reverie, going about ten years hence attached to the +body of this petrification, she was almost disposed to abandon the pair, +to let them take their wretched chance. But this was a climax which +did not occur often; she returned, in most of her waking moments, to +devising schemes by which Laura might be delivered into the hands she +was so likely to encumber. The new French poet, the American novelist +of the year, and a work by Mr. John Morley lay upon Alicia's table +many days together for this reason. She sometimes remembered what she +expected of these volumes, what plein air sensations or what profound +plunges, and did not quite like her indifference as to whether her +expectations were fulfilled. She discovered herself intellectually +jaded--there had been tiring excursions--and took to daily rides which +carried her far out among the rice-fields, and gave her sound nights +to sustain the burden of her dreaming days. She had ideas about her +situation; she believed she lived outside of it. At all events she took +a line; the new Arab was typical, and there were other measures which +she arranged deliberately with the idea that she was making a physical +fight. Life might weigh one down with a dragging ball and chain, but one +could always measure the strength of one's pinions against these things. +She made it her sorry and remorseless task to separate from her impulses +those that she found lacking in philosophy, hinting of the foolish +woman, and to turn a cruel heel upon them. She stripped her meditations +of all colour and atmosphere; she would not accept from her grief the +luxury of a rag to wrap herself in. If this gave hers a skeleton to +live with, she had what gratification there was in observing that it was +anatomically as it should be. The result that one saw from the outside +was chiefly a look of delicate hardness, of tissue a little frayed, +but showing a quality in the process. We may hope that some unconfessed +satisfaction was derivable from her continued reception of Duff's +confidences--it has long been evident that he found her persuadable--her +unflinching readiness to consult with him; granting the analytic turn we +may almost suppose it. Starvation is so monotonous a misery that a gift +of personal diagnosis might easily lend attraction to poisoned food as +an alternative, if one may be permitted a melodramatic simile in a case +which Alicia kept conventional enough. She did not even abate the usual +number of Duff's invitations to dinner when there was certainly nothing +to repay her for regarding him across a gulf of flowers and silver, +and a tide of conversation about the season's paper-chasing, except the +impoverished complexion which people acquire who sit much in Bentinck +Street, desirous and unsatisfied. + +It may very well be that she regretted her behaviour in this respect, +for it was eventually after one of these parties that Surgeon-Major +Livingstone, pressing upon his departing guest in the hall the usual +whisky and soda, found it necessary instead to give him another kind of +support, and to put him immediately and authoritatively to bed. Lindsay +was very well content to submit; he confessed to fever off and on for +four or five days past, and while the world went round the pivotal +staircase, as Dr. Livingstone gave him an elbows up, he was indistinctly +convinced that the house of a friend was better than a shelf at the +club. + +The next evening's meeting saw his place empty under the window of the +hall in Crooked Lane, noticeably for the first time in weeks of these +exercises. The world shrank, for Laura, to the compass of the kerosene +lamps; there was no gaze from its wider sphere against which she must +key herself to indifference. When on the second and third evening she +was equally undisturbed, it was borne in upon her that either she or Mr. +Arnold, or both, had prevailed, and she offered up thanks. On the fourth +she reflected recurrently and anxiously that it was not after all a very +glorious victory if the devil had carried off the wounded; if Lindsay, +after all the opportunities that had been his, should slip back without +profit to the level from which she had striven--they had all striven--to +lift him. Mrs. Sand, not satisfied to be buffeted by such speculations, +sent a four-anna bit to the head bearer at the club on her own account +and obtained information. + +Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complication, though the +circumstances taken together did present a vulgar opportunity which Mrs. +Barberry came for hours to take advantage of. There were the usual two +nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry; Alicia could take the Arab farther +afield than ever, and she did. One can imagine her cantering fast and +far with a sense of conscious possession in spite of Mrs. Barberry +and the two nurses. There may be a certain solace in the definite and +continuous knowledge available about a person hovering on the brink of +enteric under your own roof-tree. It was as grave as that; Surgeon-Major +Livingstone could not make up his mind. Alicia knew only of this +uncertainty; other satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and +Mrs. Barberry. She could see that her brother was anxious, he was so +uniformly cheerful, so brisk and fresh and good-tempered coming from +Lindsay's room in the morning, to say at breakfast that the temperature +was the same, hadn't budged a point, must manage to get it down somehow +in the next twenty-four hours, and forthwith to envelop himself in +the newspapers. Those arbitrary and obstinate figures, which stood for +apprehension to the most casual ear, stamped themselves on most things +as the day wore on, and at tea-time Mrs. Barberry gave her other +details, thinking her rather cold in the reception of them. But she +plainly preferred to be out of it, avoiding the nurses on the stairs, +refraining from so much as a glance at the boiled milk preparations of +the butler. “And you know,” said Mrs. Barberry, recountant, “how these +people have to be watched.” To Mrs. Barberry she was really a conundrum, +only to be solved on the theory of a perfectly preposterous delicacy. +There was so little that was preposterous in Miss Livingstone's conduct +as a rule that it is not quite fair to explain her attitude either by +this exaggeration or by an equally hectic scruple about her right to +take care of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously when it has +been given in the highest to somebody else. These pangs and penalties +may have visited her in their proportion, but they did not take the +importance of motives. She rather stood aside with folded hands, and +in an infinite terror of prejudicing fate, devoured her heart by way of +keeping its beating normal. Perhaps, too, she had a vision of a final +alternative to Lindsay's marriage, one can imagine her forcing herself +to look at it. + +Remove herself as she chose, Alicia could not avoid passing Lindsay's +room, for her own lay beyond it. In the seven o'clock half light of a +February evening, in the middle of the week, she went along the matted +upper hall on tiptoe, and stumbled over a veiled form squatted in the +native way, near his door, profoundly asleep. “Ayah!” she exclaimed, but +the face that looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than +common, Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her hand away and made an +imperceptible movement in the direction of her skirts. She stood silent, +stricken in the dusk with astonishment, but the sense that was strongest +in her was plainly that of having made a criminal discovery. Laura +stumbled upon her feet, and the two faced each other for an instant, +words held from them equally by the authority of the sickroom door. +Then Alicia beckoned as imperiously as if the other had in fact been +the servant she took her for, and Laura followed to where, farther on, a +bedroom door stood open, which presently closed upon them both. It was +a spacious room, with pale high-hung draperies, a scent of flowers, such +things as an etching of Greuze, an ivory and ebony crucifix over the +bed. Captain Filbert remembered the crucifix afterward with a feeling +almost intense, also some silver-backed brushes on the toilet-table. +Across the open window a couple of bars of sunset glowed red and gold, +and a tall palm of the garden cut all its fronds sharply against the +light. + +“Well?” said Alicia, when the door was shut. + +Captain Filbert put out a deprecating hand. + +“I intended to ask if you had any objection, miss, but you had gone out. +And the nurse was in the room; I couldn't get to her. There was nobody +but the servants about.” + +“Objection to what?” + +“To my being there. I came to pray for Mr. Lindsay.” + +“Did you make any noise?” + +Miss Filbert looked professionally touched. “It was silent prayer, of +course,” she said. + +Alicia, standing with one hand upon the toilet-table, had an air of +eagerness, of successful capture. The yellow sky in the window behind +her made filmy lights round her hair, and outlined her tall figure, in +the gracefulness of which there was a curious crisped effect, like a +conventional pose taken easily, from habit. Laura Filbert thought she +looked like a princess. + +“I seem to hear of nothing but petitions,” she said. “Isn't somebody +praying for you?” + +The blood of any saint would have risen in false testimony at such a +suggestion. Laura blushed so violently that for an instant the space +between them seemed full of the sound of her protest. + +“I hope so, miss,” she said, and looked as if for calming over Alicia's +shoulder away into the after-sunset bars along the sky. The colour +sank back out of her face, and the light from the window rested on it +ethereally. The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to seek, and their blue +seemed to deepen and dilate, as if the old splendour of the uplifted +golden gates rewarded them. + +“Why do you use that odious word?” Alicia explained. “You are not my +maid! Don't do it again--don't dream of doing it again!” + +“I--I don't know.” The girl was still plainly covered with confusion +at being found in the house uninvited. “I suppose I forgot. Well, +good-evening,” and she turned to the door. + +“Don't go,” Alicia commanded. “Don't. You never come to see me now. Sit +down.” She dragged a chair forward and almost pushed Laura into it. “I +will sit down too--what am I thinking of?” + +Laura reflected for a moment, looking at her folded hands. “I might as +well tell you,” she said, “that I have not been praying that Mr. Lindsay +should get better. Only that he should be given time to find salvation +and die in Jesus.” + +“Don't--don't say those things to me. How light you are--it's wicked!” + Alicia returned with vehemence, and then as Captain Filbert stared, half +comprehending, “Don't you care?” she added curiously. + +It was so casual that it was cruel. The girl's eyes grew wider still +during the instant she fixed them upon Alicia in the effort of complete +understanding. Then her lip trembled. + +“How can I care?” she cried; “how can I?” and burst into weeping. She +drew her sari over her face and rocked to and fro. Her dusty bare foot +protruded from her cotton skirt. She sat huddled together, her head in +its coverings sunk between weak shaking shoulders. Alicia considered her +for an instant as a pitiable and degraded spectacle. Then she went over +and touched her. + +“You are completely worn out,” she said, “and it is almost dinner-time. +The ayah will bring you a hot bath and then you will come down and have +some food quietly with me. My brother is dining out somewhere. I will go +away for a little while and then I know you will feel better. And after +dinner,” she added gently, “you may come up if you like and pray again +for Mr. Lindsay. I am sure he would--” + +The faintest break in her own voice warned her, and she hurried out of +the room. + +It was a foolish thing, and the Livingstones' old Karim Bux much +deplored it, but the miss-sahib had forgotten to give information +that the dinner of eight commanded a fortnight ago would not take +place--hence everything was ready in its sequence for this event, with a +new fashion of stuffing quails and the first strawberries of the season +from Dinapore. The feelings of Karim Bux in presenting these things to +a woman in the dress of a coolie are not important; but Alicia, for some +reason, seemed to find the trivial incident gratifying. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Under the Greek porch of Number Ten, Middleton Street, in the white +sunlight between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant +ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce +squatted beneath the horse's nose, and fed it perfunctorily with hay +from a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns +in pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting +out the garden where heavy scents stood in the sun, and mynas chattered +on the drive. The air was full of ease, warm, fretillante, abandoned to +the lavish energy of growing things; beyond the discoloured wall of the +compound rose the tender cloud of a leafing tamarisk against the blue. +A long time already the driver had slept immovably, and the horse, +uncomplaining but uninterested, had dragged at the wisps of hay. + +Inside there was no longer a hint of Mrs. Barberry, even a dropped +handkerchief agreeably scented. The night nurse had realised herself +equally superfluous and had gone; the other, a person of practical +views, could hardly retain her indignation at being kept from day to day +to see her patient fed, and hand him books and writing materials. She +had not even the duty of debarring visitors, but sat most of the time in +the dressing-room where echoes fell about her of the stories with which +riotous young men, in tea and wheat and jute, hastened Mr. Lindsay's +convalescence. There she tapped her energetic fat foot on the floor in +vain, to express her views upon such waste of scientific training. She +had Surgeon Major Livingstone's orders; and he on this occasion had his +sister's. + +There was an air of relief, of tension relaxed, between the two women in +the drawing-room; it was plain that Alicia had communicated these things +to her visitor, in their main import. Hilda was already half disengaged +from the subject, her eye wandered as if in search for the avenue to +another. By a sudden inclination Alicia began the story of Laura +Filbert on her knees at Lindsay's door. She told it in a quiet, steady, +colourless way, pursuing it to the end--it came with the ease of +frequent private rehearsals--and then with her elbows on her knees and +her chin in her palms she stopped and gazed meditatively in front of +her. There was something in the gaze to which Hilda yielded an attention +unexpectedly serious, something of the absolute in character and life +impervious to her inquiry. Yet to analysis it was only the grey look +of eyes habituated to regard the future with penetration and to find +nothing there. + +“Have you told him?” Hilda asked after an instant's pause, during which +she conceded something, she hardly knew what; she meant to find out +later. + +“I haven't seen him. But I will tell him, I promise you.” + +“I have no doubt you will! But don't promise ME. I won't even witness +the vow!” Hilda cried. + +“What does it matter? I shall certainly tell him.” The words fell +definitely like pebbles. Hilda thoughtfully picked them up. + +“On the whole,” she said, “perhaps it would be as well. Yes, it is +my advice. It is quite likely that he will be revolted. It may be +curative.” + +Alicia turned away her head to hide the faint frown that nevertheless +crept into her voice. “I don't think so,” she said. “How you do juggle +with things! I don't know why I talk to you about this--this matter. I +am sure I ought not.” + +“I was going to say,” pursued Hilda, indifferent to her scruple, “that +I shouldn't be at all surprised if his illness leaves him quite +emotionally sane. The poison has worked itself out of his blood--perhaps +the passion and the poison were the same.” + +“I wonder!” Alicia said. She said it mechanically, as the easiest +comment. + +“When I knew you first your speculation would have been more active, my +dear. You would have looked into the possibility and disputed it. What +has become of your modernity?” + +It was the tenderest malice, but it obtained no concessive sign. Alicia +seemed to weigh it. “I think I like theories better than illustrations,” + she said in defence. + +“One can look at theories as one looks at the sky, but an illustration +wants a careful point of view. For this one perhaps you are a little +near.” + +“Perhaps,” Alicia assented, “I am a little near.” She glanced quickly +down as she spoke, but when she raised her eyes they were dry and clear. + +“I can see it better,” Hilda went on, with immense audacity, “much +better.” + +“Isn't it safer to feel?” + +“Jamais de la vie! The nerves lie always.” + +They were on the edge of the vortex of the old dispute. Alicia leaned +back among the cushions and regarded the other with an undecided eye. + +“You are not sure,” said Hilda, “that you won't ask me, at this point, +to look at the pictures in that old copy of the Persian classic--I +forget its lovely name--or inquire what sort of house we had last night. +Well, don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. Only, you know, between us +as between more doubtful people, the door must be either open or shut. I +fancy you take cold easily; perhaps you had better shut the door.” + +“Not for worlds,” Alicia said, with promptitude. Then she added, rather +cleverly, “That would be spoiling my one view of life.” + +Hilda smiled. “Isn't there any life where you live?” She glanced round +her, at the tapestried elegance of the room, with sudden indifference. +“After all,” she said, “I don't know what I am doing here, in your +affairs. As the world swings no one could be more remote from them or +you. I belong to its winds and its highways--how have you brought me +here, a tramp-actress, to your drawing-room?” + +Alicia laid a detaining hand upon Miss Howe's skirt. “Don't go away,” + she said. Hilda sat at the other end of the sofa; there was hardly a +foot between them. She went on with a curious excitement. + +“My kind of life is so primitive, so simple; it is one pure impulse, you +don't know. One only asks the things that minister--one goes and finds +and takes them; one's feet in the straw, one's head under any roof. What +difference does it make? The only thing that counts, that rules, is the +chance of seeing something else, feeling something more, doing something +better.” + +Alicia only looked at her and tightened the grasp of her fingers on the +actress's skirt. Hilda made the slightest, most involuntary movement. +It comprehended the shaking off of hindrance, the action of flight. Then +she glanced about her again with a kind of appraisement, which ended +with Alicia and embraced her. What she realised seemed to urge her, +I think, in some weak place of her sex, to go on intensely, almost +fiercely. + +“Everything here is aftermath. You are a gleaner, Alicia Livingstone. We +leave it all over the world for people of taste, like you, in the glow +of their illusions. I couldn't make you understand our harvest; it is of +the broad sun and the sincerity of things.” + +“I know I must seem to you dreadfully out of it,” Alicia said, wearing, +as it were, across her heaviness a lighter cloud of trouble. + +But the other would not be stayed; she followed by compulsion her +impulse to the end. “Shall I be quite candid?” she said. “I find the +atmosphere about you, dear, a trifle exhausted.” + +Alicia with a face of astonishment made a half movement towards the +window before she understood. There was some timidity in her glance at +Hilda and in her mechanical smile. “Oh,” she said, “I see what you mean; +and I don't wonder. I am so literal--I have so little imagination.” + +“Don't talk of it as if it were money or fabric--something you could add +up or measure,” Hilda cried remorselessly. “You have none!” + +As if something slipped from her Alicia threw out locked hands. “At +least I had enough to know you when you came!” she cried. “I felt you, +too, and it's not my fault if there isn't enough of me to--to respond +properly. And I can't give you up. You seem to be the one valuable thing +that I can have--the only permanent fact that is left.” + +Hilda had a rebound of immense discomfort. “Who said anything about +giving up?” she interrupted. + +“Why, you did! But I'm quite willing to believe you didn't mean it, if +you say so.” She turned the appeal of her face and saw a sudden pitiful +consideration in Hilda's, and as if it called them forth two tears +sprang to her eyes and fell, as she lowered her delicate head upon her +lap. + +“Dear thing! I didn't indeed. If I meant anything it was that I'm +overstrung. I've been horribly harried lately.” She possessed herself +of one of Alicia's hands and stroked it. Alicia kept her head bent for +a moment and then let it fall, in sudden abandonment, upon the other +woman's shoulder. Her defences crumbled so utterly that Hilda felt +guilty of using absurdly heavy artillery. They sat together for a +moment or two in silence with only that supervening sense of successful +aggression between them, and the humiliation was Hilda's. Presently +it grew heavy, embarrassing. Alicia got up and began a slow, restless +pacing up and down before the alcove they sat in. Hilda watched her--it +was a rhythmic progress--and when she came near with a sound of brushing +silk and a faint fragrance which seemed a personal emanation, drew a +long breath as if she were an essence to be inhaled, and so, in a manner +obtained, assimilated. + +“Oh yes,” Miss Livingstone said, rehabilitating herself with a smile, +“I must keep you. I'll do anything you like to make myself more--worth +while. I'll read for the pure idea. I think I'll take up modelling. +There's rather a good man here just now.” + +“Yes,” Hilda assented. “Read for the pure idea--take up modelling. It +is most expedient, especially if you marry. Women who like those things +sometimes have geniuses for sons. But for me, so far as I count--oh, +my dear, do nothing more. You are already an achieved effect--a +consummation of the exquisite in every way. Generations have been chosen +among for you; your person holds the inheritance of all that is gracious +and tender and discriminating in a hundred years. You are as rare as I +am, and if there is anything you would take from me, I would make more +than one exchange for the mere niceness of your fibre--the feeling you +have for fine shades of morality and taste--all that makes you a lady, +my dear.” + +“Such niminy piminy things,” said Alicia, contradicting the light +of satisfaction in her eyes. The sound of a step came from the room +overhead, and the light died out. “And what good do they do me?” she +cried in soft misery. “What good do they do me!” + +“Considerably less than they ought. Why aren't you up there now? What +simple, honester opportunity do you want than a sick-room in your own +house?” + +Alicia, with a frightened glance at the ceiling, flew to her side. “Oh, +hush!” she cried. “Go on!” + +“It ought to be there beside him, the charm of you. The room should be +full of cool refreshing hints of what you are. Your profile should come +between him and the twilight with a scent of violets.” + +“It sounds like a plot,” Alicia murmured. + +“It IS a plot. Why quibble about it? If you smile at him it's a plot. +If you put a rose in your hair it's a deep-laid scheme, deeper than you +perceive--the scheme the universe is built on. We wouldn't have lent +ourselves to the arrangement, we women, if we had been consulted; we're +naturally too scrupulous, but nobody asked us. 'Without our aid He did +us make,' you know.” + +“But--deliberately--to go so far! I couldn't, I couldn't, even if I +could.” + +Hilda leaned back in her corner with her arms extended along the back +and the end of the sofa. Her hands drooped in their vigour, her knees +were crossed, and her skirts draped them in long simple lines. In her +symmetry and strength and the warm cloud of her hair and the soul that +sat behind the shadows of her eyes Vedder might have drawn her as a +tragic symbol for the poet who sang what he sometimes thought of wine +and death and roses. + +“I would go farther,” she said, and looked as if some other thing +charged with sweetness had come before her. + +“And even if one gained, one would never trust one's success,” Alicia +faltered. + +“Ah, if one gained one would hold,” Hilda said; and while she smiled on +her pupil in the arts of life, the tenderness grew in her eyes and came +upon her lips. Her thought turned inward absently; it embraced with +sweet irony, a picture of poverty, chastity, obedience. As if she knew +her betrayal already complete, “I wish I had such a chance,” she said. + +“You wish you had such a chance!” + +“I didn't mean to tell you--you have enough to do to work out your own +problem; but--” + +She seemed to find a joy in hesitating, to keep back the words as a +miser might keep back gold. She let her secret escape through her eyes +instead. She was deliberately radiant and silent. Alicia looked at +her as they might have looked, across the desert, at a mirage of the +Promised Land. + +“Then after all he has prevailed,” she said. + +“Who?” + +“Hamilton Bradley.” + +Hilda laughed--the laugh was full and light and spontaneous, as if all +the training of the notes of her throat came unconsciously to make it +beautiful. + +“How you will hold me to my metier,” she said. “Hamilton Bradley has +given up trying.” + +“Then--” + +“Then think! Be clever. Be very clever.” + +Alicia dropped her head in the joined length of her hands. A turquoise +on one of them made them whiter, more transparent than usual. Presently +she drew her face up from her clinging fingers and searched the other +woman with eyes that nevertheless refused confirmation for their +astonishment. + +“Well?” said Hilda. + +“I can think of no one--there IS no one--except--oh, it's too absurd! +Not Stephen--poor dear Stephen!” + +The faintest shadow drifted across Hilda's face, as if for an instant +she contemplated a thing inscrutable. Then the light came back, dashed +with a gravity, a gentleness. + +“I admit the absurdity. Stephen--poor dear Stephen. How odd it seems,” + she went on, while Alicia gazed, “the announcement of it--like a thing +born. But it is that--a thing born.” + +“I don't understand--in the least,” Alicia exclaimed. + +“Neither do I. I don't indeed. Sometimes I feel like a creature with +its feet in a trap. The insane, insane improbability of it!” She laughed +again. It was delicious to hear her. + +“But--he is a priest!” + +“Much more difficult. He is a saint.” + +Alicia glanced at the floor. The record of another lighter moment +twitched itself out of a day that was forgotten. + +“Are you quite certain?” she said. “You told me once that--that there +had been other times.” + +“They are useful, those foolish episodes. They explain to one the +difference.” The tone of this was very even, very usual, but Alicia was +aware of a suggestion in it that accused her of aggression, that almost +ranged her hostile. She hurried out of that position. + +“If it were possible,” she said, frowning at her embarrassment. “I see +nothing--nothing REALLY against it.” + +“I should think not! Can't you conceive what I could do for him?” + +“And what could he do for you?” Alicia asked, with a flash of curiosity. + +“I don't think I can let you ask me that.” + +“There are such strange things to consider! Would he withdraw from the +Church? Would you retire from the stage? I don't know which seems the +more impossible!” + +Hilda got up. + +“It would be a criminal choice, wouldn't it?” she said. “I haven't +made it out. And he, you know, still dreams only of Bengali souls for +redemption, never of me at all.” + +A servant of the house with the air of a messenger brought Alicia a +scrap of paper. She glanced at it, and then, with hands that trembled, +began folding it together. + +“He has been allowed to get up and sit in a chair,” she murmured, “and +he wants me to come and talk to him.” + +“Well,” said Hilda. “Come.” + +She put her arm about Alicia, and drew her out of the room to the foot +of the stairs. They went in silence, saying nothing even when they +parted, and Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. Halfway up she +paused and looked down. Hilda turned to meet her glance, and something +of primitive puissance passed, conscious, comprehended, between the eyes +of the two women. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +For three days there had certainly been, with the invalid, no sign of +anything but convalescence. An appetite to cry out upon, a chartered +tendency to take small liberties, to make small demands; such +indications offered themselves to the eye that looked for other +betrayals. There had been opportunities--even the day nurse had gone, +and Lindsay came to tea in the drawing-room--but he seemed to prefer +to talk about the pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence of the +khansamah, or things in the newspapers. Alicia, once, at a suggestive +point, put almost a visible question into a silent glance, and Lindsay +asked her for some more sugar. Surgeon-Major Livingstone, coming into +his office, unexpectedly one morning, found his sister in the act of +replacing a volume upon its professional shelf. It was somebody on the +pathology of Indian fevers. Hilda's theory lacked so little to approve +it--only technical corroboration. It might also be considered that, +although Laura had expressly received the freedom of the city for +intercessional or any other purpose, she did not come again. They may +have heard in Crooked Lane that Duff was better. We may freely +imagine that Mrs. Sand was informed; it looked as if the respite to +disinterested anxiety afforded by his recovery had been taken advantage +of. Lindsay was to be given time for more dignified repentance; they +might now very well hand him over, Alicia thought, smiling, to the +Archdeacon. + +As a test, as something to reckon by, the revelation to Lindsay still +in prospect, of the single visit Captain Filbert did make, was perhaps +lacking in essentials. It would be an experiment of some intricacy, it +might very probably work out in shades. So much would infallibly have to +be put down for surprise and so much reasonably for displeasure, without +any prejudice to the green hope budding underneath; the key to Hilda's +theory might very well be lost in contingencies. Nevertheless, Alicia +postponed her story, from day to day and from hour to hour. If her +ideas about it--she kept them carefully in solution--could have been +precipitated, they might have appeared in a formula favourite with her +brother the Surgeon-Major, who often talked of giving nature a chance. + +She told him finally on the morning of his first drive. They went +together and alone, Alicia taking her brother's place in the carriage +at a demand for him from the hospital. It was seven o'clock, and the +morning wind swept soft and warm from over the river. There was a white +light on all the stucco parapets, and their shadows slanted clear and +delicately purple to the west. The dust slept on the broad roads of the +Maidan, only a curling trace lifted itself here and there at the heel +of a cart-bullock, and nothing had risen yet of the lazy tumult of the +streets that knotted themselves in the city. From the river, curving +past the statue of an Indian administrator, came a string of country +people with baskets on their heads. The sun struck a vivid note with the +red and the saffron they wore, turned them into an ornamentation, in the +profuse Oriental taste, of the empty expanse. There was the completest +freedom in the wide tree-dotted spaces round which the city gathered her +shops and her palaces, the fullest invitation to disburden any heaviness +that might oppress, to give the wings of words to any joy that might +rebel in prison. The advantage of the intimacy of the landau for +purposes of observation was so obvious that one imagines Alicia must +have been aware of it, though as a matter of fact when she finally told +Lindsay she did not look at him at all, but beyond the trees of the Eden +Gardens, where the yellow dome of the post-office swelled against the +morning sky; and so lost it. + +He heard without exclamation, but stopped her now and then with a +question. On what day precisely? And how long? And afterwards? The +yellow dome was her anchor; she turned her head a little, as the road +trended the other way, to keep her eyes upon it. There was an endless +going round of wheels, and trees passed them in mechanical succession; a +tree, and another tree; some of them had flowers on them. When he broke +the silence afterwards she started as if in apprehension, but it +was only to say something that anybody might have said, about the +self-sacrificing energy of the organisation to which Miss Filbert +belonged. Her assent was little and meagre; nothing would help her to +expand it. The Salvation Army rose before her as a mammoth skeleton, +without a suggestive bone. + +Presently he said in a different way, as if he uttered an unguarded +thought, “I had so little to make me think she cared.” There was in it +that phantom of speculation and concern which a sick man finds under +pressure, and it penetrated Alicia that he abandoned himself to his +invalid's privileges as if he valued them. He lay extended beside her +among his cushions and wraps; she tried to look at him, and got as far +as the hand nearest her, ungloved and sinewy, on the plaid of the rug. + +“She told me it was not for your life she had been praying--only that if +you died you might be saved first.” Her eyes were still on his hand, and +she saw the fingers close into the palm as if by an impulse. Then they +relaxed again, and he said, “Oh, well,” and smiled at the balancings of +a crow drinking at a city conduit. + +That was all. Alicia made an effort, odd and impossible enough, to +postpone her impressions, even her emotions. In the meantime it was +something to have got it over, and she was able at a bound to talk about +the commonplaces of the roadside. In her escape from this oppression, +she too gathered a freshness, a convalescent pleasure in what they +saw; everything had in some way the likeness of the leafing teak-trees, +tender and curative. In the broad early light that lay over the tanks +there was a vague allurement, almost a presage, and the wide spaces of +the Maidan made room for hope. She asked Lindsay presently if he would +mind driving to the market; she wanted some flowers for that night. I +think she wanted some flowers for that hour. Her thought broke so easily +into the symbol of a rose. + +They turned into Chowringhee, where the hibiscus bushes showed pink and +crimson over the stucco walls, and at the gates of the pillared houses +servants with brown and shining backs sat on their haunches in the +sun and were shaved. Where the street ran into shops there was still +a shuttered blankness, but here and there a doorkeeper yawned and +stretched himself before an open door, and a sweeper made a cloud of +dust beneath a commercial verandah. The first hoarding in a side street +announced the appearance of Miss Hilda Howe for one night only as Lady +Macbeth, under the kind patronage of His Excellency the Viceroy; +with Jimmy Finnigan in the close proximity of professional jealousy, +advertising five complete novelties for the same evening. It made +a cheerful note which appealed to them both; it was a pictorial +combination, Hilda and Jimmy Finnigan and the Viceroy, there was +something of gay burlesque in the metropolitan posters against the +crumbling plaster of the outer mosque wall where Mussulmans left their +shoes. Talking of Hilda they smiled; it was a way her friends had, +a testimony to the difference of her. In Alicia's smile there was a +satisfaction rather subtle and in a manner superior; she knew of things. + +The life of the market, the bazar, was all awake and moving. They +rolled up through a crowd of inferior vehicles, empty for the moment and +abandoned, where the leisurely crowd with calculation under its turbans, +swayed about the market-house, and the pots of a palm-dealer ran out of +bounds and made a little grove before the stall of the man who sold pith +helmets. The warm air held the smell of all sorts of commodities; there +was a great hum of small transactions, clink of small profits. “It makes +one feel immensely practical and acquisitive,” Duff said, looking at the +loaded baskets on the coolies' heads; and he insisted on getting out. “I +am dying to buy an enormous number of desirable things very cheap. But +not combs or shirt-buttons, thank you, nor any ribbons or lace--is +that good lace, Miss Livingstone? Nor even a live duck--really I am +difficult. We might inquire the price of the duck though.” + +The sense of being contributive to his holiday satisfaction reigned +in her. She abandoned herself to it with a little smile that played +steadily about her lips, as if it would tell him without her sanction, +how continually she rejoiced in his regained well-being. They made their +way slowly toward the flower-corner; there were so many things he wanted +to stop before as they went, leaning on his stick to examine them and +delighting in opportunities for making himself quite ridiculous. The +country tobacco-dealer laughed too, squatting behind his basket--it +was a mad sahib, but not madder than the rest; and there was no hurry. +Alicia saw the pink glow of the roses beyond, where the sun struck +across them over the shoulders of the crowd, and was content to reach +them by degrees. They would be in their achieved sweetness a kind of +climax to the hour's experience, and after that she was not entirely +sure that the day would be as grey as other days. + +This was the flood-time of roses, and it was exquisite in the +flower-corner with the soft wind picking up their fragrance and +squares of limpid sunlight standing on the wet flagstones. Some of the +stall-keepers had little glass cases, and in these there was room only +for the Gloire de Dijons and the La Frances and the velvety Jacks, the +rest over-ran the tables and the floor in anything that would hold them. +The place rioted with the joy and the passion of roses, for buying and +selling. There were other flowers, nasturtiums, cornbottles, mignonette, +but they had a diminished insignificant look in their tied-up bunches +beside the triumph of the roses. Farther on, beyond the cage of +the money-changer, the country people were hoarse with crying their +vegetables, in two green rows, and beyond that where the jostling crowd +divided, shone a glimpse of oranges and pomegranates. In this part +there were many comers and goers, lean Mussulman table-servants, and +fat Eurasian ladies who kept boarding-houses, Armenian women with +embroidered shawls drawn over their heads, sailors of the port. They +came to pass that way, through the sweetness of it, and this made a +coign of vantage for the men with trays who were very persecuting there. +Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside the roses, her hands were deep +in them, he perceived with pleasure that their glow was reflected in +her face. “No,” she exclaimed with dainty aplomb to the man who sat +cross-legged in muslin draperies on the table. “These are certainly of +yesterday. There is no scent left in them--and look!” she held up the +bunch and shook it, a shower of pink petals and drops of water fell +upon the round of her arm above the wrist where the laces of her sleeve +slipped back. Lindsay had something like a poetic appreciation of her, +observing her put the bunch down tenderly as if she would not, if she +could help it, find fault with any rose. The dealer drew out another, +and handed it to her; a long-stemmed, wide-open, perfect thing, and it +was then that her glance of delight, wandering, fell upon Laura Filbert. +Lindsay looked instantly, curiously in the same direction, and Alicia +was aware that he also saw. There ensued a terse moment with a burden of +silence and the strangest misgivings, in which he may have imagined that +he had his part alone but which was the heavier for her because of +him. These two had seen the girl before only under circumstances that +suggested protection, that made excuse, on a platform receiving +the respect of attention, marching with her fellows under common +conventions, common orders. Here, alone, slipping in and out among the +crowd, she looked abandoned, the sight of her in her bare white feet +and the travesty of her dress was a wound. Her humility screamed its +violation, its debasement of her race; she woke the impulse to screen +her and hurry her away as if she were a woman walking in her sleep. She +had on her arm a sheaf of the War Cry. This was another indignity; she +offered them right and left, no one had a pice for her except one man, a +sailor, who refused the paper. When he rejoined his companions there was +a hoarse laugh, and the others turned their heads to look after her. + +The flower-dealer eyed his customers with contemptuous speculation, +seeing what had claimed their eyes. There was nothing new, the “mem” + passed every day at this hour. She did no harm and no good. He, too, +looked at her as she came closer, offering her paper to Alladiah Khan, +a man impatient in his religion, who refused it, mumbling in his beard. +With a gesture of appeal she pressed it on him, saying something. Then +Alladiah's green turban shook, his beard, dyed red in Mecca, waggled; +he raised his arm, and Laura in white astonishment darted from under it. +They seldom did that. + +Alicia caught at the stall table and clung to it, as Lindsay made his +stride forward. She saw him twist his hand in the beard of Mecca and +fling the man into the road; she was aware of a vague thankfulness that +it ended there, as if she expected bloodshed. More plainly she saw the +manner of Duff's coming back to the girl and the way in which, with a +look of half-frightened satisfaction, Laura gave herself up to him. He +was hurrying her away without a word. Her surrender was as absolute and +final as if she had been one of those desirable things he said he +wanted to buy. Alicia intercepted, as it were, the indignity of being +forgotten, stepping up to them. “Take her home in the carriage,” she +said to Duff, “and send it back for me. I shall be here a long time +still--quite a long time.” She stared at Captain Filbert as she spoke, +but made no answer to the “Good-morning! God bless you!” with which the +girl perfunctorily addressed her. When they left her she looked down +at the long-stemmed rose, the perfect one, and drove a thorn of it deep +into her palm, as other creatures will sometimes hurt themselves more to +suffer less. It was not in the least fantastic of her, for she was not +aware that she still held it, but that was the only rose she brought +away. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Hilda left the road, with a trace of its red dust on the hem of her +skirt, and struck out into the Maidan. It spread before her, green where +the slanting sun searched through the short blades, brown and yellow in +the distance, where the light lay on the top of the withered grass. It +was like a great English park, with something of the village common, +only the trees, for the most part, made avenues over it, running an +arbitrary half-mile this way or that, with here and there a group dotted +about in the open; and the brimming tank-pots were of India, and of +nowhere else in the world. The sun was dipping behind the masts that +showed where the straight border of the river ran, and the shadows of +the pipals and the banyans were richly purple over the roads. The light +struck on the stuccoed upper verandahs of the houses in Chowringhee +which made behind their gardens the other border, and seemed to push +them back, to underline their scattered insignificance, hinting that the +Maidan at its pleasure might surge over them altogether. Calcutta, the +teeming capital, lived in the streets and gullies behind that chaste +frontage, and quarrelled over drainage schemes; but out here cattle +grazed in quiet companies, and squirrels played on the boles of the +trees. Calcutta the capital indeed was superimposed; one felt that +always at this time, when the glow came and stood in the air among +the tamarinds, and there was nothing anywhere but luminous space +and indolent stillness, and the wrangling and winging of crows. What +persisted then under the span of the sky, was the old India of rich +tradition, and a bullock beneath the yoke, jogging through the evening +to his own place where the blue haze hid the little huts on the rim of +the city, the real India, and the rest was fiction and fabrication. + +The grass was crisp and pleasant. Hilda deliberately sought its solace +for her feet, letting their pressure linger. All day long the sun had +been drawing the fragrance and the life out of it, and now the air had a +sweet, warm, and grateful scent, like that of harvests. The crickets had +been at it since five o'clock, and though the city rose not half a mile +across the grass, it was the crickets she heard and listened to. In +making private statements of things, the crickets offered a chorus +of agreement, and they never interrupted. Not that she had much to +consider, poor girl, which lent itself to a difference of opinion. One +might have thought her, to meet a situation at any point like her own, +not badly equipped. She had all the argument--which is like saying all +the arms--and the most accurate understanding; but the only practical +outcome of these things had been an intimate lesson in the small value +of the intelligence, that flavoured her state with cynicism and made it +more piquant. She did not altogether scorn her own intelligence as the +result, because it had always admitted the existence of dominating +facts that belonged to life and not to reason; it was only the absurd +unexpectedness of coming across one herself. One might think round such +a fact and talk round it--there were less exquisite satisfactions--but +it was not to be cowed or abated, and in the end the things one said +were only words. + +Out there in the grassy spaces she let her thoughts flow through her +veins with her blood, warm and free. The primitive things she saw helped +her to a fulness of life; the south wind brought her profound sweet +presciences. A coolie-woman, carrying a basket on her head, stopped and +looked at her with full glistening eyes; they smiled at each other, and +passed on. She found herself upon a narrow path, worn smooth by other +barefooted coolie-folk; it made in its devious way toward the rich mists +where the sun had gone down; and Hilda followed, breasting the glow and +the colour and the wide, flat expanse, as if in the India of it there +breathed something exquisitely sensuous and satisfying. It struck +sharp on her senses; she almost consciously thanked Heaven for such +a responsive set of nerves. Always and everywhere she was intensely +conscious of what she saw and of how she saw it; and it was +characteristic of her that she found in that saffron February evening, +spreading to a purple rim, with wandering points of colour in a +soldier's coat or a coachman's turban, an atmosphere and a mise en scene +for her own complication. She could take a tenderly artistic view of +that, more soothing a good deal than any result that came of examining +it in other lights. And she did, aware, with smiling eyes, of how full +of colour, how dramatic it was. + +Nevertheless, she had hardly closed with it; any material outcome seemed +a great way off, pursuable by conjecture when there was time for that. +For the present, there on the Maidan with the south wind, she took it +with her head thrown up, in her glad, free fashion, as something that +came in the way of life--the delightful way of life--with which it was +absurd to quarrel because of a slight inconvenience or incongruity, +things which helped, after all, to make existence fascinating. + +A marigold lay in the path, an orange-coloured scrap with a broken stem, +dropped from some coolie's necklace. Hilda picked it up, and drew in the +crude, warm pungency of its smell. She closed her eyes and drifted on +the odour, forgetting her speculations, losing her feet. All India and +all her passion was in that violent, penetrating fragrance; it brought +her, as she gave her senses up to it, a kind of dual perception of being +near the core, the throbbing centre of the world's meaning. + +Her awakened glance fell upon Duff Lindsay. He hastened to meet her, +in his friendly way; and she was glad of the few yards that lay +between them and gave transit to her senses from that other plane. +They encountered each other in full recognition of the happiness of the +accident, and he turned back with her as a matter of course. It was a +kind of fruition of all that light and colour and passive delight that +they should meet and take a path together; she at least was aware. Hilda +asked him if he was quite all right now, and he said “Absolutely” with +a shade of emphasis. She charged him with having been a remarkable +case, and he piled up illustrations of what he felt able to do in his +convalescence. There was something in the way he insisted upon his +restoration which made her hasten to take her privilege of intimacy. + +“And I hear I may congratulate you,” she said. “You have got what you +wanted.” + +“Someone has told you,” he retorted, “who is not friendly to it.” + +“On the contrary, someone who has given it the most cordial +support--Alicia Livingstone.” + +He mused upon this for an instant, as if it presented Alicia for the +first time under such an aspect. + +“She has been immensely kind,” he asserted. “But she wasn't at first. At +first, she was hostile, like you, only that her hostility was different, +just as she is different. She had to be converted,” he went on +hopefully, “but it was less difficult than I imagined. I think she takes +a kind of pride in conquering her prejudices, and being true to the real +breadth of her nature.” + +“I am sure she would like her nature to be broad. She might very well +be content that it is charming. And what is the difference between her +hostility and mine?” + +“The main difference,” Lindsay said, with a gay half round upon her, +“is that hers has sweetly vanished, while yours”--he made a dramatic +gesture--“walks between us.” + +“I know. I tried to stiffen her. I appealed to the worst in her on your +behalf. But it wasn't any use. She succumbed, as you say, to her nobler +instincts.” + +Hilda stabbed a great crisp fallen teak leaf with her parasol, and spent +her paradox in twirling it. + +“One can so easily get an affair of one's own out of all proportion,” + Duff said. “And I should be sorry--do you really want me to talk about +this?” + +“Don't be stupid. Of course.” + +He took her permission with plain avidity. + +“Well, it grew plain to Miss Livingstone, as it will to everybody +else who knows or cares,” he said; “I mean chiefly Laura's tremendous +desirability. Her beauty would go for something anywhere, but I don't +want to insist on that. What marks her even more is the wonderful purity +and transparency of her mind; one doesn't find it often now, women's +souls are so clouded with knowledge. I think that sort of thing appeals +especially to me because my own design isn't in the least esoteric. I'm +only a man. Then she was so ludicrously out of her element. A creature +like that should be surrounded by the softest refinement in her daily +life. That was my chance. I could offer her her place. It's not much to +counterbalance what she is, but it helps, roughly speaking, to equalise +matters.” + +Hilda looked at him with sudden critical interest, missing an emanation +from him. It was his enthusiasm. A cheerfulness had come upon him +instead. Also what he said had something categorical in it, something +crisp and arranged. He himself received benefit from the consideration +of it, and she was aware that if this result followed, her own +“conversion” was of very secondary importance. + +“So!” she said meditatively, as they walked. + +“After it happens, when it is an accomplished fact, it will be so +plainly right that nobody will think twice about it,” Duff went on in +an encouraged voice. “It's odd how one's ideas materialise. I want her +drawing-room to be white and gold, with big yellow silk cushions.” + +“When is it to happen?” + +“Beginning of next cold weather--in not quite a year.” + +“Ah! then there will be time. Time to get the white and gold furniture. +It wouldn't be my taste quite. Is it Alicia's?” + +“It's our own at present, Laura's and mine. We have talked it over +together. And I don't think she would ask Miss Livingstone. In matters +of taste women are rather rivals, aren't they?” + +“Oh Lord!” Hilda exclaimed, and bit her lip. “Where is Miss Filbert +now?” + +“At Number Ten, Middleton Street.” + +“With the Livingstones?” + +“Is it so astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been most practical in her +kindness. I have gone back, of course, to my perch at the club, and +Laura is to stay with them until she sails.” + +“She sails?” + +“In the Sutlej, next Wednesday. She's got three months' leave. She +really hasn't been well, and her superior officer is an accommodating +old sort. She resigns at home, and I'm sending her to some dear old +friends of mine. She hasn't any particular people of her own. She's got +a notion of taking lessons of some kind--perfectly unnecessary, but if +it amuses her--during the summer. And of course she will have to get her +outfit together.” + +“And in December,” said Hilda, “she comes out and marries you?” + +“Not a Calcutta wedding. I meet her in Madras and we come up together.” + +“Ideal,” said Hilda; “and is Calcutta much scandalised?” + +“Calcutta doesn't know. If I had had my way in the beginning I fancy I +would have trumpeted it. But now I suppose it's wiser--why should one +offer her up at their dinner-tables?” + +“Especially when they would make so little of her,” said Hilda absently. + +The coolie track had led them into the widest part of the Maidan, where +it slopes to the south, and the huts of Bowanipore. There was nothing +about them but a spreading mellowness and the baked turf underfoot. The +cloudy yellow twilight disclosed that a man a little way off was a man, +and not a horse, but did hardly more. “I'm tired,” Hilda said suddenly, +“let us sit down,” and sank comfortably on the fragrant grass. Lindsay +dropped beside her and they sat for a moment in silence. A cricket +chirped noisily a few inches from them. Hilda put out her hand in that +direction and it ceased. Sounds wandered across from the encircling +city, evening sounds, softened in their vagrancy, and lights came out, +topaz points in the level glow. + +“She is making a tremendous sacrifice,” Lindsay went on; “I seem to see +its proportions more clearly now.” + +Hilda glanced at him with infinite kindness. “You are an awfully good +sort, Duff,” she said; “I wish you were out of Asia.” + +“Oh, a magnificent sort.” The irony was contemplative, as if he examined +himself to see. + +“You can make her life delightful to her. The sacrifice will not endure, +you know.” + +“One can try. It will be worth doing.” He said it as if it were a maxim, +and Hilda, perceiving this, had no answer ready. As they sat without +speaking, the heart of the after-glow drew away across the river, and +left something chill and empty in the spaces about them. Things grew +hard of outline, the Maidan became an unlimited expanse of commonplace, +grey and unyielding; the lines of gas-lamps on the roads came very +near. “What a difference it makes!” Lindsay exclaimed, looking after the +vanished light, “and how suddenly it goes!” + +Hilda turned concerned eyes upon him, and then looked with keen sadness +far into the changed landscape. “Ah, well, my dear,” she said, with +apparent irrelevance, “we must take hold of life with both hands.” She +made a movement to rise, and he, jumping to his feet, helped her. As if +the moment had some special significance, something to be underlined, +he kept her hand while he said, “you will always represent something in +mine. I can depend upon you--I shall know that you are there.” + +“Yes,” she said sincerely. “Yes indeed,” and it seemed to her that +he looked thin and intense as he stood beside her--unless it was only +another effect of atmosphere. “After all,” she said, as they turned to +walk back again across the withered grass, “your fever has taken a good +deal out of you.” + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Finally the days of Laura Filbert's sojourn under the Livingstones' roof +followed each other into the past that is not much pondered. Alicia +at one time valued the impression that life in Calcutta disappeared +entirely into this kind of history, that one's memory there was a +rubbish heap of which one naturally did not trouble to stir up the dust. +It gave a soothing wistfulness to discontent to think this, which a +discerning glance might often have seen about her lips and eyebrows as +she lay back among her carriage cushions under the flattery of the +south wind in the course of her evening drive. She had ceased latterly, +however, to note particularly that or any impression. Such things +require range and atmosphere, and she seemed to have no more command +over these; her outlook was blocked by crowding, narrowing facts. There +was certainly no room for perceptions creditable to one's intellect or +one's taste. Also it may be doubted whether Alicia would have tried the +days of her hospitality to Captain Filbert by her general standard of +worthlessness. She turned away from them more actively than from the +rest, but it was because they bristled, naturally enough, with dilemmas +and distresses which she made a literal effort to forget. As a matter +of fact there were not very many days, and they were largely filled +with millinery. Even the dilemmas and distresses, when they asserted +themselves, were more or less overswept, as if for the sake of decency, +by billows of spotted muslin, with which Celine, who felt the romance +of the situation, made herself marvellously clever. Celine, indeed, was +worth in this exigency many times her wages. Alicia hastened to “lend” + her to the fullest extent, and she spent hours with Miss Filbert +contriving and arranging, a kind of conductor of her mistress's +beneficence. It became plain that Laura preferred the conductor to the +source, and they stitched together while she, with careful reserves, +watched for the casual sidelights upon modes and manners that came +from the lips of the maid. At other times she occupied herself with her +Bible--she had adopted, as will be guessed, the grateful theory of Mrs. +Sand, that she had only changed the sphere of her ministrations. She had +several times felt, seated beside Celine, how grateful she ought to +be that her spiritual paths for the future would be paths of such +pleasantness, though Celine herself seemed to stand rather far from +their border, probably because she was a Catholic. Mrs. Sand came +occasionally to upbuild her, and after that Laura had always a fresh +remembrance of how much she had done in giving so generous a friend +as Duff Lindsay to the Army in Calcutta. It was reasonable enough that +there should be a falling off in Mr. Lindsay's attendance just now in +Laura's absence, but when they were united, Mrs. Sand hoped there would +be very few evening services when she, the Ensign, would miss their +bright faces. + +Lindsay himself came every afternoon, and Laura made tea, and pressed +upon him, solicitously, everything there was to eat. He found her +submissive and wishful to be pleasant. She sat up straight, and said +it was much hotter than they had it this time of year up-country, +but nothing at all to complain of yet. He also discovered her to be +practical; she showed him the bills for the muslins, and explained one +or two bargains. She seemed to wish to make it clear to him that it need +not be, after all, so very expensive to take a wife. In the course of a +few days one of the costumes was completed, and when he came she had it +on, appearing before him for the first time in secular dress. The stays +insisted a little cruelly on the lines of her figure, and the tight +bodice betrayed her narrow-chested. Above its frills her throat +protruded unusually, with a curve outward like that of some wading +bird's, and her arms, in their unaccustomed sleeves, hung straight +at her sides. She had put on the hat that matched; it was the kind of +pretty disorderly hat with waving flowers that demands the shadow of +short hair along the forehead, and she had not thought of that way of +making it becoming. Among these accessories the significance of her +face retreated to a point vague and distant, its lightly-pencilled lines +seemed half erased. + +She made no demand for admiration on this occasion, she seemed +sufficiently satisfied with herself; but after a time when they were +sitting together on the sofa, and he still pursued the lines of her +garment with questioning eyes, she recalled him to the conventionalities +of the situation. + +“You needn't be afraid of mussing it,” she said. + +The ship she took her departure in sailed from its jetty in the river +at six o'clock in the morning. Preparations for her comfort had been +completed over night; indeed she slept on board, and Duff had only the +duty and the sentiment of actual parting in the morning. He found her +in a sequestered corner of the fresh swabbed quarter-deck. She wore her +Army clothes--she had come on board in one of the muslins--and she was +softly crying. From the jetty on the other side of the ship arose, amid +tramping feet and shouted orders and the creaking of the luggage-crane, +the over-ruling sound of a hymn. Ensign Sand and a company had come +apparently to pay the last rites to a fellow-officer whom they should no +more meet on earth, bearing her heavenly commission. + + + “Farewell, faithful friend, we must now bid adieu + To those joys and pleasures we've tasted with you, + We've laboured together, united in heart, + But now we must close and soon we must part.” + + +They had said good-bye to her and God bless you, all of them, but they +evidently meant to sing the ship out of port. Lindsay sat down beside +the victim of the demonstration and quietly took her hand. There was a +consciousness newly guilty in his discomfort, which he owed perhaps to +a ghost of futility that seemed to pace up and down before him, between +the ranks of the steamer-chairs. Nevertheless as she presently turned +a calmed face to him with her pale apology he had the sensation of +a rebound toward the ideal that had finally perished in the spotted +muslin, and when a little later he watched the long backward trail of +smoke as the steamer moved down the clear morning river, he reflected +that it was a satisfaction to have prevailed. + +The Sutlej had gone far on her tranquil course by the evening of a +dinner in Middleton Street, at which the guests, it was understood, were +to proceed later to a party given at Government House by his Excellency +the Viceroy. Alicia, when she included Duff in her invitations, felt an +assurance that the steamer must by that time have reached Aden, and rose +almost with buoyancy to the illusion you can make if you like, with the +geographical mile. She could hardly have left him out in any case--he +could almost have demanded an explanation--since it was one of those +parties which she gave every now and then, undiscouraged, with the focus +of Hilda Howe. It had to be every now and then, because Calcutta society +was so little adapted to appreciate meeting talented actresses--there +were so many people whom Alicia had to consider as to whether they +would “mind.” Hilda marvelled at the sanguine persistence of +Miss Livingstone's efforts in this direction, the results were so +fragmentary, so dislocated and indecisive, but she also rejoiced. She +took life, as may have appeared, at a broad and generous level, it quite +comprehended the salient points of a Calcutta dinner-party; and it was +seldom that she failed, metaphorically speaking, to carry away a bone +from the feast. If you found this reprehensible she would have told you +she had observed they do it in Japan, where manners are the best in the +world. + +Doubtless Hilda would have dwelt longer upon such a dinner-party than I, +with no consolatory bone to gnaw in private, find myself inclined to do. +To me it is depressing and a little cruel to be compelled to betray the +inadequacy of the personal element at Alicia's banquets, especially in +connection with the conspicuous excellence of the cooking. A poverty of +cuisine would have provoked no contrast, and one irony the less would +have been offered up to the gods that season. The limitations of her +resources were, of course, arbitrary, that is plain in the fact that she +asked such a person as the Head of the Department of Education, with no +better reason than that he had laid almost the whole of Shelley under +critical notes for the benefit of Calcutta University. There was also a +civilian who had written a few years before an article in the Nineteenth +Century about the aboriginal tribes of the Central Provinces, and +the lady attached to him, who had been at one time the daughter of a +Lieutenant-Governor. The Barberrys were there because Mrs. Barberry +loved meeting anybody that was clever, admired brains beyond anything; +and an A.D.C. who had to be asked because Mrs. Barberry was; and Captain +Salter Symmes, who took leading male parts in Mr. Pinero's plays when +they were produced in Simla and was invariably considered up there to +have done them better than any professional they have at home, though +he was even more successful as a contortionist when the entertainment +happened to be a burlesque. Taking Hilda and Lindsay and Stephen Arnold +as a basis, Alicia had built up her party, with the contortionist as it +were at the apex, on his head. The Livingstones had family connection +with a leading London publishing firm, and Alicia may possibly have +reflected as she surveyed her completed work, how much better than +capering captains she could have done in Chelsea, though it cannot be +admitted likely that she would harbour, at that particular instant, so +ungracious a thought. And indeed it was a creditable party, it would +almost unanimously call itself, next day, a delightful one. Miss Howe +made the most agreeable excitement, you might almost have heard the +heart-beats of the wife of the literary civilian, as she just escaped +being introduced, and so availed herself of the dinner's opportunity for +intimate observation without letting herself in a particle--most clever. +Mrs. Barberry, of course, rushed upon the spear, she always did, and +made a gushing little speech with every eye upon her in the middle +of the room, without a thought of consequences. The A.D.C. was also +empresse, one would have thought that he himself was acting, the way he +bowed and picked up Hilda's fan--a grace lingered in it from the minuet +he had danced the week before, in ruffles and patches, with the daughter +of the Commander-in-Chief. Duff got out of the way to enable the newly +introduced Head of the Department of Education to inform Miss Howe that +he never went to the theatre in Calcutta himself, it was much too badly +ventilated; and Stephen Arnold arriving late, shot like an embarrassed +arrow through the company to Alicia's side, and was still engaged there +in grieved explanation when dinner was announced. + +There were pink water-lilies, and Stephen said grace--those were the +pictorial features. Half of the people had taken their seats when he +began; there was a hasty scramble, and a decorous half-checked smile. +Hilda, at the first word of the brief formula, blushed hotly; then +she stood while he spoke, with bowed head and clasped hands like a +reverently inclining statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek; she drew +a kind of isolation from the way her manner underlined the office. The +civilian's wife, with a side-glance, settled it off-hand that she was +absurdly affected; and indeed to an acuter intelligence it might have +looked as if she took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that was not +offered. + +That was the one instant, however, in which the civilian's wife, +observing the actress, was gratified; and it was so brief that she +complained afterwards that Miss Howe was disappointing. She certainly +went out of her way to be normal. Since it was her daily business to +personate exceptional individuals, it seemed to be her pleasure that +night to be like everybody else. She did it on opulent lines; there was +a richness in her agreement that the going was as hard as iron on the +Ellenborough course, and a soft ingenuousness in her inquiries about +punkahs and the brain-fever bird that might have aroused suspicion, but +after a brief struggle to respond to the unusualness she ought to have +represented, Alicia's guests gratefully accepted her on their own terms +instead. She expanded in the light and the glow and the circumstance; +she looked with warm pleasure at the orchids the men wore and the +jewelled necks of the women. The social essence of Alicia's little +dinner-party passed into her, and she moved her head like the civilian's +wife. She felt the champagne investing her chatter and the chatter +of the Head of the Department of Education with the most satisfying +qualities, which were oddly stimulated when she glanced over the brim of +her glass at Stephen, sitting at the turn of the oval, giving a gravely +humble but perfunctory attention to Mrs. Barberry, and drinking water. +The occasion grew before her into a gorgeous flower, living, pulsating, +and in the heart of its light and colour the petals closed over her +secret, over him, the unconscious priest with the sloping shoulders, +thinking of abstinence and listening to Mrs. Barberry. + +It transpired when the men came up that there was no unanimity about +going to Government House. The Livingstones craved the necessity of +absence, if anyone would supply it by staying on; it would be a boon +they said, and cited the advancement of the season. “One gets to bed so +much earlier,” Surgeon-Major Livingstone urged, at which Alicia raised +her eyebrows and everybody laughed. Lindsay elected to gratify them, +with the proclaimed purpose of seeing how long Livingstone could be kept +up, and the civilian pair agreed, apparently from a tendency to remain +seated. The A.D.C. had, of course, to go; duty called him; and he +declared a sense of slighted hospitality that anybody should remain +behind. “Besides,” he cried, with ingenuous privilege, “who's goin' to +chaperone Miss Howe?” + +Hilda stood in the midst. Tall, in violet velvet, she had a flush that +made her magnificent; her eyes were deep and soft. It was patent that +she was out of proportion to the other women, body and soul; there was +altogether too much of her; and it was only the men, when Captain Corby +spoke, who looked silently responsive. + +“We're coming away so early,” said Mrs. Barberry, buttoning her glove. +Hilda had begun to smile, and, indeed, the situation had its humour, but +there was also behind her eyes an appreciation of another sort. “Don't,” + she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach of her prompting tone, as if +the other had mistaken her cue, but the moment hardly permitted retreat, +and Alicia turned an unflinching graceful front to the lady in the +Department of Education. “Then I think I must ask you,” she said. + +The educational husband was standing so near Hilda that she got the very +dregs of the glance of consternation his little wife gave him as +she replied, a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure she would be +delighted. + +“Nobody suggests ME!” exclaimed Captain Corby resentfully. They were +gathered in the hall, the carriages were driving to the open door, the +Barberry's glistening brougham whisking them off, and then the battered +vehicle in Hilda's hire. It had an air of ludicrous forlornness, with +its damaged paint and its tied-up harness. Hilda, when its door closed +upon the purple vision of her, might have been a modern Cinderella in +mid-stage of backward transformation. + +“I could chaperone you all!” she cried gaily back at them, as she passed +down the steps; and in the relief of the general exclamation it seemed +reasonable enough that Stephen Arnold should lean into the gharry to +see that she was quite comfortable. The unusual thing, which nobody else +heard, was that he said to her then with shamed discomfort, “It doesn't +matter--it doesn't matter,” and that Hilda, driving away, found herself +without a voice to answer the good-nights they chorussed after her. + +Arnold begged a seat in Captain Corby's dogcart, and Hilda, with her +purple train in her lap, heard the wheels following all the way. She +re-encountered the lady to whom she had been entrusted, whose name it +occurs to me was Winstick, in the cloakroom. They were late; there was +hardly anybody else but the attendants; and Mrs. Winstick smiled freely, +and said she loved the colour of Hilda's dress; also that she would give +worlds for an invisible hairpin--oh, thank you!--and that it was simply +ducky of her Excellency to have pink powder as well as white put out. +She did hope Miss Howe would enjoy the evening--they would meet again +later on; she must not forget to look at the chunam pillars in the +ballroom--perfectly lovely. So she vanished; but Hilda went with +certainty into the corridor to find Arnold pacing up and down the red +strip of carpet, with his hands clasped behind him and his head thrust +forward, waiting for her. + +They dropped together into the crowd and walked among well-dressed +women, men in civilian black and men in uniform, up and down the +pillared spaces of the ballroom. People had not been asked to dance, and +they seemed to walk about chiefly for observation. There was, of course, +the opportunity of talking and of listening to the band which discoursed +in a corner behind palms, but the distraction which is the social +Nemesis of bureaucracy was in the air, visibly increasing in the +neighbourhoods of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, and made the +commonplaces people uttered to each other disjointed and fragmentary, +while it was plain that few were aware whether music was being rendered +or not. Anyone sensitive to pervading mental currents in gatherings of +this sort would have found the relief of concentration and directness +only near the buffet that ran along one side of the room, where the +natural instinct played, without impediment, upon soup and sandwiches. + +They did not look much at Hilda, even on the arm of her liveried priest. +She was a strange vessel, sailing in from beyond their ken, and her +pilot was almost as novel, yet they were incurious. Their interests were +not in any way diffused, they had one straight line and it led upward, +pausing at the personalities clerked above them, with an ultimate point +in the head of a department. The Head of the Department was the only +person unaware, when addressed, of a travelling eye in search over +his shoulder of somebody with whom it would be more advantageous +to converse. Yet there were a few people apparently not altogether +indifferent to the presence of Miss Howe. She saw them here and there, +and when Arnold said, “It must seem odd to you, but I know hardly +anybody here. We attempt no social duties,” she singled out this one and +that, whom Alicia had asked to meet her, and mentioned them to him with +a warm pleasure in implying one of the advantages of belonging to the +world rather than to the cloister. Stephen knew their names and their +dignities. He received what she said with suitably impressed eyebrow +and nods of considerate assent. Hilda carried him along, as it were, in +their direction. She was full that night of a triumphant sense of her +own vitality, her success and value as a human unit. There was that in +her blood which assured her of a welcome, it had logic in it, with the +basis of her rarity, her force, her distinction among other women. +She pressed forward to human fellowship with a smile on her lips, as +a delightful matter of course, going towards the people who were not +indifferent to the fact that she was there, who could not be entirely, +since they had some sort of knowledge of her. + +In no case did they ignore her, but they were so cheerfully engaged +in conversation that they were usually quite oblivious of her. She +encountered this animated absorption two or three times, then turning +she found that the absorbed ones had changed their places--were no +longer in her path. One lady put herself at a safe distance and then +bowed, with much cordiality. It was extraordinary in a group of five how +many glistening shoulders would be presented, quite without offence, +to her approach. Mrs. Winstick had hidden behind the Superintendent of +Stamps and Stationery, to whom she was explaining, between spoonfuls +of strawberry ice, her terrible situation. And from the lips of another +lady whose face she knew, she heard after she had passed, “Don't you +think it's rather an omnium gatherum?” + +It was like Hilda Howe to note at that moment with serious interest, +how the little world about them had the same negative attitude for the +missionary priest beside her, presenting it with a hardly perceptible +difference. Within its limits there was plainly no room for him either. +His acquaintances--he had a few--bowed with the kind of respect which +implies distance, and in the wandering eyes of the others it was plain +that he did not exist. She saw, too, with a very delicate pleasure, +that he carried himself in his grave humility untouched and unconscious. +Expecting nothing he was unaware that he received nothing. It was odd, +and in its way charming, that she who saw and knew drew from their +mutual grievance a sense of pitiful protection for him, the unconscious +one. For herself, the tide that bore her on was too deep to let these +things hurt her, she looked down and saw the soreness and humiliation of +them pictorially, at the bottom, gliding smoothly over. They brought no +stereotype to her smile, no dissonance to what she found to say. When at +last she and Arnold sat down together her standpoint was still superior, +and she herself was so aloof from it all that she could talk about +it without bitterness, divorcing the personal pang from a social +manifestation of some dramatic value. In offering up her egotism that +way she really only made more subtle sacrifices to it, but one could +hardly expect such a consideration, just then, to give her pause. She +anointed his eyelids, she made him see, and he was relieved to find in +her light comment that she took the typical Mrs. Winstick less seriously +than he had supposed when they drove away from the Livingstones'. It +could not occur to him to correct the impression he had then by the +sound of his own voice uttering sympathy. + +“But I know now what a wave feels like dashing against a cliff,” she +said. “Fancy my thinking I could impose myself! That is the wave's +reflection.” + +“It goes back into the sea which is its own; and there,” said the +priest, whom nature had somehow cheated by the false promise of high +moralities out of an inheritance of beauty,--“and there, I think, is +depth and change and mystery, with joy in the obedience of the tides and +a full beating upon many shores--” + +“Ah, my sea! I hear it calling always, even,” she said +half-reflectively, “when I am talking to you. But sometimes I think I +am not a wave at all, only a shell, to be stranded and left, always with +the calling in my ears--” She seemed to have dropped altogether into +reverie, and then looked up suddenly, laughing, because he could not +understand. + +“After all,” she said practically, “what has that to do with it? One +doesn't blame these people. They are stupid--that's all. They want +the obvious. The leading lady of Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope--without the +smallest diamond--who does song and dance on Saturday nights--what can +you expect! If I had a great name they would be pleased enough to see +me. It is one of the rewards of the fame.” She was silent for a moment, +and then she added, “They are very poor.” + +“Those rewards! I have sometimes thought,” Arnold said, “that you were +not devoured by thirst for them.” + +“When we are together, you and I,” she answered simply, “I never am.” + +He took it at its face value. They had had some delightful +conversations. If her words awakened anything in him it was the +remembrance of these. The solace of her companionship presented itself +to him again, and her statement gave their mutual confidence another +seal; that was all. They sat where they were for half an hour, and +something like antagonism and displeasure towards the secretaries' wives +settled upon them, from which Hilda, interrupting a glance or two from +the ladies purring past, drew suspicion. “I am going now,” she said. +“It--it isn't quite suitable here,” and there was just enough suggestion +in the point of her fan to make him think of his frock. “It is an +unpardonable truth that if we stay any longer I shall make people talk +about you.” + +He turned astonished eyes upon her, eyes in which she remembered +afterwards there was absolutely nothing but a literal and pained +apprehension of what she said. “You are a good woman,” he exclaimed. +“How could such a thing be possible!” + +The faintest embarrassment, the merest suggestion of distress, came into +her face and concentrated in her eyes, which she fixed upon him as if +she would bring his words to the last analysis, and answer him as she +would answer a tribunal. + +“A good woman?” she repeated, “I don't know--isn't that a refinement of +virtue? No; standing on my sex I make no claim, but as PEOPLE go I am +good. Yes, I am good.” + +“In my eyes you are splendid,” he replied, content, and gave her +his arm. They went together through the reception-rooms, and the +appreciation of her grew in him. If in the bright and silken distance he +had not seen his Bishop it might have glowed into a cordiality of speech +with his distinctive individual stamp on it. But he saw his Bishop, his +ceinture tightened on him, and he uttered only the trite saying about +the folly of counting on the sensibility of swine. + +“Yes,” she laughed into her good-night to him, “but I'm not sure that it +isn't better to be the pig than the pearl.” + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +“Not long ago,” said Hilda, “I had a chat with him. We sat on the grass +in the middle of the Maidan, and there was nothing to interfere with my +impressions.” + +“What were your impressions? No!” Alicia cried. “No! Don't tell me. It +is all so peaceful now, and simple, and straightforward. You think such +extraordinary things. He comes here quite often, to talk about her. He +is coming this afternoon. So I have impressions too--and they are just +as good.” + +“All right.” Hilda crossed her knees more comfortably. “WHAT did you say +the Surgeon-Major paid for those Teheran tiles?” + +“Something absurd--I've forgotten. He writes to her regularly, diary +letters, by every mail.” + +“Do you tell him what to put into them?” + +“Hilda, sometimes--you're positively gross.” + +“I daresay, my dear. You didn't come out of a cab, and you never are. I +like being gross, I feel nearer to nature then, but I don't say that +as an excuse. I like the smell of warm kitchens and the talk +of bus-drivers, and bread and herrings for my tea--all the low +satisfactions appeal to me. Beer, too, and hand-organs.” + +“I don't know when to believe you. He talks about her quite freely, +and--and so do I. She is really interesting in her way.” + +“And in perspective.” + +“Why should you be odiously smart. He and Stephen”--her glance was +tentative--“have made it up.” + +“Oh?” + +“He admits now that Stephen was justified, from his point of view. But +of course that is easy enough when you have come off best.” + +“Of course.” + +“Hilda, what do you THINK?” + +“Oh, I think it's deplorable--you have always known what I think. Have +you seen him lately--I mean your cousin?” + +“He lunched with us yesterday. He was more enthusiastic than ever about +you.” + +“I wish you could tell me that he hadn't mentioned my name. I don't want +his enthusiasm. The pit gives one that.” + +“Hilda, tell me; what is your idea of--of what it ought to be? What is +the principal part of it? Not enthusiasm--adoration?” + +“Goodness, no! Something quite different and quite simple--too simple to +explain. Besides, it is a thing that requires the completest ignorance +to discuss comfortably. Do you want me to vivisect my soul? You +yourself, can you talk about what most possesses you?” + +“Oh,” protested Alicia, “I wasn't thinking about myself,” and at the +same moment the door opened and Hilda said, “Ah! Mr. Lindsay.” + +There was a hint of the unexpected in Duff's response to Miss Howe's +greeting, and a suggestion in the way he sat down that this made a +difference, and that he must find other things to say. He found them +with facility, while Hilda decided that she would finish her tea before +she went. Alicia, busy with the urn, seemed satisfied to abandon them to +each other, to take a decorative place in the conversation, interrupting +it with brief inquiries about cream and sugar. Alicia waited, it was her +way; she sank almost palpably into the tapestries until some reviving +circumstance should bring her out again, a process which was quite +compatible with her little laughs and comments. She waited, offering +repose, and unconscious even of that. You know Hilda Howe as a creature +of bold reflections. Looking at Alicia Livingstone behind the teapot, +the conviction visited her that a sex three-quarters of this fibre +explained the monastic clergy. + +“It is reported that you have performed the wonderful, the impossible,” + Lindsay said; “that Llewellyn Stanhope goes home solvent.” + +“I don't know how he can help it now. But I have to be very firm. He's +on his knees to me to do Ibsen. I tell him I will if he'll combine with +Jimmy Finnigan and bring the Surprise Party on between the acts. The +only way it would go, in this capital.” + +“Oh, do produce Ibsen,” Alicia exclaimed; “I've never seen one of his +plays--doesn't it sound terrible!” + +“If people will elect to live upon a coral strand--oh, I should like to, +for you and Duff here, but Ibsen is the very last man to deliver to a +scratch company. He must have equal merit, or there's no meaning. +You see he makes none of the vulgar appeals. It would be a tame +travesty--nobody could redeem it alone. You must keep to the old +situations, the reliable old dodges, when you play in any part of Asia.” + +“I never shall cease to regret that I didn't see you in The Offence of +Galilee?” Duff said. “Everyone who knows the least bit about it said you +were marvellous in that.” + +“Marvellous,” said Alicia + +Hilda gazed straight before her for an instant without speaking. The +others looked at her absent eyes. “A bazar trick or two helped me,” + she said, and glanced with vivacity at any other subject that might be +hanging on the wall, or visible out of the window. + +“And are you really invincible about not putting it on again in +Calcutta?” Duff asked. + +“Not in Calcutta, or anywhere. The rest hate it--nobody has a chance but +me,” Hilda said, and got up. + +“Oh, I don't know,” Alicia began, but Miss Howe was already half-way +out of the discussion, in the direction of the door. There was often a +brusqueness in her comings and goings, but she usually left a flavour of +herself behind. One turned with facility to talk about her, this being +the easiest way of applying the stimulus that came of talking to her. +It was more conspicuous than either of these two realised that they +accepted her retreat without a word, that there was even between them a +consciousness of satisfaction that she had gone. + +“This morning's mail,” said Alicia, smiling brightly at Lindsay, +“brought you a letter, I know.” It was extraordinary how detached she +could be from her vital personal concern in him. It seemed relegated +to some background of her nature while she occupied herself with the +immediate play of circumstance or was lost in her observation of him. + +“How kind of you to think of it,” Lindsay said. “This was the first by +which I could possibly hear from England.” + +“Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. Letters from on board ship +are always difficult to write and unsatisfactory,” Alicia said. Miss +Filbert's had been postcards, with a wide unoccupied margin at the +bottom. + +“The Sutlej seems to have arrived on the third; that's a day later, +isn't it, than we made out she would be?” + +Alicia consulted her memory, and found she couldn't be sure. Lindsay was +vexed by a similar uncertainty, but they agreed that the date was early +in the month. + +“Did they get comfortably through the Canal? I remember being tied up +there for forty-eight hours once.” + +“I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have been all right. +The voyage is bound to do her good. I've asked the Simpsons to watch +particularly for any sign of malaria later, though. One can't possibly +know what she may have imported from that slum in Bentinck Street.” + +“And what was it like after Gibraltar?” Alicia asked, with a barely +perceptible glance at the envelope edges showing over his breast-pocket. + +“I'll look,” and he sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a +diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay drew out the single sheet it contained, +and she could see that every line was ruled and faintly pencilled. “Let +me see,” said he. “To begin at the beginning. 'We arrived home on the +third,'--you see it was the third,--'making very slow progress the +last day on account of a fog in the Channel'--ah, a fog in the +Channel!--'which was a great disappointment to some on board who were +impatient to meet their loved ones. One lady had not seen her family of +five for seven years. She said she would like to get out and swim, and +you could not wonder. She was my s--stable companion.” + +“Quaint!” said Alicia. + +“She has picked up the expression on board. 'So--so she told me this.' +Oh yes. 'Now that it is all over I have written the voyage down among +my mercies in spite of three days' sickness, when you could keep nothing +on--' What are those two words, Miss Livingstone? I can't quite make +them out.” + +“'Your'--cambric?--stom--'stomach'--'your stomach.'” + +“Oh, quite so. Thanks!--'in the Bay of Biscay.' You see it WAS rough +after Gib. 'Everybody was'--yes. 'The captain read Church of England +prayers on Sunday mornings, in which I had no objection to join, and we +had mangoes every day for a week after leaving Ceylon.'” + +“Miss Filbert was so fond of mangoes,” Alicia said. + +“Was she? 'The passengers got up two dances, and quite a number of +gentlemen invited me, but I declined with thanks, though I would not say +it is wrong in itself.'” Lindsay seemed to waver; her glance went +near enough to him to show her that his face had a red tinge of +embarrassment. He looked at the letter uncertainly, on the point of +folding it up. + +“You see she hasn't danced for so long,” Alicia put in quickly; “she +would naturally hesitate about beginning again with anybody but you. I +shouldn't wonder,” she added gently, “if she never does, with anybody +else.” + +“I know it's an idea some women have,” he replied. “I think it's +rather--nice.” + +“And her impressions of the Simpsons--and Plymouth?” + +“She goes on to that.” He reconsulted the letter. “'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson +met me as expected and welcomed me very affably.' She has got hold of +a wrong impression there, I fancy; the Simpsons couldn't be 'affable.' +'They seem very kind and pleasant for such stylish people, and their +house is lovely, with electric light in the parlour and hot and cold +water throughout. They seem very earnest people and have family prayers +regularly, but I have not yet been asked to lead. Four servants come in +to prayers. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson are deeply interested in the work of +the Army, though I think Plymouth as a whole is more taken up with the +C.M.S.; but we cannot have all things.' Dear me, yes! I remember those +evangelical teas and the disappointment that I could not speak more +definitely about the work among the Sontalis.” + +“Fancy her having caught the spirit of the place already!” exclaimed +Alicia. “He went on: 'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson have a beautiful garden and +grow most of their own vegetables. We sit in it a great deal and I think +of all that has passed. I hope ever that it has been for the best and +pray for you always. Oh that your feet may be set in the right path and +that we may walk hand in hand upon the way to Zion!'” Lindsay lowered +his voice and read the last sentences rapidly, as if the propulsion +of the first part of the letter sent him through them. Then he stopped +abruptly, and Alicia looked up. + +“That's all, only,” he added, with an awkward smile, “the usual +formula.” + +“'God bless you'?” she asked, and he nodded. + +“It has a more genuine ring than most formulas,” she observed. + +“Yes, hasn't it? May I have another cup?” He restored the pink sheet to +its pink envelope, and both to his breast-pocket, while she poured out +the other cup, but Miss Filbert was still present with them. They went +on talking about her, and entirely in the tone of congratulation--the +suitability of the Simpsons, the suitability of Plymouth, the +probability that she would entirely recover, in its balmy atmosphere, +her divine singing voice. Plymouth certainly was in no sense a tonic, +but Miss Filbert didn't need a tonic; she was too much inclined to +be strung up as it was. What she wanted was the soothing, quieting +influence of just Plymouth's meetings and just Plymouth's teas. The +charms that so sweetly and definitely characterised her would expand +there; it was a delightful flowery environment for them, and she +couldn't fail to improve in health. Devonshire's visitors got +tremendously well fed, with fish items of especial excellence. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Nobody could have been more impressed with Hilda's influence upon Mr. +Llewellyn Stanhope's commercial probity than Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope +himself. He was a prey to all noble feelings; they ruled his life and +spoiled his bargains; and gratitude, when it had a chance, which was +certainly seldom in connection with leading ladies, dominated him +entirely. He sat in the bar of the Great Eastern Hotel with tears in +his eyes, talking about what Miss Howe had done for him, and gave +unnecessary backsheesh to coolies who brought him small bills--so long, +that is, as they were the small bills of this season. When they had +reference to the liabilities of a former and less prosperous year he +waved them away with a bitter levity which belonged to the same period. +His view of his obligations was strictly chronological, and in taking +it he counted, like the poet, only happy hours. The bad debt and the +bad season went consistently together to oblivion; the sun of to-day's +remarkable receipts could not be expected to penetrate backwards. + +He had only one fault to find with Miss Howe--she had no artistic +conscience--none, and he found this with the utmost leniency, basking +in the consciousness that it made his own more conspicuous. She was +altogether in the grand style, if you understood Mr. Stanhope, but +nothing would induce her to do herself justice before Calcutta; she +seemed to have taken the measure of the place and to be as indifferent! +Try to ring in anything worth doing and she was off with the bit between +her teeth, and you simply had to put up with it. The second lead had a +great deal more ambition, and a very good little woman in her way, too, +but of course not half the talent. He was obliged to confess that Miss +Howe wasn't game for risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the +night the circus opened to a twenty-five rupee house. It WAS monstrous. +She seemed to think that nothing mattered so much as that everybody +should be paid on the first of the month. There was one other grievance, +which Llewellyn mentioned only in confidence with a lowered voice. That +was Bradley. Hilda wasn't lifting a finger to keep Bradley. Result was, +Bradley was crooking his elbow a great deal too often lately and going +off every way. He, Llewellyn, had put it to her if that was the way to +treat a man the Daily Telegraph had spoken about as it had spoken about +Hamilton Bradley. Where was she--where was he--going to find another? +No, he didn't say marry Bradley; there were difficulties, and after all +that might be the very way to lose him. But a woman had an influence, +and that influence could never be more fittingly exercised than in the +cause of dramatic art based on Mr. Stanhope's combinations. Mr. Stanhope +expressed himself with a difference, but it came to that. + +Perhaps if you pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the +track of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the +further fact that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel +for procrastination. Next season was imminent in his arrangements, as +Christmas numbers are imminent to publishers at midsummer, and here she +was shying at a contract as if they had months for consideration. It +wasn't either as if she complained of anything in the terms--that would +be easy enough fixed--but she said herself that it was a bigger salary +than he, Llewellyn, would ever be able to pay unless she went round +with the hat. Nor had she any objection to the tour--a fascinating +one--including the Pacific Slope and Honolulu. It stumped him, +Llewellyn, to know what she did object to, and why she couldn't bark it +out at once, seeing she must understand perfectly well it was no use his +going to Bradley without first settling with her. + +Hilda, alone in her own apartment--it was difficult to keep +Llewellyn Stanhope away from even that door in his pursuit of her +signature--considered the vagary life had become for her that was so +whimsical, and the mystery of her secret which was so solely hers. +Alicia knew, of course; but that was as if she had written it down on a +sheet of perfect notepaper and locked it up in a drawer. Alicia did +not speculate about it, and the whole soul of it was tangled now in a +speculation. There had been a time filled with the knowledge and the joy +of this new depth in her like a buoyant sea, and she had been content +to float in it, imagining desirable things. Stanhope's waiting contract +made a limit to the time--a limit she brought up against without +distress or shock, but with a kind of recognising thrill in contact +at last with the necessity for action, decision, a climax of high +heart-beats. She saw with surprise that she had lived with her passion +these weeks and months half consciously expecting that a crucial moment +would dissolve it, like a person aware that he dreams and will presently +awake. She had not faced till now any exigency of her case. But the +crucial moment had leapt upon her, pointing out the subjection of her +life, and she, undefended, sought only how to accomplish her bonds. + +Certainly she saw no solution that did not seem monstrous; yet every +pulse in her demanded a solution; there was no questioning the imperious +need. She had the fullest, clearest view of the situation, and she +looked at it without flinching and without compromise. Above all she had +true vision of Stephen Arnold, glorifying nowhere, extenuating nothing. +It was almost cruel to be the victim of such circumstance, and be denied +the soft uses of illusion; but if that note of sympathy had been offered +to Hilda she would doubtless have retorted that it was precisely +because she saw him that she loved him. His figure, in its poverty and +austerity, was always with her; she made with the fabric of her nature +a kind of shrine for it, enclosing, encompassing; and her possession +of him, by her knowledge, was deep and warm and protecting. I think the +very fulness of it brought her a kind of content with which, but +for Llewellyn and his contract, she would have been willing to go on +indefinitely. It made him hers in a primary and essential way, beside +which any mere acknowledgment or vow seemed chiefly decorative, like the +capital of a pillar firmly rooted. There may be an appearance that she +took a good deal for granted; if there is, I fear that in the baldness +of this history it has not been evident how much and how variously +Arnold depended on her, in how many places her colour and her vitality +patched out the monkish garment of his soul. This with her enthusiasm +and her cognisance. It may be remembered, too, that there was in the +very tenderness of her contemplation of the priest in her path an +imperious tinge born of the way men had so invariably melted there. +Certainly they had been men and not priests; but the little flickering +doubt that sometimes leaped from this source through the glow of her +imagination she quenched very easily with the reflection that such a +superficies was after all a sophistry, and that only its rudiments were +facts. She proposed, calmly and lovingly, to deal with the facts. + +She told herself that she would not be greedy about the conditions under +which she should prevail; but her world had always, always shaped itself +answering her hand, and if she cast her eyes upon the ground now, and +left the future, even to-morrow, undevisaged, it was because she would +not find any concessions of her own among its features if she could +help it. It was a trick she played upon her consciousness; she would not +look, but she could see without looking. She saw that which explained +itself to be best, fittest, most reasonable; and thus she sometimes +wandered with Arnold anticipatively, on afternoons when there was no +matinee, through the perfumed orange orchards of Los Angeles, on the +Pacific slope. + +She would not search to-morrow; but she took toward it one of +those steps of vague intention, at the end of which we beckon to +possibilities. She wrote to Stephen and asked him to come to see her +then. She had not spoken to him since the night of the Viceroy's party, +when she put her Bohemian head out of the ticca-gharry to wish him +good-night, and he walked home alone under the stars, trying to remember +a line of Horace, a chaste one, about woman's beauty. She sent the note +by post. There was no answer; but that was as usual; there never was an +answer unless something prevented him; he always came, and ten minutes +before the time. When the time arrived she sat under the blue umbrellas +devising what she would say, creating fifty different forms of what he +would say, while the hands slipped round the clock past the moment that +should have brought his step to the door. Hilda noted it, and compared +her watch. A bowl of roses stood on a little table near a window; she +got up and went to it, bending over and rearranging the flowers. The +light fell on her and on the roses; it was a beautiful attitude, and +when at a footfall she looked up expectantly it was more beautiful. But +it was only another boarder--a Mr. Gonzalves, with a highly varnished +complexion, who took off his hat elaborately as he passed the open +door. She became conscious of her use of the roses, and abandoned them. +Presently she sat down on a bentwood rocking-chair, and swayed to and +fro, aware of an ebbing of confidence. Half an hour later she was still +sitting there. Her face had changed, something had faded in it; her gaze +at the floor was profoundly speculative, and when she glanced at the +empty door it was with timidity. Arnold had not come and did not come. + +The evening passed without explanation, and next morning the post +brought no letter. It was simplest to suppose that her own had not +reached him, and Hilda wrote again. The second letter she sent by hand, +with a separate sheet of paper addressed for signature. The messenger +brought back the sheet of paper with strange initials, “J. L. for S. +A.,” and there was no reply. There remained the possibility of absence +from Calcutta, of illness. That he should have gone away was most +unlikely, that he had fallen ill was only too probable. Hilda looked +from her bedroom window across the varying expanse of parapeted flat +roofs and mosque bubbles that lay between her and College Street, and +curbed the impulse in her feet that would have resulted in the curious +spectacle of Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady calling in person at a +monastic gate to express a kind of solicitude against which precisely it +was barred. A situation after all could be too pictorial, looked at +from the point of view of the Order, a consideration which flashed with +grateful humour across her anxiety. Alicia would have known; but both +the Livingstones had gone for a short sea change to Ceylon, with Duff +Lindsay and some touring people from Surrey. They were most anxious, +Hilda remembered, that Arnold should accompany them. Could he in the end +have gone? There was, of course, the accredited fount and source of all +information, the Father Superior; but with what propriety could Hilda +Howe apply for it! Llewellyn might write for her; but it was glaringly +impossible that the situation should lay itself so far open to +Llewellyn. Looking in vain for resources she came upon an expedient. She +found a sheet of cheap notepaper, and made it a little greasy. On it +she wrote with red ink, in the cramped hand of the hired scribe of the +bazar:-- + + +“SIR--Will you please to inform to me if Mr. Arnold has gone mofussil +or England as I have some small business with him. Yours obedient +servant,--WUN SING.” + + +“It can't be forgery,” she reflected, “since there isn't a Wun Sing,” + and added an artistic postscript, “Boots and shoes verry much cheap +for cash.” She made up the envelope to match, and addressed it with +consistent illiteracy to the head of the Mission. The son of the Chinese +basketmaker, who dwelt almost next door, spoke neither English +nor Hindustani, but showed an easy comprehension of her promise of +backsheesh when he should return with an answer. She had a joyful +anticipation, while she waited, of the terms in which she should tell +Arnold how she passed disguised as a Chinese shoemaker, before the +receptive and courteous consciousness of his spiritual senior; of how +she penetrated, in the suggestion of a pigtail and an unpaid bill, +within the last portals that might be expected to receive her in the +form under which, for example, certain black and yellow posters were +presenting her to the public at that moment. She saw his scruples go +swiftly down before her laughter and the argument of her tender anxiety, +which she was quite prepared to learn foolish and unnecessary. There was +even an adventurous instant in which she reaped at actual personation of +the Chinaman, and she looked in rapture at the vivid risk of the thing +before she abandoned it as involving too much. She sent no receipt +form this time--that was not the practice of the bazar--and when, hours +after, her messenger returned with weariness and dejection written upon +him, in the characters of a perfunctory Chinese smile, she could only +gather from his negative head and hands that no answer had been given +him, and that her expedient had failed. + +Hilda stared at her dilemma. Its properties were curiously simple. +His world and hers, with the same orbit, had no point of contact. Once +swinging round their eastern centre they had come close enough for these +two, leaning very far out, to join hands. When they loosed it seemed +they lost. + +The more she gazed at it the more it looked a preposterous thing that in +a city vibrant with human communication by all the methods which make it +easy, it should be possible for one individual thus to drop suddenly +and completely from the knowledge of another--a mediaeval thing. Their +isolation as Europeans of course accounted for it; there was no medium +in the brown population that hummed in the city streets. Hilda could not +even bribe a servant without knowing how to speak to him. She ravaged +the newspapers; they never were more bare of reference to consecrated +labours. The nearest approach to one was a paragraph chronicling +a social evening given by the Wesleyans in Sudder Street, with +an exhibition of the cinematograph. In a moment of defiance and +determination she sent a telegram studiously colourless, “Unable find +you wish communicate please inform. A. Cassidy.” Arnold had never +ignored the name she was born to, in occasional scrupulous moments he +addressed her by it; he would recognise and understand. There was no +reply. + +The enigma pressed upon her days, she lived in the heaviness of it, +waiting. His silence adding itself up, brought her a kind of shame for +the exertions she had made. She turned with obstinacy from the further +schemes her ingenuity presented. Out of the sum of her unsuccessful +efforts grew a reproach of Arnold; every one of them increased it. +His behaviour she could forgive, arbitrarily putting against it twenty +explanations, but not the futility of what she had done. Her resentment +of that undermined all the fairness of her logic and even triumphed over +the sword of her suspense. She never quite gave up the struggle, but +in effect she passed the week that intervened pinioned in her +unreason--bands that vanished as she looked at them, only to tie her +thrice in another place. + +Life became a permanent interrogation point. Waiting under it, with a +perpetual upward gaze, perhaps she grew a little dizzy. The sun of March +had been increasing, and the air of one particular Saturday afternoon +had begun to melt and glow and hang in the streets with a kind of +inertia, like a curtain that had to be parted to be penetrated. Hilda +came into the house and faced the stairs with an inclination to leave +her body on the ground-floor and mount in spirit only. When she glanced +in at the drawing-room door and saw Arnold sitting under the blue +umbrellas, a little paler, a thought more serene than usual, she swept +into the room as if a tide carried her, and sank down upon a footstool +close to him, as if it had dropped her there. He had risen at her +appearance, he was all himself but rather more the priest, his face of +greeting had exactly its usual asking intelligence but to her the fact +that he was normal was lost in the fact that he was near. He held out +his hand but she only sought his face, speechless, hugging her knees. + +“You are overcome by the sun,” he said. “Lie down for a moment,” and +again he offered her a hand to help her to rise. She shook her head +but took his hand, enclosing it in both of hers with a sort of happy +deliberation, and drew herself up by it, while her eyes, shining like +dark surfaces of some glorious consciousness within, never left his +face. So she stood beside him with her head bowed, still dumb. It was +her supreme moment; life never again brought her anything like it. It +was not that she confessed so much as that she asserted, she made +a glowing thing plain, cried out to him, still standing silent, the +deep-lying meaning of the tangle of their lives. She was shaken by a +pure delight, as if she unclosed her hand to show him a strange jewel +in her palm, hers and his for the looking. The intensity of her +consciousness swept round him and enclosed him, she knew this +profoundly, and had no thought of the insulation he had in his robe. The +instant passed; he stood unmoved definitely enough, yet some vibration +in it reached him, for there was surprise in his involuntary backward +step. + +“You must have thought me curiously rude,” he said, as if he felt about +for an explanation, “but your letters were only given to me an hour ago. +We have all been in retreat, you know.” + +“In RETREAT!” Hilda exclaimed. “Ah, yes. How foolish I have been! In +retreat,” she repeated softly, flicking a trace of dust from his sleeve. +“Of course.” + +“It was held in St. Paul's College,” Stephen went on, “by Father Neede. +Shall we sit down? And of course at such times no communications reach +us, no letters or papers.” + +“No letters or papers,” Hilda said, looking at him softly, as it were, +through the film of the words. They sat down, he on the sofa, she on a +chair very near it. There was another placed at a more usual distance, +but she seemed incapable of taking the step or two toward it, away from +him. + +Stephen gave himself to the grateful sense of her proximity. He had come +to sun himself again in the warmth of her fellowship; he was stirred +by her emphasis of their separation and reunion. “And what, please,” he +asked, “have you been doing? Account to me for the time.” + +“While you have been praying and fasting? Wondering what you were at, +and waiting for you to finish. Waiting,” she said, and clasped her knees +with her intent look again, swaying a little to and fro in her content, +as if that which she waited for had already come, full, and very +desirable. + +“Have you been reading?--” + +“Oh, I have been reading nothing! You shall never go into retreat +again,” she went on, with a sudden change of expression. “It is well +enough for you, but I am not good at fasting. And I have an indulgence,” + she added, unaware of her soft, bright audacity, “that will cover both +our cases.” + +His face uttered aloud his reflection that she was extravagant. That +it was a pity, but that what was not due to her profession might +be ascribed to the simple, clear impulse of her temperament--that +temperament which he had found to be a well of rare sincerity. + +“I am not to go any more into retreat?” he said, in grave interrogation; +but the hint of rebuke in his voice was not in his heart, and she knew +it. + +“No!” she cried. “You shall not be hidden away like that. You shall not +go alive into the tomb and leave me at the door. Because I cannot bear +it.” + +She leaned toward him, and her hand fell lightly on his knee. It was a +claiming touch, and there was something in the unfolded sweetness of her +face that was not ambiguous. Arnold received the intelligence. It came +in a vague grey monitory form, a cloud, a portent, a chill menace; +but it came, and he paled under it. He seemed to lean upon his hands, +pressed one on each side of him to the seat of the sofa for support, and +he looked in fixed silence at hers, upon his knee. His face seemed to +wither, new lines came upon it as the impression grew in him; and the +glamour faded out of hers as she was sharply reminded, looking at him, +that he had not traversed the waste with her, that she had kept her +vigils alone. Yet it was all said and done, and there was no repentance +in her. She only gathered herself together, and fell back, as it were, +upon her magnificent position. As she drew her hand away, he dropped his +face into the cover of his own, leaning his elbow on his knee, and there +was a pulsing silence. The instant prolonged itself. + +“Are you praying?” Hilda asked, with much gentleness, almost a childlike +note; and he shook his head. There was another, instant's pause, and she +spoke again. + +“Are you so grieved, then,” she said, “that this has come upon us?” + +Again he held his eyes away from her, clasping his hands, and looking +at the thing nearest to him, while at last blood from the heart of the +natural man in him came up and stained his face, his forehead under the +thin ruffling of colourless hair, his neck above the white band that was +his badge of difference from other men. + +“I--fear--I hardly understand,” he said. The words fell cramped and +singly, and his lip twitched. “It--it is impossible to think--” He +looked as if he dared not lift his head. + +One would not say that Hilda hesitated, for there was no failing in the +wings of her high confidence, but she looked at him in a brave silence. +Her glance had tender investigation in it; she stood on the brink of her +words just long enough to ask whether they would hurt him. Seeing that +they would, she nevertheless plunged, but with infinite compassion and +consideration. She spoke like an agent of Fate, conscious and grieved. + +“_I_ understand,” she said simply. “Sometimes, you know, we are quicker. +And you in your cell, how should you find out? That is why I must tell +you, because, though I am a woman, you are a priest. Partly for that +reason I may speak, partly because I love you, Stephen Arnold, better +and more ardently than you can ever love me, or anybody, I think, except +perhaps your God. And I am tired of keeping silence.” + +She was so direct, so unimpassioned, that half his distress turned to +astonishment, and he faced her as if a calm and reasoned hand had +been laid upon the confusion in him. Meeting his gaze, she unbarred a +floodgate of happy tenderness in her eyes. + +“Love!” he gasped in it, “I have nothing to do with that.” + +“Oh,” she said, “you have everything to do with it.” + +Something thrilled him without asking his permission, assuring him that +he was a man--until then a placid theory with an unconscious basis. It +was therefore a blow to his saintship, or it would have been, but +he warded it off, flushed and trembling. It was as if he had been +ambuscaded. He had to hold himself from the ignominy of flight; he rose +to cut his way out, making an effort to strike with precision. + +“Some perversity has seized you,” he said. The muscles about his mouth +quivered, giving him a curious aspect. “You mean nothing of what you +say.” + +“Do you believe that?” + +“I--I cannot think anything else. It is the only way I can--I can--make +excuse.” + +“Ah, don't excuse me!” she murmured, with an astonishing little gay +petulance. + +“You cannot have thought--” in spite of himself he made a step towards +the door. + +“Oh, I did think--I do think. And you must not go.” She too stood up, +and stayed him. “Let us at least see clearly.” There was a persuading +note in her voice, one would have thought that she was dealing with a +patient or a child. “Tell me,” she clasped her hands behind her back and +looked at him in marvellous simple candour, “do I really announce this +to you? Was there not in yourself anywhere--deep down--any knowledge of +it?” + +“I did not guess--I did not dream!” + +“And--now?” she asked. + +A heavenly current drifted from her, the words rose and fell on it with +the most dazing suggestion in their soft hesitancy. It must have been +by an instinct of her art that her hand went up to the cross on Arnold's +breast and closed over it, so that he should see only her. The familiar +vision of her stood close, looking things intolerably new and different. +Again came out of it that sudden liberty, that unpremeditated rush and +shock in him. He paled with indignation, with the startled resentment +of a woman wooed and hostile. His face at last expressed something +definite, it was anger; he stepped back and caught at his hat. “I am +sorry,” he said, “I am sorry. I thought you infinitely above and beyond +all that.” + +Hilda smiled and turned away. If he chose it was his opportunity to go, +but he stood regarding her, twirling his hat. She sat down, clasping her +knees, and looked at the floor. There was a square of sunlight on the +carpet, and motes were rising in it. + +“Ah well, so did I,” she said meditatively, without raising her eyes. +Then she leaned back in the chair and looked at him, in her level simple +way. + +“It was a foolish theory,” she said, “and--now--I can't understand it at +all. I am amazed to find that it even holds good with you.” + +It was so much in the tone of their usual discussions that Arnold was +conscious of a lively relief. The instinct of flight died down in him; +he looked at her with something like inquiry. + +“It will always be to me curious,” she went on, “that you could have +thought your part in me so limited, so poor. That is enough to say. I +find it hard to understand, anybody would, that you could take so much +good from me and not--so much more.” She opened her lips again, but kept +back the words. “Yes,” she added, “that is enough to say.” + +But for the colourless face and the tenseness about her lips it might +have been thought that she definitely abandoned what she had learned +she could not have. There was a note of acquiescence and regret in her +voice, of calm reason above all; and this sense reached him, induced him +to listen, as he generally listened, for anything she might find that +would explain the situation. His fingers went from habit, as a man might +play with his watch chain, to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed +them, and rested mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling +in them, wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. “You could not +forget that?” she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself. +He looked into her upturned face and saw that her eyes were swimming. + +“Never!” he said, “Never!” but he walked to the nearest chair and sat +down. He seemed suddenly endowed with the courage to face this problem, +and his head, as it rose in the twilight against the window, was grave +and calm. Without a word a great tenderness of understanding filled the +space between them; an interpreting compassion went to and fro. Suddenly +a new light dawned in Hilda's eyes, she leaned forward and met his in +an absorption which caught them out of themselves into some space where +souls wander, and perhaps embrace. It was a frail adventure upon a gaze, +but it carried them infinitely far. The moment died away, neither of +them could have measured it, and when it had finally ebbed--they were +conscious of every subsiding throb--the silence remained, like a margin +for the beauty of it. They sat immovable, while the light faded. After a +time the woman spoke. “Once before,” she began, but he put up his hand, +and she stopped. Then as if she would no longer be restrained. “That is +all I want,” she whispered. “That is enough.” + +For a time they said very little, looking back upon their divine +moment; the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and made quiet +conversation which was almost audible in the pauses. Then Hilda began +to speak, steadily, calmly. You, too, would have forgotten her folly in +what she found to say, as Arnold did; you too would have drawn faith and +courage from her face. One would not be irreverent, but if this woman +were convicted of the unforgiveable sin, she could explain it, and +obtain justification rather than pardon. Her horizon had narrowed, she +sought now only that it should enfold them both. She begged that +he would wipe out her insanity, that he would not send her away. He +listened and melted to conviction. + +“Then I may stay?” she said at the end. + +“I am satisfied--if a way can be found.” + +“I will find a way,” she replied. + +After which he went back through the city streets to his disciples in +new humility and profounder joy, knowing that virtue had gone out of +him. She in her room where she lodged also considered the miracle, twice +wonderful in that it asked no faith of her. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It is difficult to be precise about such a thing, but I should think +that Hilda gave herself to the marvellous aspect of what had come and +gone between them, for several hours after Arnold left her. It was not +for some time, at all events, that she arrived at the consideration--the +process was naturally downward--that the soul of the marvel lay in the +exact moment of its happening. Nothing could have been more heaven-sent +than her precious perception, exactly then, that before the shining gift +of Arnold's spiritual sympathy, all her desire for a lesser thing from +him must creep away abashed for ever. Even when the lesser thing, by +infinitely gradual expansion, again became the greater, it remained +permanently leavened and lifted in her by the strange and lovely +incident that had taken for the moment such command of her and of him. +She would not question it or reason about it, perhaps with an instinct +to avert its destruction; she simply drew it deeply into her content. +Only its sweet deception did not stay with her, and she let that go with +open hands. She wanted, more than ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all +that was so openly the Mission's and all that was so evidently God's. It +will be seen that she felt in no way compelled to advise him of this her +backsliding. I doubt whether such a perversion of her magnificent course +of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it entailed a +high disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of what the +end would be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, in +the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen Arnold stood +beyond her ultimate possession. + +There were difficulties, but the moment was favourable to her, more +favourable than it would have been the year before, or any year but +this. Before ten days had passed she was able to write to Arnold +describing her plan, and she was put to it to keep the glow of success +out of her letter. She kept it out, that, and everything but a calm and +humble statement--any Clarke Brother might have dictated it--of what she +proposed to do. Perhaps the intention was less obvious than the desire +that he should approve it. + +The messenger waited long by the entrance to the Mission House for an +answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the bazar +with the gatekeeper of the Christians. Stephen was in chapel. There was +no service; he had half an hour to rest in and he rested there. He was +speculating, in the grateful dimness, about the dogma--he had never +quite accepted it, though Colquhoun had--of the intercessory power of +the souls of saints. A converted Brahmin, an old man, had died the day +before. Arnold luxuriated in the humility of thinking that he would +be glad of any good word dear old Nourendra Lal could say for him. The +chapel was deliciously refined. The scent of fresh cut flowers floated +upon the continual presence of the incense; a lily outlined its head +against the tall carved altarpiece the Brothers had brought from +Damascus. The seven brass lamps that hung from the rafters above the +altar rails were also Damascene, carved and pierced so that the light +in them was a still thing like a prayer; and the place breathed vague +meanings which did not ask understanding. It was a refuge from the riot +and squalor of the whitewashed streets with a double value and a treble +charm--I.H.S. among plaster gods, a sanctuary in the bazar. Stephen sat +in it motionless, with his lean limbs crossed in front of him, until the +half-hour was up; then he bent his knee before the altar and went out to +meet a servant at the door with Hilda's letter. The chapel opened upon +an upper verandah, he crossed it to get a better light and stood to read +with his back half turned upon the comers and goers. + +It was her first communication since they parted, and in spite of its +colourlessness it seemed to lay strong eager hands upon him, turning his +shoulder that way, upon the world, bending his head over the page. +He had not dwelt much upon their strange experience, in the days that +followed. It had retreated, for him, behind the veil of tender mystery +with which he shrouded, even from his own eyes, the things that lay +between his soul and God. The space from that day to this had been +more than usually full of ministry; its pure uses had fallen like snow, +blotting and deadening the sudden wonder that blossomed then. Latterly +he had hardly thought of it. + +So far was he removed, so deeply drawn again within his familiar +activities, that he regarded Hilda's letter for an instant with a lip +of censure, as if, for some reason, it should not have been admitted. +It was, in a manner, her physical presence, the words expanded into +her, through it she walked back into his life, with an interrogation. +Standing there by the pillar he became gradually aware of the weight of +the interrogation. + +A passing Brother cast at him the sweet smile of the cloister. Arnold +stopped him and transferred an immediate duty, which the other accepted +with a slightly exaggerated happiness. They might have been girls +together, with their apologies and protestations. The other Brother went +on in a little glow of pleasure, Arnold turned back into the chapel, +carrying, it seemed to him, a woman's life in his hand. + +He took his seat and folded his arms almost eagerly; there was a light +of concentration in his eye and a line of compression about his lips +which had not marked his meditation upon Nourendra Lal. The vigour in +his face suggested that he found a kind of athletic luxury in what he +had to think about. Brother Colquhoun, with his flat hat clasped before +his breast, passed down the aisle. Stephen looked up with a trace of +impatience. Presently he rose hurriedly as if he remembered something, +and went and knelt before one of several paintings that hung upon the +chapel walls. They were old copies of great works, discoloured and +damaged. They had sailed round the Cape to India when the century was +young, and a lady friend of the Mission had bought them at the sale +of the effects of a ruined Begum. Arnold was one of those who could +separate them from their incongruous history and consecrate them over +again. He often found them helpful when he sought to lift his spirit, +and in any special matter a special comfort. He bent for ten minutes +before a Crucifixion, and then hastened back to his place. Only one +reflection corrected the vigorous satisfaction with which he thought out +Hilda's proposition. That disturbed him in the middle of it, and took +the somewhat irrelevant form of a speculation as to whether the +events of their last meeting should have had any place in his Thursday +confession. He was able to find almost at once a conscientious negative +for it, and it did not recur again. + +He got up reluctantly when the Mission bell sounded, and indeed he had +come to the end of a very absorbing interest. His decision was final +against Hilda's scheme. His worn experience cried out at the sacrifice +in it without the illumination--which it would certainly lack--of +religious faith. She confessed to the lack, and that was all she had +to say about her motive, which, of course, placed him at an immense +disadvantage in considering it. But the question then descended to +another plane, became merely a doubt as to the most useful employment of +energy, and that doubt nobody could entertain long, nobody of reasonable +breadth of view, who had ever seen her expressing the ideals of the +stage. Arnold did his best to ward off all consideration which he could +suspect of a personal origin, but his inveterate self-sacrifice slipped +in and counted, naturally enough, under another guise, against her +staying. + +He went to his room and wrote to Hilda at once, the kindest, simplest +of letters, but conveying a definitely negative note. He would have +been perhaps more guarded, but it was so plainly his last word to her; +Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the departure of his people in ten +days' time upon every blank wall. So he gave himself a little latitude, +he let in an undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assurance +as to the difference she had made. And when he had finally bade her +begone to the light and fulness of her own life, and fastened up his +letter, he deliberately lifted it to his lips and placed a trembling, +awkward kiss upon it, like the kiss of an old man, perfunctory yet +bearing a tender intention. + +The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, the people from Surrey +having been sped upon their way to the Far East. Stephen remembered +with more than his usual relish an engagement to dine that evening +in Middleton Street. He involuntarily glanced at his watch. It was +half-past one. The afternoon looked arid, stretching between. Consulting +his tablets he found that he had nothing that was really of any +consequence to do. There were items, but they were unimportant, +transferable. He had dismissed Hilda Howe, but a glow from the world she +helped to illumine showed seductively at the end of his day. He made +an errand involving a long walk, and came back at an hour which left +nothing but evensong between him and eight o'clock. + +He was suddenly aware as he talked to her later, of a keener edge to his +appreciation of the charm of Alicia Livingstone. Her voyage, he assured +her, had done her all the good in the world. Her delicate bloom had +certainly been enhanced by it, and the graceful spring of her neck and +her waist seemed to have its counterpart in a freshened poise of +the agreeable things she found to say. It was delightful the way she +declared herself quite a different being, and the pleasure with which +she moved, dragging fascinating skirts behind her, about the room. She +made more of an impression upon him on the aesthetic side than she had +ever done before; she seemed more highly vitalised, her fineness had +greater relief, and her charm more freedom. Lindsay was there, and +Arnold glanced from one to the other of them, first with a start +then with a smile, at the recollection of Hilda's conception of their +relations. If this were a type and instance of hopeless love he had +certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his +mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a pondering +smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in his curious +acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very flower of emotional +naivete, though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, grown in +idleness; and indeed it might have abashed him to say what concern +it had in the mind of the Order of St. Barnabas. It was gratifying, +nevertheless, to have his observation confirmed by the way in which +Alicia leaned across him toward Lindsay with occasional references to +Laura Filbert, apparently full of light-heartedness, references which +Duff received in the square-shouldered matter-of-course fashion of his +countrymen approaching their nuptials in any quarter of the globe. +It was gratifying, and yet it enhanced in Stephen this evening the +indrawing of his under-lip, a plaintive twist of expression which spoke +upon the faces of quite half the Order, of patience under privation. + +The atmosphere was one of congratulation, the week's Gazette had +transformed Surgeon-Major Livingstone into Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel. +The officer thus promoted, in a particularly lustrous shirt bosom, made +a serious social effort to correspond, and succeeded in producing more +than one story of the Principal Medical Officer with her Majesty's +forces in India, which none of them had heard before. They were all +delighted at Herbert's step, he was just the kind of person to get a +step, and to get it rather early; a sense of the propriety of it mingled +with the general gratification. There was a feeling of ease among them, +too, of the indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when +the surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no +strain imaginable one could see the relaxation. + +“We can't do much in celebration,” Lindsay was saying, “but I've got +a box at the theatre, if you'll come. Our people had some pomfret and +oysters over on ice from Bombay this morning, and I've sent my share to +Bonsard to see what he can do with it for supper. Jack Cummins and Lady +Dolly are coming. By the way, what do you think the totalizator paid +Lady Dolly on Saturday--six thousand!” + +“Rippin',” Herbert agreed. “We'll all come--at least--I don't know. What +do you say, Arnold?” + +“Of course Stephen will come,” Alicia urged. “Why not?” It was putting +him and his gown at once beyond the operation of vulgar prejudice, +intimating that they quite knew him for what he was. + +“What's the piece?” Herbert inquired. + +“Oh, the piece isn't up to much, I'm afraid, only that Hilda Howe is +worth seeing in almost anything.” + +“Thanks,” Stephen put in, “but I think, thanks very much, I would rather +not.” + +“I remember,” Alicia said, “you were with us the night she played in The +Offence of Galilee. I don't wonder that you do not wish to disturb that +impression.” + +Stephen fixed his eyes upon a small pyramid of crystallised cherries +immediately in front of him, and appeared to consider, austerely, what +form his reply should take. There was an instant's perceptible pause, +and then he merely bowed toward Alicia as if vaguely to acknowledge the +kindness of her recollection. “I think,” he said again, “that I will not +accompany you to-night, if you will be good enough to excuse me.” + +“You must excuse us both,” Alicia said definitely, “I should much rather +stay at home and talk to Stephen.” + +At this they all cried out, but Miss Livingstone would not change +her mind. “I haven't seen him for three weeks,” she said, with gentle +effrontery, making nothing of his presence, “and he's much more +improving than either of you. I also shall choose the better part.” + +“How you can call it that, with Hilda in the balance--” Duff protested. + +“But then you've invited Lady Dolly. After winning six thousand there +will be no holding Lady Dolly. She'll be capable of cat-calls! How I +should love,” Alicia went on, “to have Hilda meet her. She would be a +mine to Hilda.” + +“For pity's sake,” cried her brother, “stop asking Hilda and people who +are a mine to Hilda! It's too perceptible, the way she digs in them.” + +“You dear old thing, you're quite clever to-night! What difference does +it make? They never know--they never dream! I wish I could dig.” Alicia +looked pensively at the olive between her finger and thumb. + +“Thank Heaven you can't,” Duff said warmly. It was a little odd, the +personal note. Alicia's eyes remained upon the olive. + +“It's all she lives for.” + +“Well,” Duff declared, “I can imagine higher ends.” + +“You're not abusing Hilda!” Alicia said, addressing the olive. + +“Not at all. Only vindicating you.” + +It did single them out, this fencing. Herbert and Arnold sat as +spectators, pushed, in a manner, aside. + +“I suppose she will be off soon,” Livingstone said. + +“Oh, dreadfully soon. On the fifteenth. I had a note from her to-day.” + +“Did she say she was going?” Stephen asked quickly. + +“She mentioned the Company--she is the Company surely.” + +“Oh, undoubtedly. May I--might I ask for a little more soda-water, +Alicia?” He made the request so formally that she glanced at him with +surprise. + +“Please do--but isn't it very odious, by itself, that way? I suppose we +shouldn't leave out Hamilton Bradley--he certainly counts.” + +“For how much?” inquired her brother. “He's going to pieces.” + +“Hilda can pull him together again,” Lindsay said incautiously. + +“Has she an influence for good--over him?” Stephen inquired, and cleared +his throat. He caught a glance exchanged, and frowned. + +“Oh yes,” Duff said, “I fancy it is for good. For good, certainly. The +odd part of it is that he began by having an influence over her which +she declares improved her acting. So that was for good, too, as it +turned out. I think she makes too much of him. To my mind he speaks like +a bit of consecrated stage tradition and looks like a bit of consecrated +stage furniture--he, and his thin nose, and his thin lips, and his thin +eyebrows. Personally, I'm sick of his eyebrows.” + +“They'll end by marrying,” said Surgeon-Lieut.-Colonel Livingstone. + +“HERBERT! How little you know her!” + +“It's possible enough,” Duff said, “especially if she finds him in any +way necessary to her production of herself. Hilda has knocked about too +much to have many illusions. One is pretty sure she would place that +first.” + +“You are saying a thing which is monstrous!” cried Alicia. + +Unperturbed, her brother supported his conviction. “She'll have to marry +him to get rid of him,” he said. “Fancy the opportunities of worrying +her the brute will have in those endless ocean voyages!” + +“Oh, if you think Hilda could be WORRIED into anything!” Miss +Livingstone exclaimed derisively. “If the man were irritating, do you +suppose she wouldn't arrange--wouldn't find means?--” + +“She would have him put in irons, no doubt,” Herbert retorted, “or +locked up with the other sad dogs, in charge of the ship's butcher.” + +The three laughed immoderately, and Stephen, looking up, came in at the +end with a smile. Alicia pronounced her brother too absurd, and unfitted +by nature to know anything about creatures like Hilda Howe. “A mere +man to begin with,” she said. “You haven't the ghost of a temperament, +Herbert; you know you haven't.” + +“He got's a lovely bedside manner,” Lindsay remarked, “and that's the +next thing to it.” + +“Rubbish! I don't want to hurry you,” Alicia glanced at the watch on her +wrist, “but unless you and Herbert want to miss half the first act you +had better be off. Stephen and I will have our coffee comfortably in the +drawing-room and find what excuses we can for you.” + +But Stephen put out his hand with a movement of slightly rigid +deprecation. + +“If it is not too vacillating of me,” he said, “and I may be forgiven, I +think I will change my mind, and go. I have no business to break up your +party, and besides, I shall probably not have another opportunity--I +should rather like to go. To the theatre, of course, that is. Not to +Bonsard's, thanks very much.” + +“Oh, do come on to Bonsard's,” Lindsay said, and Alicia protested that +he would miss the best of Lady Dolly, but Stephen was firm. Bonsard's +was beyond the limit of his indulgence. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Only the Sphinx confronted them after all when they arrived at the +theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. The older feminine presentment sent +her belittling gaze over their heads and beyond them from the curtain; +Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from the front of the box. +Lady Dolly raised her eyes but not her elbows, which were assisting her +a good deal with the house in exploring and being explored, enabling +Colonel John Cummins, who sat by her side, to observe how very perfect +and adorable the cut of her bodice was. Since Colonel Cummins was +accustomed to say in moments when his humour escaped his discretion, +things highly appreciative of bodices, the role of Lady Dolly's elbows +could hardly be dismissed as unimportant. Moreover, the husband attached +to the elbows belonged to the Department of which Colonel John was the +head, so that they rested, one may say, upon a very special plane. + +Alicia disturbed it with the necessity of taking Colonel Cummins place, +which Lady Dolly accepted with admirable spirit; assuring the usurper, +with the most engaging candour, that she simply ought never to be seen +without turquoises. “Believe it or not as you like, but I love you +better every time I see you in that necklace.” Lady Dolly clasped her +hands, with her fan in them, in the abandonment of her affection, and +“love you better” floated back and dispersed itself among the men. +Alicia smiled the necessary acknowledgment. All the women she knew +made compliments to her; it was a kind of cult among them. The men had +sometimes an air of envying their freedom of tongue. “Don't say that,” + she returned lightly, “or Herbert will never give me any diamonds.” She +too looked her approval of Lady Dolly's bodice, but said nothing. It +was doubtless precisely because she disdained certain forms of feminine +barter that she got so much for nothing. + +“And where,” demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric whisper, “did you find +that dear sweet little priest? Do introduce him to me--at least by and +by, when I've thought of something to say. Let me see, wasn't it Good +Friday last week? I'll ask him if he had hot-cross buns--or do people +eat those on Boxing Day? Pancakes come in somewhere, if one could only +be sure!” + +Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. His senses were +filled for the moment by its other occupants, the men in the fresh +correctness of their evening dress, whose least gesture seemed to spring +from an indefinite fulness of life, the two women in front, a kind of +lustrous tableau of what it was possible to choose and to enjoy. They +were grouped and shut off in a high light which seemed to proceed partly +from the usual sources and partly from their own personalities; he saw +them in a way which underlined their significance at every point. It +seemed to Stephen that in a manner he profaned this temple of what he +held to be poorest and cheapest in life, a paradox of which he was +but dimly aware in his dejection. A sharp impression of his physical +inferiority to the other men assailed him; his appreciation of their +muscular shoulders had a rasp in it. For once the poverty of spirit to +which he held failed to offer him a refuge, his eye wandered restlessly +as if attempting futile reconciliations, and the thing most present with +him was the worn-all-day feeling about the neck of his cassock. He +fixed his attention presently in a climax of passive discomfort on the +curtain, where unconsciously, his gaze crept with a subtle interrogation +in it to the wide eyeballs of the Sphinx. + +The stalls gradually filled, although it was a second production, in the +middle of the week, and although the gallery and the rupee seats under +it were nearly empty. The piece accounted for both. When Duff Lindsay +said at dinner that it wasn't “up to much,” he spoke, I fancy, from +the nearest point of view he could take to that of the Order of St. +Barnabas. As a matter of fact, The Victim of Virtue was up to a very +great deal, but its points were so delicate that one must have been +educated rather broadly to grasp them, which is again perhaps a foolish +contrariety of terms. At all events they carried no appeal to the +theatre-goers from the sailing ships in the river or the regiments in +the fort, who turned as one than that night to Jimmy Finnigan. + +Stephen was aware, in the abstract, of what he might expect. He savoured +the enterprises of the London theatres weekly in the Saturday Review; +he had cast a remotely observing eye upon the productions of this +particular playwright through that medium for a long time. They formed +a manifestation of the outer world fit enough to draw a glance of +speculation from the inner; their author was an acrobat of ideas. +Doubtless we are all clowns in the eyes of the angels, yet we have the +habit of supposing that they sometimes look down upon us. It was thus, +if the parallel is not exaggerated, that Arnold regarded the author of +The Victim of Virtue. His attitude was quite taken before the orchestra +ceased playing; it was made of negation rather than criticism, on the +basis that he had no concern with, and no knowledge of, such things. +Deliberately he gave his mind a surface which should shed promiscuous +invitation, and folded his lips as it were, against the rising of the +curtain. He thought of Hilda separately, and he looked for her upon the +boards with the simplicity of a desire to see the woman he knew. + +When finally he did see her she made before him a picture that was to +remain with him always as his last impression of an art from which in +all its manifestations on that night he definitely turned. From the +aigrette in her hair to the paste buckle on her shoe she was mondaine. +Her dress, of some indefinite, slight white material, clasped at the +waist with a belt that gave the beam of turquoises and the gleam of +silver, ministered as much to the capricious ideal of the moment as +to the lines and curves of the person it adorned. The set was the +inevitable modern drawing-room, and she sat well out on a sofa, with her +hands, in long black gloves, resting stiffly, palm downward on each side +of her. It was as if she pushed her body forward in an impulse to rise, +her rigid arms thrust her shoulders up a little and accentuated the +swell of her bosom. It was a vivid, a staccato attitude; it expressed +a temperament, a character, fifty other things; but especially it +epitomised the restraints and the licenses of a world of drawing-rooms. +In that first brief mute instant of disclosure she was all that she +presently, by voice and movement, proclaimed herself to be--so dazzling +and complete that Stephen literally blinked at the revelation. He made +an effort, for a moment or two, to pursue and detect the woman who had +been his friend; then the purpose of his coming gradually faded from +his mind, and he stood with folded arms and absorbed eyes watching the +other, the Mrs. Halliday, on the sofa, setting about the fulfilment of a +purple destiny. + +The play proceeded and Stephen did not move--did not wince. When Mrs. +Halliday, whose mate was exacting, exclaimed, “The greatest apostle of +expediency was St. Paul. He preached 'wives love your husbands,'” he +even permitted himself the ghost of a smile. At one point he wished +himself familiar with the plot; it was when Hamilton Bradley came +jauntily on as Lord Ingleton, assuring Mrs. Halliday that immorality +was really only shortsightedness. Lady Dolly in front, repeated Lord +Ingleton's phrase with ingenuous wonder. “I know it's clever,” she +insisted, “but what does it mean? Now that other thing--what was +it?--'Subtract vice, and virtue is what is left'--that's an easy one. +Write it down on your cuff for me, will you, Colonel Cummins? I SHALL be +so sick if I forget it.” + +Stephen was perhaps the only person in the box quite oblivious of Lady +Dolly. He looked steadily over her animated shoulders at the play, +wholly involved in an effort to keep its current and direction through +the floating debris of constrained sayings with which it was encumbered; +to know in advance whither it was carrying its Mrs. Halliday, and how +far Lord Ingleton would accompany. When Lord Ingleton paused as it were +to beg four people to “have nothing to do with sentiment--it so often +leads to conviction,” and the house murmured its amusement, Arnold +shifted his shoulders impatiently. “How inconsistent,” Lord Ingleton +reproached Mrs. Halliday a moment later, “to wear gloves on your hands +and let your thoughts go candid.” Arnold turned to Duff. “There's +no excuse for that,” he said, but Lindsay was hanging upon Hilda's +rejoinder and did not hear him. + +At the end of the first act, where, after introducing Mrs. Halliday to +her husband's divorced first wife, Lord Ingleton is left rubbing his +hands with gratification at having made two such clever women “aware of +each other,” Stephen found himself absolutely unwilling to discuss the +piece with the rest of the party. As he left the box to walk up and down +the corridor outside where it was cooler, he heard the voice of Colonel +Cummins lifted in further quotation, “'To be good AND charming--what a +sinful superfluity!' I'm sure nobody ever called you superfluous, Lady +Dolly,” and was vividly aware of the advisability of taking himself and +his Order out of the theatre. He had not been gratified, or even from +any point appealed to. Hilda's production of Mrs. Halliday was so +perfect that it failed absolutely to touch him, almost to interest +him. He had no means of measuring or of valuing that kind of woman, the +restless brilliant type that lives upon its emotions and tilts at the +problems of its sex with a curious comfort in the joust. He was too far +from the circle of her modern influence to consider her with anything +but impatience if he had met her original person, and her reflection, +her reproduction seemed to him frivolous and meaningless. If he went +then, however, he would go as he came, in so far as the play was +concerned; the first act, relying altogether upon the jugglery of its +dialogue, gave no clue to anything. He owed it to Hilda after all to see +the piece out. It was only fair to give her a chance to make the best +of it. He decided that it was worth a personal sacrifice to give it her, +and went back. + +He was sufficiently indignant with the leading idea of the play, and +sufficiently absorbed in its progress, at the end of the second act, to +permit Lady Dolly to capture him before it occurred to him that he had +the use of his legs. Her enthusiasm was so great that it reduced him +to something like equivocation. She wanted to know if anything could be +more splendid than Mr. Bradley as Lord Ingleton; she confided to Stephen +that that was what she called REAL wickedness, the kind that did the +most harm, and invited him by inference, to a liberal judgment of stupid +sinners. He sat emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes nervously +fugitive from Lady Dolly's too proximate opulence until the third act +began. Then he gave place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel Cummins, +and folded his arms again at the back of the box. + +Before it was finished he had the gratification of recognising at least +one Hilda that he knew. The newspapers found in her interpretation the +development of a soul, and one remembered, reading them, that a cliche +is a valuable thing in a hurry. A phrase which spoke of a soul bruised +out of life and rushing to annihilation would have been more precise. +The demand upon her increased steadily as the act went on, and as she +met it there slipped into her acting some of her own potentialities +of motive and of passion. She offered to the shaping circumstance +rich material and abundant plasticity, and when the persecution of her +destiny required her to throw herself irretrievably away she did it +with a splendid appreciation of large and definite movement that was +essentially of herself. + +The moment of it had a bold gruesomeness that caught the breath--a +disinterment on the stage in search of letters that would prove the +charge against the second year of Mrs. Halliday's married life, her +letters buried with the poet. It was an advantage which only the husband +of Mrs. Halliday would have claimed to bring so helpless a respondent +before even the informal court at the graveyard; but it gave Hilda a +magnificent opportunity of wild, mad apostrophe to the skull, holding it +tenderly with both hands, while Lord Ingleton smiled appreciatively +in advance of the practical benevolence which was to sustain the lady +through the divorce court, and in the final scene offer to her and to +the prejudices of the British public the respectability of his name. + +It was over with a rush at the end, leaving the audience uncertain +whether after all enough attention had been paid to that tradition +of the footlights which insists on so nice a sense of opprobrium and +compensation, but convinced of its desire to applaud. Duff Lindsay +turned as the wave of clapping spent itself, to say to Stephen that he +had never respected Hamilton Bradley's acting so much. He said it to +Herbert Livingstone instead; the priest had disappeared. + +The outgoers looked at Arnold curiously as he made his way among them in +a direction which was not that of the exit. He went with hurried purpose +in the face of them all toward the region, badly lighted and imperfectly +closed, which led to the rear of the stage. He opened doors into dark +closets, and one which gave upon the road, retraced his unfamiliar +steps and asked a question, to which--it was so unusual from one in his +habit--he received a hesitating but correct reply. A moment later he +passed Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope, who stood in his path with a hostile +stare, and got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a door +upon which was pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a poster, +of Miss Hilda Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when she cried +“Come in!” with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single chair the +place contained, in the dress and make-up of the last scene. A servant, +who looked up incuriously, was unlacing her shoes. Various garments hung +about on nails driven into the unpainted walls, others overflowed from a +packing-box in one corner. A common teakwood dressing-table held make +up saucers and powder-puffs and some remnants of cold fowl which had not +been partaken of, apparently, with the assistance of a knife and fork. +A candle stood in an empty soda-water bottle on each side of the +looking-glass, and there was no other light. On the floor a pair of +stays, old and soiled, sprawled with unconcern. The place looked sordid +and miserable, and Hilda sitting in the middle of it, still in the +yellow wig and painted face of Mrs. Halliday, all wrong at that range, +gave it a note of false artifice, violent and grievous. Stephen stood in +the doorway grasping the handle, saying nothing, and an instant passed +before she knew with certainty, in the wretched light, that it was he. +Then she sprang up and made a step toward him as if toward victory and +reward, but checked herself in time. “Is it possible!” she exclaimed. “I +did not know you were in the theatre.” + +“Yes,” he said, with moderation, “I have seen this--this damnable play.” + +“Damnable? Oh!--” + +“It has caused me,” he went on, “to regret the substance of my letter +this morning. I failed to realise that this was the kind of work you +devote your life to. I now see that you could not escape its malign +influence--that no women could. I now think that the alternative that +has been revealed to you, of remaining in Calcutta, is a chance of +escape offered you by God Himself. Take it. I withdraw my foolish, +ignorant opposition.” + +“Oh,” she cried, “do you really think--” + +“Take it,” he repeated, and closed the door. + +Hilda sat still for some time after the servant had finished unlacing +her shoes. A little tender smile played oddly about her carmined lips. +“Dear heart,” she said aloud, “I was going to.” + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +“I would simply give anything to be there,” Miss Livingstone said, with +a look of sincere desire. + +“I should love to have you, but it isn't possible. You might meet men +you knew who had been invited by particular lady friends among the +company.” + +“Oh, well, that of course would be odious.” + +“Very, I should think,” Hilda agreed. “You must be satisfied with a +faithful report of it. I promise you that.” + +“You have asked Mr. Lindsay,” Alicia complained. + +“That's quite a different thing. And if I hadn't, Llewellyn Stanhope +would; Stanhope cherishes Duff as he cherishes the critic of the +Chronicle. He refers to him as a pillar of the legitimate. Whenever +he begs me to turn the Norwegian crank, he says, 'I'm sure Mr. Lindsay +would come.'” + +Miss Howe was at the top of the staircase in Middleton Street, on the +point of departure. It was to be the night of her last appearance for +the season and her benefit, followed by a supper in her honour, at +which Mr. Stanhope and his company would take leave of those whose +acquaintance, as he expressed it, business and pleasure had given them +during the months that were past. It was this function that Alicia, at +the top of the staircase, so ardently desired to attend. + +“No, I won't kiss you,” Hilda said, as the other put her cool cheek +forward; “I'm so divinely happy--some of it might escape.” + +Alicia's voice pursued her as she ran downstairs. “Remember,” she said, +“I don't approve. I don't at all agree either with my reverend cousin +or with you. I think you ought to find some other way, or let it go. Go +home instead; go straight to London and insist on your chance. After six +weeks you will have forgotten the name of his Order.” + +Hilda looked back with a smile. Her face was splendid with the dawn and +the promise of success. “Don't say that,” she cried. + +Alicia, leaning down, was visited by a flash of quotation. “Well,” she +said, “nothing in this life becomes you like the leaving of it,” and +went back to her room to write to Laura Filbert in Plymouth. She wrote +often to Miss Filbert, at Duff's request. It gratified her that she was +able, without a pang, to address four pages of pleasantly colourless +communication to Mr. Lindsay's fiancee. Her letters stood for a medicine +surprisingly easy to take, aimed at the convalescence which she already +anticipated in the future immediately beyond Duff's miserable marriage. +If that event had promised felicitously she would have faced it, one +fancies, with less sanguine anticipations for herself: but the black +disaster that rode on with it brought her certain aids to the spirit, +certain hopes of herself. Laura's prompt replies, with their terrible +margins and painstaking solecisms, came to be things Miss Livingstone +looked forward to. She read them with a beating heart, however, in the +unconscious apprehension of some revelation of improvement. She was +quite unaware of it, but she entertained towards the Simpsons an +attitude of misgiving in this regard. + +Hilda went on about her business. As usual her business was important +and imperative; nothing was lightened for her this last day. She drove +about from place to place in the hot, slatternly city, putting more than +her usual vigour and directness into all she did. It seemed to her that +the sunlight burning on the tiles, pouring through the crowded streets, +had more than ever a vivid note; and so much spoke to her, came to her, +from the profuse and ingenuous life which streamed about her, that she +leaned a little forward to meet it with happy eyes and tender lips that +said, “I know. I see.” She was living for the moment which should exhale +itself somewhere about midnight after the lights had gone out on her +last appearance--living for it as a Carmelite might live for the climax +of her veil and her vows if it were conceivable that beyond the cell +and the grating she saw the movement and the colour and the passion of +a wider life. All Hilda's splendid vitality went into her intention, +of which she was altogether mistress, riding it and reining it in a +straight course through the encumbered hours. It keyed her to a finer +and more eager susceptibility; and the things she saw stayed with her, +passing into a composite day which the years were hardly to dim for her. + +She could live like that, for the purposes of a period, wrought up to +immense keenness of sense and brilliancy of energy, making steadily for +some point of feeling or achievement flashing gloriously on the horizon. +It is already plain, perhaps, that she rejoiced in such strokes, and +that life as she found it worth living was marked by a succession of +them. + +She had kept, even from Lindsay, what she meant to do. When she stepped +from his brougham, flushed after the indubitable triumph of the evening, +with her arms full of real bouquets from Chatterjee's--no eight-anna +bazar confections edged with silver tinsel--it occurred to her that this +reticence was not altogether fair to so constant a friend. He was there, +keen and eager as ever in all that concerned her, foremost with his +congratulations on the smiling fringe of the party assembled to do her +honour. It was a party of some brilliance in its way, though its way was +diverse; there was no steady glow. Fillimore said of the company that it +comprised all the talent, and Fillimore, Editor of the Indian Sportsman +and Racing Gazelle, was a judge. He said it to Hagge, of the Bank of +Hindostan, who could hardly have been an owner on three hundred rupees +a month without conspicuous ability disconnected with his ledgers; and +Hagge looked gratified. Though so promising, he was young. Lord Bobby +was there from Government House. Lord Bobby always accompanied the +talent, who were very kind to him. He was talking when Hilda arrived to +the Editor of the Indian Empire, who wanted to find out the date of her +Excellency's fancy dress party for children, in order that he might make +a leaderette of it; but Lord Bobby couldn't remember--had to promise +to drop him a line. Gianacchi was there, trying to treat Fillimore with +coldness because the Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his +Musquito, exalted her indeed into a favourite for Saturday's hurdle +race, a notability for which Gianacchi felt himself too modest. “They +say,” Fillimore had written, “that Musquito has been seen jumping by +moonlight”--the sort of thing to spoil any book. Fillimore was an acute +and weary-looking little man, with a peculiarly sweet smile and an air +of cynicism which gave to his lightest word a dangerous and suspicious +air. It was rumoured in official circles that he had narrowly escaped +beheading for pointing out too ironically the disabilities of a Viceroy +who insisted on reviewing the troops from a cushioned carriage with the +horses taken out. Fillimore seemed to think that if nature had not made +such a nobleman a horseman, the Queen-Empress should not have made him +Governor-General of India. Fillimore was full of prejudices. Gianacchi, +however, found it impossible to treat him coldly. His smoothness +of temperament stood in the way. Instead, he imparted the melodious +information that Musquito had pecked badly twice at Tollygunge that +morning, and smiled with pathetic philosophy. “Always let 'em use their +noses,” said Fillimore, and there seemed to be satire in it. Fillimore +certainly had a flair, and when Beryl Stace presently demanded of +him, “What's the dead bird going to be on Saturday, Filly?” he put it +generously at her service. Among the friends of Mr. Stanhope and his +company were also several gentlemen, content, for their personal effect, +with the lustre they shed upon the Stock Exchange--gentlemen of high +finance, who wrote their names at the end of directors' reports, but +never in the visitors' book at Government House, who were little more +to the Calcutta world than published receipts for so many lakhs, except +when they were seen now and then driving, in fleet dogcarts across the +Maidan toward comfortable suburban residences where ladies were not +entertained. They were extremely, curiously, devoted to business; but if +they allowed themselves any amusement other than company promoting, +it was the theatre, of which their appreciation had sometimes an odd +relation to the merits of performance. This supper, on the part of Miss +Beryl Stace and one or two others of Mr. Stanhope's artistes, might have +been considered a return of hospitality to these gentlemen, since the +suburban residences stood lavishly open to the profession. + +Altogether, perhaps, there were fifty people, and an eye that looked for +the sentiment, the pity of things, would have distinguished at once +on about half the faces, especially those of the women, the used, +underlined look that spoke of the continual play of muscle and forcing +of feeling. It gave them a shabbily complicated air, contrasting in a +strained and sorry way even, with the countenances of the brokers and +bankers, where nature had laid on a smooth wash and experience had not +interfered. They were all gay and enthusiastic as Miss Howe entered, +they loafed forward, broad shirt-fronts lustrous, fat hands in financial +pockets, with their admiration, and Fillimore put out his cigarette. +Hilda came down among them from the summit of her achievement, clasping +their various hands. They were all personally responsible for her +success, she made them feel that, and they expanded in the conviction. +She moved in a kind of tide of infectious vitality, subtly drawing from +every human flavour in the room the power to hold and show something +akin to it in herself, a fugitive assimilation floating in the lamplight +with the odour of the flowers and the soup, to be extinguished with the +occasion. They looked at her up and down the table with an odd smiling +attraction, they told each other that she was in great form. Mr. +Fillimore was of the opinion that she couldn't be outclassed at the +Lyceum, and Mr. Hagge responded with vivacity that there were few places +where she wouldn't stretch the winner's neck. The feast was not +after all one of great bounty, Mr. Stanhope justly holding that the +opportunity, the little gathering, was the thing, and it was not long +before the moment of celebration arrived for which the gentlemen of +the Stock Exchange, to judge from their undrained glasses, seemed to be +reserving themselves. There certainly had been one tin of pate, and +it circulated at that end; on the other hand the ladies had all the +fondants. So that when Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope rose with the sentiment +of the evening he found satisfaction, if not repletion, in the regards +turned upon him. + +Llewellyn got up with modest importance, and ran a hand through his +yellow hair, not dramatically, but with the effect of collecting +his ideas. He leaned a little forward, he was extremely, happily +conspicuous. The attention of the two lines of faces seemed to overcome +him, for an instant, with dizzy pleasure; Hilda's beside him was bent a +little, waiting. + +“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Stanhope, looking with precision up +and down the table to be still more inclusive, “we have met together +to-night in honour of a lady who has given this city more pleasure in +the exercise of her profession than can be said of any single performer +during the last twenty years. Cast your eye back over the theatrical +record of Calcutta for that space of time, and you yourselves will admit +that there has been nobody that could be said to have come within a mile +of her shadow, if I may use the language of metaphor.” (Applause, led +by Mr. Fillimore.) “I would ask you to remember, at the same time, that +this pleasure has been of a superior class. I freely admit that this is +a great satisfaction to me personally. Far be it from me to put myself +forward on this auspicious occasion, but, ladies and gentlemen, if I +have one ambition more than another, it is to promote the noble cause +of the unfettered drama. To this I may say I have been vowed from the +cradle, by a sire who was well-known in the early days of the metropolis +of Sydney as a pioneer of the great movement which has made the dramatic +talent of Australia what it is. To-day a magnificent theatre rises on +the site forever consecrated to me by those paternal labours, but--but I +can never forget it. In Miss Hilda Howe I have found a great coadjutor, +and one who is willing to consecrate her royal abilities in the same +line as myself, so that we have been able to maintain a high standard of +production among you, prices remaining as usual. I have to thank you, +as representing the public of the Indian capital, for the kind support +which has been so encouraging to Miss Howe, the Company, and myself +personally, during the past season. Many a time ladies and gentlemen of +my profession have said to me, 'Mr. Stahhope, why do you go to Calcutta? +That city is a death-trap for professionals,' and now the past season +proves that I was right and they were wrong; and the magnificent houses, +the enthusiasm, and the appreciation that have greeted our efforts, +especially on the Saturday evening performances, show plainly enough +that when a good thing is available the citizens of Calcutta won't be +happy till they get it. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to join me in +drinking the health, happiness, and prosperity of Miss Hilda Howe!” + +“Miss Howe!” “Miss Howe!” “Miss Hilda Howe!” In the midst of a pushing +back of chairs and a movement of feet, the response was quick and +universal. Hilda accepted their nods and becks and waving glasses with a +slow movement of her beautiful eyes and a quiet smile, in the subsidence +of sound Mr. Stanhope's voice was heard again, “We can hardly expect +a speech from Miss Howe, but perhaps Mr. Hamilton Bradley, whose +international reputation need hardly be referred to, will kindly say a +few words on her behalf.” + +Then with deliberate grace, Hilda rose from her chair, a tall figure +among them, looking down with a hint of compassionateness on the little +man at her left. She stood for an instant without speaking, as if the +flushed silence, the expectation, the warm magnetism that drew all their +eyes to her were enough. Then out of something like reverie she came +to the matter, she threw up her beautiful face with one of the supreme +gestures which belonged to her. “I think,” she said, with a little +smiling bow in his direction, “that I will not trouble my friend Mr. +Bradley. He has rendered me so many kind services already that I am sure +I might count upon him again, but this is a thing I should like to do +for myself. I would not have my thanks chilled by even the passage from +my heart to his.” There was something like bravado in the glance that +rested lightly on Bradley with this. One would have said that parley of +hearts between them was not a thing that as a rule she courted. “I can +only offer you my thanks, poor things to which we can give neither life +nor substance, yet I beg that you will somehow take them and remember +them. It is to me, and will always be, a kind of crowning satisfaction +that you were pleased to come together to-night to tell me I had done +well. You know yourselves, and I know, how much too flattering your +kindness is, but perhaps it will hurt nobody if to-night I take it as it +is generously offered, and let it make me as happy as you intend me +to be. At all events, no one could disturb me in believing that in +obtaining your praise and your good wishes I have done well enough.” + +For a few seconds she stopped speaking, but she held them with her eyes +from the mistake of supposing she had done. Lindsay, who was watching +her closely and hanging with keen pleasure on the sweetness and +precision of what she found to say, noted a swift constriction pass upon +her face. There was a half-tone of difference, too, in her voice, when +she raised it again, a firmer vibration, as if she passed, deliberate +and aware, out of one phase into another. + +“No,” she went on, “I am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel that +I should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to-night, and +go on talking far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot think it +likely that our ways will cross again.” Here her words grew suddenly low +and hurried. “If I may trespass upon your interest so much further, +I have to tell you that my connection with the stage closes with this +evening's performance. To-morrow I join the Anglican Order of the +Sisters of St. Paul--the Baker Institution--in Calcutta, as a novice. +They have taken me without much question because--because the plague +hospitals of this cheerful country”--she contrived a smile--“have made a +great demand upon their body. That is all. I have nothing more to say.” + +It was, after all, ineffective, the denouement, or perhaps it was too +effective. In any case it was received in silence, the applause that was +ready falling back on itself, inconsistent and absurd. The incredulity +of Llewellyn Stanhope might have been electric had it found words, but +that gentleman's protests were made in violent whispers, to which Hilda, +who sat playing with a faded rose, seemed to pay no attention whatever. +One might have thought her more overcome than anyone. She seemed to make +one or two unsuccessful efforts to raise her head. There was a moment of +waiting for someone to reply; eyes were turned towards Mr. Bradley, and +when it became plain that no one would, broken murmurs of talk began +with a note of deprecation and many shakes of the head. The women, +especially, looked tragically at their neighbours with very wide-open +eyes. Presently a chair was drawn back, and then another, and people +began to filter, in slow embarrassment, towards the door. Lindsay came +with Hilda's cloak. “You won't mind my coming with you,” he said, “I +should like to hear the details.” Beryl Stace made as if to embrace her, +pouring out abusive disbelief, but Hilda waved her away with a gesture +almost of irritation. Some of the others said a perfunctory word or two, +and went away with lingering backward looks. In a quarter of an hour, +Mr. Lindsay's brougham had followed the other vehicles into the lamp-lit +ways of Calcutta, and only the native table-servants remained in +somewhat resentful possession of what was left. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +If Duff Lindsay had apprehended that the reception of Miss Filbert by +the Simpsons would involve any strain upon the affection his friends +bore him, the event must have relieved him in no small degree. He was +soon made aware of its happy character, and constantly kept assured; +indeed, it seemed that whenever Mrs. Simpson had nothing else to do +she laid her pen to the task of telling him once again how cherished +a satisfaction they found in Laura, and how reluctant they would be to +lose it. She wrote in that strain of facile sympathy which seems part +of an Englishwoman's education, and often begged him to believe that the +more she knew of their sweet and heavenly-minded guest the more keenly +she realised how dreary for him must have been the pang of parting +and how arid the months of separation. Mrs. Simpson herself was well +acquainted with these trials of the spirit. She and her husband had been +divided by those wretched thousands of miles of ocean for three years +one week and five days all told during their married life: she knew what +it meant. But if Duff could only see how well and blooming his beloved +one was--she had gained twelve pounds already--Mrs. Simpson was sure the +time of waiting would pass less heavily. For herself, it was cruel but +she smiled upon the deferred reunion of hearts, she would keep Laura +till the very last day, and hoped to establish a permanent claim on her. +She was just the daughter Mrs. Simpson would have liked, so unspotted, +so pure, so wrapped in high ideals; and then the page would reflect +something of the adoring awe in which Mrs. Simpson would have held +such a daughter. It will be seen that Mrs. Simpson knew how to express +herself, but there was a fine sincerity behind the mask of words; Miss +Filbert had entered very completely into possession. + +It had its abnormal side, the way she entered into possession. +Everything about Laura Filbert had its abnormal side, none the less +obvious because it was inward, and invisible. Nature, of course, worked +with her, one might say that nature really did it all, since in the end +she was practically unconscious, except for the hope that certain souls +had been saved, that anything of the sort had happened. She conquered +the Simpsons and their friends chiefly by the simple impossibility that +they should conquer her, walking immobile among them even while she +admired Mr. Simpson's cauliflowers and approved the quality of Mrs. +Simpson's house linen. It must be confessed that nothing in her +surroundings spoke to her more loudly or more subtly than these things. +In view of what happened, poor dear Alicia Livingstone's anticipation +that the Simpsons and their circle would have a radical personal effect +upon Laura Filbert became ludicrous. They had no effect at all. She took +no tint, no curve. She appeared not to see that these precious things +were to be had for the assimilation. Her grace remained exclusively that +of holiness, and continued to fail to have any relation to the common +little things she did and said. + +The Simpsons were more plastic. Laura had been with them hardly a week +before Mrs. Simpson, with touching humility, was trying to remodel +her spiritual nature upon the form so fortuitously, if the word is +admissible, presented. The dear lady had never before realised, by her +own statement, how terribly her religious feelings were mingled with +domestic and social considerations, how firmly her spiritual edifice +was based upon the things of this world. She felt that her soul +was honeycombed--that was her word--with conventionality and false +standards, and she made confessions like these to Laura, sitting in +the girl's bedroom in the twilight. They were very soothing, these +confessions. Laura would take Mrs. Simpson's thin, veined, middle-aged +hand in hers and seem to charge herself for the moment with the +responsibility of the elder lady's case. She did not attempt to conceal +her pity or even her contempt for Mrs. Simpson's state of grace, she +made short work of special services and ladies' Bible classes. The +world was white with harvest, and Mrs. Simpson's chief activity was +a recreation society for shop girls. But it was something, it was +everything, to be uneasy, to be unsatisfied, and they would uplift +themselves in prayer, and Laura would find words of such touching +supplication in which to represent the matter that the burden of her +friend and hostess would at once be lessened by the weight of tears. +Mrs. Simpson had never wept so much without perceived cause for grief as +since Laura arrived, and this alone would testify, such was the +gentle paradox of her temperament, how much she enjoyed Miss Filbert's +presence. + +Laura's room was a temple, for which the gardener daily gave up his +choicest blooms, the tenderest interest watched upon her comings +and goings, and it was the joy of both the Simpsons to make little +sacrifices for her, to desert their beloved vicar on a Sunday evening, +for instance, and accompany her to the firemen's halls and skating rinks +lent to the publishing of the Word in the only manner from which +their guest seemed to derive benefit. With all this, the Simpsons were +sometimes troubled by the impression that they could not claim to be +making their angel in the house completely happy. The air, the garden, +the victoria, the turbot and the whitebait, these were all that has been +vaunted, and even to the modesty of the Simpsons it was evident that the +intimacy they offered their guest should count for something. There were +other friends too, young friends who tried to teach her to play tennis, +robust and silent young persons who threw shy flushed glances at her in +the pauses of the games, and wished supremely, without daring to hint +it, that she would let fall some word about her wonderful romance--a +hope ever renewed, ever to be disappointed. And physically Laura +expanded before their eyes. The colour that came into her cheek gave her +the look of a person painted by Bouguereau; that artist would have +found in her a model whom he could have represented with sincerity. +Yet something was missing to her, her friends were dimly aware. Her +desirable surroundings kindled her to but a perfunctory interest in +life--the electric spark was absent. Mrs. Simpson relied strategically +upon the wedding preparations and hurried them on, announcing in May +that it was quite time to think about various garments of which the +fashion is permanent, but the issue was blank. No ripple stirred the +placid waters, unless indeed we take that way of describing Laura's calm +demand, when the decision lay between Valenciennes and Torchon lace for +under-bodies, to hear whether Mrs. Simpson had ever known Duff Lindsay +to be anxious about his eternal future. The girl continued to give forth +a mere pale reflection of her circumstances, and Mrs. Simpson was forced +into the deprecation that perhaps one would hardly call her a joyous +Christian. + +But for the Zenana Light Society this impression of Miss Filbert might +have deepened. The committee of that body was almost entirely composed +of Mrs. Simpson's friends, and naturally came to learn much about her +guest. The matter was vastly considered, but finally Miss Filbert was +asked to speak at one of the monthly meetings the ladies held among +themselves to keep the society “in touch” with the cause. Laura brought +them, as one would imagine, surprisingly in touch. She made pictures for +them, letting her own eyelashes close deliberately while they stared. +She moved these ladies, inspired them, carried them away, and the fact +that none of them found themselves able afterward to quote the most +pathetic passages seemed rather to add to the enthusiasm with which they +described the address. The first result was a shower of invitations to +tea, occasions when Laura was easily led into monologue. Miss Filbert +became a cult of evangelistic drawing-rooms, and the same kind of +forbearance was extended to her little traces of earlier social +experiences as is offered, in salons of another sort, to the +eccentricities of persons of genius. Very soon other applications had to +be met and considered, and Mrs. Simpson freely admitted that Laura would +not be justified in refusing to the Methodists and Baptists what she had +given elsewhere. She reasserted her platform influence over audiences +that grew constantly larger, and her world began to revolve again in +that great relation to the infinities which it was her life to perceive +and point out. Mrs. Simpson charged her genially with having been +miserable in Plymouth until she was allowed to do good in her own way, +and saw that she had beef-tea after every occasion of doing it. She +became in a way a public character, and a lady journalist sent an +account of her, with a photograph, to a well-known London fashion paper. +Perhaps the strongest effect she made was as the voice of the Purity +Association, when she delivered an address, in the picturesque costume +she had abandoned, attacking measures contemplated by Government for the +protection of the health of the Army in India. This was reported in full +in the local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to Duff Lindsay, who +received it, I regret to say, with an unmistakable imprecation. But +Laura rejoiced. Deprived of her tambourine she nevertheless rejoiced +exceedingly. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The Mother Superior had a long upper lip, which she was in the habit +of drawing still further down; it gave her an air of great diplomatic +caution, almost of casuistry. Her face was pale and narrow; she had eyes +that desired to be very penetrating, and a flat little stooping figure +within her voluminous draperies. She carried about with her all +the virtues of a monastic order, patience was written upon her, and +repression, discipline, and the love of administration, written and +underlined, so that the Anglican Sister whom no Pope blessed was more +priestly in her personal effect than any Jesuit. It was difficult to +remember that she had begun as a woman; she was now a somewhat anaemic +formula making for righteousness. Sister Ann Frances, who in her turn +suggested the fat capons of an age of friars more indulgent to the +flesh, and whose speech was of the crispest in this world where there +was so much to do, thought poorly of the executive ability of the Mother +Superior, and resented the imposition, as it were, of the long upper +lip. Out of this arose the only irritations that vexed the energetic +flow of duty at the Baker Institution, slight official raspings which +the Mother Superior immediately laid before Heaven at great length. She +did it with publicity, too, kneeling on the chunam floor of the chapel +for an hour at a time obviously explaining matters. The bureaucracy of +the country was reflected in the Baker Institution; it seemed to Sister +Ann Frances that her superior officer took undue advantage of her +privilege of direct communication with the Supreme Authority, giving any +colour she liked to the incident. And when the Mother Superior's lumbago +came on in direct consequence of the cold chunam, the annoyance of +Sister Ann Frances was naturally not lessened. + +There were twenty or thirty of them, with their little white caps tied +close under their chins, their long veils and their girdled black robes. +They were the most self-sacrificing women in Asia, the most devout, the +most useful. Government gave hospitals and doctors into their hands; +they took the whole charge of certain schools. They differed in +complexion, some of the newly arrived being delightfully fresh and pink +under their starched bandeaux; but they were all official, they all +walked discreetly and directly about their business, with a jangle of +keys in the folds of their robes, immensely organised, immensely under +orders. Hilda, when she had time, had the keenest satisfaction in +contemplating them. She took the edge off the fact that she was not +quite one, in aim and method, with these dear women as they supposed +her to be, with the reflection that after all it might be worth while +to work out a solution of life in those terms, standing aside from the +world--the world was troublesome--and keeping an unfaltering eye upon +the pity of things, an unfaltering hand at its assuagement. It was +simple and fine and indisputable, this work of throwing the clear shadow +of the Cross upon the muddy sunlight of the world; it carried the boon +of finality in itself. One might be stopped and put away at any moment, +and nothing would be spoiled, broken, unfinished; and it absolutely +barred out such considerations as were presented by Hamilton Bradley. +There was a time early in her probation when she thought seriously that +if it were not Stephen Arnold it should be this. + +She begged to be put on hospital work, and was sent for her indiscretion +to teach in the Orphanage for Female Children of British Troops. The +first duty of a novice was to be free of preference, to obey without +a sigh of choice. On the third day, however, Sister Ann Frances, +supervising, stopped at the open schoolroom door to hear the junior +female orphans repeating in happy chorus after their instructress the +statement that seven times nine were fifty-six. I think Hilda saw +Sister Ann Frances in the door. That couldn't go on, even in the name +of discipline, and Miss Howe was placed at the disposal of the Chief +Nursing Sister at the General Hospital next day. Sister Ann Frances +was inclined to defend Hilda's imperfect acquaintance with primary +arithmetic. + +“We all have our gifts,” she said. “Miss Howe's is not the +multiplication table; but neither is mine stage-acting.” At which, +the upper lip lengthened further into an upward curving smile, and +the Mother Superior remarked cautiously that she hoped Miss Howe would +develop one for making bandages, otherwise--And there for the time being +the matter rested. + +The depth of what was unusual in Hilda's relation with Alicia +Livingstone--perhaps it has been plain that they were not quite +the ordinary feminine liens--seems to me to be sounded in the tacit +acceptance of Hilda's novitiate on its merits that fell between the two +women. The full understanding of it was an abyss between them, across +which they joined hands, looking elsewhere. Even in the surprise of +Hilda's announcement Alicia had the instinct to glance away, lest her +eyes should betray too many facts that bore upon the situation. It +had never been discussed, but it had to be accepted, and occasionally +referred to; and the terms of acceptance and reference made no +implication of Stephen Arnold. In her inmost privacy Alicia gazed +breathless at the conception as a whole; she leaped at it, and caught it +and held it to look, with a feverish comparison of possibilities. It +was not strange, perhaps, that she took a vivid personal interest in the +essentials that enabled one to execute a flank movement like Hilda's, +not that she should conceive the first of them to be that one must +come out of a cab. She dismissed that impression with indignation as +ungenerously cynical, but it always came back for redismissal. It did +not interfere in the least, however, with her deliberate invitations to +Stephen to come to Ten, Middleton Street, on afternoons or evenings +when Hilda was there. She was like one standing denied in the Street of +Abundance; she had an avidity of the eye for even love's reflection. + +That was a little later. At first there was the transformation to +lament, the loss, the break. + +“You look,” cried Miss Livingstone, the first time Hilda arrived in the +dress of the novice, a kind of under-study of the Sisters' black and +white, “you look like a person in a book, full of salient points, and +yet made so simple to the reader. If you go on wearing those things I +shall end by understanding you perfectly.” + +“If you don't understand me,” Hilda said, dropping into the corner of +a sofa, “Cela que je m'en doute, it's because you look for too +much elaboration. I am a simple creature, done with rather a broad +brush--voila tout!” + +Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone's was a happy impression. The neutrality +of her hospital dress left Hilda in a manner exposed: one saw in +a special way the significance of lines and curves; it was an +astonishingly vigorous human expression. + +Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin +tucked into her palm, and looked at it. The elbow bent itself in light +blue muslin of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The colour found a +wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, who was accustomed to +the look, and met it with impenetrable commonplace, being made impatient +by nothing in this world so much as by futility, however charming. + +“Just now,” Alicia said, “the shadows under your eyes are brushed too +deep.” + +“I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory.” + +“Horrible! All the little comforts of life--don't you miss them?” + +“I never had them, my dear--I never had them. Life has never given +me very many luxuries--I don't miss them. An occasional hour to one's +self--and that we get even at the Institution. The conventions are +strictly conserved, believe me.” + +“One imagines that kind of place is always clean.” + +“When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and +believe myself in Paradise. The repose is there, the angels also--dear +commanding things--and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And there is +some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds one that after all one is +very like other women.” + +“It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how did the sisters receive +you--with the harp and the psaltery?” + +“That was rather,” said Hilda gravely, “what I expected. On the +contrary. They snubbed me--they really did. There were two of them. I +said, 'Reverend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents are strange +to me; I shall probably commit horrible sins without knowing it. Give me +your absolution in advance--at least your blessing.'” + +“Hilda, you didn't!” + +“It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she +is, disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me. Such +diplomacy--funny old thing.” + +“They must be devoured with curiosity!” + +“Well, they ask no questions. One sees an everlasting finger on the lip. +It's a little boring. One feels inclined to speak up and say, 'Mesdames, +entendez--it isn't so bad as you think.' But then their fingers would go +into their ears.” + +“And the rules, Hilda? I can't imagine you, somehow, under rules.” + +“I am attached to the rules; I think about them all day long. They make +the thing simple and--possible. It is a little like living for the first +time in a house all right angles after--after a lifelong voyage in a +small boat.” + +“Isn't the house rather empty?” + +“Oh, well!” + +Alicia put out her hand and tucked an irrelevant bit of lace into +Hilda's bosom. “I can tell you who is interested,” she cried. “The +Archdeacon--the Archdeacon and Mrs. Barberry. They both dined here last +night; and you lasted from the fish to the pudding. I got so bored with +you, my dear, in your new capacity.” + +A new ray of happiness came into the smile of the novice. “What did they +say? Do tell me what they said.” + +“There was a difference of opinion. The Archdeacon held that with God +all things were possible. He used an expression more suitable to a +dinner-party; but I think that is what he meant. Mrs. Barberry thought +it wouldn't last. Mrs. Barberry was very cynical. She said anyone could +see that you were as emotional as ever you could be.” + +The eyes of the two women met, and they laughed frankly. A sense of +expansion came between them, in which for an instant they were silent. + +“Tell me about the hospital,” Alicia said presently. “Ah, the hospital!” + Hilda's face changed; there came into her eyes the moved look that +always waked a thrill in Alicia Livingstone, as if she were suddenly +aware that she had stepped upon ground where feet like hers passed +seldom. + +“There is nothing to tell you that is not--sad. Such odds and ends, of +life, thrown together!” + +“Have you had any experiences yet?” + +Hilda stared for a moment absently in front of her, and then turned her +head aside to answer as if she closed her eyes on something. + +“Experiences? Delightful Alicia, speaking your language, no. You are +thinking of the resident surgeon, the medical student, the interesting +patient. My resident surgeon is fifty years old; the medical student is +a Bengali in white cotton and patent leather shoes. I am occupied in a +ward full of deck hands. For these I hold the bandage and the bottle; +they are hardly aware of me.” + +“You are sure to have them,” Alicia said. “They crop up wherever you go +in this world, either before you or behind you.” + +Hilda fixed her eyes attentively upon her companion. “Sometimes,” she +said, “you say things that are extremely true in their general bearing. +A fortuneteller with cards gives one the same shock of surprise. +Well, let me tell you, I have been promoted to temperatures. I took +thirty-five to-day. Next week I am to make poultices; the week after, +baths and fomentations.” + +“What are the others like--the other novices?” + +“Nearly all Eurasians, one native, a Hindu widow--the Sisters are +almost demonstrative to her--and one or two local European girls: the +commissariat sergeant class, I should think.” + +“They don't sound attractive, and I am glad. You will depend the more +upon me.” + +Hilda looked thoughtfully at Miss Livingstone. “I will depend,” she +said, “a good deal upon you.” + +It was Alicia's fate to meet the Archdeacon again that evening at +dinner. “And is she really throwing her heart into the work?” asked that +dignitary, referring to Miss Howe. + +“Oh, I think so,” Alicia said. “Yes.” + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The labours of the Baker Institution and of the Clarke Mission were +very different in scope, so much so that if they had been secular bodies +working for profit, there would have been hardly a point of contact +between them. As it was they made one, drawing together in affiliation +for the comfort of mutual support in a heathen country where all the +other Englishmen wrote reports, drilled troops, or played polo, with all +the other Englishwomen in the corresponding female parts. Doubtless +the little communities prayed for each other. One may imagine, not +profanely, their petitions rising on either side of the heedless, +multitudinous, idolatrous city, and meeting at some point in the purer +air above the yellow dust-haze. I am not aware that they held any other +mutual duty or privilege, but this bond was known, and enabled people +whose conscience pricked them in that direction to give little garden +teas to which they invited Clarke Brothers and Baker Sisters, secure +in doing a benevolent thing and at the same time embarrassing nobody +except, possibly, the Archdeacon, who was officially exposed to being +asked as well and had no right to complain. The affiliation was thus a +social convenience, since it is unlikely that without it anybody would +have hit upon so ingenious a way of killing, as it were, a Baker Sister +and a Clarke Brother with one stone. It is not surprising that this +degree of intelligence should fail to see the profound official +difference between Baker Sisters and Baker novices. As the Mother +Superior said, it did not seem to occur to people that there could be +in connection with a religious body, such words as discipline and +subordination, which were certainly made ridiculous for the time being, +when she and Sister Ann Frances were asked to eat ices on the same terms +as Miss Hilda Howe. It must have been more than ever painful to these +ladies, regarded from the official point of view, when it became plain, +as it usually did, that the interest of the afternoon centred in Miss +Howe, whether or not the Archdeacon happened to be present. Their +displeasure was so clear, after the first occasion, that Hilda felt +obliged when the next one came, to fall back on her original talent, and +ate her ice abashed and silent speaking only when she was spoken to, and +then in short words and long hesitations. Thereupon the Sisters were of +opinion that after all poor Miss Howe could not help her unenviable lot, +she was perhaps more to be pitied on account of it than--anything else. +It came to this, that Sister Ann Frances even had an exhibitor's pride +in her, and Hilda knew the sensations of a barbarian female captive in +the bonds of the Christians. But she could not afford to risk being +cut off from those little garden teas. All told, they were few; ladies +disturbed by ideas of social duties toward missionaries being so +uncommon. + +She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her with +being so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a gravity +which contained an element of satisfaction. “It is, of course, a +pleasure to us to meet,” he said, “a pleasure to us both.” That was +part of the satisfaction, that he could meet her candour with the same +openness. He was not even afraid to mention to her the stimulus she gave +him always and his difficulty in defining it, and once he told her how, +after a talk with her, he had lain awake until the small hours unable +to stop his excited rush of thought. He added that he was now personally +and selfishly glad she had chosen as she did three months before; it +made a difference to him, her being in Calcutta, a sensible and material +difference. He had better hope and heart in his work. It was the last +luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; +but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met +with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into +his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the +look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them +acceptable. His blood might have received some mysterious chemical +complement, so much was his eye clearer, his voice firmer, and the +things he found to say more decisive. Nor did any consideration of their +relations disturb him. He never thought of the oxygen in the air he +breathed, and he seldom thought of Hilda. + +They were walking toward the Institution together the day he explained +to her his gratification that she had elected to remain. Sister Ann +Frances and Sister Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came behind. He had an +errand to the Mother Superior--he would go all the way. It was late in +May and late in the afternoon; all the treetops on the Maidan were bent +under the sweep of the south wind, blowing a caressing coolness from +the sea. It spread fragrances about and shook down blossoms from the +gold-mohur trees. One could see nothing anywhere, so red and yellow as +they were, except the long coat of a Government messenger, a point of +scarlet moving in the perspective of a dusty road. The spreading acres +of turf were baked to every earth-colour; wherever a pine dropped +needles and an old woman swept them up, a trail of dust ran curling +along the ground like smoke. The little party was unusual in walking; +glances of uncomprehending pity were cast at them from victorias and +landaus that rolled past. Even the convalescent British soldiers facing +each other in the clumsy drab cart drawn by humped bullocks, and marked +Garrison Dispensary, stared at the black-skirts so near the powder of +the road. The Sisters in front walked with their heads slightly bent +toward one another; they seemed to be consulting. Hilda reflected, +looking at them, that they always seemed to be consulting; it was the +normal attitude of that long black veil that flowed behind. + +Arnold walked beside his companion, his hands loosely clasped behind +him, with the air of semi-detachment that young clergymen sometimes +have with their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace of custom his +satisfaction carried, the casual glance might easily have taken them for +a married pair. + +“There is a kind of folly and stupidity in saying it,” he said, “but you +have done--you do--a great deal for me.” + +She turned toward him with a wistful, measuring look. It searched his +face for an instant and came back baffled. Arnold spoke with so much +kindness, so much appreciation. + +“Very little,” she said mechanically, looking at the fresh footprints of +Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret. + +“But I know. And can't you tell me--it would make me so very happy--that +I have done something for you too--something that you value?” + +Hilda's eyes lightened curiously, reverie came into them, and a smile. +She answered as if she spoke to herself, “I should not know how to tell +you.” + +Then scenting wonder in him she added, “You were thinking of +something--in particular?” + +“You have sometimes made me believe,” Stephen returned, “that I may +account myself, under God, the accident which induced you to take up +your blessed work. I was thinking of that.” + +“Oh,” she said, “of that!” and seemed to take refuge in silence. + +“Yes,” Arnold said, with infinite gentleness. + +“But you were profoundly the cause! I might say you are, for without you +I doubt whether I should have the--courage--” + +“Oh no! Oh no! He who inspired you in the beginning will sustain you to +the end. Think that. Believe that.” + +“Will He?” Her voice was neutral, as if it would not betray too much, +but there was a listlessness that spoke louder in the bend of her head, +the droop of her shoulder. + +“For you perhaps,” Arnold said thoughtfully, “there is only one +assurance of it--the satisfaction your vocation brings you now. That +will broaden and increase,” he went on, almost with buoyancy, “growing +more and more your supreme good as the years go on.” + +“How much you give me credit for!” + +“Not nearly enough--not nearly. Who is there like you?” he demanded +simply. + +His words seemed a baptism. She lifted up her face after them, and the +trace of them was on her eyes and lips. “I have passed two examinations, +at all events,” she informed him, with sudden gaiety, “and Sister Ann +Frances says that in two or three months I shall probably get through +the others. Sister Ann Frances thinks me more intelligent than might be +expected. And if I do pass those examinations I shall be what they call +a quick-time probationer. I shall have got it over in six months. Do +you think,” she asked, as if to please herself; “that six months will be +long enough?” + +“It depends. There is so much to consider.” + +“Yes--it depends. Sometimes I think it will be, but oftener I think it +will take longer.” + +“I should be inclined to leave it entirely with the Sisters.” + +“I am so undisciplined,” murmured Hilda, “I fear I shall cling to my own +opinion. Now we must overtake the others and you must walk the rest of +the way with Sister Ann--no, Sister Margaret, she is senior.” + +“I don't at all see the necessity,” Stephen protested. He was wilful +and wayward; he adopted a privileged air, and she scolded him. In their +dispute they laughed so imprudently that Sister Ann Frances turned her +draped head to look back at them. Then they quickened their steps and +joined the elder ladies, and Stephen walked with Sister Margaret to the +door of the Institution. She mentioned to the Mother Superior afterwards +that young Mr. Arnold was really a delightful conversationalist. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +They talked a great deal in Plymouth about the way the time was passing +in Calcutta during those last three months before Laura should return, +the months of the rains. “Now,” said Mrs. Simpson, early in July, “it +will be pouring every day, with great patches of the Maidan under water, +and rivers, my dear, RIVERS, in the back streets”; and Laura had a +reminiscence about how, exactly at that time, a green mould used to +spread itself fresh every morning on the matting under her bed in +Bentinck Street. Later on they would agree that perhaps by this time +there was a “break in the rains,” and that nothing in the world was so +trying as a break in the rains, the sun grilling down and drawing up +steam from every puddle. In September, things, they remembered, would +be at their very worst and most depressing; one had hardly the energy to +lift a finger in September. Mrs. Simpson looked back upon the discomfort +she had endured in Bengal at this time of year with a kind of regret +that it was irretrievably over; she lingered upon a severe illness which +had been part of the experience. She seemed to think that with a little +judicious management she might have spent more time in that climate, and +less in England. There was in her tone a suggestion of gentle envy of +Laura, going forth to these dismal conditions with her young life in her +hands all tricked out for the sacrifice, which left Duff Lindsay and his +white and gold drawing-room entirely out of consideration. Any sacrifice +to Mrs. Simpson was alluring, she would be killed all day long, in a +manner, for its own sake. + +The victim had taken her passage early in October, and during the first +week of that month Plymouth gathered itself into meetings to bid her +farewell. A curiously sacred character had fastened itself upon her; it +was not in the least realised that she was going out to be married to an +altogether secular young broker moving in fashionable circles in one +of the gayest cities in the world. Ones or two reverend persons in +the course of commending their young sister to the protection of +the Almighty in her approaching separation from the dear friends who +surrounded her in Plymouth, made references implying that her labours +would continue to the glory of God, taking it as a matter of course. +Miss Filbert was by this time very much impregnated with the idea that +they would, she did not know precisely how, but that would open itself +out. Duff had long been assimilated as part of the programme. All that +money and humility could contribute should be forthcoming from him; she +had a familiar dream of him as her standard-bearer, undistinguished but +for ever safe. + +Yet it was with qualified approval that Mrs. Simpson, amid the confusion +of the Coromandel's preparations for departure at London Docks, +heard the inevitable strains of the Salvation Army rising aft. Laura +immediately cried, “I shall have friends among the passengers,” and Mrs. +Simpson so far forgot herself as to say, “Yes, if they are nice.” The +ladies were sitting on deck beside the pile of Laura's very superior +cabin luggage. Mrs. Simpson glanced at it as if it offered a kind of +corroboration of the necessity of their being nice. “There are always a +few delightful Christian people, if one takes the trouble to find them +out, at this end of the ship,” she said defensively. “I have never +failed to find it so.” + +“I don't think much of Christians who are so hard to discover,” + Laura said with decision; and Mrs. Simpson, rebuked, thought of the +mischievous nature of class prejudices. Laura herself--had she not +been drawn from what one might call distinctly the other end of the +ship?--and who, among those who vaunted themselves ladies and gentlemen, +could compare with Laura! The idea that she had shown a want of sympathy +with those dear people who were so strenuously calling down a blessing +on the Coromandel somewhere behind the smoke stacks, embittered poor +Mrs. Simpson's remaining tears of farewell, and when the bell rang the +signal for the last good-bye, she embraced her young friend with the +fervent request, “Do make friends with them, dear one--make friends with +them at once”; and Laura said, “If they will make friends with me.” + +By the time the ship had well got her nose down the coast of Spain, Miss +Filbert had created her atmosphere, and moved about in it from end to +end of the quarter-deck. It was a recognisable thing, her atmosphere, +one never knew when it would discharge a question relating to the +gravest matters; and persons unprepared to give satisfaction upon this +point--one fears there are some on a ship bound east of Suez--found +it blighting. They moved their long chairs out of the way, they +turned pointedly indifferent backs, the lady who shared Miss Filbert's +cabin--she belonged to a smart cavalry regiment at Mhow--went about +saying things with a distinct edge. Miss Filbert exhausted all the +means. She attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, +standing for elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but +with this the captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on +behalf of the whist-players inside. In the evening, after dinner, she +established herself in a sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered +voice lifted itself with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about the +poverty of the world and the riches of heaven; the notes mingled with +the churning of the screw, and fell in the darkness beyond the ship's +lights abroad upon the sea. The other passengers listened aloof; the +Coromandel was crowded, but you could have drawn a wide circle round her +chair. On the morning of the fourth day out--she had not felt quite +well enough for adventures before--she found her way to the second-class +saloon, being no doubt fully justified of her conscience in abandoning +the first to the flippancies of its preference. + +In the second-class end the tone was certainly more like that of +Plymouth. Laura had a grateful sense of this in coming, almost at once, +upon a little group gathered together for praise and prayer, of which +four or five persons of both sexes, labelled “S. A.,” naturally +formed the centre. They were not only praying and praising without +discouragement, they had attracted several other people who had brought +their chairs into near and friendly relation, and even joined sometimes +in the chorus of the hymns. There was a woman in mourning who cried a +good deal--her tears seemed to refresh the Salvationists and inspire +them to louder and more cheerful efforts. There was a man in a wide, +soft felt hat with the malaria of the Terai in the hollows under +his eyes; there was a Church Missionary with an air of charity and +forbearance, and the bushy-eyed colonel of a native regiment looking +vigilant against ridicule, with his wife, whose round red little face +continually waxed and waned in a smile of true contentment. It was not +till later that Laura came to know them all so very well, but her eye +rested on them one after another, with approval, as she drew near. +Without pausing in his chant--it happened to be one of triumph--without +even looking at her, the leader indicated an empty chair. It was his +own chair. “Colonel Markin, S. A.” was printed in black letters on its +striped canvas back; Laura noticed that. + +After it was over, the little gathering, Colonel Markin specially +distinguished her. He did it delicately. “I hope you won't mind my +expressin' my thanks for the help you gave us in the singin',” he said. +“Such a voice I've seldom had the pleasure to join with. May I ask where +you got it trained?” + +He was a narrow-chested man with longish sandy hair and thin features. +His eyes were large, blue, and protruding, his forehead very high and +white. There was a pinkness about the root of his nose, and a scanty +yellow moustache upon his upper lip, while his chin was partly hidden by +a beard equally scanty and even more yellow. He had extremely long white +hands; one could not help observing them as they clasped his book of +devotion. + +Laura looked at him with profound appreciation of these details. She +knew Colonel Markin by reputation, he had done a great work among the +Cingalese. “It was trained,” she said, casting down her eyes, “on the +battlefields of our Army.” + +Colonel Markin attempted to straighten his shoulders and to stiffen his +chin. He seemed vaguely aware of a military tradition which might make +it necessary for him, as a very senior officer indeed, to say something. +But the impression was transitory. Instead of using any rigour he held +out his hand. Laura took it reverently, and the bones shut up, like the +sticks of a fan, in her grasp. “Welcome, comrade!” he said, and there +was a pause, as there should be after such an apostrophe. + +“When you came among us this afternoon,” Colonel Markin resumed, “I +noticed you. There was something about the way you put your hand over +your eyes when I addressed our Heavenly Father that spoke to me. It +spoke to me and said, 'Here we have a soul that knows what salvation +means--there's no doubt about that.' Then when you raised a Hallelujah +I said to myself, 'That's got the right ring to it.' And so you're a +sister in arms!” + +“I was,” Laura murmured. + +“You was--you were. Well, well--I want to hear all about it. It is now,” + continued Colonel Markin, as two bells struck and a steward passed them +with a bugle, “the hour for our dinner, and I suppose that you too,” he +bent his head respectfully towards the other half of the ship, “partake +of some meal at this time. But if you will seek us out again at the +meeting between four and five I shall be at your service afterwards, and +pleased,” he took her hand again, “PLEASED to see you.” + +Laura went back to the evening meeting, and after that missed none of +these privileges. In due course she was asked to address it, and then +her position became enviable from all points of view, for people who did +not draw up their chairs and admire her inspirations sat at a distance +and admired her clothes. Very soon, at her special request, she was +allowed to resign her original place at table and take a revolving chair +at the nine o'clock breakfast, one o'clock dinner, and six o'clock tea +which sustained the second saloon. Daily, ascending the companion ladder +to the main deck aft she gradually faded from cognisance forward. There +they lay back in their long chairs and sipped their long drinks, and +with neutral eyes and lips they let the blessing go. + +In the intervals between the exercises Miss Filbert came and went in +the cabin of three young Salvationists of her own sex. They could always +make room for her, difficult as it may appear; she held for them an +indefinite store of fascination. Laura would extend herself on a top +berth beside the round-eyed Norwegian to whom it belonged, with the +cropped head of the owner pillowed on her sisterly arm, and thus they +passed hours, discussing conversions as medical students might discuss +cases, relating, comparing. They talked a great deal about Colonel +Markin. They said it was a beautiful life. More beautiful if possible +had been the life of Mrs. Markin, who was his second wife, and who had +been “promoted to glory” six months before. She had gained promotion +through jungle fever, which had carried her off in three days. The first +Mrs. Markin had died of drink--that was what had sent the Colonel into +the Army, she, the first Mrs. Markin, having willed her property away +from him. Colonel Markin had often rejoiced publicly that the lady +had been of this disposition, the results to him had been so blessed. +Apparently he spoke without reserve of his domestic affairs in +connection with his spiritual experiences, using both the Mrs. Markins +when it was desirable as “illustrations.” The five had reached this +degree of intimacy by the time the Coromandel was nearing Port Said, +and every day the hemispheres of sea and sky they watched through the +porthole above the Norwegian girl's berth grew bluer. + +From the first Colonel Markin had urged Miss Filbert's immediate return +to the Army. He found her sympathetic to the idea, willing indeed to +embrace it with open arms, but there were difficulties. Mr. Lindsay, as +a difficulty, was almost insuperable to anything like a prompt step +in that direction. Colonel Markin admitted it himself. He was bound to +admit it he said, but nothing, since he joined the Army, had ever been +so painful to him. “I wish I could deny it,” he said with frankness; +“but there is no doubt that for the present your first duty is towards +your gentleman, towards him who placed that ring upon your finger.” + There was no sarcasm in his describing Lindsay as a gentleman; he used +the term in a kind of extra special sense where a person less accustomed +to polite usages might have spoken of Laura's young man. “But remember, +my child,” he continued, “it is only your poor vile body that is +yours to dispose of, your soul belongs to God Almighty, and no earthly +husband, especially as you say he is still in his sins, is going to +have the right to interfere.” This may seem vague, as the statement of +a position, but Laura found it immensely fortifying. That and similar +arguments built her up in her determination to take up what Colonel +Markin called her life-work again at the earliest opportunity. She had +forfeited her rank, that she accepted humbly as a proper punishment, +ardently hoping it would be found sufficient. She would go back as a +private, take her place in the ranks, and nothing in her married life +should interfere with the things that cried out to be done in Bentinck +Street. Somehow she had less hope of securing Lindsay as a spiritual +companion in arms since she had confided the affair to Colonel Markin. +As he said, they must hope for the best, but he could not help admitting +that he took a gloomy view of Lindsay. + +“Once he has secured you,” the Colonel said, with an appreciative glance +at Laura's complexion, “what will he care about his soul? Nothing.” + +Their enthusiasm had ample opportunity to strengthen, their mutual +satisfactions to expand, in the close confines of life on board ship, +and as if to seal and sanctify the voyage permanently a conversion took +place in the second saloon, owning Laura's agency. It was the maid of +the lady in the cavalry regiment, a hardened heart, as two stewards and +a bandmaster on board could testify. When this occurred the time that +was to elapse between Laura's marriage and her return to the ranks was +shortened to one week. “And quite long enough,” Colonel Markin said, +“considering how much more we need you than your gentleman does, my dear +sister.” + +It was plain to them all that Colonel Markin had very special views +about his dear sister. The other dear sisters looked on with pleasurable +interest, admitting the propriety of it, as Colonel Markin walked up and +down the deck with Laura, examining her lovely nature, “drawing her out” + on the subject of her faith and her assurance. It was natural, as he +told her, that in her peculiar situation she should have doubts and +difficulties. He urged her to lay bare her heart, and she laid it bare. +One evening--it was heavenly moonlight on the Indian Ocean, and they +were two days past Aden on the long south-east run to Ceylon--she came +and stood before him with a small packet in her hand. She was all in +white, and more like an angel than Markin expected ever to see anything +in this world, though as to the next his anticipations may have been +extravagant. + +“Now I wonder,” said he, “where you are going to sit down?” + +A youngster in the Police got up and pushed his chair forward, but Laura +shook her head. + +“I am going out there,” she said, pointing to the farthermost stern +where passengers were not encouraged to sit, “and I want to consult +you.” + +Markin got up. “If there's anything pressin' on your mind,” he said, +“you can't do better.” + +Laura said nothing until they were alone with the rushing of the screw, +two Lascars, some coils of rope, and the hand-steering gear. Then she +opened the packet. “These,” she said, “these are pressing on my mind.” + +She held out a string of pearls, a necklace of pearls and turquoises, a +heavy band bracelet studded, Delhi fashion, with gems, one or two lesser +fantasies. + +“Jewellery!” said Markin. “Real or imitation?” + +“So far as that goes they are good. Mr. Lindsay gave them to me. But +what have I to do with jewels, the very emblem of the folly of the +world, the desire that itches in palms that know no good works, the +price of sin!” She leaned against the masthead as she spoke, the wind +blew her hair and her skirt out toward the following seas. With that +look in her eyes she seemed a creature who had alighted on the ship but +who could not stay. + +Colonel Markin held the pearls up in the moonlight. + +“They must have cost something to buy,” he said. + +Laura was silent. + +“And so they're a trouble to you. Have you taken them to the Lord in +prayer?” + +“Oh, many times.” + +“Couldn't seem to hear any answer?” + +“The only answer I could hear was. 'So long as you have them I will not +speak with you.'” + +“That seems pretty plain and clear. And yet?” said the Colonel, fondling +the turquoises, “nobody can say there's any harm in such things, +especially if you don't wear them.” + +“Colonel, they are my great temptation. I don't know that I wouldn't +wear them. And when I wear them I can think of nothing sacred, nothing +holy. When they were given to me I used--I used to get up in the night +to look at them.” + +“Shall I lay it before the Almighty? That bracelet's got a remarkably +good clasp.” + +“Oh no--no! I must part with them. To-night I can do it, to-night--” + +“There's nobody on this ship that will give you any price for them.” + +“I would not think of selling them. It would be sending them from my +hands to do harm to some other poor creature, weaker than I!” + +“You can't return them to-night.” + +“I wouldn't return them. That would be the same as keeping them.” + +“Then what--oh, I see!” exclaimed Markin. “You want to give them to the +Army. Well, in my capacity, on behalf of General Booth--” + +“No,” cried Laura with sudden excitement, “not that either. I will give +them to nobody. But this is what I will do!” She seized the bracelet and +flung it far out into the opaline track of the vessel, and the smaller +objects, before her companion could stop her, followed it. Then he +caught her wrist. + +“Stop!” he cried. “You've gone off your head--you've got fever. You're +acting wicked with that jewellery. Stop and let us reason it out +together.” + +She already had the turquoises, and with a jerk of her left hand, she +freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught the handrail +as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and +stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest puissance of feeling +she had known, looking at the pearls. As he stared she kissed them +twice, and then, leaning over the ship's side, let them slowly slide out +of her fingers and fall into the waves below. The moonlight gave them a +divine gleam as they fell. She turned to Markin with tears in her eyes. +“Now,” she faltered, “I can be happy again. But not to-night.” + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +While the Coromandel was throbbing out her regulation number of knots +towards Colombo, October was passing over Bengal. It went with lethargy, +the rains were too close on its heels; but at the end of the long hot +days, when the resplendent sun struck down on the glossy trees and the +over-lush Maidan, there often stole through Calcutta a breath of the +coming respite of December. The blue smoke of the people's cooking fires +began to hang again in the streets, the pungent smell of it was pleasant +in the still air. The south wind turned back at the Sunderbunds; instead +of it, one met round corners a sudden crispness that stayed just long +enough to be recognised and melted damply away. A week might have two or +three of such promises and foretastes. + +Hilda Howe, approaching the end of her probation at the Baker +Institution, threw the dormitory window wide to them, went out to seek +them. They gave her a new stirring of vitality, something deep within +her leaped up responding to the voucher the evenings brought that +presently they would bring something new and different. She vibrated to +an irrepressible pulse of accord with that; it made her hand strong and +her brain clear for the unimportant matters that remained within the +scope of the monotonous moment. There had come upon her a stimulating +assurance that it would be only a moment--now. She did not consider +this, she could hardly be said to be intelligently aware of it, but +it underlay all that she said and did. Her spirits gained an enviable +lightness, she began again to see beautiful, touching things in the life +that carried her on with it. She explained to Stephen Arnold that +she was immensely happy at having passed the last of her nursing +examinations. + +“I hardly dare ask you,” he said, “what you are going to do now.” + +He looked furtive and anxious; she saw that he did, and the perception +irritated her. She had to tell herself that she had given him the right +to look in any way he pleased--indeed yes. + +“I hardly dare ask myself,” she answered, and was immediately conscious +that for the first time in the history of their relations she had spoken +to him that which was expedient. + +“I hope the Sisters are not trying to influence you,” he said firmly. + +“Fancy!” she cried irrelevantly. “I heard the other day that Sister Ann +Frances had described me as the pride of the Baker Institution!” She +laughed with delight at the humour of it, and he smiled too. When she +laughed, he had nearly always now confidence enough to smile too. + +“You might ask for another six months.” + +“Heavens, no! No--I shall make up my mind.” + +“Then you may go away,” Arnold said. They were standing at the crossing +of the wide red road from which they would go in different directions. +She saw that the question was momentous to him. She also saw how +curiously the sun sallowed him, and how many more hollows he had in his +face than most people. She had a pathetic impression of the figure he +made in his coarse gown and shoes. “God's wayfarer,” she murmured. There +was pity in her mind, infinite pity. Her thought had no other tinge. It +was a curiously simple feeling, and seemed to bring her an inconsistent +lightness of heart. + +“Come too,” she said aloud, “come and be a Clarke Brother where the +climatic conditions suit you better. The world wants Clarke Brothers +everywhere.” + +He looked at her and tried to smile, but his lips quivered. He opened +them in an effort to speak, gave it up, and turned away silently, +lifting his hat. Hilda watched him for an instant as he went. His figure +took strange proportions through the tears that sprang to her eyes, +and she marvelled at the gaiety with which she had touched, had almost +revealed, her heart's desire. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +“I knew it would happen in the end,” Hilda said, “and it has happened. +The Archdeacon has asked me to tea.” + +She was speaking to Alicia Livingstone in the dormitory, changing at +the same time for a “turn” at the hospital. It was six o'clock in the +afternoon. Alicia's landau stood at the door of the Baker Institution. +She had come to find that Miss Howe was just going on duty and could not +be taken for a drive. + +“When?” asked Alicia, staring out of the window at the crows in a +tamarind tree. + +“Last Saturday. He said he had promised some friends of his the pleasure +of meeting me. They had besieged him, he said, and they were his best +friends, on all his committees.” + +“Only ladies?” The crows, with a shriek of defiance at nothing in +particular, having flown away, Miss Livingstone transferred her +attention. + +“Bless me, yes. What Archdeacon has dear men friends! And lesquelles +pense-tu, mon Dieu!” + +“Lesquelles?” + +“Mrs. Jack Forrester, Mrs. Fitz--what you may call him up on the +frontier, the Brigadier gentleman--Lady Dolly!” + +“You were well chaperoned.” + +“And--my dear--he didn't ask a single Sister!” Hilda turned upon her a +face which appeared still to glow with the stimulus of the archidiaconal +function. “And--it was wicked considering the occasion--I dropped the +character. I let myself out!” + +“You didn't shock the Archdeacon?” + +“Not in the least. But, my dear love, did you ever permit yourself the +reflection that the Venerable Gambell is a bachelor?” + +“Hilda, you shall not! We all love him--you shall not lead him astray!” + +“You would not think of--the altar?” + +Miss Livingstone's pale small smile fell like a snowflake upon Hilda's +mood, and was swallowed up. “You are very preposterous,” she said. “Go +on. You always amuse one.” Then, as if Hilda's going on were precisely +the thing she could not quite endure, she said quickly, “The Coromandel +is telegraphed from Colombo to-day.” + +“Ah!” said Hilda. + +“He leaves for Madras to-morrow. The thing is to take place there, you +know.” + +“Then nothing but shipwreck can save him.” + +“Nothing but--what a horrible idea! Don't you think they may be happy? I +really think they may.” + +“There is not one of the elements that give people, when they commit +the paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that they may not be +miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I should pity him less. +But he's not. He's immensely dependent on his tastes, his friends, his +circumstances.” + +Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an attention caught upon +an accidental phrase. “The paramount stupidity.” She did not repeat it +aloud, she turned it over in her mind. + +“You are thinking,” Hilda said accusingly. “What are you thinking +about?” + +“Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday. I thought him looking rather +wretched.” + +A shadow of grave consideration winged itself across Hilda's eyes. + +“He works so much too hard,” she said. “It is an appalling waste. But he +will offer himself up.” + +Alicia looked unsatisfied. She had hoped for something that would throw +more light upon the paramount stupidity. “He brought Mr. Lappe to tea,” + she said. + +The shadow went. “Should you think Brother Lappe,” Miss Howe demanded, +“specially fitted for the cure of souls? Never, never, could I allow the +process of my regeneration to come through Brother Lappe. He has such a +little nose, and such wide pink cheeks, and such fat sloping shoulders. +Dear succulent Brother Lappe!” + +A Sister passed through the dormitory on a visit of inspection. Alicia +bowed sweetly, and the Sister inclined herself briefly with a cloistered +smile. As she disappeared Hilda threw a black skirt over her head, +making a veil of it flowing backward, and rendered the visit, the +noiseless measured step, the little deprecating movements of inquiry, +the benevolent recognition of a visitor from a world where people +carried parasols and wore spotted muslins. She even effaced herself at +the door on the track of the other to make it perfect, and came back +in the happy expansion of an artistic effort to find Alicia's regard +penetrated with the light of a new conviction. + +“Hilda,” she said, “I should like to know what this last year has really +been to you.” + +“It has been very valuable,” Miss Howe replied. Then she turned quickly +away to hang up the black petticoat, and stood like that, shaking out +its folds, so that Alicia might not see anything curious in her face as +she heard her own words and understood what they meant. Very valuable! +She did understand, suddenly, completely. Very valuable! A year of the +oddest experiences, a pictorial year, which she would look back upon, +with its core in a dusty priest.... + +A probationer came rapidly along the dormitory to where Hilda stood. She +had the olive cheeks and the liquid eyes of the country; her lips were +parted in a smile. + +“Miss Howe,” she said, in the quick clicking syllables of her race, +“Sister Margaret wishes you to come immediately to the surgical ward. A +case has come in, and Miss Gonsalvez is there, but Sister Margaret will +not be bothered with Miss Gonsalvez. She says you are due by right in +five minutes,”--the messenger's smile broadened irresponsibly, and she +put a fondling touch upon Hilda's apron string,--“so will you please to +make haste!” + +“What's the case?” asked Hilda; “I hope it isn't another ship's hold +accident.” But Alicia, a shade paler than before, put up her hand. “Wait +till I'm gone,” she said, and went quickly. The girl had opened her +lips, however, but to say that she didn't know, she had only been seized +to take the message, though it must be something serious since they had +sent for both the resident surgeons. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Dr. Livingstone's concern was personal, that was plain in the way +he stood looking at the floor of the corridor with his hands in his +pockets, before Hilda reached him. Regret was written all over the lines +of his pausing figure with the compressed irritation which saved that +feeling in the Englishman's way from being too obvious. + +“This is a bad business, Miss Howe.” + +“I've just come over--I haven't heard. Who is it?” + +“It's my cousin, poor chap--Arnold, the padre. He's been badly knifed in +the bazar.” + +The news passed over her and left her looking with a curious face at +chance. It was lifted a little, with composed lips, and eyes which +refused to be taken by surprise. There was inquiry in them, also a +defence. Chance, looking back, saw an invincible silent readiness, and +a pallor which might be that of any woman. But the doctor was also +looking, so she said, “That is very sad,” and moved near enough to the +wall to put her hand against it. She was not faint, but the wall was a +fact on which one could, for the moment, rely. + +“They've got the man--one of those Cabuli money-lenders. The police had +no trouble with him. He said it was the order of Allah--the brute! Stray +case of fanaticism, I suppose. It seems Arnold was walking along as +usual, without a notion, and the fellow sprang on him, and in two +seconds the thing was done. Hadn't a chance, poor beggar.” + +“Where is it?” + +“Root of the left lung. About five inches deep. The artery pretty well +cut through, I fancy.” + +“Then--” + +“Oh no--we can't do anything. The haemorrhage must be tremendous. But he +may live through the night. Are you going to Sister Margaret?” + +His nod took it for granted, and he went on. Hilda walked slowly +forward, her head bent, with absorbed uncertain steps. A bar of evening +sunlight came before her, she looked up and stepped outside the open +door. She was handling this thing that had happened, taking possession +of it. It lay in her mind in the midst of a suddenly stricken and +tenderly saddened consciousness. It lay there passively; it did not rise +and grapple with her, it was a thing that had happened--in Burra Bazar. +The pity of it assailed her. Tears came into her eyes, and an infinite +grieved solicitude gathered about her heart. “So?” she said to herself, +thinking that he was young and loved his work, and that now his hand +would be stayed from the use it had found. One of the ugly outrages of +life, leaving nothing on the mouth but that brief acceptance. It came +to hers with a note of the profound and of the supreme. She turned +resolutely from searching her heart for any wild despair. She would +not for an instant consider what she ought to feel. “So,” she said, +and pressed her lips till they stopped trembling, and went into the +hospital. + +She asked a question or two, in search of Sister Margaret and the new +case. It was “located,” an assistant surgeon told her, in Private Ward +Number Two. She went more and more slowly toward Private Ward Number +Two. + +The door was open; she stood in it for an instant with eyes nerved to +receive the tragedy. The room seemed curiously empty of any such thing, +a door opposite was also open, with an arched verandah outside; the low +sun streamed through this upon the floor with its usual tranquillity. +Beyond the arches, netted to keep the crows away, it made pictures with +the tops of the trees. There was the small iron bed with the confused +outline under the bedclothes, very quiet, and the Sister--the +whitewashed wall rose sharp behind her black draperies--sitting with a +book in her hands. Some scraps of lint on the floor beside the bed, and +hardly anything else except the silence which had almost a presence, and +a faint smell of carbolic acid, and a certain feeling of impotence and +abandonment and waiting which seemed to be in the air. Arnold moved on +the pillow and saw her standing in the door. The bars of the bed's foot +were in the way, he tried to lift his head to surmount the obstruction, +and the Sister perceived her too. + +“I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?” she +said, with her little pink smile. “And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in +time to be of much use to us, is she?” It was the bedside pleasantry +that expected no reply, that indeed forbade one. + +“I'm sorry,” Hilda said. As she moved into the room she detached her +eyes from Arnold's, feeling as she did so that it was like tearing +something. + +“There was so little to do,” Sister Margaret said; “Surgeon-Major Wills +saw at once where the mischief lay. Nothing disagreeable was necessary, +was it, Mr. Arnold? Perfect quiet, perfect rest--that's an easy +prescription to take.” She had rather prominent very blue eyes, and +an aquiline nose, and a small firm mouth, and her pink cheeks were +beginning to be a little pendulous with age. Hilda gazed at her +silently, noting about her authority and her flowing draperies something +classical. Was she like one of the Fates? She approached the bed to do +something to the pillow--Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the +cry, “It is not time yet--Atropos!” + +“I must go now for an hour or so,” the Sister went on. “That poor +creature in Number Six needs me; they daren't give her any more morphia. +You don't need it--happy boy!” she said to Stephen, and at the look he +sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister, +she was none of the Fates, she was obliged to give directions to Hilda +standing in the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved +reputation for self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute +that no one should be admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the +hospital door for the information of inquiries; later on when the doctor +came again there would be another. + +She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had +vanished; a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, the +background gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she had +given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved closer to +the bed and stood beside him. Since there was nothing to do there was +nothing to say. Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of her +dress. + +The room filled itself with something that had not been there before, +his impotent love. Hilda knelt down beside the bed and pressed her +forehead against the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so little +more to do. Then Arnold spoke. + +“You dear woman!” he said. “You dear woman!” She kept her head bowed +like that and did not answer. It was his happiest moment. One might say +he had lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, a kind of baptism +for his heart. He spoke again. + +“We must bear this,” he panted. “It is--less cruel--than it seems. You +don't know how much it is for the best.” + +She lifted her wet face. “You mustn't talk,” she faltered. + +“What difference--” he did not finish the sentence. His words were too +few to waste. He paused and made another effort. + +“If this had not happened I would have been--counted--among the +unfaithful,” he said. “I know now. I would have abandoned--my post. And +gladly--without a regret--for you.” + +“Ah!” Hilda cried, with a vivid note of pain. “Would you? I am sorry for +that! I am sorry!” + +She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive +delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with +the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have +had to do with the forging of those shackles--the price of the year that +had been very valuable. + +“My God is a jealous God,” Arnold said. “He has delivered me--into His +own hands--for the honour of His name. I acknowledge--I am content.” + +“No, indeed no! It was a wicked, horrible chance! Don't charge your God +with it.” + +His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least possible attention. “You +did love me,” he said. He spoke as if he were already dead. + +“I did indeed,” Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands +again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the +affirmation in it. + +He stroked her hair. “It is good to know that,” he said, “very, good. I +should have married you.” He went on with sudden boldness and a new note +of strength in his voice, “Think of that! You would have been mine--to +protect and work for. We should have gone together to England--where I +could easily have got a curacy--easily.” + +Hilda looked up. “Would you like to marry me now?” she asked eagerly, +but he shook his head. + +“You don't understand,” he said. “It is the dear sin God has turned my +back upon.” + +Then it came to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going +unassoiled to his God, with the divine indifference of the dying. Only +his imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, “It is +a little light flame that I have lit with my own taper that has gone +out--that has gone out--and presently the grave will extinguish that.” + She sat quiet and sombre in the growing darkness, and presently Arnold +slept. + +He slept through the bringing of a lamp, the arrival of flowers, subdued +knocks of inquirers who would not be stayed by the bulletin--the +visit of Surgeon-Major Wills, who felt his pulse without wakening him. +“Holding out wonderfully,” the doctor said. “Don't rouse him for the +soup. He'll go out in about six hours without any pain. May not wake at +all.” + +The door opened again to admit the probationer come to relieve Miss +Howe. Hilda beckoned her into the corridor. “You can go back,” she said, +“I will take your turn.” + +“But the Mother Superior--you know how particular about the rules--” + +“Say nothing about it. Go to bed. I am not coming.” + +“Then, Miss Howe, I shall be obliged to report it.” + +“Report and be--report if you like. There is nothing for you to do +here to-night,” and Hilda softly closed the door. There was a whispered +expostulation when Sister Margaret came back, but Miss Howe said, “It +is arranged,” and with a little silent nod of appreciation the Sister +settled into her chair, her finger marking a place in the Church +Service. Hilda sat nearer to the bed, her elbow on the table, shading +her eyes from the lamp, and watched. + +“Is it not odd,” whispered Sister Margaret, as the night wore on, “he +has refused to be confessed before he goes? He will not see the Brother +Superior--or any of them. Strange, is it not?” + +Together they watched the quick short breathing. It seemed strangely +impossible to sleep against such odds. They saw the lines of the +face grow sharper and whiter, the dark eye-sockets sink to a curious +roundness, a greyness gather about the mouth. There were times when +they looked at each other in the last surmise. Yet the feeble pulse +persisted--persisted. + +“I believe now,” said Sister Margaret, “that he may go on like this +until the morning. I am going to take half an hour's nap. Rouse me at +once if he wakes,” and she took an attitude of casual repose, turning +the Prayer-book open on her knee for readier use, open at “Prayers for +the Dying.” + +The jackals had wailed themselves out, and there was a long, dark period +when nothing but the sudden cry of a night bird in the hospital garden +came between Hilda and the very vivid perception she had at that hour of +the value and significance of the earthly lot. She lifted her head +and listened to that, it seemed a comment. Suddenly, then, a harsh +quarrelling of dogs--Christian dogs--arose in the distance and died +away, and again there was night and silence. Night for hours. Time for +reflection, alone with death and the lamp, upon the year that had +been very valuable. “I would have married you,” she whispered. “Yes, +I would.” Later her lips moved again. “I would have taken the +consequence;” and again, “I would have paid any penalty.” There he lay, +a burden that she would never bear, a burden that would be gone in the +morning. There were moments when she cried out on Fate for doing her +this kindness. + +The long singing drone of a steamer's signal came across the city from +the river, once, twice, thrice; and presently the sparrows began their +twittering in the bushes near the verandah, an unexpected unanimous bird +talk that died as suddenly and as irrelevantly away. A conservancy cart +lumbered past creaking; the far shrill whistle of an awakening factory +cut the air from Howrah; the first solitary foot smote through the dawn +upon the pavement. The light showed grey beyond the scanty curtains. A +noise of something being moved reverberated in the hospital below, and +Arnold opened his eyes. They made him in a manner himself again, and he +fixed them upon Hilda as if they could never alter. She leaned nearer +him and made a sign of inquiry toward the sleeping Sister, with the +farewells, the commendations of poor mortality speeding itself forth, +lying upon her lap. Arnold comprehended, and she was amazed to see the +mask of his face charge itself with a faint smile as he shook his head. +He made a little movement; she saw what he wanted and took his hand in +hers. The smile was still in his eyes as he looked at her, and then +at the cheated Sister. “I would have married you,” she whispered +passionately as if that could stay him. “Yes, I would.” + +So in the end he trusted the new wings of his mortal love to bear his +soul to its immortality. They carried their burden buoyantly, it was +such a little way. The lamp was still holding its own against the +paleness from the windows when the meaning finally went out of his clasp +of Hilda's hand, without a struggle to stay, and she saw that in an +instant when she was not looking, he had closed his eyes upon the world. +She sat on beside him for a long time after that, watching tenderly, and +would not withdraw her hand--it seemed an abandonment. + + + +Three hours later Miss Howe, passing out of the hospital gate, was +overtaken by Duff Lindsay, riding, with a look of singular animation +and vigour. He flung himself off his horse to speak to her, and as he +approached he drew from his inner coat pocket the brown envelope of a +telegram. + +“Good-morning,” he said. “You do look fagged. I have a--curious--piece +of news.” + +“Alicia told me that you were starting early this morning for Madras!” + +“I should have been, but for this.” + +“Read it to me,” Hilda said, “I'm tired.” + +“Oh, do you very much mind? I would rather--” + +She took the missive; it was dated the day before, Colombo, and read-- + + +“Do not expect me was married this morning to Colonel Markin S A we may +not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers glory be to God Laura +Markin” + + +She raised her eyes to his with the gravest, saddest irony. + +“Then you--you also are delivered,” she said; but he said “What?” + without special heed; and I doubt whether he ever took the trouble to +understand her reference to their joint indebtedness. + +“One hopes he isn't a brute,” Lindsay went on with most impersonal +solicitude, “and can support her. I suppose there isn't any way one +could do anything for her. I heard a story only yesterday about a girl +changing her mind on the way out. By Jove, I didn't suppose it would +happen to me!” + +“If you are hurt anywhere,” Hilda said absently, “it is only your +vanity, I fancy.” + +“Ah, my vanity is very sore!” He paused for an instant, wondering to +find so little expansion in her. “I came to ask after Arnold,” he said. +“How is he?” + +“He is dead. He died at half-past five this morning.” + +She left him with even less than her usual circumstance, and turned in +at the gate of the Baker Institution. It happened to be the last day of +her probation. + + +There has never been any difficulty in explaining Lindsay's marriage +with Alicia Livingstone even to himself; the reasons for it, indeed, +were so many and so obvious that he wondered often why they had not +struck him earlier. But it is worth noting, perhaps, that the immediate +precipitating cause arose in one evening service at the Cathedral, where +it had its birth in the very individual charm of the nape of Alicia's +neck, as she knelt upon her hassock in the fitting and graceful act +of the responses. His instincts in these matters seem to have had a +generous range, considering the tenets he was born to, but it was to +him then a delightful reflection, often since repeated, that in the +sheltered garden of delicate perfumes where this sweet person took her +spiritual pleasure there was no rank vegetation. + +It is much to Miss Hilda Howe's credit that amid the distractions of her +most successful London season she never quite abandons these two to +the social joys that circle round the Ochterlony Monument and the arid +scenic consolations of the Maidan. Her own experience there is one of +the things, I fancy, that make her fond of saying that the stage is the +merest cardboard presentation, and that one day she means to leave it, +to coax back to her bosom the life which is her heritage in the wider, +simpler ways of the world. She never mentions that experience more +directly or less ardently. But I fear the promise I have quoted is one +that she makes too often. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Path of a Star, by +Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF A STAR *** + +***** This file should be named 5102-0.txt or 5102-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/0/5102/ + +Produced by Don Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 Path of a Star + +Author: Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + +Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5102] +Last Updated: March 15, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF A STAR *** + + + + +Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE PATH OF A STAR + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Mrs. Everard Cotes + </h2> + <h3> + (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) <br /> <br /> 1899 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <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 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> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + She pushed the portiere aside with a curved hand and gracefully separated + fingers; it was a staccato movement and her body followed it after an + instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, eyes + inquiring and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who was + there. You would have been aware at once that she was an actress. She + entered the room with a little stride and then crossed it quickly, the + train of her morning gown—it cried out of luxury with the cheapest + voice—taking folds of great audacity as she bent her face in its + loose mass of hair over Laura Filbert, sitting on the edge of a bamboo + sofa, and said— + </p> + <p> + “You poor thing! Oh, you POOR thing!” + </p> + <p> + She took Laura's hand as she spoke, and tried to keep it; but the hand was + neutral, and she let it go. “It is a hand,” she said to herself, in one of + those quick reflections that so often visited her ready-made, “that turns + the merely inquiring mind away. Nothing but feeling could hold it.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Filbert made the conventional effort to rise, but it came to nothing, + or to a mere embarrassed accent of their greeting. Then her voice showed + this feeling to be superficial, made nothing of it, pushed it to one side. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you cannot see the foolishness of your pity,” she said. “Oh + Miss Howe, I am happier than you are—much happier.” Her bare feet, + as she spoke, nestled into the coarse Mirzapore rug on the floor, and her + eye lingered approvingly upon an Owari vase three feet high, and thick + with the gilded landscape of Japan, which stood near it, in the cheap + magnificence of the room. + </p> + <p> + Hilda smiled. Her smile acquiesced in the world she had found, acquiesced, + with the gladness of an explorer, in Laura Filbert as a feature of it. + </p> + <p> + “Don't be too sure,” she cried; “I am very happy. It is such a pleasure to + see you.” + </p> + <p> + Her gaze embraced Miss Filbert as a person, and Miss Filbert as a + pictorial fact, but that was because she could not help it. Her eyes were + really engaged only with the latter Miss Filbert. + </p> + <p> + “Much happier than you are,” Laura repeated, slowly moving her head from + side to side as if to negative contradiction in advance. She smiled too; + it was as if she had remembered a former habit, from politeness. + </p> + <p> + “Of course you are—of course!” Miss Howe acknowledged. The words + were mellow and vibrant; her voice seemed to dwell upon them with a kind + of rich affection. Her face covered itself with serious sweetness. “I can + imagine the beatitudes you feel—by your clothes.” + </p> + <p> + The girl drew her feet under her, and her hand went up to the only + semi-conventional item of her attire. It was a brooch that exclaimed in + silver letters “Glory to His Name!” “It is the dress of the Army in this + country,” she said; “I would not change it for the wardrobe of a queen.” + </p> + <p> + “That's just what I mean.” Miss Howe leaned back in her chair with her + head among its cushions, and sent her words fluently across the room, + straight and level with the glance from between her half-closed eyelids. A + fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy in + the East clung about her. “To live on a plane that lifts you up like that—so + that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go about the + streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness of the world—there + must be something very consummate in it or you couldn't go on. At least I + couldn't.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I do look odd to you.” Her voice took a curious, soft, uplifted + note. “I wear three garments only—the garments of my sisters who + plant the young shoots in the rice-fields, and carry bricks for the + building of rich men's houses, and gather the dung of the roadways to burn + for fuel. If the Army is to conquer India it must march bare-footed and + bare-headed all the way. All the way,” Laura repeated, with a tremor of + musical sadness. Her eyes were fixed in appeal upon the other woman's. + “And if the sun beats down upon my uncovered head, I think, 'It struck + more fiercely upon Calvary'; and if the way is sharp to my unshod feet, I + say, 'At least I have no cross to bear.'” The last words seemed almost a + chant, and her voice glided from them into singing— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “The blessed Saviour died for me, + On the cross! On the cross! + He bore my sins at Calvary, + On the rugged cross!” + </pre> + <p> + She sang softly, her body thrust a little forward in a tender swaying— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Behold His hands and feet and side, + The crown of thorns, the crimson tide, + 'Forgive them, Father!' loud He cried, + On the rugged cross!” + </pre> + <p> + “Oh, thank you!” Miss Howe exclaimed. Then she murmured again, “That's + just what I mean.” + </p> + <p> + A blankness came over the girl's face as a light cloud will cross the + moon. She regarded Hilda from behind it, with penetrant anxiety. “Did you + really enjoy that hymn?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed I did.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, dear Miss Howe, I think you cannot be very far from the Kingdom.” + </p> + <p> + “I? Oh, I have my part in a kingdom.” Her voice caressed the idea. “And + the curious thing is that we are all aristocrats who belong to it. Not the + vulgar kind, you understand—but no, you don't understand. You'll + have to take my word for it.” Miss Howe's eyes sought a red hibiscus + flower that looked in at the window half drowned in sunlight, and the + smile in them deepened. + </p> + <p> + “Is it the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?” Laura Filbert's clear + glance was disturbed by a ray of curiosity, but the inflexible quality of + her tone more than counterbalanced this. + </p> + <p> + “There's nothing about it in the Bible, if that's what you mean. And yet I + think the men who wrote 'The time of the singing of birds has come,' and + 'I will lift mine eyes unto the hills,' must have belonged to it.” She + paused, with an odd look of discomfiture. “But one shouldn't talk about + things like that—it takes the bloom off. Don't you feel that way + about your privileges now and then? Don't they look rather dusty and + battered to you after a day's exposure in Bow Bazar?” + </p> + <p> + There came a light crunch of wheels on the red soorkee drive outside, and + a switch past the bunch of sword-ferns that grew beside the door. The + muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an inquiry + penetrated from beyond the portiere, and without further preliminary Duff + Lindsay came into the room. + </p> + <p> + “Do I interrupt a rehearsal?” he asked; but there was nothing in the way + he walked across the room to Hilda Howe to suggest that the idea abashed + him. For her part she rose and made one short step to meet him, and then + received him as it were with both hands and all her heart. + </p> + <p> + “How ridiculous you are!” she cried. “Of course not. And let me tell you + it is very nice of you to come this very first day when one was dying to + be welcomed. Miss Filbert came too, and we have been talking about our + respective walks in life. Let me introduce you. Miss Filbert—Captain + Filbert, of the Salvation Army—Mr. Duff Lindsay of Calcutta.” + </p> + <p> + She watched with interest the gravity with which they bowed, and the + difference in it: his the simple formality of his class, Laura's a + repressed hostility to such an epitome of the world as he looked, although + any Bond Street tailor would have impeached his waistcoat, and one shabby + glove had manifestly never been on. Yet Miss Filbert's first words seemed + to show a slight unbending. “Won't you sit there?” she said, indicating + the sofa corner she had been occupying. “You get the glare from the window + where you are.” It was virtually a command, delivered with a complete air + of dignity and authority; and Lindsay, in some confusion, found himself + obeying. “Oh, thank you, thank you,” he said. “One doesn't really mind in + the least. Do you—do you object to it? Shall I close the shutters?” + </p> + <p> + “If you do,” said Miss Howe delightedly, “we shall not be able to see.” + </p> + <p> + “Neither we should,” he assented; “the others are closed already. Very + badly built these Calcutta houses, aren't they? Have you been long in + India, Miss—Captain Filbert?” + </p> + <p> + “I served a year up-country, and then fell ill and had to go home on + furlough. The native food didn't suit me. I am stationed in Calcutta now, + but I have only just come.” + </p> + <p> + “Pleasant time of the year to arrive,” Mr. Lindsay remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but we are not particular about that. We love all the times and the + seasons, since every one brings its appointed opportunity. Last year, in + Mugridabad, there were more souls saved in June than in any other month.” + </p> + <p> + “Really?” asked Mr. Lindsay; but he was not looking at her with those + speculations. The light had come back upon her face. + </p> + <p> + “I will say good-bye now,” said Captain Filbert. “I have a meeting at + half-past five. Shall we have a word of prayer before I go?” + </p> + <p> + She plainly looked for immediate acquiescence; but Miss Howe said, + “Another time, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, why not?” exclaimed Duff Lindsay. Hilda put the semblance of a rebuke + into her glance at him, and said, “Certainly not.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” Captain Filbert cried, “don't think you can escape that way! I will + pray for you long and late to-night, and ask my lieutenant to do so too. + Don't harden your heart, Miss Howe—the Lord is waiting to be + compassionate.” + </p> + <p> + The two were silent, and Laura walked toward the door. Just where the sun + slanted into the room and made leaf-patterns on the floor she turned and + stood for an instant in the full tide of it; and it set all the loose + tendrils of her pale yellow hair in a little flame, and gave the folds of + the flesh-coloured sari that fell over her shoulder the texture of + draperies so often depicted as celestial. The sun sought into her face, + revealing nothing but great purity of line and a clear pallor except where + below the wide light blue eyes two ethereal shadows brushed themselves. + Under the intentness of their gaze she made as if she would pass out + without speaking; and the tender curves of her limbs, as she wavered, + could not have been matched out of mediaeval stained glass. But her + courage, or her conviction, came back to her at the door, and she raised + her hand and pointed at Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “She's got a soul worth saving.” + </p> + <p> + Then the portiere fell behind her, and nothing was said in the room until + the pad of her bare feet had ceased upon the stair. + </p> + <p> + “She came out in the Bengal with us,” Hilda told him—this is not a + special instance of it, but she could always gratify Duff Lindsay in + advance—“and she was desperately seedy, poor girl. I looked after + her a little, but it was mistaken kindness, for now she's got me on her + mind. And as the two hundred and eighty million benighted souls of India + are her continual concern, I seem a superfluity. To think of being the two + hundred and eighty millionth and first oppresses one.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay listened with a look of accustomed happiness. + </p> + <p> + “You weren't at that end of the ship?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Of course I was—we all were. And some of us—little Miss + Stace, for instance—thankful enough at the prospect of cold meat and + sardines for tea every night for a whole month. And, after Suez, ices for + dinner on Sundays. It was luxury.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay was pulling an aggrieved moustache. “I don't call it fair or + friendly,” he said, “when you know how easily it could have been arranged. + Your own sense of the fitness of things should have told you that the + second-class saloon was no place for you. For YOU!” + </p> + <p> + Plainly she did not intend to argue the point. She poised her chin in her + hand and looked away over his head, and he could not help seeing, as he + had seen before, that her eyes were beautiful. But this had been so long + acknowledged between them that she could hardly have been conscious that + she was insisting on it afresh. Then by the time he might have thought her + launched upon a different meditation, her mind swept back to his protest, + like a whimsical bird. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't want to extract anything from the mercantile community of + Calcutta in advance,” she said. “It would be most unbusinesslike. Stanhope + has been equal to bringing us out; but I quite see myself, as leading + lady, taking round the hat before the end of the season. Then I think,” + she said with defiance, “that I shall avoid you.” + </p> + <p> + “And pray why?” + </p> + <p> + “Because you would put too much in. According to your last letters you are + getting beastly rich. You would take all the tragedy out of the situation, + and my experience would vanish in your cheque.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know why my feelings should always be cuffed out of the way of + your experiences,” Lindsay said. She retorted, “Oh yes, you do”; and they + regarded each other through an instant's silence with visible + good-fellowship. + </p> + <p> + “A reasonably strong company this time?” Lindsay asked. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you. 'Company' is gratifying. For a month we have been a 'troupe'—in + the first-class end. Fairish. Bad to middling. Fifteen of us, and when we + are not doing Hamlet and Ophelia we can please with light comedy, or the + latest thing in rainbow chiffon done on mirrors with a thousand + candlepower. Bradley and I will have to do most of the serious work. But I + have improved—oh, a lot. You wouldn't know my Lady Whippleton.” + </p> + <p> + It was a fervid announcement, but it carried an implication which appeared + to prevent Lindsay's kindling. + </p> + <p> + “Then Bradley is here too?” he remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes,” she said; and an instinct sheathed itself in her face. “But it + is much better than it was, really. He is hardly ever troublesome now. He + understands. And he teaches me a great deal more than I can tell you. You + know,” she asserted, with the effect of taking an independent view, “as an + artist he has my unqualified respect.” + </p> + <p> + “You have a fine disregard for the fact that artists are men when they are + not women,” Duff said. “I don't believe their behaviour is a bit more + affected by their artistry than it would be by a knowledge of the higher + mathematics.” + </p> + <p> + She turned indignant eyes on him. “Fancy YOUR saying that! Fancy your + having the impertinence to offer me so absurd a sophistry! At what + Calcutta dinner-table did you pick it up?” she cried derisively. “Well, it + shows that one can't trust one's best friend loose among the conventions!” + </p> + <p> + He had decided that it would be a trifle edged to say that such matters + were not often discussed at Calcutta dinner-tables, when she added, with + apparent inconsistency and real dejection, “It IS a hideous bore.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay saw his point admitted, and even in the way she brushed it aside + he felt that she was generous. Yet something in him—perhaps the + primitive hunting instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch impulse to + explore the very roots of every matter, tempted him to say, “He gives up a + good deal, doesn't he, for his present gratification?” + </p> + <p> + “He gives up everything! That is the disgusting part of it. Leander Morris + offered him—But why should I tell you? It's humiliating enough in + the very back of one's mind.” + </p> + <p> + “He is a clever fellow, no doubt.” + </p> + <p> + “Not too clever to act with me! Oh, we go beautifully—we melt, we + run together. He has given me some essential things, and now I can give + them back to him. I begin to think that is what keeps him now. It must be + awfully satisfying to generate artistic life in—in anybody, and + watch it grow.” + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless,” said Lindsay, with his eyes on the carpet; and her eyebrows + twitched together, but she said nothing. Although she knew his very + moderate power of analysis he seemed to look, with his eyes on the carpet, + straight into the subject, to perceive it with a cynical clearness, and as + Hilda watched him a little hardness came about her mouth. “Well,” he said, + visibly detaching himself from the matter, “it's a satisfaction to have + you back. I have been doing nothing, literally, since you went away, but + making money and playing tennis. Existence, as I look back upon it, is + connoted by a varying margin of profit and a vast sward.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him with eyes in which sympathy stood remotely, considering + the advisability of returning. “It's a pity you can't act,” she said; + “then you could come away and let it all go.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay smiled at her across the gulf he saw fixed. “How simple life is to + you!” he said. “But anyway I couldn't act.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no, you couldn't, you couldn't! You are too intensely absorbent, you + are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would never consent even for + an instant to be the flame in anybody else—any of those people who, + for the purpose of the state, are called imaginary. Never!” + </p> + <p> + It seemed a punishment, but all Lindsay said was: “I wish you would go on. + You can't think how gratifying it is—after the tennis.” + </p> + <p> + “If I went on I have an idea that I might be disagreeable.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh then, stop. We can't quarrel yet—I've hardly seen you. Are you + comfortable here? Would you like some French novels?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, thank you. Yes, please!” She grew before him into a light and + conventional person, apparently on her guard against freedom of speech. He + moved a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the spring she had + detached herself from, and after failing for a quarter of an hour he got + up to go. + </p> + <p> + “I shan't bother you again before Saturday,” he said; “I know what a week + it will be at the theatre. Remember you are to give the man his orders + about the brougham. I can get on perfectly with the cart. Good-bye! + Calcutta is waiting for you.” + </p> + <p> + “Calcutta is never impatient,” said Miss Howe. “It is waiting with yawns + and much whisky and soda.” She gave him a stately inclination with her + hand, and he overcame the temptation to lay his own on his heart in a + burlesque of it. At the door he remembered something, and turned. He stood + looking back precisely where Laura Filbert had stood, but the sun was + gone. “You might tell me more about your friend of the altruistic army,” + he said. + </p> + <p> + “You saw, you heard, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “But—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” cried she, disregardingly, “you can discover her for yourself, at + the Army Headquarters in Bentinck Street—you man!” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay closed the door behind him without replying, and half-way down the + stairs her voice appealed to him over the banisters. + </p> + <p> + “You might as well forget that. I didn't particularly mean it.” + </p> + <p> + “I know you didn't,” he returned. “You woman! But you yourself—you're + not going to play with your heavenly visitant?” + </p> + <p> + Hilda leaned upon the banisters, her arms dropping over from the elbows. + “I suppose I may look at her,” she said; and her smile glowed down upon + him. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it really rewards attention?—the type, I mean.” + </p> + <p> + “How you will talk of types! Didn't you see that she was unique? You may + come back if you like, for a quarter of an hour, and we will discuss her.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay looked at his watch. “I would come back for a quarter of an hour + to discuss anything, or nothing,” he replied, “but there isn't time. I am + dining with the Archdeacon. I must go to church.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not be original and dine with the Archdeacon without going to church? + Why not say on arrival: 'My dear Archdeacon, your sermon and your mutton + the same evening—c'est trop! I cannot so impose upon your + generosity. I have come for the mutton!'” + </p> + <p> + Thus was Captain Laura Filbert superseded, as doubtless often before, by + an orthodox consideration. Duff Lindsay drove away in his cart; and still, + for an appreciable number of seconds, Miss Howe stood leaning over the + banisters, her eyes fixed full of speculation on the place where he had + stood. She was thinking of a scene—a dinner with an Archdeacon—and + of the permanent satisfactions to be got from it; and she renounced almost + with a palpable sigh the idea of the Archdeacon's asking her. + </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> + “Oh, her gift!” said Alicia Livingstone. “It is the lowest, isn't it—in + the scale of human endowment? Mimicry.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Livingstone handed her brother his tea as she spoke, but turned her + eyes and her delicate chin up to Duff Lindsay with the protest. Lindsay's + cup was at his lips, and his eyebrows went up over it as if they would + answer before his voice was set at liberty. + </p> + <p> + “Mimicry isn't a fair word,” he said. “The mimic doesn't interpret. He's a + mere thief of expression. You can always see him behind his stolen mask. + The actress takes a different rank. This one does, anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “You're mixing her up with the apes and the monkeys,” remarked + Surgeon-Major Livingstone. + </p> + <p> + “Mere imitators!” cried Mrs. Barberry. + </p> + <p> + Alicia did not allow the argument to pursue her. She smiled upon their + energy and, so to speak, disappeared. It was one of her little ways, and + since it left seeming conquerors on her track nobody quarrelled with it. + </p> + <p> + “I've met them in London,” she said. “Oh, I remember one hot little North + Kensington flat full of them, and their cigarettes—and they were + always disappointing. There seemed to be somehow no basis—nothing to + go upon.” + </p> + <p> + She looked from one to the other of her party with a graceful deprecating + movement of her head, a head which people were unanimous in calling more + than merely pretty and more than ordinarily refined. That was the cursory + verdict, the superficial thing to see and say; it will do to go on with. + From the way Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he might have been + suspected of other discoveries, possible only to the somewhat privileged + in this blind world, where intimacy must lend a lens to find out anything + at all. + </p> + <p> + “You found that they had no selves,” he said, and the manner of his words + was encouraging and provocative. His proposition was obscured to him for + the instant by his desire to obtain the very last of her comment, and it + might be seen that this was habitual with him. “But Miss Hilda Howe has + one.” + </p> + <p> + “Is she a lady?” asked Mrs. Barberry. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to rest my claim for her on + that.” + </p> + <p> + “Your claim to what?” trembled upon Miss Livingstone's lips, but she + closed them instead, and turned her head again to listen to Mrs. Barberry. + The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating the conversations in + which she was interested, imparting elegance and relief. + </p> + <p> + “I saw her in A Woman of Honour, last cold weather,” Mrs. Barberry said; + “I took a dinner-party of five girls and five subalterns from the Fort, + and I said, 'Never again!' Fortunately the girls were just out, and not + one of them understood, but those poor boys didn't know where to look! And + no more did I. So disgustingly real.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia's eyes veiled themselves to rest on a ring on her finger, and a + little smile, which was inconsistent with the veiling, hovered about her + lips. + </p> + <p> + “I was in England last year,” she said; “I—I saw A Woman of Honour + in London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian scratch + company in a Calcutta theatre! Imagination halts.” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Howe did something with it,” observed Mr. Lindsay. “That and one or + two other things carried one through last cold weather. One supported even + the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, conscious that there was + something to fall back upon. I remember I went to the State ball, and + cheerfully.” + </p> + <p> + “That's saying a good deal, isn't it?” commented Dr. Livingstone, vaguely + aware of an ironical intention. “By Jove! yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Hamilton Bradley is good, too, isn't he?” Mrs. Barberry said. “Such a + magnificent head. I adore him in Shakespeare.” + </p> + <p> + “He knows the conventions, and uses them with security,” Lindsay replied, + looking at Alicia; and she, with a little courageous air, demanded— + </p> + <p> + “Is the story true?” + </p> + <p> + “The story of their relations? I suppose there are fifty. One of them is.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barberry frowned at Lindsay in a manner which was itself a + reminiscence of amateur theatricals. “Their relations!” she murmured to + Dr. Livingstone. “What awful things to talk about!” + </p> + <p> + “The story I mean,” Alicia explained, “is to the effect that Mr. Bradley, + who is married, but unimportantly, made a heavy bet, when he met this + girl, that he would subdue her absolutely through her passion for her art—I + mean, of course, her affections—” + </p> + <p> + “My dear girl, we know what you mean,” cried Mrs. Barberry, entering a + protest as it were, on behalf of the gentlemen. + </p> + <p> + “And precisely the reverse happened.” + </p> + <p> + “One imagines it was something like that,” Lindsay said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, did she know about the bet?” cried Mrs. Barberry. + </p> + <p> + “That's as you like to believe. I fancy she knew about the man,” Lindsay + contributed again. + </p> + <p> + “Tables turned, eh? Daresay it served him right,” remarked Dr. + Livingstone. “If you really want to come to the laboratory, Mrs. Barberry, + we ought to be off?” + </p> + <p> + “He is going to show me a bacillus,” Mrs. Barberry announced with + enthusiasm. “Plague, or cholera, or something really bad. He caught it two + days ago, and put it in jelly for me—wasn't it dear of him! + Good-bye, you nice thing”—Mrs. Barberry addressed Alicia—“Good-bye, + Mr. Lindsay. Fancy—a live bacillus from Hong Kong! I should like it + better if it came from fascinating Japan, but still—goodbye.” + </p> + <p> + With the lady's departure an air of wontedness seemed to repossess the + room, and the two people who were left. Things fell into their places, one + could observe relative beauty, on the walls and on the floor, in Alicia's + hair and in her skirt. Little meanings attached themselves—to oval + portraits of ladies, evidently ancestral, whose muslin sleeves were tied + with blue ribbon, to Byzantine-looking Persian paintings, to odd brass + bowls and faint-coloured embroideries. The air became full of agreeable + exhalations traceable to inanimate objects, or to a rose in a vase of + common country glass; and if one turned to Alicia one could almost observe + the process by which they were absorbed in her and given forth again with + a delicacy more vague. Lindsay sometimes thought of the bee, and flowers + and honey, but always abandoned the simile as a trifle gross and material. + Certainly as she sat there in her grace and slenderness and pale clear + tints—there was an effect of early morning about her that made the + full tide of other women's sunlight vulgar—anyone would have been + fastidious in the choice of a figure to present her in. With a suspicion + of haughtiness she was drawn for the traditional marchioness; but she + lifted her eyes and you saw that she appealed instead. There was an art in + the doing of her hair, a dainty elaboration that spoke of the most + approved conventions beneath, yet it was impossible to mistake the freedom + of spirit that lay in the lines of her blouse. Even her gracefulness ran + now and then into a downrightness of movement which suggested the + assertion of a primitive sincerity in a personal world of many effects. + Into her making of tea, for example, she put nothing more sophisticated + than sugar, and she ordered more bread and butter in the worst possible + rendering of her servants' tongue, without a thought except that the bread + and butter should be brought. Lindsay liked to think that with him she was + particularly simple and direct, that he was of those who freed her from + the pretty consciousness, the elegant restraint that other people fixed + upon her. It must be admitted that this conviction had reason in + establishing itself, and it is perhaps not surprising that, in the + security of it, he failed to notice occasions when it would not have held, + of which this was plainly one. Alicia reflected, with her cheek against + the Afghan wolf-skins on the back of the chair. It was characteristic of + her eyes that one could usually see things being turned over in them. She + would sometimes keep people waiting while she thought. She thought + perceptibly about Hilda Howe, slanting her absent gaze between sheltering + eyelids to the floor. Presently she rearranged the rose in its green glass + vase, and said, “Then it's impossible not to be interested.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you would find it so.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small fragments of cress sandwich + upon a terrier. “Fancy your being so sure,” she said, “that you could + present her entertainingly!” She looked past him toward the light that + came in at the draped window, and he was not aware that her regard held + him fast by the way. + </p> + <p> + “Anyone could,” he said cheerfully. “She presents herself. One is only the + humblest possible medium. And the most passive.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia's eyes were still attracted by the light from the window. It + silhouetted a rare fern from Assam which certainly rewarded them. + </p> + <p> + “I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some more.” + </p> + <p> + “Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Miss Livingstone, with conviction; “but I'm not a bit + satisfied. A few simple facts sometimes—sometimes are better. Wasn't + it a little difficult to make her acquaintance?” + </p> + <p> + “Not in the very least. I saw her in A Woman of Honour, and was charmed. + Charmed in a new way. Next day I discovered her address—it's obscure—and + sent up my card for permission to tell her so. I explained to her that one + would have hesitated at home, but here one was protected by the custom. + And she received me warmly. She gave me to understand that she was not + overwhelmed with tribute of that kind from Calcutta. The truthful ring of + it was pathetic, poor dear.” + </p> + <p> + “That was in—” + </p> + <p> + “In February.” + </p> + <p> + “In February we were at Nice,” Alicia said, musingly. Then she took up her + divining-rod again. “One can imagine that she was grateful. People of that + kind—how snobbish I sound, but you know what I mean—are rather + stranded in Calcutta, aren't they? They haven't any world here;” and, with + the quick glance which deprecated her timid clevernesses, she added, “The + arts conspire to be absent.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any gratitude it was all mine. But + we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of life + will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of that sort. + And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if she admitted it.” + </p> + <p> + “What is her theory of life?” Alicia demanded quickly. “I should be glad + of a new one.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a little, as at the touch + of a finger light, but cold. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think she has ever told me,” he said. “No, I am sure she has + not.” His reflection was: “It is her garment—how could it fit + another woman!” + </p> + <p> + “But you have divined it—she has let you do that! You can give me + your impression.” + </p> + <p> + He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon impalpabilities, but + not without a shade of embarrassment. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. But having perceived, to pass on—it doesn't follow that + one can. I don't seem able to lay my hand upon the signs and symbols.” + </p> + <p> + The faintest look of disappointment, the lightest cloud of submission, + appeared upon Miss Livingstone's face. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know!” she said. “You are making me feel dreadfully out of it, but + I know. It surrounds her like a kind of atmosphere, an intellectual + atmosphere. Though I confess that is the part I don't understand in + connection with an actress.” + </p> + <p> + There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. Alicia lay back + upon her wolf-skins like a long-stemmed flower cast down among them, and + looked away from the subject at the teacups. Duff picked up his hat. He + had the subtlest intimations with women. + </p> + <p> + “It's an intoxicating atmosphere,” he said. “My continual wonder is that + I'm not in love with her. A fellow in a novel, now, in my situation, would + be embroiled with half his female relations by this time, and taking his + third refusal with a haggard eye.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia still contemplated the teacups, but with intentness. She lifted her + head to look at them; one might have imagined a beauty suddenly revealed. + </p> + <p> + “Why aren't you?” she said. “I wonder, too.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like it enormously,” he laughed. “I've lain awake at nights + trying to find out why it isn't so. Perhaps you'll be able to tell me. I + think it must be because she's such a confoundedly good fellow.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia turned her face toward him sweetly, and the soft grey fur made a + shadow on the whiteness of her throat. Her buffeting was over; she was + full of an impulse to stand again in the sun. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you mustn't depend on me,” she said. “But why are you going? Don't + go. Stay and have another cup of tea.” + </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> + The fact that Stephen Arnold and Duff Lindsay had spent the same terms at + New College, and now found themselves again together in the social poverty + of the Indian capital, would not necessarily explain their walking in + company through the early dusk of a December evening in Bentinck Street. + It seems desirable to supply a reason why anyone should be walking there, + to begin with, anyone, at all events, not a Chinaman, or a coolie, a + dealer in second-hand furniture, or an able-bodied seaman luxuriously + fingering wages in both trouser pockets, and describing an erratic line of + doubtful temper toward the nearest glass of country spirits. Or, to be + quite comprehensive, a draggled person with a Bulgarian, a Levantine, or a + Japanese smile, who no longer possessed a carriage, to whom the + able-bodied seaman represented the whole port. The cramped twisting + thoroughfare was full of people like this; they overflowed from the single + narrow border of pavement to the left, and walked indifferently upon the + road among the straw-scatterings and the dung-droppings; and when the + tramcar swept through and past with prodigious whistlings and ringings, + they swerved as little as possible aside. Three parts of the tide of them + were neither white nor black, but many shades of brown, written down in + the census as “of mixed Mood,” and wearing still, through the degenerating + centuries, an eyebrow, a nostril of the first Englishmen who came to + conjugal ties of Hindustan. The place sent up to the stars a vast noise of + argument and anger and laughter, of the rattling of hoofs and wheels; but + the babel was ordered in its exaggeration, the red turban of a policeman + here and there denoted little more than a unit in the crowd. There were + gas-lamps, and they sent a ripple of light like a sword-thrust along the + gutter beside the banquette, where a pariah dog nosed a dead rat and was + silhouetted. They picked out, too, the occasional pair of Corinthian + columns, built into the squalid stucco sheer with the road that made + history for Bentinck Street, and explained that whatever might be the + present colour of the little squat houses and the tall lean ones that + loafed together into the fog round the first bend, they were once + agreeably pink and yellow, with the magenta cornice, the blue capital, + that fancy dictated. There where the way narrowed with an out-jutting + balcony high up, and the fog thickened and the lights grew vague, the + multitude of heads passed into the blur beyond with an effect of mystery, + pictorial, remote; but where Arnold and Lindsay walked the squalor was + warm, human, practical. A torch flamed this way and that, stuck in the + wall over the head of a squatting bundle and his tray of three-cornered + leaf-parcels of betel, and an oiled rag in a tin pot sent up an unsteady + little flame, blue and yellow, beside a sweetmeat seller's basket, and + showed his heap of cakes that they were well-browned and full of butter. + From the “Cape of Good Cheer,” where many bottles glistened in rows + inside, came a braying upon the conch, and a flame of burnt brandy danced + along the bar to the honour and propitiation of Lakshmi, that the + able-bodied seaman might be thirsty when he came, for the “Cape of Good + Cheer” did not owe its prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any + Providence of our theology. But most of the brightness abode in the + Chinamen's shoe shops, where many lamps shone on the hammering and the + stitching. There were endless shoe shops, and they all belonged to Powson + or Singson or Samson, while one sign-board bore the broad impertinence + “Macpherson.” The proprietors stood in the door, the smell came out in the + street—that smell of Chinese personality steeped in fried oil and + fresh leather that out-fans even the south wind in Bentinck Street. They + were responsible but not anxious, the proprietors: they buried their fat + hands in their wide sleeves and looked up and down, stolid and smiling. + They stood in their alien petticoat trousers for the commercial stability + of the locality, and the rows of patent leather slippers that glistened + behind them testified to it further. Everything else shifted and drifted, + with a perpetual change of complexion, a perpetual worsening of clothes. + Only Powson bore a permanent yoke of prosperity. It lay round his thick + brown neck with the low clean line of his blue cotton smock, and he + carried it without offensive consciousness, looking up and down by no + means in search of customers, rather in the exercise of the opaque, + inscrutable philosophy tied up in his queue. + </p> + <p> + Lindsay liked Bentinck Street as an occasional relapse from the scenic + standards of pillared and verandahed Calcutta, and made personal business + with his Chinaman for the sake of the racial impression thrown into the + transaction. Arnold, in his cassock, waited in the doorway with his arms + crossed behind him, and his thin face thrust as far as it would go into + the air outside. It is possible that some intelligences might have seen in + this priest a caricature of his profession, a figure to be copied for the + curate of burlesque, so accurately did he reproduce the common signs of + the ascetic school. His face would have been womanish in its plainness but + for the gravity that had grown upon it, only occasionally dispersed by a + smile of scholarliness and sweetness which had the effect of being + permitted, conceded. He had the long thin nose which looked as if for + preference it would be forever thrust among the pages of the Fathers; and + anyone might observe the width of his mouth without perhaps detecting the + patience and decision of the upper lip. The indignity of spectacles he did + not yet wear, but it hovered over him; it was indispensable to his + personality in the long-run. In figure he was indifferently tall and thin + and stooping, made to pass unobservedly along a pavement or with the + directness of humble but important business among crowds. At Oxford he had + interested some of his friends and worried others by wistful inclinations + toward the shelter of that Mother Church which bids her children be at + rest and leave to her the responsibility. Lindsay, with his robust sense + of a right to exist on the old unmuddled fighting terms, to be a sane and + decent animal, under civilised moral governance a miserable sinner, was + among those who observed his waverings without prejudice or anything but + an affectionate solicitude that, whichever way Arnold went, he should find + the satisfactions he sought. The conviction that settled the matter was + accidental, the work of a moment, a free instinct and a thing made with + hands—the dead Shelley where the sea threw him and the sculptor + fixed him, under his memorial dome in the gardens of University College. + Here one leafy afternoon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his + head in confusion at the thought of the profane handicraftsman who might + claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by which he saw + deeply concealed in his bosom, and disguised with a host of spiritual + wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as the artistic bias, the + aesthetic point of view. The discovery worked upon him so that he spent + three days without consummated prayer at all, occupied in the effort to + find out whether he could yet indeed worship in purity of spirit, or how + far the paralysis of the ideal of mere beauty had crept upon his + devotions. In the end he cast the artistic bias, the aesthetic point of + view, as far from him as his will would carry, and walked away in another + direction, from which, if he turned his head, he could see the Church of + Rome sitting with her graven temptations gathered up in her skirts, + looking mournfully after him. He had been a priest of the Clarke Mission + to Calcutta, a “Clarke Brother,” six years when he stood in the door of + Ahsing's little shop in Bentinck Street, while Lindsay explained to Ahsing + his objection to patent leather toe-caps; six years which had not worn or + chilled him, because, as he would have cheerfully admitted, he had + recognised the facts and lowered his personal hopes of achievement—lowered + them with a heroism which took account of himself as no more than a + spiritual molecule rightly inspired and moving to the great future already + shining behind coming aeons of the universal Kingdom. Indeed, his humility + was scientific; he made his deductions from the granular nature of all + change, moral and material. He never talked or thought of the Aryan souls + that were to shine with peculiar Oriental brightness as stars in the crown + of his reward; he saw rather the ego and the energy of him merged in a + wave of blessed tendency in this world, thankful if, in that which is to + come, it was counted worthy to survive at all. It should be understood + that Arnold did not hope to attain the simplicity of this by means equally + simple. He held vastly, on the contrary, to fast days and flagellations, + to the ministry of symbols, the use of rigours. The spiritual consummation + which the eye of faith enabled him to anticipate upon the horizon of + Bengal should be hastened, however imperceptibly, by all that he could do + to purify and intensify his infinitesimal share of the force that was to + bring it about. Meanwhile he made friends with the fathers of Bengali + schoolboys, who appreciated his manners, and sent him with urbanity flat + baskets of mangoes and nuts and oranges, pomegranates from Persia, and + little round boxes of white grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt + upon the converts that already testified to the success of the mission; it + might be gathered that he had ideas about premature fruition. + </p> + <p> + As they stepped out together into the street, Lindsay thrust his hand + within Arnold's elbow. It was an impulse, and the analysis of it would + show elements like self-reproach, and a sense of value continually + renewed, and a vain desire for an absolutely common ground. The physical + nearness, the touch, was something, and each felt it in the remoteness of + his other world with satisfaction. There was absurdly little in what they + had to say to each other; they talked of the Viceroy's attack of measles + and the sanitary improvements in the cloth dealers' quarter. Their bond + was hardly more than a mutual decency of nature, niceness of sentiment, + clearness of eye. Such as it was, it was strong enough to make both men + wish it were stronger, a desire which was a vague impatience on Lindsay's + part with a concentration of hostility to Arnold's soutane. It made its + universal way for them, however, this garment. Where the crowd was + thickest people jostled and pressed with one foot in the gutter for the + convenience of the padre sahib. He, with his eyes cast down, took the + tribute with humility, as meet, in a way that made Lindsay blaspheme + inwardly at the persistence of ecclesiastical tradition. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, as they passed, the irrelevant violence of tongues, the broken, + half-comprehensible tumult was smitten and divided by a wave of rhythmic + sound. It pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat sellers, and mounted + above the cracked bell that proclaimed the continual auction of Kristo + Dass and Friend, dealers in the second-hand. In its vivid familiarity it + seemed to make straight for the two Englishmen, to surround and take + possession of them, and they paused. The source of it was plain—an + open door under a vast white signboard dingily lettered “The Salvation + Army.” It loomed through the smoke and the streetlights like a discovery. + </p> + <p> + “Our peripatetic friends,” said Arnold, with his rare smile; and as if the + music seized and held them, they stood listening. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + All day on Sunday and six days a week! + I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + Fifty-two weeks in the year.” + </pre> + <p> + It was immensely vigorous; the men looked at each other with fresh + animation. Responding to the mere physical appeal of it, they picked their + steps across the street to the door, and there hesitated, revolted in + different ways. Perhaps, I have forgotten to say that Lindsay came to + Calcutta out of an Aberdeenshire manse, and had had a mother before whose + name, while she lived, people wrote “The Hon.” Besides, the singing had + stopped, and casual observation from the street was checked by a screen. + </p> + <p> + “I have wondered sometimes what their methods really are,” said Arnold. + </p> + <p> + Their methods were just on the other side of the screen. A bullet-headed + youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulders, fingering a cap, + slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing the two men beside the + door, and a light, clear voice seemed to call after him— + </p> + <p> + “Ah! don't go away!” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay was visited by a flash of memory and a whimsical speculation + whether now, at the week's end, the soul of Hilda Howe was still pursuing + the broad road to perdition. The desire to enter sprang up in him: he was + reminded of a vista of some interest which had recently revealed itself by + an accident, and which he had not explored. It had almost passed out of + his memory; he grasped at it again with something like excitement, and + fell adroitly upon the half inclination in Arnold's voice. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I can't expect you to go in?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Precisely why not?” Stephen retorted. “My dear fellow, we make broad our + sympathies, not our phylacteries.” + </p> + <p> + At any other time Lindsay would have reflected how characteristic was the + gentle neatness of that, and might have resented with amusement the pulpit + tone of the little epigram. But this moment found him only aware of the + consent in it. His hand on Arnold's elbow clinched the agreement; he half + pushed the priest into the room, where they dropped into seats. Stephen's + hand went to his breast instinctively, for the words in the air were holy + by association, and stopped there, since even the breadth of his + sympathies did not enable him to cross himself before General Booth. + Though absent in body, the room was dominated by General Booth; he loomed + so large and cadaverous, so earnest and aquiline and bushy, from a frame + on the wall at the end of it. The texts on the other walls seemed + emanations from him; and the man in the short loose, collarless red coat, + with “Salvation Army” in crooked black letters on it, who stood talking in + high, rapid tones with his hands folded, had the look of a puppet whose + strings were pulled by the personality in the frame above him. It was only + by degrees that they observed the other objects in the room—the big + drum on the floor in the empty space where the exhorters stood, the dozen + wooden benches and the possible score of people sitting on them, the dull + kerosene lamps on the walls, lighting up the curtness of the texts. There + were half a dozen men of the Duke's Own packed in a row like a formation, + solid on their haunches; and three or four unshaven and loose-garmented, + from crews in the Hooghly, who leaned well forwards their elbows on their + knees, twirling battered straw hats, with a pathetic look of being for the + instant off the defensive. One was a Scandinavian, another a Greek, with + earrings. There was a ship's cook, too, a full-blooded negro, very + respectable with a plaid tie and a silk hat; and beside, two East Indian + girls of different shades, tittering at the Duke's Own in an agony of + propriety; a Bengali boy, who spelled out the English on the cover of a + hymn-book; and a very clean Chinaman, who appreciated his privilege, since + it included a seat, a lamp, and a noise, though his perception of it + possibly went no further. The other odds and ends were of the mixed + country blood, like the girls, dingy, undecipherable. They made a shadow + for the rest, lying along the benches, shifting unnoticeably. + </p> + <p> + Three people, two of them women, sat in the open space at the end of the + room where the smoky fog from outside thickened and hung visibly in + mid-air, and there was the empty seat of the man who was talking. Laura + Filbert was one of the women. She might have been flung upon her chair; + her head drooped over the back, buried in the curve of one arm. A + tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest her face; the other lay, + palm outward in its abandonment, among the folds that covered her limbs. + The folds hung from her waist, and she wore above them a short close + bodice like a Bengali woman. Her head covering had slipped, and clung only + to the knot of hair at the nape of her neck; she lacked, pathetically, the + conscious hand to draw it forward. She was unaware even of the gaze of the + Duke's Own, though it had fixity and absorption. + </p> + <p> + The man with folded hands went on talking. He seemed to have caught as a + text the refrain of the hymn that had been sung. “Yes, indeed,” he said. + “I can tell heveryone 'ere this night, heveryone, that the Saviour is + mighty to keep. I 'ave got it out of my own personal experience, I 'ave. + Jesus don't only look after you on a Sunday, but six days a week, my + friends, six days a week. Fix your eye on Him and He'll keep His eye on + you—that's all your part of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble + an' fall into sin. There's times when the Devil will get the upper 'and, + but oh, my friends, I ask you, each an' hevery one of you, is that the + fault of Jesus? No, it is not 'Is fault, it is the fault of the person. + The person 'as been forgetting Jesus, forgetting 'is Bible an' 'is + prayers; what can you expect? And now I ask you, my friends, is Jesus + a-keeping you? And if He is not, oh, my friends, ain't it foolish to put + off any longer? 'Ere we are met together to-night; we may never all meet + together again. You and I may never 'ear each other speaking again or see + each other sitting there. Thank God,” the speaker continued, as his eye + rested on Arnold and Lindsay, “the vilest sinner may be saved, the + respectable sinner may be saved. We've got God's word for that. Now just a + little word of prayer from Ensign Sand 'ere—she's got God's ear, the + Ensign 'as, and she'll plead with 'im for all unconverted souls inside + these four walls to-night.” + </p> + <p> + Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the other exhorters on her + knees on the floor. As she moved she bent upon the audience a preoccupied + gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, chances, from a point remote + and emotionally involved. Lindsay's impression was that she looked at him + as from behind a glass door. Then her eyes closed as the other woman + began, and through their lids, as it were, he could see that she was again + caught up, though her body remained abased, her hands interlocked between + her knees, swaying in unison with the petition. The Ensign was a little + meagre freckled woman, whose wisps of colourless hair and tight drawn-down + lips suggested that in the secular world she would have been bedraggled + and a nagger. She gained an elevation, it was plain, from the Bengali + dress; it kept her away from the temptation of cheap plush and dirty + cotton lace; and her business gave her a complacency which was doubtless + accepted as sanctification by her fellow-officers, especially by her + husband, who had announced her influence with the Divine Being, and who + was himself of an inferior commission. She prayed in a complaining way, + and in a strained minor key that assumed a spiritual intimacy with all who + listened, her key to hearts. She told the Lord in confidence that however + appearances might be against it every soul before him was really longing + to be gathered within His almighty arms, and when she said this, Laura + Filbert, on the floor, threw back her head and cried “Hallelujah!” and + Duff started. The mothers broke in upon the Ensign with like exclamations. + They had a recurrent, perfunctory sound, and passed unnoticed; but when + Laura again cried “Praise the Lord!” Lindsay found himself holding in + check a hasty impulse to leave the premises. Then she rose, and he watched + with the Duke's Own to see what she would do next. The others looked at + her too, as she stood surprisingly fair and insistent among them, Ensign + Sand with humble eyes and disapproving lips. As she began to speak the + silence widened for her words, the ship's cook stopped shuffling his feet. + “Oh come,” she said, “Come and be saved!” Her voice seemed to travel from + her without effort, and to penetrate every corner and every consciousness. + There was a sudden dip in it like the fall of water, that thrilled along + the nerves. “Who am I that ask you? A poor weak woman, ignorant, unknown. + Never mind. It is not my voice but the voice in your heart that entreats + you 'Come and be saved!' You know that voice; it speaks in the watches of + the night; it began to speak when you were a little, little child, with + little joys and sorrows and little prayers that you have forgotten now. + Oh, it is a sweet voice, a tender voice”—her own had dropped to the + cooing of doves—“it is hard to know why all the winds do not carry + it, and all the leaves whisper it! Strange, strange! But the world is full + of the clamour of its own foolishness, and the voice is lost in it, except + in places where people come to pray, as here to-night, and in those night + watches. You hear it now in the echo from my lips, 'Come and be saved.' + Why must I beg of you? Why do you not come hastening, running? Are you too + wise? But when did the wisdom of this world satisfy you about the next? + Are you too much occupied? But in the day of judgment what will you do?”— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “When you come to Jordan's flood, + How will you do? How will you do?” + </pre> + <p> + It was the voice and tambourine of Ensign Sand, quick upon her + opportunity. Laura gave her no glance of surprise—perhaps she was + disciplined to interruptions—but caught up her own tambourine, + singing, and instantly the chorus was general, the Big drum thumping out + the measure, all the tambourines shaking together. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “You who now contemn your God, + How will you do? How will you do?” + </pre> + <p> + The Duke's Own sang lustily with a dogged enjoyment that made little of + the words. Some of them assumed a vacuity to counteract the sentiment, but + most of the sheepish countenances expressed that the tune was the thing, + one or two with a smile of jovial cynicism, and kept time with their feet. + Through the medley of voices—everybody sang except Arnold and + Lindsay and the Chinaman—Laura's seemed to flow, separate and clear, + threading the jangle upon melody, and turning the doggerel into an appeal, + direct, intense. When Lindsay presently saw it addressed to him, in the + unmistakable intention of her eyes, he caught his breath. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Death will be a solemn day + When the soul is forced away, + It will be too late to pray; + How will you do?” + </pre> + <p> + It was simple enough. All her supreme desire to convince, to turn, to make + awfully plain, had centred upon the single person in the room with whom + she had the advantage of acquaintance, whose face her own could seek with + a kind of right to response. But the sensation Duff Lindsay tried to sit + still under was not simple. It had the novelty, the shock, of a plunge + into the sea; behind his decorous countenance he gasped and blinked, with + unfamiliar sounds in his ears. His soul seemed shudderingly repelling + Laura's, yet the buffets themselves were enthralling. In the strangeness + of it he made a mechanical movement to depart, picked up his stick, but + Arnold was sitting holding his chin, wrapped in quiet interest, and took + no notice. The hymn stopped, and he found a few minutes' respite, during + which Ensign Sand addressed the meeting, unveiling each heart to its + possessor; while Laura turned over the leaves of the hymn-book, looking, + Lindsay was profoundly aware, for airs and verses most likely to help the + siege of the Army to his untaken, sinful citadel. There was time to bring + him calmness enough to wonder whether these were the symptoms of emotional + conversion, the sort of thing these people went in for, and he resolved to + watch his state with interest. Then, before he knew it, they were all down + on their knees again, and Laura was praying; and he was not aware of the + meaning of a single word that she said, only that her voice was threading + itself in and out of his consciousness burdened with a passion that made + it exquisite to him. Her appeal lifted itself in the end into song, low + and sweet. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Down at the Cross where my Saviour died, + Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, + There to my heart was the blood applied, + Glory to His name!” + </pre> + <p> + They let her sing it alone, even the tempting chorus, and when it was over + Lindsay was almost certain that his were not the preliminary pangs of + conversion by the methods of the Salvation Army. Deliberately, however, he + postponed further analysis of them until after the meeting was over. He + would be compelled then to go away, back to the club to dinner, or + something; they would put out the lights and lock the place up: he thought + of that. He glanced at the lamps with a perception of the finality that + would come when they were extinguished—she would troop away with the + others into the darkness—and then at his watch to see how much time + there was left. More exhortation followed and more prayer; he was only + aware that she did not speak. She sat with her hand over her eyes, and + Lindsay had an excited conviction that she was still occupying herself + with him. He looked round almost furtively to detect whether anyone else + was aware of it, this connection that she was blazoning between them, and + then relapsed, staring at his hat, into a sense of ungrammatical + iterations beating through a room full of stuffy smells. When Laura spoke + again his eye leaped to hers in a rapt effort to tell her that he + perceived her intention. That he should be grateful, that he should + approve, was neither here nor there; the indispensable thing was that she + should know him conscious, receptive. She read three or four sacred + verses, a throb of tender longing from the very Christheart, “Come unto + Me.”... The words stole about the room like tears. Then she would ask “all + present,” she said, to engage for a moment in silent prayer. There was a + wordless interval, only the vague street noises surging past the door. A + thrill ran along the benches as Laura brought it to an end with sudden + singing. She was on her feet as the others raised their heads, breaking + forth clear and jubilant. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I am so wondrously saved from sin, + Jesus so sweetly abides within; + There at the Cross where He took me in, + Glory to His name!” + </pre> + <p> + She smiled as she sang. It was a happy confident smile, and it was plain + that she longed to believe it the glad reflection of the last ten minutes' + spiritual experience of many who heard her. Lindsay's perception of this + was immediate and keen, and when her eyes rested for an instant of glad + inquiry upon his in the chartered intimacy of her calling, he felt a pang + of compunction. It was a formless reproach, too vague for anything like a + charge, but it came nearest to defining itself in the idea that he had + gone too far—he who had not left his seat. When the hymn was + finished, and Ensign Sand said, “The meeting is now open for testimonies,” + he knew that all her hope was upon him, though she looked at the screen + above his head; and he sat abashed, with a prodigal sense surging through + him of what he would rejoice to do for her in compensation. In the little + chilly silence that followed he surprised his own eyes moist with + disappointment—it had all been so anxious and so vain—and he + felt relief and gratitude when the man who beat the drum stood up and + announced that he had been saved for eleven years, with details about how + badly he stood in need of it when it happened. + </p> + <p> + “Hallelujah!” said Ensign Sand cheerfully, with a meretricious air of + hearing it for the first time. “Any more?” and a Norwegian sailor lurched + shamefacedly upon his feet. He had a couple of inches of straggling yellow + beard all round his face, and fingered an old felt hat. + </p> + <p> + “I haf' to say only dis word. I goin' sdop by Jesus. Long time I subbose I + sdop by Jesus. I subbose—” + </p> + <p> + “Glory be to God!” remarked Ensign Sand again, spiking the guns of the + Duke's Own who were inclined to be amused. “That will do, thank you. Now, + is there nobody else? Speak up, friends. It'll do you no harm, none + whatever; it'll do you that much good you'll be surprised. Now, who'll be + the next to say a word for Jesus?” She was nodding encouragement at the + negro cook as if she knew him for a wavering soul, and he, sunk in his + gleaming white collar, was aware, in silent smiling misery, that the + expectations of the meeting were toward him. Laura had again hidden her + eyes in her hand. The negro fingered his watch chain foolishly, and the + prettiest of the East Indian half-castes tried hard to disguise her + perception that an African in his best clothes under conviction of sin was + the funniest thing in the world. The silence seemed to focus itself upon + the cook, who fumbled at his coat collar and cleared his voice. It was a + shock to all concerned when Stephen Arnold, picking up his hat, got upon + his feet instead. + </p> + <p> + “I also,” he said, “would offer my humble testimony to the grace of God—with + all my heart.” + </p> + <p> + It was as if he had repeated part of the creed in the performance of his + office. Then he turned and bent gravely to Lindsay, “Shall we go now?” he + whispered, and the two made their way to the door, leaving a silence + behind them which Lindsay imagined, on the part of Ensign Sand at least, + to be somewhat resentful. As they passed out a voice recovered itself, and + cried, “Hallelujah!” It was Laura's; and all the way to the club—Arnold + was dining with him there—Lindsay listened to his friend's analysis + of religious appeal to the emotions, but chiefly heard that clear music + above a sordid din, “Hallelujah!” “Hallelujah!” + </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> + When Alicia Livingstone, almost believing she liked it, drove to Number + Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and left cards upon Miss Hilda Howe, she was + only partially rewarded. Through the plaster gate-posts, badly in want of + repair, and bearing, sunk in one of them, a marble slab announcing + “Residence with Board,” she perceived the squalid attempt the place made + at respectability, the servants in dirty livery salaaming curiously, the + over-fed squirrel in a cage in the door, the pair of damaged wicker chairs + in the porch, suggesting the easiest intercourse after dinner, the general + discoloration. She observed with irritation that it was a down-at-heels + shrine for such a divinity, in spite of its six dusty crotons in crumbling + plaster urns, but the irritation was rather at her own repulsion to the + place than at any inconsistency it presented. What she demanded and + expected of herself was that Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane should be + pleasing, interesting, acceptable on its merits as a cheap Calcutta + boarding-house. She found herself so unable to perceive its merits that it + was almost a relief to see nothing of Miss Howe either; Hilda had gone to + rehearsal, to the “dance-house” the servant said, eyeing the unusual + landau. Alicia rolled back into streets with Christian names, distressed + by an uncertainty as to whether her visit had been a disappointment or an + escape. By the next day, however, she was well pulled together in favour + of the former conclusion—she could nearly always persuade herself of + such things in time—and wrote a frank sweet little note in her + picturesque hand—she never joined more than two syllables—to + say how sorry she had been, and would Miss Howe come to lunch on Friday. + “I should love to make it dinner,” she, said to herself, as she sealed the + envelope, “but before one knows how she will behave in connection with the + men—I suppose one must think of the other people.” + </p> + <p> + It was Friday, and Hilda was lunching. The two had met among the + faint-tinted draperies of Alicia's drawing-room—there was something + auroral even about the mantelpiece—a little like diplomatists using + a common tongue native to neither of them. Perhaps Alicia drew the + conventions round her with the greater fluency; Hilda had more to cover, + but was less particular about it. The only thing she was bent upon making + imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of Miss Livingstone's effort to + receive her as if she had been anybody else. Alicia was hardly aware of + what she wanted to conceal, unless it was her impression that Miss Howe's + dress was cut a trifle too low in the neck, that she was almost too + effective in that cream and yellow to be quite right. Alicia remembered + afterwards to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of intercourse with + Hilda Howe were dominated by a lively desire to set Celine at her—with + such a foundation to work upon what could Celine not have done? She + remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary things Hilda said in that + rich voice, even in the tempered drawing-room tones of which resided a + hint of the seats nearest the exit under the gallery, and her wonder at + the luxury of gesture that went with them, movements which seemed to imply + blank verse and to be thrown away upon two women and a little furniture. A + consciousness stood in the room between them, and their commonplaces about + the picturesqueness of the bazar rode on long absorbed regards, one + reading, the other anxious to read; yet the encounter was so + conventionally creditable to them both that they might have smiled past + each other under any circumstances next day and acknowledged no demand for + more than the smile. + </p> + <p> + The cutlets had come before Hilda's impression was at the back of her + head, her defences withdrawn, her eyes free and content, her elbow on the + table. They had found a portrait-painter. + </p> + <p> + “He has such an eye,” said Alicia, “for the possibilities of character.” + </p> + <p> + “Such an eye that he develops them. I know one man he painted. I suppose + when the man was born he had an embryo soul, but in the meantime he and + everybody else had forgotten about it. All but Salter. Salter re-created + it on the original lines, and brought it up, and gave it a lodging behind + the man's, wrinkles. I saw the picture. It was fantastic—psychologically.” + </p> + <p> + “Pysychology has a lot to say to portrait-painting, I know,” Alicia said. + “Do let him give you a little more. It's only Moselle.” She felt quite + direct and simple too in uttering her postulate. Her eyes had a friendly, + unembarrassed look, there was nothing behind them but the joy of talking + intelligently about Salter. + </p> + <p> + Hilda did not even glance away. She looked at her hostess instead, with an + expression of candour so admirable that one might easily have mistaken it + to be insincere. It was part of her that she could swim in any current, + and it was pleasant enough, for the moment, to swim in Alicia's. Both the + Moselle and the cutlets, moreover, were of excellent quality. + </p> + <p> + “It's everything to everything, don't you think? And especially, thank + Heaven, to my trade.” Her voice softened the brusqueness of this; the way + she said it gave it a right to be said in any terms. That was the case + with flagrancies of hers sometimes. + </p> + <p> + “To discover motives and morals and passions and ambitions and to make a + picture of them with your own body—your face and hands and voice—compare + our plastic opportunity with the handling of a brush to do it, or a pen or + a chisel!” + </p> + <p> + “I know what you mean,” said Alicia. She had a little flush, and an + excited hand among the wineglasses. “No, I don't want any; please don't + bother me!” to the man at her elbow with something in aspic. “It's much + more direct—your way.” + </p> + <p> + “And, I think, so much more primitive, so much earlier sanctioned, abiding + so originally among the instincts! Oh yes! if we are lightly esteemed it + is because we are bad exponents. The ideal has dignity enough. They charge + us, in their unimaginable stupidity, with failing to appreciate our lines, + especially when they are Shakespeare's—with being unliterary. You + might—good Heavens!—as well accuse a painter of not being a + musician! Our business lies behind the words—they are our mere + medium! Rosalind wasn't literary—why should I be? But don't indulge + me in my shop, if it bores you,” Hilda added lightly, aware as she was + that Miss Livingstone was never further from being bored. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please go on! If you only knew,” her lifted eyebrows confessed the + tedium of Calcutta small talk. “But why do you say you are lightly + esteemed? Surely the public is a touchstone—and you hold the public + in the hollow of your hand!” + </p> + <p> + Hilda smiled. “Dear old public! It does its best for us, doesn't it? One + loves it, you know, as sailors love the sea, never believing in its + treachery in the end. But I don't know why I say we are lightly esteemed, + or why I dogmatise about it at all. I've done nothing—I've no right. + In ten years perhaps—no, five—I'll write signed articles for + the New Review about modern dramatic tendencies. Meanwhile you'll have to + consider that the value of my opinions is prospective.” + </p> + <p> + “But already you have succeeded—you have made a place.” + </p> + <p> + “In Coolgardie, in Johannesburg, I think they remember me in Trichinopoly + too, and—yes, it may be so—in Manila. But that wasn't + legitimate drama,” and Hilda smiled again in a way that coloured her + unspoken reminiscence, to Alicia's eyes, in rose and gold. She waited an + instant for these tints to materialise, but Miss Howe's smile slid + discreetly into her wineglass instead. + </p> + <p> + “There's immense picturesqueness in the Philippines,” she went on, her + look of thoughtful criticism contrasting in the queerest way with her hat. + “Real ecclesiastical tyranny with pure traditions. One wonders what + America will do with those friars, when she does go there.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think she is going?” asked Alicia vaguely. It was the merest + politeness—she did not wait for a reply. With a courageous air which + became her charmingly, she went on, “Don't you long to submit yourself to + London? I should.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I must. I know I must. It's in the path of duty and conscience—it's + not to be put off for ever. But one dreads the chained slavery of London”—she + hesitated before the audacity of adding, “the sordid hundred nights,” but + Alicia divined it, and caught her breath as if she had watched the other + woman make a hazardous leap. + </p> + <p> + “You are magnificently sure,” she said. Alicia herself felt curiously + buoyed up and capable, conscious of vague intuitions of immediate + achievement. The lunch-table still lay between the two, but it had become + in a manner intangible; the selves of them had drawn together, and + regarded each other with absorbent eyes. In Hilda's there was an instant + of consideration before she said—“I might as well tell you—you + won't misunderstand—that I AM sure. I expect things of myself. I + hold a kind of mortgage on my success; when I foreclose it will come, + bringing the long, steady, grasping chase of money and fame, eyes fixed, + never a day to live in, only to accomplish, every moment straddled with + calculation, an end to all the byways where one finds the colour of the + sun. The successful London actress, my dear—what existence has she? + A straight flight across the Atlantic in a record-breaker, so many nights + in New York, so many in Chicago, so many in a Pullman car, and the net + result in every newspaper—an existence of pure artificiality + infested by reporters. It's like living in the shell of your personality. + It's the house for ever on your back; at the last you are buried in it, + smirking in your coffin with a half-open eye on the floral offerings. + There never was reward so qualified by its conditions.” + </p> + <p> + “Surely there would be some moments of splendid compensation?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes; and for those in the end we are all willing to perish! But then + you know all, you have done all; there is nothing afterwards but the + eternal strain to keep even with yourself. I don't suppose I could begin + to make you see the joys of a strolling player—they aren't much + understood even in the profession—but there are so many, honestly, + that London being at the top of the hill, I'm not panting up. My way of + going has twice wound round the world already. But I'm talking like an + illustrated interview. You will grant the impertinence of all I've been + saying when I tell you that I've never yet had an illustrated interview.” + </p> + <p> + “Aren't they almost always vulgar?” Alicia asked. “Don't they make you sit + the wrong way on a chair, in tights?” + </p> + <p> + Hilda threw her head back and laughed, almost, Alicia noted, like a man. + She certainly did not hide her mouth with her hands or her handkerchief, + as women often do in bursts of hilarity; she laughed freely, and as much + as she wanted to, and it was as clear as possible that tights presented + themselves quite preposterously to any discussion of her profession. They + were things to be taken for granted, like the curtain and the wings; they + had no relation to clothing in the world. + </p> + <p> + Alicia laughed too. After all, they were absurd—her outsider's + prejudices. She said something like that, and Hilda seemed to soar again + for her point of view about the illustrated interviews. “They ARE + atrocities,” she said. “On their merits they ought to be cast out of even + the suburbs of art and literature. But they help to make the atmosphere + that gives us power to work, and if they do that, of course—” and + the pursed seriousness of her lips gave Alicia the impression that, though + the whole world took offence, the expediency of the illustrated interview + was beyond discussion. + </p> + <p> + The servant brought them coffee. “Shall we smoke here,” said Miss + Livingstone, “or in the drawing-room?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do you want to? Are you quite sure you like it? Please don't on my + account—you really mustn't. Suppose it should mike you ill?” If + Hilda felt any tinge of amusement she kept it out of her face. Nothing was + there but cheerful concern. + </p> + <p> + “It won't make me ill.” Alicia lifted her chin with delicate + assertiveness. “I suppose you do smoke, don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Occasionally—with some people. Honestly, have you ever done it + before?” + </p> + <p> + “Four times,” said Alicia, and then turned rose-colour with the + apprehension that it sounded amateurish to have counted them. “I thought + it was one of your privileges to do it always, just as you—” + </p> + <p> + “Go to bed with our boots on and put ice down the back of some Serene + Highness's neck. I suppose it is, but now and then I prefer to dispense + with it. In my bath, for instance, and almost always in omnibuses.” + </p> + <p> + “How absurd you are! Then we'll stay here.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Howe softly manipulated her cigarette and watched Alicia sacrifice + two matches. + </p> + <p> + “There's Rosa Norton of our company,” she went on. “Poor, dear old Rosy! + She's fifty-three—grey hair smooth back, you know, and a kind of + look of anxious mamma. And it gets into her eyes and chokes her, poor + dear; but blow her, if she won't be as Bohemian as anybody. I've seen her + smoke in a bonnet with strings tied under her chin. I got up and went + away.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can't possibly affect you in that way,” said Alicia, putting her + cigarette down to finish, as an afterthought, a marron glace. “I'm not old + and I'm not grotesque.” + </p> + <p> + “No, but—oh, all right. After you with the matches, please.” + </p> + <p> + “I BEG your pardon. How thoughtless of me! Dear me, mine has gone out. Do + you suppose anything is wrong with them? Perhaps they're damp.” + </p> + <p> + “Trifle dry, if anything,” Hilda returned, with the cigarette between her + lips, “but in excellent order, really.” She took it between her first and + second finger for a glance at the gold letters at the end, leaned back and + sent slow, luxurious spirals through her nostrils. It was rather, Alicia + reflected, like a horse on a cold day—she hoped Miss Howe wouldn't + do it again. But she presently saw that it was Miss Howe's way of doing + it. + </p> + <p> + “No, you're not old and grotesque,” Hilda said contemplatively; “you're + young and beautiful.” The freedom seemed bred, imperceptibly and + enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever so + little under it, but took it without wincing. She had less than the common + palate for flattery of the obvious kind, but this was something different—a + mere casual and unprejudiced statement of fact. + </p> + <p> + “Fairly,” she said, not without surprise at her own calmness; and there + was an instant of silence, during which the commonplace seemed to be + dismissed between them. + </p> + <p> + “You made a vivid impression here last year,” said Alicia. She felt + delightfully terse and to the point. + </p> + <p> + “You mean Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay is very impressionable. Do you know him + well?” + </p> + <p> + Alicia closed her lips, and a faint line graved itself on each side of + them. Her whole face sounded a retreat, and her eyes were cold—it + would have annoyed her to know how cold—with distance. + </p> + <p> + “He is an old friend of my brother's,” she said. Hilda had the sensation + of coming unexpectedly, through the lightest loam, upon a hard surface. + She looked attentively at the red heart of her cigarette crisped over with + grey, in its blackened calyx. + </p> + <p> + “Most impressionable,” she went on, as if Alicia had not spoken. “As to + the rest of the people—bah! you can't rouse Calcutta. It is sunk in + its torpid liver, and imagines itself superior. It's really funny, you + know, the way hepatic influences can be idealised—made to serve + ennobling ends. But Mr. Lindsay is—different.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” Miss Livingstone's intention was neutral, but, in spite of her, the + asking note was in the word. + </p> + <p> + “We have done some interesting things together here. He has shown me the + queerest places. Yesterday he made me go with him to Wellesley Square, to + look at his latest enthusiasm standing in the middle of it.” + </p> + <p> + “A statue?” + </p> + <p> + “No, a woman, preaching and warbling to the people. She wasn't new to me—I + knew her before he did—but the picture was, and the performance. She + stood poised on a coolie's basket in the midst of a rabble of all colours, + like a fallen angel—I mean a dropped one. Light seemed to come from + her, from her hair or her eyes or something. I almost expected to see her + sail away over the palms into the sunset when it was ended.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds most unusual,” Alicia said, with a light smile. Her interest + was rather obviously curbed. + </p> + <p> + “It happens every day, really, only one doesn't stop and look; one doesn't + go round the corner.” + </p> + <p> + There was another little silence, full of the unwillingness of Miss + Livingstone's desire to be informed. + </p> + <p> + Hilda knocked the ash of her cigarette into her finger-bowl, and waited. + The pause grew so stiff with embarrassment that she broke it herself. + </p> + <p> + “And I regret to say it was I who introduced them,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Introduced whom?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Lindsay and Miss Laura Filbert of the Salvation Army. They met at + Number Three; she had come after my soul. I think she was disappointed,” + Hilda went on tranquilly, “because I would only lend it to her while she + was there.” + </p> + <p> + “Of the Salvation Army! I can't imagine why you should regret it. He is + always grateful to be amused.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there is no reason to doubt his gratitude. He is rather intense about + it. And—I don't know that my regret is precisely on Mr. Lindsay's + account. Did I say so?” They were simple, amiable words, and their + pertinence was very far from insistent; but Alicia's crude blush—everything + else about her was so perfectly worked out—cried aloud that it was + too sharp a pull up. “Perhaps though,” Hilda hurried on with a pang, “we + generalise too much about the men.” + </p> + <p> + What Miss Livingstone would have found to say—she had certainly no + generalisation to offer about Duff Lindsay—had not a servant brought + her a card at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. The card saved her + the necessity. She looked at it blankly for an instant, and then + exclaimed, “My cousin, Stephen Arnold! He's a reverend—a Clarke + Mission priest, and he will come straight in here. What shall we do with + our cigarettes?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Howe had a pleasurable sense that the situation was developing. + </p> + <p> + “Yours has gone out again, so it doesn't much matter, does it? Drown the + corpse in here, and I'll pretend it belongs to me.” She pushed the + finger-bowl across, and Alicia's discouraged remnant went into it. “Don't + ask me to sacrifice mine,” she added, and there was no time for + remonstrance; Arnold's voice was lifting itself at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Pray may I come in?” he called from behind the portiere. + </p> + <p> + Hilda, who sat with her back to it, smiled in enjoying recognition of the + thin, high academic note, the prim finish of the inflection. It reminded + her of a man she knew who “did” curates beautifully. + </p> + <p> + Arnold walked past her with his quick, humble, clerical gait, and it + amused her to think that he bent over Alicia's hand as if he would bless + it. + </p> + <p> + “You can't guess how badly I want a cup of coffee.” He flavoured what he + said, and made it pretty, like a woman. “Let me confess at once, that is + what brought me.” He stopped to laugh; there was a hint of formality and + self-sacrifice even in that. “It is coffee-time, isn't it?” Then he turned + and saw Hilda, and she was, at the moment, flushed with the luxury of her + sensations, a vision as splendid as she must have been to him unusual. But + he only closed his lips and thrust his chin out a little, with his left + hand behind him in one of his intensely clerical attitudes, and so stood + waiting. Hilda reflected afterwards that she could hardly have expected + him to exclaim, “Whom have we here?” with upraised hands, but she had to + acknowledge her flash of surprise at his self-possession. She noted, too, + his grave bow when Alicia mentioned them to each other, that there was the + habit of deference in it, yet that it waved her courteously, so to speak, + out of his life. It was all as interesting as the materialisation of a + quaint tradition, and she decided not, after all, to begin a trivial + comedy for herself and Alicia, by asking the Reverend Stephen Arnold + whether he objected to tobacco. She had an instant's circling choice of + the person she would represent to this priest in the little intermingling + half-hour of their lives that lay shaken out before them, and dropped + unerringly. It really hardly mattered, but she always had such instants. + She was aware of the shadow of a regret at the opulence of her personal + effect; her hand went to her throat and drew the laces closer together + there. An erectness stole into her body as she sat, and a look into her + eyes that divorced her at a stroke from anything that could have spoken to + him of too general an accessibility, too unthinking a largesse. She went + on smoking, but almost immediately her cigarette took its proper note of + insignificance. Alicia, speaking of it once afterwards to Arnold, found + that he had forgotten it. + </p> + <p> + “Even in College Street you have heard of Miss Howe,” Alicia said, and the + negative, very readable in Arnold's silent bow, brought Hilda a flicker of + happiness at her hostess's expense. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think the posters carry us as far as College Street,” she said, + “but I am not difficult to explain, Mr. Arnold. I act with Mr. Stanhope's + Company. If you lived in Chowringhee you couldn't help knowing all about + me, the letters are so large.” The bounty of her well-spring of kindness + was in it under the candour and the simplicity; it was one of those least + of little things which are enough. + </p> + <p> + Arnold smiled back at her, and she saw recognition leap through the + armour-plate of his ecclesiasticism. He glanced away again quickly, and + looked at the floor as he said he feared they were terribly out of it in + College Street, for which, however, he had evidently no apology to offer. + He continued to look at the floor with a careful air, as if it presented + points pertinent to the situation. Hilda felt herself—it was an odd + sensation—too sunny upon the nooked, retiring current that flowed in + him. He might have turned to the cool accustomed shadow that Alicia made, + but she was aware that he did not, that he was struggling through her + strangeness and his shyness for something to say to her. He stirred his + coffee, and once or twice his long upper lip trembled as if he thought he + had found it; but it was Alicia who talked, making light accusations + against the rigours of the Mission House, complaining of her cousin that + he was altogether given over to bonds and bands, that she personally would + soon cease to hold him in affection at all; she saw so little of him it + wasn't really worth while. + </p> + <p> + This was old fencing ground between them, and Stephen parried her + pleasantly enough, but his eyes strayed speculatively to the other end of + the table, where, however, they rose no higher than the firm, + lightly-moulded hand that held the cigarette. + </p> + <p> + “If I could found a monastic order,” Hilda said, “one of the rules should + be a week's compulsory retirement into the world four times a year.” She + spoke with a kind of grave brightness; it was difficult to know whether + she was altogether in jest. + </p> + <p> + “There would be secession all over the place,” Arnold responded, with his + repressed smile. “You would get any number of probationers; I wonder + whether you would keep them!” + </p> + <p> + “During that week,” Hilda went on, “they should be compelled to dine and + dance every night, to read a 'Problem' novel every morning before + luncheon, to marry and be given in marriage, and to go to all the variety + entertainments. Think of the austere bliss of the return to the cloisters! + All joy lies in a succession of sensations, they say. Do you remember how + Lord Ormont arranged his pleasures? Oh yes, my brotherhood would be + popular, as soon as it was understood.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia hurried in with something palliating—she could remember + flippancies of her own that had been rebuked—but there was no sign + or token of disapproval in Arnold's face. What she might have observed + there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a slight disarrangement, + so to speak, of the placid priestly mask, and something like the original + undergraduate looking out from beneath. + </p> + <p> + Hilda began to put on her gloves. The left one gaped at two finger-ends; + she buttoned it with the palm thrown up and outward, as if it were the + daintiest spoil of the Avenue de l'Opera. + </p> + <p> + “Not yet!” Alicia cried. + </p> + <p> + “Thanks, I must. To-night is our last full rehearsal, and I have to dress + the stage for the first act before six o'clock. And, after pulling all + that furniture about, I shall want an hour or two in bed.” + </p> + <p> + “You! But it's monstrous. Is there nobody else?” + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn't let anybody else,” Hilda laughed. “Don't forget, please, that + we are only strolling players, odds and ends of people, mostly from the + Antipodes. Don't confound our manners and customs with anything you've + heard about the Lyceum. Good-bye. It has been charming. Goodbye, Mr. + Arnold.” + </p> + <p> + But Alicia held her hand. “The papers say it is to be The Offence of + Galilee, after all,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Hamilton Bradley is all right again, and we've found a pretty fair + local Judas—amateur. We couldn't possibly put it on without Mr. + Bradley. He takes the part of”—Hilda glanced at the hem of the + listening priestly robe—“of the chief character, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “That was the great Nonconformist success at home last year, wasn't it?” + Arnold asked; “Leslie Patullo's play? I knew him at Oxford. I can't + imagine—he's a queer chap to be writing things like that.” + </p> + <p> + “It works out better than you—than one might suppose,” Hilda + returned, moving toward the door. “Some of the situations are really + almost novel, in spite of all your centuries of preaching.” She sent a + disarming smile with that, looking over her shoulder in one of her most + effective hesitations, one hand holding back the portiere. + </p> + <p> + “And next week?” cried Alicia. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, next week we do L'Amourette de Giselle—Frank Golding's re-vamp. + Good-bye! Good-bye!” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder very much what Patullo has done with The Offence of Galilee,” + Arnold said, after she had gone. + </p> + <p> + “Come and see, Stephen. We have a box, and there will be heaps of room. + It's—suitable, isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, quite.” + </p> + <p> + “Then dine with us—the Yardleys are coming—and go on. Why + not?” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks very much indeed. It is sure to reward one. I think I shall be + able to give myself that pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + Arnold made a longer visit than usual; his cup of coffee, indeed, became a + cup of tea; and his talk, while he stayed, seemed to suffer less from the + limitations of his Order than it usually did. He was fluent and direct; he + allowed it to appear that he read more than his prayers; that his glance + at the world had still a speculation in it; and when he went away, he left + Alicia with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, murmuring a vague inward + corollary upon her day— + </p> + <p> + “It pays! It pays!” + </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> + Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's Company was not the only combination that offered + itself to the entertainment of Calcutta that December Saturday night. The + ever-popular Jimmy Finnigan and his “Surprise Party”—he sailed up + the Bay as regularly as the Viceroy descended from the hills—had + been advertising “Side-splitting begins at 9.30. Prices as usual” with + reference to this particular evening for a fortnight. In the Athenian + Theatre—it had a tin roof and nobody could hear the orchestra when + it rained—the Midgets were presenting the earlier collaborations of + Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, every Midget guaranteed under nine years of + age. Colonel Pike's Great Occidental Circus had been in full blast on the + Maidan for a week. It became a great Occidental circus when Colonel Pike + married the proprietress. They were both staying at the Grand Oriental + Hotel at Singapore when she was made a relict through cholera, and he had + more time than he knew what to do with, to say nothing of moustaches that + predestined him to a box-office. And certainly circumstances justified the + lady's complaisance, for while hitherto hers had been but a fleeting show, + it was now, in the excusably imaginative terms of Colonel Pike, an + architectural feature of the cold weather. There was the Mystic Bower, + too, in an octagonal tent under a pipal tree, which gave you by an + arrangement of looking-glasses the most unaccountable sensations for one + rupee; and a signboard cried “Know Thyself!” where a physiological display + lurked from the eyes of the police behind a perfectly respectable skeleton + at one end of Peri Chandra's Gully. Llewellyn Stanhope saw that there was + competition, sighed to think how much, as he stood in the foggy vestibule + of the Imperial Theatre wrapped in the impressive folds of his managerial + cape, and pulled his moustache and watched the occasional carriage that + rolled his way up the narrow lane from Chowringhee. He thought bitterly, + standing there, of Calcutta's recognition of the claims of legitimate + drama, for the dank darkness was full of the noise of wheels and the + flashing of lamps on the way to accord another season's welcome to Jimmy + Finnigan. “I might've learned this town well enough by now,” he reflected, + “to know that a bally minstrel show's about the size of it.” Mr. Stanhope + had not Mr. Finnigan's art of the large red lips and the twanging banjo; + his thought was scornful rather than envious. He aspired, moreover, to be + known as the pilot of stars, at least in the incipience of their courses, + to be taken seriously by association, since nature had arranged that he + never could be on his intrinsic merits. His upper lip was too short for + that, his yellow moustache too curly, while the perpetual bullying he + underwent at the hands of leading ladies gave him an air of deference to + everybody else which was sometimes painfully misunderstood. The stars, it + must be said regretfully, in connection with so laudable an ambition, + nearly always betrayed him, coming down with an unmistakably meteoric + descent, stony-broke in the uttermost ends of the earth, with a strong + inclination to bring the cause of that misfortune before the Consular + Courts. They seldom succeeded in this design, since Llewellyn was usually + able to prove to them in advance that it would be fruitless and expensive, + but the paths of Eastern capitals were strewn with his compromises, in + Japanese yen, Chinese dollars, Indian rupees, for salaries which no amount + of advertising could wheedle into the box-office. When the climax came, + Llewellyn usually went to hospital and received the reporters of local + papers in pathetic audience there, which counteracted the effect of the + astounding statements the stars made in letters to the editor, and yet + gave the public clearly to understand that owing to its coldness and + neglect a number of ladies and gentlemen of very superior talents were + subsisting in their midst mainly upon brinjals and soda-water. “I'm in + hospital,” Mr. Stanhope would say to the reporters, “and I'm d—— + glad of it,”—he always insisted on the oath going in, it appealed so + sympathetically to the domiciled Englishman grown cold to superiority,—“for, + upon my soul, I don't know where I'd turn for a crust if I weren't.” In + the end the talented ladies and gentlemen usually went home by an + inexpensive line as the voluntary arrangement of a public to whom plain + soda was a ludicrous hardship, and native vegetables an abomination at any + price. Then Llewellyn and Rosa Norton—she had a small inalienable + income, and they were really married though they preferred for some + inexplicable reason to be thought guilty of less conventional behaviour—would + depart in another direction, full of gratification for the present and of + confidence for the future. Llewellyn usually made a parting statement to + the newspapers that although his aims were unalterably high he was not + above profiting by experience, and that next season he could be relied + upon to hit the taste of the community with precision. This year, as we + know, he had made a serious effort by insisting that at least a proportion + of his ladies and gentlemen should be high-kickers and equal to an + imitation, good enough for the Orient, of most things done by the + illustrious Mr. Chevalier. But the fact that Mr. Stanhope had selected The + Offence of Galilee to open with tells its own tale. He was convinced, but + not converted, and he stood there with his little legs apart, chewing a + straw above the three uncut emeralds that formed the chaste decoration of + his shirt-front, giving the public of Calcutta one more chance to redeem + itself. + </p> + <p> + It began to look as if Calcutta were not wholly irredeemable. A + ticca-gharry deposited a sea-captain; three carriages arrived in + succession; an indefinite number of the Duke's Own, hardly any of them + drunk, filed in to the rupee seats under the gallery: an overflow from + Jimmy Finnigan, who could no longer give his patrons even standing room. + When this occurred Llewellyn turned and swung indifferently away in the + direction of the dressing-rooms. When Jimmy Finnigan closed his doors so + early there was no further cause for anxiety. Calcutta was abroad and + stirring, and would turn for amusement even to The Offence of Galilee. + </p> + <p> + Eventually—that is, five minutes before the curtain rose—the + representatives of the leading Calcutta journals decided that they were + justified in describing the house as a large and fashionable audience. The + Viceroy had taken a box, and sent an Aide-de-Camp to sit in it, also a + pair of M.P.'s from the North of England, whom he was expected to attend + to in Calcutta, and the governess. The Commander-in-Chief had not been + solicited to be present, the theatrical season demanding an economy in + such personalities if they were to go round; but a Judge of the High Court + had a party in the front row, and a Secretary to the Bengal Government sat + behind him. To speak of unofficials, there must have been quite forty + lakhs of tea and jute and indigo in the house, very genial and prosperous, + to say nothing of hides and seeds, and the men who sold money and bought + diamonds with the profits, which shone in their wives' hair. A duskiness + prevailed in the bare arms and shoulders; much of the hair was shining and + abundant, and very black. A turn of the head showed a lean Greek profile, + an outline bulbous and Armenian, the smooth creamy mask of a Jewess, while + here and there glimmered something more opulent and inviting still, which + proclaimed, if it did not confess, the remote motherhood of the zenana and + the origin of the sun. An audience of fluttering fans and wrinkled shirt + collars—the evening was warm under the gas-lights—sensuous, + indolent, already amused with itself. Not an old woman in it from end to + end, hardly a man turned fifty, and those who were had the air and looked + to have the habits of twenty-five—an audience that might have got up + and stretched itself but for good manners, and walked out in childish + boredom at having to wait for the rise of the curtain, but sat on instead, + diffusing an atmosphere of affluence and delicate scents, and suggesting, + with imperious chins, the use of quick orders in a world of personal + superiority. + </p> + <p> + Thus the stalls—they were spindling cane-bottomed chairs—and + the boxes, in one of which the same spindling cane-bottomed chairs + supported, in more expensive seclusion, Surgeon-Major and Miss + Livingstone, the Reverend Stephen Arnold, and two or three other people. + The Duke's Own sat under the gallery, cheek by jowl with all the flotsam + and jetsam of an Eastern port, well on the look-out for offensive + personalities from the men of the ships, and spitting freely. Here, too, + was an ease of shoulder and a freedom from the cares of life—at a + venture the wives were taking in washing in Brixton, and the children sent + to Board School at the expense of the nation. And in a climate like this + it was a popular opinion that a man must either enjoy himself or commit + suicide. + </p> + <p> + The Sphinx on the crooked curtain looked above and beyond them all. It was + a caricature of the Sphinx, but could not confine her gaze. + </p> + <p> + Hilda's audience that night knew all about The Offence of Galilee from the + English illustrated papers. The illustrated papers had a great way of + ministering to the complacency of Calcutta audiences; they contained + photographs of almost every striking scene, composed at the leisure of the + cast, but so vividly supplemented with descriptions of the leading lady's + clothes that it hardly required any effort of the imagination to conjure + up the rest. The postures and the chief garments of Pilate—he was + eating pomegranates when the curtain rose, and listening to scandal from + his slave-maidens about Mary Magdalene—were at once recognised in + their resemblance to those of the photographs, and in the thrill of this + satisfaction any discrepancies in cut and texture passed generally + unobserved. A silent curiosity settled upon the house, half reverent, as + if with the Bible names came thronging a troop of sacred associations to + cluster about personalities brusquely torn out of church, and people + listened for familiar sentences with something like the composed gravity + with which they heard on Sundays the reading of the second lesson. But as + the stage-talk went on, the slave-maidens announcing themselves without + delay comfortably modern and commonplace, and Pilate a cynic and a + decadent, though as distinctively from Melbourne, it was possible to note + the breaking up of this sentiment. It was plain after all that no standard + of ideality was to be maintained or struggled after. The relief was + palpable; nevertheless, when Pilate's wife cast a shrewish gibe at him + over the shoulder of her exit, the audience showed but a faint inclination + to be amused. It was to be a play evidently like any other play, the same + coarse fibre, the same vivid and vulgar appeals. It is doubtful whether + this idea was critically present to anyone but Stephen Arnold, but people + unconsciously tasted the dramatic substance offered them, and leaned back + in their chairs with the usual patient acknowledgment that one mustn't + expect too much of a company that found it worth while to come to + Calcutta. The house grew submissive and stolid, but one could see + half-awakened prejudices sitting in the dress-circle. The paper-chasing + Secretary said to the most intelligent of his party that on the whole he + liked his theology neat, forgetting that the preference belonged to Mr. + Andrew Lang in connection with a notable lady novelist; and the most + intelligent—it was Mrs. Barberry—replied that it did seem + strange. The depths under the gallery were critically attentive, though + Llewellyn Stanhope felt them hostile and longing for verbal brick-bats; + and the Reverend Mr. Arnold shrank into the farthest corner of + Surgeon-Major Livingstone's box, and knew all the misery of outrage. + Pilate and the slave-maidens, Pilate's fat wife, and an unspeakable comic + centurion, offered as yet hardly more than a prelude, but the monstrosity + of the whole performance was already projected upon Arnold's suffering + imagination. This, then, was what Patullo had done with it. But what + other, he asked himself in quiet anger, could Patullo have been expected + to do? the fellow he remembered. Arnold tilted his chair back and stared, + with arms folded and sombre brows, at the opposite wall. He looked once at + the door, but some spirit of self-torture kept him in his seat. If so much + offence could be made with the mere crust and envelope, so to speak, of + the sacred story, what sacrilege might not be committed with the divine + personalities concerned? He remembered, with the touch of almost physical + nausea that assailed him when he saw them, one or two pictures in recent + Paris exhibitions where the coveted accent of surprise had been produced + by representing the sacred figure in the trivial monde of the boulevards, + and fixed upon them as the source of Patullo's intolerable inspiration. + Certain muscles felt responsive at the thought of Patullo which Arnold had + forgotten he possessed; it was so seldom that a missionary priest, even of + athletic traditions, came in contact with anybody who required to be + kicked. + </p> + <p> + Alicia was in front with the Yardleys, dropping her unfailing plummet into + the evening's experience. Arnold, hesitating over the rudeness of + departure, thought she was sufficiently absorbed; she would hardly mind. + The centurion slapped his tin armour, and made a jest, which reached + Stephen over his hostess's shoulder, and seemed to brand him where he sat. + He looked about for his hat and some excuse that would serve, and while he + looked the sound of applause rose from the house. It was a demonstration + without great energy, hardly more than a flutter from stall to stall, with + a vague, fundamental noise from the gallery; but it had the quality which + acclaimed something new. Arnold glanced at the stage, and saw that while + Pilate and the hollow-chested slaves and the tin centurion were still on, + they had somehow lost significance and colour, and that all the meaning + and the dominance of the situation had gathered into the person of a woman + of the East who danced. She was almost discordant in her literalness, in + her clear olive tints and the kol smudges under her eyes, the string of + coins in the mass of her fallen hair, and her unfettered body. Beside her + the slave-girls, crouching, looked like painted shells. She danced before + Pilate in strange Eastern ways, in plastic weavings and gesturings that + seemed to be the telling of a tale; and from the orchestra only one + unknown instrument sobbed out to help her. The women of the people have + ever bought in Palestine, buy to-day in the Mousky, the coarse, thick + grey-blue cotton that fell about her limbs, and there was audacity in the + poverty of her beaten silver anklets and armlets. These shone and twinkled + with her movements; but her softly splendid eyes and reddened lips had the + immobility of the bazar. People looked at their playbills to see whether + it was really Hilda Howe or some nautch-queen borrowed from a native + theatre. By the time she sank before Pilate and placed his foot upon her + head a new spirit had breathed upon the house. Under the unexpectedness of + the representation it sat up straight, and there was a keenness of desire + to see what would happen next which plainly curtailed the applause, as it + does with children at a pantomime. + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever seen anything like it before?” Alicia asked Captain + Yardley; and he said he thought he had once, in Algiers, but not nearly so + well done. Arnold rose again to go, but the Magdalene had begun the + well-known passage with Pilate, about which the newspapers absurdly + reported later that if Miss Howe had not been a Protestant, and so + impervious the Pope would have excommunicated her, and as he looked his + movement imperceptibly changed to afford him a better place. He put an + undecided hand upon a prop of the box that rose behind Alicia's shoulder, + and so stood leaning and looking, more conspicuous in the straight lines + and short shoulder cape of the frock of his Order than he knew. Hilda, in + one of those impenetrable regards which she threw straight in front of + her, while Pilate yawped and posed nearer and nearer the desire of the + Magdalene to be admitted to his household, was at once aware of him. + Presently he sat down again—it was still the profane, the fabulous, + the horrible Patullo, but a strain of pure gold had come into the fabric + worth holding in view, impossible, indeed, to close the eyes upon. Far + enough it was from any semblance to historical fact, but almost possible, + almost admissible, in the form of the woman, as historical fiction. She + dared to sit upon the floor now, in the ungraceful huddled Eastern + fashion, clasping her knees to her breast, with her back half turned to + her lord, the friend of Caesar, so that he could not see the design that + sat behind the mask of her sharp indifference. She rested her chin upon + her knees, and let the blankness of her beauty exclaim upon the subtlety + of her replies, plainly measuring the power of her provocation against the + impoverished quality that camp and grove, court and schools, might leave + upon august Roman sensibilities. It was the old, old sophistication, so + perfect in its concentration behind the kol-brushed eyes and the brown + breasts, the igniting, flickering, raging of an instinct upon the stage. + Alicia, when it was over, said to Mrs. Yardley, “How the modern woman goes + off upon side issues!” to which that lady nodded a rather suspicious + assent. + </p> + <p> + Long before Hilda had begun to act for Arnold, to play to his special + consciousness, he was fastened to his chair, held down, so to speak, by a + whirlpool of conflicting impulses. She did so much more than “lift” the + inventive vulgarisation of the Bible story in the common sense; she + inspired and transfused it so that whenever she appeared people + irresistibly forgot the matter for her, or made private acknowledgments to + the effect that something was to be said even for an impious fantasy which + gave her so unique an opportunity. To Arnold her vivid embodiment of an + incident in that which was his morning and evening meditation made special + appeal, and though it was in a way as if she had thrust her heathen torch + into his Holy of Holies, he saw it lighted with fascination, and could not + close the door upon her. The moment of her discovery of this came early, + and it is only she, perhaps, who could tell how the strange bond wove + itself that drew her being—the Magdalene's—to the priest who + sat behind a lady in swansdown and chiffon in the upper box nearest to the + stage on the right. The beginnings of such things are untraceable, but the + fact may be considered in connection with this one that Hamilton Bradley, + who represented, as we have been told he would, the Chief Character, did + it upon lines very recognisably those of the illustrations of sacred + books, very correct as to the hair and beard and pictured garment of the + Galilean; with every accent of hollow-eyed pallor and inscrutable + remoteness, with all the thin vagueness, too, of a popular engraving, the + limitations and the depression. Under it one saw the painful inconsistency + of the familiar Hamilton Bradley of other presentations, and realised with + irritation, which must have been tenfold in Hilda, how he rebelled against + the part. Perhaps this was enough in itself to send her dramatic impulse + to another focus, and the strangeness of the adventure was a very thing + she would delight in. Whatever may be said about it, while yet the shock + of the woman's earthly passion with its divine object was receding from + Arnold's mind before the exquisite charm and faithfulness of the + worshipping Magdalene, he became aware that in some special way he sat + judging and pitying her. She had hardly lifted her eyes to him twice, yet + it was he, intimately he, who responded as if from afar off, to the touch + of her infinite solicitude and abasement, the joy and the shame of her + love. As he watched and knew, his lips tightened and his face paled with + the throb of his own renunciation, he folded his celibate arms in the + habit of his brotherhood, and was caught up into a knowledge and an + imitation of how the spotless Original would have looked upon a woman + suffering and transported thus. The poverty of the play faded out; he + became almost unaware of the pinchbeck and the fustian of Patullo's + invention, and its insufferable mixture with the fabric of which every + thread was precious beyond imagination. He looked down with tender + patience and compassion upon the development of the woman's intrigue in + the palace, through the very flower of her crafts and guiles, to save Him + who had transfigured her from the hands of the rabble and the high + priests; he did not even shrink from the inexpressibly grating note of the + purified Magdalene's final passionate tendering of her personal sacrifice + to the enamoured Pilate as the price of His freedom, and when at the last + she wept at His feet where He lay bound and delivered, and wrapped them, + in the agony of her abandonment, in the hair of her head, the priest's + lips almost moved in words other than those of the playwright—words + that told her he knew the height and the depth of her sacrifice and + forgave it, “Neither do I condemn thee....” In his exultation he saw what + it was to perform miracles, to remit sins. The spark of divinity that was + in him glowed to a white heat; the woman on the stage warmed her hands at + it in two consciousnesses. She was stirred through all her artistic sense + in a new and delicious way, and wakened in some dormant part of her to a + knowledge beautiful and surprising. She felt in every nerve the exquisite + quality of that which lay between them, and it thrilled her through all + her own perception of what she did, and all the applause at how she did + it. It was as if he, the priest, was borne out upon a deep broad current + that made toward solar spaces, toward infinite bounds, and as if she, the + actress, piloted him.... + </p> + <p> + The Sphinx on the curtain—it had gone down in the old crooked lines—again + looked above and beyond them all. I have sometimes fancied a trace of + malignancy about her steady eyeballs, but perhaps that is the accident or + the design of the scene-painter; it does not show in photographs. The + audience was dispersing a trifle sedately; the performance had been, as + Mrs. Barberry told Mr. Justice Horne, interesting but, depressing. “I + hope,” said Alicia to Stephen, fastening the fluffy-white collar of the + wrap he put round her, “that I needn't be sorry I asked you to come. I + don't quite know. But she did redeem it, didn't she? That last scene—” + </p> + <p> + “Can you not be silent?” Arnold said, almost in a whisper; and her look of + astonishment showed her that there were tears in his eyes. He left the + theatre and walked light-headedly across Chowringhee and out into the + starlit empty darkness of the Maidan, where presently he stumbled upon a + wooden bench under a tree. There, after a little, sleep fell upon his + amazement, and he lay unconscious for an hour or two, while the breeze + stole across the grass from the river and the mast-head lights watched + beside the city. He woke chilled and normal, and when he reached the + Mission House in College Street his servant was surprised at the unusual + irritation of a necessary rebuke. + </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> + While Alicia Livingstone fought with her imagination in accounting for + Lindsay's absence from the theatre on the first night of a notable + presentation by Miss Hilda Howe, he sat with his knees crossed on the + bench farthest back and the corner obscurest of the Salvation Army + Headquarters in Bentinck Street. It had become his accustomed place; + sitting there he had begun to feel like the adventurer under Niagara, it + was the only spot from which he could observe, try to understand and cope + with the torrential nature of his passion. Nearer to the fair charm of his + kneeling Laura, in the uncertain flare of the kerosene lamp and the sound + of the big drum, he grew blind, lost count, was carried away. His + persistent refusal of a better place also profited him in that it brought + to Ensign Sand and the other “officers” the divination that he was one of + those shyly anxious souls who have to be enticed into the Kingdom of + Heaven with wariness, and they made a great pretence of not noticing him, + going on with the exercises just as if he were not there, a consideration + which he was able richly to enhance when the plate came round. After his + first contribution, Mrs. Sand regarded his spiritual interests with almost + superstitious reverence, according them the fullest privacy of which she + was capable. The gravity which the gentleman attached to his situation was + sufficiently testified by the “amount”; Mrs. Sand never wanted better + evidence than the amount. Even Laura, acting doubtless under instructions, + seemed disposed to hold away from him in her prayers and exhortations; + only a very occasional allusion passed her lips which Duff could + appropriate. These, when they fell, he gathered and set like flowers in + his tenderest consciousness, to visit and water them after the sun went + down and for twenty-four hours he would not see her again. Her intonation + went with them and her face; they lived on that. They stirred him, I mean, + least of all in the manner of their intention. After the first quarter of + an hour, it is to be feared, Lindsay suffered no more apprehensions on the + score of emotional hypnotism. He recognised his situation plainly enough, + and there was no appeal in it of which the Reverend Stephen Arnold, for + example, could properly suspect the genuineness or the permanence. + </p> + <p> + On this Saturday night he sat through the meeting as he had sat through + other meetings, absorbed in his exquisite experience which he meditated + mostly with his eyes on the floor. His attitude was one quite adapted to + deceive Ensign Sand; if he had been occupied with the burden of his + transgressions it was one he might very well have fallen into. When Laura + knelt or sang he sometimes looked at her, at other times he looked at the + situation in the brightness of her presence at the other end of the room. + She gave forth there, for Lindsay, an illumination by which he almost + immediately began to read his life; and it was because he thought he had + done this with accuracy and intelligence that he came up behind her that + evening when the meeting was over as she followed the rest, with her sari + drawn over her head, out into the darkness of Bentinck Street, and said + with directness, “I should like to come and see you. When may I? Any time + that suits you. Have you half an hour to spare to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + It was plain that she was tired, and that the brightness with which she + welcomed his advance was a trifle taught and perfunctory. Not the + frankness though, or the touch of “Now we are getting to business,” that + stood in her expression. She looked alert and pleased. + </p> + <p> + “You would like to have a little talk, wouldn't you?” she said. Her manner + took Lindsay a trifle aback; it suggested that she conferred this + privilege so freely. “To-morrow—let me see, we march in the morning, + and I have an open-air at four in the afternoon—the Ensign takes the + evening meeting. Yes, I could see you to-morrow about two or about seven, + after I get back from the Square.” It was not unlike a professional + appointment. + </p> + <p> + Lindsay considered. “Thanks,” he said, “I'll come at about seven—if + you are sure you won't be too exhausted to have me after such a day.” + </p> + <p> + He saw that her lids as she raised them to answer were slightly reddened + at the edges, testifying to the acridity of Calcutta's road dust, and a + dry crack crept into the silver voice with which she said + matter-of-factly, “We are never too exhausted to attend to our Master's + business.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay's face expressed an instant's hesitation; he looked gravely the + other way. “And the address?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Almost next door—we all live within bugle-call. The entrance is in + Crooked Lane. Anybody will tell you.” + </p> + <p> + At the door Ensign Sand was conspicuously waiting. Lindsay said “Thanks” + again, and passed out—she seemed to be holding it for him—and + picked his way over the gutters to the shop of his Chinaman opposite. From + there he watched the little company issue forth and turn into Crooked + Lane, where the entrance was. It gave him a sense that she had her part in + this squalor, which was not altogether distressful in that it also + localised her in the warm, living, habitable world, and helped to make her + thinkable and attainable. Then he went to his room at the club and found + there a note from Miss Howe, written apparently to forgive him in advance, + to say that she had not expected him. “Friendly creature!” he said as he + turned out the lamp, and smiled in the dark to think that already there + was one who guessed, who knew. + </p> + <p> + One gropes in Crooked Lane after the lights of Bentinck Street have done + all that can be expected of them. There are various things to avoid, + washer-men's donkeys and pariah dogs, unyoked ticca-gharries, heaps of + rubbish, perhaps a leprous beggar. Lindsay, when he had surmounted these, + found himself at the entrance to a quadrangle which was positively dark. + He waylaid a sweeper slinking out, and the man showed him where an open + staircase ran down against the wall in one corner. It was up there, he + said, that the “tamasho-mems” * lived. There were three tamasho-mems, he + continued, responding to Lindsay's trivial coin, and one sahib, but this + was not the time for the tamasho—it was finished. Lindsay mounted + the first flight by faith, and paused at the landing to avoid collision + with a heavy body descending. He inquired Miss Filbert's whereabouts from + this person, who providentially lighted a cigar, disclosing himself a bald + Armenian in tusser silk trousers and a dirty shirt, presumably, Lindsay + thought, the landlord. At all events he had the information, Lindsay was + to keep straight on, it was the third storey. Duff kept straight on in a + spirit of caution, and just missed treading upon the fattest rat in the + heathen parish of St. John's. At the top he saw a light and hastened; it + shone from an open door at the side of a passage. The partition in which + the door was came considerably short of the ceiling, and from the top of + it to the window opposite stretched a line of garments to dry, of pungent + odour and infantile pattern. Lindsay dared no farther, but lifted up his + voice in the Indian way to summon a servant, “Qui hai?"# he called, “Qui + hai?” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Festival-making women. + + # “Whoever is there?” + </pre> + <p> + He heard somewhere within the noise of a chair pushed back, and a door + farther down the passage opened outwards, disclosing Laura Filbert with + her hand upon the handle. She made a supple, graceful picture. + “Good-evening, Mr. Lindsay,” she said as he advanced. “Won't you come in?” + She clung to the handle until he had passed into the room, then she closed + the door after him. “I was expecting you,” she said. “Mr. Harris, let me + make you acquainted with Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Harris.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Harris was sitting sideways on one of the three cheap little chairs. + He was a clumsily built youth, and he wore the private's garb of the + Salvation Army. It was apparent that he had been reading a newspaper; he + had a displeasing air of possession. At Laura's formula he looked up and + nodded without amiability, folded his journal the other side out and + returned to it. + </p> + <p> + “Please take a seat,” Laura said, and Lindsay took one. He had a demon of + self-consciousness that possessed him often, here he felt dumb. Nor did he + in the very least expect Mr. Harris. He crossed his legs in greater + discomfort than he had dreamed possible, looking at Laura, who sat down + like a third stranger, curiously detached from any sense of hospitality. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Lindsay is anxious about his soul, Mr. Harris,” she said pleasantly. + “I guess you can tell him what to do as well as I can.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” Lindsay began, but Mr. Harris had the word. “Is he?” said Mr. + Harris, without looking up from his paper. “Well, what I've got to say on + that subject I say at the evenin' meetin', which is a proper an' a public + place. He can hear it there any day of the week.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I have already heard,” remarked Lindsay, “what you have to say.” + </p> + <p> + “Then that's all right,” said Mr. Harris, with his eyes still upon his + newspaper. He appeared to devour it. Laura looked from one to the other of + them and fell upon an expedient. + </p> + <p> + “If you'll excuse me,” she said, “I'll just get you that bicycle story you + were kind enough to lend me, Mr. Harris, and you can take it with you. The + Ensign's got it,” and she left the room. Lindsay glanced round, and + promptly announced to himself that he could not come there again. It was + taking too violent an advantage. The pursuit of an angel does not imply + that you may trap her in her corner under the Throne. The place was + divided by a calico curtain, over which plainly showed the top of a + mosquito curtain—she slept in there. On the walls were all tender + texts about loving and believing and bearing others' burdens, interspersed + with photographs, mostly of women with plain features and enthusiastic + eyes, dressed in some strange costume of the Army in Madras, Ceylon, + China. A little wooden table stood against the wall holding an album, a + Bible and hymn-books, a work-basket and an irrelevant Japanese doll which + seemed to stretch its absurd arms straight out in a gay little ineffectual + heathen protest. There was another more embarrassing table: it had a + coarse cloth; and was garnished with a loaf and butter-dish, a plate of + plantains and a tin of marmalade, knives and teacups for a meal evidently + impending. It was atrociously, sordidly intimate, with its core in Harris, + who when Miss Filbert had well gone from the room looked up. “If you're + here on private business,” he said to Lindsay, fixing his eyes, however, + on a point awkwardly to the left of him, “maybe you ain't aware that the + Ensign”—he threw his head back in the direction of the next room—“is + the person to apply to. She's in command here. Captain Filbert's only + under her.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed?” said Lindsay. “Thanks.” + </p> + <p> + “It ain't like it is in the Queen's army,” Harris volunteered, still + searching Lindsay's vicinity for a point upon which his eyes could + permanently rest, “where, if you remember, Ensigns are the smallest + officer we have.” + </p> + <p> + “The commission is, I think, abolished,” replied Lindsay, governing a deep + and irritated frown. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe so. This Army don't pretend to pattern very close on the other—not + in discipline anyhow,” said Mr. Harris with ambiguity. “But you'll find + Ensign Sand very willing to do anything she can for you. She's a + hard-working officer.” + </p> + <p> + A sharp wail smote the air from a point close to the lath and canvas + partition, on the other side, followed by hasty hushings and steps in the + opposite direction. It enabled Lindsay to observe that Mrs. Sand seemed at + present to be sufficiently engaged, at which Mr. Harris shifted one heavy + limb over the other, and lapsed into silence, looking sternly at an + advertisement. The air was full of their mutual annoyance, although Duff + tried to feel amused. They were raging as primitively, under the red + flannel shirt and the tan-coloured waistcoat with white silk spots, as two + cave-men on an Early British coast; their only sophistication lay in + Harris's newspaper and Lindsay's idea that he ought to find this person + humorous. Then Laura came back and resolved the situation. + </p> + <p> + “Here it is,” she said, handing the volume to Mr. Harris; “we have all + enjoyed it. Thank you very much.” There was in it the oddest mixture of + the supreme feminine and the superior officer. Harris, as he took the + book, had no alternative. + </p> + <p> + “Good-evening, then, Captain,” said he, and went, stumbling at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Harris,” said Laura equably, “found salvation about a month ago. He + is a very steady young man—foreman in one of the carriage works + here. He is now struggling with the tobacco habit, and he often drops in + in the evening.” + </p> + <p> + “He seems to be a—a member of the corps,” said Lindsay. + </p> + <p> + “He would be, only for the carriage works. He says he doesn't find himself + strong enough in grace to give up his situation yet. But he wears the + uniform at the meetings to show his sympathy, and the Ensign doesn't think + there's any objection.” + </p> + <p> + Laura was sitting straight up in one of the cheap little chairs, her sari + drawn over her head, her hands folded in her lap. The native dress clung + to her limbs in sculpturable lines, and her consecrated ambitions seemed + more insistent than ever. She had nothing to do with anything else, + nothing to do with her room or its arrangements, nothing, Lindsay felt + profoundly, to do with him. Her personal zeal for him seemed to resolve + itself, at the point of contact, into something disappointingly thin; he + saw that she counted with him altogether as a unit in a glorious total, + and that he himself had no place in her knowledge or her desire. This + brought him, with something like a shock, to a sense of how far he had + depended on her interest for his soul's sake to introduce her to a wider + view of him. + </p> + <p> + “But you have come to tell me about yourself,” she said, suddenly it + seemed to Lindsay, who was wrapped in the contemplation of her profile. + “Well, is there any special stumbling-block?” + </p> + <p> + “There are some things I should certainly like you to know,” replied + Lindsay; “but you can't think how difficult—” he glanced at the lath + and plaster partition, but she to whom publicity was a condition salutary, + if not essential, to spiritual experience, naturally had no interpretation + for that. + </p> + <p> + “I know it's sometimes hard to speak,” she said; “Satan ties our tongues.” + </p> + <p> + The misunderstanding was absurd, but he saw only its difficulties, + knitting his brows. + </p> + <p> + “I fear you will find my story very strange and very mad,” he said. “I + cannot be sure that you will even listen to it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” Laura said simply, “do not be afraid! I have heard confessions! I + work at home, you see, a good deal among the hospitals, and—we do + not shrink, you know, in the Army, from things like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Good God!” he exclaimed, staring, “you don't think—you don't + suppose—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! don't say that! It's so like swearing.” + </p> + <p> + As he sat in helpless anger, trying to formulate something intelligible, + the curtain parted, and a sallow little Eurasian girl of eighteen, also in + the dress of the Army, came through from the bedroom part. She smiled in a + conscious, meaningless way, as she sidled past them. At the door her smile + broadened, and as she closed it after her she gave them a little nod. + </p> + <p> + “That's my lieutenant,” said Laura. + </p> + <p> + “The place is like a warren,” Lindsay groaned. “How can we talk here?” + </p> + <p> + Laura looked at him gravely, as one making a diagnosis. “Do you think,” + she said, “a word of prayer would help you?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Lindsay. “No, thank you. What is making me miserable,” he added + quietly, “is the knowledge that we are being overheard. If you go into the + next room, I am quite certain you will find Mrs. Sand listening by the + wall.” + </p> + <p> + “She's gone out! She and the Captain and Miss De Souza, to take the + evening meeting. Nobody is in there except the two children, and they are + asleep.” Her smile, he thought, made a Madonna of her. “Indeed, we are + quite alone, you and I, in the flat now. So please don't be afraid, Mr. + Lindsay! Say whatever is in your heart, and the mere saying—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” Lindsay cried, “stop! Don't, for Heaven's sake, look at me in that + light any longer. I'm not penitent. I'm not—what do you call it?—a + soul under conviction. Nothing of the sort.” He waited with + considerateness for this to have its effect upon her; he could not go on + until he saw her emerge, gasping, from the inundation of it. But she was + not even staggered by it. She only looked down at her folded hands with an + added seriousness and a touch of sorrow. + </p> + <p> + “Aren't you?” she said. “But at least you feel that you ought to be. I + thought it had been accomplished. But I will go on praying.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall you be very angry if I tell you that I'd rather you didn't? I want + to come into your life differently—sincerely.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him with such absolute blankness that his resolution was + swiftly overturned, and showed him a different face. + </p> + <p> + “I won't tell you anything about what I feel and what I want to-night + except this—I find that you are influencing all my thoughts and all + my days in what is to me a very new and a very happy way. You hear as much + as that often, and from many people, don't you? So there is nothing in it + that need startle you or make you uncomfortable.” He paused, and she + nodded in a visible effort to follow him. + </p> + <p> + “So I am here to-night to ask you to let me do something for you just for + my own pleasure—there must be some way of helping you, and being + your friend—” + </p> + <p> + “As Mr. Harris is,” she interrupted. “I do influence Mr. Harris for good, + I know. He says so.” + </p> + <p> + “Influence me,” he begged, “in any way you like.” + </p> + <p> + “I will pray for you,” she said. “I promise that.” + </p> + <p> + “And you will let me see you sometimes?” he asked, conceding the point. + </p> + <p> + “If I thought it would do you any good”—she looked at him + doubtfully, clasping and unclasping her hands; “I will see; I will ask for + guidance. Perhaps it is one of His own appointed ways. If you have no + objection, I will give you this little book, Almost Persuaded. I am sure + you are almost persuaded. Above all, I hope you will go on coming to the + meetings.” + </p> + <p> + And in the course of the next two or three moments Lindsay found himself, + somewhat to his astonishment, again in the night of the staircase, + dismissed exactly as Mr. Harris had been, by the agency of a printed + volume. Only in his case a figure of much angelic beauty stood at the top, + holding a patent kerosene lamp high, to illumine his way. He refrained + from looking back lest she should see something too human in his face, and + vanish, leaving him in darkness which would be indeed impenetrable. + </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> + There was a panic in Dhurrumtolla; a “ticca-gharry”—the shabby + oblong box on wheels, dignified in municipal regulations as a hackney + carriage—was running away. Coolie mothers dragged naked children up + on the pavement with angry screams; drivers of ox-carts dug their lean + beasts in the side, and turned out of the way almost at a trot; only the + tram-car held on its course in conscious invincibility. A pariah tore + along beside the vehicle barking; crows flew up from the rubbish heaps in + the road by half-dozens, protesting shrilly; a pedlar of blue bead + necklaces just escaped being knocked down. Little groups of native clerks + and money-lenders stood looking after, laughing and speculating; a native + policeman, staring also, gave them sharp orders to disperse, and they said + to him, “Peace, brother.” To each other they said, “Behold, the driver is + a 'mut-wallah'” (or drunken person); and presently, as the thing whirled + farther up the emptied perspective, “Lo! the syce has fallen.” The driver + was certainly very drunk; his whip circled perpetually above his head; the + syce clinging behind was stiff with terror, and fell off like a bundle of + rags. Inside, Hilda Howe, with a hand in the strap at each side and her + feet against the opposite seat, swayed violently and waited for what might + happen, breathing short. Whenever the gharry thrashed over the tram-lines, + she closed her eyes. There was a point near Cornwallis Street where she + saw the off front wheel make sickeningly queer revolutions; and another, + electrically close, when two tossing roan heads with pink noses appeared + in a gate to the left, heading smartly out, all unawares, at precisely + right angles to her own derelict equipage. That was the juncture of the + Reverend Stephen Arnold's interference, walking and discussing with + Amiruddin Khan, as he was, the comparative benefits of Catholic and + Mohammedan fasting. It would be easy to magnify what Stephen did in that + interruption of the considerate hearing he was giving to Amiruddin. The + ticca-gharry ponies were almost spent, and any resolute hand could have + impelled them away from the carriage-pole with which the roans threatened + to impale their wretched sides. The front wheel, however, made him heroic, + going off at a tangent into a cloth merchant's shop, and precipitating a + crash while he still clung to the reins. The door flew open on the under + side, and Hilda fell through, grasping at the dust of the road; while the + driver, discovering that his seat was no longer horizontal, entered + suddenly upon sobriety, and clamoured with tears that the cloth-merchant + should restore his wheel—was he not a poor man? Hilda, struggling + with her hat-pins, felt her dress brushed by various lean hands of the + bazar, and observed herself the central figure in yet another situation. + When she was in a condition to see, she saw Arnold soothing the ponies; + Amiruddin, before the vague possibility of police complication having + slipped away. Stephen had believed the gharry empty. The sight of her, in + her disordered draperies, was a revelation and a reproach. + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible!” he exclaimed, and was beside her. “You are not hurt?” + </p> + <p> + “Only scraped, thanks. I am lucky to get off with this.” She held up her + right palm, broadly abraded round the base, where her hand had struck the + road. Arnold took it delicately in his own thin fingers to examine it; an + infinity of contrast rested in the touch. He looked at it with anxiety so + obviously deep and troubled, that Hilda silently smiled. She who had been + battered, as she said, twice round the world, found it disproportionate. + </p> + <p> + “It's the merest scratch,” she said, grave again to meet his glance. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed, I fear not.” The priest made a solicitous bandage with his + handkerchief, while the circle about them solidified. “It is quite + unpleasantly deep. You must let me take you at once to the nearest + chemist's and get it properly washed and dressed, or it may give you a + vast amount of trouble—but I am walking.” + </p> + <p> + “I will walk too,” Hilda said readily. “I should prefer it, truly.” With + her undamaged hand she produced a rupee from her pocket, where a few coins + chinked casually, looked at it, and groped for another. “I really can't + afford any more,” she said. “He can get his wheel mended with that, can't + he?” + </p> + <p> + “It is three times his fare,” Arnold said austerely, “and he deserved + nothing—but a fine, perhaps.” The man was suppliant before them, + cringing, salaaming, holding joined palms open. Hilda lifted her head and + looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, where the sun stood golden + upon the roadside and two naked children played with a torn pink kite. + Something seemed to gather into her eyes as she looked, and when she fixed + them softly upon Arnold, to speak, as it had spoken before. + </p> + <p> + “Ah,” she said. “Our deserts.” + </p> + <p> + It was the merest echo, and she had done it on purpose, but he could not + know that, and as she dropped the rupees into the craving hands, and + turned and walked away with him, he was held in a frightened silence. + There was nothing perhaps that he wanted to talk of more than of his + experience at the theatre; he longed to have it simplified and explained; + yet in that space of her two words the impossibility of mentioning it had + sprung at him and overcome him. He hoped, with instant fervour, that she + would refrain from any allusion to The Offence of Galilee. And for the + time being she did refrain. She said, instead, that her hand was smarting + absurdly already, and did Arnold suppose the chemist would use a carbolic + lotion? Stephen, with a guarded look, said very possibly not, but one + never knew; and Hilda, thinking of the far-off day when the little girl of + her was brought tactfully to disagreeable necessities; covered a + preposterous impulse to cry with another smile. + </p> + <p> + A thudding of bare feet overtook them. It was the syce, with his arms full + of thin paper bags, the kind that hold cheap millinery. “Oh, the good + man!” Hilda exclaimed. “My parcels!” and looked on equably, while Arnold + took them by their puckered ends. “I have been buying gold lace and things + from Chunder Dutt for a costume,” she explained. The bags dangled + helplessly from Arnold's fingers; he looked very much aware of them. “Let + me carry at least one,” she begged. “I can perfectly with my parasol + hand;” but he refused her even one. “If I may be permitted to take the + responsibility,” he said happily, and she rejoined, “Oh, I would trust you + with things more fragile.” At which, such is the discipline of these + Orders, he looked steadily in front of him, and seemed deaf with modesty. + </p> + <p> + “But are you sure,” said Hilda, suddenly considerate, “that it looks + well?” + </p> + <p> + “Is the gold lace then so very meretricious?” + </p> + <p> + “It goes doubtfully with your cloth,” she laughed, and instantly looked + stricken with the conviction that she might better have said something + else. But Arnold appeared to take it simply and to see no gibe in it, only + a pleasant commonplace. + </p> + <p> + “It might look queer in Chowringhee,” he said, “but this is not a + censorious public.” Then, as if to palliate the word, he added, “They will + think me no more mad to carry paper bags than to carry myself, when it is + plain that I might ride—and they see me doing that every day.” + </p> + <p> + All the same the paper bags swinging beside the girdled black skirt did + impart a touch of comedy, which was in a way a pity, since humour goes so + far to destroy the picturesque. Hilda without the paper bags would have + been vastly enough for contrast. She walked—one is inclined to dwell + upon her steps and face the risk of being unintelligible—in a + wide-sleeved gown of peach-coloured silk, rather frayed at the seams; a + trifle spent in vulnerable places, surmounted by an extravagant collar and + a Paris hat. The dress was of artistic intention inexpensively carried + out, the hat had an accomplished chic; it had fallen to her in the wreck + and ruin of a too ambitious draper of Coolgardie. As a matter of fact it + was the only one she had. The wide sleeves ended a little below the elbow, + and she carried in compensation a pair of long suede gloves, a compromise + which only occasionally discovered itself buttonless, and a most expensive + umbrella, the tribute of a gentleman in that line of business in Cape + Town, whose standing advertisement is now her note of appreciation. Arnold + in his unvarying gait paced beside her; he naturally shrank, so close to + her opulence, into something less impressive than he was; a mere + intelligence he looked, in a quaint uniform, with his long lip drawn down + and pursed a little in this accomplishment of duty, and his eyes steadily + in front of him. Hilda's lambent observation was everywhere, but most of + all on him; a fleck of the dust from the road still lay upon the warm + bloom of her cheek, a perpetual happy curve clung about her mouth. So they + passed in streets of the thronging people, where yards of new-dyed cotton, + purple and yellow, stretched drying in the sun, where a busy tom-tom + called the pious to leave coppers before a blood-red, golden-tongued Kali, + half visible through the door of a mud hut—where all the dealers in + brass dishes and glass armlets and silver-gilt stands for the comfortable + hubble-bubble, squatted in line upon their thresholds and accepted them + with indifference. So they passed, worthy of a glance from that divinity + who shapes our ends. + </p> + <p> + They talked of the accident. “You stopped the horses, didn't you?” Hilda + said, and the speculation in her eyes was concerned with the extent to + which a muscular system might dwindle, in that climate, under sacerdotal + robes worn every day. + </p> + <p> + “I told them to stop, poor things,” Arnold said; “they had hardly to be + persuaded.” + </p> + <p> + “But you didn't save my life or anything like that, did you?” she + adventured like a vagrant in the sun. The blood was warm in her. She did + not weigh her words. “I shouldn't like having my life saved. The necessity + for feeling such a vast emotion—I shouldn't know how to cope with + it.” + </p> + <p> + “I will claim to have saved your other hand,” he smiled. “You will be + quite grateful enough for that.” + </p> + <p> + She noted that he did not hasten, behind blushes, into the shelter of a + general disavowal. The cassock seemed to cover an obligation to + acknowledge things. + </p> + <p> + “I see,” she said, veering round. “You are quite right to circumscribe me. + There is nothing so boring as the gratitude that will out. It is only the + absence of it, too plainly expressed, that is unpleasant. But you won't + find that in me either.” She gave him a smile as she lowered her parasol + to turn into the shop of Lahiri Dey, licensed to sell European drugs, that + promised infinite possibilities of friendship; and, he, following, took + pleased and careful possession of it. + </p> + <p> + An hour later, as they approached Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, Miss + Howe looked pale, which is not surprising since they had walked and talked + all the way. Their talk was a little strenuous too; it was as if they had + fallen upon an opportunity, and, mutually, consciously made the most of + it. + </p> + <p> + “You must have some tea immediately,” Arnold said, before the battered + urns and the dusty crotons of her dwelling. + </p> + <p> + “A little whisky and soda, I think. And you will come up, please, and have + some too. You must.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks,” he said, looking at his watch. “If I do—” + </p> + <p> + “You'll have the soda without the whisky! All right!” she laughed, and led + the way. + </p> + <p> + “This is vicious indulgence,” Arnold said of his beverage, sitting under + the inverted Japanese umbrellas. “I haven't been pitched out of a + ticca-gharry.” + </p> + <p> + It is doubtful whether the indulgence was altogether in the soda, which + is, after all, ascetic in its quality, and only suitably effervescent, + like ecclesiastical humour. It may very probably be that there was no + indulgence; indeed, one is convinced that the word, like so many words, + says too much. The springs of Arnold's chair were bursting through the + bottom, and there were stains on its faded chintz-arms, but it was + comfortable, and he leaned back in it, looking up at the paper umbrellas. + You know the room; I took you into it with Duff Lindsay, who did not come + there from rigidities and rituals, and who had a qualified pleasure in it. + But there were lines in the folds of the flowered window-curtains dragging + half a yard upon the floor, which seemed to disband Arnold's spirit, and a + twinkle in the blue bead of a bamboo screen where the light came through + that released it altogether. The shabby violent-coloured place encompassed + him like an easy garment, and the lady with her feet tucked up on a sofa + and a cushion under her tumbled head, was an unembarrassing invitation to + the kind of happy things he had not said for years. They sat in the + coolness of the room for half an hour, and then, after a little pause, + Hilda said suddenly— + </p> + <p> + “I am glad you saw me in The Offence of Galilee on Saturday night. We + shall not play it again.” + </p> + <p> + “It has been withdrawn?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. The rights, you know, really belong to Mr. Bradley; and he can't + endure his part.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there no one else to—” + </p> + <p> + “He objects to anyone else. We generally play together.” This was + inadvertent, but Stephen had no reason to imagine that she contracted her + eyebrows in any special irritation. “It is an atrocious piece,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “Is it?” he said absently, and then, “Yes, it is an atrocious piece. But I + am glad, too, that I saw you.” + </p> + <p> + He looked away from her, reddening deeply, and stood up. He bade her a + measured and precise farewell. It seemed as if he hurried. She only half + rose to give him her unwounded hand, and when he was gone she sank back + again thoughtfully. + </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> + “I have outstayed all the rest,” Lindsay said, with his hat and stick in + his hand, in Alicia Livingstone's drawing-room, “because I want + particularly to talk to you. They have left me precious little time,” he + added, glancing at his watch. + </p> + <p> + She had wondered when he came, early in the formal Sunday noon hour for + men's calls, since he had more casual privileges; and wondered more when + he sat on with composure, as one who is master of the situation, while + Major-Generals and Deputy-Secretaries came and went. There was a mist in + her brain as she talked to the Major-Generals and Deputy-Secretaries—it + did not in the least obscure what she found to say—and in the midst + of it the formless idea that he must wish to attach a special importance + to his visit. This took shape and line when they were alone, and he spoke + of out-sitting the others. It impelled her to walk to the window and open + it. “You might stay to lunch,” she said, addressing a pair of crows in + altercation on the verandah. + </p> + <p> + “There is nearly half an hour before lunch,” he said. “Can I convince you + in that time, I wonder, that I'm not an absolute fool?” + </p> + <p> + Alicia turned and came back to her sofa. She may have had a prevision of + the need of support. “I hardly think,” she said, drawing the long breath + with which we try to subdue a tempest within, “that it would take so + long.” She looked with careful criticism at the violets in his buttonhole. + </p> + <p> + “I've had a supreme experience,” he said, “very strange and very lovely. I + am living in it, moving in it, speaking in it,” he added quickly, watching + her face; “so don't, for Heaven's sake, touch it roughly.” + </p> + <p> + She lifted her hand in nervous, involuntary deprecation. “Why should you + suppose I would touch it roughly?” There was that in her voice which cried + out that she would rather not touch it at all; but Lindsay, on the brink + of his confidence, could not suppose it, did not hear it. He knew her so + well. + </p> + <p> + “A great many people will,” he said. “I can't bear the thought of their + fingers. That is one reason that brings me to you.” + </p> + <p> + She faced him fully at this; her eyelids quivered, but she looked straight + at him. It nerved her to be brought into his equation, even in the form + which should finally be eliminated. She contrived a smile. + </p> + <p> + “I believe you know already,” Lindsay cried. + </p> + <p> + “I have heard something. Don't be alarmed—not from people, from Miss + Howe.” + </p> + <p> + “Wonderful woman! I haven't told her.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that always necessary? She has intuitions. In this case,” Alicia went + on, with immense courage, “I didn't believe them.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” he asked enjoyingly. Anything to handle his delight—he would + even submit it to analysis. + </p> + <p> + She hesitated—her business was in great waters, the next instant + might engulf her. “It's so curiously unlike you,” she faltered. “If she + had been a duchess—a very exquisite person, or somebody very clever—remember + I haven't seen her.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't, so I must forgive you invidious comparisons.” Lindsay + visaged the words with a smile, but they had an articulated hardness. + </p> + <p> + Alicia raised her eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + “What do you expect one to imagine?” she asked, with quietness. + </p> + <p> + “A miracle,” he said sombrely. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that's difficult!” + </p> + <p> + There was silence for a moment between them, then she added perversely— + </p> + <p> + “And, you know, faith is not what it was.” + </p> + <p> + Duff sat biting his lips. Her dryness irritated him. He was accustomed to + find in her fields of delicately blooming enthusiasms, and running + watercourses where his satisfactions were ever reflected. Suddenly she + seemed to emerge to her own consciousness, upon a summit from which she + could look down upon the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to where he + stood. + </p> + <p> + “Don't make a mistake,” she said. “Don't.” She thrust her hand for a + fraction of an instant toward him, and then swiftly withdrew it, gathering + herself together to meet what he might say. + </p> + <p> + What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. “That's what everybody will + tell me; but I thought you might understand.” He tapped the toe of his + boot with his stick as if he counted the strokes. She looked down and + counted them too. + </p> + <p> + “Then you won't help me to marry her?” he said, definitely, at last. + </p> + <p> + “What could I do?” She twisted her sapphire ring. “Ask somebody else.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't expect me to believe there is nothing you could do. Go to her as my + friend. It isn't such a monstrous thing to ask. Tell her any good you know + of me. At present her imagination paints me in all the lurid colours of + the lost.” + </p> + <p> + The face she turned upon him was all little sharp white angles, and the + cloud of fair hair above her temples stood out stiffly, suggesting Celine + and the curling tongs. She did not lose her elegance; the poise of her + chin and shoulders was quite perfect, but he thought she looked too + amusedly at his difficulty. Her negative, too, was more unsympathetic than + he had any reason to expect. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said. “It must be somebody else. Don't ask me. I should become + involved—I might do harm.” She had surmounted her emotion; she was + able to look at the matter with surprising clearness and decision. “I + should do harm,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + “You don't count with her effect on you.” + </p> + <p> + “You can't possibly imagine her effect on me. I'm not a man.” + </p> + <p> + “But won't you take anything—about her—from me? You know I'm + really not a fool—not even very impressionable?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no!” she said impatiently. “No—of course not.” + </p> + <p> + “Pray why?” + </p> + <p> + “There are other things to reckon with.” She looked coldly beyond him out + of the window. “A man's intelligence when he is in love—how far can + one count on it?” + </p> + <p> + There was nothing but silence for that, or perhaps the murmured, “Oh, I + don't agree,” with which Lindsay met it. He rode down her logic with a + simple appeal. “Then after all,” he said, “you're not my friend.” + </p> + <p> + It goaded her into something like an impertinence. “After you have married + her,” she said, “you'll see.” + </p> + <p> + “You will be hers then,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + “I will be yours.” Her eyes leaped along the prospect and rested on a + brass-studded Tartar shield at the other end of the room. + </p> + <p> + “And I thought you broad in these views,” Lindsay said, glancing at her + curiously. Her opportunity for defence was curtailed by a heavy step in + the hall, and the lifted portiere disclosed Surgeon Major Livingstone, + looking warm. He, whose other name was the soul of hospitality, made a + profound and feeling remonstrance against Lindsay's going before tiffin, + though Alicia, doing something to a bowl of nasturtiums, did not hear it. + Not that her added protest would have detained Lindsay, who took his + perturbation away with him as quickly as might be. Alicia saw the cloud + upon him as he shook hands with her, and found it but slightly consoling + to reflect that his sun would without doubt re-emerge in all effulgence on + the other side of the door. + </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> + That same Sunday, Alicia had been able to say to Lindsay about Hilda Howe, + “We have not stood still—we know each other well now,” and when he + commented with some reserve upon this to follow it up. “But these things + have so little to do with mere length of time or number of opportunities,” + she declared. “One springs at some people.” + </p> + <p> + A Major-General, interrupting, said he wished he had the chance; and they + talked about something else. But perhaps this is enough to explain a note + which went by messenger from the Livingstones' pillared palace in + Middleton Street to Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, on Monday morning. It + was a short note, making a definite demand with an absence of colour and + softness and emotion which was almost elaborate. Hilda, at breakfast, tore + off the blank half sheet, and wrote in pencil— + </p> + <p> + “I think I can arrange to get her here about five this afternoon. No + rehearsal—they're doing something to the gas-pipes at the theatre, + so you will find me, anyway. And I'll be delighted to see you.” + </p> + <p> + She twisted it up and addressed it, reconsidered that, and made the scrap + more secure in a yellow envelope. It had an embossed post-office stamp, + which she sacrificed with resignation. Then she went back to an extremely + uninteresting vegetable curry, with the reflection—“Can she possibly + imagine that one doesn't see it yet?” + </p> + <p> + Alicia came before five. She brought a novel of Gissing's, in order + apparently that they might without fail talk about Gissing. Hilda was + agreeable; she would talk about Gissing, or about anything, tipped on the + edge of her bed—Alicia had surmounted that degree of intimacy at a + bound by the declaration that she could no longer endure the blue + umbrellas—and clasping one knee, with an uncertain tenure of a + chipped bronze slipper deprived of its heel. Wonderful silk draperies fell + about her, with ink-spots on the sleeves; her hair was magnificent. + </p> + <p> + “It's so curious to me,” she was saying of the novel, “that anyone should + learn all that life as you do, at a distance, in a book. It's like looking + at it through the little end of an opera-glass.” + </p> + <p> + “I fancy that the most desirable way,” said Alicia, glancing at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you believe it. The best way is to come out of it, to grow out of + it. Then all the rest has the charm of novelty and the value of contrast, + and the distinction of being the best. You, poor dear, were born an + artificial flower in a cardboard box. But you couldn't help it.” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody doesn't grow out of it.” The concentration in Alicia's eyes + returned again with vacillating wings. + </p> + <p> + “She can't be here for a quarter of an hour yet.” The slipper dropped at + this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again. She kept her foot in her + hands, and regarded it pensively. + </p> + <p> + “Shoes are the one thing one shouldn't buy in the native quarter,” she + continued; “at all events, ready-made.” + </p> + <p> + “You have an audacity—” Alicia ended abruptly in a wan smile. + </p> + <p> + “Haven't I? Are you quite sure he wants to marry her?” + </p> + <p> + “I know it.” + </p> + <p> + “From him?” + </p> + <p> + “From him.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!”—Hilda deliberated a moment nursing her slipper—“Really? + Well, we can't let that happen.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “You have a hardihood! Is no reason plain to you? Don't you see anything?” + </p> + <p> + Alicia smiled again painfully, as if against a tension of her lips. “I see + only one thing that matters—he wants it,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “And won't be happy till he gets it! Rubbish, my dear! We are an + intolerably self-sacrificing sex.” Hilda felt about for pillows, and + stretched her length along the bed. “They've taught us well, the men; it's + a blood disease now, running everywhere in the female line. You may be + sure it was a barbarian princess that hesitated between the lady and the + tiger. A civilised one would have introduced the lady and given her a dot, + and retired to the nearest convent. Bah! It's a deformity, like the + dachshund's legs.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia looked as if this would be a little troublesome, and not quite + worth while, to follow. + </p> + <p> + “The happiness of his whole life is involved,” she said simply. + </p> + <p> + “Oh dear yes—the old story! And what about the happiness of yours? + Do you imagine it's laudable, admirable, this attitude? Do you see + yourself in it with pleasure? Have you got a sacred satisfaction of + self-praise?” + </p> + <p> + Contempt accumulated in Miss Howe's voice, and sat in her eyes. To mark + her climax she kicked her slippers over the end of the bed. + </p> + <p> + “It is idiotic—it's disgusting,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Alicia caught a flash from her. “My attitude!” she cried. “What in the + world do you mean? Do you always think in poses? I take no attitude. I + care for him, and in that proportion I intend that he shall have what he + wants—so far as I can help him to it. You have never cared for + anybody—what do you know about it?” + </p> + <p> + Hilda took a calm, unprejudiced view of the ceiling. “I assure you I'm not + an angel,” she cried. “Haven't I cared! Several times.” + </p> + <p> + “Not really—not lastingly.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know about really; certainly not lastingly. I've never thought + the men should have a monopoly of nomadic susceptibilities. They entail + the prettiest experiences.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, in your profession—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be nasty, sweet lady. My affections have never taken the + opportunities of our profession. They haven't even carried me into + matrimony, though I remember once, at Sydney, they brought me to the + brink! We must contrive an escape for Duff Lindsay.” + </p> + <p> + “You assume too much—a great deal too much. She must be beautiful—and + good.” + </p> + <p> + “Give me a figure. She's a lily, and she draws the kind of beauty that + lilies have from her personal chastity and her religious enthusiasm. Touch + those things and bruise them, as—as marriage would touch and bruise + them—and she would be a mere fragment of stale vegetation. You want + him to clasp that to his bosom for the rest of his life?” + </p> + <p> + “I won't believe you. You're coarse and you're cruel.” + </p> + <p> + Tears flashed into Miss Livingstone's eyes with this. Hilda, still + regarding the ceiling, was aware of them, and turned an impatient shoulder + while they should be brushed undetected away. + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry, dear,” she said. “I forgot. You are usually so intelligent, + one can be coarse and cruel with comfort, talking to you. Go into the + bathroom and get my salts—they're on the washhand-stand—will + you? I'm quite faint with all I'm about to undergo.” + </p> + <p> + Laura Filbert came in as Alicia emerged with the salts. Ignoring the third + person with the bottle, she went directly to the bedside and laid her hand + on Hilda's head. + </p> + <p> + “Oh Miss Howe, I am so sorry you are sick—so sorry,” she said. It + was a cooing of professional concern, true to an ideal, to a necessity. + </p> + <p> + “I am not very bad,” Hilda improvised. “Hardly more than a headache.” + </p> + <p> + “She makes light of everything,” Miss Filbert said, smiling toward Alicia, + who stood silent, the prey of her impression. Discovering the blue salts + bottle, Laura walked over to her and took it from her hands. + </p> + <p> + “And what,” said the barefooted Salvation Army girl to Miss Livingstone, + “might your name be?” + </p> + <p> + There was an infinite calm interest in it—it was like a + conventionality of the other world, and before its assurance Alicia stood + helpless. + </p> + <p> + “Her name is Livingstone,” called Hilda from the bed, “and she is as good + as she is beautiful. You needn't be troubled about HER soul—she + takes Communion every Sunday morning at the Cathedral.” + </p> + <p> + “Hallelujah!” said Captain Filbert, in a tone of dubious congratulation. + </p> + <p> + “Much better,” said Hilda cheerfully, “to take it at the Cathedral, you + know, than nowhere.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Filbert said nothing to this, but sat down upon the edge of the bed, + looking serious, and stroked Hilda's hair. + </p> + <p> + “You don't seem to have much fever,” she said. “There was a poor fellow in + the Military Hospital this morning with a temperature of one hundred and + seven. I could hardly bear to touch him.” + </p> + <p> + “What was the matter?” asked Hilda idly, occupied with hypotheses about + the third person in the room. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don't know exactly. Some complication, I suppose, of Satan's + tribute—” + </p> + <p> + “Divinest Laura!” Hilda interposed quickly, drawing her head back. “Do + take a chair. It will be even more soothing to see you comfortable.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Filbert spoke again to Alicia, as she obeyed. “Miss Howe is more + thoughtful for others than some of our converted ones,” she said, with + vast kindness. “I have often told her so. I have had a long day.” + </p> + <p> + “It may improve me in that character,” Hilda said, “to suggest that if you + will go about such people, a little carbolic disinfectant is a good thing, + or a crystal or two of permanganate of potash in your bath. Do you use + those things?” + </p> + <p> + Laura shook her head. “Faith is better than disinfectants. I never get any + harm. My Master protects me.” + </p> + <p> + “My goodness!” Hilda said. And in the silence that occurred, Captain + Filbert remarked that the only thing she used carbolic acid for was a + decayed tooth. Presently Alicia made a great effort. She laid hands on + Hilda's previous reference as a tangibility that remained with her. + </p> + <p> + “Do you ever go to the Cathedral?” she said. + </p> + <p> + The faintest shade of dogmatism crossed Captain Filbert's features, as + when on a day of cloud fleeces the sun withdraws for an instant from a + flower. Since her sect is proclaimed beyond the boundaries of dogma it may + have been some other obscurity, but that was the effect. + </p> + <p> + “No. I never go there. We raise our own Ebenezer; we are a tabernacle to + ourselves.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it exquisite—her way of speaking!” cried Hilda from the bed, + and Laura glanced at her with a deprecating, reproachful smile, in reproof + of an offence admittedly incorrigible. But she went on as if she were + conscious of a stimulus. + </p> + <p> + “Wherever the morning sky bends or the stars cluster is sanctuary enough,” + she said; “a slum at noonday is as holy for us as daisied fields; the Name + of the Lord walks with us. The Army is His Army, He is Lord of our hosts.” + </p> + <p> + “A kind of chant,” murmured Hilda, and Miss Livingstone became aware that + she might if she liked play with the beginnings of magnetism. Then that + impression was carried away as it were on a puff of air, and it is hardly + likely that she thought of it again. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose all the elite go to the Cathedral?” Laura said. The sanctity of + her face was hardly disturbed, but a curiosity rested upon it, and behind + the curiosity a far-off little, leaping tongue of some other thing. Hilda + on the bed named it the constant feminine, and narrowed her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Dear me, yes,” she said for Alicia. “His Excellency the Viceroy and all + his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no end of military and their ladies, Secretaries + to the Government of India in rows, fully choral, Under-Secretaries so + thick they're kept in the vestibule till the bells stop. 'And make Thy + chosen people joyful'!” she intoned. “Not forgetting Surgeon-Major and + Miss Alicia Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to the right of the + main aisle, advantageously near the pulpit.” + </p> + <p> + “You know already what a humbug she is,” Alicia said, but Captain + Filbert's inner eye seemed retained by that imaginary congregation. + </p> + <p> + “Well, it wouldn't be any attraction for me,” she said, rising to go + through the little accustomed function of her departure. “I'll be going + now, I think. Ensign Sand has fever again, and I have to take her place at + the Believers' Meeting.” She took Hilda's hand in hers and held it for an + instant. “Good-bye, and God bless you—in the way you most need,” she + said, and turned to Alicia, “Good-bye. I am glad to know that we will be + one in the glad hereafter though our paths may diverge”—her eye + rested with acknowledgment upon Alicia's embroidered sleeves—“in + this world. To look at you I should have thought you were of the bowed + down ones, not yet fully assured, but perhaps you only want a little more + oxygen in the blood of your religion. Remember the word of the Lord—'Rejoice! + again I say unto you, rejoice!' Goodbye.” + </p> + <p> + She drew her head-covering farther forward, and moved to the door. It + sloped to her shoulders and made them droop; her native clothes clung + about her breast and her hips in the cringing Oriental way. Miss Howe + looked after her guest with a curl of the lip as uncontrollable as it was + unreasonable. “A saved soul, perhaps. A woman—oh, assuredly,” she + said in the depths of her hair. + </p> + <p> + The door had almost closed upon Captain Filbert when Alicia made something + like a dash at an object about to elude her. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “wait a + minute. Will you come and see me? I think—I think you might do me + good. I live at Number Ten, Middleton Street. Will you come?” + </p> + <p> + Laura came back into the room. There was a little stiffness in her air, as + if she repressed something. + </p> + <p> + “I have no objection,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow afternoon—at five? Or—my brother is dining at the + club—would you rather come to dinner?” + </p> + <p> + “Whichever is agreeable to you will suit me.” She spoke carefully, after + an instant's hesitation. + </p> + <p> + “Then do come and dine—at eight,” Alicia said; and it was agreed. + </p> + <p> + She stood staring at the door when Laura finally closed it, and only + turned when Hilda spoke. + </p> + <p> + “You are going to have him to meet her,” she said. “May I come too?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not.” Alicia's grasp was also by this time on the door handle. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going too? You daren't talk about her!” Hilda cried. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going too. I've got the brougham. I'll drive her home,” said Alicia, + and went out swiftly. + </p> + <p> + “My goodness!” Hilda remarked again. Then she got up and found her + slippers and wrote a note, which she addressed to the Reverend Stephen + Arnold, Clarke Mission House, College Street. “Thanks immensely,” it ran, + “for your delightful offer to introduce me to Father Jordan and persuade + him to show me the astronomical wonders he keeps in his tower at St. + Simeon's. An hour with a Jesuit is an hour of milk and honey, and + belonging to that charming Order, he won't mind my coming on a Sunday + evening—the first clear one.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Howe signed her note and bit consideringly at the end of her pen. + Then she added: “If you have any influence with Duff Lindsay, it may be + news to you that you can exert it with advantage to keep him from marrying + a cheap ethereal little religieuse of the Salvation Army named Filbert. It + may seem more fitting that you should expostulate with her, but I don't + advise that.” + </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> + The door of Ensign Sand's apartment stood open with a purposeful air when + Captain Filbert reached headquarters that evening; but in any case it is + likely that she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand walked the floor, carrying a + baby, a pale sticky baby with blotches, which had inherited from its + maternal parent a conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room was also + ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been selected at random, + and they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed at the + control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with his + father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain Captain Sand + audibly washed himself and brushed his hair. + </p> + <p> + “What kind of meetin' did you have?” asked Mrs. Sand. “There—there + now; he shall have his bottle, so he shall!” + </p> + <p> + “A beautiful meeting. Abraham Lincoln White, the Savannah negro, you know, + came as a believer for the first time, and so did Miss Rozario from + Whiteaway and Laidlaw's. We had such a happy time.” + </p> + <p> + “What sort of collection?” + </p> + <p> + Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted out some copper coins. + </p> + <p> + “Only seven annas three pice! And you call that a good meeting! I don't + believe you exhorted them to give!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I think I did!” Laura returned mechanically. + </p> + <p> + “Seven annas and three pice! And you know what the Commissioner wrote out + about our last quarter's earnings! What did you say?” + </p> + <p> + “I said—I said the collection would now be taken up,” Laura + faltered. + </p> + <p> + “Oh dear! oh dear! Leopold, stop clawing me! Couldn't you think of + anythin' more tellin' or more touchin' than that? Fever or no fever, it + does not do for me to stay away from the regular meetin's. One thing is + plain—HE wasn't there!” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you've never told me his name, but I expect you've got your + reasons.” Mrs. Sand's tone was not arch, but slightly resentful. “I mean + the gentleman that attends so regular and sits behind, under the window. A + society man, I should say, to look at him, though the officers of this + Army are no respecters of persons, and I don't suppose the Lord takes any + notice of his clothes.” + </p> + <p> + “His name is Mr. Lindsay. No, he wasn't there.” + </p> + <p> + The girl's tone was distant and cold. The rebuke about the collection had + gone home to a place raw with similar reproaches. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you haven't been discouraging him?” + </p> + <p> + Captain Filbert looked at her superior officer with astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “I have entreated him to come to the meetings. But he never attends a + Believers' Rally. Why should he?” + </p> + <p> + “What's his state of mind? He came to see you, didn't he, the other + night?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he did. I don't think he's altogether careless.” + </p> + <p> + “Ain't he seeking?” + </p> + <p> + “He wouldn't admit it, but he may not know himself. The Lord has different + ways of working. What else should bring him, night after night?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sand glanced meaningly at a point on the floor, with lifted eyebrows, + then at her officer, and finally hid a badly-disciplined smile behind her + baby's head. When she looked back again Laura had flushed all over, and an + embarrassment stood between them, which she felt was absurd. + </p> + <p> + “My!” she said,—scruples in breaking it could hardly perhaps have + been expected of her,—“you do look nice when you've got a little + colour. But if you can't see that it's you that brings him to the + meetin's, you must be blind, that's all.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Filbert's confusion was dispelled, as by the wave of a wand. + </p> + <p> + “Then I hope I may go on bringing him,” she said. “He couldn't come to a + better place.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you'll have to be careful,” said Mrs. Sand, as if with severe + intent. “But I don't say discourage him; I wouldn't say that. You may be + an influence for good. It may be His will that you should be pleasant to + the young man. But don't make free with him. Don't, on any account, have + him put his arm round your waist.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody has done that to me,” Laura replied austerely, “since I left + Putney, and so long as I am in the Army nobody will. Not that Mr. Lindsay” + (she blushed again) “would ever want to. The class he belongs to look down + on it.” + </p> + <p> + “The class he belongs to do worse things. The Army doesn't look down on + it. It's only nature, and the Army believes in working with nature. If it + was Mr. Harris I wouldn't say a word—he marches under the Lord's + banner.” + </p> + <p> + Captain Filbert listened without confusion; her expression was even + slightly complacent. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she said, “I told Mr. Harris last evening that the Lieutenant and + I couldn't go on giving him so much of our time, and he seemed to think + he'd been keeping company with me. I had to tell him I hadn't any such + idea.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he seem much disappointed?” + </p> + <p> + “He said he thought he would have more of the feeling of belonging to the + Army if he was married in it; but I told him he would have to learn to + walk alone.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sand speculatively bit her lips. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know but what you did right,” she said. “By the grace of God you + converted him, and he hadn't ought to ask more of you. But I have a kind + of feeling that Mr. Lindsay 'll be harder to convince.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be splendid, though, to garner him in. He might be willing to + march with us and subscribe half his pay, like poor Captain Corby, of the + Queen's army, did in Rangoon.” + </p> + <p> + “He might be proud to.” + </p> + <p> + “We must all try and bring sin home to him,” Mrs. Sand remarked with + rising energy; “and don't you go saying anything to him hastily. If he's + gone on you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh Ensign! let us hope he is thinking of higher things! Let us both pray + for him. Let Captain Sand pray for him too, and I'll ask the Lieutenant. + Now that she's got Miss Rozario safe into the kingdom, I don't think she + has any special object.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, we'll pray for him,” Ensign Sand returned, as if that might have + gone without saying, “but you—” + </p> + <p> + “And give me that precious baby. You must be completely worn out. I should + enjoy taking care of him; indeed I should.” + </p> + <p> + “It's the first—the very first—time she ever took that + draggin' child out of my arms for an instant,” the Ensign remarked to her + husband and next in command later in the evening, but she resigned the + infant without protest at the time. Laura carried him into her own room + with something like gaiety, and there repeated to him more nursery rhymes, + dating from secular Putney, than she would have believed she remembered. + </p> + <p> + The Believers' Rally, as will be understood, was a gathering of some + selectness. If the Chinaman came, it was because of the vagueness of his + perception of the privileges he claimed; and his ignorance of all tongues + but his own left no medium for turning him out. Qualms of conscience, + however, kept all Miss Rozario's young lady friends away, and these also + doubtless operated to detain Duff Lindsay. One does not attend a + Believers' Rally unless one's personal faith extends beyond the lady in + command of it, and one specially refrains if one's spiritual condition is + a delicate and debatable matter with her. In Wellesley Square, later in + the evening, the conditions were different. It would not be easy to + imagine a scene that suggested greater liberality of sentiment. The moon + shed her light upon it, and the palms threw fretted shadows down. Beyond + them, on four sides, lines of street-lamps shone, and tram-drivers + whistled bullock-carts off the lines, and street pedlars lifted their + cries. A torch marked the core of the group of exhorters; it struck pale + gold from Laura's hair, and made glorious the buttons of the man who beat + the drum. She talked to the people in their own language; the “open air” + was designed for the people. “Kiko! Kiko!” (Why! Why!) Lindsay heard her + cry, where he stood in the shadow, on the edge of the crowd. He looked + down at a coolie-woman with shrivelled breasts crouched on her haunches + upon the ground, bent with the toil of half a century, and back at the + girl beside the torch. “Do not delay until to-morrow!” Laura besought + them. “Kul ka dari mut karo!” A sensation of disgust assailed him; he + turned away. Then, in an impulse of atonement—he felt already so + responsible for her—he went back and dropped a coin into the coolie + creature's lap. But he grew more miserable as he stood, and finally walked + deliberately to a wooden bench at a distance where he could not hear her + voice. Only the hymn pursued him; they sang presently a hymn. In the + chorus the words were distinguishable, borne in the robust accents of + Captain Sand— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Us ki ho tarif, + Us ki ho tarif!” + </pre> + <p> + The strange words, limping on the familiar air, made a barbarous jangle, a + discordance of a specially intolerable sort. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Glory to His name! + Glory to His name!” + </pre> + <p> + Lindsay wondered, with a poignancy of pity, whether the coolie-woman were + singing too, and found something like relief in the questionable + reflection that if she wasn't, in view of the rupee, she ought to be. + </p> + <p> + His “Good-evening!” when the meeting was over, was a cheerful, general + salutation, and the familiarity of the sight of him was plain in the + response he got, equally general and equally cheerful. Lieutenant Da + Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had thought of + interpreting it, and there was overt amiability in the manner in which + Ensign Sand put her hymn-books together and packed everybody, including + her husband, whose arm she took, out of the way. + </p> + <p> + “Wait for me,” Laura said, to whom a Eurasian beggar made elaborate + appeal, as they moved off. + </p> + <p> + “I guess you've got company to see you home,” Mrs. Sand called out, and + they did not wait. As Lindsay came closer the East Indian paused in his + tale of the unburied wife for whom he could not afford a coffin, and + slipped away. + </p> + <p> + “The Ensign knows she oughtn't to talk like that,” Laura said. Lindsay + marked with a surge of pleasure that she was flushed, and seemed + perturbed. + </p> + <p> + “What she said was quite true,” he ventured. + </p> + <p> + “But—anybody would think—” + </p> + <p> + “What would anybody think? Shall we keep to this side of the road? It's + quieter. What would anybody think?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, silly things.” Laura threw up her head with a half laugh. “Things I + needn't mention.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay was silent for an instant. Then “Between us?” he asked, and she + nodded. + </p> + <p> + Their side of the street, along the square, was nearly empty. He found her + hand and drew it through his arm. “Would you mind so very much,” he said, + “if those silly things were true?” He spoke as if to a child. His passion + was never more clearly a single object to him, divorced from all + complicating and non-essential impressions of her. “I would give all I + possess to have it so,” he told her, catching at any old foolish phrase + that would serve. + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe you mean anything like all you say, Mr. Lindsay.” Her + head was bent and she kept her hand within his arm. He seemed to be a + circumstance that brought her reminiscences of how one behaved + sentimentally toward a young man with whom there was no serious + entanglement. It is not surprising that he saw only one thing, walls going + down before him, was aware only of something like invitation. Existence + narrowed itself to a single glowing point; as he looked it came so near + that he bounded to meet it. + </p> + <p> + “Dear,” he said, “you can't know—there is no way of telling you—what + I mean. I suppose every man feels the same thing about the woman he loves; + but it seems to me that my life had never known the sun until I saw you. I + can't explain to you how poor it was, and I won't try; but I fancy God + sends every one of us, if we know it, some one blessed chance, and He did + more for me—He lifted the veil of my stupidity and let me see it, + passing by in its halo, trailing clouds of glory. I don't want to make you + understand, though—I want to make you promise. I want to be + absolutely sure from to-night that you'll marry me. Say that you'll marry + me—say it before we get to the crossing. Say it, Laura.” She + listened to his first words with a little half-controlled smile, then made + as if she would withdraw her hand, but he held it with his own, and she + heard him through, walking beside him formally on her bare feet, and + looking carefully at the asphalt pavement as they do in Putney. + </p> + <p> + “I don't object to your calling me by my given name,” she said when he had + done, “but it can't go any further than that, Mr. Lindsay, and you ought + not to bring God into it—indeed you ought not. You are no son or + servant of His—you are among those whose very light is darkness, and + how great is your darkness!” + </p> + <p> + “Don't,” he said shortly. “Never mind about that—now. You needn't be + afraid of me, Laura—there are decent chaps, you know, outside your + particular Kingdom of Heaven, and one of them wants you to marry him, + that's how it is. Will you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't wish to judge you, Mr. Lindsay, and I'm very much obliged, but I + couldn't dream of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't dream of it; consider it, accept it. Why, dear creature, you are + mine already—don't you feel that?” + </p> + <p> + Her arm was certainly warm within his and he had the possession of his + eyes in her. Her tired body even clung to him. “Are you quite sure you + haven't begun to think of loving me?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “It isn't a question of love, Mr. Lindsay, it's a question of the Army. + You don't seem to think the Army counts for anything.” + </p> + <p> + One is convinced that it wasn't a question of love, the least in the + world; but Lindsay detected an evasion in what she said, and the flame in + him leaped up. + </p> + <p> + “Sweet, when love is concerned there is no other question.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that a quotation?” she asked. She spoke coldly, and this time she + succeeded in withdrawing her hand. “I daresay you think the Army very + common, Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great and holy crusade, + and I march with it. You would not ask me to give up my life-work?” + </p> + <p> + “Only to take it into another sphere,” Duff said unreflectingly. He was + checked, but not discouraged; impatient, but in no wise cast down. She had + not flown, she walked beside him placidly. She had no intention of flight. + He tried to resign himself to the task of beating down her trivial + objections, curbing his athletic impulse to leap over them. + </p> + <p> + “Another sphere,”—he caught a subtle pleasure in her enunciation. “I + suppose you mean high society; but it would never be the same.” + </p> + <p> + “Not quite the same. You would have to drive to see your sinners in a + carriage and pair, and you might be obliged to dine with them in—what + do ladies generally dine in?—white satin and diamonds, or pearls. I + think I would rather see you in pearls.” He was aware of the + inexcusableness of the points he made, but he only stopped to laugh + inwardly at their impression, watching the absorbed turn of her head. + </p> + <p> + “We might think it well to be a little select in our sinners—most of + them would be on Government House list, just as most of your present ones + are on the lists of the charitable societies or the police magistrates. + But you would find just as much to do for them.” + </p> + <p> + “I should not even know how to act in such company.” + </p> + <p> + “You can go home for a year, if you like, to be taught, to some people I + know; delightful people, who will understand. A year! You will learn in + three months—what odds and ends there are to know. I couldn't spare + you for a year.” + </p> + <p> + Lindsay stopped. He had to. Captain Filbert was murmuring the cadences of + a hymn. She went through two stanzas, and covered her eyes for a moment + with her hand. When she spoke it was in a quiet, level, almost mechanical + way. “Yes,” she said. “The Cross and the Crown, the Crown and the Cross. + Father in heaven, I do not forget Thy will and Thy purpose, that I should + bring the word of Thy love to the poor and the lowly, the outcast and + those despised. And what I say to this man, who offers me the gifts and + the gladness of a world that had none for Thee, is the answer Thou hast + put in my heart—that the work is Thine and that I am Thine, and he + has no part or lot in me, nor can ever have. Here is Crooked Lane. + Good-night, Mr. Lindsay.” She had slipped into the devious darkness of the + place before he could find any reply, before he quite realised, indeed, + that they had reached her lodging. He could only utter a vague + “Goodnight,” after her, formulating more definite statements to himself a + few minutes later, in Bentinck Street. + </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> + Miss Howe was walking in the business quarter of Calcutta. It was the + business quarter, yet the air was gay with the dimpling of piano notes, + and looking up one saw the bright sunlight fall on yellow stuccoed flats + above the shops and the offices. There the pleasant north wind blew + banners of muslin curtains out of wide windows, and little gardens of + palms in pots showed behind the balustrades of the flat roofs whenever a + storey ran short. Everywhere was a subtle contagion of momentary + well-being, a sense of lifted burden. The stucco streets were too slovenly + to be purely joyous, but a warm satisfaction brooded in them, the pariahs + blinked at one genially, there was a note of cheer even in the cheeling of + the kites where they sat huddled on the roof-cornices or circled against + the high blue sky. It was enjoyable to be abroad, in the brushing + fellowship of the pavements, in touch with brown humility half-clad and + going afoot, since even brown humility seemed well affected toward the + world, alert and content. The air was full of the comfortable flavour of + food-stuffs and spiced luxuries, and the incense of wayside trees; it was + as if the sun laid a bland compelling hand upon the city, bidding strange + flowers bloom and strange fruits increase. Brokers' gharries rattled past, + each holding a pale young man preoccupied with a notebook; where the + bullock-carts gathered themselves together and blocked the road the pale + young men put excited heads out of the gharry windows and used remarkable + imprecations. One of them, as Hilda turned into the compound of the + Calcutta Chronicle, leaned out to take off his hat, and sent her up to the + office of that journal in the pleasant reflection of his infinite interest + in life. “Upon my word,” she said to herself as she ascended the stairs + behind the lean legs of a Mussulman servant in a dirty shirt and an + embroidered cap, “he's so lighthearted, so genial, that one doubts the + very tremendous effect even of a failure like the one he contemplates.” + </p> + <p> + She sent her card in to the manager-sahib by the lean Mussulman, and + followed it past the desks of two or three Bengali clerks, who hardly + lifted their well-oiled heads from their account-books to look at her—so + many mem sahibs to whose enterprises the Chronicle gave prominence came to + see the manager-sahib, and they were so much alike. At all events they + carried a passport to indifference in the fact that they all wanted + something, and it was clear to the meanest intelligence that they appeared + to be more magnificent than they were, visions in dazzling complexions and + long kid gloves, rattling up in third-class ticca-gharries, with a wisp of + fodder clinging to their skirts. It was less interesting still when they + belonged to the other class, the shabby ladies, nearly always in black, + with husbands in the Small Cause Court, or sons before the police + magistrate, who came to get it, if possible, “kept out of the paper.” + Successful or not these always wept on their way out, and nothing could be + more depressing. The only gleam of entertainment to be got out of a lady + visitor to the manager-sahib occurred when the female form enshrined the + majestic personality of a boarding-house madam, whose asylum for + respectable young men in leading Calcutta firms had been maliciously + traduced in the local columns of the Chronicle—a lady who had never + known what a bailiff looked like in the lifetime of her first husband, or + her second either. Then at the sound of a pudgy blow upon a table, or high + abusive accents in the rapid elaborate cadences of the domiciled East + Indian tongue, Hari Babu would glance at Gobind Babu with a careful smile, + for the manager-sahib who dispensed so much galli* was now receiving the + same, and defenceless. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Abuse. +</pre> + <p> + The manager sat at his desk when Hilda went in. He did not rise—he + was one of those highly sagacious little Scotchmen that Dundee exports in + such large numbers to fill small posts in the East, and she had come on + business. He gave her a nod, however, and an affectionate smile, and + indicated with his blue pencil a chair on the other side of the table. He + had once made three hundred rupees in tea shares, and that gave him the + air of a capitalist and speculator gamely shrewd. Tapping the table with + his blue pencil he asked Miss Howe how the world was using HER. + </p> + <p> + “Let me see,” said Hilda, a trifle absent-mindedly, “were you here last + cold weather—I rather imagine you were, weren't you?” + </p> + <p> + “I was; I had the pleasure of—” + </p> + <p> + “To be sure. You got the place in December, when that poor fellow Baker + died. Baker was a country-bred I know, but he always kept his contracts, + while you got your po-lish in Glesca, and your name is Macphairson—isn't + it?” + </p> + <p> + “I was never in Glasgow in my life, and my name is Macandrew,” said the + manager, putting with some aggressiveness a paper-weight on a pile of + bills. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind,” said Hilda, again wrapped in thought, “don't apologise—it's + near enough. Well, Mr. Macandrew,”—her tone came to a point,—“what + is the Stanhope Company's advertisement worth a month to the Chronicle?” + </p> + <p> + “A hundred rupees maybe—there or thereabouts;” and Mr. Macandrew, + with a vast show of indifference, picked up a letter and began to tear at + the end of it. + </p> + <p> + “One hundred and fifty-five I think, to be precise. That communication + will wait, won't it? What is it—Kally Nath Mitter's paper and stores + bill? You won't be able to pay it any quicker if we withdraw our + advertisement.” + </p> + <p> + “Why should ye withdraw it?” + </p> + <p> + “It was given to you on the understanding that notices should appear of + every Wednesday and Saturday's performance. For two Wednesdays there has + been no notice, and last Saturday night you sent a fool.” + </p> + <p> + “So Muster Stanhope thinks o' withdrawin' his advertisement?” + </p> + <p> + “He is very much of that mind.” + </p> + <p> + The manager put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, leaned back + in his chair, and demonstrated the principle that had given him a gold + watch chain—“never be bluffed.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye can withdraw it,” he said, with a warily experimental eye upon her. + </p> + <p> + “How reasonable of you not to make a fuss! We'll have the order to + discontinue in writing, please. If you'll give me a pen and paper—thanks—and + I'll keep a copy.” + </p> + <p> + “Stanhope has wanted to transfer it to the Market Gazette for some time,” + she went on as she wrote. + </p> + <p> + “That's not a newspaper. You'll get no notices there.” + </p> + <p> + “Cheaper on that account, probably.” + </p> + <p> + “They charge like the very deevil. D'ye know the rates of them?” + </p> + <p> + “I can't say I do.” + </p> + <p> + “There's a man on our staff that doesn't like your show. We'll be able to + send him every night now.” + </p> + <p> + “When we withdraw our advertisement?” + </p> + <p> + “Just then.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said Hilda. “It will be interesting to point out in the + Indian Empire the remarkable growth of independent criticism in the + Chronicle since Mr. Stanhope no longer uses the space at his disposal. I + hope your man will be very nasty indeed. You might as well hand over the + permanent passes—the gentleman will expect, I suppose, to pay.” + </p> + <p> + “They'll be in the yeditorial department,” said Mr. Macandrew, but he did + not summon a messenger to go for them. Instead he raised his eyebrows in a + manner that expressed the necessity of making the best of it, and + humorously scratched his head. + </p> + <p> + “We have four hundred pounds of new type coming out in the Almora—she's + due on Thursday,” he said. “Entirely for the advertisements. We'll have a + fine display next week. It's grand type—none of your Calcutta-made + stuff.” + </p> + <p> + “Pays to bring it out, does it?” asked Hilda inattentively, copying her + letter. + </p> + <p> + “Pays the advertisers.” There were ingratiating qualities in the + managerial smile. Hilda inspected them coldly. + </p> + <p> + “There's your notice of withdrawal,” she said. “Good-morning.” + </p> + <p> + “Think of that new type, and how lovely Jimmy Finnigan's ad will look in + it.” + </p> + <p> + “That's all right. Good-morning.” Miss Howe approached the door, the blue + glance of Macandrew pursuant. + </p> + <p> + “No notices for two Wednesdays, eh? We'll have to see about that. I was + thinkin' of transferrin' your space to the third page; it's a more + advantageous position—and no extra charge—but ye'll not + mention it to Jimmy.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Howe lifted an arrogant chin. “Do I understand you'll do that, and + guarantee regular notices, if we leave the advertisement with you?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Macandrew looked at her expressively, and tore, with a gesture of + moderated recklessness, the notice of withdrawal in two. + </p> + <p> + “Rest easy,” he said, “I'll see about it. I'd go the len'th of attendin' + myself to-night, if ye could spare two three extra places.” + </p> + <p> + “Moderate Macandrew!” + </p> + <p> + “Moderate enough. I've got some frien's stayin' in the same place with me + from Behar—indigo people. I was thinkin' I'd give them a treat, if + three places c'd be spared next to the Chronicle seats.” + </p> + <p> + “We do Lady Whippleton to-night and the booking's been heavy. Five is too + many, Mr. Macandrew, even if you promised not to write the notice + yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “I might pay for one;” Macandrew drew red cartwheels on his blotting-pad. + </p> + <p> + “Those seats are sure to be gone. I'll send you a box. Stanhope's as bad + as he can be with dysentery—you might make a local out of that. Be + sure to mention he can't see anybody—it's absurd the way Calcutta + people want to be paid.” + </p> + <p> + “A box'll be Grand,” said Mr. Macandrew. “I'll see ye get plenty of + ancores. Can ye manage the door? Good-day, then.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda stepped out on the landing. The heavy, regular thud of the presses + came up from below. They were printing the edition that took the world's + news to planters' bungalows in the jungle of Assam and the lonely + policeman on the edge of Manipore. The smell of the newspaper of to-day + and of yesterday, and of a year ago, stood in the air; through an open + door she saw the dusty, uneven edges of files of them, piled on the floor. + Three or four messengers squatted beside the wall, with slumbrous heads + between their knees. Occasionally a shout came from the room inside, and + one of them, crying “Hazur!” with instant alacrity, stretched himself + mightily, loafed upon his feet and went in, emerging a moment later + carrying written sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions below. + The staircase took a lazy curve and went up; under it, through an open + window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and green leaves of a + pipal tree, and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his grey head in with + caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in scarlet and gold + ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet with an official + seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high ceilings, spoke + between dusty yawns of the languor and the leisure which might attend the + manipulation of the business of life, and Hilda paused for an instant to + perceive what it said. Then she walked behind her card into the next room, + where a young gentleman, reading proofs in his shirt sleeves, flung + himself upon his coat and struggled into it at her approach. He seemed to + have the blackest hair and the softest eyes and the neatest moustache + available, all set in a complexion frankly olive, amiable English cut, in + amiable Oriental colour, and the whole illumined, when once the coat was + on and the collar perfectly turned down, by the liveliest, most engaging + smile. Standing with his head slightly on one side and one hand resting on + the table, while the other saw that nothing was disarranged between collar + and top waistcoat button, he was an interjection point of invitation and + attention. + </p> + <p> + “The Editor of the Chronicle?” Hilda asked with diffident dignity, and + very well informed to the contrary. + </p> + <p> + “NOT the editor—I am sorry to say.” The confession was delightfully + vivid—in the plenitude of his candour it was plain that he didn't + care who knew that he was sorry he was not the editor. “In journalistic + parlance, the sub editor,” he added. “Will you be seated, Miss Howe?” and + with a tasteful silk pocket handkerchief he whisked the bottom of a chair + for her. + </p> + <p> + “Then you are Mr. Molyneux Sinclair,” Hilda declared. “You have been + pointed out to me on several first nights. Oh, I know very well where the + Chronicle seats are!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Sinclair bowed with infinite gratification, and tucked the silk + handkerchief back so that only a fold was visible. “We members of the + Fourth Estate are fairly well known, I'm afraid, in Calcutta,” he said. + “Personally, I could sometimes wish it were otherwise. But certainly not + in this instance.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda gave him a gay little smile. “I suppose the editor,” she said, with + a casual glance about the room, “is hammering out his leader for + to-morrow's paper. Does he write half and do you write half, or how do you + manage?” + </p> + <p> + A seriousness overspread Mr. Sinclair's countenance, which nevertheless + irradiated, as if he could not help it, with beaming eyes. “Ah, those are + the secrets of the prison-house, Miss Howe. Unfortunately it is not + etiquette for me to say in what proportion I contribute the leading + articles of the Chronicle. But I can tell you in confidence that if it + were not for the editor's prejudices—rank prejudices—it would + be a good deal larger.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, his prejudices! Why not be quite frank, Mr. Sinclair, and say that he + is just a little tiny bit jealous of his staff. All editors are, you + know.” Miss Howe shook her head in philosophical deprecation of the + peccadillo, and Mr. Sinclair cast a smiling, embarrassed glance at his + smart brown leather boot. The glance was radiant with what he couldn't + tell her as a sub-editor of honour about those cruel prejudices, but he + gave it no other medium. + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid you know the world, Miss Howe,” he said, with a noble reserve, + and that was all. + </p> + <p> + “A corner of it here and there. But you are responsible for the whole of + the dramatic criticism,”—Hilda charged him roundly,—“the + editor can't claim any of THAT.” + </p> + <p> + An inquiring brown face under an embroidered cap appeared at the door; a + brown hand thrust in a bunch of printed slips. Mr. Sinclair motioned both + away, and they vanished in silence. + </p> + <p> + “That I can't deny,” he said. “It would be useless if I wished to do so—my + style betrays me—I must plead guilty. It is not one of my legitimate + duties—if I held this position on the Times, or say the Daily + Telegraph, our London contemporaries, it would not be required of me. But + in this country everything is piled upon the sub-editor. Many a night, + Miss Howe, I send down the last slips of a theatre notice at midnight and + am here in this chair”—Mr. Sinclair brought his open palm down upon + the arm of it—“by eleven the following day!” Mr. Sinclair's chin was + thrust passionately forward, moisture dimmed the velvety brightness of + those eyes which, in more dramatic moments, he confessed to have inherited + from a Nawab great-grandfather. “But I don't complain,” he said, and drew + in his chin. It seemed to bring his argument to a climax, over which he + looked at Hilda in warm, frank expansion. + </p> + <p> + “Overworked, too, I daresay,” she said, and then went on a trifle + hurriedly. “Well, I must tell you, Mr. Sinclair, how kind your criticism + always is, and how much I personally appreciate it. None of the little + points and effects one tries to make seem to escape you, and you are + always generous in the matter of space too.” + </p> + <p> + Molyneux impartially threw out his hand. “I believe in it!” he exclaimed. + “Honour where honour is due, Miss Howe, and the Stanhope Company has given + me some very enjoyable evenings. And you'll hardly believe me, but it is a + fact, I assure you, I seldom get a free hand with those notices. Suicidal + to the interests of the paper as it is, the editor insists as often as not + on cutting down my theatre copy!” + </p> + <p> + “Cuts it down, does he? The brute!” said Miss Howe. + </p> + <p> + “I've known him sacrifice a third of it for an indigo market report. Now, + I ask you, who reads an indigo market report? Nobody. Who wants to know + how Jimmy Finnigan's—how the Stanhope Company's latest novelties + went off? Everybody. Of course, when he does that sort of thing, I make it + warm for him next morning?” + </p> + <p> + The door again opened and admitted a harassed little Babu in spectacles, + bearing a sheaf of proof slips, who advanced timidly into the middle of + the room and paused. + </p> + <p> + “In a few minutes, Babu,” said Mr. Sinclair; “I am engaged.” + </p> + <p> + “It iss the Council isspeech of the Legal Member, sir, and it iss to go at + five p.m. to his house for last correction.” + </p> + <p> + “Presently, Babu. Don't interrupt. As I was saying, Miss Howe, I make it + warm for him till he apologises. I must say he always apologises, and I + don't often ask more than that. But I was obliged to tell him the last + time that if it happened again one of us would have to go.” + </p> + <p> + “What did he say to that?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't exactly remember. But it had a tremendous effect—tremendous. + We became good friends almost immediately.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite so. We miss you when you don't come, Mr. Sinclair—last + Saturday night, for example.” + </p> + <p> + “I HAD to go to the Surprise Party. Jimmy came here with tears in his eyes + that morning. 'My show is tumbling to pieces,' he said. 'Sinclair, you've + got to come to-night.' Made me dine with him—wouldn't let me out of + his sight. We had to send a reporter to you and Llewellyn that night.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Sinclair, the notice made me weep.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. All that about the costumes. But what can you expect? The man is + as black as your hat.” + </p> + <p> + “We have to buy our own costumes,” said Hilda, with a glance at the floor, + “and we haven't any too much, you know, to do it on.” + </p> + <p> + “The toilets in Her Second Son were simply magnificent. Not to be + surpassed on the boards of the Lyceum in tasteful design or richness of + material. They were ne plus ultra!” cried Mr. Sinclair. “You will remember + I said so in my critique.” + </p> + <p> + “I remember. If I were you I wouldn't go so far another time. There's a + lot of cotton velvet and satin about it, you know, between ourselves, and + Finnigan's people will be getting the laugh on us. That's one of the + things I wanted to mention. Don't be quite so good to us. See? Otherwise—well, + you know how Calcutta talks, and what a pretty girl Beryl Stace is, for + example. Mrs. Sinclair mightn't like it, and I don't blame her.” + </p> + <p> + “As I said before, Miss Howe, you know the world,” Mr. Sinclair replied, + with infinite mellow humour, and as Miss Howe had risen he rose too, + pulling down his waistcoat. + </p> + <p> + “There was just one other thing,” Hilda said, holding out her hand. “Next + Wednesday, you know, Rosa Norton takes her benefit. Rosy's as well known + here as the Ochterlony monument; she's been coming every cold weather for + ten years, poor old Rosy. Don't you think you could do her a bit of an + interview for Wednesday's paper? She'll write up very well—get her + on variety entertainments in the Australian bush.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Molyneux Sinclair looked pained to hesitate. “Personally,” he said + confidentially, “I should like it immensely, and I daresay I could get it + past the editor. But we're so short-handed.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Howe held up a forefinger which seemed luminous with solution. “Don't + you bother,” she said, “I'll do it for you; I'll write it myself. My + 'prentice hand I'll try on Rosy, and you shall have the result ready to + print on Tuesday morning. Will that do?” + </p> + <p> + That would do supremely. Mr. Sinclair could not conceal the admiration he + felt for such a combination of talents. He did not try; he accompanied it + to the door, expanding and expanding until it seemed more than ever + obvious that he found the sub-editorial sphere unreasonably contracted. + Hilda received his final bow from the threshold of what he called his + “sanctum,” and had hardly left the landing in descent when a + square-headed, collarless, red-faced male in shirt sleeves came down, + descending, as it seemed, in bounds from parts above. “Damn it, Sinclair!” + she heard, as he shot into the apartment she had left, “here's the whole + council meeting report set up and waiting three-quarters of an hour—press + blocked; and the printer Babu says he can get nothing out of you. What the + devil.... If the dak's* missed again, by thunder!... paid to converse with + itinerant females... seven columns... infernal idiocy....” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Country post. +</pre> + <p> + Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with amusement as she + made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until his lady + visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for the editor. + </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> + I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything very + exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged themselves + between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the Reverend Stephen + Arnold, had it been aware of them; and I conclude reluctantly that it + would not. Reluctantly, because such imperviousness argues a lack of + perception, of flair in directions which any Continental centre would + recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable in a capital of such vaunted + sophistication as that which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be + shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta's sense of comedy you + must, for example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty + technical equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from + England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your + dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit. For the sex that does + not hunt jackals it is easier—you have only to be a little frivolous + and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in the + case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as the World, + the Flesh, and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the impression that + Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. The source of these things is + perennial, and the noise of laughter is ever in the air of the Indian + capital. Between the explosions, however, it is natural enough that the + affairs of a priest of College Street and an actress of no address at all + should slip unnoticed, especially as they did not advertise it. Stephen + mostly came, on afternoons when there was no rehearsal, to tea. He, + Stephen, had a perception of contrasts which answered fairly well the + purposes of a sense of humour, and nobody could question hers; it operated + obscurely to keep them in the house. + </p> + <p> + She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had been sent to her to take + the place of Duff Lindsay, who had fallen to the snare of beauty; although + she mentioned to herself that he took it with a difference, a vast + temperamental difference which she was aware of not having yet quite + sounded. The depths of his faith of course—there she could only scan + and hesitate, but this was a brink upon which she did not often find + herself, away from which, indeed, he sometimes gently guided her. The + atmospheres of their talk were the more bracing ones of this world, and it + was here that Hilda looked when she would make him a parallel for Lindsay, + and here that she found her measure of disappointment. He warmed himself + and dried his wings in the opulence of her spirit, and she was not on the + whole the poorer by any exchange they made, but she was sometimes pricked + to the reflection that the freemasonry between them was all hers, and the + things she said to him had still the flavour of adventure. She found + herself inclined—and the experience was new—to make an effort + for a reward which was problematical and had to be considered in averages, + a reward put out in a thin and hesitating hand under a sacerdotal robe, + with a curious concentrated quality, and a strange flavour of incense and + the air of cold churches. There was also the impression—was it too + fantastic?—of words carried over a medium, an invisible wire which + brought the soul of them and left the body by the way. Duff Lindsay, so + eminently responsive and calculable, came running with open arms; in his + rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a midwife to one's idea. But the + comparison was irritating, and after a time she turned from it. She awoke + once in the night, moreover, to declare to the stars that she was less + worried by the consideration of Arnold's sex than she would have thought + it possible to be—one hardly paused to consider that he was a man at + all; a reflection which would certainly not have occurred to her about + poor dear Duff. With regard to Stephen Arnold, it was only, of course, + another way of saying that she was less oppressed, in his company, by the + consideration of her own. Perhaps it is already evident that this was her + grievance with life, when the joy of it left her time to think of a + grievance, the attraction of her personal lines, the reason of the hundred + fetiches her body claimed of her and found her willing to perform, the + fact that it meant more to her, for all her theories, that she should be + looking her best when she got up in the morning than was justifiable from + any point of view except the biological. She had no heroic quarrel with + these conditions—her experience had not been upon that plane—but + she bemoaned them with sincerity as too fundamental, too all pervading; + one came upon them at every turn, grinning in their pretty chains. It was + absurd, she construed, that a world of mankind and woman kind with vastly + interesting possibilities should be so essentially subjected. So + primitive, it was, she argued in her vivid candour, and so interfering—so + horribly interfering! Personally she did not see herself one of the + fugitive half of the race; she had her defences; but the necessity of + using them was matter for complaint when existence might have been so + delightful a boon without it, full of affinities and communities in every + direction. She had not, I am convinced, any of the notions of a crusader + upon this popular subject, nor may I portray her either shocked or + revolted, only rather bored, being a creature whom it was unkind to + hamper; and she would have explained quite in these simple terms the + reason why Stephen Arnold's saving neutrality of temperament was to her a + pervasive charm of his society. + </p> + <p> + She had not yet felt at liberty to tell him that she could not classify + him, that she had never known anyone like him before; and there was in + this no doubt a vague perception that the confession showed a limitation + of experience on her part for which he might be inclined to call her to + account; since cultured young Oxonians with an altruistic bias, if they do + not exactly abound, are still often enough to be discovered if one happens + to belong to the sphere which they haunt, they and their ideals. Not that + any such consideration led her to gloss or to minimise the disabilities of + her own. She sat sometimes in gravest wonder, pinching her lips, and + watched the studiously modified interest of his glance following her into + its queer byways—her sphere's—full of spangles and limelight, + and the first-class hysteria of third-class rival artistry. There was a + fascination in bringing him out of his remoteness near to those things, a + speculation worth making as to what he might do. This remained + ungratified, for he never did anything. He only let it appear by the most + indefinite signs possible, that he saw what she saw, peering over his + paling, and she in the picturesque tangle outside found it enough. + </p> + <p> + He was there when she came back from the Chronicle office, patient under + the blue umbrellas; he had brought her a book, and they had told him she + would not be long in returning. He had gone so far as to order tea for + her, and it was waiting with him. “Make it,” she commanded; “why haven't + you had some already?” and while he bent over the battered Britannia metal + spout she sank into the nearest seat and let her hat make a frame for her + face against the back of it. She was too tired, she said, to move, and her + hands lay extended, one upon each arm of her chair, with the air of being + left there to be picked up at her convenience. Arnold, over the teapot, + agreed that walking in Calcutta was an insidious pleasure—one + gathered a lassitude—and brought her cup. She looked at him for an + instant as she took it. + </p> + <p> + “But I am not too tired to hear what you have on your mind,” she said. + “Have Kally Nath Mitter's relations prevailed over his convictions? Won't + your landlord let you have your oratory on the roof after all?” + </p> + <p> + “You get these things so out of perspective,” Stephen said, “that I don't + think I should tell you if they were so. But they're not. Kally Nath is to + be baptized to-morrow. We are certain to get our oratory.” + </p> + <p> + “I am very glad,” Hilda interrupted. “When one prays for so long a time + together it must be better to have fresh air. It will certainly be better + for Brother Colquhoun. He seems to have such a weak chest.” + </p> + <p> + “It will be better for us all.” Arnold seemed to reflect, across his + teacup, how much better it would be. Then he added, “I saw Lindsay last + night.” + </p> + <p> + “Again? And—” + </p> + <p> + “I think it is perfectly hopeless. I think he is making way.” + </p> + <p> + “Sickening! I hoped you would not speak to him again. After all—another + man—it's naturally of no use!” + </p> + <p> + “I spoke as a priest!” + </p> + <p> + “Did he swear at you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh dear no! He was rather sympathetic. And I went very far. But I could + get him to see nothing—to feel nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “How far did you go?” + </p> + <p> + “I told him that she was consecrated, that he proposed to commit + sacrilege. He seemed to think he could make it up to her.” + </p> + <p> + “If anyone else had said that to me I should have laughed—you don't + suspect the irony in it” Hilda said. “Pray who is to make it up to him?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose there is that point of view.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think so, indeed! But taking it, I despair with you. I had her + here the other day and tried to make the substance of her appear before + him. I succeeded too—he gave me the most uncomfortable looks—but + I might as well have let it alone. The great end of nature,” Hilda went + on, putting down her cup, “reasonable beings in their normal state would + never lend themselves to. So she invents these temporary insanities. And + therein is nature cruel, for they might just as well be permanent. That's + a platitude, I know,” she added, “but it's irresistibly suggested.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked with some fixedness at a point on the other side of the + room. The platitude brought him, by some process of inversion, the vision + of a drawing-room in Addison Gardens, occupied by his mother and sisters, + engaged with whatever may be Kensington's substitutes at the moment for + the spinet and the tambour frame; and he had a disturbed sense that they + might characterise such a statement differently, if, indeed, they would + consent to characterise it at all. He looked at the wall as if, being a + solid and steadfast object, it might correct the qualm—it was really + something like that—which the wide sweep of her cynicism brought + him. + </p> + <p> + “From what he told me last week I thought we shouldn't see it. He seemed + determined enough but depressed, and not hopeful. I fancied she was being + upheld—I thought she would easily pull through. Indeed, I wasn't + sure that there was any great temptation. Somebody must be helping him.” + </p> + <p> + “The devil, no doubt,” Hilda replied concisely; “and with equal certainty, + Miss Alicia Livingstone.” + </p> + <p> + Arnold gave her a look of surprise. “Surely not my cousin!” he protested. + “She can't understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I beg of you, don't speak to HER! I think she understands. I think + she's only too tortuously intelligent.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen kept an instant of nervous silence. “May I ask?—” he began, + formally. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes! It is almost an indecent thing to say of anyone so exquisitely + self-contained, but your cousin is very much in love with Mr. Lindsay + herself. It seems almost a liberty, doesn't it, to tell you such a thing + about a member of your family?” she went on, at Arnold's blush; “but you + asked me, you know. And she is making it her ecstatic agony to bring this + precious union about. I think she is taking a kindergarten method with the + girl—having her there constantly and showing her little scented, + luxurious bits of what she is so possessed to throw away. People in + Alicia's condition have no sense of immorality.” + </p> + <p> + “That makes it all the more painful,” said Arnold; but the interest in his + tone was a little remote, and his gesture, too, which was not quite a + shrug, had a relegating effect upon any complication between Alicia and + Lindsay. He sat for a moment without saying more, covering his eyes with + his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Why should you care so much?” Hilda asked gently. “You are at the very + antipodes of her sect. You can't endorse her methods—you don't trust + her results.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, all that! It's of the least consequence.” He spoke with a curious, + governed impulse coming from beneath his shaded eyes. “It's seeing another + ideal pulled down, gone under, something that held, as best it could, a + ray from the source. It's another glimpse of the strength of the tide—terrible. + It's a cruel hint that one lives above it in the heaven of one's own + hopes, by some mere blind accident. To have set one's feeble hand to the + spiritualising of the world and to feel the possibility of that—” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said Hilda, and perhaps she did. But his words oppressed her. She + got up with a movement which almost shook them off, and went to a + promiscuous looking-glass to remove her hat. She was refreshed and + vivified—she wanted to talk of the warm world. She let a decent + interval elapse, however; she waited till he took his hand from his eyes. + Even then, to make the transition easier, she said, “You ought to be + lifted up to-day, if you are going to baptize Kally Nath to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “The Brother Superior will do it. And I don't know—I don't know. The + young woman he is to marry withdraws, I believe, if he comes over to us—” + </p> + <p> + “The, young woman he is to marry! Oh my dear and reverend friend! Avec ces + gens la! I have had a most amusing afternoon,” she went on quickly. “I + have taken off my hat, now let me remove your halo.” She was safe with her + conceit; Arnold would always smile at any imputation of saintship. He held + himself a person of broad indulgences, and would point openly to his + consumption of tea-cakes. But this afternoon a miasma hung over him. Hilda + saw it, and bent herself, with her graphic recital, to dispel it, + perceived it thicken and settle down upon him, and went bravely on to the + end. Mr. Macandrew and Mr. Molyneux Sinclair lived and spoke before him. + It was comedy enough, in essence, to spread over a matinee. + </p> + <p> + “And that is the sort of thing you store up and value,” he said, when she + had finished. “These persons will add to your knowledge of life?” + </p> + <p> + “Extremely,” she replied to all of it. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose they will in their measure. But personally I could wish you had + not gone. Your work has no right to make such demands.” + </p> + <p> + “Be reasonable,” she said, flushing. “Don't talk as if personal dignity + were within the reach of everybody. It's the most expensive of privileges. + And nothing to be so very proud of—generally the product of somebody + else's humiliations, handed down. But the humiliations must have been + successful, handed down in cash. My father drove a cab and died in debt. + His name was Cassidy. I shall be dignified some day—some day! But + you see I must make it possible myself, since nobody has done it for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, I'll alter my complaint. Why should you play with your + sincerity?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't play with it,” she flashed; “I abandoned it. I am an actress.” + </p> + <p> + They often permitted themselves such candours; to all appearance their + discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain that Arnold was + not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted with the tassel + of his ceinture, and she watched his moving fingers. Presently she spoke + quietly, in a different key. + </p> + <p> + “I sometimes think,” she said, “of a child I knew, in the other years. She + had the simplest nature, the finest instincts. Her impulses, within her + small limits, were noble—she was the keenest, loyalest little + person; her admirations rather made a fool of her. When I look at the + woman she is now I think the uses of life are hard, my friend—they + are hard.” + </p> + <p> + He missed the personal note; he took what she said on its merits as an + illustration. + </p> + <p> + “And yet,” he replied, “they can be turned to admirable purpose.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder!” Hilda exclaimed brightly. She had turned down the leaf of that + mood. “But we are not cheerful—let us be cheerful. For my part I am + rejoicing as I have not rejoiced since the first of December. Look at + this!” + </p> + <p> + She opened a small black leather bag, and poured money out of it, in notes + and currency, into her lap. + </p> + <p> + “Is it a legacy?” + </p> + <p> + “It's pay,” she cried, with pleasure dimpling about her lips. “I have been + paid—we have all been paid! It's so unusual—it makes me feel + quite generous. Let me see. I'll give you this, and this, and this,”—she + counted into her open palm ten silver rupees,—“all those I will give + you for your mission. Prends!” and she clinked them together and held them + out to him. + </p> + <p> + He had risen to go, and his face looked grey and small. Something in him + had mutinied at the levity, the quick change of her mood. He could only + draw into his shell; doubtless he thought that a legitimate and + inoffensive proceeding. + </p> + <p> + “Thanks, no,” he said, “I think not. We desire people's prayers, rather + than their alms.” + </p> + <p> + He went away immediately, and she glossed over his scandalous behaviour, + and said farewell to him as she always did, in spite of the unusual look + of consciousness in her eyes. She continued to hold the ten rupees + carefully and separately, as if she would later examine them in diagnosing + her pain. It was keener and profounder than any humiliation, the new + voice, crying out, of a trampled tenderness. She stood and looked after + him for a moment with startled eyes and her hand, in a familiar gesture of + her profession, upon her heart. Then she went to her room, and + deliberately loosened her garments and lay down upon her bed, first to sob + like that little child she remembered, and afterwards to think, until the + world came and knocked at her door and bade her come out of herself and + earn money. + </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> + The compulsion which took Stephen Arnold to Crooked Lane is hardly ours to + examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand involved + certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, but of exaggerated + discomfort to the mind spiritually cloistered, whatever its other + latitude. Among them was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult enough + to make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so voyant in the + Church militant, by a mere fighting soul without such straps and buttons + as might compel recognition upon equal terms. It is impossible to know how + far Stephen envisaged the visit as a duty—the priestly horizon is + perhaps not wholly free from mirage—or to what extent he confessed + it an indulgence. He was certainly aware of a stronger desire than he + could altogether account for that Captain Filbert should not desert her + post. The idea had an element of irritation oddly personal; he could not + bear to reflect upon it. It may be wondered whether in any flight of + venial imagination Arnold saw himself in a parallel situation with a lady. + I am sure he did not. It may be considered, however, that among mirages + there are unaccountable resemblances—resemblances without shape or + form. He might fix his gaze, at all events, upon the supreme argument that + those who were given to holy work, under any condition, in any degree, + should make no rededication of themselves. This had to support him as best + it could against the conviction that had Captain Filbert been Sister + Anastasia, for example, of the Baker Institution, and Ensign Sand the + Mother Superior of its Calcutta branch, it was improbable that he would + have ventured to announce his interest in the matter by his card, or in + any other way. + </p> + <p> + It was a hesitating step, therefore, that carried him up to the quarters, + and a glance of some nervous distress that made him aware, as he stood + bowing upon her threshold, clasping with both hands his soft felt hat to + his breast, that Mrs. Sand was not displeased to see him. She hastened, + indeed, to give him a chair; she said she was very glad he'd dropped in, + if he didn't mind the room being so untidy—where there were children + you could spend the whole day picking up. They were out at present, with + Captain Sand, in the perambulator, not having more servants than they + could help. A sweeper and a cook they did with; it would surprise the + people in this country, who couldn't get along with less than twenty, she + often said. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sand's tone was casual; her manner had a quality somewhat + aggressively democratic. It said that under her welcome lay the right to + criticise, which she would have exercised with equal freedom had her + visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta himself; and it made short work + of the idea that she might be over-gratified to receive Holy Orders in any + form. She was not unwilling, however, to show, as between Ensign and man, + reasonable satisfaction; presently, in fact, she went so far as to say, + still vaguely remarking upon his appearance there, that she often thought + there ought to be more sociability between the different religious bodies; + it would be better for the cause. There was nothing narrow, she said, + about her, nor yet about Captain Sand. And then, with the distinct + intimation that that would do, that she had gone far enough, she crossed + her hands in her lap and waited. It became her to have it understood that + this visit need have no further object than an exchange of amiabilities; + but there might be another, and Mrs. Sand's folded hands seemed to + indicate that she would not necessarily meet it with opposition. + </p> + <p> + Stephen made successive statements of assent. He sat grasping his hat + between his knees, his eyes fixed upon an infant's sock which lay upon the + floor immediately in front of him, looking at Mrs. Sand as seldom and as + briefly as possible, as if his glance took rather an unfair advantage, + which he would spare her. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes,” he said. “Yes, certainly,” revolving his hat in his hands. And + when she spoke of the fraternity that might be fostered by such visits, he + looked for an instant as if he had found an opening, which seemed, + however, to converge and vanish in Mrs. Sand's folded hands. He flushed to + think afterwards, that it was she who was obliged to bring his resolution + to a head, her scent of his embarrassment sharpening her curiosity. + </p> + <p> + “And is there anything we Army officers can do for you, Mr. Arnold?” she + inquired. + </p> + <p> + There was a hint in her voice that, whatever it was, they would have done + it more willingly if she had not been obliged to ask. + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid,” he said, “my mission is not quite so simple. I could wish + it were. It is so easy to show our poor needs to one another; and I should + have confidence—” He paused, amazed at the duplicity that grinned at + him in his words. At what point more remote within the poles was he likely + to show himself with a personal request? + </p> + <p> + “I have nothing to ask for myself,” he went on, with concentration almost + harsh. “I am here to see if you will consent to speak with me about a + matter which threatens your—your community—about your possible + loss of Miss Filbert.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sand looked blank. “The Captain isn't leavin' us, as far as I know,” + she said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—is it possible that you are not aware that—that very + strong efforts are being made to induce her to do so?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sand looked about her as if she expected to find an explanation lying + somewhere near her chair. Light came to her suddenly, and brought her a + conscious smile; it only lacked force to be a giggle. She glanced at her + lap as she smiled; her air was deprecating and off-putting, as if she had + detected in what Arnold said some suggestion of a gallant nature aimed at + herself. Happily, he was not looking. + </p> + <p> + “You mean Mr. Lindsay!” she exclaimed, twisting her wedding-ring and its + coral guard. + </p> + <p> + “I hope—I beg—that you will not think me meddlesome or + impertinent. I have the matter very much at heart. It seems to lie in my + path. I must see it. Surely you perceive some way of averting the disaster + in it!” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure I don't know what you refer to.” Mrs. Sand's tone was prudish + and offended. “She hasn't said a word to me—she's a great one for + keeping things to herself—but if Mr. Lindsay don't mean marriage + with her—” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course!” Arnold, startled, turned furiously red, but Mrs. Sand in + her indignation did not reflect the tint. “Of course! Is not that,” he + went on after an instant's pause, “precisely what is to be lamented—and + prevented?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sand looked at her visitor with dry suspicion. “I suppose you are a + friend of his,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I have known him for years. Pray don't misunderstand me. There is nothing + against him—nothing whatever.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don't suppose there is, except that he is not on the Lord's side. + But I don't expect any of his friends are anxious for him to marry an + officer in the Salvation Army. Society people ain't fond of the Army, and + never will be.” + </p> + <p> + “His people—he has only distant relatives living—are all at + home,” Stephen said vaguely. The situation had become slightly confused. + </p> + <p> + “Then you speak for them, I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed not. I am in no communication with them whatever. I fancy they + know nothing about it. I am here entirely—ENTIRELY of my own accord. + I have come to place myself at your disposition if there is anything I can + do, any word I can say, to the end of preventing this catastrophe in a + spiritual life so pure and devoted; to ask you at all events to let me + join my prayers to yours that it shall not come about.” + </p> + <p> + The squalor of the room seemed to lift before his eyes and be suffused + with light. At last he had made himself plain. But Mrs. Sand was not + transfigured. She seemed to sit, with her hands folded, in the midst of a + calculation. + </p> + <p> + “Then he HAS put the question. I told her he would,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I believe he has asked her to marry him and she has refused, more than + once. But he is importunate, and I hear she needs help.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Lindsay,” said Mrs. Sand, “is a very takin' young man.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose we must consider that. There is position too, and wealth. These + things count—we are all so human—even against the Divine + realities into possession of which Miss Filbert must have so perfectly + entered.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought he must be pretty well off. Would he be one of them Government + officials?” + </p> + <p> + “He is a broker.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, is he indeed?” Mrs. Sand's enlightenment was evidently doubtful. + “Well, if they get married Captain Filbert 'll have to resign. It's + against the regulations for her to marry outside of the Army.” + </p> + <p> + “But is she not vowed to her work; isn't her life turned for ever into + that channel? Would it not be horrible to you to see the world interfere?” + </p> + <p> + “I won't say but what I'd be sorry to see her leave us. But I wouldn't + stand in her way either, and neither would Captain Sand.” + </p> + <p> + “Stand in her way! In her way to material luxury, poverty of spirit, the + shirking of all the high alternatives, the common moral mediocrity of the + world. I would to God I could be that stumbling block! I have heard her—I + have seen the light in her that may so possibly be extinguished.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't deny she has a kind of platform gift, but she's losin' her voice. + And she doesn't understand briskin' people up, if you know what I mean.” + </p> + <p> + “She will be pulled down—she will go under!” Arnold repeated in the + depths of his spirit. He stood up, fumbling with his hat. Mrs. Sand and + her apartment, her children out of doors in the perambulator, and the + whole organisation to which she appertained had grown oppressive and + unnecessary. He was aware of a desire to put his foot again in his own + world, where things were seen, were understood. He thought there might be + solace in relating the affair to Brother Colquhoun. + </p> + <p> + “It's a case,” said Mrs. Sand judicially, “where I wouldn't think myself + called on to say one word. Such things everyone has a right to decide for + themselves. But you oughtn't to forget that a married woman”—she + looked at Arnold's celibate habit as if to hold it accountable for much—“can + have a great influence for good over him that she chooses. I am pretty + sure Captain Filbert's already got Mr. Lindsay almost persuaded. I + shouldn't be at all surprised if he joined the Army himself when she's had + a good chance at him.” + </p> + <p> + Arnold put on his hat with a groan, and began the descent of the stairs. + “Good-afternoon then,” Mrs. Sand called out to him from the top. He turned + mechanically and bared his head. “I beg your pardon,” he said. + “Good-afternoon.” + </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> + Mrs. Sand found it difficult to make up her mind upon several points + touching the visit of the Reverend Stephen Arnold. Its purport, of which + she could not deny her vague appreciation, drew a cloud across a rosy + prospect, and in this light his conduct showed unpardonable; on the other + hand it implied a compliment to the corps, it made the spiritual position + of an officer of the Army, a junior too, a matter of moment in a wider + world than might be suspected; and before this consideration Mrs. Sand + expanded. She reflected liberally that salvation was not necessarily + frustrated by the laying-on of hands; she had serene fancies of a republic + of the redeemed. She was a prey to further hesitations regarding the + expediency of mentioning the interview to Laura, and as private and + confidential it ministered for two days to her satisfactions of superior + officer. In the end, however, she had to sacrifice it to the girl's + imperturbable silence. She chose an intimate and a private hour, and shut + the door carefully upon herself and her captain, but she had not at all + decided, when she sat down on the edge of the bed, what complexion to give + to the matter, nor had she a very definite idea, when she got up again, of + what complexion she had given it. Laura, from the first word, had upset + her by an intense eagerness, a determination not to lose a syllable. + Captain Filbert insisted upon hearing all before she would acknowledge + anything; she hung upon the sentences Mrs. Sand repeated, and joined them + together as if they were parts of a puzzle; she finally had possession of + the conversation much as I have already written it down. As Mrs. Sand + afterward told her husband, Miss Filbert sat there growing whiter and + whiter, more and more worked up, and it was impossible to take any comfort + in talking to her. It seemed as if she, the Ensign, might save herself the + trouble of giving an opinion one way or the other, and not a thing could + she get the girl to say except that it was true enough that the gentleman + wanted to marry her, and she was ashamed of having let it go so far. But + she would never do it—never! She declared she would write to this + Mr. Arnold and thank him, and ask him to pray for her, “and she as much as + ordered me to go and do the same,” concluded Mrs. Sand, with an inflection + which made its own comment upon such a subversion of discipline. + </p> + <p> + Stephen, under uncomfortable compulsion, sent Laura's letter—she did + write—to Lindsay. “I cannot allow you to be in the dark about what I + am doing in the matter,” he explained; “though if I had not this necessity + for writing you might reasonably complain of an intrusive and impertinent + letter. But I must let you know that she has appealed to me, and that as + far as I can I will help her.” + </p> + <p> + Duff read both communications—Laura's to the priest was brief and + very technical—between the business quarters of Ralli Brothers and + the Delhi and London Bank, with his feet in the opposite seat of his + office-gharry and his forehead puckered by an immediate calculation + forward in rupee paper. His irritation spoiled his transaction—there + was a distinct edge in the manager's manner when they parted, and it was + perhaps a pardonable weakness that led him to dash in blue pencil across + the page covered with Arnold's minute handwriting, “Then you have done + with pasty compromises—you have gone over to the Jesuits. I + congratulate you,” and readdressed the envelope to College Street. The + brown tide of the crowd brought him an instant messenger, and he stood in + the doorway for a moment afterwards frowning upon the yellow turbans that + swung along in the sunlight against the white wall opposite, across the + narrow commercial road. The flame of his indignation set forth his + features with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether the soft + amused well-being which was nearly always there. His lips set themselves + together, and Mrs. Sand would have been encouraged in any scheme of + practical utility by the lines that came about his mouth. A brother in + finance of some astuteness, who saw him scramble into his gharry, divined + that with regard to a weighty matter in jute mill shares pending, Lindsay + had decided upon a coup, and made his arrangements accordingly. He also + went upon his way with a fresh impression of Lindsay's undeniable good + looks, as sometimes in a coin new from the mint one is struck with the + beauty of a die dulled by use and familiarity. + </p> + <p> + Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed himself to feel distress, + but when he had read it, that emotion was lightened in him by another + sentiment. + </p> + <p> + “A community admirable in many ways,” he murmured, refolding the page. + “Does he think he is insulting me?” + </p> + <p> + Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, Lindsay was inclined to + concede to Stephen's intermediary, he was compelled to recognise without + delay that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of her profession, had not + neglected to acquire a knowledge of defensive operations. She retired + effectively, the quarters in Crooked Lane became her fortified retreat, + whence she issued only under escort and upon service strictly obligatory. + Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and Lindsay felt it + an anomaly in military tactics that the same agency should bring back upon + him with a horrid recoil the letters with which he strove to assault her + position. Nor could Alicia induce any sortie to Middleton Street. Her + notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons were answered on + blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence and the palest ink, always + with the negative of a formal excuse. They loosed the burden of her + complicity from Miss Livingstone's shoulders, these notes which bore so + much the atmosphere of Crooked Lane, and at the same time they formed the + indictment against her which was, perhaps, best calculated to weigh upon + her conscience. She saw it, holding them at arm's length, in enormous + characters that ever stamped and blotted out the careful, taught-looking + writing, and the invariable “God bless you, yours truly,” at the end. They + were all there, aridly complete, the limitations of the lady to whom she + was helping Lindsay to bind himself without a gleam of possibility of + escape or a rift through which tiniest hope could creep, to emerge smiling + upon the other side. When she saw him, in fatalistic reverie, going about + ten years hence attached to the body of this petrification, she was almost + disposed to abandon the pair, to let them take their wretched chance. But + this was a climax which did not occur often; she returned, in most of her + waking moments, to devising schemes by which Laura might be delivered into + the hands she was so likely to encumber. The new French poet, the American + novelist of the year, and a work by Mr. John Morley lay upon Alicia's + table many days together for this reason. She sometimes remembered what + she expected of these volumes, what plein air sensations or what profound + plunges, and did not quite like her indifference as to whether her + expectations were fulfilled. She discovered herself intellectually jaded—there + had been tiring excursions—and took to daily rides which carried her + far out among the rice-fields, and gave her sound nights to sustain the + burden of her dreaming days. She had ideas about her situation; she + believed she lived outside of it. At all events she took a line; the new + Arab was typical, and there were other measures which she arranged + deliberately with the idea that she was making a physical fight. Life + might weigh one down with a dragging ball and chain, but one could always + measure the strength of one's pinions against these things. She made it + her sorry and remorseless task to separate from her impulses those that + she found lacking in philosophy, hinting of the foolish woman, and to turn + a cruel heel upon them. She stripped her meditations of all colour and + atmosphere; she would not accept from her grief the luxury of a rag to + wrap herself in. If this gave hers a skeleton to live with, she had what + gratification there was in observing that it was anatomically as it should + be. The result that one saw from the outside was chiefly a look of + delicate hardness, of tissue a little frayed, but showing a quality in the + process. We may hope that some unconfessed satisfaction was derivable from + her continued reception of Duff's confidences—it has long been + evident that he found her persuadable—her unflinching readiness to + consult with him; granting the analytic turn we may almost suppose it. + Starvation is so monotonous a misery that a gift of personal diagnosis + might easily lend attraction to poisoned food as an alternative, if one + may be permitted a melodramatic simile in a case which Alicia kept + conventional enough. She did not even abate the usual number of Duff's + invitations to dinner when there was certainly nothing to repay her for + regarding him across a gulf of flowers and silver, and a tide of + conversation about the season's paper-chasing, except the impoverished + complexion which people acquire who sit much in Bentinck Street, desirous + and unsatisfied. + </p> + <p> + It may very well be that she regretted her behaviour in this respect, for + it was eventually after one of these parties that Surgeon-Major + Livingstone, pressing upon his departing guest in the hall the usual + whisky and soda, found it necessary instead to give him another kind of + support, and to put him immediately and authoritatively to bed. Lindsay + was very well content to submit; he confessed to fever off and on for four + or five days past, and while the world went round the pivotal staircase, + as Dr. Livingstone gave him an elbows up, he was indistinctly convinced + that the house of a friend was better than a shelf at the club. + </p> + <p> + The next evening's meeting saw his place empty under the window of the + hall in Crooked Lane, noticeably for the first time in weeks of these + exercises. The world shrank, for Laura, to the compass of the kerosene + lamps; there was no gaze from its wider sphere against which she must key + herself to indifference. When on the second and third evening she was + equally undisturbed, it was borne in upon her that either she or Mr. + Arnold, or both, had prevailed, and she offered up thanks. On the fourth + she reflected recurrently and anxiously that it was not after all a very + glorious victory if the devil had carried off the wounded; if Lindsay, + after all the opportunities that had been his, should slip back without + profit to the level from which she had striven—they had all striven—to + lift him. Mrs. Sand, not satisfied to be buffeted by such speculations, + sent a four-anna bit to the head bearer at the club on her own account and + obtained information. + </p> + <p> + Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complication, though the + circumstances taken together did present a vulgar opportunity which Mrs. + Barberry came for hours to take advantage of. There were the usual two + nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry; Alicia could take the Arab farther afield + than ever, and she did. One can imagine her cantering fast and far with a + sense of conscious possession in spite of Mrs. Barberry and the two + nurses. There may be a certain solace in the definite and continuous + knowledge available about a person hovering on the brink of enteric under + your own roof-tree. It was as grave as that; Surgeon-Major Livingstone + could not make up his mind. Alicia knew only of this uncertainty; other + satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and Mrs. Barberry. She could + see that her brother was anxious, he was so uniformly cheerful, so brisk + and fresh and good-tempered coming from Lindsay's room in the morning, to + say at breakfast that the temperature was the same, hadn't budged a point, + must manage to get it down somehow in the next twenty-four hours, and + forthwith to envelop himself in the newspapers. Those arbitrary and + obstinate figures, which stood for apprehension to the most casual ear, + stamped themselves on most things as the day wore on, and at tea-time Mrs. + Barberry gave her other details, thinking her rather cold in the reception + of them. But she plainly preferred to be out of it, avoiding the nurses on + the stairs, refraining from so much as a glance at the boiled milk + preparations of the butler. “And you know,” said Mrs. Barberry, + recountant, “how these people have to be watched.” To Mrs. Barberry she + was really a conundrum, only to be solved on the theory of a perfectly + preposterous delicacy. There was so little that was preposterous in Miss + Livingstone's conduct as a rule that it is not quite fair to explain her + attitude either by this exaggeration or by an equally hectic scruple about + her right to take care of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously when + it has been given in the highest to somebody else. These pangs and + penalties may have visited her in their proportion, but they did not take + the importance of motives. She rather stood aside with folded hands, and + in an infinite terror of prejudicing fate, devoured her heart by way of + keeping its beating normal. Perhaps, too, she had a vision of a final + alternative to Lindsay's marriage, one can imagine her forcing herself to + look at it. + </p> + <p> + Remove herself as she chose, Alicia could not avoid passing Lindsay's + room, for her own lay beyond it. In the seven o'clock half light of a + February evening, in the middle of the week, she went along the matted + upper hall on tiptoe, and stumbled over a veiled form squatted in the + native way, near his door, profoundly asleep. “Ayah!” she exclaimed, but + the face that looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than common, + Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her hand away and made an + imperceptible movement in the direction of her skirts. She stood silent, + stricken in the dusk with astonishment, but the sense that was strongest + in her was plainly that of having made a criminal discovery. Laura + stumbled upon her feet, and the two faced each other for an instant, words + held from them equally by the authority of the sickroom door. Then Alicia + beckoned as imperiously as if the other had in fact been the servant she + took her for, and Laura followed to where, farther on, a bedroom door + stood open, which presently closed upon them both. It was a spacious room, + with pale high-hung draperies, a scent of flowers, such things as an + etching of Greuze, an ivory and ebony crucifix over the bed. Captain + Filbert remembered the crucifix afterward with a feeling almost intense, + also some silver-backed brushes on the toilet-table. Across the open + window a couple of bars of sunset glowed red and gold, and a tall palm of + the garden cut all its fronds sharply against the light. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said Alicia, when the door was shut. + </p> + <p> + Captain Filbert put out a deprecating hand. + </p> + <p> + “I intended to ask if you had any objection, miss, but you had gone out. + And the nurse was in the room; I couldn't get to her. There was nobody but + the servants about.” + </p> + <p> + “Objection to what?” + </p> + <p> + “To my being there. I came to pray for Mr. Lindsay.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you make any noise?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Filbert looked professionally touched. “It was silent prayer, of + course,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Alicia, standing with one hand upon the toilet-table, had an air of + eagerness, of successful capture. The yellow sky in the window behind her + made filmy lights round her hair, and outlined her tall figure, in the + gracefulness of which there was a curious crisped effect, like a + conventional pose taken easily, from habit. Laura Filbert thought she + looked like a princess. + </p> + <p> + “I seem to hear of nothing but petitions,” she said. “Isn't somebody + praying for you?” + </p> + <p> + The blood of any saint would have risen in false testimony at such a + suggestion. Laura blushed so violently that for an instant the space + between them seemed full of the sound of her protest. + </p> + <p> + “I hope so, miss,” she said, and looked as if for calming over Alicia's + shoulder away into the after-sunset bars along the sky. The colour sank + back out of her face, and the light from the window rested on it + ethereally. The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to seek, and their blue + seemed to deepen and dilate, as if the old splendour of the uplifted + golden gates rewarded them. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you use that odious word?” Alicia explained. “You are not my maid! + Don't do it again—don't dream of doing it again!” + </p> + <p> + “I—I don't know.” The girl was still plainly covered with confusion + at being found in the house uninvited. “I suppose I forgot. Well, + good-evening,” and she turned to the door. + </p> + <p> + “Don't go,” Alicia commanded. “Don't. You never come to see me now. Sit + down.” She dragged a chair forward and almost pushed Laura into it. “I + will sit down too—what am I thinking of?” + </p> + <p> + Laura reflected for a moment, looking at her folded hands. “I might as + well tell you,” she said, “that I have not been praying that Mr. Lindsay + should get better. Only that he should be given time to find salvation and + die in Jesus.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't—don't say those things to me. How light you are—it's + wicked!” Alicia returned with vehemence, and then as Captain Filbert + stared, half comprehending, “Don't you care?” she added curiously. + </p> + <p> + It was so casual that it was cruel. The girl's eyes grew wider still + during the instant she fixed them upon Alicia in the effort of complete + understanding. Then her lip trembled. + </p> + <p> + “How can I care?” she cried; “how can I?” and burst into weeping. She drew + her sari over her face and rocked to and fro. Her dusty bare foot + protruded from her cotton skirt. She sat huddled together, her head in its + coverings sunk between weak shaking shoulders. Alicia considered her for + an instant as a pitiable and degraded spectacle. Then she went over and + touched her. + </p> + <p> + “You are completely worn out,” she said, “and it is almost dinner-time. + The ayah will bring you a hot bath and then you will come down and have + some food quietly with me. My brother is dining out somewhere. I will go + away for a little while and then I know you will feel better. And after + dinner,” she added gently, “you may come up if you like and pray again for + Mr. Lindsay. I am sure he would—” + </p> + <p> + The faintest break in her own voice warned her, and she hurried out of the + room. + </p> + <p> + It was a foolish thing, and the Livingstones' old Karim Bux much deplored + it, but the miss-sahib had forgotten to give information that the dinner + of eight commanded a fortnight ago would not take place—hence + everything was ready in its sequence for this event, with a new fashion of + stuffing quails and the first strawberries of the season from Dinapore. + The feelings of Karim Bux in presenting these things to a woman in the + dress of a coolie are not important; but Alicia, for some reason, seemed + to find the trivial incident gratifying. + </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> + Under the Greek porch of Number Ten, Middleton Street, in the white + sunlight between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant + ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce + squatted beneath the horse's nose, and fed it perfunctorily with hay from + a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns in + pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting out + the garden where heavy scents stood in the sun, and mynas chattered on the + drive. The air was full of ease, warm, fretillante, abandoned to the + lavish energy of growing things; beyond the discoloured wall of the + compound rose the tender cloud of a leafing tamarisk against the blue. A + long time already the driver had slept immovably, and the horse, + uncomplaining but uninterested, had dragged at the wisps of hay. + </p> + <p> + Inside there was no longer a hint of Mrs. Barberry, even a dropped + handkerchief agreeably scented. The night nurse had realised herself + equally superfluous and had gone; the other, a person of practical views, + could hardly retain her indignation at being kept from day to day to see + her patient fed, and hand him books and writing materials. She had not + even the duty of debarring visitors, but sat most of the time in the + dressing-room where echoes fell about her of the stories with which + riotous young men, in tea and wheat and jute, hastened Mr. Lindsay's + convalescence. There she tapped her energetic fat foot on the floor in + vain, to express her views upon such waste of scientific training. She had + Surgeon Major Livingstone's orders; and he on this occasion had his + sister's. + </p> + <p> + There was an air of relief, of tension relaxed, between the two women in + the drawing-room; it was plain that Alicia had communicated these things + to her visitor, in their main import. Hilda was already half disengaged + from the subject, her eye wandered as if in search for the avenue to + another. By a sudden inclination Alicia began the story of Laura Filbert + on her knees at Lindsay's door. She told it in a quiet, steady, colourless + way, pursuing it to the end—it came with the ease of frequent + private rehearsals—and then with her elbows on her knees and her + chin in her palms she stopped and gazed meditatively in front of her. + There was something in the gaze to which Hilda yielded an attention + unexpectedly serious, something of the absolute in character and life + impervious to her inquiry. Yet to analysis it was only the grey look of + eyes habituated to regard the future with penetration and to find nothing + there. + </p> + <p> + “Have you told him?” Hilda asked after an instant's pause, during which + she conceded something, she hardly knew what; she meant to find out later. + </p> + <p> + “I haven't seen him. But I will tell him, I promise you.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no doubt you will! But don't promise ME. I won't even witness the + vow!” Hilda cried. + </p> + <p> + “What does it matter? I shall certainly tell him.” The words fell + definitely like pebbles. Hilda thoughtfully picked them up. + </p> + <p> + “On the whole,” she said, “perhaps it would be as well. Yes, it is my + advice. It is quite likely that he will be revolted. It may be curative.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia turned away her head to hide the faint frown that nevertheless + crept into her voice. “I don't think so,” she said. “How you do juggle + with things! I don't know why I talk to you about this—this matter. + I am sure I ought not.” + </p> + <p> + “I was going to say,” pursued Hilda, indifferent to her scruple, “that I + shouldn't be at all surprised if his illness leaves him quite emotionally + sane. The poison has worked itself out of his blood—perhaps the + passion and the poison were the same.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder!” Alicia said. She said it mechanically, as the easiest comment. + </p> + <p> + “When I knew you first your speculation would have been more active, my + dear. You would have looked into the possibility and disputed it. What has + become of your modernity?” + </p> + <p> + It was the tenderest malice, but it obtained no concessive sign. Alicia + seemed to weigh it. “I think I like theories better than illustrations,” + she said in defence. + </p> + <p> + “One can look at theories as one looks at the sky, but an illustration + wants a careful point of view. For this one perhaps you are a little + near.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” Alicia assented, “I am a little near.” She glanced quickly down + as she spoke, but when she raised her eyes they were dry and clear. + </p> + <p> + “I can see it better,” Hilda went on, with immense audacity, “much + better.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it safer to feel?” + </p> + <p> + “Jamais de la vie! The nerves lie always.” + </p> + <p> + They were on the edge of the vortex of the old dispute. Alicia leaned back + among the cushions and regarded the other with an undecided eye. + </p> + <p> + “You are not sure,” said Hilda, “that you won't ask me, at this point, to + look at the pictures in that old copy of the Persian classic—I + forget its lovely name—or inquire what sort of house we had last + night. Well, don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. Only, you know, + between us as between more doubtful people, the door must be either open + or shut. I fancy you take cold easily; perhaps you had better shut the + door.” + </p> + <p> + “Not for worlds,” Alicia said, with promptitude. Then she added, rather + cleverly, “That would be spoiling my one view of life.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda smiled. “Isn't there any life where you live?” She glanced round + her, at the tapestried elegance of the room, with sudden indifference. + “After all,” she said, “I don't know what I am doing here, in your + affairs. As the world swings no one could be more remote from them or you. + I belong to its winds and its highways—how have you brought me here, + a tramp-actress, to your drawing-room?” + </p> + <p> + Alicia laid a detaining hand upon Miss Howe's skirt. “Don't go away,” she + said. Hilda sat at the other end of the sofa; there was hardly a foot + between them. She went on with a curious excitement. + </p> + <p> + “My kind of life is so primitive, so simple; it is one pure impulse, you + don't know. One only asks the things that minister—one goes and + finds and takes them; one's feet in the straw, one's head under any roof. + What difference does it make? The only thing that counts, that rules, is + the chance of seeing something else, feeling something more, doing + something better.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia only looked at her and tightened the grasp of her fingers on the + actress's skirt. Hilda made the slightest, most involuntary movement. It + comprehended the shaking off of hindrance, the action of flight. Then she + glanced about her again with a kind of appraisement, which ended with + Alicia and embraced her. What she realised seemed to urge her, I think, in + some weak place of her sex, to go on intensely, almost fiercely. + </p> + <p> + “Everything here is aftermath. You are a gleaner, Alicia Livingstone. We + leave it all over the world for people of taste, like you, in the glow of + their illusions. I couldn't make you understand our harvest; it is of the + broad sun and the sincerity of things.” + </p> + <p> + “I know I must seem to you dreadfully out of it,” Alicia said, wearing, as + it were, across her heaviness a lighter cloud of trouble. + </p> + <p> + But the other would not be stayed; she followed by compulsion her impulse + to the end. “Shall I be quite candid?” she said. “I find the atmosphere + about you, dear, a trifle exhausted.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia with a face of astonishment made a half movement towards the window + before she understood. There was some timidity in her glance at Hilda and + in her mechanical smile. “Oh,” she said, “I see what you mean; and I don't + wonder. I am so literal—I have so little imagination.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't talk of it as if it were money or fabric—something you could + add up or measure,” Hilda cried remorselessly. “You have none!” + </p> + <p> + As if something slipped from her Alicia threw out locked hands. “At least + I had enough to know you when you came!” she cried. “I felt you, too, and + it's not my fault if there isn't enough of me to—to respond + properly. And I can't give you up. You seem to be the one valuable thing + that I can have—the only permanent fact that is left.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda had a rebound of immense discomfort. “Who said anything about giving + up?” she interrupted. + </p> + <p> + “Why, you did! But I'm quite willing to believe you didn't mean it, if you + say so.” She turned the appeal of her face and saw a sudden pitiful + consideration in Hilda's, and as if it called them forth two tears sprang + to her eyes and fell, as she lowered her delicate head upon her lap. + </p> + <p> + “Dear thing! I didn't indeed. If I meant anything it was that I'm + overstrung. I've been horribly harried lately.” She possessed herself of + one of Alicia's hands and stroked it. Alicia kept her head bent for a + moment and then let it fall, in sudden abandonment, upon the other woman's + shoulder. Her defences crumbled so utterly that Hilda felt guilty of using + absurdly heavy artillery. They sat together for a moment or two in silence + with only that supervening sense of successful aggression between them, + and the humiliation was Hilda's. Presently it grew heavy, embarrassing. + Alicia got up and began a slow, restless pacing up and down before the + alcove they sat in. Hilda watched her—it was a rhythmic progress—and + when she came near with a sound of brushing silk and a faint fragrance + which seemed a personal emanation, drew a long breath as if she were an + essence to be inhaled, and so, in a manner obtained, assimilated. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes,” Miss Livingstone said, rehabilitating herself with a smile, “I + must keep you. I'll do anything you like to make myself more—worth + while. I'll read for the pure idea. I think I'll take up modelling. + There's rather a good man here just now.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Hilda assented. “Read for the pure idea—take up modelling. It + is most expedient, especially if you marry. Women who like those things + sometimes have geniuses for sons. But for me, so far as I count—oh, + my dear, do nothing more. You are already an achieved effect—a + consummation of the exquisite in every way. Generations have been chosen + among for you; your person holds the inheritance of all that is gracious + and tender and discriminating in a hundred years. You are as rare as I am, + and if there is anything you would take from me, I would make more than + one exchange for the mere niceness of your fibre—the feeling you + have for fine shades of morality and taste—all that makes you a + lady, my dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Such niminy piminy things,” said Alicia, contradicting the light of + satisfaction in her eyes. The sound of a step came from the room overhead, + and the light died out. “And what good do they do me?” she cried in soft + misery. “What good do they do me!” + </p> + <p> + “Considerably less than they ought. Why aren't you up there now? What + simple, honester opportunity do you want than a sick-room in your own + house?” + </p> + <p> + Alicia, with a frightened glance at the ceiling, flew to her side. “Oh, + hush!” she cried. “Go on!” + </p> + <p> + “It ought to be there beside him, the charm of you. The room should be + full of cool refreshing hints of what you are. Your profile should come + between him and the twilight with a scent of violets.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds like a plot,” Alicia murmured. + </p> + <p> + “It IS a plot. Why quibble about it? If you smile at him it's a plot. If + you put a rose in your hair it's a deep-laid scheme, deeper than you + perceive—the scheme the universe is built on. We wouldn't have lent + ourselves to the arrangement, we women, if we had been consulted; we're + naturally too scrupulous, but nobody asked us. 'Without our aid He did us + make,' you know.” + </p> + <p> + “But—deliberately—to go so far! I couldn't, I couldn't, even + if I could.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda leaned back in her corner with her arms extended along the back and + the end of the sofa. Her hands drooped in their vigour, her knees were + crossed, and her skirts draped them in long simple lines. In her symmetry + and strength and the warm cloud of her hair and the soul that sat behind + the shadows of her eyes Vedder might have drawn her as a tragic symbol for + the poet who sang what he sometimes thought of wine and death and roses. + </p> + <p> + “I would go farther,” she said, and looked as if some other thing charged + with sweetness had come before her. + </p> + <p> + “And even if one gained, one would never trust one's success,” Alicia + faltered. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, if one gained one would hold,” Hilda said; and while she smiled on + her pupil in the arts of life, the tenderness grew in her eyes and came + upon her lips. Her thought turned inward absently; it embraced with sweet + irony, a picture of poverty, chastity, obedience. As if she knew her + betrayal already complete, “I wish I had such a chance,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “You wish you had such a chance!” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't mean to tell you—you have enough to do to work out your + own problem; but—” + </p> + <p> + She seemed to find a joy in hesitating, to keep back the words as a miser + might keep back gold. She let her secret escape through her eyes instead. + She was deliberately radiant and silent. Alicia looked at her as they + might have looked, across the desert, at a mirage of the Promised Land. + </p> + <p> + “Then after all he has prevailed,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Hamilton Bradley.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda laughed—the laugh was full and light and spontaneous, as if + all the training of the notes of her throat came unconsciously to make it + beautiful. + </p> + <p> + “How you will hold me to my metier,” she said. “Hamilton Bradley has given + up trying.” + </p> + <p> + “Then—” + </p> + <p> + “Then think! Be clever. Be very clever.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia dropped her head in the joined length of her hands. A turquoise on + one of them made them whiter, more transparent than usual. Presently she + drew her face up from her clinging fingers and searched the other woman + with eyes that nevertheless refused confirmation for their astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “I can think of no one—there IS no one—except—oh, it's + too absurd! Not Stephen—poor dear Stephen!” + </p> + <p> + The faintest shadow drifted across Hilda's face, as if for an instant she + contemplated a thing inscrutable. Then the light came back, dashed with a + gravity, a gentleness. + </p> + <p> + “I admit the absurdity. Stephen—poor dear Stephen. How odd it + seems,” she went on, while Alicia gazed, “the announcement of it—like + a thing born. But it is that—a thing born.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand—in the least,” Alicia exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Neither do I. I don't indeed. Sometimes I feel like a creature with its + feet in a trap. The insane, insane improbability of it!” She laughed + again. It was delicious to hear her. + </p> + <p> + “But—he is a priest!” + </p> + <p> + “Much more difficult. He is a saint.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia glanced at the floor. The record of another lighter moment twitched + itself out of a day that was forgotten. + </p> + <p> + “Are you quite certain?” she said. “You told me once that—that there + had been other times.” + </p> + <p> + “They are useful, those foolish episodes. They explain to one the + difference.” The tone of this was very even, very usual, but Alicia was + aware of a suggestion in it that accused her of aggression, that almost + ranged her hostile. She hurried out of that position. + </p> + <p> + “If it were possible,” she said, frowning at her embarrassment. “I see + nothing—nothing REALLY against it.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think not! Can't you conceive what I could do for him?” + </p> + <p> + “And what could he do for you?” Alicia asked, with a flash of curiosity. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I can let you ask me that.” + </p> + <p> + “There are such strange things to consider! Would he withdraw from the + Church? Would you retire from the stage? I don't know which seems the more + impossible!” + </p> + <p> + Hilda got up. + </p> + <p> + “It would be a criminal choice, wouldn't it?” she said. “I haven't made it + out. And he, you know, still dreams only of Bengali souls for redemption, + never of me at all.” + </p> + <p> + A servant of the house with the air of a messenger brought Alicia a scrap + of paper. She glanced at it, and then, with hands that trembled, began + folding it together. + </p> + <p> + “He has been allowed to get up and sit in a chair,” she murmured, “and he + wants me to come and talk to him.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Hilda. “Come.” + </p> + <p> + She put her arm about Alicia, and drew her out of the room to the foot of + the stairs. They went in silence, saying nothing even when they parted, + and Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. Halfway up she paused and + looked down. Hilda turned to meet her glance, and something of primitive + puissance passed, conscious, comprehended, between the eyes of the two + women. + </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> + For three days there had certainly been, with the invalid, no sign of + anything but convalescence. An appetite to cry out upon, a chartered + tendency to take small liberties, to make small demands; such indications + offered themselves to the eye that looked for other betrayals. There had + been opportunities—even the day nurse had gone, and Lindsay came to + tea in the drawing-room—but he seemed to prefer to talk about the + pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence of the khansamah, or things in + the newspapers. Alicia, once, at a suggestive point, put almost a visible + question into a silent glance, and Lindsay asked her for some more sugar. + Surgeon-Major Livingstone, coming into his office, unexpectedly one + morning, found his sister in the act of replacing a volume upon its + professional shelf. It was somebody on the pathology of Indian fevers. + Hilda's theory lacked so little to approve it—only technical + corroboration. It might also be considered that, although Laura had + expressly received the freedom of the city for intercessional or any other + purpose, she did not come again. They may have heard in Crooked Lane that + Duff was better. We may freely imagine that Mrs. Sand was informed; it + looked as if the respite to disinterested anxiety afforded by his recovery + had been taken advantage of. Lindsay was to be given time for more + dignified repentance; they might now very well hand him over, Alicia + thought, smiling, to the Archdeacon. + </p> + <p> + As a test, as something to reckon by, the revelation to Lindsay still in + prospect, of the single visit Captain Filbert did make, was perhaps + lacking in essentials. It would be an experiment of some intricacy, it + might very probably work out in shades. So much would infallibly have to + be put down for surprise and so much reasonably for displeasure, without + any prejudice to the green hope budding underneath; the key to Hilda's + theory might very well be lost in contingencies. Nevertheless, Alicia + postponed her story, from day to day and from hour to hour. If her ideas + about it—she kept them carefully in solution—could have been + precipitated, they might have appeared in a formula favourite with her + brother the Surgeon-Major, who often talked of giving nature a chance. + </p> + <p> + She told him finally on the morning of his first drive. They went together + and alone, Alicia taking her brother's place in the carriage at a demand + for him from the hospital. It was seven o'clock, and the morning wind + swept soft and warm from over the river. There was a white light on all + the stucco parapets, and their shadows slanted clear and delicately purple + to the west. The dust slept on the broad roads of the Maidan, only a + curling trace lifted itself here and there at the heel of a cart-bullock, + and nothing had risen yet of the lazy tumult of the streets that knotted + themselves in the city. From the river, curving past the statue of an + Indian administrator, came a string of country people with baskets on + their heads. The sun struck a vivid note with the red and the saffron they + wore, turned them into an ornamentation, in the profuse Oriental taste, of + the empty expanse. There was the completest freedom in the wide + tree-dotted spaces round which the city gathered her shops and her + palaces, the fullest invitation to disburden any heaviness that might + oppress, to give the wings of words to any joy that might rebel in prison. + The advantage of the intimacy of the landau for purposes of observation + was so obvious that one imagines Alicia must have been aware of it, though + as a matter of fact when she finally told Lindsay she did not look at him + at all, but beyond the trees of the Eden Gardens, where the yellow dome of + the post-office swelled against the morning sky; and so lost it. + </p> + <p> + He heard without exclamation, but stopped her now and then with a + question. On what day precisely? And how long? And afterwards? The yellow + dome was her anchor; she turned her head a little, as the road trended the + other way, to keep her eyes upon it. There was an endless going round of + wheels, and trees passed them in mechanical succession; a tree, and + another tree; some of them had flowers on them. When he broke the silence + afterwards she started as if in apprehension, but it was only to say + something that anybody might have said, about the self-sacrificing energy + of the organisation to which Miss Filbert belonged. Her assent was little + and meagre; nothing would help her to expand it. The Salvation Army rose + before her as a mammoth skeleton, without a suggestive bone. + </p> + <p> + Presently he said in a different way, as if he uttered an unguarded + thought, “I had so little to make me think she cared.” There was in it + that phantom of speculation and concern which a sick man finds under + pressure, and it penetrated Alicia that he abandoned himself to his + invalid's privileges as if he valued them. He lay extended beside her + among his cushions and wraps; she tried to look at him, and got as far as + the hand nearest her, ungloved and sinewy, on the plaid of the rug. + </p> + <p> + “She told me it was not for your life she had been praying—only that + if you died you might be saved first.” Her eyes were still on his hand, + and she saw the fingers close into the palm as if by an impulse. Then they + relaxed again, and he said, “Oh, well,” and smiled at the balancings of a + crow drinking at a city conduit. + </p> + <p> + That was all. Alicia made an effort, odd and impossible enough, to + postpone her impressions, even her emotions. In the meantime it was + something to have got it over, and she was able at a bound to talk about + the commonplaces of the roadside. In her escape from this oppression, she + too gathered a freshness, a convalescent pleasure in what they saw; + everything had in some way the likeness of the leafing teak-trees, tender + and curative. In the broad early light that lay over the tanks there was a + vague allurement, almost a presage, and the wide spaces of the Maidan made + room for hope. She asked Lindsay presently if he would mind driving to the + market; she wanted some flowers for that night. I think she wanted some + flowers for that hour. Her thought broke so easily into the symbol of a + rose. + </p> + <p> + They turned into Chowringhee, where the hibiscus bushes showed pink and + crimson over the stucco walls, and at the gates of the pillared houses + servants with brown and shining backs sat on their haunches in the sun and + were shaved. Where the street ran into shops there was still a shuttered + blankness, but here and there a doorkeeper yawned and stretched himself + before an open door, and a sweeper made a cloud of dust beneath a + commercial verandah. The first hoarding in a side street announced the + appearance of Miss Hilda Howe for one night only as Lady Macbeth, under + the kind patronage of His Excellency the Viceroy; with Jimmy Finnigan in + the close proximity of professional jealousy, advertising five complete + novelties for the same evening. It made a cheerful note which appealed to + them both; it was a pictorial combination, Hilda and Jimmy Finnigan and + the Viceroy, there was something of gay burlesque in the metropolitan + posters against the crumbling plaster of the outer mosque wall where + Mussulmans left their shoes. Talking of Hilda they smiled; it was a way + her friends had, a testimony to the difference of her. In Alicia's smile + there was a satisfaction rather subtle and in a manner superior; she knew + of things. + </p> + <p> + The life of the market, the bazar, was all awake and moving. They rolled + up through a crowd of inferior vehicles, empty for the moment and + abandoned, where the leisurely crowd with calculation under its turbans, + swayed about the market-house, and the pots of a palm-dealer ran out of + bounds and made a little grove before the stall of the man who sold pith + helmets. The warm air held the smell of all sorts of commodities; there + was a great hum of small transactions, clink of small profits. “It makes + one feel immensely practical and acquisitive,” Duff said, looking at the + loaded baskets on the coolies' heads; and he insisted on getting out. “I + am dying to buy an enormous number of desirable things very cheap. But not + combs or shirt-buttons, thank you, nor any ribbons or lace—is that + good lace, Miss Livingstone? Nor even a live duck—really I am + difficult. We might inquire the price of the duck though.” + </p> + <p> + The sense of being contributive to his holiday satisfaction reigned in + her. She abandoned herself to it with a little smile that played steadily + about her lips, as if it would tell him without her sanction, how + continually she rejoiced in his regained well-being. They made their way + slowly toward the flower-corner; there were so many things he wanted to + stop before as they went, leaning on his stick to examine them and + delighting in opportunities for making himself quite ridiculous. The + country tobacco-dealer laughed too, squatting behind his basket—it + was a mad sahib, but not madder than the rest; and there was no hurry. + Alicia saw the pink glow of the roses beyond, where the sun struck across + them over the shoulders of the crowd, and was content to reach them by + degrees. They would be in their achieved sweetness a kind of climax to the + hour's experience, and after that she was not entirely sure that the day + would be as grey as other days. + </p> + <p> + This was the flood-time of roses, and it was exquisite in the + flower-corner with the soft wind picking up their fragrance and squares of + limpid sunlight standing on the wet flagstones. Some of the stall-keepers + had little glass cases, and in these there was room only for the Gloire de + Dijons and the La Frances and the velvety Jacks, the rest over-ran the + tables and the floor in anything that would hold them. The place rioted + with the joy and the passion of roses, for buying and selling. There were + other flowers, nasturtiums, cornbottles, mignonette, but they had a + diminished insignificant look in their tied-up bunches beside the triumph + of the roses. Farther on, beyond the cage of the money-changer, the + country people were hoarse with crying their vegetables, in two green + rows, and beyond that where the jostling crowd divided, shone a glimpse of + oranges and pomegranates. In this part there were many comers and goers, + lean Mussulman table-servants, and fat Eurasian ladies who kept + boarding-houses, Armenian women with embroidered shawls drawn over their + heads, sailors of the port. They came to pass that way, through the + sweetness of it, and this made a coign of vantage for the men with trays + who were very persecuting there. Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside + the roses, her hands were deep in them, he perceived with pleasure that + their glow was reflected in her face. “No,” she exclaimed with dainty + aplomb to the man who sat cross-legged in muslin draperies on the table. + “These are certainly of yesterday. There is no scent left in them—and + look!” she held up the bunch and shook it, a shower of pink petals and + drops of water fell upon the round of her arm above the wrist where the + laces of her sleeve slipped back. Lindsay had something like a poetic + appreciation of her, observing her put the bunch down tenderly as if she + would not, if she could help it, find fault with any rose. The dealer drew + out another, and handed it to her; a long-stemmed, wide-open, perfect + thing, and it was then that her glance of delight, wandering, fell upon + Laura Filbert. Lindsay looked instantly, curiously in the same direction, + and Alicia was aware that he also saw. There ensued a terse moment with a + burden of silence and the strangest misgivings, in which he may have + imagined that he had his part alone but which was the heavier for her + because of him. These two had seen the girl before only under + circumstances that suggested protection, that made excuse, on a platform + receiving the respect of attention, marching with her fellows under common + conventions, common orders. Here, alone, slipping in and out among the + crowd, she looked abandoned, the sight of her in her bare white feet and + the travesty of her dress was a wound. Her humility screamed its + violation, its debasement of her race; she woke the impulse to screen her + and hurry her away as if she were a woman walking in her sleep. She had on + her arm a sheaf of the War Cry. This was another indignity; she offered + them right and left, no one had a pice for her except one man, a sailor, + who refused the paper. When he rejoined his companions there was a hoarse + laugh, and the others turned their heads to look after her. + </p> + <p> + The flower-dealer eyed his customers with contemptuous speculation, seeing + what had claimed their eyes. There was nothing new, the “mem” passed every + day at this hour. She did no harm and no good. He, too, looked at her as + she came closer, offering her paper to Alladiah Khan, a man impatient in + his religion, who refused it, mumbling in his beard. With a gesture of + appeal she pressed it on him, saying something. Then Alladiah's green + turban shook, his beard, dyed red in Mecca, waggled; he raised his arm, + and Laura in white astonishment darted from under it. They seldom did + that. + </p> + <p> + Alicia caught at the stall table and clung to it, as Lindsay made his + stride forward. She saw him twist his hand in the beard of Mecca and fling + the man into the road; she was aware of a vague thankfulness that it ended + there, as if she expected bloodshed. More plainly she saw the manner of + Duff's coming back to the girl and the way in which, with a look of + half-frightened satisfaction, Laura gave herself up to him. He was + hurrying her away without a word. Her surrender was as absolute and final + as if she had been one of those desirable things he said he wanted to buy. + Alicia intercepted, as it were, the indignity of being forgotten, stepping + up to them. “Take her home in the carriage,” she said to Duff, “and send + it back for me. I shall be here a long time still—quite a long + time.” She stared at Captain Filbert as she spoke, but made no answer to + the “Good-morning! God bless you!” with which the girl perfunctorily + addressed her. When they left her she looked down at the long-stemmed + rose, the perfect one, and drove a thorn of it deep into her palm, as + other creatures will sometimes hurt themselves more to suffer less. It was + not in the least fantastic of her, for she was not aware that she still + held it, but that was the only rose she brought away. + </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> + Hilda left the road, with a trace of its red dust on the hem of her skirt, + and struck out into the Maidan. It spread before her, green where the + slanting sun searched through the short blades, brown and yellow in the + distance, where the light lay on the top of the withered grass. It was + like a great English park, with something of the village common, only the + trees, for the most part, made avenues over it, running an arbitrary + half-mile this way or that, with here and there a group dotted about in + the open; and the brimming tank-pots were of India, and of nowhere else in + the world. The sun was dipping behind the masts that showed where the + straight border of the river ran, and the shadows of the pipals and the + banyans were richly purple over the roads. The light struck on the + stuccoed upper verandahs of the houses in Chowringhee which made behind + their gardens the other border, and seemed to push them back, to underline + their scattered insignificance, hinting that the Maidan at its pleasure + might surge over them altogether. Calcutta, the teeming capital, lived in + the streets and gullies behind that chaste frontage, and quarrelled over + drainage schemes; but out here cattle grazed in quiet companies, and + squirrels played on the boles of the trees. Calcutta the capital indeed + was superimposed; one felt that always at this time, when the glow came + and stood in the air among the tamarinds, and there was nothing anywhere + but luminous space and indolent stillness, and the wrangling and winging + of crows. What persisted then under the span of the sky, was the old India + of rich tradition, and a bullock beneath the yoke, jogging through the + evening to his own place where the blue haze hid the little huts on the + rim of the city, the real India, and the rest was fiction and fabrication. + </p> + <p> + The grass was crisp and pleasant. Hilda deliberately sought its solace for + her feet, letting their pressure linger. All day long the sun had been + drawing the fragrance and the life out of it, and now the air had a sweet, + warm, and grateful scent, like that of harvests. The crickets had been at + it since five o'clock, and though the city rose not half a mile across the + grass, it was the crickets she heard and listened to. In making private + statements of things, the crickets offered a chorus of agreement, and they + never interrupted. Not that she had much to consider, poor girl, which + lent itself to a difference of opinion. One might have thought her, to + meet a situation at any point like her own, not badly equipped. She had + all the argument—which is like saying all the arms—and the + most accurate understanding; but the only practical outcome of these + things had been an intimate lesson in the small value of the intelligence, + that flavoured her state with cynicism and made it more piquant. She did + not altogether scorn her own intelligence as the result, because it had + always admitted the existence of dominating facts that belonged to life + and not to reason; it was only the absurd unexpectedness of coming across + one herself. One might think round such a fact and talk round it—there + were less exquisite satisfactions—but it was not to be cowed or + abated, and in the end the things one said were only words. + </p> + <p> + Out there in the grassy spaces she let her thoughts flow through her veins + with her blood, warm and free. The primitive things she saw helped her to + a fulness of life; the south wind brought her profound sweet presciences. + A coolie-woman, carrying a basket on her head, stopped and looked at her + with full glistening eyes; they smiled at each other, and passed on. She + found herself upon a narrow path, worn smooth by other barefooted + coolie-folk; it made in its devious way toward the rich mists where the + sun had gone down; and Hilda followed, breasting the glow and the colour + and the wide, flat expanse, as if in the India of it there breathed + something exquisitely sensuous and satisfying. It struck sharp on her + senses; she almost consciously thanked Heaven for such a responsive set of + nerves. Always and everywhere she was intensely conscious of what she saw + and of how she saw it; and it was characteristic of her that she found in + that saffron February evening, spreading to a purple rim, with wandering + points of colour in a soldier's coat or a coachman's turban, an atmosphere + and a mise en scene for her own complication. She could take a tenderly + artistic view of that, more soothing a good deal than any result that came + of examining it in other lights. And she did, aware, with smiling eyes, of + how full of colour, how dramatic it was. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, she had hardly closed with it; any material outcome seemed a + great way off, pursuable by conjecture when there was time for that. For + the present, there on the Maidan with the south wind, she took it with her + head thrown up, in her glad, free fashion, as something that came in the + way of life—the delightful way of life—with which it was + absurd to quarrel because of a slight inconvenience or incongruity, things + which helped, after all, to make existence fascinating. + </p> + <p> + A marigold lay in the path, an orange-coloured scrap with a broken stem, + dropped from some coolie's necklace. Hilda picked it up, and drew in the + crude, warm pungency of its smell. She closed her eyes and drifted on the + odour, forgetting her speculations, losing her feet. All India and all her + passion was in that violent, penetrating fragrance; it brought her, as she + gave her senses up to it, a kind of dual perception of being near the + core, the throbbing centre of the world's meaning. + </p> + <p> + Her awakened glance fell upon Duff Lindsay. He hastened to meet her, in + his friendly way; and she was glad of the few yards that lay between them + and gave transit to her senses from that other plane. They encountered + each other in full recognition of the happiness of the accident, and he + turned back with her as a matter of course. It was a kind of fruition of + all that light and colour and passive delight that they should meet and + take a path together; she at least was aware. Hilda asked him if he was + quite all right now, and he said “Absolutely” with a shade of emphasis. + She charged him with having been a remarkable case, and he piled up + illustrations of what he felt able to do in his convalescence. There was + something in the way he insisted upon his restoration which made her + hasten to take her privilege of intimacy. + </p> + <p> + “And I hear I may congratulate you,” she said. “You have got what you + wanted.” + </p> + <p> + “Someone has told you,” he retorted, “who is not friendly to it.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, someone who has given it the most cordial support—Alicia + Livingstone.” + </p> + <p> + He mused upon this for an instant, as if it presented Alicia for the first + time under such an aspect. + </p> + <p> + “She has been immensely kind,” he asserted. “But she wasn't at first. At + first, she was hostile, like you, only that her hostility was different, + just as she is different. She had to be converted,” he went on hopefully, + “but it was less difficult than I imagined. I think she takes a kind of + pride in conquering her prejudices, and being true to the real breadth of + her nature.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sure she would like her nature to be broad. She might very well be + content that it is charming. And what is the difference between her + hostility and mine?” + </p> + <p> + “The main difference,” Lindsay said, with a gay half round upon her, “is + that hers has sweetly vanished, while yours”—he made a dramatic + gesture—“walks between us.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. I tried to stiffen her. I appealed to the worst in her on your + behalf. But it wasn't any use. She succumbed, as you say, to her nobler + instincts.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda stabbed a great crisp fallen teak leaf with her parasol, and spent + her paradox in twirling it. + </p> + <p> + “One can so easily get an affair of one's own out of all proportion,” Duff + said. “And I should be sorry—do you really want me to talk about + this?” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be stupid. Of course.” + </p> + <p> + He took her permission with plain avidity. + </p> + <p> + “Well, it grew plain to Miss Livingstone, as it will to everybody else who + knows or cares,” he said; “I mean chiefly Laura's tremendous desirability. + Her beauty would go for something anywhere, but I don't want to insist on + that. What marks her even more is the wonderful purity and transparency of + her mind; one doesn't find it often now, women's souls are so clouded with + knowledge. I think that sort of thing appeals especially to me because my + own design isn't in the least esoteric. I'm only a man. Then she was so + ludicrously out of her element. A creature like that should be surrounded + by the softest refinement in her daily life. That was my chance. I could + offer her her place. It's not much to counterbalance what she is, but it + helps, roughly speaking, to equalise matters.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda looked at him with sudden critical interest, missing an emanation + from him. It was his enthusiasm. A cheerfulness had come upon him instead. + Also what he said had something categorical in it, something crisp and + arranged. He himself received benefit from the consideration of it, and + she was aware that if this result followed, her own “conversion” was of + very secondary importance. + </p> + <p> + “So!” she said meditatively, as they walked. + </p> + <p> + “After it happens, when it is an accomplished fact, it will be so plainly + right that nobody will think twice about it,” Duff went on in an + encouraged voice. “It's odd how one's ideas materialise. I want her + drawing-room to be white and gold, with big yellow silk cushions.” + </p> + <p> + “When is it to happen?” + </p> + <p> + “Beginning of next cold weather—in not quite a year.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! then there will be time. Time to get the white and gold furniture. It + wouldn't be my taste quite. Is it Alicia's?” + </p> + <p> + “It's our own at present, Laura's and mine. We have talked it over + together. And I don't think she would ask Miss Livingstone. In matters of + taste women are rather rivals, aren't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh Lord!” Hilda exclaimed, and bit her lip. “Where is Miss Filbert now?” + </p> + <p> + “At Number Ten, Middleton Street.” + </p> + <p> + “With the Livingstones?” + </p> + <p> + “Is it so astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been most practical in her + kindness. I have gone back, of course, to my perch at the club, and Laura + is to stay with them until she sails.” + </p> + <p> + “She sails?” + </p> + <p> + “In the Sutlej, next Wednesday. She's got three months' leave. She really + hasn't been well, and her superior officer is an accommodating old sort. + She resigns at home, and I'm sending her to some dear old friends of mine. + She hasn't any particular people of her own. She's got a notion of taking + lessons of some kind—perfectly unnecessary, but if it amuses her—during + the summer. And of course she will have to get her outfit together.” + </p> + <p> + “And in December,” said Hilda, “she comes out and marries you?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a Calcutta wedding. I meet her in Madras and we come up together.” + </p> + <p> + “Ideal,” said Hilda; “and is Calcutta much scandalised?” + </p> + <p> + “Calcutta doesn't know. If I had had my way in the beginning I fancy I + would have trumpeted it. But now I suppose it's wiser—why should one + offer her up at their dinner-tables?” + </p> + <p> + “Especially when they would make so little of her,” said Hilda absently. + </p> + <p> + The coolie track had led them into the widest part of the Maidan, where it + slopes to the south, and the huts of Bowanipore. There was nothing about + them but a spreading mellowness and the baked turf underfoot. The cloudy + yellow twilight disclosed that a man a little way off was a man, and not a + horse, but did hardly more. “I'm tired,” Hilda said suddenly, “let us sit + down,” and sank comfortably on the fragrant grass. Lindsay dropped beside + her and they sat for a moment in silence. A cricket chirped noisily a few + inches from them. Hilda put out her hand in that direction and it ceased. + Sounds wandered across from the encircling city, evening sounds, softened + in their vagrancy, and lights came out, topaz points in the level glow. + </p> + <p> + “She is making a tremendous sacrifice,” Lindsay went on; “I seem to see + its proportions more clearly now.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda glanced at him with infinite kindness. “You are an awfully good + sort, Duff,” she said; “I wish you were out of Asia.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, a magnificent sort.” The irony was contemplative, as if he examined + himself to see. + </p> + <p> + “You can make her life delightful to her. The sacrifice will not endure, + you know.” + </p> + <p> + “One can try. It will be worth doing.” He said it as if it were a maxim, + and Hilda, perceiving this, had no answer ready. As they sat without + speaking, the heart of the after-glow drew away across the river, and left + something chill and empty in the spaces about them. Things grew hard of + outline, the Maidan became an unlimited expanse of commonplace, grey and + unyielding; the lines of gas-lamps on the roads came very near. “What a + difference it makes!” Lindsay exclaimed, looking after the vanished light, + “and how suddenly it goes!” + </p> + <p> + Hilda turned concerned eyes upon him, and then looked with keen sadness + far into the changed landscape. “Ah, well, my dear,” she said, with + apparent irrelevance, “we must take hold of life with both hands.” She + made a movement to rise, and he, jumping to his feet, helped her. As if + the moment had some special significance, something to be underlined, he + kept her hand while he said, “you will always represent something in mine. + I can depend upon you—I shall know that you are there.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said sincerely. “Yes indeed,” and it seemed to her that he + looked thin and intense as he stood beside her—unless it was only + another effect of atmosphere. “After all,” she said, as they turned to + walk back again across the withered grass, “your fever has taken a good + deal out of you.” + </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> + Finally the days of Laura Filbert's sojourn under the Livingstones' roof + followed each other into the past that is not much pondered. Alicia at one + time valued the impression that life in Calcutta disappeared entirely into + this kind of history, that one's memory there was a rubbish heap of which + one naturally did not trouble to stir up the dust. It gave a soothing + wistfulness to discontent to think this, which a discerning glance might + often have seen about her lips and eyebrows as she lay back among her + carriage cushions under the flattery of the south wind in the course of + her evening drive. She had ceased latterly, however, to note particularly + that or any impression. Such things require range and atmosphere, and she + seemed to have no more command over these; her outlook was blocked by + crowding, narrowing facts. There was certainly no room for perceptions + creditable to one's intellect or one's taste. Also it may be doubted + whether Alicia would have tried the days of her hospitality to Captain + Filbert by her general standard of worthlessness. She turned away from + them more actively than from the rest, but it was because they bristled, + naturally enough, with dilemmas and distresses which she made a literal + effort to forget. As a matter of fact there were not very many days, and + they were largely filled with millinery. Even the dilemmas and distresses, + when they asserted themselves, were more or less overswept, as if for the + sake of decency, by billows of spotted muslin, with which Celine, who felt + the romance of the situation, made herself marvellously clever. Celine, + indeed, was worth in this exigency many times her wages. Alicia hastened + to “lend” her to the fullest extent, and she spent hours with Miss Filbert + contriving and arranging, a kind of conductor of her mistress's + beneficence. It became plain that Laura preferred the conductor to the + source, and they stitched together while she, with careful reserves, + watched for the casual sidelights upon modes and manners that came from + the lips of the maid. At other times she occupied herself with her Bible—she + had adopted, as will be guessed, the grateful theory of Mrs. Sand, that + she had only changed the sphere of her ministrations. She had several + times felt, seated beside Celine, how grateful she ought to be that her + spiritual paths for the future would be paths of such pleasantness, though + Celine herself seemed to stand rather far from their border, probably + because she was a Catholic. Mrs. Sand came occasionally to upbuild her, + and after that Laura had always a fresh remembrance of how much she had + done in giving so generous a friend as Duff Lindsay to the Army in + Calcutta. It was reasonable enough that there should be a falling off in + Mr. Lindsay's attendance just now in Laura's absence, but when they were + united, Mrs. Sand hoped there would be very few evening services when she, + the Ensign, would miss their bright faces. + </p> + <p> + Lindsay himself came every afternoon, and Laura made tea, and pressed upon + him, solicitously, everything there was to eat. He found her submissive + and wishful to be pleasant. She sat up straight, and said it was much + hotter than they had it this time of year up-country, but nothing at all + to complain of yet. He also discovered her to be practical; she showed him + the bills for the muslins, and explained one or two bargains. She seemed + to wish to make it clear to him that it need not be, after all, so very + expensive to take a wife. In the course of a few days one of the costumes + was completed, and when he came she had it on, appearing before him for + the first time in secular dress. The stays insisted a little cruelly on + the lines of her figure, and the tight bodice betrayed her narrow-chested. + Above its frills her throat protruded unusually, with a curve outward like + that of some wading bird's, and her arms, in their unaccustomed sleeves, + hung straight at her sides. She had put on the hat that matched; it was + the kind of pretty disorderly hat with waving flowers that demands the + shadow of short hair along the forehead, and she had not thought of that + way of making it becoming. Among these accessories the significance of her + face retreated to a point vague and distant, its lightly-pencilled lines + seemed half erased. + </p> + <p> + She made no demand for admiration on this occasion, she seemed + sufficiently satisfied with herself; but after a time when they were + sitting together on the sofa, and he still pursued the lines of her + garment with questioning eyes, she recalled him to the conventionalities + of the situation. + </p> + <p> + “You needn't be afraid of mussing it,” she said. + </p> + <p> + The ship she took her departure in sailed from its jetty in the river at + six o'clock in the morning. Preparations for her comfort had been + completed over night; indeed she slept on board, and Duff had only the + duty and the sentiment of actual parting in the morning. He found her in a + sequestered corner of the fresh swabbed quarter-deck. She wore her Army + clothes—she had come on board in one of the muslins—and she + was softly crying. From the jetty on the other side of the ship arose, + amid tramping feet and shouted orders and the creaking of the + luggage-crane, the over-ruling sound of a hymn. Ensign Sand and a company + had come apparently to pay the last rites to a fellow-officer whom they + should no more meet on earth, bearing her heavenly commission. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Farewell, faithful friend, we must now bid adieu + To those joys and pleasures we've tasted with you, + We've laboured together, united in heart, + But now we must close and soon we must part.” + </pre> + <p> + They had said good-bye to her and God bless you, all of them, but they + evidently meant to sing the ship out of port. Lindsay sat down beside the + victim of the demonstration and quietly took her hand. There was a + consciousness newly guilty in his discomfort, which he owed perhaps to a + ghost of futility that seemed to pace up and down before him, between the + ranks of the steamer-chairs. Nevertheless as she presently turned a calmed + face to him with her pale apology he had the sensation of a rebound toward + the ideal that had finally perished in the spotted muslin, and when a + little later he watched the long backward trail of smoke as the steamer + moved down the clear morning river, he reflected that it was a + satisfaction to have prevailed. + </p> + <p> + The Sutlej had gone far on her tranquil course by the evening of a dinner + in Middleton Street, at which the guests, it was understood, were to + proceed later to a party given at Government House by his Excellency the + Viceroy. Alicia, when she included Duff in her invitations, felt an + assurance that the steamer must by that time have reached Aden, and rose + almost with buoyancy to the illusion you can make if you like, with the + geographical mile. She could hardly have left him out in any case—he + could almost have demanded an explanation—since it was one of those + parties which she gave every now and then, undiscouraged, with the focus + of Hilda Howe. It had to be every now and then, because Calcutta society + was so little adapted to appreciate meeting talented actresses—there + were so many people whom Alicia had to consider as to whether they would + “mind.” Hilda marvelled at the sanguine persistence of Miss Livingstone's + efforts in this direction, the results were so fragmentary, so dislocated + and indecisive, but she also rejoiced. She took life, as may have + appeared, at a broad and generous level, it quite comprehended the salient + points of a Calcutta dinner-party; and it was seldom that she failed, + metaphorically speaking, to carry away a bone from the feast. If you found + this reprehensible she would have told you she had observed they do it in + Japan, where manners are the best in the world. + </p> + <p> + Doubtless Hilda would have dwelt longer upon such a dinner-party than I, + with no consolatory bone to gnaw in private, find myself inclined to do. + To me it is depressing and a little cruel to be compelled to betray the + inadequacy of the personal element at Alicia's banquets, especially in + connection with the conspicuous excellence of the cooking. A poverty of + cuisine would have provoked no contrast, and one irony the less would have + been offered up to the gods that season. The limitations of her resources + were, of course, arbitrary, that is plain in the fact that she asked such + a person as the Head of the Department of Education, with no better reason + than that he had laid almost the whole of Shelley under critical notes for + the benefit of Calcutta University. There was also a civilian who had + written a few years before an article in the Nineteenth Century about the + aboriginal tribes of the Central Provinces, and the lady attached to him, + who had been at one time the daughter of a Lieutenant-Governor. The + Barberrys were there because Mrs. Barberry loved meeting anybody that was + clever, admired brains beyond anything; and an A.D.C. who had to be asked + because Mrs. Barberry was; and Captain Salter Symmes, who took leading + male parts in Mr. Pinero's plays when they were produced in Simla and was + invariably considered up there to have done them better than any + professional they have at home, though he was even more successful as a + contortionist when the entertainment happened to be a burlesque. Taking + Hilda and Lindsay and Stephen Arnold as a basis, Alicia had built up her + party, with the contortionist as it were at the apex, on his head. The + Livingstones had family connection with a leading London publishing firm, + and Alicia may possibly have reflected as she surveyed her completed work, + how much better than capering captains she could have done in Chelsea, + though it cannot be admitted likely that she would harbour, at that + particular instant, so ungracious a thought. And indeed it was a + creditable party, it would almost unanimously call itself, next day, a + delightful one. Miss Howe made the most agreeable excitement, you might + almost have heard the heart-beats of the wife of the literary civilian, as + she just escaped being introduced, and so availed herself of the dinner's + opportunity for intimate observation without letting herself in a particle—most + clever. Mrs. Barberry, of course, rushed upon the spear, she always did, + and made a gushing little speech with every eye upon her in the middle of + the room, without a thought of consequences. The A.D.C. was also empresse, + one would have thought that he himself was acting, the way he bowed and + picked up Hilda's fan—a grace lingered in it from the minuet he had + danced the week before, in ruffles and patches, with the daughter of the + Commander-in-Chief. Duff got out of the way to enable the newly introduced + Head of the Department of Education to inform Miss Howe that he never went + to the theatre in Calcutta himself, it was much too badly ventilated; and + Stephen Arnold arriving late, shot like an embarrassed arrow through the + company to Alicia's side, and was still engaged there in grieved + explanation when dinner was announced. + </p> + <p> + There were pink water-lilies, and Stephen said grace—those were the + pictorial features. Half of the people had taken their seats when he + began; there was a hasty scramble, and a decorous half-checked smile. + Hilda, at the first word of the brief formula, blushed hotly; then she + stood while he spoke, with bowed head and clasped hands like a reverently + inclining statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek; she drew a kind of + isolation from the way her manner underlined the office. The civilian's + wife, with a side-glance, settled it off-hand that she was absurdly + affected; and indeed to an acuter intelligence it might have looked as if + she took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that was not offered. + </p> + <p> + That was the one instant, however, in which the civilian's wife, observing + the actress, was gratified; and it was so brief that she complained + afterwards that Miss Howe was disappointing. She certainly went out of her + way to be normal. Since it was her daily business to personate exceptional + individuals, it seemed to be her pleasure that night to be like everybody + else. She did it on opulent lines; there was a richness in her agreement + that the going was as hard as iron on the Ellenborough course, and a soft + ingenuousness in her inquiries about punkahs and the brain-fever bird that + might have aroused suspicion, but after a brief struggle to respond to the + unusualness she ought to have represented, Alicia's guests gratefully + accepted her on their own terms instead. She expanded in the light and the + glow and the circumstance; she looked with warm pleasure at the orchids + the men wore and the jewelled necks of the women. The social essence of + Alicia's little dinner-party passed into her, and she moved her head like + the civilian's wife. She felt the champagne investing her chatter and the + chatter of the Head of the Department of Education with the most + satisfying qualities, which were oddly stimulated when she glanced over + the brim of her glass at Stephen, sitting at the turn of the oval, giving + a gravely humble but perfunctory attention to Mrs. Barberry, and drinking + water. The occasion grew before her into a gorgeous flower, living, + pulsating, and in the heart of its light and colour the petals closed over + her secret, over him, the unconscious priest with the sloping shoulders, + thinking of abstinence and listening to Mrs. Barberry. + </p> + <p> + It transpired when the men came up that there was no unanimity about going + to Government House. The Livingstones craved the necessity of absence, if + anyone would supply it by staying on; it would be a boon they said, and + cited the advancement of the season. “One gets to bed so much earlier,” + Surgeon-Major Livingstone urged, at which Alicia raised her eyebrows and + everybody laughed. Lindsay elected to gratify them, with the proclaimed + purpose of seeing how long Livingstone could be kept up, and the civilian + pair agreed, apparently from a tendency to remain seated. The A.D.C. had, + of course, to go; duty called him; and he declared a sense of slighted + hospitality that anybody should remain behind. “Besides,” he cried, with + ingenuous privilege, “who's goin' to chaperone Miss Howe?” + </p> + <p> + Hilda stood in the midst. Tall, in violet velvet, she had a flush that + made her magnificent; her eyes were deep and soft. It was patent that she + was out of proportion to the other women, body and soul; there was + altogether too much of her; and it was only the men, when Captain Corby + spoke, who looked silently responsive. + </p> + <p> + “We're coming away so early,” said Mrs. Barberry, buttoning her glove. + Hilda had begun to smile, and, indeed, the situation had its humour, but + there was also behind her eyes an appreciation of another sort. “Don't,” + she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach of her prompting tone, as if + the other had mistaken her cue, but the moment hardly permitted retreat, + and Alicia turned an unflinching graceful front to the lady in the + Department of Education. “Then I think I must ask you,” she said. + </p> + <p> + The educational husband was standing so near Hilda that she got the very + dregs of the glance of consternation his little wife gave him as she + replied, a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure she would be delighted. + </p> + <p> + “Nobody suggests ME!” exclaimed Captain Corby resentfully. They were + gathered in the hall, the carriages were driving to the open door, the + Barberry's glistening brougham whisking them off, and then the battered + vehicle in Hilda's hire. It had an air of ludicrous forlornness, with its + damaged paint and its tied-up harness. Hilda, when its door closed upon + the purple vision of her, might have been a modern Cinderella in mid-stage + of backward transformation. + </p> + <p> + “I could chaperone you all!” she cried gaily back at them, as she passed + down the steps; and in the relief of the general exclamation it seemed + reasonable enough that Stephen Arnold should lean into the gharry to see + that she was quite comfortable. The unusual thing, which nobody else + heard, was that he said to her then with shamed discomfort, “It doesn't + matter—it doesn't matter,” and that Hilda, driving away, found + herself without a voice to answer the good-nights they chorussed after + her. + </p> + <p> + Arnold begged a seat in Captain Corby's dogcart, and Hilda, with her + purple train in her lap, heard the wheels following all the way. She + re-encountered the lady to whom she had been entrusted, whose name it + occurs to me was Winstick, in the cloakroom. They were late; there was + hardly anybody else but the attendants; and Mrs. Winstick smiled freely, + and said she loved the colour of Hilda's dress; also that she would give + worlds for an invisible hairpin—oh, thank you!—and that it was + simply ducky of her Excellency to have pink powder as well as white put + out. She did hope Miss Howe would enjoy the evening—they would meet + again later on; she must not forget to look at the chunam pillars in the + ballroom—perfectly lovely. So she vanished; but Hilda went with + certainty into the corridor to find Arnold pacing up and down the red + strip of carpet, with his hands clasped behind him and his head thrust + forward, waiting for her. + </p> + <p> + They dropped together into the crowd and walked among well-dressed women, + men in civilian black and men in uniform, up and down the pillared spaces + of the ballroom. People had not been asked to dance, and they seemed to + walk about chiefly for observation. There was, of course, the opportunity + of talking and of listening to the band which discoursed in a corner + behind palms, but the distraction which is the social Nemesis of + bureaucracy was in the air, visibly increasing in the neighbourhoods of + the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, and made the commonplaces people + uttered to each other disjointed and fragmentary, while it was plain that + few were aware whether music was being rendered or not. Anyone sensitive + to pervading mental currents in gatherings of this sort would have found + the relief of concentration and directness only near the buffet that ran + along one side of the room, where the natural instinct played, without + impediment, upon soup and sandwiches. + </p> + <p> + They did not look much at Hilda, even on the arm of her liveried priest. + She was a strange vessel, sailing in from beyond their ken, and her pilot + was almost as novel, yet they were incurious. Their interests were not in + any way diffused, they had one straight line and it led upward, pausing at + the personalities clerked above them, with an ultimate point in the head + of a department. The Head of the Department was the only person unaware, + when addressed, of a travelling eye in search over his shoulder of + somebody with whom it would be more advantageous to converse. Yet there + were a few people apparently not altogether indifferent to the presence of + Miss Howe. She saw them here and there, and when Arnold said, “It must + seem odd to you, but I know hardly anybody here. We attempt no social + duties,” she singled out this one and that, whom Alicia had asked to meet + her, and mentioned them to him with a warm pleasure in implying one of the + advantages of belonging to the world rather than to the cloister. Stephen + knew their names and their dignities. He received what she said with + suitably impressed eyebrow and nods of considerate assent. Hilda carried + him along, as it were, in their direction. She was full that night of a + triumphant sense of her own vitality, her success and value as a human + unit. There was that in her blood which assured her of a welcome, it had + logic in it, with the basis of her rarity, her force, her distinction + among other women. She pressed forward to human fellowship with a smile on + her lips, as a delightful matter of course, going towards the people who + were not indifferent to the fact that she was there, who could not be + entirely, since they had some sort of knowledge of her. + </p> + <p> + In no case did they ignore her, but they were so cheerfully engaged in + conversation that they were usually quite oblivious of her. She + encountered this animated absorption two or three times, then turning she + found that the absorbed ones had changed their places—were no longer + in her path. One lady put herself at a safe distance and then bowed, with + much cordiality. It was extraordinary in a group of five how many + glistening shoulders would be presented, quite without offence, to her + approach. Mrs. Winstick had hidden behind the Superintendent of Stamps and + Stationery, to whom she was explaining, between spoonfuls of strawberry + ice, her terrible situation. And from the lips of another lady whose face + she knew, she heard after she had passed, “Don't you think it's rather an + omnium gatherum?” + </p> + <p> + It was like Hilda Howe to note at that moment with serious interest, how + the little world about them had the same negative attitude for the + missionary priest beside her, presenting it with a hardly perceptible + difference. Within its limits there was plainly no room for him either. + His acquaintances—he had a few—bowed with the kind of respect + which implies distance, and in the wandering eyes of the others it was + plain that he did not exist. She saw, too, with a very delicate pleasure, + that he carried himself in his grave humility untouched and unconscious. + Expecting nothing he was unaware that he received nothing. It was odd, and + in its way charming, that she who saw and knew drew from their mutual + grievance a sense of pitiful protection for him, the unconscious one. For + herself, the tide that bore her on was too deep to let these things hurt + her, she looked down and saw the soreness and humiliation of them + pictorially, at the bottom, gliding smoothly over. They brought no + stereotype to her smile, no dissonance to what she found to say. When at + last she and Arnold sat down together her standpoint was still superior, + and she herself was so aloof from it all that she could talk about it + without bitterness, divorcing the personal pang from a social + manifestation of some dramatic value. In offering up her egotism that way + she really only made more subtle sacrifices to it, but one could hardly + expect such a consideration, just then, to give her pause. She anointed + his eyelids, she made him see, and he was relieved to find in her light + comment that she took the typical Mrs. Winstick less seriously than he had + supposed when they drove away from the Livingstones'. It could not occur + to him to correct the impression he had then by the sound of his own voice + uttering sympathy. + </p> + <p> + “But I know now what a wave feels like dashing against a cliff,” she said. + “Fancy my thinking I could impose myself! That is the wave's reflection.” + </p> + <p> + “It goes back into the sea which is its own; and there,” said the priest, + whom nature had somehow cheated by the false promise of high moralities + out of an inheritance of beauty,—“and there, I think, is depth and + change and mystery, with joy in the obedience of the tides and a full + beating upon many shores—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, my sea! I hear it calling always, even,” she said half-reflectively, + “when I am talking to you. But sometimes I think I am not a wave at all, + only a shell, to be stranded and left, always with the calling in my ears—” + She seemed to have dropped altogether into reverie, and then looked up + suddenly, laughing, because he could not understand. + </p> + <p> + “After all,” she said practically, “what has that to do with it? One + doesn't blame these people. They are stupid—that's all. They want + the obvious. The leading lady of Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope—without the + smallest diamond—who does song and dance on Saturday nights—what + can you expect! If I had a great name they would be pleased enough to see + me. It is one of the rewards of the fame.” She was silent for a moment, + and then she added, “They are very poor.” + </p> + <p> + “Those rewards! I have sometimes thought,” Arnold said, “that you were not + devoured by thirst for them.” + </p> + <p> + “When we are together, you and I,” she answered simply, “I never am.” + </p> + <p> + He took it at its face value. They had had some delightful conversations. + If her words awakened anything in him it was the remembrance of these. The + solace of her companionship presented itself to him again, and her + statement gave their mutual confidence another seal; that was all. They + sat where they were for half an hour, and something like antagonism and + displeasure towards the secretaries' wives settled upon them, from which + Hilda, interrupting a glance or two from the ladies purring past, drew + suspicion. “I am going now,” she said. “It—it isn't quite suitable + here,” and there was just enough suggestion in the point of her fan to + make him think of his frock. “It is an unpardonable truth that if we stay + any longer I shall make people talk about you.” + </p> + <p> + He turned astonished eyes upon her, eyes in which she remembered + afterwards there was absolutely nothing but a literal and pained + apprehension of what she said. “You are a good woman,” he exclaimed. “How + could such a thing be possible!” + </p> + <p> + The faintest embarrassment, the merest suggestion of distress, came into + her face and concentrated in her eyes, which she fixed upon him as if she + would bring his words to the last analysis, and answer him as she would + answer a tribunal. + </p> + <p> + “A good woman?” she repeated, “I don't know—isn't that a refinement + of virtue? No; standing on my sex I make no claim, but as PEOPLE go I am + good. Yes, I am good.” + </p> + <p> + “In my eyes you are splendid,” he replied, content, and gave her his arm. + They went together through the reception-rooms, and the appreciation of + her grew in him. If in the bright and silken distance he had not seen his + Bishop it might have glowed into a cordiality of speech with his + distinctive individual stamp on it. But he saw his Bishop, his ceinture + tightened on him, and he uttered only the trite saying about the folly of + counting on the sensibility of swine. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she laughed into her good-night to him, “but I'm not sure that it + isn't better to be the pig than the pearl.” + </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> + “Not long ago,” said Hilda, “I had a chat with him. We sat on the grass in + the middle of the Maidan, and there was nothing to interfere with my + impressions.” + </p> + <p> + “What were your impressions? No!” Alicia cried. “No! Don't tell me. It is + all so peaceful now, and simple, and straightforward. You think such + extraordinary things. He comes here quite often, to talk about her. He is + coming this afternoon. So I have impressions too—and they are just + as good.” + </p> + <p> + “All right.” Hilda crossed her knees more comfortably. “WHAT did you say + the Surgeon-Major paid for those Teheran tiles?” + </p> + <p> + “Something absurd—I've forgotten. He writes to her regularly, diary + letters, by every mail.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you tell him what to put into them?” + </p> + <p> + “Hilda, sometimes—you're positively gross.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay, my dear. You didn't come out of a cab, and you never are. I + like being gross, I feel nearer to nature then, but I don't say that as an + excuse. I like the smell of warm kitchens and the talk of bus-drivers, and + bread and herrings for my tea—all the low satisfactions appeal to + me. Beer, too, and hand-organs.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know when to believe you. He talks about her quite freely, and—and + so do I. She is really interesting in her way.” + </p> + <p> + “And in perspective.” + </p> + <p> + “Why should you be odiously smart. He and Stephen”—her glance was + tentative—“have made it up.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh?” + </p> + <p> + “He admits now that Stephen was justified, from his point of view. But of + course that is easy enough when you have come off best.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course.” + </p> + <p> + “Hilda, what do you THINK?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I think it's deplorable—you have always known what I think. + Have you seen him lately—I mean your cousin?” + </p> + <p> + “He lunched with us yesterday. He was more enthusiastic than ever about + you.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you could tell me that he hadn't mentioned my name. I don't want + his enthusiasm. The pit gives one that.” + </p> + <p> + “Hilda, tell me; what is your idea of—of what it ought to be? What + is the principal part of it? Not enthusiasm—adoration?” + </p> + <p> + “Goodness, no! Something quite different and quite simple—too simple + to explain. Besides, it is a thing that requires the completest ignorance + to discuss comfortably. Do you want me to vivisect my soul? You yourself, + can you talk about what most possesses you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” protested Alicia, “I wasn't thinking about myself,” and at the same + moment the door opened and Hilda said, “Ah! Mr. Lindsay.” + </p> + <p> + There was a hint of the unexpected in Duff's response to Miss Howe's + greeting, and a suggestion in the way he sat down that this made a + difference, and that he must find other things to say. He found them with + facility, while Hilda decided that she would finish her tea before she + went. Alicia, busy with the urn, seemed satisfied to abandon them to each + other, to take a decorative place in the conversation, interrupting it + with brief inquiries about cream and sugar. Alicia waited, it was her way; + she sank almost palpably into the tapestries until some reviving + circumstance should bring her out again, a process which was quite + compatible with her little laughs and comments. She waited, offering + repose, and unconscious even of that. You know Hilda Howe as a creature of + bold reflections. Looking at Alicia Livingstone behind the teapot, the + conviction visited her that a sex three-quarters of this fibre explained + the monastic clergy. + </p> + <p> + “It is reported that you have performed the wonderful, the impossible,” + Lindsay said; “that Llewellyn Stanhope goes home solvent.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know how he can help it now. But I have to be very firm. He's on + his knees to me to do Ibsen. I tell him I will if he'll combine with Jimmy + Finnigan and bring the Surprise Party on between the acts. The only way it + would go, in this capital.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do produce Ibsen,” Alicia exclaimed; “I've never seen one of his + plays—doesn't it sound terrible!” + </p> + <p> + “If people will elect to live upon a coral strand—oh, I should like + to, for you and Duff here, but Ibsen is the very last man to deliver to a + scratch company. He must have equal merit, or there's no meaning. You see + he makes none of the vulgar appeals. It would be a tame travesty—nobody + could redeem it alone. You must keep to the old situations, the reliable + old dodges, when you play in any part of Asia.” + </p> + <p> + “I never shall cease to regret that I didn't see you in The Offence of + Galilee?” Duff said. “Everyone who knows the least bit about it said you + were marvellous in that.” + </p> + <p> + “Marvellous,” said Alicia + </p> + <p> + Hilda gazed straight before her for an instant without speaking. The + others looked at her absent eyes. “A bazar trick or two helped me,” she + said, and glanced with vivacity at any other subject that might be hanging + on the wall, or visible out of the window. + </p> + <p> + “And are you really invincible about not putting it on again in Calcutta?” + Duff asked. + </p> + <p> + “Not in Calcutta, or anywhere. The rest hate it—nobody has a chance + but me,” Hilda said, and got up. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don't know,” Alicia began, but Miss Howe was already half-way out + of the discussion, in the direction of the door. There was often a + brusqueness in her comings and goings, but she usually left a flavour of + herself behind. One turned with facility to talk about her, this being the + easiest way of applying the stimulus that came of talking to her. It was + more conspicuous than either of these two realised that they accepted her + retreat without a word, that there was even between them a consciousness + of satisfaction that she had gone. + </p> + <p> + “This morning's mail,” said Alicia, smiling brightly at Lindsay, “brought + you a letter, I know.” It was extraordinary how detached she could be from + her vital personal concern in him. It seemed relegated to some background + of her nature while she occupied herself with the immediate play of + circumstance or was lost in her observation of him. + </p> + <p> + “How kind of you to think of it,” Lindsay said. “This was the first by + which I could possibly hear from England.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. Letters from on board ship + are always difficult to write and unsatisfactory,” Alicia said. Miss + Filbert's had been postcards, with a wide unoccupied margin at the bottom. + </p> + <p> + “The Sutlej seems to have arrived on the third; that's a day later, isn't + it, than we made out she would be?” + </p> + <p> + Alicia consulted her memory, and found she couldn't be sure. Lindsay was + vexed by a similar uncertainty, but they agreed that the date was early in + the month. + </p> + <p> + “Did they get comfortably through the Canal? I remember being tied up + there for forty-eight hours once.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have been all right. The + voyage is bound to do her good. I've asked the Simpsons to watch + particularly for any sign of malaria later, though. One can't possibly + know what she may have imported from that slum in Bentinck Street.” + </p> + <p> + “And what was it like after Gibraltar?” Alicia asked, with a barely + perceptible glance at the envelope edges showing over his breast-pocket. + </p> + <p> + “I'll look,” and he sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a + diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay drew out the single sheet it contained, and + she could see that every line was ruled and faintly pencilled. “Let me + see,” said he. “To begin at the beginning. 'We arrived home on the third,'—you + see it was the third,—'making very slow progress the last day on + account of a fog in the Channel'—ah, a fog in the Channel!—'which + was a great disappointment to some on board who were impatient to meet + their loved ones. One lady had not seen her family of five for seven + years. She said she would like to get out and swim, and you could not + wonder. She was my s—stable companion.” + </p> + <p> + “Quaint!” said Alicia. + </p> + <p> + “She has picked up the expression on board. 'So—so she told me + this.' Oh yes. 'Now that it is all over I have written the voyage down + among my mercies in spite of three days' sickness, when you could keep + nothing on—' What are those two words, Miss Livingstone? I can't + quite make them out.” + </p> + <p> + “'Your'—cambric?—stom—'stomach'—'your stomach.'” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, quite so. Thanks!—'in the Bay of Biscay.' You see it WAS rough + after Gib. 'Everybody was'—yes. 'The captain read Church of England + prayers on Sunday mornings, in which I had no objection to join, and we + had mangoes every day for a week after leaving Ceylon.'” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Filbert was so fond of mangoes,” Alicia said. + </p> + <p> + “Was she? 'The passengers got up two dances, and quite a number of + gentlemen invited me, but I declined with thanks, though I would not say + it is wrong in itself.'” Lindsay seemed to waver; her glance went near + enough to him to show her that his face had a red tinge of embarrassment. + He looked at the letter uncertainly, on the point of folding it up. + </p> + <p> + “You see she hasn't danced for so long,” Alicia put in quickly; “she would + naturally hesitate about beginning again with anybody but you. I shouldn't + wonder,” she added gently, “if she never does, with anybody else.” + </p> + <p> + “I know it's an idea some women have,” he replied. “I think it's rather—nice.” + </p> + <p> + “And her impressions of the Simpsons—and Plymouth?” + </p> + <p> + “She goes on to that.” He reconsulted the letter. “'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson + met me as expected and welcomed me very affably.' She has got hold of a + wrong impression there, I fancy; the Simpsons couldn't be 'affable.' 'They + seem very kind and pleasant for such stylish people, and their house is + lovely, with electric light in the parlour and hot and cold water + throughout. They seem very earnest people and have family prayers + regularly, but I have not yet been asked to lead. Four servants come in to + prayers. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson are deeply interested in the work of the + Army, though I think Plymouth as a whole is more taken up with the C.M.S.; + but we cannot have all things.' Dear me, yes! I remember those evangelical + teas and the disappointment that I could not speak more definitely about + the work among the Sontalis.” + </p> + <p> + “Fancy her having caught the spirit of the place already!” exclaimed + Alicia. “He went on: 'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson have a beautiful garden and + grow most of their own vegetables. We sit in it a great deal and I think + of all that has passed. I hope ever that it has been for the best and pray + for you always. Oh that your feet may be set in the right path and that we + may walk hand in hand upon the way to Zion!'” Lindsay lowered his voice + and read the last sentences rapidly, as if the propulsion of the first + part of the letter sent him through them. Then he stopped abruptly, and + Alicia looked up. + </p> + <p> + “That's all, only,” he added, with an awkward smile, “the usual formula.” + </p> + <p> + “'God bless you'?” she asked, and he nodded. + </p> + <p> + “It has a more genuine ring than most formulas,” she observed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, hasn't it? May I have another cup?” He restored the pink sheet to + its pink envelope, and both to his breast-pocket, while she poured out the + other cup, but Miss Filbert was still present with them. They went on + talking about her, and entirely in the tone of congratulation—the + suitability of the Simpsons, the suitability of Plymouth, the probability + that she would entirely recover, in its balmy atmosphere, her divine + singing voice. Plymouth certainly was in no sense a tonic, but Miss + Filbert didn't need a tonic; she was too much inclined to be strung up as + it was. What she wanted was the soothing, quieting influence of just + Plymouth's meetings and just Plymouth's teas. The charms that so sweetly + and definitely characterised her would expand there; it was a delightful + flowery environment for them, and she couldn't fail to improve in health. + Devonshire's visitors got tremendously well fed, with fish items of + especial excellence. + </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> + Nobody could have been more impressed with Hilda's influence upon Mr. + Llewellyn Stanhope's commercial probity than Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope + himself. He was a prey to all noble feelings; they ruled his life and + spoiled his bargains; and gratitude, when it had a chance, which was + certainly seldom in connection with leading ladies, dominated him + entirely. He sat in the bar of the Great Eastern Hotel with tears in his + eyes, talking about what Miss Howe had done for him, and gave unnecessary + backsheesh to coolies who brought him small bills—so long, that is, + as they were the small bills of this season. When they had reference to + the liabilities of a former and less prosperous year he waved them away + with a bitter levity which belonged to the same period. His view of his + obligations was strictly chronological, and in taking it he counted, like + the poet, only happy hours. The bad debt and the bad season went + consistently together to oblivion; the sun of to-day's remarkable receipts + could not be expected to penetrate backwards. + </p> + <p> + He had only one fault to find with Miss Howe—she had no artistic + conscience—none, and he found this with the utmost leniency, basking + in the consciousness that it made his own more conspicuous. She was + altogether in the grand style, if you understood Mr. Stanhope, but nothing + would induce her to do herself justice before Calcutta; she seemed to have + taken the measure of the place and to be as indifferent! Try to ring in + anything worth doing and she was off with the bit between her teeth, and + you simply had to put up with it. The second lead had a great deal more + ambition, and a very good little woman in her way, too, but of course not + half the talent. He was obliged to confess that Miss Howe wasn't game for + risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the night the circus opened to + a twenty-five rupee house. It WAS monstrous. She seemed to think that + nothing mattered so much as that everybody should be paid on the first of + the month. There was one other grievance, which Llewellyn mentioned only + in confidence with a lowered voice. That was Bradley. Hilda wasn't lifting + a finger to keep Bradley. Result was, Bradley was crooking his elbow a + great deal too often lately and going off every way. He, Llewellyn, had + put it to her if that was the way to treat a man the Daily Telegraph had + spoken about as it had spoken about Hamilton Bradley. Where was she—where + was he—going to find another? No, he didn't say marry Bradley; there + were difficulties, and after all that might be the very way to lose him. + But a woman had an influence, and that influence could never be more + fittingly exercised than in the cause of dramatic art based on Mr. + Stanhope's combinations. Mr. Stanhope expressed himself with a difference, + but it came to that. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps if you pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the track + of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the further fact + that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel for procrastination. + Next season was imminent in his arrangements, as Christmas numbers are + imminent to publishers at midsummer, and here she was shying at a contract + as if they had months for consideration. It wasn't either as if she + complained of anything in the terms—that would be easy enough fixed—but + she said herself that it was a bigger salary than he, Llewellyn, would + ever be able to pay unless she went round with the hat. Nor had she any + objection to the tour—a fascinating one—including the Pacific + Slope and Honolulu. It stumped him, Llewellyn, to know what she did object + to, and why she couldn't bark it out at once, seeing she must understand + perfectly well it was no use his going to Bradley without first settling + with her. + </p> + <p> + Hilda, alone in her own apartment—it was difficult to keep Llewellyn + Stanhope away from even that door in his pursuit of her signature—considered + the vagary life had become for her that was so whimsical, and the mystery + of her secret which was so solely hers. Alicia knew, of course; but that + was as if she had written it down on a sheet of perfect notepaper and + locked it up in a drawer. Alicia did not speculate about it, and the whole + soul of it was tangled now in a speculation. There had been a time filled + with the knowledge and the joy of this new depth in her like a buoyant + sea, and she had been content to float in it, imagining desirable things. + Stanhope's waiting contract made a limit to the time—a limit she + brought up against without distress or shock, but with a kind of + recognising thrill in contact at last with the necessity for action, + decision, a climax of high heart-beats. She saw with surprise that she had + lived with her passion these weeks and months half consciously expecting + that a crucial moment would dissolve it, like a person aware that he + dreams and will presently awake. She had not faced till now any exigency + of her case. But the crucial moment had leapt upon her, pointing out the + subjection of her life, and she, undefended, sought only how to accomplish + her bonds. + </p> + <p> + Certainly she saw no solution that did not seem monstrous; yet every pulse + in her demanded a solution; there was no questioning the imperious need. + She had the fullest, clearest view of the situation, and she looked at it + without flinching and without compromise. Above all she had true vision of + Stephen Arnold, glorifying nowhere, extenuating nothing. It was almost + cruel to be the victim of such circumstance, and be denied the soft uses + of illusion; but if that note of sympathy had been offered to Hilda she + would doubtless have retorted that it was precisely because she saw him + that she loved him. His figure, in its poverty and austerity, was always + with her; she made with the fabric of her nature a kind of shrine for it, + enclosing, encompassing; and her possession of him, by her knowledge, was + deep and warm and protecting. I think the very fulness of it brought her a + kind of content with which, but for Llewellyn and his contract, she would + have been willing to go on indefinitely. It made him hers in a primary and + essential way, beside which any mere acknowledgment or vow seemed chiefly + decorative, like the capital of a pillar firmly rooted. There may be an + appearance that she took a good deal for granted; if there is, I fear that + in the baldness of this history it has not been evident how much and how + variously Arnold depended on her, in how many places her colour and her + vitality patched out the monkish garment of his soul. This with her + enthusiasm and her cognisance. It may be remembered, too, that there was + in the very tenderness of her contemplation of the priest in her path an + imperious tinge born of the way men had so invariably melted there. + Certainly they had been men and not priests; but the little flickering + doubt that sometimes leaped from this source through the glow of her + imagination she quenched very easily with the reflection that such a + superficies was after all a sophistry, and that only its rudiments were + facts. She proposed, calmly and lovingly, to deal with the facts. + </p> + <p> + She told herself that she would not be greedy about the conditions under + which she should prevail; but her world had always, always shaped itself + answering her hand, and if she cast her eyes upon the ground now, and left + the future, even to-morrow, undevisaged, it was because she would not find + any concessions of her own among its features if she could help it. It was + a trick she played upon her consciousness; she would not look, but she + could see without looking. She saw that which explained itself to be best, + fittest, most reasonable; and thus she sometimes wandered with Arnold + anticipatively, on afternoons when there was no matinee, through the + perfumed orange orchards of Los Angeles, on the Pacific slope. + </p> + <p> + She would not search to-morrow; but she took toward it one of those steps + of vague intention, at the end of which we beckon to possibilities. She + wrote to Stephen and asked him to come to see her then. She had not spoken + to him since the night of the Viceroy's party, when she put her Bohemian + head out of the ticca-gharry to wish him good-night, and he walked home + alone under the stars, trying to remember a line of Horace, a chaste one, + about woman's beauty. She sent the note by post. There was no answer; but + that was as usual; there never was an answer unless something prevented + him; he always came, and ten minutes before the time. When the time + arrived she sat under the blue umbrellas devising what she would say, + creating fifty different forms of what he would say, while the hands + slipped round the clock past the moment that should have brought his step + to the door. Hilda noted it, and compared her watch. A bowl of roses stood + on a little table near a window; she got up and went to it, bending over + and rearranging the flowers. The light fell on her and on the roses; it + was a beautiful attitude, and when at a footfall she looked up expectantly + it was more beautiful. But it was only another boarder—a Mr. + Gonzalves, with a highly varnished complexion, who took off his hat + elaborately as he passed the open door. She became conscious of her use of + the roses, and abandoned them. Presently she sat down on a bentwood + rocking-chair, and swayed to and fro, aware of an ebbing of confidence. + Half an hour later she was still sitting there. Her face had changed, + something had faded in it; her gaze at the floor was profoundly + speculative, and when she glanced at the empty door it was with timidity. + Arnold had not come and did not come. + </p> + <p> + The evening passed without explanation, and next morning the post brought + no letter. It was simplest to suppose that her own had not reached him, + and Hilda wrote again. The second letter she sent by hand, with a separate + sheet of paper addressed for signature. The messenger brought back the + sheet of paper with strange initials, “J. L. for S. A.,” and there was no + reply. There remained the possibility of absence from Calcutta, of + illness. That he should have gone away was most unlikely, that he had + fallen ill was only too probable. Hilda looked from her bedroom window + across the varying expanse of parapeted flat roofs and mosque bubbles that + lay between her and College Street, and curbed the impulse in her feet + that would have resulted in the curious spectacle of Llewellyn Stanhope's + leading lady calling in person at a monastic gate to express a kind of + solicitude against which precisely it was barred. A situation after all + could be too pictorial, looked at from the point of view of the Order, a + consideration which flashed with grateful humour across her anxiety. + Alicia would have known; but both the Livingstones had gone for a short + sea change to Ceylon, with Duff Lindsay and some touring people from + Surrey. They were most anxious, Hilda remembered, that Arnold should + accompany them. Could he in the end have gone? There was, of course, the + accredited fount and source of all information, the Father Superior; but + with what propriety could Hilda Howe apply for it! Llewellyn might write + for her; but it was glaringly impossible that the situation should lay + itself so far open to Llewellyn. Looking in vain for resources she came + upon an expedient. She found a sheet of cheap notepaper, and made it a + little greasy. On it she wrote with red ink, in the cramped hand of the + hired scribe of the bazar:— + </p> + <p> + “SIR—Will you please to inform to me if Mr. Arnold has gone mofussil + or England as I have some small business with him. Yours obedient servant,—WUN + SING.” + </p> + <p> + “It can't be forgery,” she reflected, “since there isn't a Wun Sing,” and + added an artistic postscript, “Boots and shoes verry much cheap for cash.” + She made up the envelope to match, and addressed it with consistent + illiteracy to the head of the Mission. The son of the Chinese basketmaker, + who dwelt almost next door, spoke neither English nor Hindustani, but + showed an easy comprehension of her promise of backsheesh when he should + return with an answer. She had a joyful anticipation, while she waited, of + the terms in which she should tell Arnold how she passed disguised as a + Chinese shoemaker, before the receptive and courteous consciousness of his + spiritual senior; of how she penetrated, in the suggestion of a pigtail + and an unpaid bill, within the last portals that might be expected to + receive her in the form under which, for example, certain black and yellow + posters were presenting her to the public at that moment. She saw his + scruples go swiftly down before her laughter and the argument of her + tender anxiety, which she was quite prepared to learn foolish and + unnecessary. There was even an adventurous instant in which she reaped at + actual personation of the Chinaman, and she looked in rapture at the vivid + risk of the thing before she abandoned it as involving too much. She sent + no receipt form this time—that was not the practice of the bazar—and + when, hours after, her messenger returned with weariness and dejection + written upon him, in the characters of a perfunctory Chinese smile, she + could only gather from his negative head and hands that no answer had been + given him, and that her expedient had failed. + </p> + <p> + Hilda stared at her dilemma. Its properties were curiously simple. His + world and hers, with the same orbit, had no point of contact. Once + swinging round their eastern centre they had come close enough for these + two, leaning very far out, to join hands. When they loosed it seemed they + lost. + </p> + <p> + The more she gazed at it the more it looked a preposterous thing that in a + city vibrant with human communication by all the methods which make it + easy, it should be possible for one individual thus to drop suddenly and + completely from the knowledge of another—a mediaeval thing. Their + isolation as Europeans of course accounted for it; there was no medium in + the brown population that hummed in the city streets. Hilda could not even + bribe a servant without knowing how to speak to him. She ravaged the + newspapers; they never were more bare of reference to consecrated labours. + The nearest approach to one was a paragraph chronicling a social evening + given by the Wesleyans in Sudder Street, with an exhibition of the + cinematograph. In a moment of defiance and determination she sent a + telegram studiously colourless, “Unable find you wish communicate please + inform. A. Cassidy.” Arnold had never ignored the name she was born to, in + occasional scrupulous moments he addressed her by it; he would recognise + and understand. There was no reply. + </p> + <p> + The enigma pressed upon her days, she lived in the heaviness of it, + waiting. His silence adding itself up, brought her a kind of shame for the + exertions she had made. She turned with obstinacy from the further schemes + her ingenuity presented. Out of the sum of her unsuccessful efforts grew a + reproach of Arnold; every one of them increased it. His behaviour she + could forgive, arbitrarily putting against it twenty explanations, but not + the futility of what she had done. Her resentment of that undermined all + the fairness of her logic and even triumphed over the sword of her + suspense. She never quite gave up the struggle, but in effect she passed + the week that intervened pinioned in her unreason—bands that + vanished as she looked at them, only to tie her thrice in another place. + </p> + <p> + Life became a permanent interrogation point. Waiting under it, with a + perpetual upward gaze, perhaps she grew a little dizzy. The sun of March + had been increasing, and the air of one particular Saturday afternoon had + begun to melt and glow and hang in the streets with a kind of inertia, + like a curtain that had to be parted to be penetrated. Hilda came into the + house and faced the stairs with an inclination to leave her body on the + ground-floor and mount in spirit only. When she glanced in at the + drawing-room door and saw Arnold sitting under the blue umbrellas, a + little paler, a thought more serene than usual, she swept into the room as + if a tide carried her, and sank down upon a footstool close to him, as if + it had dropped her there. He had risen at her appearance, he was all + himself but rather more the priest, his face of greeting had exactly its + usual asking intelligence but to her the fact that he was normal was lost + in the fact that he was near. He held out his hand but she only sought his + face, speechless, hugging her knees. + </p> + <p> + “You are overcome by the sun,” he said. “Lie down for a moment,” and again + he offered her a hand to help her to rise. She shook her head but took his + hand, enclosing it in both of hers with a sort of happy deliberation, and + drew herself up by it, while her eyes, shining like dark surfaces of some + glorious consciousness within, never left his face. So she stood beside + him with her head bowed, still dumb. It was her supreme moment; life never + again brought her anything like it. It was not that she confessed so much + as that she asserted, she made a glowing thing plain, cried out to him, + still standing silent, the deep-lying meaning of the tangle of their + lives. She was shaken by a pure delight, as if she unclosed her hand to + show him a strange jewel in her palm, hers and his for the looking. The + intensity of her consciousness swept round him and enclosed him, she knew + this profoundly, and had no thought of the insulation he had in his robe. + The instant passed; he stood unmoved definitely enough, yet some vibration + in it reached him, for there was surprise in his involuntary backward + step. + </p> + <p> + “You must have thought me curiously rude,” he said, as if he felt about + for an explanation, “but your letters were only given to me an hour ago. + We have all been in retreat, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “In RETREAT!” Hilda exclaimed. “Ah, yes. How foolish I have been! In + retreat,” she repeated softly, flicking a trace of dust from his sleeve. + “Of course.” + </p> + <p> + “It was held in St. Paul's College,” Stephen went on, “by Father Neede. + Shall we sit down? And of course at such times no communications reach us, + no letters or papers.” + </p> + <p> + “No letters or papers,” Hilda said, looking at him softly, as it were, + through the film of the words. They sat down, he on the sofa, she on a + chair very near it. There was another placed at a more usual distance, but + she seemed incapable of taking the step or two toward it, away from him. + </p> + <p> + Stephen gave himself to the grateful sense of her proximity. He had come + to sun himself again in the warmth of her fellowship; he was stirred by + her emphasis of their separation and reunion. “And what, please,” he + asked, “have you been doing? Account to me for the time.” + </p> + <p> + “While you have been praying and fasting? Wondering what you were at, and + waiting for you to finish. Waiting,” she said, and clasped her knees with + her intent look again, swaying a little to and fro in her content, as if + that which she waited for had already come, full, and very desirable. + </p> + <p> + “Have you been reading?—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I have been reading nothing! You shall never go into retreat again,” + she went on, with a sudden change of expression. “It is well enough for + you, but I am not good at fasting. And I have an indulgence,” she added, + unaware of her soft, bright audacity, “that will cover both our cases.” + </p> + <p> + His face uttered aloud his reflection that she was extravagant. That it + was a pity, but that what was not due to her profession might be ascribed + to the simple, clear impulse of her temperament—that temperament + which he had found to be a well of rare sincerity. + </p> + <p> + “I am not to go any more into retreat?” he said, in grave interrogation; + but the hint of rebuke in his voice was not in his heart, and she knew it. + </p> + <p> + “No!” she cried. “You shall not be hidden away like that. You shall not go + alive into the tomb and leave me at the door. Because I cannot bear it.” + </p> + <p> + She leaned toward him, and her hand fell lightly on his knee. It was a + claiming touch, and there was something in the unfolded sweetness of her + face that was not ambiguous. Arnold received the intelligence. It came in + a vague grey monitory form, a cloud, a portent, a chill menace; but it + came, and he paled under it. He seemed to lean upon his hands, pressed one + on each side of him to the seat of the sofa for support, and he looked in + fixed silence at hers, upon his knee. His face seemed to wither, new lines + came upon it as the impression grew in him; and the glamour faded out of + hers as she was sharply reminded, looking at him, that he had not + traversed the waste with her, that she had kept her vigils alone. Yet it + was all said and done, and there was no repentance in her. She only + gathered herself together, and fell back, as it were, upon her magnificent + position. As she drew her hand away, he dropped his face into the cover of + his own, leaning his elbow on his knee, and there was a pulsing silence. + The instant prolonged itself. + </p> + <p> + “Are you praying?” Hilda asked, with much gentleness, almost a childlike + note; and he shook his head. There was another, instant's pause, and she + spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “Are you so grieved, then,” she said, “that this has come upon us?” + </p> + <p> + Again he held his eyes away from her, clasping his hands, and looking at + the thing nearest to him, while at last blood from the heart of the + natural man in him came up and stained his face, his forehead under the + thin ruffling of colourless hair, his neck above the white band that was + his badge of difference from other men. + </p> + <p> + “I—fear—I hardly understand,” he said. The words fell cramped + and singly, and his lip twitched. “It—it is impossible to think—” + He looked as if he dared not lift his head. + </p> + <p> + One would not say that Hilda hesitated, for there was no failing in the + wings of her high confidence, but she looked at him in a brave silence. + Her glance had tender investigation in it; she stood on the brink of her + words just long enough to ask whether they would hurt him. Seeing that + they would, she nevertheless plunged, but with infinite compassion and + consideration. She spoke like an agent of Fate, conscious and grieved. + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> understand,” she said simply. “Sometimes, you know, we are + quicker. And you in your cell, how should you find out? That is why I must + tell you, because, though I am a woman, you are a priest. Partly for that + reason I may speak, partly because I love you, Stephen Arnold, better and + more ardently than you can ever love me, or anybody, I think, except + perhaps your God. And I am tired of keeping silence.” + </p> + <p> + She was so direct, so unimpassioned, that half his distress turned to + astonishment, and he faced her as if a calm and reasoned hand had been + laid upon the confusion in him. Meeting his gaze, she unbarred a floodgate + of happy tenderness in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Love!” he gasped in it, “I have nothing to do with that.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said, “you have everything to do with it.” + </p> + <p> + Something thrilled him without asking his permission, assuring him that he + was a man—until then a placid theory with an unconscious basis. It + was therefore a blow to his saintship, or it would have been, but he + warded it off, flushed and trembling. It was as if he had been ambuscaded. + He had to hold himself from the ignominy of flight; he rose to cut his way + out, making an effort to strike with precision. + </p> + <p> + “Some perversity has seized you,” he said. The muscles about his mouth + quivered, giving him a curious aspect. “You mean nothing of what you say.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you believe that?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I cannot think anything else. It is the only way I can—I + can—make excuse.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, don't excuse me!” she murmured, with an astonishing little gay + petulance. + </p> + <p> + “You cannot have thought—” in spite of himself he made a step + towards the door. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I did think—I do think. And you must not go.” She too stood up, + and stayed him. “Let us at least see clearly.” There was a persuading note + in her voice, one would have thought that she was dealing with a patient + or a child. “Tell me,” she clasped her hands behind her back and looked at + him in marvellous simple candour, “do I really announce this to you? Was + there not in yourself anywhere—deep down—any knowledge of it?” + </p> + <p> + “I did not guess—I did not dream!” + </p> + <p> + “And—now?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + A heavenly current drifted from her, the words rose and fell on it with + the most dazing suggestion in their soft hesitancy. It must have been by + an instinct of her art that her hand went up to the cross on Arnold's + breast and closed over it, so that he should see only her. The familiar + vision of her stood close, looking things intolerably new and different. + Again came out of it that sudden liberty, that unpremeditated rush and + shock in him. He paled with indignation, with the startled resentment of a + woman wooed and hostile. His face at last expressed something definite, it + was anger; he stepped back and caught at his hat. “I am sorry,” he said, + “I am sorry. I thought you infinitely above and beyond all that.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda smiled and turned away. If he chose it was his opportunity to go, + but he stood regarding her, twirling his hat. She sat down, clasping her + knees, and looked at the floor. There was a square of sunlight on the + carpet, and motes were rising in it. + </p> + <p> + “Ah well, so did I,” she said meditatively, without raising her eyes. Then + she leaned back in the chair and looked at him, in her level simple way. + </p> + <p> + “It was a foolish theory,” she said, “and—now—I can't + understand it at all. I am amazed to find that it even holds good with + you.” + </p> + <p> + It was so much in the tone of their usual discussions that Arnold was + conscious of a lively relief. The instinct of flight died down in him; he + looked at her with something like inquiry. + </p> + <p> + “It will always be to me curious,” she went on, “that you could have + thought your part in me so limited, so poor. That is enough to say. I find + it hard to understand, anybody would, that you could take so much good + from me and not—so much more.” She opened her lips again, but kept + back the words. “Yes,” she added, “that is enough to say.” + </p> + <p> + But for the colourless face and the tenseness about her lips it might have + been thought that she definitely abandoned what she had learned she could + not have. There was a note of acquiescence and regret in her voice, of + calm reason above all; and this sense reached him, induced him to listen, + as he generally listened, for anything she might find that would explain + the situation. His fingers went from habit, as a man might play with his + watch chain, to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed them, and + rested mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling in them, + wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. “You could not forget that?” + she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself. He looked into + her upturned face and saw that her eyes were swimming. + </p> + <p> + “Never!” he said, “Never!” but he walked to the nearest chair and sat + down. He seemed suddenly endowed with the courage to face this problem, + and his head, as it rose in the twilight against the window, was grave and + calm. Without a word a great tenderness of understanding filled the space + between them; an interpreting compassion went to and fro. Suddenly a new + light dawned in Hilda's eyes, she leaned forward and met his in an + absorption which caught them out of themselves into some space where souls + wander, and perhaps embrace. It was a frail adventure upon a gaze, but it + carried them infinitely far. The moment died away, neither of them could + have measured it, and when it had finally ebbed—they were conscious + of every subsiding throb—the silence remained, like a margin for the + beauty of it. They sat immovable, while the light faded. After a time the + woman spoke. “Once before,” she began, but he put up his hand, and she + stopped. Then as if she would no longer be restrained. “That is all I + want,” she whispered. “That is enough.” + </p> + <p> + For a time they said very little, looking back upon their divine moment; + the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and made quiet + conversation which was almost audible in the pauses. Then Hilda began to + speak, steadily, calmly. You, too, would have forgotten her folly in what + she found to say, as Arnold did; you too would have drawn faith and + courage from her face. One would not be irreverent, but if this woman were + convicted of the unforgiveable sin, she could explain it, and obtain + justification rather than pardon. Her horizon had narrowed, she sought now + only that it should enfold them both. She begged that he would wipe out + her insanity, that he would not send her away. He listened and melted to + conviction. + </p> + <p> + “Then I may stay?” she said at the end. + </p> + <p> + “I am satisfied—if a way can be found.” + </p> + <p> + “I will find a way,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + After which he went back through the city streets to his disciples in new + humility and profounder joy, knowing that virtue had gone out of him. She + in her room where she lodged also considered the miracle, twice wonderful + in that it asked no faith of her. + </p> + <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 difficult to be precise about such a thing, but I should think that + Hilda gave herself to the marvellous aspect of what had come and gone + between them, for several hours after Arnold left her. It was not for some + time, at all events, that she arrived at the consideration—the + process was naturally downward—that the soul of the marvel lay in + the exact moment of its happening. Nothing could have been more + heaven-sent than her precious perception, exactly then, that before the + shining gift of Arnold's spiritual sympathy, all her desire for a lesser + thing from him must creep away abashed for ever. Even when the lesser + thing, by infinitely gradual expansion, again became the greater, it + remained permanently leavened and lifted in her by the strange and lovely + incident that had taken for the moment such command of her and of him. She + would not question it or reason about it, perhaps with an instinct to + avert its destruction; she simply drew it deeply into her content. Only + its sweet deception did not stay with her, and she let that go with open + hands. She wanted, more than ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all that + was so openly the Mission's and all that was so evidently God's. It will + be seen that she felt in no way compelled to advise him of this her + backsliding. I doubt whether such a perversion of her magnificent course + of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it entailed a high + disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of what the end would + be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, in the intervals + of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen Arnold stood beyond her ultimate + possession. + </p> + <p> + There were difficulties, but the moment was favourable to her, more + favourable than it would have been the year before, or any year but this. + Before ten days had passed she was able to write to Arnold describing her + plan, and she was put to it to keep the glow of success out of her letter. + She kept it out, that, and everything but a calm and humble statement—any + Clarke Brother might have dictated it—of what she proposed to do. + Perhaps the intention was less obvious than the desire that he should + approve it. + </p> + <p> + The messenger waited long by the entrance to the Mission House for an + answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the bazar + with the gatekeeper of the Christians. Stephen was in chapel. There was no + service; he had half an hour to rest in and he rested there. He was + speculating, in the grateful dimness, about the dogma—he had never + quite accepted it, though Colquhoun had—of the intercessory power of + the souls of saints. A converted Brahmin, an old man, had died the day + before. Arnold luxuriated in the humility of thinking that he would be + glad of any good word dear old Nourendra Lal could say for him. The chapel + was deliciously refined. The scent of fresh cut flowers floated upon the + continual presence of the incense; a lily outlined its head against the + tall carved altarpiece the Brothers had brought from Damascus. The seven + brass lamps that hung from the rafters above the altar rails were also + Damascene, carved and pierced so that the light in them was a still thing + like a prayer; and the place breathed vague meanings which did not ask + understanding. It was a refuge from the riot and squalor of the + whitewashed streets with a double value and a treble charm—I.H.S. + among plaster gods, a sanctuary in the bazar. Stephen sat in it + motionless, with his lean limbs crossed in front of him, until the + half-hour was up; then he bent his knee before the altar and went out to + meet a servant at the door with Hilda's letter. The chapel opened upon an + upper verandah, he crossed it to get a better light and stood to read with + his back half turned upon the comers and goers. + </p> + <p> + It was her first communication since they parted, and in spite of its + colourlessness it seemed to lay strong eager hands upon him, turning his + shoulder that way, upon the world, bending his head over the page. He had + not dwelt much upon their strange experience, in the days that followed. + It had retreated, for him, behind the veil of tender mystery with which he + shrouded, even from his own eyes, the things that lay between his soul and + God. The space from that day to this had been more than usually full of + ministry; its pure uses had fallen like snow, blotting and deadening the + sudden wonder that blossomed then. Latterly he had hardly thought of it. + </p> + <p> + So far was he removed, so deeply drawn again within his familiar + activities, that he regarded Hilda's letter for an instant with a lip of + censure, as if, for some reason, it should not have been admitted. It was, + in a manner, her physical presence, the words expanded into her, through + it she walked back into his life, with an interrogation. Standing there by + the pillar he became gradually aware of the weight of the interrogation. + </p> + <p> + A passing Brother cast at him the sweet smile of the cloister. Arnold + stopped him and transferred an immediate duty, which the other accepted + with a slightly exaggerated happiness. They might have been girls + together, with their apologies and protestations. The other Brother went + on in a little glow of pleasure, Arnold turned back into the chapel, + carrying, it seemed to him, a woman's life in his hand. + </p> + <p> + He took his seat and folded his arms almost eagerly; there was a light of + concentration in his eye and a line of compression about his lips which + had not marked his meditation upon Nourendra Lal. The vigour in his face + suggested that he found a kind of athletic luxury in what he had to think + about. Brother Colquhoun, with his flat hat clasped before his breast, + passed down the aisle. Stephen looked up with a trace of impatience. + Presently he rose hurriedly as if he remembered something, and went and + knelt before one of several paintings that hung upon the chapel walls. + They were old copies of great works, discoloured and damaged. They had + sailed round the Cape to India when the century was young, and a lady + friend of the Mission had bought them at the sale of the effects of a + ruined Begum. Arnold was one of those who could separate them from their + incongruous history and consecrate them over again. He often found them + helpful when he sought to lift his spirit, and in any special matter a + special comfort. He bent for ten minutes before a Crucifixion, and then + hastened back to his place. Only one reflection corrected the vigorous + satisfaction with which he thought out Hilda's proposition. That disturbed + him in the middle of it, and took the somewhat irrelevant form of a + speculation as to whether the events of their last meeting should have had + any place in his Thursday confession. He was able to find almost at once a + conscientious negative for it, and it did not recur again. + </p> + <p> + He got up reluctantly when the Mission bell sounded, and indeed he had + come to the end of a very absorbing interest. His decision was final + against Hilda's scheme. His worn experience cried out at the sacrifice in + it without the illumination—which it would certainly lack—of + religious faith. She confessed to the lack, and that was all she had to + say about her motive, which, of course, placed him at an immense + disadvantage in considering it. But the question then descended to another + plane, became merely a doubt as to the most useful employment of energy, + and that doubt nobody could entertain long, nobody of reasonable breadth + of view, who had ever seen her expressing the ideals of the stage. Arnold + did his best to ward off all consideration which he could suspect of a + personal origin, but his inveterate self-sacrifice slipped in and counted, + naturally enough, under another guise, against her staying. + </p> + <p> + He went to his room and wrote to Hilda at once, the kindest, simplest of + letters, but conveying a definitely negative note. He would have been + perhaps more guarded, but it was so plainly his last word to her; + Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the departure of his people in ten + days' time upon every blank wall. So he gave himself a little latitude, he + let in an undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assurance as to + the difference she had made. And when he had finally bade her begone to + the light and fulness of her own life, and fastened up his letter, he + deliberately lifted it to his lips and placed a trembling, awkward kiss + upon it, like the kiss of an old man, perfunctory yet bearing a tender + intention. + </p> + <p> + The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, the people from Surrey + having been sped upon their way to the Far East. Stephen remembered with + more than his usual relish an engagement to dine that evening in Middleton + Street. He involuntarily glanced at his watch. It was half-past one. The + afternoon looked arid, stretching between. Consulting his tablets he found + that he had nothing that was really of any consequence to do. There were + items, but they were unimportant, transferable. He had dismissed Hilda + Howe, but a glow from the world she helped to illumine showed seductively + at the end of his day. He made an errand involving a long walk, and came + back at an hour which left nothing but evensong between him and eight + o'clock. + </p> + <p> + He was suddenly aware as he talked to her later, of a keener edge to his + appreciation of the charm of Alicia Livingstone. Her voyage, he assured + her, had done her all the good in the world. Her delicate bloom had + certainly been enhanced by it, and the graceful spring of her neck and her + waist seemed to have its counterpart in a freshened poise of the agreeable + things she found to say. It was delightful the way she declared herself + quite a different being, and the pleasure with which she moved, dragging + fascinating skirts behind her, about the room. She made more of an + impression upon him on the aesthetic side than she had ever done before; + she seemed more highly vitalised, her fineness had greater relief, and her + charm more freedom. Lindsay was there, and Arnold glanced from one to the + other of them, first with a start then with a smile, at the recollection + of Hilda's conception of their relations. If this were a type and instance + of hopeless love he had certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He + kept the idea in his mind and went on regarding her in the light of it + with a pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in + his curious acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very flower of + emotional naivete, though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, + grown in idleness; and indeed it might have abashed him to say what + concern it had in the mind of the Order of St. Barnabas. It was + gratifying, nevertheless, to have his observation confirmed by the way in + which Alicia leaned across him toward Lindsay with occasional references + to Laura Filbert, apparently full of light-heartedness, references which + Duff received in the square-shouldered matter-of-course fashion of his + countrymen approaching their nuptials in any quarter of the globe. It was + gratifying, and yet it enhanced in Stephen this evening the indrawing of + his under-lip, a plaintive twist of expression which spoke upon the faces + of quite half the Order, of patience under privation. + </p> + <p> + The atmosphere was one of congratulation, the week's Gazette had + transformed Surgeon-Major Livingstone into Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel. The + officer thus promoted, in a particularly lustrous shirt bosom, made a + serious social effort to correspond, and succeeded in producing more than + one story of the Principal Medical Officer with her Majesty's forces in + India, which none of them had heard before. They were all delighted at + Herbert's step, he was just the kind of person to get a step, and to get + it rather early; a sense of the propriety of it mingled with the general + gratification. There was a feeling of ease among them, too, of the + indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when the + surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no strain + imaginable one could see the relaxation. + </p> + <p> + “We can't do much in celebration,” Lindsay was saying, “but I've got a box + at the theatre, if you'll come. Our people had some pomfret and oysters + over on ice from Bombay this morning, and I've sent my share to Bonsard to + see what he can do with it for supper. Jack Cummins and Lady Dolly are + coming. By the way, what do you think the totalizator paid Lady Dolly on + Saturday—six thousand!” + </p> + <p> + “Rippin',” Herbert agreed. “We'll all come—at least—I don't + know. What do you say, Arnold?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course Stephen will come,” Alicia urged. “Why not?” It was putting him + and his gown at once beyond the operation of vulgar prejudice, intimating + that they quite knew him for what he was. + </p> + <p> + “What's the piece?” Herbert inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the piece isn't up to much, I'm afraid, only that Hilda Howe is worth + seeing in almost anything.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks,” Stephen put in, “but I think, thanks very much, I would rather + not.” + </p> + <p> + “I remember,” Alicia said, “you were with us the night she played in The + Offence of Galilee. I don't wonder that you do not wish to disturb that + impression.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen fixed his eyes upon a small pyramid of crystallised cherries + immediately in front of him, and appeared to consider, austerely, what + form his reply should take. There was an instant's perceptible pause, and + then he merely bowed toward Alicia as if vaguely to acknowledge the + kindness of her recollection. “I think,” he said again, “that I will not + accompany you to-night, if you will be good enough to excuse me.” + </p> + <p> + “You must excuse us both,” Alicia said definitely, “I should much rather + stay at home and talk to Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + At this they all cried out, but Miss Livingstone would not change her + mind. “I haven't seen him for three weeks,” she said, with gentle + effrontery, making nothing of his presence, “and he's much more improving + than either of you. I also shall choose the better part.” + </p> + <p> + “How you can call it that, with Hilda in the balance—” Duff + protested. + </p> + <p> + “But then you've invited Lady Dolly. After winning six thousand there will + be no holding Lady Dolly. She'll be capable of cat-calls! How I should + love,” Alicia went on, “to have Hilda meet her. She would be a mine to + Hilda.” + </p> + <p> + “For pity's sake,” cried her brother, “stop asking Hilda and people who + are a mine to Hilda! It's too perceptible, the way she digs in them.” + </p> + <p> + “You dear old thing, you're quite clever to-night! What difference does it + make? They never know—they never dream! I wish I could dig.” Alicia + looked pensively at the olive between her finger and thumb. + </p> + <p> + “Thank Heaven you can't,” Duff said warmly. It was a little odd, the + personal note. Alicia's eyes remained upon the olive. + </p> + <p> + “It's all she lives for.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” Duff declared, “I can imagine higher ends.” + </p> + <p> + “You're not abusing Hilda!” Alicia said, addressing the olive. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all. Only vindicating you.” + </p> + <p> + It did single them out, this fencing. Herbert and Arnold sat as + spectators, pushed, in a manner, aside. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose she will be off soon,” Livingstone said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dreadfully soon. On the fifteenth. I had a note from her to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she say she was going?” Stephen asked quickly. + </p> + <p> + “She mentioned the Company—she is the Company surely.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, undoubtedly. May I—might I ask for a little more soda-water, + Alicia?” He made the request so formally that she glanced at him with + surprise. + </p> + <p> + “Please do—but isn't it very odious, by itself, that way? I suppose + we shouldn't leave out Hamilton Bradley—he certainly counts.” + </p> + <p> + “For how much?” inquired her brother. “He's going to pieces.” + </p> + <p> + “Hilda can pull him together again,” Lindsay said incautiously. + </p> + <p> + “Has she an influence for good—over him?” Stephen inquired, and + cleared his throat. He caught a glance exchanged, and frowned. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes,” Duff said, “I fancy it is for good. For good, certainly. The odd + part of it is that he began by having an influence over her which she + declares improved her acting. So that was for good, too, as it turned out. + I think she makes too much of him. To my mind he speaks like a bit of + consecrated stage tradition and looks like a bit of consecrated stage + furniture—he, and his thin nose, and his thin lips, and his thin + eyebrows. Personally, I'm sick of his eyebrows.” + </p> + <p> + “They'll end by marrying,” said Surgeon-Lieut.-Colonel Livingstone. + </p> + <p> + “HERBERT! How little you know her!” + </p> + <p> + “It's possible enough,” Duff said, “especially if she finds him in any way + necessary to her production of herself. Hilda has knocked about too much + to have many illusions. One is pretty sure she would place that first.” + </p> + <p> + “You are saying a thing which is monstrous!” cried Alicia. + </p> + <p> + Unperturbed, her brother supported his conviction. “She'll have to marry + him to get rid of him,” he said. “Fancy the opportunities of worrying her + the brute will have in those endless ocean voyages!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, if you think Hilda could be WORRIED into anything!” Miss Livingstone + exclaimed derisively. “If the man were irritating, do you suppose she + wouldn't arrange—wouldn't find means?—” + </p> + <p> + “She would have him put in irons, no doubt,” Herbert retorted, “or locked + up with the other sad dogs, in charge of the ship's butcher.” + </p> + <p> + The three laughed immoderately, and Stephen, looking up, came in at the + end with a smile. Alicia pronounced her brother too absurd, and unfitted + by nature to know anything about creatures like Hilda Howe. “A mere man to + begin with,” she said. “You haven't the ghost of a temperament, Herbert; + you know you haven't.” + </p> + <p> + “He got's a lovely bedside manner,” Lindsay remarked, “and that's the next + thing to it.” + </p> + <p> + “Rubbish! I don't want to hurry you,” Alicia glanced at the watch on her + wrist, “but unless you and Herbert want to miss half the first act you had + better be off. Stephen and I will have our coffee comfortably in the + drawing-room and find what excuses we can for you.” + </p> + <p> + But Stephen put out his hand with a movement of slightly rigid + deprecation. + </p> + <p> + “If it is not too vacillating of me,” he said, “and I may be forgiven, I + think I will change my mind, and go. I have no business to break up your + party, and besides, I shall probably not have another opportunity—I + should rather like to go. To the theatre, of course, that is. Not to + Bonsard's, thanks very much.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do come on to Bonsard's,” Lindsay said, and Alicia protested that he + would miss the best of Lady Dolly, but Stephen was firm. Bonsard's was + beyond the limit of his indulgence. + </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> + Only the Sphinx confronted them after all when they arrived at the + theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. The older feminine presentment sent + her belittling gaze over their heads and beyond them from the curtain; + Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from the front of the box. + Lady Dolly raised her eyes but not her elbows, which were assisting her a + good deal with the house in exploring and being explored, enabling Colonel + John Cummins, who sat by her side, to observe how very perfect and + adorable the cut of her bodice was. Since Colonel Cummins was accustomed + to say in moments when his humour escaped his discretion, things highly + appreciative of bodices, the role of Lady Dolly's elbows could hardly be + dismissed as unimportant. Moreover, the husband attached to the elbows + belonged to the Department of which Colonel John was the head, so that + they rested, one may say, upon a very special plane. + </p> + <p> + Alicia disturbed it with the necessity of taking Colonel Cummins place, + which Lady Dolly accepted with admirable spirit; assuring the usurper, + with the most engaging candour, that she simply ought never to be seen + without turquoises. “Believe it or not as you like, but I love you better + every time I see you in that necklace.” Lady Dolly clasped her hands, with + her fan in them, in the abandonment of her affection, and “love you + better” floated back and dispersed itself among the men. Alicia smiled the + necessary acknowledgment. All the women she knew made compliments to her; + it was a kind of cult among them. The men had sometimes an air of envying + their freedom of tongue. “Don't say that,” she returned lightly, “or + Herbert will never give me any diamonds.” She too looked her approval of + Lady Dolly's bodice, but said nothing. It was doubtless precisely because + she disdained certain forms of feminine barter that she got so much for + nothing. + </p> + <p> + “And where,” demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric whisper, “did you find + that dear sweet little priest? Do introduce him to me—at least by + and by, when I've thought of something to say. Let me see, wasn't it Good + Friday last week? I'll ask him if he had hot-cross buns—or do people + eat those on Boxing Day? Pancakes come in somewhere, if one could only be + sure!” + </p> + <p> + Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. His senses were filled + for the moment by its other occupants, the men in the fresh correctness of + their evening dress, whose least gesture seemed to spring from an + indefinite fulness of life, the two women in front, a kind of lustrous + tableau of what it was possible to choose and to enjoy. They were grouped + and shut off in a high light which seemed to proceed partly from the usual + sources and partly from their own personalities; he saw them in a way + which underlined their significance at every point. It seemed to Stephen + that in a manner he profaned this temple of what he held to be poorest and + cheapest in life, a paradox of which he was but dimly aware in his + dejection. A sharp impression of his physical inferiority to the other men + assailed him; his appreciation of their muscular shoulders had a rasp in + it. For once the poverty of spirit to which he held failed to offer him a + refuge, his eye wandered restlessly as if attempting futile + reconciliations, and the thing most present with him was the worn-all-day + feeling about the neck of his cassock. He fixed his attention presently in + a climax of passive discomfort on the curtain, where unconsciously, his + gaze crept with a subtle interrogation in it to the wide eyeballs of the + Sphinx. + </p> + <p> + The stalls gradually filled, although it was a second production, in the + middle of the week, and although the gallery and the rupee seats under it + were nearly empty. The piece accounted for both. When Duff Lindsay said at + dinner that it wasn't “up to much,” he spoke, I fancy, from the nearest + point of view he could take to that of the Order of St. Barnabas. As a + matter of fact, The Victim of Virtue was up to a very great deal, but its + points were so delicate that one must have been educated rather broadly to + grasp them, which is again perhaps a foolish contrariety of terms. At all + events they carried no appeal to the theatre-goers from the sailing ships + in the river or the regiments in the fort, who turned as one than that + night to Jimmy Finnigan. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was aware, in the abstract, of what he might expect. He savoured + the enterprises of the London theatres weekly in the Saturday Review; he + had cast a remotely observing eye upon the productions of this particular + playwright through that medium for a long time. They formed a + manifestation of the outer world fit enough to draw a glance of + speculation from the inner; their author was an acrobat of ideas. + Doubtless we are all clowns in the eyes of the angels, yet we have the + habit of supposing that they sometimes look down upon us. It was thus, if + the parallel is not exaggerated, that Arnold regarded the author of The + Victim of Virtue. His attitude was quite taken before the orchestra ceased + playing; it was made of negation rather than criticism, on the basis that + he had no concern with, and no knowledge of, such things. Deliberately he + gave his mind a surface which should shed promiscuous invitation, and + folded his lips as it were, against the rising of the curtain. He thought + of Hilda separately, and he looked for her upon the boards with the + simplicity of a desire to see the woman he knew. + </p> + <p> + When finally he did see her she made before him a picture that was to + remain with him always as his last impression of an art from which in all + its manifestations on that night he definitely turned. From the aigrette + in her hair to the paste buckle on her shoe she was mondaine. Her dress, + of some indefinite, slight white material, clasped at the waist with a + belt that gave the beam of turquoises and the gleam of silver, ministered + as much to the capricious ideal of the moment as to the lines and curves + of the person it adorned. The set was the inevitable modern drawing-room, + and she sat well out on a sofa, with her hands, in long black gloves, + resting stiffly, palm downward on each side of her. It was as if she + pushed her body forward in an impulse to rise, her rigid arms thrust her + shoulders up a little and accentuated the swell of her bosom. It was a + vivid, a staccato attitude; it expressed a temperament, a character, fifty + other things; but especially it epitomised the restraints and the licenses + of a world of drawing-rooms. In that first brief mute instant of + disclosure she was all that she presently, by voice and movement, + proclaimed herself to be—so dazzling and complete that Stephen + literally blinked at the revelation. He made an effort, for a moment or + two, to pursue and detect the woman who had been his friend; then the + purpose of his coming gradually faded from his mind, and he stood with + folded arms and absorbed eyes watching the other, the Mrs. Halliday, on + the sofa, setting about the fulfilment of a purple destiny. + </p> + <p> + The play proceeded and Stephen did not move—did not wince. When Mrs. + Halliday, whose mate was exacting, exclaimed, “The greatest apostle of + expediency was St. Paul. He preached 'wives love your husbands,'” he even + permitted himself the ghost of a smile. At one point he wished himself + familiar with the plot; it was when Hamilton Bradley came jauntily on as + Lord Ingleton, assuring Mrs. Halliday that immorality was really only + shortsightedness. Lady Dolly in front, repeated Lord Ingleton's phrase + with ingenuous wonder. “I know it's clever,” she insisted, “but what does + it mean? Now that other thing—what was it?—'Subtract vice, and + virtue is what is left'—that's an easy one. Write it down on your + cuff for me, will you, Colonel Cummins? I SHALL be so sick if I forget + it.” + </p> + <p> + Stephen was perhaps the only person in the box quite oblivious of Lady + Dolly. He looked steadily over her animated shoulders at the play, wholly + involved in an effort to keep its current and direction through the + floating debris of constrained sayings with which it was encumbered; to + know in advance whither it was carrying its Mrs. Halliday, and how far + Lord Ingleton would accompany. When Lord Ingleton paused as it were to beg + four people to “have nothing to do with sentiment—it so often leads + to conviction,” and the house murmured its amusement, Arnold shifted his + shoulders impatiently. “How inconsistent,” Lord Ingleton reproached Mrs. + Halliday a moment later, “to wear gloves on your hands and let your + thoughts go candid.” Arnold turned to Duff. “There's no excuse for that,” + he said, but Lindsay was hanging upon Hilda's rejoinder and did not hear + him. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the first act, where, after introducing Mrs. Halliday to her + husband's divorced first wife, Lord Ingleton is left rubbing his hands + with gratification at having made two such clever women “aware of each + other,” Stephen found himself absolutely unwilling to discuss the piece + with the rest of the party. As he left the box to walk up and down the + corridor outside where it was cooler, he heard the voice of Colonel + Cummins lifted in further quotation, “'To be good AND charming—what + a sinful superfluity!' I'm sure nobody ever called you superfluous, Lady + Dolly,” and was vividly aware of the advisability of taking himself and + his Order out of the theatre. He had not been gratified, or even from any + point appealed to. Hilda's production of Mrs. Halliday was so perfect that + it failed absolutely to touch him, almost to interest him. He had no means + of measuring or of valuing that kind of woman, the restless brilliant type + that lives upon its emotions and tilts at the problems of its sex with a + curious comfort in the joust. He was too far from the circle of her modern + influence to consider her with anything but impatience if he had met her + original person, and her reflection, her reproduction seemed to him + frivolous and meaningless. If he went then, however, he would go as he + came, in so far as the play was concerned; the first act, relying + altogether upon the jugglery of its dialogue, gave no clue to anything. He + owed it to Hilda after all to see the piece out. It was only fair to give + her a chance to make the best of it. He decided that it was worth a + personal sacrifice to give it her, and went back. + </p> + <p> + He was sufficiently indignant with the leading idea of the play, and + sufficiently absorbed in its progress, at the end of the second act, to + permit Lady Dolly to capture him before it occurred to him that he had the + use of his legs. Her enthusiasm was so great that it reduced him to + something like equivocation. She wanted to know if anything could be more + splendid than Mr. Bradley as Lord Ingleton; she confided to Stephen that + that was what she called REAL wickedness, the kind that did the most harm, + and invited him by inference, to a liberal judgment of stupid sinners. He + sat emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes nervously fugitive from + Lady Dolly's too proximate opulence until the third act began. Then he + gave place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel Cummins, and folded his + arms again at the back of the box. + </p> + <p> + Before it was finished he had the gratification of recognising at least + one Hilda that he knew. The newspapers found in her interpretation the + development of a soul, and one remembered, reading them, that a cliche is + a valuable thing in a hurry. A phrase which spoke of a soul bruised out of + life and rushing to annihilation would have been more precise. The demand + upon her increased steadily as the act went on, and as she met it there + slipped into her acting some of her own potentialities of motive and of + passion. She offered to the shaping circumstance rich material and + abundant plasticity, and when the persecution of her destiny required her + to throw herself irretrievably away she did it with a splendid + appreciation of large and definite movement that was essentially of + herself. + </p> + <p> + The moment of it had a bold gruesomeness that caught the breath—a + disinterment on the stage in search of letters that would prove the charge + against the second year of Mrs. Halliday's married life, her letters + buried with the poet. It was an advantage which only the husband of Mrs. + Halliday would have claimed to bring so helpless a respondent before even + the informal court at the graveyard; but it gave Hilda a magnificent + opportunity of wild, mad apostrophe to the skull, holding it tenderly with + both hands, while Lord Ingleton smiled appreciatively in advance of the + practical benevolence which was to sustain the lady through the divorce + court, and in the final scene offer to her and to the prejudices of the + British public the respectability of his name. + </p> + <p> + It was over with a rush at the end, leaving the audience uncertain whether + after all enough attention had been paid to that tradition of the + footlights which insists on so nice a sense of opprobrium and + compensation, but convinced of its desire to applaud. Duff Lindsay turned + as the wave of clapping spent itself, to say to Stephen that he had never + respected Hamilton Bradley's acting so much. He said it to Herbert + Livingstone instead; the priest had disappeared. + </p> + <p> + The outgoers looked at Arnold curiously as he made his way among them in a + direction which was not that of the exit. He went with hurried purpose in + the face of them all toward the region, badly lighted and imperfectly + closed, which led to the rear of the stage. He opened doors into dark + closets, and one which gave upon the road, retraced his unfamiliar steps + and asked a question, to which—it was so unusual from one in his + habit—he received a hesitating but correct reply. A moment later he + passed Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope, who stood in his path with a hostile stare, + and got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a door upon which + was pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a poster, of Miss Hilda + Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when she cried “Come in!” with + the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single chair the place contained, in + the dress and make-up of the last scene. A servant, who looked up + incuriously, was unlacing her shoes. Various garments hung about on nails + driven into the unpainted walls, others overflowed from a packing-box in + one corner. A common teakwood dressing-table held make up saucers and + powder-puffs and some remnants of cold fowl which had not been partaken + of, apparently, with the assistance of a knife and fork. A candle stood in + an empty soda-water bottle on each side of the looking-glass, and there + was no other light. On the floor a pair of stays, old and soiled, sprawled + with unconcern. The place looked sordid and miserable, and Hilda sitting + in the middle of it, still in the yellow wig and painted face of Mrs. + Halliday, all wrong at that range, gave it a note of false artifice, + violent and grievous. Stephen stood in the doorway grasping the handle, + saying nothing, and an instant passed before she knew with certainty, in + the wretched light, that it was he. Then she sprang up and made a step + toward him as if toward victory and reward, but checked herself in time. + “Is it possible!” she exclaimed. “I did not know you were in the theatre.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said, with moderation, “I have seen this—this damnable + play.” + </p> + <p> + “Damnable? Oh!—” + </p> + <p> + “It has caused me,” he went on, “to regret the substance of my letter this + morning. I failed to realise that this was the kind of work you devote + your life to. I now see that you could not escape its malign influence—that + no women could. I now think that the alternative that has been revealed to + you, of remaining in Calcutta, is a chance of escape offered you by God + Himself. Take it. I withdraw my foolish, ignorant opposition.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she cried, “do you really think—” + </p> + <p> + “Take it,” he repeated, and closed the door. + </p> + <p> + Hilda sat still for some time after the servant had finished unlacing her + shoes. A little tender smile played oddly about her carmined lips. “Dear + heart,” she said aloud, “I was going to.” + </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> + “I would simply give anything to be there,” Miss Livingstone said, with a + look of sincere desire. + </p> + <p> + “I should love to have you, but it isn't possible. You might meet men you + knew who had been invited by particular lady friends among the company.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well, that of course would be odious.” + </p> + <p> + “Very, I should think,” Hilda agreed. “You must be satisfied with a + faithful report of it. I promise you that.” + </p> + <p> + “You have asked Mr. Lindsay,” Alicia complained. + </p> + <p> + “That's quite a different thing. And if I hadn't, Llewellyn Stanhope + would; Stanhope cherishes Duff as he cherishes the critic of the + Chronicle. He refers to him as a pillar of the legitimate. Whenever he + begs me to turn the Norwegian crank, he says, 'I'm sure Mr. Lindsay would + come.'” + </p> + <p> + Miss Howe was at the top of the staircase in Middleton Street, on the + point of departure. It was to be the night of her last appearance for the + season and her benefit, followed by a supper in her honour, at which Mr. + Stanhope and his company would take leave of those whose acquaintance, as + he expressed it, business and pleasure had given them during the months + that were past. It was this function that Alicia, at the top of the + staircase, so ardently desired to attend. + </p> + <p> + “No, I won't kiss you,” Hilda said, as the other put her cool cheek + forward; “I'm so divinely happy—some of it might escape.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia's voice pursued her as she ran downstairs. “Remember,” she said, “I + don't approve. I don't at all agree either with my reverend cousin or with + you. I think you ought to find some other way, or let it go. Go home + instead; go straight to London and insist on your chance. After six weeks + you will have forgotten the name of his Order.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda looked back with a smile. Her face was splendid with the dawn and + the promise of success. “Don't say that,” she cried. + </p> + <p> + Alicia, leaning down, was visited by a flash of quotation. “Well,” she + said, “nothing in this life becomes you like the leaving of it,” and went + back to her room to write to Laura Filbert in Plymouth. She wrote often to + Miss Filbert, at Duff's request. It gratified her that she was able, + without a pang, to address four pages of pleasantly colourless + communication to Mr. Lindsay's fiancee. Her letters stood for a medicine + surprisingly easy to take, aimed at the convalescence which she already + anticipated in the future immediately beyond Duff's miserable marriage. If + that event had promised felicitously she would have faced it, one fancies, + with less sanguine anticipations for herself: but the black disaster that + rode on with it brought her certain aids to the spirit, certain hopes of + herself. Laura's prompt replies, with their terrible margins and + painstaking solecisms, came to be things Miss Livingstone looked forward + to. She read them with a beating heart, however, in the unconscious + apprehension of some revelation of improvement. She was quite unaware of + it, but she entertained towards the Simpsons an attitude of misgiving in + this regard. + </p> + <p> + Hilda went on about her business. As usual her business was important and + imperative; nothing was lightened for her this last day. She drove about + from place to place in the hot, slatternly city, putting more than her + usual vigour and directness into all she did. It seemed to her that the + sunlight burning on the tiles, pouring through the crowded streets, had + more than ever a vivid note; and so much spoke to her, came to her, from + the profuse and ingenuous life which streamed about her, that she leaned a + little forward to meet it with happy eyes and tender lips that said, “I + know. I see.” She was living for the moment which should exhale itself + somewhere about midnight after the lights had gone out on her last + appearance—living for it as a Carmelite might live for the climax of + her veil and her vows if it were conceivable that beyond the cell and the + grating she saw the movement and the colour and the passion of a wider + life. All Hilda's splendid vitality went into her intention, of which she + was altogether mistress, riding it and reining it in a straight course + through the encumbered hours. It keyed her to a finer and more eager + susceptibility; and the things she saw stayed with her, passing into a + composite day which the years were hardly to dim for her. + </p> + <p> + She could live like that, for the purposes of a period, wrought up to + immense keenness of sense and brilliancy of energy, making steadily for + some point of feeling or achievement flashing gloriously on the horizon. + It is already plain, perhaps, that she rejoiced in such strokes, and that + life as she found it worth living was marked by a succession of them. + </p> + <p> + She had kept, even from Lindsay, what she meant to do. When she stepped + from his brougham, flushed after the indubitable triumph of the evening, + with her arms full of real bouquets from Chatterjee's—no eight-anna + bazar confections edged with silver tinsel—it occurred to her that + this reticence was not altogether fair to so constant a friend. He was + there, keen and eager as ever in all that concerned her, foremost with his + congratulations on the smiling fringe of the party assembled to do her + honour. It was a party of some brilliance in its way, though its way was + diverse; there was no steady glow. Fillimore said of the company that it + comprised all the talent, and Fillimore, Editor of the Indian Sportsman + and Racing Gazelle, was a judge. He said it to Hagge, of the Bank of + Hindostan, who could hardly have been an owner on three hundred rupees a + month without conspicuous ability disconnected with his ledgers; and Hagge + looked gratified. Though so promising, he was young. Lord Bobby was there + from Government House. Lord Bobby always accompanied the talent, who were + very kind to him. He was talking when Hilda arrived to the Editor of the + Indian Empire, who wanted to find out the date of her Excellency's fancy + dress party for children, in order that he might make a leaderette of it; + but Lord Bobby couldn't remember—had to promise to drop him a line. + Gianacchi was there, trying to treat Fillimore with coldness because the + Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his Musquito, exalted her + indeed into a favourite for Saturday's hurdle race, a notability for which + Gianacchi felt himself too modest. “They say,” Fillimore had written, + “that Musquito has been seen jumping by moonlight”—the sort of thing + to spoil any book. Fillimore was an acute and weary-looking little man, + with a peculiarly sweet smile and an air of cynicism which gave to his + lightest word a dangerous and suspicious air. It was rumoured in official + circles that he had narrowly escaped beheading for pointing out too + ironically the disabilities of a Viceroy who insisted on reviewing the + troops from a cushioned carriage with the horses taken out. Fillimore + seemed to think that if nature had not made such a nobleman a horseman, + the Queen-Empress should not have made him Governor-General of India. + Fillimore was full of prejudices. Gianacchi, however, found it impossible + to treat him coldly. His smoothness of temperament stood in the way. + Instead, he imparted the melodious information that Musquito had pecked + badly twice at Tollygunge that morning, and smiled with pathetic + philosophy. “Always let 'em use their noses,” said Fillimore, and there + seemed to be satire in it. Fillimore certainly had a flair, and when Beryl + Stace presently demanded of him, “What's the dead bird going to be on + Saturday, Filly?” he put it generously at her service. Among the friends + of Mr. Stanhope and his company were also several gentlemen, content, for + their personal effect, with the lustre they shed upon the Stock Exchange—gentlemen + of high finance, who wrote their names at the end of directors' reports, + but never in the visitors' book at Government House, who were little more + to the Calcutta world than published receipts for so many lakhs, except + when they were seen now and then driving, in fleet dogcarts across the + Maidan toward comfortable suburban residences where ladies were not + entertained. They were extremely, curiously, devoted to business; but if + they allowed themselves any amusement other than company promoting, it was + the theatre, of which their appreciation had sometimes an odd relation to + the merits of performance. This supper, on the part of Miss Beryl Stace + and one or two others of Mr. Stanhope's artistes, might have been + considered a return of hospitality to these gentlemen, since the suburban + residences stood lavishly open to the profession. + </p> + <p> + Altogether, perhaps, there were fifty people, and an eye that looked for + the sentiment, the pity of things, would have distinguished at once on + about half the faces, especially those of the women, the used, underlined + look that spoke of the continual play of muscle and forcing of feeling. It + gave them a shabbily complicated air, contrasting in a strained and sorry + way even, with the countenances of the brokers and bankers, where nature + had laid on a smooth wash and experience had not interfered. They were all + gay and enthusiastic as Miss Howe entered, they loafed forward, broad + shirt-fronts lustrous, fat hands in financial pockets, with their + admiration, and Fillimore put out his cigarette. Hilda came down among + them from the summit of her achievement, clasping their various hands. + They were all personally responsible for her success, she made them feel + that, and they expanded in the conviction. She moved in a kind of tide of + infectious vitality, subtly drawing from every human flavour in the room + the power to hold and show something akin to it in herself, a fugitive + assimilation floating in the lamplight with the odour of the flowers and + the soup, to be extinguished with the occasion. They looked at her up and + down the table with an odd smiling attraction, they told each other that + she was in great form. Mr. Fillimore was of the opinion that she couldn't + be outclassed at the Lyceum, and Mr. Hagge responded with vivacity that + there were few places where she wouldn't stretch the winner's neck. The + feast was not after all one of great bounty, Mr. Stanhope justly holding + that the opportunity, the little gathering, was the thing, and it was not + long before the moment of celebration arrived for which the gentlemen of + the Stock Exchange, to judge from their undrained glasses, seemed to be + reserving themselves. There certainly had been one tin of pate, and it + circulated at that end; on the other hand the ladies had all the fondants. + So that when Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope rose with the sentiment of the evening + he found satisfaction, if not repletion, in the regards turned upon him. + </p> + <p> + Llewellyn got up with modest importance, and ran a hand through his yellow + hair, not dramatically, but with the effect of collecting his ideas. He + leaned a little forward, he was extremely, happily conspicuous. The + attention of the two lines of faces seemed to overcome him, for an + instant, with dizzy pleasure; Hilda's beside him was bent a little, + waiting. + </p> + <p> + “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Stanhope, looking with precision up and + down the table to be still more inclusive, “we have met together to-night + in honour of a lady who has given this city more pleasure in the exercise + of her profession than can be said of any single performer during the last + twenty years. Cast your eye back over the theatrical record of Calcutta + for that space of time, and you yourselves will admit that there has been + nobody that could be said to have come within a mile of her shadow, if I + may use the language of metaphor.” (Applause, led by Mr. Fillimore.) “I + would ask you to remember, at the same time, that this pleasure has been + of a superior class. I freely admit that this is a great satisfaction to + me personally. Far be it from me to put myself forward on this auspicious + occasion, but, ladies and gentlemen, if I have one ambition more than + another, it is to promote the noble cause of the unfettered drama. To this + I may say I have been vowed from the cradle, by a sire who was well-known + in the early days of the metropolis of Sydney as a pioneer of the great + movement which has made the dramatic talent of Australia what it is. + To-day a magnificent theatre rises on the site forever consecrated to me + by those paternal labours, but—but I can never forget it. In Miss + Hilda Howe I have found a great coadjutor, and one who is willing to + consecrate her royal abilities in the same line as myself, so that we have + been able to maintain a high standard of production among you, prices + remaining as usual. I have to thank you, as representing the public of the + Indian capital, for the kind support which has been so encouraging to Miss + Howe, the Company, and myself personally, during the past season. Many a + time ladies and gentlemen of my profession have said to me, 'Mr. Stahhope, + why do you go to Calcutta? That city is a death-trap for professionals,' + and now the past season proves that I was right and they were wrong; and + the magnificent houses, the enthusiasm, and the appreciation that have + greeted our efforts, especially on the Saturday evening performances, show + plainly enough that when a good thing is available the citizens of + Calcutta won't be happy till they get it. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite + you to join me in drinking the health, happiness, and prosperity of Miss + Hilda Howe!” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Howe!” “Miss Howe!” “Miss Hilda Howe!” In the midst of a pushing + back of chairs and a movement of feet, the response was quick and + universal. Hilda accepted their nods and becks and waving glasses with a + slow movement of her beautiful eyes and a quiet smile, in the subsidence + of sound Mr. Stanhope's voice was heard again, “We can hardly expect a + speech from Miss Howe, but perhaps Mr. Hamilton Bradley, whose + international reputation need hardly be referred to, will kindly say a few + words on her behalf.” + </p> + <p> + Then with deliberate grace, Hilda rose from her chair, a tall figure among + them, looking down with a hint of compassionateness on the little man at + her left. She stood for an instant without speaking, as if the flushed + silence, the expectation, the warm magnetism that drew all their eyes to + her were enough. Then out of something like reverie she came to the + matter, she threw up her beautiful face with one of the supreme gestures + which belonged to her. “I think,” she said, with a little smiling bow in + his direction, “that I will not trouble my friend Mr. Bradley. He has + rendered me so many kind services already that I am sure I might count + upon him again, but this is a thing I should like to do for myself. I + would not have my thanks chilled by even the passage from my heart to + his.” There was something like bravado in the glance that rested lightly + on Bradley with this. One would have said that parley of hearts between + them was not a thing that as a rule she courted. “I can only offer you my + thanks, poor things to which we can give neither life nor substance, yet I + beg that you will somehow take them and remember them. It is to me, and + will always be, a kind of crowning satisfaction that you were pleased to + come together to-night to tell me I had done well. You know yourselves, + and I know, how much too flattering your kindness is, but perhaps it will + hurt nobody if to-night I take it as it is generously offered, and let it + make me as happy as you intend me to be. At all events, no one could + disturb me in believing that in obtaining your praise and your good wishes + I have done well enough.” + </p> + <p> + For a few seconds she stopped speaking, but she held them with her eyes + from the mistake of supposing she had done. Lindsay, who was watching her + closely and hanging with keen pleasure on the sweetness and precision of + what she found to say, noted a swift constriction pass upon her face. + There was a half-tone of difference, too, in her voice, when she raised it + again, a firmer vibration, as if she passed, deliberate and aware, out of + one phase into another. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she went on, “I am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel that I + should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to-night, and go on + talking far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot think it likely + that our ways will cross again.” Here her words grew suddenly low and + hurried. “If I may trespass upon your interest so much further, I have to + tell you that my connection with the stage closes with this evening's + performance. To-morrow I join the Anglican Order of the Sisters of St. + Paul—the Baker Institution—in Calcutta, as a novice. They have + taken me without much question because—because the plague hospitals + of this cheerful country”—she contrived a smile—“have made a + great demand upon their body. That is all. I have nothing more to say.” + </p> + <p> + It was, after all, ineffective, the denouement, or perhaps it was too + effective. In any case it was received in silence, the applause that was + ready falling back on itself, inconsistent and absurd. The incredulity of + Llewellyn Stanhope might have been electric had it found words, but that + gentleman's protests were made in violent whispers, to which Hilda, who + sat playing with a faded rose, seemed to pay no attention whatever. One + might have thought her more overcome than anyone. She seemed to make one + or two unsuccessful efforts to raise her head. There was a moment of + waiting for someone to reply; eyes were turned towards Mr. Bradley, and + when it became plain that no one would, broken murmurs of talk began with + a note of deprecation and many shakes of the head. The women, especially, + looked tragically at their neighbours with very wide-open eyes. Presently + a chair was drawn back, and then another, and people began to filter, in + slow embarrassment, towards the door. Lindsay came with Hilda's cloak. + “You won't mind my coming with you,” he said, “I should like to hear the + details.” Beryl Stace made as if to embrace her, pouring out abusive + disbelief, but Hilda waved her away with a gesture almost of irritation. + Some of the others said a perfunctory word or two, and went away with + lingering backward looks. In a quarter of an hour, Mr. Lindsay's brougham + had followed the other vehicles into the lamp-lit ways of Calcutta, and + only the native table-servants remained in somewhat resentful possession + of what was left. + </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> + If Duff Lindsay had apprehended that the reception of Miss Filbert by the + Simpsons would involve any strain upon the affection his friends bore him, + the event must have relieved him in no small degree. He was soon made + aware of its happy character, and constantly kept assured; indeed, it + seemed that whenever Mrs. Simpson had nothing else to do she laid her pen + to the task of telling him once again how cherished a satisfaction they + found in Laura, and how reluctant they would be to lose it. She wrote in + that strain of facile sympathy which seems part of an Englishwoman's + education, and often begged him to believe that the more she knew of their + sweet and heavenly-minded guest the more keenly she realised how dreary + for him must have been the pang of parting and how arid the months of + separation. Mrs. Simpson herself was well acquainted with these trials of + the spirit. She and her husband had been divided by those wretched + thousands of miles of ocean for three years one week and five days all + told during their married life: she knew what it meant. But if Duff could + only see how well and blooming his beloved one was—she had gained + twelve pounds already—Mrs. Simpson was sure the time of waiting + would pass less heavily. For herself, it was cruel but she smiled upon the + deferred reunion of hearts, she would keep Laura till the very last day, + and hoped to establish a permanent claim on her. She was just the daughter + Mrs. Simpson would have liked, so unspotted, so pure, so wrapped in high + ideals; and then the page would reflect something of the adoring awe in + which Mrs. Simpson would have held such a daughter. It will be seen that + Mrs. Simpson knew how to express herself, but there was a fine sincerity + behind the mask of words; Miss Filbert had entered very completely into + possession. + </p> + <p> + It had its abnormal side, the way she entered into possession. Everything + about Laura Filbert had its abnormal side, none the less obvious because + it was inward, and invisible. Nature, of course, worked with her, one + might say that nature really did it all, since in the end she was + practically unconscious, except for the hope that certain souls had been + saved, that anything of the sort had happened. She conquered the Simpsons + and their friends chiefly by the simple impossibility that they should + conquer her, walking immobile among them even while she admired Mr. + Simpson's cauliflowers and approved the quality of Mrs. Simpson's house + linen. It must be confessed that nothing in her surroundings spoke to her + more loudly or more subtly than these things. In view of what happened, + poor dear Alicia Livingstone's anticipation that the Simpsons and their + circle would have a radical personal effect upon Laura Filbert became + ludicrous. They had no effect at all. She took no tint, no curve. She + appeared not to see that these precious things were to be had for the + assimilation. Her grace remained exclusively that of holiness, and + continued to fail to have any relation to the common little things she did + and said. + </p> + <p> + The Simpsons were more plastic. Laura had been with them hardly a week + before Mrs. Simpson, with touching humility, was trying to remodel her + spiritual nature upon the form so fortuitously, if the word is admissible, + presented. The dear lady had never before realised, by her own statement, + how terribly her religious feelings were mingled with domestic and social + considerations, how firmly her spiritual edifice was based upon the things + of this world. She felt that her soul was honeycombed—that was her + word—with conventionality and false standards, and she made + confessions like these to Laura, sitting in the girl's bedroom in the + twilight. They were very soothing, these confessions. Laura would take + Mrs. Simpson's thin, veined, middle-aged hand in hers and seem to charge + herself for the moment with the responsibility of the elder lady's case. + She did not attempt to conceal her pity or even her contempt for Mrs. + Simpson's state of grace, she made short work of special services and + ladies' Bible classes. The world was white with harvest, and Mrs. + Simpson's chief activity was a recreation society for shop girls. But it + was something, it was everything, to be uneasy, to be unsatisfied, and + they would uplift themselves in prayer, and Laura would find words of such + touching supplication in which to represent the matter that the burden of + her friend and hostess would at once be lessened by the weight of tears. + Mrs. Simpson had never wept so much without perceived cause for grief as + since Laura arrived, and this alone would testify, such was the gentle + paradox of her temperament, how much she enjoyed Miss Filbert's presence. + </p> + <p> + Laura's room was a temple, for which the gardener daily gave up his + choicest blooms, the tenderest interest watched upon her comings and + goings, and it was the joy of both the Simpsons to make little sacrifices + for her, to desert their beloved vicar on a Sunday evening, for instance, + and accompany her to the firemen's halls and skating rinks lent to the + publishing of the Word in the only manner from which their guest seemed to + derive benefit. With all this, the Simpsons were sometimes troubled by the + impression that they could not claim to be making their angel in the house + completely happy. The air, the garden, the victoria, the turbot and the + whitebait, these were all that has been vaunted, and even to the modesty + of the Simpsons it was evident that the intimacy they offered their guest + should count for something. There were other friends too, young friends + who tried to teach her to play tennis, robust and silent young persons who + threw shy flushed glances at her in the pauses of the games, and wished + supremely, without daring to hint it, that she would let fall some word + about her wonderful romance—a hope ever renewed, ever to be + disappointed. And physically Laura expanded before their eyes. The colour + that came into her cheek gave her the look of a person painted by + Bouguereau; that artist would have found in her a model whom he could have + represented with sincerity. Yet something was missing to her, her friends + were dimly aware. Her desirable surroundings kindled her to but a + perfunctory interest in life—the electric spark was absent. Mrs. + Simpson relied strategically upon the wedding preparations and hurried + them on, announcing in May that it was quite time to think about various + garments of which the fashion is permanent, but the issue was blank. No + ripple stirred the placid waters, unless indeed we take that way of + describing Laura's calm demand, when the decision lay between Valenciennes + and Torchon lace for under-bodies, to hear whether Mrs. Simpson had ever + known Duff Lindsay to be anxious about his eternal future. The girl + continued to give forth a mere pale reflection of her circumstances, and + Mrs. Simpson was forced into the deprecation that perhaps one would hardly + call her a joyous Christian. + </p> + <p> + But for the Zenana Light Society this impression of Miss Filbert might + have deepened. The committee of that body was almost entirely composed of + Mrs. Simpson's friends, and naturally came to learn much about her guest. + The matter was vastly considered, but finally Miss Filbert was asked to + speak at one of the monthly meetings the ladies held among themselves to + keep the society “in touch” with the cause. Laura brought them, as one + would imagine, surprisingly in touch. She made pictures for them, letting + her own eyelashes close deliberately while they stared. She moved these + ladies, inspired them, carried them away, and the fact that none of them + found themselves able afterward to quote the most pathetic passages seemed + rather to add to the enthusiasm with which they described the address. The + first result was a shower of invitations to tea, occasions when Laura was + easily led into monologue. Miss Filbert became a cult of evangelistic + drawing-rooms, and the same kind of forbearance was extended to her little + traces of earlier social experiences as is offered, in salons of another + sort, to the eccentricities of persons of genius. Very soon other + applications had to be met and considered, and Mrs. Simpson freely + admitted that Laura would not be justified in refusing to the Methodists + and Baptists what she had given elsewhere. She reasserted her platform + influence over audiences that grew constantly larger, and her world began + to revolve again in that great relation to the infinities which it was her + life to perceive and point out. Mrs. Simpson charged her genially with + having been miserable in Plymouth until she was allowed to do good in her + own way, and saw that she had beef-tea after every occasion of doing it. + She became in a way a public character, and a lady journalist sent an + account of her, with a photograph, to a well-known London fashion paper. + Perhaps the strongest effect she made was as the voice of the Purity + Association, when she delivered an address, in the picturesque costume she + had abandoned, attacking measures contemplated by Government for the + protection of the health of the Army in India. This was reported in full + in the local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to Duff Lindsay, who + received it, I regret to say, with an unmistakable imprecation. But Laura + rejoiced. Deprived of her tambourine she nevertheless rejoiced + exceedingly. + </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> + The Mother Superior had a long upper lip, which she was in the habit of + drawing still further down; it gave her an air of great diplomatic + caution, almost of casuistry. Her face was pale and narrow; she had eyes + that desired to be very penetrating, and a flat little stooping figure + within her voluminous draperies. She carried about with her all the + virtues of a monastic order, patience was written upon her, and + repression, discipline, and the love of administration, written and + underlined, so that the Anglican Sister whom no Pope blessed was more + priestly in her personal effect than any Jesuit. It was difficult to + remember that she had begun as a woman; she was now a somewhat anaemic + formula making for righteousness. Sister Ann Frances, who in her turn + suggested the fat capons of an age of friars more indulgent to the flesh, + and whose speech was of the crispest in this world where there was so much + to do, thought poorly of the executive ability of the Mother Superior, and + resented the imposition, as it were, of the long upper lip. Out of this + arose the only irritations that vexed the energetic flow of duty at the + Baker Institution, slight official raspings which the Mother Superior + immediately laid before Heaven at great length. She did it with publicity, + too, kneeling on the chunam floor of the chapel for an hour at a time + obviously explaining matters. The bureaucracy of the country was reflected + in the Baker Institution; it seemed to Sister Ann Frances that her + superior officer took undue advantage of her privilege of direct + communication with the Supreme Authority, giving any colour she liked to + the incident. And when the Mother Superior's lumbago came on in direct + consequence of the cold chunam, the annoyance of Sister Ann Frances was + naturally not lessened. + </p> + <p> + There were twenty or thirty of them, with their little white caps tied + close under their chins, their long veils and their girdled black robes. + They were the most self-sacrificing women in Asia, the most devout, the + most useful. Government gave hospitals and doctors into their hands; they + took the whole charge of certain schools. They differed in complexion, + some of the newly arrived being delightfully fresh and pink under their + starched bandeaux; but they were all official, they all walked discreetly + and directly about their business, with a jangle of keys in the folds of + their robes, immensely organised, immensely under orders. Hilda, when she + had time, had the keenest satisfaction in contemplating them. She took the + edge off the fact that she was not quite one, in aim and method, with + these dear women as they supposed her to be, with the reflection that + after all it might be worth while to work out a solution of life in those + terms, standing aside from the world—the world was troublesome—and + keeping an unfaltering eye upon the pity of things, an unfaltering hand at + its assuagement. It was simple and fine and indisputable, this work of + throwing the clear shadow of the Cross upon the muddy sunlight of the + world; it carried the boon of finality in itself. One might be stopped and + put away at any moment, and nothing would be spoiled, broken, unfinished; + and it absolutely barred out such considerations as were presented by + Hamilton Bradley. There was a time early in her probation when she thought + seriously that if it were not Stephen Arnold it should be this. + </p> + <p> + She begged to be put on hospital work, and was sent for her indiscretion + to teach in the Orphanage for Female Children of British Troops. The first + duty of a novice was to be free of preference, to obey without a sigh of + choice. On the third day, however, Sister Ann Frances, supervising, + stopped at the open schoolroom door to hear the junior female orphans + repeating in happy chorus after their instructress the statement that + seven times nine were fifty-six. I think Hilda saw Sister Ann Frances in + the door. That couldn't go on, even in the name of discipline, and Miss + Howe was placed at the disposal of the Chief Nursing Sister at the General + Hospital next day. Sister Ann Frances was inclined to defend Hilda's + imperfect acquaintance with primary arithmetic. + </p> + <p> + “We all have our gifts,” she said. “Miss Howe's is not the multiplication + table; but neither is mine stage-acting.” At which, the upper lip + lengthened further into an upward curving smile, and the Mother Superior + remarked cautiously that she hoped Miss Howe would develop one for making + bandages, otherwise—And there for the time being the matter rested. + </p> + <p> + The depth of what was unusual in Hilda's relation with Alicia Livingstone—perhaps + it has been plain that they were not quite the ordinary feminine liens—seems + to me to be sounded in the tacit acceptance of Hilda's novitiate on its + merits that fell between the two women. The full understanding of it was + an abyss between them, across which they joined hands, looking elsewhere. + Even in the surprise of Hilda's announcement Alicia had the instinct to + glance away, lest her eyes should betray too many facts that bore upon the + situation. It had never been discussed, but it had to be accepted, and + occasionally referred to; and the terms of acceptance and reference made + no implication of Stephen Arnold. In her inmost privacy Alicia gazed + breathless at the conception as a whole; she leaped at it, and caught it + and held it to look, with a feverish comparison of possibilities. It was + not strange, perhaps, that she took a vivid personal interest in the + essentials that enabled one to execute a flank movement like Hilda's, not + that she should conceive the first of them to be that one must come out of + a cab. She dismissed that impression with indignation as ungenerously + cynical, but it always came back for redismissal. It did not interfere in + the least, however, with her deliberate invitations to Stephen to come to + Ten, Middleton Street, on afternoons or evenings when Hilda was there. She + was like one standing denied in the Street of Abundance; she had an + avidity of the eye for even love's reflection. + </p> + <p> + That was a little later. At first there was the transformation to lament, + the loss, the break. + </p> + <p> + “You look,” cried Miss Livingstone, the first time Hilda arrived in the + dress of the novice, a kind of under-study of the Sisters' black and + white, “you look like a person in a book, full of salient points, and yet + made so simple to the reader. If you go on wearing those things I shall + end by understanding you perfectly.” + </p> + <p> + “If you don't understand me,” Hilda said, dropping into the corner of a + sofa, “Cela que je m'en doute, it's because you look for too much + elaboration. I am a simple creature, done with rather a broad brush—voila + tout!” + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone's was a happy impression. The neutrality of + her hospital dress left Hilda in a manner exposed: one saw in a special + way the significance of lines and curves; it was an astonishingly vigorous + human expression. + </p> + <p> + Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin tucked + into her palm, and looked at it. The elbow bent itself in light blue + muslin of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The colour found a wistful + echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, who was accustomed to the look, + and met it with impenetrable commonplace, being made impatient by nothing + in this world so much as by futility, however charming. + </p> + <p> + “Just now,” Alicia said, “the shadows under your eyes are brushed too + deep.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory.” + </p> + <p> + “Horrible! All the little comforts of life—don't you miss them?” + </p> + <p> + “I never had them, my dear—I never had them. Life has never given me + very many luxuries—I don't miss them. An occasional hour to one's + self—and that we get even at the Institution. The conventions are + strictly conserved, believe me.” + </p> + <p> + “One imagines that kind of place is always clean.” + </p> + <p> + “When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and believe + myself in Paradise. The repose is there, the angels also—dear + commanding things—and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And there + is some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds one that after all one is + very like other women.” + </p> + <p> + “It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how did the sisters receive + you—with the harp and the psaltery?” + </p> + <p> + “That was rather,” said Hilda gravely, “what I expected. On the contrary. + They snubbed me—they really did. There were two of them. I said, + 'Reverend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents are strange to me; I + shall probably commit horrible sins without knowing it. Give me your + absolution in advance—at least your blessing.'” + </p> + <p> + “Hilda, you didn't!” + </p> + <p> + “It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she is, + disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me. Such diplomacy—funny + old thing.” + </p> + <p> + “They must be devoured with curiosity!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, they ask no questions. One sees an everlasting finger on the lip. + It's a little boring. One feels inclined to speak up and say, 'Mesdames, + entendez—it isn't so bad as you think.' But then their fingers would + go into their ears.” + </p> + <p> + “And the rules, Hilda? I can't imagine you, somehow, under rules.” + </p> + <p> + “I am attached to the rules; I think about them all day long. They make + the thing simple and—possible. It is a little like living for the + first time in a house all right angles after—after a lifelong voyage + in a small boat.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't the house rather empty?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well!” + </p> + <p> + Alicia put out her hand and tucked an irrelevant bit of lace into Hilda's + bosom. “I can tell you who is interested,” she cried. “The Archdeacon—the + Archdeacon and Mrs. Barberry. They both dined here last night; and you + lasted from the fish to the pudding. I got so bored with you, my dear, in + your new capacity.” + </p> + <p> + A new ray of happiness came into the smile of the novice. “What did they + say? Do tell me what they said.” + </p> + <p> + “There was a difference of opinion. The Archdeacon held that with God all + things were possible. He used an expression more suitable to a + dinner-party; but I think that is what he meant. Mrs. Barberry thought it + wouldn't last. Mrs. Barberry was very cynical. She said anyone could see + that you were as emotional as ever you could be.” + </p> + <p> + The eyes of the two women met, and they laughed frankly. A sense of + expansion came between them, in which for an instant they were silent. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about the hospital,” Alicia said presently. “Ah, the hospital!” + Hilda's face changed; there came into her eyes the moved look that always + waked a thrill in Alicia Livingstone, as if she were suddenly aware that + she had stepped upon ground where feet like hers passed seldom. + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing to tell you that is not—sad. Such odds and ends, + of life, thrown together!” + </p> + <p> + “Have you had any experiences yet?” + </p> + <p> + Hilda stared for a moment absently in front of her, and then turned her + head aside to answer as if she closed her eyes on something. + </p> + <p> + “Experiences? Delightful Alicia, speaking your language, no. You are + thinking of the resident surgeon, the medical student, the interesting + patient. My resident surgeon is fifty years old; the medical student is a + Bengali in white cotton and patent leather shoes. I am occupied in a ward + full of deck hands. For these I hold the bandage and the bottle; they are + hardly aware of me.” + </p> + <p> + “You are sure to have them,” Alicia said. “They crop up wherever you go in + this world, either before you or behind you.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda fixed her eyes attentively upon her companion. “Sometimes,” she + said, “you say things that are extremely true in their general bearing. A + fortuneteller with cards gives one the same shock of surprise. Well, let + me tell you, I have been promoted to temperatures. I took thirty-five + to-day. Next week I am to make poultices; the week after, baths and + fomentations.” + </p> + <p> + “What are the others like—the other novices?” + </p> + <p> + “Nearly all Eurasians, one native, a Hindu widow—the Sisters are + almost demonstrative to her—and one or two local European girls: the + commissariat sergeant class, I should think.” + </p> + <p> + “They don't sound attractive, and I am glad. You will depend the more upon + me.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda looked thoughtfully at Miss Livingstone. “I will depend,” she said, + “a good deal upon you.” + </p> + <p> + It was Alicia's fate to meet the Archdeacon again that evening at dinner. + “And is she really throwing her heart into the work?” asked that + dignitary, referring to Miss Howe. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I think so,” Alicia said. “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI + </h2> + <p> + The labours of the Baker Institution and of the Clarke Mission were very + different in scope, so much so that if they had been secular bodies + working for profit, there would have been hardly a point of contact + between them. As it was they made one, drawing together in affiliation for + the comfort of mutual support in a heathen country where all the other + Englishmen wrote reports, drilled troops, or played polo, with all the + other Englishwomen in the corresponding female parts. Doubtless the little + communities prayed for each other. One may imagine, not profanely, their + petitions rising on either side of the heedless, multitudinous, idolatrous + city, and meeting at some point in the purer air above the yellow + dust-haze. I am not aware that they held any other mutual duty or + privilege, but this bond was known, and enabled people whose conscience + pricked them in that direction to give little garden teas to which they + invited Clarke Brothers and Baker Sisters, secure in doing a benevolent + thing and at the same time embarrassing nobody except, possibly, the + Archdeacon, who was officially exposed to being asked as well and had no + right to complain. The affiliation was thus a social convenience, since it + is unlikely that without it anybody would have hit upon so ingenious a way + of killing, as it were, a Baker Sister and a Clarke Brother with one + stone. It is not surprising that this degree of intelligence should fail + to see the profound official difference between Baker Sisters and Baker + novices. As the Mother Superior said, it did not seem to occur to people + that there could be in connection with a religious body, such words as + discipline and subordination, which were certainly made ridiculous for the + time being, when she and Sister Ann Frances were asked to eat ices on the + same terms as Miss Hilda Howe. It must have been more than ever painful to + these ladies, regarded from the official point of view, when it became + plain, as it usually did, that the interest of the afternoon centred in + Miss Howe, whether or not the Archdeacon happened to be present. Their + displeasure was so clear, after the first occasion, that Hilda felt + obliged when the next one came, to fall back on her original talent, and + ate her ice abashed and silent speaking only when she was spoken to, and + then in short words and long hesitations. Thereupon the Sisters were of + opinion that after all poor Miss Howe could not help her unenviable lot, + she was perhaps more to be pitied on account of it than—anything + else. It came to this, that Sister Ann Frances even had an exhibitor's + pride in her, and Hilda knew the sensations of a barbarian female captive + in the bonds of the Christians. But she could not afford to risk being cut + off from those little garden teas. All told, they were few; ladies + disturbed by ideas of social duties toward missionaries being so uncommon. + </p> + <p> + She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her with being + so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a gravity which + contained an element of satisfaction. “It is, of course, a pleasure to us + to meet,” he said, “a pleasure to us both.” That was part of the + satisfaction, that he could meet her candour with the same openness. He + was not even afraid to mention to her the stimulus she gave him always and + his difficulty in defining it, and once he told her how, after a talk with + her, he had lain awake until the small hours unable to stop his excited + rush of thought. He added that he was now personally and selfishly glad + she had chosen as she did three months before; it made a difference to + him, her being in Calcutta, a sensible and material difference. He had + better hope and heart in his work. It was the last luxury he would ever + have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; but since life had + brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met with no grudging of + gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into his manner which was + new to him; he went about his duties with the look of a man to whom life + had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable. His blood might have + received some mysterious chemical complement, so much was his eye clearer, + his voice firmer, and the things he found to say more decisive. Nor did + any consideration of their relations disturb him. He never thought of the + oxygen in the air he breathed, and he seldom thought of Hilda. + </p> + <p> + They were walking toward the Institution together the day he explained to + her his gratification that she had elected to remain. Sister Ann Frances + and Sister Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came behind. He had an errand to + the Mother Superior—he would go all the way. It was late in May and + late in the afternoon; all the treetops on the Maidan were bent under the + sweep of the south wind, blowing a caressing coolness from the sea. It + spread fragrances about and shook down blossoms from the gold-mohur trees. + One could see nothing anywhere, so red and yellow as they were, except the + long coat of a Government messenger, a point of scarlet moving in the + perspective of a dusty road. The spreading acres of turf were baked to + every earth-colour; wherever a pine dropped needles and an old woman swept + them up, a trail of dust ran curling along the ground like smoke. The + little party was unusual in walking; glances of uncomprehending pity were + cast at them from victorias and landaus that rolled past. Even the + convalescent British soldiers facing each other in the clumsy drab cart + drawn by humped bullocks, and marked Garrison Dispensary, stared at the + black-skirts so near the powder of the road. The Sisters in front walked + with their heads slightly bent toward one another; they seemed to be + consulting. Hilda reflected, looking at them, that they always seemed to + be consulting; it was the normal attitude of that long black veil that + flowed behind. + </p> + <p> + Arnold walked beside his companion, his hands loosely clasped behind him, + with the air of semi-detachment that young clergymen sometimes have with + their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace of custom his satisfaction + carried, the casual glance might easily have taken them for a married + pair. + </p> + <p> + “There is a kind of folly and stupidity in saying it,” he said, “but you + have done—you do—a great deal for me.” + </p> + <p> + She turned toward him with a wistful, measuring look. It searched his face + for an instant and came back baffled. Arnold spoke with so much kindness, + so much appreciation. + </p> + <p> + “Very little,” she said mechanically, looking at the fresh footprints of + Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret. + </p> + <p> + “But I know. And can't you tell me—it would make me so very happy—that + I have done something for you too—something that you value?” + </p> + <p> + Hilda's eyes lightened curiously, reverie came into them, and a smile. She + answered as if she spoke to herself, “I should not know how to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + Then scenting wonder in him she added, “You were thinking of something—in + particular?” + </p> + <p> + “You have sometimes made me believe,” Stephen returned, “that I may + account myself, under God, the accident which induced you to take up your + blessed work. I was thinking of that.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said, “of that!” and seemed to take refuge in silence. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Arnold said, with infinite gentleness. + </p> + <p> + “But you were profoundly the cause! I might say you are, for without you I + doubt whether I should have the—courage—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no! Oh no! He who inspired you in the beginning will sustain you to + the end. Think that. Believe that.” + </p> + <p> + “Will He?” Her voice was neutral, as if it would not betray too much, but + there was a listlessness that spoke louder in the bend of her head, the + droop of her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “For you perhaps,” Arnold said thoughtfully, “there is only one assurance + of it—the satisfaction your vocation brings you now. That will + broaden and increase,” he went on, almost with buoyancy, “growing more and + more your supreme good as the years go on.” + </p> + <p> + “How much you give me credit for!” + </p> + <p> + “Not nearly enough—not nearly. Who is there like you?” he demanded + simply. + </p> + <p> + His words seemed a baptism. She lifted up her face after them, and the + trace of them was on her eyes and lips. “I have passed two examinations, + at all events,” she informed him, with sudden gaiety, “and Sister Ann + Frances says that in two or three months I shall probably get through the + others. Sister Ann Frances thinks me more intelligent than might be + expected. And if I do pass those examinations I shall be what they call a + quick-time probationer. I shall have got it over in six months. Do you + think,” she asked, as if to please herself; “that six months will be long + enough?” + </p> + <p> + “It depends. There is so much to consider.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—it depends. Sometimes I think it will be, but oftener I think + it will take longer.” + </p> + <p> + “I should be inclined to leave it entirely with the Sisters.” + </p> + <p> + “I am so undisciplined,” murmured Hilda, “I fear I shall cling to my own + opinion. Now we must overtake the others and you must walk the rest of the + way with Sister Ann—no, Sister Margaret, she is senior.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't at all see the necessity,” Stephen protested. He was wilful and + wayward; he adopted a privileged air, and she scolded him. In their + dispute they laughed so imprudently that Sister Ann Frances turned her + draped head to look back at them. Then they quickened their steps and + joined the elder ladies, and Stephen walked with Sister Margaret to the + door of the Institution. She mentioned to the Mother Superior afterwards + that young Mr. Arnold was really a delightful conversationalist. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII + </h2> + <p> + They talked a great deal in Plymouth about the way the time was passing in + Calcutta during those last three months before Laura should return, the + months of the rains. “Now,” said Mrs. Simpson, early in July, “it will be + pouring every day, with great patches of the Maidan under water, and + rivers, my dear, RIVERS, in the back streets”; and Laura had a + reminiscence about how, exactly at that time, a green mould used to spread + itself fresh every morning on the matting under her bed in Bentinck + Street. Later on they would agree that perhaps by this time there was a + “break in the rains,” and that nothing in the world was so trying as a + break in the rains, the sun grilling down and drawing up steam from every + puddle. In September, things, they remembered, would be at their very + worst and most depressing; one had hardly the energy to lift a finger in + September. Mrs. Simpson looked back upon the discomfort she had endured in + Bengal at this time of year with a kind of regret that it was + irretrievably over; she lingered upon a severe illness which had been part + of the experience. She seemed to think that with a little judicious + management she might have spent more time in that climate, and less in + England. There was in her tone a suggestion of gentle envy of Laura, going + forth to these dismal conditions with her young life in her hands all + tricked out for the sacrifice, which left Duff Lindsay and his white and + gold drawing-room entirely out of consideration. Any sacrifice to Mrs. + Simpson was alluring, she would be killed all day long, in a manner, for + its own sake. + </p> + <p> + The victim had taken her passage early in October, and during the first + week of that month Plymouth gathered itself into meetings to bid her + farewell. A curiously sacred character had fastened itself upon her; it + was not in the least realised that she was going out to be married to an + altogether secular young broker moving in fashionable circles in one of + the gayest cities in the world. Ones or two reverend persons in the course + of commending their young sister to the protection of the Almighty in her + approaching separation from the dear friends who surrounded her in + Plymouth, made references implying that her labours would continue to the + glory of God, taking it as a matter of course. Miss Filbert was by this + time very much impregnated with the idea that they would, she did not know + precisely how, but that would open itself out. Duff had long been + assimilated as part of the programme. All that money and humility could + contribute should be forthcoming from him; she had a familiar dream of him + as her standard-bearer, undistinguished but for ever safe. + </p> + <p> + Yet it was with qualified approval that Mrs. Simpson, amid the confusion + of the Coromandel's preparations for departure at London Docks, heard the + inevitable strains of the Salvation Army rising aft. Laura immediately + cried, “I shall have friends among the passengers,” and Mrs. Simpson so + far forgot herself as to say, “Yes, if they are nice.” The ladies were + sitting on deck beside the pile of Laura's very superior cabin luggage. + Mrs. Simpson glanced at it as if it offered a kind of corroboration of the + necessity of their being nice. “There are always a few delightful + Christian people, if one takes the trouble to find them out, at this end + of the ship,” she said defensively. “I have never failed to find it so.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think much of Christians who are so hard to discover,” Laura said + with decision; and Mrs. Simpson, rebuked, thought of the mischievous + nature of class prejudices. Laura herself—had she not been drawn + from what one might call distinctly the other end of the ship?—and + who, among those who vaunted themselves ladies and gentlemen, could + compare with Laura! The idea that she had shown a want of sympathy with + those dear people who were so strenuously calling down a blessing on the + Coromandel somewhere behind the smoke stacks, embittered poor Mrs. + Simpson's remaining tears of farewell, and when the bell rang the signal + for the last good-bye, she embraced her young friend with the fervent + request, “Do make friends with them, dear one—make friends with them + at once”; and Laura said, “If they will make friends with me.” + </p> + <p> + By the time the ship had well got her nose down the coast of Spain, Miss + Filbert had created her atmosphere, and moved about in it from end to end + of the quarter-deck. It was a recognisable thing, her atmosphere, one + never knew when it would discharge a question relating to the gravest + matters; and persons unprepared to give satisfaction upon this point—one + fears there are some on a ship bound east of Suez—found it + blighting. They moved their long chairs out of the way, they turned + pointedly indifferent backs, the lady who shared Miss Filbert's cabin—she + belonged to a smart cavalry regiment at Mhow—went about saying + things with a distinct edge. Miss Filbert exhausted all the means. She + attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, standing for + elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but with this the + captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on behalf of the + whist-players inside. In the evening, after dinner, she established + herself in a sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered voice lifted itself + with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about the poverty of the world + and the riches of heaven; the notes mingled with the churning of the + screw, and fell in the darkness beyond the ship's lights abroad upon the + sea. The other passengers listened aloof; the Coromandel was crowded, but + you could have drawn a wide circle round her chair. On the morning of the + fourth day out—she had not felt quite well enough for adventures + before—she found her way to the second-class saloon, being no doubt + fully justified of her conscience in abandoning the first to the + flippancies of its preference. + </p> + <p> + In the second-class end the tone was certainly more like that of Plymouth. + Laura had a grateful sense of this in coming, almost at once, upon a + little group gathered together for praise and prayer, of which four or + five persons of both sexes, labelled “S. A.,” naturally formed the centre. + They were not only praying and praising without discouragement, they had + attracted several other people who had brought their chairs into near and + friendly relation, and even joined sometimes in the chorus of the hymns. + There was a woman in mourning who cried a good deal—her tears seemed + to refresh the Salvationists and inspire them to louder and more cheerful + efforts. There was a man in a wide, soft felt hat with the malaria of the + Terai in the hollows under his eyes; there was a Church Missionary with an + air of charity and forbearance, and the bushy-eyed colonel of a native + regiment looking vigilant against ridicule, with his wife, whose round red + little face continually waxed and waned in a smile of true contentment. It + was not till later that Laura came to know them all so very well, but her + eye rested on them one after another, with approval, as she drew near. + Without pausing in his chant—it happened to be one of triumph—without + even looking at her, the leader indicated an empty chair. It was his own + chair. “Colonel Markin, S. A.” was printed in black letters on its striped + canvas back; Laura noticed that. + </p> + <p> + After it was over, the little gathering, Colonel Markin specially + distinguished her. He did it delicately. “I hope you won't mind my + expressin' my thanks for the help you gave us in the singin',” he said. + “Such a voice I've seldom had the pleasure to join with. May I ask where + you got it trained?” + </p> + <p> + He was a narrow-chested man with longish sandy hair and thin features. His + eyes were large, blue, and protruding, his forehead very high and white. + There was a pinkness about the root of his nose, and a scanty yellow + moustache upon his upper lip, while his chin was partly hidden by a beard + equally scanty and even more yellow. He had extremely long white hands; + one could not help observing them as they clasped his book of devotion. + </p> + <p> + Laura looked at him with profound appreciation of these details. She knew + Colonel Markin by reputation, he had done a great work among the + Cingalese. “It was trained,” she said, casting down her eyes, “on the + battlefields of our Army.” + </p> + <p> + Colonel Markin attempted to straighten his shoulders and to stiffen his + chin. He seemed vaguely aware of a military tradition which might make it + necessary for him, as a very senior officer indeed, to say something. But + the impression was transitory. Instead of using any rigour he held out his + hand. Laura took it reverently, and the bones shut up, like the sticks of + a fan, in her grasp. “Welcome, comrade!” he said, and there was a pause, + as there should be after such an apostrophe. + </p> + <p> + “When you came among us this afternoon,” Colonel Markin resumed, “I + noticed you. There was something about the way you put your hand over your + eyes when I addressed our Heavenly Father that spoke to me. It spoke to me + and said, 'Here we have a soul that knows what salvation means—there's + no doubt about that.' Then when you raised a Hallelujah I said to myself, + 'That's got the right ring to it.' And so you're a sister in arms!” + </p> + <p> + “I was,” Laura murmured. + </p> + <p> + “You was—you were. Well, well—I want to hear all about it. It + is now,” continued Colonel Markin, as two bells struck and a steward + passed them with a bugle, “the hour for our dinner, and I suppose that you + too,” he bent his head respectfully towards the other half of the ship, + “partake of some meal at this time. But if you will seek us out again at + the meeting between four and five I shall be at your service afterwards, + and pleased,” he took her hand again, “PLEASED to see you.” + </p> + <p> + Laura went back to the evening meeting, and after that missed none of + these privileges. In due course she was asked to address it, and then her + position became enviable from all points of view, for people who did not + draw up their chairs and admire her inspirations sat at a distance and + admired her clothes. Very soon, at her special request, she was allowed to + resign her original place at table and take a revolving chair at the nine + o'clock breakfast, one o'clock dinner, and six o'clock tea which sustained + the second saloon. Daily, ascending the companion ladder to the main deck + aft she gradually faded from cognisance forward. There they lay back in + their long chairs and sipped their long drinks, and with neutral eyes and + lips they let the blessing go. + </p> + <p> + In the intervals between the exercises Miss Filbert came and went in the + cabin of three young Salvationists of her own sex. They could always make + room for her, difficult as it may appear; she held for them an indefinite + store of fascination. Laura would extend herself on a top berth beside the + round-eyed Norwegian to whom it belonged, with the cropped head of the + owner pillowed on her sisterly arm, and thus they passed hours, discussing + conversions as medical students might discuss cases, relating, comparing. + They talked a great deal about Colonel Markin. They said it was a + beautiful life. More beautiful if possible had been the life of Mrs. + Markin, who was his second wife, and who had been “promoted to glory” six + months before. She had gained promotion through jungle fever, which had + carried her off in three days. The first Mrs. Markin had died of drink—that + was what had sent the Colonel into the Army, she, the first Mrs. Markin, + having willed her property away from him. Colonel Markin had often + rejoiced publicly that the lady had been of this disposition, the results + to him had been so blessed. Apparently he spoke without reserve of his + domestic affairs in connection with his spiritual experiences, using both + the Mrs. Markins when it was desirable as “illustrations.” The five had + reached this degree of intimacy by the time the Coromandel was nearing + Port Said, and every day the hemispheres of sea and sky they watched + through the porthole above the Norwegian girl's berth grew bluer. + </p> + <p> + From the first Colonel Markin had urged Miss Filbert's immediate return to + the Army. He found her sympathetic to the idea, willing indeed to embrace + it with open arms, but there were difficulties. Mr. Lindsay, as a + difficulty, was almost insuperable to anything like a prompt step in that + direction. Colonel Markin admitted it himself. He was bound to admit it he + said, but nothing, since he joined the Army, had ever been so painful to + him. “I wish I could deny it,” he said with frankness; “but there is no + doubt that for the present your first duty is towards your gentleman, + towards him who placed that ring upon your finger.” There was no sarcasm + in his describing Lindsay as a gentleman; he used the term in a kind of + extra special sense where a person less accustomed to polite usages might + have spoken of Laura's young man. “But remember, my child,” he continued, + “it is only your poor vile body that is yours to dispose of, your soul + belongs to God Almighty, and no earthly husband, especially as you say he + is still in his sins, is going to have the right to interfere.” This may + seem vague, as the statement of a position, but Laura found it immensely + fortifying. That and similar arguments built her up in her determination + to take up what Colonel Markin called her life-work again at the earliest + opportunity. She had forfeited her rank, that she accepted humbly as a + proper punishment, ardently hoping it would be found sufficient. She would + go back as a private, take her place in the ranks, and nothing in her + married life should interfere with the things that cried out to be done in + Bentinck Street. Somehow she had less hope of securing Lindsay as a + spiritual companion in arms since she had confided the affair to Colonel + Markin. As he said, they must hope for the best, but he could not help + admitting that he took a gloomy view of Lindsay. + </p> + <p> + “Once he has secured you,” the Colonel said, with an appreciative glance + at Laura's complexion, “what will he care about his soul? Nothing.” + </p> + <p> + Their enthusiasm had ample opportunity to strengthen, their mutual + satisfactions to expand, in the close confines of life on board ship, and + as if to seal and sanctify the voyage permanently a conversion took place + in the second saloon, owning Laura's agency. It was the maid of the lady + in the cavalry regiment, a hardened heart, as two stewards and a + bandmaster on board could testify. When this occurred the time that was to + elapse between Laura's marriage and her return to the ranks was shortened + to one week. “And quite long enough,” Colonel Markin said, “considering + how much more we need you than your gentleman does, my dear sister.” + </p> + <p> + It was plain to them all that Colonel Markin had very special views about + his dear sister. The other dear sisters looked on with pleasurable + interest, admitting the propriety of it, as Colonel Markin walked up and + down the deck with Laura, examining her lovely nature, “drawing her out” + on the subject of her faith and her assurance. It was natural, as he told + her, that in her peculiar situation she should have doubts and + difficulties. He urged her to lay bare her heart, and she laid it bare. + One evening—it was heavenly moonlight on the Indian Ocean, and they + were two days past Aden on the long south-east run to Ceylon—she + came and stood before him with a small packet in her hand. She was all in + white, and more like an angel than Markin expected ever to see anything in + this world, though as to the next his anticipations may have been + extravagant. + </p> + <p> + “Now I wonder,” said he, “where you are going to sit down?” + </p> + <p> + A youngster in the Police got up and pushed his chair forward, but Laura + shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “I am going out there,” she said, pointing to the farthermost stern where + passengers were not encouraged to sit, “and I want to consult you.” + </p> + <p> + Markin got up. “If there's anything pressin' on your mind,” he said, “you + can't do better.” + </p> + <p> + Laura said nothing until they were alone with the rushing of the screw, + two Lascars, some coils of rope, and the hand-steering gear. Then she + opened the packet. “These,” she said, “these are pressing on my mind.” + </p> + <p> + She held out a string of pearls, a necklace of pearls and turquoises, a + heavy band bracelet studded, Delhi fashion, with gems, one or two lesser + fantasies. + </p> + <p> + “Jewellery!” said Markin. “Real or imitation?” + </p> + <p> + “So far as that goes they are good. Mr. Lindsay gave them to me. But what + have I to do with jewels, the very emblem of the folly of the world, the + desire that itches in palms that know no good works, the price of sin!” + She leaned against the masthead as she spoke, the wind blew her hair and + her skirt out toward the following seas. With that look in her eyes she + seemed a creature who had alighted on the ship but who could not stay. + </p> + <p> + Colonel Markin held the pearls up in the moonlight. + </p> + <p> + “They must have cost something to buy,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Laura was silent. + </p> + <p> + “And so they're a trouble to you. Have you taken them to the Lord in + prayer?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, many times.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't seem to hear any answer?” + </p> + <p> + “The only answer I could hear was. 'So long as you have them I will not + speak with you.'” + </p> + <p> + “That seems pretty plain and clear. And yet?” said the Colonel, fondling + the turquoises, “nobody can say there's any harm in such things, + especially if you don't wear them.” + </p> + <p> + “Colonel, they are my great temptation. I don't know that I wouldn't wear + them. And when I wear them I can think of nothing sacred, nothing holy. + When they were given to me I used—I used to get up in the night to + look at them.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall I lay it before the Almighty? That bracelet's got a remarkably good + clasp.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no—no! I must part with them. To-night I can do it, to-night—” + </p> + <p> + “There's nobody on this ship that will give you any price for them.” + </p> + <p> + “I would not think of selling them. It would be sending them from my hands + to do harm to some other poor creature, weaker than I!” + </p> + <p> + “You can't return them to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn't return them. That would be the same as keeping them.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what—oh, I see!” exclaimed Markin. “You want to give them to + the Army. Well, in my capacity, on behalf of General Booth—” + </p> + <p> + “No,” cried Laura with sudden excitement, “not that either. I will give + them to nobody. But this is what I will do!” She seized the bracelet and + flung it far out into the opaline track of the vessel, and the smaller + objects, before her companion could stop her, followed it. Then he caught + her wrist. + </p> + <p> + “Stop!” he cried. “You've gone off your head—you've got fever. + You're acting wicked with that jewellery. Stop and let us reason it out + together.” + </p> + <p> + She already had the turquoises, and with a jerk of her left hand, she + freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught the handrail + as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and stared + at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest puissance of feeling she had + known, looking at the pearls. As he stared she kissed them twice, and + then, leaning over the ship's side, let them slowly slide out of her + fingers and fall into the waves below. The moonlight gave them a divine + gleam as they fell. She turned to Markin with tears in her eyes. “Now,” + she faltered, “I can be happy again. But not to-night.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII + </h2> + <p> + While the Coromandel was throbbing out her regulation number of knots + towards Colombo, October was passing over Bengal. It went with lethargy, + the rains were too close on its heels; but at the end of the long hot + days, when the resplendent sun struck down on the glossy trees and the + over-lush Maidan, there often stole through Calcutta a breath of the + coming respite of December. The blue smoke of the people's cooking fires + began to hang again in the streets, the pungent smell of it was pleasant + in the still air. The south wind turned back at the Sunderbunds; instead + of it, one met round corners a sudden crispness that stayed just long + enough to be recognised and melted damply away. A week might have two or + three of such promises and foretastes. + </p> + <p> + Hilda Howe, approaching the end of her probation at the Baker Institution, + threw the dormitory window wide to them, went out to seek them. They gave + her a new stirring of vitality, something deep within her leaped up + responding to the voucher the evenings brought that presently they would + bring something new and different. She vibrated to an irrepressible pulse + of accord with that; it made her hand strong and her brain clear for the + unimportant matters that remained within the scope of the monotonous + moment. There had come upon her a stimulating assurance that it would be + only a moment—now. She did not consider this, she could hardly be + said to be intelligently aware of it, but it underlay all that she said + and did. Her spirits gained an enviable lightness, she began again to see + beautiful, touching things in the life that carried her on with it. She + explained to Stephen Arnold that she was immensely happy at having passed + the last of her nursing examinations. + </p> + <p> + “I hardly dare ask you,” he said, “what you are going to do now.” + </p> + <p> + He looked furtive and anxious; she saw that he did, and the perception + irritated her. She had to tell herself that she had given him the right to + look in any way he pleased—indeed yes. + </p> + <p> + “I hardly dare ask myself,” she answered, and was immediately conscious + that for the first time in the history of their relations she had spoken + to him that which was expedient. + </p> + <p> + “I hope the Sisters are not trying to influence you,” he said firmly. + </p> + <p> + “Fancy!” she cried irrelevantly. “I heard the other day that Sister Ann + Frances had described me as the pride of the Baker Institution!” She + laughed with delight at the humour of it, and he smiled too. When she + laughed, he had nearly always now confidence enough to smile too. + </p> + <p> + “You might ask for another six months.” + </p> + <p> + “Heavens, no! No—I shall make up my mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you may go away,” Arnold said. They were standing at the crossing of + the wide red road from which they would go in different directions. She + saw that the question was momentous to him. She also saw how curiously the + sun sallowed him, and how many more hollows he had in his face than most + people. She had a pathetic impression of the figure he made in his coarse + gown and shoes. “God's wayfarer,” she murmured. There was pity in her + mind, infinite pity. Her thought had no other tinge. It was a curiously + simple feeling, and seemed to bring her an inconsistent lightness of + heart. + </p> + <p> + “Come too,” she said aloud, “come and be a Clarke Brother where the + climatic conditions suit you better. The world wants Clarke Brothers + everywhere.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her and tried to smile, but his lips quivered. He opened them + in an effort to speak, gave it up, and turned away silently, lifting his + hat. Hilda watched him for an instant as he went. His figure took strange + proportions through the tears that sprang to her eyes, and she marvelled + at the gaiety with which she had touched, had almost revealed, her heart's + desire. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX + </h2> + <p> + “I knew it would happen in the end,” Hilda said, “and it has happened. The + Archdeacon has asked me to tea.” + </p> + <p> + She was speaking to Alicia Livingstone in the dormitory, changing at the + same time for a “turn” at the hospital. It was six o'clock in the + afternoon. Alicia's landau stood at the door of the Baker Institution. She + had come to find that Miss Howe was just going on duty and could not be + taken for a drive. + </p> + <p> + “When?” asked Alicia, staring out of the window at the crows in a tamarind + tree. + </p> + <p> + “Last Saturday. He said he had promised some friends of his the pleasure + of meeting me. They had besieged him, he said, and they were his best + friends, on all his committees.” + </p> + <p> + “Only ladies?” The crows, with a shriek of defiance at nothing in + particular, having flown away, Miss Livingstone transferred her attention. + </p> + <p> + “Bless me, yes. What Archdeacon has dear men friends! And lesquelles + pense-tu, mon Dieu!” + </p> + <p> + “Lesquelles?” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Jack Forrester, Mrs. Fitz—what you may call him up on the + frontier, the Brigadier gentleman—Lady Dolly!” + </p> + <p> + “You were well chaperoned.” + </p> + <p> + “And—my dear—he didn't ask a single Sister!” Hilda turned upon + her a face which appeared still to glow with the stimulus of the + archidiaconal function. “And—it was wicked considering the occasion—I + dropped the character. I let myself out!” + </p> + <p> + “You didn't shock the Archdeacon?” + </p> + <p> + “Not in the least. But, my dear love, did you ever permit yourself the + reflection that the Venerable Gambell is a bachelor?” + </p> + <p> + “Hilda, you shall not! We all love him—you shall not lead him + astray!” + </p> + <p> + “You would not think of—the altar?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Livingstone's pale small smile fell like a snowflake upon Hilda's + mood, and was swallowed up. “You are very preposterous,” she said. “Go on. + You always amuse one.” Then, as if Hilda's going on were precisely the + thing she could not quite endure, she said quickly, “The Coromandel is + telegraphed from Colombo to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “He leaves for Madras to-morrow. The thing is to take place there, you + know.” + </p> + <p> + “Then nothing but shipwreck can save him.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing but—what a horrible idea! Don't you think they may be + happy? I really think they may.” + </p> + <p> + “There is not one of the elements that give people, when they commit the + paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that they may not be + miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I should pity him less. But + he's not. He's immensely dependent on his tastes, his friends, his + circumstances.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an attention caught upon an + accidental phrase. “The paramount stupidity.” She did not repeat it aloud, + she turned it over in her mind. + </p> + <p> + “You are thinking,” Hilda said accusingly. “What are you thinking about?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday. I thought him looking rather + wretched.” + </p> + <p> + A shadow of grave consideration winged itself across Hilda's eyes. + </p> + <p> + “He works so much too hard,” she said. “It is an appalling waste. But he + will offer himself up.” + </p> + <p> + Alicia looked unsatisfied. She had hoped for something that would throw + more light upon the paramount stupidity. “He brought Mr. Lappe to tea,” + she said. + </p> + <p> + The shadow went. “Should you think Brother Lappe,” Miss Howe demanded, + “specially fitted for the cure of souls? Never, never, could I allow the + process of my regeneration to come through Brother Lappe. He has such a + little nose, and such wide pink cheeks, and such fat sloping shoulders. + Dear succulent Brother Lappe!” + </p> + <p> + A Sister passed through the dormitory on a visit of inspection. Alicia + bowed sweetly, and the Sister inclined herself briefly with a cloistered + smile. As she disappeared Hilda threw a black skirt over her head, making + a veil of it flowing backward, and rendered the visit, the noiseless + measured step, the little deprecating movements of inquiry, the benevolent + recognition of a visitor from a world where people carried parasols and + wore spotted muslins. She even effaced herself at the door on the track of + the other to make it perfect, and came back in the happy expansion of an + artistic effort to find Alicia's regard penetrated with the light of a new + conviction. + </p> + <p> + “Hilda,” she said, “I should like to know what this last year has really + been to you.” + </p> + <p> + “It has been very valuable,” Miss Howe replied. Then she turned quickly + away to hang up the black petticoat, and stood like that, shaking out its + folds, so that Alicia might not see anything curious in her face as she + heard her own words and understood what they meant. Very valuable! She did + understand, suddenly, completely. Very valuable! A year of the oddest + experiences, a pictorial year, which she would look back upon, with its + core in a dusty priest.... + </p> + <p> + A probationer came rapidly along the dormitory to where Hilda stood. She + had the olive cheeks and the liquid eyes of the country; her lips were + parted in a smile. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Howe,” she said, in the quick clicking syllables of her race, + “Sister Margaret wishes you to come immediately to the surgical ward. A + case has come in, and Miss Gonsalvez is there, but Sister Margaret will + not be bothered with Miss Gonsalvez. She says you are due by right in five + minutes,”—the messenger's smile broadened irresponsibly, and she put + a fondling touch upon Hilda's apron string,—“so will you please to + make haste!” + </p> + <p> + “What's the case?” asked Hilda; “I hope it isn't another ship's hold + accident.” But Alicia, a shade paler than before, put up her hand. “Wait + till I'm gone,” she said, and went quickly. The girl had opened her lips, + however, but to say that she didn't know, she had only been seized to take + the message, though it must be something serious since they had sent for + both the resident surgeons. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX + </h2> + <p> + Dr. Livingstone's concern was personal, that was plain in the way he stood + looking at the floor of the corridor with his hands in his pockets, before + Hilda reached him. Regret was written all over the lines of his pausing + figure with the compressed irritation which saved that feeling in the + Englishman's way from being too obvious. + </p> + <p> + “This is a bad business, Miss Howe.” + </p> + <p> + “I've just come over—I haven't heard. Who is it?” + </p> + <p> + “It's my cousin, poor chap—Arnold, the padre. He's been badly knifed + in the bazar.” + </p> + <p> + The news passed over her and left her looking with a curious face at + chance. It was lifted a little, with composed lips, and eyes which refused + to be taken by surprise. There was inquiry in them, also a defence. + Chance, looking back, saw an invincible silent readiness, and a pallor + which might be that of any woman. But the doctor was also looking, so she + said, “That is very sad,” and moved near enough to the wall to put her + hand against it. She was not faint, but the wall was a fact on which one + could, for the moment, rely. + </p> + <p> + “They've got the man—one of those Cabuli money-lenders. The police + had no trouble with him. He said it was the order of Allah—the + brute! Stray case of fanaticism, I suppose. It seems Arnold was walking + along as usual, without a notion, and the fellow sprang on him, and in two + seconds the thing was done. Hadn't a chance, poor beggar.” + </p> + <p> + “Where is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Root of the left lung. About five inches deep. The artery pretty well cut + through, I fancy.” + </p> + <p> + “Then—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no—we can't do anything. The haemorrhage must be tremendous. But + he may live through the night. Are you going to Sister Margaret?” + </p> + <p> + His nod took it for granted, and he went on. Hilda walked slowly forward, + her head bent, with absorbed uncertain steps. A bar of evening sunlight + came before her, she looked up and stepped outside the open door. She was + handling this thing that had happened, taking possession of it. It lay in + her mind in the midst of a suddenly stricken and tenderly saddened + consciousness. It lay there passively; it did not rise and grapple with + her, it was a thing that had happened—in Burra Bazar. The pity of it + assailed her. Tears came into her eyes, and an infinite grieved solicitude + gathered about her heart. “So?” she said to herself, thinking that he was + young and loved his work, and that now his hand would be stayed from the + use it had found. One of the ugly outrages of life, leaving nothing on the + mouth but that brief acceptance. It came to hers with a note of the + profound and of the supreme. She turned resolutely from searching her + heart for any wild despair. She would not for an instant consider what she + ought to feel. “So,” she said, and pressed her lips till they stopped + trembling, and went into the hospital. + </p> + <p> + She asked a question or two, in search of Sister Margaret and the new + case. It was “located,” an assistant surgeon told her, in Private Ward + Number Two. She went more and more slowly toward Private Ward Number Two. + </p> + <p> + The door was open; she stood in it for an instant with eyes nerved to + receive the tragedy. The room seemed curiously empty of any such thing, a + door opposite was also open, with an arched verandah outside; the low sun + streamed through this upon the floor with its usual tranquillity. Beyond + the arches, netted to keep the crows away, it made pictures with the tops + of the trees. There was the small iron bed with the confused outline under + the bedclothes, very quiet, and the Sister—the whitewashed wall rose + sharp behind her black draperies—sitting with a book in her hands. + Some scraps of lint on the floor beside the bed, and hardly anything else + except the silence which had almost a presence, and a faint smell of + carbolic acid, and a certain feeling of impotence and abandonment and + waiting which seemed to be in the air. Arnold moved on the pillow and saw + her standing in the door. The bars of the bed's foot were in the way, he + tried to lift his head to surmount the obstruction, and the Sister + perceived her too. + </p> + <p> + “I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?” she said, + with her little pink smile. “And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in time to be + of much use to us, is she?” It was the bedside pleasantry that expected no + reply, that indeed forbade one. + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry,” Hilda said. As she moved into the room she detached her eyes + from Arnold's, feeling as she did so that it was like tearing something. + </p> + <p> + “There was so little to do,” Sister Margaret said; “Surgeon-Major Wills + saw at once where the mischief lay. Nothing disagreeable was necessary, + was it, Mr. Arnold? Perfect quiet, perfect rest—that's an easy + prescription to take.” She had rather prominent very blue eyes, and an + aquiline nose, and a small firm mouth, and her pink cheeks were beginning + to be a little pendulous with age. Hilda gazed at her silently, noting + about her authority and her flowing draperies something classical. Was she + like one of the Fates? She approached the bed to do something to the + pillow—Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the cry, “It is + not time yet—Atropos!” + </p> + <p> + “I must go now for an hour or so,” the Sister went on. “That poor creature + in Number Six needs me; they daren't give her any more morphia. You don't + need it—happy boy!” she said to Stephen, and at the look he sent her + for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister, she was + none of the Fates, she was obliged to give directions to Hilda standing in + the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved reputation for + self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute that no one should + be admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the hospital door for the + information of inquiries; later on when the doctor came again there would + be another. + </p> + <p> + She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had vanished; + a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, the background + gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she had given hers back + to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved closer to the bed and stood + beside him. Since there was nothing to do there was nothing to say. + Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of her dress. + </p> + <p> + The room filled itself with something that had not been there before, his + impotent love. Hilda knelt down beside the bed and pressed her forehead + against the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so little more to + do. Then Arnold spoke. + </p> + <p> + “You dear woman!” he said. “You dear woman!” She kept her head bowed like + that and did not answer. It was his happiest moment. One might say he had + lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, a kind of baptism for his + heart. He spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “We must bear this,” he panted. “It is—less cruel—than it + seems. You don't know how much it is for the best.” + </p> + <p> + She lifted her wet face. “You mustn't talk,” she faltered. + </p> + <p> + “What difference—” he did not finish the sentence. His words were + too few to waste. He paused and made another effort. + </p> + <p> + “If this had not happened I would have been—counted—among the + unfaithful,” he said. “I know now. I would have abandoned—my post. + And gladly—without a regret—for you.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” Hilda cried, with a vivid note of pain. “Would you? I am sorry for + that! I am sorry!” + </p> + <p> + She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive delivered + to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with the thought + that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have had to do + with the forging of those shackles—the price of the year that had + been very valuable. + </p> + <p> + “My God is a jealous God,” Arnold said. “He has delivered me—into + His own hands—for the honour of His name. I acknowledge—I am + content.” + </p> + <p> + “No, indeed no! It was a wicked, horrible chance! Don't charge your God + with it.” + </p> + <p> + His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least possible attention. “You + did love me,” he said. He spoke as if he were already dead. + </p> + <p> + “I did indeed,” Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands + again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the + affirmation in it. + </p> + <p> + He stroked her hair. “It is good to know that,” he said, “very, good. I + should have married you.” He went on with sudden boldness and a new note + of strength in his voice, “Think of that! You would have been mine—to + protect and work for. We should have gone together to England—where + I could easily have got a curacy—easily.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda looked up. “Would you like to marry me now?” she asked eagerly, but + he shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “You don't understand,” he said. “It is the dear sin God has turned my + back upon.” + </p> + <p> + Then it came to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going + unassoiled to his God, with the divine indifference of the dying. Only his + imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, “It is a little + light flame that I have lit with my own taper that has gone out—that + has gone out—and presently the grave will extinguish that.” She sat + quiet and sombre in the growing darkness, and presently Arnold slept. + </p> + <p> + He slept through the bringing of a lamp, the arrival of flowers, subdued + knocks of inquirers who would not be stayed by the bulletin—the + visit of Surgeon-Major Wills, who felt his pulse without wakening him. + “Holding out wonderfully,” the doctor said. “Don't rouse him for the soup. + He'll go out in about six hours without any pain. May not wake at all.” + </p> + <p> + The door opened again to admit the probationer come to relieve Miss Howe. + Hilda beckoned her into the corridor. “You can go back,” she said, “I will + take your turn.” + </p> + <p> + “But the Mother Superior—you know how particular about the rules—” + </p> + <p> + “Say nothing about it. Go to bed. I am not coming.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, Miss Howe, I shall be obliged to report it.” + </p> + <p> + “Report and be—report if you like. There is nothing for you to do + here to-night,” and Hilda softly closed the door. There was a whispered + expostulation when Sister Margaret came back, but Miss Howe said, “It is + arranged,” and with a little silent nod of appreciation the Sister settled + into her chair, her finger marking a place in the Church Service. Hilda + sat nearer to the bed, her elbow on the table, shading her eyes from the + lamp, and watched. + </p> + <p> + “Is it not odd,” whispered Sister Margaret, as the night wore on, “he has + refused to be confessed before he goes? He will not see the Brother + Superior—or any of them. Strange, is it not?” + </p> + <p> + Together they watched the quick short breathing. It seemed strangely + impossible to sleep against such odds. They saw the lines of the face grow + sharper and whiter, the dark eye-sockets sink to a curious roundness, a + greyness gather about the mouth. There were times when they looked at each + other in the last surmise. Yet the feeble pulse persisted—persisted. + </p> + <p> + “I believe now,” said Sister Margaret, “that he may go on like this until + the morning. I am going to take half an hour's nap. Rouse me at once if he + wakes,” and she took an attitude of casual repose, turning the Prayer-book + open on her knee for readier use, open at “Prayers for the Dying.” + </p> + <p> + The jackals had wailed themselves out, and there was a long, dark period + when nothing but the sudden cry of a night bird in the hospital garden + came between Hilda and the very vivid perception she had at that hour of + the value and significance of the earthly lot. She lifted her head and + listened to that, it seemed a comment. Suddenly, then, a harsh quarrelling + of dogs—Christian dogs—arose in the distance and died away, + and again there was night and silence. Night for hours. Time for + reflection, alone with death and the lamp, upon the year that had been + very valuable. “I would have married you,” she whispered. “Yes, I would.” + Later her lips moved again. “I would have taken the consequence;” and + again, “I would have paid any penalty.” There he lay, a burden that she + would never bear, a burden that would be gone in the morning. There were + moments when she cried out on Fate for doing her this kindness. + </p> + <p> + The long singing drone of a steamer's signal came across the city from the + river, once, twice, thrice; and presently the sparrows began their + twittering in the bushes near the verandah, an unexpected unanimous bird + talk that died as suddenly and as irrelevantly away. A conservancy cart + lumbered past creaking; the far shrill whistle of an awakening factory cut + the air from Howrah; the first solitary foot smote through the dawn upon + the pavement. The light showed grey beyond the scanty curtains. A noise of + something being moved reverberated in the hospital below, and Arnold + opened his eyes. They made him in a manner himself again, and he fixed + them upon Hilda as if they could never alter. She leaned nearer him and + made a sign of inquiry toward the sleeping Sister, with the farewells, the + commendations of poor mortality speeding itself forth, lying upon her lap. + Arnold comprehended, and she was amazed to see the mask of his face charge + itself with a faint smile as he shook his head. He made a little movement; + she saw what he wanted and took his hand in hers. The smile was still in + his eyes as he looked at her, and then at the cheated Sister. “I would + have married you,” she whispered passionately as if that could stay him. + “Yes, I would.” + </p> + <p> + So in the end he trusted the new wings of his mortal love to bear his soul + to its immortality. They carried their burden buoyantly, it was such a + little way. The lamp was still holding its own against the paleness from + the windows when the meaning finally went out of his clasp of Hilda's + hand, without a struggle to stay, and she saw that in an instant when she + was not looking, he had closed his eyes upon the world. She sat on beside + him for a long time after that, watching tenderly, and would not withdraw + her hand—it seemed an abandonment. + </p> + <p> + Three hours later Miss Howe, passing out of the hospital gate, was + overtaken by Duff Lindsay, riding, with a look of singular animation and + vigour. He flung himself off his horse to speak to her, and as he + approached he drew from his inner coat pocket the brown envelope of a + telegram. + </p> + <p> + “Good-morning,” he said. “You do look fagged. I have a—curious—piece + of news.” + </p> + <p> + “Alicia told me that you were starting early this morning for Madras!” + </p> + <p> + “I should have been, but for this.” + </p> + <p> + “Read it to me,” Hilda said, “I'm tired.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do you very much mind? I would rather—” + </p> + <p> + She took the missive; it was dated the day before, Colombo, and read— + </p> + <p> + “Do not expect me was married this morning to Colonel Markin S A we may + not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers glory be to God Laura + Markin” + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyes to his with the gravest, saddest irony. + </p> + <p> + “Then you—you also are delivered,” she said; but he said “What?” + without special heed; and I doubt whether he ever took the trouble to + understand her reference to their joint indebtedness. + </p> + <p> + “One hopes he isn't a brute,” Lindsay went on with most impersonal + solicitude, “and can support her. I suppose there isn't any way one could + do anything for her. I heard a story only yesterday about a girl changing + her mind on the way out. By Jove, I didn't suppose it would happen to me!” + </p> + <p> + “If you are hurt anywhere,” Hilda said absently, “it is only your vanity, + I fancy.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, my vanity is very sore!” He paused for an instant, wondering to find + so little expansion in her. “I came to ask after Arnold,” he said. “How is + he?” + </p> + <p> + “He is dead. He died at half-past five this morning.” + </p> + <p> + She left him with even less than her usual circumstance, and turned in at + the gate of the Baker Institution. It happened to be the last day of her + probation. + </p> + <p> + There has never been any difficulty in explaining Lindsay's marriage with + Alicia Livingstone even to himself; the reasons for it, indeed, were so + many and so obvious that he wondered often why they had not struck him + earlier. But it is worth noting, perhaps, that the immediate precipitating + cause arose in one evening service at the Cathedral, where it had its + birth in the very individual charm of the nape of Alicia's neck, as she + knelt upon her hassock in the fitting and graceful act of the responses. + His instincts in these matters seem to have had a generous range, + considering the tenets he was born to, but it was to him then a delightful + reflection, often since repeated, that in the sheltered garden of delicate + perfumes where this sweet person took her spiritual pleasure there was no + rank vegetation. + </p> + <p> + It is much to Miss Hilda Howe's credit that amid the distractions of her + most successful London season she never quite abandons these two to the + social joys that circle round the Ochterlony Monument and the arid scenic + consolations of the Maidan. Her own experience there is one of the things, + I fancy, that make her fond of saying that the stage is the merest + cardboard presentation, and that one day she means to leave it, to coax + back to her bosom the life which is her heritage in the wider, simpler + ways of the world. She never mentions that experience more directly or + less ardently. But I fear the promise I have quoted is one that she makes + too often. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Path of a Star, by +Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF A STAR *** + +***** This file should be named 5102-h.htm or 5102-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/0/5102/ + +Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 Path of a Star + +Author: Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + +Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5102] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF A STAR *** + + + + +Produced by Don Lainson + + + + + +THE PATH OF A STAR + + +By Mrs. Everard Cotes + +(AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + + +1899 + + + +CHAPTER I + + +She pushed the portiere aside with a curved hand and gracefully +separated fingers; it was a staccato movement and her body followed it +after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, +eyes inquiring and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who +was there. You would have been aware at once that she was an actress. +She entered the room with a little stride and then crossed it quickly, +the train of her morning gown--it cried out of luxury with the cheapest +voice--taking folds of great audacity as she bent her face in its loose +mass of hair over Laura Filbert, sitting on the edge of a bamboo sofa, +and said-- + +"You poor thing! Oh, you POOR thing!" + +She took Laura's hand as she spoke, and tried to keep it; but the hand +was neutral, and she let it go. "It is a hand," she said to herself, +in one of those quick reflections that so often visited her ready-made, +"that turns the merely inquiring mind away. Nothing but feeling could +hold it." + +Miss Filbert made the conventional effort to rise, but it came to +nothing, or to a mere embarrassed accent of their greeting. Then her +voice showed this feeling to be superficial, made nothing of it, pushed +it to one side. + +"I suppose you cannot see the foolishness of your pity," she said. "Oh +Miss Howe, I am happier than you are--much happier." Her bare feet, as +she spoke, nestled into the coarse Mirzapore rug on the floor, and her +eye lingered approvingly upon an Owari vase three feet high, and thick +with the gilded landscape of Japan, which stood near it, in the cheap +magnificence of the room. + +Hilda smiled. Her smile acquiesced in the world she had found, +acquiesced, with the gladness of an explorer, in Laura Filbert as a +feature of it. + +"Don't be too sure," she cried; "I am very happy. It is such a pleasure +to see you." + +Her gaze embraced Miss Filbert as a person, and Miss Filbert as a +pictorial fact, but that was because she could not help it. Her eyes +were really engaged only with the latter Miss Filbert. + +"Much happier than you are," Laura repeated, slowly moving her head from +side to side as if to negative contradiction in advance. She smiled too; +it was as if she had remembered a former habit, from politeness. + +"Of course you are--of course!" Miss Howe acknowledged. The words were +mellow and vibrant; her voice seemed to dwell upon them with a kind of +rich affection. Her face covered itself with serious sweetness. "I can +imagine the beatitudes you feel--by your clothes." + +The girl drew her feet under her, and her hand went up to the only +semi-conventional item of her attire. It was a brooch that exclaimed in +silver letters "Glory to His Name!" "It is the dress of the Army in this +country," she said; "I would not change it for the wardrobe of a queen." + +"That's just what I mean." Miss Howe leaned back in her chair with her +head among its cushions, and sent her words fluently across the room, +straight and level with the glance from between her half-closed eyelids. +A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy +in the East clung about her. "To live on a plane that lifts you up like +that--so that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go +about the streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness of the +world--there must be something very consummate in it or you couldn't go +on. At least I couldn't." + +"I suppose I do look odd to you." Her voice took a curious, soft, +uplifted note. "I wear three garments only--the garments of my sisters +who plant the young shoots in the rice-fields, and carry bricks for the +building of rich men's houses, and gather the dung of the roadways to +burn for fuel. If the Army is to conquer India it must march bare-footed +and bare-headed all the way. All the way," Laura repeated, with a +tremor of musical sadness. Her eyes were fixed in appeal upon the other +woman's. "And if the sun beats down upon my uncovered head, I think, 'It +struck more fiercely upon Calvary'; and if the way is sharp to my unshod +feet, I say, 'At least I have no cross to bear.'" The last words seemed +almost a chant, and her voice glided from them into singing-- + + + "The blessed Saviour died for me, + On the cross! On the cross! + He bore my sins at Calvary, + On the rugged cross!" + + +She sang softly, her body thrust a little forward in a tender swaying-- + + + "Behold His hands and feet and side, + The crown of thorns, the crimson tide, + 'Forgive them, Father!' loud He cried, + On the rugged cross!" + + +"Oh, thank you!" Miss Howe exclaimed. Then she murmured again, "That's +just what I mean." + +A blankness came over the girl's face as a light cloud will cross the +moon. She regarded Hilda from behind it, with penetrant anxiety. "Did +you really enjoy that hymn?" she asked. + +"Indeed I did." + +"Then, dear Miss Howe, I think you cannot be very far from the Kingdom." + +"I? Oh, I have my part in a kingdom." Her voice caressed the idea. "And +the curious thing is that we are all aristocrats who belong to it. Not +the vulgar kind, you understand--but no, you don't understand. You'll +have to take my word for it." Miss Howe's eyes sought a red hibiscus +flower that looked in at the window half drowned in sunlight, and the +smile in them deepened. + +"Is it the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?" Laura Filbert's clear +glance was disturbed by a ray of curiosity, but the inflexible quality +of her tone more than counterbalanced this. + +"There's nothing about it in the Bible, if that's what you mean. And yet +I think the men who wrote 'The time of the singing of birds has come,' +and 'I will lift mine eyes unto the hills,' must have belonged to it." +She paused, with an odd look of discomfiture. "But one shouldn't talk +about things like that--it takes the bloom off. Don't you feel that way +about your privileges now and then? Don't they look rather dusty and +battered to you after a day's exposure in Bow Bazar?" + +There came a light crunch of wheels on the red soorkee drive outside, +and a switch past the bunch of sword-ferns that grew beside the door. +The muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an inquiry +penetrated from beyond the portiere, and without further preliminary +Duff Lindsay came into the room. + +"Do I interrupt a rehearsal?" he asked; but there was nothing in the way +he walked across the room to Hilda Howe to suggest that the idea abashed +him. For her part she rose and made one short step to meet him, and then +received him as it were with both hands and all her heart. + +"How ridiculous you are!" she cried. "Of course not. And let me tell you +it is very nice of you to come this very first day when one was dying to +be welcomed. Miss Filbert came too, and we have been talking about our +respective walks in life. Let me introduce you. Miss Filbert--Captain +Filbert, of the Salvation Army--Mr. Duff Lindsay of Calcutta." + +She watched with interest the gravity with which they bowed, and the +difference in it: his the simple formality of his class, Laura's a +repressed hostility to such an epitome of the world as he looked, +although any Bond Street tailor would have impeached his waistcoat, and +one shabby glove had manifestly never been on. Yet Miss Filbert's first +words seemed to show a slight unbending. "Won't you sit there?" she +said, indicating the sofa corner she had been occupying. "You get +the glare from the window where you are." It was virtually a command, +delivered with a complete air of dignity and authority; and Lindsay, in +some confusion, found himself obeying. "Oh, thank you, thank you," he +said. "One doesn't really mind in the least. Do you--do you object to +it? Shall I close the shutters?" + +"If you do," said Miss Howe delightedly, "we shall not be able to see." + +"Neither we should," he assented; "the others are closed already. Very +badly built these Calcutta houses, aren't they? Have you been long in +India, Miss--Captain Filbert?" + +"I served a year up-country, and then fell ill and had to go home on +furlough. The native food didn't suit me. I am stationed in Calcutta +now, but I have only just come." + +"Pleasant time of the year to arrive," Mr. Lindsay remarked. + +"Yes; but we are not particular about that. We love all the times and +the seasons, since every one brings its appointed opportunity. Last +year, in Mugridabad, there were more souls saved in June than in any +other month." + +"Really?" asked Mr. Lindsay; but he was not looking at her with those +speculations. The light had come back upon her face. + +"I will say good-bye now," said Captain Filbert. "I have a meeting at +half-past five. Shall we have a word of prayer before I go?" + +She plainly looked for immediate acquiescence; but Miss Howe said, +"Another time, dear." + +"Oh, why not?" exclaimed Duff Lindsay. Hilda put the semblance of a +rebuke into her glance at him, and said, "Certainly not." + +"Oh," Captain Filbert cried, "don't think you can escape that way! I +will pray for you long and late to-night, and ask my lieutenant to do +so too. Don't harden your heart, Miss Howe--the Lord is waiting to be +compassionate." + +The two were silent, and Laura walked toward the door. Just where the +sun slanted into the room and made leaf-patterns on the floor she turned +and stood for an instant in the full tide of it; and it set all the +loose tendrils of her pale yellow hair in a little flame, and gave the +folds of the flesh-coloured sari that fell over her shoulder the texture +of draperies so often depicted as celestial. The sun sought into her +face, revealing nothing but great purity of line and a clear pallor +except where below the wide light blue eyes two ethereal shadows brushed +themselves. Under the intentness of their gaze she made as if she would +pass out without speaking; and the tender curves of her limbs, as she +wavered, could not have been matched out of mediaeval stained glass. But +her courage, or her conviction, came back to her at the door, and she +raised her hand and pointed at Hilda. + +"She's got a soul worth saving." + +Then the portiere fell behind her, and nothing was said in the room +until the pad of her bare feet had ceased upon the stair. + +"She came out in the Bengal with us," Hilda told him--this is not a +special instance of it, but she could always gratify Duff Lindsay in +advance--"and she was desperately seedy, poor girl. I looked after her a +little, but it was mistaken kindness, for now she's got me on her mind. +And as the two hundred and eighty million benighted souls of India are +her continual concern, I seem a superfluity. To think of being the two +hundred and eighty millionth and first oppresses one." + +Lindsay listened with a look of accustomed happiness. + +"You weren't at that end of the ship?" he demanded. + +"Of course I was--we all were. And some of us--little Miss Stace, for +instance--thankful enough at the prospect of cold meat and sardines for +tea every night for a whole month. And, after Suez, ices for dinner on +Sundays. It was luxury." + +Lindsay was pulling an aggrieved moustache. "I don't call it fair +or friendly," he said, "when you know how easily it could have been +arranged. Your own sense of the fitness of things should have told you +that the second-class saloon was no place for you. For YOU!" + +Plainly she did not intend to argue the point. She poised her chin in +her hand and looked away over his head, and he could not help seeing, as +he had seen before, that her eyes were beautiful. But this had been so +long acknowledged between them that she could hardly have been conscious +that she was insisting on it afresh. Then by the time he might have +thought her launched upon a different meditation, her mind swept back to +his protest, like a whimsical bird. + +"I didn't want to extract anything from the mercantile community of +Calcutta in advance," she said. "It would be most unbusinesslike. +Stanhope has been equal to bringing us out; but I quite see myself, as +leading lady, taking round the hat before the end of the season. Then I +think," she said with defiance, "that I shall avoid you." + +"And pray why?" + +"Because you would put too much in. According to your last letters you +are getting beastly rich. You would take all the tragedy out of the +situation, and my experience would vanish in your cheque." + +"I don't know why my feelings should always be cuffed out of the way +of your experiences," Lindsay said. She retorted, "Oh yes, you do"; +and they regarded each other through an instant's silence with visible +good-fellowship. + +"A reasonably strong company this time?" Lindsay asked. + +"Thank you. 'Company' is gratifying. For a month we have been a +'troupe'--in the first-class end. Fairish. Bad to middling. Fifteen +of us, and when we are not doing Hamlet and Ophelia we can please with +light comedy, or the latest thing in rainbow chiffon done on mirrors +with a thousand candlepower. Bradley and I will have to do most of the +serious work. But I have improved--oh, a lot. You wouldn't know my Lady +Whippleton." + +It was a fervid announcement, but it carried an implication which +appeared to prevent Lindsay's kindling. + +"Then Bradley is here too?" he remarked. + +"Oh yes," she said; and an instinct sheathed itself in her face. "But it +is much better than it was, really. He is hardly ever troublesome now. +He understands. And he teaches me a great deal more than I can tell you. +You know," she asserted, with the effect of taking an independent view, +"as an artist he has my unqualified respect." + +"You have a fine disregard for the fact that artists are men when they +are not women," Duff said. "I don't believe their behaviour is a bit +more affected by their artistry than it would be by a knowledge of the +higher mathematics." + +She turned indignant eyes on him. "Fancy YOUR saying that! Fancy your +having the impertinence to offer me so absurd a sophistry! At what +Calcutta dinner-table did you pick it up?" she cried derisively. +"Well, it shows that one can't trust one's best friend loose among the +conventions!" + +He had decided that it would be a trifle edged to say that such matters +were not often discussed at Calcutta dinner-tables, when she added, with +apparent inconsistency and real dejection, "It IS a hideous bore." + +Lindsay saw his point admitted, and even in the way she brushed it +aside he felt that she was generous. Yet something in him--perhaps the +primitive hunting instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch impulse +to explore the very roots of every matter, tempted him to say, "He gives +up a good deal, doesn't he, for his present gratification?" + +"He gives up everything! That is the disgusting part of it. Leander +Morris offered him--But why should I tell you? It's humiliating enough +in the very back of one's mind." + +"He is a clever fellow, no doubt." + +"Not too clever to act with me! Oh, we go beautifully--we melt, we run +together. He has given me some essential things, and now I can give them +back to him. I begin to think that is what keeps him now. It must be +awfully satisfying to generate artistic life in--in anybody, and watch +it grow." + +"Doubtless," said Lindsay, with his eyes on the carpet; and her eyebrows +twitched together, but she said nothing. Although she knew his very +moderate power of analysis he seemed to look, with his eyes on the +carpet, straight into the subject, to perceive it with a cynical +clearness, and as Hilda watched him a little hardness came about her +mouth. "Well," he said, visibly detaching himself from the matter, "it's +a satisfaction to have you back. I have been doing nothing, literally, +since you went away, but making money and playing tennis. Existence, +as I look back upon it, is connoted by a varying margin of profit and a +vast sward." + +She looked at him with eyes in which sympathy stood remotely, +considering the advisability of returning. "It's a pity you can't act," +she said; "then you could come away and let it all go." + +Lindsay smiled at her across the gulf he saw fixed. "How simple life is +to you!" he said. "But anyway I couldn't act." + +"Oh no, you couldn't, you couldn't! You are too intensely absorbent, you +are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would never consent even +for an instant to be the flame in anybody else--any of those people who, +for the purpose of the state, are called imaginary. Never!" + +It seemed a punishment, but all Lindsay said was: "I wish you would go +on. You can't think how gratifying it is--after the tennis." + +"If I went on I have an idea that I might be disagreeable." + +"Oh then, stop. We can't quarrel yet--I've hardly seen you. Are you +comfortable here? Would you like some French novels?" + +"Yes, thank you. Yes, please!" She grew before him into a light and +conventional person, apparently on her guard against freedom of speech. +He moved a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the spring she had +detached herself from, and after failing for a quarter of an hour he got +up to go. + +"I shan't bother you again before Saturday," he said; "I know what a +week it will be at the theatre. Remember you are to give the man +his orders about the brougham. I can get on perfectly with the cart. +Good-bye! Calcutta is waiting for you." + +"Calcutta is never impatient," said Miss Howe. "It is waiting with yawns +and much whisky and soda." She gave him a stately inclination with her +hand, and he overcame the temptation to lay his own on his heart in a +burlesque of it. At the door he remembered something, and turned. He +stood looking back precisely where Laura Filbert had stood, but the sun +was gone. "You might tell me more about your friend of the altruistic +army," he said. + +"You saw, you heard, you know." + +"But--" + +"Oh," cried she, disregardingly, "you can discover her for yourself, at +the Army Headquarters in Bentinck Street--you man!" + +Lindsay closed the door behind him without replying, and half-way down +the stairs her voice appealed to him over the banisters. + +"You might as well forget that. I didn't particularly mean it." + +"I know you didn't," he returned. "You woman! But you yourself--you're +not going to play with your heavenly visitant?" + +Hilda leaned upon the banisters, her arms dropping over from the elbows. +"I suppose I may look at her," she said; and her smile glowed down upon +him. + +"Do you think it really rewards attention?--the type, I mean." + +"How you will talk of types! Didn't you see that she was unique? You +may come back if you like, for a quarter of an hour, and we will discuss +her." + +Lindsay looked at his watch. "I would come back for a quarter of an hour +to discuss anything, or nothing," he replied, "but there isn't time. I +am dining with the Archdeacon. I must go to church." + +"Why not be original and dine with the Archdeacon without going to +church? Why not say on arrival: 'My dear Archdeacon, your sermon and +your mutton the same evening--c'est trop! I cannot so impose upon your +generosity. I have come for the mutton!'" + +Thus was Captain Laura Filbert superseded, as doubtless often before, +by an orthodox consideration. Duff Lindsay drove away in his cart; and +still, for an appreciable number of seconds, Miss Howe stood leaning +over the banisters, her eyes fixed full of speculation on the place +where he had stood. She was thinking of a scene--a dinner with an +Archdeacon--and of the permanent satisfactions to be got from it; and +she renounced almost with a palpable sigh the idea of the Archdeacon's +asking her. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +"Oh, her gift!" said Alicia Livingstone. "It is the lowest, isn't it--in +the scale of human endowment? Mimicry." + +Miss Livingstone handed her brother his tea as she spoke, but turned +her eyes and her delicate chin up to Duff Lindsay with the protest. +Lindsay's cup was at his lips, and his eyebrows went up over it as if +they would answer before his voice was set at liberty. + +"Mimicry isn't a fair word," he said. "The mimic doesn't interpret. He's +a mere thief of expression. You can always see him behind his stolen +mask. The actress takes a different rank. This one does, anyway." + +"You're mixing her up with the apes and the monkeys," remarked +Surgeon-Major Livingstone. + +"Mere imitators!" cried Mrs. Barberry. + +Alicia did not allow the argument to pursue her. She smiled upon their +energy and, so to speak, disappeared. It was one of her little ways, and +since it left seeming conquerors on her track nobody quarrelled with it. + +"I've met them in London," she said. "Oh, I remember one hot little +North Kensington flat full of them, and their cigarettes--and they were +always disappointing. There seemed to be somehow no basis--nothing to go +upon." + +She looked from one to the other of her party with a graceful +deprecating movement of her head, a head which people were unanimous in +calling more than merely pretty and more than ordinarily refined. That +was the cursory verdict, the superficial thing to see and say; it will +do to go on with. From the way Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he +might have been suspected of other discoveries, possible only to the +somewhat privileged in this blind world, where intimacy must lend a lens +to find out anything at all. + +"You found that they had no selves," he said, and the manner of his +words was encouraging and provocative. His proposition was obscured +to him for the instant by his desire to obtain the very last of her +comment, and it might be seen that this was habitual with him. "But Miss +Hilda Howe has one." + +"Is she a lady?" asked Mrs. Barberry. + +"I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to rest my claim for her on +that." + +"Your claim to what?" trembled upon Miss Livingstone's lips, but +she closed them instead, and turned her head again to listen to Mrs. +Barberry. The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating the +conversations in which she was interested, imparting elegance and +relief. + +"I saw her in A Woman of Honour, last cold weather," Mrs. Barberry said; +"I took a dinner-party of five girls and five subalterns from the Fort, +and I said, 'Never again!' Fortunately the girls were just out, and not +one of them understood, but those poor boys didn't know where to look! +And no more did I. So disgustingly real." + +Alicia's eyes veiled themselves to rest on a ring on her finger, and a +little smile, which was inconsistent with the veiling, hovered about her +lips. + +"I was in England last year," she said; "I--I saw A Woman of Honour in +London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian scratch +company in a Calcutta theatre! Imagination halts." + +"Miss Howe did something with it," observed Mr. Lindsay. "That and one +or two other things carried one through last cold weather. One supported +even the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, conscious that there +was something to fall back upon. I remember I went to the State ball, +and cheerfully." + +"That's saying a good deal, isn't it?" commented Dr. Livingstone, +vaguely aware of an ironical intention. "By Jove! yes." + +"Hamilton Bradley is good, too, isn't he?" Mrs. Barberry said. "Such a +magnificent head. I adore him in Shakespeare." + +"He knows the conventions, and uses them with security," Lindsay +replied, looking at Alicia; and she, with a little courageous air, +demanded-- + +"Is the story true?" + +"The story of their relations? I suppose there are fifty. One of them +is." + +Mrs. Barberry frowned at Lindsay in a manner which was itself a +reminiscence of amateur theatricals. "Their relations!" she murmured to +Dr. Livingstone. "What awful things to talk about!" + +"The story I mean," Alicia explained, "is to the effect that Mr. +Bradley, who is married, but unimportantly, made a heavy bet, when he +met this girl, that he would subdue her absolutely through her passion +for her art--I mean, of course, her affections--" + +"My dear girl, we know what you mean," cried Mrs. Barberry, entering a +protest as it were, on behalf of the gentlemen. + +"And precisely the reverse happened." + +"One imagines it was something like that," Lindsay said. + +"Oh, did she know about the bet?" cried Mrs. Barberry. + +"That's as you like to believe. I fancy she knew about the man," Lindsay +contributed again. + +"Tables turned, eh? Daresay it served him right," remarked Dr. +Livingstone. "If you really want to come to the laboratory, Mrs. +Barberry, we ought to be off?" + +"He is going to show me a bacillus," Mrs. Barberry announced with +enthusiasm. "Plague, or cholera, or something really bad. He caught +it two days ago, and put it in jelly for me--wasn't it dear of him! +Good-bye, you nice thing"--Mrs. Barberry addressed Alicia--"Good-bye, +Mr. Lindsay. Fancy--a live bacillus from Hong Kong! I should like it +better if it came from fascinating Japan, but still--goodbye." + +With the lady's departure an air of wontedness seemed to repossess the +room, and the two people who were left. Things fell into their places, +one could observe relative beauty, on the walls and on the floor, in +Alicia's hair and in her skirt. Little meanings attached themselves--to +oval portraits of ladies, evidently ancestral, whose muslin sleeves were +tied with blue ribbon, to Byzantine-looking Persian paintings, to odd +brass bowls and faint-coloured embroideries. The air became full of +agreeable exhalations traceable to inanimate objects, or to a rose in +a vase of common country glass; and if one turned to Alicia one could +almost observe the process by which they were absorbed in her and given +forth again with a delicacy more vague. Lindsay sometimes thought of the +bee, and flowers and honey, but always abandoned the simile as a +trifle gross and material. Certainly as she sat there in her grace and +slenderness and pale clear tints--there was an effect of early +morning about her that made the full tide of other women's sunlight +vulgar--anyone would have been fastidious in the choice of a figure to +present her in. With a suspicion of haughtiness she was drawn for the +traditional marchioness; but she lifted her eyes and you saw that she +appealed instead. There was an art in the doing of her hair, a dainty +elaboration that spoke of the most approved conventions beneath, yet it +was impossible to mistake the freedom of spirit that lay in the lines of +her blouse. Even her gracefulness ran now and then into a downrightness +of movement which suggested the assertion of a primitive sincerity in a +personal world of many effects. Into her making of tea, for example, she +put nothing more sophisticated than sugar, and she ordered more bread +and butter in the worst possible rendering of her servants' tongue, +without a thought except that the bread and butter should be brought. +Lindsay liked to think that with him she was particularly simple +and direct, that he was of those who freed her from the pretty +consciousness, the elegant restraint that other people fixed upon her. +It must be admitted that this conviction had reason in establishing +itself, and it is perhaps not surprising that, in the security of it, +he failed to notice occasions when it would not have held, of which this +was plainly one. Alicia reflected, with her cheek against the Afghan +wolf-skins on the back of the chair. It was characteristic of her eyes +that one could usually see things being turned over in them. She would +sometimes keep people waiting while she thought. She thought perceptibly +about Hilda Howe, slanting her absent gaze between sheltering eyelids +to the floor. Presently she rearranged the rose in its green glass vase, +and said, "Then it's impossible not to be interested." + +"I thought you would find it so." + +Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small fragments of cress +sandwich upon a terrier. "Fancy your being so sure," she said, "that you +could present her entertainingly!" She looked past him toward the light +that came in at the draped window, and he was not aware that her regard +held him fast by the way. + +"Anyone could," he said cheerfully. "She presents herself. One is only +the humblest possible medium. And the most passive." + +Alicia's eyes were still attracted by the light from the window. It +silhouetted a rare fern from Assam which certainly rewarded them. + +"I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some more." + +"Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing her?" + +"Yes," said Miss Livingstone, with conviction; "but I'm not a bit +satisfied. A few simple facts sometimes--sometimes are better. Wasn't it +a little difficult to make her acquaintance?" + +"Not in the very least. I saw her in A Woman of Honour, and was +charmed. Charmed in a new way. Next day I discovered her address--it's +obscure--and sent up my card for permission to tell her so. I explained +to her that one would have hesitated at home, but here one was protected +by the custom. And she received me warmly. She gave me to understand +that she was not overwhelmed with tribute of that kind from Calcutta. +The truthful ring of it was pathetic, poor dear." + +"That was in--" + +"In February." + +"In February we were at Nice," Alicia said, musingly. Then she took up +her divining-rod again. "One can imagine that she was grateful. People +of that kind--how snobbish I sound, but you know what I mean--are rather +stranded in Calcutta, aren't they? They haven't any world here;" and, +with the quick glance which deprecated her timid clevernesses, she +added, "The arts conspire to be absent." + +"Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any gratitude it was all mine. +But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of +life will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of that +sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if she +admitted it." + +"What is her theory of life?" Alicia demanded quickly. "I should be glad +of a new one." + +Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a little, as at the touch +of a finger light, but cold. + +"I don't think she has ever told me," he said. "No, I am sure she has +not." His reflection was: "It is her garment--how could it fit another +woman!" + +"But you have divined it--she has let you do that! You can give me your +impression." + +He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon impalpabilities, but +not without a shade of embarrassment. + +"Perhaps. But having perceived, to pass on--it doesn't follow that one +can. I don't seem able to lay my hand upon the signs and symbols." + +The faintest look of disappointment, the lightest cloud of submission, +appeared upon Miss Livingstone's face. + +"Oh, I know!" she said. "You are making me feel dreadfully out of it, +but I know. It surrounds her like a kind of atmosphere, an intellectual +atmosphere. Though I confess that is the part I don't understand in +connection with an actress." + +There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. Alicia lay back +upon her wolf-skins like a long-stemmed flower cast down among them, and +looked away from the subject at the teacups. Duff picked up his hat. He +had the subtlest intimations with women. + +"It's an intoxicating atmosphere," he said. "My continual wonder is that +I'm not in love with her. A fellow in a novel, now, in my situation, +would be embroiled with half his female relations by this time, and +taking his third refusal with a haggard eye." + +Alicia still contemplated the teacups, but with intentness. She lifted +her head to look at them; one might have imagined a beauty suddenly +revealed. + +"Why aren't you?" she said. "I wonder, too." + +"I should like it enormously," he laughed. "I've lain awake at nights +trying to find out why it isn't so. Perhaps you'll be able to tell me. I +think it must be because she's such a confoundedly good fellow." + +Alicia turned her face toward him sweetly, and the soft grey fur made a +shadow on the whiteness of her throat. Her buffeting was over; she was +full of an impulse to stand again in the sun. + +"Oh, you mustn't depend on me," she said. "But why are you going? Don't +go. Stay and have another cup of tea." + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The fact that Stephen Arnold and Duff Lindsay had spent the same terms +at New College, and now found themselves again together in the social +poverty of the Indian capital, would not necessarily explain their +walking in company through the early dusk of a December evening in +Bentinck Street. It seems desirable to supply a reason why anyone should +be walking there, to begin with, anyone, at all events, not a Chinaman, +or a coolie, a dealer in second-hand furniture, or an able-bodied seaman +luxuriously fingering wages in both trouser pockets, and describing +an erratic line of doubtful temper toward the nearest glass of country +spirits. Or, to be quite comprehensive, a draggled person with a +Bulgarian, a Levantine, or a Japanese smile, who no longer possessed a +carriage, to whom the able-bodied seaman represented the whole port. +The cramped twisting thoroughfare was full of people like this; they +overflowed from the single narrow border of pavement to the left, and +walked indifferently upon the road among the straw-scatterings and +the dung-droppings; and when the tramcar swept through and past with +prodigious whistlings and ringings, they swerved as little as possible +aside. Three parts of the tide of them were neither white nor black, but +many shades of brown, written down in the census as "of mixed Mood," and +wearing still, through the degenerating centuries, an eyebrow, a nostril +of the first Englishmen who came to conjugal ties of Hindustan. The +place sent up to the stars a vast noise of argument and anger and +laughter, of the rattling of hoofs and wheels; but the babel was ordered +in its exaggeration, the red turban of a policeman here and there +denoted little more than a unit in the crowd. There were gas-lamps, and +they sent a ripple of light like a sword-thrust along the gutter beside +the banquette, where a pariah dog nosed a dead rat and was silhouetted. +They picked out, too, the occasional pair of Corinthian columns, built +into the squalid stucco sheer with the road that made history for +Bentinck Street, and explained that whatever might be the present colour +of the little squat houses and the tall lean ones that loafed together +into the fog round the first bend, they were once agreeably pink and +yellow, with the magenta cornice, the blue capital, that fancy dictated. +There where the way narrowed with an out-jutting balcony high up, and +the fog thickened and the lights grew vague, the multitude of heads +passed into the blur beyond with an effect of mystery, pictorial, +remote; but where Arnold and Lindsay walked the squalor was warm, human, +practical. A torch flamed this way and that, stuck in the wall over the +head of a squatting bundle and his tray of three-cornered leaf-parcels +of betel, and an oiled rag in a tin pot sent up an unsteady little +flame, blue and yellow, beside a sweetmeat seller's basket, and showed +his heap of cakes that they were well-browned and full of butter. From +the "Cape of Good Cheer," where many bottles glistened in rows inside, +came a braying upon the conch, and a flame of burnt brandy danced along +the bar to the honour and propitiation of Lakshmi, that the able-bodied +seaman might be thirsty when he came, for the "Cape of Good Cheer" did +not owe its prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any Providence of +our theology. But most of the brightness abode in the Chinamen's shoe +shops, where many lamps shone on the hammering and the stitching. There +were endless shoe shops, and they all belonged to Powson or Singson or +Samson, while one sign-board bore the broad impertinence "Macpherson." +The proprietors stood in the door, the smell came out in the +street--that smell of Chinese personality steeped in fried oil and fresh +leather that out-fans even the south wind in Bentinck Street. They were +responsible but not anxious, the proprietors: they buried their fat +hands in their wide sleeves and looked up and down, stolid and smiling. +They stood in their alien petticoat trousers for the commercial +stability of the locality, and the rows of patent leather slippers that +glistened behind them testified to it further. Everything else shifted +and drifted, with a perpetual change of complexion, a perpetual +worsening of clothes. Only Powson bore a permanent yoke of prosperity. +It lay round his thick brown neck with the low clean line of his blue +cotton smock, and he carried it without offensive consciousness, looking +up and down by no means in search of customers, rather in the exercise +of the opaque, inscrutable philosophy tied up in his queue. + +Lindsay liked Bentinck Street as an occasional relapse from the scenic +standards of pillared and verandahed Calcutta, and made personal +business with his Chinaman for the sake of the racial impression thrown +into the transaction. Arnold, in his cassock, waited in the doorway with +his arms crossed behind him, and his thin face thrust as far as it would +go into the air outside. It is possible that some intelligences might +have seen in this priest a caricature of his profession, a figure to be +copied for the curate of burlesque, so accurately did he reproduce the +common signs of the ascetic school. His face would have been womanish +in its plainness but for the gravity that had grown upon it, only +occasionally dispersed by a smile of scholarliness and sweetness which +had the effect of being permitted, conceded. He had the long thin nose +which looked as if for preference it would be forever thrust among the +pages of the Fathers; and anyone might observe the width of his mouth +without perhaps detecting the patience and decision of the upper lip. +The indignity of spectacles he did not yet wear, but it hovered over +him; it was indispensable to his personality in the long-run. In +figure he was indifferently tall and thin and stooping, made to pass +unobservedly along a pavement or with the directness of humble but +important business among crowds. At Oxford he had interested some of his +friends and worried others by wistful inclinations toward the shelter of +that Mother Church which bids her children be at rest and leave to her +the responsibility. Lindsay, with his robust sense of a right to exist +on the old unmuddled fighting terms, to be a sane and decent animal, +under civilised moral governance a miserable sinner, was among those who +observed his waverings without prejudice or anything but an affectionate +solicitude that, whichever way Arnold went, he should find the +satisfactions he sought. The conviction that settled the matter was +accidental, the work of a moment, a free instinct and a thing made with +hands--the dead Shelley where the sea threw him and the sculptor fixed +him, under his memorial dome in the gardens of University College. Here +one leafy afternoon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his head +in confusion at the thought of the profane handicraftsman who might +claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by which +he saw deeply concealed in his bosom, and disguised with a host of +spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as the artistic +bias, the aesthetic point of view. The discovery worked upon him so that +he spent three days without consummated prayer at all, occupied in the +effort to find out whether he could yet indeed worship in purity of +spirit, or how far the paralysis of the ideal of mere beauty had crept +upon his devotions. In the end he cast the artistic bias, the aesthetic +point of view, as far from him as his will would carry, and walked away +in another direction, from which, if he turned his head, he could see +the Church of Rome sitting with her graven temptations gathered up in +her skirts, looking mournfully after him. He had been a priest of the +Clarke Mission to Calcutta, a "Clarke Brother," six years when he stood +in the door of Ahsing's little shop in Bentinck Street, while Lindsay +explained to Ahsing his objection to patent leather toe-caps; six years +which had not worn or chilled him, because, as he would have cheerfully +admitted, he had recognised the facts and lowered his personal hopes of +achievement--lowered them with a heroism which took account of himself +as no more than a spiritual molecule rightly inspired and moving to +the great future already shining behind coming aeons of the universal +Kingdom. Indeed, his humility was scientific; he made his deductions +from the granular nature of all change, moral and material. He never +talked or thought of the Aryan souls that were to shine with peculiar +Oriental brightness as stars in the crown of his reward; he saw rather +the ego and the energy of him merged in a wave of blessed tendency in +this world, thankful if, in that which is to come, it was counted worthy +to survive at all. It should be understood that Arnold did not hope to +attain the simplicity of this by means equally simple. He held vastly, +on the contrary, to fast days and flagellations, to the ministry of +symbols, the use of rigours. The spiritual consummation which the eye +of faith enabled him to anticipate upon the horizon of Bengal should be +hastened, however imperceptibly, by all that he could do to purify and +intensify his infinitesimal share of the force that was to bring it +about. Meanwhile he made friends with the fathers of Bengali schoolboys, +who appreciated his manners, and sent him with urbanity flat baskets of +mangoes and nuts and oranges, pomegranates from Persia, and little round +boxes of white grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt upon the +converts that already testified to the success of the mission; it might +be gathered that he had ideas about premature fruition. + +As they stepped out together into the street, Lindsay thrust his hand +within Arnold's elbow. It was an impulse, and the analysis of it would +show elements like self-reproach, and a sense of value continually +renewed, and a vain desire for an absolutely common ground. The physical +nearness, the touch, was something, and each felt it in the remoteness +of his other world with satisfaction. There was absurdly little in what +they had to say to each other; they talked of the Viceroy's attack of +measles and the sanitary improvements in the cloth dealers' quarter. +Their bond was hardly more than a mutual decency of nature, niceness +of sentiment, clearness of eye. Such as it was, it was strong enough +to make both men wish it were stronger, a desire which was a vague +impatience on Lindsay's part with a concentration of hostility to +Arnold's soutane. It made its universal way for them, however, this +garment. Where the crowd was thickest people jostled and pressed with +one foot in the gutter for the convenience of the padre sahib. He, with +his eyes cast down, took the tribute with humility, as meet, in a +way that made Lindsay blaspheme inwardly at the persistence of +ecclesiastical tradition. + +Suddenly, as they passed, the irrelevant violence of tongues, the +broken, half-comprehensible tumult was smitten and divided by a wave of +rhythmic sound. It pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat sellers, and +mounted above the cracked bell that proclaimed the continual auction +of Kristo Dass and Friend, dealers in the second-hand. In its vivid +familiarity it seemed to make straight for the two Englishmen, to +surround and take possession of them, and they paused. The source of it +was plain--an open door under a vast white signboard dingily lettered +"The Salvation Army." It loomed through the smoke and the streetlights +like a discovery. + +"Our peripatetic friends," said Arnold, with his rare smile; and as if +the music seized and held them, they stood listening. + + + "I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + All day on Sunday and six days a week! + I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + Fifty-two weeks in the year." + + +It was immensely vigorous; the men looked at each other with fresh +animation. Responding to the mere physical appeal of it, they picked +their steps across the street to the door, and there hesitated, revolted +in different ways. Perhaps, I have forgotten to say that Lindsay came +to Calcutta out of an Aberdeenshire manse, and had had a mother before +whose name, while she lived, people wrote "The Hon." Besides, the +singing had stopped, and casual observation from the street was checked +by a screen. + +"I have wondered sometimes what their methods really are," said Arnold. + +Their methods were just on the other side of the screen. A bullet-headed +youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulders, fingering a +cap, slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing the two men +beside the door, and a light, clear voice seemed to call after him-- + +"Ah! don't go away!" + +Lindsay was visited by a flash of memory and a whimsical speculation +whether now, at the week's end, the soul of Hilda Howe was still +pursuing the broad road to perdition. The desire to enter sprang up +in him: he was reminded of a vista of some interest which had recently +revealed itself by an accident, and which he had not explored. It had +almost passed out of his memory; he grasped at it again with something +like excitement, and fell adroitly upon the half inclination in Arnold's +voice. + +"I suppose I can't expect you to go in?" he said. + +"Precisely why not?" Stephen retorted. "My dear fellow, we make broad +our sympathies, not our phylacteries." + +At any other time Lindsay would have reflected how characteristic was +the gentle neatness of that, and might have resented with amusement the +pulpit tone of the little epigram. But this moment found him only aware +of the consent in it. His hand on Arnold's elbow clinched the agreement; +he half pushed the priest into the room, where they dropped into seats. +Stephen's hand went to his breast instinctively, for the words in the +air were holy by association, and stopped there, since even the breadth +of his sympathies did not enable him to cross himself before General +Booth. Though absent in body, the room was dominated by General Booth; +he loomed so large and cadaverous, so earnest and aquiline and bushy, +from a frame on the wall at the end of it. The texts on the other walls +seemed emanations from him; and the man in the short loose, collarless +red coat, with "Salvation Army" in crooked black letters on it, who +stood talking in high, rapid tones with his hands folded, had the look +of a puppet whose strings were pulled by the personality in the frame +above him. It was only by degrees that they observed the other objects +in the room--the big drum on the floor in the empty space where the +exhorters stood, the dozen wooden benches and the possible score of +people sitting on them, the dull kerosene lamps on the walls, lighting +up the curtness of the texts. There were half a dozen men of the Duke's +Own packed in a row like a formation, solid on their haunches; and three +or four unshaven and loose-garmented, from crews in the Hooghly, who +leaned well forwards their elbows on their knees, twirling battered +straw hats, with a pathetic look of being for the instant off the +defensive. One was a Scandinavian, another a Greek, with earrings. There +was a ship's cook, too, a full-blooded negro, very respectable with a +plaid tie and a silk hat; and beside, two East Indian girls of different +shades, tittering at the Duke's Own in an agony of propriety; a Bengali +boy, who spelled out the English on the cover of a hymn-book; and a very +clean Chinaman, who appreciated his privilege, since it included a +seat, a lamp, and a noise, though his perception of it possibly went no +further. The other odds and ends were of the mixed country blood, like +the girls, dingy, undecipherable. They made a shadow for the rest, lying +along the benches, shifting unnoticeably. + +Three people, two of them women, sat in the open space at the end of +the room where the smoky fog from outside thickened and hung visibly in +mid-air, and there was the empty seat of the man who was talking. Laura +Filbert was one of the women. She might have been flung upon her chair; +her head drooped over the back, buried in the curve of one arm. A +tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest her face; the other lay, +palm outward in its abandonment, among the folds that covered her limbs. +The folds hung from her waist, and she wore above them a short close +bodice like a Bengali woman. Her head covering had slipped, and +clung only to the knot of hair at the nape of her neck; she lacked, +pathetically, the conscious hand to draw it forward. She was unaware +even of the gaze of the Duke's Own, though it had fixity and absorption. + +The man with folded hands went on talking. He seemed to have caught as a +text the refrain of the hymn that had been sung. "Yes, indeed," he said. +"I can tell heveryone 'ere this night, heveryone, that the Saviour is +mighty to keep. I 'ave got it out of my own personal experience, I 'ave. +Jesus don't only look after you on a Sunday, but six days a week, my +friends, six days a week. Fix your eye on Him and He'll keep His eye on +you--that's all your part of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble an' +fall into sin. There's times when the Devil will get the upper 'and, but +oh, my friends, I ask you, each an' hevery one of you, is that the fault +of Jesus? No, it is not 'Is fault, it is the fault of the person. The +person 'as been forgetting Jesus, forgetting 'is Bible an' 'is prayers; +what can you expect? And now I ask you, my friends, is Jesus a-keeping +you? And if He is not, oh, my friends, ain't it foolish to put off +any longer? 'Ere we are met together to-night; we may never all meet +together again. You and I may never 'ear each other speaking again or +see each other sitting there. Thank God," the speaker continued, as his +eye rested on Arnold and Lindsay, "the vilest sinner may be saved, the +respectable sinner may be saved. We've got God's word for that. Now just +a little word of prayer from Ensign Sand 'ere--she's got God's ear, the +Ensign 'as, and she'll plead with 'im for all unconverted souls inside +these four walls to-night." + +Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the other exhorters +on her knees on the floor. As she moved she bent upon the audience a +preoccupied gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, chances, from +a point remote and emotionally involved. Lindsay's impression was that +she looked at him as from behind a glass door. Then her eyes closed as +the other woman began, and through their lids, as it were, he could see +that she was again caught up, though her body remained abased, her hands +interlocked between her knees, swaying in unison with the petition. The +Ensign was a little meagre freckled woman, whose wisps of colourless +hair and tight drawn-down lips suggested that in the secular world she +would have been bedraggled and a nagger. She gained an elevation, it was +plain, from the Bengali dress; it kept her away from the temptation +of cheap plush and dirty cotton lace; and her business gave her a +complacency which was doubtless accepted as sanctification by her +fellow-officers, especially by her husband, who had announced her +influence with the Divine Being, and who was himself of an inferior +commission. She prayed in a complaining way, and in a strained minor +key that assumed a spiritual intimacy with all who listened, her key to +hearts. She told the Lord in confidence that however appearances might +be against it every soul before him was really longing to be gathered +within His almighty arms, and when she said this, Laura Filbert, on the +floor, threw back her head and cried "Hallelujah!" and Duff started. +The mothers broke in upon the Ensign with like exclamations. They had a +recurrent, perfunctory sound, and passed unnoticed; but when Laura again +cried "Praise the Lord!" Lindsay found himself holding in check a hasty +impulse to leave the premises. Then she rose, and he watched with the +Duke's Own to see what she would do next. The others looked at her too, +as she stood surprisingly fair and insistent among them, Ensign Sand +with humble eyes and disapproving lips. As she began to speak the +silence widened for her words, the ship's cook stopped shuffling his +feet. "Oh come," she said, "Come and be saved!" Her voice seemed to +travel from her without effort, and to penetrate every corner and every +consciousness. There was a sudden dip in it like the fall of water, that +thrilled along the nerves. "Who am I that ask you? A poor weak woman, +ignorant, unknown. Never mind. It is not my voice but the voice in your +heart that entreats you 'Come and be saved!' You know that voice; it +speaks in the watches of the night; it began to speak when you were a +little, little child, with little joys and sorrows and little prayers +that you have forgotten now. Oh, it is a sweet voice, a tender +voice"--her own had dropped to the cooing of doves--"it is hard to +know why all the winds do not carry it, and all the leaves whisper +it! Strange, strange! But the world is full of the clamour of its own +foolishness, and the voice is lost in it, except in places where people +come to pray, as here to-night, and in those night watches. You hear +it now in the echo from my lips, 'Come and be saved.' Why must I beg of +you? Why do you not come hastening, running? Are you too wise? But when +did the wisdom of this world satisfy you about the next? Are you too +much occupied? But in the day of judgment what will you do?"-- + + + "When you come to Jordan's flood, + How will you do? How will you do?" + + +It was the voice and tambourine of Ensign Sand, quick upon her +opportunity. Laura gave her no glance of surprise--perhaps she was +disciplined to interruptions--but caught up her own tambourine, singing, +and instantly the chorus was general, the Big drum thumping out the +measure, all the tambourines shaking together. + + + "You who now contemn your God, + How will you do? How will you do?" + + +The Duke's Own sang lustily with a dogged enjoyment that made little of +the words. Some of them assumed a vacuity to counteract the sentiment, +but most of the sheepish countenances expressed that the tune was the +thing, one or two with a smile of jovial cynicism, and kept time with +their feet. Through the medley of voices--everybody sang except Arnold +and Lindsay and the Chinaman--Laura's seemed to flow, separate and +clear, threading the jangle upon melody, and turning the doggerel into +an appeal, direct, intense. When Lindsay presently saw it addressed to +him, in the unmistakable intention of her eyes, he caught his breath. + + + "Death will be a solemn day + When the soul is forced away, + It will be too late to pray; + How will you do?" + + +It was simple enough. All her supreme desire to convince, to turn, to +make awfully plain, had centred upon the single person in the room with +whom she had the advantage of acquaintance, whose face her own could +seek with a kind of right to response. But the sensation Duff Lindsay +tried to sit still under was not simple. It had the novelty, the shock, +of a plunge into the sea; behind his decorous countenance he gasped +and blinked, with unfamiliar sounds in his ears. His soul seemed +shudderingly repelling Laura's, yet the buffets themselves were +enthralling. In the strangeness of it he made a mechanical movement to +depart, picked up his stick, but Arnold was sitting holding his chin, +wrapped in quiet interest, and took no notice. The hymn stopped, and +he found a few minutes' respite, during which Ensign Sand addressed the +meeting, unveiling each heart to its possessor; while Laura turned over +the leaves of the hymn-book, looking, Lindsay was profoundly aware, +for airs and verses most likely to help the siege of the Army to his +untaken, sinful citadel. There was time to bring him calmness enough to +wonder whether these were the symptoms of emotional conversion, the sort +of thing these people went in for, and he resolved to watch his state +with interest. Then, before he knew it, they were all down on their +knees again, and Laura was praying; and he was not aware of the meaning +of a single word that she said, only that her voice was threading itself +in and out of his consciousness burdened with a passion that made it +exquisite to him. Her appeal lifted itself in the end into song, low and +sweet. + + + "Down at the Cross where my Saviour died, + Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, + There to my heart was the blood applied, + Glory to His name!" + + +They let her sing it alone, even the tempting chorus, and when it was +over Lindsay was almost certain that his were not the preliminary +pangs of conversion by the methods of the Salvation Army. Deliberately, +however, he postponed further analysis of them until after the meeting +was over. He would be compelled then to go away, back to the club to +dinner, or something; they would put out the lights and lock the place +up: he thought of that. He glanced at the lamps with a perception of the +finality that would come when they were extinguished--she would troop +away with the others into the darkness--and then at his watch to see how +much time there was left. More exhortation followed and more prayer; he +was only aware that she did not speak. She sat with her hand over her +eyes, and Lindsay had an excited conviction that she was still occupying +herself with him. He looked round almost furtively to detect whether +anyone else was aware of it, this connection that she was blazoning +between them, and then relapsed, staring at his hat, into a sense of +ungrammatical iterations beating through a room full of stuffy smells. +When Laura spoke again his eye leaped to hers in a rapt effort to tell +her that he perceived her intention. That he should be grateful, that he +should approve, was neither here nor there; the indispensable thing was +that she should know him conscious, receptive. She read three or four +sacred verses, a throb of tender longing from the very Christheart, +"Come unto Me."... The words stole about the room like tears. Then she +would ask "all present," she said, to engage for a moment in silent +prayer. There was a wordless interval, only the vague street noises +surging past the door. A thrill ran along the benches as Laura brought +it to an end with sudden singing. She was on her feet as the others +raised their heads, breaking forth clear and jubilant. + + + "I am so wondrously saved from sin, + Jesus so sweetly abides within; + There at the Cross where He took me in, + Glory to His name!" + + +She smiled as she sang. It was a happy confident smile, and it was +plain that she longed to believe it the glad reflection of the last +ten minutes' spiritual experience of many who heard her. Lindsay's +perception of this was immediate and keen, and when her eyes rested for +an instant of glad inquiry upon his in the chartered intimacy of her +calling, he felt a pang of compunction. It was a formless reproach, too +vague for anything like a charge, but it came nearest to defining itself +in the idea that he had gone too far--he who had not left his seat. When +the hymn was finished, and Ensign Sand said, "The meeting is now open +for testimonies," he knew that all her hope was upon him, though she +looked at the screen above his head; and he sat abashed, with a prodigal +sense surging through him of what he would rejoice to do for her in +compensation. In the little chilly silence that followed he surprised +his own eyes moist with disappointment--it had all been so anxious and +so vain--and he felt relief and gratitude when the man who beat the drum +stood up and announced that he had been saved for eleven years, with +details about how badly he stood in need of it when it happened. + +"Hallelujah!" said Ensign Sand cheerfully, with a meretricious air +of hearing it for the first time. "Any more?" and a Norwegian sailor +lurched shamefacedly upon his feet. He had a couple of inches of +straggling yellow beard all round his face, and fingered an old felt +hat. + +"I haf' to say only dis word. I goin' sdop by Jesus. Long time I subbose +I sdop by Jesus. I subbose--" + +"Glory be to God!" remarked Ensign Sand again, spiking the guns of the +Duke's Own who were inclined to be amused. "That will do, thank you. +Now, is there nobody else? Speak up, friends. It'll do you no harm, none +whatever; it'll do you that much good you'll be surprised. Now, who'll +be the next to say a word for Jesus?" She was nodding encouragement at +the negro cook as if she knew him for a wavering soul, and he, sunk in +his gleaming white collar, was aware, in silent smiling misery, that the +expectations of the meeting were toward him. Laura had again hidden her +eyes in her hand. The negro fingered his watch chain foolishly, and +the prettiest of the East Indian half-castes tried hard to disguise her +perception that an African in his best clothes under conviction of sin +was the funniest thing in the world. The silence seemed to focus itself +upon the cook, who fumbled at his coat collar and cleared his voice. It +was a shock to all concerned when Stephen Arnold, picking up his hat, +got upon his feet instead. + +"I also," he said, "would offer my humble testimony to the grace of +God--with all my heart." + +It was as if he had repeated part of the creed in the performance of his +office. Then he turned and bent gravely to Lindsay, "Shall we go now?" +he whispered, and the two made their way to the door, leaving a silence +behind them which Lindsay imagined, on the part of Ensign Sand at least, +to be somewhat resentful. As they passed out a voice recovered itself, +and cried, "Hallelujah!" It was Laura's; and all the way to the +club--Arnold was dining with him there--Lindsay listened to his friend's +analysis of religious appeal to the emotions, but chiefly heard that +clear music above a sordid din, "Hallelujah!" "Hallelujah!" + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +When Alicia Livingstone, almost believing she liked it, drove to Number +Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and left cards upon Miss Hilda Howe, she was +only partially rewarded. Through the plaster gate-posts, badly in want +of repair, and bearing, sunk in one of them, a marble slab announcing +"Residence with Board," she perceived the squalid attempt the place made +at respectability, the servants in dirty livery salaaming curiously, +the over-fed squirrel in a cage in the door, the pair of damaged wicker +chairs in the porch, suggesting the easiest intercourse after dinner, +the general discoloration. She observed with irritation that it was +a down-at-heels shrine for such a divinity, in spite of its six dusty +crotons in crumbling plaster urns, but the irritation was rather at her +own repulsion to the place than at any inconsistency it presented. What +she demanded and expected of herself was that Number Three, Lal Behari's +Lane should be pleasing, interesting, acceptable on its merits as a +cheap Calcutta boarding-house. She found herself so unable to perceive +its merits that it was almost a relief to see nothing of Miss Howe +either; Hilda had gone to rehearsal, to the "dance-house" the servant +said, eyeing the unusual landau. Alicia rolled back into streets with +Christian names, distressed by an uncertainty as to whether her visit +had been a disappointment or an escape. By the next day, however, she +was well pulled together in favour of the former conclusion--she could +nearly always persuade herself of such things in time--and wrote a frank +sweet little note in her picturesque hand--she never joined more than +two syllables--to say how sorry she had been, and would Miss Howe come +to lunch on Friday. "I should love to make it dinner," she, said to +herself, as she sealed the envelope, "but before one knows how she will +behave in connection with the men--I suppose one must think of the other +people." + +It was Friday, and Hilda was lunching. The two had met among the +faint-tinted draperies of Alicia's drawing-room--there was something +auroral even about the mantelpiece--a little like diplomatists using +a common tongue native to neither of them. Perhaps Alicia drew the +conventions round her with the greater fluency; Hilda had more to cover, +but was less particular about it. The only thing she was bent upon +making imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of Miss Livingstone's +effort to receive her as if she had been anybody else. Alicia was hardly +aware of what she wanted to conceal, unless it was her impression that +Miss Howe's dress was cut a trifle too low in the neck, that she was +almost too effective in that cream and yellow to be quite right. Alicia +remembered afterwards to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of +intercourse with Hilda Howe were dominated by a lively desire to set +Celine at her--with such a foundation to work upon what could Celine +not have done? She remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary things +Hilda said in that rich voice, even in the tempered drawing-room tones +of which resided a hint of the seats nearest the exit under the gallery, +and her wonder at the luxury of gesture that went with them, movements +which seemed to imply blank verse and to be thrown away upon two women +and a little furniture. A consciousness stood in the room between them, +and their commonplaces about the picturesqueness of the bazar rode on +long absorbed regards, one reading, the other anxious to read; yet the +encounter was so conventionally creditable to them both that they +might have smiled past each other under any circumstances next day and +acknowledged no demand for more than the smile. + +The cutlets had come before Hilda's impression was at the back of her +head, her defences withdrawn, her eyes free and content, her elbow on +the table. They had found a portrait-painter. + +"He has such an eye," said Alicia, "for the possibilities of character." + +"Such an eye that he develops them. I know one man he painted. I suppose +when the man was born he had an embryo soul, but in the meantime he and +everybody else had forgotten about it. All but Salter. Salter re-created +it on the original lines, and brought it up, and gave it a +lodging behind the man's, wrinkles. I saw the picture. It was +fantastic--psychologically." + +"Pysychology has a lot to say to portrait-painting, I know," Alicia said. +"Do let him give you a little more. It's only Moselle." She felt +quite direct and simple too in uttering her postulate. Her eyes had a +friendly, unembarrassed look, there was nothing behind them but the joy +of talking intelligently about Salter. + +Hilda did not even glance away. She looked at her hostess instead, +with an expression of candour so admirable that one might easily have +mistaken it to be insincere. It was part of her that she could swim +in any current, and it was pleasant enough, for the moment, to swim in +Alicia's. Both the Moselle and the cutlets, moreover, were of excellent +quality. + +"It's everything to everything, don't you think? And especially, thank +Heaven, to my trade." Her voice softened the brusqueness of this; the +way she said it gave it a right to be said in any terms. That was the +case with flagrancies of hers sometimes. + +"To discover motives and morals and passions and ambitions and to make +a picture of them with your own body--your face and hands and +voice--compare our plastic opportunity with the handling of a brush to +do it, or a pen or a chisel!" + +"I know what you mean," said Alicia. She had a little flush, and an +excited hand among the wineglasses. "No, I don't want any; please don't +bother me!" to the man at her elbow with something in aspic. "It's much +more direct--your way." + +"And, I think, so much more primitive, so much earlier sanctioned, +abiding so originally among the instincts! Oh yes! if we are lightly +esteemed it is because we are bad exponents. The ideal has dignity +enough. They charge us, in their unimaginable stupidity, with failing to +appreciate our lines, especially when they are Shakespeare's--with being +unliterary. You might--good Heavens!--as well accuse a painter of not +being a musician! Our business lies behind the words--they are our mere +medium! Rosalind wasn't literary--why should I be? But don't indulge me +in my shop, if it bores you," Hilda added lightly, aware as she was that +Miss Livingstone was never further from being bored. + +"Oh, please go on! If you only knew," her lifted eyebrows confessed +the tedium of Calcutta small talk. "But why do you say you are lightly +esteemed? Surely the public is a touchstone--and you hold the public in +the hollow of your hand!" + +Hilda smiled. "Dear old public! It does its best for us, doesn't it? +One loves it, you know, as sailors love the sea, never believing in +its treachery in the end. But I don't know why I say we are lightly +esteemed, or why I dogmatise about it at all. I've done nothing--I've +no right. In ten years perhaps--no, five--I'll write signed articles for +the New Review about modern dramatic tendencies. Meanwhile you'll have +to consider that the value of my opinions is prospective." + +"But already you have succeeded--you have made a place." + +"In Coolgardie, in Johannesburg, I think they remember me in +Trichinopoly too, and--yes, it may be so--in Manila. But that wasn't +legitimate drama," and Hilda smiled again in a way that coloured her +unspoken reminiscence, to Alicia's eyes, in rose and gold. She waited +an instant for these tints to materialise, but Miss Howe's smile slid +discreetly into her wineglass instead. + +"There's immense picturesqueness in the Philippines," she went on, her +look of thoughtful criticism contrasting in the queerest way with her +hat. "Real ecclesiastical tyranny with pure traditions. One wonders what +America will do with those friars, when she does go there." + +"Do you think she is going?" asked Alicia vaguely. It was the merest +politeness--she did not wait for a reply. With a courageous air which +became her charmingly, she went on, "Don't you long to submit yourself +to London? I should." + +"Oh, I must. I know I must. It's in the path of duty and +conscience--it's not to be put off for ever. But one dreads the chained +slavery of London"--she hesitated before the audacity of adding, "the +sordid hundred nights," but Alicia divined it, and caught her breath as +if she had watched the other woman make a hazardous leap. + +"You are magnificently sure," she said. Alicia herself felt curiously +buoyed up and capable, conscious of vague intuitions of immediate +achievement. The lunch-table still lay between the two, but it had +become in a manner intangible; the selves of them had drawn together, +and regarded each other with absorbent eyes. In Hilda's there was an +instant of consideration before she said--"I might as well tell you--you +won't misunderstand--that I AM sure. I expect things of myself. I hold a +kind of mortgage on my success; when I foreclose it will come, bringing +the long, steady, grasping chase of money and fame, eyes fixed, never +a day to live in, only to accomplish, every moment straddled with +calculation, an end to all the byways where one finds the colour of the +sun. The successful London actress, my dear--what existence has she? A +straight flight across the Atlantic in a record-breaker, so many nights +in New York, so many in Chicago, so many in a Pullman car, and the net +result in every newspaper--an existence of pure artificiality infested +by reporters. It's like living in the shell of your personality. It's +the house for ever on your back; at the last you are buried in it, +smirking in your coffin with a half-open eye on the floral offerings. +There never was reward so qualified by its conditions." + +"Surely there would be some moments of splendid compensation?" + +"Oh yes; and for those in the end we are all willing to perish! But then +you know all, you have done all; there is nothing afterwards but the +eternal strain to keep even with yourself. I don't suppose I could +begin to make you see the joys of a strolling player--they aren't much +understood even in the profession--but there are so many, honestly, that +London being at the top of the hill, I'm not panting up. My way of +going has twice wound round the world already. But I'm talking like an +illustrated interview. You will grant the impertinence of all I've +been saying when I tell you that I've never yet had an illustrated +interview." + +"Aren't they almost always vulgar?" Alicia asked. "Don't they make you +sit the wrong way on a chair, in tights?" + +Hilda threw her head back and laughed, almost, Alicia noted, like a man. +She certainly did not hide her mouth with her hands or her handkerchief, +as women often do in bursts of hilarity; she laughed freely, and as much +as she wanted to, and it was as clear as possible that tights presented +themselves quite preposterously to any discussion of her profession. +They were things to be taken for granted, like the curtain and the +wings; they had no relation to clothing in the world. + +Alicia laughed too. After all, they were absurd--her outsider's +prejudices. She said something like that, and Hilda seemed to soar +again for her point of view about the illustrated interviews. "They ARE +atrocities," she said. "On their merits they ought to be cast out +of even the suburbs of art and literature. But they help to make +the atmosphere that gives us power to work, and if they do that, +of course--" and the pursed seriousness of her lips gave Alicia the +impression that, though the whole world took offence, the expediency of +the illustrated interview was beyond discussion. + +The servant brought them coffee. "Shall we smoke here," said Miss +Livingstone, "or in the drawing-room?" + +"Oh, do you want to? Are you quite sure you like it? Please don't on my +account--you really mustn't. Suppose it should mike you ill?" If Hilda +felt any tinge of amusement she kept it out of her face. Nothing was +there but cheerful concern. + +"It won't make me ill." Alicia lifted her chin with delicate +assertiveness. "I suppose you do smoke, don't you?" + +"Occasionally--with some people. Honestly, have you ever done it +before?" + +"Four times," said Alicia, and then turned rose-colour with the +apprehension that it sounded amateurish to have counted them. "I thought +it was one of your privileges to do it always, just as you--" + +"Go to bed with our boots on and put ice down the back of some Serene +Highness's neck. I suppose it is, but now and then I prefer to dispense +with it. In my bath, for instance, and almost always in omnibuses." + +"How absurd you are! Then we'll stay here." + +Miss Howe softly manipulated her cigarette and watched Alicia sacrifice +two matches. + +"There's Rosa Norton of our company," she went on. "Poor, dear old Rosy! +She's fifty-three--grey hair smooth back, you know, and a kind of look +of anxious mamma. And it gets into her eyes and chokes her, poor dear; +but blow her, if she won't be as Bohemian as anybody. I've seen her +smoke in a bonnet with strings tied under her chin. I got up and went +away." + +"But I can't possibly affect you in that way," said Alicia, putting her +cigarette down to finish, as an afterthought, a marron glace. "I'm not +old and I'm not grotesque." + +"No, but--oh, all right. After you with the matches, please." + +"I BEG your pardon. How thoughtless of me! Dear me, mine has gone out. +Do you suppose anything is wrong with them? Perhaps they're damp." + +"Trifle dry, if anything," Hilda returned, with the cigarette between +her lips, "but in excellent order, really." She took it between her +first and second finger for a glance at the gold letters at the end, +leaned back and sent slow, luxurious spirals through her nostrils. It +was rather, Alicia reflected, like a horse on a cold day--she hoped Miss +Howe wouldn't do it again. But she presently saw that it was Miss Howe's +way of doing it. + +"No, you're not old and grotesque," Hilda said contemplatively; "you're +young and beautiful." The freedom seemed bred, imperceptibly and +enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever so +little under it, but took it without wincing. She had less than the +common palate for flattery of the obvious kind, but this was something +different--a mere casual and unprejudiced statement of fact. + +"Fairly," she said, not without surprise at her own calmness; and there +was an instant of silence, during which the commonplace seemed to be +dismissed between them. + +"You made a vivid impression here last year," said Alicia. She felt +delightfully terse and to the point. + +"You mean Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay is very impressionable. Do you know +him well?" + +Alicia closed her lips, and a faint line graved itself on each side of +them. Her whole face sounded a retreat, and her eyes were cold--it would +have annoyed her to know how cold--with distance. + +"He is an old friend of my brother's," she said. Hilda had the sensation +of coming unexpectedly, through the lightest loam, upon a hard surface. +She looked attentively at the red heart of her cigarette crisped over +with grey, in its blackened calyx. + +"Most impressionable," she went on, as if Alicia had not spoken. "As to +the rest of the people--bah! you can't rouse Calcutta. It is sunk in its +torpid liver, and imagines itself superior. It's really funny, you know, +the way hepatic influences can be idealised--made to serve ennobling +ends. But Mr. Lindsay is--different." + +"Yes?" Miss Livingstone's intention was neutral, but, in spite of her, +the asking note was in the word. + +"We have done some interesting things together here. He has shown me the +queerest places. Yesterday he made me go with him to Wellesley Square, +to look at his latest enthusiasm standing in the middle of it." + +"A statue?" + +"No, a woman, preaching and warbling to the people. She wasn't new to +me--I knew her before he did--but the picture was, and the performance. +She stood poised on a coolie's basket in the midst of a rabble of all +colours, like a fallen angel--I mean a dropped one. Light seemed to come +from her, from her hair or her eyes or something. I almost expected to +see her sail away over the palms into the sunset when it was ended." + +"It sounds most unusual," Alicia said, with a light smile. Her interest +was rather obviously curbed. + +"It happens every day, really, only one doesn't stop and look; one +doesn't go round the corner." + +There was another little silence, full of the unwillingness of Miss +Livingstone's desire to be informed. + +Hilda knocked the ash of her cigarette into her finger-bowl, and waited. +The pause grew so stiff with embarrassment that she broke it herself. + +"And I regret to say it was I who introduced them," she said. + +"Introduced whom?" + +"Mr. Lindsay and Miss Laura Filbert of the Salvation Army. They met at +Number Three; she had come after my soul. I think she was disappointed," +Hilda went on tranquilly, "because I would only lend it to her while she +was there." + +"Of the Salvation Army! I can't imagine why you should regret it. He is +always grateful to be amused." + +"Oh, there is no reason to doubt his gratitude. He is rather intense +about it. And--I don't know that my regret is precisely on Mr. Lindsay's +account. Did I say so?" They were simple, amiable words, and +their pertinence was very far from insistent; but Alicia's crude +blush--everything else about her was so perfectly worked out--cried +aloud that it was too sharp a pull up. "Perhaps though," Hilda hurried +on with a pang, "we generalise too much about the men." + +What Miss Livingstone would have found to say--she had certainly no +generalisation to offer about Duff Lindsay--had not a servant brought +her a card at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. The card saved +her the necessity. She looked at it blankly for an instant, and then +exclaimed, "My cousin, Stephen Arnold! He's a reverend--a Clarke Mission +priest, and he will come straight in here. What shall we do with our +cigarettes?" + +Miss Howe had a pleasurable sense that the situation was developing. + +"Yours has gone out again, so it doesn't much matter, does it? Drown +the corpse in here, and I'll pretend it belongs to me." She pushed +the finger-bowl across, and Alicia's discouraged remnant went into it. +"Don't ask me to sacrifice mine," she added, and there was no time for +remonstrance; Arnold's voice was lifting itself at the door. + +"Pray may I come in?" he called from behind the portiere. + +Hilda, who sat with her back to it, smiled in enjoying recognition of +the thin, high academic note, the prim finish of the inflection. It +reminded her of a man she knew who "did" curates beautifully. + +Arnold walked past her with his quick, humble, clerical gait, and it +amused her to think that he bent over Alicia's hand as if he would bless +it. + +"You can't guess how badly I want a cup of coffee." He flavoured what he +said, and made it pretty, like a woman. "Let me confess at once, that is +what brought me." He stopped to laugh; there was a hint of formality +and self-sacrifice even in that. "It is coffee-time, isn't it?" Then +he turned and saw Hilda, and she was, at the moment, flushed with the +luxury of her sensations, a vision as splendid as she must have been +to him unusual. But he only closed his lips and thrust his chin out a +little, with his left hand behind him in one of his intensely clerical +attitudes, and so stood waiting. Hilda reflected afterwards that she +could hardly have expected him to exclaim, "Whom have we here?" with +upraised hands, but she had to acknowledge her flash of surprise at his +self-possession. She noted, too, his grave bow when Alicia mentioned +them to each other, that there was the habit of deference in it, yet +that it waved her courteously, so to speak, out of his life. It was all +as interesting as the materialisation of a quaint tradition, and she +decided not, after all, to begin a trivial comedy for herself and +Alicia, by asking the Reverend Stephen Arnold whether he objected to +tobacco. She had an instant's circling choice of the person she would +represent to this priest in the little intermingling half-hour of their +lives that lay shaken out before them, and dropped unerringly. It really +hardly mattered, but she always had such instants. She was aware of the +shadow of a regret at the opulence of her personal effect; her hand went +to her throat and drew the laces closer together there. An erectness +stole into her body as she sat, and a look into her eyes that divorced +her at a stroke from anything that could have spoken to him of too +general an accessibility, too unthinking a largesse. She went on +smoking, but almost immediately her cigarette took its proper note of +insignificance. Alicia, speaking of it once afterwards to Arnold, found +that he had forgotten it. + +"Even in College Street you have heard of Miss Howe," Alicia said, and +the negative, very readable in Arnold's silent bow, brought Hilda a +flicker of happiness at her hostess's expense. + +"I don't think the posters carry us as far as College Street," she +said, "but I am not difficult to explain, Mr. Arnold. I act with Mr. +Stanhope's Company. If you lived in Chowringhee you couldn't help +knowing all about me, the letters are so large." The bounty of her +well-spring of kindness was in it under the candour and the simplicity; +it was one of those least of little things which are enough. + +Arnold smiled back at her, and she saw recognition leap through the +armour-plate of his ecclesiasticism. He glanced away again quickly, and +looked at the floor as he said he feared they were terribly out of it +in College Street, for which, however, he had evidently no apology to +offer. He continued to look at the floor with a careful air, as if it +presented points pertinent to the situation. Hilda felt herself--it +was an odd sensation--too sunny upon the nooked, retiring current that +flowed in him. He might have turned to the cool accustomed shadow that +Alicia made, but she was aware that he did not, that he was struggling +through her strangeness and his shyness for something to say to her. He +stirred his coffee, and once or twice his long upper lip trembled as if +he thought he had found it; but it was Alicia who talked, making light +accusations against the rigours of the Mission House, complaining of her +cousin that he was altogether given over to bonds and bands, that she +personally would soon cease to hold him in affection at all; she saw so +little of him it wasn't really worth while. + +This was old fencing ground between them, and Stephen parried her +pleasantly enough, but his eyes strayed speculatively to the other +end of the table, where, however, they rose no higher than the firm, +lightly-moulded hand that held the cigarette. + +"If I could found a monastic order," Hilda said, "one of the rules +should be a week's compulsory retirement into the world four times a +year." She spoke with a kind of grave brightness; it was difficult to +know whether she was altogether in jest. + +"There would be secession all over the place," Arnold responded, with +his repressed smile. "You would get any number of probationers; I wonder +whether you would keep them!" + +"During that week," Hilda went on, "they should be compelled to dine +and dance every night, to read a 'Problem' novel every morning before +luncheon, to marry and be given in marriage, and to go to all the +variety entertainments. Think of the austere bliss of the return to the +cloisters! All joy lies in a succession of sensations, they say. Do you +remember how Lord Ormont arranged his pleasures? Oh yes, my brotherhood +would be popular, as soon as it was understood." + +Alicia hurried in with something palliating--she could remember +flippancies of her own that had been rebuked--but there was no sign +or token of disapproval in Arnold's face. What she might have +observed there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a slight +disarrangement, so to speak, of the placid priestly mask, and something +like the original undergraduate looking out from beneath. + +Hilda began to put on her gloves. The left one gaped at two finger-ends; +she buttoned it with the palm thrown up and outward, as if it were the +daintiest spoil of the Avenue de l'Opera. + +"Not yet!" Alicia cried. + +"Thanks, I must. To-night is our last full rehearsal, and I have to +dress the stage for the first act before six o'clock. And, after pulling +all that furniture about, I shall want an hour or two in bed." + +"You! But it's monstrous. Is there nobody else?" + +"I wouldn't let anybody else," Hilda laughed. "Don't forget, please, +that we are only strolling players, odds and ends of people, mostly +from the Antipodes. Don't confound our manners and customs with anything +you've heard about the Lyceum. Good-bye. It has been charming. Goodbye, +Mr. Arnold." + +But Alicia held her hand. "The papers say it is to be The Offence of +Galilee, after all," she said. + +"Yes. Hamilton Bradley is all right again, and we've found a pretty +fair local Judas--amateur. We couldn't possibly put it on without +Mr. Bradley. He takes the part of"--Hilda glanced at the hem of the +listening priestly robe--"of the chief character, you know." + +"That was the great Nonconformist success at home last year, wasn't +it?" Arnold asked; "Leslie Patullo's play? I knew him at Oxford. I can't +imagine--he's a queer chap to be writing things like that." + +"It works out better than you--than one might suppose," Hilda returned, +moving toward the door. "Some of the situations are really almost novel, +in spite of all your centuries of preaching." She sent a disarming +smile with that, looking over her shoulder in one of her most effective +hesitations, one hand holding back the portiere. + +"And next week?" cried Alicia. + +"Oh, next week we do L'Amourette de Giselle--Frank Golding's re-vamp. +Good-bye! Good-bye!" + +"I wonder very much what Patullo has done with The Offence of Galilee," +Arnold said, after she had gone. + +"Come and see, Stephen. We have a box, and there will be heaps of room. +It's--suitable, isn't it?" + +"Oh, quite." + +"Then dine with us--the Yardleys are coming--and go on. Why not?" + +"Thanks very much indeed. It is sure to reward one. I think I shall be +able to give myself that pleasure." + +Arnold made a longer visit than usual; his cup of coffee, indeed, became +a cup of tea; and his talk, while he stayed, seemed to suffer less from +the limitations of his Order than it usually did. He was fluent and +direct; he allowed it to appear that he read more than his prayers; that +his glance at the world had still a speculation in it; and when he went +away, he left Alicia with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, murmuring +a vague inward corollary upon her day-- + +"It pays! It pays!" + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's Company was not the only combination that +offered itself to the entertainment of Calcutta that December Saturday +night. The ever-popular Jimmy Finnigan and his "Surprise Party"--he +sailed up the Bay as regularly as the Viceroy descended from the +hills--had been advertising "Side-splitting begins at 9.30. Prices as +usual" with reference to this particular evening for a fortnight. In the +Athenian Theatre--it had a tin roof and nobody could hear the orchestra +when it rained--the Midgets were presenting the earlier collaborations +of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, every Midget guaranteed under nine +years of age. Colonel Pike's Great Occidental Circus had been in full +blast on the Maidan for a week. It became a great Occidental circus when +Colonel Pike married the proprietress. They were both staying at the +Grand Oriental Hotel at Singapore when she was made a relict through +cholera, and he had more time than he knew what to do with, to say +nothing of moustaches that predestined him to a box-office. And +certainly circumstances justified the lady's complaisance, for while +hitherto hers had been but a fleeting show, it was now, in the excusably +imaginative terms of Colonel Pike, an architectural feature of the cold +weather. There was the Mystic Bower, too, in an octagonal tent under a +pipal tree, which gave you by an arrangement of looking-glasses the +most unaccountable sensations for one rupee; and a signboard cried "Know +Thyself!" where a physiological display lurked from the eyes of the +police behind a perfectly respectable skeleton at one end of Peri +Chandra's Gully. Llewellyn Stanhope saw that there was competition, +sighed to think how much, as he stood in the foggy vestibule of the +Imperial Theatre wrapped in the impressive folds of his managerial cape, +and pulled his moustache and watched the occasional carriage that +rolled his way up the narrow lane from Chowringhee. He thought bitterly, +standing there, of Calcutta's recognition of the claims of legitimate +drama, for the dank darkness was full of the noise of wheels and the +flashing of lamps on the way to accord another season's welcome to +Jimmy Finnigan. "I might've learned this town well enough by now," he +reflected, "to know that a bally minstrel show's about the size of it." +Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. Finnigan's art of the large red lips and +the twanging banjo; his thought was scornful rather than envious. He +aspired, moreover, to be known as the pilot of stars, at least in the +incipience of their courses, to be taken seriously by association, since +nature had arranged that he never could be on his intrinsic merits. His +upper lip was too short for that, his yellow moustache too curly, while +the perpetual bullying he underwent at the hands of leading ladies gave +him an air of deference to everybody else which was sometimes painfully +misunderstood. The stars, it must be said regretfully, in connection +with so laudable an ambition, nearly always betrayed him, coming down +with an unmistakably meteoric descent, stony-broke in the uttermost +ends of the earth, with a strong inclination to bring the cause of that +misfortune before the Consular Courts. They seldom succeeded in this +design, since Llewellyn was usually able to prove to them in advance +that it would be fruitless and expensive, but the paths of Eastern +capitals were strewn with his compromises, in Japanese yen, Chinese +dollars, Indian rupees, for salaries which no amount of advertising +could wheedle into the box-office. When the climax came, Llewellyn +usually went to hospital and received the reporters of local papers in +pathetic audience there, which counteracted the effect of the astounding +statements the stars made in letters to the editor, and yet gave the +public clearly to understand that owing to its coldness and neglect a +number of ladies and gentlemen of very superior talents were subsisting +in their midst mainly upon brinjals and soda-water. "I'm in hospital," +Mr. Stanhope would say to the reporters, "and I'm d---- glad of it,"--he +always insisted on the oath going in, it appealed so sympathetically to +the domiciled Englishman grown cold to superiority,--"for, upon my soul, +I don't know where I'd turn for a crust if I weren't." In the end the +talented ladies and gentlemen usually went home by an inexpensive +line as the voluntary arrangement of a public to whom plain soda was a +ludicrous hardship, and native vegetables an abomination at any price. +Then Llewellyn and Rosa Norton--she had a small inalienable income, and +they were really married though they preferred for some inexplicable +reason to be thought guilty of less conventional behaviour--would depart +in another direction, full of gratification for the present and of +confidence for the future. Llewellyn usually made a parting statement to +the newspapers that although his aims were unalterably high he was not +above profiting by experience, and that next season he could be relied +upon to hit the taste of the community with precision. This year, as +we know, he had made a serious effort by insisting that at least a +proportion of his ladies and gentlemen should be high-kickers and equal +to an imitation, good enough for the Orient, of most things done by the +illustrious Mr. Chevalier. But the fact that Mr. Stanhope had selected +The Offence of Galilee to open with tells its own tale. He was +convinced, but not converted, and he stood there with his little legs +apart, chewing a straw above the three uncut emeralds that formed the +chaste decoration of his shirt-front, giving the public of Calcutta one +more chance to redeem itself. + +It began to look as if Calcutta were not wholly irredeemable. A +ticca-gharry deposited a sea-captain; three carriages arrived in +succession; an indefinite number of the Duke's Own, hardly any of them +drunk, filed in to the rupee seats under the gallery: an overflow from +Jimmy Finnigan, who could no longer give his patrons even standing room. +When this occurred Llewellyn turned and swung indifferently away in the +direction of the dressing-rooms. When Jimmy Finnigan closed his doors +so early there was no further cause for anxiety. Calcutta was abroad and +stirring, and would turn for amusement even to The Offence of Galilee. + +Eventually--that is, five minutes before the curtain rose--the +representatives of the leading Calcutta journals decided that they were +justified in describing the house as a large and fashionable audience. +The Viceroy had taken a box, and sent an Aide-de-Camp to sit in it, +also a pair of M.P.'s from the North of England, whom he was expected to +attend to in Calcutta, and the governess. The Commander-in-Chief had not +been solicited to be present, the theatrical season demanding an economy +in such personalities if they were to go round; but a Judge of the +High Court had a party in the front row, and a Secretary to the Bengal +Government sat behind him. To speak of unofficials, there must have been +quite forty lakhs of tea and jute and indigo in the house, very genial +and prosperous, to say nothing of hides and seeds, and the men who sold +money and bought diamonds with the profits, which shone in their wives' +hair. A duskiness prevailed in the bare arms and shoulders; much of the +hair was shining and abundant, and very black. A turn of the head showed +a lean Greek profile, an outline bulbous and Armenian, the smooth creamy +mask of a Jewess, while here and there glimmered something more opulent +and inviting still, which proclaimed, if it did not confess, the remote +motherhood of the zenana and the origin of the sun. An audience of +fluttering fans and wrinkled shirt collars--the evening was warm under +the gas-lights--sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. Not an +old woman in it from end to end, hardly a man turned fifty, and those +who were had the air and looked to have the habits of twenty-five--an +audience that might have got up and stretched itself but for good +manners, and walked out in childish boredom at having to wait for the +rise of the curtain, but sat on instead, diffusing an atmosphere of +affluence and delicate scents, and suggesting, with imperious chins, the +use of quick orders in a world of personal superiority. + +Thus the stalls--they were spindling cane-bottomed chairs--and +the boxes, in one of which the same spindling cane-bottomed chairs +supported, in more expensive seclusion, Surgeon-Major and Miss +Livingstone, the Reverend Stephen Arnold, and two or three other people. +The Duke's Own sat under the gallery, cheek by jowl with all the flotsam +and jetsam of an Eastern port, well on the look-out for offensive +personalities from the men of the ships, and spitting freely. Here, +too, was an ease of shoulder and a freedom from the cares of life--at +a venture the wives were taking in washing in Brixton, and the children +sent to Board School at the expense of the nation. And in a climate like +this it was a popular opinion that a man must either enjoy himself or +commit suicide. + +The Sphinx on the crooked curtain looked above and beyond them all. It +was a caricature of the Sphinx, but could not confine her gaze. + +Hilda's audience that night knew all about The Offence of Galilee from +the English illustrated papers. The illustrated papers had a great way +of ministering to the complacency of Calcutta audiences; they contained +photographs of almost every striking scene, composed at the leisure of +the cast, but so vividly supplemented with descriptions of the leading +lady's clothes that it hardly required any effort of the imagination to +conjure up the rest. The postures and the chief garments of Pilate--he +was eating pomegranates when the curtain rose, and listening to scandal +from his slave-maidens about Mary Magdalene--were at once recognised in +their resemblance to those of the photographs, and in the thrill of +this satisfaction any discrepancies in cut and texture passed generally +unobserved. A silent curiosity settled upon the house, half reverent, as +if with the Bible names came thronging a troop of sacred associations +to cluster about personalities brusquely torn out of church, and people +listened for familiar sentences with something like the composed gravity +with which they heard on Sundays the reading of the second lesson. +But as the stage-talk went on, the slave-maidens announcing themselves +without delay comfortably modern and commonplace, and Pilate a cynic and +a decadent, though as distinctively from Melbourne, it was possible to +note the breaking up of this sentiment. It was plain after all that no +standard of ideality was to be maintained or struggled after. The relief +was palpable; nevertheless, when Pilate's wife cast a shrewish gibe +at him over the shoulder of her exit, the audience showed but a faint +inclination to be amused. It was to be a play evidently like any other +play, the same coarse fibre, the same vivid and vulgar appeals. It is +doubtful whether this idea was critically present to anyone but Stephen +Arnold, but people unconsciously tasted the dramatic substance +offered them, and leaned back in their chairs with the usual patient +acknowledgment that one mustn't expect too much of a company that +found it worth while to come to Calcutta. The house grew submissive +and stolid, but one could see half-awakened prejudices sitting in the +dress-circle. The paper-chasing Secretary said to the most intelligent +of his party that on the whole he liked his theology neat, forgetting +that the preference belonged to Mr. Andrew Lang in connection with +a notable lady novelist; and the most intelligent--it was Mrs. +Barberry--replied that it did seem strange. The depths under the gallery +were critically attentive, though Llewellyn Stanhope felt them hostile +and longing for verbal brick-bats; and the Reverend Mr. Arnold shrank +into the farthest corner of Surgeon-Major Livingstone's box, and knew +all the misery of outrage. Pilate and the slave-maidens, Pilate's fat +wife, and an unspeakable comic centurion, offered as yet hardly more +than a prelude, but the monstrosity of the whole performance was already +projected upon Arnold's suffering imagination. This, then, was what +Patullo had done with it. But what other, he asked himself in quiet +anger, could Patullo have been expected to do? the fellow he remembered. +Arnold tilted his chair back and stared, with arms folded and sombre +brows, at the opposite wall. He looked once at the door, but some spirit +of self-torture kept him in his seat. If so much offence could be made +with the mere crust and envelope, so to speak, of the sacred story, +what sacrilege might not be committed with the divine personalities +concerned? He remembered, with the touch of almost physical nausea +that assailed him when he saw them, one or two pictures in recent Paris +exhibitions where the coveted accent of surprise had been produced by +representing the sacred figure in the trivial monde of the boulevards, +and fixed upon them as the source of Patullo's intolerable inspiration. +Certain muscles felt responsive at the thought of Patullo which Arnold +had forgotten he possessed; it was so seldom that a missionary priest, +even of athletic traditions, came in contact with anybody who required +to be kicked. + +Alicia was in front with the Yardleys, dropping her unfailing plummet +into the evening's experience. Arnold, hesitating over the rudeness of +departure, thought she was sufficiently absorbed; she would hardly mind. +The centurion slapped his tin armour, and made a jest, which reached +Stephen over his hostess's shoulder, and seemed to brand him where he +sat. He looked about for his hat and some excuse that would serve, and +while he looked the sound of applause rose from the house. It was a +demonstration without great energy, hardly more than a flutter from +stall to stall, with a vague, fundamental noise from the gallery; but +it had the quality which acclaimed something new. Arnold glanced at the +stage, and saw that while Pilate and the hollow-chested slaves and the +tin centurion were still on, they had somehow lost significance and +colour, and that all the meaning and the dominance of the situation +had gathered into the person of a woman of the East who danced. She was +almost discordant in her literalness, in her clear olive tints and +the kol smudges under her eyes, the string of coins in the mass of +her fallen hair, and her unfettered body. Beside her the slave-girls, +crouching, looked like painted shells. She danced before Pilate in +strange Eastern ways, in plastic weavings and gesturings that seemed +to be the telling of a tale; and from the orchestra only one unknown +instrument sobbed out to help her. The women of the people have ever +bought in Palestine, buy to-day in the Mousky, the coarse, thick +grey-blue cotton that fell about her limbs, and there was audacity in +the poverty of her beaten silver anklets and armlets. These shone and +twinkled with her movements; but her softly splendid eyes and reddened +lips had the immobility of the bazar. People looked at their playbills +to see whether it was really Hilda Howe or some nautch-queen borrowed +from a native theatre. By the time she sank before Pilate and placed his +foot upon her head a new spirit had breathed upon the house. Under the +unexpectedness of the representation it sat up straight, and there was a +keenness of desire to see what would happen next which plainly curtailed +the applause, as it does with children at a pantomime. + +"Have you ever seen anything like it before?" Alicia asked Captain +Yardley; and he said he thought he had once, in Algiers, but not nearly +so well done. Arnold rose again to go, but the Magdalene had begun the +well-known passage with Pilate, about which the newspapers absurdly +reported later that if Miss Howe had not been a Protestant, and so +impervious the Pope would have excommunicated her, and as he looked his +movement imperceptibly changed to afford him a better place. He put +an undecided hand upon a prop of the box that rose behind Alicia's +shoulder, and so stood leaning and looking, more conspicuous in the +straight lines and short shoulder cape of the frock of his Order than +he knew. Hilda, in one of those impenetrable regards which she threw +straight in front of her, while Pilate yawped and posed nearer and +nearer the desire of the Magdalene to be admitted to his household, +was at once aware of him. Presently he sat down again--it was still the +profane, the fabulous, the horrible Patullo, but a strain of pure gold +had come into the fabric worth holding in view, impossible, indeed, to +close the eyes upon. Far enough it was from any semblance to historical +fact, but almost possible, almost admissible, in the form of the woman, +as historical fiction. She dared to sit upon the floor now, in the +ungraceful huddled Eastern fashion, clasping her knees to her breast, +with her back half turned to her lord, the friend of Caesar, so that +he could not see the design that sat behind the mask of her sharp +indifference. She rested her chin upon her knees, and let the blankness +of her beauty exclaim upon the subtlety of her replies, plainly +measuring the power of her provocation against the impoverished quality +that camp and grove, court and schools, might leave upon august Roman +sensibilities. It was the old, old sophistication, so perfect in its +concentration behind the kol-brushed eyes and the brown breasts, the +igniting, flickering, raging of an instinct upon the stage. Alicia, when +it was over, said to Mrs. Yardley, "How the modern woman goes off upon +side issues!" to which that lady nodded a rather suspicious assent. + +Long before Hilda had begun to act for Arnold, to play to his special +consciousness, he was fastened to his chair, held down, so to speak, by +a whirlpool of conflicting impulses. She did so much more than "lift" +the inventive vulgarisation of the Bible story in the common sense; +she inspired and transfused it so that whenever she appeared people +irresistibly forgot the matter for her, or made private acknowledgments +to the effect that something was to be said even for an impious fantasy +which gave her so unique an opportunity. To Arnold her vivid embodiment +of an incident in that which was his morning and evening meditation +made special appeal, and though it was in a way as if she had thrust +her heathen torch into his Holy of Holies, he saw it lighted with +fascination, and could not close the door upon her. The moment of her +discovery of this came early, and it is only she, perhaps, who +could tell how the strange bond wove itself that drew her being--the +Magdalene's--to the priest who sat behind a lady in swansdown and +chiffon in the upper box nearest to the stage on the right. The +beginnings of such things are untraceable, but the fact may be +considered in connection with this one that Hamilton Bradley, who +represented, as we have been told he would, the Chief Character, did it +upon lines very recognisably those of the illustrations of sacred +books, very correct as to the hair and beard and pictured garment of +the Galilean; with every accent of hollow-eyed pallor and inscrutable +remoteness, with all the thin vagueness, too, of a popular engraving, +the limitations and the depression. Under it one saw the painful +inconsistency of the familiar Hamilton Bradley of other presentations, +and realised with irritation, which must have been tenfold in Hilda, how +he rebelled against the part. Perhaps this was enough in itself to +send her dramatic impulse to another focus, and the strangeness of the +adventure was a very thing she would delight in. Whatever may be said +about it, while yet the shock of the woman's earthly passion with its +divine object was receding from Arnold's mind before the exquisite charm +and faithfulness of the worshipping Magdalene, he became aware that in +some special way he sat judging and pitying her. She had hardly lifted +her eyes to him twice, yet it was he, intimately he, who responded as +if from afar off, to the touch of her infinite solicitude and abasement, +the joy and the shame of her love. As he watched and knew, his lips +tightened and his face paled with the throb of his own renunciation, he +folded his celibate arms in the habit of his brotherhood, and was caught +up into a knowledge and an imitation of how the spotless Original would +have looked upon a woman suffering and transported thus. The poverty of +the play faded out; he became almost unaware of the pinchbeck and the +fustian of Patullo's invention, and its insufferable mixture with the +fabric of which every thread was precious beyond imagination. He looked +down with tender patience and compassion upon the development of the +woman's intrigue in the palace, through the very flower of her crafts +and guiles, to save Him who had transfigured her from the hands of +the rabble and the high priests; he did not even shrink from the +inexpressibly grating note of the purified Magdalene's final passionate +tendering of her personal sacrifice to the enamoured Pilate as the price +of His freedom, and when at the last she wept at His feet where He lay +bound and delivered, and wrapped them, in the agony of her abandonment, +in the hair of her head, the priest's lips almost moved in words other +than those of the playwright--words that told her he knew the height +and the depth of her sacrifice and forgave it, "Neither do I condemn +thee...." In his exultation he saw what it was to perform miracles, +to remit sins. The spark of divinity that was in him glowed to a +white heat; the woman on the stage warmed her hands at it in two +consciousnesses. She was stirred through all her artistic sense in a +new and delicious way, and wakened in some dormant part of her to +a knowledge beautiful and surprising. She felt in every nerve the +exquisite quality of that which lay between them, and it thrilled her +through all her own perception of what she did, and all the applause at +how she did it. It was as if he, the priest, was borne out upon a deep +broad current that made toward solar spaces, toward infinite bounds, and +as if she, the actress, piloted him.... + +The Sphinx on the curtain--it had gone down in the old crooked +lines--again looked above and beyond them all. I have sometimes fancied +a trace of malignancy about her steady eyeballs, but perhaps that is +the accident or the design of the scene-painter; it does not show +in photographs. The audience was dispersing a trifle sedately; +the performance had been, as Mrs. Barberry told Mr. Justice Horne, +interesting but, depressing. "I hope," said Alicia to Stephen, fastening +the fluffy-white collar of the wrap he put round her, "that I needn't +be sorry I asked you to come. I don't quite know. But she did redeem it, +didn't she? That last scene--" + +"Can you not be silent?" Arnold said, almost in a whisper; and her look +of astonishment showed her that there were tears in his eyes. He left +the theatre and walked light-headedly across Chowringhee and out into +the starlit empty darkness of the Maidan, where presently he stumbled +upon a wooden bench under a tree. There, after a little, sleep fell +upon his amazement, and he lay unconscious for an hour or two, while the +breeze stole across the grass from the river and the mast-head lights +watched beside the city. He woke chilled and normal, and when he reached +the Mission House in College Street his servant was surprised at the +unusual irritation of a necessary rebuke. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +While Alicia Livingstone fought with her imagination in accounting +for Lindsay's absence from the theatre on the first night of a notable +presentation by Miss Hilda Howe, he sat with his knees crossed on the +bench farthest back and the corner obscurest of the Salvation Army +Headquarters in Bentinck Street. It had become his accustomed place; +sitting there he had begun to feel like the adventurer under Niagara, +it was the only spot from which he could observe, try to understand and +cope with the torrential nature of his passion. Nearer to the fair charm +of his kneeling Laura, in the uncertain flare of the kerosene lamp and +the sound of the big drum, he grew blind, lost count, was carried away. +His persistent refusal of a better place also profited him in that it +brought to Ensign Sand and the other "officers" the divination that he +was one of those shyly anxious souls who have to be enticed into the +Kingdom of Heaven with wariness, and they made a great pretence of not +noticing him, going on with the exercises just as if he were not there, +a consideration which he was able richly to enhance when the plate came +round. After his first contribution, Mrs. Sand regarded his spiritual +interests with almost superstitious reverence, according them the +fullest privacy of which she was capable. The gravity which the +gentleman attached to his situation was sufficiently testified by the +"amount"; Mrs. Sand never wanted better evidence than the amount. Even +Laura, acting doubtless under instructions, seemed disposed to hold +away from him in her prayers and exhortations; only a very occasional +allusion passed her lips which Duff could appropriate. These, when they +fell, he gathered and set like flowers in his tenderest consciousness, +to visit and water them after the sun went down and for twenty-four +hours he would not see her again. Her intonation went with them and her +face; they lived on that. They stirred him, I mean, least of all in the +manner of their intention. After the first quarter of an hour, it is +to be feared, Lindsay suffered no more apprehensions on the score of +emotional hypnotism. He recognised his situation plainly enough, and +there was no appeal in it of which the Reverend Stephen Arnold, for +example, could properly suspect the genuineness or the permanence. + +On this Saturday night he sat through the meeting as he had sat through +other meetings, absorbed in his exquisite experience which he meditated +mostly with his eyes on the floor. His attitude was one quite adapted +to deceive Ensign Sand; if he had been occupied with the burden of his +transgressions it was one he might very well have fallen into. When +Laura knelt or sang he sometimes looked at her, at other times he looked +at the situation in the brightness of her presence at the other end of +the room. She gave forth there, for Lindsay, an illumination by which he +almost immediately began to read his life; and it was because he thought +he had done this with accuracy and intelligence that he came up behind +her that evening when the meeting was over as she followed the rest, +with her sari drawn over her head, out into the darkness of Bentinck +Street, and said with directness, "I should like to come and see you. +When may I? Any time that suits you. Have you half an hour to spare +to-morrow?" + +It was plain that she was tired, and that the brightness with which +she welcomed his advance was a trifle taught and perfunctory. Not the +frankness though, or the touch of "Now we are getting to business," that +stood in her expression. She looked alert and pleased. + +"You would like to have a little talk, wouldn't you?" she said. Her +manner took Lindsay a trifle aback; it suggested that she conferred this +privilege so freely. "To-morrow--let me see, we march in the morning, +and I have an open-air at four in the afternoon--the Ensign takes the +evening meeting. Yes, I could see you to-morrow about two or about +seven, after I get back from the Square." It was not unlike a +professional appointment. + +Lindsay considered. "Thanks," he said, "I'll come at about seven--if you +are sure you won't be too exhausted to have me after such a day." + +He saw that her lids as she raised them to answer were slightly reddened +at the edges, testifying to the acridity of Calcutta's road dust, and +a dry crack crept into the silver voice with which she said +matter-of-factly, "We are never too exhausted to attend to our Master's +business." + +Lindsay's face expressed an instant's hesitation; he looked gravely the +other way. "And the address?" he said. + +"Almost next door--we all live within bugle-call. The entrance is in +Crooked Lane. Anybody will tell you." + +At the door Ensign Sand was conspicuously waiting. Lindsay said "Thanks" +again, and passed out--she seemed to be holding it for him--and picked +his way over the gutters to the shop of his Chinaman opposite. From +there he watched the little company issue forth and turn into Crooked +Lane, where the entrance was. It gave him a sense that she had her part +in this squalor, which was not altogether distressful in that it also +localised her in the warm, living, habitable world, and helped to make +her thinkable and attainable. Then he went to his room at the club and +found there a note from Miss Howe, written apparently to forgive him in +advance, to say that she had not expected him. "Friendly creature!" he +said as he turned out the lamp, and smiled in the dark to think that +already there was one who guessed, who knew. + +One gropes in Crooked Lane after the lights of Bentinck Street have done +all that can be expected of them. There are various things to avoid, +washer-men's donkeys and pariah dogs, unyoked ticca-gharries, heaps +of rubbish, perhaps a leprous beggar. Lindsay, when he had surmounted +these, found himself at the entrance to a quadrangle which was +positively dark. He waylaid a sweeper slinking out, and the man showed +him where an open staircase ran down against the wall in one corner. It +was up there, he said, that the "tamasho-mems"* lived. There were three +tamasho-mems, he continued, responding to Lindsay's trivial coin, and +one sahib, but this was not the time for the tamasho--it was finished. +Lindsay mounted the first flight by faith, and paused at the landing to +avoid collision with a heavy body descending. He inquired Miss Filbert's +whereabouts from this person, who providentially lighted a cigar, +disclosing himself a bald Armenian in tusser silk trousers and a dirty +shirt, presumably, Lindsay thought, the landlord. At all events he +had the information, Lindsay was to keep straight on, it was the third +storey. Duff kept straight on in a spirit of caution, and just missed +treading upon the fattest rat in the heathen parish of St. John's. At +the top he saw a light and hastened; it shone from an open door at the +side of a passage. The partition in which the door was came considerably +short of the ceiling, and from the top of it to the window opposite +stretched a line of garments to dry, of pungent odour and infantile +pattern. Lindsay dared no farther, but lifted up his voice in the Indian +way to summon a servant, "Qui hai?"# he called, "Qui hai?" + + + * Festival-making women. + + # "Whoever is there?" + + +He heard somewhere within the noise of a chair pushed back, and a door +farther down the passage opened outwards, disclosing Laura Filbert +with her hand upon the handle. She made a supple, graceful picture. +"Good-evening, Mr. Lindsay," she said as he advanced. "Won't you come +in?" She clung to the handle until he had passed into the room, then she +closed the door after him. "I was expecting you," she said. "Mr. Harris, +let me make you acquainted with Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Harris." + +Mr. Harris was sitting sideways on one of the three cheap little chairs. +He was a clumsily built youth, and he wore the private's garb of the +Salvation Army. It was apparent that he had been reading a newspaper; he +had a displeasing air of possession. At Laura's formula he looked up +and nodded without amiability, folded his journal the other side out and +returned to it. + +"Please take a seat," Laura said, and Lindsay took one. He had a demon +of self-consciousness that possessed him often, here he felt dumb. +Nor did he in the very least expect Mr. Harris. He crossed his legs in +greater discomfort than he had dreamed possible, looking at Laura, who +sat down like a third stranger, curiously detached from any sense of +hospitality. + +"Mr. Lindsay is anxious about his soul, Mr. Harris," she said +pleasantly. "I guess you can tell him what to do as well as I can." + +"Oh!" Lindsay began, but Mr. Harris had the word. "Is he?" said Mr. +Harris, without looking up from his paper. "Well, what I've got to say +on that subject I say at the evenin' meetin', which is a proper an' a +public place. He can hear it there any day of the week." + +"I think I have already heard," remarked Lindsay, "what you have to +say." + +"Then that's all right," said Mr. Harris, with his eyes still upon his +newspaper. He appeared to devour it. Laura looked from one to the other +of them and fell upon an expedient. + +"If you'll excuse me," she said, "I'll just get you that bicycle story +you were kind enough to lend me, Mr. Harris, and you can take it with +you. The Ensign's got it," and she left the room. Lindsay glanced round, +and promptly announced to himself that he could not come there again. +It was taking too violent an advantage. The pursuit of an angel does not +imply that you may trap her in her corner under the Throne. The place +was divided by a calico curtain, over which plainly showed the top of a +mosquito curtain--she slept in there. On the walls were all tender texts +about loving and believing and bearing others' burdens, interspersed +with photographs, mostly of women with plain features and enthusiastic +eyes, dressed in some strange costume of the Army in Madras, Ceylon, +China. A little wooden table stood against the wall holding an album, +a Bible and hymn-books, a work-basket and an irrelevant Japanese doll +which seemed to stretch its absurd arms straight out in a gay little +ineffectual heathen protest. There was another more embarrassing table: +it had a coarse cloth; and was garnished with a loaf and butter-dish, a +plate of plantains and a tin of marmalade, knives and teacups for a meal +evidently impending. It was atrociously, sordidly intimate, with its +core in Harris, who when Miss Filbert had well gone from the room looked +up. "If you're here on private business," he said to Lindsay, fixing his +eyes, however, on a point awkwardly to the left of him, "maybe you ain't +aware that the Ensign"--he threw his head back in the direction of the +next room--"is the person to apply to. She's in command here. Captain +Filbert's only under her." + +"Indeed?" said Lindsay. "Thanks." + +"It ain't like it is in the Queen's army," Harris volunteered, still +searching Lindsay's vicinity for a point upon which his eyes could +permanently rest, "where, if you remember, Ensigns are the smallest +officer we have." + +"The commission is, I think, abolished," replied Lindsay, governing a +deep and irritated frown. + +"Maybe so. This Army don't pretend to pattern very close on the +other--not in discipline anyhow," said Mr. Harris with ambiguity. "But +you'll find Ensign Sand very willing to do anything she can for you. +She's a hard-working officer." + +A sharp wail smote the air from a point close to the lath and canvas +partition, on the other side, followed by hasty hushings and steps in +the opposite direction. It enabled Lindsay to observe that Mrs. Sand +seemed at present to be sufficiently engaged, at which Mr. Harris +shifted one heavy limb over the other, and lapsed into silence, looking +sternly at an advertisement. The air was full of their mutual annoyance, +although Duff tried to feel amused. They were raging as primitively, +under the red flannel shirt and the tan-coloured waistcoat with white +silk spots, as two cave-men on an Early British coast; their only +sophistication lay in Harris's newspaper and Lindsay's idea that he +ought to find this person humorous. Then Laura came back and resolved +the situation. + +"Here it is," she said, handing the volume to Mr. Harris; "we have all +enjoyed it. Thank you very much." There was in it the oddest mixture of +the supreme feminine and the superior officer. Harris, as he took the +book, had no alternative. + +"Good-evening, then, Captain," said he, and went, stumbling at the door. + +"Mr. Harris," said Laura equably, "found salvation about a month ago. He +is a very steady young man--foreman in one of the carriage works here. +He is now struggling with the tobacco habit, and he often drops in in +the evening." + +"He seems to be a--a member of the corps," said Lindsay. + +"He would be, only for the carriage works. He says he doesn't find +himself strong enough in grace to give up his situation yet. But he +wears the uniform at the meetings to show his sympathy, and the Ensign +doesn't think there's any objection." + +Laura was sitting straight up in one of the cheap little chairs, her +sari drawn over her head, her hands folded in her lap. The native dress +clung to her limbs in sculpturable lines, and her consecrated ambitions +seemed more insistent than ever. She had nothing to do with anything +else, nothing to do with her room or its arrangements, nothing, Lindsay +felt profoundly, to do with him. Her personal zeal for him seemed to +resolve itself, at the point of contact, into something disappointingly +thin; he saw that she counted with him altogether as a unit in a +glorious total, and that he himself had no place in her knowledge or her +desire. This brought him, with something like a shock, to a sense of how +far he had depended on her interest for his soul's sake to introduce her +to a wider view of him. + +"But you have come to tell me about yourself," she said, suddenly it +seemed to Lindsay, who was wrapped in the contemplation of her profile. +"Well, is there any special stumbling-block?" + +"There are some things I should certainly like you to know," replied +Lindsay; "but you can't think how difficult--" he glanced at the +lath and plaster partition, but she to whom publicity was a condition +salutary, if not essential, to spiritual experience, naturally had no +interpretation for that. + +"I know it's sometimes hard to speak," she said; "Satan ties our +tongues." + +The misunderstanding was absurd, but he saw only its difficulties, +knitting his brows. + +"I fear you will find my story very strange and very mad," he said. "I +cannot be sure that you will even listen to it." + +"Oh," Laura said simply, "do not be afraid! I have heard confessions! I +work at home, you see, a good deal among the hospitals, and--we do not +shrink, you know, in the Army, from things like that." + +"Good God!" he exclaimed, staring, "you don't think--you don't +suppose--" + +"Ah! don't say that! It's so like swearing." + +As he sat in helpless anger, trying to formulate something intelligible, +the curtain parted, and a sallow little Eurasian girl of eighteen, also +in the dress of the Army, came through from the bedroom part. She smiled +in a conscious, meaningless way, as she sidled past them. At the door +her smile broadened, and as she closed it after her she gave them a +little nod. + +"That's my lieutenant," said Laura. + +"The place is like a warren," Lindsay groaned. "How can we talk here?" + +Laura looked at him gravely, as one making a diagnosis. "Do you think," +she said, "a word of prayer would help you?" + +"No," said Lindsay. "No, thank you. What is making me miserable," he +added quietly, "is the knowledge that we are being overheard. If you go +into the next room, I am quite certain you will find Mrs. Sand listening +by the wall." + +"She's gone out! She and the Captain and Miss De Souza, to take the +evening meeting. Nobody is in there except the two children, and they +are asleep." Her smile, he thought, made a Madonna of her. "Indeed, we +are quite alone, you and I, in the flat now. So please don't be afraid, +Mr. Lindsay! Say whatever is in your heart, and the mere saying--" + +"Oh," Lindsay cried, "stop! Don't, for Heaven's sake, look at me in that +light any longer. I'm not penitent. I'm not--what do you call +it?--a soul under conviction. Nothing of the sort." He waited with +considerateness for this to have its effect upon her; he could not go on +until he saw her emerge, gasping, from the inundation of it. But she was +not even staggered by it. She only looked down at her folded hands with +an added seriousness and a touch of sorrow. + +"Aren't you?" she said. "But at least you feel that you ought to be. I +thought it had been accomplished. But I will go on praying." + +"Shall you be very angry if I tell you that I'd rather you didn't? I +want to come into your life differently--sincerely." + +She looked at him with such absolute blankness that his resolution was +swiftly overturned, and showed him a different face. + +"I won't tell you anything about what I feel and what I want to-night +except this--I find that you are influencing all my thoughts and all my +days in what is to me a very new and a very happy way. You hear as much +as that often, and from many people, don't you? So there is nothing in +it that need startle you or make you uncomfortable." He paused, and she +nodded in a visible effort to follow him. + +"So I am here to-night to ask you to let me do something for you just +for my own pleasure--there must be some way of helping you, and being +your friend--" + +"As Mr. Harris is," she interrupted. "I do influence Mr. Harris for +good, I know. He says so." + +"Influence me," he begged, "in any way you like." + +"I will pray for you," she said. "I promise that." + +"And you will let me see you sometimes?" he asked, conceding the point. + +"If I thought it would do you any good"--she looked at him doubtfully, +clasping and unclasping her hands; "I will see; I will ask for guidance. +Perhaps it is one of His own appointed ways. If you have no objection, +I will give you this little book, Almost Persuaded. I am sure you +are almost persuaded. Above all, I hope you will go on coming to the +meetings." + +And in the course of the next two or three moments Lindsay found +himself, somewhat to his astonishment, again in the night of the +staircase, dismissed exactly as Mr. Harris had been, by the agency of a +printed volume. Only in his case a figure of much angelic beauty stood +at the top, holding a patent kerosene lamp high, to illumine his way. He +refrained from looking back lest she should see something too human +in his face, and vanish, leaving him in darkness which would be indeed +impenetrable. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +There was a panic in Dhurrumtolla; a "ticca-gharry"--the shabby +oblong box on wheels, dignified in municipal regulations as a hackney +carriage--was running away. Coolie mothers dragged naked children up +on the pavement with angry screams; drivers of ox-carts dug their lean +beasts in the side, and turned out of the way almost at a trot; only the +tram-car held on its course in conscious invincibility. A pariah tore +along beside the vehicle barking; crows flew up from the rubbish heaps +in the road by half-dozens, protesting shrilly; a pedlar of blue bead +necklaces just escaped being knocked down. Little groups of native +clerks and money-lenders stood looking after, laughing and speculating; +a native policeman, staring also, gave them sharp orders to disperse, +and they said to him, "Peace, brother." To each other they said, +"Behold, the driver is a 'mut-wallah'" (or drunken person); and +presently, as the thing whirled farther up the emptied perspective, +"Lo! the syce has fallen." The driver was certainly very drunk; his whip +circled perpetually above his head; the syce clinging behind was stiff +with terror, and fell off like a bundle of rags. Inside, Hilda Howe, +with a hand in the strap at each side and her feet against the opposite +seat, swayed violently and waited for what might happen, breathing +short. Whenever the gharry thrashed over the tram-lines, she closed her +eyes. There was a point near Cornwallis Street where she saw the +off front wheel make sickeningly queer revolutions; and another, +electrically close, when two tossing roan heads with pink noses appeared +in a gate to the left, heading smartly out, all unawares, at precisely +right angles to her own derelict equipage. That was the juncture of +the Reverend Stephen Arnold's interference, walking and discussing with +Amiruddin Khan, as he was, the comparative benefits of Catholic and +Mohammedan fasting. It would be easy to magnify what Stephen did in that +interruption of the considerate hearing he was giving to Amiruddin. The +ticca-gharry ponies were almost spent, and any resolute hand could +have impelled them away from the carriage-pole with which the roans +threatened to impale their wretched sides. The front wheel, however, +made him heroic, going off at a tangent into a cloth merchant's shop, +and precipitating a crash while he still clung to the reins. The door +flew open on the under side, and Hilda fell through, grasping at the +dust of the road; while the driver, discovering that his seat was no +longer horizontal, entered suddenly upon sobriety, and clamoured with +tears that the cloth-merchant should restore his wheel--was he not a +poor man? Hilda, struggling with her hat-pins, felt her dress brushed by +various lean hands of the bazar, and observed herself the central figure +in yet another situation. When she was in a condition to see, she saw +Arnold soothing the ponies; Amiruddin, before the vague possibility of +police complication having slipped away. Stephen had believed the gharry +empty. The sight of her, in her disordered draperies, was a revelation +and a reproach. + +"Is it possible!" he exclaimed, and was beside her. "You are not hurt?" + +"Only scraped, thanks. I am lucky to get off with this." She held up her +right palm, broadly abraded round the base, where her hand had struck +the road. Arnold took it delicately in his own thin fingers to examine +it; an infinity of contrast rested in the touch. He looked at it with +anxiety so obviously deep and troubled, that Hilda silently smiled. +She who had been battered, as she said, twice round the world, found it +disproportionate. + +"It's the merest scratch," she said, grave again to meet his glance. + +"Indeed, I fear not." The priest made a solicitous bandage with his +handkerchief, while the circle about them solidified. "It is quite +unpleasantly deep. You must let me take you at once to the nearest +chemist's and get it properly washed and dressed, or it may give you a +vast amount of trouble--but I am walking." + +"I will walk too," Hilda said readily. "I should prefer it, truly." With +her undamaged hand she produced a rupee from her pocket, where a few +coins chinked casually, looked at it, and groped for another. "I really +can't afford any more," she said. "He can get his wheel mended with +that, can't he?" + +"It is three times his fare," Arnold said austerely, "and he deserved +nothing--but a fine, perhaps." The man was suppliant before them, +cringing, salaaming, holding joined palms open. Hilda lifted her head +and looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, where the sun stood +golden upon the roadside and two naked children played with a torn pink +kite. Something seemed to gather into her eyes as she looked, and when +she fixed them softly upon Arnold, to speak, as it had spoken before. + +"Ah," she said. "Our deserts." + +It was the merest echo, and she had done it on purpose, but he could +not know that, and as she dropped the rupees into the craving hands, and +turned and walked away with him, he was held in a frightened silence. +There was nothing perhaps that he wanted to talk of more than of +his experience at the theatre; he longed to have it simplified and +explained; yet in that space of her two words the impossibility of +mentioning it had sprung at him and overcome him. He hoped, with instant +fervour, that she would refrain from any allusion to The Offence of +Galilee. And for the time being she did refrain. She said, instead, +that her hand was smarting absurdly already, and did Arnold suppose the +chemist would use a carbolic lotion? Stephen, with a guarded look, +said very possibly not, but one never knew; and Hilda, thinking of +the far-off day when the little girl of her was brought tactfully to +disagreeable necessities; covered a preposterous impulse to cry with +another smile. + +A thudding of bare feet overtook them. It was the syce, with his arms +full of thin paper bags, the kind that hold cheap millinery. "Oh, the +good man!" Hilda exclaimed. "My parcels!" and looked on equably, while +Arnold took them by their puckered ends. "I have been buying gold lace +and things from Chunder Dutt for a costume," she explained. The bags +dangled helplessly from Arnold's fingers; he looked very much aware of +them. "Let me carry at least one," she begged. "I can perfectly with my +parasol hand;" but he refused her even one. "If I may be permitted to +take the responsibility," he said happily, and she rejoined, "Oh, +I would trust you with things more fragile." At which, such is the +discipline of these Orders, he looked steadily in front of him, and +seemed deaf with modesty. + +"But are you sure," said Hilda, suddenly considerate, "that it looks +well?" + +"Is the gold lace then so very meretricious?" + +"It goes doubtfully with your cloth," she laughed, and instantly looked +stricken with the conviction that she might better have said something +else. But Arnold appeared to take it simply and to see no gibe in it, +only a pleasant commonplace. + +"It might look queer in Chowringhee," he said, "but this is not a +censorious public." Then, as if to palliate the word, he added, "They +will think me no more mad to carry paper bags than to carry myself, when +it is plain that I might ride--and they see me doing that every day." + +All the same the paper bags swinging beside the girdled black skirt did +impart a touch of comedy, which was in a way a pity, since humour goes +so far to destroy the picturesque. Hilda without the paper bags would +have been vastly enough for contrast. She walked--one is inclined to +dwell upon her steps and face the risk of being unintelligible--in a +wide-sleeved gown of peach-coloured silk, rather frayed at the seams; a +trifle spent in vulnerable places, surmounted by an extravagant collar +and a Paris hat. The dress was of artistic intention inexpensively +carried out, the hat had an accomplished chic; it had fallen to her in +the wreck and ruin of a too ambitious draper of Coolgardie. As a matter +of fact it was the only one she had. The wide sleeves ended a little +below the elbow, and she carried in compensation a pair of long +suede gloves, a compromise which only occasionally discovered itself +buttonless, and a most expensive umbrella, the tribute of a gentleman in +that line of business in Cape Town, whose standing advertisement is now +her note of appreciation. Arnold in his unvarying gait paced beside +her; he naturally shrank, so close to her opulence, into something +less impressive than he was; a mere intelligence he looked, in a quaint +uniform, with his long lip drawn down and pursed a little in this +accomplishment of duty, and his eyes steadily in front of him. Hilda's +lambent observation was everywhere, but most of all on him; a fleck of +the dust from the road still lay upon the warm bloom of her cheek, a +perpetual happy curve clung about her mouth. So they passed in streets +of the thronging people, where yards of new-dyed cotton, purple and +yellow, stretched drying in the sun, where a busy tom-tom called the +pious to leave coppers before a blood-red, golden-tongued Kali, half +visible through the door of a mud hut--where all the dealers in brass +dishes and glass armlets and silver-gilt stands for the comfortable +hubble-bubble, squatted in line upon their thresholds and accepted them +with indifference. So they passed, worthy of a glance from that divinity +who shapes our ends. + +They talked of the accident. "You stopped the horses, didn't you?" Hilda +said, and the speculation in her eyes was concerned with the extent to +which a muscular system might dwindle, in that climate, under sacerdotal +robes worn every day. + +"I told them to stop, poor things," Arnold said; "they had hardly to be +persuaded." + +"But you didn't save my life or anything like that, did you?" she +adventured like a vagrant in the sun. The blood was warm in her. She +did not weigh her words. "I shouldn't like having my life saved. The +necessity for feeling such a vast emotion--I shouldn't know how to cope +with it." + +"I will claim to have saved your other hand," he smiled. "You will be +quite grateful enough for that." + +She noted that he did not hasten, behind blushes, into the shelter of +a general disavowal. The cassock seemed to cover an obligation to +acknowledge things. + +"I see," she said, veering round. "You are quite right to circumscribe +me. There is nothing so boring as the gratitude that will out. It is +only the absence of it, too plainly expressed, that is unpleasant. But +you won't find that in me either." She gave him a smile as she lowered +her parasol to turn into the shop of Lahiri Dey, licensed to sell +European drugs, that promised infinite possibilities of friendship; and, +he, following, took pleased and careful possession of it. + +An hour later, as they approached Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, Miss +Howe looked pale, which is not surprising since they had walked and +talked all the way. Their talk was a little strenuous too; it was as if +they had fallen upon an opportunity, and, mutually, consciously made the +most of it. + +"You must have some tea immediately," Arnold said, before the battered +urns and the dusty crotons of her dwelling. + +"A little whisky and soda, I think. And you will come up, please, and +have some too. You must." + +"Thanks," he said, looking at his watch. "If I do--" + +"You'll have the soda without the whisky! All right!" she laughed, and +led the way. + +"This is vicious indulgence," Arnold said of his beverage, sitting +under the inverted Japanese umbrellas. "I haven't been pitched out of a +ticca-gharry." + +It is doubtful whether the indulgence was altogether in the soda, which +is, after all, ascetic in its quality, and only suitably effervescent, +like ecclesiastical humour. It may very probably be that there was no +indulgence; indeed, one is convinced that the word, like so many words, +says too much. The springs of Arnold's chair were bursting through +the bottom, and there were stains on its faded chintz-arms, but it +was comfortable, and he leaned back in it, looking up at the paper +umbrellas. You know the room; I took you into it with Duff Lindsay, who +did not come there from rigidities and rituals, and who had a qualified +pleasure in it. But there were lines in the folds of the flowered +window-curtains dragging half a yard upon the floor, which seemed to +disband Arnold's spirit, and a twinkle in the blue bead of a bamboo +screen where the light came through that released it altogether. The +shabby violent-coloured place encompassed him like an easy garment, +and the lady with her feet tucked up on a sofa and a cushion under her +tumbled head, was an unembarrassing invitation to the kind of happy +things he had not said for years. They sat in the coolness of the room +for half an hour, and then, after a little pause, Hilda said suddenly-- + +"I am glad you saw me in The Offence of Galilee on Saturday night. We +shall not play it again." + +"It has been withdrawn?" + +"Yes. The rights, you know, really belong to Mr. Bradley; and he can't +endure his part." + +"Is there no one else to--" + +"He objects to anyone else. We generally play together." This was +inadvertent, but Stephen had no reason to imagine that she contracted +her eyebrows in any special irritation. "It is an atrocious piece," she +added. + +"Is it?" he said absently, and then, "Yes, it is an atrocious piece. But +I am glad, too, that I saw you." + +He looked away from her, reddening deeply, and stood up. He bade her a +measured and precise farewell. It seemed as if he hurried. She only half +rose to give him her unwounded hand, and when he was gone she sank back +again thoughtfully. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"I have outstayed all the rest," Lindsay said, with his hat and stick +in his hand, in Alicia Livingstone's drawing-room, "because I want +particularly to talk to you. They have left me precious little time," he +added, glancing at his watch. + +She had wondered when he came, early in the formal Sunday noon hour for +men's calls, since he had more casual privileges; and wondered more when +he sat on with composure, as one who is master of the situation, while +Major-Generals and Deputy-Secretaries came and went. There was a mist in +her brain as she talked to the Major-Generals and Deputy-Secretaries--it +did not in the least obscure what she found to say--and in the midst of +it the formless idea that he must wish to attach a special importance to +his visit. This took shape and line when they were alone, and he spoke +of out-sitting the others. It impelled her to walk to the window and +open it. "You might stay to lunch," she said, addressing a pair of crows +in altercation on the verandah. + +"There is nearly half an hour before lunch," he said. "Can I convince +you in that time, I wonder, that I'm not an absolute fool?" + +Alicia turned and came back to her sofa. She may have had a prevision of +the need of support. "I hardly think," she said, drawing the long breath +with which we try to subdue a tempest within, "that it would take +so long." She looked with careful criticism at the violets in his +buttonhole. + +"I've had a supreme experience," he said, "very strange and very lovely. +I am living in it, moving in it, speaking in it," he added quickly, +watching her face; "so don't, for Heaven's sake, touch it roughly." + +She lifted her hand in nervous, involuntary deprecation. "Why should +you suppose I would touch it roughly?" There was that in her voice which +cried out that she would rather not touch it at all; but Lindsay, on the +brink of his confidence, could not suppose it, did not hear it. He knew +her so well. + +"A great many people will," he said. "I can't bear the thought of their +fingers. That is one reason that brings me to you." + +She faced him fully at this; her eyelids quivered, but she looked +straight at him. It nerved her to be brought into his equation, even in +the form which should finally be eliminated. She contrived a smile. + +"I believe you know already," Lindsay cried. + +"I have heard something. Don't be alarmed--not from people, from Miss +Howe." + +"Wonderful woman! I haven't told her." + +"Is that always necessary? She has intuitions. In this case," Alicia +went on, with immense courage, "I didn't believe them." + +"Why?" he asked enjoyingly. Anything to handle his delight--he would +even submit it to analysis. + +She hesitated--her business was in great waters, the next instant might +engulf her. "It's so curiously unlike you," she faltered. "If she +had been a duchess--a very exquisite person, or somebody very +clever--remember I haven't seen her." + +"You haven't, so I must forgive you invidious comparisons." Lindsay +visaged the words with a smile, but they had an articulated hardness. + +Alicia raised her eyebrows. + +"What do you expect one to imagine?" she asked, with quietness. + +"A miracle," he said sombrely. + +"Ah, that's difficult!" + +There was silence for a moment between them, then she added perversely-- + +"And, you know, faith is not what it was." + +Duff sat biting his lips. Her dryness irritated him. He was accustomed +to find in her fields of delicately blooming enthusiasms, and running +watercourses where his satisfactions were ever reflected. Suddenly she +seemed to emerge to her own consciousness, upon a summit from which she +could look down upon the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to where he +stood. + +"Don't make a mistake," she said. "Don't." She thrust her hand for +a fraction of an instant toward him, and then swiftly withdrew it, +gathering herself together to meet what he might say. + +What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. "That's what everybody +will tell me; but I thought you might understand." He tapped the toe of +his boot with his stick as if he counted the strokes. She looked down +and counted them too. + +"Then you won't help me to marry her?" he said, definitely, at last. + +"What could I do?" She twisted her sapphire ring. "Ask somebody else." + +"Don't expect me to believe there is nothing you could do. Go to her as +my friend. It isn't such a monstrous thing to ask. Tell her any good +you know of me. At present her imagination paints me in all the lurid +colours of the lost." + +The face she turned upon him was all little sharp white angles, and +the cloud of fair hair above her temples stood out stiffly, suggesting +Celine and the curling tongs. She did not lose her elegance; the poise +of her chin and shoulders was quite perfect, but he thought she +looked too amusedly at his difficulty. Her negative, too, was more +unsympathetic than he had any reason to expect. + +"No," she said. "It must be somebody else. Don't ask me. I should become +involved--I might do harm." She had surmounted her emotion; she was able +to look at the matter with surprising clearness and decision. "I should +do harm," she repeated. + +"You don't count with her effect on you." + +"You can't possibly imagine her effect on me. I'm not a man." + +"But won't you take anything--about her--from me? You know I'm really +not a fool--not even very impressionable?" + +"Oh no!" she said impatiently. "No--of course not." + +"Pray why?" + +"There are other things to reckon with." She looked coldly beyond him +out of the window. "A man's intelligence when he is in love--how far can +one count on it?" + +There was nothing but silence for that, or perhaps the murmured, "Oh, I +don't agree," with which Lindsay met it. He rode down her logic with a +simple appeal. "Then after all," he said, "you're not my friend." + +It goaded her into something like an impertinence. "After you have +married her," she said, "you'll see." + +"You will be hers then," he declared. + +"I will be yours." Her eyes leaped along the prospect and rested on a +brass-studded Tartar shield at the other end of the room. + +"And I thought you broad in these views," Lindsay said, glancing at her +curiously. Her opportunity for defence was curtailed by a heavy step in +the hall, and the lifted portiere disclosed Surgeon Major Livingstone, +looking warm. He, whose other name was the soul of hospitality, made a +profound and feeling remonstrance against Lindsay's going before tiffin, +though Alicia, doing something to a bowl of nasturtiums, did not hear +it. Not that her added protest would have detained Lindsay, who took his +perturbation away with him as quickly as might be. Alicia saw the cloud +upon him as he shook hands with her, and found it but slightly consoling +to reflect that his sun would without doubt re-emerge in all effulgence +on the other side of the door. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +That same Sunday, Alicia had been able to say to Lindsay about Hilda +Howe, "We have not stood still--we know each other well now," and when +he commented with some reserve upon this to follow it up. "But these +things have so little to do with mere length of time or number of +opportunities," she declared. "One springs at some people." + +A Major-General, interrupting, said he wished he had the chance; and +they talked about something else. But perhaps this is enough to explain +a note which went by messenger from the Livingstones' pillared palace in +Middleton Street to Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, on Monday morning. +It was a short note, making a definite demand with an absence of +colour and softness and emotion which was almost elaborate. Hilda, at +breakfast, tore off the blank half sheet, and wrote in pencil-- + +"I think I can arrange to get her here about five this afternoon. No +rehearsal--they're doing something to the gas-pipes at the theatre, so +you will find me, anyway. And I'll be delighted to see you." + +She twisted it up and addressed it, reconsidered that, and made the +scrap more secure in a yellow envelope. It had an embossed post-office +stamp, which she sacrificed with resignation. Then she went back to an +extremely uninteresting vegetable curry, with the reflection--"Can she +possibly imagine that one doesn't see it yet?" + +Alicia came before five. She brought a novel of Gissing's, in order +apparently that they might without fail talk about Gissing. Hilda was +agreeable; she would talk about Gissing, or about anything, tipped on +the edge of her bed--Alicia had surmounted that degree of intimacy at +a bound by the declaration that she could no longer endure the blue +umbrellas--and clasping one knee, with an uncertain tenure of a chipped +bronze slipper deprived of its heel. Wonderful silk draperies fell about +her, with ink-spots on the sleeves; her hair was magnificent. + +"It's so curious to me," she was saying of the novel, "that anyone +should learn all that life as you do, at a distance, in a book. It's +like looking at it through the little end of an opera-glass." + +"I fancy that the most desirable way," said Alicia, glancing at the +door. + +"Don't you believe it. The best way is to come out of it, to grow out +of it. Then all the rest has the charm of novelty and the value of +contrast, and the distinction of being the best. You, poor dear, were +born an artificial flower in a cardboard box. But you couldn't help it." + +"Everybody doesn't grow out of it." The concentration in Alicia's eyes +returned again with vacillating wings. + +"She can't be here for a quarter of an hour yet." The slipper dropped at +this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again. She kept her foot in +her hands, and regarded it pensively. + +"Shoes are the one thing one shouldn't buy in the native quarter," she +continued; "at all events, ready-made." + +"You have an audacity--" Alicia ended abruptly in a wan smile. + +"Haven't I? Are you quite sure he wants to marry her?" + +"I know it." + +"From him?" + +"From him." + +"Oh!"--Hilda deliberated a moment nursing her slipper--"Really? Well, we +can't let that happen." + +"Why not?" + +"You have a hardihood! Is no reason plain to you? Don't you see +anything?" + +Alicia smiled again painfully, as if against a tension of her lips. "I +see only one thing that matters--he wants it," she said. + +"And won't be happy till he gets it! Rubbish, my dear! We are an +intolerably self-sacrificing sex." Hilda felt about for pillows, and +stretched her length along the bed. "They've taught us well, the men; +it's a blood disease now, running everywhere in the female line. You may +be sure it was a barbarian princess that hesitated between the lady and +the tiger. A civilised one would have introduced the lady and given her +a dot, and retired to the nearest convent. Bah! It's a deformity, like +the dachshund's legs." + +Alicia looked as if this would be a little troublesome, and not quite +worth while, to follow. + +"The happiness of his whole life is involved," she said simply. + +"Oh dear yes--the old story! And what about the happiness of yours? Do +you imagine it's laudable, admirable, this attitude? Do you see yourself +in it with pleasure? Have you got a sacred satisfaction of self-praise?" + +Contempt accumulated in Miss Howe's voice, and sat in her eyes. To mark +her climax she kicked her slippers over the end of the bed. + +"It is idiotic--it's disgusting," she said. + +Alicia caught a flash from her. "My attitude!" she cried. "What in the +world do you mean? Do you always think in poses? I take no attitude. I +care for him, and in that proportion I intend that he shall have what +he wants--so far as I can help him to it. You have never cared for +anybody--what do you know about it?" + +Hilda took a calm, unprejudiced view of the ceiling. "I assure you I'm +not an angel," she cried. "Haven't I cared! Several times." + +"Not really--not lastingly." + +"I don't know about really; certainly not lastingly. I've never thought +the men should have a monopoly of nomadic susceptibilities. They entail +the prettiest experiences." + +"Of course, in your profession--" + +"Don't be nasty, sweet lady. My affections have never taken the +opportunities of our profession. They haven't even carried me into +matrimony, though I remember once, at Sydney, they brought me to the +brink! We must contrive an escape for Duff Lindsay." + +"You assume too much--a great deal too much. She must be beautiful--and +good." + +"Give me a figure. She's a lily, and she draws the kind of beauty that +lilies have from her personal chastity and her religious enthusiasm. +Touch those things and bruise them, as--as marriage would touch and +bruise them--and she would be a mere fragment of stale vegetation. You +want him to clasp that to his bosom for the rest of his life?" + +"I won't believe you. You're coarse and you're cruel." + +Tears flashed into Miss Livingstone's eyes with this. Hilda, still +regarding the ceiling, was aware of them, and turned an impatient +shoulder while they should be brushed undetected away. + +"I'm sorry, dear," she said. "I forgot. You are usually so intelligent, +one can be coarse and cruel with comfort, talking to you. Go into the +bathroom and get my salts--they're on the washhand-stand--will you? I'm +quite faint with all I'm about to undergo." + +Laura Filbert came in as Alicia emerged with the salts. Ignoring the +third person with the bottle, she went directly to the bedside and laid +her hand on Hilda's head. + +"Oh Miss Howe, I am so sorry you are sick--so sorry," she said. It was a +cooing of professional concern, true to an ideal, to a necessity. + +"I am not very bad," Hilda improvised. "Hardly more than a headache." + +"She makes light of everything," Miss Filbert said, smiling toward +Alicia, who stood silent, the prey of her impression. Discovering the +blue salts bottle, Laura walked over to her and took it from her hands. + +"And what," said the barefooted Salvation Army girl to Miss Livingstone, +"might your name be?" + +There was an infinite calm interest in it--it was like a conventionality +of the other world, and before its assurance Alicia stood helpless. + +"Her name is Livingstone," called Hilda from the bed, "and she is as +good as she is beautiful. You needn't be troubled about HER soul--she +takes Communion every Sunday morning at the Cathedral." + +"Hallelujah!" said Captain Filbert, in a tone of dubious congratulation. + +"Much better," said Hilda cheerfully, "to take it at the Cathedral, you +know, than nowhere." + +Miss Filbert said nothing to this, but sat down upon the edge of the +bed, looking serious, and stroked Hilda's hair. + +"You don't seem to have much fever," she said. "There was a poor fellow +in the Military Hospital this morning with a temperature of one hundred +and seven. I could hardly bear to touch him." + +"What was the matter?" asked Hilda idly, occupied with hypotheses about +the third person in the room. + +"Oh, I don't know exactly. Some complication, I suppose, of Satan's +tribute--" + +"Divinest Laura!" Hilda interposed quickly, drawing her head back. "Do +take a chair. It will be even more soothing to see you comfortable." + +Captain Filbert spoke again to Alicia, as she obeyed. "Miss Howe is more +thoughtful for others than some of our converted ones," she said, with +vast kindness. "I have often told her so. I have had a long day." + +"It may improve me in that character," Hilda said, "to suggest that if +you will go about such people, a little carbolic disinfectant is a good +thing, or a crystal or two of permanganate of potash in your bath. Do +you use those things?" + +Laura shook her head. "Faith is better than disinfectants. I never get +any harm. My Master protects me." + +"My goodness!" Hilda said. And in the silence that occurred, Captain +Filbert remarked that the only thing she used carbolic acid for was a +decayed tooth. Presently Alicia made a great effort. She laid hands on +Hilda's previous reference as a tangibility that remained with her. + +"Do you ever go to the Cathedral?" she said. + +The faintest shade of dogmatism crossed Captain Filbert's features, as +when on a day of cloud fleeces the sun withdraws for an instant from a +flower. Since her sect is proclaimed beyond the boundaries of dogma it +may have been some other obscurity, but that was the effect. + +"No. I never go there. We raise our own Ebenezer; we are a tabernacle to +ourselves." + +"Isn't it exquisite--her way of speaking!" cried Hilda from the bed, and +Laura glanced at her with a deprecating, reproachful smile, in reproof +of an offence admittedly incorrigible. But she went on as if she were +conscious of a stimulus. + +"Wherever the morning sky bends or the stars cluster is sanctuary +enough," she said; "a slum at noonday is as holy for us as daisied +fields; the Name of the Lord walks with us. The Army is His Army, He is +Lord of our hosts." + +"A kind of chant," murmured Hilda, and Miss Livingstone became aware +that she might if she liked play with the beginnings of magnetism. Then +that impression was carried away as it were on a puff of air, and it is +hardly likely that she thought of it again. + +"I suppose all the elite go to the Cathedral?" Laura said. The sanctity +of her face was hardly disturbed, but a curiosity rested upon it, and +behind the curiosity a far-off little, leaping tongue of some other +thing. Hilda on the bed named it the constant feminine, and narrowed her +eyes. + +"Dear me, yes," she said for Alicia. "His Excellency the Viceroy and all +his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no end of military and their ladies, Secretaries +to the Government of India in rows, fully choral, Under-Secretaries so +thick they're kept in the vestibule till the bells stop. 'And make Thy +chosen people joyful'!" she intoned. "Not forgetting Surgeon-Major and +Miss Alicia Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to the right of the +main aisle, advantageously near the pulpit." + +"You know already what a humbug she is," Alicia said, but Captain +Filbert's inner eye seemed retained by that imaginary congregation. + +"Well, it wouldn't be any attraction for me," she said, rising to go +through the little accustomed function of her departure. "I'll be going +now, I think. Ensign Sand has fever again, and I have to take her place +at the Believers' Meeting." She took Hilda's hand in hers and held it +for an instant. "Good-bye, and God bless you--in the way you most need," +she said, and turned to Alicia, "Good-bye. I am glad to know that we +will be one in the glad hereafter though our paths may diverge"--her eye +rested with acknowledgment upon Alicia's embroidered sleeves--"in this +world. To look at you I should have thought you were of the bowed down +ones, not yet fully assured, but perhaps you only want a little +more oxygen in the blood of your religion. Remember the word of the +Lord--'Rejoice! again I say unto you, rejoice!' Goodbye." + +She drew her head-covering farther forward, and moved to the door. It +sloped to her shoulders and made them droop; her native clothes clung +about her breast and her hips in the cringing Oriental way. Miss Howe +looked after her guest with a curl of the lip as uncontrollable as it +was unreasonable. "A saved soul, perhaps. A woman--oh, assuredly," she +said in the depths of her hair. + +The door had almost closed upon Captain Filbert when Alicia made +something like a dash at an object about to elude her. "Oh," she +exclaimed, "wait a minute. Will you come and see me? I think--I think +you might do me good. I live at Number Ten, Middleton Street. Will you +come?" + +Laura came back into the room. There was a little stiffness in her air, +as if she repressed something. + +"I have no objection," she said. + +"To-morrow afternoon--at five? Or--my brother is dining at the +club--would you rather come to dinner?" + +"Whichever is agreeable to you will suit me." She spoke carefully, after +an instant's hesitation. + +"Then do come and dine--at eight," Alicia said; and it was agreed. + +She stood staring at the door when Laura finally closed it, and only +turned when Hilda spoke. + +"You are going to have him to meet her," she said. "May I come too?" + +"Certainly not." Alicia's grasp was also by this time on the door +handle. + +"Are you going too? You daren't talk about her!" Hilda cried. + +"I'm going too. I've got the brougham. I'll drive her home," said +Alicia, and went out swiftly. + +"My goodness!" Hilda remarked again. Then she got up and found her +slippers and wrote a note, which she addressed to the Reverend Stephen +Arnold, Clarke Mission House, College Street. "Thanks immensely," it +ran, "for your delightful offer to introduce me to Father Jordan and +persuade him to show me the astronomical wonders he keeps in his tower +at St. Simeon's. An hour with a Jesuit is an hour of milk and honey, and +belonging to that charming Order, he won't mind my coming on a Sunday +evening--the first clear one." + +Miss Howe signed her note and bit consideringly at the end of her pen. +Then she added: "If you have any influence with Duff Lindsay, it may +be news to you that you can exert it with advantage to keep him from +marrying a cheap ethereal little religieuse of the Salvation Army named +Filbert. It may seem more fitting that you should expostulate with her, +but I don't advise that." + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The door of Ensign Sand's apartment stood open with a purposeful air +when Captain Filbert reached headquarters that evening; but in any case +it is likely that she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand walked the floor, +carrying a baby, a pale sticky baby with blotches, which had inherited +from its maternal parent a conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room +was also ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been selected at +random, and they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed +at the control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with +his father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain Captain +Sand audibly washed himself and brushed his hair. + +"What kind of meetin' did you have?" asked Mrs. Sand. "There--there now; +he shall have his bottle, so he shall!" + +"A beautiful meeting. Abraham Lincoln White, the Savannah negro, you +know, came as a believer for the first time, and so did Miss Rozario +from Whiteaway and Laidlaw's. We had such a happy time." + +"What sort of collection?" + +Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted out some copper coins. + +"Only seven annas three pice! And you call that a good meeting! I don't +believe you exhorted them to give!" + +"Oh, I think I did!" Laura returned mechanically. + +"Seven annas and three pice! And you know what the Commissioner wrote +out about our last quarter's earnings! What did you say?" + +"I said--I said the collection would now be taken up," Laura faltered. + +"Oh dear! oh dear! Leopold, stop clawing me! Couldn't you think of +anythin' more tellin' or more touchin' than that? Fever or no fever, it +does not do for me to stay away from the regular meetin's. One thing is +plain--HE wasn't there!" + +"Who?" + +"Well, you've never told me his name, but I expect you've got your +reasons." Mrs. Sand's tone was not arch, but slightly resentful. "I mean +the gentleman that attends so regular and sits behind, under the window. +A society man, I should say, to look at him, though the officers of this +Army are no respecters of persons, and I don't suppose the Lord takes +any notice of his clothes." + +"His name is Mr. Lindsay. No, he wasn't there." + +The girl's tone was distant and cold. The rebuke about the collection +had gone home to a place raw with similar reproaches. + +"I hope you haven't been discouraging him?" + +Captain Filbert looked at her superior officer with astonishment. + +"I have entreated him to come to the meetings. But he never attends a +Believers' Rally. Why should he?" + +"What's his state of mind? He came to see you, didn't he, the other +night?" + +"Yes, he did. I don't think he's altogether careless." + +"Ain't he seeking?" + +"He wouldn't admit it, but he may not know himself. The Lord has +different ways of working. What else should bring him, night after +night?" + +Mrs. Sand glanced meaningly at a point on the floor, with lifted +eyebrows, then at her officer, and finally hid a badly-disciplined smile +behind her baby's head. When she looked back again Laura had flushed +all over, and an embarrassment stood between them, which she felt was +absurd. + +"My!" she said,--scruples in breaking it could hardly perhaps have been +expected of her,--"you do look nice when you've got a little colour. But +if you can't see that it's you that brings him to the meetin's, you must +be blind, that's all." + +Captain Filbert's confusion was dispelled, as by the wave of a wand. + +"Then I hope I may go on bringing him," she said. "He couldn't come to a +better place." + +"Well, you'll have to be careful," said Mrs. Sand, as if with severe +intent. "But I don't say discourage him; I wouldn't say that. You may be +an influence for good. It may be His will that you should be pleasant to +the young man. But don't make free with him. Don't, on any account, have +him put his arm round your waist." + +"Nobody has done that to me," Laura replied austerely, "since I left +Putney, and so long as I am in the Army nobody will. Not that Mr. +Lindsay" (she blushed again) "would ever want to. The class he belongs +to look down on it." + +"The class he belongs to do worse things. The Army doesn't look down on +it. It's only nature, and the Army believes in working with nature. If +it was Mr. Harris I wouldn't say a word--he marches under the Lord's +banner." + +Captain Filbert listened without confusion; her expression was even +slightly complacent. + +"Well," she said, "I told Mr. Harris last evening that the Lieutenant +and I couldn't go on giving him so much of our time, and he seemed to +think he'd been keeping company with me. I had to tell him I hadn't any +such idea." + +"Did he seem much disappointed?" + +"He said he thought he would have more of the feeling of belonging to +the Army if he was married in it; but I told him he would have to learn +to walk alone." + +Mrs. Sand speculatively bit her lips. + +"I don't know but what you did right," she said. "By the grace of God +you converted him, and he hadn't ought to ask more of you. But I have a +kind of feeling that Mr. Lindsay 'll be harder to convince." + +"I daresay." + +"It would be splendid, though, to garner him in. He might be willing to +march with us and subscribe half his pay, like poor Captain Corby, of +the Queen's army, did in Rangoon." + +"He might be proud to." + +"We must all try and bring sin home to him," Mrs. Sand remarked with +rising energy; "and don't you go saying anything to him hastily. If he's +gone on you--" + +"Oh Ensign! let us hope he is thinking of higher things! Let us both +pray for him. Let Captain Sand pray for him too, and I'll ask the +Lieutenant. Now that she's got Miss Rozario safe into the kingdom, I +don't think she has any special object." + +"Oh yes, we'll pray for him," Ensign Sand returned, as if that might +have gone without saying, "but you--" + +"And give me that precious baby. You must be completely worn out. I +should enjoy taking care of him; indeed I should." + +"It's the first--the very first--time she ever took that draggin' child +out of my arms for an instant," the Ensign remarked to her husband +and next in command later in the evening, but she resigned the infant +without protest at the time. Laura carried him into her own room with +something like gaiety, and there repeated to him more nursery rhymes, +dating from secular Putney, than she would have believed she remembered. + +The Believers' Rally, as will be understood, was a gathering of some +selectness. If the Chinaman came, it was because of the vagueness of +his perception of the privileges he claimed; and his ignorance of +all tongues but his own left no medium for turning him out. Qualms of +conscience, however, kept all Miss Rozario's young lady friends away, +and these also doubtless operated to detain Duff Lindsay. One does not +attend a Believers' Rally unless one's personal faith extends beyond +the lady in command of it, and one specially refrains if one's spiritual +condition is a delicate and debatable matter with her. In Wellesley +Square, later in the evening, the conditions were different. It would +not be easy to imagine a scene that suggested greater liberality of +sentiment. The moon shed her light upon it, and the palms threw fretted +shadows down. Beyond them, on four sides, lines of street-lamps shone, +and tram-drivers whistled bullock-carts off the lines, and street +pedlars lifted their cries. A torch marked the core of the group of +exhorters; it struck pale gold from Laura's hair, and made glorious the +buttons of the man who beat the drum. She talked to the people in their +own language; the "open air" was designed for the people. "Kiko! Kiko!" +(Why! Why!) Lindsay heard her cry, where he stood in the shadow, on +the edge of the crowd. He looked down at a coolie-woman with shrivelled +breasts crouched on her haunches upon the ground, bent with the toil +of half a century, and back at the girl beside the torch. "Do not +delay until to-morrow!" Laura besought them. "Kul ka dari mut karo!" A +sensation of disgust assailed him; he turned away. Then, in an impulse +of atonement--he felt already so responsible for her--he went back +and dropped a coin into the coolie creature's lap. But he grew more +miserable as he stood, and finally walked deliberately to a wooden bench +at a distance where he could not hear her voice. Only the hymn +pursued him; they sang presently a hymn. In the chorus the words were +distinguishable, borne in the robust accents of Captain Sand-- + + + "Us ki ho tarif, + Us ki ho tarif!" + + +The strange words, limping on the familiar air, made a barbarous jangle, +a discordance of a specially intolerable sort. + + + "Glory to His name! + Glory to His name!" + + +Lindsay wondered, with a poignancy of pity, whether the coolie-woman +were singing too, and found something like relief in the questionable +reflection that if she wasn't, in view of the rupee, she ought to be. + +His "Good-evening!" when the meeting was over, was a cheerful, general +salutation, and the familiarity of the sight of him was plain in the +response he got, equally general and equally cheerful. Lieutenant +Da Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had thought of +interpreting it, and there was overt amiability in the manner in which +Ensign Sand put her hymn-books together and packed everybody, including +her husband, whose arm she took, out of the way. + +"Wait for me," Laura said, to whom a Eurasian beggar made elaborate +appeal, as they moved off. + +"I guess you've got company to see you home," Mrs. Sand called out, and +they did not wait. As Lindsay came closer the East Indian paused in his +tale of the unburied wife for whom he could not afford a coffin, and +slipped away. + +"The Ensign knows she oughtn't to talk like that," Laura said. Lindsay +marked with a surge of pleasure that she was flushed, and seemed +perturbed. + +"What she said was quite true," he ventured. + +"But--anybody would think--" + +"What would anybody think? Shall we keep to this side of the road? It's +quieter. What would anybody think?" + +"Oh, silly things." Laura threw up her head with a half laugh. "Things I +needn't mention." + +Lindsay was silent for an instant. Then "Between us?" he asked, and she +nodded. + +Their side of the street, along the square, was nearly empty. He found +her hand and drew it through his arm. "Would you mind so very much," he +said, "if those silly things were true?" He spoke as if to a child. His +passion was never more clearly a single object to him, divorced from all +complicating and non-essential impressions of her. "I would give all I +possess to have it so," he told her, catching at any old foolish phrase +that would serve. + +"I don't believe you mean anything like all you say, Mr. Lindsay." Her +head was bent and she kept her hand within his arm. He seemed to be +a circumstance that brought her reminiscences of how one behaved +sentimentally toward a young man with whom there was no serious +entanglement. It is not surprising that he saw only one thing, walls +going down before him, was aware only of something like invitation. +Existence narrowed itself to a single glowing point; as he looked it +came so near that he bounded to meet it. + +"Dear," he said, "you can't know--there is no way of telling you--what I +mean. I suppose every man feels the same thing about the woman he loves; +but it seems to me that my life had never known the sun until I saw you. +I can't explain to you how poor it was, and I won't try; but I fancy God +sends every one of us, if we know it, some one blessed chance, and He +did more for me--He lifted the veil of my stupidity and let me see it, +passing by in its halo, trailing clouds of glory. I don't want to +make you understand, though--I want to make you promise. I want to be +absolutely sure from to-night that you'll marry me. Say that you'll +marry me--say it before we get to the crossing. Say it, Laura." She +listened to his first words with a little half-controlled smile, then +made as if she would withdraw her hand, but he held it with his own, and +she heard him through, walking beside him formally on her bare feet, and +looking carefully at the asphalt pavement as they do in Putney. + +"I don't object to your calling me by my given name," she said when he +had done, "but it can't go any further than that, Mr. Lindsay, and you +ought not to bring God into it--indeed you ought not. You are no son or +servant of His--you are among those whose very light is darkness, and +how great is your darkness!" + +"Don't," he said shortly. "Never mind about that--now. You needn't be +afraid of me, Laura--there are decent chaps, you know, outside your +particular Kingdom of Heaven, and one of them wants you to marry him, +that's how it is. Will you?" + +"I don't wish to judge you, Mr. Lindsay, and I'm very much obliged, but +I couldn't dream of it." + +"Don't dream of it; consider it, accept it. Why, dear creature, you are +mine already--don't you feel that?" + +Her arm was certainly warm within his and he had the possession of his +eyes in her. Her tired body even clung to him. "Are you quite sure you +haven't begun to think of loving me?" he demanded. + +"It isn't a question of love, Mr. Lindsay, it's a question of the Army. +You don't seem to think the Army counts for anything." + +One is convinced that it wasn't a question of love, the least in the +world; but Lindsay detected an evasion in what she said, and the flame +in him leaped up. + +"Sweet, when love is concerned there is no other question." + +"Is that a quotation?" she asked. She spoke coldly, and this time she +succeeded in withdrawing her hand. "I daresay you think the Army very +common, Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great and holy +crusade, and I march with it. You would not ask me to give up my +life-work?" + +"Only to take it into another sphere," Duff said unreflectingly. He was +checked, but not discouraged; impatient, but in no wise cast down. She +had not flown, she walked beside him placidly. She had no intention +of flight. He tried to resign himself to the task of beating down her +trivial objections, curbing his athletic impulse to leap over them. + +"Another sphere,"--he caught a subtle pleasure in her enunciation. "I +suppose you mean high society; but it would never be the same." + +"Not quite the same. You would have to drive to see your sinners in a +carriage and pair, and you might be obliged to dine with them in--what +do ladies generally dine in?--white satin and diamonds, or pearls. +I think I would rather see you in pearls." He was aware of the +inexcusableness of the points he made, but he only stopped to laugh +inwardly at their impression, watching the absorbed turn of her head. + +"We might think it well to be a little select in our sinners--most of +them would be on Government House list, just as most of your present +ones are on the lists of the charitable societies or the police +magistrates. But you would find just as much to do for them." + +"I should not even know how to act in such company." + +"You can go home for a year, if you like, to be taught, to some people I +know; delightful people, who will understand. A year! You will learn in +three months--what odds and ends there are to know. I couldn't spare you +for a year." + +Lindsay stopped. He had to. Captain Filbert was murmuring the cadences +of a hymn. She went through two stanzas, and covered her eyes for a +moment with her hand. When she spoke it was in a quiet, level, almost +mechanical way. "Yes," she said. "The Cross and the Crown, the Crown and +the Cross. Father in heaven, I do not forget Thy will and Thy purpose, +that I should bring the word of Thy love to the poor and the lowly, the +outcast and those despised. And what I say to this man, who offers me +the gifts and the gladness of a world that had none for Thee, is the +answer Thou hast put in my heart--that the work is Thine and that I +am Thine, and he has no part or lot in me, nor can ever have. Here is +Crooked Lane. Good-night, Mr. Lindsay." She had slipped into the devious +darkness of the place before he could find any reply, before he quite +realised, indeed, that they had reached her lodging. He could only utter +a vague "Goodnight," after her, formulating more definite statements to +himself a few minutes later, in Bentinck Street. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Miss Howe was walking in the business quarter of Calcutta. It was the +business quarter, yet the air was gay with the dimpling of piano notes, +and looking up one saw the bright sunlight fall on yellow stuccoed flats +above the shops and the offices. There the pleasant north wind blew +banners of muslin curtains out of wide windows, and little gardens of +palms in pots showed behind the balustrades of the flat roofs whenever +a storey ran short. Everywhere was a subtle contagion of momentary +well-being, a sense of lifted burden. The stucco streets were too +slovenly to be purely joyous, but a warm satisfaction brooded in them, +the pariahs blinked at one genially, there was a note of cheer even in +the cheeling of the kites where they sat huddled on the roof-cornices or +circled against the high blue sky. It was enjoyable to be abroad, in +the brushing fellowship of the pavements, in touch with brown humility +half-clad and going afoot, since even brown humility seemed well +affected toward the world, alert and content. The air was full of the +comfortable flavour of food-stuffs and spiced luxuries, and the incense +of wayside trees; it was as if the sun laid a bland compelling hand upon +the city, bidding strange flowers bloom and strange fruits increase. +Brokers' gharries rattled past, each holding a pale young man +preoccupied with a notebook; where the bullock-carts gathered themselves +together and blocked the road the pale young men put excited heads out +of the gharry windows and used remarkable imprecations. One of them, as +Hilda turned into the compound of the Calcutta Chronicle, leaned out to +take off his hat, and sent her up to the office of that journal in the +pleasant reflection of his infinite interest in life. "Upon my word," +she said to herself as she ascended the stairs behind the lean legs of +a Mussulman servant in a dirty shirt and an embroidered cap, "he's so +lighthearted, so genial, that one doubts the very tremendous effect even +of a failure like the one he contemplates." + +She sent her card in to the manager-sahib by the lean Mussulman, and +followed it past the desks of two or three Bengali clerks, who hardly +lifted their well-oiled heads from their account-books to look at +her--so many mem sahibs to whose enterprises the Chronicle gave +prominence came to see the manager-sahib, and they were so much alike. +At all events they carried a passport to indifference in the fact that +they all wanted something, and it was clear to the meanest intelligence +that they appeared to be more magnificent than they were, visions in +dazzling complexions and long kid gloves, rattling up in third-class +ticca-gharries, with a wisp of fodder clinging to their skirts. It was +less interesting still when they belonged to the other class, the shabby +ladies, nearly always in black, with husbands in the Small Cause Court, +or sons before the police magistrate, who came to get it, if possible, +"kept out of the paper." Successful or not these always wept on their +way out, and nothing could be more depressing. The only gleam of +entertainment to be got out of a lady visitor to the manager-sahib +occurred when the female form enshrined the majestic personality of a +boarding-house madam, whose asylum for respectable young men in leading +Calcutta firms had been maliciously traduced in the local columns of the +Chronicle--a lady who had never known what a bailiff looked like in the +lifetime of her first husband, or her second either. Then at the sound +of a pudgy blow upon a table, or high abusive accents in the rapid +elaborate cadences of the domiciled East Indian tongue, Hari Babu would +glance at Gobind Babu with a careful smile, for the manager-sahib who +dispensed so much galli* was now receiving the same, and defenceless. + + + * Abuse. + + +The manager sat at his desk when Hilda went in. He did not rise--he was +one of those highly sagacious little Scotchmen that Dundee exports in +such large numbers to fill small posts in the East, and she had come +on business. He gave her a nod, however, and an affectionate smile, and +indicated with his blue pencil a chair on the other side of the table. +He had once made three hundred rupees in tea shares, and that gave him +the air of a capitalist and speculator gamely shrewd. Tapping the table +with his blue pencil he asked Miss Howe how the world was using HER. + +"Let me see," said Hilda, a trifle absent-mindedly, "were you here last +cold weather--I rather imagine you were, weren't you?" + +"I was; I had the pleasure of--" + +"To be sure. You got the place in December, when that poor fellow Baker +died. Baker was a country-bred I know, but he always kept his +contracts, while you got your po-lish in Glesca, and your name is +Macphairson--isn't it?" + +"I was never in Glasgow in my life, and my name is Macandrew," said the +manager, putting with some aggressiveness a paper-weight on a pile of +bills. + +"Never mind," said Hilda, again wrapped in thought, "don't +apologise--it's near enough. Well, Mr. Macandrew,"--her tone came to a +point,--"what is the Stanhope Company's advertisement worth a month to +the Chronicle?" + +"A hundred rupees maybe--there or thereabouts;" and Mr. Macandrew, with +a vast show of indifference, picked up a letter and began to tear at the +end of it. + +"One hundred and fifty-five I think, to be precise. That communication +will wait, won't it? What is it--Kally Nath Mitter's paper and stores +bill? You won't be able to pay it any quicker if we withdraw our +advertisement." + +"Why should ye withdraw it?" + +"It was given to you on the understanding that notices should appear of +every Wednesday and Saturday's performance. For two Wednesdays there has +been no notice, and last Saturday night you sent a fool." + +"So Muster Stanhope thinks o' withdrawin' his advertisement?" + +"He is very much of that mind." + +The manager put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, leaned back +in his chair, and demonstrated the principle that had given him a gold +watch chain--"never be bluffed." + +"Ye can withdraw it," he said, with a warily experimental eye upon her. + +"How reasonable of you not to make a fuss! We'll have the order +to discontinue in writing, please. If you'll give me a pen and +paper--thanks--and I'll keep a copy." + +"Stanhope has wanted to transfer it to the Market Gazette for some +time," she went on as she wrote. + +"That's not a newspaper. You'll get no notices there." + +"Cheaper on that account, probably." + +"They charge like the very deevil. D'ye know the rates of them?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"There's a man on our staff that doesn't like your show. We'll be able +to send him every night now." + +"When we withdraw our advertisement?" + +"Just then." + +"All right," said Hilda. "It will be interesting to point out in the +Indian Empire the remarkable growth of independent criticism in the +Chronicle since Mr. Stanhope no longer uses the space at his disposal. I +hope your man will be very nasty indeed. You might as well hand over the +permanent passes--the gentleman will expect, I suppose, to pay." + +"They'll be in the yeditorial department," said Mr. Macandrew, but +he did not summon a messenger to go for them. Instead he raised his +eyebrows in a manner that expressed the necessity of making the best of +it, and humorously scratched his head. + +"We have four hundred pounds of new type coming out in the Almora--she's +due on Thursday," he said. "Entirely for the advertisements. We'll have +a fine display next week. It's grand type--none of your Calcutta-made +stuff." + +"Pays to bring it out, does it?" asked Hilda inattentively, copying her +letter. + +"Pays the advertisers." There were ingratiating qualities in the +managerial smile. Hilda inspected them coldly. + +"There's your notice of withdrawal," she said. "Good-morning." + +"Think of that new type, and how lovely Jimmy Finnigan's ad will look in +it." + +"That's all right. Good-morning." Miss Howe approached the door, the +blue glance of Macandrew pursuant. + +"No notices for two Wednesdays, eh? We'll have to see about that. I +was thinkin' of transferrin' your space to the third page; it's a more +advantageous position--and no extra charge--but ye'll not mention it to +Jimmy." + +Miss Howe lifted an arrogant chin. "Do I understand you'll do that, and +guarantee regular notices, if we leave the advertisement with you?" + +Mr. Macandrew looked at her expressively, and tore, with a gesture of +moderated recklessness, the notice of withdrawal in two. + +"Rest easy," he said, "I'll see about it. I'd go the len'th of attendin' +myself to-night, if ye could spare two three extra places." + +"Moderate Macandrew!" + +"Moderate enough. I've got some frien's stayin' in the same place with +me from Behar--indigo people. I was thinkin' I'd give them a treat, if +three places c'd be spared next to the Chronicle seats." + +"We do Lady Whippleton to-night and the booking's been heavy. Five is +too many, Mr. Macandrew, even if you promised not to write the notice +yourself." + +"I might pay for one;" Macandrew drew red cartwheels on his +blotting-pad. + +"Those seats are sure to be gone. I'll send you a box. Stanhope's as bad +as he can be with dysentery--you might make a local out of that. Be sure +to mention he can't see anybody--it's absurd the way Calcutta people +want to be paid." + +"A box'll be Grand," said Mr. Macandrew. "I'll see ye get plenty of +ancores. Can ye manage the door? Good-day, then." + +Hilda stepped out on the landing. The heavy, regular thud of the presses +came up from below. They were printing the edition that took the world's +news to planters' bungalows in the jungle of Assam and the lonely +policeman on the edge of Manipore. The smell of the newspaper of to-day +and of yesterday, and of a year ago, stood in the air; through an open +door she saw the dusty, uneven edges of files of them, piled on the +floor. Three or four messengers squatted beside the wall, with slumbrous +heads between their knees. Occasionally a shout came from the room +inside, and one of them, crying "Hazur!" with instant alacrity, +stretched himself mightily, loafed upon his feet and went in, emerging a +moment later carrying written sheets, with which he disappeared into the +regions below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up; under it, +through an open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and +green leaves of a pipal tree, and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his +grey head in with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in +scarlet and gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet +with an official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high +ceilings, spoke between dusty yawns of the languor and the leisure which +might attend the manipulation of the business of life, and Hilda paused +for an instant to perceive what it said. Then she walked behind her card +into the next room, where a young gentleman, reading proofs in his +shirt sleeves, flung himself upon his coat and struggled into it at her +approach. He seemed to have the blackest hair and the softest eyes and +the neatest moustache available, all set in a complexion frankly +olive, amiable English cut, in amiable Oriental colour, and the whole +illumined, when once the coat was on and the collar perfectly turned +down, by the liveliest, most engaging smile. Standing with his head +slightly on one side and one hand resting on the table, while the +other saw that nothing was disarranged between collar and top waistcoat +button, he was an interjection point of invitation and attention. + +"The Editor of the Chronicle?" Hilda asked with diffident dignity, and +very well informed to the contrary. + +"NOT the editor--I am sorry to say." The confession was delightfully +vivid--in the plenitude of his candour it was plain that he didn't +care who knew that he was sorry he was not the editor. "In journalistic +parlance, the sub editor," he added. "Will you be seated, Miss Howe?" +and with a tasteful silk pocket handkerchief he whisked the bottom of a +chair for her. + +"Then you are Mr. Molyneux Sinclair," Hilda declared. "You have been +pointed out to me on several first nights. Oh, I know very well where +the Chronicle seats are!" + +Mr. Sinclair bowed with infinite gratification, and tucked the silk +handkerchief back so that only a fold was visible. "We members of the +Fourth Estate are fairly well known, I'm afraid, in Calcutta," he said. +"Personally, I could sometimes wish it were otherwise. But certainly not +in this instance." + +Hilda gave him a gay little smile. "I suppose the editor," she said, +with a casual glance about the room, "is hammering out his leader for +to-morrow's paper. Does he write half and do you write half, or how do +you manage?" + +A seriousness overspread Mr. Sinclair's countenance, which nevertheless +irradiated, as if he could not help it, with beaming eyes. "Ah, those +are the secrets of the prison-house, Miss Howe. Unfortunately it is +not etiquette for me to say in what proportion I contribute the leading +articles of the Chronicle. But I can tell you in confidence that if it +were not for the editor's prejudices--rank prejudices--it would be a +good deal larger." + +"Ah, his prejudices! Why not be quite frank, Mr. Sinclair, and say that +he is just a little tiny bit jealous of his staff. All editors are, +you know." Miss Howe shook her head in philosophical deprecation of the +peccadillo, and Mr. Sinclair cast a smiling, embarrassed glance at his +smart brown leather boot. The glance was radiant with what he couldn't +tell her as a sub-editor of honour about those cruel prejudices, but he +gave it no other medium. + +"I'm afraid you know the world, Miss Howe," he said, with a noble +reserve, and that was all. + +"A corner of it here and there. But you are responsible for the whole of +the dramatic criticism,"--Hilda charged him roundly,--"the editor can't +claim any of THAT." + +An inquiring brown face under an embroidered cap appeared at the door; +a brown hand thrust in a bunch of printed slips. Mr. Sinclair motioned +both away, and they vanished in silence. + +"That I can't deny," he said. "It would be useless if I wished to +do so--my style betrays me--I must plead guilty. It is not one of my +legitimate duties--if I held this position on the Times, or say the +Daily Telegraph, our London contemporaries, it would not be required of +me. But in this country everything is piled upon the sub-editor. Many +a night, Miss Howe, I send down the last slips of a theatre notice at +midnight and am here in this chair"--Mr. Sinclair brought his open palm +down upon the arm of it--"by eleven the following day!" Mr. Sinclair's +chin was thrust passionately forward, moisture dimmed the velvety +brightness of those eyes which, in more dramatic moments, he confessed +to have inherited from a Nawab great-grandfather. "But I don't +complain," he said, and drew in his chin. It seemed to bring his +argument to a climax, over which he looked at Hilda in warm, frank +expansion. + +"Overworked, too, I daresay," she said, and then went on a trifle +hurriedly. "Well, I must tell you, Mr. Sinclair, how kind your criticism +always is, and how much I personally appreciate it. None of the little +points and effects one tries to make seem to escape you, and you are +always generous in the matter of space too." + +Molyneux impartially threw out his hand. "I believe in it!" he +exclaimed. "Honour where honour is due, Miss Howe, and the Stanhope +Company has given me some very enjoyable evenings. And you'll hardly +believe me, but it is a fact, I assure you, I seldom get a free hand +with those notices. Suicidal to the interests of the paper as it is, the +editor insists as often as not on cutting down my theatre copy!" + +"Cuts it down, does he? The brute!" said Miss Howe. + +"I've known him sacrifice a third of it for an indigo market report. +Now, I ask you, who reads an indigo market report? Nobody. Who wants to +know how Jimmy Finnigan's--how the Stanhope Company's latest novelties +went off? Everybody. Of course, when he does that sort of thing, I make +it warm for him next morning?" + +The door again opened and admitted a harassed little Babu in spectacles, +bearing a sheaf of proof slips, who advanced timidly into the middle of +the room and paused. + +"In a few minutes, Babu," said Mr. Sinclair; "I am engaged." + +"It iss the Council isspeech of the Legal Member, sir, and it iss to go +at five p.m. to his house for last correction." + +"Presently, Babu. Don't interrupt. As I was saying, Miss Howe, I make it +warm for him till he apologises. I must say he always apologises, and I +don't often ask more than that. But I was obliged to tell him the last +time that if it happened again one of us would have to go." + +"What did he say to that?" + +"I don't exactly remember. But it had a tremendous effect--tremendous. +We became good friends almost immediately." + +"Quite so. We miss you when you don't come, Mr. Sinclair--last Saturday +night, for example." + +"I HAD to go to the Surprise Party. Jimmy came here with tears in his +eyes that morning. 'My show is tumbling to pieces,' he said. 'Sinclair, +you've got to come to-night.' Made me dine with him--wouldn't let me +out of his sight. We had to send a reporter to you and Llewellyn that +night." + +"Mr. Sinclair, the notice made me weep." + +"I know. All that about the costumes. But what can you expect? The man +is as black as your hat." + +"We have to buy our own costumes," said Hilda, with a glance at the +floor, "and we haven't any too much, you know, to do it on." + +"The toilets in Her Second Son were simply magnificent. Not to be +surpassed on the boards of the Lyceum in tasteful design or richness +of material. They were ne plus ultra!" cried Mr. Sinclair. "You will +remember I said so in my critique." + +"I remember. If I were you I wouldn't go so far another time. There's +a lot of cotton velvet and satin about it, you know, between ourselves, +and Finnigan's people will be getting the laugh on us. That's one of +the things I wanted to mention. Don't be quite so good to us. See? +Otherwise--well, you know how Calcutta talks, and what a pretty girl +Beryl Stace is, for example. Mrs. Sinclair mightn't like it, and I don't +blame her." + +"As I said before, Miss Howe, you know the world," Mr. Sinclair replied, +with infinite mellow humour, and as Miss Howe had risen he rose too, +pulling down his waistcoat. + +"There was just one other thing," Hilda said, holding out her hand. +"Next Wednesday, you know, Rosa Norton takes her benefit. Rosy's as +well known here as the Ochterlony monument; she's been coming every cold +weather for ten years, poor old Rosy. Don't you think you could do her +a bit of an interview for Wednesday's paper? She'll write up very +well--get her on variety entertainments in the Australian bush." + +Mr. Molyneux Sinclair looked pained to hesitate. "Personally," he said +confidentially, "I should like it immensely, and I daresay I could get +it past the editor. But we're so short-handed." + +Miss Howe held up a forefinger which seemed luminous with solution. +"Don't you bother," she said, "I'll do it for you; I'll write it myself. +My 'prentice hand I'll try on Rosy, and you shall have the result ready +to print on Tuesday morning. Will that do?" + +That would do supremely. Mr. Sinclair could not conceal the admiration +he felt for such a combination of talents. He did not try; he +accompanied it to the door, expanding and expanding until it seemed more +than ever obvious that he found the sub-editorial sphere unreasonably +contracted. Hilda received his final bow from the threshold of what he +called his "sanctum," and had hardly left the landing in descent when +a square-headed, collarless, red-faced male in shirt sleeves came +down, descending, as it seemed, in bounds from parts above. "Damn +it, Sinclair!" she heard, as he shot into the apartment she had +left, "here's the whole council meeting report set up and waiting +three-quarters of an hour--press blocked; and the printer Babu says +he can get nothing out of you. What the devil.... If the dak's* missed +again, by thunder!... paid to converse with itinerant females... seven +columns... infernal idiocy...." + + + * Country post. + + +Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with amusement as +she made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until his +lady visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for the editor. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything very +exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged themselves +between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the Reverend Stephen +Arnold, had it been aware of them; and I conclude reluctantly that it +would not. Reluctantly, because such imperviousness argues a lack of +perception, of flair in directions which any Continental centre would +recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable in a capital of such vaunted +sophistication as that which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be +shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta's sense of comedy you +must, for example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty +technical equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from +England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your +dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit. For the sex that does +not hunt jackals it is easier--you have only to be a little frivolous +and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in +the case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as +the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the +impression that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. The source of +these things is perennial, and the noise of laughter is ever in the air +of the Indian capital. Between the explosions, however, it is natural +enough that the affairs of a priest of College Street and an actress +of no address at all should slip unnoticed, especially as they did +not advertise it. Stephen mostly came, on afternoons when there was +no rehearsal, to tea. He, Stephen, had a perception of contrasts which +answered fairly well the purposes of a sense of humour, and nobody could +question hers; it operated obscurely to keep them in the house. + +She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had been sent to her to +take the place of Duff Lindsay, who had fallen to the snare of beauty; +although she mentioned to herself that he took it with a difference, +a vast temperamental difference which she was aware of not having yet +quite sounded. The depths of his faith of course--there she could only +scan and hesitate, but this was a brink upon which she did not often +find herself, away from which, indeed, he sometimes gently guided her. +The atmospheres of their talk were the more bracing ones of this world, +and it was here that Hilda looked when she would make him a parallel +for Lindsay, and here that she found her measure of disappointment. He +warmed himself and dried his wings in the opulence of her spirit, and +she was not on the whole the poorer by any exchange they made, but she +was sometimes pricked to the reflection that the freemasonry between +them was all hers, and the things she said to him had still the flavour +of adventure. She found herself inclined--and the experience was new--to +make an effort for a reward which was problematical and had to be +considered in averages, a reward put out in a thin and hesitating hand +under a sacerdotal robe, with a curious concentrated quality, and a +strange flavour of incense and the air of cold churches. There was also +the impression--was it too fantastic?--of words carried over a medium, +an invisible wire which brought the soul of them and left the body by +the way. Duff Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, came +running with open arms; in his rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a +midwife to one's idea. But the comparison was irritating, and after +a time she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, moreover, to +declare to the stars that she was less worried by the consideration of +Arnold's sex than she would have thought it possible to be--one hardly +paused to consider that he was a man at all; a reflection which would +certainly not have occurred to her about poor dear Duff. With regard to +Stephen Arnold, it was only, of course, another way of saying that she +was less oppressed, in his company, by the consideration of her own. +Perhaps it is already evident that this was her grievance with life, +when the joy of it left her time to think of a grievance, the attraction +of her personal lines, the reason of the hundred fetiches her body +claimed of her and found her willing to perform, the fact that it meant +more to her, for all her theories, that she should be looking her best +when she got up in the morning than was justifiable from any point +of view except the biological. She had no heroic quarrel with these +conditions--her experience had not been upon that plane--but she +bemoaned them with sincerity as too fundamental, too all pervading; one +came upon them at every turn, grinning in their pretty chains. It was +absurd, she construed, that a world of mankind and woman kind with +vastly interesting possibilities should be so essentially subjected. +So primitive, it was, she argued in her vivid candour, and so +interfering--so horribly interfering! Personally she did not see herself +one of the fugitive half of the race; she had her defences; but the +necessity of using them was matter for complaint when existence might +have been so delightful a boon without it, full of affinities and +communities in every direction. She had not, I am convinced, any of the +notions of a crusader upon this popular subject, nor may I portray her +either shocked or revolted, only rather bored, being a creature whom it +was unkind to hamper; and she would have explained quite in these simple +terms the reason why Stephen Arnold's saving neutrality of temperament +was to her a pervasive charm of his society. + +She had not yet felt at liberty to tell him that she could not classify +him, that she had never known anyone like him before; and there was in +this no doubt a vague perception that the confession showed a limitation +of experience on her part for which he might be inclined to call her to +account; since cultured young Oxonians with an altruistic bias, if they +do not exactly abound, are still often enough to be discovered if one +happens to belong to the sphere which they haunt, they and their ideals. +Not that any such consideration led her to gloss or to minimise the +disabilities of her own. She sat sometimes in gravest wonder, pinching +her lips, and watched the studiously modified interest of his glance +following her into its queer byways--her sphere's--full of spangles and +limelight, and the first-class hysteria of third-class rival artistry. +There was a fascination in bringing him out of his remoteness near to +those things, a speculation worth making as to what he might do. This +remained ungratified, for he never did anything. He only let it appear +by the most indefinite signs possible, that he saw what she saw, peering +over his paling, and she in the picturesque tangle outside found it +enough. + +He was there when she came back from the Chronicle office, patient under +the blue umbrellas; he had brought her a book, and they had told him she +would not be long in returning. He had gone so far as to order tea for +her, and it was waiting with him. "Make it," she commanded; "why haven't +you had some already?" and while he bent over the battered Britannia +metal spout she sank into the nearest seat and let her hat make a frame +for her face against the back of it. She was too tired, she said, to +move, and her hands lay extended, one upon each arm of her chair, with +the air of being left there to be picked up at her convenience. Arnold, +over the teapot, agreed that walking in Calcutta was an insidious +pleasure--one gathered a lassitude--and brought her cup. She looked at +him for an instant as she took it. + +"But I am not too tired to hear what you have on your mind," she said. +"Have Kally Nath Mitter's relations prevailed over his convictions? +Won't your landlord let you have your oratory on the roof after all?" + +"You get these things so out of perspective," Stephen said, "that I +don't think I should tell you if they were so. But they're not. Kally +Nath is to be baptized to-morrow. We are certain to get our oratory." + +"I am very glad," Hilda interrupted. "When one prays for so long a +time together it must be better to have fresh air. It will certainly be +better for Brother Colquhoun. He seems to have such a weak chest." + +"It will be better for us all." Arnold seemed to reflect, across his +teacup, how much better it would be. Then he added, "I saw Lindsay last +night." + +"Again? And--" + +"I think it is perfectly hopeless. I think he is making way." + +"Sickening! I hoped you would not speak to him again. After all--another +man--it's naturally of no use!" + +"I spoke as a priest!" + +"Did he swear at you?" + +"Oh dear no! He was rather sympathetic. And I went very far. But I could +get him to see nothing--to feel nothing." + +"How far did you go?" + +"I told him that she was consecrated, that he proposed to commit +sacrilege. He seemed to think he could make it up to her." + +"If anyone else had said that to me I should have laughed--you don't +suspect the irony in it" Hilda said. "Pray who is to make it up to him?" + +"I suppose there is that point of view." + +"I should think so, indeed! But taking it, I despair with you. I had her +here the other day and tried to make the substance of her appear before +him. I succeeded too--he gave me the most uncomfortable looks--but I +might as well have let it alone. The great end of nature," Hilda went +on, putting down her cup, "reasonable beings in their normal state would +never lend themselves to. So she invents these temporary insanities. +And therein is nature cruel, for they might just as well be permanent. +That's a platitude, I know," she added, "but it's irresistibly +suggested." + +Stephen looked with some fixedness at a point on the other side of +the room. The platitude brought him, by some process of inversion, the +vision of a drawing-room in Addison Gardens, occupied by his mother and +sisters, engaged with whatever may be Kensington's substitutes at the +moment for the spinet and the tambour frame; and he had a disturbed +sense that they might characterise such a statement differently, if, +indeed, they would consent to characterise it at all. He looked at the +wall as if, being a solid and steadfast object, it might correct the +qualm--it was really something like that--which the wide sweep of her +cynicism brought him. + +"From what he told me last week I thought we shouldn't see it. He seemed +determined enough but depressed, and not hopeful. I fancied she was +being upheld--I thought she would easily pull through. Indeed, I wasn't +sure that there was any great temptation. Somebody must be helping him." + +"The devil, no doubt," Hilda replied concisely; "and with equal +certainty, Miss Alicia Livingstone." + +Arnold gave her a look of surprise. "Surely not my cousin!" he +protested. "She can't understand." + +"Oh, I beg of you, don't speak to HER! I think she understands. I think +she's only too tortuously intelligent." + +Stephen kept an instant of nervous silence. "May I ask?--" he began, +formally. + +"Oh yes! It is almost an indecent thing to say of anyone so exquisitely +self-contained, but your cousin is very much in love with Mr. Lindsay +herself. It seems almost a liberty, doesn't it, to tell you such a thing +about a member of your family?" she went on, at Arnold's blush; "but +you asked me, you know. And she is making it her ecstatic agony to bring +this precious union about. I think she is taking a kindergarten method +with the girl--having her there constantly and showing her little +scented, luxurious bits of what she is so possessed to throw away. +People in Alicia's condition have no sense of immorality." + +"That makes it all the more painful," said Arnold; but the interest in +his tone was a little remote, and his gesture, too, which was not quite +a shrug, had a relegating effect upon any complication between Alicia +and Lindsay. He sat for a moment without saying more, covering his eyes +with his hand. + +"Why should you care so much?" Hilda asked gently. "You are at the very +antipodes of her sect. You can't endorse her methods--you don't trust +her results." + +"Oh, all that! It's of the least consequence." He spoke with a curious, +governed impulse coming from beneath his shaded eyes. "It's seeing +another ideal pulled down, gone under, something that held, as best it +could, a ray from the source. It's another glimpse of the strength of +the tide--terrible. It's a cruel hint that one lives above it in the +heaven of one's own hopes, by some mere blind accident. To have set +one's feeble hand to the spiritualising of the world and to feel the +possibility of that--" + +"I see," said Hilda, and perhaps she did. But his words oppressed her. +She got up with a movement which almost shook them off, and went to +a promiscuous looking-glass to remove her hat. She was refreshed +and vivified--she wanted to talk of the warm world. She let a decent +interval elapse, however; she waited till he took his hand from his +eyes. Even then, to make the transition easier, she said, "You ought to +be lifted up to-day, if you are going to baptize Kally Nath to-morrow." + +"The Brother Superior will do it. And I don't know--I don't know. The +young woman he is to marry withdraws, I believe, if he comes over to +us--" + +"The, young woman he is to marry! Oh my dear and reverend friend! Avec +ces gens la! I have had a most amusing afternoon," she went on quickly. +"I have taken off my hat, now let me remove your halo." She was safe +with her conceit; Arnold would always smile at any imputation of +saintship. He held himself a person of broad indulgences, and would +point openly to his consumption of tea-cakes. But this afternoon a +miasma hung over him. Hilda saw it, and bent herself, with her graphic +recital, to dispel it, perceived it thicken and settle down upon him, +and went bravely on to the end. Mr. Macandrew and Mr. Molyneux Sinclair +lived and spoke before him. It was comedy enough, in essence, to spread +over a matinee. + +"And that is the sort of thing you store up and value," he said, when +she had finished. "These persons will add to your knowledge of life?" + +"Extremely," she replied to all of it. + +"I suppose they will in their measure. But personally I could wish you +had not gone. Your work has no right to make such demands." + +"Be reasonable," she said, flushing. "Don't talk as if personal +dignity were within the reach of everybody. It's the most expensive of +privileges. And nothing to be so very proud of--generally the product +of somebody else's humiliations, handed down. But the humiliations must +have been successful, handed down in cash. My father drove a cab and +died in debt. His name was Cassidy. I shall be dignified some day--some +day! But you see I must make it possible myself, since nobody has done +it for me." + +"Well, then, I'll alter my complaint. Why should you play with your +sincerity?" + +"I didn't play with it," she flashed; "I abandoned it. I am an actress." + +They often permitted themselves such candours; to all appearance their +discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain that Arnold +was not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted with the +tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his moving fingers. Presently +she spoke quietly, in a different key. + +"I sometimes think," she said, "of a child I knew, in the other years. +She had the simplest nature, the finest instincts. Her impulses, within +her small limits, were noble--she was the keenest, loyalest little +person; her admirations rather made a fool of her. When I look at the +woman she is now I think the uses of life are hard, my friend--they are +hard." + +He missed the personal note; he took what she said on its merits as an +illustration. + +"And yet," he replied, "they can be turned to admirable purpose." + +"I wonder!" Hilda exclaimed brightly. She had turned down the leaf of +that mood. "But we are not cheerful--let us be cheerful. For my part I +am rejoicing as I have not rejoiced since the first of December. Look at +this!" + +She opened a small black leather bag, and poured money out of it, in +notes and currency, into her lap. + +"Is it a legacy?" + +"It's pay," she cried, with pleasure dimpling about her lips. "I have +been paid--we have all been paid! It's so unusual--it makes me +feel quite generous. Let me see. I'll give you this, and this, and +this,"--she counted into her open palm ten silver rupees,--"all those I +will give you for your mission. Prends!" and she clinked them together +and held them out to him. + +He had risen to go, and his face looked grey and small. Something in him +had mutinied at the levity, the quick change of her mood. He could +only draw into his shell; doubtless he thought that a legitimate and +inoffensive proceeding. + +"Thanks, no," he said, "I think not. We desire people's prayers, rather +than their alms." + +He went away immediately, and she glossed over his scandalous behaviour, +and said farewell to him as she always did, in spite of the unusual +look of consciousness in her eyes. She continued to hold the ten +rupees carefully and separately, as if she would later examine them in +diagnosing her pain. It was keener and profounder than any humiliation, +the new voice, crying out, of a trampled tenderness. She stood and +looked after him for a moment with startled eyes and her hand, in a +familiar gesture of her profession, upon her heart. Then she went to her +room, and deliberately loosened her garments and lay down upon her bed, +first to sob like that little child she remembered, and afterwards to +think, until the world came and knocked at her door and bade her come +out of herself and earn money. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The compulsion which took Stephen Arnold to Crooked Lane is hardly +ours to examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand +involved certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, but of +exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually cloistered, whatever its +other latitude. Among them was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult +enough to make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so voyant +in the Church militant, by a mere fighting soul without such straps and +buttons as might compel recognition upon equal terms. It is impossible +to know how far Stephen envisaged the visit as a duty--the priestly +horizon is perhaps not wholly free from mirage--or to what extent he +confessed it an indulgence. He was certainly aware of a stronger desire +than he could altogether account for that Captain Filbert should not +desert her post. The idea had an element of irritation oddly personal; +he could not bear to reflect upon it. It may be wondered whether in any +flight of venial imagination Arnold saw himself in a parallel situation +with a lady. I am sure he did not. It may be considered, however, that +among mirages there are unaccountable resemblances--resemblances without +shape or form. He might fix his gaze, at all events, upon the supreme +argument that those who were given to holy work, under any condition, +in any degree, should make no rededication of themselves. This had to +support him as best it could against the conviction that had Captain +Filbert been Sister Anastasia, for example, of the Baker Institution, +and Ensign Sand the Mother Superior of its Calcutta branch, it was +improbable that he would have ventured to announce his interest in the +matter by his card, or in any other way. + +It was a hesitating step, therefore, that carried him up to the +quarters, and a glance of some nervous distress that made him aware, as +he stood bowing upon her threshold, clasping with both hands his soft +felt hat to his breast, that Mrs. Sand was not displeased to see him. +She hastened, indeed, to give him a chair; she said she was very glad +he'd dropped in, if he didn't mind the room being so untidy--where there +were children you could spend the whole day picking up. They were out +at present, with Captain Sand, in the perambulator, not having more +servants than they could help. A sweeper and a cook they did with; it +would surprise the people in this country, who couldn't get along with +less than twenty, she often said. + +Mrs. Sand's tone was casual; her manner had a quality somewhat +aggressively democratic. It said that under her welcome lay the right +to criticise, which she would have exercised with equal freedom had her +visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta himself; and it made short +work of the idea that she might be over-gratified to receive Holy Orders +in any form. She was not unwilling, however, to show, as between Ensign +and man, reasonable satisfaction; presently, in fact, she went so far +as to say, still vaguely remarking upon his appearance there, that she +often thought there ought to be more sociability between the different +religious bodies; it would be better for the cause. There was nothing +narrow, she said, about her, nor yet about Captain Sand. And then, +with the distinct intimation that that would do, that she had gone far +enough, she crossed her hands in her lap and waited. It became her to +have it understood that this visit need have no further object than an +exchange of amiabilities; but there might be another, and Mrs. Sand's +folded hands seemed to indicate that she would not necessarily meet it +with opposition. + +Stephen made successive statements of assent. He sat grasping his hat +between his knees, his eyes fixed upon an infant's sock which lay upon +the floor immediately in front of him, looking at Mrs. Sand as seldom +and as briefly as possible, as if his glance took rather an unfair +advantage, which he would spare her. + +"Yes, yes," he said. "Yes, certainly," revolving his hat in his hands. +And when she spoke of the fraternity that might be fostered by such +visits, he looked for an instant as if he had found an opening, which +seemed, however, to converge and vanish in Mrs. Sand's folded hands. He +flushed to think afterwards, that it was she who was obliged to bring +his resolution to a head, her scent of his embarrassment sharpening her +curiosity. + +"And is there anything we Army officers can do for you, Mr. Arnold?" she +inquired. + +There was a hint in her voice that, whatever it was, they would have +done it more willingly if she had not been obliged to ask. + +"I am afraid," he said, "my mission is not quite so simple. I could +wish it were. It is so easy to show our poor needs to one another; and +I should have confidence--" He paused, amazed at the duplicity that +grinned at him in his words. At what point more remote within the poles +was he likely to show himself with a personal request? + +"I have nothing to ask for myself," he went on, with concentration +almost harsh. "I am here to see if you will consent to speak with me +about a matter which threatens your--your community--about your possible +loss of Miss Filbert." + +Mrs. Sand looked blank. "The Captain isn't leavin' us, as far as I +know," she said. + +"Oh--is it possible that you are not aware that--that very strong +efforts are being made to induce her to do so?" + +Mrs. Sand looked about her as if she expected to find an explanation +lying somewhere near her chair. Light came to her suddenly, and brought +her a conscious smile; it only lacked force to be a giggle. She glanced +at her lap as she smiled; her air was deprecating and off-putting, as if +she had detected in what Arnold said some suggestion of a gallant nature +aimed at herself. Happily, he was not looking. + +"You mean Mr. Lindsay!" she exclaimed, twisting her wedding-ring and its +coral guard. + +"I hope--I beg--that you will not think me meddlesome or impertinent. I +have the matter very much at heart. It seems to lie in my path. I must +see it. Surely you perceive some way of averting the disaster in it!" + +"I'm sure I don't know what you refer to." Mrs. Sand's tone was prudish +and offended. "She hasn't said a word to me--she's a great one for +keeping things to herself--but if Mr. Lindsay don't mean marriage with +her--" + +"Why, of course!" Arnold, startled, turned furiously red, but Mrs. Sand +in her indignation did not reflect the tint. "Of course! Is not +that," he went on after an instant's pause, "precisely what is to be +lamented--and prevented?" + +Mrs. Sand looked at her visitor with dry suspicion. "I suppose you are a +friend of his," she said. + +"I have known him for years. Pray don't misunderstand me. There is +nothing against him--nothing whatever." + +"Oh, I don't suppose there is, except that he is not on the Lord's side. +But I don't expect any of his friends are anxious for him to marry an +officer in the Salvation Army. Society people ain't fond of the Army, +and never will be." + +"His people--he has only distant relatives living--are all at home," +Stephen said vaguely. The situation had become slightly confused. + +"Then you speak for them, I suppose?" + +"Indeed not. I am in no communication with them whatever. I fancy they +know nothing about it. I am here entirely--ENTIRELY of my own accord. I +have come to place myself at your disposition if there is anything I can +do, any word I can say, to the end of preventing this catastrophe in a +spiritual life so pure and devoted; to ask you at all events to let me +join my prayers to yours that it shall not come about." + +The squalor of the room seemed to lift before his eyes and be suffused +with light. At last he had made himself plain. But Mrs. Sand was not +transfigured. She seemed to sit, with her hands folded, in the midst of +a calculation. + +"Then he HAS put the question. I told her he would," she said. + +"I believe he has asked her to marry him and she has refused, more than +once. But he is importunate, and I hear she needs help." + +"Mr. Lindsay," said Mrs. Sand, "is a very takin' young man." + +"I suppose we must consider that. There is position too, and wealth. +These things count--we are all so human--even against the Divine +realities into possession of which Miss Filbert must have so perfectly +entered." + +"I thought he must be pretty well off. Would he be one of them +Government officials?" + +"He is a broker." + +"Oh, is he indeed?" Mrs. Sand's enlightenment was evidently doubtful. +"Well, if they get married Captain Filbert 'll have to resign. It's +against the regulations for her to marry outside of the Army." + +"But is she not vowed to her work; isn't her life turned for ever +into that channel? Would it not be horrible to you to see the world +interfere?" + +"I won't say but what I'd be sorry to see her leave us. But I wouldn't +stand in her way either, and neither would Captain Sand." + +"Stand in her way! In her way to material luxury, poverty of spirit, the +shirking of all the high alternatives, the common moral mediocrity of +the world. I would to God I could be that stumbling block! I have heard +her--I have seen the light in her that may so possibly be extinguished." + +"I don't deny she has a kind of platform gift, but she's losin' her +voice. And she doesn't understand briskin' people up, if you know what I +mean." + +"She will be pulled down--she will go under!" Arnold repeated in the +depths of his spirit. He stood up, fumbling with his hat. Mrs. Sand and +her apartment, her children out of doors in the perambulator, and the +whole organisation to which she appertained had grown oppressive and +unnecessary. He was aware of a desire to put his foot again in his own +world, where things were seen, were understood. He thought there might +be solace in relating the affair to Brother Colquhoun. + +"It's a case," said Mrs. Sand judicially, "where I wouldn't think myself +called on to say one word. Such things everyone has a right to decide +for themselves. But you oughtn't to forget that a married woman"--she +looked at Arnold's celibate habit as if to hold it accountable for +much--"can have a great influence for good over him that she chooses. +I am pretty sure Captain Filbert's already got Mr. Lindsay almost +persuaded. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he joined the Army himself +when she's had a good chance at him." + +Arnold put on his hat with a groan, and began the descent of the stairs. +"Good-afternoon then," Mrs. Sand called out to him from the top. He +turned mechanically and bared his head. "I beg your pardon," he said. +"Good-afternoon." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Mrs. Sand found it difficult to make up her mind upon several points +touching the visit of the Reverend Stephen Arnold. Its purport, of which +she could not deny her vague appreciation, drew a cloud across a rosy +prospect, and in this light his conduct showed unpardonable; on the +other hand it implied a compliment to the corps, it made the spiritual +position of an officer of the Army, a junior too, a matter of moment +in a wider world than might be suspected; and before this consideration +Mrs. Sand expanded. She reflected liberally that salvation was not +necessarily frustrated by the laying-on of hands; she had serene fancies +of a republic of the redeemed. She was a prey to further hesitations +regarding the expediency of mentioning the interview to Laura, and as +private and confidential it ministered for two days to her satisfactions +of superior officer. In the end, however, she had to sacrifice it to the +girl's imperturbable silence. She chose an intimate and a private hour, +and shut the door carefully upon herself and her captain, but she had +not at all decided, when she sat down on the edge of the bed, what +complexion to give to the matter, nor had she a very definite idea, when +she got up again, of what complexion she had given it. Laura, from the +first word, had upset her by an intense eagerness, a determination not +to lose a syllable. Captain Filbert insisted upon hearing all before +she would acknowledge anything; she hung upon the sentences Mrs. Sand +repeated, and joined them together as if they were parts of a puzzle; +she finally had possession of the conversation much as I have already +written it down. As Mrs. Sand afterward told her husband, Miss Filbert +sat there growing whiter and whiter, more and more worked up, and it was +impossible to take any comfort in talking to her. It seemed as if she, +the Ensign, might save herself the trouble of giving an opinion one way +or the other, and not a thing could she get the girl to say except that +it was true enough that the gentleman wanted to marry her, and she was +ashamed of having let it go so far. But she would never do it--never! +She declared she would write to this Mr. Arnold and thank him, and ask +him to pray for her, "and she as much as ordered me to go and do the +same," concluded Mrs. Sand, with an inflection which made its own +comment upon such a subversion of discipline. + +Stephen, under uncomfortable compulsion, sent Laura's letter--she did +write--to Lindsay. "I cannot allow you to be in the dark about what I am +doing in the matter," he explained; "though if I had not this +necessity for writing you might reasonably complain of an intrusive and +impertinent letter. But I must let you know that she has appealed to me, +and that as far as I can I will help her." + +Duff read both communications--Laura's to the priest was brief and very +technical--between the business quarters of Ralli Brothers and the Delhi +and London Bank, with his feet in the opposite seat of his office-gharry +and his forehead puckered by an immediate calculation forward in rupee +paper. His irritation spoiled his transaction--there was a distinct +edge in the manager's manner when they parted, and it was perhaps a +pardonable weakness that led him to dash in blue pencil across the page +covered with Arnold's minute handwriting, "Then you have done with pasty +compromises--you have gone over to the Jesuits. I congratulate you," and +readdressed the envelope to College Street. The brown tide of the crowd +brought him an instant messenger, and he stood in the doorway for a +moment afterwards frowning upon the yellow turbans that swung along +in the sunlight against the white wall opposite, across the narrow +commercial road. The flame of his indignation set forth his features +with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether the soft amused +well-being which was nearly always there. His lips set themselves +together, and Mrs. Sand would have been encouraged in any scheme of +practical utility by the lines that came about his mouth. A brother +in finance of some astuteness, who saw him scramble into his gharry, +divined that with regard to a weighty matter in jute mill shares +pending, Lindsay had decided upon a coup, and made his arrangements +accordingly. He also went upon his way with a fresh impression of +Lindsay's undeniable good looks, as sometimes in a coin new from +the mint one is struck with the beauty of a die dulled by use and +familiarity. + +Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed himself to feel distress, +but when he had read it, that emotion was lightened in him by another +sentiment. + +"A community admirable in many ways," he murmured, refolding the page. +"Does he think he is insulting me?" + +Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, Lindsay was inclined +to concede to Stephen's intermediary, he was compelled to recognise +without delay that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of her profession, +had not neglected to acquire a knowledge of defensive operations. She +retired effectively, the quarters in Crooked Lane became her fortified +retreat, whence she issued only under escort and upon service strictly +obligatory. Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and +Lindsay felt it an anomaly in military tactics that the same agency +should bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with which +he strove to assault her position. Nor could Alicia induce any sortie +to Middleton Street. Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons +were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence and the +palest ink, always with the negative of a formal excuse. They loosed the +burden of her complicity from Miss Livingstone's shoulders, these notes +which bore so much the atmosphere of Crooked Lane, and at the same +time they formed the indictment against her which was, perhaps, best +calculated to weigh upon her conscience. She saw it, holding them at +arm's length, in enormous characters that ever stamped and blotted out +the careful, taught-looking writing, and the invariable "God bless you, +yours truly," at the end. They were all there, aridly complete, the +limitations of the lady to whom she was helping Lindsay to bind himself +without a gleam of possibility of escape or a rift through which tiniest +hope could creep, to emerge smiling upon the other side. When she saw +him, in fatalistic reverie, going about ten years hence attached to the +body of this petrification, she was almost disposed to abandon the pair, +to let them take their wretched chance. But this was a climax which +did not occur often; she returned, in most of her waking moments, to +devising schemes by which Laura might be delivered into the hands she +was so likely to encumber. The new French poet, the American novelist +of the year, and a work by Mr. John Morley lay upon Alicia's table +many days together for this reason. She sometimes remembered what she +expected of these volumes, what plein air sensations or what profound +plunges, and did not quite like her indifference as to whether her +expectations were fulfilled. She discovered herself intellectually +jaded--there had been tiring excursions--and took to daily rides which +carried her far out among the rice-fields, and gave her sound nights +to sustain the burden of her dreaming days. She had ideas about her +situation; she believed she lived outside of it. At all events she took +a line; the new Arab was typical, and there were other measures which +she arranged deliberately with the idea that she was making a physical +fight. Life might weigh one down with a dragging ball and chain, but one +could always measure the strength of one's pinions against these things. +She made it her sorry and remorseless task to separate from her impulses +those that she found lacking in philosophy, hinting of the foolish +woman, and to turn a cruel heel upon them. She stripped her meditations +of all colour and atmosphere; she would not accept from her grief the +luxury of a rag to wrap herself in. If this gave hers a skeleton to +live with, she had what gratification there was in observing that it was +anatomically as it should be. The result that one saw from the outside +was chiefly a look of delicate hardness, of tissue a little frayed, +but showing a quality in the process. We may hope that some unconfessed +satisfaction was derivable from her continued reception of Duff's +confidences--it has long been evident that he found her persuadable--her +unflinching readiness to consult with him; granting the analytic turn we +may almost suppose it. Starvation is so monotonous a misery that a gift +of personal diagnosis might easily lend attraction to poisoned food as +an alternative, if one may be permitted a melodramatic simile in a case +which Alicia kept conventional enough. She did not even abate the usual +number of Duff's invitations to dinner when there was certainly nothing +to repay her for regarding him across a gulf of flowers and silver, +and a tide of conversation about the season's paper-chasing, except the +impoverished complexion which people acquire who sit much in Bentinck +Street, desirous and unsatisfied. + +It may very well be that she regretted her behaviour in this respect, +for it was eventually after one of these parties that Surgeon-Major +Livingstone, pressing upon his departing guest in the hall the usual +whisky and soda, found it necessary instead to give him another kind of +support, and to put him immediately and authoritatively to bed. Lindsay +was very well content to submit; he confessed to fever off and on for +four or five days past, and while the world went round the pivotal +staircase, as Dr. Livingstone gave him an elbows up, he was indistinctly +convinced that the house of a friend was better than a shelf at the +club. + +The next evening's meeting saw his place empty under the window of the +hall in Crooked Lane, noticeably for the first time in weeks of these +exercises. The world shrank, for Laura, to the compass of the kerosene +lamps; there was no gaze from its wider sphere against which she must +key herself to indifference. When on the second and third evening she +was equally undisturbed, it was borne in upon her that either she or Mr. +Arnold, or both, had prevailed, and she offered up thanks. On the fourth +she reflected recurrently and anxiously that it was not after all a very +glorious victory if the devil had carried off the wounded; if Lindsay, +after all the opportunities that had been his, should slip back without +profit to the level from which she had striven--they had all striven--to +lift him. Mrs. Sand, not satisfied to be buffeted by such speculations, +sent a four-anna bit to the head bearer at the club on her own account +and obtained information. + +Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complication, though the +circumstances taken together did present a vulgar opportunity which Mrs. +Barberry came for hours to take advantage of. There were the usual two +nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry; Alicia could take the Arab farther +afield than ever, and she did. One can imagine her cantering fast and +far with a sense of conscious possession in spite of Mrs. Barberry +and the two nurses. There may be a certain solace in the definite and +continuous knowledge available about a person hovering on the brink of +enteric under your own roof-tree. It was as grave as that; Surgeon-Major +Livingstone could not make up his mind. Alicia knew only of this +uncertainty; other satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and +Mrs. Barberry. She could see that her brother was anxious, he was so +uniformly cheerful, so brisk and fresh and good-tempered coming from +Lindsay's room in the morning, to say at breakfast that the temperature +was the same, hadn't budged a point, must manage to get it down somehow +in the next twenty-four hours, and forthwith to envelop himself in +the newspapers. Those arbitrary and obstinate figures, which stood for +apprehension to the most casual ear, stamped themselves on most things +as the day wore on, and at tea-time Mrs. Barberry gave her other +details, thinking her rather cold in the reception of them. But she +plainly preferred to be out of it, avoiding the nurses on the stairs, +refraining from so much as a glance at the boiled milk preparations of +the butler. "And you know," said Mrs. Barberry, recountant, "how these +people have to be watched." To Mrs. Barberry she was really a conundrum, +only to be solved on the theory of a perfectly preposterous delicacy. +There was so little that was preposterous in Miss Livingstone's conduct +as a rule that it is not quite fair to explain her attitude either by +this exaggeration or by an equally hectic scruple about her right to +take care of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously when it has +been given in the highest to somebody else. These pangs and penalties +may have visited her in their proportion, but they did not take the +importance of motives. She rather stood aside with folded hands, and +in an infinite terror of prejudicing fate, devoured her heart by way of +keeping its beating normal. Perhaps, too, she had a vision of a final +alternative to Lindsay's marriage, one can imagine her forcing herself +to look at it. + +Remove herself as she chose, Alicia could not avoid passing Lindsay's +room, for her own lay beyond it. In the seven o'clock half light of a +February evening, in the middle of the week, she went along the matted +upper hall on tiptoe, and stumbled over a veiled form squatted in the +native way, near his door, profoundly asleep. "Ayah!" she exclaimed, but +the face that looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than +common, Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her hand away and made an +imperceptible movement in the direction of her skirts. She stood silent, +stricken in the dusk with astonishment, but the sense that was strongest +in her was plainly that of having made a criminal discovery. Laura +stumbled upon her feet, and the two faced each other for an instant, +words held from them equally by the authority of the sickroom door. +Then Alicia beckoned as imperiously as if the other had in fact been +the servant she took her for, and Laura followed to where, farther on, a +bedroom door stood open, which presently closed upon them both. It was +a spacious room, with pale high-hung draperies, a scent of flowers, such +things as an etching of Greuze, an ivory and ebony crucifix over the +bed. Captain Filbert remembered the crucifix afterward with a feeling +almost intense, also some silver-backed brushes on the toilet-table. +Across the open window a couple of bars of sunset glowed red and gold, +and a tall palm of the garden cut all its fronds sharply against the +light. + +"Well?" said Alicia, when the door was shut. + +Captain Filbert put out a deprecating hand. + +"I intended to ask if you had any objection, miss, but you had gone out. +And the nurse was in the room; I couldn't get to her. There was nobody +but the servants about." + +"Objection to what?" + +"To my being there. I came to pray for Mr. Lindsay." + +"Did you make any noise?" + +Miss Filbert looked professionally touched. "It was silent prayer, of +course," she said. + +Alicia, standing with one hand upon the toilet-table, had an air of +eagerness, of successful capture. The yellow sky in the window behind +her made filmy lights round her hair, and outlined her tall figure, in +the gracefulness of which there was a curious crisped effect, like a +conventional pose taken easily, from habit. Laura Filbert thought she +looked like a princess. + +"I seem to hear of nothing but petitions," she said. "Isn't somebody +praying for you?" + +The blood of any saint would have risen in false testimony at such a +suggestion. Laura blushed so violently that for an instant the space +between them seemed full of the sound of her protest. + +"I hope so, miss," she said, and looked as if for calming over Alicia's +shoulder away into the after-sunset bars along the sky. The colour +sank back out of her face, and the light from the window rested on it +ethereally. The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to seek, and their blue +seemed to deepen and dilate, as if the old splendour of the uplifted +golden gates rewarded them. + +"Why do you use that odious word?" Alicia explained. "You are not my +maid! Don't do it again--don't dream of doing it again!" + +"I--I don't know." The girl was still plainly covered with confusion +at being found in the house uninvited. "I suppose I forgot. Well, +good-evening," and she turned to the door. + +"Don't go," Alicia commanded. "Don't. You never come to see me now. Sit +down." She dragged a chair forward and almost pushed Laura into it. "I +will sit down too--what am I thinking of?" + +Laura reflected for a moment, looking at her folded hands. "I might as +well tell you," she said, "that I have not been praying that Mr. Lindsay +should get better. Only that he should be given time to find salvation +and die in Jesus." + +"Don't--don't say those things to me. How light you are--it's wicked!" +Alicia returned with vehemence, and then as Captain Filbert stared, half +comprehending, "Don't you care?" she added curiously. + +It was so casual that it was cruel. The girl's eyes grew wider still +during the instant she fixed them upon Alicia in the effort of complete +understanding. Then her lip trembled. + +"How can I care?" she cried; "how can I?" and burst into weeping. She +drew her sari over her face and rocked to and fro. Her dusty bare foot +protruded from her cotton skirt. She sat huddled together, her head in +its coverings sunk between weak shaking shoulders. Alicia considered her +for an instant as a pitiable and degraded spectacle. Then she went over +and touched her. + +"You are completely worn out," she said, "and it is almost dinner-time. +The ayah will bring you a hot bath and then you will come down and have +some food quietly with me. My brother is dining out somewhere. I will go +away for a little while and then I know you will feel better. And after +dinner," she added gently, "you may come up if you like and pray again +for Mr. Lindsay. I am sure he would--" + +The faintest break in her own voice warned her, and she hurried out of +the room. + +It was a foolish thing, and the Livingstones' old Karim Bux much +deplored it, but the miss-sahib had forgotten to give information +that the dinner of eight commanded a fortnight ago would not take +place--hence everything was ready in its sequence for this event, with a +new fashion of stuffing quails and the first strawberries of the season +from Dinapore. The feelings of Karim Bux in presenting these things to +a woman in the dress of a coolie are not important; but Alicia, for some +reason, seemed to find the trivial incident gratifying. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Under the Greek porch of Number Ten, Middleton Street, in the white +sunlight between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant +ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce +squatted beneath the horse's nose, and fed it perfunctorily with hay +from a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns +in pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting +out the garden where heavy scents stood in the sun, and mynas chattered +on the drive. The air was full of ease, warm, fretillante, abandoned to +the lavish energy of growing things; beyond the discoloured wall of the +compound rose the tender cloud of a leafing tamarisk against the blue. +A long time already the driver had slept immovably, and the horse, +uncomplaining but uninterested, had dragged at the wisps of hay. + +Inside there was no longer a hint of Mrs. Barberry, even a dropped +handkerchief agreeably scented. The night nurse had realised herself +equally superfluous and had gone; the other, a person of practical +views, could hardly retain her indignation at being kept from day to day +to see her patient fed, and hand him books and writing materials. She +had not even the duty of debarring visitors, but sat most of the time in +the dressing-room where echoes fell about her of the stories with which +riotous young men, in tea and wheat and jute, hastened Mr. Lindsay's +convalescence. There she tapped her energetic fat foot on the floor in +vain, to express her views upon such waste of scientific training. She +had Surgeon Major Livingstone's orders; and he on this occasion had his +sister's. + +There was an air of relief, of tension relaxed, between the two women in +the drawing-room; it was plain that Alicia had communicated these things +to her visitor, in their main import. Hilda was already half disengaged +from the subject, her eye wandered as if in search for the avenue to +another. By a sudden inclination Alicia began the story of Laura +Filbert on her knees at Lindsay's door. She told it in a quiet, steady, +colourless way, pursuing it to the end--it came with the ease of +frequent private rehearsals--and then with her elbows on her knees and +her chin in her palms she stopped and gazed meditatively in front of +her. There was something in the gaze to which Hilda yielded an attention +unexpectedly serious, something of the absolute in character and life +impervious to her inquiry. Yet to analysis it was only the grey look +of eyes habituated to regard the future with penetration and to find +nothing there. + +"Have you told him?" Hilda asked after an instant's pause, during which +she conceded something, she hardly knew what; she meant to find out +later. + +"I haven't seen him. But I will tell him, I promise you." + +"I have no doubt you will! But don't promise ME. I won't even witness +the vow!" Hilda cried. + +"What does it matter? I shall certainly tell him." The words fell +definitely like pebbles. Hilda thoughtfully picked them up. + +"On the whole," she said, "perhaps it would be as well. Yes, it is +my advice. It is quite likely that he will be revolted. It may be +curative." + +Alicia turned away her head to hide the faint frown that nevertheless +crept into her voice. "I don't think so," she said. "How you do juggle +with things! I don't know why I talk to you about this--this matter. I +am sure I ought not." + +"I was going to say," pursued Hilda, indifferent to her scruple, "that +I shouldn't be at all surprised if his illness leaves him quite +emotionally sane. The poison has worked itself out of his blood--perhaps +the passion and the poison were the same." + +"I wonder!" Alicia said. She said it mechanically, as the easiest +comment. + +"When I knew you first your speculation would have been more active, my +dear. You would have looked into the possibility and disputed it. What +has become of your modernity?" + +It was the tenderest malice, but it obtained no concessive sign. Alicia +seemed to weigh it. "I think I like theories better than illustrations," +she said in defence. + +"One can look at theories as one looks at the sky, but an illustration +wants a careful point of view. For this one perhaps you are a little +near." + +"Perhaps," Alicia assented, "I am a little near." She glanced quickly +down as she spoke, but when she raised her eyes they were dry and clear. + +"I can see it better," Hilda went on, with immense audacity, "much +better." + +"Isn't it safer to feel?" + +"Jamais de la vie! The nerves lie always." + +They were on the edge of the vortex of the old dispute. Alicia leaned +back among the cushions and regarded the other with an undecided eye. + +"You are not sure," said Hilda, "that you won't ask me, at this point, +to look at the pictures in that old copy of the Persian classic--I +forget its lovely name--or inquire what sort of house we had last night. +Well, don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. Only, you know, between us +as between more doubtful people, the door must be either open or shut. I +fancy you take cold easily; perhaps you had better shut the door." + +"Not for worlds," Alicia said, with promptitude. Then she added, rather +cleverly, "That would be spoiling my one view of life." + +Hilda smiled. "Isn't there any life where you live?" She glanced round +her, at the tapestried elegance of the room, with sudden indifference. +"After all," she said, "I don't know what I am doing here, in your +affairs. As the world swings no one could be more remote from them or +you. I belong to its winds and its highways--how have you brought me +here, a tramp-actress, to your drawing-room?" + +Alicia laid a detaining hand upon Miss Howe's skirt. "Don't go away," +she said. Hilda sat at the other end of the sofa; there was hardly a +foot between them. She went on with a curious excitement. + +"My kind of life is so primitive, so simple; it is one pure impulse, you +don't know. One only asks the things that minister--one goes and finds +and takes them; one's feet in the straw, one's head under any roof. What +difference does it make? The only thing that counts, that rules, is the +chance of seeing something else, feeling something more, doing something +better." + +Alicia only looked at her and tightened the grasp of her fingers on the +actress's skirt. Hilda made the slightest, most involuntary movement. +It comprehended the shaking off of hindrance, the action of flight. Then +she glanced about her again with a kind of appraisement, which ended +with Alicia and embraced her. What she realised seemed to urge her, +I think, in some weak place of her sex, to go on intensely, almost +fiercely. + +"Everything here is aftermath. You are a gleaner, Alicia Livingstone. We +leave it all over the world for people of taste, like you, in the glow +of their illusions. I couldn't make you understand our harvest; it is of +the broad sun and the sincerity of things." + +"I know I must seem to you dreadfully out of it," Alicia said, wearing, +as it were, across her heaviness a lighter cloud of trouble. + +But the other would not be stayed; she followed by compulsion her +impulse to the end. "Shall I be quite candid?" she said. "I find the +atmosphere about you, dear, a trifle exhausted." + +Alicia with a face of astonishment made a half movement towards the +window before she understood. There was some timidity in her glance at +Hilda and in her mechanical smile. "Oh," she said, "I see what you mean; +and I don't wonder. I am so literal--I have so little imagination." + +"Don't talk of it as if it were money or fabric--something you could add +up or measure," Hilda cried remorselessly. "You have none!" + +As if something slipped from her Alicia threw out locked hands. "At +least I had enough to know you when you came!" she cried. "I felt you, +too, and it's not my fault if there isn't enough of me to--to respond +properly. And I can't give you up. You seem to be the one valuable thing +that I can have--the only permanent fact that is left." + +Hilda had a rebound of immense discomfort. "Who said anything about +giving up?" she interrupted. + +"Why, you did! But I'm quite willing to believe you didn't mean it, if +you say so." She turned the appeal of her face and saw a sudden pitiful +consideration in Hilda's, and as if it called them forth two tears +sprang to her eyes and fell, as she lowered her delicate head upon her +lap. + +"Dear thing! I didn't indeed. If I meant anything it was that I'm +overstrung. I've been horribly harried lately." She possessed herself +of one of Alicia's hands and stroked it. Alicia kept her head bent for +a moment and then let it fall, in sudden abandonment, upon the other +woman's shoulder. Her defences crumbled so utterly that Hilda felt +guilty of using absurdly heavy artillery. They sat together for a +moment or two in silence with only that supervening sense of successful +aggression between them, and the humiliation was Hilda's. Presently +it grew heavy, embarrassing. Alicia got up and began a slow, restless +pacing up and down before the alcove they sat in. Hilda watched her--it +was a rhythmic progress--and when she came near with a sound of brushing +silk and a faint fragrance which seemed a personal emanation, drew a +long breath as if she were an essence to be inhaled, and so, in a manner +obtained, assimilated. + +"Oh yes," Miss Livingstone said, rehabilitating herself with a smile, +"I must keep you. I'll do anything you like to make myself more--worth +while. I'll read for the pure idea. I think I'll take up modelling. +There's rather a good man here just now." + +"Yes," Hilda assented. "Read for the pure idea--take up modelling. It +is most expedient, especially if you marry. Women who like those things +sometimes have geniuses for sons. But for me, so far as I count--oh, +my dear, do nothing more. You are already an achieved effect--a +consummation of the exquisite in every way. Generations have been chosen +among for you; your person holds the inheritance of all that is gracious +and tender and discriminating in a hundred years. You are as rare as I +am, and if there is anything you would take from me, I would make more +than one exchange for the mere niceness of your fibre--the feeling you +have for fine shades of morality and taste--all that makes you a lady, +my dear." + +"Such niminy piminy things," said Alicia, contradicting the light +of satisfaction in her eyes. The sound of a step came from the room +overhead, and the light died out. "And what good do they do me?" she +cried in soft misery. "What good do they do me!" + +"Considerably less than they ought. Why aren't you up there now? What +simple, honester opportunity do you want than a sick-room in your own +house?" + +Alicia, with a frightened glance at the ceiling, flew to her side. "Oh, +hush!" she cried. "Go on!" + +"It ought to be there beside him, the charm of you. The room should be +full of cool refreshing hints of what you are. Your profile should come +between him and the twilight with a scent of violets." + +"It sounds like a plot," Alicia murmured. + +"It IS a plot. Why quibble about it? If you smile at him it's a plot. +If you put a rose in your hair it's a deep-laid scheme, deeper than you +perceive--the scheme the universe is built on. We wouldn't have lent +ourselves to the arrangement, we women, if we had been consulted; we're +naturally too scrupulous, but nobody asked us. 'Without our aid He did +us make,' you know." + +"But--deliberately--to go so far! I couldn't, I couldn't, even if I +could." + +Hilda leaned back in her corner with her arms extended along the back +and the end of the sofa. Her hands drooped in their vigour, her knees +were crossed, and her skirts draped them in long simple lines. In her +symmetry and strength and the warm cloud of her hair and the soul that +sat behind the shadows of her eyes Vedder might have drawn her as a +tragic symbol for the poet who sang what he sometimes thought of wine +and death and roses. + +"I would go farther," she said, and looked as if some other thing +charged with sweetness had come before her. + +"And even if one gained, one would never trust one's success," Alicia +faltered. + +"Ah, if one gained one would hold," Hilda said; and while she smiled on +her pupil in the arts of life, the tenderness grew in her eyes and came +upon her lips. Her thought turned inward absently; it embraced with +sweet irony, a picture of poverty, chastity, obedience. As if she knew +her betrayal already complete, "I wish I had such a chance," she said. + +"You wish you had such a chance!" + +"I didn't mean to tell you--you have enough to do to work out your own +problem; but--" + +She seemed to find a joy in hesitating, to keep back the words as a +miser might keep back gold. She let her secret escape through her eyes +instead. She was deliberately radiant and silent. Alicia looked at +her as they might have looked, across the desert, at a mirage of the +Promised Land. + +"Then after all he has prevailed," she said. + +"Who?" + +"Hamilton Bradley." + +Hilda laughed--the laugh was full and light and spontaneous, as if all +the training of the notes of her throat came unconsciously to make it +beautiful. + +"How you will hold me to my metier," she said. "Hamilton Bradley has +given up trying." + +"Then--" + +"Then think! Be clever. Be very clever." + +Alicia dropped her head in the joined length of her hands. A turquoise +on one of them made them whiter, more transparent than usual. Presently +she drew her face up from her clinging fingers and searched the other +woman with eyes that nevertheless refused confirmation for their +astonishment. + +"Well?" said Hilda. + +"I can think of no one--there IS no one--except--oh, it's too absurd! +Not Stephen--poor dear Stephen!" + +The faintest shadow drifted across Hilda's face, as if for an instant +she contemplated a thing inscrutable. Then the light came back, dashed +with a gravity, a gentleness. + +"I admit the absurdity. Stephen--poor dear Stephen. How odd it seems," +she went on, while Alicia gazed, "the announcement of it--like a thing +born. But it is that--a thing born." + +"I don't understand--in the least," Alicia exclaimed. + +"Neither do I. I don't indeed. Sometimes I feel like a creature with +its feet in a trap. The insane, insane improbability of it!" She laughed +again. It was delicious to hear her. + +"But--he is a priest!" + +"Much more difficult. He is a saint." + +Alicia glanced at the floor. The record of another lighter moment +twitched itself out of a day that was forgotten. + +"Are you quite certain?" she said. "You told me once that--that there +had been other times." + +"They are useful, those foolish episodes. They explain to one the +difference." The tone of this was very even, very usual, but Alicia was +aware of a suggestion in it that accused her of aggression, that almost +ranged her hostile. She hurried out of that position. + +"If it were possible," she said, frowning at her embarrassment. "I see +nothing--nothing REALLY against it." + +"I should think not! Can't you conceive what I could do for him?" + +"And what could he do for you?" Alicia asked, with a flash of curiosity. + +"I don't think I can let you ask me that." + +"There are such strange things to consider! Would he withdraw from the +Church? Would you retire from the stage? I don't know which seems the +more impossible!" + +Hilda got up. + +"It would be a criminal choice, wouldn't it?" she said. "I haven't +made it out. And he, you know, still dreams only of Bengali souls for +redemption, never of me at all." + +A servant of the house with the air of a messenger brought Alicia a +scrap of paper. She glanced at it, and then, with hands that trembled, +began folding it together. + +"He has been allowed to get up and sit in a chair," she murmured, "and +he wants me to come and talk to him." + +"Well," said Hilda. "Come." + +She put her arm about Alicia, and drew her out of the room to the foot +of the stairs. They went in silence, saying nothing even when they +parted, and Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. Halfway up she +paused and looked down. Hilda turned to meet her glance, and something +of primitive puissance passed, conscious, comprehended, between the eyes +of the two women. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +For three days there had certainly been, with the invalid, no sign of +anything but convalescence. An appetite to cry out upon, a chartered +tendency to take small liberties, to make small demands; such +indications offered themselves to the eye that looked for other +betrayals. There had been opportunities--even the day nurse had gone, +and Lindsay came to tea in the drawing-room--but he seemed to prefer +to talk about the pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence of the +khansamah, or things in the newspapers. Alicia, once, at a suggestive +point, put almost a visible question into a silent glance, and Lindsay +asked her for some more sugar. Surgeon-Major Livingstone, coming into +his office, unexpectedly one morning, found his sister in the act of +replacing a volume upon its professional shelf. It was somebody on the +pathology of Indian fevers. Hilda's theory lacked so little to approve +it--only technical corroboration. It might also be considered that, +although Laura had expressly received the freedom of the city for +intercessional or any other purpose, she did not come again. They may +have heard in Crooked Lane that Duff was better. We may freely +imagine that Mrs. Sand was informed; it looked as if the respite to +disinterested anxiety afforded by his recovery had been taken advantage +of. Lindsay was to be given time for more dignified repentance; they +might now very well hand him over, Alicia thought, smiling, to the +Archdeacon. + +As a test, as something to reckon by, the revelation to Lindsay still +in prospect, of the single visit Captain Filbert did make, was perhaps +lacking in essentials. It would be an experiment of some intricacy, it +might very probably work out in shades. So much would infallibly have to +be put down for surprise and so much reasonably for displeasure, without +any prejudice to the green hope budding underneath; the key to Hilda's +theory might very well be lost in contingencies. Nevertheless, Alicia +postponed her story, from day to day and from hour to hour. If her +ideas about it--she kept them carefully in solution--could have been +precipitated, they might have appeared in a formula favourite with her +brother the Surgeon-Major, who often talked of giving nature a chance. + +She told him finally on the morning of his first drive. They went +together and alone, Alicia taking her brother's place in the carriage +at a demand for him from the hospital. It was seven o'clock, and the +morning wind swept soft and warm from over the river. There was a white +light on all the stucco parapets, and their shadows slanted clear and +delicately purple to the west. The dust slept on the broad roads of the +Maidan, only a curling trace lifted itself here and there at the heel +of a cart-bullock, and nothing had risen yet of the lazy tumult of the +streets that knotted themselves in the city. From the river, curving +past the statue of an Indian administrator, came a string of country +people with baskets on their heads. The sun struck a vivid note with the +red and the saffron they wore, turned them into an ornamentation, in the +profuse Oriental taste, of the empty expanse. There was the completest +freedom in the wide tree-dotted spaces round which the city gathered her +shops and her palaces, the fullest invitation to disburden any heaviness +that might oppress, to give the wings of words to any joy that might +rebel in prison. The advantage of the intimacy of the landau for +purposes of observation was so obvious that one imagines Alicia must +have been aware of it, though as a matter of fact when she finally told +Lindsay she did not look at him at all, but beyond the trees of the Eden +Gardens, where the yellow dome of the post-office swelled against the +morning sky; and so lost it. + +He heard without exclamation, but stopped her now and then with a +question. On what day precisely? And how long? And afterwards? The +yellow dome was her anchor; she turned her head a little, as the road +trended the other way, to keep her eyes upon it. There was an endless +going round of wheels, and trees passed them in mechanical succession; a +tree, and another tree; some of them had flowers on them. When he broke +the silence afterwards she started as if in apprehension, but it +was only to say something that anybody might have said, about the +self-sacrificing energy of the organisation to which Miss Filbert +belonged. Her assent was little and meagre; nothing would help her to +expand it. The Salvation Army rose before her as a mammoth skeleton, +without a suggestive bone. + +Presently he said in a different way, as if he uttered an unguarded +thought, "I had so little to make me think she cared." There was in it +that phantom of speculation and concern which a sick man finds under +pressure, and it penetrated Alicia that he abandoned himself to his +invalid's privileges as if he valued them. He lay extended beside her +among his cushions and wraps; she tried to look at him, and got as far +as the hand nearest her, ungloved and sinewy, on the plaid of the rug. + +"She told me it was not for your life she had been praying--only that if +you died you might be saved first." Her eyes were still on his hand, and +she saw the fingers close into the palm as if by an impulse. Then they +relaxed again, and he said, "Oh, well," and smiled at the balancings of +a crow drinking at a city conduit. + +That was all. Alicia made an effort, odd and impossible enough, to +postpone her impressions, even her emotions. In the meantime it was +something to have got it over, and she was able at a bound to talk about +the commonplaces of the roadside. In her escape from this oppression, +she too gathered a freshness, a convalescent pleasure in what they +saw; everything had in some way the likeness of the leafing teak-trees, +tender and curative. In the broad early light that lay over the tanks +there was a vague allurement, almost a presage, and the wide spaces of +the Maidan made room for hope. She asked Lindsay presently if he would +mind driving to the market; she wanted some flowers for that night. I +think she wanted some flowers for that hour. Her thought broke so easily +into the symbol of a rose. + +They turned into Chowringhee, where the hibiscus bushes showed pink and +crimson over the stucco walls, and at the gates of the pillared houses +servants with brown and shining backs sat on their haunches in the +sun and were shaved. Where the street ran into shops there was still +a shuttered blankness, but here and there a doorkeeper yawned and +stretched himself before an open door, and a sweeper made a cloud of +dust beneath a commercial verandah. The first hoarding in a side street +announced the appearance of Miss Hilda Howe for one night only as Lady +Macbeth, under the kind patronage of His Excellency the Viceroy; +with Jimmy Finnigan in the close proximity of professional jealousy, +advertising five complete novelties for the same evening. It made +a cheerful note which appealed to them both; it was a pictorial +combination, Hilda and Jimmy Finnigan and the Viceroy, there was +something of gay burlesque in the metropolitan posters against the +crumbling plaster of the outer mosque wall where Mussulmans left their +shoes. Talking of Hilda they smiled; it was a way her friends had, +a testimony to the difference of her. In Alicia's smile there was a +satisfaction rather subtle and in a manner superior; she knew of things. + +The life of the market, the bazar, was all awake and moving. They +rolled up through a crowd of inferior vehicles, empty for the moment and +abandoned, where the leisurely crowd with calculation under its turbans, +swayed about the market-house, and the pots of a palm-dealer ran out of +bounds and made a little grove before the stall of the man who sold pith +helmets. The warm air held the smell of all sorts of commodities; there +was a great hum of small transactions, clink of small profits. "It makes +one feel immensely practical and acquisitive," Duff said, looking at the +loaded baskets on the coolies' heads; and he insisted on getting out. "I +am dying to buy an enormous number of desirable things very cheap. But +not combs or shirt-buttons, thank you, nor any ribbons or lace--is +that good lace, Miss Livingstone? Nor even a live duck--really I am +difficult. We might inquire the price of the duck though." + +The sense of being contributive to his holiday satisfaction reigned +in her. She abandoned herself to it with a little smile that played +steadily about her lips, as if it would tell him without her sanction, +how continually she rejoiced in his regained well-being. They made their +way slowly toward the flower-corner; there were so many things he wanted +to stop before as they went, leaning on his stick to examine them and +delighting in opportunities for making himself quite ridiculous. The +country tobacco-dealer laughed too, squatting behind his basket--it +was a mad sahib, but not madder than the rest; and there was no hurry. +Alicia saw the pink glow of the roses beyond, where the sun struck +across them over the shoulders of the crowd, and was content to reach +them by degrees. They would be in their achieved sweetness a kind of +climax to the hour's experience, and after that she was not entirely +sure that the day would be as grey as other days. + +This was the flood-time of roses, and it was exquisite in the +flower-corner with the soft wind picking up their fragrance and +squares of limpid sunlight standing on the wet flagstones. Some of the +stall-keepers had little glass cases, and in these there was room only +for the Gloire de Dijons and the La Frances and the velvety Jacks, the +rest over-ran the tables and the floor in anything that would hold them. +The place rioted with the joy and the passion of roses, for buying and +selling. There were other flowers, nasturtiums, cornbottles, mignonette, +but they had a diminished insignificant look in their tied-up bunches +beside the triumph of the roses. Farther on, beyond the cage of +the money-changer, the country people were hoarse with crying their +vegetables, in two green rows, and beyond that where the jostling crowd +divided, shone a glimpse of oranges and pomegranates. In this part +there were many comers and goers, lean Mussulman table-servants, and +fat Eurasian ladies who kept boarding-houses, Armenian women with +embroidered shawls drawn over their heads, sailors of the port. They +came to pass that way, through the sweetness of it, and this made a +coign of vantage for the men with trays who were very persecuting there. +Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside the roses, her hands were deep +in them, he perceived with pleasure that their glow was reflected in +her face. "No," she exclaimed with dainty aplomb to the man who sat +cross-legged in muslin draperies on the table. "These are certainly of +yesterday. There is no scent left in them--and look!" she held up the +bunch and shook it, a shower of pink petals and drops of water fell +upon the round of her arm above the wrist where the laces of her sleeve +slipped back. Lindsay had something like a poetic appreciation of her, +observing her put the bunch down tenderly as if she would not, if she +could help it, find fault with any rose. The dealer drew out another, +and handed it to her; a long-stemmed, wide-open, perfect thing, and it +was then that her glance of delight, wandering, fell upon Laura Filbert. +Lindsay looked instantly, curiously in the same direction, and Alicia +was aware that he also saw. There ensued a terse moment with a burden of +silence and the strangest misgivings, in which he may have imagined that +he had his part alone but which was the heavier for her because of +him. These two had seen the girl before only under circumstances that +suggested protection, that made excuse, on a platform receiving +the respect of attention, marching with her fellows under common +conventions, common orders. Here, alone, slipping in and out among the +crowd, she looked abandoned, the sight of her in her bare white feet +and the travesty of her dress was a wound. Her humility screamed its +violation, its debasement of her race; she woke the impulse to screen +her and hurry her away as if she were a woman walking in her sleep. She +had on her arm a sheaf of the War Cry. This was another indignity; she +offered them right and left, no one had a pice for her except one man, a +sailor, who refused the paper. When he rejoined his companions there was +a hoarse laugh, and the others turned their heads to look after her. + +The flower-dealer eyed his customers with contemptuous speculation, +seeing what had claimed their eyes. There was nothing new, the "mem" +passed every day at this hour. She did no harm and no good. He, too, +looked at her as she came closer, offering her paper to Alladiah Khan, +a man impatient in his religion, who refused it, mumbling in his beard. +With a gesture of appeal she pressed it on him, saying something. Then +Alladiah's green turban shook, his beard, dyed red in Mecca, waggled; +he raised his arm, and Laura in white astonishment darted from under it. +They seldom did that. + +Alicia caught at the stall table and clung to it, as Lindsay made his +stride forward. She saw him twist his hand in the beard of Mecca and +fling the man into the road; she was aware of a vague thankfulness that +it ended there, as if she expected bloodshed. More plainly she saw the +manner of Duff's coming back to the girl and the way in which, with a +look of half-frightened satisfaction, Laura gave herself up to him. He +was hurrying her away without a word. Her surrender was as absolute and +final as if she had been one of those desirable things he said he +wanted to buy. Alicia intercepted, as it were, the indignity of being +forgotten, stepping up to them. "Take her home in the carriage," she +said to Duff, "and send it back for me. I shall be here a long time +still--quite a long time." She stared at Captain Filbert as she spoke, +but made no answer to the "Good-morning! God bless you!" with which the +girl perfunctorily addressed her. When they left her she looked down +at the long-stemmed rose, the perfect one, and drove a thorn of it deep +into her palm, as other creatures will sometimes hurt themselves more to +suffer less. It was not in the least fantastic of her, for she was not +aware that she still held it, but that was the only rose she brought +away. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Hilda left the road, with a trace of its red dust on the hem of her +skirt, and struck out into the Maidan. It spread before her, green where +the slanting sun searched through the short blades, brown and yellow in +the distance, where the light lay on the top of the withered grass. It +was like a great English park, with something of the village common, +only the trees, for the most part, made avenues over it, running an +arbitrary half-mile this way or that, with here and there a group dotted +about in the open; and the brimming tank-pots were of India, and of +nowhere else in the world. The sun was dipping behind the masts that +showed where the straight border of the river ran, and the shadows of +the pipals and the banyans were richly purple over the roads. The light +struck on the stuccoed upper verandahs of the houses in Chowringhee +which made behind their gardens the other border, and seemed to push +them back, to underline their scattered insignificance, hinting that the +Maidan at its pleasure might surge over them altogether. Calcutta, the +teeming capital, lived in the streets and gullies behind that chaste +frontage, and quarrelled over drainage schemes; but out here cattle +grazed in quiet companies, and squirrels played on the boles of the +trees. Calcutta the capital indeed was superimposed; one felt that +always at this time, when the glow came and stood in the air among +the tamarinds, and there was nothing anywhere but luminous space +and indolent stillness, and the wrangling and winging of crows. What +persisted then under the span of the sky, was the old India of rich +tradition, and a bullock beneath the yoke, jogging through the evening +to his own place where the blue haze hid the little huts on the rim of +the city, the real India, and the rest was fiction and fabrication. + +The grass was crisp and pleasant. Hilda deliberately sought its solace +for her feet, letting their pressure linger. All day long the sun had +been drawing the fragrance and the life out of it, and now the air had a +sweet, warm, and grateful scent, like that of harvests. The crickets had +been at it since five o'clock, and though the city rose not half a mile +across the grass, it was the crickets she heard and listened to. In +making private statements of things, the crickets offered a chorus +of agreement, and they never interrupted. Not that she had much to +consider, poor girl, which lent itself to a difference of opinion. One +might have thought her, to meet a situation at any point like her own, +not badly equipped. She had all the argument--which is like saying all +the arms--and the most accurate understanding; but the only practical +outcome of these things had been an intimate lesson in the small value +of the intelligence, that flavoured her state with cynicism and made it +more piquant. She did not altogether scorn her own intelligence as the +result, because it had always admitted the existence of dominating +facts that belonged to life and not to reason; it was only the absurd +unexpectedness of coming across one herself. One might think round such +a fact and talk round it--there were less exquisite satisfactions--but +it was not to be cowed or abated, and in the end the things one said +were only words. + +Out there in the grassy spaces she let her thoughts flow through her +veins with her blood, warm and free. The primitive things she saw helped +her to a fulness of life; the south wind brought her profound sweet +presciences. A coolie-woman, carrying a basket on her head, stopped and +looked at her with full glistening eyes; they smiled at each other, and +passed on. She found herself upon a narrow path, worn smooth by other +barefooted coolie-folk; it made in its devious way toward the rich mists +where the sun had gone down; and Hilda followed, breasting the glow and +the colour and the wide, flat expanse, as if in the India of it there +breathed something exquisitely sensuous and satisfying. It struck +sharp on her senses; she almost consciously thanked Heaven for such +a responsive set of nerves. Always and everywhere she was intensely +conscious of what she saw and of how she saw it; and it was +characteristic of her that she found in that saffron February evening, +spreading to a purple rim, with wandering points of colour in a +soldier's coat or a coachman's turban, an atmosphere and a mise en scene +for her own complication. She could take a tenderly artistic view of +that, more soothing a good deal than any result that came of examining +it in other lights. And she did, aware, with smiling eyes, of how full +of colour, how dramatic it was. + +Nevertheless, she had hardly closed with it; any material outcome seemed +a great way off, pursuable by conjecture when there was time for that. +For the present, there on the Maidan with the south wind, she took it +with her head thrown up, in her glad, free fashion, as something that +came in the way of life--the delightful way of life--with which it was +absurd to quarrel because of a slight inconvenience or incongruity, +things which helped, after all, to make existence fascinating. + +A marigold lay in the path, an orange-coloured scrap with a broken stem, +dropped from some coolie's necklace. Hilda picked it up, and drew in the +crude, warm pungency of its smell. She closed her eyes and drifted on +the odour, forgetting her speculations, losing her feet. All India and +all her passion was in that violent, penetrating fragrance; it brought +her, as she gave her senses up to it, a kind of dual perception of being +near the core, the throbbing centre of the world's meaning. + +Her awakened glance fell upon Duff Lindsay. He hastened to meet her, +in his friendly way; and she was glad of the few yards that lay +between them and gave transit to her senses from that other plane. +They encountered each other in full recognition of the happiness of the +accident, and he turned back with her as a matter of course. It was a +kind of fruition of all that light and colour and passive delight that +they should meet and take a path together; she at least was aware. Hilda +asked him if he was quite all right now, and he said "Absolutely" with +a shade of emphasis. She charged him with having been a remarkable +case, and he piled up illustrations of what he felt able to do in his +convalescence. There was something in the way he insisted upon his +restoration which made her hasten to take her privilege of intimacy. + +"And I hear I may congratulate you," she said. "You have got what you +wanted." + +"Someone has told you," he retorted, "who is not friendly to it." + +"On the contrary, someone who has given it the most cordial +support--Alicia Livingstone." + +He mused upon this for an instant, as if it presented Alicia for the +first time under such an aspect. + +"She has been immensely kind," he asserted. "But she wasn't at first. At +first, she was hostile, like you, only that her hostility was different, +just as she is different. She had to be converted," he went on +hopefully, "but it was less difficult than I imagined. I think she takes +a kind of pride in conquering her prejudices, and being true to the real +breadth of her nature." + +"I am sure she would like her nature to be broad. She might very well +be content that it is charming. And what is the difference between her +hostility and mine?" + +"The main difference," Lindsay said, with a gay half round upon her, +"is that hers has sweetly vanished, while yours"--he made a dramatic +gesture--"walks between us." + +"I know. I tried to stiffen her. I appealed to the worst in her on your +behalf. But it wasn't any use. She succumbed, as you say, to her nobler +instincts." + +Hilda stabbed a great crisp fallen teak leaf with her parasol, and spent +her paradox in twirling it. + +"One can so easily get an affair of one's own out of all proportion," +Duff said. "And I should be sorry--do you really want me to talk about +this?" + +"Don't be stupid. Of course." + +He took her permission with plain avidity. + +"Well, it grew plain to Miss Livingstone, as it will to everybody +else who knows or cares," he said; "I mean chiefly Laura's tremendous +desirability. Her beauty would go for something anywhere, but I don't +want to insist on that. What marks her even more is the wonderful purity +and transparency of her mind; one doesn't find it often now, women's +souls are so clouded with knowledge. I think that sort of thing appeals +especially to me because my own design isn't in the least esoteric. I'm +only a man. Then she was so ludicrously out of her element. A creature +like that should be surrounded by the softest refinement in her daily +life. That was my chance. I could offer her her place. It's not much to +counterbalance what she is, but it helps, roughly speaking, to equalise +matters." + +Hilda looked at him with sudden critical interest, missing an emanation +from him. It was his enthusiasm. A cheerfulness had come upon him +instead. Also what he said had something categorical in it, something +crisp and arranged. He himself received benefit from the consideration +of it, and she was aware that if this result followed, her own +"conversion" was of very secondary importance. + +"So!" she said meditatively, as they walked. + +"After it happens, when it is an accomplished fact, it will be so +plainly right that nobody will think twice about it," Duff went on in +an encouraged voice. "It's odd how one's ideas materialise. I want her +drawing-room to be white and gold, with big yellow silk cushions." + +"When is it to happen?" + +"Beginning of next cold weather--in not quite a year." + +"Ah! then there will be time. Time to get the white and gold furniture. +It wouldn't be my taste quite. Is it Alicia's?" + +"It's our own at present, Laura's and mine. We have talked it over +together. And I don't think she would ask Miss Livingstone. In matters +of taste women are rather rivals, aren't they?" + +"Oh Lord!" Hilda exclaimed, and bit her lip. "Where is Miss Filbert +now?" + +"At Number Ten, Middleton Street." + +"With the Livingstones?" + +"Is it so astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been most practical in her +kindness. I have gone back, of course, to my perch at the club, and +Laura is to stay with them until she sails." + +"She sails?" + +"In the Sutlej, next Wednesday. She's got three months' leave. She +really hasn't been well, and her superior officer is an accommodating +old sort. She resigns at home, and I'm sending her to some dear old +friends of mine. She hasn't any particular people of her own. She's got +a notion of taking lessons of some kind--perfectly unnecessary, but if +it amuses her--during the summer. And of course she will have to get her +outfit together." + +"And in December," said Hilda, "she comes out and marries you?" + +"Not a Calcutta wedding. I meet her in Madras and we come up together." + +"Ideal," said Hilda; "and is Calcutta much scandalised?" + +"Calcutta doesn't know. If I had had my way in the beginning I fancy I +would have trumpeted it. But now I suppose it's wiser--why should one +offer her up at their dinner-tables?" + +"Especially when they would make so little of her," said Hilda absently. + +The coolie track had led them into the widest part of the Maidan, where +it slopes to the south, and the huts of Bowanipore. There was nothing +about them but a spreading mellowness and the baked turf underfoot. The +cloudy yellow twilight disclosed that a man a little way off was a man, +and not a horse, but did hardly more. "I'm tired," Hilda said suddenly, +"let us sit down," and sank comfortably on the fragrant grass. Lindsay +dropped beside her and they sat for a moment in silence. A cricket +chirped noisily a few inches from them. Hilda put out her hand in that +direction and it ceased. Sounds wandered across from the encircling +city, evening sounds, softened in their vagrancy, and lights came out, +topaz points in the level glow. + +"She is making a tremendous sacrifice," Lindsay went on; "I seem to see +its proportions more clearly now." + +Hilda glanced at him with infinite kindness. "You are an awfully good +sort, Duff," she said; "I wish you were out of Asia." + +"Oh, a magnificent sort." The irony was contemplative, as if he examined +himself to see. + +"You can make her life delightful to her. The sacrifice will not endure, +you know." + +"One can try. It will be worth doing." He said it as if it were a maxim, +and Hilda, perceiving this, had no answer ready. As they sat without +speaking, the heart of the after-glow drew away across the river, and +left something chill and empty in the spaces about them. Things grew +hard of outline, the Maidan became an unlimited expanse of commonplace, +grey and unyielding; the lines of gas-lamps on the roads came very +near. "What a difference it makes!" Lindsay exclaimed, looking after the +vanished light, "and how suddenly it goes!" + +Hilda turned concerned eyes upon him, and then looked with keen sadness +far into the changed landscape. "Ah, well, my dear," she said, with +apparent irrelevance, "we must take hold of life with both hands." She +made a movement to rise, and he, jumping to his feet, helped her. As if +the moment had some special significance, something to be underlined, +he kept her hand while he said, "you will always represent something in +mine. I can depend upon you--I shall know that you are there." + +"Yes," she said sincerely. "Yes indeed," and it seemed to her that +he looked thin and intense as he stood beside her--unless it was only +another effect of atmosphere. "After all," she said, as they turned to +walk back again across the withered grass, "your fever has taken a good +deal out of you." + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Finally the days of Laura Filbert's sojourn under the Livingstones' roof +followed each other into the past that is not much pondered. Alicia +at one time valued the impression that life in Calcutta disappeared +entirely into this kind of history, that one's memory there was a +rubbish heap of which one naturally did not trouble to stir up the dust. +It gave a soothing wistfulness to discontent to think this, which a +discerning glance might often have seen about her lips and eyebrows as +she lay back among her carriage cushions under the flattery of the +south wind in the course of her evening drive. She had ceased latterly, +however, to note particularly that or any impression. Such things +require range and atmosphere, and she seemed to have no more command +over these; her outlook was blocked by crowding, narrowing facts. There +was certainly no room for perceptions creditable to one's intellect or +one's taste. Also it may be doubted whether Alicia would have tried the +days of her hospitality to Captain Filbert by her general standard of +worthlessness. She turned away from them more actively than from the +rest, but it was because they bristled, naturally enough, with dilemmas +and distresses which she made a literal effort to forget. As a matter +of fact there were not very many days, and they were largely filled +with millinery. Even the dilemmas and distresses, when they asserted +themselves, were more or less overswept, as if for the sake of decency, +by billows of spotted muslin, with which Celine, who felt the romance +of the situation, made herself marvellously clever. Celine, indeed, was +worth in this exigency many times her wages. Alicia hastened to "lend" +her to the fullest extent, and she spent hours with Miss Filbert +contriving and arranging, a kind of conductor of her mistress's +beneficence. It became plain that Laura preferred the conductor to the +source, and they stitched together while she, with careful reserves, +watched for the casual sidelights upon modes and manners that came +from the lips of the maid. At other times she occupied herself with her +Bible--she had adopted, as will be guessed, the grateful theory of Mrs. +Sand, that she had only changed the sphere of her ministrations. She had +several times felt, seated beside Celine, how grateful she ought to +be that her spiritual paths for the future would be paths of such +pleasantness, though Celine herself seemed to stand rather far from +their border, probably because she was a Catholic. Mrs. Sand came +occasionally to upbuild her, and after that Laura had always a fresh +remembrance of how much she had done in giving so generous a friend +as Duff Lindsay to the Army in Calcutta. It was reasonable enough that +there should be a falling off in Mr. Lindsay's attendance just now in +Laura's absence, but when they were united, Mrs. Sand hoped there would +be very few evening services when she, the Ensign, would miss their +bright faces. + +Lindsay himself came every afternoon, and Laura made tea, and pressed +upon him, solicitously, everything there was to eat. He found her +submissive and wishful to be pleasant. She sat up straight, and said +it was much hotter than they had it this time of year up-country, +but nothing at all to complain of yet. He also discovered her to be +practical; she showed him the bills for the muslins, and explained one +or two bargains. She seemed to wish to make it clear to him that it need +not be, after all, so very expensive to take a wife. In the course of a +few days one of the costumes was completed, and when he came she had it +on, appearing before him for the first time in secular dress. The stays +insisted a little cruelly on the lines of her figure, and the tight +bodice betrayed her narrow-chested. Above its frills her throat +protruded unusually, with a curve outward like that of some wading +bird's, and her arms, in their unaccustomed sleeves, hung straight +at her sides. She had put on the hat that matched; it was the kind of +pretty disorderly hat with waving flowers that demands the shadow of +short hair along the forehead, and she had not thought of that way of +making it becoming. Among these accessories the significance of her +face retreated to a point vague and distant, its lightly-pencilled lines +seemed half erased. + +She made no demand for admiration on this occasion, she seemed +sufficiently satisfied with herself; but after a time when they were +sitting together on the sofa, and he still pursued the lines of her +garment with questioning eyes, she recalled him to the conventionalities +of the situation. + +"You needn't be afraid of mussing it," she said. + +The ship she took her departure in sailed from its jetty in the river +at six o'clock in the morning. Preparations for her comfort had been +completed over night; indeed she slept on board, and Duff had only the +duty and the sentiment of actual parting in the morning. He found her +in a sequestered corner of the fresh swabbed quarter-deck. She wore her +Army clothes--she had come on board in one of the muslins--and she was +softly crying. From the jetty on the other side of the ship arose, amid +tramping feet and shouted orders and the creaking of the luggage-crane, +the over-ruling sound of a hymn. Ensign Sand and a company had come +apparently to pay the last rites to a fellow-officer whom they should no +more meet on earth, bearing her heavenly commission. + + + "Farewell, faithful friend, we must now bid adieu + To those joys and pleasures we've tasted with you, + We've laboured together, united in heart, + But now we must close and soon we must part." + + +They had said good-bye to her and God bless you, all of them, but they +evidently meant to sing the ship out of port. Lindsay sat down beside +the victim of the demonstration and quietly took her hand. There was a +consciousness newly guilty in his discomfort, which he owed perhaps to +a ghost of futility that seemed to pace up and down before him, between +the ranks of the steamer-chairs. Nevertheless as she presently turned +a calmed face to him with her pale apology he had the sensation of +a rebound toward the ideal that had finally perished in the spotted +muslin, and when a little later he watched the long backward trail of +smoke as the steamer moved down the clear morning river, he reflected +that it was a satisfaction to have prevailed. + +The Sutlej had gone far on her tranquil course by the evening of a +dinner in Middleton Street, at which the guests, it was understood, were +to proceed later to a party given at Government House by his Excellency +the Viceroy. Alicia, when she included Duff in her invitations, felt an +assurance that the steamer must by that time have reached Aden, and rose +almost with buoyancy to the illusion you can make if you like, with the +geographical mile. She could hardly have left him out in any case--he +could almost have demanded an explanation--since it was one of those +parties which she gave every now and then, undiscouraged, with the focus +of Hilda Howe. It had to be every now and then, because Calcutta society +was so little adapted to appreciate meeting talented actresses--there +were so many people whom Alicia had to consider as to whether they +would "mind." Hilda marvelled at the sanguine persistence of +Miss Livingstone's efforts in this direction, the results were so +fragmentary, so dislocated and indecisive, but she also rejoiced. She +took life, as may have appeared, at a broad and generous level, it quite +comprehended the salient points of a Calcutta dinner-party; and it was +seldom that she failed, metaphorically speaking, to carry away a bone +from the feast. If you found this reprehensible she would have told you +she had observed they do it in Japan, where manners are the best in the +world. + +Doubtless Hilda would have dwelt longer upon such a dinner-party than I, +with no consolatory bone to gnaw in private, find myself inclined to do. +To me it is depressing and a little cruel to be compelled to betray the +inadequacy of the personal element at Alicia's banquets, especially in +connection with the conspicuous excellence of the cooking. A poverty of +cuisine would have provoked no contrast, and one irony the less would +have been offered up to the gods that season. The limitations of her +resources were, of course, arbitrary, that is plain in the fact that she +asked such a person as the Head of the Department of Education, with no +better reason than that he had laid almost the whole of Shelley under +critical notes for the benefit of Calcutta University. There was also a +civilian who had written a few years before an article in the Nineteenth +Century about the aboriginal tribes of the Central Provinces, and +the lady attached to him, who had been at one time the daughter of a +Lieutenant-Governor. The Barberrys were there because Mrs. Barberry +loved meeting anybody that was clever, admired brains beyond anything; +and an A.D.C. who had to be asked because Mrs. Barberry was; and Captain +Salter Symmes, who took leading male parts in Mr. Pinero's plays when +they were produced in Simla and was invariably considered up there to +have done them better than any professional they have at home, though +he was even more successful as a contortionist when the entertainment +happened to be a burlesque. Taking Hilda and Lindsay and Stephen Arnold +as a basis, Alicia had built up her party, with the contortionist as it +were at the apex, on his head. The Livingstones had family connection +with a leading London publishing firm, and Alicia may possibly have +reflected as she surveyed her completed work, how much better than +capering captains she could have done in Chelsea, though it cannot be +admitted likely that she would harbour, at that particular instant, so +ungracious a thought. And indeed it was a creditable party, it would +almost unanimously call itself, next day, a delightful one. Miss Howe +made the most agreeable excitement, you might almost have heard the +heart-beats of the wife of the literary civilian, as she just escaped +being introduced, and so availed herself of the dinner's opportunity for +intimate observation without letting herself in a particle--most clever. +Mrs. Barberry, of course, rushed upon the spear, she always did, and +made a gushing little speech with every eye upon her in the middle +of the room, without a thought of consequences. The A.D.C. was also +empresse, one would have thought that he himself was acting, the way he +bowed and picked up Hilda's fan--a grace lingered in it from the minuet +he had danced the week before, in ruffles and patches, with the daughter +of the Commander-in-Chief. Duff got out of the way to enable the newly +introduced Head of the Department of Education to inform Miss Howe that +he never went to the theatre in Calcutta himself, it was much too badly +ventilated; and Stephen Arnold arriving late, shot like an embarrassed +arrow through the company to Alicia's side, and was still engaged there +in grieved explanation when dinner was announced. + +There were pink water-lilies, and Stephen said grace--those were the +pictorial features. Half of the people had taken their seats when he +began; there was a hasty scramble, and a decorous half-checked smile. +Hilda, at the first word of the brief formula, blushed hotly; then +she stood while he spoke, with bowed head and clasped hands like a +reverently inclining statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek; she drew +a kind of isolation from the way her manner underlined the office. The +civilian's wife, with a side-glance, settled it off-hand that she was +absurdly affected; and indeed to an acuter intelligence it might have +looked as if she took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that was not +offered. + +That was the one instant, however, in which the civilian's wife, +observing the actress, was gratified; and it was so brief that she +complained afterwards that Miss Howe was disappointing. She certainly +went out of her way to be normal. Since it was her daily business to +personate exceptional individuals, it seemed to be her pleasure that +night to be like everybody else. She did it on opulent lines; there was +a richness in her agreement that the going was as hard as iron on the +Ellenborough course, and a soft ingenuousness in her inquiries about +punkahs and the brain-fever bird that might have aroused suspicion, but +after a brief struggle to respond to the unusualness she ought to have +represented, Alicia's guests gratefully accepted her on their own terms +instead. She expanded in the light and the glow and the circumstance; +she looked with warm pleasure at the orchids the men wore and the +jewelled necks of the women. The social essence of Alicia's little +dinner-party passed into her, and she moved her head like the civilian's +wife. She felt the champagne investing her chatter and the chatter +of the Head of the Department of Education with the most satisfying +qualities, which were oddly stimulated when she glanced over the brim of +her glass at Stephen, sitting at the turn of the oval, giving a gravely +humble but perfunctory attention to Mrs. Barberry, and drinking water. +The occasion grew before her into a gorgeous flower, living, pulsating, +and in the heart of its light and colour the petals closed over her +secret, over him, the unconscious priest with the sloping shoulders, +thinking of abstinence and listening to Mrs. Barberry. + +It transpired when the men came up that there was no unanimity about +going to Government House. The Livingstones craved the necessity of +absence, if anyone would supply it by staying on; it would be a boon +they said, and cited the advancement of the season. "One gets to bed so +much earlier," Surgeon-Major Livingstone urged, at which Alicia raised +her eyebrows and everybody laughed. Lindsay elected to gratify them, +with the proclaimed purpose of seeing how long Livingstone could be kept +up, and the civilian pair agreed, apparently from a tendency to remain +seated. The A.D.C. had, of course, to go; duty called him; and he +declared a sense of slighted hospitality that anybody should remain +behind. "Besides," he cried, with ingenuous privilege, "who's goin' to +chaperone Miss Howe?" + +Hilda stood in the midst. Tall, in violet velvet, she had a flush that +made her magnificent; her eyes were deep and soft. It was patent that +she was out of proportion to the other women, body and soul; there was +altogether too much of her; and it was only the men, when Captain Corby +spoke, who looked silently responsive. + +"We're coming away so early," said Mrs. Barberry, buttoning her glove. +Hilda had begun to smile, and, indeed, the situation had its humour, but +there was also behind her eyes an appreciation of another sort. "Don't," +she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach of her prompting tone, as if +the other had mistaken her cue, but the moment hardly permitted retreat, +and Alicia turned an unflinching graceful front to the lady in the +Department of Education. "Then I think I must ask you," she said. + +The educational husband was standing so near Hilda that she got the very +dregs of the glance of consternation his little wife gave him as +she replied, a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure she would be +delighted. + +"Nobody suggests ME!" exclaimed Captain Corby resentfully. They were +gathered in the hall, the carriages were driving to the open door, the +Barberry's glistening brougham whisking them off, and then the battered +vehicle in Hilda's hire. It had an air of ludicrous forlornness, with +its damaged paint and its tied-up harness. Hilda, when its door closed +upon the purple vision of her, might have been a modern Cinderella in +mid-stage of backward transformation. + +"I could chaperone you all!" she cried gaily back at them, as she passed +down the steps; and in the relief of the general exclamation it seemed +reasonable enough that Stephen Arnold should lean into the gharry to +see that she was quite comfortable. The unusual thing, which nobody else +heard, was that he said to her then with shamed discomfort, "It doesn't +matter--it doesn't matter," and that Hilda, driving away, found herself +without a voice to answer the good-nights they chorussed after her. + +Arnold begged a seat in Captain Corby's dogcart, and Hilda, with her +purple train in her lap, heard the wheels following all the way. She +re-encountered the lady to whom she had been entrusted, whose name it +occurs to me was Winstick, in the cloakroom. They were late; there was +hardly anybody else but the attendants; and Mrs. Winstick smiled freely, +and said she loved the colour of Hilda's dress; also that she would give +worlds for an invisible hairpin--oh, thank you!--and that it was simply +ducky of her Excellency to have pink powder as well as white put out. +She did hope Miss Howe would enjoy the evening--they would meet again +later on; she must not forget to look at the chunam pillars in the +ballroom--perfectly lovely. So she vanished; but Hilda went with +certainty into the corridor to find Arnold pacing up and down the red +strip of carpet, with his hands clasped behind him and his head thrust +forward, waiting for her. + +They dropped together into the crowd and walked among well-dressed +women, men in civilian black and men in uniform, up and down the +pillared spaces of the ballroom. People had not been asked to dance, and +they seemed to walk about chiefly for observation. There was, of course, +the opportunity of talking and of listening to the band which discoursed +in a corner behind palms, but the distraction which is the social +Nemesis of bureaucracy was in the air, visibly increasing in the +neighbourhoods of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, and made the +commonplaces people uttered to each other disjointed and fragmentary, +while it was plain that few were aware whether music was being rendered +or not. Anyone sensitive to pervading mental currents in gatherings of +this sort would have found the relief of concentration and directness +only near the buffet that ran along one side of the room, where the +natural instinct played, without impediment, upon soup and sandwiches. + +They did not look much at Hilda, even on the arm of her liveried priest. +She was a strange vessel, sailing in from beyond their ken, and her +pilot was almost as novel, yet they were incurious. Their interests were +not in any way diffused, they had one straight line and it led upward, +pausing at the personalities clerked above them, with an ultimate point +in the head of a department. The Head of the Department was the only +person unaware, when addressed, of a travelling eye in search over +his shoulder of somebody with whom it would be more advantageous +to converse. Yet there were a few people apparently not altogether +indifferent to the presence of Miss Howe. She saw them here and there, +and when Arnold said, "It must seem odd to you, but I know hardly +anybody here. We attempt no social duties," she singled out this one and +that, whom Alicia had asked to meet her, and mentioned them to him with +a warm pleasure in implying one of the advantages of belonging to the +world rather than to the cloister. Stephen knew their names and their +dignities. He received what she said with suitably impressed eyebrow +and nods of considerate assent. Hilda carried him along, as it were, in +their direction. She was full that night of a triumphant sense of her +own vitality, her success and value as a human unit. There was that in +her blood which assured her of a welcome, it had logic in it, with the +basis of her rarity, her force, her distinction among other women. +She pressed forward to human fellowship with a smile on her lips, as +a delightful matter of course, going towards the people who were not +indifferent to the fact that she was there, who could not be entirely, +since they had some sort of knowledge of her. + +In no case did they ignore her, but they were so cheerfully engaged +in conversation that they were usually quite oblivious of her. She +encountered this animated absorption two or three times, then turning +she found that the absorbed ones had changed their places--were no +longer in her path. One lady put herself at a safe distance and then +bowed, with much cordiality. It was extraordinary in a group of five how +many glistening shoulders would be presented, quite without offence, +to her approach. Mrs. Winstick had hidden behind the Superintendent of +Stamps and Stationery, to whom she was explaining, between spoonfuls +of strawberry ice, her terrible situation. And from the lips of another +lady whose face she knew, she heard after she had passed, "Don't you +think it's rather an omnium gatherum?" + +It was like Hilda Howe to note at that moment with serious interest, +how the little world about them had the same negative attitude for the +missionary priest beside her, presenting it with a hardly perceptible +difference. Within its limits there was plainly no room for him either. +His acquaintances--he had a few--bowed with the kind of respect which +implies distance, and in the wandering eyes of the others it was plain +that he did not exist. She saw, too, with a very delicate pleasure, +that he carried himself in his grave humility untouched and unconscious. +Expecting nothing he was unaware that he received nothing. It was odd, +and in its way charming, that she who saw and knew drew from their +mutual grievance a sense of pitiful protection for him, the unconscious +one. For herself, the tide that bore her on was too deep to let these +things hurt her, she looked down and saw the soreness and humiliation of +them pictorially, at the bottom, gliding smoothly over. They brought no +stereotype to her smile, no dissonance to what she found to say. When at +last she and Arnold sat down together her standpoint was still superior, +and she herself was so aloof from it all that she could talk about +it without bitterness, divorcing the personal pang from a social +manifestation of some dramatic value. In offering up her egotism that +way she really only made more subtle sacrifices to it, but one could +hardly expect such a consideration, just then, to give her pause. She +anointed his eyelids, she made him see, and he was relieved to find in +her light comment that she took the typical Mrs. Winstick less seriously +than he had supposed when they drove away from the Livingstones'. It +could not occur to him to correct the impression he had then by the +sound of his own voice uttering sympathy. + +"But I know now what a wave feels like dashing against a cliff," she +said. "Fancy my thinking I could impose myself! That is the wave's +reflection." + +"It goes back into the sea which is its own; and there," said the +priest, whom nature had somehow cheated by the false promise of high +moralities out of an inheritance of beauty,--"and there, I think, is +depth and change and mystery, with joy in the obedience of the tides and +a full beating upon many shores--" + +"Ah, my sea! I hear it calling always, even," she said +half-reflectively, "when I am talking to you. But sometimes I think I +am not a wave at all, only a shell, to be stranded and left, always with +the calling in my ears--" She seemed to have dropped altogether into +reverie, and then looked up suddenly, laughing, because he could not +understand. + +"After all," she said practically, "what has that to do with it? One +doesn't blame these people. They are stupid--that's all. They want +the obvious. The leading lady of Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope--without the +smallest diamond--who does song and dance on Saturday nights--what can +you expect! If I had a great name they would be pleased enough to see +me. It is one of the rewards of the fame." She was silent for a moment, +and then she added, "They are very poor." + +"Those rewards! I have sometimes thought," Arnold said, "that you were +not devoured by thirst for them." + +"When we are together, you and I," she answered simply, "I never am." + +He took it at its face value. They had had some delightful +conversations. If her words awakened anything in him it was the +remembrance of these. The solace of her companionship presented itself +to him again, and her statement gave their mutual confidence another +seal; that was all. They sat where they were for half an hour, and +something like antagonism and displeasure towards the secretaries' wives +settled upon them, from which Hilda, interrupting a glance or two from +the ladies purring past, drew suspicion. "I am going now," she said. +"It--it isn't quite suitable here," and there was just enough suggestion +in the point of her fan to make him think of his frock. "It is an +unpardonable truth that if we stay any longer I shall make people talk +about you." + +He turned astonished eyes upon her, eyes in which she remembered +afterwards there was absolutely nothing but a literal and pained +apprehension of what she said. "You are a good woman," he exclaimed. +"How could such a thing be possible!" + +The faintest embarrassment, the merest suggestion of distress, came into +her face and concentrated in her eyes, which she fixed upon him as if +she would bring his words to the last analysis, and answer him as she +would answer a tribunal. + +"A good woman?" she repeated, "I don't know--isn't that a refinement of +virtue? No; standing on my sex I make no claim, but as PEOPLE go I am +good. Yes, I am good." + +"In my eyes you are splendid," he replied, content, and gave her +his arm. They went together through the reception-rooms, and the +appreciation of her grew in him. If in the bright and silken distance he +had not seen his Bishop it might have glowed into a cordiality of speech +with his distinctive individual stamp on it. But he saw his Bishop, his +ceinture tightened on him, and he uttered only the trite saying about +the folly of counting on the sensibility of swine. + +"Yes," she laughed into her good-night to him, "but I'm not sure that it +isn't better to be the pig than the pearl." + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +"Not long ago," said Hilda, "I had a chat with him. We sat on the grass +in the middle of the Maidan, and there was nothing to interfere with my +impressions." + +"What were your impressions? No!" Alicia cried. "No! Don't tell me. It +is all so peaceful now, and simple, and straightforward. You think such +extraordinary things. He comes here quite often, to talk about her. He +is coming this afternoon. So I have impressions too--and they are just +as good." + +"All right." Hilda crossed her knees more comfortably. "WHAT did you say +the Surgeon-Major paid for those Teheran tiles?" + +"Something absurd--I've forgotten. He writes to her regularly, diary +letters, by every mail." + +"Do you tell him what to put into them?" + +"Hilda, sometimes--you're positively gross." + +"I daresay, my dear. You didn't come out of a cab, and you never are. I +like being gross, I feel nearer to nature then, but I don't say that +as an excuse. I like the smell of warm kitchens and the talk +of bus-drivers, and bread and herrings for my tea--all the low +satisfactions appeal to me. Beer, too, and hand-organs." + +"I don't know when to believe you. He talks about her quite freely, +and--and so do I. She is really interesting in her way." + +"And in perspective." + +"Why should you be odiously smart. He and Stephen"--her glance was +tentative--"have made it up." + +"Oh?" + +"He admits now that Stephen was justified, from his point of view. But +of course that is easy enough when you have come off best." + +"Of course." + +"Hilda, what do you THINK?" + +"Oh, I think it's deplorable--you have always known what I think. Have +you seen him lately--I mean your cousin?" + +"He lunched with us yesterday. He was more enthusiastic than ever about +you." + +"I wish you could tell me that he hadn't mentioned my name. I don't want +his enthusiasm. The pit gives one that." + +"Hilda, tell me; what is your idea of--of what it ought to be? What is +the principal part of it? Not enthusiasm--adoration?" + +"Goodness, no! Something quite different and quite simple--too simple to +explain. Besides, it is a thing that requires the completest ignorance +to discuss comfortably. Do you want me to vivisect my soul? You +yourself, can you talk about what most possesses you?" + +"Oh," protested Alicia, "I wasn't thinking about myself," and at the +same moment the door opened and Hilda said, "Ah! Mr. Lindsay." + +There was a hint of the unexpected in Duff's response to Miss Howe's +greeting, and a suggestion in the way he sat down that this made a +difference, and that he must find other things to say. He found them +with facility, while Hilda decided that she would finish her tea before +she went. Alicia, busy with the urn, seemed satisfied to abandon them to +each other, to take a decorative place in the conversation, interrupting +it with brief inquiries about cream and sugar. Alicia waited, it was her +way; she sank almost palpably into the tapestries until some reviving +circumstance should bring her out again, a process which was quite +compatible with her little laughs and comments. She waited, offering +repose, and unconscious even of that. You know Hilda Howe as a creature +of bold reflections. Looking at Alicia Livingstone behind the teapot, +the conviction visited her that a sex three-quarters of this fibre +explained the monastic clergy. + +"It is reported that you have performed the wonderful, the impossible," +Lindsay said; "that Llewellyn Stanhope goes home solvent." + +"I don't know how he can help it now. But I have to be very firm. He's +on his knees to me to do Ibsen. I tell him I will if he'll combine with +Jimmy Finnigan and bring the Surprise Party on between the acts. The +only way it would go, in this capital." + +"Oh, do produce Ibsen," Alicia exclaimed; "I've never seen one of his +plays--doesn't it sound terrible!" + +"If people will elect to live upon a coral strand--oh, I should like to, +for you and Duff here, but Ibsen is the very last man to deliver to a +scratch company. He must have equal merit, or there's no meaning. +You see he makes none of the vulgar appeals. It would be a tame +travesty--nobody could redeem it alone. You must keep to the old +situations, the reliable old dodges, when you play in any part of Asia." + +"I never shall cease to regret that I didn't see you in The Offence of +Galilee?" Duff said. "Everyone who knows the least bit about it said you +were marvellous in that." + +"Marvellous," said Alicia + +Hilda gazed straight before her for an instant without speaking. The +others looked at her absent eyes. "A bazar trick or two helped me," +she said, and glanced with vivacity at any other subject that might be +hanging on the wall, or visible out of the window. + +"And are you really invincible about not putting it on again in +Calcutta?" Duff asked. + +"Not in Calcutta, or anywhere. The rest hate it--nobody has a chance but +me," Hilda said, and got up. + +"Oh, I don't know," Alicia began, but Miss Howe was already half-way +out of the discussion, in the direction of the door. There was often a +brusqueness in her comings and goings, but she usually left a flavour of +herself behind. One turned with facility to talk about her, this being +the easiest way of applying the stimulus that came of talking to her. +It was more conspicuous than either of these two realised that they +accepted her retreat without a word, that there was even between them a +consciousness of satisfaction that she had gone. + +"This morning's mail," said Alicia, smiling brightly at Lindsay, +"brought you a letter, I know." It was extraordinary how detached she +could be from her vital personal concern in him. It seemed relegated +to some background of her nature while she occupied herself with the +immediate play of circumstance or was lost in her observation of him. + +"How kind of you to think of it," Lindsay said. "This was the first by +which I could possibly hear from England." + +"Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. Letters from on board ship +are always difficult to write and unsatisfactory," Alicia said. Miss +Filbert's had been postcards, with a wide unoccupied margin at the +bottom. + +"The Sutlej seems to have arrived on the third; that's a day later, +isn't it, than we made out she would be?" + +Alicia consulted her memory, and found she couldn't be sure. Lindsay was +vexed by a similar uncertainty, but they agreed that the date was early +in the month. + +"Did they get comfortably through the Canal? I remember being tied up +there for forty-eight hours once." + +"I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have been all right. +The voyage is bound to do her good. I've asked the Simpsons to watch +particularly for any sign of malaria later, though. One can't possibly +know what she may have imported from that slum in Bentinck Street." + +"And what was it like after Gibraltar?" Alicia asked, with a barely +perceptible glance at the envelope edges showing over his breast-pocket. + +"I'll look," and he sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a +diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay drew out the single sheet it contained, +and she could see that every line was ruled and faintly pencilled. "Let +me see," said he. "To begin at the beginning. 'We arrived home on the +third,'--you see it was the third,--'making very slow progress the +last day on account of a fog in the Channel'--ah, a fog in the +Channel!--'which was a great disappointment to some on board who were +impatient to meet their loved ones. One lady had not seen her family of +five for seven years. She said she would like to get out and swim, and +you could not wonder. She was my s--stable companion." + +"Quaint!" said Alicia. + +"She has picked up the expression on board. 'So--so she told me this.' +Oh yes. 'Now that it is all over I have written the voyage down among +my mercies in spite of three days' sickness, when you could keep nothing +on--' What are those two words, Miss Livingstone? I can't quite make +them out." + +"'Your'--cambric?--stom--'stomach'--'your stomach.'" + +"Oh, quite so. Thanks!--'in the Bay of Biscay.' You see it WAS rough +after Gib. 'Everybody was'--yes. 'The captain read Church of England +prayers on Sunday mornings, in which I had no objection to join, and we +had mangoes every day for a week after leaving Ceylon.'" + +"Miss Filbert was so fond of mangoes," Alicia said. + +"Was she? 'The passengers got up two dances, and quite a number of +gentlemen invited me, but I declined with thanks, though I would not say +it is wrong in itself.'" Lindsay seemed to waver; her glance went +near enough to him to show her that his face had a red tinge of +embarrassment. He looked at the letter uncertainly, on the point of +folding it up. + +"You see she hasn't danced for so long," Alicia put in quickly; "she +would naturally hesitate about beginning again with anybody but you. I +shouldn't wonder," she added gently, "if she never does, with anybody +else." + +"I know it's an idea some women have," he replied. "I think it's +rather--nice." + +"And her impressions of the Simpsons--and Plymouth?" + +"She goes on to that." He reconsulted the letter. "'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson +met me as expected and welcomed me very affably.' She has got hold of +a wrong impression there, I fancy; the Simpsons couldn't be 'affable.' +'They seem very kind and pleasant for such stylish people, and their +house is lovely, with electric light in the parlour and hot and cold +water throughout. They seem very earnest people and have family prayers +regularly, but I have not yet been asked to lead. Four servants come in +to prayers. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson are deeply interested in the work of +the Army, though I think Plymouth as a whole is more taken up with the +C.M.S.; but we cannot have all things.' Dear me, yes! I remember those +evangelical teas and the disappointment that I could not speak more +definitely about the work among the Sontalis." + +"Fancy her having caught the spirit of the place already!" exclaimed +Alicia. "He went on: 'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson have a beautiful garden and +grow most of their own vegetables. We sit in it a great deal and I think +of all that has passed. I hope ever that it has been for the best and +pray for you always. Oh that your feet may be set in the right path and +that we may walk hand in hand upon the way to Zion!'" Lindsay lowered +his voice and read the last sentences rapidly, as if the propulsion +of the first part of the letter sent him through them. Then he stopped +abruptly, and Alicia looked up. + +"That's all, only," he added, with an awkward smile, "the usual +formula." + +"'God bless you'?" she asked, and he nodded. + +"It has a more genuine ring than most formulas," she observed. + +"Yes, hasn't it? May I have another cup?" He restored the pink sheet to +its pink envelope, and both to his breast-pocket, while she poured out +the other cup, but Miss Filbert was still present with them. They went +on talking about her, and entirely in the tone of congratulation--the +suitability of the Simpsons, the suitability of Plymouth, the +probability that she would entirely recover, in its balmy atmosphere, +her divine singing voice. Plymouth certainly was in no sense a tonic, +but Miss Filbert didn't need a tonic; she was too much inclined to +be strung up as it was. What she wanted was the soothing, quieting +influence of just Plymouth's meetings and just Plymouth's teas. The +charms that so sweetly and definitely characterised her would expand +there; it was a delightful flowery environment for them, and she +couldn't fail to improve in health. Devonshire's visitors got +tremendously well fed, with fish items of especial excellence. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Nobody could have been more impressed with Hilda's influence upon Mr. +Llewellyn Stanhope's commercial probity than Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope +himself. He was a prey to all noble feelings; they ruled his life and +spoiled his bargains; and gratitude, when it had a chance, which was +certainly seldom in connection with leading ladies, dominated him +entirely. He sat in the bar of the Great Eastern Hotel with tears in +his eyes, talking about what Miss Howe had done for him, and gave +unnecessary backsheesh to coolies who brought him small bills--so long, +that is, as they were the small bills of this season. When they had +reference to the liabilities of a former and less prosperous year he +waved them away with a bitter levity which belonged to the same period. +His view of his obligations was strictly chronological, and in taking +it he counted, like the poet, only happy hours. The bad debt and the +bad season went consistently together to oblivion; the sun of to-day's +remarkable receipts could not be expected to penetrate backwards. + +He had only one fault to find with Miss Howe--she had no artistic +conscience--none, and he found this with the utmost leniency, basking +in the consciousness that it made his own more conspicuous. She was +altogether in the grand style, if you understood Mr. Stanhope, but +nothing would induce her to do herself justice before Calcutta; she +seemed to have taken the measure of the place and to be as indifferent! +Try to ring in anything worth doing and she was off with the bit between +her teeth, and you simply had to put up with it. The second lead had a +great deal more ambition, and a very good little woman in her way, too, +but of course not half the talent. He was obliged to confess that Miss +Howe wasn't game for risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the +night the circus opened to a twenty-five rupee house. It WAS monstrous. +She seemed to think that nothing mattered so much as that everybody +should be paid on the first of the month. There was one other grievance, +which Llewellyn mentioned only in confidence with a lowered voice. That +was Bradley. Hilda wasn't lifting a finger to keep Bradley. Result was, +Bradley was crooking his elbow a great deal too often lately and going +off every way. He, Llewellyn, had put it to her if that was the way to +treat a man the Daily Telegraph had spoken about as it had spoken about +Hamilton Bradley. Where was she--where was he--going to find another? +No, he didn't say marry Bradley; there were difficulties, and after all +that might be the very way to lose him. But a woman had an influence, +and that influence could never be more fittingly exercised than in the +cause of dramatic art based on Mr. Stanhope's combinations. Mr. Stanhope +expressed himself with a difference, but it came to that. + +Perhaps if you pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the +track of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the +further fact that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel +for procrastination. Next season was imminent in his arrangements, as +Christmas numbers are imminent to publishers at midsummer, and here she +was shying at a contract as if they had months for consideration. It +wasn't either as if she complained of anything in the terms--that would +be easy enough fixed--but she said herself that it was a bigger salary +than he, Llewellyn, would ever be able to pay unless she went round +with the hat. Nor had she any objection to the tour--a fascinating +one--including the Pacific Slope and Honolulu. It stumped him, +Llewellyn, to know what she did object to, and why she couldn't bark it +out at once, seeing she must understand perfectly well it was no use his +going to Bradley without first settling with her. + +Hilda, alone in her own apartment--it was difficult to keep +Llewellyn Stanhope away from even that door in his pursuit of her +signature--considered the vagary life had become for her that was so +whimsical, and the mystery of her secret which was so solely hers. +Alicia knew, of course; but that was as if she had written it down on a +sheet of perfect notepaper and locked it up in a drawer. Alicia did +not speculate about it, and the whole soul of it was tangled now in a +speculation. There had been a time filled with the knowledge and the joy +of this new depth in her like a buoyant sea, and she had been content +to float in it, imagining desirable things. Stanhope's waiting contract +made a limit to the time--a limit she brought up against without +distress or shock, but with a kind of recognising thrill in contact +at last with the necessity for action, decision, a climax of high +heart-beats. She saw with surprise that she had lived with her passion +these weeks and months half consciously expecting that a crucial moment +would dissolve it, like a person aware that he dreams and will presently +awake. She had not faced till now any exigency of her case. But the +crucial moment had leapt upon her, pointing out the subjection of her +life, and she, undefended, sought only how to accomplish her bonds. + +Certainly she saw no solution that did not seem monstrous; yet every +pulse in her demanded a solution; there was no questioning the imperious +need. She had the fullest, clearest view of the situation, and she +looked at it without flinching and without compromise. Above all she had +true vision of Stephen Arnold, glorifying nowhere, extenuating nothing. +It was almost cruel to be the victim of such circumstance, and be denied +the soft uses of illusion; but if that note of sympathy had been offered +to Hilda she would doubtless have retorted that it was precisely +because she saw him that she loved him. His figure, in its poverty and +austerity, was always with her; she made with the fabric of her nature +a kind of shrine for it, enclosing, encompassing; and her possession +of him, by her knowledge, was deep and warm and protecting. I think the +very fulness of it brought her a kind of content with which, but +for Llewellyn and his contract, she would have been willing to go on +indefinitely. It made him hers in a primary and essential way, beside +which any mere acknowledgment or vow seemed chiefly decorative, like the +capital of a pillar firmly rooted. There may be an appearance that she +took a good deal for granted; if there is, I fear that in the baldness +of this history it has not been evident how much and how variously +Arnold depended on her, in how many places her colour and her vitality +patched out the monkish garment of his soul. This with her enthusiasm +and her cognisance. It may be remembered, too, that there was in the +very tenderness of her contemplation of the priest in her path an +imperious tinge born of the way men had so invariably melted there. +Certainly they had been men and not priests; but the little flickering +doubt that sometimes leaped from this source through the glow of her +imagination she quenched very easily with the reflection that such a +superficies was after all a sophistry, and that only its rudiments were +facts. She proposed, calmly and lovingly, to deal with the facts. + +She told herself that she would not be greedy about the conditions under +which she should prevail; but her world had always, always shaped itself +answering her hand, and if she cast her eyes upon the ground now, and +left the future, even to-morrow, undevisaged, it was because she would +not find any concessions of her own among its features if she could +help it. It was a trick she played upon her consciousness; she would not +look, but she could see without looking. She saw that which explained +itself to be best, fittest, most reasonable; and thus she sometimes +wandered with Arnold anticipatively, on afternoons when there was no +matinee, through the perfumed orange orchards of Los Angeles, on the +Pacific slope. + +She would not search to-morrow; but she took toward it one of +those steps of vague intention, at the end of which we beckon to +possibilities. She wrote to Stephen and asked him to come to see her +then. She had not spoken to him since the night of the Viceroy's party, +when she put her Bohemian head out of the ticca-gharry to wish him +good-night, and he walked home alone under the stars, trying to remember +a line of Horace, a chaste one, about woman's beauty. She sent the note +by post. There was no answer; but that was as usual; there never was an +answer unless something prevented him; he always came, and ten minutes +before the time. When the time arrived she sat under the blue umbrellas +devising what she would say, creating fifty different forms of what he +would say, while the hands slipped round the clock past the moment that +should have brought his step to the door. Hilda noted it, and compared +her watch. A bowl of roses stood on a little table near a window; she +got up and went to it, bending over and rearranging the flowers. The +light fell on her and on the roses; it was a beautiful attitude, and +when at a footfall she looked up expectantly it was more beautiful. But +it was only another boarder--a Mr. Gonzalves, with a highly varnished +complexion, who took off his hat elaborately as he passed the open +door. She became conscious of her use of the roses, and abandoned them. +Presently she sat down on a bentwood rocking-chair, and swayed to and +fro, aware of an ebbing of confidence. Half an hour later she was still +sitting there. Her face had changed, something had faded in it; her gaze +at the floor was profoundly speculative, and when she glanced at the +empty door it was with timidity. Arnold had not come and did not come. + +The evening passed without explanation, and next morning the post +brought no letter. It was simplest to suppose that her own had not +reached him, and Hilda wrote again. The second letter she sent by hand, +with a separate sheet of paper addressed for signature. The messenger +brought back the sheet of paper with strange initials, "J. L. for S. +A.," and there was no reply. There remained the possibility of absence +from Calcutta, of illness. That he should have gone away was most +unlikely, that he had fallen ill was only too probable. Hilda looked +from her bedroom window across the varying expanse of parapeted flat +roofs and mosque bubbles that lay between her and College Street, and +curbed the impulse in her feet that would have resulted in the curious +spectacle of Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady calling in person at a +monastic gate to express a kind of solicitude against which precisely it +was barred. A situation after all could be too pictorial, looked at +from the point of view of the Order, a consideration which flashed with +grateful humour across her anxiety. Alicia would have known; but both +the Livingstones had gone for a short sea change to Ceylon, with Duff +Lindsay and some touring people from Surrey. They were most anxious, +Hilda remembered, that Arnold should accompany them. Could he in the end +have gone? There was, of course, the accredited fount and source of all +information, the Father Superior; but with what propriety could Hilda +Howe apply for it! Llewellyn might write for her; but it was glaringly +impossible that the situation should lay itself so far open to +Llewellyn. Looking in vain for resources she came upon an expedient. She +found a sheet of cheap notepaper, and made it a little greasy. On it +she wrote with red ink, in the cramped hand of the hired scribe of the +bazar:-- + + +"SIR--Will you please to inform to me if Mr. Arnold has gone mofussil +or England as I have some small business with him. Yours obedient +servant,--WUN SING." + + +"It can't be forgery," she reflected, "since there isn't a Wun Sing," +and added an artistic postscript, "Boots and shoes verry much cheap +for cash." She made up the envelope to match, and addressed it with +consistent illiteracy to the head of the Mission. The son of the Chinese +basketmaker, who dwelt almost next door, spoke neither English +nor Hindustani, but showed an easy comprehension of her promise of +backsheesh when he should return with an answer. She had a joyful +anticipation, while she waited, of the terms in which she should tell +Arnold how she passed disguised as a Chinese shoemaker, before the +receptive and courteous consciousness of his spiritual senior; of how +she penetrated, in the suggestion of a pigtail and an unpaid bill, +within the last portals that might be expected to receive her in the +form under which, for example, certain black and yellow posters were +presenting her to the public at that moment. She saw his scruples go +swiftly down before her laughter and the argument of her tender anxiety, +which she was quite prepared to learn foolish and unnecessary. There was +even an adventurous instant in which she reaped at actual personation of +the Chinaman, and she looked in rapture at the vivid risk of the thing +before she abandoned it as involving too much. She sent no receipt +form this time--that was not the practice of the bazar--and when, hours +after, her messenger returned with weariness and dejection written upon +him, in the characters of a perfunctory Chinese smile, she could only +gather from his negative head and hands that no answer had been given +him, and that her expedient had failed. + +Hilda stared at her dilemma. Its properties were curiously simple. +His world and hers, with the same orbit, had no point of contact. Once +swinging round their eastern centre they had come close enough for these +two, leaning very far out, to join hands. When they loosed it seemed +they lost. + +The more she gazed at it the more it looked a preposterous thing that in +a city vibrant with human communication by all the methods which make it +easy, it should be possible for one individual thus to drop suddenly +and completely from the knowledge of another--a mediaeval thing. Their +isolation as Europeans of course accounted for it; there was no medium +in the brown population that hummed in the city streets. Hilda could not +even bribe a servant without knowing how to speak to him. She ravaged +the newspapers; they never were more bare of reference to consecrated +labours. The nearest approach to one was a paragraph chronicling +a social evening given by the Wesleyans in Sudder Street, with +an exhibition of the cinematograph. In a moment of defiance and +determination she sent a telegram studiously colourless, "Unable find +you wish communicate please inform. A. Cassidy." Arnold had never +ignored the name she was born to, in occasional scrupulous moments he +addressed her by it; he would recognise and understand. There was no +reply. + +The enigma pressed upon her days, she lived in the heaviness of it, +waiting. His silence adding itself up, brought her a kind of shame for +the exertions she had made. She turned with obstinacy from the further +schemes her ingenuity presented. Out of the sum of her unsuccessful +efforts grew a reproach of Arnold; every one of them increased it. +His behaviour she could forgive, arbitrarily putting against it twenty +explanations, but not the futility of what she had done. Her resentment +of that undermined all the fairness of her logic and even triumphed over +the sword of her suspense. She never quite gave up the struggle, but +in effect she passed the week that intervened pinioned in her +unreason--bands that vanished as she looked at them, only to tie her +thrice in another place. + +Life became a permanent interrogation point. Waiting under it, with a +perpetual upward gaze, perhaps she grew a little dizzy. The sun of March +had been increasing, and the air of one particular Saturday afternoon +had begun to melt and glow and hang in the streets with a kind of +inertia, like a curtain that had to be parted to be penetrated. Hilda +came into the house and faced the stairs with an inclination to leave +her body on the ground-floor and mount in spirit only. When she glanced +in at the drawing-room door and saw Arnold sitting under the blue +umbrellas, a little paler, a thought more serene than usual, she swept +into the room as if a tide carried her, and sank down upon a footstool +close to him, as if it had dropped her there. He had risen at her +appearance, he was all himself but rather more the priest, his face of +greeting had exactly its usual asking intelligence but to her the fact +that he was normal was lost in the fact that he was near. He held out +his hand but she only sought his face, speechless, hugging her knees. + +"You are overcome by the sun," he said. "Lie down for a moment," and +again he offered her a hand to help her to rise. She shook her head +but took his hand, enclosing it in both of hers with a sort of happy +deliberation, and drew herself up by it, while her eyes, shining like +dark surfaces of some glorious consciousness within, never left his +face. So she stood beside him with her head bowed, still dumb. It was +her supreme moment; life never again brought her anything like it. It +was not that she confessed so much as that she asserted, she made +a glowing thing plain, cried out to him, still standing silent, the +deep-lying meaning of the tangle of their lives. She was shaken by a +pure delight, as if she unclosed her hand to show him a strange jewel +in her palm, hers and his for the looking. The intensity of her +consciousness swept round him and enclosed him, she knew this +profoundly, and had no thought of the insulation he had in his robe. The +instant passed; he stood unmoved definitely enough, yet some vibration +in it reached him, for there was surprise in his involuntary backward +step. + +"You must have thought me curiously rude," he said, as if he felt about +for an explanation, "but your letters were only given to me an hour ago. +We have all been in retreat, you know." + +"In RETREAT!" Hilda exclaimed. "Ah, yes. How foolish I have been! In +retreat," she repeated softly, flicking a trace of dust from his sleeve. +"Of course." + +"It was held in St. Paul's College," Stephen went on, "by Father Neede. +Shall we sit down? And of course at such times no communications reach +us, no letters or papers." + +"No letters or papers," Hilda said, looking at him softly, as it were, +through the film of the words. They sat down, he on the sofa, she on a +chair very near it. There was another placed at a more usual distance, +but she seemed incapable of taking the step or two toward it, away from +him. + +Stephen gave himself to the grateful sense of her proximity. He had come +to sun himself again in the warmth of her fellowship; he was stirred +by her emphasis of their separation and reunion. "And what, please," he +asked, "have you been doing? Account to me for the time." + +"While you have been praying and fasting? Wondering what you were at, +and waiting for you to finish. Waiting," she said, and clasped her knees +with her intent look again, swaying a little to and fro in her content, +as if that which she waited for had already come, full, and very +desirable. + +"Have you been reading?--" + +"Oh, I have been reading nothing! You shall never go into retreat +again," she went on, with a sudden change of expression. "It is well +enough for you, but I am not good at fasting. And I have an indulgence," +she added, unaware of her soft, bright audacity, "that will cover both +our cases." + +His face uttered aloud his reflection that she was extravagant. That +it was a pity, but that what was not due to her profession might +be ascribed to the simple, clear impulse of her temperament--that +temperament which he had found to be a well of rare sincerity. + +"I am not to go any more into retreat?" he said, in grave interrogation; +but the hint of rebuke in his voice was not in his heart, and she knew +it. + +"No!" she cried. "You shall not be hidden away like that. You shall not +go alive into the tomb and leave me at the door. Because I cannot bear +it." + +She leaned toward him, and her hand fell lightly on his knee. It was a +claiming touch, and there was something in the unfolded sweetness of her +face that was not ambiguous. Arnold received the intelligence. It came +in a vague grey monitory form, a cloud, a portent, a chill menace; +but it came, and he paled under it. He seemed to lean upon his hands, +pressed one on each side of him to the seat of the sofa for support, and +he looked in fixed silence at hers, upon his knee. His face seemed to +wither, new lines came upon it as the impression grew in him; and the +glamour faded out of hers as she was sharply reminded, looking at him, +that he had not traversed the waste with her, that she had kept her +vigils alone. Yet it was all said and done, and there was no repentance +in her. She only gathered herself together, and fell back, as it were, +upon her magnificent position. As she drew her hand away, he dropped his +face into the cover of his own, leaning his elbow on his knee, and there +was a pulsing silence. The instant prolonged itself. + +"Are you praying?" Hilda asked, with much gentleness, almost a childlike +note; and he shook his head. There was another, instant's pause, and she +spoke again. + +"Are you so grieved, then," she said, "that this has come upon us?" + +Again he held his eyes away from her, clasping his hands, and looking +at the thing nearest to him, while at last blood from the heart of the +natural man in him came up and stained his face, his forehead under the +thin ruffling of colourless hair, his neck above the white band that was +his badge of difference from other men. + +"I--fear--I hardly understand," he said. The words fell cramped and +singly, and his lip twitched. "It--it is impossible to think--" He +looked as if he dared not lift his head. + +One would not say that Hilda hesitated, for there was no failing in the +wings of her high confidence, but she looked at him in a brave silence. +Her glance had tender investigation in it; she stood on the brink of her +words just long enough to ask whether they would hurt him. Seeing that +they would, she nevertheless plunged, but with infinite compassion and +consideration. She spoke like an agent of Fate, conscious and grieved. + +"_I_ understand," she said simply. "Sometimes, you know, we are quicker. +And you in your cell, how should you find out? That is why I must tell +you, because, though I am a woman, you are a priest. Partly for that +reason I may speak, partly because I love you, Stephen Arnold, better +and more ardently than you can ever love me, or anybody, I think, except +perhaps your God. And I am tired of keeping silence." + +She was so direct, so unimpassioned, that half his distress turned to +astonishment, and he faced her as if a calm and reasoned hand had +been laid upon the confusion in him. Meeting his gaze, she unbarred a +floodgate of happy tenderness in her eyes. + +"Love!" he gasped in it, "I have nothing to do with that." + +"Oh," she said, "you have everything to do with it." + +Something thrilled him without asking his permission, assuring him that +he was a man--until then a placid theory with an unconscious basis. It +was therefore a blow to his saintship, or it would have been, but +he warded it off, flushed and trembling. It was as if he had been +ambuscaded. He had to hold himself from the ignominy of flight; he rose +to cut his way out, making an effort to strike with precision. + +"Some perversity has seized you," he said. The muscles about his mouth +quivered, giving him a curious aspect. "You mean nothing of what you +say." + +"Do you believe that?" + +"I--I cannot think anything else. It is the only way I can--I can--make +excuse." + +"Ah, don't excuse me!" she murmured, with an astonishing little gay +petulance. + +"You cannot have thought--" in spite of himself he made a step towards +the door. + +"Oh, I did think--I do think. And you must not go." She too stood up, +and stayed him. "Let us at least see clearly." There was a persuading +note in her voice, one would have thought that she was dealing with a +patient or a child. "Tell me," she clasped her hands behind her back and +looked at him in marvellous simple candour, "do I really announce this +to you? Was there not in yourself anywhere--deep down--any knowledge of +it?" + +"I did not guess--I did not dream!" + +"And--now?" she asked. + +A heavenly current drifted from her, the words rose and fell on it with +the most dazing suggestion in their soft hesitancy. It must have been +by an instinct of her art that her hand went up to the cross on Arnold's +breast and closed over it, so that he should see only her. The familiar +vision of her stood close, looking things intolerably new and different. +Again came out of it that sudden liberty, that unpremeditated rush and +shock in him. He paled with indignation, with the startled resentment +of a woman wooed and hostile. His face at last expressed something +definite, it was anger; he stepped back and caught at his hat. "I am +sorry," he said, "I am sorry. I thought you infinitely above and beyond +all that." + +Hilda smiled and turned away. If he chose it was his opportunity to go, +but he stood regarding her, twirling his hat. She sat down, clasping her +knees, and looked at the floor. There was a square of sunlight on the +carpet, and motes were rising in it. + +"Ah well, so did I," she said meditatively, without raising her eyes. +Then she leaned back in the chair and looked at him, in her level simple +way. + +"It was a foolish theory," she said, "and--now--I can't understand it at +all. I am amazed to find that it even holds good with you." + +It was so much in the tone of their usual discussions that Arnold was +conscious of a lively relief. The instinct of flight died down in him; +he looked at her with something like inquiry. + +"It will always be to me curious," she went on, "that you could have +thought your part in me so limited, so poor. That is enough to say. I +find it hard to understand, anybody would, that you could take so much +good from me and not--so much more." She opened her lips again, but kept +back the words. "Yes," she added, "that is enough to say." + +But for the colourless face and the tenseness about her lips it might +have been thought that she definitely abandoned what she had learned +she could not have. There was a note of acquiescence and regret in her +voice, of calm reason above all; and this sense reached him, induced him +to listen, as he generally listened, for anything she might find that +would explain the situation. His fingers went from habit, as a man might +play with his watch chain, to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed +them, and rested mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling +in them, wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. "You could not +forget that?" she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself. +He looked into her upturned face and saw that her eyes were swimming. + +"Never!" he said, "Never!" but he walked to the nearest chair and sat +down. He seemed suddenly endowed with the courage to face this problem, +and his head, as it rose in the twilight against the window, was grave +and calm. Without a word a great tenderness of understanding filled the +space between them; an interpreting compassion went to and fro. Suddenly +a new light dawned in Hilda's eyes, she leaned forward and met his in +an absorption which caught them out of themselves into some space where +souls wander, and perhaps embrace. It was a frail adventure upon a gaze, +but it carried them infinitely far. The moment died away, neither of +them could have measured it, and when it had finally ebbed--they were +conscious of every subsiding throb--the silence remained, like a margin +for the beauty of it. They sat immovable, while the light faded. After a +time the woman spoke. "Once before," she began, but he put up his hand, +and she stopped. Then as if she would no longer be restrained. "That is +all I want," she whispered. "That is enough." + +For a time they said very little, looking back upon their divine +moment; the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and made quiet +conversation which was almost audible in the pauses. Then Hilda began +to speak, steadily, calmly. You, too, would have forgotten her folly in +what she found to say, as Arnold did; you too would have drawn faith and +courage from her face. One would not be irreverent, but if this woman +were convicted of the unforgiveable sin, she could explain it, and +obtain justification rather than pardon. Her horizon had narrowed, she +sought now only that it should enfold them both. She begged that +he would wipe out her insanity, that he would not send her away. He +listened and melted to conviction. + +"Then I may stay?" she said at the end. + +"I am satisfied--if a way can be found." + +"I will find a way," she replied. + +After which he went back through the city streets to his disciples in +new humility and profounder joy, knowing that virtue had gone out of +him. She in her room where she lodged also considered the miracle, twice +wonderful in that it asked no faith of her. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It is difficult to be precise about such a thing, but I should think +that Hilda gave herself to the marvellous aspect of what had come and +gone between them, for several hours after Arnold left her. It was not +for some time, at all events, that she arrived at the consideration--the +process was naturally downward--that the soul of the marvel lay in the +exact moment of its happening. Nothing could have been more heaven-sent +than her precious perception, exactly then, that before the shining gift +of Arnold's spiritual sympathy, all her desire for a lesser thing from +him must creep away abashed for ever. Even when the lesser thing, by +infinitely gradual expansion, again became the greater, it remained +permanently leavened and lifted in her by the strange and lovely +incident that had taken for the moment such command of her and of him. +She would not question it or reason about it, perhaps with an instinct +to avert its destruction; she simply drew it deeply into her content. +Only its sweet deception did not stay with her, and she let that go with +open hands. She wanted, more than ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all +that was so openly the Mission's and all that was so evidently God's. It +will be seen that she felt in no way compelled to advise him of this her +backsliding. I doubt whether such a perversion of her magnificent course +of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it entailed a +high disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of what the +end would be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, in +the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen Arnold stood +beyond her ultimate possession. + +There were difficulties, but the moment was favourable to her, more +favourable than it would have been the year before, or any year but +this. Before ten days had passed she was able to write to Arnold +describing her plan, and she was put to it to keep the glow of success +out of her letter. She kept it out, that, and everything but a calm and +humble statement--any Clarke Brother might have dictated it--of what she +proposed to do. Perhaps the intention was less obvious than the desire +that he should approve it. + +The messenger waited long by the entrance to the Mission House for an +answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the bazar +with the gatekeeper of the Christians. Stephen was in chapel. There was +no service; he had half an hour to rest in and he rested there. He was +speculating, in the grateful dimness, about the dogma--he had never +quite accepted it, though Colquhoun had--of the intercessory power of +the souls of saints. A converted Brahmin, an old man, had died the day +before. Arnold luxuriated in the humility of thinking that he would +be glad of any good word dear old Nourendra Lal could say for him. The +chapel was deliciously refined. The scent of fresh cut flowers floated +upon the continual presence of the incense; a lily outlined its head +against the tall carved altarpiece the Brothers had brought from +Damascus. The seven brass lamps that hung from the rafters above the +altar rails were also Damascene, carved and pierced so that the light +in them was a still thing like a prayer; and the place breathed vague +meanings which did not ask understanding. It was a refuge from the riot +and squalor of the whitewashed streets with a double value and a treble +charm--I.H.S. among plaster gods, a sanctuary in the bazar. Stephen sat +in it motionless, with his lean limbs crossed in front of him, until the +half-hour was up; then he bent his knee before the altar and went out to +meet a servant at the door with Hilda's letter. The chapel opened upon +an upper verandah, he crossed it to get a better light and stood to read +with his back half turned upon the comers and goers. + +It was her first communication since they parted, and in spite of its +colourlessness it seemed to lay strong eager hands upon him, turning his +shoulder that way, upon the world, bending his head over the page. +He had not dwelt much upon their strange experience, in the days that +followed. It had retreated, for him, behind the veil of tender mystery +with which he shrouded, even from his own eyes, the things that lay +between his soul and God. The space from that day to this had been +more than usually full of ministry; its pure uses had fallen like snow, +blotting and deadening the sudden wonder that blossomed then. Latterly +he had hardly thought of it. + +So far was he removed, so deeply drawn again within his familiar +activities, that he regarded Hilda's letter for an instant with a lip +of censure, as if, for some reason, it should not have been admitted. +It was, in a manner, her physical presence, the words expanded into +her, through it she walked back into his life, with an interrogation. +Standing there by the pillar he became gradually aware of the weight of +the interrogation. + +A passing Brother cast at him the sweet smile of the cloister. Arnold +stopped him and transferred an immediate duty, which the other accepted +with a slightly exaggerated happiness. They might have been girls +together, with their apologies and protestations. The other Brother went +on in a little glow of pleasure, Arnold turned back into the chapel, +carrying, it seemed to him, a woman's life in his hand. + +He took his seat and folded his arms almost eagerly; there was a light +of concentration in his eye and a line of compression about his lips +which had not marked his meditation upon Nourendra Lal. The vigour in +his face suggested that he found a kind of athletic luxury in what he +had to think about. Brother Colquhoun, with his flat hat clasped before +his breast, passed down the aisle. Stephen looked up with a trace of +impatience. Presently he rose hurriedly as if he remembered something, +and went and knelt before one of several paintings that hung upon the +chapel walls. They were old copies of great works, discoloured and +damaged. They had sailed round the Cape to India when the century was +young, and a lady friend of the Mission had bought them at the sale +of the effects of a ruined Begum. Arnold was one of those who could +separate them from their incongruous history and consecrate them over +again. He often found them helpful when he sought to lift his spirit, +and in any special matter a special comfort. He bent for ten minutes +before a Crucifixion, and then hastened back to his place. Only one +reflection corrected the vigorous satisfaction with which he thought out +Hilda's proposition. That disturbed him in the middle of it, and took +the somewhat irrelevant form of a speculation as to whether the +events of their last meeting should have had any place in his Thursday +confession. He was able to find almost at once a conscientious negative +for it, and it did not recur again. + +He got up reluctantly when the Mission bell sounded, and indeed he had +come to the end of a very absorbing interest. His decision was final +against Hilda's scheme. His worn experience cried out at the sacrifice +in it without the illumination--which it would certainly lack--of +religious faith. She confessed to the lack, and that was all she had +to say about her motive, which, of course, placed him at an immense +disadvantage in considering it. But the question then descended to +another plane, became merely a doubt as to the most useful employment of +energy, and that doubt nobody could entertain long, nobody of reasonable +breadth of view, who had ever seen her expressing the ideals of the +stage. Arnold did his best to ward off all consideration which he could +suspect of a personal origin, but his inveterate self-sacrifice slipped +in and counted, naturally enough, under another guise, against her +staying. + +He went to his room and wrote to Hilda at once, the kindest, simplest +of letters, but conveying a definitely negative note. He would have +been perhaps more guarded, but it was so plainly his last word to her; +Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the departure of his people in ten +days' time upon every blank wall. So he gave himself a little latitude, +he let in an undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assurance +as to the difference she had made. And when he had finally bade her +begone to the light and fulness of her own life, and fastened up his +letter, he deliberately lifted it to his lips and placed a trembling, +awkward kiss upon it, like the kiss of an old man, perfunctory yet +bearing a tender intention. + +The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, the people from Surrey +having been sped upon their way to the Far East. Stephen remembered +with more than his usual relish an engagement to dine that evening +in Middleton Street. He involuntarily glanced at his watch. It was +half-past one. The afternoon looked arid, stretching between. Consulting +his tablets he found that he had nothing that was really of any +consequence to do. There were items, but they were unimportant, +transferable. He had dismissed Hilda Howe, but a glow from the world she +helped to illumine showed seductively at the end of his day. He made +an errand involving a long walk, and came back at an hour which left +nothing but evensong between him and eight o'clock. + +He was suddenly aware as he talked to her later, of a keener edge to his +appreciation of the charm of Alicia Livingstone. Her voyage, he assured +her, had done her all the good in the world. Her delicate bloom had +certainly been enhanced by it, and the graceful spring of her neck and +her waist seemed to have its counterpart in a freshened poise of +the agreeable things she found to say. It was delightful the way she +declared herself quite a different being, and the pleasure with which +she moved, dragging fascinating skirts behind her, about the room. She +made more of an impression upon him on the aesthetic side than she had +ever done before; she seemed more highly vitalised, her fineness had +greater relief, and her charm more freedom. Lindsay was there, and +Arnold glanced from one to the other of them, first with a start +then with a smile, at the recollection of Hilda's conception of their +relations. If this were a type and instance of hopeless love he had +certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his +mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a pondering +smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in his curious +acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very flower of emotional +naivete, though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, grown in +idleness; and indeed it might have abashed him to say what concern +it had in the mind of the Order of St. Barnabas. It was gratifying, +nevertheless, to have his observation confirmed by the way in which +Alicia leaned across him toward Lindsay with occasional references to +Laura Filbert, apparently full of light-heartedness, references which +Duff received in the square-shouldered matter-of-course fashion of his +countrymen approaching their nuptials in any quarter of the globe. +It was gratifying, and yet it enhanced in Stephen this evening the +indrawing of his under-lip, a plaintive twist of expression which spoke +upon the faces of quite half the Order, of patience under privation. + +The atmosphere was one of congratulation, the week's Gazette had +transformed Surgeon-Major Livingstone into Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel. +The officer thus promoted, in a particularly lustrous shirt bosom, made +a serious social effort to correspond, and succeeded in producing more +than one story of the Principal Medical Officer with her Majesty's +forces in India, which none of them had heard before. They were all +delighted at Herbert's step, he was just the kind of person to get a +step, and to get it rather early; a sense of the propriety of it mingled +with the general gratification. There was a feeling of ease among them, +too, of the indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when +the surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no +strain imaginable one could see the relaxation. + +"We can't do much in celebration," Lindsay was saying, "but I've got +a box at the theatre, if you'll come. Our people had some pomfret and +oysters over on ice from Bombay this morning, and I've sent my share to +Bonsard to see what he can do with it for supper. Jack Cummins and Lady +Dolly are coming. By the way, what do you think the totalizator paid +Lady Dolly on Saturday--six thousand!" + +"Rippin'," Herbert agreed. "We'll all come--at least--I don't know. What +do you say, Arnold?" + +"Of course Stephen will come," Alicia urged. "Why not?" It was putting +him and his gown at once beyond the operation of vulgar prejudice, +intimating that they quite knew him for what he was. + +"What's the piece?" Herbert inquired. + +"Oh, the piece isn't up to much, I'm afraid, only that Hilda Howe is +worth seeing in almost anything." + +"Thanks," Stephen put in, "but I think, thanks very much, I would rather +not." + +"I remember," Alicia said, "you were with us the night she played in The +Offence of Galilee. I don't wonder that you do not wish to disturb that +impression." + +Stephen fixed his eyes upon a small pyramid of crystallised cherries +immediately in front of him, and appeared to consider, austerely, what +form his reply should take. There was an instant's perceptible pause, +and then he merely bowed toward Alicia as if vaguely to acknowledge the +kindness of her recollection. "I think," he said again, "that I will not +accompany you to-night, if you will be good enough to excuse me." + +"You must excuse us both," Alicia said definitely, "I should much rather +stay at home and talk to Stephen." + +At this they all cried out, but Miss Livingstone would not change +her mind. "I haven't seen him for three weeks," she said, with gentle +effrontery, making nothing of his presence, "and he's much more +improving than either of you. I also shall choose the better part." + +"How you can call it that, with Hilda in the balance--" Duff protested. + +"But then you've invited Lady Dolly. After winning six thousand there +will be no holding Lady Dolly. She'll be capable of cat-calls! How I +should love," Alicia went on, "to have Hilda meet her. She would be a +mine to Hilda." + +"For pity's sake," cried her brother, "stop asking Hilda and people who +are a mine to Hilda! It's too perceptible, the way she digs in them." + +"You dear old thing, you're quite clever to-night! What difference does +it make? They never know--they never dream! I wish I could dig." Alicia +looked pensively at the olive between her finger and thumb. + +"Thank Heaven you can't," Duff said warmly. It was a little odd, the +personal note. Alicia's eyes remained upon the olive. + +"It's all she lives for." + +"Well," Duff declared, "I can imagine higher ends." + +"You're not abusing Hilda!" Alicia said, addressing the olive. + +"Not at all. Only vindicating you." + +It did single them out, this fencing. Herbert and Arnold sat as +spectators, pushed, in a manner, aside. + +"I suppose she will be off soon," Livingstone said. + +"Oh, dreadfully soon. On the fifteenth. I had a note from her to-day." + +"Did she say she was going?" Stephen asked quickly. + +"She mentioned the Company--she is the Company surely." + +"Oh, undoubtedly. May I--might I ask for a little more soda-water, +Alicia?" He made the request so formally that she glanced at him with +surprise. + +"Please do--but isn't it very odious, by itself, that way? I suppose we +shouldn't leave out Hamilton Bradley--he certainly counts." + +"For how much?" inquired her brother. "He's going to pieces." + +"Hilda can pull him together again," Lindsay said incautiously. + +"Has she an influence for good--over him?" Stephen inquired, and cleared +his throat. He caught a glance exchanged, and frowned. + +"Oh yes," Duff said, "I fancy it is for good. For good, certainly. The +odd part of it is that he began by having an influence over her which +she declares improved her acting. So that was for good, too, as it +turned out. I think she makes too much of him. To my mind he speaks like +a bit of consecrated stage tradition and looks like a bit of consecrated +stage furniture--he, and his thin nose, and his thin lips, and his thin +eyebrows. Personally, I'm sick of his eyebrows." + +"They'll end by marrying," said Surgeon-Lieut.-Colonel Livingstone. + +"HERBERT! How little you know her!" + +"It's possible enough," Duff said, "especially if she finds him in any +way necessary to her production of herself. Hilda has knocked about too +much to have many illusions. One is pretty sure she would place that +first." + +"You are saying a thing which is monstrous!" cried Alicia. + +Unperturbed, her brother supported his conviction. "She'll have to marry +him to get rid of him," he said. "Fancy the opportunities of worrying +her the brute will have in those endless ocean voyages!" + +"Oh, if you think Hilda could be WORRIED into anything!" Miss +Livingstone exclaimed derisively. "If the man were irritating, do you +suppose she wouldn't arrange--wouldn't find means?--" + +"She would have him put in irons, no doubt," Herbert retorted, "or +locked up with the other sad dogs, in charge of the ship's butcher." + +The three laughed immoderately, and Stephen, looking up, came in at the +end with a smile. Alicia pronounced her brother too absurd, and unfitted +by nature to know anything about creatures like Hilda Howe. "A mere +man to begin with," she said. "You haven't the ghost of a temperament, +Herbert; you know you haven't." + +"He got's a lovely bedside manner," Lindsay remarked, "and that's the +next thing to it." + +"Rubbish! I don't want to hurry you," Alicia glanced at the watch on her +wrist, "but unless you and Herbert want to miss half the first act you +had better be off. Stephen and I will have our coffee comfortably in the +drawing-room and find what excuses we can for you." + +But Stephen put out his hand with a movement of slightly rigid +deprecation. + +"If it is not too vacillating of me," he said, "and I may be forgiven, I +think I will change my mind, and go. I have no business to break up your +party, and besides, I shall probably not have another opportunity--I +should rather like to go. To the theatre, of course, that is. Not to +Bonsard's, thanks very much." + +"Oh, do come on to Bonsard's," Lindsay said, and Alicia protested that +he would miss the best of Lady Dolly, but Stephen was firm. Bonsard's +was beyond the limit of his indulgence. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Only the Sphinx confronted them after all when they arrived at the +theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. The older feminine presentment sent +her belittling gaze over their heads and beyond them from the curtain; +Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from the front of the box. +Lady Dolly raised her eyes but not her elbows, which were assisting her +a good deal with the house in exploring and being explored, enabling +Colonel John Cummins, who sat by her side, to observe how very perfect +and adorable the cut of her bodice was. Since Colonel Cummins was +accustomed to say in moments when his humour escaped his discretion, +things highly appreciative of bodices, the role of Lady Dolly's elbows +could hardly be dismissed as unimportant. Moreover, the husband attached +to the elbows belonged to the Department of which Colonel John was the +head, so that they rested, one may say, upon a very special plane. + +Alicia disturbed it with the necessity of taking Colonel Cummins place, +which Lady Dolly accepted with admirable spirit; assuring the usurper, +with the most engaging candour, that she simply ought never to be seen +without turquoises. "Believe it or not as you like, but I love you +better every time I see you in that necklace." Lady Dolly clasped her +hands, with her fan in them, in the abandonment of her affection, and +"love you better" floated back and dispersed itself among the men. +Alicia smiled the necessary acknowledgment. All the women she knew +made compliments to her; it was a kind of cult among them. The men had +sometimes an air of envying their freedom of tongue. "Don't say that," +she returned lightly, "or Herbert will never give me any diamonds." She +too looked her approval of Lady Dolly's bodice, but said nothing. It +was doubtless precisely because she disdained certain forms of feminine +barter that she got so much for nothing. + +"And where," demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric whisper, "did you find +that dear sweet little priest? Do introduce him to me--at least by and +by, when I've thought of something to say. Let me see, wasn't it Good +Friday last week? I'll ask him if he had hot-cross buns--or do people +eat those on Boxing Day? Pancakes come in somewhere, if one could only +be sure!" + +Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. His senses were +filled for the moment by its other occupants, the men in the fresh +correctness of their evening dress, whose least gesture seemed to spring +from an indefinite fulness of life, the two women in front, a kind of +lustrous tableau of what it was possible to choose and to enjoy. They +were grouped and shut off in a high light which seemed to proceed partly +from the usual sources and partly from their own personalities; he saw +them in a way which underlined their significance at every point. It +seemed to Stephen that in a manner he profaned this temple of what he +held to be poorest and cheapest in life, a paradox of which he was +but dimly aware in his dejection. A sharp impression of his physical +inferiority to the other men assailed him; his appreciation of their +muscular shoulders had a rasp in it. For once the poverty of spirit to +which he held failed to offer him a refuge, his eye wandered restlessly +as if attempting futile reconciliations, and the thing most present with +him was the worn-all-day feeling about the neck of his cassock. He +fixed his attention presently in a climax of passive discomfort on the +curtain, where unconsciously, his gaze crept with a subtle interrogation +in it to the wide eyeballs of the Sphinx. + +The stalls gradually filled, although it was a second production, in the +middle of the week, and although the gallery and the rupee seats under +it were nearly empty. The piece accounted for both. When Duff Lindsay +said at dinner that it wasn't "up to much," he spoke, I fancy, from +the nearest point of view he could take to that of the Order of St. +Barnabas. As a matter of fact, The Victim of Virtue was up to a very +great deal, but its points were so delicate that one must have been +educated rather broadly to grasp them, which is again perhaps a foolish +contrariety of terms. At all events they carried no appeal to the +theatre-goers from the sailing ships in the river or the regiments in +the fort, who turned as one than that night to Jimmy Finnigan. + +Stephen was aware, in the abstract, of what he might expect. He savoured +the enterprises of the London theatres weekly in the Saturday Review; +he had cast a remotely observing eye upon the productions of this +particular playwright through that medium for a long time. They formed +a manifestation of the outer world fit enough to draw a glance of +speculation from the inner; their author was an acrobat of ideas. +Doubtless we are all clowns in the eyes of the angels, yet we have the +habit of supposing that they sometimes look down upon us. It was thus, +if the parallel is not exaggerated, that Arnold regarded the author of +The Victim of Virtue. His attitude was quite taken before the orchestra +ceased playing; it was made of negation rather than criticism, on the +basis that he had no concern with, and no knowledge of, such things. +Deliberately he gave his mind a surface which should shed promiscuous +invitation, and folded his lips as it were, against the rising of the +curtain. He thought of Hilda separately, and he looked for her upon the +boards with the simplicity of a desire to see the woman he knew. + +When finally he did see her she made before him a picture that was to +remain with him always as his last impression of an art from which in +all its manifestations on that night he definitely turned. From the +aigrette in her hair to the paste buckle on her shoe she was mondaine. +Her dress, of some indefinite, slight white material, clasped at the +waist with a belt that gave the beam of turquoises and the gleam of +silver, ministered as much to the capricious ideal of the moment as +to the lines and curves of the person it adorned. The set was the +inevitable modern drawing-room, and she sat well out on a sofa, with her +hands, in long black gloves, resting stiffly, palm downward on each side +of her. It was as if she pushed her body forward in an impulse to rise, +her rigid arms thrust her shoulders up a little and accentuated the +swell of her bosom. It was a vivid, a staccato attitude; it expressed +a temperament, a character, fifty other things; but especially it +epitomised the restraints and the licenses of a world of drawing-rooms. +In that first brief mute instant of disclosure she was all that she +presently, by voice and movement, proclaimed herself to be--so dazzling +and complete that Stephen literally blinked at the revelation. He made +an effort, for a moment or two, to pursue and detect the woman who had +been his friend; then the purpose of his coming gradually faded from +his mind, and he stood with folded arms and absorbed eyes watching the +other, the Mrs. Halliday, on the sofa, setting about the fulfilment of a +purple destiny. + +The play proceeded and Stephen did not move--did not wince. When Mrs. +Halliday, whose mate was exacting, exclaimed, "The greatest apostle of +expediency was St. Paul. He preached 'wives love your husbands,'" he +even permitted himself the ghost of a smile. At one point he wished +himself familiar with the plot; it was when Hamilton Bradley came +jauntily on as Lord Ingleton, assuring Mrs. Halliday that immorality +was really only shortsightedness. Lady Dolly in front, repeated Lord +Ingleton's phrase with ingenuous wonder. "I know it's clever," she +insisted, "but what does it mean? Now that other thing--what was +it?--'Subtract vice, and virtue is what is left'--that's an easy one. +Write it down on your cuff for me, will you, Colonel Cummins? I SHALL be +so sick if I forget it." + +Stephen was perhaps the only person in the box quite oblivious of Lady +Dolly. He looked steadily over her animated shoulders at the play, +wholly involved in an effort to keep its current and direction through +the floating debris of constrained sayings with which it was encumbered; +to know in advance whither it was carrying its Mrs. Halliday, and how +far Lord Ingleton would accompany. When Lord Ingleton paused as it were +to beg four people to "have nothing to do with sentiment--it so often +leads to conviction," and the house murmured its amusement, Arnold +shifted his shoulders impatiently. "How inconsistent," Lord Ingleton +reproached Mrs. Halliday a moment later, "to wear gloves on your hands +and let your thoughts go candid." Arnold turned to Duff. "There's +no excuse for that," he said, but Lindsay was hanging upon Hilda's +rejoinder and did not hear him. + +At the end of the first act, where, after introducing Mrs. Halliday to +her husband's divorced first wife, Lord Ingleton is left rubbing his +hands with gratification at having made two such clever women "aware of +each other," Stephen found himself absolutely unwilling to discuss the +piece with the rest of the party. As he left the box to walk up and down +the corridor outside where it was cooler, he heard the voice of Colonel +Cummins lifted in further quotation, "'To be good AND charming--what a +sinful superfluity!' I'm sure nobody ever called you superfluous, Lady +Dolly," and was vividly aware of the advisability of taking himself and +his Order out of the theatre. He had not been gratified, or even from +any point appealed to. Hilda's production of Mrs. Halliday was so +perfect that it failed absolutely to touch him, almost to interest +him. He had no means of measuring or of valuing that kind of woman, the +restless brilliant type that lives upon its emotions and tilts at the +problems of its sex with a curious comfort in the joust. He was too far +from the circle of her modern influence to consider her with anything +but impatience if he had met her original person, and her reflection, +her reproduction seemed to him frivolous and meaningless. If he went +then, however, he would go as he came, in so far as the play was +concerned; the first act, relying altogether upon the jugglery of its +dialogue, gave no clue to anything. He owed it to Hilda after all to see +the piece out. It was only fair to give her a chance to make the best +of it. He decided that it was worth a personal sacrifice to give it her, +and went back. + +He was sufficiently indignant with the leading idea of the play, and +sufficiently absorbed in its progress, at the end of the second act, to +permit Lady Dolly to capture him before it occurred to him that he had +the use of his legs. Her enthusiasm was so great that it reduced him +to something like equivocation. She wanted to know if anything could be +more splendid than Mr. Bradley as Lord Ingleton; she confided to Stephen +that that was what she called REAL wickedness, the kind that did the +most harm, and invited him by inference, to a liberal judgment of stupid +sinners. He sat emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes nervously +fugitive from Lady Dolly's too proximate opulence until the third act +began. Then he gave place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel Cummins, +and folded his arms again at the back of the box. + +Before it was finished he had the gratification of recognising at least +one Hilda that he knew. The newspapers found in her interpretation the +development of a soul, and one remembered, reading them, that a cliche +is a valuable thing in a hurry. A phrase which spoke of a soul bruised +out of life and rushing to annihilation would have been more precise. +The demand upon her increased steadily as the act went on, and as she +met it there slipped into her acting some of her own potentialities +of motive and of passion. She offered to the shaping circumstance +rich material and abundant plasticity, and when the persecution of her +destiny required her to throw herself irretrievably away she did it +with a splendid appreciation of large and definite movement that was +essentially of herself. + +The moment of it had a bold gruesomeness that caught the breath--a +disinterment on the stage in search of letters that would prove the +charge against the second year of Mrs. Halliday's married life, her +letters buried with the poet. It was an advantage which only the husband +of Mrs. Halliday would have claimed to bring so helpless a respondent +before even the informal court at the graveyard; but it gave Hilda a +magnificent opportunity of wild, mad apostrophe to the skull, holding it +tenderly with both hands, while Lord Ingleton smiled appreciatively +in advance of the practical benevolence which was to sustain the lady +through the divorce court, and in the final scene offer to her and to +the prejudices of the British public the respectability of his name. + +It was over with a rush at the end, leaving the audience uncertain +whether after all enough attention had been paid to that tradition +of the footlights which insists on so nice a sense of opprobrium and +compensation, but convinced of its desire to applaud. Duff Lindsay +turned as the wave of clapping spent itself, to say to Stephen that he +had never respected Hamilton Bradley's acting so much. He said it to +Herbert Livingstone instead; the priest had disappeared. + +The outgoers looked at Arnold curiously as he made his way among them in +a direction which was not that of the exit. He went with hurried purpose +in the face of them all toward the region, badly lighted and imperfectly +closed, which led to the rear of the stage. He opened doors into dark +closets, and one which gave upon the road, retraced his unfamiliar +steps and asked a question, to which--it was so unusual from one in his +habit--he received a hesitating but correct reply. A moment later he +passed Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope, who stood in his path with a hostile +stare, and got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a door +upon which was pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a poster, +of Miss Hilda Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when she cried +"Come in!" with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single chair the +place contained, in the dress and make-up of the last scene. A servant, +who looked up incuriously, was unlacing her shoes. Various garments hung +about on nails driven into the unpainted walls, others overflowed from a +packing-box in one corner. A common teakwood dressing-table held make +up saucers and powder-puffs and some remnants of cold fowl which had not +been partaken of, apparently, with the assistance of a knife and fork. +A candle stood in an empty soda-water bottle on each side of the +looking-glass, and there was no other light. On the floor a pair of +stays, old and soiled, sprawled with unconcern. The place looked sordid +and miserable, and Hilda sitting in the middle of it, still in the +yellow wig and painted face of Mrs. Halliday, all wrong at that range, +gave it a note of false artifice, violent and grievous. Stephen stood in +the doorway grasping the handle, saying nothing, and an instant passed +before she knew with certainty, in the wretched light, that it was he. +Then she sprang up and made a step toward him as if toward victory and +reward, but checked herself in time. "Is it possible!" she exclaimed. "I +did not know you were in the theatre." + +"Yes," he said, with moderation, "I have seen this--this damnable play." + +"Damnable? Oh!--" + +"It has caused me," he went on, "to regret the substance of my letter +this morning. I failed to realise that this was the kind of work you +devote your life to. I now see that you could not escape its malign +influence--that no women could. I now think that the alternative that +has been revealed to you, of remaining in Calcutta, is a chance of +escape offered you by God Himself. Take it. I withdraw my foolish, +ignorant opposition." + +"Oh," she cried, "do you really think--" + +"Take it," he repeated, and closed the door. + +Hilda sat still for some time after the servant had finished unlacing +her shoes. A little tender smile played oddly about her carmined lips. +"Dear heart," she said aloud, "I was going to." + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +"I would simply give anything to be there," Miss Livingstone said, with +a look of sincere desire. + +"I should love to have you, but it isn't possible. You might meet men +you knew who had been invited by particular lady friends among the +company." + +"Oh, well, that of course would be odious." + +"Very, I should think," Hilda agreed. "You must be satisfied with a +faithful report of it. I promise you that." + +"You have asked Mr. Lindsay," Alicia complained. + +"That's quite a different thing. And if I hadn't, Llewellyn Stanhope +would; Stanhope cherishes Duff as he cherishes the critic of the +Chronicle. He refers to him as a pillar of the legitimate. Whenever +he begs me to turn the Norwegian crank, he says, 'I'm sure Mr. Lindsay +would come.'" + +Miss Howe was at the top of the staircase in Middleton Street, on the +point of departure. It was to be the night of her last appearance for +the season and her benefit, followed by a supper in her honour, at +which Mr. Stanhope and his company would take leave of those whose +acquaintance, as he expressed it, business and pleasure had given them +during the months that were past. It was this function that Alicia, at +the top of the staircase, so ardently desired to attend. + +"No, I won't kiss you," Hilda said, as the other put her cool cheek +forward; "I'm so divinely happy--some of it might escape." + +Alicia's voice pursued her as she ran downstairs. "Remember," she said, +"I don't approve. I don't at all agree either with my reverend cousin +or with you. I think you ought to find some other way, or let it go. Go +home instead; go straight to London and insist on your chance. After six +weeks you will have forgotten the name of his Order." + +Hilda looked back with a smile. Her face was splendid with the dawn and +the promise of success. "Don't say that," she cried. + +Alicia, leaning down, was visited by a flash of quotation. "Well," she +said, "nothing in this life becomes you like the leaving of it," and +went back to her room to write to Laura Filbert in Plymouth. She wrote +often to Miss Filbert, at Duff's request. It gratified her that she was +able, without a pang, to address four pages of pleasantly colourless +communication to Mr. Lindsay's fiancee. Her letters stood for a medicine +surprisingly easy to take, aimed at the convalescence which she already +anticipated in the future immediately beyond Duff's miserable marriage. +If that event had promised felicitously she would have faced it, one +fancies, with less sanguine anticipations for herself: but the black +disaster that rode on with it brought her certain aids to the spirit, +certain hopes of herself. Laura's prompt replies, with their terrible +margins and painstaking solecisms, came to be things Miss Livingstone +looked forward to. She read them with a beating heart, however, in the +unconscious apprehension of some revelation of improvement. She was +quite unaware of it, but she entertained towards the Simpsons an +attitude of misgiving in this regard. + +Hilda went on about her business. As usual her business was important +and imperative; nothing was lightened for her this last day. She drove +about from place to place in the hot, slatternly city, putting more than +her usual vigour and directness into all she did. It seemed to her that +the sunlight burning on the tiles, pouring through the crowded streets, +had more than ever a vivid note; and so much spoke to her, came to her, +from the profuse and ingenuous life which streamed about her, that she +leaned a little forward to meet it with happy eyes and tender lips that +said, "I know. I see." She was living for the moment which should exhale +itself somewhere about midnight after the lights had gone out on her +last appearance--living for it as a Carmelite might live for the climax +of her veil and her vows if it were conceivable that beyond the cell +and the grating she saw the movement and the colour and the passion of +a wider life. All Hilda's splendid vitality went into her intention, +of which she was altogether mistress, riding it and reining it in a +straight course through the encumbered hours. It keyed her to a finer +and more eager susceptibility; and the things she saw stayed with her, +passing into a composite day which the years were hardly to dim for her. + +She could live like that, for the purposes of a period, wrought up to +immense keenness of sense and brilliancy of energy, making steadily for +some point of feeling or achievement flashing gloriously on the horizon. +It is already plain, perhaps, that she rejoiced in such strokes, and +that life as she found it worth living was marked by a succession of +them. + +She had kept, even from Lindsay, what she meant to do. When she stepped +from his brougham, flushed after the indubitable triumph of the evening, +with her arms full of real bouquets from Chatterjee's--no eight-anna +bazar confections edged with silver tinsel--it occurred to her that this +reticence was not altogether fair to so constant a friend. He was there, +keen and eager as ever in all that concerned her, foremost with his +congratulations on the smiling fringe of the party assembled to do her +honour. It was a party of some brilliance in its way, though its way was +diverse; there was no steady glow. Fillimore said of the company that it +comprised all the talent, and Fillimore, Editor of the Indian Sportsman +and Racing Gazelle, was a judge. He said it to Hagge, of the Bank of +Hindostan, who could hardly have been an owner on three hundred rupees +a month without conspicuous ability disconnected with his ledgers; and +Hagge looked gratified. Though so promising, he was young. Lord Bobby +was there from Government House. Lord Bobby always accompanied the +talent, who were very kind to him. He was talking when Hilda arrived to +the Editor of the Indian Empire, who wanted to find out the date of her +Excellency's fancy dress party for children, in order that he might make +a leaderette of it; but Lord Bobby couldn't remember--had to promise +to drop him a line. Gianacchi was there, trying to treat Fillimore with +coldness because the Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his +Musquito, exalted her indeed into a favourite for Saturday's hurdle +race, a notability for which Gianacchi felt himself too modest. "They +say," Fillimore had written, "that Musquito has been seen jumping by +moonlight"--the sort of thing to spoil any book. Fillimore was an acute +and weary-looking little man, with a peculiarly sweet smile and an air +of cynicism which gave to his lightest word a dangerous and suspicious +air. It was rumoured in official circles that he had narrowly escaped +beheading for pointing out too ironically the disabilities of a Viceroy +who insisted on reviewing the troops from a cushioned carriage with the +horses taken out. Fillimore seemed to think that if nature had not made +such a nobleman a horseman, the Queen-Empress should not have made him +Governor-General of India. Fillimore was full of prejudices. Gianacchi, +however, found it impossible to treat him coldly. His smoothness +of temperament stood in the way. Instead, he imparted the melodious +information that Musquito had pecked badly twice at Tollygunge that +morning, and smiled with pathetic philosophy. "Always let 'em use their +noses," said Fillimore, and there seemed to be satire in it. Fillimore +certainly had a flair, and when Beryl Stace presently demanded of +him, "What's the dead bird going to be on Saturday, Filly?" he put it +generously at her service. Among the friends of Mr. Stanhope and his +company were also several gentlemen, content, for their personal effect, +with the lustre they shed upon the Stock Exchange--gentlemen of high +finance, who wrote their names at the end of directors' reports, but +never in the visitors' book at Government House, who were little more +to the Calcutta world than published receipts for so many lakhs, except +when they were seen now and then driving, in fleet dogcarts across the +Maidan toward comfortable suburban residences where ladies were not +entertained. They were extremely, curiously, devoted to business; but if +they allowed themselves any amusement other than company promoting, +it was the theatre, of which their appreciation had sometimes an odd +relation to the merits of performance. This supper, on the part of Miss +Beryl Stace and one or two others of Mr. Stanhope's artistes, might have +been considered a return of hospitality to these gentlemen, since the +suburban residences stood lavishly open to the profession. + +Altogether, perhaps, there were fifty people, and an eye that looked for +the sentiment, the pity of things, would have distinguished at once +on about half the faces, especially those of the women, the used, +underlined look that spoke of the continual play of muscle and forcing +of feeling. It gave them a shabbily complicated air, contrasting in a +strained and sorry way even, with the countenances of the brokers and +bankers, where nature had laid on a smooth wash and experience had not +interfered. They were all gay and enthusiastic as Miss Howe entered, +they loafed forward, broad shirt-fronts lustrous, fat hands in financial +pockets, with their admiration, and Fillimore put out his cigarette. +Hilda came down among them from the summit of her achievement, clasping +their various hands. They were all personally responsible for her +success, she made them feel that, and they expanded in the conviction. +She moved in a kind of tide of infectious vitality, subtly drawing from +every human flavour in the room the power to hold and show something +akin to it in herself, a fugitive assimilation floating in the lamplight +with the odour of the flowers and the soup, to be extinguished with the +occasion. They looked at her up and down the table with an odd smiling +attraction, they told each other that she was in great form. Mr. +Fillimore was of the opinion that she couldn't be outclassed at the +Lyceum, and Mr. Hagge responded with vivacity that there were few places +where she wouldn't stretch the winner's neck. The feast was not +after all one of great bounty, Mr. Stanhope justly holding that the +opportunity, the little gathering, was the thing, and it was not long +before the moment of celebration arrived for which the gentlemen of +the Stock Exchange, to judge from their undrained glasses, seemed to be +reserving themselves. There certainly had been one tin of pate, and +it circulated at that end; on the other hand the ladies had all the +fondants. So that when Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope rose with the sentiment +of the evening he found satisfaction, if not repletion, in the regards +turned upon him. + +Llewellyn got up with modest importance, and ran a hand through his +yellow hair, not dramatically, but with the effect of collecting +his ideas. He leaned a little forward, he was extremely, happily +conspicuous. The attention of the two lines of faces seemed to overcome +him, for an instant, with dizzy pleasure; Hilda's beside him was bent a +little, waiting. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Stanhope, looking with precision up +and down the table to be still more inclusive, "we have met together +to-night in honour of a lady who has given this city more pleasure in +the exercise of her profession than can be said of any single performer +during the last twenty years. Cast your eye back over the theatrical +record of Calcutta for that space of time, and you yourselves will admit +that there has been nobody that could be said to have come within a mile +of her shadow, if I may use the language of metaphor." (Applause, led +by Mr. Fillimore.) "I would ask you to remember, at the same time, that +this pleasure has been of a superior class. I freely admit that this is +a great satisfaction to me personally. Far be it from me to put myself +forward on this auspicious occasion, but, ladies and gentlemen, if I +have one ambition more than another, it is to promote the noble cause +of the unfettered drama. To this I may say I have been vowed from the +cradle, by a sire who was well-known in the early days of the metropolis +of Sydney as a pioneer of the great movement which has made the dramatic +talent of Australia what it is. To-day a magnificent theatre rises on +the site forever consecrated to me by those paternal labours, but--but I +can never forget it. In Miss Hilda Howe I have found a great coadjutor, +and one who is willing to consecrate her royal abilities in the same +line as myself, so that we have been able to maintain a high standard of +production among you, prices remaining as usual. I have to thank you, +as representing the public of the Indian capital, for the kind support +which has been so encouraging to Miss Howe, the Company, and myself +personally, during the past season. Many a time ladies and gentlemen of +my profession have said to me, 'Mr. Stahhope, why do you go to Calcutta? +That city is a death-trap for professionals,' and now the past season +proves that I was right and they were wrong; and the magnificent houses, +the enthusiasm, and the appreciation that have greeted our efforts, +especially on the Saturday evening performances, show plainly enough +that when a good thing is available the citizens of Calcutta won't be +happy till they get it. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to join me in +drinking the health, happiness, and prosperity of Miss Hilda Howe!" + +"Miss Howe!" "Miss Howe!" "Miss Hilda Howe!" In the midst of a pushing +back of chairs and a movement of feet, the response was quick and +universal. Hilda accepted their nods and becks and waving glasses with a +slow movement of her beautiful eyes and a quiet smile, in the subsidence +of sound Mr. Stanhope's voice was heard again, "We can hardly expect +a speech from Miss Howe, but perhaps Mr. Hamilton Bradley, whose +international reputation need hardly be referred to, will kindly say a +few words on her behalf." + +Then with deliberate grace, Hilda rose from her chair, a tall figure +among them, looking down with a hint of compassionateness on the little +man at her left. She stood for an instant without speaking, as if the +flushed silence, the expectation, the warm magnetism that drew all their +eyes to her were enough. Then out of something like reverie she came +to the matter, she threw up her beautiful face with one of the supreme +gestures which belonged to her. "I think," she said, with a little +smiling bow in his direction, "that I will not trouble my friend Mr. +Bradley. He has rendered me so many kind services already that I am sure +I might count upon him again, but this is a thing I should like to do +for myself. I would not have my thanks chilled by even the passage from +my heart to his." There was something like bravado in the glance that +rested lightly on Bradley with this. One would have said that parley of +hearts between them was not a thing that as a rule she courted. "I can +only offer you my thanks, poor things to which we can give neither life +nor substance, yet I beg that you will somehow take them and remember +them. It is to me, and will always be, a kind of crowning satisfaction +that you were pleased to come together to-night to tell me I had done +well. You know yourselves, and I know, how much too flattering your +kindness is, but perhaps it will hurt nobody if to-night I take it as it +is generously offered, and let it make me as happy as you intend me +to be. At all events, no one could disturb me in believing that in +obtaining your praise and your good wishes I have done well enough." + +For a few seconds she stopped speaking, but she held them with her eyes +from the mistake of supposing she had done. Lindsay, who was watching +her closely and hanging with keen pleasure on the sweetness and +precision of what she found to say, noted a swift constriction pass upon +her face. There was a half-tone of difference, too, in her voice, when +she raised it again, a firmer vibration, as if she passed, deliberate +and aware, out of one phase into another. + +"No," she went on, "I am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel that +I should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to-night, and +go on talking far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot think it +likely that our ways will cross again." Here her words grew suddenly low +and hurried. "If I may trespass upon your interest so much further, +I have to tell you that my connection with the stage closes with this +evening's performance. To-morrow I join the Anglican Order of the +Sisters of St. Paul--the Baker Institution--in Calcutta, as a novice. +They have taken me without much question because--because the plague +hospitals of this cheerful country"--she contrived a smile--"have made a +great demand upon their body. That is all. I have nothing more to say." + +It was, after all, ineffective, the denouement, or perhaps it was too +effective. In any case it was received in silence, the applause that was +ready falling back on itself, inconsistent and absurd. The incredulity +of Llewellyn Stanhope might have been electric had it found words, but +that gentleman's protests were made in violent whispers, to which Hilda, +who sat playing with a faded rose, seemed to pay no attention whatever. +One might have thought her more overcome than anyone. She seemed to make +one or two unsuccessful efforts to raise her head. There was a moment of +waiting for someone to reply; eyes were turned towards Mr. Bradley, and +when it became plain that no one would, broken murmurs of talk began +with a note of deprecation and many shakes of the head. The women, +especially, looked tragically at their neighbours with very wide-open +eyes. Presently a chair was drawn back, and then another, and people +began to filter, in slow embarrassment, towards the door. Lindsay came +with Hilda's cloak. "You won't mind my coming with you," he said, "I +should like to hear the details." Beryl Stace made as if to embrace her, +pouring out abusive disbelief, but Hilda waved her away with a gesture +almost of irritation. Some of the others said a perfunctory word or two, +and went away with lingering backward looks. In a quarter of an hour, +Mr. Lindsay's brougham had followed the other vehicles into the lamp-lit +ways of Calcutta, and only the native table-servants remained in +somewhat resentful possession of what was left. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +If Duff Lindsay had apprehended that the reception of Miss Filbert by +the Simpsons would involve any strain upon the affection his friends +bore him, the event must have relieved him in no small degree. He was +soon made aware of its happy character, and constantly kept assured; +indeed, it seemed that whenever Mrs. Simpson had nothing else to do +she laid her pen to the task of telling him once again how cherished +a satisfaction they found in Laura, and how reluctant they would be to +lose it. She wrote in that strain of facile sympathy which seems part +of an Englishwoman's education, and often begged him to believe that the +more she knew of their sweet and heavenly-minded guest the more keenly +she realised how dreary for him must have been the pang of parting +and how arid the months of separation. Mrs. Simpson herself was well +acquainted with these trials of the spirit. She and her husband had been +divided by those wretched thousands of miles of ocean for three years +one week and five days all told during their married life: she knew what +it meant. But if Duff could only see how well and blooming his beloved +one was--she had gained twelve pounds already--Mrs. Simpson was sure the +time of waiting would pass less heavily. For herself, it was cruel but +she smiled upon the deferred reunion of hearts, she would keep Laura +till the very last day, and hoped to establish a permanent claim on her. +She was just the daughter Mrs. Simpson would have liked, so unspotted, +so pure, so wrapped in high ideals; and then the page would reflect +something of the adoring awe in which Mrs. Simpson would have held +such a daughter. It will be seen that Mrs. Simpson knew how to express +herself, but there was a fine sincerity behind the mask of words; Miss +Filbert had entered very completely into possession. + +It had its abnormal side, the way she entered into possession. +Everything about Laura Filbert had its abnormal side, none the less +obvious because it was inward, and invisible. Nature, of course, worked +with her, one might say that nature really did it all, since in the end +she was practically unconscious, except for the hope that certain souls +had been saved, that anything of the sort had happened. She conquered +the Simpsons and their friends chiefly by the simple impossibility that +they should conquer her, walking immobile among them even while she +admired Mr. Simpson's cauliflowers and approved the quality of Mrs. +Simpson's house linen. It must be confessed that nothing in her +surroundings spoke to her more loudly or more subtly than these things. +In view of what happened, poor dear Alicia Livingstone's anticipation +that the Simpsons and their circle would have a radical personal effect +upon Laura Filbert became ludicrous. They had no effect at all. She took +no tint, no curve. She appeared not to see that these precious things +were to be had for the assimilation. Her grace remained exclusively that +of holiness, and continued to fail to have any relation to the common +little things she did and said. + +The Simpsons were more plastic. Laura had been with them hardly a week +before Mrs. Simpson, with touching humility, was trying to remodel +her spiritual nature upon the form so fortuitously, if the word is +admissible, presented. The dear lady had never before realised, by her +own statement, how terribly her religious feelings were mingled with +domestic and social considerations, how firmly her spiritual edifice +was based upon the things of this world. She felt that her soul +was honeycombed--that was her word--with conventionality and false +standards, and she made confessions like these to Laura, sitting in +the girl's bedroom in the twilight. They were very soothing, these +confessions. Laura would take Mrs. Simpson's thin, veined, middle-aged +hand in hers and seem to charge herself for the moment with the +responsibility of the elder lady's case. She did not attempt to conceal +her pity or even her contempt for Mrs. Simpson's state of grace, she +made short work of special services and ladies' Bible classes. The +world was white with harvest, and Mrs. Simpson's chief activity was +a recreation society for shop girls. But it was something, it was +everything, to be uneasy, to be unsatisfied, and they would uplift +themselves in prayer, and Laura would find words of such touching +supplication in which to represent the matter that the burden of her +friend and hostess would at once be lessened by the weight of tears. +Mrs. Simpson had never wept so much without perceived cause for grief as +since Laura arrived, and this alone would testify, such was the +gentle paradox of her temperament, how much she enjoyed Miss Filbert's +presence. + +Laura's room was a temple, for which the gardener daily gave up his +choicest blooms, the tenderest interest watched upon her comings +and goings, and it was the joy of both the Simpsons to make little +sacrifices for her, to desert their beloved vicar on a Sunday evening, +for instance, and accompany her to the firemen's halls and skating rinks +lent to the publishing of the Word in the only manner from which +their guest seemed to derive benefit. With all this, the Simpsons were +sometimes troubled by the impression that they could not claim to be +making their angel in the house completely happy. The air, the garden, +the victoria, the turbot and the whitebait, these were all that has been +vaunted, and even to the modesty of the Simpsons it was evident that the +intimacy they offered their guest should count for something. There were +other friends too, young friends who tried to teach her to play tennis, +robust and silent young persons who threw shy flushed glances at her in +the pauses of the games, and wished supremely, without daring to hint +it, that she would let fall some word about her wonderful romance--a +hope ever renewed, ever to be disappointed. And physically Laura +expanded before their eyes. The colour that came into her cheek gave her +the look of a person painted by Bouguereau; that artist would have +found in her a model whom he could have represented with sincerity. +Yet something was missing to her, her friends were dimly aware. Her +desirable surroundings kindled her to but a perfunctory interest in +life--the electric spark was absent. Mrs. Simpson relied strategically +upon the wedding preparations and hurried them on, announcing in May +that it was quite time to think about various garments of which the +fashion is permanent, but the issue was blank. No ripple stirred the +placid waters, unless indeed we take that way of describing Laura's calm +demand, when the decision lay between Valenciennes and Torchon lace for +under-bodies, to hear whether Mrs. Simpson had ever known Duff Lindsay +to be anxious about his eternal future. The girl continued to give forth +a mere pale reflection of her circumstances, and Mrs. Simpson was forced +into the deprecation that perhaps one would hardly call her a joyous +Christian. + +But for the Zenana Light Society this impression of Miss Filbert might +have deepened. The committee of that body was almost entirely composed +of Mrs. Simpson's friends, and naturally came to learn much about her +guest. The matter was vastly considered, but finally Miss Filbert was +asked to speak at one of the monthly meetings the ladies held among +themselves to keep the society "in touch" with the cause. Laura brought +them, as one would imagine, surprisingly in touch. She made pictures for +them, letting her own eyelashes close deliberately while they stared. +She moved these ladies, inspired them, carried them away, and the fact +that none of them found themselves able afterward to quote the most +pathetic passages seemed rather to add to the enthusiasm with which they +described the address. The first result was a shower of invitations to +tea, occasions when Laura was easily led into monologue. Miss Filbert +became a cult of evangelistic drawing-rooms, and the same kind of +forbearance was extended to her little traces of earlier social +experiences as is offered, in salons of another sort, to the +eccentricities of persons of genius. Very soon other applications had to +be met and considered, and Mrs. Simpson freely admitted that Laura would +not be justified in refusing to the Methodists and Baptists what she had +given elsewhere. She reasserted her platform influence over audiences +that grew constantly larger, and her world began to revolve again in +that great relation to the infinities which it was her life to perceive +and point out. Mrs. Simpson charged her genially with having been +miserable in Plymouth until she was allowed to do good in her own way, +and saw that she had beef-tea after every occasion of doing it. She +became in a way a public character, and a lady journalist sent an +account of her, with a photograph, to a well-known London fashion paper. +Perhaps the strongest effect she made was as the voice of the Purity +Association, when she delivered an address, in the picturesque costume +she had abandoned, attacking measures contemplated by Government for the +protection of the health of the Army in India. This was reported in full +in the local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to Duff Lindsay, who +received it, I regret to say, with an unmistakable imprecation. But +Laura rejoiced. Deprived of her tambourine she nevertheless rejoiced +exceedingly. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The Mother Superior had a long upper lip, which she was in the habit +of drawing still further down; it gave her an air of great diplomatic +caution, almost of casuistry. Her face was pale and narrow; she had eyes +that desired to be very penetrating, and a flat little stooping figure +within her voluminous draperies. She carried about with her all +the virtues of a monastic order, patience was written upon her, and +repression, discipline, and the love of administration, written and +underlined, so that the Anglican Sister whom no Pope blessed was more +priestly in her personal effect than any Jesuit. It was difficult to +remember that she had begun as a woman; she was now a somewhat anaemic +formula making for righteousness. Sister Ann Frances, who in her turn +suggested the fat capons of an age of friars more indulgent to the +flesh, and whose speech was of the crispest in this world where there +was so much to do, thought poorly of the executive ability of the Mother +Superior, and resented the imposition, as it were, of the long upper +lip. Out of this arose the only irritations that vexed the energetic +flow of duty at the Baker Institution, slight official raspings which +the Mother Superior immediately laid before Heaven at great length. She +did it with publicity, too, kneeling on the chunam floor of the chapel +for an hour at a time obviously explaining matters. The bureaucracy of +the country was reflected in the Baker Institution; it seemed to Sister +Ann Frances that her superior officer took undue advantage of her +privilege of direct communication with the Supreme Authority, giving any +colour she liked to the incident. And when the Mother Superior's lumbago +came on in direct consequence of the cold chunam, the annoyance of +Sister Ann Frances was naturally not lessened. + +There were twenty or thirty of them, with their little white caps tied +close under their chins, their long veils and their girdled black robes. +They were the most self-sacrificing women in Asia, the most devout, the +most useful. Government gave hospitals and doctors into their hands; +they took the whole charge of certain schools. They differed in +complexion, some of the newly arrived being delightfully fresh and pink +under their starched bandeaux; but they were all official, they all +walked discreetly and directly about their business, with a jangle of +keys in the folds of their robes, immensely organised, immensely under +orders. Hilda, when she had time, had the keenest satisfaction in +contemplating them. She took the edge off the fact that she was not +quite one, in aim and method, with these dear women as they supposed +her to be, with the reflection that after all it might be worth while +to work out a solution of life in those terms, standing aside from the +world--the world was troublesome--and keeping an unfaltering eye upon +the pity of things, an unfaltering hand at its assuagement. It was +simple and fine and indisputable, this work of throwing the clear shadow +of the Cross upon the muddy sunlight of the world; it carried the boon +of finality in itself. One might be stopped and put away at any moment, +and nothing would be spoiled, broken, unfinished; and it absolutely +barred out such considerations as were presented by Hamilton Bradley. +There was a time early in her probation when she thought seriously that +if it were not Stephen Arnold it should be this. + +She begged to be put on hospital work, and was sent for her indiscretion +to teach in the Orphanage for Female Children of British Troops. The +first duty of a novice was to be free of preference, to obey without +a sigh of choice. On the third day, however, Sister Ann Frances, +supervising, stopped at the open schoolroom door to hear the junior +female orphans repeating in happy chorus after their instructress the +statement that seven times nine were fifty-six. I think Hilda saw +Sister Ann Frances in the door. That couldn't go on, even in the name +of discipline, and Miss Howe was placed at the disposal of the Chief +Nursing Sister at the General Hospital next day. Sister Ann Frances +was inclined to defend Hilda's imperfect acquaintance with primary +arithmetic. + +"We all have our gifts," she said. "Miss Howe's is not the +multiplication table; but neither is mine stage-acting." At which, +the upper lip lengthened further into an upward curving smile, and +the Mother Superior remarked cautiously that she hoped Miss Howe would +develop one for making bandages, otherwise--And there for the time being +the matter rested. + +The depth of what was unusual in Hilda's relation with Alicia +Livingstone--perhaps it has been plain that they were not quite +the ordinary feminine liens--seems to me to be sounded in the tacit +acceptance of Hilda's novitiate on its merits that fell between the two +women. The full understanding of it was an abyss between them, across +which they joined hands, looking elsewhere. Even in the surprise of +Hilda's announcement Alicia had the instinct to glance away, lest her +eyes should betray too many facts that bore upon the situation. It +had never been discussed, but it had to be accepted, and occasionally +referred to; and the terms of acceptance and reference made no +implication of Stephen Arnold. In her inmost privacy Alicia gazed +breathless at the conception as a whole; she leaped at it, and caught it +and held it to look, with a feverish comparison of possibilities. It +was not strange, perhaps, that she took a vivid personal interest in the +essentials that enabled one to execute a flank movement like Hilda's, +not that she should conceive the first of them to be that one must +come out of a cab. She dismissed that impression with indignation as +ungenerously cynical, but it always came back for redismissal. It did +not interfere in the least, however, with her deliberate invitations to +Stephen to come to Ten, Middleton Street, on afternoons or evenings +when Hilda was there. She was like one standing denied in the Street of +Abundance; she had an avidity of the eye for even love's reflection. + +That was a little later. At first there was the transformation to +lament, the loss, the break. + +"You look," cried Miss Livingstone, the first time Hilda arrived in the +dress of the novice, a kind of under-study of the Sisters' black and +white, "you look like a person in a book, full of salient points, and +yet made so simple to the reader. If you go on wearing those things I +shall end by understanding you perfectly." + +"If you don't understand me," Hilda said, dropping into the corner of +a sofa, "Cela que je m'en doute, it's because you look for too +much elaboration. I am a simple creature, done with rather a broad +brush--voila tout!" + +Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone's was a happy impression. The neutrality +of her hospital dress left Hilda in a manner exposed: one saw in +a special way the significance of lines and curves; it was an +astonishingly vigorous human expression. + +Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin +tucked into her palm, and looked at it. The elbow bent itself in light +blue muslin of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The colour found a +wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, who was accustomed to +the look, and met it with impenetrable commonplace, being made impatient +by nothing in this world so much as by futility, however charming. + +"Just now," Alicia said, "the shadows under your eyes are brushed too +deep." + +"I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory." + +"Horrible! All the little comforts of life--don't you miss them?" + +"I never had them, my dear--I never had them. Life has never given +me very many luxuries--I don't miss them. An occasional hour to one's +self--and that we get even at the Institution. The conventions are +strictly conserved, believe me." + +"One imagines that kind of place is always clean." + +"When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and +believe myself in Paradise. The repose is there, the angels also--dear +commanding things--and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And there is +some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds one that after all one is +very like other women." + +"It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how did the sisters receive +you--with the harp and the psaltery?" + +"That was rather," said Hilda gravely, "what I expected. On the +contrary. They snubbed me--they really did. There were two of them. I +said, 'Reverend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents are strange +to me; I shall probably commit horrible sins without knowing it. Give me +your absolution in advance--at least your blessing.'" + +"Hilda, you didn't!" + +"It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she +is, disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me. Such +diplomacy--funny old thing." + +"They must be devoured with curiosity!" + +"Well, they ask no questions. One sees an everlasting finger on the lip. +It's a little boring. One feels inclined to speak up and say, 'Mesdames, +entendez--it isn't so bad as you think.' But then their fingers would go +into their ears." + +"And the rules, Hilda? I can't imagine you, somehow, under rules." + +"I am attached to the rules; I think about them all day long. They make +the thing simple and--possible. It is a little like living for the first +time in a house all right angles after--after a lifelong voyage in a +small boat." + +"Isn't the house rather empty?" + +"Oh, well!" + +Alicia put out her hand and tucked an irrelevant bit of lace into +Hilda's bosom. "I can tell you who is interested," she cried. "The +Archdeacon--the Archdeacon and Mrs. Barberry. They both dined here last +night; and you lasted from the fish to the pudding. I got so bored with +you, my dear, in your new capacity." + +A new ray of happiness came into the smile of the novice. "What did they +say? Do tell me what they said." + +"There was a difference of opinion. The Archdeacon held that with God +all things were possible. He used an expression more suitable to a +dinner-party; but I think that is what he meant. Mrs. Barberry thought +it wouldn't last. Mrs. Barberry was very cynical. She said anyone could +see that you were as emotional as ever you could be." + +The eyes of the two women met, and they laughed frankly. A sense of +expansion came between them, in which for an instant they were silent. + +"Tell me about the hospital," Alicia said presently. "Ah, the hospital!" +Hilda's face changed; there came into her eyes the moved look that +always waked a thrill in Alicia Livingstone, as if she were suddenly +aware that she had stepped upon ground where feet like hers passed +seldom. + +"There is nothing to tell you that is not--sad. Such odds and ends, of +life, thrown together!" + +"Have you had any experiences yet?" + +Hilda stared for a moment absently in front of her, and then turned her +head aside to answer as if she closed her eyes on something. + +"Experiences? Delightful Alicia, speaking your language, no. You are +thinking of the resident surgeon, the medical student, the interesting +patient. My resident surgeon is fifty years old; the medical student is +a Bengali in white cotton and patent leather shoes. I am occupied in a +ward full of deck hands. For these I hold the bandage and the bottle; +they are hardly aware of me." + +"You are sure to have them," Alicia said. "They crop up wherever you go +in this world, either before you or behind you." + +Hilda fixed her eyes attentively upon her companion. "Sometimes," she +said, "you say things that are extremely true in their general bearing. +A fortuneteller with cards gives one the same shock of surprise. +Well, let me tell you, I have been promoted to temperatures. I took +thirty-five to-day. Next week I am to make poultices; the week after, +baths and fomentations." + +"What are the others like--the other novices?" + +"Nearly all Eurasians, one native, a Hindu widow--the Sisters are +almost demonstrative to her--and one or two local European girls: the +commissariat sergeant class, I should think." + +"They don't sound attractive, and I am glad. You will depend the more +upon me." + +Hilda looked thoughtfully at Miss Livingstone. "I will depend," she +said, "a good deal upon you." + +It was Alicia's fate to meet the Archdeacon again that evening at +dinner. "And is she really throwing her heart into the work?" asked that +dignitary, referring to Miss Howe. + +"Oh, I think so," Alicia said. "Yes." + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The labours of the Baker Institution and of the Clarke Mission were +very different in scope, so much so that if they had been secular bodies +working for profit, there would have been hardly a point of contact +between them. As it was they made one, drawing together in affiliation +for the comfort of mutual support in a heathen country where all the +other Englishmen wrote reports, drilled troops, or played polo, with all +the other Englishwomen in the corresponding female parts. Doubtless +the little communities prayed for each other. One may imagine, not +profanely, their petitions rising on either side of the heedless, +multitudinous, idolatrous city, and meeting at some point in the purer +air above the yellow dust-haze. I am not aware that they held any other +mutual duty or privilege, but this bond was known, and enabled people +whose conscience pricked them in that direction to give little garden +teas to which they invited Clarke Brothers and Baker Sisters, secure +in doing a benevolent thing and at the same time embarrassing nobody +except, possibly, the Archdeacon, who was officially exposed to being +asked as well and had no right to complain. The affiliation was thus a +social convenience, since it is unlikely that without it anybody would +have hit upon so ingenious a way of killing, as it were, a Baker Sister +and a Clarke Brother with one stone. It is not surprising that this +degree of intelligence should fail to see the profound official +difference between Baker Sisters and Baker novices. As the Mother +Superior said, it did not seem to occur to people that there could be +in connection with a religious body, such words as discipline and +subordination, which were certainly made ridiculous for the time being, +when she and Sister Ann Frances were asked to eat ices on the same terms +as Miss Hilda Howe. It must have been more than ever painful to these +ladies, regarded from the official point of view, when it became plain, +as it usually did, that the interest of the afternoon centred in Miss +Howe, whether or not the Archdeacon happened to be present. Their +displeasure was so clear, after the first occasion, that Hilda felt +obliged when the next one came, to fall back on her original talent, and +ate her ice abashed and silent speaking only when she was spoken to, and +then in short words and long hesitations. Thereupon the Sisters were of +opinion that after all poor Miss Howe could not help her unenviable lot, +she was perhaps more to be pitied on account of it than--anything else. +It came to this, that Sister Ann Frances even had an exhibitor's pride +in her, and Hilda knew the sensations of a barbarian female captive in +the bonds of the Christians. But she could not afford to risk being +cut off from those little garden teas. All told, they were few; ladies +disturbed by ideas of social duties toward missionaries being so +uncommon. + +She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her with +being so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a gravity +which contained an element of satisfaction. "It is, of course, a +pleasure to us to meet," he said, "a pleasure to us both." That was +part of the satisfaction, that he could meet her candour with the same +openness. He was not even afraid to mention to her the stimulus she gave +him always and his difficulty in defining it, and once he told her how, +after a talk with her, he had lain awake until the small hours unable +to stop his excited rush of thought. He added that he was now personally +and selfishly glad she had chosen as she did three months before; it +made a difference to him, her being in Calcutta, a sensible and material +difference. He had better hope and heart in his work. It was the last +luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; +but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met +with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into +his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the +look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them +acceptable. His blood might have received some mysterious chemical +complement, so much was his eye clearer, his voice firmer, and the +things he found to say more decisive. Nor did any consideration of their +relations disturb him. He never thought of the oxygen in the air he +breathed, and he seldom thought of Hilda. + +They were walking toward the Institution together the day he explained +to her his gratification that she had elected to remain. Sister Ann +Frances and Sister Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came behind. He had an +errand to the Mother Superior--he would go all the way. It was late in +May and late in the afternoon; all the treetops on the Maidan were bent +under the sweep of the south wind, blowing a caressing coolness from +the sea. It spread fragrances about and shook down blossoms from the +gold-mohur trees. One could see nothing anywhere, so red and yellow as +they were, except the long coat of a Government messenger, a point of +scarlet moving in the perspective of a dusty road. The spreading acres +of turf were baked to every earth-colour; wherever a pine dropped +needles and an old woman swept them up, a trail of dust ran curling +along the ground like smoke. The little party was unusual in walking; +glances of uncomprehending pity were cast at them from victorias and +landaus that rolled past. Even the convalescent British soldiers facing +each other in the clumsy drab cart drawn by humped bullocks, and marked +Garrison Dispensary, stared at the black-skirts so near the powder of +the road. The Sisters in front walked with their heads slightly bent +toward one another; they seemed to be consulting. Hilda reflected, +looking at them, that they always seemed to be consulting; it was the +normal attitude of that long black veil that flowed behind. + +Arnold walked beside his companion, his hands loosely clasped behind +him, with the air of semi-detachment that young clergymen sometimes +have with their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace of custom his +satisfaction carried, the casual glance might easily have taken them for +a married pair. + +"There is a kind of folly and stupidity in saying it," he said, "but you +have done--you do--a great deal for me." + +She turned toward him with a wistful, measuring look. It searched his +face for an instant and came back baffled. Arnold spoke with so much +kindness, so much appreciation. + +"Very little," she said mechanically, looking at the fresh footprints of +Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret. + +"But I know. And can't you tell me--it would make me so very happy--that +I have done something for you too--something that you value?" + +Hilda's eyes lightened curiously, reverie came into them, and a smile. +She answered as if she spoke to herself, "I should not know how to tell +you." + +Then scenting wonder in him she added, "You were thinking of +something--in particular?" + +"You have sometimes made me believe," Stephen returned, "that I may +account myself, under God, the accident which induced you to take up +your blessed work. I was thinking of that." + +"Oh," she said, "of that!" and seemed to take refuge in silence. + +"Yes," Arnold said, with infinite gentleness. + +"But you were profoundly the cause! I might say you are, for without you +I doubt whether I should have the--courage--" + +"Oh no! Oh no! He who inspired you in the beginning will sustain you to +the end. Think that. Believe that." + +"Will He?" Her voice was neutral, as if it would not betray too much, +but there was a listlessness that spoke louder in the bend of her head, +the droop of her shoulder. + +"For you perhaps," Arnold said thoughtfully, "there is only one +assurance of it--the satisfaction your vocation brings you now. That +will broaden and increase," he went on, almost with buoyancy, "growing +more and more your supreme good as the years go on." + +"How much you give me credit for!" + +"Not nearly enough--not nearly. Who is there like you?" he demanded +simply. + +His words seemed a baptism. She lifted up her face after them, and the +trace of them was on her eyes and lips. "I have passed two examinations, +at all events," she informed him, with sudden gaiety, "and Sister Ann +Frances says that in two or three months I shall probably get through +the others. Sister Ann Frances thinks me more intelligent than might be +expected. And if I do pass those examinations I shall be what they call +a quick-time probationer. I shall have got it over in six months. Do +you think," she asked, as if to please herself; "that six months will be +long enough?" + +"It depends. There is so much to consider." + +"Yes--it depends. Sometimes I think it will be, but oftener I think it +will take longer." + +"I should be inclined to leave it entirely with the Sisters." + +"I am so undisciplined," murmured Hilda, "I fear I shall cling to my own +opinion. Now we must overtake the others and you must walk the rest of +the way with Sister Ann--no, Sister Margaret, she is senior." + +"I don't at all see the necessity," Stephen protested. He was wilful +and wayward; he adopted a privileged air, and she scolded him. In their +dispute they laughed so imprudently that Sister Ann Frances turned her +draped head to look back at them. Then they quickened their steps and +joined the elder ladies, and Stephen walked with Sister Margaret to the +door of the Institution. She mentioned to the Mother Superior afterwards +that young Mr. Arnold was really a delightful conversationalist. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +They talked a great deal in Plymouth about the way the time was passing +in Calcutta during those last three months before Laura should return, +the months of the rains. "Now," said Mrs. Simpson, early in July, "it +will be pouring every day, with great patches of the Maidan under water, +and rivers, my dear, RIVERS, in the back streets"; and Laura had a +reminiscence about how, exactly at that time, a green mould used to +spread itself fresh every morning on the matting under her bed in +Bentinck Street. Later on they would agree that perhaps by this time +there was a "break in the rains," and that nothing in the world was so +trying as a break in the rains, the sun grilling down and drawing up +steam from every puddle. In September, things, they remembered, would +be at their very worst and most depressing; one had hardly the energy to +lift a finger in September. Mrs. Simpson looked back upon the discomfort +she had endured in Bengal at this time of year with a kind of regret +that it was irretrievably over; she lingered upon a severe illness which +had been part of the experience. She seemed to think that with a little +judicious management she might have spent more time in that climate, and +less in England. There was in her tone a suggestion of gentle envy of +Laura, going forth to these dismal conditions with her young life in her +hands all tricked out for the sacrifice, which left Duff Lindsay and his +white and gold drawing-room entirely out of consideration. Any sacrifice +to Mrs. Simpson was alluring, she would be killed all day long, in a +manner, for its own sake. + +The victim had taken her passage early in October, and during the first +week of that month Plymouth gathered itself into meetings to bid her +farewell. A curiously sacred character had fastened itself upon her; it +was not in the least realised that she was going out to be married to an +altogether secular young broker moving in fashionable circles in one +of the gayest cities in the world. Ones or two reverend persons in +the course of commending their young sister to the protection of +the Almighty in her approaching separation from the dear friends who +surrounded her in Plymouth, made references implying that her labours +would continue to the glory of God, taking it as a matter of course. +Miss Filbert was by this time very much impregnated with the idea that +they would, she did not know precisely how, but that would open itself +out. Duff had long been assimilated as part of the programme. All that +money and humility could contribute should be forthcoming from him; she +had a familiar dream of him as her standard-bearer, undistinguished but +for ever safe. + +Yet it was with qualified approval that Mrs. Simpson, amid the confusion +of the Coromandel's preparations for departure at London Docks, +heard the inevitable strains of the Salvation Army rising aft. Laura +immediately cried, "I shall have friends among the passengers," and Mrs. +Simpson so far forgot herself as to say, "Yes, if they are nice." The +ladies were sitting on deck beside the pile of Laura's very superior +cabin luggage. Mrs. Simpson glanced at it as if it offered a kind of +corroboration of the necessity of their being nice. "There are always a +few delightful Christian people, if one takes the trouble to find them +out, at this end of the ship," she said defensively. "I have never +failed to find it so." + +"I don't think much of Christians who are so hard to discover," +Laura said with decision; and Mrs. Simpson, rebuked, thought of the +mischievous nature of class prejudices. Laura herself--had she not +been drawn from what one might call distinctly the other end of the +ship?--and who, among those who vaunted themselves ladies and gentlemen, +could compare with Laura! The idea that she had shown a want of sympathy +with those dear people who were so strenuously calling down a blessing +on the Coromandel somewhere behind the smoke stacks, embittered poor +Mrs. Simpson's remaining tears of farewell, and when the bell rang the +signal for the last good-bye, she embraced her young friend with the +fervent request, "Do make friends with them, dear one--make friends with +them at once"; and Laura said, "If they will make friends with me." + +By the time the ship had well got her nose down the coast of Spain, Miss +Filbert had created her atmosphere, and moved about in it from end to +end of the quarter-deck. It was a recognisable thing, her atmosphere, +one never knew when it would discharge a question relating to the +gravest matters; and persons unprepared to give satisfaction upon this +point--one fears there are some on a ship bound east of Suez--found +it blighting. They moved their long chairs out of the way, they +turned pointedly indifferent backs, the lady who shared Miss Filbert's +cabin--she belonged to a smart cavalry regiment at Mhow--went about +saying things with a distinct edge. Miss Filbert exhausted all the +means. She attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, +standing for elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but +with this the captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on +behalf of the whist-players inside. In the evening, after dinner, she +established herself in a sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered +voice lifted itself with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about the +poverty of the world and the riches of heaven; the notes mingled with +the churning of the screw, and fell in the darkness beyond the ship's +lights abroad upon the sea. The other passengers listened aloof; the +Coromandel was crowded, but you could have drawn a wide circle round her +chair. On the morning of the fourth day out--she had not felt quite +well enough for adventures before--she found her way to the second-class +saloon, being no doubt fully justified of her conscience in abandoning +the first to the flippancies of its preference. + +In the second-class end the tone was certainly more like that of +Plymouth. Laura had a grateful sense of this in coming, almost at once, +upon a little group gathered together for praise and prayer, of which +four or five persons of both sexes, labelled "S. A.," naturally +formed the centre. They were not only praying and praising without +discouragement, they had attracted several other people who had brought +their chairs into near and friendly relation, and even joined sometimes +in the chorus of the hymns. There was a woman in mourning who cried a +good deal--her tears seemed to refresh the Salvationists and inspire +them to louder and more cheerful efforts. There was a man in a wide, +soft felt hat with the malaria of the Terai in the hollows under +his eyes; there was a Church Missionary with an air of charity and +forbearance, and the bushy-eyed colonel of a native regiment looking +vigilant against ridicule, with his wife, whose round red little face +continually waxed and waned in a smile of true contentment. It was not +till later that Laura came to know them all so very well, but her eye +rested on them one after another, with approval, as she drew near. +Without pausing in his chant--it happened to be one of triumph--without +even looking at her, the leader indicated an empty chair. It was his +own chair. "Colonel Markin, S. A." was printed in black letters on its +striped canvas back; Laura noticed that. + +After it was over, the little gathering, Colonel Markin specially +distinguished her. He did it delicately. "I hope you won't mind my +expressin' my thanks for the help you gave us in the singin'," he said. +"Such a voice I've seldom had the pleasure to join with. May I ask where +you got it trained?" + +He was a narrow-chested man with longish sandy hair and thin features. +His eyes were large, blue, and protruding, his forehead very high and +white. There was a pinkness about the root of his nose, and a scanty +yellow moustache upon his upper lip, while his chin was partly hidden by +a beard equally scanty and even more yellow. He had extremely long white +hands; one could not help observing them as they clasped his book of +devotion. + +Laura looked at him with profound appreciation of these details. She +knew Colonel Markin by reputation, he had done a great work among the +Cingalese. "It was trained," she said, casting down her eyes, "on the +battlefields of our Army." + +Colonel Markin attempted to straighten his shoulders and to stiffen his +chin. He seemed vaguely aware of a military tradition which might make +it necessary for him, as a very senior officer indeed, to say something. +But the impression was transitory. Instead of using any rigour he held +out his hand. Laura took it reverently, and the bones shut up, like the +sticks of a fan, in her grasp. "Welcome, comrade!" he said, and there +was a pause, as there should be after such an apostrophe. + +"When you came among us this afternoon," Colonel Markin resumed, "I +noticed you. There was something about the way you put your hand over +your eyes when I addressed our Heavenly Father that spoke to me. It +spoke to me and said, 'Here we have a soul that knows what salvation +means--there's no doubt about that.' Then when you raised a Hallelujah +I said to myself, 'That's got the right ring to it.' And so you're a +sister in arms!" + +"I was," Laura murmured. + +"You was--you were. Well, well--I want to hear all about it. It is now," +continued Colonel Markin, as two bells struck and a steward passed them +with a bugle, "the hour for our dinner, and I suppose that you too," he +bent his head respectfully towards the other half of the ship, "partake +of some meal at this time. But if you will seek us out again at the +meeting between four and five I shall be at your service afterwards, and +pleased," he took her hand again, "PLEASED to see you." + +Laura went back to the evening meeting, and after that missed none of +these privileges. In due course she was asked to address it, and then +her position became enviable from all points of view, for people who did +not draw up their chairs and admire her inspirations sat at a distance +and admired her clothes. Very soon, at her special request, she was +allowed to resign her original place at table and take a revolving chair +at the nine o'clock breakfast, one o'clock dinner, and six o'clock tea +which sustained the second saloon. Daily, ascending the companion ladder +to the main deck aft she gradually faded from cognisance forward. There +they lay back in their long chairs and sipped their long drinks, and +with neutral eyes and lips they let the blessing go. + +In the intervals between the exercises Miss Filbert came and went in +the cabin of three young Salvationists of her own sex. They could always +make room for her, difficult as it may appear; she held for them an +indefinite store of fascination. Laura would extend herself on a top +berth beside the round-eyed Norwegian to whom it belonged, with the +cropped head of the owner pillowed on her sisterly arm, and thus they +passed hours, discussing conversions as medical students might discuss +cases, relating, comparing. They talked a great deal about Colonel +Markin. They said it was a beautiful life. More beautiful if possible +had been the life of Mrs. Markin, who was his second wife, and who had +been "promoted to glory" six months before. She had gained promotion +through jungle fever, which had carried her off in three days. The first +Mrs. Markin had died of drink--that was what had sent the Colonel into +the Army, she, the first Mrs. Markin, having willed her property away +from him. Colonel Markin had often rejoiced publicly that the lady +had been of this disposition, the results to him had been so blessed. +Apparently he spoke without reserve of his domestic affairs in +connection with his spiritual experiences, using both the Mrs. Markins +when it was desirable as "illustrations." The five had reached this +degree of intimacy by the time the Coromandel was nearing Port Said, +and every day the hemispheres of sea and sky they watched through the +porthole above the Norwegian girl's berth grew bluer. + +From the first Colonel Markin had urged Miss Filbert's immediate return +to the Army. He found her sympathetic to the idea, willing indeed to +embrace it with open arms, but there were difficulties. Mr. Lindsay, as +a difficulty, was almost insuperable to anything like a prompt step +in that direction. Colonel Markin admitted it himself. He was bound to +admit it he said, but nothing, since he joined the Army, had ever been +so painful to him. "I wish I could deny it," he said with frankness; +"but there is no doubt that for the present your first duty is towards +your gentleman, towards him who placed that ring upon your finger." +There was no sarcasm in his describing Lindsay as a gentleman; he used +the term in a kind of extra special sense where a person less accustomed +to polite usages might have spoken of Laura's young man. "But remember, +my child," he continued, "it is only your poor vile body that is +yours to dispose of, your soul belongs to God Almighty, and no earthly +husband, especially as you say he is still in his sins, is going to +have the right to interfere." This may seem vague, as the statement of +a position, but Laura found it immensely fortifying. That and similar +arguments built her up in her determination to take up what Colonel +Markin called her life-work again at the earliest opportunity. She had +forfeited her rank, that she accepted humbly as a proper punishment, +ardently hoping it would be found sufficient. She would go back as a +private, take her place in the ranks, and nothing in her married life +should interfere with the things that cried out to be done in Bentinck +Street. Somehow she had less hope of securing Lindsay as a spiritual +companion in arms since she had confided the affair to Colonel Markin. +As he said, they must hope for the best, but he could not help admitting +that he took a gloomy view of Lindsay. + +"Once he has secured you," the Colonel said, with an appreciative glance +at Laura's complexion, "what will he care about his soul? Nothing." + +Their enthusiasm had ample opportunity to strengthen, their mutual +satisfactions to expand, in the close confines of life on board ship, +and as if to seal and sanctify the voyage permanently a conversion took +place in the second saloon, owning Laura's agency. It was the maid of +the lady in the cavalry regiment, a hardened heart, as two stewards and +a bandmaster on board could testify. When this occurred the time that +was to elapse between Laura's marriage and her return to the ranks was +shortened to one week. "And quite long enough," Colonel Markin said, +"considering how much more we need you than your gentleman does, my dear +sister." + +It was plain to them all that Colonel Markin had very special views +about his dear sister. The other dear sisters looked on with pleasurable +interest, admitting the propriety of it, as Colonel Markin walked up and +down the deck with Laura, examining her lovely nature, "drawing her out" +on the subject of her faith and her assurance. It was natural, as he +told her, that in her peculiar situation she should have doubts and +difficulties. He urged her to lay bare her heart, and she laid it bare. +One evening--it was heavenly moonlight on the Indian Ocean, and they +were two days past Aden on the long south-east run to Ceylon--she came +and stood before him with a small packet in her hand. She was all in +white, and more like an angel than Markin expected ever to see anything +in this world, though as to the next his anticipations may have been +extravagant. + +"Now I wonder," said he, "where you are going to sit down?" + +A youngster in the Police got up and pushed his chair forward, but Laura +shook her head. + +"I am going out there," she said, pointing to the farthermost stern +where passengers were not encouraged to sit, "and I want to consult +you." + +Markin got up. "If there's anything pressin' on your mind," he said, +"you can't do better." + +Laura said nothing until they were alone with the rushing of the screw, +two Lascars, some coils of rope, and the hand-steering gear. Then she +opened the packet. "These," she said, "these are pressing on my mind." + +She held out a string of pearls, a necklace of pearls and turquoises, a +heavy band bracelet studded, Delhi fashion, with gems, one or two lesser +fantasies. + +"Jewellery!" said Markin. "Real or imitation?" + +"So far as that goes they are good. Mr. Lindsay gave them to me. But +what have I to do with jewels, the very emblem of the folly of the +world, the desire that itches in palms that know no good works, the +price of sin!" She leaned against the masthead as she spoke, the wind +blew her hair and her skirt out toward the following seas. With that +look in her eyes she seemed a creature who had alighted on the ship but +who could not stay. + +Colonel Markin held the pearls up in the moonlight. + +"They must have cost something to buy," he said. + +Laura was silent. + +"And so they're a trouble to you. Have you taken them to the Lord in +prayer?" + +"Oh, many times." + +"Couldn't seem to hear any answer?" + +"The only answer I could hear was. 'So long as you have them I will not +speak with you.'" + +"That seems pretty plain and clear. And yet?" said the Colonel, fondling +the turquoises, "nobody can say there's any harm in such things, +especially if you don't wear them." + +"Colonel, they are my great temptation. I don't know that I wouldn't +wear them. And when I wear them I can think of nothing sacred, nothing +holy. When they were given to me I used--I used to get up in the night +to look at them." + +"Shall I lay it before the Almighty? That bracelet's got a remarkably +good clasp." + +"Oh no--no! I must part with them. To-night I can do it, to-night--" + +"There's nobody on this ship that will give you any price for them." + +"I would not think of selling them. It would be sending them from my +hands to do harm to some other poor creature, weaker than I!" + +"You can't return them to-night." + +"I wouldn't return them. That would be the same as keeping them." + +"Then what--oh, I see!" exclaimed Markin. "You want to give them to the +Army. Well, in my capacity, on behalf of General Booth--" + +"No," cried Laura with sudden excitement, "not that either. I will give +them to nobody. But this is what I will do!" She seized the bracelet and +flung it far out into the opaline track of the vessel, and the smaller +objects, before her companion could stop her, followed it. Then he +caught her wrist. + +"Stop!" he cried. "You've gone off your head--you've got fever. You're +acting wicked with that jewellery. Stop and let us reason it out +together." + +She already had the turquoises, and with a jerk of her left hand, she +freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught the handrail +as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and +stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest puissance of feeling +she had known, looking at the pearls. As he stared she kissed them +twice, and then, leaning over the ship's side, let them slowly slide out +of her fingers and fall into the waves below. The moonlight gave them a +divine gleam as they fell. She turned to Markin with tears in her eyes. +"Now," she faltered, "I can be happy again. But not to-night." + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +While the Coromandel was throbbing out her regulation number of knots +towards Colombo, October was passing over Bengal. It went with lethargy, +the rains were too close on its heels; but at the end of the long hot +days, when the resplendent sun struck down on the glossy trees and the +over-lush Maidan, there often stole through Calcutta a breath of the +coming respite of December. The blue smoke of the people's cooking fires +began to hang again in the streets, the pungent smell of it was pleasant +in the still air. The south wind turned back at the Sunderbunds; instead +of it, one met round corners a sudden crispness that stayed just long +enough to be recognised and melted damply away. A week might have two or +three of such promises and foretastes. + +Hilda Howe, approaching the end of her probation at the Baker +Institution, threw the dormitory window wide to them, went out to seek +them. They gave her a new stirring of vitality, something deep within +her leaped up responding to the voucher the evenings brought that +presently they would bring something new and different. She vibrated to +an irrepressible pulse of accord with that; it made her hand strong and +her brain clear for the unimportant matters that remained within the +scope of the monotonous moment. There had come upon her a stimulating +assurance that it would be only a moment--now. She did not consider +this, she could hardly be said to be intelligently aware of it, but +it underlay all that she said and did. Her spirits gained an enviable +lightness, she began again to see beautiful, touching things in the life +that carried her on with it. She explained to Stephen Arnold that +she was immensely happy at having passed the last of her nursing +examinations. + +"I hardly dare ask you," he said, "what you are going to do now." + +He looked furtive and anxious; she saw that he did, and the perception +irritated her. She had to tell herself that she had given him the right +to look in any way he pleased--indeed yes. + +"I hardly dare ask myself," she answered, and was immediately conscious +that for the first time in the history of their relations she had spoken +to him that which was expedient. + +"I hope the Sisters are not trying to influence you," he said firmly. + +"Fancy!" she cried irrelevantly. "I heard the other day that Sister Ann +Frances had described me as the pride of the Baker Institution!" She +laughed with delight at the humour of it, and he smiled too. When she +laughed, he had nearly always now confidence enough to smile too. + +"You might ask for another six months." + +"Heavens, no! No--I shall make up my mind." + +"Then you may go away," Arnold said. They were standing at the crossing +of the wide red road from which they would go in different directions. +She saw that the question was momentous to him. She also saw how +curiously the sun sallowed him, and how many more hollows he had in his +face than most people. She had a pathetic impression of the figure he +made in his coarse gown and shoes. "God's wayfarer," she murmured. There +was pity in her mind, infinite pity. Her thought had no other tinge. It +was a curiously simple feeling, and seemed to bring her an inconsistent +lightness of heart. + +"Come too," she said aloud, "come and be a Clarke Brother where the +climatic conditions suit you better. The world wants Clarke Brothers +everywhere." + +He looked at her and tried to smile, but his lips quivered. He opened +them in an effort to speak, gave it up, and turned away silently, +lifting his hat. Hilda watched him for an instant as he went. His figure +took strange proportions through the tears that sprang to her eyes, +and she marvelled at the gaiety with which she had touched, had almost +revealed, her heart's desire. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +"I knew it would happen in the end," Hilda said, "and it has happened. +The Archdeacon has asked me to tea." + +She was speaking to Alicia Livingstone in the dormitory, changing at +the same time for a "turn" at the hospital. It was six o'clock in the +afternoon. Alicia's landau stood at the door of the Baker Institution. +She had come to find that Miss Howe was just going on duty and could not +be taken for a drive. + +"When?" asked Alicia, staring out of the window at the crows in a +tamarind tree. + +"Last Saturday. He said he had promised some friends of his the pleasure +of meeting me. They had besieged him, he said, and they were his best +friends, on all his committees." + +"Only ladies?" The crows, with a shriek of defiance at nothing in +particular, having flown away, Miss Livingstone transferred her +attention. + +"Bless me, yes. What Archdeacon has dear men friends! And lesquelles +pense-tu, mon Dieu!" + +"Lesquelles?" + +"Mrs. Jack Forrester, Mrs. Fitz--what you may call him up on the +frontier, the Brigadier gentleman--Lady Dolly!" + +"You were well chaperoned." + +"And--my dear--he didn't ask a single Sister!" Hilda turned upon her a +face which appeared still to glow with the stimulus of the archidiaconal +function. "And--it was wicked considering the occasion--I dropped the +character. I let myself out!" + +"You didn't shock the Archdeacon?" + +"Not in the least. But, my dear love, did you ever permit yourself the +reflection that the Venerable Gambell is a bachelor?" + +"Hilda, you shall not! We all love him--you shall not lead him astray!" + +"You would not think of--the altar?" + +Miss Livingstone's pale small smile fell like a snowflake upon Hilda's +mood, and was swallowed up. "You are very preposterous," she said. "Go +on. You always amuse one." Then, as if Hilda's going on were precisely +the thing she could not quite endure, she said quickly, "The Coromandel +is telegraphed from Colombo to-day." + +"Ah!" said Hilda. + +"He leaves for Madras to-morrow. The thing is to take place there, you +know." + +"Then nothing but shipwreck can save him." + +"Nothing but--what a horrible idea! Don't you think they may be happy? I +really think they may." + +"There is not one of the elements that give people, when they commit +the paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that they may not be +miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I should pity him less. +But he's not. He's immensely dependent on his tastes, his friends, his +circumstances." + +Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an attention caught upon +an accidental phrase. "The paramount stupidity." She did not repeat it +aloud, she turned it over in her mind. + +"You are thinking," Hilda said accusingly. "What are you thinking +about?" + +"Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday. I thought him looking rather +wretched." + +A shadow of grave consideration winged itself across Hilda's eyes. + +"He works so much too hard," she said. "It is an appalling waste. But he +will offer himself up." + +Alicia looked unsatisfied. She had hoped for something that would throw +more light upon the paramount stupidity. "He brought Mr. Lappe to tea," +she said. + +The shadow went. "Should you think Brother Lappe," Miss Howe demanded, +"specially fitted for the cure of souls? Never, never, could I allow the +process of my regeneration to come through Brother Lappe. He has such a +little nose, and such wide pink cheeks, and such fat sloping shoulders. +Dear succulent Brother Lappe!" + +A Sister passed through the dormitory on a visit of inspection. Alicia +bowed sweetly, and the Sister inclined herself briefly with a cloistered +smile. As she disappeared Hilda threw a black skirt over her head, +making a veil of it flowing backward, and rendered the visit, the +noiseless measured step, the little deprecating movements of inquiry, +the benevolent recognition of a visitor from a world where people +carried parasols and wore spotted muslins. She even effaced herself at +the door on the track of the other to make it perfect, and came back +in the happy expansion of an artistic effort to find Alicia's regard +penetrated with the light of a new conviction. + +"Hilda," she said, "I should like to know what this last year has really +been to you." + +"It has been very valuable," Miss Howe replied. Then she turned quickly +away to hang up the black petticoat, and stood like that, shaking out +its folds, so that Alicia might not see anything curious in her face as +she heard her own words and understood what they meant. Very valuable! +She did understand, suddenly, completely. Very valuable! A year of the +oddest experiences, a pictorial year, which she would look back upon, +with its core in a dusty priest.... + +A probationer came rapidly along the dormitory to where Hilda stood. She +had the olive cheeks and the liquid eyes of the country; her lips were +parted in a smile. + +"Miss Howe," she said, in the quick clicking syllables of her race, +"Sister Margaret wishes you to come immediately to the surgical ward. A +case has come in, and Miss Gonsalvez is there, but Sister Margaret will +not be bothered with Miss Gonsalvez. She says you are due by right in +five minutes,"--the messenger's smile broadened irresponsibly, and she +put a fondling touch upon Hilda's apron string,--"so will you please to +make haste!" + +"What's the case?" asked Hilda; "I hope it isn't another ship's hold +accident." But Alicia, a shade paler than before, put up her hand. "Wait +till I'm gone," she said, and went quickly. The girl had opened her +lips, however, but to say that she didn't know, she had only been seized +to take the message, though it must be something serious since they had +sent for both the resident surgeons. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Dr. Livingstone's concern was personal, that was plain in the way +he stood looking at the floor of the corridor with his hands in his +pockets, before Hilda reached him. Regret was written all over the lines +of his pausing figure with the compressed irritation which saved that +feeling in the Englishman's way from being too obvious. + +"This is a bad business, Miss Howe." + +"I've just come over--I haven't heard. Who is it?" + +"It's my cousin, poor chap--Arnold, the padre. He's been badly knifed in +the bazar." + +The news passed over her and left her looking with a curious face at +chance. It was lifted a little, with composed lips, and eyes which +refused to be taken by surprise. There was inquiry in them, also a +defence. Chance, looking back, saw an invincible silent readiness, and +a pallor which might be that of any woman. But the doctor was also +looking, so she said, "That is very sad," and moved near enough to the +wall to put her hand against it. She was not faint, but the wall was a +fact on which one could, for the moment, rely. + +"They've got the man--one of those Cabuli money-lenders. The police had +no trouble with him. He said it was the order of Allah--the brute! Stray +case of fanaticism, I suppose. It seems Arnold was walking along as +usual, without a notion, and the fellow sprang on him, and in two +seconds the thing was done. Hadn't a chance, poor beggar." + +"Where is it?" + +"Root of the left lung. About five inches deep. The artery pretty well +cut through, I fancy." + +"Then--" + +"Oh no--we can't do anything. The haemorrhage must be tremendous. But he +may live through the night. Are you going to Sister Margaret?" + +His nod took it for granted, and he went on. Hilda walked slowly +forward, her head bent, with absorbed uncertain steps. A bar of evening +sunlight came before her, she looked up and stepped outside the open +door. She was handling this thing that had happened, taking possession +of it. It lay in her mind in the midst of a suddenly stricken and +tenderly saddened consciousness. It lay there passively; it did not rise +and grapple with her, it was a thing that had happened--in Burra Bazar. +The pity of it assailed her. Tears came into her eyes, and an infinite +grieved solicitude gathered about her heart. "So?" she said to herself, +thinking that he was young and loved his work, and that now his hand +would be stayed from the use it had found. One of the ugly outrages of +life, leaving nothing on the mouth but that brief acceptance. It came +to hers with a note of the profound and of the supreme. She turned +resolutely from searching her heart for any wild despair. She would +not for an instant consider what she ought to feel. "So," she said, +and pressed her lips till they stopped trembling, and went into the +hospital. + +She asked a question or two, in search of Sister Margaret and the new +case. It was "located," an assistant surgeon told her, in Private Ward +Number Two. She went more and more slowly toward Private Ward Number +Two. + +The door was open; she stood in it for an instant with eyes nerved to +receive the tragedy. The room seemed curiously empty of any such thing, +a door opposite was also open, with an arched verandah outside; the low +sun streamed through this upon the floor with its usual tranquillity. +Beyond the arches, netted to keep the crows away, it made pictures with +the tops of the trees. There was the small iron bed with the confused +outline under the bedclothes, very quiet, and the Sister--the +whitewashed wall rose sharp behind her black draperies--sitting with a +book in her hands. Some scraps of lint on the floor beside the bed, and +hardly anything else except the silence which had almost a presence, and +a faint smell of carbolic acid, and a certain feeling of impotence and +abandonment and waiting which seemed to be in the air. Arnold moved on +the pillow and saw her standing in the door. The bars of the bed's foot +were in the way, he tried to lift his head to surmount the obstruction, +and the Sister perceived her too. + +"I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?" she +said, with her little pink smile. "And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in +time to be of much use to us, is she?" It was the bedside pleasantry +that expected no reply, that indeed forbade one. + +"I'm sorry," Hilda said. As she moved into the room she detached her +eyes from Arnold's, feeling as she did so that it was like tearing +something. + +"There was so little to do," Sister Margaret said; "Surgeon-Major Wills +saw at once where the mischief lay. Nothing disagreeable was necessary, +was it, Mr. Arnold? Perfect quiet, perfect rest--that's an easy +prescription to take." She had rather prominent very blue eyes, and +an aquiline nose, and a small firm mouth, and her pink cheeks were +beginning to be a little pendulous with age. Hilda gazed at her +silently, noting about her authority and her flowing draperies something +classical. Was she like one of the Fates? She approached the bed to do +something to the pillow--Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the +cry, "It is not time yet--Atropos!" + +"I must go now for an hour or so," the Sister went on. "That poor +creature in Number Six needs me; they daren't give her any more morphia. +You don't need it--happy boy!" she said to Stephen, and at the look he +sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister, +she was none of the Fates, she was obliged to give directions to Hilda +standing in the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved +reputation for self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute +that no one should be admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the +hospital door for the information of inquiries; later on when the doctor +came again there would be another. + +She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had +vanished; a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, the +background gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she had +given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved closer to +the bed and stood beside him. Since there was nothing to do there was +nothing to say. Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of her +dress. + +The room filled itself with something that had not been there before, +his impotent love. Hilda knelt down beside the bed and pressed her +forehead against the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so little +more to do. Then Arnold spoke. + +"You dear woman!" he said. "You dear woman!" She kept her head bowed +like that and did not answer. It was his happiest moment. One might say +he had lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, a kind of baptism +for his heart. He spoke again. + +"We must bear this," he panted. "It is--less cruel--than it seems. You +don't know how much it is for the best." + +She lifted her wet face. "You mustn't talk," she faltered. + +"What difference--" he did not finish the sentence. His words were too +few to waste. He paused and made another effort. + +"If this had not happened I would have been--counted--among the +unfaithful," he said. "I know now. I would have abandoned--my post. And +gladly--without a regret--for you." + +"Ah!" Hilda cried, with a vivid note of pain. "Would you? I am sorry for +that! I am sorry!" + +She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive +delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with +the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have +had to do with the forging of those shackles--the price of the year that +had been very valuable. + +"My God is a jealous God," Arnold said. "He has delivered me--into His +own hands--for the honour of His name. I acknowledge--I am content." + +"No, indeed no! It was a wicked, horrible chance! Don't charge your God +with it." + +His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least possible attention. "You +did love me," he said. He spoke as if he were already dead. + +"I did indeed," Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands +again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the +affirmation in it. + +He stroked her hair. "It is good to know that," he said, "very, good. I +should have married you." He went on with sudden boldness and a new note +of strength in his voice, "Think of that! You would have been mine--to +protect and work for. We should have gone together to England--where I +could easily have got a curacy--easily." + +Hilda looked up. "Would you like to marry me now?" she asked eagerly, +but he shook his head. + +"You don't understand," he said. "It is the dear sin God has turned my +back upon." + +Then it came to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going +unassoiled to his God, with the divine indifference of the dying. Only +his imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, "It is +a little light flame that I have lit with my own taper that has gone +out--that has gone out--and presently the grave will extinguish that." +She sat quiet and sombre in the growing darkness, and presently Arnold +slept. + +He slept through the bringing of a lamp, the arrival of flowers, subdued +knocks of inquirers who would not be stayed by the bulletin--the +visit of Surgeon-Major Wills, who felt his pulse without wakening him. +"Holding out wonderfully," the doctor said. "Don't rouse him for the +soup. He'll go out in about six hours without any pain. May not wake at +all." + +The door opened again to admit the probationer come to relieve Miss +Howe. Hilda beckoned her into the corridor. "You can go back," she said, +"I will take your turn." + +"But the Mother Superior--you know how particular about the rules--" + +"Say nothing about it. Go to bed. I am not coming." + +"Then, Miss Howe, I shall be obliged to report it." + +"Report and be--report if you like. There is nothing for you to do +here to-night," and Hilda softly closed the door. There was a whispered +expostulation when Sister Margaret came back, but Miss Howe said, "It +is arranged," and with a little silent nod of appreciation the Sister +settled into her chair, her finger marking a place in the Church +Service. Hilda sat nearer to the bed, her elbow on the table, shading +her eyes from the lamp, and watched. + +"Is it not odd," whispered Sister Margaret, as the night wore on, "he +has refused to be confessed before he goes? He will not see the Brother +Superior--or any of them. Strange, is it not?" + +Together they watched the quick short breathing. It seemed strangely +impossible to sleep against such odds. They saw the lines of the +face grow sharper and whiter, the dark eye-sockets sink to a curious +roundness, a greyness gather about the mouth. There were times when +they looked at each other in the last surmise. Yet the feeble pulse +persisted--persisted. + +"I believe now," said Sister Margaret, "that he may go on like this +until the morning. I am going to take half an hour's nap. Rouse me at +once if he wakes," and she took an attitude of casual repose, turning +the Prayer-book open on her knee for readier use, open at "Prayers for +the Dying." + +The jackals had wailed themselves out, and there was a long, dark period +when nothing but the sudden cry of a night bird in the hospital garden +came between Hilda and the very vivid perception she had at that hour of +the value and significance of the earthly lot. She lifted her head +and listened to that, it seemed a comment. Suddenly, then, a harsh +quarrelling of dogs--Christian dogs--arose in the distance and died +away, and again there was night and silence. Night for hours. Time for +reflection, alone with death and the lamp, upon the year that had +been very valuable. "I would have married you," she whispered. "Yes, +I would." Later her lips moved again. "I would have taken the +consequence;" and again, "I would have paid any penalty." There he lay, +a burden that she would never bear, a burden that would be gone in the +morning. There were moments when she cried out on Fate for doing her +this kindness. + +The long singing drone of a steamer's signal came across the city from +the river, once, twice, thrice; and presently the sparrows began their +twittering in the bushes near the verandah, an unexpected unanimous bird +talk that died as suddenly and as irrelevantly away. A conservancy cart +lumbered past creaking; the far shrill whistle of an awakening factory +cut the air from Howrah; the first solitary foot smote through the dawn +upon the pavement. The light showed grey beyond the scanty curtains. A +noise of something being moved reverberated in the hospital below, and +Arnold opened his eyes. They made him in a manner himself again, and he +fixed them upon Hilda as if they could never alter. She leaned nearer +him and made a sign of inquiry toward the sleeping Sister, with the +farewells, the commendations of poor mortality speeding itself forth, +lying upon her lap. Arnold comprehended, and she was amazed to see the +mask of his face charge itself with a faint smile as he shook his head. +He made a little movement; she saw what he wanted and took his hand in +hers. The smile was still in his eyes as he looked at her, and then +at the cheated Sister. "I would have married you," she whispered +passionately as if that could stay him. "Yes, I would." + +So in the end he trusted the new wings of his mortal love to bear his +soul to its immortality. They carried their burden buoyantly, it was +such a little way. The lamp was still holding its own against the +paleness from the windows when the meaning finally went out of his clasp +of Hilda's hand, without a struggle to stay, and she saw that in an +instant when she was not looking, he had closed his eyes upon the world. +She sat on beside him for a long time after that, watching tenderly, and +would not withdraw her hand--it seemed an abandonment. + + + +Three hours later Miss Howe, passing out of the hospital gate, was +overtaken by Duff Lindsay, riding, with a look of singular animation +and vigour. He flung himself off his horse to speak to her, and as he +approached he drew from his inner coat pocket the brown envelope of a +telegram. + +"Good-morning," he said. "You do look fagged. I have a--curious--piece +of news." + +"Alicia told me that you were starting early this morning for Madras!" + +"I should have been, but for this." + +"Read it to me," Hilda said, "I'm tired." + +"Oh, do you very much mind? I would rather--" + +She took the missive; it was dated the day before, Colombo, and read-- + + +"Do not expect me was married this morning to Colonel Markin S A we may +not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers glory be to God Laura +Markin" + + +She raised her eyes to his with the gravest, saddest irony. + +"Then you--you also are delivered," she said; but he said "What?" +without special heed; and I doubt whether he ever took the trouble to +understand her reference to their joint indebtedness. + +"One hopes he isn't a brute," Lindsay went on with most impersonal +solicitude, "and can support her. I suppose there isn't any way one +could do anything for her. I heard a story only yesterday about a girl +changing her mind on the way out. By Jove, I didn't suppose it would +happen to me!" + +"If you are hurt anywhere," Hilda said absently, "it is only your +vanity, I fancy." + +"Ah, my vanity is very sore!" He paused for an instant, wondering to +find so little expansion in her. "I came to ask after Arnold," he said. +"How is he?" + +"He is dead. He died at half-past five this morning." + +She left him with even less than her usual circumstance, and turned in +at the gate of the Baker Institution. It happened to be the last day of +her probation. + + +There has never been any difficulty in explaining Lindsay's marriage +with Alicia Livingstone even to himself; the reasons for it, indeed, +were so many and so obvious that he wondered often why they had not +struck him earlier. But it is worth noting, perhaps, that the immediate +precipitating cause arose in one evening service at the Cathedral, where +it had its birth in the very individual charm of the nape of Alicia's +neck, as she knelt upon her hassock in the fitting and graceful act +of the responses. His instincts in these matters seem to have had a +generous range, considering the tenets he was born to, but it was to +him then a delightful reflection, often since repeated, that in the +sheltered garden of delicate perfumes where this sweet person took her +spiritual pleasure there was no rank vegetation. + +It is much to Miss Hilda Howe's credit that amid the distractions of her +most successful London season she never quite abandons these two to +the social joys that circle round the Ochterlony Monument and the arid +scenic consolations of the Maidan. Her own experience there is one of +the things, I fancy, that make her fond of saying that the stage is the +merest cardboard presentation, and that one day she means to leave it, +to coax back to her bosom the life which is her heritage in the wider, +simpler ways of the world. She never mentions that experience more +directly or less ardently. But I fear the promise I have quoted is one +that she makes too often. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Path of a Star, by +Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF A STAR *** + +***** This file should be named 5102.txt or 5102.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/0/5102/ + +Produced by Don Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Path of a Star + +Author: Mrs. Everard Cotes + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5102] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 28, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE PATH OF A STAR *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Don Lainson. + + + + +THE PATH OF A STAR + + +by + + +MRS. EVERARD COTES + +(SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN) + + +1899 + + + +CHAPTER I + + +She pushed the portiere aside with a curved hand and gracefully +separated fingers; it was a staccato movement and her body followed +it after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little +forward, eyes inquiring and a tentative smile, although she knew +precisely who was there. You would have been aware at once that +she was an actress. She entered the room with a little stride and +then crossed it quickly, the train of her morning gown--it cried +out of luxury with the cheapest voice--taking folds of great +audacity as she bent her face in its loose mass of hair over Laura +Filbert, sitting on the edge of a bamboo sofa, and said-- + +"You poor thing! Oh, you POOR thing!" + +She took Laura's hand as she spoke, and tried to keep it; but the +hand was neutral, and she let it go. "It is a hand," she said to +herself, in one of those quick reflections that so often visited +her ready-made, "that turns the merely inquiring mind away. +Nothing but feeling could hold it." + +Miss Filbert made the conventional effort to rise, but it came to +nothing, or to a mere embarrassed accent of their greeting. Then +her voice showed this feeling to be superficial, made nothing of +it, pushed it to one side. + +"I suppose you cannot see the foolishness of your pity," she said. +"Oh Miss Howe, I am happier than you are--much happier." Her bare +feet, as she spoke, nestled into the coarse Mirzapore rug on the +floor, and her eye lingered approvingly upon an Owari vase three +feet high, and thick with the gilded landscape of Japan, which +stood near it, in the cheap magnificence of the room. + +Hilda smiled. Her smile acquiesced in the world she had found, +acquiesced, with the gladness of an explorer, in Laura Filbert as a +feature of it. + +"Don't be too sure," she cried; "I am very happy. It is such a +pleasure to see you." + +Her gaze embraced Miss Filbert as a person, and Miss Filbert as a +pictorial fact, but that was because she could not help it. Her +eyes were really engaged only with the latter Miss Filbert. + +"Much happier than you are," Laura repeated, slowly moving her head +from side to side as if to negative contradiction in advance. She +smiled too; it was as if she had remembered a former habit, from +politeness. + +"Of course you are--of course!" Miss Howe acknowledged. The words +were mellow and vibrant; her voice seemed to dwell upon them with a +kind of rich affection. Her face covered itself with serious +sweetness. "I can imagine the beatitudes you feel--by your +clothes." + +The girl drew her feet under her, and her hand went up to the only +semi-conventional item of her attire. It was a brooch that +exclaimed in silver letters "Glory to His Name!" "It is the dress +of the Army in this country," she said; "I would not change it for +the wardrobe of a queen." + +"That's just what I mean." Miss Howe leaned back in her chair with +her head among its cushions, and sent her words fluently across the +room, straight and level with the glance from between her half- +closed eyelids. A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it +was possible to enjoy in the East clung about her. "To live on a +plane that lifts you up like that--so that you can defy all +criticism and all convention, and go about the streets like a mark +of exclamation at the selfishness of the world--there must be +something very consummate in it or you couldn't go on. At least I +couldn't." + +"I suppose I do look odd to you." Her voice took a curious, soft, +uplifted note. "I wear three garments only--the garments of my +sisters who plant the young shoots in the rice-fields, and carry +bricks for the building of rich men's houses, and gather the dung +of the roadways to burn for fuel. If the Army is to conquer India +it must march bare-footed and bare-headed all the way. All the +way," Laura repeated, with a tremor of musical sadness. Her eyes +were fixed in appeal upon the other woman's. "And if the sun beats +down upon my uncovered head, I think, 'It struck more fiercely upon +Calvary'; and if the way is sharp to my unshod feet, I say, 'At +least I have no cross to bear.'" The last words seemed almost a +chant, and her voice glided from them into singing-- + + + "The blessed Saviour died for me, + On the cross! On the cross! + He bore my sins at Calvary, + On the rugged cross!" + + +She sang softly, her body thrust a little forward in a tender +swaying-- + + + "Behold His hands and feet and side, + The crown of thorns, the crimson tide, + 'Forgive them, Father!' loud He cried, + On the rugged cross!" + + +"Oh, thank you!" Miss Howe exclaimed. Then she murmured again, +"That's just what I mean." + +A blankness came over the girl's face as a light cloud will cross +the moon. She regarded Hilda from behind it, with penetrant +anxiety. "Did you really enjoy that hymn?" she asked. + +"Indeed I did." + +"Then, dear Miss Howe, I think you cannot be very far from the +Kingdom." + +"I? Oh, I have my part in a kingdom." Her voice caressed the +idea. "And the curious thing is that we are all aristocrats who +belong to it. Not the vulgar kind, you understand--but no, you +don't understand. You'll have to take my word for it." Miss +Howe's eyes sought a red hibiscus flower that looked in at the +window half drowned in sunlight, and the smile in them deepened. + +"Is it the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?" Laura Filbert's +clear glance was disturbed by a ray of curiosity, but the +inflexible quality of her tone more than counterbalanced this. + +"There's nothing about it in the Bible, if that's what you mean. +And yet I think the men who wrote 'The time of the singing of birds +has come,' and 'I will lift mine eyes unto the hills,' must have +belonged to it." She paused, with an odd look of discomfiture. +"But one shouldn't talk about things like that--it takes the bloom +off. Don't you feel that way about your privileges now and then? +Don't they look rather dusty and battered to you after a day's +exposure in Bow Bazar?" + +There came a light crunch of wheels on the red soorkee drive +outside, and a switch past the bunch of sword-ferns that grew +beside the door. The muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and +the sound of an inquiry penetrated from beyond the portiere, and +without further preliminary Duff Lindsay came into the room. + +"Do I interrupt a rehearsal?" he asked; but there was nothing in +the way he walked across the room to Hilda Howe to suggest that the +idea abashed him. For her part she rose and made one short step to +meet him, and then received him as it were with both hands and all +her heart. + +"How ridiculous you are!" she cried. "Of course not. And let me +tell you it is very nice of you to come this very first day when +one was dying to be welcomed. Miss Filbert came too, and we have +been talking about our respective walks in life. Let me introduce +you. Miss Filbert--Captain Filbert, of the Salvation Army--Mr. +Duff Lindsay of Calcutta." + +She watched with interest the gravity with which they bowed, and +the difference in it: his the simple formality of his class, +Laura's a repressed hostility to such an epitome of the world as he +looked, although any Bond Street tailor would have impeached his +waistcoat, and one shabby glove had manifestly never been on. Yet +Miss Filbert's first words seemed to show a slight unbending. +"Won't you sit there?" she said, indicating the sofa corner she had +been occupying. "You get the glare from the window where you are." +It was virtually a command, delivered with a complete air of +dignity and authority; and Lindsay, in some confusion, found +himself obeying. "Oh, thank you, thank you," he said. "One +doesn't really mind in the least. Do you--do you object to it? +Shall I close the shutters?" + +"If you do," said Miss Howe delightedly, "we shall not be able to +see." + +"Neither we should," he assented; "the others are closed already. +Very badly built these Calcutta houses, aren't they? Have you been +long in India, Miss--Captain Filbert?" + +"I served a year up-country, and then fell ill and had to go home +on furlough. The native food didn't suit me. I am stationed in +Calcutta now, but I have only just come." + +"Pleasant time of the year to arrive," Mr. Lindsay remarked. + +"Yes; but we are not particular about that. We love all the times +and the seasons, since every one brings its appointed opportunity. +Last year, in Mugridabad, there were more souls saved in June than +in any other month." + +"Really?" asked Mr. Lindsay; but he was not looking at her with +those speculations. The light had come back upon her face. + +"I will say good-bye now," said Captain Filbert. "I have a meeting +at half-past five. Shall we have a word of prayer before I go?" + +She plainly looked for immediate acquiescence; but Miss Howe said, +"Another time, dear." + +"Oh, why not?" exclaimed Duff Lindsay. Hilda put the semblance of +a rebuke into her glance at him, and said, "Certainly not." + +"Oh," Captain Filbert cried, "don't think you can escape that way! +I will pray for you long and late to-night, and ask my lieutenant +to do so too. Don't harden your heart, Miss Howe--the Lord is +waiting to be compassionate." + +The two were silent, and Laura walked toward the door. Just where +the sun slanted into the room and made leaf-patterns on the floor +she turned and stood for an instant in the full tide of it; and it +set all the loose tendrils of her pale yellow hair in a little +flame, and gave the folds of the flesh-coloured sari that fell over +her shoulder the texture of draperies so often depicted as +celestial. The sun sought into her face, revealing nothing but +great purity of line and a clear pallor except where below the wide +light blue eyes two ethereal shadows brushed themselves. Under the +intentness of their gaze she made as if she would pass out without +speaking; and the tender curves of her limbs, as she wavered, could +not have been matched out of mediaeval stained glass. But her +courage, or her conviction, came back to her at the door, and she +raised her hand and pointed at Hilda. + +"She's got a soul worth saving." + +Then the portiere fell behind her, and nothing was said in the room +until the pad of her bare feet had ceased upon the stair. + +"She came out in the Bengal with us," Hilda told him--this is not a +special instance of it, but she could always gratify Duff Lindsay +in advance--"and she was desperately seedy, poor girl. I looked +after her a little, but it was mistaken kindness, for now she's got +me on her mind. And as the two hundred and eighty million +benighted souls of India are her continual concern, I seem a +superfluity. To think of being the two hundred and eighty +millionth and first oppresses one." + +Lindsay listened with a look of accustomed happiness. + +"You weren't at that end of the ship?" he demanded. + +"Of course I was--we all were. And some of us--little Miss Stace, +for instance--thankful enough at the prospect of cold meat and +sardines for tea every night for a whole month. And, after Suez, +ices for dinner on Sundays. It was luxury." + +Lindsay was pulling an aggrieved moustache. "I don't call it fair +or friendly," he said, "when you know how easily it could have been +arranged. Your own sense of the fitness of things should have told +you that the second-class saloon was no place for you. For YOU!" + +Plainly she did not intend to argue the point. She poised her chin +in her hand and looked away over his head, and he could not help +seeing, as he had seen before, that her eyes were beautiful. But +this had been so long acknowledged between them that she could +hardly have been conscious that she was insisting on it afresh. +Then by the time he might have thought her launched upon a +different meditation, her mind swept back to his protest, like a +whimsical bird. + +"I didn't want to extract anything from the mercantile community of +Calcutta in advance," she said. "It would be most unbusinesslike. +Stanhope has been equal to bringing us out; but I quite see myself, +as leading lady, taking round the hat before the end of the season. +Then I think," she said with defiance, "that I shall avoid you." + +"And pray why?" + +"Because you would put too much in. According to your last letters +you are getting beastly rich. You would take all the tragedy out +of the situation, and my experience would vanish in your cheque." + +"I don't know why my feelings should always be cuffed out of the +way of your experiences," Lindsay said. She retorted, "Oh yes, you +do"; and they regarded each other through an instant's silence with +visible good-fellowship. + +"A reasonably strong company this time?" Lindsay asked. + +"Thank you. 'Company' is gratifying. For a month we have been a +'troupe'--in the first-class end. Fairish. Bad to middling. +Fifteen of us, and when we are not doing Hamlet and Ophelia we can +please with light comedy, or the latest thing in rainbow chiffon +done on mirrors with a thousand candlepower. Bradley and I will +have to do most of the serious work. But I have improved--oh, a +lot. You wouldn't know my Lady Whippleton." + +It was a fervid announcement, but it carried an implication which +appeared to prevent Lindsay's kindling. + +"Then Bradley is here too?" he remarked. + +"Oh yes," she said; and an instinct sheathed itself in her face. +"But it is much better than it was, really. He is hardly ever +troublesome now. He understands. And he teaches me a great deal +more than I can tell you. You know," she asserted, with the effect +of taking an independent view, "as an artist he has my unqualified +respect." + +"You have a fine disregard for the fact that artists are men when +they are not women," Duff said. "I don't believe their behaviour +is a bit more affected by their artistry than it would be by a +knowledge of the higher mathematics." + +She turned indignant eyes on him. "Fancy YOUR saying that! Fancy +your having the impertinence to offer me so absurd a sophistry! +At what Calcutta dinner-table did you pick it up?" she cried +derisively. "Well, it shows that one can't trust one's best friend +loose among the conventions!" + +He had decided that it would be a trifle edged to say that such +matters were not often discussed at Calcutta dinner-tables, when +she added, with apparent inconsistency and real dejection, "It IS +a hideous bore." + +Lindsay saw his point admitted, and even in the way she brushed it +aside he felt that she was generous. Yet something in him--perhaps +the primitive hunting instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch +impulse to explore the very roots of every matter, tempted him to +say, "He gives up a good deal, doesn't he, for his present +gratification?" + +"He gives up everything! That is the disgusting part of it. +Leander Morris offered him-- But why should I tell you? It's +humiliating enough in the very back of one's mind." + +"He is a clever fellow, no doubt." + +"Not too clever to act with me! Oh, we go beautifully--we melt, we +run together. He has given me some essential things, and now I can +give them back to him. I begin to think that is what keeps him +now. It must be awfully satisfying to generate artistic life in-- +in anybody, and watch it grow." + +"Doubtless," said Lindsay, with his eyes on the carpet; and her +eyebrows twitched together, but she said nothing. Although she +knew his very moderate power of analysis he seemed to look, with +his eyes on the carpet, straight into the subject, to perceive it +with a cynical clearness, and as Hilda watched him a little +hardness came about her mouth. "Well," he said, visibly detaching +himself from the matter, "it's a satisfaction to have you back. I +have been doing nothing, literally, since you went away, but making +money and playing tennis. Existence, as I look back upon it, is +connoted by a varying margin of profit and a vast sward." + +She looked at him with eyes in which sympathy stood remotely, +considering the advisability of returning. "It's a pity you can't +act," she said; "then you could come away and let it all go." + +Lindsay smiled at her across the gulf he saw fixed. "How simple +life is to you!" he said. "But anyway I couldn't act." + +"Oh no, you couldn't, you couldn't! You are too intensely +absorbent, you are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would +never consent even for an instant to be the flame in anybody else-- +any of those people who, for the purpose of the state, are called +imaginary. Never!" + +It seemed a punishment, but all Lindsay said was: "I wish you +would go on. You can't think how gratifying it is--after the +tennis." + +"If I went on I have an idea that I might be disagreeable." + +"Oh then, stop. We can't quarrel yet--I've hardly seen you. Are +you comfortable here? Would you like some French novels?" + +"Yes, thank you. Yes, please!" She grew before him into a light +and conventional person, apparently on her guard against freedom of +speech. He moved a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the +spring she had detached herself from, and after failing for a +quarter of an hour he got up to go. + +"I shan't bother you again before Saturday," he said; "I know what +a week it will be at the theatre. Remember you are to give the man +his orders about the brougham. I can get on perfectly with the +cart. Good-bye! Calcutta is waiting for you." + +"Calcutta is never impatient," said Miss Howe. "It is waiting with +yawns and much whisky and soda." She gave him a stately inclination +with her hand, and he overcame the temptation to lay his own on his +heart in a burlesque of it. At the door he remembered something, +and turned. He stood looking back precisely where Laura Filbert had +stood, but the sun was gone. "You might tell me more about your +friend of the altruistic army," he said. + +"You saw, you heard, you know." + +"But--" + +"Oh," cried she, disregardingly, "you can discover her for +yourself, at the Army Headquarters in Bentinck Street--you man!" + +Lindsay closed the door behind him without replying, and half-way +down the stairs her voice appealed to him over the banisters. + +"You might as well forget that. I didn't particularly mean it." + +"I know you didn't," he returned. "You woman! But you yourself-- +you're not going to play with your heavenly visitant?" + +Hilda leaned upon the banisters, her arms dropping over from the +elbows. "I suppose I may look at her," she said; and her smile +glowed down upon him. + +"Do you think it really rewards attention?--the type, I mean." + +"How you will talk of types! Didn't you see that she was unique? +You may come back if you like, for a quarter of an hour, and we +will discuss her." + +Lindsay looked at his watch. "I would come back for a quarter of +an hour to discuss anything, or nothing," he replied, "but there +isn't time. I am dining with the Archdeacon. I must go to +church." + +"Why not be original and dine with the Archdeacon without going to +church? Why not say on arrival: 'My dear Archdeacon, your sermon +and your mutton the same evening--c'est trop! I cannot so impose +upon your generosity. I have come for the mutton!'" + +Thus was Captain Laura Filbert superseded, as doubtless often +before, by an orthodox consideration. Duff Lindsay drove away in +his cart; and still, for an appreciable number of seconds, Miss +Howe stood leaning over the banisters, her eyes fixed full of +speculation on the place where he had stood. She was thinking of +a scene--a dinner with an Archdeacon--and of the permanent +satisfactions to be got from it; and she renounced almost with a +palpable sigh the idea of the Archdeacon's asking her. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +"Oh, her gift!" said Alicia Livingstone. "It is the lowest, isn't +it--in the scale of human endowment? Mimicry." + +Miss Livingstone handed her brother his tea as she spoke, but +turned her eyes and her delicate chin up to Duff Lindsay with the +protest. Lindsay's cup was at his lips, and his eyebrows went up +over it as if they would answer before his voice was set at +liberty. + +"Mimicry isn't a fair word," he said. "The mimic doesn't +interpret. He's a mere thief of expression. You can always see +him behind his stolen mask. The actress takes a different rank. +This one does, anyway." + +"You're mixing her up with the apes and the monkeys," remarked +Surgeon-Major Livingstone. + +"Mere imitators!" cried Mrs. Barberry. + +Alicia did not allow the argument to pursue her. She smiled upon +their energy and, so to speak, disappeared. It was one of her +little ways, and since it left seeming conquerors on her track +nobody quarrelled with it. + +"I've met them in London," she said. "Oh, I remember one hot +little North Kensington flat full of them, and their cigarettes-- +and they were always disappointing. There seemed to be somehow no +basis--nothing to go upon." + +She looked from one to the other of her party with a graceful +deprecating movement of her head, a head which people were +unanimous in calling more than merely pretty and more than +ordinarily refined. That was the cursory verdict, the superficial +thing to see and say; it will do to go on with. From the way +Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he might have been suspected of +other discoveries, possible only to the somewhat privileged in this +blind world, where intimacy must lend a lens to find out anything +at all. + +"You found that they had no selves," he said, and the manner of his +words was encouraging and provocative. His proposition was +obscured to him for the instant by his desire to obtain the very +last of her comment, and it might be seen that this was habitual +with him. "But Miss Hilda Howe has one." + +"Is she a lady?" asked Mrs. Barberry. + +"I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to rest my claim for +her on that." + +"Your claim to what?" trembled upon Miss Livingstone's lips, but +she closed them instead, and turned her head again to listen to +Mrs. Barberry. The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating +the conversations in which she was interested, imparting elegance +and relief. + +"I saw her in A Woman of Honour, last cold weather," Mrs. Barberry +said; "I took a dinner-party of five girls and five subalterns from +the Fort, and I said, 'Never again!' Fortunately the girls were +just out, and not one of them understood, but those poor boys +didn't know where to look! And no more did I. So disgustingly +real." + +Alicia's eyes veiled themselves to rest on a ring on her finger, +and a little smile, which was inconsistent with the veiling, +hovered about her lips. + +"I was in England last year," she said; "I--I saw A Woman of Honour +in London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian +scratch company in a Calcutta theatre! Imagination halts." + +"Miss Howe did something with it," observed Mr. Lindsay. "That and +one or two other things carried one through last cold weather. One +supported even the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, +conscious that there was something to fall back upon. I remember I +went to the State ball, and cheerfully." + +"That's saying a good deal, isn't it?" commented Dr. Livingstone, +vaguely aware of an ironical intention. "By Jove! yes." + +"Hamilton Bradley is good, too, isn't he?" Mrs. Barberry said. +"Such a magnificent head. I adore him in Shakespeare." + +"He knows the conventions, and uses them with security," Lindsay +replied, looking at Alicia; and she, with a little courageous air, +demanded-- + +"Is the story true?" + +"The story of their relations? I suppose there are fifty. One of +them is." + +Mrs. Barberry frowned at Lindsay in a manner which was itself a +reminiscence of amateur theatricals. "Their relations!" she +murmured to Dr. Livingstone. "What awful things to talk about!" + +"The story I mean," Alicia explained, "is to the effect that Mr. +Bradley, who is married, but unimportantly, made a heavy bet, when +he met this girl, that he would subdue her absolutely through her +passion for her art--I mean, of course, her affections--" + +"My dear girl, we know what you mean," cried Mrs. Barberry, +entering a protest as it were, on behalf of the gentlemen. + +"And precisely the reverse happened." + +"One imagines it was something like that," Lindsay said. + +"Oh, did she know about the bet?" cried Mrs. Barberry. + +"That's as you like to believe. I fancy she knew about the man," +Lindsay contributed again. + +"Tables turned, eh? Daresay it served him right," remarked Dr. +Livingstone. "If you really want to come to the laboratory, Mrs. +Barberry, we ought to be off?" + +"He is going to show me a bacillus," Mrs. Barberry announced with +enthusiasm. "Plague, or cholera, or something really bad. He +caught it two days ago, and put it in jelly for me--wasn't it dear +of him! Good-bye, you nice thing"--Mrs. Barberry addressed Alicia-- +"Good-bye, Mr. Lindsay. Fancy--a live bacillus from Hong Kong! I +should like it better if it came from fascinating Japan, but still-- +goodbye." + +With the lady's departure an air of wontedness seemed to repossess +the room, and the two people who were left. Things fell into their +places, one could observe relative beauty, on the walls and on the +floor, in Alicia's hair and in her skirt. Little meanings attached +themselves--to oval portraits of ladies, evidently ancestral, whose +muslin sleeves were tied with blue ribbon, to Byzantine-looking +Persian paintings, to odd brass bowls and faint-coloured +embroideries. The air became full of agreeable exhalations +traceable to inanimate objects, or to a rose in a vase of common +country glass; and if one turned to Alicia one could almost observe +the process by which they were absorbed in her and given forth +again with a delicacy more vague. Lindsay sometimes thought of the +bee, and flowers and honey, but always abandoned the simile as a +trifle gross and material. Certainly as she sat there in her grace +and slenderness and pale clear tints--there was an effect of early +morning about her that made the full tide of other women's sunlight +vulgar--anyone would have been fastidious in the choice of a figure +to present her in. With a suspicion of haughtiness she was drawn +for the traditional marchioness; but she lifted her eyes and you +saw that she appealed instead. There was an art in the doing of +her hair, a dainty elaboration that spoke of the most approved +conventions beneath, yet it was impossible to mistake the freedom +of spirit that lay in the lines of her blouse. Even her +gracefulness ran now and then into a downrightness of movement +which suggested the assertion of a primitive sincerity in a +personal world of many effects. Into her making of tea, for +example, she put nothing more sophisticated than sugar, and she +ordered more bread and butter in the worst possible rendering of +her servants' tongue, without a thought except that the bread and +butter should be brought. Lindsay liked to think that with him she +was particularly simple and direct, that he was of those who freed +her from the pretty consciousness, the elegant restraint that other +people fixed upon her. It must be admitted that this conviction +had reason in establishing itself, and it is perhaps not surprising +that, in the security of it, he failed to notice occasions when it +would not have held, of which this was plainly one. Alicia +reflected, with her cheek against the Afghan wolf-skins on the back +of the chair. It was characteristic of her eyes that one could +usually see things being turned over in them. She would sometimes +keep people waiting while she thought. She thought perceptibly +about Hilda Howe, slanting her absent gaze between sheltering +eyelids to the floor. Presently she rearranged the rose in its +green glass vase, and said, "Then it's impossible not to be +interested." + +"I thought you would find it so." + +Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small fragments of cress +sandwich upon a terrier. "Fancy your being so sure," she said, +"that you could present her entertainingly!" She looked past him +toward the light that came in at the draped window, and he was not +aware that her regard held him fast by the way. + +"Anyone could," he said cheerfully. "She presents herself. One is +only the humblest possible medium. And the most passive." + +Alicia's eyes were still attracted by the light from the window. +It silhouetted a rare fern from Assam which certainly rewarded +them. + +"I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some more." + +"Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing her?" + +"Yes," said Miss Livingstone, with conviction; "but I'm not a bit +satisfied. A few simple facts sometimes--sometimes are better. +Wasn't it a little difficult to make her acquaintance?" + +"Not in the very least. I saw her in A Woman of Honour, and was +charmed. Charmed in a new way. Next day I discovered her address-- +it's obscure--and sent up my card for permission to tell her so. +I explained to her that one would have hesitated at home, but here +one was protected by the custom. And she received me warmly. She +gave me to understand that she was not overwhelmed with tribute of +that kind from Calcutta. The truthful ring of it was pathetic, +poor dear." + +"That was in--" + +"In February." + +"In February we were at Nice," Alicia said, musingly. Then she +took up her divining-rod again. "One can imagine that she was +grateful. People of that kind--how snobbish I sound, but you know +what I mean--are rather stranded in Calcutta, aren't they? They +haven't any world here;" and, with the quick glance which +deprecated her timid clevernesses, she added, "The arts conspire to +be absent." + +"Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any gratitude it was all +mine. But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A +mere theory of life will go a long way, you know, toward +establishing a claim of that sort. And, at all events, she is good +enough to treat me as if she admitted it." + +"What is her theory of life?" Alicia demanded quickly. "I should +be glad of a new one." + +Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a little, as at the +touch of a finger light, but cold. + +"I don't think she has ever told me," he said. "No, I am sure she +has not." His reflection was: "It is her garment--how could it +fit another woman!" + +"But you have divined it--she has let you do that! You can give me +your impression." + +He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon impalpabilities, +but not without a shade of embarrassment. + +"Perhaps. But having perceived, to pass on--it doesn't follow +that one can. I don't seem able to lay my hand upon the signs and +symbols." + +The faintest look of disappointment, the lightest cloud of +submission, appeared upon Miss Livingstone's face. + +"Oh, I know!" she said. "You are making me feel dreadfully out of +it, but I know. It surrounds her like a kind of atmosphere, an +intellectual atmosphere. Though I confess that is the part I don't +understand in connection with an actress." + +There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. Alicia lay +back upon her wolf-skins like a long-stemmed flower cast down among +them, and looked away from the subject at the teacups. Duff picked +up his hat. He had the subtlest intimations with women. + +"It's an intoxicating atmosphere," he said. "My continual wonder +is that I'm not in love with her. A fellow in a novel, now, in my +situation, would be embroiled with half his female relations by +this time, and taking his third refusal with a haggard eye." + +Alicia still contemplated the teacups, but with intentness. She +lifted her head to look at them; one might have imagined a beauty +suddenly revealed. + +"Why aren't you?" she said. "I wonder, too." + +"I should like it enormously," he laughed. "I've lain awake at +nights trying to find out why it isn't so. Perhaps you'll be able +to tell me. I think it must be because she's such a confoundedly +good fellow." + +Alicia turned her face toward him sweetly, and the soft grey fur +made a shadow on the whiteness of her throat. Her buffeting was +over; she was full of an impulse to stand again in the sun. + +"Oh, you mustn't depend on me," she said. "But why are you going? +Don't go. Stay and have another cup of tea." + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The fact that Stephen Arnold and Duff Lindsay had spent the same +terms at New College, and now found themselves again together in +the social poverty of the Indian capital, would not necessarily +explain their walking in company through the early dusk of a +December evening in Bentinck Street. It seems desirable to supply +a reason why anyone should be walking there, to begin with, anyone, +at all events, not a Chinaman, or a coolie, a dealer in second-hand +furniture, or an able-bodied seaman luxuriously fingering wages in +both trouser pockets, and describing an erratic line of doubtful +temper toward the nearest glass of country spirits. Or, to be +quite comprehensive, a draggled person with a Bulgarian, a +Levantine, or a Japanese smile, who no longer possessed a carriage, +to whom the able-bodied seaman represented the whole port. The +cramped twisting thoroughfare was full of people like this; they +overflowed from the single narrow border of pavement to the left, +and walked indifferently upon the road among the straw-scatterings +and the dung-droppings; and when the tramcar swept through and past +with prodigious whistlings and ringings, they swerved as little as +possible aside. Three parts of the tide of them were neither white +nor black, but many shades of brown, written down in the census as +"of mixed Mood," and wearing still, through the degenerating +centuries, an eyebrow, a nostril of the first Englishmen who came +to conjugal ties of Hindustan. The place sent up to the stars a +vast noise of argument and anger and laughter, of the rattling of +hoofs and wheels; but the babel was ordered in its exaggeration, +the red turban of a policeman here and there denoted little more +than a unit in the crowd. There were gas-lamps, and they sent a +ripple of light like a sword-thrust along the gutter beside the +banquette, where a pariah dog nosed a dead rat and was silhouetted. +They picked out, too, the occasional pair of Corinthian columns, +built into the squalid stucco sheer with the road that made history +for Bentinck Street, and explained that whatever might be the +present colour of the little squat houses and the tall lean ones +that loafed together into the fog round the first bend, they were +once agreeably pink and yellow, with the magenta cornice, the blue +capital, that fancy dictated. There where the way narrowed with an +out-jutting balcony high up, and the fog thickened and the lights +grew vague, the multitude of heads passed into the blur beyond with +an effect of mystery, pictorial, remote; but where Arnold and +Lindsay walked the squalor was warm, human, practical. A torch +flamed this way and that, stuck in the wall over the head of a +squatting bundle and his tray of three-cornered leaf-parcels of +betel, and an oiled rag in a tin pot sent up an unsteady little +flame, blue and yellow, beside a sweetmeat seller's basket, and +showed his heap of cakes that they were well-browned and full of +butter. From the "Cape of Good Cheer," where many bottles +glistened in rows inside, came a braying upon the conch, and a +flame of burnt brandy danced along the bar to the honour and +propitiation of Lakshmi, that the able-bodied seaman might be +thirsty when he came, for the "Cape of Good Cheer" did not owe its +prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any Providence of our +theology. But most of the brightness abode in the Chinamen's shoe +shops, where many lamps shone on the hammering and the stitching. +There were endless shoe shops, and they all belonged to Powson or +Singson or Samson, while one sign-board bore the broad impertinence +"Macpherson." The proprietors stood in the door, the smell came +out in the street--that smell of Chinese personality steeped in +fried oil and fresh leather that out-fans even the south wind in +Bentinck Street. They were responsible but not anxious, the +proprietors: they buried their fat hands in their wide sleeves and +looked up and down, stolid and smiling. They stood in their alien +petticoat trousers for the commercial stability of the locality, +and the rows of patent leather slippers that glistened behind them +testified to it further. Everything else shifted and drifted, with +a perpetual change of complexion, a perpetual worsening of clothes. +Only Powson bore a permanent yoke of prosperity. It lay round his +thick brown neck with the low clean line of his blue cotton smock, +and he carried it without offensive consciousness, looking up and +down by no means in search of customers, rather in the exercise of +the opaque, inscrutable philosophy tied up in his queue. + +Lindsay liked Bentinck Street as an occasional relapse from the +scenic standards of pillared and verandahed Calcutta, and made +personal business with his Chinaman for the sake of the racial +impression thrown into the transaction. Arnold, in his cassock, +waited in the doorway with his arms crossed behind him, and his +thin face thrust as far as it would go into the air outside. It is +possible that some intelligences might have seen in this priest a +caricature of his profession, a figure to be copied for the curate +of burlesque, so accurately did he reproduce the common signs of +the ascetic school. His face would have been womanish in its +plainness but for the gravity that had grown upon it, only +occasionally dispersed by a smile of scholarliness and sweetness +which had the effect of being permitted, conceded. He had the long +thin nose which looked as if for preference it would be forever +thrust among the pages of the Fathers; and anyone might observe the +width of his mouth without perhaps detecting the patience and +decision of the upper lip. The indignity of spectacles he did not +yet wear, but it hovered over him; it was indispensable to his +personality in the long-run. In figure he was indifferently tall +and thin and stooping, made to pass unobservedly along a pavement +or with the directness of humble but important business among +crowds. At Oxford he had interested some of his friends and +worried others by wistful inclinations toward the shelter of that +Mother Church which bids her children be at rest and leave to her +the responsibility. Lindsay, with his robust sense of a right to +exist on the old unmuddled fighting terms, to be a sane and decent +animal, under civilised moral governance a miserable sinner, was +among those who observed his waverings without prejudice or +anything but an affectionate solicitude that, whichever way Arnold +went, he should find the satisfactions he sought. The conviction +that settled the matter was accidental, the work of a moment, a +free instinct and a thing made with hands--the dead Shelley where +the sea threw him and the sculptor fixed him, under his memorial +dome in the gardens of University College. Here one leafy +afternoon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his head in +confusion at the thought of the profane handicraftsman who might +claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by +which he saw deeply concealed in his bosom, and disguised with a +host of spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as +the artistic bias, the aesthetic point of view. The discovery +worked upon him so that he spent three days without consummated +prayer at all, occupied in the effort to find out whether he could +yet indeed worship in purity of spirit, or how far the paralysis of +the ideal of mere beauty had crept upon his devotions. In the end +he cast the artistic bias, the aesthetic point of view, as far from +him as his will would carry, and walked away in another direction, +from which, if he turned his head, he could see the Church of Rome +sitting with her graven temptations gathered up in her skirts, +looking mournfully after him. He had been a priest of the Clarke +Mission to Calcutta, a "Clarke Brother," six years when he stood in +the door of Ahsing's little shop in Bentinck Street, while Lindsay +explained to Ahsing his objection to patent leather toe-caps; six +years which had not worn or chilled him, because, as he would have +cheerfully admitted, he had recognised the facts and lowered his +personal hopes of achievement--lowered them with a heroism which +took account of himself as no more than a spiritual molecule +rightly inspired and moving to the great future already shining +behind coming aeons of the universal Kingdom. Indeed, his humility +was scientific; he made his deductions from the granular nature of +all change, moral and material. He never talked or thought of the +Aryan souls that were to shine with peculiar Oriental brightness as +stars in the crown of his reward; he saw rather the ego and the +energy of him merged in a wave of blessed tendency in this world, +thankful if, in that which is to come, it was counted worthy to +survive at all. It should be understood that Arnold did not hope +to attain the simplicity of this by means equally simple. He held +vastly, on the contrary, to fast days and flagellations, to the +ministry of symbols, the use of rigours. The spiritual consummation +which the eye of faith enabled him to anticipate upon the horizon +of Bengal should be hastened, however imperceptibly, by all that he +could do to purify and intensify his infinitesimal share of the +force that was to bring it about. Meanwhile he made friends with +the fathers of Bengali schoolboys, who appreciated his manners, and +sent him with urbanity flat baskets of mangoes and nuts and +oranges, pomegranates from Persia, and little round boxes of white +grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt upon the converts +that already testified to the success of the mission; it might be +gathered that he had ideas about premature fruition. + +As they stepped out together into the street, Lindsay thrust his +hand within Arnold's elbow. It was an impulse, and the analysis of +it would show elements like self-reproach, and a sense of value +continually renewed, and a vain desire for an absolutely common +ground. The physical nearness, the touch, was something, and each +felt it in the remoteness of his other world with satisfaction. +There was absurdly little in what they had to say to each other; +they talked of the Viceroy's attack of measles and the sanitary +improvements in the cloth dealers' quarter. Their bond was hardly +more than a mutual decency of nature, niceness of sentiment, +clearness of eye. Such as it was, it was strong enough to make +both men wish it were stronger, a desire which was a vague +impatience on Lindsay's part with a concentration of hostility to +Arnold's soutane. It made its universal way for them, however, +this garment. Where the crowd was thickest people jostled and +pressed with one foot in the gutter for the convenience of the +padre sahib. He, with his eyes cast down, took the tribute with +humility, as meet, in a way that made Lindsay blaspheme inwardly at +the persistence of ecclesiastical tradition. + +Suddenly, as they passed, the irrelevant violence of tongues, the +broken, half-comprehensible tumult was smitten and divided by a +wave of rhythmic sound. It pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat +sellers, and mounted above the cracked bell that proclaimed the +continual auction of Kristo Dass and Friend, dealers in the second- +hand. In its vivid familiarity it seemed to make straight for the +two Englishmen, to surround and take possession of them, and they +paused. The source of it was plain--an open door under a vast +white signboard dingily lettered "The Salvation Army." It loomed +through the smoke and the streetlights like a discovery. + +"Our peripatetic friends," said Arnold, with his rare smile; and as +if the music seized and held them, they stood listening. + + + "I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + All day on Sunday and six days a week! + I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + Fifty-two weeks in the year." + + +It was immensely vigorous; the men looked at each other with fresh +animation. Responding to the mere physical appeal of it, they +picked their steps across the street to the door, and there +hesitated, revolted in different ways. Perhaps, I have forgotten +to say that Lindsay came to Calcutta out of an Aberdeenshire manse, +and had had a mother before whose name, while she lived, people +wrote "The Hon." Besides, the singing had stopped, and casual +observation from the street was checked by a screen. + +"I have wondered sometimes what their methods really are," said +Arnold. + +Their methods were just on the other side of the screen. A bullet- +headed youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulders, +fingering a cap, slunk out round the end of this impediment, +passing the two men beside the door, and a light, clear voice +seemed to call after him-- + +"Ah! don't go away!" + +Lindsay was visited by a flash of memory and a whimsical +speculation whether now, at the week's end, the soul of Hilda Howe +was still pursuing the broad road to perdition. The desire to +enter sprang up in him: he was reminded of a vista of some interest +which had recently revealed itself by an accident, and which he had +not explored. It had almost passed out of his memory; he grasped +at it again with something like excitement, and fell adroitly upon +the half inclination in Arnold's voice. + +"I suppose I can't expect you to go in?" he said. + +"Precisely why not?" Stephen retorted. "My dear fellow, we make +broad our sympathies, not our phylacteries." + +At any other time Lindsay would have reflected how characteristic +was the gentle neatness of that, and might have resented with +amusement the pulpit tone of the little epigram. But this moment +found him only aware of the consent in it. His hand on Arnold's +elbow clinched the agreement; he half pushed the priest into the +room, where they dropped into seats. Stephen's hand went to his +breast instinctively, for the words in the air were holy by +association, and stopped there, since even the breadth of his +sympathies did not enable him to cross himself before General +Booth. Though absent in body, the room was dominated by General +Booth; he loomed so large and cadaverous, so earnest and aquiline +and bushy, from a frame on the wall at the end of it. The texts on +the other walls seemed emanations from him; and the man in the +short loose, collarless red coat, with "Salvation Army" in crooked +black letters on it, who stood talking in high, rapid tones with +his hands folded, had the look of a puppet whose strings were +pulled by the personality in the frame above him. It was only by +degrees that they observed the other objects in the room--the big +drum on the floor in the empty space where the exhorters stood, the +dozen wooden benches and the possible score of people sitting on +them, the dull kerosene lamps on the walls, lighting up the +curtness of the texts. There were half a dozen men of the Duke's +Own packed in a row like a formation, solid on their haunches; and +three or four unshaven and loose-garmented, from crews in the +Hooghly, who leaned well forwards their elbows on their knees, +twirling battered straw hats, with a pathetic look of being for the +instant off the defensive. One was a Scandinavian, another a +Greek, with earrings. There was a ship's cook, too, a full-blooded +negro, very respectable with a plaid tie and a silk hat; and +beside, two East Indian girls of different shades, tittering at the +Duke's Own in an agony of propriety; a Bengali boy, who spelled out +the English on the cover of a hymn-book; and a very clean Chinaman, +who appreciated his privilege, since it included a seat, a lamp, +and a noise, though his perception of it possibly went no further. +The other odds and ends were of the mixed country blood, like the +girls, dingy, undecipherable. They made a shadow for the rest, +lying along the benches, shifting unnoticeably. + +Three people, two of them women, sat in the open space at the end +of the room where the smoky fog from outside thickened and hung +visibly in mid-air, and there was the empty seat of the man who was +talking. Laura Filbert was one of the women. She might have been +flung upon her chair; her head drooped over the back, buried in the +curve of one arm. A tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest +her face; the other lay, palm outward in its abandonment, among the +folds that covered her limbs. The folds hung from her waist, and +she wore above them a short close bodice like a Bengali woman. Her +head covering had slipped, and clung only to the knot of hair at +the nape of her neck; she lacked, pathetically, the conscious hand +to draw it forward. She was unaware even of the gaze of the Duke's +Own, though it had fixity and absorption. + +The man with folded hands went on talking. He seemed to have +caught as a text the refrain of the hymn that had been sung. +"Yes, indeed," he said. "I can tell heveryone 'ere this night, +heveryone, that the Saviour is mighty to keep. I 'ave got it out +of my own personal experience, I 'ave. Jesus don't only look after +you on a Sunday, but six days a week, my friends, six days a week. +Fix your eye on Him and He'll keep His eye on you--that's all your +part of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble an' fall into sin. +There's times when the Devil will get the upper 'and, but oh, my +friends, I ask you, each an' hevery one of you, is that the fault +of Jesus? No, it is not 'Is fault, it is the fault of the person. +The person 'as been forgetting Jesus, forgetting 'is Bible an' 'is +prayers; what can you expect? And now I ask you, my friends, is +Jesus a-keeping you? And if He is not, oh, my friends, ain't it +foolish to put off any longer? 'Ere we are met together to-night; +we may never all meet together again. You and I may never 'ear +each other speaking again or see each other sitting there. Thank +God," the speaker continued, as his eye rested on Arnold and +Lindsay, "the vilest sinner may be saved, the respectable sinner +may be saved. We've got God's word for that. Now just a little +word of prayer from Ensign Sand 'ere--she's got God's ear, the +Ensign 'as, and she'll plead with 'im for all unconverted souls +inside these four walls to-night." + +Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the other exhorters +on her knees on the floor. As she moved she bent upon the audience +a preoccupied gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, +chances, from a point remote and emotionally involved. Lindsay's +impression was that she looked at him as from behind a glass door. +Then her eyes closed as the other woman began, and through their +lids, as it were, he could see that she was again caught up, though +her body remained abased, her hands interlocked between her knees, +swaying in unison with the petition. The Ensign was a little +meagre freckled woman, whose wisps of colourless hair and tight +drawn-down lips suggested that in the secular world she would have +been bedraggled and a nagger. She gained an elevation, it was +plain, from the Bengali dress; it kept her away from the temptation +of cheap plush and dirty cotton lace; and her business gave her a +complacency which was doubtless accepted as sanctification by her +fellow-officers, especially by her husband, who had announced her +influence with the Divine Being, and who was himself of an inferior +commission. She prayed in a complaining way, and in a strained +minor key that assumed a spiritual intimacy with all who listened, +her key to hearts. She told the Lord in confidence that however +appearances might be against it every soul before him was really +longing to be gathered within His almighty arms, and when she said +this, Laura Filbert, on the floor, threw back her head and cried +"Hallelujah!" and Duff started. The mothers broke in upon the +Ensign with like exclamations. They had a recurrent, perfunctory +sound, and passed unnoticed; but when Laura again cried "Praise the +Lord!" Lindsay found himself holding in check a hasty impulse to +leave the premises. Then she rose, and he watched with the Duke's +Own to see what she would do next. The others looked at her too, +as she stood surprisingly fair and insistent among them, Ensign +Sand with humble eyes and disapproving lips. As she began to speak +the silence widened for her words, the ship's cook stopped +shuffling his feet. "Oh come," she said, "Come and be saved!" Her +voice seemed to travel from her without effort, and to penetrate +every corner and every consciousness. There was a sudden dip in it +like the fall of water, that thrilled along the nerves. "Who am I +that ask you? A poor weak woman, ignorant, unknown. Never mind. +It is not my voice but the voice in your heart that entreats you +'Come and be saved!' You know that voice; it speaks in the watches +of the night; it began to speak when you were a little, little +child, with little joys and sorrows and little prayers that you +have forgotten now. Oh, it is a sweet voice, a tender voice"--her +own had dropped to the cooing of doves--"it is hard to know why all +the winds do not carry it, and all the leaves whisper it! Strange, +strange! But the world is full of the clamour of its own +foolishness, and the voice is lost in it, except in places where +people come to pray, as here to-night, and in those night watches. +You hear it now in the echo from my lips, 'Come and be saved.' Why +must I beg of you? Why do you not come hastening, running? Are +you too wise? But when did the wisdom of this world satisfy you +about the next? Are you too much occupied? But in the day of +judgment what will you do?"-- + + + "When you come to Jordan's flood, + How will you do? How will you do?" + + +It was the voice and tambourine of Ensign Sand, quick upon her +opportunity. Laura gave her no glance of surprise--perhaps she was +disciplined to interruptions--but caught up her own tambourine, +singing, and instantly the chorus was general, the Big drum +thumping out the measure, all the tambourines shaking together. + + + "You who now contemn your God, + How will you do? How will you do?" + + +The Duke's Own sang lustily with a dogged enjoyment that made +little of the words. Some of them assumed a vacuity to counteract +the sentiment, but most of the sheepish countenances expressed that +the tune was the thing, one or two with a smile of jovial cynicism, +and kept time with their feet. Through the medley of voices-- +everybody sang except Arnold and Lindsay and the Chinaman--Laura's +seemed to flow, separate and clear, threading the jangle upon +melody, and turning the doggerel into an appeal, direct, intense. +When Lindsay presently saw it addressed to him, in the unmistakable +intention of her eyes, he caught his breath. + + + "Death will be a solemn day + When the soul is forced away, + It will be too late to pray; + How will you do?" + + +It was simple enough. All her supreme desire to convince, to turn, +to make awfully plain, had centred upon the single person in the +room with whom she had the advantage of acquaintance, whose face +her own could seek with a kind of right to response. But the +sensation Duff Lindsay tried to sit still under was not simple. It +had the novelty, the shock, of a plunge into the sea; behind his +decorous countenance he gasped and blinked, with unfamiliar sounds +in his ears. His soul seemed shudderingly repelling Laura's, yet +the buffets themselves were enthralling. In the strangeness of it +he made a mechanical movement to depart, picked up his stick, but +Arnold was sitting holding his chin, wrapped in quiet interest, and +took no notice. The hymn stopped, and he found a few minutes' +respite, during which Ensign Sand addressed the meeting, unveiling +each heart to its possessor; while Laura turned over the leaves of +the hymn-book, looking, Lindsay was profoundly aware, for airs and +verses most likely to help the siege of the Army to his untaken, +sinful citadel. There was time to bring him calmness enough to +wonder whether these were the symptoms of emotional conversion, the +sort of thing these people went in for, and he resolved to watch +his state with interest. Then, before he knew it, they were all +down on their knees again, and Laura was praying; and he was not +aware of the meaning of a single word that she said, only that her +voice was threading itself in and out of his consciousness burdened +with a passion that made it exquisite to him. Her appeal lifted +itself in the end into song, low and sweet. + + + "Down at the Cross where my Saviour died, + Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, + There to my heart was the blood applied, + Glory to His name!" + + +They let her sing it alone, even the tempting chorus, and when it +was over Lindsay was almost certain that his were not the +preliminary pangs of conversion by the methods of the Salvation +Army. Deliberately, however, he postponed further analysis of them +until after the meeting was over. He would be compelled then to go +away, back to the club to dinner, or something; they would put out +the lights and lock the place up: he thought of that. He glanced +at the lamps with a perception of the finality that would come when +they were extinguished--she would troop away with the others into +the darkness--and then at his watch to see how much time there was +left. More exhortation followed and more prayer; he was only aware +that she did not speak. She sat with her hand over her eyes, and +Lindsay had an excited conviction that she was still occupying +herself with him. He looked round almost furtively to detect +whether anyone else was aware of it, this connection that she was +blazoning between them, and then relapsed, staring at his hat, into +a sense of ungrammatical iterations beating through a room full of +stuffy smells. When Laura spoke again his eye leaped to hers in a +rapt effort to tell her that he perceived her intention. That he +should be grateful, that he should approve, was neither here nor +there; the indispensable thing was that she should know him +conscious, receptive. She read three or four sacred verses, +a throb of tender longing from the very Christheart, "Come unto +Me." . . . The words stole about the room like tears. Then she +would ask "all present," she said, to engage for a moment in silent +prayer. There was a wordless interval, only the vague street +noises surging past the door. A thrill ran along the benches as +Laura brought it to an end with sudden singing. She was on her +feet as the others raised their heads, breaking forth clear and +jubilant. + + + "I am so wondrously saved from sin, + Jesus so sweetly abides within; + There at the Cross where He took me in, + Glory to His name!" + + +She smiled as she sang. It was a happy confident smile, and it was +plain that she longed to believe it the glad reflection of the last +ten minutes' spiritual experience of many who heard her. Lindsay's +perception of this was immediate and keen, and when her eyes rested +for an instant of glad inquiry upon his in the chartered intimacy +of her calling, he felt a pang of compunction. It was a formless +reproach, too vague for anything like a charge, but it came nearest +to defining itself in the idea that he had gone too far--he who had +not left his seat. When the hymn was finished, and Ensign Sand +said, "The meeting is now open for testimonies," he knew that all +her hope was upon him, though she looked at the screen above his +head; and he sat abashed, with a prodigal sense surging through him +of what he would rejoice to do for her in compensation. In the +little chilly silence that followed he surprised his own eyes moist +with disappointment--it had all been so anxious and so vain--and he +felt relief and gratitude when the man who beat the drum stood up +and announced that he had been saved for eleven years, with details +about how badly he stood in need of it when it happened. + +"Hallelujah!" said Ensign Sand cheerfully, with a meretricious air +of hearing it for the first time. "Any more?" and a Norwegian +sailor lurched shamefacedly upon his feet. He had a couple of +inches of straggling yellow beard all round his face, and fingered +an old felt hat. + +"I haf' to say only dis word. I goin' sdop by Jesus. Long time I +subbose I sdop by Jesus. I subbose--" + +"Glory be to God!" remarked Ensign Sand again, spiking the guns of +the Duke's Own who were inclined to be amused. "That will do, +thank you. Now, is there nobody else? Speak up, friends. It'll +do you no harm, none whatever; it'll do you that much good you'll +be surprised. Now, who'll be the next to say a word for Jesus?" +She was nodding encouragement at the negro cook as if she knew him +for a wavering soul, and he, sunk in his gleaming white collar, was +aware, in silent smiling misery, that the expectations of the +meeting were toward him. Laura had again hidden her eyes in her +hand. The negro fingered his watch chain foolishly, and the +prettiest of the East Indian half-castes tried hard to disguise her +perception that an African in his best clothes under conviction of +sin was the funniest thing in the world. The silence seemed to +focus itself upon the cook, who fumbled at his coat collar and +cleared his voice. It was a shock to all concerned when Stephen +Arnold, picking up his hat, got upon his feet instead. + +"I also," he said, "would offer my humble testimony to the grace of +God--with all my heart." + +It was as if he had repeated part of the creed in the performance +of his office. Then he turned and bent gravely to Lindsay, "Shall +we go now?" he whispered, and the two made their way to the door, +leaving a silence behind them which Lindsay imagined, on the part +of Ensign Sand at least, to be somewhat resentful. As they passed +out a voice recovered itself, and cried, "Hallelujah!" It was +Laura's; and all the way to the club--Arnold was dining with him +there--Lindsay listened to his friend's analysis of religious +appeal to the emotions, but chiefly heard that clear music above a +sordid din, "Hallelujah!" "Hallelujah!" + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +When Alicia Livingstone, almost believing she liked it, drove to +Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and left cards upon Miss Hilda +Howe, she was only partially rewarded. Through the plaster gate- +posts, badly in want of repair, and bearing, sunk in one of them, a +marble slab announcing "Residence with Board," she perceived the +squalid attempt the place made at respectability, the servants in +dirty livery salaaming curiously, the over-fed squirrel in a cage +in the door, the pair of damaged wicker chairs in the porch, +suggesting the easiest intercourse after dinner, the general +discoloration. She observed with irritation that it was a down-at- +heels shrine for such a divinity, in spite of its six dusty crotons +in crumbling plaster urns, but the irritation was rather at her own +repulsion to the place than at any inconsistency it presented. +What she demanded and expected of herself was that Number Three, +Lal Behari's Lane should be pleasing, interesting, acceptable on +its merits as a cheap Calcutta boarding-house. She found herself +so unable to perceive its merits that it was almost a relief to see +nothing of Miss Howe either; Hilda had gone to rehearsal, to the +"dance-house" the servant said, eyeing the unusual landau. Alicia +rolled back into streets with Christian names, distressed by an +uncertainty as to whether her visit had been a disappointment or an +escape. By the next day, however, she was well pulled together in +favour of the former conclusion--she could nearly always persuade +herself of such things in time--and wrote a frank sweet little note +in her picturesque hand--she never joined more than two syllables-- +to say how sorry she had been, and would Miss Howe come to lunch on +Friday. "I should love to make it dinner," she, said to herself, +as she sealed the envelope, "but before one knows how she will +behave in connection with the men--I suppose one must think of the +other people." + +It was Friday, and Hilda was lunching. The two had met among the +faint-tinted draperies of Alicia's drawing-room--there was something +auroral even about the mantelpiece--a little like diplomatists +using a common tongue native to neither of them. Perhaps Alicia +drew the conventions round her with the greater fluency; Hilda had +more to cover, but was less particular about it. The only thing she +was bent upon making imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of +Miss Livingstone's effort to receive her as if she had been anybody +else. Alicia was hardly aware of what she wanted to conceal, +unless it was her impression that Miss Howe's dress was cut a +trifle too low in the neck, that she was almost too effective in +that cream and yellow to be quite right. Alicia remembered +afterwards to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of intercourse +with Hilda Howe were dominated by a lively desire to set Celine at +her--with such a foundation to work upon what could Celine not have +done? She remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary things +Hilda said in that rich voice, even in the tempered drawing-room +tones of which resided a hint of the seats nearest the exit under +the gallery, and her wonder at the luxury of gesture that went with +them, movements which seemed to imply blank verse and to be thrown +away upon two women and a little furniture. A consciousness stood +in the room between them, and their commonplaces about the +picturesqueness of the bazar rode on long absorbed regards, one +reading, the other anxious to read; yet the encounter was so +conventionally creditable to them both that they might have smiled +past each other under any circumstances next day and acknowledged +no demand for more than the smile. + +The cutlets had come before Hilda's impression was at the back of +her head, her defences withdrawn, her eyes free and content, her +elbow on the table. They had found a portrait-painter. + +"He has such an eye," said Alicia, "for the possibilities of +character." + +"Such an eye that he develops them. I know one man he painted. +I suppose when the man was born he had an embryo soul, but in the +meantime he and everybody else had forgotten about it. All but +Salter. Salter re-created it on the original lines, and brought it +up, and gave it a lodging behind the man's, wrinkles. I saw the +picture. It was fantastic--psychologically." + +"Pyschology has a lot to say to portrait-painting, I know," Alicia +said. "Do let him give you a little more. It's only Moselle." +She felt quite direct and simple too in uttering her postulate. +Her eyes had a friendly, unembarrassed look, there was nothing +behind them but the joy of talking intelligently about Salter. + +Hilda did not even glance away. She looked at her hostess instead, +with an expression of candour so admirable that one might easily +have mistaken it to be insincere. It was part of her that she +could swim in any current, and it was pleasant enough, for the +moment, to swim in Alicia's. Both the Moselle and the cutlets, +moreover, were of excellent quality. + +"It's everything to everything, don't you think? And especially, +thank Heaven, to my trade." Her voice softened the brusqueness of +this; the way she said it gave it a right to be said in any terms. +That was the case with flagrancies of hers sometimes. + +"To discover motives and morals and passions and ambitions and to +make a picture of them with your own body--your face and hands and +voice--compare our plastic opportunity with the handling of a brush +to do it, or a pen or a chisel!" + +"I know what you mean," said Alicia. She had a little flush, and +an excited hand among the wineglasses. "No, I don't want any; +please don't bother me!" to the man at her elbow with something in +aspic. "It's much more direct--your way." + +"And, I think, so much more primitive, so much earlier sanctioned, +abiding so originally among the instincts! Oh yes! if we are +lightly esteemed it is because we are bad exponents. The ideal has +dignity enough. They charge us, in their unimaginable stupidity, +with failing to appreciate our lines, especially when they are +Shakespeare's--with being unliterary. You might--good Heavens!--as +well accuse a painter of not being a musician! Our business lies +behind the words--they are our mere medium! Rosalind wasn't +literary--why should I be? But don't indulge me in my shop, if it +bores you," Hilda added lightly, aware as she was that Miss +Livingstone was never further from being bored. + +"Oh, please go on! If you only knew," her lifted eyebrows +confessed the tedium of Calcutta small talk. "But why do you say +you are lightly esteemed? Surely the public is a touchstone--and +you hold the public in the hollow of your hand!" + +Hilda smiled. "Dear old public! It does its best for us, doesn't +it? One loves it, you know, as sailors love the sea, never +believing in its treachery in the end. But I don't know why I say +we are lightly esteemed, or why I dogmatise about it at all. I've +done nothing--I've no right. In ten years perhaps--no, five--I'll +write signed articles for the New Review about modern dramatic +tendencies. Meanwhile you'll have to consider that the value of my +opinions is prospective." + +"But already you have succeeded--you have made a place." + +"In Coolgardie, in Johannesburg, I think they remember me in +Trichinopoly too, and--yes, it may be so--in Manila. But that +wasn't legitimate drama," and Hilda smiled again in a way that +coloured her unspoken reminiscence, to Alicia's eyes, in rose and +gold. She waited an instant for these tints to materialise, but +Miss Howe's smile slid discreetly into her wineglass instead. + +"There's immense picturesqueness in the Philippines," she went on, +her look of thoughtful criticism contrasting in the queerest way +with her hat. "Real ecclesiastical tyranny with pure traditions. +One wonders what America will do with those friars, when she does +go there." + +"Do you think she is going?" asked Alicia vaguely. It was the +merest politeness--she did not wait for a reply. With a courageous +air which became her charmingly, she went on, "Don't you long to +submit yourself to London? I should." + +"Oh, I must. I know I must. It's in the path of duty and +conscience--it's not to be put off for ever. But one dreads the +chained slavery of London"--she hesitated before the audacity of +adding, "the sordid hundred nights," but Alicia divined it, and +caught her breath as if she had watched the other woman make a +hazardous leap. + +"You are magnificently sure," she said. Alicia herself felt +curiously buoyed up and capable, conscious of vague intuitions of +immediate achievement. The lunch-table still lay between the two, +but it had become in a manner intangible; the selves of them had +drawn together, and regarded each other with absorbent eyes. In +Hilda's there was an instant of consideration before she said--"I +might as well tell you--you won't misunderstand--that I AM sure. I +expect things of myself. I hold a kind of mortgage on my success; +when I foreclose it will come, bringing the long, steady, grasping +chase of money and fame, eyes fixed, never a day to live in, only +to accomplish, every moment straddled with calculation, an end to +all the byways where one finds the colour of the sun. The +successful London actress, my dear--what existence has she? A +straight flight across the Atlantic in a record-breaker, so many +nights in New York, so many in Chicago, so many in a Pullman car, +and the net result in every newspaper--an existence of pure +artificiality infested by reporters. It's like living in the shell +of your personality. It's the house for ever on your back; at the +last you are buried in it, smirking in your coffin with a half-open +eye on the floral offerings. There never was reward so qualified +by its conditions." + +"Surely there would be some moments of splendid compensation?" + +"Oh yes; and for those in the end we are all willing to perish! +But then you know all, you have done all; there is nothing +afterwards but the eternal strain to keep even with yourself. I +don't suppose I could begin to make you see the joys of a strolling +player--they aren't much understood even in the profession--but +there are so many, honestly, that London being at the top of the +hill, I'm not panting up. My way of going has twice wound round +the world already. But I'm talking like an illustrated interview. +You will grant the impertinence of all I've been saying when I tell +you that I've never yet had an illustrated interview." + +"Aren't they almost always vulgar?" Alicia asked. "Don't they make +you sit the wrong way on a chair, in tights?" + +Hilda threw her head back and laughed, almost, Alicia noted, like a +man. She certainly did not hide her mouth with her hands or her +handkerchief, as women often do in bursts of hilarity; she laughed +freely, and as much as she wanted to, and it was as clear as +possible that tights presented themselves quite preposterously to +any discussion of her profession. They were things to be taken for +granted, like the curtain and the wings; they had no relation to +clothing in the world. + +Alicia laughed too. After all, they were absurd--her outsider's +prejudices. She said something like that, and Hilda seemed to soar +again for her point of view about the illustrated interviews. +"They ARE atrocities," she said. "On their merits they ought to be +cast out of even the suburbs of art and literature. But they help +to make the atmosphere that gives us power to work, and if they do +that, of course--" and the pursed seriousness of her lips gave +Alicia the impression that, though the whole world took offence, +the expediency of the illustrated interview was beyond discussion. + +The servant brought them coffee. "Shall we smoke here," said Miss +Livingstone, "or in the drawing-room?" + +"Oh, do you want to? Are you quite sure you like it? Please don't +on my account--you really mustn't. Suppose it should mike you +ill?" If Hilda felt any tinge of amusement she kept it out of her +face. Nothing was there but cheerful concern. + +"It won't make me ill." Alicia lifted her chin with delicate +assertiveness. "I suppose you do smoke, don't you?" + +"Occasionally--with some people. Honestly, have you ever done it +before?" + +"Four times," said Alicia, and then turned rose-colour with the +apprehension that it sounded amateurish to have counted them. "I +thought it was one of your privileges to do it always, just as you--" + +"Go to bed with our boots on and put ice down the back of some +Serene Highness's neck. I suppose it is, but now and then I prefer +to dispense with it. In my bath, for instance, and almost always +in omnibuses." + +"How absurd you are! Then we'll stay here." + +Miss Howe softly manipulated her cigarette and watched Alicia +sacrifice two matches. + +"There's Rosa Norton of our company," she went on. "Poor, dear old +Rosy! She's fifty-three--grey hair smooth back, you know, and a +kind of look of anxious mamma. And it gets into her eyes and +chokes her, poor dear; but blow her, if she won't be as Bohemian as +anybody. I've seen her smoke in a bonnet with strings tied under +her chin. I got up and went away." + +"But I can't possibly affect you in that way," said Alicia, putting +her cigarette down to finish, as an afterthought, a marron glace. +"I'm not old and I'm not grotesque." + +"No, but--oh, all right. After you with the matches, please." + +"I BEG your pardon. How thoughtless of me! Dear me, mine has gone +out. Do you suppose anything is wrong with them? Perhaps they're +damp." + +"Trifle dry, if anything," Hilda returned, with the cigarette +between her lips, "but in excellent order, really." She took it +between her first and second finger for a glance at the gold +letters at the end, leaned back and sent slow, luxurious spirals +through her nostrils. It was rather, Alicia reflected, like a +horse on a cold day--she hoped Miss Howe wouldn't do it again. But +she presently saw that it was Miss Howe's way of doing it. + +"No, you're not old and grotesque," Hilda said contemplatively; +"you're young and beautiful." The freedom seemed bred, +imperceptibly and enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. +Alicia flushed ever so little under it, but took it without +wincing. She had less than the common palate for flattery of the +obvious kind, but this was something different--a mere casual and +unprejudiced statement of fact. + +"Fairly," she said, not without surprise at her own calmness; and +there was an instant of silence, during which the commonplace +seemed to be dismissed between them. + +"You made a vivid impression here last year," said Alicia. She +felt delightfully terse and to the point. + +"You mean Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay is very impressionable. Do you +know him well?" + +Alicia closed her lips, and a faint line graved itself on each side +of them. Her whole face sounded a retreat, and her eyes were cold-- +it would have annoyed her to know how cold--with distance. + +"He is an old friend of my brother's," she said. Hilda had the +sensation of coming unexpectedly, through the lightest loam, upon a +hard surface. She looked attentively at the red heart of her +cigarette crisped over with grey, in its blackened calyx. + +"Most impressionable," she went on, as if Alicia had not spoken. +"As to the rest of the people--bah! you can't rouse Calcutta. It +is sunk in its torpid liver, and imagines itself superior. It's +really funny, you know, the way hepatic influences can be +idealised--made to serve ennobling ends. But Mr. Lindsay is-- +different." + +"Yes?" Miss Livingstone's intention was neutral, but, in spite of +her, the asking note was in the word. + +"We have done some interesting things together here. He has shown +me the queerest places. Yesterday he made me go with him to +Wellesley Square, to look at his latest enthusiasm standing in the +middle of it." + +"A statue?" + +"No, a woman, preaching and warbling to the people. She wasn't new +to me--I knew her before he did--but the picture was, and the +performance. She stood poised on a coolie's basket in the midst of +a rabble of all colours, like a fallen angel--I mean a dropped one. +Light seemed to come from her, from her hair or her eyes or +something. I almost expected to see her sail away over the palms +into the sunset when it was ended." + +"It sounds most unusual," Alicia said, with a light smile. Her +interest was rather obviously curbed. + +"It happens every day, really, only one doesn't stop and look; one +doesn't go round the corner." + +There was another little silence, full of the unwillingness of Miss +Livingstone's desire to be informed. + +Hilda knocked the ash of her cigarette into her finger-bowl, and +waited. The pause grew so stiff with embarrassment that she broke +it herself. + +"And I regret to say it was I who introduced them," she said. + +"Introduced whom?" + +"Mr. Lindsay and Miss Laura Filbert of the Salvation Army. They +met at Number Three; she had come after my soul. I think she was +disappointed," Hilda went on tranquilly, "because I would only lend +it to her while she was there." + +"Of the Salvation Army! I can't imagine why you should regret it. +He is always grateful to be amused." + +"Oh, there is no reason to doubt his gratitude. He is rather +intense about it. And--I don't know that my regret is precisely on +Mr. Lindsay's account. Did I say so?" They were simple, amiable +words, and their pertinence was very far from insistent; but +Alicia's crude blush--everything else about her was so perfectly +worked out--cried aloud that it was too sharp a pull up. "Perhaps +though," Hilda hurried on with a pang, "we generalise too much +about the men." + +What Miss Livingstone would have found to say--she had certainly no +generalisation to offer about Duff Lindsay--had not a servant +brought her a card at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. +The card saved her the necessity. She looked at it blankly for an +instant, and then exclaimed, "My cousin, Stephen Arnold! He's a +reverend--a Clarke Mission priest, and he will come straight in +here. What shall we do with our cigarettes?" + +Miss Howe had a pleasurable sense that the situation was +developing. + +"Yours has gone out again, so it doesn't much matter, does it? +Drown the corpse in here, and I'll pretend it belongs to me." She +pushed the finger-bowl across, and Alicia's discouraged remnant +went into it. "Don't ask me to sacrifice mine," she added, and +there was no time for remonstrance; Arnold's voice was lifting +itself at the door. + +"Pray may I come in?" he called from behind the portiere. + +Hilda, who sat with her back to it, smiled in enjoying recognition +of the thin, high academic note, the prim finish of the inflection. +It reminded her of a man she knew who "did" curates beautifully. + +Arnold walked past her with his quick, humble, clerical gait, and +it amused her to think that he bent over Alicia's hand as if he +would bless it. + +"You can't guess how badly I want a cup of coffee." He flavoured +what he said, and made it pretty, like a woman. "Let me confess at +once, that is what brought me." He stopped to laugh; there was a +hint of formality and self-sacrifice even in that. "It is coffee- +time, isn't it?" Then he turned and saw Hilda, and she was, at the +moment, flushed with the luxury of her sensations, a vision as +splendid as she must have been to him unusual. But he only closed +his lips and thrust his chin out a little, with his left hand +behind him in one of his intensely clerical attitudes, and so stood +waiting. Hilda reflected afterwards that she could hardly have +expected him to exclaim, "Whom have we here?" with upraised hands, +but she had to acknowledge her flash of surprise at his self- +possession. She noted, too, his grave bow when Alicia mentioned +them to each other, that there was the habit of deference in it, +yet that it waved her courteously, so to speak, out of his life. +It was all as interesting as the materialisation of a quaint +tradition, and she decided not, after all, to begin a trivial +comedy for herself and Alicia, by asking the Reverend Stephen +Arnold whether he objected to tobacco. She had an instant's +circling choice of the person she would represent to this priest in +the little intermingling half-hour of their lives that lay shaken +out before them, and dropped unerringly. It really hardly +mattered, but she always had such instants. She was aware of the +shadow of a regret at the opulence of her personal effect; her hand +went to her throat and drew the laces closer together there. An +erectness stole into her body as she sat, and a look into her eyes +that divorced her at a stroke from anything that could have spoken +to him of too general an accessibility, too unthinking a largesse. +She went on smoking, but almost immediately her cigarette took its +proper note of insignificance. Alicia, speaking of it once +afterwards to Arnold, found that he had forgotten it. + +"Even in College Street you have heard of Miss Howe," Alicia said, +and the negative, very readable in Arnold's silent bow, brought +Hilda a flicker of happiness at her hostess's expense. + +"I don't think the posters carry us as far as College Street," she +said, "but I am not difficult to explain, Mr. Arnold. I act with +Mr. Stanhope's Company. If you lived in Chowringhee you couldn't +help knowing all about me, the letters are so large." The bounty +of her well-spring of kindness was in it under the candour and the +simplicity; it was one of those least of little things which are +enough. + +Arnold smiled back at her, and she saw recognition leap through the +armour-plate of his ecclesiasticism. He glanced away again +quickly, and looked at the floor as he said he feared they were +terribly out of it in College Street, for which, however, he had +evidently no apology to offer. He continued to look at the floor +with a careful air, as if it presented points pertinent to the +situation. Hilda felt herself--it was an odd sensation--too sunny +upon the nooked, retiring current that flowed in him. He might +have turned to the cool accustomed shadow that Alicia made, but she +was aware that he did not, that he was struggling through her +strangeness and his shyness for something to say to her. He +stirred his coffee, and once or twice his long upper lip trembled +as if he thought he had found it; but it was Alicia who talked, +making light accusations against the rigours of the Mission House, +complaining of her cousin that he was altogether given over to +bonds and bands, that she personally would soon cease to hold him +in affection at all; she saw so little of him it wasn't really +worth while. + +This was old fencing ground between them, and Stephen parried her +pleasantly enough, but his eyes strayed speculatively to the other +end of the table, where, however, they rose no higher than the +firm, lightly-moulded hand that held the cigarette. + +"If I could found a monastic order," Hilda said, "one of the rules +should be a week's compulsory retirement into the world four times +a year." She spoke with a kind of grave brightness; it was +difficult to know whether she was altogether in jest. + +"There would be secession all over the place," Arnold responded, +with his repressed smile. "You would get any number of +probationers; I wonder whether you would keep them!" + +"During that week," Hilda went on, "they should be compelled to +dine and dance every night, to read a 'Problem' novel every morning +before luncheon, to marry and be given in marriage, and to go to +all the variety entertainments. Think of the austere bliss of the +return to the cloisters! All joy lies in a succession of +sensations, they say. Do you remember how Lord Ormont arranged his +pleasures? Oh yes, my brotherhood would be popular, as soon as it +was understood." + +Alicia hurried in with something palliating--she could remember +flippancies of her own that had been rebuked--but there was no sign +or token of disapproval in Arnold's face. What she might have +observed there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a slight +disarrangement, so to speak, of the placid priestly mask, and +something like the original undergraduate looking out from beneath. + +Hilda began to put on her gloves. The left one gaped at two +finger-ends; she buttoned it with the palm thrown up and outward, +as if it were the daintiest spoil of the Avenue de l'Opera. + +"Not yet!" Alicia cried. + +"Thanks, I must. To-night is our last full rehearsal, and I have +to dress the stage for the first act before six o'clock. And, +after pulling all that furniture about, I shall want an hour or two +in bed." + +"You! But it's monstrous. Is there nobody else?" + +"I wouldn't let anybody else," Hilda laughed. "Don't forget, +please, that we are only strolling players, odds and ends of +people, mostly from the Antipodes. Don't confound our manners and +customs with anything you've heard about the Lyceum. Good-bye. It +has been charming. Goodbye, Mr. Arnold." + +But Alicia held her hand. "The papers say it is to be The Offence +of Galilee, after all," she said. + +"Yes. Hamilton Bradley is all right again, and we've found a +pretty fair local Judas--amateur. We couldn't possibly put it on +without Mr. Bradley. He takes the part of"--Hilda glanced at the +hem of the listening priestly robe--"of the chief character, you +know." + +"That was the great Nonconformist success at home last year, wasn't +it?" Arnold asked; "Leslie Patullo's play? I knew him at Oxford. +I can't imagine--he's a queer chap to be writing things like that." + +"It works out better than you--than one might suppose," Hilda +returned, moving toward the door. "Some of the situations are +really almost novel, in spite of all your centuries of preaching." +She sent a disarming smile with that, looking over her shoulder in +one of her most effective hesitations, one hand holding back the +portiere. + +"And next week?" cried Alicia. + +"Oh, next week we do L'Amourette de Giselle--Frank Golding's re- +vamp. Good-bye! Good-bye!" + +"I wonder very much what Patullo has done with The Offence of +Galilee," Arnold said, after she had gone. + +"Come and see, Stephen. We have a box, and there will be heaps of +room. It's--suitable, isn't it?" + +"Oh, quite." + +"Then dine with us--the Yardleys are coming--and go on. Why not?" + +"Thanks very much indeed. It is sure to reward one. I think I +shall be able to give myself that pleasure." + +Arnold made a longer visit than usual; his cup of coffee, indeed, +became a cup of tea; and his talk, while he stayed, seemed to +suffer less from the limitations of his Order than it usually did. +He was fluent and direct; he allowed it to appear that he read more +than his prayers; that his glance at the world had still a +speculation in it; and when he went away, he left Alicia with +flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, murmuring a vague inward +corollary upon her day-- + +"It pays! It pays!" + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's Company was not the only combination that +offered itself to the entertainment of Calcutta that December +Saturday night. The ever-popular Jimmy Finnigan and his "Surprise +Party"--he sailed up the Bay as regularly as the Viceroy descended +from the hills--had been advertising "Side-splitting begins at +9.30. Prices as usual" with reference to this particular evening +for a fortnight. In the Athenian Theatre--it had a tin roof and +nobody could hear the orchestra when it rained--the Midgets were +presenting the earlier collaborations of Messrs. Gilbert and +Sullivan, every Midget guaranteed under nine years of age. Colonel +Pike's Great Occidental Circus had been in full blast on the Maidan +for a week. It became a great Occidental circus when Colonel Pike +married the proprietress. They were both staying at the Grand +Oriental Hotel at Singapore when she was made a relict through +cholera, and he had more time than he knew what to do with, to say +nothing of moustaches that predestined him to a box-office. And +certainly circumstances justified the lady's complaisance, for +while hitherto hers had been but a fleeting show, it was now, in +the excusably imaginative terms of Colonel Pike, an architectural +feature of the cold weather. There was the Mystic Bower, too, in +an octagonal tent under a pipal tree, which gave you by an +arrangement of looking-glasses the most unaccountable sensations +for one rupee; and a signboard cried "Know Thyself!" where a +physiological display lurked from the eyes of the police behind a +perfectly respectable skeleton at one end of Peri Chandra's Gully. +Llewellyn Stanhope saw that there was competition, sighed to think +how much, as he stood in the foggy vestibule of the Imperial +Theatre wrapped in the impressive folds of his managerial cape, and +pulled his moustache and watched the occasional carriage that +rolled his way up the narrow lane from Chowringhee. He thought +bitterly, standing there, of Calcutta's recognition of the claims +of legitimate drama, for the dank darkness was full of the noise of +wheels and the flashing of lamps on the way to accord another +season's welcome to Jimmy Finnigan. "I might've learned this town +well enough by now," he reflected, "to know that a bally minstrel +show's about the size of it." Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. Finnigan's +art of the large red lips and the twanging banjo; his thought was +scornful rather than envious. He aspired, moreover, to be known as +the pilot of stars, at least in the incipience of their courses, to +be taken seriously by association, since nature had arranged that +he never could be on his intrinsic merits. His upper lip was too +short for that, his yellow moustache too curly, while the perpetual +bullying he underwent at the hands of leading ladies gave him an +air of deference to everybody else which was sometimes painfully +misunderstood. The stars, it must be said regretfully, in +connection with so laudable an ambition, nearly always betrayed +him, coming down with an unmistakably meteoric descent, stony-broke +in the uttermost ends of the earth, with a strong inclination to +bring the cause of that misfortune before the Consular Courts. +They seldom succeeded in this design, since Llewellyn was usually +able to prove to them in advance that it would be fruitless and +expensive, but the paths of Eastern capitals were strewn with his +compromises, in Japanese yen, Chinese dollars, Indian rupees, for +salaries which no amount of advertising could wheedle into the box- +office. When the climax came, Llewellyn usually went to hospital +and received the reporters of local papers in pathetic audience +there, which counteracted the effect of the astounding statements +the stars made in letters to the editor, and yet gave the public +clearly to understand that owing to its coldness and neglect a +number of ladies and gentlemen of very superior talents were +subsisting in their midst mainly upon brinjals and soda-water. +"I'm in hospital," Mr. Stanhope would say to the reporters, "and +I'm d---- glad of it,"--he always insisted on the oath going in, +it appealed so sympathetically to the domiciled Englishman grown +cold to superiority,--"for, upon my soul, I don't know where I'd +turn for a crust if I weren't." In the end the talented ladies and +gentlemen usually went home by an inexpensive line as the voluntary +arrangement of a public to whom plain soda was a ludicrous +hardship, and native vegetables an abomination at any price. Then +Llewellyn and Rosa Norton--she had a small inalienable income, and +they were really married though they preferred for some inexplicable +reason to be thought guilty of less conventional behaviour--would +depart in another direction, full of gratification for the present +and of confidence for the future. Llewellyn usually made a parting +statement to the newspapers that although his aims were unalterably +high he was not above profiting by experience, and that next season +he could be relied upon to hit the taste of the community with +precision. This year, as we know, he had made a serious effort by +insisting that at least a proportion of his ladies and gentlemen +should be high-kickers and equal to an imitation, good enough for +the Orient, of most things done by the illustrious Mr. Chevalier. +But the fact that Mr. Stanhope had selected The Offence of Galilee +to open with tells its own tale. He was convinced, but not +converted, and he stood there with his little legs apart, chewing +a straw above the three uncut emeralds that formed the chaste +decoration of his shirt-front, giving the public of Calcutta one +more chance to redeem itself. + +It began to look as if Calcutta were not wholly irredeemable. A +ticca-gharry deposited a sea-captain; three carriages arrived in +succession; an indefinite number of the Duke's Own, hardly any of +them drunk, filed in to the rupee seats under the gallery: an +overflow from Jimmy Finnigan, who could no longer give his patrons +even standing room. When this occurred Llewellyn turned and swung +indifferently away in the direction of the dressing-rooms. When +Jimmy Finnigan closed his doors so early there was no further cause +for anxiety. Calcutta was abroad and stirring, and would turn for +amusement even to The Offence of Galilee. + +Eventually--that is, five minutes before the curtain rose--the +representatives of the leading Calcutta journals decided that they +were justified in describing the house as a large and fashionable +audience. The Viceroy had taken a box, and sent an Aide-de-Camp to +sit in it, also a pair of M.P.'s from the North of England, whom he +was expected to attend to in Calcutta, and the governess. The +Commander-in-Chief had not been solicited to be present, the +theatrical season demanding an economy in such personalities if +they were to go round; but a Judge of the High Court had a party in +the front row, and a Secretary to the Bengal Government sat behind +him. To speak of unofficials, there must have been quite forty +lakhs of tea and jute and indigo in the house, very genial and +prosperous, to say nothing of hides and seeds, and the men who sold +money and bought diamonds with the profits, which shone in their +wives' hair. A duskiness prevailed in the bare arms and shoulders; +much of the hair was shining and abundant, and very black. A turn +of the head showed a lean Greek profile, an outline bulbous and +Armenian, the smooth creamy mask of a Jewess, while here and there +glimmered something more opulent and inviting still, which +proclaimed, if it did not confess, the remote motherhood of the +zenana and the origin of the sun. An audience of fluttering fans +and wrinkled shirt collars--the evening was warm under the gas- +lights--sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. Not an old +woman in it from end to end, hardly a man turned fifty, and those +who were had the air and looked to have the habits of twenty-five-- +an audience that might have got up and stretched itself but for +good manners, and walked out in childish boredom at having to wait +for the rise of the curtain, but sat on instead, diffusing an +atmosphere of affluence and delicate scents, and suggesting, with +imperious chins, the use of quick orders in a world of personal +superiority. + +Thus the stalls--they were spindling cane-bottomed chairs--and the +boxes, in one of which the same spindling cane-bottomed chairs +supported, in more expensive seclusion, Surgeon-Major and Miss +Livingstone, the Reverend Stephen Arnold, and two or three other +people. The Duke's Own sat under the gallery, cheek by jowl with +all the flotsam and jetsam of an Eastern port, well on the look-out +for offensive personalities from the men of the ships, and spitting +freely. Here, too, was an ease of shoulder and a freedom from the +cares of life--at a venture the wives were taking in washing in +Brixton, and the children sent to Board School at the expense of +the nation. And in a climate like this it was a popular opinion +that a man must either enjoy himself or commit suicide. + +The Sphinx on the crooked curtain looked above and beyond them all. +It was a caricature of the Sphinx, but could not confine her gaze. + +Hilda's audience that night knew all about The Offence of Galilee +from the English illustrated papers. The illustrated papers had a +great way of ministering to the complacency of Calcutta audiences; +they contained photographs of almost every striking scene, composed +at the leisure of the cast, but so vividly supplemented with +descriptions of the leading lady's clothes that it hardly required +any effort of the imagination to conjure up the rest. The postures +and the chief garments of Pilate--he was eating pomegranates when +the curtain rose, and listening to scandal from his slave-maidens +about Mary Magdalene--were at once recognised in their resemblance +to those of the photographs, and in the thrill of this satisfaction +any discrepancies in cut and texture passed generally unobserved. +A silent curiosity settled upon the house, half reverent, as if +with the Bible names came thronging a troop of sacred associations +to cluster about personalities brusquely torn out of church, and +people listened for familiar sentences with something like the +composed gravity with which they heard on Sundays the reading of +the second lesson. But as the stage-talk went on, the slave- +maidens announcing themselves without delay comfortably modern and +commonplace, and Pilate a cynic and a decadent, though as +distinctively from Melbourne, it was possible to note the breaking +up of this sentiment. It was plain after all that no standard of +ideality was to be maintained or struggled after. The relief was +palpable; nevertheless, when Pilate's wife cast a shrewish gibe at +him over the shoulder of her exit, the audience showed but a faint +inclination to be amused. It was to be a play evidently like any +other play, the same coarse fibre, the same vivid and vulgar +appeals. It is doubtful whether this idea was critically present +to anyone but Stephen Arnold, but people unconsciously tasted the +dramatic substance offered them, and leaned back in their chairs +with the usual patient acknowledgment that one mustn't expect too +much of a company that found it worth while to come to Calcutta. +The house grew submissive and stolid, but one could see half- +awakened prejudices sitting in the dress-circle. The paper-chasing +Secretary said to the most intelligent of his party that on the +whole he liked his theology neat, forgetting that the preference +belonged to Mr. Andrew Lang in connection with a notable lady +novelist; and the most intelligent--it was Mrs. Barberry--replied +that it did seem strange. The depths under the gallery were +critically attentive, though Llewellyn Stanhope felt them hostile +and longing for verbal brick-bats; and the Reverend Mr. Arnold +shrank into the farthest corner of Surgeon-Major Livingstone's box, +and knew all the misery of outrage. Pilate and the slave-maidens, +Pilate's fat wife, and an unspeakable comic centurion, offered as +yet hardly more than a prelude, but the monstrosity of the whole +performance was already projected upon Arnold's suffering +imagination. This, then, was what Patullo had done with it. But +what other, he asked himself in quiet anger, could Patullo have +been expected to do? the fellow he remembered. Arnold tilted his +chair back and stared, with arms folded and sombre brows, at the +opposite wall. He looked once at the door, but some spirit of +self-torture kept him in his seat. If so much offence could be +made with the mere crust and envelope, so to speak, of the sacred +story, what sacrilege might not be committed with the divine +personalities concerned? He remembered, with the touch of almost +physical nausea that assailed him when he saw them, one or two +pictures in recent Paris exhibitions where the coveted accent of +surprise had been produced by representing the sacred figure in the +trivial monde of the boulevards, and fixed upon them as the source +of Patullo's intolerable inspiration. Certain muscles felt +responsive at the thought of Patullo which Arnold had forgotten he +possessed; it was so seldom that a missionary priest, even of +athletic traditions, came in contact with anybody who required to +be kicked. + +Alicia was in front with the Yardleys, dropping her unfailing +plummet into the evening's experience. Arnold, hesitating over the +rudeness of departure, thought she was sufficiently absorbed; she +would hardly mind. The centurion slapped his tin armour, and made +a jest, which reached Stephen over his hostess's shoulder, and +seemed to brand him where he sat. He looked about for his hat and +some excuse that would serve, and while he looked the sound of +applause rose from the house. It was a demonstration without great +energy, hardly more than a flutter from stall to stall, with a +vague, fundamental noise from the gallery; but it had the quality +which acclaimed something new. Arnold glanced at the stage, and +saw that while Pilate and the hollow-chested slaves and the tin +centurion were still on, they had somehow lost significance and +colour, and that all the meaning and the dominance of the situation +had gathered into the person of a woman of the East who danced. +She was almost discordant in her literalness, in her clear olive +tints and the kol smudges under her eyes, the string of coins in +the mass of her fallen hair, and her unfettered body. Beside her +the slave-girls, crouching, looked like painted shells. She danced +before Pilate in strange Eastern ways, in plastic weavings and +gesturings that seemed to be the telling of a tale; and from the +orchestra only one unknown instrument sobbed out to help her. The +women of the people have ever bought in Palestine, buy to-day in +the Mousky, the coarse, thick grey-blue cotton that fell about her +limbs, and there was audacity in the poverty of her beaten silver +anklets and armlets. These shone and twinkled with her movements; +but her softly splendid eyes and reddened lips had the immobility +of the bazar. People looked at their playbills to see whether it +was really Hilda Howe or some nautch-queen borrowed from a native +theatre. By the time she sank before Pilate and placed his foot +upon her head a new spirit had breathed upon the house. Under the +unexpectedness of the representation it sat up straight, and there +was a keenness of desire to see what would happen next which +plainly curtailed the applause, as it does with children at a +pantomime. + +"Have you ever seen anything like it before?" Alicia asked Captain +Yardley; and he said he thought he had once, in Algiers, but not +nearly so well done. Arnold rose again to go, but the Magdalene +had begun the well-known passage with Pilate, about which the +newspapers absurdly reported later that if Miss Howe had not been a +Protestant, and so impervious the Pope would have excommunicated +her, and as he looked his movement imperceptibly changed to afford +him a better place. He put an undecided hand upon a prop of the +box that rose behind Alicia's shoulder, and so stood leaning and +looking, more conspicuous in the straight lines and short shoulder +cape of the frock of his Order than he knew. Hilda, in one of +those impenetrable regards which she threw straight in front of +her, while Pilate yawped and posed nearer and nearer the desire of +the Magdalene to be admitted to his household, was at once aware of +him. Presently he sat down again--it was still the profane, the +fabulous, the horrible Patullo, but a strain of pure gold had come +into the fabric worth holding in view, impossible, indeed, to close +the eyes upon. Far enough it was from any semblance to historical +fact, but almost possible, almost admissible, in the form of the +woman, as historical fiction. She dared to sit upon the floor now, +in the ungraceful huddled Eastern fashion, clasping her knees to +her breast, with her back half turned to her lord, the friend of +Caesar, so that he could not see the design that sat behind the +mask of her sharp indifference. She rested her chin upon her +knees, and let the blankness of her beauty exclaim upon the +subtlety of her replies, plainly measuring the power of her +provocation against the impoverished quality that camp and grove, +court and schools, might leave upon august Roman sensibilities. It +was the old, old sophistication, so perfect in its concentration +behind the kol-brushed eyes and the brown breasts, the igniting, +flickering, raging of an instinct upon the stage. Alicia, when it +was over, said to Mrs. Yardley, "How the modern woman goes off upon +side issues!" to which that lady nodded a rather suspicious assent. + +Long before Hilda had begun to act for Arnold, to play to his +special consciousness, he was fastened to his chair, held down, so +to speak, by a whirlpool of conflicting impulses. She did so much +more than "lift" the inventive vulgarisation of the Bible story in +the common sense; she inspired and transfused it so that whenever +she appeared people irresistibly forgot the matter for her, or made +private acknowledgments to the effect that something was to be said +even for an impious fantasy which gave her so unique an opportunity. +To Arnold her vivid embodiment of an incident in that which was his +morning and evening meditation made special appeal, and though it +was in a way as if she had thrust her heathen torch into his Holy +of Holies, he saw it lighted with fascination, and could not close +the door upon her. The moment of her discovery of this came early, +and it is only she, perhaps, who could tell how the strange bond +wove itself that drew her being--the Magdalene's--to the priest +who sat behind a lady in swansdown and chiffon in the upper box +nearest to the stage on the right. The beginnings of such things +are untraceable, but the fact may be considered in connection with +this one that Hamilton Bradley, who represented, as we have been +told he would, the Chief Character, did it upon lines very +recognisably those of the illustrations of sacred books, very +correct as to the hair and beard and pictured garment of the +Galilean; with every accent of hollow-eyed pallor and inscrutable +remoteness, with all the thin vagueness, too, of a popular +engraving, the limitations and the depression. Under it one saw +the painful inconsistency of the familiar Hamilton Bradley of other +presentations, and realised with irritation, which must have been +tenfold in Hilda, how he rebelled against the part. Perhaps this +was enough in itself to send her dramatic impulse to another focus, +and the strangeness of the adventure was a very thing she would +delight in. Whatever may be said about it, while yet the shock of +the woman's earthly passion with its divine object was receding +from Arnold's mind before the exquisite charm and faithfulness of +the worshipping Magdalene, he became aware that in some special way +he sat judging and pitying her. She had hardly lifted her eyes to +him twice, yet it was he, intimately he, who responded as if from +afar off, to the touch of her infinite solicitude and abasement, +the joy and the shame of her love. As he watched and knew, his +lips tightened and his face paled with the throb of his own +renunciation, he folded his celibate arms in the habit of his +brotherhood, and was caught up into a knowledge and an imitation of +how the spotless Original would have looked upon a woman suffering +and transported thus. The poverty of the play faded out; he became +almost unaware of the pinchbeck and the fustian of Patullo's +invention, and its insufferable mixture with the fabric of which +every thread was precious beyond imagination. He looked down with +tender patience and compassion upon the development of the woman's +intrigue in the palace, through the very flower of her crafts and +guiles, to save Him who had transfigured her from the hands of the +rabble and the high priests; he did not even shrink from the +inexpressibly grating note of the purified Magdalene's final +passionate tendering of her personal sacrifice to the enamoured +Pilate as the price of His freedom, and when at the last she wept +at His feet where He lay bound and delivered, and wrapped them, in +the agony of her abandonment, in the hair of her head, the priest's +lips almost moved in words other than those of the playwright-- +words that told her he knew the height and the depth of her +sacrifice and forgave it, "Neither do I condemn thee . . ." In his +exultation he saw what it was to perform miracles, to remit sins. +The spark of divinity that was in him glowed to a white heat; the +woman on the stage warmed her hands at it in two consciousnesses. +She was stirred through all her artistic sense in a new and +delicious way, and wakened in some dormant part of her to a +knowledge beautiful and surprising. She felt in every nerve the +exquisite quality of that which lay between them, and it thrilled +her through all her own perception of what she did, and all the +applause at how she did it. It was as if he, the priest, was borne +out upon a deep broad current that made toward solar spaces, toward +infinite bounds, and as if she, the actress, piloted him. . . . + +The Sphinx on the curtain--it had gone down in the old crooked +lines--again looked above and beyond them all. I have sometimes +fancied a trace of malignancy about her steady eyeballs, but +perhaps that is the accident or the design of the scene-painter; it +does not show in photographs. The audience was dispersing a trifle +sedately; the performance had been, as Mrs. Barberry told Mr. +Justice Horne, interesting but, depressing. "I hope," said Alicia +to Stephen, fastening the fluffy-white collar of the wrap he put +round her, "that I needn't be sorry I asked you to come. I don't +quite know. But she did redeem it, didn't she? That last scene--" + +"Can you not be silent?" Arnold said, almost in a whisper; and her +look of astonishment showed her that there were tears in his eyes. +He left the theatre and walked light-headedly across Chowringhee +and out into the starlit empty darkness of the Maidan, where +presently he stumbled upon a wooden bench under a tree. There, +after a little, sleep fell upon his amazement, and he lay +unconscious for an hour or two, while the breeze stole across the +grass from the river and the mast-head lights watched beside the +city. He woke chilled and normal, and when he reached the Mission +House in College Street his servant was surprised at the unusual +irritation of a necessary rebuke. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +While Alicia Livingstone fought with her imagination in accounting +for Lindsay's absence from the theatre on the first night of a +notable presentation by Miss Hilda Howe, he sat with his knees +crossed on the bench farthest back and the corner obscurest of the +Salvation Army Headquarters in Bentinck Street. It had become his +accustomed place; sitting there he had begun to feel like the +adventurer under Niagara, it was the only spot from which he could +observe, try to understand and cope with the torrential nature of +his passion. Nearer to the fair charm of his kneeling Laura, in +the uncertain flare of the kerosene lamp and the sound of the big +drum, he grew blind, lost count, was carried away. His persistent +refusal of a better place also profited him in that it brought to +Ensign Sand and the other "officers" the divination that he was one +of those shyly anxious souls who have to be enticed into the +Kingdom of Heaven with wariness, and they made a great pretence of +not noticing him, going on with the exercises just as if he were +not there, a consideration which he was able richly to enhance when +the plate came round. After his first contribution, Mrs. Sand +regarded his spiritual interests with almost superstitious +reverence, according them the fullest privacy of which she was +capable. The gravity which the gentleman attached to his situation +was sufficiently testified by the "amount"; Mrs. Sand never wanted +better evidence than the amount. Even Laura, acting doubtless +under instructions, seemed disposed to hold away from him in her +prayers and exhortations; only a very occasional allusion passed +her lips which Duff could appropriate. These, when they fell, he +gathered and set like flowers in his tenderest consciousness, to +visit and water them after the sun went down and for twenty-four +hours he would not see her again. Her intonation went with them +and her face; they lived on that. They stirred him, I mean, least +of all in the manner of their intention. After the first quarter +of an hour, it is to be feared, Lindsay suffered no more +apprehensions on the score of emotional hypnotism. He recognised +his situation plainly enough, and there was no appeal in it of +which the Reverend Stephen Arnold, for example, could properly +suspect the genuineness or the permanence. + +On this Saturday night he sat through the meeting as he had sat +through other meetings, absorbed in his exquisite experience which +he meditated mostly with his eyes on the floor. His attitude was +one quite adapted to deceive Ensign Sand; if he had been occupied +with the burden of his transgressions it was one he might very well +have fallen into. When Laura knelt or sang he sometimes looked at +her, at other times he looked at the situation in the brightness of +her presence at the other end of the room. She gave forth there, +for Lindsay, an illumination by which he almost immediately began +to read his life; and it was because he thought he had done this +with accuracy and intelligence that he came up behind her that +evening when the meeting was over as she followed the rest, with +her sari drawn over her head, out into the darkness of Bentinck +Street, and said with directness, "I should like to come and see +you. When may I? Any time that suits you. Have you half an hour +to spare to-morrow?" + +It was plain that she was tired, and that the brightness with which +she welcomed his advance was a trifle taught and perfunctory. Not +the frankness though, or the touch of "Now we are getting to +business," that stood in her expression. She looked alert and +pleased. + +"You would like to have a little talk, wouldn't you?" she said. +Her manner took Lindsay a trifle aback; it suggested that she +conferred this privilege so freely. "To-morrow--let me see, we +march in the morning, and I have an open-air at four in the +afternoon--the Ensign takes the evening meeting. Yes, I could see +you to-morrow about two or about seven, after I get back from the +Square." It was not unlike a professional appointment. + +Lindsay considered. "Thanks," he said, "I'll come at about seven-- +if you are sure you won't be too exhausted to have me after such a +day." + +He saw that her lids as she raised them to answer were slightly +reddened at the edges, testifying to the acridity of Calcutta's +road dust, and a dry crack crept into the silver voice with which +she said matter-of-factly, "We are never too exhausted to attend to +our Master's business." + +Lindsay's face expressed an instant's hesitation; he looked gravely +the other way. "And the address?" he said. + +"Almost next door--we all live within bugle-call. The entrance is +in Crooked Lane. Anybody will tell you." + +At the door Ensign Sand was conspicuously waiting. Lindsay said +"Thanks" again, and passed out--she seemed to be holding it for +him--and picked his way over the gutters to the shop of his +Chinaman opposite. From there he watched the little company issue +forth and turn into Crooked Lane, where the entrance was. It gave +him a sense that she had her part in this squalor, which was not +altogether distressful in that it also localised her in the warm, +living, habitable world, and helped to make her thinkable and +attainable. Then he went to his room at the club and found there a +note from Miss Howe, written apparently to forgive him in advance, +to say that she had not expected him. "Friendly creature!" he said +as he turned out the lamp, and smiled in the dark to think that +already there was one who guessed, who knew. + +One gropes in Crooked Lane after the lights of Bentinck Street have +done all that can be expected of them. There are various things to +avoid, washer-men's donkeys and pariah dogs, unyoked ticca- +gharries, heaps of rubbish, perhaps a leprous beggar. Lindsay, +when he had surmounted these, found himself at the entrance to a +quadrangle which was positively dark. He waylaid a sweeper +slinking out, and the man showed him where an open staircase ran +down against the wall in one corner. It was up there, he said, +that the "tamasho-mems"* lived. There were three tamasho-mems, he +continued, responding to Lindsay's trivial coin, and one sahib, but +this was not the time for the tamasho--it was finished. Lindsay +mounted the first flight by faith, and paused at the landing to +avoid collision with a heavy body descending. He inquired Miss +Filbert's whereabouts from this person, who providentially lighted +a cigar, disclosing himself a bald Armenian in tusser silk trousers +and a dirty shirt, presumably, Lindsay thought, the landlord. At +all events he had the information, Lindsay was to keep straight on, +it was the third storey. Duff kept straight on in a spirit of +caution, and just missed treading upon the fattest rat in the +heathen parish of St. John's. At the top he saw a light and +hastened; it shone from an open door at the side of a passage. +The partition in which the door was came considerably short of the +ceiling, and from the top of it to the window opposite stretched a +line of garments to dry, of pungent odour and infantile pattern. +Lindsay dared no farther, but lifted up his voice in the Indian way +to summon a servant, "Qui hai?"# he called, "Qui hai?" + + +* Festival-making women. + +# "Whoever is there?" + + +He heard somewhere within the noise of a chair pushed back, and a +door farther down the passage opened outwards, disclosing Laura +Filbert with her hand upon the handle. She made a supple, graceful +picture. "Good-evening, Mr. Lindsay," she said as he advanced. +"Won't you come in?" She clung to the handle until he had passed +into the room, then she closed the door after him. "I was +expecting you," she said. "Mr. Harris, let me make you acquainted +with Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Harris." + +Mr. Harris was sitting sideways on one of the three cheap little +chairs. He was a clumsily built youth, and he wore the private's +garb of the Salvation Army. It was apparent that he had been +reading a newspaper; he had a displeasing air of possession. At +Laura's formula he looked up and nodded without amiability, folded +his journal the other side out and returned to it. + +"Please take a seat," Laura said, and Lindsay took one. He had a +demon of self-consciousness that possessed him often, here he felt +dumb. Nor did he in the very least expect Mr. Harris. He crossed +his legs in greater discomfort than he had dreamed possible, +looking at Laura, who sat down like a third stranger, curiously +detached from any sense of hospitality. + +"Mr. Lindsay is anxious about his soul, Mr. Harris," she said +pleasantly. "I guess you can tell him what to do as well as I +can." + +"Oh!" Lindsay began, but Mr. Harris had the word. "Is he?" said +Mr. Harris, without looking up from his paper. "Well, what I've +got to say on that subject I say at the evenin' meetin', which is a +proper an' a public place. He can hear it there any day of the +week." + +"I think I have already heard," remarked Lindsay, "what you have to +say." + +"Then that's all right," said Mr. Harris, with his eyes still upon +his newspaper. He appeared to devour it. Laura looked from one to +the other of them and fell upon an expedient. + +"If you'll excuse me," she said, "I'll just get you that bicycle +story you were kind enough to lend me, Mr. Harris, and you can take +it with you. The Ensign's got it," and she left the room. Lindsay +glanced round, and promptly announced to himself that he could not +come there again. It was taking too violent an advantage. The +pursuit of an angel does not imply that you may trap her in her +corner under the Throne. The place was divided by a calico +curtain, over which plainly showed the top of a mosquito curtain-- +she slept in there. On the walls were all tender texts about +loving and believing and bearing others' burdens, interspersed with +photographs, mostly of women with plain features and enthusiastic +eyes, dressed in some strange costume of the Army in Madras, +Ceylon, China. A little wooden table stood against the wall +holding an album, a Bible and hymn-books, a work-basket and an +irrelevant Japanese doll which seemed to stretch its absurd arms +straight out in a gay little ineffectual heathen protest. There +was another more embarrassing table: it had a coarse cloth; and was +garnished with a loaf and butter-dish, a plate of plantains and a +tin of marmalade, knives and teacups for a meal evidently +impending. It was atrociously, sordidly intimate, with its core in +Harris, who when Miss Filbert had well gone from the room looked +up. "If you're here on private business," he said to Lindsay, +fixing his eyes, however, on a point awkwardly to the left of him, +"maybe you ain't aware that the Ensign"--he threw his head back in +the direction of the next room--"is the person to apply to. She's +in command here. Captain Filbert's only under her." + +"Indeed?" said Lindsay. "Thanks." + +"It ain't like it is in the Queen's army," Harris volunteered, +still searching Lindsay's vicinity for a point upon which his eyes +could permanently rest, "where, if you remember, Ensigns are the +smallest officer we have." + +"The commission is, I think, abolished," replied Lindsay, governing +a deep and irritated frown. + +"Maybe so. This Army don't pretend to pattern very close on the +other--not in discipline anyhow," said Mr. Harris with ambiguity. +"But you'll find Ensign Sand very willing to do anything she can +for you. She's a hard-working officer." + +A sharp wail smote the air from a point close to the lath and +canvas partition, on the other side, followed by hasty hushings and +steps in the opposite direction. It enabled Lindsay to observe +that Mrs. Sand seemed at present to be sufficiently engaged, at +which Mr. Harris shifted one heavy limb over the other, and lapsed +into silence, looking sternly at an advertisement. The air was +full of their mutual annoyance, although Duff tried to feel amused. +They were raging as primitively, under the red flannel shirt and +the tan-coloured waistcoat with white silk spots, as two cave-men +on an Early British coast; their only sophistication lay in +Harris's newspaper and Lindsay's idea that he ought to find this +person humorous. Then Laura came back and resolved the situation. + +"Here it is," she said, handing the volume to Mr. Harris; "we have +all enjoyed it. Thank you very much." There was in it the oddest +mixture of the supreme feminine and the superior officer. Harris, +as he took the book, had no alternative. + +"Good-evening, then, Captain," said he, and went, stumbling at the +door. + +"Mr. Harris," said Laura equably, "found salvation about a month +ago. He is a very steady young man--foreman in one of the carriage +works here. He is now struggling with the tobacco habit, and he +often drops in in the evening." + +"He seems to be a--a member of the corps," said Lindsay. + +"He would be, only for the carriage works. He says he doesn't find +himself strong enough in grace to give up his situation yet. But +he wears the uniform at the meetings to show his sympathy, and the +Ensign doesn't think there's any objection." + +Laura was sitting straight up in one of the cheap little chairs, +her sari drawn over her head, her hands folded in her lap. The +native dress clung to her limbs in sculpturable lines, and her +consecrated ambitions seemed more insistent than ever. She had +nothing to do with anything else, nothing to do with her room or +its arrangements, nothing, Lindsay felt profoundly, to do with him. +Her personal zeal for him seemed to resolve itself, at the point of +contact, into something disappointingly thin; he saw that she +counted with him altogether as a unit in a glorious total, and that +he himself had no place in her knowledge or her desire. This +brought him, with something like a shock, to a sense of how far he +had depended on her interest for his soul's sake to introduce her +to a wider view of him. + +"But you have come to tell me about yourself," she said, suddenly +it seemed to Lindsay, who was wrapped in the contemplation of her +profile. "Well, is there any special stumbling-block?" + +"There are some things I should certainly like you to know," +replied Lindsay; "but you can't think how difficult--" he glanced +at the lath and plaster partition, but she to whom publicity was a +condition salutary, if not essential, to spiritual experience, +naturally had no interpretation for that. + +"I know it's sometimes hard to speak," she said; "Satan ties our +tongues." + +The misunderstanding was absurd, but he saw only its difficulties, +knitting his brows. + +"I fear you will find my story very strange and very mad," he said. +"I cannot be sure that you will even listen to it." + +"Oh," Laura said simply, "do not be afraid! I have heard +confessions! I work at home, you see, a good deal among the +hospitals, and--we do not shrink, you know, in the Army, from +things like that." + +"Good God!" he exclaimed, staring, "you don't think--you don't +suppose--" + +"Ah! don't say that! It's so like swearing." + +As he sat in helpless anger, trying to formulate something +intelligible, the curtain parted, and a sallow little Eurasian girl +of eighteen, also in the dress of the Army, came through from the +bedroom part. She smiled in a conscious, meaningless way, as she +sidled past them. At the door her smile broadened, and as she +closed it after her she gave them a little nod. + +"That's my lieutenant," said Laura. + +"The place is like a warren," Lindsay groaned. "How can we talk +here?" + +Laura looked at him gravely, as one making a diagnosis. "Do you +think," she said, "a word of prayer would help you?" + +"No," said Lindsay. "No, thank you. What is making me miserable," +he added quietly, "is the knowledge that we are being overheard. +If you go into the next room, I am quite certain you will find Mrs. +Sand listening by the wall." + +"She's gone out! She and the Captain and Miss De Souza, to take +the evening meeting. Nobody is in there except the two children, +and they are asleep." Her smile, he thought, made a Madonna of +her. "Indeed, we are quite alone, you and I, in the flat now. So +please don't be afraid, Mr. Lindsay! Say whatever is in your +heart, and the mere saying--" + +"Oh," Lindsay cried, "stop! Don't, for Heaven's sake, look at me +in that light any longer. I'm not penitent. I'm not--what do you +call it?--a soul under conviction. Nothing of the sort." He +waited with considerateness for this to have its effect upon her; +he could not go on until he saw her emerge, gasping, from the +inundation of it. But she was not even staggered by it. She only +looked down at her folded hands with an added seriousness and a +touch of sorrow. + +"Aren't you?" she said. "But at least you feel that you ought to +be. I thought it had been accomplished. But I will go on +praying." + +"Shall you be very angry if I tell you that I'd rather you didn't? +I want to come into your life differently--sincerely." + +She looked at him with such absolute blankness that his resolution +was swiftly overturned, and showed him a different face. + +"I won't tell you anything about what I feel and what I want to- +night except this--I find that you are influencing all my thoughts +and all my days in what is to me a very new and a very happy way. +You hear as much as that often, and from many people, don't you? +So there is nothing in it that need startle you or make you +uncomfortable." He paused, and she nodded in a visible effort to +follow him. + +"So I am here to-night to ask you to let me do something for you +just for my own pleasure--there must be some way of helping you, +and being your friend--" + +"As Mr. Harris is," she interrupted. "I do influence Mr. Harris +for good, I know. He says so." + +"Influence me," he begged, "in any way you like." + +"I will pray for you," she said. "I promise that." + +"And you will let me see you sometimes?" he asked, conceding the +point. + +"If I thought it would do you any good"--she looked at him +doubtfully, clasping and unclasping her hands; "I will see; I will +ask for guidance. Perhaps it is one of His own appointed ways. If +you have no objection, I will give you this little book, Almost +Persuaded. I am sure you are almost persuaded. Above all, I hope +you will go on coming to the meetings." + +And in the course of the next two or three moments Lindsay found +himself, somewhat to his astonishment, again in the night of the +staircase, dismissed exactly as Mr. Harris had been, by the agency +of a printed volume. Only in his case a figure of much angelic +beauty stood at the top, holding a patent kerosene lamp high, to +illumine his way. He refrained from looking back lest she should +see something too human in his face, and vanish, leaving him in +darkness which would be indeed impenetrable. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +There was a panic in Dhurrumtolla; a "ticca-gharry"--the shabby +oblong box on wheels, dignified in municipal regulations as a +hackney carriage--was running away. Coolie mothers dragged naked +children up on the pavement with angry screams; drivers of ox-carts +dug their lean beasts in the side, and turned out of the way almost +at a trot; only the tram-car held on its course in conscious +invincibility. A pariah tore along beside the vehicle barking; +crows flew up from the rubbish heaps in the road by half-dozens, +protesting shrilly; a pedlar of blue bead necklaces just escaped +being knocked down. Little groups of native clerks and money- +lenders stood looking after, laughing and speculating; a native +policeman, staring also, gave them sharp orders to disperse, and +they said to him, "Peace, brother." To each other they said, +"Behold, the driver is a 'mut-wallah'" (or drunken person); and +presently, as the thing whirled farther up the emptied perspective, +"Lo! the syce has fallen." The driver was certainly very drunk; +his whip circled perpetually above his head; the syce clinging +behind was stiff with terror, and fell off like a bundle of rags. +Inside, Hilda Howe, with a hand in the strap at each side and her +feet against the opposite seat, swayed violently and waited for +what might happen, breathing short. Whenever the gharry thrashed +over the tram-lines, she closed her eyes. There was a point near +Cornwallis Street where she saw the off front wheel make +sickeningly queer revolutions; and another, electrically close, +when two tossing roan heads with pink noses appeared in a gate to +the left, heading smartly out, all unawares, at precisely right +angles to her own derelict equipage. That was the juncture of the +Reverend Stephen Arnold's interference, walking and discussing with +Amiruddin Khan, as he was, the comparative benefits of Catholic and +Mohammedan fasting. It would be easy to magnify what Stephen did +in that interruption of the considerate hearing he was giving to +Amiruddin. The ticca-gharry ponies were almost spent, and any +resolute hand could have impelled them away from the carriage-pole +with which the roans threatened to impale their wretched sides. +The front wheel, however, made him heroic, going off at a tangent +into a cloth merchant's shop, and precipitating a crash while he +still clung to the reins. The door flew open on the under side, +and Hilda fell through, grasping at the dust of the road; while the +driver, discovering that his seat was no longer horizontal, entered +suddenly upon sobriety, and clamoured with tears that the cloth- +merchant should restore his wheel--was he not a poor man? Hilda, +struggling with her hat-pins, felt her dress brushed by various +lean hands of the bazar, and observed herself the central figure in +yet another situation. When she was in a condition to see, she saw +Arnold soothing the ponies; Amiruddin, before the vague possibility +of police complication having slipped away. Stephen had believed +the gharry empty. The sight of her, in her disordered draperies, +was a revelation and a reproach. + +"Is it possible!" he exclaimed, and was beside her. "You are not +hurt?" + +"Only scraped, thanks. I am lucky to get off with this." She held +up her right palm, broadly abraded round the base, where her hand +had struck the road. Arnold took it delicately in his own thin +fingers to examine it; an infinity of contrast rested in the touch. +He looked at it with anxiety so obviously deep and troubled, that +Hilda silently smiled. She who had been battered, as she said, +twice round the world, found it disproportionate. + +"It's the merest scratch," she said, grave again to meet his +glance. + +"Indeed, I fear not." The priest made a solicitous bandage with +his handkerchief, while the circle about them solidified. "It is +quite unpleasantly deep. You must let me take you at once to the +nearest chemist's and get it properly washed and dressed, or it may +give you a vast amount of trouble--but I am walking." + +"I will walk too," Hilda said readily. "I should prefer it, +truly." With her undamaged hand she produced a rupee from her +pocket, where a few coins chinked casually, looked at it, and +groped for another. "I really can't afford any more," she said. +"He can get his wheel mended with that, can't he?" + +"It is three times his fare," Arnold said austerely, "and he +deserved nothing--but a fine, perhaps." The man was suppliant +before them, cringing, salaaming, holding joined palms open. Hilda +lifted her head and looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, +where the sun stood golden upon the roadside and two naked children +played with a torn pink kite. Something seemed to gather into her +eyes as she looked, and when she fixed them softly upon Arnold, to +speak, as it had spoken before. + +"Ah," she said. "Our deserts." + +It was the merest echo, and she had done it on purpose, but he +could not know that, and as she dropped the rupees into the craving +hands, and turned and walked away with him, he was held in a +frightened silence. There was nothing perhaps that he wanted to +talk of more than of his experience at the theatre; he longed to +have it simplified and explained; yet in that space of her two +words the impossibility of mentioning it had sprung at him and +overcome him. He hoped, with instant fervour, that she would +refrain from any allusion to The Offence of Galilee. And for the +time being she did refrain. She said, instead, that her hand was +smarting absurdly already, and did Arnold suppose the chemist would +use a carbolic lotion? Stephen, with a guarded look, said very +possibly not, but one never knew; and Hilda, thinking of the far- +off day when the little girl of her was brought tactfully to +disagreeable necessities; covered a preposterous impulse to cry +with another smile. + +A thudding of bare feet overtook them. It was the syce, with his +arms full of thin paper bags, the kind that hold cheap millinery. +"Oh, the good man!" Hilda exclaimed. "My parcels!" and looked on +equably, while Arnold took them by their puckered ends. "I have +been buying gold lace and things from Chunder Dutt for a costume," +she explained. The bags dangled helplessly from Arnold's fingers; +he looked very much aware of them. "Let me carry at least one," +she begged. "I can perfectly with my parasol hand;" but he refused +her even one. "If I may be permitted to take the responsibility," +he said happily, and she rejoined, "Oh, I would trust you with +things more fragile." At which, such is the discipline of these +Orders, he looked steadily in front of him, and seemed deaf with +modesty. + +"But are you sure," said Hilda, suddenly considerate, "that it +looks well?" + +"Is the gold lace then so very meretricious?" + +"It goes doubtfully with your cloth," she laughed, and instantly +looked stricken with the conviction that she might better have said +something else. But Arnold appeared to take it simply and to see +no gibe in it, only a pleasant commonplace. + +"It might look queer in Chowringhee," he said, "but this is not a +censorious public." Then, as if to palliate the word, he added, +"They will think me no more mad to carry paper bags than to carry +myself, when it is plain that I might ride--and they see me doing +that every day." + +All the same the paper bags swinging beside the girdled black skirt +did impart a touch of comedy, which was in a way a pity, since +humour goes so far to destroy the picturesque. Hilda without the +paper bags would have been vastly enough for contrast. She walked-- +one is inclined to dwell upon her steps and face the risk of being +unintelligible--in a wide-sleeved gown of peach-coloured silk, +rather frayed at the seams; a trifle spent in vulnerable places, +surmounted by an extravagant collar and a Paris hat. The dress was +of artistic intention inexpensively carried out, the hat had an +accomplished chic; it had fallen to her in the wreck and ruin of a +too ambitious draper of Coolgardie. As a matter of fact it was the +only one she had. The wide sleeves ended a little below the elbow, +and she carried in compensation a pair of long suede gloves, a +compromise which only occasionally discovered itself buttonless, +and a most expensive umbrella, the tribute of a gentleman in that +line of business in Cape Town, whose standing advertisement is now +her note of appreciation. Arnold in his unvarying gait paced +beside her; he naturally shrank, so close to her opulence, into +something less impressive than he was; a mere intelligence he +looked, in a quaint uniform, with his long lip drawn down and +pursed a little in this accomplishment of duty, and his eyes +steadily in front of him. Hilda's lambent observation was +everywhere, but most of all on him; a fleck of the dust from the +road still lay upon the warm bloom of her cheek, a perpetual happy +curve clung about her mouth. So they passed in streets of the +thronging people, where yards of new-dyed cotton, purple and +yellow, stretched drying in the sun, where a busy tom-tom called +the pious to leave coppers before a blood-red, golden-tongued Kali, +half visible through the door of a mud hut--where all the dealers +in brass dishes and glass armlets and silver-gilt stands for the +comfortable hubble-bubble, squatted in line upon their thresholds +and accepted them with indifference. So they passed, worthy of a +glance from that divinity who shapes our ends. + +They talked of the accident. "You stopped the horses, didn't you?" +Hilda said, and the speculation in her eyes was concerned with the +extent to which a muscular system might dwindle, in that climate, +under sacerdotal robes worn every day. + +"I told them to stop, poor things," Arnold said; "they had hardly +to be persuaded." + +"But you didn't save my life or anything like that, did you?" she +adventured like a vagrant in the sun. The blood was warm in her. +She did not weigh her words. "I shouldn't like having my life +saved. The necessity for feeling such a vast emotion--I shouldn't +know how to cope with it." + +"I will claim to have saved your other hand," he smiled. "You will +be quite grateful enough for that." + +She noted that he did not hasten, behind blushes, into the shelter +of a general disavowal. The cassock seemed to cover an obligation +to acknowledge things. + +"I see," she said, veering round. "You are quite right to +circumscribe me. There is nothing so boring as the gratitude that +will out. It is only the absence of it, too plainly expressed, +that is unpleasant. But you won't find that in me either." She +gave him a smile as she lowered her parasol to turn into the shop +of Lahiri Dey, licensed to sell European drugs, that promised +infinite possibilities of friendship; and, he, following, took +pleased and careful possession of it. + +An hour later, as they approached Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, +Miss Howe looked pale, which is not surprising since they had +walked and talked all the way. Their talk was a little strenuous +too; it was as if they had fallen upon an opportunity, and, +mutually, consciously made the most of it. + +"You must have some tea immediately," Arnold said, before the +battered urns and the dusty crotons of her dwelling. + +"A little whisky and soda, I think. And you will come up, please, +and have some too. You must." + +"Thanks," he said, looking at his watch. "If I do--" + +"You'll have the soda without the whisky! All right!" she laughed, +and led the way. + +"This is vicious indulgence," Arnold said of his beverage, sitting +under the inverted Japanese umbrellas. "I haven't been pitched out +of a ticca-gharry." + +It is doubtful whether the indulgence was altogether in the soda, +which is, after all, ascetic in its quality, and only suitably +effervescent, like ecclesiastical humour. It may very probably be +that there was no indulgence; indeed, one is convinced that the +word, like so many words, says too much. The springs of Arnold's +chair were bursting through the bottom, and there were stains on +its faded chintz-arms, but it was comfortable, and he leaned back +in it, looking up at the paper umbrellas. You know the room; I +took you into it with Duff Lindsay, who did not come there from +rigidities and rituals, and who had a qualified pleasure in it. +But there were lines in the folds of the flowered window-curtains +dragging half a yard upon the floor, which seemed to disband +Arnold's spirit, and a twinkle in the blue bead of a bamboo screen +where the light came through that released it altogether. The +shabby violent-coloured place encompassed him like an easy garment, +and the lady with her feet tucked up on a sofa and a cushion under +her tumbled head, was an unembarrassing invitation to the kind of +happy things he had not said for years. They sat in the coolness +of the room for half an hour, and then, after a little pause, Hilda +said suddenly-- + +"I am glad you saw me in The Offence of Galilee on Saturday night. +We shall not play it again." + +"It has been withdrawn?" + +"Yes. The rights, you know, really belong to Mr. Bradley; and he +can't endure his part." + +"Is there no one else to--" + +"He objects to anyone else. We generally play together." This was +inadvertent, but Stephen had no reason to imagine that she +contracted her eyebrows in any special irritation. "It is an +atrocious piece," she added. + +"Is it?" he said absently, and then, "Yes, it is an atrocious +piece. But I am glad, too, that I saw you." + +He looked away from her, reddening deeply, and stood up. He bade +her a measured and precise farewell. It seemed as if he hurried. +She only half rose to give him her unwounded hand, and when he was +gone she sank back again thoughtfully. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"I have outstayed all the rest," Lindsay said, with his hat and +stick in his hand, in Alicia Livingstone's drawing-room, "because +I want particularly to talk to you. They have left me precious +little time," he added, glancing at his watch. + +She had wondered when he came, early in the formal Sunday noon hour +for men's calls, since he had more casual privileges; and wondered +more when he sat on with composure, as one who is master of the +situation, while Major-Generals and Deputy-Secretaries came and +went. There was a mist in her brain as she talked to the Major- +Generals and Deputy-Secretaries--it did not in the least obscure +what she found to say--and in the midst of it the formless idea +that he must wish to attach a special importance to his visit. +This took shape and line when they were alone, and he spoke of out- +sitting the others. It impelled her to walk to the window and open +it. "You might stay to lunch," she said, addressing a pair of +crows in altercation on the verandah. + +"There is nearly half an hour before lunch," he said. "Can I +convince you in that time, I wonder, that I'm not an absolute +fool?" + +Alicia turned and came back to her sofa. She may have had a +prevision of the need of support. "I hardly think," she said, +drawing the long breath with which we try to subdue a tempest +within, "that it would take so long." She looked with careful +criticism at the violets in his buttonhole. + +"I've had a supreme experience," he said, "very strange and very +lovely. I am living in it, moving in it, speaking in it," he added +quickly, watching her face; "so don't, for Heaven's sake, touch it +roughly." + +She lifted her hand in nervous, involuntary deprecation. "Why +should you suppose I would touch it roughly?" There was that in +her voice which cried out that she would rather not touch it at +all; but Lindsay, on the brink of his confidence, could not suppose +it, did not hear it. He knew her so well. + +"A great many people will," he said. "I can't bear the thought of +their fingers. That is one reason that brings me to you." + +She faced him fully at this; her eyelids quivered, but she looked +straight at him. It nerved her to be brought into his equation, +even in the form which should finally be eliminated. She contrived +a smile. + +"I believe you know already," Lindsay cried. + +"I have heard something. Don't be alarmed--not from people, from +Miss Howe." + +"Wonderful woman! I haven't told her." + +"Is that always necessary? She has intuitions. In this case," +Alicia went on, with immense courage, "I didn't believe them." + +"Why?" he asked enjoyingly. Anything to handle his delight--he +would even submit it to analysis. + +She hesitated--her business was in great waters, the next instant +might engulf her. "It's so curiously unlike you," she faltered. +"If she had been a duchess--a very exquisite person, or somebody +very clever--remember I haven't seen her." + +"You haven't, so I must forgive you invidious comparisons." +Lindsay visaged the words with a smile, but they had an articulated +hardness. + +Alicia raised her eyebrows. + +"What do you expect one to imagine?" she asked, with quietness. + +"A miracle," he said sombrely. + +"Ah, that's difficult!" + +There was silence for a moment between them, then she added +perversely-- + +"And, you know, faith is not what it was." + +Duff sat biting his lips. Her dryness irritated him. He was +accustomed to find in her fields of delicately blooming +enthusiasms, and running watercourses where his satisfactions were +ever reflected. Suddenly she seemed to emerge to her own +consciousness, upon a summit from which she could look down upon +the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to where he stood. + +"Don't make a mistake," she said. "Don't." She thrust her hand +for a fraction of an instant toward him, and then swiftly withdrew +it, gathering herself together to meet what he might say. + +What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. "That's what +everybody will tell me; but I thought you might understand." He +tapped the toe of his boot with his stick as if he counted the +strokes. She looked down and counted them too. + +"Then you won't help me to marry her?" he said, definitely, at +last. + +"What could I do?" She twisted her sapphire ring. "Ask somebody +else." + +"Don't expect me to believe there is nothing you could do. Go to +her as my friend. It isn't such a monstrous thing to ask. Tell +her any good you know of me. At present her imagination paints me +in all the lurid colours of the lost." + +The face she turned upon him was all little sharp white angles, +and the cloud of fair hair above her temples stood out stiffly, +suggesting Celine and the curling tongs. She did not lose her +elegance; the poise of her chin and shoulders was quite perfect, +but he thought she looked too amusedly at his difficulty. Her +negative, too, was more unsympathetic than he had any reason to +expect. + +"No," she said. "It must be somebody else. Don't ask me. I +should become involved--I might do harm." She had surmounted her +emotion; she was able to look at the matter with surprising +clearness and decision. "I should do harm," she repeated. + +"You don't count with her effect on you." + +"You can't possibly imagine her effect on me. I'm not a man." + +"But won't you take anything--about her--from me? You know I'm +really not a fool--not even very impressionable?" + +"Oh no!" she said impatiently. "No--of course not." + +"Pray why?" + +"There are other things to reckon with." She looked coldly beyond +him out of the window. "A man's intelligence when he is in love-- +how far can one count on it?" + +There was nothing but silence for that, or perhaps the murmured, +"Oh, I don't agree," with which Lindsay met it. He rode down her +logic with a simple appeal. "Then after all," he said, "you're not +my friend." + +It goaded her into something like an impertinence. "After you have +married her," she said, "you'll see." + +"You will be hers then," he declared. + +"I will be yours." Her eyes leaped along the prospect and rested +on a brass-studded Tartar shield at the other end of the room. + +"And I thought you broad in these views," Lindsay said, glancing at +her curiously. Her opportunity for defence was curtailed by a +heavy step in the hall, and the lifted portiere disclosed Surgeon +Major Livingstone, looking warm. He, whose other name was the soul +of hospitality, made a profound and feeling remonstrance against +Lindsay's going before tiffin, though Alicia, doing something to a +bowl of nasturtiums, did not hear it. Not that her added protest +would have detained Lindsay, who took his perturbation away with +him as quickly as might be. Alicia saw the cloud upon him as he +shook hands with her, and found it but slightly consoling to +reflect that his sun would without doubt re-emerge in all +effulgence on the other side of the door. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +That same Sunday, Alicia had been able to say to Lindsay about +Hilda Howe, "We have not stood still--we know each other well now," +and when he commented with some reserve upon this to follow it up. +"But these things have so little to do with mere length of time or +number of opportunities," she declared. "One springs at some +people." + +A Major-General, interrupting, said he wished he had the chance; +and they talked about something else. But perhaps this is enough +to explain a note which went by messenger from the Livingstones' +pillared palace in Middleton Street to Number Three, Lal Behari's +Lane, on Monday morning. It was a short note, making a definite +demand with an absence of colour and softness and emotion which was +almost elaborate. Hilda, at breakfast, tore off the blank half +sheet, and wrote in pencil-- + +"I think I can arrange to get her here about five this afternoon. +No rehearsal--they're doing something to the gas-pipes at the +theatre, so you will find me, anyway. And I'll be delighted to see +you." + +She twisted it up and addressed it, reconsidered that, and made the +scrap more secure in a yellow envelope. It had an embossed post- +office stamp, which she sacrificed with resignation. Then she went +back to an extremely uninteresting vegetable curry, with the +reflection--"Can she possibly imagine that one doesn't see it yet?" + +Alicia came before five. She brought a novel of Gissing's, in +order apparently that they might without fail talk about Gissing. +Hilda was agreeable; she would talk about Gissing, or about +anything, tipped on the edge of her bed--Alicia had surmounted that +degree of intimacy at a bound by the declaration that she could no +longer endure the blue umbrellas--and clasping one knee, with an +uncertain tenure of a chipped bronze slipper deprived of its heel. +Wonderful silk draperies fell about her, with ink-spots on the +sleeves; her hair was magnificent. + +"It's so curious to me," she was saying of the novel, "that anyone +should learn all that life as you do, at a distance, in a book. +It's like looking at it through the little end of an opera-glass." + +"I fancy that the most desirable way," said Alicia, glancing at the +door. + +"Don't you believe it. The best way is to come out of it, to grow +out of it. Then all the rest has the charm of novelty and the +value of contrast, and the distinction of being the best. You, +poor dear, were born an artificial flower in a cardboard box. But +you couldn't help it." + +"Everybody doesn't grow out of it." The concentration in Alicia's +eyes returned again with vacillating wings. + +"She can't be here for a quarter of an hour yet." The slipper +dropped at this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again. She +kept her foot in her hands, and regarded it pensively. + +"Shoes are the one thing one shouldn't buy in the native quarter," +she continued; "at all events, ready-made." + +"You have an audacity--" Alicia ended abruptly in a wan smile. + +"Haven't I? Are you quite sure he wants to marry her?" + +"I know it." + +"From him?" + +"From him." + +"Oh!"--Hilda deliberated a moment nursing her slipper--"Really? +Well, we can't let that happen." + +"Why not?" + +"You have a hardihood! Is no reason plain to you? Don't you see +anything?" + +Alicia smiled again painfully, as if against a tension of her lips. +"I see only one thing that matters--he wants it," she said. + +"And won't be happy till he gets it! Rubbish, my dear! We are an +intolerably self-sacrificing sex." Hilda felt about for pillows, +and stretched her length along the bed. "They've taught us well, +the men; it's a blood disease now, running everywhere in the female +line. You may be sure it was a barbarian princess that hesitated +between the lady and the tiger. A civilised one would have +introduced the lady and given her a dot, and retired to the nearest +convent. Bah! It's a deformity, like the dachshund's legs." + +Alicia looked as if this would be a little troublesome, and not +quite worth while, to follow. + +"The happiness of his whole life is involved," she said simply. + +"Oh dear yes--the old story! And what about the happiness of +yours? Do you imagine it's laudable, admirable, this attitude? Do +you see yourself in it with pleasure? Have you got a sacred +satisfaction of self-praise?" + +Contempt accumulated in Miss Howe's voice, and sat in her eyes. To +mark her climax she kicked her slippers over the end of the bed. + +"It is idiotic--it's disgusting," she said. + +Alicia caught a flash from her. "My attitude!" she cried. "What +in the world do you mean? Do you always think in poses? I take no +attitude. I care for him, and in that proportion I intend that he +shall have what he wants--so far as I can help him to it. You have +never cared for anybody--what do you know about it?" + +Hilda took a calm, unprejudiced view of the ceiling. "I assure you +I'm not an angel," she cried. "Haven't I cared! Several times." + +"Not really--not lastingly." + +"I don't know about really; certainly not lastingly. I've never +thought the men should have a monopoly of nomadic susceptibilities. +They entail the prettiest experiences." + +"Of course, in your profession--" + +"Don't be nasty, sweet lady. My affections have never taken the +opportunities of our profession. They haven't even carried me into +matrimony, though I remember once, at Sydney, they brought me to +the brink! We must contrive an escape for Duff Lindsay." + +"You assume too much--a great deal too much. She must be +beautiful--and good." + +"Give me a figure. She's a lily, and she draws the kind of beauty +that lilies have from her personal chastity and her religious +enthusiasm. Touch those things and bruise them, as--as marriage +would touch and bruise them--and she would be a mere fragment of +stale vegetation. You want him to clasp that to his bosom for the +rest of his life?" + +"I won't believe you. You're coarse and you're cruel." + +Tears flashed into Miss Livingstone's eyes with this. Hilda, still +regarding the ceiling, was aware of them, and turned an impatient +shoulder while they should be brushed undetected away. + +"I'm sorry, dear," she said. "I forgot. You are usually so +intelligent, one can be coarse and cruel with comfort, talking to +you. Go into the bathroom and get my salts--they're on the +washhand-stand--will you? I'm quite faint with all I'm about to +undergo." + +Laura Filbert came in as Alicia emerged with the salts. Ignoring +the third person with the bottle, she went directly to the bedside +and laid her hand on Hilda's head. + +"Oh Miss Howe, I am so sorry you are sick--so sorry," she said. It +was a cooing of professional concern, true to an ideal, to a +necessity. + +"I am not very bad," Hilda improvised. "Hardly more than a +headache." + +"She makes light of everything," Miss Filbert said, smiling toward +Alicia, who stood silent, the prey of her impression. Discovering +the blue salts bottle, Laura walked over to her and took it from +her hands. + +"And what," said the barefooted Salvation Army girl to Miss +Livingstone, "might your name be?" + +There was an infinite calm interest in it--it was like a +conventionality of the other world, and before its assurance Alicia +stood helpless. + +"Her name is Livingstone," called Hilda from the bed, "and she is +as good as she is beautiful. You needn't be troubled about HER +soul--she takes Communion every Sunday morning at the Cathedral." + +"Hallelujah!" said Captain Filbert, in a tone of dubious +congratulation. + +"Much better," said Hilda cheerfully, "to take it at the Cathedral, +you know, than nowhere." + +Miss Filbert said nothing to this, but sat down upon the edge of +the bed, looking serious, and stroked Hilda's hair. + +"You don't seem to have much fever," she said. "There was a poor +fellow in the Military Hospital this morning with a temperature of +one hundred and seven. I could hardly bear to touch him." + +"What was the matter?" asked Hilda idly, occupied with hypotheses +about the third person in the room. + +"Oh, I don't know exactly. Some complication, I suppose, of +Satan's tribute--" + +"Divinest Laura!" Hilda interposed quickly, drawing her head back. +"Do take a chair. It will be even more soothing to see you +comfortable." + +Captain Filbert spoke again to Alicia, as she obeyed. "Miss Howe +is more thoughtful for others than some of our converted ones," she +said, with vast kindness. "I have often told her so. I have had a +long day." + +"It may improve me in that character," Hilda said, "to suggest that +if you will go about such people, a little carbolic disinfectant is +a good thing, or a crystal or two of permanganate of potash in your +bath. Do you use those things?" + +Laura shook her head. "Faith is better than disinfectants. I +never get any harm. My Master protects me." + +"My goodness!" Hilda said. And in the silence that occurred, +Captain Filbert remarked that the only thing she used carbolic acid +for was a decayed tooth. Presently Alicia made a great effort. +She laid hands on Hilda's previous reference as a tangibility that +remained with her. + +"Do you ever go to the Cathedral?" she said. + +The faintest shade of dogmatism crossed Captain Filbert's features, +as when on a day of cloud fleeces the sun withdraws for an instant +from a flower. Since her sect is proclaimed beyond the boundaries +of dogma it may have been some other obscurity, but that was the +effect. + +"No. I never go there. We raise our own Ebenezer; we are a +tabernacle to ourselves." + +"Isn't it exquisite--her way of speaking!" cried Hilda from the +bed, and Laura glanced at her with a deprecating, reproachful +smile, in reproof of an offence admittedly incorrigible. But she +went on as if she were conscious of a stimulus. + +"Wherever the morning sky bends or the stars cluster is sanctuary +enough," she said; "a slum at noonday is as holy for us as daisied +fields; the Name of the Lord walks with us. The Army is His Army, +He is Lord of our hosts." + +"A kind of chant," murmured Hilda, and Miss Livingstone became +aware that she might if she liked play with the beginnings of +magnetism. Then that impression was carried away as it were on a +puff of air, and it is hardly likely that she thought of it again. + +"I suppose all the elite go to the Cathedral?" Laura said. The +sanctity of her face was hardly disturbed, but a curiosity rested +upon it, and behind the curiosity a far-off little, leaping tongue +of some other thing. Hilda on the bed named it the constant +feminine, and narrowed her eyes. + +"Dear me, yes," she said for Alicia. "His Excellency the Viceroy +and all his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no end of military and their +ladies, Secretaries to the Government of India in rows, fully +choral, Under-Secretaries so thick they're kept in the vestibule +till the bells stop. 'And make Thy chosen people joyful'!" she +intoned. "Not forgetting Surgeon-Major and Miss Alicia +Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to the right of the main +aisle, advantageously near the pulpit." + +"You know already what a humbug she is," Alicia said, but Captain +Filbert's inner eye seemed retained by that imaginary congregation. + +"Well, it wouldn't be any attraction for me," she said, rising to +go through the little accustomed function of her departure. "I'll +be going now, I think. Ensign Sand has fever again, and I have to +take her place at the Believers' Meeting." She took Hilda's hand +in hers and held it for an instant. "Good-bye, and God bless you-- +in the way you most need," she said, and turned to Alicia, "Good- +bye. I am glad to know that we will be one in the glad hereafter +though our paths may diverge"--her eye rested with acknowledgment +upon Alicia's embroidered sleeves--"in this world. To look at you +I should have thought you were of the bowed down ones, not yet +fully assured, but perhaps you only want a little more oxygen in +the blood of your religion. Remember the word of the Lord-- +'Rejoice! again I say unto you, rejoice!' Goodbye." + +She drew her head-covering farther forward, and moved to the door. +It sloped to her shoulders and made them droop; her native clothes +clung about her breast and her hips in the cringing Oriental way. +Miss Howe looked after her guest with a curl of the lip as +uncontrollable as it was unreasonable. "A saved soul, perhaps. +A woman--oh, assuredly," she said in the depths of her hair. + +The door had almost closed upon Captain Filbert when Alicia made +something like a dash at an object about to elude her. "Oh," she +exclaimed, "wait a minute. Will you come and see me? I think--I +think you might do me good. I live at Number Ten, Middleton +Street. Will you come?" + +Laura came back into the room. There was a little stiffness in her +air, as if she repressed something. + +"I have no objection," she said. + +"To-morrow afternoon--at five? Or--my brother is dining at the +club--would you rather come to dinner?" + +"Whichever is agreeable to you will suit me." She spoke carefully, +after an instant's hesitation. + +"Then do come and dine--at eight," Alicia said; and it was agreed. + +She stood staring at the door when Laura finally closed it, and +only turned when Hilda spoke. + +"You are going to have him to meet her," she said. "May I come +too?" + +"Certainly not." Alicia's grasp was also by this time on the door +handle. + +"Are you going too? You daren't talk about her!" Hilda cried. + +"I'm going too. I've got the brougham. I'll drive her home," said +Alicia, and went out swiftly. + +"My goodness!" Hilda remarked again. Then she got up and found her +slippers and wrote a note, which she addressed to the Reverend +Stephen Arnold, Clarke Mission House, College Street. "Thanks +immensely," it ran, "for your delightful offer to introduce me to +Father Jordan and persuade him to show me the astronomical wonders +he keeps in his tower at St. Simeon's. An hour with a Jesuit is an +hour of milk and honey, and belonging to that charming Order, he +won't mind my coming on a Sunday evening--the first clear one." + +Miss Howe signed her note and bit consideringly at the end of her +pen. Then she added: "If you have any influence with Duff +Lindsay, it may be news to you that you can exert it with advantage +to keep him from marrying a cheap ethereal little religieuse of the +Salvation Army named Filbert. It may seem more fitting that you +should expostulate with her, but I don't advise that." + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The door of Ensign Sand's apartment stood open with a purposeful +air when Captain Filbert reached headquarters that evening; but in +any case it is likely that she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand +walked the floor, carrying a baby, a pale sticky baby with +blotches, which had inherited from its maternal parent a +conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room was also ornamented +with texts, but they had apparently been selected at random, and +they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed at the +control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with +his father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain +Captain Sand audibly washed himself and brushed his hair. + +"What kind of meetin' did you have?" asked Mrs. Sand. "There-- +there now; he shall have his bottle, so he shall!" + +"A beautiful meeting. Abraham Lincoln White, the Savannah negro, +you know, came as a believer for the first time, and so did Miss +Rozario from Whiteaway and Laidlaw's. We had such a happy time." + +"What sort of collection?" + +Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted out some copper +coins. + +"Only seven annas three pice! And you call that a good meeting! +I don't believe you exhorted them to give!" + +"Oh, I think I did!" Laura returned mechanically. + +"Seven annas and three pice! And you know what the Commissioner +wrote out about our last quarter's earnings! What did you say?" + +"I said--I said the collection would now be taken up," Laura +faltered. + +"Oh dear! oh dear! Leopold, stop clawing me! Couldn't you think +of anythin' more tellin' or more touchin' than that? Fever or no +fever, it does not do for me to stay away from the regular +meetin's. One thing is plain--HE wasn't there!" + +"Who?" + +"Well, you've never told me his name, but I expect you've got your +reasons." Mrs. Sand's tone was not arch, but slightly resentful. +"I mean the gentleman that attends so regular and sits behind, +under the window. A society man, I should say, to look at him, +though the officers of this Army are no respecters of persons, and +I don't suppose the Lord takes any notice of his clothes." + +"His name is Mr. Lindsay. No, he wasn't there." + +The girl's tone was distant and cold. The rebuke about the +collection had gone home to a place raw with similar reproaches. + +"I hope you haven't been discouraging him?" + +Captain Filbert looked at her superior officer with astonishment. + +"I have entreated him to come to the meetings. But he never +attends a Believers' Rally. Why should he?" + +"What's his state of mind? He came to see you, didn't he, the +other night?" + +"Yes, he did. I don't think he's altogether careless." + +"Ain't he seeking?" + +"He wouldn't admit it, but he may not know himself. The Lord has +different ways of working. What else should bring him, night after +night?" + +Mrs. Sand glanced meaningly at a point on the floor, with lifted +eyebrows, then at her officer, and finally hid a badly-disciplined +smile behind her baby's head. When she looked back again Laura had +flushed all over, and an embarrassment stood between them, which +she felt was absurd. + +"My!" she said,--scruples in breaking it could hardly perhaps have +been expected of her,--"you do look nice when you've got a little +colour. But if you can't see that it's you that brings him to the +meetin's, you must be blind, that's all." + +Captain Filbert's confusion was dispelled, as by the wave of a +wand. + +"Then I hope I may go on bringing him," she said. "He couldn't +come to a better place." + +"Well, you'll have to be careful," said Mrs. Sand, as if with +severe intent. "But I don't say discourage him; I wouldn't say +that. You may be an influence for good. It may be His will that +you should be pleasant to the young man. But don't make free with +him. Don't, on any account, have him put his arm round your +waist." + +"Nobody has done that to me," Laura replied austerely, "since I +left Putney, and so long as I am in the Army nobody will. Not that +Mr. Lindsay" (she blushed again) "would ever want to. The class he +belongs to look down on it." + +"The class he belongs to do worse things. The Army doesn't look +down on it. It's only nature, and the Army believes in working +with nature. If it was Mr. Harris I wouldn't say a word--he +marches under the Lord's banner." + +Captain Filbert listened without confusion; her expression was even +slightly complacent. + +"Well," she said, "I told Mr. Harris last evening that the +Lieutenant and I couldn't go on giving him so much of our time, and +he seemed to think he'd been keeping company with me. I had to +tell him I hadn't any such idea." + +"Did he seem much disappointed?" + +"He said he thought he would have more of the feeling of belonging +to the Army if he was married in it; but I told him he would have +to learn to walk alone." + +Mrs. Sand speculatively bit her lips. + +"I don't know but what you did right," she said. "By the grace of +God you converted him, and he hadn't ought to ask more of you. +But I have a kind of feeling that Mr. Lindsay 'll be harder to +convince." + +"I daresay." + +"It would be splendid, though, to garner him in. He might be +willing to march with us and subscribe half his pay, like poor +Captain Corby, of the Queen's army, did in Rangoon." + +"He might be proud to." + +"We must all try and bring sin home to him," Mrs. Sand remarked +with rising energy; "and don't you go saying anything to him +hastily. If he's gone on you--" + +"Oh Ensign! let us hope he is thinking of higher things! Let us +both pray for him. Let Captain Sand pray for him too, and I'll ask +the Lieutenant. Now that she's got Miss Rozario safe into the +kingdom, I don't think she has any special object." + +"Oh yes, we'll pray for him," Ensign Sand returned, as if that +might have gone without saying, "but you--" + +"And give me that precious baby. You must be completely worn out. +I should enjoy taking care of him; indeed I should." + +"It's the first--the very first--time she ever took that draggin' +child out of my arms for an instant," the Ensign remarked to her +husband and next in command later in the evening, but she resigned +the infant without protest at the time. Laura carried him into her +own room with something like gaiety, and there repeated to him more +nursery rhymes, dating from secular Putney, than she would have +believed she remembered. + +The Believers' Rally, as will be understood, was a gathering of +some selectness. If the Chinaman came, it was because of the +vagueness of his perception of the privileges he claimed; and his +ignorance of all tongues but his own left no medium for turning him +out. Qualms of conscience, however, kept all Miss Rozario's young +lady friends away, and these also doubtless operated to detain Duff +Lindsay. One does not attend a Believers' Rally unless one's +personal faith extends beyond the lady in command of it, and one +specially refrains if one's spiritual condition is a delicate and +debatable matter with her. In Wellesley Square, later in the +evening, the conditions were different. It would not be easy to +imagine a scene that suggested greater liberality of sentiment. +The moon shed her light upon it, and the palms threw fretted +shadows down. Beyond them, on four sides, lines of street-lamps +shone, and tram-drivers whistled bullock-carts off the lines, and +street pedlars lifted their cries. A torch marked the core of the +group of exhorters; it struck pale gold from Laura's hair, and made +glorious the buttons of the man who beat the drum. She talked to +the people in their own language; the "open air" was designed for +the people. "Kiko! Kiko!" (Why! Why!) Lindsay heard her cry, +where he stood in the shadow, on the edge of the crowd. He looked +down at a coolie-woman with shrivelled breasts crouched on her +haunches upon the ground, bent with the toil of half a century, and +back at the girl beside the torch. "Do not delay until to-morrow!" +Laura besought them. "Kul ka dari mut karo!" A sensation of +disgust assailed him; he turned away. Then, in an impulse of +atonement--he felt already so responsible for her--he went back and +dropped a coin into the coolie creature's lap. But he grew more +miserable as he stood, and finally walked deliberately to a wooden +bench at a distance where he could not hear her voice. Only the +hymn pursued him; they sang presently a hymn. In the chorus the +words were distinguishable, borne in the robust accents of Captain +Sand-- + + + "Us ki ho tarif, + Us ki ho tarif!" + + +The strange words, limping on the familiar air, made a barbarous +jangle, a discordance of a specially intolerable sort. + + + "Glory to His name! + Glory to His name!" + + +Lindsay wondered, with a poignancy of pity, whether the coolie- +woman were singing too, and found something like relief in the +questionable reflection that if she wasn't, in view of the rupee, +she ought to be. + +His "Good-evening!" when the meeting was over, was a cheerful, +general salutation, and the familiarity of the sight of him was +plain in the response he got, equally general and equally cheerful. +Lieutenant Da Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had +thought of interpreting it, and there was overt amiability in the +manner in which Ensign Sand put her hymn-books together and packed +everybody, including her husband, whose arm she took, out of the +way. + +"Wait for me," Laura said, to whom a Eurasian beggar made elaborate +appeal, as they moved off. + +"I guess you've got company to see you home," Mrs. Sand called out, +and they did not wait. As Lindsay came closer the East Indian +paused in his tale of the unburied wife for whom he could not +afford a coffin, and slipped away. + +"The Ensign knows she oughtn't to talk like that," Laura said. +Lindsay marked with a surge of pleasure that she was flushed, and +seemed perturbed. + +"What she said was quite true," he ventured. + +"But--anybody would think--" + +"What would anybody think? Shall we keep to this side of the road? +It's quieter. What would anybody think?" + +"Oh, silly things." Laura threw up her head with a half laugh. +"Things I needn't mention." + +Lindsay was silent for an instant. Then "Between us?" he asked, +and she nodded. + +Their side of the street, along the square, was nearly empty. He +found her hand and drew it through his arm. "Would you mind so +very much," he said, "if those silly things were true?" He spoke +as if to a child. His passion was never more clearly a single +object to him, divorced from all complicating and non-essential +impressions of her. "I would give all I possess to have it so," he +told her, catching at any old foolish phrase that would serve. + +"I don't believe you mean anything like all you say, Mr. Lindsay." +Her head was bent and she kept her hand within his arm. He seemed +to be a circumstance that brought her reminiscences of how one +behaved sentimentally toward a young man with whom there was no +serious entanglement. It is not surprising that he saw only one +thing, walls going down before him, was aware only of something +like invitation. Existence narrowed itself to a single glowing +point; as he looked it came so near that he bounded to meet it. + +"Dear," he said, "you can't know--there is no way of telling you-- +what I mean. I suppose every man feels the same thing about the +woman he loves; but it seems to me that my life had never known the +sun until I saw you. I can't explain to you how poor it was, and I +won't try; but I fancy God sends every one of us, if we know it, +some one blessed chance, and He did more for me--He lifted the veil +of my stupidity and let me see it, passing by in its halo, trailing +clouds of glory. I don't want to make you understand, though--I +want to make you promise. I want to be absolutely sure from to- +night that you'll marry me. Say that you'll marry me--say it +before we get to the crossing. Say it, Laura." She listened to +his first words with a little half-controlled smile, then made as +if she would withdraw her hand, but he held it with his own, and +she heard him through, walking beside him formally on her bare +feet, and looking carefully at the asphalt pavement as they do in +Putney. + +"I don't object to your calling me by my given name," she said when +he had done, "but it can't go any further than that, Mr. Lindsay, +and you ought not to bring God into it--indeed you ought not. You +are no son or servant of His--you are among those whose very light +is darkness, and how great is your darkness!" + +"Don't," he said shortly. "Never mind about that--now. You +needn't be afraid of me, Laura--there are decent chaps, you know, +outside your particular Kingdom of Heaven, and one of them wants +you to marry him, that's how it is. Will you?" + +"I don't wish to judge you, Mr. Lindsay, and I'm very much obliged, +but I couldn't dream of it." + +"Don't dream of it; consider it, accept it. Why, dear creature, +you are mine already--don't you feel that?" + +Her arm was certainly warm within his and he had the possession of +his eyes in her. Her tired body even clung to him. "Are you quite +sure you haven't begun to think of loving me?" he demanded. + +"It isn't a question of love, Mr. Lindsay, it's a question of the +Army. You don't seem to think the Army counts for anything." + +One is convinced that it wasn't a question of love, the least in +the world; but Lindsay detected an evasion in what she said, and +the flame in him leaped up. + +"Sweet, when love is concerned there is no other question." + +"Is that a quotation?" she asked. She spoke coldly, and this time +she succeeded in withdrawing her hand. "I daresay you think the +Army very common, Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great +and holy crusade, and I march with it. You would not ask me to +give up my life-work?" + +"Only to take it into another sphere," Duff said unreflectingly. +He was checked, but not discouraged; impatient, but in no wise cast +down. She had not flown, she walked beside him placidly. She had +no intention of flight. He tried to resign himself to the task of +beating down her trivial objections, curbing his athletic impulse +to leap over them. + +"Another sphere,"--he caught a subtle pleasure in her enunciation. +"I suppose you mean high society; but it would never be the same." + +"Not quite the same. You would have to drive to see your sinners +in a carriage and pair, and you might be obliged to dine with them +in--what do ladies generally dine in?--white satin and diamonds, or +pearls. I think I would rather see you in pearls." He was aware +of the inexcusableness of the points he made, but he only stopped +to laugh inwardly at their impression, watching the absorbed turn +of her head. + +"We might think it well to be a little select in our sinners--most +of them would be on Government House list, just as most of your +present ones are on the lists of the charitable societies or the +police magistrates. But you would find just as much to do for +them." + +"I should not even know how to act in such company." + +"You can go home for a year, if you like, to be taught, to some +people I know; delightful people, who will understand. A year! +You will learn in three months--what odds and ends there are to +know. I couldn't spare you for a year." + +Lindsay stopped. He had to. Captain Filbert was murmuring the +cadences of a hymn. She went through two stanzas, and covered her +eyes for a moment with her hand. When she spoke it was in a quiet, +level, almost mechanical way. "Yes," she said. "The Cross and the +Crown, the Crown and the Cross. Father in heaven, I do not forget +Thy will and Thy purpose, that I should bring the word of Thy love +to the poor and the lowly, the outcast and those despised. And +what I say to this man, who offers me the gifts and the gladness of +a world that had none for Thee, is the answer Thou hast put in my +heart--that the work is Thine and that I am Thine, and he has no +part or lot in me, nor can ever have. Here is Crooked Lane. Good- +night, Mr. Lindsay." She had slipped into the devious darkness of +the place before he could find any reply, before he quite realised, +indeed, that they had reached her lodging. He could only utter a +vague "Goodnight," after her, formulating more definite statements +to himself a few minutes later, in Bentinck Street. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Miss Howe was walking in the business quarter of Calcutta. It was +the business quarter, yet the air was gay with the dimpling of +piano notes, and looking up one saw the bright sunlight fall on +yellow stuccoed flats above the shops and the offices. There the +pleasant north wind blew banners of muslin curtains out of wide +windows, and little gardens of palms in pots showed behind the +balustrades of the flat roofs whenever a storey ran short. +Everywhere was a subtle contagion of momentary well-being, a sense +of lifted burden. The stucco streets were too slovenly to be +purely joyous, but a warm satisfaction brooded in them, the pariahs +blinked at one genially, there was a note of cheer even in the +cheeling of the kites where they sat huddled on the roof-cornices +or circled against the high blue sky. It was enjoyable to be +abroad, in the brushing fellowship of the pavements, in touch with +brown humility half-clad and going afoot, since even brown humility +seemed well affected toward the world, alert and content. The air +was full of the comfortable flavour of food-stuffs and spiced +luxuries, and the incense of wayside trees; it was as if the sun +laid a bland compelling hand upon the city, bidding strange flowers +bloom and strange fruits increase. Brokers' gharries rattled past, +each holding a pale young man preoccupied with a notebook; where +the bullock-carts gathered themselves together and blocked the road +the pale young men put excited heads out of the gharry windows and +used remarkable imprecations. One of them, as Hilda turned into +the compound of the Calcutta Chronicle, leaned out to take off his +hat, and sent her up to the office of that journal in the pleasant +reflection of his infinite interest in life. "Upon my word," she +said to herself as she ascended the stairs behind the lean legs of +a Mussulman servant in a dirty shirt and an embroidered cap, "he's +so lighthearted, so genial, that one doubts the very tremendous +effect even of a failure like the one he contemplates." + +She sent her card in to the manager-sahib by the lean Mussulman, +and followed it past the desks of two or three Bengali clerks, who +hardly lifted their well-oiled heads from their account-books to +look at her--so many mem sahibs to whose enterprises the Chronicle +gave prominence came to see the manager-sahib, and they were so +much alike. At all events they carried a passport to indifference +in the fact that they all wanted something, and it was clear to the +meanest intelligence that they appeared to be more magnificent than +they were, visions in dazzling complexions and long kid gloves, +rattling up in third-class ticca-gharries, with a wisp of fodder +clinging to their skirts. It was less interesting still when they +belonged to the other class, the shabby ladies, nearly always in +black, with husbands in the Small Cause Court, or sons before the +police magistrate, who came to get it, if possible, "kept out of +the paper." Successful or not these always wept on their way out, +and nothing could be more depressing. The only gleam of +entertainment to be got out of a lady visitor to the manager-sahib +occurred when the female form enshrined the majestic personality of +a boarding-house madam, whose asylum for respectable young men in +leading Calcutta firms had been maliciously traduced in the local +columns of the Chronicle--a lady who had never known what a bailiff +looked like in the lifetime of her first husband, or her second +either. Then at the sound of a pudgy blow upon a table, or high +abusive accents in the rapid elaborate cadences of the domiciled +East Indian tongue, Hari Babu would glance at Gobind Babu with a +careful smile, for the manager-sahib who dispensed so much galli* +was now receiving the same, and defenceless. + + +* Abuse. + + +The manager sat at his desk when Hilda went in. He did not rise-- +he was one of those highly sagacious little Scotchmen that Dundee +exports in such large numbers to fill small posts in the East, and +she had come on business. He gave her a nod, however, and an +affectionate smile, and indicated with his blue pencil a chair on +the other side of the table. He had once made three hundred rupees +in tea shares, and that gave him the air of a capitalist and +speculator gamely shrewd. Tapping the table with his blue pencil +he asked Miss Howe how the world was using HER. + +"Let me see," said Hilda, a trifle absent-mindedly, "were you here +last cold weather--I rather imagine you were, weren't you?" + +"I was; I had the pleasure of--" + +"To be sure. You got the place in December, when that poor fellow +Baker died. Baker was a country-bred I know, but he always kept +his contracts, while you got your po-lish in Glesca, and your name +is Macphairson--isn't it?" + +"I was never in Glasgow in my life, and my name is Macandrew," said +the manager, putting with some aggressiveness a paper-weight on a +pile of bills. + +"Never mind," said Hilda, again wrapped in thought, "don't +apologise--it's near enough. Well, Mr. Macandrew,"--her tone came +to a point,--"what is the Stanhope Company's advertisement worth a +month to the Chronicle?" + +"A hundred rupees maybe--there or thereabouts;" and Mr. Macandrew, +with a vast show of indifference, picked up a letter and began to +tear at the end of it. + +"One hundred and fifty-five I think, to be precise. That +communication will wait, won't it? What is it--Kally Nath Mitter's +paper and stores bill? You won't be able to pay it any quicker if +we withdraw our advertisement." + +"Why should ye withdraw it?" + +"It was given to you on the understanding that notices should +appear of every Wednesday and Saturday's performance. For two +Wednesdays there has been no notice, and last Saturday night you +sent a fool." + +"So Muster Stanhope thinks o' withdrawin' his advertisement?" + +"He is very much of that mind." + +The manager put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, leaned +back in his chair, and demonstrated the principle that had given +him a gold watch chain--"never be bluffed." + +"Ye can withdraw it," he said, with a warily experimental eye upon +her. + +"How reasonable of you not to make a fuss! We'll have the order to +discontinue in writing, please. If you'll give me a pen and paper-- +thanks--and I'll keep a copy." + +"Stanhope has wanted to transfer it to the Market Gazette for some +time," she went on as she wrote. + +"That's not a newspaper. You'll get no notices there." + +"Cheaper on that account, probably." + +"They charge like the very deevil. D'ye know the rates of them?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"There's a man on our staff that doesn't like your show. We'll be +able to send him every night now." + +"When we withdraw our advertisement?" + +"Just then." + +"All right," said Hilda. "It will be interesting to point out in +the Indian Empire the remarkable growth of independent criticism in +the Chronicle since Mr. Stanhope no longer uses the space at his +disposal. I hope your man will be very nasty indeed. You might as +well hand over the permanent passes--the gentleman will expect, I +suppose, to pay." + +"They'll be in the yeditorial department," said Mr. Macandrew, but +he did not summon a messenger to go for them. Instead he raised +his eyebrows in a manner that expressed the necessity of making the +best of it, and humorously scratched his head. + +"We have four hundred pounds of new type coming out in the Almora-- +she's due on Thursday," he said. "Entirely for the advertisements. +We'll have a fine display next week. It's grand type--none of your +Calcutta-made stuff." + +"Pays to bring it out, does it?" asked Hilda inattentively, copying +her letter. + +"Pays the advertisers." There were ingratiating qualities in the +managerial smile. Hilda inspected them coldly. + +"There's your notice of withdrawal," she said. "Good-morning." + +"Think of that new type, and how lovely Jimmy Finnigan's ad will +look in it." + +"That's all right. Good-morning." Miss Howe approached the door, +the blue glance of Macandrew pursuant. + +"No notices for two Wednesdays, eh? We'll have to see about that. +I was thinkin' of transferrin' your space to the third page; it's a +more advantageous position--and no extra charge--but ye'll not +mention it to Jimmy." + +Miss Howe lifted an arrogant chin. "Do I understand you'll do +that, and guarantee regular notices, if we leave the advertisement +with you?" + +Mr. Macandrew looked at her expressively, and tore, with a gesture +of moderated recklessness, the notice of withdrawal in two. + +"Rest easy," he said, "I'll see about it. I'd go the len'th of +attendin' myself to-night, if ye could spare two three extra +places." + +"Moderate Macandrew!" + +"Moderate enough. I've got some frien's stayin' in the same place +with me from Behar--indigo people. I was thinkin' I'd give them a +treat, if three places c'd be spared next to the Chronicle seats." + +"We do Lady Whippleton to-night and the booking's been heavy. Five +is too many, Mr. Macandrew, even if you promised not to write the +notice yourself." + +"I might pay for one;" Macandrew drew red cartwheels on his +blotting-pad. + +"Those seats are sure to be gone. I'll send you a box. Stanhope's +as bad as he can be with dysentery--you might make a local out of +that. Be sure to mention he can't see anybody--it's absurd the way +Calcutta people want to be paid." + +"A box'll be Grand," said Mr. Macandrew. "I'll see ye get plenty +of ancores. Can ye manage the door? Good-day, then." + +Hilda stepped out on the landing. The heavy, regular thud of the +presses came up from below. They were printing the edition that +took the world's news to planters' bungalows in the jungle of Assam +and the lonely policeman on the edge of Manipore. The smell of the +newspaper of to-day and of yesterday, and of a year ago, stood in +the air; through an open door she saw the dusty, uneven edges of +files of them, piled on the floor. Three or four messengers +squatted beside the wall, with slumbrous heads between their knees. +Occasionally a shout came from the room inside, and one of them, +crying "Hazur!" with instant alacrity, stretched himself mightily, +loafed upon his feet and went in, emerging a moment later carrying +written sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions below. +The staircase took a lazy curve and went up; under it, through an +open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and green +leaves of a pipal tree, and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his +grey head in with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government +peon in scarlet and gold ascended the stair at his own pace, +bearing a packet with an official seal. The place, with its ink- +smeared walls and high ceilings, spoke between dusty yawns of the +languor and the leisure which might attend the manipulation of the +business of life, and Hilda paused for an instant to perceive what +it said. Then she walked behind her card into the next room, where +a young gentleman, reading proofs in his shirt sleeves, flung +himself upon his coat and struggled into it at her approach. He +seemed to have the blackest hair and the softest eyes and the +neatest moustache available, all set in a complexion frankly olive, +amiable English cut, in amiable Oriental colour, and the whole +illumined, when once the coat was on and the collar perfectly +turned down, by the liveliest, most engaging smile. Standing with +his head slightly on one side and one hand resting on the table, +while the other saw that nothing was disarranged between collar and +top waistcoat button, he was an interjection point of invitation +and attention. + +"The Editor of the Chronicle?" Hilda asked with diffident dignity, +and very well informed to the contrary. + +"NOT the editor--I am sorry to say." The confession was +delightfully vivid--in the plenitude of his candour it was plain +that he didn't care who knew that he was sorry he was not the +editor. "In journalistic parlance, the sub editor," he added. +"Will you be seated, Miss Howe?" and with a tasteful silk pocket +handkerchief he whisked the bottom of a chair for her. + +"Then you are Mr. Molyneux Sinclair," Hilda declared. "You have +been pointed out to me on several first nights. Oh, I know very +well where the Chronicle seats are!" + +Mr. Sinclair bowed with infinite gratification, and tucked the silk +handkerchief back so that only a fold was visible. "We members of +the Fourth Estate are fairly well known, I'm afraid, in Calcutta," +he said. "Personally, I could sometimes wish it were otherwise. +But certainly not in this instance." + +Hilda gave him a gay little smile. "I suppose the editor," she +said, with a casual glance about the room, "is hammering out his +leader for to-morrow's paper. Does he write half and do you write +half, or how do you manage?" + +A seriousness overspread Mr. Sinclair's countenance, which +nevertheless irradiated, as if he could not help it, with beaming +eyes. "Ah, those are the secrets of the prison-house, Miss Howe. +Unfortunately it is not etiquette for me to say in what proportion +I contribute the leading articles of the Chronicle. But I can tell +you in confidence that if it were not for the editor's prejudices-- +rank prejudices--it would be a good deal larger." + +"Ah, his prejudices! Why not be quite frank, Mr. Sinclair, and say +that he is just a little tiny bit jealous of his staff. All +editors are, you know." Miss Howe shook her head in philosophical +deprecation of the peccadillo, and Mr. Sinclair cast a smiling, +embarrassed glance at his smart brown leather boot. The glance was +radiant with what he couldn't tell her as a sub-editor of honour +about those cruel prejudices, but he gave it no other medium. + +"I'm afraid you know the world, Miss Howe," he said, with a noble +reserve, and that was all. + +"A corner of it here and there. But you are responsible for the +whole of the dramatic criticism,"--Hilda charged him roundly,--"the +editor can't claim any of THAT." + +An inquiring brown face under an embroidered cap appeared at the +door; a brown hand thrust in a bunch of printed slips. Mr. +Sinclair motioned both away, and they vanished in silence. + +"That I can't deny," he said. "It would be useless if I wished to +do so--my style betrays me--I must plead guilty. It is not one of +my legitimate duties--if I held this position on the Times, or say +the Daily Telegraph, our London contemporaries, it would not be +required of me. But in this country everything is piled upon the +sub-editor. Many a night, Miss Howe, I send down the last slips of +a theatre notice at midnight and am here in this chair"--Mr. +Sinclair brought his open palm down upon the arm of it--"by eleven +the following day!" Mr. Sinclair's chin was thrust passionately +forward, moisture dimmed the velvety brightness of those eyes +which, in more dramatic moments, he confessed to have inherited +from a Nawab great-grandfather. "But I don't complain," he said, +and drew in his chin. It seemed to bring his argument to a climax, +over which he looked at Hilda in warm, frank expansion. + +"Overworked, too, I daresay," she said, and then went on a trifle +hurriedly. "Well, I must tell you, Mr. Sinclair, how kind your +criticism always is, and how much I personally appreciate it. None +of the little points and effects one tries to make seem to escape +you, and you are always generous in the matter of space too." + +Molyneux impartially threw out his hand. "I believe in it!" he +exclaimed. "Honour where honour is due, Miss Howe, and the +Stanhope Company has given me some very enjoyable evenings. And +you'll hardly believe me, but it is a fact, I assure you, I seldom +get a free hand with those notices. Suicidal to the interests of +the paper as it is, the editor insists as often as not on cutting +down my theatre copy!" + +"Cuts it down, does he? The brute!" said Miss Howe. + +"I've known him sacrifice a third of it for an indigo market +report. Now, I ask you, who reads an indigo market report? +Nobody. Who wants to know how Jimmy Finnigan's--how the Stanhope +Company's latest novelties went off? Everybody. Of course, when +he does that sort of thing, I make it warm for him next morning?" + +The door again opened and admitted a harassed little Babu in +spectacles, bearing a sheaf of proof slips, who advanced timidly +into the middle of the room and paused. + +"In a few minutes, Babu," said Mr. Sinclair; "I am engaged." + +"It iss the Council isspeech of the Legal Member, sir, and it iss +to go at five p.m. to his house for last correction." + +"Presently, Babu. Don't interrupt. As I was saying, Miss Howe, I +make it warm for him till he apologises. I must say he always +apologises, and I don't often ask more than that. But I was +obliged to tell him the last time that if it happened again one of +us would have to go." + +"What did he say to that?" + +"I don't exactly remember. But it had a tremendous effect-- +tremendous. We became good friends almost immediately." + +"Quite so. We miss you when you don't come, Mr. Sinclair--last +Saturday night, for example." + +"I HAD to go to the Surprise Party. Jimmy came here with tears in +his eyes that morning. 'My show is tumbling to pieces,' he said. +'Sinclair, you've got to come to-night.' Made me dine with him-- +wouldn't let me out of his sight. We had to send a reporter to you +and Llewellyn that night." + +"Mr. Sinclair, the notice made me weep." + +"I know. All that about the costumes. But what can you expect? +The man is as black as your hat." + +"We have to buy our own costumes," said Hilda, with a glance at the +floor, "and we haven't any too much, you know, to do it on." + +"The toilets in Her Second Son were simply magnificent. Not to be +surpassed on the boards of the Lyceum in tasteful design or +richness of material. They were ne plus ultra!" cried Mr. +Sinclair. "You will remember I said so in my critique." + +"I remember. If I were you I wouldn't go so far another time. +There's a lot of cotton velvet and satin about it, you know, +between ourselves, and Finnigan's people will be getting the laugh +on us. That's one of the things I wanted to mention. Don't be +quite so good to us. See? Otherwise--well, you know how Calcutta +talks, and what a pretty girl Beryl Stace is, for example. Mrs. +Sinclair mightn't like it, and I don't blame her." + +"As I said before, Miss Howe, you know the world," Mr. Sinclair +replied, with infinite mellow humour, and as Miss Howe had risen he +rose too, pulling down his waistcoat. + +"There was just one other thing," Hilda said, holding out her hand. +"Next Wednesday, you know, Rosa Norton takes her benefit. Rosy's +as well known here as the Ochterlony monument; she's been coming +every cold weather for ten years, poor old Rosy. Don't you think +you could do her a bit of an interview for Wednesday's paper? +She'll write up very well--get her on variety entertainments in the +Australian bush." + +Mr. Molyneux Sinclair looked pained to hesitate. "Personally," he +said confidentially, "I should like it immensely, and I daresay I +could get it past the editor. But we're so short-handed." + +Miss Howe held up a forefinger which seemed luminous with solution. +"Don't you bother," she said, "I'll do it for you; I'll write it +myself. My 'prentice hand I'll try on Rosy, and you shall have the +result ready to print on Tuesday morning. Will that do?" + +That would do supremely. Mr. Sinclair could not conceal the +admiration he felt for such a combination of talents. He did not +try; he accompanied it to the door, expanding and expanding until +it seemed more than ever obvious that he found the sub-editorial +sphere unreasonably contracted. Hilda received his final bow from +the threshold of what he called his "sanctum," and had hardly left +the landing in descent when a square-headed, collarless, red-faced +male in shirt sleeves came down, descending, as it seemed, in +bounds from parts above. "Damn it, Sinclair!" she heard, as he +shot into the apartment she had left, "here's the whole council +meeting report set up and waiting three-quarters of an hour--press +blocked; and the printer Babu says he can get nothing out of you. +What the devil . . . If the dak's* missed again, by thunder! . . . +paid to converse with itinerant females . . . seven columns . . . +infernal idiocy" . . . + + +* Country post. + + +Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with amusement +as she made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting +until his lady visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for +the editor. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything +very exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged +themselves between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the +Reverend Stephen Arnold, had it been aware of them; and I conclude +reluctantly that it would not. Reluctantly, because such +imperviousness argues a lack of perception, of flair in directions +which any Continental centre would recognise as vastly tickling, +regrettable in a capital of such vaunted sophistication as that +which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be shortly admitted, +however, that to stir Calcutta's sense of comedy you must, for +example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty technical +equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from +England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of +your dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit. For the sex +that does not hunt jackals it is easier--you have only to be a +little frivolous and Calcutta will invent for you the most side- +shaking nickname, as in the case of three ladies known in a +viceroyalty of happy legend as the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. +I should be sorry to give the impression that Calcutta is therefore +a place of gloom. The source of these things is perennial, and the +noise of laughter is ever in the air of the Indian capital. +Between the explosions, however, it is natural enough that the +affairs of a priest of College Street and an actress of no address +at all should slip unnoticed, especially as they did not advertise +it. Stephen mostly came, on afternoons when there was no +rehearsal, to tea. He, Stephen, had a perception of contrasts +which answered fairly well the purposes of a sense of humour, and +nobody could question hers; it operated obscurely to keep them in +the house. + +She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had been sent to her +to take the place of Duff Lindsay, who had fallen to the snare of +beauty; although she mentioned to herself that he took it with a +difference, a vast temperamental difference which she was aware of +not having yet quite sounded. The depths of his faith of course-- +there she could only scan and hesitate, but this was a brink upon +which she did not often find herself, away from which, indeed, he +sometimes gently guided her. The atmospheres of their talk were +the more bracing ones of this world, and it was here that Hilda +looked when she would make him a parallel for Lindsay, and here +that she found her measure of disappointment. He warmed himself +and dried his wings in the opulence of her spirit, and she was not +on the whole the poorer by any exchange they made, but she was +sometimes pricked to the reflection that the freemasonry between +them was all hers, and the things she said to him had still the +flavour of adventure. She found herself inclined--and the +experience was new--to make an effort for a reward which was +problematical and had to be considered in averages, a reward put +out in a thin and hesitating hand under a sacerdotal robe, with a +curious concentrated quality, and a strange flavour of incense and +the air of cold churches. There was also the impression--was it +too fantastic?--of words carried over a medium, an invisible wire +which brought the soul of them and left the body by the way. Duff +Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, came running with +open arms; in his rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a midwife to +one's idea. But the comparison was irritating, and after a time +she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, moreover, to +declare to the stars that she was less worried by the consideration +of Arnold's sex than she would have thought it possible to be--one +hardly paused to consider that he was a man at all; a reflection +which would certainly not have occurred to her about poor dear +Duff. With regard to Stephen Arnold, it was only, of course, +another way of saying that she was less oppressed, in his company, +by the consideration of her own. Perhaps it is already evident +that this was her grievance with life, when the joy of it left her +time to think of a grievance, the attraction of her personal lines, +the reason of the hundred fetiches her body claimed of her and +found her willing to perform, the fact that it meant more to her, +for all her theories, that she should be looking her best when she +got up in the morning than was justifiable from any point of view +except the biological. She had no heroic quarrel with these +conditions--her experience had not been upon that plane--but she +bemoaned them with sincerity as too fundamental, too all pervading; +one came upon them at every turn, grinning in their pretty chains. +It was absurd, she construed, that a world of mankind and woman +kind with vastly interesting possibilities should be so essentially +subjected. So primitive, it was, she argued in her vivid candour, +and so interfering--so horribly interfering! Personally she did +not see herself one of the fugitive half of the race; she had her +defences; but the necessity of using them was matter for complaint +when existence might have been so delightful a boon without it, +full of affinities and communities in every direction. She had +not, I am convinced, any of the notions of a crusader upon this +popular subject, nor may I portray her either shocked or revolted, +only rather bored, being a creature whom it was unkind to hamper; +and she would have explained quite in these simple terms the reason +why Stephen Arnold's saving neutrality of temperament was to her a +pervasive charm of his society. + +She had not yet felt at liberty to tell him that she could not +classify him, that she had never known anyone like him before; and +there was in this no doubt a vague perception that the confession +showed a limitation of experience on her part for which he might be +inclined to call her to account; since cultured young Oxonians with +an altruistic bias, if they do not exactly abound, are still often +enough to be discovered if one happens to belong to the sphere +which they haunt, they and their ideals. Not that any such +consideration led her to gloss or to minimise the disabilities of +her own. She sat sometimes in gravest wonder, pinching her lips, +and watched the studiously modified interest of his glance +following her into its queer byways--her sphere's--full of spangles +and limelight, and the first-class hysteria of third-class rival +artistry. There was a fascination in bringing him out of his +remoteness near to those things, a speculation worth making as to +what he might do. This remained ungratified, for he never did +anything. He only let it appear by the most indefinite signs +possible, that he saw what she saw, peering over his paling, and +she in the picturesque tangle outside found it enough. + +He was there when she came back from the Chronicle office, patient +under the blue umbrellas; he had brought her a book, and they had +told him she would not be long in returning. He had gone so far as +to order tea for her, and it was waiting with him. "Make it," she +commanded; "why haven't you had some already?" and while he bent +over the battered Britannia metal spout she sank into the nearest +seat and let her hat make a frame for her face against the back of +it. She was too tired, she said, to move, and her hands lay +extended, one upon each arm of her chair, with the air of being +left there to be picked up at her convenience. Arnold, over the +teapot, agreed that walking in Calcutta was an insidious pleasure-- +one gathered a lassitude--and brought her cup. She looked at him +for an instant as she took it. + +"But I am not too tired to hear what you have on your mind," she +said. "Have Kally Nath Mitter's relations prevailed over his +convictions? Won't your landlord let you have your oratory on the +roof after all?" + +"You get these things so out of perspective," Stephen said, "that I +don't think I should tell you if they were so. But they're not. +Kally Nath is to be baptized to-morrow. We are certain to get our +oratory." + +"I am very glad," Hilda interrupted. "When one prays for so long a +time together it must be better to have fresh air. It will +certainly be better for Brother Colquhoun. He seems to have such a +weak chest." + +"It will be better for us all." Arnold seemed to reflect, across +his teacup, how much better it would be. Then he added, "I saw +Lindsay last night." + +"Again? And--" + +"I think it is perfectly hopeless. I think he is making way." + +"Sickening! I hoped you would not speak to him again. After all-- +another man--it's naturally of no use!" + +"I spoke as a priest!" + +"Did he swear at you?" + +"Oh dear no! He was rather sympathetic. And I went very far. But +I could get him to see nothing--to feel nothing." + +"How far did you go?" + +"I told him that she was consecrated, that he proposed to commit +sacrilege. He seemed to think he could make it up to her." + +"If anyone else had said that to me I should have laughed--you +don't suspect the irony in it" Hilda said. "Pray who is to make it +up to him?" + +"I suppose there is that point of view." + +"I should think so, indeed! But taking it, I despair with you. +I had her here the other day and tried to make the substance of +her appear before him. I succeeded too--he gave me the most +uncomfortable looks--but I might as well have let it alone. +The great end of nature," Hilda went on, putting down her cup, +"reasonable beings in their normal state would never lend +themselves to. So she invents these temporary insanities. And +therein is nature cruel, for they might just as well be permanent. +That's a platitude, I know," she added, "but it's irresistibly +suggested." + +Stephen looked with some fixedness at a point on the other side of +the room. The platitude brought him, by some process of inversion, +the vision of a drawing-room in Addison Gardens, occupied by his +mother and sisters, engaged with whatever may be Kensington's +substitutes at the moment for the spinet and the tambour frame; and +he had a disturbed sense that they might characterise such a +statement differently, if, indeed, they would consent to +characterise it at all. He looked at the wall as if, being a solid +and steadfast object, it might correct the qualm--it was really +something like that--which the wide sweep of her cynicism brought +him. + +"From what he told me last week I thought we shouldn't see it. He +seemed determined enough but depressed, and not hopeful. I fancied +she was being upheld--I thought she would easily pull through. +Indeed, I wasn't sure that there was any great temptation. +Somebody must be helping him." + +"The devil, no doubt," Hilda replied concisely; "and with equal +certainty, Miss Alicia Livingstone." + +Arnold gave her a look of surprise. "Surely not my cousin!" he +protested. "She can't understand." + +"Oh, I beg of you, don't speak to HER! I think she understands. I +think she's only too tortuously intelligent." + +Stephen kept an instant of nervous silence. "May I ask?--" he +began, formally. + +"Oh yes! It is almost an indecent thing to say of anyone so +exquisitely self-contained, but your cousin is very much in love +with Mr. Lindsay herself. It seems almost a liberty, doesn't it, +to tell you such a thing about a member of your family?" she went +on, at Arnold's blush; "but you asked me, you know. And she is +making it her ecstatic agony to bring this precious union about. I +think she is taking a kindergarten method with the girl--having her +there constantly and showing her little scented, luxurious bits of +what she is so possessed to throw away. People in Alicia's +condition have no sense of immorality." + +"That makes it all the more painful," said Arnold; but the interest +in his tone was a little remote, and his gesture, too, which was +not quite a shrug, had a relegating effect upon any complication +between Alicia and Lindsay. He sat for a moment without saying +more, covering his eyes with his hand. + +"Why should you care so much?" Hilda asked gently. "You are at the +very antipodes of her sect. You can't endorse her methods--you +don't trust her results." + +"Oh, all that! It's of the least consequence." He spoke with a +curious, governed impulse coming from beneath his shaded eyes. +"It's seeing another ideal pulled down, gone under, something that +held, as best it could, a ray from the source. It's another +glimpse of the strength of the tide--terrible. It's a cruel hint +that one lives above it in the heaven of one's own hopes, by some +mere blind accident. To have set one's feeble hand to the +spiritualising of the world and to feel the possibility of that--" + +"I see," said Hilda, and perhaps she did. But his words oppressed +her. She got up with a movement which almost shook them off, and +went to a promiscuous looking-glass to remove her hat. She was +refreshed and vivified--she wanted to talk of the warm world. She +let a decent interval elapse, however; she waited till he took his +hand from his eyes. Even then, to make the transition easier, she +said, "You ought to be lifted up to-day, if you are going to +baptize Kally Nath to-morrow." + +"The Brother Superior will do it. And I don't know--I don't know. +The young woman he is to marry withdraws, I believe, if he comes +over to us--" + +"The, young woman he is to marry! Oh my dear and reverend friend! +Avec ces gens la! I have had a most amusing afternoon," she went +on quickly. "I have taken off my hat, now let me remove your +halo." She was safe with her conceit; Arnold would always smile at +any imputation of saintship. He held himself a person of broad +indulgences, and would point openly to his consumption of tea- +cakes. But this afternoon a miasma hung over him. Hilda saw it, +and bent herself, with her graphic recital, to dispel it, perceived +it thicken and settle down upon him, and went bravely on to the +end. Mr. Macandrew and Mr. Molyneux Sinclair lived and spoke +before him. It was comedy enough, in essence, to spread over a +matinee. + +"And that is the sort of thing you store up and value," he said, +when she had finished. "These persons will add to your knowledge +of life?" + +"Extremely," she replied to all of it. + +"I suppose they will in their measure. But personally I could wish +you had not gone. Your work has no right to make such demands." + +"Be reasonable," she said, flushing. "Don't talk as if personal +dignity were within the reach of everybody. It's the most +expensive of privileges. And nothing to be so very proud of-- +generally the product of somebody else's humiliations, handed down. +But the humiliations must have been successful, handed down in +cash. My father drove a cab and died in debt. His name was +Cassidy. I shall be dignified some day--some day! But you see I +must make it possible myself, since nobody has done it for me." + +"Well, then, I'll alter my complaint. Why should you play with +your sincerity?" + +"I didn't play with it," she flashed; "I abandoned it. I am an +actress." + +They often permitted themselves such candours; to all appearance +their discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain +that Arnold was not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He +fidgeted with the tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his +moving fingers. Presently she spoke quietly, in a different key. + +"I sometimes think," she said, "of a child I knew, in the other +years. She had the simplest nature, the finest instincts. Her +impulses, within her small limits, were noble--she was the keenest, +loyalest little person; her admirations rather made a fool of her. +When I look at the woman she is now I think the uses of life are +hard, my friend--they are hard." + +He missed the personal note; he took what she said on its merits as +an illustration. + +"And yet," he replied, "they can be turned to admirable purpose." + +"I wonder!" Hilda exclaimed brightly. She had turned down the leaf +of that mood. "But we are not cheerful--let us be cheerful. For +my part I am rejoicing as I have not rejoiced since the first of +December. Look at this!" + +She opened a small black leather bag, and poured money out of it, +in notes and currency, into her lap. + +"Is it a legacy?" + +"It's pay," she cried, with pleasure dimpling about her lips. "I +have been paid--we have all been paid! It's so unusual--it makes +me feel quite generous. Let me see. I'll give you this, and this, +and this,"--she counted into her open palm ten silver rupees,--"all +those I will give you for your mission. Prends!" and she clinked +them together and held them out to him. + +He had risen to go, and his face looked grey and small. Something +in him had mutinied at the levity, the quick change of her mood. +He could only draw into his shell; doubtless he thought that a +legitimate and inoffensive proceeding. + +"Thanks, no," he said, "I think not. We desire people's prayers, +rather than their alms." + +He went away immediately, and she glossed over his scandalous +behaviour, and said farewell to him as she always did, in spite of +the unusual look of consciousness in her eyes. She continued to +hold the ten rupees carefully and separately, as if she would later +examine them in diagnosing her pain. It was keener and profounder +than any humiliation, the new voice, crying out, of a trampled +tenderness. She stood and looked after him for a moment with +startled eyes and her hand, in a familiar gesture of her +profession, upon her heart. Then she went to her room, and +deliberately loosened her garments and lay down upon her bed, first +to sob like that little child she remembered, and afterwards to +think, until the world came and knocked at her door and bade her +come out of herself and earn money. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The compulsion which took Stephen Arnold to Crooked Lane is hardly +ours to examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. +Sand involved certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically +trifling, but of exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually +cloistered, whatever its other latitude. Among them was a +distinctly necessary apology, difficult enough to make to a lady of +rank so superior and authority so voyant in the Church militant, by +a mere fighting soul without such straps and buttons as might +compel recognition upon equal terms. It is impossible to know how +far Stephen envisaged the visit as a duty--the priestly horizon is +perhaps not wholly free from mirage--or to what extent he confessed +it an indulgence. He was certainly aware of a stronger desire than +he could altogether account for that Captain Filbert should not +desert her post. The idea had an element of irritation oddly +personal; he could not bear to reflect upon it. It may be wondered +whether in any flight of venial imagination Arnold saw himself in a +parallel situation with a lady. I am sure he did not. It may be +considered, however, that among mirages there are unaccountable +resemblances--resemblances without shape or form. He might fix his +gaze, at all events, upon the supreme argument that those who were +given to holy work, under any condition, in any degree, should make +no rededication of themselves. This had to support him as best it +could against the conviction that had Captain Filbert been Sister +Anastasia, for example, of the Baker Institution, and Ensign Sand +the Mother Superior of its Calcutta branch, it was improbable that +he would have ventured to announce his interest in the matter by +his card, or in any other way. + +It was a hesitating step, therefore, that carried him up to the +quarters, and a glance of some nervous distress that made him +aware, as he stood bowing upon her threshold, clasping with both +hands his soft felt hat to his breast, that Mrs. Sand was not +displeased to see him. She hastened, indeed, to give him a chair; +she said she was very glad he'd dropped in, if he didn't mind the +room being so untidy--where there were children you could spend the +whole day picking up. They were out at present, with Captain Sand, +in the perambulator, not having more servants than they could help. +A sweeper and a cook they did with; it would surprise the people in +this country, who couldn't get along with less than twenty, she +often said. + +Mrs. Sand's tone was casual; her manner had a quality somewhat +aggressively democratic. It said that under her welcome lay the +right to criticise, which she would have exercised with equal +freedom had her visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta himself; +and it made short work of the idea that she might be over-gratified +to receive Holy Orders in any form. She was not unwilling, however, +to show, as between Ensign and man, reasonable satisfaction; +presently, in fact, she went so far as to say, still vaguely +remarking upon his appearance there, that she often thought there +ought to be more sociability between the different religious +bodies; it would be better for the cause. There was nothing +narrow, she said, about her, nor yet about Captain Sand. And then, +with the distinct intimation that that would do, that she had gone +far enough, she crossed her hands in her lap and waited. It became +her to have it understood that this visit need have no further +object than an exchange of amiabilities; but there might be +another, and Mrs. Sand's folded hands seemed to indicate that she +would not necessarily meet it with opposition. + +Stephen made successive statements of assent. He sat grasping his +hat between his knees, his eyes fixed upon an infant's sock which +lay upon the floor immediately in front of him, looking at Mrs. +Sand as seldom and as briefly as possible, as if his glance took +rather an unfair advantage, which he would spare her. + +"Yes, yes," he said. "Yes, certainly," revolving his hat in his +hands. And when she spoke of the fraternity that might be fostered +by such visits, he looked for an instant as if he had found an +opening, which seemed, however, to converge and vanish in Mrs. +Sand's folded hands. He flushed to think afterwards, that it was +she who was obliged to bring his resolution to a head, her scent of +his embarrassment sharpening her curiosity. + +"And is there anything we Army officers can do for you, Mr. +Arnold?" she inquired. + +There was a hint in her voice that, whatever it was, they would +have done it more willingly if she had not been obliged to ask. + +"I am afraid," he said, "my mission is not quite so simple. I +could wish it were. It is so easy to show our poor needs to one +another; and I should have confidence--" He paused, amazed at the +duplicity that grinned at him in his words. At what point more +remote within the poles was he likely to show himself with a +personal request? + +"I have nothing to ask for myself," he went on, with concentration +almost harsh. "I am here to see if you will consent to speak with +me about a matter which threatens your--your community--about your +possible loss of Miss Filbert." + +Mrs. Sand looked blank. "The Captain isn't leavin' us, as far as I +know," she said. + +"Oh--is it possible that you are not aware that--that very strong +efforts are being made to induce her to do so?" + +Mrs. Sand looked about her as if she expected to find an +explanation lying somewhere near her chair. Light came to her +suddenly, and brought her a conscious smile; it only lacked force +to be a giggle. She glanced at her lap as she smiled; her air was +deprecating and off-putting, as if she had detected in what Arnold +said some suggestion of a gallant nature aimed at herself. +Happily, he was not looking. + +"You mean Mr. Lindsay!" she exclaimed, twisting her wedding-ring +and its coral guard. + +"I hope--I beg--that you will not think me meddlesome or +impertinent. I have the matter very much at heart. It seems to +lie in my path. I must see it. Surely you perceive some way of +averting the disaster in it!" + +"I'm sure I don't know what you refer to." Mrs. Sand's tone was +prudish and offended. "She hasn't said a word to me--she's a great +one for keeping things to herself--but if Mr. Lindsay don't mean +marriage with her--" + +"Why, of course!" Arnold, startled, turned furiously red, but Mrs. +Sand in her indignation did not reflect the tint. "Of course! Is +not that," he went on after an instant's pause, "precisely what is +to be lamented--and prevented?" + +Mrs. Sand looked at her visitor with dry suspicion. "I suppose you +are a friend of his," she said. + +"I have known him for years. Pray don't misunderstand me. There +is nothing against him--nothing whatever." + +"Oh, I don't suppose there is, except that he is not on the Lord's +side. But I don't expect any of his friends are anxious for him to +marry an officer in the Salvation Army. Society people ain't fond +of the Army, and never will be." + +"His people--he has only distant relatives living--are all at +home," Stephen said vaguely. The situation had become slightly +confused. + +"Then you speak for them, I suppose?" + +"Indeed not. I am in no communication with them whatever. I fancy +they know nothing about it. I am here entirely--ENTIRELY of my own +accord. I have come to place myself at your disposition if there +is anything I can do, any word I can say, to the end of preventing +this catastrophe in a spiritual life so pure and devoted; to ask +you at all events to let me join my prayers to yours that it shall +not come about." + +The squalor of the room seemed to lift before his eyes and be +suffused with light. At last he had made himself plain. But Mrs. +Sand was not transfigured. She seemed to sit, with her hands +folded, in the midst of a calculation. + +"Then he HAS put the question. I told her he would," she said. + +"I believe he has asked her to marry him and she has refused, more +than once. But he is importunate, and I hear she needs help." + +"Mr. Lindsay," said Mrs. Sand, "is a very takin' young man." + +"I suppose we must consider that. There is position too, and +wealth. These things count--we are all so human--even against the +Divine realities into possession of which Miss Filbert must have so +perfectly entered." + +"I thought he must be pretty well off. Would he be one of them +Government officials?" + +"He is a broker." + +"Oh, is he indeed?" Mrs. Sand's enlightenment was evidently +doubtful. "Well, if they get married Captain Filbert 'll have to +resign. It's against the regulations for her to marry outside of +the Army." + +"But is she not vowed to her work; isn't her life turned for ever +into that channel? Would it not be horrible to you to see the +world interfere?" + +"I won't say but what I'd be sorry to see her leave us. But I +wouldn't stand in her way either, and neither would Captain Sand." + +"Stand in her way! In her way to material luxury, poverty of +spirit, the shirking of all the high alternatives, the common moral +mediocrity of the world. I would to God I could be that stumbling +block! I have heard her--I have seen the light in her that may so +possibly be extinguished." + +"I don't deny she has a kind of platform gift, but she's losin' her +voice. And she doesn't understand briskin' people up, if you know +what I mean." + +"She will be pulled down--she will go under!" Arnold repeated in +the depths of his spirit. He stood up, fumbling with his hat. +Mrs. Sand and her apartment, her children out of doors in the +perambulator, and the whole organisation to which she appertained +had grown oppressive and unnecessary. He was aware of a desire to +put his foot again in his own world, where things were seen, were +understood. He thought there might be solace in relating the +affair to Brother Colquhoun. + +"It's a case," said Mrs. Sand judicially, "where I wouldn't think +myself called on to say one word. Such things everyone has a right +to decide for themselves. But you oughtn't to forget that a +married woman"--she looked at Arnold's celibate habit as if to hold +it accountable for much--"can have a great influence for good over +him that she chooses. I am pretty sure Captain Filbert's already +got Mr. Lindsay almost persuaded. I shouldn't be at all surprised +if he joined the Army himself when she's had a good chance at him." + +Arnold put on his hat with a groan, and began the descent of the +stairs. "Good-afternoon then," Mrs. Sand called out to him from +the top. He turned mechanically and bared his head. "I beg your +pardon," he said. "Good-afternoon." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Mrs. Sand found it difficult to make up her mind upon several +points touching the visit of the Reverend Stephen Arnold. Its +purport, of which she could not deny her vague appreciation, drew a +cloud across a rosy prospect, and in this light his conduct showed +unpardonable; on the other hand it implied a compliment to the +corps, it made the spiritual position of an officer of the Army, a +junior too, a matter of moment in a wider world than might be +suspected; and before this consideration Mrs. Sand expanded. She +reflected liberally that salvation was not necessarily frustrated +by the laying-on of hands; she had serene fancies of a republic of +the redeemed. She was a prey to further hesitations regarding the +expediency of mentioning the interview to Laura, and as private and +confidential it ministered for two days to her satisfactions of +superior officer. In the end, however, she had to sacrifice it to +the girl's imperturbable silence. She chose an intimate and a +private hour, and shut the door carefully upon herself and her +captain, but she had not at all decided, when she sat down on the +edge of the bed, what complexion to give to the matter, nor had she +a very definite idea, when she got up again, of what complexion she +had given it. Laura, from the first word, had upset her by an +intense eagerness, a determination not to lose a syllable. Captain +Filbert insisted upon hearing all before she would acknowledge +anything; she hung upon the sentences Mrs. Sand repeated, and +joined them together as if they were parts of a puzzle; she finally +had possession of the conversation much as I have already written +it down. As Mrs. Sand afterward told her husband, Miss Filbert sat +there growing whiter and whiter, more and more worked up, and it +was impossible to take any comfort in talking to her. It seemed as +if she, the Ensign, might save herself the trouble of giving an +opinion one way or the other, and not a thing could she get the +girl to say except that it was true enough that the gentleman +wanted to marry her, and she was ashamed of having let it go so +far. But she would never do it--never! She declared she would +write to this Mr. Arnold and thank him, and ask him to pray for +her, "and she as much as ordered me to go and do the same," +concluded Mrs. Sand, with an inflection which made its own comment +upon such a subversion of discipline. + +Stephen, under uncomfortable compulsion, sent Laura's letter--she +did write--to Lindsay. "I cannot allow you to be in the dark about +what I am doing in the matter," he explained; "though if I had not +this necessity for writing you might reasonably complain of an +intrusive and impertinent letter. But I must let you know that she +has appealed to me, and that as far as I can I will help her." + +Duff read both communications--Laura's to the priest was brief and +very technical--between the business quarters of Ralli Brothers and +the Delhi and London Bank, with his feet in the opposite seat of +his office-gharry and his forehead puckered by an immediate +calculation forward in rupee paper. His irritation spoiled his +transaction--there was a distinct edge in the manager's manner when +they parted, and it was perhaps a pardonable weakness that led him +to dash in blue pencil across the page covered with Arnold's minute +handwriting, "Then you have done with pasty compromises--you have +gone over to the Jesuits. I congratulate you," and readdressed the +envelope to College Street. The brown tide of the crowd brought +him an instant messenger, and he stood in the doorway for a moment +afterwards frowning upon the yellow turbans that swung along in the +sunlight against the white wall opposite, across the narrow +commercial road. The flame of his indignation set forth his +features with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether the +soft amused well-being which was nearly always there. His lips set +themselves together, and Mrs. Sand would have been encouraged in +any scheme of practical utility by the lines that came about his +mouth. A brother in finance of some astuteness, who saw him +scramble into his gharry, divined that with regard to a weighty +matter in jute mill shares pending, Lindsay had decided upon a +coup, and made his arrangements accordingly. He also went upon his +way with a fresh impression of Lindsay's undeniable good looks, as +sometimes in a coin new from the mint one is struck with the beauty +of a die dulled by use and familiarity. + +Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed himself to feel +distress, but when he had read it, that emotion was lightened in +him by another sentiment. + +"A community admirable in many ways," he murmured, refolding the +page. "Does he think he is insulting me?" + +Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, Lindsay was +inclined to concede to Stephen's intermediary, he was compelled to +recognise without delay that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of +her profession, had not neglected to acquire a knowledge of +defensive operations. She retired effectively, the quarters in +Crooked Lane became her fortified retreat, whence she issued only +under escort and upon service strictly obligatory. Succour from +Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and Lindsay felt it an +anomaly in military tactics that the same agency should bring back +upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with which he strove to +assault her position. Nor could Alicia induce any sortie to +Middleton Street. Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and +luncheons were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in +reticence and the palest ink, always with the negative of a formal +excuse. They loosed the burden of her complicity from Miss +Livingstone's shoulders, these notes which bore so much the +atmosphere of Crooked Lane, and at the same time they formed the +indictment against her which was, perhaps, best calculated to weigh +upon her conscience. She saw it, holding them at arm's length, in +enormous characters that ever stamped and blotted out the careful, +taught-looking writing, and the invariable "God bless you, yours +truly," at the end. They were all there, aridly complete, the +limitations of the lady to whom she was helping Lindsay to bind +himself without a gleam of possibility of escape or a rift through +which tiniest hope could creep, to emerge smiling upon the other +side. When she saw him, in fatalistic reverie, going about ten +years hence attached to the body of this petrification, she was +almost disposed to abandon the pair, to let them take their +wretched chance. But this was a climax which did not occur often; +she returned, in most of her waking moments, to devising schemes by +which Laura might be delivered into the hands she was so likely to +encumber. The new French poet, the American novelist of the year, +and a work by Mr. John Morley lay upon Alicia's table many days +together for this reason. She sometimes remembered what she +expected of these volumes, what plein air sensations or what +profound plunges, and did not quite like her indifference as to +whether her expectations were fulfilled. She discovered herself +intellectually jaded--there had been tiring excursions--and took to +daily rides which carried her far out among the rice-fields, and +gave her sound nights to sustain the burden of her dreaming days. +She had ideas about her situation; she believed she lived outside +of it. At all events she took a line; the new Arab was typical, +and there were other measures which she arranged deliberately with +the idea that she was making a physical fight. Life might weigh +one down with a dragging ball and chain, but one could always +measure the strength of one's pinions against these things. She +made it her sorry and remorseless task to separate from her +impulses those that she found lacking in philosophy, hinting of the +foolish woman, and to turn a cruel heel upon them. She stripped +her meditations of all colour and atmosphere; she would not accept +from her grief the luxury of a rag to wrap herself in. If this +gave hers a skeleton to live with, she had what gratification there +was in observing that it was anatomically as it should be. The +result that one saw from the outside was chiefly a look of delicate +hardness, of tissue a little frayed, but showing a quality in the +process. We may hope that some unconfessed satisfaction was +derivable from her continued reception of Duff's confidences-- +it has long been evident that he found her persuadable--her +unflinching readiness to consult with him; granting the analytic +turn we may almost suppose it. Starvation is so monotonous a +misery that a gift of personal diagnosis might easily lend +attraction to poisoned food as an alternative, if one may be +permitted a melodramatic simile in a case which Alicia kept +conventional enough. She did not even abate the usual number of +Duff's invitations to dinner when there was certainly nothing to +repay her for regarding him across a gulf of flowers and silver, +and a tide of conversation about the season's paper-chasing, except +the impoverished complexion which people acquire who sit much in +Bentinck Street, desirous and unsatisfied. + +It may very well be that she regretted her behaviour in this +respect, for it was eventually after one of these parties that +Surgeon-Major Livingstone, pressing upon his departing guest in the +hall the usual whisky and soda, found it necessary instead to give +him another kind of support, and to put him immediately and +authoritatively to bed. Lindsay was very well content to submit; +he confessed to fever off and on for four or five days past, and +while the world went round the pivotal staircase, as Dr. Livingstone +gave him an elbows up, he was indistinctly convinced that the house +of a friend was better than a shelf at the club. + +The next evening's meeting saw his place empty under the window of +the hall in Crooked Lane, noticeably for the first time in weeks of +these exercises. The world shrank, for Laura, to the compass of +the kerosene lamps; there was no gaze from its wider sphere against +which she must key herself to indifference. When on the second and +third evening she was equally undisturbed, it was borne in upon her +that either she or Mr. Arnold, or both, had prevailed, and she +offered up thanks. On the fourth she reflected recurrently and +anxiously that it was not after all a very glorious victory if the +devil had carried off the wounded; if Lindsay, after all the +opportunities that had been his, should slip back without profit to +the level from which she had striven--they had all striven--to lift +him. Mrs. Sand, not satisfied to be buffeted by such speculations, +sent a four-anna bit to the head bearer at the club on her own +account and obtained information. + +Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complication, though the +circumstances taken together did present a vulgar opportunity which +Mrs. Barberry came for hours to take advantage of. There were the +usual two nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry; Alicia could take the +Arab farther afield than ever, and she did. One can imagine her +cantering fast and far with a sense of conscious possession in +spite of Mrs. Barberry and the two nurses. There may be a certain +solace in the definite and continuous knowledge available about a +person hovering on the brink of enteric under your own roof-tree. +It was as grave as that; Surgeon-Major Livingstone could not make +up his mind. Alicia knew only of this uncertainty; other +satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and Mrs. Barberry. +She could see that her brother was anxious, he was so uniformly +cheerful, so brisk and fresh and good-tempered coming from +Lindsay's room in the morning, to say at breakfast that the +temperature was the same, hadn't budged a point, must manage to get +it down somehow in the next twenty-four hours, and forthwith to +envelop himself in the newspapers. Those arbitrary and obstinate +figures, which stood for apprehension to the most casual ear, +stamped themselves on most things as the day wore on, and at tea- +time Mrs. Barberry gave her other details, thinking her rather cold +in the reception of them. But she plainly preferred to be out of +it, avoiding the nurses on the stairs, refraining from so much as a +glance at the boiled milk preparations of the butler. "And you +know," said Mrs. Barberry, recountant, "how these people have to be +watched." To Mrs. Barberry she was really a conundrum, only to be +solved on the theory of a perfectly preposterous delicacy. There +was so little that was preposterous in Miss Livingstone's conduct +as a rule that it is not quite fair to explain her attitude either +by this exaggeration or by an equally hectic scruple about her +right to take care of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously +when it has been given in the highest to somebody else. These +pangs and penalties may have visited her in their proportion, but +they did not take the importance of motives. She rather stood +aside with folded hands, and in an infinite terror of prejudicing +fate, devoured her heart by way of keeping its beating normal. +Perhaps, too, she had a vision of a final alternative to Lindsay's +marriage, one can imagine her forcing herself to look at it. + +Remove herself as she chose, Alicia could not avoid passing +Lindsay's room, for her own lay beyond it. In the seven o'clock +half light of a February evening, in the middle of the week, she +went along the matted upper hall on tiptoe, and stumbled over a +veiled form squatted in the native way, near his door, profoundly +asleep. "Ayah!" she exclaimed, but the face that looked confusedly +up at her was white, whiter than common, Captain Filbert's face. +Alicia drew her hand away and made an imperceptible movement in the +direction of her skirts. She stood silent, stricken in the dusk +with astonishment, but the sense that was strongest in her was +plainly that of having made a criminal discovery. Laura stumbled +upon her feet, and the two faced each other for an instant, words +held from them equally by the authority of the sickroom door. Then +Alicia beckoned as imperiously as if the other had in fact been the +servant she took her for, and Laura followed to where, farther on, +a bedroom door stood open, which presently closed upon them both. +It was a spacious room, with pale high-hung draperies, a scent of +flowers, such things as an etching of Greuze, an ivory and ebony +crucifix over the bed. Captain Filbert remembered the crucifix +afterward with a feeling almost intense, also some silver-backed +brushes on the toilet-table. Across the open window a couple of +bars of sunset glowed red and gold, and a tall palm of the garden +cut all its fronds sharply against the light. + +"Well?" said Alicia, when the door was shut. + +Captain Filbert put out a deprecating hand. + +"I intended to ask if you had any objection, miss, but you had gone +out. And the nurse was in the room; I couldn't get to her. There +was nobody but the servants about." + +"Objection to what?" + +"To my being there. I came to pray for Mr. Lindsay." + +"Did you make any noise?" + +Miss Filbert looked professionally touched. "It was silent prayer, +of course," she said. + +Alicia, standing with one hand upon the toilet-table, had an air of +eagerness, of successful capture. The yellow sky in the window +behind her made filmy lights round her hair, and outlined her tall +figure, in the gracefulness of which there was a curious crisped +effect, like a conventional pose taken easily, from habit. Laura +Filbert thought she looked like a princess. + +"I seem to hear of nothing but petitions," she said. "Isn't +somebody praying for you?" + +The blood of any saint would have risen in false testimony at such +a suggestion. Laura blushed so violently that for an instant the +space between them seemed full of the sound of her protest. + +"I hope so, miss," she said, and looked as if for calming over +Alicia's shoulder away into the after-sunset bars along the sky. +The colour sank back out of her face, and the light from the window +rested on it ethereally. The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to +seek, and their blue seemed to deepen and dilate, as if the old +splendour of the uplifted golden gates rewarded them. + +"Why do you use that odious word?" Alicia explained. "You are not +my maid! Don't do it again--don't dream of doing it again!" + +"I--I don't know." The girl was still plainly covered with +confusion at being found in the house uninvited. "I suppose I +forgot. Well, good-evening," and she turned to the door. + +"Don't go," Alicia commanded. "Don't. You never come to see me +now. Sit down." She dragged a chair forward and almost pushed +Laura into it. "I will sit down too--what am I thinking of?" + +Laura reflected for a moment, looking at her folded hands. "I +might as well tell you," she said, "that I have not been praying +that Mr. Lindsay should get better. Only that he should be given +time to find salvation and die in Jesus." + +"Don't--don't say those things to me. How light you are--it's +wicked!" Alicia returned with vehemence, and then as Captain +Filbert stared, half comprehending, "Don't you care?" she added +curiously. + +It was so casual that it was cruel. The girl's eyes grew wider +still during the instant she fixed them upon Alicia in the effort +of complete understanding. Then her lip trembled. + +"How can I care?" she cried; "how can I?" and burst into weeping. +She drew her sari over her face and rocked to and fro. Her dusty +bare foot protruded from her cotton skirt. She sat huddled +together, her head in its coverings sunk between weak shaking +shoulders. Alicia considered her for an instant as a pitiable and +degraded spectacle. Then she went over and touched her. + +"You are completely worn out," she said, "and it is almost dinner- +time. The ayah will bring you a hot bath and then you will come +down and have some food quietly with me. My brother is dining out +somewhere. I will go away for a little while and then I know you +will feel better. And after dinner," she added gently, "you may +come up if you like and pray again for Mr. Lindsay. I am sure he +would--" + +The faintest break in her own voice warned her, and she hurried out +of the room. + +It was a foolish thing, and the Livingstones' old Karim Bux much +deplored it, but the miss-sahib had forgotten to give information +that the dinner of eight commanded a fortnight ago would not take +place--hence everything was ready in its sequence for this event, +with a new fashion of stuffing quails and the first strawberries of +the season from Dinapore. The feelings of Karim Bux in presenting +these things to a woman in the dress of a coolie are not important; +but Alicia, for some reason, seemed to find the trivial incident +gratifying. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Under the Greek porch of Number Ten, Middleton Street, in the white +sunlight between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a +flagrant ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, +asleep, the syce squatted beneath the horse's nose, and fed it +perfunctorily with hay from a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. +A fringe of palms and ferns in pots ran between the pillars, and +orchids hung from above, shutting out the garden where heavy scents +stood in the sun, and mynas chattered on the drive. The air was +full of ease, warm, fretillante, abandoned to the lavish energy of +growing things; beyond the discoloured wall of the compound rose +the tender cloud of a leafing tamarisk against the blue. A long +time already the driver had slept immovably, and the horse, +uncomplaining but uninterested, had dragged at the wisps of hay. + +Inside there was no longer a hint of Mrs. Barberry, even a dropped +handkerchief agreeably scented. The night nurse had realised +herself equally superfluous and had gone; the other, a person of +practical views, could hardly retain her indignation at being kept +from day to day to see her patient fed, and hand him books and +writing materials. She had not even the duty of debarring +visitors, but sat most of the time in the dressing-room where +echoes fell about her of the stories with which riotous young men, +in tea and wheat and jute, hastened Mr. Lindsay's convalescence. +There she tapped her energetic fat foot on the floor in vain, to +express her views upon such waste of scientific training. She had +Surgeon Major Livingstone's orders; and he on this occasion had his +sister's. + +There was an air of relief, of tension relaxed, between the two +women in the drawing-room; it was plain that Alicia had communicated +these things to her visitor, in their main import. Hilda was +already half disengaged from the subject, her eye wandered as if in +search for the avenue to another. By a sudden inclination Alicia +began the story of Laura Filbert on her knees at Lindsay's door. +She told it in a quiet, steady, colourless way, pursuing it to the +end--it came with the ease of frequent private rehearsals--and then +with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palms she stopped +and gazed meditatively in front of her. There was something in the +gaze to which Hilda yielded an attention unexpectedly serious, +something of the absolute in character and life impervious to her +inquiry. Yet to analysis it was only the grey look of eyes +habituated to regard the future with penetration and to find +nothing there. + +"Have you told him?" Hilda asked after an instant's pause, during +which she conceded something, she hardly knew what; she meant to +find out later. + +"I haven't seen him. But I will tell him, I promise you." + +"I have no doubt you will! But don't promise ME. I won't even +witness the vow!" Hilda cried. + +"What does it matter? I shall certainly tell him." The words fell +definitely like pebbles. Hilda thoughtfully picked them up. + +"On the whole," she said, "perhaps it would be as well. Yes, it is +my advice. It is quite likely that he will be revolted. It may be +curative." + +Alicia turned away her head to hide the faint frown that +nevertheless crept into her voice. "I don't think so," she said. +"How you do juggle with things! I don't know why I talk to you +about this--this matter. I am sure I ought not." + +"I was going to say," pursued Hilda, indifferent to her scruple, +"that I shouldn't be at all surprised if his illness leaves him +quite emotionally sane. The poison has worked itself out of his +blood--perhaps the passion and the poison were the same." + +"I wonder!" Alicia said. She said it mechanically, as the easiest +comment. + +"When I knew you first your speculation would have been more +active, my dear. You would have looked into the possibility and +disputed it. What has become of your modernity?" + +It was the tenderest malice, but it obtained no concessive sign. +Alicia seemed to weigh it. "I think I like theories better than +illustrations," she said in defence. + +"One can look at theories as one looks at the sky, but an +illustration wants a careful point of view. For this one perhaps +you are a little near." + +"Perhaps," Alicia assented, "I am a little near." She glanced +quickly down as she spoke, but when she raised her eyes they were +dry and clear. + +"I can see it better," Hilda went on, with immense audacity, "much +better." + +"Isn't it safer to feel?" + +"Jamais de la vie! The nerves lie always." + +They were on the edge of the vortex of the old dispute. Alicia +leaned back among the cushions and regarded the other with an +undecided eye. + +"You are not sure," said Hilda, "that you won't ask me, at this +point, to look at the pictures in that old copy of the Persian +classic--I forget its lovely name--or inquire what sort of house we +had last night. Well, don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. +Only, you know, between us as between more doubtful people, the +door must be either open or shut. I fancy you take cold easily; +perhaps you had better shut the door." + +"Not for worlds," Alicia said, with promptitude. Then she added, +rather cleverly, "That would be spoiling my one view of life." + +Hilda smiled. "Isn't there any life where you live?" She glanced +round her, at the tapestried elegance of the room, with sudden +indifference. "After all," she said, "I don't know what I am +doing here, in your affairs. As the world swings no one could be +more remote from them or you. I belong to its winds and its +highways--how have you brought me here, a tramp-actress, to your +drawing-room?" + +Alicia laid a detaining hand upon Miss Howe's skirt. "Don't go +away," she said. Hilda sat at the other end of the sofa; there was +hardly a foot between them. She went on with a curious excitement. + +"My kind of life is so primitive, so simple; it is one pure +impulse, you don't know. One only asks the things that minister-- +one goes and finds and takes them; one's feet in the straw, one's +head under any roof. What difference does it make? The only thing +that counts, that rules, is the chance of seeing something else, +feeling something more, doing something better." + +Alicia only looked at her and tightened the grasp of her fingers on +the actress's skirt. Hilda made the slightest, most involuntary +movement. It comprehended the shaking off of hindrance, the action +of flight. Then she glanced about her again with a kind of +appraisement, which ended with Alicia and embraced her. What she +realised seemed to urge her, I think, in some weak place of her +sex, to go on intensely, almost fiercely. + +"Everything here is aftermath. You are a gleaner, Alicia +Livingstone. We leave it all over the world for people of taste, +like you, in the glow of their illusions. I couldn't make you +understand our harvest; it is of the broad sun and the sincerity of +things." + +"I know I must seem to you dreadfully out of it," Alicia said, +wearing, as it were, across her heaviness a lighter cloud of +trouble. + +But the other would not be stayed; she followed by compulsion her +impulse to the end. "Shall I be quite candid?" she said. "I find +the atmosphere about you, dear, a trifle exhausted." + +Alicia with a face of astonishment made a half movement towards the +window before she understood. There was some timidity in her +glance at Hilda and in her mechanical smile. "Oh," she said, "I +see what you mean; and I don't wonder. I am so literal--I have so +little imagination." + +"Don't talk of it as if it were money or fabric--something you +could add up or measure," Hilda cried remorselessly. "You have +none!" + +As if something slipped from her Alicia threw out locked hands. +"At least I had enough to know you when you came!" she cried. "I +felt you, too, and it's not my fault if there isn't enough of me +to--to respond properly. And I can't give you up. You seem to be +the one valuable thing that I can have--the only permanent fact +that is left." + +Hilda had a rebound of immense discomfort. "Who said anything +about giving up?" she interrupted. + +"Why, you did! But I'm quite willing to believe you didn't mean +it, if you say so." She turned the appeal of her face and saw a +sudden pitiful consideration in Hilda's, and as if it called them +forth two tears sprang to her eyes and fell, as she lowered her +delicate head upon her lap. + +"Dear thing! I didn't indeed. If I meant anything it was that I'm +overstrung. I've been horribly harried lately." She possessed +herself of one of Alicia's hands and stroked it. Alicia kept her +head bent for a moment and then let it fall, in sudden abandonment, +upon the other woman's shoulder. Her defences crumbled so utterly +that Hilda felt guilty of using absurdly heavy artillery. They sat +together for a moment or two in silence with only that supervening +sense of successful aggression between them, and the humiliation +was Hilda's. Presently it grew heavy, embarrassing. Alicia got up +and began a slow, restless pacing up and down before the alcove +they sat in. Hilda watched her--it was a rhythmic progress--and +when she came near with a sound of brushing silk and a faint +fragrance which seemed a personal emanation, drew a long breath as +if she were an essence to be inhaled, and so, in a manner obtained, +assimilated. + +"Oh yes," Miss Livingstone said, rehabilitating herself with a +smile, "I must keep you. I'll do anything you like to make myself +more--worth while. I'll read for the pure idea. I think I'll take +up modelling. There's rather a good man here just now." + +"Yes," Hilda assented. "Read for the pure idea--take up modelling. +It is most expedient, especially if you marry. Women who like +those things sometimes have geniuses for sons. But for me, so far +as I count--oh, my dear, do nothing more. You are already an +achieved effect--a consummation of the exquisite in every way. +Generations have been chosen among for you; your person holds the +inheritance of all that is gracious and tender and discriminating +in a hundred years. You are as rare as I am, and if there is +anything you would take from me, I would make more than one +exchange for the mere niceness of your fibre--the feeling you have +for fine shades of morality and taste--all that makes you a lady, +my dear." + +"Such niminy piminy things," said Alicia, contradicting the light +of satisfaction in her eyes. The sound of a step came from the +room overhead, and the light died out. "And what good do they do +me?" she cried in soft misery. "What good do they do me!" + +"Considerably less than they ought. Why aren't you up there now? +What simple, honester opportunity do you want than a sick-room in +your own house?" + +Alicia, with a frightened glance at the ceiling, flew to her side. +"Oh, hush!" she cried. "Go on!" + +"It ought to be there beside him, the charm of you. The room +should be full of cool refreshing hints of what you are. Your +profile should come between him and the twilight with a scent of +violets." + +"It sounds like a plot," Alicia murmured. + +"It IS a plot. Why quibble about it? If you smile at him it's a +plot. If you put a rose in your hair it's a deep-laid scheme, +deeper than you perceive--the scheme the universe is built on. We +wouldn't have lent ourselves to the arrangement, we women, if we +had been consulted; we're naturally too scrupulous, but nobody +asked us. 'Without our aid He did us make,' you know." + +"But--deliberately--to go so far! I couldn't, I couldn't, even if +I could." + +Hilda leaned back in her corner with her arms extended along the +back and the end of the sofa. Her hands drooped in their vigour, +her knees were crossed, and her skirts draped them in long simple +lines. In her symmetry and strength and the warm cloud of her hair +and the soul that sat behind the shadows of her eyes Vedder might +have drawn her as a tragic symbol for the poet who sang what he +sometimes thought of wine and death and roses. + +"I would go farther," she said, and looked as if some other thing +charged with sweetness had come before her. + +"And even if one gained, one would never trust one's success," +Alicia faltered. + +"Ah, if one gained one would hold," Hilda said; and while she +smiled on her pupil in the arts of life, the tenderness grew in her +eyes and came upon her lips. Her thought turned inward absently; +it embraced with sweet irony, a picture of poverty, chastity, +obedience. As if she knew her betrayal already complete, "I wish I +had such a chance," she said. + +"You wish you had such a chance!" + +"I didn't mean to tell you--you have enough to do to work out your +own problem; but--" + +She seemed to find a joy in hesitating, to keep back the words as a +miser might keep back gold. She let her secret escape through her +eyes instead. She was deliberately radiant and silent. Alicia +looked at her as they might have looked, across the desert, at a +mirage of the Promised Land. + +"Then after all he has prevailed," she said. + +"Who?" + +"Hamilton Bradley." + +Hilda laughed--the laugh was full and light and spontaneous, as if +all the training of the notes of her throat came unconsciously to +make it beautiful. + +"How you will hold me to my metier," she said. "Hamilton Bradley +has given up trying." + +"Then--" + +"Then think! Be clever. Be very clever." + +Alicia dropped her head in the joined length of her hands. A +turquoise on one of them made them whiter, more transparent than +usual. Presently she drew her face up from her clinging fingers +and searched the other woman with eyes that nevertheless refused +confirmation for their astonishment. + +"Well?" said Hilda. + +"I can think of no one--there IS no one--except--oh, it's too +absurd! Not Stephen--poor dear Stephen!" + +The faintest shadow drifted across Hilda's face, as if for an +instant she contemplated a thing inscrutable. Then the light came +back, dashed with a gravity, a gentleness. + +"I admit the absurdity. Stephen--poor dear Stephen. How odd it +seems," she went on, while Alicia gazed, "the announcement of it-- +like a thing born. But it is that--a thing born." + +"I don't understand--in the least," Alicia exclaimed. + +"Neither do I. I don't indeed. Sometimes I feel like a creature +with its feet in a trap. The insane, insane improbability of it!" +She laughed again. It was delicious to hear her. + +"But--he is a priest!" + +"Much more difficult. He is a saint." + +Alicia glanced at the floor. The record of another lighter moment +twitched itself out of a day that was forgotten. + +"Are you quite certain?" she said. "You told me once that--that +there had been other times." + +"They are useful, those foolish episodes. They explain to one the +difference." The tone of this was very even, very usual, but +Alicia was aware of a suggestion in it that accused her of +aggression, that almost ranged her hostile. She hurried out of +that position. + +"If it were possible," she said, frowning at her embarrassment. "I +see nothing--nothing REALLY against it." + +"I should think not! Can't you conceive what I could do for him?" + +"And what could he do for you?" Alicia asked, with a flash of +curiosity. + +"I don't think I can let you ask me that." + +"There are such strange things to consider! Would he withdraw from +the Church? Would you retire from the stage? I don't know which +seems the more impossible!" + +Hilda got up. + +"It would be a criminal choice, wouldn't it?" she said. "I haven't +made it out. And he, you know, still dreams only of Bengali souls +for redemption, never of me at all." + +A servant of the house with the air of a messenger brought Alicia a +scrap of paper. She glanced at it, and then, with hands that +trembled, began folding it together. + +"He has been allowed to get up and sit in a chair," she murmured, +"and he wants me to come and talk to him." + +"Well," said Hilda. "Come." + +She put her arm about Alicia, and drew her out of the room to the +foot of the stairs. They went in silence, saying nothing even when +they parted, and Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. +Halfway up she paused and looked down. Hilda turned to meet her +glance, and something of primitive puissance passed, conscious, +comprehended, between the eyes of the two women. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +For three days there had certainly been, with the invalid, no sign +of anything but convalescence. An appetite to cry out upon, a +chartered tendency to take small liberties, to make small demands; +such indications offered themselves to the eye that looked for +other betrayals. There had been opportunities--even the day nurse +had gone, and Lindsay came to tea in the drawing-room--but he +seemed to prefer to talk about the pattern in the carpet, or the +corpulence of the khansamah, or things in the newspapers. Alicia, +once, at a suggestive point, put almost a visible question into a +silent glance, and Lindsay asked her for some more sugar. Surgeon- +Major Livingstone, coming into his office, unexpectedly one +morning, found his sister in the act of replacing a volume upon its +professional shelf. It was somebody on the pathology of Indian +fevers. Hilda's theory lacked so little to approve it--only +technical corroboration. It might also be considered that, +although Laura had expressly received the freedom of the city for +intercessional or any other purpose, she did not come again. They +may have heard in Crooked Lane that Duff was better. We may freely +imagine that Mrs. Sand was informed; it looked as if the respite to +disinterested anxiety afforded by his recovery had been taken +advantage of. Lindsay was to be given time for more dignified +repentance; they might now very well hand him over, Alicia thought, +smiling, to the Archdeacon. + +As a test, as something to reckon by, the revelation to Lindsay +still in prospect, of the single visit Captain Filbert did make, +was perhaps lacking in essentials. It would be an experiment of +some intricacy, it might very probably work out in shades. So much +would infallibly have to be put down for surprise and so much +reasonably for displeasure, without any prejudice to the green hope +budding underneath; the key to Hilda's theory might very well be +lost in contingencies. Nevertheless, Alicia postponed her story, +from day to day and from hour to hour. If her ideas about it--she +kept them carefully in solution--could have been precipitated, they +might have appeared in a formula favourite with her brother the +Surgeon-Major, who often talked of giving nature a chance. + +She told him finally on the morning of his first drive. They went +together and alone, Alicia taking her brother's place in the +carriage at a demand for him from the hospital. It was seven +o'clock, and the morning wind swept soft and warm from over the +river. There was a white light on all the stucco parapets, and +their shadows slanted clear and delicately purple to the west. The +dust slept on the broad roads of the Maidan, only a curling trace +lifted itself here and there at the heel of a cart-bullock, and +nothing had risen yet of the lazy tumult of the streets that +knotted themselves in the city. From the river, curving past the +statue of an Indian administrator, came a string of country people +with baskets on their heads. The sun struck a vivid note with the +red and the saffron they wore, turned them into an ornamentation, +in the profuse Oriental taste, of the empty expanse. There was the +completest freedom in the wide tree-dotted spaces round which the +city gathered her shops and her palaces, the fullest invitation to +disburden any heaviness that might oppress, to give the wings of +words to any joy that might rebel in prison. The advantage of the +intimacy of the landau for purposes of observation was so obvious +that one imagines Alicia must have been aware of it, though as a +matter of fact when she finally told Lindsay she did not look at +him at all, but beyond the trees of the Eden Gardens, where the +yellow dome of the post-office swelled against the morning sky; and +so lost it. + +He heard without exclamation, but stopped her now and then with a +question. On what day precisely? And how long? And afterwards? +The yellow dome was her anchor; she turned her head a little, as +the road trended the other way, to keep her eyes upon it. There +was an endless going round of wheels, and trees passed them in +mechanical succession; a tree, and another tree; some of them had +flowers on them. When he broke the silence afterwards she started +as if in apprehension, but it was only to say something that +anybody might have said, about the self-sacrificing energy of the +organisation to which Miss Filbert belonged. Her assent was little +and meagre; nothing would help her to expand it. The Salvation +Army rose before her as a mammoth skeleton, without a suggestive +bone. + +Presently he said in a different way, as if he uttered an unguarded +thought, "I had so little to make me think she cared." There was +in it that phantom of speculation and concern which a sick man +finds under pressure, and it penetrated Alicia that he abandoned +himself to his invalid's privileges as if he valued them. He lay +extended beside her among his cushions and wraps; she tried to look +at him, and got as far as the hand nearest her, ungloved and +sinewy, on the plaid of the rug. + +"She told me it was not for your life she had been praying--only +that if you died you might be saved first." Her eyes were still on +his hand, and she saw the fingers close into the palm as if by an +impulse. Then they relaxed again, and he said, "Oh, well," and +smiled at the balancings of a crow drinking at a city conduit. + +That was all. Alicia made an effort, odd and impossible enough, to +postpone her impressions, even her emotions. In the meantime it +was something to have got it over, and she was able at a bound to +talk about the commonplaces of the roadside. In her escape from +this oppression, she too gathered a freshness, a convalescent +pleasure in what they saw; everything had in some way the likeness +of the leafing teak-trees, tender and curative. In the broad early +light that lay over the tanks there was a vague allurement, almost +a presage, and the wide spaces of the Maidan made room for hope. +She asked Lindsay presently if he would mind driving to the market; +she wanted some flowers for that night. I think she wanted some +flowers for that hour. Her thought broke so easily into the symbol +of a rose. + +They turned into Chowringhee, where the hibiscus bushes showed pink +and crimson over the stucco walls, and at the gates of the pillared +houses servants with brown and shining backs sat on their haunches +in the sun and were shaved. Where the street ran into shops there +was still a shuttered blankness, but here and there a doorkeeper +yawned and stretched himself before an open door, and a sweeper +made a cloud of dust beneath a commercial verandah. The first +hoarding in a side street announced the appearance of Miss Hilda +Howe for one night only as Lady Macbeth, under the kind patronage +of His Excellency the Viceroy; with Jimmy Finnigan in the close +proximity of professional jealousy, advertising five complete +novelties for the same evening. It made a cheerful note which +appealed to them both; it was a pictorial combination, Hilda and +Jimmy Finnigan and the Viceroy, there was something of gay +burlesque in the metropolitan posters against the crumbling plaster +of the outer mosque wall where Mussulmans left their shoes. +Talking of Hilda they smiled; it was a way her friends had, a +testimony to the difference of her. In Alicia's smile there was a +satisfaction rather subtle and in a manner superior; she knew of +things. + +The life of the market, the bazar, was all awake and moving. They +rolled up through a crowd of inferior vehicles, empty for the +moment and abandoned, where the leisurely crowd with calculation +under its turbans, swayed about the market-house, and the pots of a +palm-dealer ran out of bounds and made a little grove before the +stall of the man who sold pith helmets. The warm air held the +smell of all sorts of commodities; there was a great hum of small +transactions, clink of small profits. "It makes one feel immensely +practical and acquisitive," Duff said, looking at the loaded +baskets on the coolies' heads; and he insisted on getting out. "I +am dying to buy an enormous number of desirable things very cheap. +But not combs or shirt-buttons, thank you, nor any ribbons or lace-- +is that good lace, Miss Livingstone? Nor even a live duck--really +I am difficult. We might inquire the price of the duck though." + +The sense of being contributive to his holiday satisfaction reigned +in her. She abandoned herself to it with a little smile that +played steadily about her lips, as if it would tell him without her +sanction, how continually she rejoiced in his regained well-being. +They made their way slowly toward the flower-corner; there were so +many things he wanted to stop before as they went, leaning on his +stick to examine them and delighting in opportunities for making +himself quite ridiculous. The country tobacco-dealer laughed too, +squatting behind his basket--it was a mad sahib, but not madder +than the rest; and there was no hurry. Alicia saw the pink glow of +the roses beyond, where the sun struck across them over the +shoulders of the crowd, and was content to reach them by degrees. +They would be in their achieved sweetness a kind of climax to the +hour's experience, and after that she was not entirely sure that +the day would be as grey as other days. + +This was the flood-time of roses, and it was exquisite in the +flower-corner with the soft wind picking up their fragrance and +squares of limpid sunlight standing on the wet flagstones. Some of +the stall-keepers had little glass cases, and in these there was +room only for the Gloire de Dijons and the La Frances and the +velvety Jacks, the rest over-ran the tables and the floor in +anything that would hold them. The place rioted with the joy and +the passion of roses, for buying and selling. There were other +flowers, nasturtiums, cornbottles, mignonette, but they had a +diminished insignificant look in their tied-up bunches beside the +triumph of the roses. Farther on, beyond the cage of the money- +changer, the country people were hoarse with crying their +vegetables, in two green rows, and beyond that where the jostling +crowd divided, shone a glimpse of oranges and pomegranates. In +this part there were many comers and goers, lean Mussulman table- +servants, and fat Eurasian ladies who kept boarding-houses, +Armenian women with embroidered shawls drawn over their heads, +sailors of the port. They came to pass that way, through the +sweetness of it, and this made a coign of vantage for the men with +trays who were very persecuting there. Lindsay and Alicia stood +together beside the roses, her hands were deep in them, he +perceived with pleasure that their glow was reflected in her face. +"No," she exclaimed with dainty aplomb to the man who sat cross- +legged in muslin draperies on the table. "These are certainly of +yesterday. There is no scent left in them--and look!" she held up +the bunch and shook it, a shower of pink petals and drops of water +fell upon the round of her arm above the wrist where the laces of +her sleeve slipped back. Lindsay had something like a poetic +appreciation of her, observing her put the bunch down tenderly as +if she would not, if she could help it, find fault with any rose. +The dealer drew out another, and handed it to her; a long-stemmed, +wide-open, perfect thing, and it was then that her glance of +delight, wandering, fell upon Laura Filbert. Lindsay looked +instantly, curiously in the same direction, and Alicia was aware +that he also saw. There ensued a terse moment with a burden of +silence and the strangest misgivings, in which he may have imagined +that he had his part alone but which was the heavier for her +because of him. These two had seen the girl before only under +circumstances that suggested protection, that made excuse, on a +platform receiving the respect of attention, marching with her +fellows under common conventions, common orders. Here, alone, +slipping in and out among the crowd, she looked abandoned, the +sight of her in her bare white feet and the travesty of her dress +was a wound. Her humility screamed its violation, its debasement +of her race; she woke the impulse to screen her and hurry her away +as if she were a woman walking in her sleep. She had on her arm a +sheaf of the War Cry. This was another indignity; she offered them +right and left, no one had a pice for her except one man, a sailor, +who refused the paper. When he rejoined his companions there was a +hoarse laugh, and the others turned their heads to look after her. + +The flower-dealer eyed his customers with contemptuous speculation, +seeing what had claimed their eyes. There was nothing new, the +"mem" passed every day at this hour. She did no harm and no good. +He, too, looked at her as she came closer, offering her paper to +Alladiah Khan, a man impatient in his religion, who refused it, +mumbling in his beard. With a gesture of appeal she pressed it on +him, saying something. Then Alladiah's green turban shook, his +beard, dyed red in Mecca, waggled; he raised his arm, and Laura in +white astonishment darted from under it. They seldom did that. + +Alicia caught at the stall table and clung to it, as Lindsay made +his stride forward. She saw him twist his hand in the beard of +Mecca and fling the man into the road; she was aware of a vague +thankfulness that it ended there, as if she expected bloodshed. +More plainly she saw the manner of Duff's coming back to the girl +and the way in which, with a look of half-frightened satisfaction, +Laura gave herself up to him. He was hurrying her away without a +word. Her surrender was as absolute and final as if she had been +one of those desirable things he said he wanted to buy. Alicia +intercepted, as it were, the indignity of being forgotten, stepping +up to them. "Take her home in the carriage," she said to Duff, +"and send it back for me. I shall be here a long time still--quite +a long time." She stared at Captain Filbert as she spoke, but made +no answer to the "Good-morning! God bless you!" with which the +girl perfunctorily addressed her. When they left her she looked +down at the long-stemmed rose, the perfect one, and drove a thorn +of it deep into her palm, as other creatures will sometimes hurt +themselves more to suffer less. It was not in the least fantastic +of her, for she was not aware that she still held it, but that was +the only rose she brought away. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Hilda left the road, with a trace of its red dust on the hem of her +skirt, and struck out into the Maidan. It spread before her, green +where the slanting sun searched through the short blades, brown and +yellow in the distance, where the light lay on the top of the +withered grass. It was like a great English park, with something +of the village common, only the trees, for the most part, made +avenues over it, running an arbitrary half-mile this way or that, +with here and there a group dotted about in the open; and the +brimming tank-pots were of India, and of nowhere else in the world. +The sun was dipping behind the masts that showed where the straight +border of the river ran, and the shadows of the pipals and the +banyans were richly purple over the roads. The light struck on the +stuccoed upper verandahs of the houses in Chowringhee which made +behind their gardens the other border, and seemed to push them +back, to underline their scattered insignificance, hinting that the +Maidan at its pleasure might surge over them altogether. Calcutta, +the teeming capital, lived in the streets and gullies behind that +chaste frontage, and quarrelled over drainage schemes; but out here +cattle grazed in quiet companies, and squirrels played on the boles +of the trees. Calcutta the capital indeed was superimposed; one +felt that always at this time, when the glow came and stood in the +air among the tamarinds, and there was nothing anywhere but +luminous space and indolent stillness, and the wrangling and +winging of crows. What persisted then under the span of the sky, +was the old India of rich tradition, and a bullock beneath the +yoke, jogging through the evening to his own place where the blue +haze hid the little huts on the rim of the city, the real India, +and the rest was fiction and fabrication. + +The grass was crisp and pleasant. Hilda deliberately sought its +solace for her feet, letting their pressure linger. All day long +the sun had been drawing the fragrance and the life out of it, and +now the air had a sweet, warm, and grateful scent, like that of +harvests. The crickets had been at it since five o'clock, and +though the city rose not half a mile across the grass, it was the +crickets she heard and listened to. In making private statements +of things, the crickets offered a chorus of agreement, and they +never interrupted. Not that she had much to consider, poor girl, +which lent itself to a difference of opinion. One might have +thought her, to meet a situation at any point like her own, not +badly equipped. She had all the argument--which is like saying all +the arms--and the most accurate understanding; but the only +practical outcome of these things had been an intimate lesson in +the small value of the intelligence, that flavoured her state with +cynicism and made it more piquant. She did not altogether scorn +her own intelligence as the result, because it had always admitted +the existence of dominating facts that belonged to life and not to +reason; it was only the absurd unexpectedness of coming across one +herself. One might think round such a fact and talk round it-- +there were less exquisite satisfactions--but it was not to be cowed +or abated, and in the end the things one said were only words. + +Out there in the grassy spaces she let her thoughts flow through +her veins with her blood, warm and free. The primitive things she +saw helped her to a fulness of life; the south wind brought her +profound sweet presciences. A coolie-woman, carrying a basket on +her head, stopped and looked at her with full glistening eyes; they +smiled at each other, and passed on. She found herself upon a +narrow path, worn smooth by other barefooted coolie-folk; it made +in its devious way toward the rich mists where the sun had gone +down; and Hilda followed, breasting the glow and the colour and the +wide, flat expanse, as if in the India of it there breathed +something exquisitely sensuous and satisfying. It struck sharp on +her senses; she almost consciously thanked Heaven for such a +responsive set of nerves. Always and everywhere she was intensely +conscious of what she saw and of how she saw it; and it was +characteristic of her that she found in that saffron February +evening, spreading to a purple rim, with wandering points of colour +in a soldier's coat or a coachman's turban, an atmosphere and a +mise en scene for her own complication. She could take a tenderly +artistic view of that, more soothing a good deal than any result +that came of examining it in other lights. And she did, aware, +with smiling eyes, of how full of colour, how dramatic it was. + +Nevertheless, she had hardly closed with it; any material outcome +seemed a great way off, pursuable by conjecture when there was time +for that. For the present, there on the Maidan with the south +wind, she took it with her head thrown up, in her glad, free +fashion, as something that came in the way of life--the delightful +way of life--with which it was absurd to quarrel because of a +slight inconvenience or incongruity, things which helped, after +all, to make existence fascinating. + +A marigold lay in the path, an orange-coloured scrap with a broken +stem, dropped from some coolie's necklace. Hilda picked it up, and +drew in the crude, warm pungency of its smell. She closed her eyes +and drifted on the odour, forgetting her speculations, losing her +feet. All India and all her passion was in that violent, +penetrating fragrance; it brought her, as she gave her senses up to +it, a kind of dual perception of being near the core, the throbbing +centre of the world's meaning. + +Her awakened glance fell upon Duff Lindsay. He hastened to meet +her, in his friendly way; and she was glad of the few yards that +lay between them and gave transit to her senses from that other +plane. They encountered each other in full recognition of the +happiness of the accident, and he turned back with her as a matter +of course. It was a kind of fruition of all that light and colour +and passive delight that they should meet and take a path together; +she at least was aware. Hilda asked him if he was quite all right +now, and he said "Absolutely" with a shade of emphasis. She +charged him with having been a remarkable case, and he piled up +illustrations of what he felt able to do in his convalescence. +There was something in the way he insisted upon his restoration +which made her hasten to take her privilege of intimacy. + +"And I hear I may congratulate you," she said. "You have got what +you wanted." + +"Someone has told you," he retorted, "who is not friendly to it." + +"On the contrary, someone who has given it the most cordial +support--Alicia Livingstone." + +He mused upon this for an instant, as if it presented Alicia for +the first time under such an aspect. + +"She has been immensely kind," he asserted. "But she wasn't at +first. At first, she was hostile, like you, only that her +hostility was different, just as she is different. She had to be +converted," he went on hopefully, "but it was less difficult than I +imagined. I think she takes a kind of pride in conquering her +prejudices, and being true to the real breadth of her nature." + +"I am sure she would like her nature to be broad. She might very +well be content that it is charming. And what is the difference +between her hostility and mine?" + +"The main difference," Lindsay said, with a gay half round upon +her, "is that hers has sweetly vanished, while yours"--he made a +dramatic gesture--"walks between us." + +"I know. I tried to stiffen her. I appealed to the worst in her +on your behalf. But it wasn't any use. She succumbed, as you say, +to her nobler instincts." + +Hilda stabbed a great crisp fallen teak leaf with her parasol, and +spent her paradox in twirling it. + +"One can so easily get an affair of one's own out of all +proportion," Duff said. "And I should be sorry--do you really want +me to talk about this?" + +"Don't be stupid. Of course." + +He took her permission with plain avidity. + +"Well, it grew plain to Miss Livingstone, as it will to everybody +else who knows or cares," he said; "I mean chiefly Laura's +tremendous desirability. Her beauty would go for something +anywhere, but I don't want to insist on that. What marks her even +more is the wonderful purity and transparency of her mind; one +doesn't find it often now, women's souls are so clouded with +knowledge. I think that sort of thing appeals especially to me +because my own design isn't in the least esoteric. I'm only a man. +Then she was so ludicrously out of her element. A creature like +that should be surrounded by the softest refinement in her daily +life. That was my chance. I could offer her her place. It's not +much to counterbalance what she is, but it helps, roughly speaking, +to equalise matters." + +Hilda looked at him with sudden critical interest, missing an +emanation from him. It was his enthusiasm. A cheerfulness had +come upon him instead. Also what he said had something categorical +in it, something crisp and arranged. He himself received benefit +from the consideration of it, and she was aware that if this result +followed, her own "conversion" was of very secondary importance. + +"So!" she said meditatively, as they walked. + +"After it happens, when it is an accomplished fact, it will be so +plainly right that nobody will think twice about it," Duff went on +in an encouraged voice. "It's odd how one's ideas materialise. I +want her drawing-room to be white and gold, with big yellow silk +cushions." + +"When is it to happen?" + +"Beginning of next cold weather--in not quite a year." + +"Ah! then there will be time. Time to get the white and gold +furniture. It wouldn't be my taste quite. Is it Alicia's?" + +"It's our own at present, Laura's and mine. We have talked it over +together. And I don't think she would ask Miss Livingstone. In +matters of taste women are rather rivals, aren't they?" + +"Oh Lord!" Hilda exclaimed, and bit her lip. "Where is Miss +Filbert now?" + +"At Number Ten, Middleton Street." + +"With the Livingstones?" + +"Is it so astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been most practical in +her kindness. I have gone back, of course, to my perch at the +club, and Laura is to stay with them until she sails." + +"She sails?" + +"In the Sutlej, next Wednesday. She's got three months' leave. +She really hasn't been well, and her superior officer is an +accommodating old sort. She resigns at home, and I'm sending her +to some dear old friends of mine. She hasn't any particular people +of her own. She's got a notion of taking lessons of some kind-- +perfectly unnecessary, but if it amuses her--during the summer. +And of course she will have to get her outfit together." + +"And in December," said Hilda, "she comes out and marries you?" + +"Not a Calcutta wedding. I meet her in Madras and we come up +together." + +"Ideal," said Hilda; "and is Calcutta much scandalised?" + +"Calcutta doesn't know. If I had had my way in the beginning I +fancy I would have trumpeted it. But now I suppose it's wiser--why +should one offer her up at their dinner-tables?" + +"Especially when they would make so little of her," said Hilda +absently. + +The coolie track had led them into the widest part of the Maidan, +where it slopes to the south, and the huts of Bowanipore. There +was nothing about them but a spreading mellowness and the baked +turf underfoot. The cloudy yellow twilight disclosed that a man a +little way off was a man, and not a horse, but did hardly more. +"I'm tired," Hilda said suddenly, "let us sit down," and sank +comfortably on the fragrant grass. Lindsay dropped beside her and +they sat for a moment in silence. A cricket chirped noisily a few +inches from them. Hilda put out her hand in that direction and it +ceased. Sounds wandered across from the encircling city, evening +sounds, softened in their vagrancy, and lights came out, topaz +points in the level glow. + +"She is making a tremendous sacrifice," Lindsay went on; "I seem to +see its proportions more clearly now." + +Hilda glanced at him with infinite kindness. "You are an awfully +good sort, Duff," she said; "I wish you were out of Asia." + +"Oh, a magnificent sort." The irony was contemplative, as if he +examined himself to see. + +"You can make her life delightful to her. The sacrifice will not +endure, you know." + +"One can try. It will be worth doing." He said it as if it were a +maxim, and Hilda, perceiving this, had no answer ready. As they +sat without speaking, the heart of the after-glow drew away across +the river, and left something chill and empty in the spaces about +them. Things grew hard of outline, the Maidan became an unlimited +expanse of commonplace, grey and unyielding; the lines of gas-lamps +on the roads came very near. "What a difference it makes!" Lindsay +exclaimed, looking after the vanished light, "and how suddenly it +goes!" + +Hilda turned concerned eyes upon him, and then looked with keen +sadness far into the changed landscape. "Ah, well, my dear," she +said, with apparent irrelevance, "we must take hold of life with +both hands." She made a movement to rise, and he, jumping to his +feet, helped her. As if the moment had some special significance, +something to be underlined, he kept her hand while he said, "you +will always represent something in mine. I can depend upon you--I +shall know that you are there." + +"Yes," she said sincerely. "Yes indeed," and it seemed to her that +he looked thin and intense as he stood beside her--unless it was +only another effect of atmosphere. "After all," she said, as they +turned to walk back again across the withered grass, "your fever +has taken a good deal out of you." + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Finally the days of Laura Filbert's sojourn under the Livingstones' +roof followed each other into the past that is not much pondered. +Alicia at one time valued the impression that life in Calcutta +disappeared entirely into this kind of history, that one's memory +there was a rubbish heap of which one naturally did not trouble to +stir up the dust. It gave a soothing wistfulness to discontent to +think this, which a discerning glance might often have seen about +her lips and eyebrows as she lay back among her carriage cushions +under the flattery of the south wind in the course of her evening +drive. She had ceased latterly, however, to note particularly that +or any impression. Such things require range and atmosphere, and +she seemed to have no more command over these; her outlook was +blocked by crowding, narrowing facts. There was certainly no room +for perceptions creditable to one's intellect or one's taste. Also +it may be doubted whether Alicia would have tried the days of her +hospitality to Captain Filbert by her general standard of +worthlessness. She turned away from them more actively than from +the rest, but it was because they bristled, naturally enough, with +dilemmas and distresses which she made a literal effort to forget. +As a matter of fact there were not very many days, and they were +largely filled with millinery. Even the dilemmas and distresses, +when they asserted themselves, were more or less overswept, as if +for the sake of decency, by billows of spotted muslin, with which +Celine, who felt the romance of the situation, made herself +marvellously clever. Celine, indeed, was worth in this exigency +many times her wages. Alicia hastened to "lend" her to the fullest +extent, and she spent hours with Miss Filbert contriving and +arranging, a kind of conductor of her mistress's beneficence. It +became plain that Laura preferred the conductor to the source, and +they stitched together while she, with careful reserves, watched +for the casual sidelights upon modes and manners that came from the +lips of the maid. At other times she occupied herself with her +Bible--she had adopted, as will be guessed, the grateful theory of +Mrs. Sand, that she had only changed the sphere of her ministrations. +She had several times felt, seated beside Celine, how grateful she +ought to be that her spiritual paths for the future would be paths +of such pleasantness, though Celine herself seemed to stand rather +far from their border, probably because she was a Catholic. Mrs. +Sand came occasionally to upbuild her, and after that Laura had +always a fresh remembrance of how much she had done in giving so +generous a friend as Duff Lindsay to the Army in Calcutta. It was +reasonable enough that there should be a falling off in Mr. +Lindsay's attendance just now in Laura's absence, but when they +were united, Mrs. Sand hoped there would be very few evening +services when she, the Ensign, would miss their bright faces. + +Lindsay himself came every afternoon, and Laura made tea, and +pressed upon him, solicitously, everything there was to eat. He +found her submissive and wishful to be pleasant. She sat up +straight, and said it was much hotter than they had it this time of +year up-country, but nothing at all to complain of yet. He also +discovered her to be practical; she showed him the bills for the +muslins, and explained one or two bargains. She seemed to wish to +make it clear to him that it need not be, after all, so very +expensive to take a wife. In the course of a few days one of the +costumes was completed, and when he came she had it on, appearing +before him for the first time in secular dress. The stays insisted +a little cruelly on the lines of her figure, and the tight bodice +betrayed her narrow-chested. Above its frills her throat protruded +unusually, with a curve outward like that of some wading bird's, +and her arms, in their unaccustomed sleeves, hung straight at her +sides. She had put on the hat that matched; it was the kind of +pretty disorderly hat with waving flowers that demands the shadow +of short hair along the forehead, and she had not thought of that +way of making it becoming. Among these accessories the +significance of her face retreated to a point vague and distant, +its lightly-pencilled lines seemed half erased. + +She made no demand for admiration on this occasion, she seemed +sufficiently satisfied with herself; but after a time when they +were sitting together on the sofa, and he still pursued the lines +of her garment with questioning eyes, she recalled him to the +conventionalities of the situation. + +"You needn't be afraid of mussing it," she said. + +The ship she took her departure in sailed from its jetty in the +river at six o'clock in the morning. Preparations for her comfort +had been completed over night; indeed she slept on board, and Duff +had only the duty and the sentiment of actual parting in the +morning. He found her in a sequestered corner of the fresh swabbed +quarter-deck. She wore her Army clothes--she had come on board in +one of the muslins--and she was softly crying. From the jetty on +the other side of the ship arose, amid tramping feet and shouted +orders and the creaking of the luggage-crane, the over-ruling sound +of a hymn. Ensign Sand and a company had come apparently to pay +the last rites to a fellow-officer whom they should no more meet on +earth, bearing her heavenly commission. + + + "Farewell, faithful friend, we must now bid adieu + To those joys and pleasures we've tasted with you, + We've laboured together, united in heart, + But now we must close and soon we must part." + + +They had said good-bye to her and God bless you, all of them, but +they evidently meant to sing the ship out of port. Lindsay sat +down beside the victim of the demonstration and quietly took her +hand. There was a consciousness newly guilty in his discomfort, +which he owed perhaps to a ghost of futility that seemed to pace up +and down before him, between the ranks of the steamer-chairs. +Nevertheless as she presently turned a calmed face to him with her +pale apology he had the sensation of a rebound toward the ideal +that had finally perished in the spotted muslin, and when a little +later he watched the long backward trail of smoke as the steamer +moved down the clear morning river, he reflected that it was a +satisfaction to have prevailed. + +The Sutlej had gone far on her tranquil course by the evening of a +dinner in Middleton Street, at which the guests, it was understood, +were to proceed later to a party given at Government House by his +Excellency the Viceroy. Alicia, when she included Duff in her +invitations, felt an assurance that the steamer must by that time +have reached Aden, and rose almost with buoyancy to the illusion +you can make if you like, with the geographical mile. She could +hardly have left him out in any case--he could almost have demanded +an explanation--since it was one of those parties which she gave +every now and then, undiscouraged, with the focus of Hilda Howe. +It had to be every now and then, because Calcutta society was so +little adapted to appreciate meeting talented actresses--there were +so many people whom Alicia had to consider as to whether they would +"mind." Hilda marvelled at the sanguine persistence of Miss +Livingstone's efforts in this direction, the results were so +fragmentary, so dislocated and indecisive, but she also rejoiced. +She took life, as may have appeared, at a broad and generous level, +it quite comprehended the salient points of a Calcutta dinner- +party; and it was seldom that she failed, metaphorically speaking, +to carry away a bone from the feast. If you found this +reprehensible she would have told you she had observed they do it +in Japan, where manners are the best in the world. + +Doubtless Hilda would have dwelt longer upon such a dinner-party +than I, with no consolatory bone to gnaw in private, find myself +inclined to do. To me it is depressing and a little cruel to be +compelled to betray the inadequacy of the personal element at +Alicia's banquets, especially in connection with the conspicuous +excellence of the cooking. A poverty of cuisine would have +provoked no contrast, and one irony the less would have been +offered up to the gods that season. The limitations of her +resources were, of course, arbitrary, that is plain in the fact +that she asked such a person as the Head of the Department of +Education, with no better reason than that he had laid almost the +whole of Shelley under critical notes for the benefit of Calcutta +University. There was also a civilian who had written a few years +before an article in the Nineteenth Century about the aboriginal +tribes of the Central Provinces, and the lady attached to him, who +had been at one time the daughter of a Lieutenant-Governor. The +Barberrys were there because Mrs. Barberry loved meeting anybody +that was clever, admired brains beyond anything; and an A.D.C. who +had to be asked because Mrs. Barberry was; and Captain Salter +Symmes, who took leading male parts in Mr. Pinero's plays when they +were produced in Simla and was invariably considered up there to +have done them better than any professional they have at home, +though he was even more successful as a contortionist when the +entertainment happened to be a burlesque. Taking Hilda and Lindsay +and Stephen Arnold as a basis, Alicia had built up her party, with +the contortionist as it were at the apex, on his head. The +Livingstones had family connection with a leading London publishing +firm, and Alicia may possibly have reflected as she surveyed her +completed work, how much better than capering captains she could +have done in Chelsea, though it cannot be admitted likely that she +would harbour, at that particular instant, so ungracious a thought. +And indeed it was a creditable party, it would almost unanimously +call itself, next day, a delightful one. Miss Howe made the most +agreeable excitement, you might almost have heard the heart-beats +of the wife of the literary civilian, as she just escaped being +introduced, and so availed herself of the dinner's opportunity for +intimate observation without letting herself in a particle--most +clever. Mrs. Barberry, of course, rushed upon the spear, she +always did, and made a gushing little speech with every eye upon +her in the middle of the room, without a thought of consequences. +The A.D.C. was also empresse, one would have thought that he +himself was acting, the way he bowed and picked up Hilda's fan--a +grace lingered in it from the minuet he had danced the week before, +in ruffles and patches, with the daughter of the Commander-in- +Chief. Duff got out of the way to enable the newly introduced Head +of the Department of Education to inform Miss Howe that he never +went to the theatre in Calcutta himself, it was much too badly +ventilated; and Stephen Arnold arriving late, shot like an +embarrassed arrow through the company to Alicia's side, and was +still engaged there in grieved explanation when dinner was +announced. + +There were pink water-lilies, and Stephen said grace--those were +the pictorial features. Half of the people had taken their seats +when he began; there was a hasty scramble, and a decorous half- +checked smile. Hilda, at the first word of the brief formula, +blushed hotly; then she stood while he spoke, with bowed head and +clasped hands like a reverently inclining statue. Her long lashes +brushed her cheek; she drew a kind of isolation from the way her +manner underlined the office. The civilian's wife, with a side- +glance, settled it off-hand that she was absurdly affected; and +indeed to an acuter intelligence it might have looked as if she +took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that was not offered. + +That was the one instant, however, in which the civilian's wife, +observing the actress, was gratified; and it was so brief that she +complained afterwards that Miss Howe was disappointing. She +certainly went out of her way to be normal. Since it was her daily +business to personate exceptional individuals, it seemed to be her +pleasure that night to be like everybody else. She did it on +opulent lines; there was a richness in her agreement that the going +was as hard as iron on the Ellenborough course, and a soft +ingenuousness in her inquiries about punkahs and the brain-fever +bird that might have aroused suspicion, but after a brief struggle +to respond to the unusualness she ought to have represented, +Alicia's guests gratefully accepted her on their own terms instead. +She expanded in the light and the glow and the circumstance; she +looked with warm pleasure at the orchids the men wore and the +jewelled necks of the women. The social essence of Alicia's little +dinner-party passed into her, and she moved her head like the +civilian's wife. She felt the champagne investing her chatter and +the chatter of the Head of the Department of Education with the +most satisfying qualities, which were oddly stimulated when she +glanced over the brim of her glass at Stephen, sitting at the turn +of the oval, giving a gravely humble but perfunctory attention to +Mrs. Barberry, and drinking water. The occasion grew before her +into a gorgeous flower, living, pulsating, and in the heart of its +light and colour the petals closed over her secret, over him, the +unconscious priest with the sloping shoulders, thinking of +abstinence and listening to Mrs. Barberry. + +It transpired when the men came up that there was no unanimity +about going to Government House. The Livingstones craved the +necessity of absence, if anyone would supply it by staying on; it +would be a boon they said, and cited the advancement of the season. +"One gets to bed so much earlier," Surgeon-Major Livingstone urged, +at which Alicia raised her eyebrows and everybody laughed. Lindsay +elected to gratify them, with the proclaimed purpose of seeing how +long Livingstone could be kept up, and the civilian pair agreed, +apparently from a tendency to remain seated. The A.D.C. had, of +course, to go; duty called him; and he declared a sense of slighted +hospitality that anybody should remain behind. "Besides," he +cried, with ingenuous privilege, "who's goin' to chaperone Miss +Howe?" + +Hilda stood in the midst. Tall, in violet velvet, she had a flush +that made her magnificent; her eyes were deep and soft. It was +patent that she was out of proportion to the other women, body and +soul; there was altogether too much of her; and it was only the +men, when Captain Corby spoke, who looked silently responsive. + +"We're coming away so early," said Mrs. Barberry, buttoning her +glove. Hilda had begun to smile, and, indeed, the situation had +its humour, but there was also behind her eyes an appreciation of +another sort. "Don't," she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach +of her prompting tone, as if the other had mistaken her cue, but +the moment hardly permitted retreat, and Alicia turned an +unflinching graceful front to the lady in the Department of +Education. "Then I think I must ask you," she said. + +The educational husband was standing so near Hilda that she got the +very dregs of the glance of consternation his little wife gave him +as she replied, a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure she would +be delighted. + +"Nobody suggests ME!" exclaimed Captain Corby resentfully. They +were gathered in the hall, the carriages were driving to the open +door, the Barberry's glistening brougham whisking them off, and +then the battered vehicle in Hilda's hire. It had an air of +ludicrous forlornness, with its damaged paint and its tied-up +harness. Hilda, when its door closed upon the purple vision of +her, might have been a modern Cinderella in mid-stage of backward +transformation. + +"I could chaperone you all!" she cried gaily back at them, as she +passed down the steps; and in the relief of the general exclamation +it seemed reasonable enough that Stephen Arnold should lean into +the gharry to see that she was quite comfortable. The unusual +thing, which nobody else heard, was that he said to her then with +shamed discomfort, "It doesn't matter--it doesn't matter," and that +Hilda, driving away, found herself without a voice to answer the +good-nights they chorussed after her. + +Arnold begged a seat in Captain Corby's dogcart, and Hilda, with +her purple train in her lap, heard the wheels following all the +way. She re-encountered the lady to whom she had been entrusted, +whose name it occurs to me was Winstick, in the cloakroom. They +were late; there was hardly anybody else but the attendants; and +Mrs. Winstick smiled freely, and said she loved the colour of +Hilda's dress; also that she would give worlds for an invisible +hairpin--oh, thank you!--and that it was simply ducky of her +Excellency to have pink powder as well as white put out. She did +hope Miss Howe would enjoy the evening--they would meet again later +on; she must not forget to look at the chunam pillars in the +ballroom--perfectly lovely. So she vanished; but Hilda went with +certainty into the corridor to find Arnold pacing up and down the +red strip of carpet, with his hands clasped behind him and his head +thrust forward, waiting for her. + +They dropped together into the crowd and walked among well-dressed +women, men in civilian black and men in uniform, up and down the +pillared spaces of the ballroom. People had not been asked to +dance, and they seemed to walk about chiefly for observation. +There was, of course, the opportunity of talking and of listening +to the band which discoursed in a corner behind palms, but the +distraction which is the social Nemesis of bureaucracy was in the +air, visibly increasing in the neighbourhoods of the Viceroy and +the Commander-in-Chief, and made the commonplaces people uttered to +each other disjointed and fragmentary, while it was plain that few +were aware whether music was being rendered or not. Anyone +sensitive to pervading mental currents in gatherings of this sort +would have found the relief of concentration and directness only +near the buffet that ran along one side of the room, where the +natural instinct played, without impediment, upon soup and +sandwiches. + +They did not look much at Hilda, even on the arm of her liveried +priest. She was a strange vessel, sailing in from beyond their +ken, and her pilot was almost as novel, yet they were incurious. +Their interests were not in any way diffused, they had one straight +line and it led upward, pausing at the personalities clerked above +them, with an ultimate point in the head of a department. The Head +of the Department was the only person unaware, when addressed, of a +travelling eye in search over his shoulder of somebody with whom it +would be more advantageous to converse. Yet there were a few +people apparently not altogether indifferent to the presence of +Miss Howe. She saw them here and there, and when Arnold said, "It +must seem odd to you, but I know hardly anybody here. We attempt +no social duties," she singled out this one and that, whom Alicia +had asked to meet her, and mentioned them to him with a warm +pleasure in implying one of the advantages of belonging to the +world rather than to the cloister. Stephen knew their names and +their dignities. He received what she said with suitably impressed +eyebrow and nods of considerate assent. Hilda carried him along, +as it were, in their direction. She was full that night of a +triumphant sense of her own vitality, her success and value as a +human unit. There was that in her blood which assured her of a +welcome, it had logic in it, with the basis of her rarity, her +force, her distinction among other women. She pressed forward to +human fellowship with a smile on her lips, as a delightful matter +of course, going towards the people who were not indifferent to the +fact that she was there, who could not be entirely, since they had +some sort of knowledge of her. + +In no case did they ignore her, but they were so cheerfully engaged +in conversation that they were usually quite oblivious of her. She +encountered this animated absorption two or three times, then +turning she found that the absorbed ones had changed their places-- +were no longer in her path. One lady put herself at a safe +distance and then bowed, with much cordiality. It was extraordinary +in a group of five how many glistening shoulders would be presented, +quite without offence, to her approach. Mrs. Winstick had hidden +behind the Superintendent of Stamps and Stationery, to whom she was +explaining, between spoonfuls of strawberry ice, her terrible +situation. And from the lips of another lady whose face she knew, +she heard after she had passed, "Don't you think it's rather an +omnium gatherum?" + +It was like Hilda Howe to note at that moment with serious +interest, how the little world about them had the same negative +attitude for the missionary priest beside her, presenting it with a +hardly perceptible difference. Within its limits there was plainly +no room for him either. His acquaintances--he had a few--bowed +with the kind of respect which implies distance, and in the +wandering eyes of the others it was plain that he did not exist. +She saw, too, with a very delicate pleasure, that he carried +himself in his grave humility untouched and unconscious. Expecting +nothing he was unaware that he received nothing. It was odd, and +in its way charming, that she who saw and knew drew from their +mutual grievance a sense of pitiful protection for him, the +unconscious one. For herself, the tide that bore her on was too +deep to let these things hurt her, she looked down and saw the +soreness and humiliation of them pictorially, at the bottom, +gliding smoothly over. They brought no stereotype to her smile, no +dissonance to what she found to say. When at last she and Arnold +sat down together her standpoint was still superior, and she +herself was so aloof from it all that she could talk about it +without bitterness, divorcing the personal pang from a social +manifestation of some dramatic value. In offering up her egotism +that way she really only made more subtle sacrifices to it, but one +could hardly expect such a consideration, just then, to give her +pause. She anointed his eyelids, she made him see, and he was +relieved to find in her light comment that she took the typical +Mrs. Winstick less seriously than he had supposed when they drove +away from the Livingstones'. It could not occur to him to correct +the impression he had then by the sound of his own voice uttering +sympathy. + +"But I know now what a wave feels like dashing against a cliff," +she said. "Fancy my thinking I could impose myself! That is the +wave's reflection." + +"It goes back into the sea which is its own; and there," said the +priest, whom nature had somehow cheated by the false promise of +high moralities out of an inheritance of beauty,--"and there, I +think, is depth and change and mystery, with joy in the obedience +of the tides and a full beating upon many shores--" + +"Ah, my sea! I hear it calling always, even," she said half- +reflectively, "when I am talking to you. But sometimes I think I +am not a wave at all, only a shell, to be stranded and left, always +with the calling in my ears--" She seemed to have dropped +altogether into reverie, and then looked up suddenly, laughing, +because he could not understand. + +"After all," she said practically, "what has that to do with it? +One doesn't blame these people. They are stupid--that's all. They +want the obvious. The leading lady of Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope-- +without the smallest diamond--who does song and dance on Saturday +nights--what can you expect! If I had a great name they would be +pleased enough to see me. It is one of the rewards of the fame." +She was silent for a moment, and then she added, "They are very +poor." + +"Those rewards! I have sometimes thought," Arnold said, "that you +were not devoured by thirst for them." + +"When we are together, you and I," she answered simply, "I never +am." + +He took it at its face value. They had had some delightful +conversations. If her words awakened anything in him it was the +remembrance of these. The solace of her companionship presented +itself to him again, and her statement gave their mutual confidence +another seal; that was all. They sat where they were for half an +hour, and something like antagonism and displeasure towards the +secretaries' wives settled upon them, from which Hilda, interrupting +a glance or two from the ladies purring past, drew suspicion. "I +am going now," she said. "It--it isn't quite suitable here," and +there was just enough suggestion in the point of her fan to make +him think of his frock. "It is an unpardonable truth that if we +stay any longer I shall make people talk about you." + +He turned astonished eyes upon her, eyes in which she remembered +afterwards there was absolutely nothing but a literal and pained +apprehension of what she said. "You are a good woman," he +exclaimed. "How could such a thing be possible!" + +The faintest embarrassment, the merest suggestion of distress, came +into her face and concentrated in her eyes, which she fixed upon +him as if she would bring his words to the last analysis, and +answer him as she would answer a tribunal. + +"A good woman?" she repeated, "I don't know--isn't that a +refinement of virtue? No; standing on my sex I make no claim, +but as PEOPLE go I am good. Yes, I am good." + +"In my eyes you are splendid," he replied, content, and gave her +his arm. They went together through the reception-rooms, and the +appreciation of her grew in him. If in the bright and silken +distance he had not seen his Bishop it might have glowed into a +cordiality of speech with his distinctive individual stamp on it. +But he saw his Bishop, his ceinture tightened on him, and he +uttered only the trite saying about the folly of counting on the +sensibility of swine. + +"Yes," she laughed into her good-night to him, "but I'm not sure +that it isn't better to be the pig than the pearl." + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +"Not long ago," said Hilda, "I had a chat with him. We sat on the +grass in the middle of the Maidan, and there was nothing to +interfere with my impressions." + +"What were your impressions? No!" Alicia cried. "No! Don't tell +me. It is all so peaceful now, and simple, and straightforward. +You think such extraordinary things. He comes here quite often, to +talk about her. He is coming this afternoon. So I have impressions +too--and they are just as good." + +"All right." Hilda crossed her knees more comfortably. "WHAT did +you say the Surgeon-Major paid for those Teheran tiles?" + +"Something absurd--I've forgotten. He writes to her regularly, +diary letters, by every mail." + +"Do you tell him what to put into them?" + +"Hilda, sometimes--you're positively gross." + +"I daresay, my dear. You didn't come out of a cab, and you never +are. I like being gross, I feel nearer to nature then, but I don't +say that as an excuse. I like the smell of warm kitchens and the +talk of bus-drivers, and bread and herrings for my tea--all the low +satisfactions appeal to me. Beer, too, and hand-organs." + +"I don't know when to believe you. He talks about her quite +freely, and--and so do I. She is really interesting in her way." + +"And in perspective." + +"Why should you be odiously smart. He and Stephen"--her glance was +tentative--"have made it up." + +"Oh?" + +"He admits now that Stephen was justified, from his point of view. +But of course that is easy enough when you have come off best." + +"Of course." + +"Hilda, what do you THINK?" + +"Oh, I think it's deplorable--you have always known what I think. +Have you seen him lately--I mean your cousin?" + +"He lunched with us yesterday. He was more enthusiastic than ever +about you." + +"I wish you could tell me that he hadn't mentioned my name. I +don't want his enthusiasm. The pit gives one that." + +"Hilda, tell me; what is your idea of--of what it ought to be? +What is the principal part of it? Not enthusiasm--adoration?" + +"Goodness, no! Something quite different and quite simple--too +simple to explain. Besides, it is a thing that requires the +completest ignorance to discuss comfortably. Do you want me to +vivisect my soul? You yourself, can you talk about what most +possesses you?" + +"Oh," protested Alicia, "I wasn't thinking about myself," and at +the same moment the door opened and Hilda said, "Ah! Mr. Lindsay." + +There was a hint of the unexpected in Duff's response to Miss +Howe's greeting, and a suggestion in the way he sat down that this +made a difference, and that he must find other things to say. He +found them with facility, while Hilda decided that she would finish +her tea before she went. Alicia, busy with the urn, seemed +satisfied to abandon them to each other, to take a decorative place +in the conversation, interrupting it with brief inquiries about +cream and sugar. Alicia waited, it was her way; she sank almost +palpably into the tapestries until some reviving circumstance +should bring her out again, a process which was quite compatible +with her little laughs and comments. She waited, offering repose, +and unconscious even of that. You know Hilda Howe as a creature of +bold reflections. Looking at Alicia Livingstone behind the teapot, +the conviction visited her that a sex three-quarters of this fibre +explained the monastic clergy. + +"It is reported that you have performed the wonderful, the +impossible," Lindsay said; "that Llewellyn Stanhope goes home +solvent." + +"I don't know how he can help it now. But I have to be very firm. +He's on his knees to me to do Ibsen. I tell him I will if he'll +combine with Jimmy Finnigan and bring the Surprise Party on between +the acts. The only way it would go, in this capital." + +"Oh, do produce Ibsen," Alicia exclaimed; "I've never seen one of +his plays--doesn't it sound terrible!" + +"If people will elect to live upon a coral strand--oh, I should +like to, for you and Duff here, but Ibsen is the very last man to +deliver to a scratch company. He must have equal merit, or there's +no meaning. You see he makes none of the vulgar appeals. It would +be a tame travesty--nobody could redeem it alone. You must keep to +the old situations, the reliable old dodges, when you play in any +part of Asia." + +"I never shall cease to regret that I didn't see you in The Offence +of Galilee?" Duff said. "Everyone who knows the least bit about it +said you were marvellous in that." + +"Marvellous," said Alicia + +Hilda gazed straight before her for an instant without speaking. +The others looked at her absent eyes. "A bazar trick or two helped +me," she said, and glanced with vivacity at any other subject that +might be hanging on the wall, or visible out of the window. + +"And are you really invincible about not putting it on again in +Calcutta?" Duff asked. + +"Not in Calcutta, or anywhere. The rest hate it--nobody has a +chance but me," Hilda said, and got up. + +"Oh, I don't know," Alicia began, but Miss Howe was already half- +way out of the discussion, in the direction of the door. There was +often a brusqueness in her comings and goings, but she usually left +a flavour of herself behind. One turned with facility to talk +about her, this being the easiest way of applying the stimulus that +came of talking to her. It was more conspicuous than either of +these two realised that they accepted her retreat without a word, +that there was even between them a consciousness of satisfaction +that she had gone. + +"This morning's mail," said Alicia, smiling brightly at Lindsay, +"brought you a letter, I know." It was extraordinary how detached +she could be from her vital personal concern in him. It seemed +relegated to some background of her nature while she occupied +herself with the immediate play of circumstance or was lost in her +observation of him. + +"How kind of you to think of it," Lindsay said. "This was the +first by which I could possibly hear from England." + +"Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. Letters from on +board ship are always difficult to write and unsatisfactory," +Alicia said. Miss Filbert's had been postcards, with a wide +unoccupied margin at the bottom. + +"The Sutlej seems to have arrived on the third; that's a day later, +isn't it, than we made out she would be?" + +Alicia consulted her memory, and found she couldn't be sure. +Lindsay was vexed by a similar uncertainty, but they agreed that +the date was early in the month. + +"Did they get comfortably through the Canal? I remember being tied +up there for forty-eight hours once." + +"I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have been all right. +The voyage is bound to do her good. I've asked the Simpsons to +watch particularly for any sign of malaria later, though. One +can't possibly know what she may have imported from that slum in +Bentinck Street." + +"And what was it like after Gibraltar?" Alicia asked, with a barely +perceptible glance at the envelope edges showing over his breast- +pocket. + +"I'll look," and he sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a +diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay drew out the single sheet it +contained, and she could see that every line was ruled and faintly +pencilled. "Let me see," said he. "To begin at the beginning. +'We arrived home on the third,'--you see it was the third,--'making +very slow progress the last day on account of a fog in the +Channel'--ah, a fog in the Channel!--'which was a great +disappointment to some on board who were impatient to meet their +loved ones. One lady had not seen her family of five for seven +years. She said she would like to get out and swim, and you could +not wonder. She was my s--stable companion." + +"Quaint!" said Alicia. + +"She has picked up the expression on board. 'So--so she told me +this.' Oh yes. 'Now that it is all over I have written the voyage +down among my mercies in spite of three days' sickness, when you +could keep nothing on--' What are those two words, Miss +Livingstone? I can't quite make them out." + +"'Your'--cambric?--stom--'stomach'--'your stomach.'" + +"Oh, quite so. Thanks!--'in the Bay of Biscay.' You see it WAS +rough after Gib. 'Everybody was'--yes. 'The captain read Church +of England prayers on Sunday mornings, in which I had no objection +to join, and we had mangoes every day for a week after leaving +Ceylon.'" + +"Miss Filbert was so fond of mangoes," Alicia said. + +"Was she? 'The passengers got up two dances, and quite a number of +gentlemen invited me, but I declined with thanks, though I would +not say it is wrong in itself.'" Lindsay seemed to waver; her +glance went near enough to him to show her that his face had a red +tinge of embarrassment. He looked at the letter uncertainly, on +the point of folding it up. + +"You see she hasn't danced for so long," Alicia put in quickly; +"she would naturally hesitate about beginning again with anybody +but you. I shouldn't wonder," she added gently, "if she never +does, with anybody else." + +"I know it's an idea some women have," he replied. "I think it's +rather--nice." + +"And her impressions of the Simpsons--and Plymouth?" + +"She goes on to that." He reconsulted the letter. "'Mr. and Mrs. +Simpson met me as expected and welcomed me very affably.' She has +got hold of a wrong impression there, I fancy; the Simpsons +couldn't be 'affable.' 'They seem very kind and pleasant for such +stylish people, and their house is lovely, with electric light in +the parlour and hot and cold water throughout. They seem very +earnest people and have family prayers regularly, but I have not +yet been asked to lead. Four servants come in to prayers. Mr. and +Mrs. Simpson are deeply interested in the work of the Army, though +I think Plymouth as a whole is more taken up with the C.M.S.; but +we cannot have all things.' Dear me, yes! I remember those +evangelical teas and the disappointment that I could not speak more +definitely about the work among the Sontalis." + +"Fancy her having caught the spirit of the place already!" +exclaimed Alicia. "He went on: 'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson have a +beautiful garden and grow most of their own vegetables. We sit in +it a great deal and I think of all that has passed. I hope ever +that it has been for the best and pray for you always. Oh that +your feet may be set in the right path and that we may walk hand in +hand upon the way to Zion!'" Lindsay lowered his voice and read +the last sentences rapidly, as if the propulsion of the first part +of the letter sent him through them. Then he stopped abruptly, and +Alicia looked up. + +"That's all, only," he added, with an awkward smile, "the usual +formula." + +"'God bless you'?" she asked, and he nodded. + +"It has a more genuine ring than most formulas," she observed. + +"Yes, hasn't it? May I have another cup?" He restored the pink +sheet to its pink envelope, and both to his breast-pocket, while +she poured out the other cup, but Miss Filbert was still present +with them. They went on talking about her, and entirely in the +tone of congratulation--the suitability of the Simpsons, the +suitability of Plymouth, the probability that she would entirely +recover, in its balmy atmosphere, her divine singing voice. +Plymouth certainly was in no sense a tonic, but Miss Filbert didn't +need a tonic; she was too much inclined to be strung up as it was. +What she wanted was the soothing, quieting influence of just +Plymouth's meetings and just Plymouth's teas. The charms that so +sweetly and definitely characterised her would expand there; it was +a delightful flowery environment for them, and she couldn't fail to +improve in health. Devonshire's visitors got tremendously well +fed, with fish items of especial excellence. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Nobody could have been more impressed with Hilda's influence upon +Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's commercial probity than Mr. Llewellyn +Stanhope himself. He was a prey to all noble feelings; they ruled +his life and spoiled his bargains; and gratitude, when it had a +chance, which was certainly seldom in connection with leading +ladies, dominated him entirely. He sat in the bar of the Great +Eastern Hotel with tears in his eyes, talking about what Miss Howe +had done for him, and gave unnecessary backsheesh to coolies who +brought him small bills--so long, that is, as they were the small +bills of this season. When they had reference to the liabilities +of a former and less prosperous year he waved them away with a +bitter levity which belonged to the same period. His view of his +obligations was strictly chronological, and in taking it he +counted, like the poet, only happy hours. The bad debt and the bad +season went consistently together to oblivion; the sun of to-day's +remarkable receipts could not be expected to penetrate backwards. + +He had only one fault to find with Miss Howe--she had no artistic +conscience--none, and he found this with the utmost leniency, +basking in the consciousness that it made his own more conspicuous. +She was altogether in the grand style, if you understood Mr. +Stanhope, but nothing would induce her to do herself justice before +Calcutta; she seemed to have taken the measure of the place and to +be as indifferent! Try to ring in anything worth doing and she was +off with the bit between her teeth, and you simply had to put up +with it. The second lead had a great deal more ambition, and a +very good little woman in her way, too, but of course not half the +talent. He was obliged to confess that Miss Howe wasn't game for +risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the night the circus +opened to a twenty-five rupee house. It WAS monstrous. She seemed +to think that nothing mattered so much as that everybody should be +paid on the first of the month. There was one other grievance, +which Llewellyn mentioned only in confidence with a lowered voice. +That was Bradley. Hilda wasn't lifting a finger to keep Bradley. +Result was, Bradley was crooking his elbow a great deal too often +lately and going off every way. He, Llewellyn, had put it to her +if that was the way to treat a man the Daily Telegraph had spoken +about as it had spoken about Hamilton Bradley. Where was she-- +where was he--going to find another? No, he didn't say marry +Bradley; there were difficulties, and after all that might be the +very way to lose him. But a woman had an influence, and that +influence could never be more fittingly exercised than in the cause +of dramatic art based on Mr. Stanhope's combinations. Mr. Stanhope +expressed himself with a difference, but it came to that. + +Perhaps if you pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the +track of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the +further fact that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel +for procrastination. Next season was imminent in his arrangements, +as Christmas numbers are imminent to publishers at midsummer, and +here she was shying at a contract as if they had months for +consideration. It wasn't either as if she complained of anything +in the terms--that would be easy enough fixed--but she said herself +that it was a bigger salary than he, Llewellyn, would ever be able +to pay unless she went round with the hat. Nor had she any +objection to the tour--a fascinating one--including the Pacific +Slope and Honolulu. It stumped him, Llewellyn, to know what she +did object to, and why she couldn't bark it out at once, seeing she +must understand perfectly well it was no use his going to Bradley +without first settling with her. + +Hilda, alone in her own apartment--it was difficult to keep +Llewellyn Stanhope away from even that door in his pursuit of her +signature--considered the vagary life had become for her that was +so whimsical, and the mystery of her secret which was so solely +hers. Alicia knew, of course; but that was as if she had written +it down on a sheet of perfect notepaper and locked it up in a +drawer. Alicia did not speculate about it, and the whole soul of +it was tangled now in a speculation. There had been a time filled +with the knowledge and the joy of this new depth in her like a +buoyant sea, and she had been content to float in it, imagining +desirable things. Stanhope's waiting contract made a limit to the +time--a limit she brought up against without distress or shock, but +with a kind of recognising thrill in contact at last with the +necessity for action, decision, a climax of high heart-beats. She +saw with surprise that she had lived with her passion these weeks +and months half consciously expecting that a crucial moment would +dissolve it, like a person aware that he dreams and will presently +awake. She had not faced till now any exigency of her case. But +the crucial moment had leapt upon her, pointing out the subjection +of her life, and she, undefended, sought only how to accomplish her +bonds. + +Certainly she saw no solution that did not seem monstrous; yet +every pulse in her demanded a solution; there was no questioning +the imperious need. She had the fullest, clearest view of the +situation, and she looked at it without flinching and without +compromise. Above all she had true vision of Stephen Arnold, +glorifying nowhere, extenuating nothing. It was almost cruel to be +the victim of such circumstance, and be denied the soft uses of +illusion; but if that note of sympathy had been offered to Hilda +she would doubtless have retorted that it was precisely because she +saw him that she loved him. His figure, in its poverty and +austerity, was always with her; she made with the fabric of her +nature a kind of shrine for it, enclosing, encompassing; and her +possession of him, by her knowledge, was deep and warm and +protecting. I think the very fulness of it brought her a kind of +content with which, but for Llewellyn and his contract, she would +have been willing to go on indefinitely. It made him hers in a +primary and essential way, beside which any mere acknowledgment or +vow seemed chiefly decorative, like the capital of a pillar firmly +rooted. There may be an appearance that she took a good deal for +granted; if there is, I fear that in the baldness of this history +it has not been evident how much and how variously Arnold depended +on her, in how many places her colour and her vitality patched out +the monkish garment of his soul. This with her enthusiasm and her +cognisance. It may be remembered, too, that there was in the very +tenderness of her contemplation of the priest in her path an +imperious tinge born of the way men had so invariably melted there. +Certainly they had been men and not priests; but the little +flickering doubt that sometimes leaped from this source through the +glow of her imagination she quenched very easily with the +reflection that such a superficies was after all a sophistry, and +that only its rudiments were facts. She proposed, calmly and +lovingly, to deal with the facts. + +She told herself that she would not be greedy about the conditions +under which she should prevail; but her world had always, always +shaped itself answering her hand, and if she cast her eyes upon the +ground now, and left the future, even to-morrow, undevisaged, it +was because she would not find any concessions of her own among its +features if she could help it. It was a trick she played upon her +consciousness; she would not look, but she could see without +looking. She saw that which explained itself to be best, fittest, +most reasonable; and thus she sometimes wandered with Arnold +anticipatively, on afternoons when there was no matinee, through +the perfumed orange orchards of Los Angeles, on the Pacific slope. + +She would not search to-morrow; but she took toward it one of those +steps of vague intention, at the end of which we beckon to +possibilities. She wrote to Stephen and asked him to come to see +her then. She had not spoken to him since the night of the +Viceroy's party, when she put her Bohemian head out of the ticca- +gharry to wish him good-night, and he walked home alone under the +stars, trying to remember a line of Horace, a chaste one, about +woman's beauty. She sent the note by post. There was no answer; +but that was as usual; there never was an answer unless something +prevented him; he always came, and ten minutes before the time. +When the time arrived she sat under the blue umbrellas devising +what she would say, creating fifty different forms of what he would +say, while the hands slipped round the clock past the moment that +should have brought his step to the door. Hilda noted it, and +compared her watch. A bowl of roses stood on a little table near a +window; she got up and went to it, bending over and rearranging the +flowers. The light fell on her and on the roses; it was a +beautiful attitude, and when at a footfall she looked up +expectantly it was more beautiful. But it was only another +boarder--a Mr. Gonzalves, with a highly varnished complexion, who +took off his hat elaborately as he passed the open door. She +became conscious of her use of the roses, and abandoned them. +Presently she sat down on a bentwood rocking-chair, and swayed to +and fro, aware of an ebbing of confidence. Half an hour later she +was still sitting there. Her face had changed, something had faded +in it; her gaze at the floor was profoundly speculative, and when +she glanced at the empty door it was with timidity. Arnold had not +come and did not come. + +The evening passed without explanation, and next morning the post +brought no letter. It was simplest to suppose that her own had not +reached him, and Hilda wrote again. The second letter she sent by +hand, with a separate sheet of paper addressed for signature. The +messenger brought back the sheet of paper with strange initials, +"J. L. for S. A.," and there was no reply. There remained the +possibility of absence from Calcutta, of illness. That he should +have gone away was most unlikely, that he had fallen ill was only +too probable. Hilda looked from her bedroom window across the +varying expanse of parapeted flat roofs and mosque bubbles that lay +between her and College Street, and curbed the impulse in her feet +that would have resulted in the curious spectacle of Llewellyn +Stanhope's leading lady calling in person at a monastic gate to +express a kind of solicitude against which precisely it was barred. +A situation after all could be too pictorial, looked at from the +point of view of the Order, a consideration which flashed with +grateful humour across her anxiety. Alicia would have known; but +both the Livingstones had gone for a short sea change to Ceylon, +with Duff Lindsay and some touring people from Surrey. They were +most anxious, Hilda remembered, that Arnold should accompany them. +Could he in the end have gone? There was, of course, the +accredited fount and source of all information, the Father +Superior; but with what propriety could Hilda Howe apply for it! +Llewellyn might write for her; but it was glaringly impossible that +the situation should lay itself so far open to Llewellyn. Looking +in vain for resources she came upon an expedient. She found a +sheet of cheap notepaper, and made it a little greasy. On it she +wrote with red ink, in the cramped hand of the hired scribe of the +bazar:-- + + +"SIR--Will you please to inform to me if Mr. Arnold has gone +mofussil or England as I have some small business with him. Yours +obedient servant,--WUN SING." + + +"It can't be forgery," she reflected, "since there isn't a Wun +Sing," and added an artistic postscript, "Boots and shoes verry +much cheap for cash." She made up the envelope to match, and +addressed it with consistent illiteracy to the head of the Mission. +The son of the Chinese basketmaker, who dwelt almost next door, +spoke neither English nor Hindustani, but showed an easy +comprehension of her promise of backsheesh when he should return +with an answer. She had a joyful anticipation, while she waited, +of the terms in which she should tell Arnold how she passed +disguised as a Chinese shoemaker, before the receptive and +courteous consciousness of his spiritual senior; of how she +penetrated, in the suggestion of a pigtail and an unpaid bill, +within the last portals that might be expected to receive her in +the form under which, for example, certain black and yellow posters +were presenting her to the public at that moment. She saw his +scruples go swiftly down before her laughter and the argument of +her tender anxiety, which she was quite prepared to learn foolish +and unnecessary. There was even an adventurous instant in which +she reaped at actual personation of the Chinaman, and she looked in +rapture at the vivid risk of the thing before she abandoned it as +involving too much. She sent no receipt form this time--that was +not the practice of the bazar--and when, hours after, her messenger +returned with weariness and dejection written upon him, in the +characters of a perfunctory Chinese smile, she could only gather +from his negative head and hands that no answer had been given him, +and that her expedient had failed. + +Hilda stared at her dilemma. Its properties were curiously simple. +His world and hers, with the same orbit, had no point of contact. +Once swinging round their eastern centre they had come close enough +for these two, leaning very far out, to join hands. When they +loosed it seemed they lost. + +The more she gazed at it the more it looked a preposterous thing +that in a city vibrant with human communication by all the methods +which make it easy, it should be possible for one individual thus +to drop suddenly and completely from the knowledge of another--a +mediaeval thing. Their isolation as Europeans of course accounted +for it; there was no medium in the brown population that hummed in +the city streets. Hilda could not even bribe a servant without +knowing how to speak to him. She ravaged the newspapers; they +never were more bare of reference to consecrated labours. The +nearest approach to one was a paragraph chronicling a social +evening given by the Wesleyans in Sudder Street, with an exhibition +of the cinematograph. In a moment of defiance and determination +she sent a telegram studiously colourless, "Unable find you wish +communicate please inform. A. Cassidy." Arnold had never ignored +the name she was born to, in occasional scrupulous moments he +addressed her by it; he would recognise and understand. There was +no reply. + +The enigma pressed upon her days, she lived in the heaviness of it, +waiting. His silence adding itself up, brought her a kind of shame +for the exertions she had made. She turned with obstinacy from the +further schemes her ingenuity presented. Out of the sum of her +unsuccessful efforts grew a reproach of Arnold; every one of them +increased it. His behaviour she could forgive, arbitrarily putting +against it twenty explanations, but not the futility of what she +had done. Her resentment of that undermined all the fairness of +her logic and even triumphed over the sword of her suspense. She +never quite gave up the struggle, but in effect she passed the week +that intervened pinioned in her unreason--bands that vanished as +she looked at them, only to tie her thrice in another place. + +Life became a permanent interrogation point. Waiting under it, +with a perpetual upward gaze, perhaps she grew a little dizzy. The +sun of March had been increasing, and the air of one particular +Saturday afternoon had begun to melt and glow and hang in the +streets with a kind of inertia, like a curtain that had to be +parted to be penetrated. Hilda came into the house and faced the +stairs with an inclination to leave her body on the ground-floor +and mount in spirit only. When she glanced in at the drawing-room +door and saw Arnold sitting under the blue umbrellas, a little +paler, a thought more serene than usual, she swept into the room as +if a tide carried her, and sank down upon a footstool close to him, +as if it had dropped her there. He had risen at her appearance, he +was all himself but rather more the priest, his face of greeting +had exactly its usual asking intelligence but to her the fact that +he was normal was lost in the fact that he was near. He held out +his hand but she only sought his face, speechless, hugging her +knees. + +"You are overcome by the sun," he said. "Lie down for a moment," +and again he offered her a hand to help her to rise. She shook her +head but took his hand, enclosing it in both of hers with a sort of +happy deliberation, and drew herself up by it, while her eyes, +shining like dark surfaces of some glorious consciousness within, +never left his face. So she stood beside him with her head bowed, +still dumb. It was her supreme moment; life never again brought +her anything like it. It was not that she confessed so much as +that she asserted, she made a glowing thing plain, cried out to +him, still standing silent, the deep-lying meaning of the tangle of +their lives. She was shaken by a pure delight, as if she unclosed +her hand to show him a strange jewel in her palm, hers and his for +the looking. The intensity of her consciousness swept round him +and enclosed him, she knew this profoundly, and had no thought of +the insulation he had in his robe. The instant passed; he stood +unmoved definitely enough, yet some vibration in it reached him, +for there was surprise in his involuntary backward step. + +"You must have thought me curiously rude," he said, as if he felt +about for an explanation, "but your letters were only given to me +an hour ago. We have all been in retreat, you know." + +"In RETREAT!" Hilda exclaimed. "Ah, yes. How foolish I have been! +In retreat," she repeated softly, flicking a trace of dust from his +sleeve. "Of course." + +"It was held in St. Paul's College," Stephen went on, "by Father +Neede. Shall we sit down? And of course at such times no +communications reach us, no letters or papers." + +"No letters or papers," Hilda said, looking at him softly, as it +were, through the film of the words. They sat down, he on the +sofa, she on a chair very near it. There was another placed at a +more usual distance, but she seemed incapable of taking the step or +two toward it, away from him. + +Stephen gave himself to the grateful sense of her proximity. He +had come to sun himself again in the warmth of her fellowship; he +was stirred by her emphasis of their separation and reunion. "And +what, please," he asked, "have you been doing? Account to me for +the time." + +"While you have been praying and fasting? Wondering what you were +at, and waiting for you to finish. Waiting," she said, and clasped +her knees with her intent look again, swaying a little to and fro +in her content, as if that which she waited for had already come, +full, and very desirable. + +"Have you been reading?--" + +"Oh, I have been reading nothing! You shall never go into retreat +again," she went on, with a sudden change of expression. "It is +well enough for you, but I am not good at fasting. And I have an +indulgence," she added, unaware of her soft, bright audacity, "that +will cover both our cases." + +His face uttered aloud his reflection that she was extravagant. +That it was a pity, but that what was not due to her profession +might be ascribed to the simple, clear impulse of her temperament-- +that temperament which he had found to be a well of rare sincerity. + +"I am not to go any more into retreat?" he said, in grave +interrogation; but the hint of rebuke in his voice was not in his +heart, and she knew it. + +"No!" she cried. "You shall not be hidden away like that. You +shall not go alive into the tomb and leave me at the door. Because +I cannot bear it." + +She leaned toward him, and her hand fell lightly on his knee. It +was a claiming touch, and there was something in the unfolded +sweetness of her face that was not ambiguous. Arnold received the +intelligence. It came in a vague grey monitory form, a cloud, a +portent, a chill menace; but it came, and he paled under it. He +seemed to lean upon his hands, pressed one on each side of him to +the seat of the sofa for support, and he looked in fixed silence at +hers, upon his knee. His face seemed to wither, new lines came +upon it as the impression grew in him; and the glamour faded out of +hers as she was sharply reminded, looking at him, that he had not +traversed the waste with her, that she had kept her vigils alone. +Yet it was all said and done, and there was no repentance in her. +She only gathered herself together, and fell back, as it were, upon +her magnificent position. As she drew her hand away, he dropped +his face into the cover of his own, leaning his elbow on his knee, +and there was a pulsing silence. The instant prolonged itself. + +"Are you praying?" Hilda asked, with much gentleness, almost a +childlike note; and he shook his head. There was another, +instant's pause, and she spoke again. + +"Are you so grieved, then," she said, "that this has come upon us?" + +Again he held his eyes away from her, clasping his hands, and +looking at the thing nearest to him, while at last blood from the +heart of the natural man in him came up and stained his face, his +forehead under the thin ruffling of colourless hair, his neck above +the white band that was his badge of difference from other men. + +"I--fear--I hardly understand," he said. The words fell cramped +and singly, and his lip twitched. "It--it is impossible to think--" +He looked as if he dared not lift his head. + +One would not say that Hilda hesitated, for there was no failing in +the wings of her high confidence, but she looked at him in a brave +silence. Her glance had tender investigation in it; she stood on +the brink of her words just long enough to ask whether they would +hurt him. Seeing that they would, she nevertheless plunged, but +with infinite compassion and consideration. She spoke like an +agent of Fate, conscious and grieved. + +"_I_ understand," she said simply. "Sometimes, you know, we are +quicker. And you in your cell, how should you find out? That is +why I must tell you, because, though I am a woman, you are a +priest. Partly for that reason I may speak, partly because I love +you, Stephen Arnold, better and more ardently than you can ever +love me, or anybody, I think, except perhaps your God. And I am +tired of keeping silence." + +She was so direct, so unimpassioned, that half his distress turned +to astonishment, and he faced her as if a calm and reasoned hand +had been laid upon the confusion in him. Meeting his gaze, she +unbarred a floodgate of happy tenderness in her eyes. + +"Love!" he gasped in it, "I have nothing to do with that." + +"Oh," she said, "you have everything to do with it." + +Something thrilled him without asking his permission, assuring him +that he was a man--until then a placid theory with an unconscious +basis. It was therefore a blow to his saintship, or it would have +been, but he warded it off, flushed and trembling. It was as if he +had been ambuscaded. He had to hold himself from the ignominy of +flight; he rose to cut his way out, making an effort to strike with +precision. + +"Some perversity has seized you," he said. The muscles about his +mouth quivered, giving him a curious aspect. "You mean nothing of +what you say." + +"Do you believe that?" + +"I--I cannot think anything else. It is the only way I can--I can-- +make excuse." + +"Ah, don't excuse me!" she murmured, with an astonishing little gay +petulance. + +"You cannot have thought--" in spite of himself he made a step +towards the door. + +"Oh, I did think--I do think. And you must not go." She too stood +up, and stayed him. "Let us at least see clearly." There was a +persuading note in her voice, one would have thought that she was +dealing with a patient or a child. "Tell me," she clasped her +hands behind her back and looked at him in marvellous simple +candour, "do I really announce this to you? Was there not in +yourself anywhere--deep down--any knowledge of it?" + +"I did not guess--I did not dream!" + +"And--now?" she asked. + +A heavenly current drifted from her, the words rose and fell on it +with the most dazing suggestion in their soft hesitancy. It must +have been by an instinct of her art that her hand went up to the +cross on Arnold's breast and closed over it, so that he should see +only her. The familiar vision of her stood close, looking things +intolerably new and different. Again came out of it that sudden +liberty, that unpremeditated rush and shock in him. He paled with +indignation, with the startled resentment of a woman wooed and +hostile. His face at last expressed something definite, it was +anger; he stepped back and caught at his hat. "I am sorry," he +said, "I am sorry. I thought you infinitely above and beyond all +that." + +Hilda smiled and turned away. If he chose it was his opportunity +to go, but he stood regarding her, twirling his hat. She sat down, +clasping her knees, and looked at the floor. There was a square of +sunlight on the carpet, and motes were rising in it. + +"Ah well, so did I," she said meditatively, without raising her +eyes. Then she leaned back in the chair and looked at him, in her +level simple way. + +"It was a foolish theory," she said, "and--now--I can't understand +it at all. I am amazed to find that it even holds good with you." + +It was so much in the tone of their usual discussions that Arnold +was conscious of a lively relief. The instinct of flight died down +in him; he looked at her with something like inquiry. + +"It will always be to me curious," she went on, "that you could +have thought your part in me so limited, so poor. That is enough +to say. I find it hard to understand, anybody would, that you +could take so much good from me and not--so much more." She opened +her lips again, but kept back the words. "Yes," she added, "that +is enough to say." + +But for the colourless face and the tenseness about her lips it +might have been thought that she definitely abandoned what she had +learned she could not have. There was a note of acquiescence and +regret in her voice, of calm reason above all; and this sense +reached him, induced him to listen, as he generally listened, for +anything she might find that would explain the situation. His +fingers went from habit, as a man might play with his watch chain, +to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed them, and rested +mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling in them, +wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. "You could not forget +that?" she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself. He +looked into her upturned face and saw that her eyes were swimming. + +"Never!" he said, "Never!" but he walked to the nearest chair and +sat down. He seemed suddenly endowed with the courage to face this +problem, and his head, as it rose in the twilight against the +window, was grave and calm. Without a word a great tenderness of +understanding filled the space between them; an interpreting +compassion went to and fro. Suddenly a new light dawned in Hilda's +eyes, she leaned forward and met his in an absorption which caught +them out of themselves into some space where souls wander, and +perhaps embrace. It was a frail adventure upon a gaze, but it +carried them infinitely far. The moment died away, neither of them +could have measured it, and when it had finally ebbed--they were +conscious of every subsiding throb--the silence remained, like a +margin for the beauty of it. They sat immovable, while the light +faded. After a time the woman spoke. "Once before," she began, +but he put up his hand, and she stopped. Then as if she would no +longer be restrained. "That is all I want," she whispered. "That +is enough." + +For a time they said very little, looking back upon their divine +moment; the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and made +quiet conversation which was almost audible in the pauses. Then +Hilda began to speak, steadily, calmly. You, too, would have +forgotten her folly in what she found to say, as Arnold did; you +too would have drawn faith and courage from her face. One would +not be irreverent, but if this woman were convicted of the +unforgiveable sin, she could explain it, and obtain justification +rather than pardon. Her horizon had narrowed, she sought now only +that it should enfold them both. She begged that he would wipe out +her insanity, that he would not send her away. He listened and +melted to conviction. + +"Then I may stay?" she said at the end. + +"I am satisfied--if a way can be found." + +"I will find a way," she replied. + +After which he went back through the city streets to his disciples +in new humility and profounder joy, knowing that virtue had gone +out of him. She in her room where she lodged also considered the +miracle, twice wonderful in that it asked no faith of her. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It is difficult to be precise about such a thing, but I should +think that Hilda gave herself to the marvellous aspect of what had +come and gone between them, for several hours after Arnold left +her. It was not for some time, at all events, that she arrived at +the consideration--the process was naturally downward--that the +soul of the marvel lay in the exact moment of its happening. +Nothing could have been more heaven-sent than her precious +perception, exactly then, that before the shining gift of Arnold's +spiritual sympathy, all her desire for a lesser thing from him must +creep away abashed for ever. Even when the lesser thing, by +infinitely gradual expansion, again became the greater, it remained +permanently leavened and lifted in her by the strange and lovely +incident that had taken for the moment such command of her and of +him. She would not question it or reason about it, perhaps with an +instinct to avert its destruction; she simply drew it deeply into +her content. Only its sweet deception did not stay with her, and +she let that go with open hands. She wanted, more than ever, the +whole of Stephen Arnold, all that was so openly the Mission's and +all that was so evidently God's. It will be seen that she felt in +no way compelled to advise him of this her backsliding. I doubt +whether such a perversion of her magnificent course of action ever +occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it entailed a high +disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of what the +end would be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, +in the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen Arnold +stood beyond her ultimate possession. + +There were difficulties, but the moment was favourable to her, more +favourable than it would have been the year before, or any year but +this. Before ten days had passed she was able to write to Arnold +describing her plan, and she was put to it to keep the glow of +success out of her letter. She kept it out, that, and everything +but a calm and humble statement--any Clarke Brother might have +dictated it--of what she proposed to do. Perhaps the intention was +less obvious than the desire that he should approve it. + +The messenger waited long by the entrance to the Mission House for +an answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the +bazar with the gatekeeper of the Christians. Stephen was in +chapel. There was no service; he had half an hour to rest in and +he rested there. He was speculating, in the grateful dimness, +about the dogma--he had never quite accepted it, though Colquhoun +had--of the intercessory power of the souls of saints. A converted +Brahmin, an old man, had died the day before. Arnold luxuriated in +the humility of thinking that he would be glad of any good word +dear old Nourendra Lal could say for him. The chapel was +deliciously refined. The scent of fresh cut flowers floated upon +the continual presence of the incense; a lily outlined its head +against the tall carved altarpiece the Brothers had brought from +Damascus. The seven brass lamps that hung from the rafters above +the altar rails were also Damascene, carved and pierced so that the +light in them was a still thing like a prayer; and the place +breathed vague meanings which did not ask understanding. It was a +refuge from the riot and squalor of the whitewashed streets with a +double value and a treble charm--I.H.S. among plaster gods, a +sanctuary in the bazar. Stephen sat in it motionless, with his +lean limbs crossed in front of him, until the half-hour was up; +then he bent his knee before the altar and went out to meet a +servant at the door with Hilda's letter. The chapel opened upon an +upper verandah, he crossed it to get a better light and stood to +read with his back half turned upon the comers and goers. + +It was her first communication since they parted, and in spite of +its colourlessness it seemed to lay strong eager hands upon him, +turning his shoulder that way, upon the world, bending his head +over the page. He had not dwelt much upon their strange +experience, in the days that followed. It had retreated, for him, +behind the veil of tender mystery with which he shrouded, even from +his own eyes, the things that lay between his soul and God. The +space from that day to this had been more than usually full of +ministry; its pure uses had fallen like snow, blotting and +deadening the sudden wonder that blossomed then. Latterly he had +hardly thought of it. + +So far was he removed, so deeply drawn again within his familiar +activities, that he regarded Hilda's letter for an instant with a +lip of censure, as if, for some reason, it should not have been +admitted. It was, in a manner, her physical presence, the words +expanded into her, through it she walked back into his life, with +an interrogation. Standing there by the pillar he became gradually +aware of the weight of the interrogation. + +A passing Brother cast at him the sweet smile of the cloister. +Arnold stopped him and transferred an immediate duty, which the +other accepted with a slightly exaggerated happiness. They might +have been girls together, with their apologies and protestations. +The other Brother went on in a little glow of pleasure, Arnold +turned back into the chapel, carrying, it seemed to him, a woman's +life in his hand. + +He took his seat and folded his arms almost eagerly; there was a +light of concentration in his eye and a line of compression about +his lips which had not marked his meditation upon Nourendra Lal. +The vigour in his face suggested that he found a kind of athletic +luxury in what he had to think about. Brother Colquhoun, with his +flat hat clasped before his breast, passed down the aisle. Stephen +looked up with a trace of impatience. Presently he rose hurriedly +as if he remembered something, and went and knelt before one of +several paintings that hung upon the chapel walls. They were old +copies of great works, discoloured and damaged. They had sailed +round the Cape to India when the century was young, and a lady +friend of the Mission had bought them at the sale of the effects of +a ruined Begum. Arnold was one of those who could separate them +from their incongruous history and consecrate them over again. He +often found them helpful when he sought to lift his spirit, and in +any special matter a special comfort. He bent for ten minutes +before a Crucifixion, and then hastened back to his place. Only +one reflection corrected the vigorous satisfaction with which he +thought out Hilda's proposition. That disturbed him in the middle +of it, and took the somewhat irrelevant form of a speculation as to +whether the events of their last meeting should have had any place +in his Thursday confession. He was able to find almost at once a +conscientious negative for it, and it did not recur again. + +He got up reluctantly when the Mission bell sounded, and indeed he +had come to the end of a very absorbing interest. His decision was +final against Hilda's scheme. His worn experience cried out at the +sacrifice in it without the illumination--which it would certainly +lack--of religious faith. She confessed to the lack, and that was +all she had to say about her motive, which, of course, placed him +at an immense disadvantage in considering it. But the question +then descended to another plane, became merely a doubt as to the +most useful employment of energy, and that doubt nobody could +entertain long, nobody of reasonable breadth of view, who had ever +seen her expressing the ideals of the stage. Arnold did his best +to ward off all consideration which he could suspect of a personal +origin, but his inveterate self-sacrifice slipped in and counted, +naturally enough, under another guise, against her staying. + +He went to his room and wrote to Hilda at once, the kindest, +simplest of letters, but conveying a definitely negative note. He +would have been perhaps more guarded, but it was so plainly his +last word to her; Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the departure +of his people in ten days' time upon every blank wall. So he gave +himself a little latitude, he let in an undercurrent of gentle +reminiscence, of serious assurance as to the difference she had +made. And when he had finally bade her begone to the light and +fulness of her own life, and fastened up his letter, he +deliberately lifted it to his lips and placed a trembling, awkward +kiss upon it, like the kiss of an old man, perfunctory yet bearing +a tender intention. + +The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, the people from +Surrey having been sped upon their way to the Far East. Stephen +remembered with more than his usual relish an engagement to dine +that evening in Middleton Street. He involuntarily glanced at his +watch. It was half-past one. The afternoon looked arid, +stretching between. Consulting his tablets he found that he had +nothing that was really of any consequence to do. There were +items, but they were unimportant, transferable. He had dismissed +Hilda Howe, but a glow from the world she helped to illumine showed +seductively at the end of his day. He made an errand involving a +long walk, and came back at an hour which left nothing but evensong +between him and eight o'clock. + +He was suddenly aware as he talked to her later, of a keener edge +to his appreciation of the charm of Alicia Livingstone. Her +voyage, he assured her, had done her all the good in the world. +Her delicate bloom had certainly been enhanced by it, and the +graceful spring of her neck and her waist seemed to have its +counterpart in a freshened poise of the agreeable things she found +to say. It was delightful the way she declared herself quite a +different being, and the pleasure with which she moved, dragging +fascinating skirts behind her, about the room. She made more of an +impression upon him on the aesthetic side than she had ever done +before; she seemed more highly vitalised, her fineness had greater +relief, and her charm more freedom. Lindsay was there, and Arnold +glanced from one to the other of them, first with a start then with +a smile, at the recollection of Hilda's conception of their +relations. If this were a type and instance of hopeless love he +had certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea +in his mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a +pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in +his curious acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very +flower of emotional naivete, though a moment later he cast it from +him as a weed, grown in idleness; and indeed it might have abashed +him to say what concern it had in the mind of the Order of St. +Barnabas. It was gratifying, nevertheless, to have his observation +confirmed by the way in which Alicia leaned across him toward +Lindsay with occasional references to Laura Filbert, apparently +full of light-heartedness, references which Duff received in the +square-shouldered matter-of-course fashion of his countrymen +approaching their nuptials in any quarter of the globe. It was +gratifying, and yet it enhanced in Stephen this evening the +indrawing of his under-lip, a plaintive twist of expression which +spoke upon the faces of quite half the Order, of patience under +privation. + +The atmosphere was one of congratulation, the week's Gazette had +transformed Surgeon-Major Livingstone into Surgeon-Lieutenant- +Colonel. The officer thus promoted, in a particularly lustrous +shirt bosom, made a serious social effort to correspond, and +succeeded in producing more than one story of the Principal Medical +Officer with her Majesty's forces in India, which none of them had +heard before. They were all delighted at Herbert's step, he was +just the kind of person to get a step, and to get it rather +early; a sense of the propriety of it mingled with the general +gratification. There was a feeling of ease among them, too, of the +indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when the +surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no +strain imaginable one could see the relaxation. + +"We can't do much in celebration," Lindsay was saying, "but I've +got a box at the theatre, if you'll come. Our people had some +pomfret and oysters over on ice from Bombay this morning, and I've +sent my share to Bonsard to see what he can do with it for supper. +Jack Cummins and Lady Dolly are coming. By the way, what do you +think the totalizator paid Lady Dolly on Saturday--six thousand!" + +"Rippin'," Herbert agreed. "We'll all come--at least--I don't +know. What do you say, Arnold?" + +"Of course Stephen will come," Alicia urged. "Why not?" It was +putting him and his gown at once beyond the operation of vulgar +prejudice, intimating that they quite knew him for what he was. + +"What's the piece?" Herbert inquired. + +"Oh, the piece isn't up to much, I'm afraid, only that Hilda Howe +is worth seeing in almost anything." + +"Thanks," Stephen put in, "but I think, thanks very much, I would +rather not." + +"I remember," Alicia said, "you were with us the night she played +in The Offence of Galilee. I don't wonder that you do not wish to +disturb that impression." + +Stephen fixed his eyes upon a small pyramid of crystallised +cherries immediately in front of him, and appeared to consider, +austerely, what form his reply should take. There was an instant's +perceptible pause, and then he merely bowed toward Alicia as if +vaguely to acknowledge the kindness of her recollection. "I +think," he said again, "that I will not accompany you to-night, if +you will be good enough to excuse me." + +"You must excuse us both," Alicia said definitely, "I should much +rather stay at home and talk to Stephen." + +At this they all cried out, but Miss Livingstone would not change +her mind. "I haven't seen him for three weeks," she said, with +gentle effrontery, making nothing of his presence, "and he's much +more improving than either of you. I also shall choose the better +part." + +"How you can call it that, with Hilda in the balance--" Duff +protested. + +"But then you've invited Lady Dolly. After winning six thousand +there will be no holding Lady Dolly. She'll be capable of cat- +calls! How I should love," Alicia went on, "to have Hilda meet +her. She would be a mine to Hilda." + +"For pity's sake," cried her brother, "stop asking Hilda and people +who are a mine to Hilda! It's too perceptible, the way she digs in +them." + +"You dear old thing, you're quite clever to-night! What difference +does it make? They never know--they never dream! I wish I could +dig." Alicia looked pensively at the olive between her finger and +thumb. + +"Thank Heaven you can't," Duff said warmly. It was a little odd, +the personal note. Alicia's eyes remained upon the olive. + +"It's all she lives for." + +"Well," Duff declared, "I can imagine higher ends." + +"You're not abusing Hilda!" Alicia said, addressing the olive. + +"Not at all. Only vindicating you." + +It did single them out, this fencing. Herbert and Arnold sat as +spectators, pushed, in a manner, aside. + +"I suppose she will be off soon," Livingstone said. + +"Oh, dreadfully soon. On the fifteenth. I had a note from her to- +day." + +"Did she say she was going?" Stephen asked quickly. + +"She mentioned the Company--she is the Company surely." + +"Oh, undoubtedly. May I--might I ask for a little more soda-water, +Alicia?" He made the request so formally that she glanced at him +with surprise. + +"Please do--but isn't it very odious, by itself, that way? I +suppose we shouldn't leave out Hamilton Bradley--he certainly +counts." + +"For how much?" inquired her brother. "He's going to pieces." + +"Hilda can pull him together again," Lindsay said incautiously. + +"Has she an influence for good--over him?" Stephen inquired, and +cleared his throat. He caught a glance exchanged, and frowned. + +"Oh yes," Duff said, "I fancy it is for good. For good, certainly. +The odd part of it is that he began by having an influence over her +which she declares improved her acting. So that was for good, too, +as it turned out. I think she makes too much of him. To my mind +he speaks like a bit of consecrated stage tradition and looks like +a bit of consecrated stage furniture--he, and his thin nose, and +his thin lips, and his thin eyebrows. Personally, I'm sick of his +eyebrows." + +"They'll end by marrying," said Surgeon-Lieut.-Colonel Livingstone. + +"HERBERT! How little you know her!" + +"It's possible enough," Duff said, "especially if she finds him in +any way necessary to her production of herself. Hilda has knocked +about too much to have many illusions. One is pretty sure she +would place that first." + +"You are saying a thing which is monstrous!" cried Alicia. + +Unperturbed, her brother supported his conviction. "She'll have to +marry him to get rid of him," he said. "Fancy the opportunities of +worrying her the brute will have in those endless ocean voyages!" + +"Oh, if you think Hilda could be WORRIED into anything!" Miss +Livingstone exclaimed derisively. "If the man were irritating, do +you suppose she wouldn't arrange--wouldn't find means?--" + +"She would have him put in irons, no doubt," Herbert retorted, "or +locked up with the other sad dogs, in charge of the ship's +butcher." + +The three laughed immoderately, and Stephen, looking up, came in at +the end with a smile. Alicia pronounced her brother too absurd, +and unfitted by nature to know anything about creatures like Hilda +Howe. "A mere man to begin with," she said. "You haven't the +ghost of a temperament, Herbert; you know you haven't." + +"He got's a lovely bedside manner," Lindsay remarked, "and that's +the next thing to it." + +"Rubbish! I don't want to hurry you," Alicia glanced at the watch +on her wrist, "but unless you and Herbert want to miss half the +first act you had better be off. Stephen and I will have our +coffee comfortably in the drawing-room and find what excuses we can +for you." + +But Stephen put out his hand with a movement of slightly rigid +deprecation. + +"If it is not too vacillating of me," he said, "and I may be +forgiven, I think I will change my mind, and go. I have no +business to break up your party, and besides, I shall probably not +have another opportunity--I should rather like to go. To the +theatre, of course, that is. Not to Bonsard's, thanks very much." + +"Oh, do come on to Bonsard's," Lindsay said, and Alicia protested +that he would miss the best of Lady Dolly, but Stephen was firm. +Bonsard's was beyond the limit of his indulgence. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Only the Sphinx confronted them after all when they arrived at the +theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. The older feminine presentment +sent her belittling gaze over their heads and beyond them from the +curtain; Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from the +front of the box. Lady Dolly raised her eyes but not her elbows, +which were assisting her a good deal with the house in exploring +and being explored, enabling Colonel John Cummins, who sat by her +side, to observe how very perfect and adorable the cut of her +bodice was. Since Colonel Cummins was accustomed to say in moments +when his humour escaped his discretion, things highly appreciative +of bodices, the role of Lady Dolly's elbows could hardly be +dismissed as unimportant. Moreover, the husband attached to the +elbows belonged to the Department of which Colonel John was the +head, so that they rested, one may say, upon a very special plane. + +Alicia disturbed it with the necessity of taking Colonel Cummins +place, which Lady Dolly accepted with admirable spirit; assuring +the usurper, with the most engaging candour, that she simply ought +never to be seen without turquoises. "Believe it or not as you +like, but I love you better every time I see you in that necklace." +Lady Dolly clasped her hands, with her fan in them, in the +abandonment of her affection, and "love you better" floated back +and dispersed itself among the men. Alicia smiled the necessary +acknowledgment. All the women she knew made compliments to her; it +was a kind of cult among them. The men had sometimes an air of +envying their freedom of tongue. "Don't say that," she returned +lightly, "or Herbert will never give me any diamonds." She too +looked her approval of Lady Dolly's bodice, but said nothing. It +was doubtless precisely because she disdained certain forms of +feminine barter that she got so much for nothing. + +"And where," demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric whisper, "did you +find that dear sweet little priest? Do introduce him to me--at +least by and by, when I've thought of something to say. Let me +see, wasn't it Good Friday last week? I'll ask him if he had hot- +cross buns--or do people eat those on Boxing Day? Pancakes come in +somewhere, if one could only be sure!" + +Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. His senses were +filled for the moment by its other occupants, the men in the fresh +correctness of their evening dress, whose least gesture seemed to +spring from an indefinite fulness of life, the two women in front, +a kind of lustrous tableau of what it was possible to choose and to +enjoy. They were grouped and shut off in a high light which seemed +to proceed partly from the usual sources and partly from their own +personalities; he saw them in a way which underlined their +significance at every point. It seemed to Stephen that in a manner +he profaned this temple of what he held to be poorest and cheapest +in life, a paradox of which he was but dimly aware in his +dejection. A sharp impression of his physical inferiority to the +other men assailed him; his appreciation of their muscular +shoulders had a rasp in it. For once the poverty of spirit to +which he held failed to offer him a refuge, his eye wandered +restlessly as if attempting futile reconciliations, and the thing +most present with him was the worn-all-day feeling about the neck +of his cassock. He fixed his attention presently in a climax of +passive discomfort on the curtain, where unconsciously, his gaze +crept with a subtle interrogation in it to the wide eyeballs of the +Sphinx. + +The stalls gradually filled, although it was a second production, +in the middle of the week, and although the gallery and the rupee +seats under it were nearly empty. The piece accounted for both. +When Duff Lindsay said at dinner that it wasn't "up to much," he +spoke, I fancy, from the nearest point of view he could take to +that of the Order of St. Barnabas. As a matter of fact, The Victim +of Virtue was up to a very great deal, but its points were so +delicate that one must have been educated rather broadly to grasp +them, which is again perhaps a foolish contrariety of terms. At +all events they carried no appeal to the theatre-goers from the +sailing ships in the river or the regiments in the fort, who turned +as one than that night to Jimmy Finnigan. + +Stephen was aware, in the abstract, of what he might expect. He +savoured the enterprises of the London theatres weekly in the +Saturday Review; he had cast a remotely observing eye upon the +productions of this particular playwright through that medium for a +long time. They formed a manifestation of the outer world fit +enough to draw a glance of speculation from the inner; their author +was an acrobat of ideas. Doubtless we are all clowns in the eyes +of the angels, yet we have the habit of supposing that they +sometimes look down upon us. It was thus, if the parallel is not +exaggerated, that Arnold regarded the author of The Victim of +Virtue. His attitude was quite taken before the orchestra ceased +playing; it was made of negation rather than criticism, on the +basis that he had no concern with, and no knowledge of, such +things. Deliberately he gave his mind a surface which should shed +promiscuous invitation, and folded his lips as it were, against the +rising of the curtain. He thought of Hilda separately, and he +looked for her upon the boards with the simplicity of a desire to +see the woman he knew. + +When finally he did see her she made before him a picture that was +to remain with him always as his last impression of an art from +which in all its manifestations on that night he definitely turned. +From the aigrette in her hair to the paste buckle on her shoe she +was mondaine. Her dress, of some indefinite, slight white +material, clasped at the waist with a belt that gave the beam of +turquoises and the gleam of silver, ministered as much to the +capricious ideal of the moment as to the lines and curves of the +person it adorned. The set was the inevitable modern drawing-room, +and she sat well out on a sofa, with her hands, in long black +gloves, resting stiffly, palm downward on each side of her. It was +as if she pushed her body forward in an impulse to rise, her rigid +arms thrust her shoulders up a little and accentuated the swell of +her bosom. It was a vivid, a staccato attitude; it expressed a +temperament, a character, fifty other things; but especially it +epitomised the restraints and the licenses of a world of drawing- +rooms. In that first brief mute instant of disclosure she was all +that she presently, by voice and movement, proclaimed herself to +be--so dazzling and complete that Stephen literally blinked at the +revelation. He made an effort, for a moment or two, to pursue and +detect the woman who had been his friend; then the purpose of his +coming gradually faded from his mind, and he stood with folded arms +and absorbed eyes watching the other, the Mrs. Halliday, on the +sofa, setting about the fulfilment of a purple destiny. + +The play proceeded and Stephen did not move--did not wince. When +Mrs. Halliday, whose mate was exacting, exclaimed, "The greatest +apostle of expediency was St. Paul. He preached 'wives love your +husbands,'" he even permitted himself the ghost of a smile. At one +point he wished himself familiar with the plot; it was when +Hamilton Bradley came jauntily on as Lord Ingleton, assuring Mrs. +Halliday that immorality was really only shortsightedness. Lady +Dolly in front, repeated Lord Ingleton's phrase with ingenuous +wonder. "I know it's clever," she insisted, "but what does it +mean? Now that other thing--what was it?--'Subtract vice, and +virtue is what is left'--that's an easy one. Write it down on your +cuff for me, will you, Colonel Cummins? I SHALL be so sick if I +forget it." + +Stephen was perhaps the only person in the box quite oblivious of +Lady Dolly. He looked steadily over her animated shoulders at the +play, wholly involved in an effort to keep its current and +direction through the floating debris of constrained sayings with +which it was encumbered; to know in advance whither it was carrying +its Mrs. Halliday, and how far Lord Ingleton would accompany. When +Lord Ingleton paused as it were to beg four people to "have nothing +to do with sentiment--it so often leads to conviction," and the +house murmured its amusement, Arnold shifted his shoulders +impatiently. "How inconsistent," Lord Ingleton reproached Mrs. +Halliday a moment later, "to wear gloves on your hands and let your +thoughts go candid." Arnold turned to Duff. "There's no excuse +for that," he said, but Lindsay was hanging upon Hilda's rejoinder +and did not hear him. + +At the end of the first act, where, after introducing Mrs. Halliday +to her husband's divorced first wife, Lord Ingleton is left rubbing +his hands with gratification at having made two such clever women +"aware of each other," Stephen found himself absolutely unwilling +to discuss the piece with the rest of the party. As he left the +box to walk up and down the corridor outside where it was cooler, +he heard the voice of Colonel Cummins lifted in further quotation, +"'To be good AND charming--what a sinful superfluity!' I'm sure +nobody ever called you superfluous, Lady Dolly," and was vividly +aware of the advisability of taking himself and his Order out of +the theatre. He had not been gratified, or even from any point +appealed to. Hilda's production of Mrs. Halliday was so perfect +that it failed absolutely to touch him, almost to interest him. He +had no means of measuring or of valuing that kind of woman, the +restless brilliant type that lives upon its emotions and tilts at +the problems of its sex with a curious comfort in the joust. He +was too far from the circle of her modern influence to consider her +with anything but impatience if he had met her original person, and +her reflection, her reproduction seemed to him frivolous and +meaningless. If he went then, however, he would go as he came, in +so far as the play was concerned; the first act, relying altogether +upon the jugglery of its dialogue, gave no clue to anything. He +owed it to Hilda after all to see the piece out. It was only fair +to give her a chance to make the best of it. He decided that it +was worth a personal sacrifice to give it her, and went back. + +He was sufficiently indignant with the leading idea of the play, +and sufficiently absorbed in its progress, at the end of the second +act, to permit Lady Dolly to capture him before it occurred to him +that he had the use of his legs. Her enthusiasm was so great that +it reduced him to something like equivocation. She wanted to know +if anything could be more splendid than Mr. Bradley as Lord +Ingleton; she confided to Stephen that that was what she called +REAL wickedness, the kind that did the most harm, and invited him +by inference, to a liberal judgment of stupid sinners. He sat +emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes nervously fugitive +from Lady Dolly's too proximate opulence until the third act began. +Then he gave place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel Cummins, +and folded his arms again at the back of the box. + +Before it was finished he had the gratification of recognising +at least one Hilda that he knew. The newspapers found in her +interpretation the development of a soul, and one remembered, +reading them, that a cliche is a valuable thing in a hurry. A +phrase which spoke of a soul bruised out of life and rushing to +annihilation would have been more precise. The demand upon her +increased steadily as the act went on, and as she met it there +slipped into her acting some of her own potentialities of motive +and of passion. She offered to the shaping circumstance rich +material and abundant plasticity, and when the persecution of her +destiny required her to throw herself irretrievably away she did it +with a splendid appreciation of large and definite movement that +was essentially of herself. + +The moment of it had a bold gruesomeness that caught the breath--a +disinterment on the stage in search of letters that would prove the +charge against the second year of Mrs. Halliday's married life, her +letters buried with the poet. It was an advantage which only the +husband of Mrs. Halliday would have claimed to bring so helpless a +respondent before even the informal court at the graveyard; but it +gave Hilda a magnificent opportunity of wild, mad apostrophe to the +skull, holding it tenderly with both hands, while Lord Ingleton +smiled appreciatively in advance of the practical benevolence which +was to sustain the lady through the divorce court, and in the final +scene offer to her and to the prejudices of the British public the +respectability of his name. + +It was over with a rush at the end, leaving the audience uncertain +whether after all enough attention had been paid to that tradition +of the footlights which insists on so nice a sense of opprobrium +and compensation, but convinced of its desire to applaud. Duff +Lindsay turned as the wave of clapping spent itself, to say to +Stephen that he had never respected Hamilton Bradley's acting so +much. He said it to Herbert Livingstone instead; the priest had +disappeared. + +The outgoers looked at Arnold curiously as he made his way among +them in a direction which was not that of the exit. He went with +hurried purpose in the face of them all toward the region, badly +lighted and imperfectly closed, which led to the rear of the stage. +He opened doors into dark closets, and one which gave upon the +road, retraced his unfamiliar steps and asked a question, to which-- +it was so unusual from one in his habit--he received a hesitating +but correct reply. A moment later he passed Mr. Llewellyn +Stanhope, who stood in his path with a hostile stare, and got out +of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a door upon which was +pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a poster, of Miss +Hilda Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when she cried +"Come in!" with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single chair +the place contained, in the dress and make-up of the last scene. A +servant, who looked up incuriously, was unlacing her shoes. +Various garments hung about on nails driven into the unpainted +walls, others overflowed from a packing-box in one corner. A +common teakwood dressing-table held make up saucers and powder- +puffs and some remnants of cold fowl which had not been partaken +of, apparently, with the assistance of a knife and fork. A candle +stood in an empty soda-water bottle on each side of the looking- +glass, and there was no other light. On the floor a pair of stays, +old and soiled, sprawled with unconcern. The place looked sordid +and miserable, and Hilda sitting in the middle of it, still in the +yellow wig and painted face of Mrs. Halliday, all wrong at that +range, gave it a note of false artifice, violent and grievous. +Stephen stood in the doorway grasping the handle, saying nothing, +and an instant passed before she knew with certainty, in the +wretched light, that it was he. Then she sprang up and made a step +toward him as if toward victory and reward, but checked herself in +time. "Is it possible!" she exclaimed. "I did not know you were +in the theatre." + +"Yes," he said, with moderation, "I have seen this--this damnable +play." + +"Damnable? Oh!--" + +"It has caused me," he went on, "to regret the substance of my +letter this morning. I failed to realise that this was the kind of +work you devote your life to. I now see that you could not escape +its malign influence--that no women could. I now think that the +alternative that has been revealed to you, of remaining in +Calcutta, is a chance of escape offered you by God Himself. Take +it. I withdraw my foolish, ignorant opposition." + +"Oh," she cried, "do you really think--" + +"Take it," he repeated, and closed the door. + +Hilda sat still for some time after the servant had finished +unlacing her shoes. A little tender smile played oddly about her +carmined lips. "Dear heart," she said aloud, "I was going to." + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +"I would simply give anything to be there," Miss Livingstone said, +with a look of sincere desire. + +"I should love to have you, but it isn't possible. You might meet +men you knew who had been invited by particular lady friends among +the company." + +"Oh, well, that of course would be odious." + +"Very, I should think," Hilda agreed. "You must be satisfied with +a faithful report of it. I promise you that." + +"You have asked Mr. Lindsay," Alicia complained. + +"That's quite a different thing. And if I hadn't, Llewellyn +Stanhope would; Stanhope cherishes Duff as he cherishes the critic +of the Chronicle. He refers to him as a pillar of the legitimate. +Whenever he begs me to turn the Norwegian crank, he says, 'I'm sure +Mr. Lindsay would come.'" + +Miss Howe was at the top of the staircase in Middleton Street, on +the point of departure. It was to be the night of her last +appearance for the season and her benefit, followed by a supper in +her honour, at which Mr. Stanhope and his company would take leave +of those whose acquaintance, as he expressed it, business and +pleasure had given them during the months that were past. It was +this function that Alicia, at the top of the staircase, so ardently +desired to attend. + +"No, I won't kiss you," Hilda said, as the other put her cool cheek +forward; "I'm so divinely happy--some of it might escape." + +Alicia's voice pursued her as she ran downstairs. "Remember," she +said, "I don't approve. I don't at all agree either with my +reverend cousin or with you. I think you ought to find some other +way, or let it go. Go home instead; go straight to London and +insist on your chance. After six weeks you will have forgotten the +name of his Order." + +Hilda looked back with a smile. Her face was splendid with the +dawn and the promise of success. "Don't say that," she cried. + +Alicia, leaning down, was visited by a flash of quotation. "Well," +she said, "nothing in this life becomes you like the leaving of +it," and went back to her room to write to Laura Filbert in +Plymouth. She wrote often to Miss Filbert, at Duff's request. It +gratified her that she was able, without a pang, to address four +pages of pleasantly colourless communication to Mr. Lindsay's +fiancee. Her letters stood for a medicine surprisingly easy to +take, aimed at the convalescence which she already anticipated in +the future immediately beyond Duff's miserable marriage. If that +event had promised felicitously she would have faced it, one +fancies, with less sanguine anticipations for herself: but the +black disaster that rode on with it brought her certain aids to the +spirit, certain hopes of herself. Laura's prompt replies, with +their terrible margins and painstaking solecisms, came to be things +Miss Livingstone looked forward to. She read them with a beating +heart, however, in the unconscious apprehension of some revelation +of improvement. She was quite unaware of it, but she entertained +towards the Simpsons an attitude of misgiving in this regard. + +Hilda went on about her business. As usual her business was +important and imperative; nothing was lightened for her this last +day. She drove about from place to place in the hot, slatternly +city, putting more than her usual vigour and directness into all +she did. It seemed to her that the sunlight burning on the tiles, +pouring through the crowded streets, had more than ever a vivid +note; and so much spoke to her, came to her, from the profuse and +ingenuous life which streamed about her, that she leaned a little +forward to meet it with happy eyes and tender lips that said, "I +know. I see." She was living for the moment which should exhale +itself somewhere about midnight after the lights had gone out on +her last appearance--living for it as a Carmelite might live for +the climax of her veil and her vows if it were conceivable that +beyond the cell and the grating she saw the movement and the colour +and the passion of a wider life. All Hilda's splendid vitality +went into her intention, of which she was altogether mistress, +riding it and reining it in a straight course through the +encumbered hours. It keyed her to a finer and more eager +susceptibility; and the things she saw stayed with her, passing +into a composite day which the years were hardly to dim for her. + +She could live like that, for the purposes of a period, wrought up +to immense keenness of sense and brilliancy of energy, making +steadily for some point of feeling or achievement flashing +gloriously on the horizon. It is already plain, perhaps, that she +rejoiced in such strokes, and that life as she found it worth +living was marked by a succession of them. + +She had kept, even from Lindsay, what she meant to do. When she +stepped from his brougham, flushed after the indubitable triumph of +the evening, with her arms full of real bouquets from Chatterjee's-- +no eight-anna bazar confections edged with silver tinsel--it +occurred to her that this reticence was not altogether fair to so +constant a friend. He was there, keen and eager as ever in all +that concerned her, foremost with his congratulations on the +smiling fringe of the party assembled to do her honour. It was a +party of some brilliance in its way, though its way was diverse; +there was no steady glow. Fillimore said of the company that it +comprised all the talent, and Fillimore, Editor of the Indian +Sportsman and Racing Gazelle, was a judge. He said it to Hagge, of +the Bank of Hindostan, who could hardly have been an owner on three +hundred rupees a month without conspicuous ability disconnected +with his ledgers; and Hagge looked gratified. Though so promising, +he was young. Lord Bobby was there from Government House. Lord +Bobby always accompanied the talent, who were very kind to him. He +was talking when Hilda arrived to the Editor of the Indian Empire, +who wanted to find out the date of her Excellency's fancy dress +party for children, in order that he might make a leaderette of it; +but Lord Bobby couldn't remember--had to promise to drop him a +line. Gianacchi was there, trying to treat Fillimore with coldness +because the Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his +Musquito, exalted her indeed into a favourite for Saturday's hurdle +race, a notability for which Gianacchi felt himself too modest. +"They say," Fillimore had written, "that Musquito has been seen +jumping by moonlight"--the sort of thing to spoil any book. +Fillimore was an acute and weary-looking little man, with a +peculiarly sweet smile and an air of cynicism which gave to his +lightest word a dangerous and suspicious air. It was rumoured in +official circles that he had narrowly escaped beheading for +pointing out too ironically the disabilities of a Viceroy who +insisted on reviewing the troops from a cushioned carriage with the +horses taken out. Fillimore seemed to think that if nature had not +made such a nobleman a horseman, the Queen-Empress should not have +made him Governor-General of India. Fillimore was full of +prejudices. Gianacchi, however, found it impossible to treat him +coldly. His smoothness of temperament stood in the way. Instead, +he imparted the melodious information that Musquito had pecked +badly twice at Tollygunge that morning, and smiled with pathetic +philosophy. "Always let 'em use their noses," said Fillimore, and +there seemed to be satire in it. Fillimore certainly had a flair, +and when Beryl Stace presently demanded of him, "What's the dead +bird going to be on Saturday, Filly?" he put it generously at her +service. Among the friends of Mr. Stanhope and his company were +also several gentlemen, content, for their personal effect, with +the lustre they shed upon the Stock Exchange--gentlemen of high +finance, who wrote their names at the end of directors' reports, +but never in the visitors' book at Government House, who were +little more to the Calcutta world than published receipts for so +many lakhs, except when they were seen now and then driving, in +fleet dogcarts across the Maidan toward comfortable suburban +residences where ladies were not entertained. They were extremely, +curiously, devoted to business; but if they allowed themselves any +amusement other than company promoting, it was the theatre, of +which their appreciation had sometimes an odd relation to the +merits of performance. This supper, on the part of Miss Beryl +Stace and one or two others of Mr. Stanhope's artistes, might have +been considered a return of hospitality to these gentlemen, since +the suburban residences stood lavishly open to the profession. + +Altogether, perhaps, there were fifty people, and an eye that +looked for the sentiment, the pity of things, would have +distinguished at once on about half the faces, especially those of +the women, the used, underlined look that spoke of the continual +play of muscle and forcing of feeling. It gave them a shabbily +complicated air, contrasting in a strained and sorry way even, with +the countenances of the brokers and bankers, where nature had laid +on a smooth wash and experience had not interfered. They were all +gay and enthusiastic as Miss Howe entered, they loafed forward, +broad shirt-fronts lustrous, fat hands in financial pockets, with +their admiration, and Fillimore put out his cigarette. Hilda came +down among them from the summit of her achievement, clasping their +various hands. They were all personally responsible for her +success, she made them feel that, and they expanded in the +conviction. She moved in a kind of tide of infectious vitality, +subtly drawing from every human flavour in the room the power to +hold and show something akin to it in herself, a fugitive +assimilation floating in the lamplight with the odour of the +flowers and the soup, to be extinguished with the occasion. They +looked at her up and down the table with an odd smiling attraction, +they told each other that she was in great form. Mr. Fillimore was +of the opinion that she couldn't be outclassed at the Lyceum, and +Mr. Hagge responded with vivacity that there were few places where +she wouldn't stretch the winner's neck. The feast was not after +all one of great bounty, Mr. Stanhope justly holding that the +opportunity, the little gathering, was the thing, and it was not +long before the moment of celebration arrived for which the +gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, to judge from their undrained +glasses, seemed to be reserving themselves. There certainly had +been one tin of pate, and it circulated at that end; on the other +hand the ladies had all the fondants. So that when Mr. Llewellyn +Stanhope rose with the sentiment of the evening he found +satisfaction, if not repletion, in the regards turned upon him. + +Llewellyn got up with modest importance, and ran a hand through his +yellow hair, not dramatically, but with the effect of collecting +his ideas. He leaned a little forward, he was extremely, happily +conspicuous. The attention of the two lines of faces seemed to +overcome him, for an instant, with dizzy pleasure; Hilda's beside +him was bent a little, waiting. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Stanhope, looking with precision +up and down the table to be still more inclusive, "we have met +together to-night in honour of a lady who has given this city more +pleasure in the exercise of her profession than can be said of any +single performer during the last twenty years. Cast your eye back +over the theatrical record of Calcutta for that space of time, and +you yourselves will admit that there has been nobody that could be +said to have come within a mile of her shadow, if I may use the +language of metaphor." (Applause, led by Mr. Fillimore.) "I would +ask you to remember, at the same time, that this pleasure has been +of a superior class. I freely admit that this is a great +satisfaction to me personally. Far be it from me to put myself +forward on this auspicious occasion, but, ladies and gentlemen, if +I have one ambition more than another, it is to promote the noble +cause of the unfettered drama. To this I may say I have been vowed +from the cradle, by a sire who was well-known in the early days of +the metropolis of Sydney as a pioneer of the great movement which +has made the dramatic talent of Australia what it is. To-day a +magnificent theatre rises on the site forever consecrated to me by +those paternal labours, but--but I can never forget it. In Miss +Hilda Howe I have found a great coadjutor, and one who is willing +to consecrate her royal abilities in the same line as myself, so +that we have been able to maintain a high standard of production +among you, prices remaining as usual. I have to thank you, as +representing the public of the Indian capital, for the kind support +which has been so encouraging to Miss Howe, the Company, and myself +personally, during the past season. Many a time ladies and +gentlemen of my profession have said to me, 'Mr. Stahhope, why do +you go to Calcutta? That city is a death-trap for professionals,' +and now the past season proves that I was right and they were +wrong; and the magnificent houses, the enthusiasm, and the +appreciation that have greeted our efforts, especially on the +Saturday evening performances, show plainly enough that when a good +thing is available the citizens of Calcutta won't be happy till +they get it. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to join me in +drinking the health, happiness, and prosperity of Miss Hilda Howe!" + +"Miss Howe!" "Miss Howe!" "Miss Hilda Howe!" In the midst of a +pushing back of chairs and a movement of feet, the response was +quick and universal. Hilda accepted their nods and becks and +waving glasses with a slow movement of her beautiful eyes and a +quiet smile, in the subsidence of sound Mr. Stanhope's voice was +heard again, "We can hardly expect a speech from Miss Howe, but +perhaps Mr. Hamilton Bradley, whose international reputation need +hardly be referred to, will kindly say a few words on her behalf." + +Then with deliberate grace, Hilda rose from her chair, a tall +figure among them, looking down with a hint of compassionateness on +the little man at her left. She stood for an instant without +speaking, as if the flushed silence, the expectation, the warm +magnetism that drew all their eyes to her were enough. Then out of +something like reverie she came to the matter, she threw up her +beautiful face with one of the supreme gestures which belonged to +her. "I think," she said, with a little smiling bow in his +direction, "that I will not trouble my friend Mr. Bradley. He has +rendered me so many kind services already that I am sure I might +count upon him again, but this is a thing I should like to do for +myself. I would not have my thanks chilled by even the passage +from my heart to his." There was something like bravado in the +glance that rested lightly on Bradley with this. One would have +said that parley of hearts between them was not a thing that as a +rule she courted. "I can only offer you my thanks, poor things to +which we can give neither life nor substance, yet I beg that you +will somehow take them and remember them. It is to me, and will +always be, a kind of crowning satisfaction that you were pleased to +come together to-night to tell me I had done well. You know +yourselves, and I know, how much too flattering your kindness is, +but perhaps it will hurt nobody if to-night I take it as it is +generously offered, and let it make me as happy as you intend me to +be. At all events, no one could disturb me in believing that in +obtaining your praise and your good wishes I have done well +enough." + +For a few seconds she stopped speaking, but she held them with her +eyes from the mistake of supposing she had done. Lindsay, who was +watching her closely and hanging with keen pleasure on the +sweetness and precision of what she found to say, noted a swift +constriction pass upon her face. There was a half-tone of +difference, too, in her voice, when she raised it again, a firmer +vibration, as if she passed, deliberate and aware, out of one phase +into another. + +"No," she went on, "I am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel +that I should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to- +night, and go on talking far past your patience or my wit. For I +cannot think it likely that our ways will cross again." Here her +words grew suddenly low and hurried. "If I may trespass upon your +interest so much further, I have to tell you that my connection +with the stage closes with this evening's performance. To-morrow I +join the Anglican Order of the Sisters of St. Paul--the Baker +Institution--in Calcutta, as a novice. They have taken me without +much question because--because the plague hospitals of this +cheerful country"--she contrived a smile--"have made a great demand +upon their body. That is all. I have nothing more to say." + +It was, after all, ineffective, the denouement, or perhaps it was +too effective. In any case it was received in silence, the +applause that was ready falling back on itself, inconsistent and +absurd. The incredulity of Llewellyn Stanhope might have been +electric had it found words, but that gentleman's protests were +made in violent whispers, to which Hilda, who sat playing with a +faded rose, seemed to pay no attention whatever. One might have +thought her more overcome than anyone. She seemed to make one or +two unsuccessful efforts to raise her head. There was a moment of +waiting for someone to reply; eyes were turned towards Mr. Bradley, +and when it became plain that no one would, broken murmurs of talk +began with a note of deprecation and many shakes of the head. The +women, especially, looked tragically at their neighbours with very +wide-open eyes. Presently a chair was drawn back, and then +another, and people began to filter, in slow embarrassment, towards +the door. Lindsay came with Hilda's cloak. "You won't mind my +coming with you," he said, "I should like to hear the details." +Beryl Stace made as if to embrace her, pouring out abusive +disbelief, but Hilda waved her away with a gesture almost of +irritation. Some of the others said a perfunctory word or two, and +went away with lingering backward looks. In a quarter of an hour, +Mr. Lindsay's brougham had followed the other vehicles into the +lamp-lit ways of Calcutta, and only the native table-servants +remained in somewhat resentful possession of what was left. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +If Duff Lindsay had apprehended that the reception of Miss Filbert +by the Simpsons would involve any strain upon the affection his +friends bore him, the event must have relieved him in no small +degree. He was soon made aware of its happy character, and +constantly kept assured; indeed, it seemed that whenever Mrs. +Simpson had nothing else to do she laid her pen to the task of +telling him once again how cherished a satisfaction they found in +Laura, and how reluctant they would be to lose it. She wrote in +that strain of facile sympathy which seems part of an Englishwoman's +education, and often begged him to believe that the more she knew +of their sweet and heavenly-minded guest the more keenly she +realised how dreary for him must have been the pang of parting and +how arid the months of separation. Mrs. Simpson herself was well +acquainted with these trials of the spirit. She and her husband +had been divided by those wretched thousands of miles of ocean for +three years one week and five days all told during their married +life: she knew what it meant. But if Duff could only see how well +and blooming his beloved one was--she had gained twelve pounds +already--Mrs. Simpson was sure the time of waiting would pass less +heavily. For herself, it was cruel but she smiled upon the +deferred reunion of hearts, she would keep Laura till the very last +day, and hoped to establish a permanent claim on her. She was just +the daughter Mrs. Simpson would have liked, so unspotted, so pure, +so wrapped in high ideals; and then the page would reflect +something of the adoring awe in which Mrs. Simpson would have held +such a daughter. It will be seen that Mrs. Simpson knew how to +express herself, but there was a fine sincerity behind the mask of +words; Miss Filbert had entered very completely into possession. + +It had its abnormal side, the way she entered into possession. +Everything about Laura Filbert had its abnormal side, none the less +obvious because it was inward, and invisible. Nature, of course, +worked with her, one might say that nature really did it all, since +in the end she was practically unconscious, except for the hope +that certain souls had been saved, that anything of the sort had +happened. She conquered the Simpsons and their friends chiefly by +the simple impossibility that they should conquer her, walking +immobile among them even while she admired Mr. Simpson's +cauliflowers and approved the quality of Mrs. Simpson's house +linen. It must be confessed that nothing in her surroundings spoke +to her more loudly or more subtly than these things. In view of +what happened, poor dear Alicia Livingstone's anticipation that the +Simpsons and their circle would have a radical personal effect upon +Laura Filbert became ludicrous. They had no effect at all. She +took no tint, no curve. She appeared not to see that these +precious things were to be had for the assimilation. Her grace +remained exclusively that of holiness, and continued to fail to +have any relation to the common little things she did and said. + +The Simpsons were more plastic. Laura had been with them hardly a +week before Mrs. Simpson, with touching humility, was trying to +remodel her spiritual nature upon the form so fortuitously, if the +word is admissible, presented. The dear lady had never before +realised, by her own statement, how terribly her religious feelings +were mingled with domestic and social considerations, how firmly +her spiritual edifice was based upon the things of this world. She +felt that her soul was honeycombed--that was her word--with +conventionality and false standards, and she made confessions like +these to Laura, sitting in the girl's bedroom in the twilight. +They were very soothing, these confessions. Laura would take Mrs. +Simpson's thin, veined, middle-aged hand in hers and seem to charge +herself for the moment with the responsibility of the elder lady's +case. She did not attempt to conceal her pity or even her contempt +for Mrs. Simpson's state of grace, she made short work of special +services and ladies' Bible classes. The world was white with +harvest, and Mrs. Simpson's chief activity was a recreation society +for shop girls. But it was something, it was everything, to be +uneasy, to be unsatisfied, and they would uplift themselves in +prayer, and Laura would find words of such touching supplication in +which to represent the matter that the burden of her friend and +hostess would at once be lessened by the weight of tears. Mrs. +Simpson had never wept so much without perceived cause for grief as +since Laura arrived, and this alone would testify, such was the +gentle paradox of her temperament, how much she enjoyed Miss +Filbert's presence. + +Laura's room was a temple, for which the gardener daily gave up his +choicest blooms, the tenderest interest watched upon her comings +and goings, and it was the joy of both the Simpsons to make little +sacrifices for her, to desert their beloved vicar on a Sunday +evening, for instance, and accompany her to the firemen's halls and +skating rinks lent to the publishing of the Word in the only manner +from which their guest seemed to derive benefit. With all this, +the Simpsons were sometimes troubled by the impression that they +could not claim to be making their angel in the house completely +happy. The air, the garden, the victoria, the turbot and the +whitebait, these were all that has been vaunted, and even to the +modesty of the Simpsons it was evident that the intimacy they +offered their guest should count for something. There were other +friends too, young friends who tried to teach her to play tennis, +robust and silent young persons who threw shy flushed glances at +her in the pauses of the games, and wished supremely, without +daring to hint it, that she would let fall some word about her +wonderful romance--a hope ever renewed, ever to be disappointed. +And physically Laura expanded before their eyes. The colour that +came into her cheek gave her the look of a person painted by +Bouguereau; that artist would have found in her a model whom he +could have represented with sincerity. Yet something was missing +to her, her friends were dimly aware. Her desirable surroundings +kindled her to but a perfunctory interest in life--the electric +spark was absent. Mrs. Simpson relied strategically upon the +wedding preparations and hurried them on, announcing in May that it +was quite time to think about various garments of which the fashion +is permanent, but the issue was blank. No ripple stirred the +placid waters, unless indeed we take that way of describing Laura's +calm demand, when the decision lay between Valenciennes and Torchon +lace for under-bodies, to hear whether Mrs. Simpson had ever known +Duff Lindsay to be anxious about his eternal future. The girl +continued to give forth a mere pale reflection of her circumstances, +and Mrs. Simpson was forced into the deprecation that perhaps one +would hardly call her a joyous Christian. + +But for the Zenana Light Society this impression of Miss Filbert +might have deepened. The committee of that body was almost +entirely composed of Mrs. Simpson's friends, and naturally came to +learn much about her guest. The matter was vastly considered, but +finally Miss Filbert was asked to speak at one of the monthly +meetings the ladies held among themselves to keep the society "in +touch" with the cause. Laura brought them, as one would imagine, +surprisingly in touch. She made pictures for them, letting her own +eyelashes close deliberately while they stared. She moved these +ladies, inspired them, carried them away, and the fact that none of +them found themselves able afterward to quote the most pathetic +passages seemed rather to add to the enthusiasm with which they +described the address. The first result was a shower of +invitations to tea, occasions when Laura was easily led into +monologue. Miss Filbert became a cult of evangelistic drawing- +rooms, and the same kind of forbearance was extended to her little +traces of earlier social experiences as is offered, in salons of +another sort, to the eccentricities of persons of genius. Very +soon other applications had to be met and considered, and Mrs. +Simpson freely admitted that Laura would not be justified in +refusing to the Methodists and Baptists what she had given +elsewhere. She reasserted her platform influence over audiences +that grew constantly larger, and her world began to revolve again +in that great relation to the infinities which it was her life to +perceive and point out. Mrs. Simpson charged her genially with +having been miserable in Plymouth until she was allowed to do good +in her own way, and saw that she had beef-tea after every occasion +of doing it. She became in a way a public character, and a lady +journalist sent an account of her, with a photograph, to a well- +known London fashion paper. Perhaps the strongest effect she made +was as the voice of the Purity Association, when she delivered an +address, in the picturesque costume she had abandoned, attacking +measures contemplated by Government for the protection of the +health of the Army in India. This was reported in full in the +local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to Duff Lindsay, who +received it, I regret to say, with an unmistakable imprecation. +But Laura rejoiced. Deprived of her tambourine she nevertheless +rejoiced exceedingly. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The Mother Superior had a long upper lip, which she was in the +habit of drawing still further down; it gave her an air of great +diplomatic caution, almost of casuistry. Her face was pale and +narrow; she had eyes that desired to be very penetrating, and a +flat little stooping figure within her voluminous draperies. She +carried about with her all the virtues of a monastic order, +patience was written upon her, and repression, discipline, and the +love of administration, written and underlined, so that the +Anglican Sister whom no Pope blessed was more priestly in her +personal effect than any Jesuit. It was difficult to remember that +she had begun as a woman; she was now a somewhat anaemic formula +making for righteousness. Sister Ann Frances, who in her turn +suggested the fat capons of an age of friars more indulgent to the +flesh, and whose speech was of the crispest in this world where +there was so much to do, thought poorly of the executive ability of +the Mother Superior, and resented the imposition, as it were, of +the long upper lip. Out of this arose the only irritations that +vexed the energetic flow of duty at the Baker Institution, slight +official raspings which the Mother Superior immediately laid before +Heaven at great length. She did it with publicity, too, kneeling +on the chunam floor of the chapel for an hour at a time obviously +explaining matters. The bureaucracy of the country was reflected +in the Baker Institution; it seemed to Sister Ann Frances that her +superior officer took undue advantage of her privilege of direct +communication with the Supreme Authority, giving any colour she +liked to the incident. And when the Mother Superior's lumbago came +on in direct consequence of the cold chunam, the annoyance of +Sister Ann Frances was naturally not lessened. + +There were twenty or thirty of them, with their little white caps +tied close under their chins, their long veils and their girdled +black robes. They were the most self-sacrificing women in Asia, +the most devout, the most useful. Government gave hospitals and +doctors into their hands; they took the whole charge of certain +schools. They differed in complexion, some of the newly arrived +being delightfully fresh and pink under their starched bandeaux; +but they were all official, they all walked discreetly and directly +about their business, with a jangle of keys in the folds of their +robes, immensely organised, immensely under orders. Hilda, when +she had time, had the keenest satisfaction in contemplating them. +She took the edge off the fact that she was not quite one, in aim +and method, with these dear women as they supposed her to be, with +the reflection that after all it might be worth while to work out a +solution of life in those terms, standing aside from the world--the +world was troublesome--and keeping an unfaltering eye upon the pity +of things, an unfaltering hand at its assuagement. It was simple +and fine and indisputable, this work of throwing the clear shadow +of the Cross upon the muddy sunlight of the world; it carried the +boon of finality in itself. One might be stopped and put away at +any moment, and nothing would be spoiled, broken, unfinished; and +it absolutely barred out such considerations as were presented by +Hamilton Bradley. There was a time early in her probation when she +thought seriously that if it were not Stephen Arnold it should be +this. + +She begged to be put on hospital work, and was sent for her +indiscretion to teach in the Orphanage for Female Children of +British Troops. The first duty of a novice was to be free of +preference, to obey without a sigh of choice. On the third day, +however, Sister Ann Frances, supervising, stopped at the open +schoolroom door to hear the junior female orphans repeating in +happy chorus after their instructress the statement that seven +times nine were fifty-six. I think Hilda saw Sister Ann Frances in +the door. That couldn't go on, even in the name of discipline, and +Miss Howe was placed at the disposal of the Chief Nursing Sister at +the General Hospital next day. Sister Ann Frances was inclined to +defend Hilda's imperfect acquaintance with primary arithmetic. + +"We all have our gifts," she said. "Miss Howe's is not the +multiplication table; but neither is mine stage-acting." At which, +the upper lip lengthened further into an upward curving smile, and +the Mother Superior remarked cautiously that she hoped Miss Howe +would develop one for making bandages, otherwise-- And there for +the time being the matter rested. + +The depth of what was unusual in Hilda's relation with Alicia +Livingstone--perhaps it has been plain that they were not quite the +ordinary feminine liens--seems to me to be sounded in the tacit +acceptance of Hilda's novitiate on its merits that fell between the +two women. The full understanding of it was an abyss between them, +across which they joined hands, looking elsewhere. Even in the +surprise of Hilda's announcement Alicia had the instinct to glance +away, lest her eyes should betray too many facts that bore upon the +situation. It had never been discussed, but it had to be accepted, +and occasionally referred to; and the terms of acceptance and +reference made no implication of Stephen Arnold. In her inmost +privacy Alicia gazed breathless at the conception as a whole; she +leaped at it, and caught it and held it to look, with a feverish +comparison of possibilities. It was not strange, perhaps, that she +took a vivid personal interest in the essentials that enabled one +to execute a flank movement like Hilda's, not that she should +conceive the first of them to be that one must come out of a cab. +She dismissed that impression with indignation as ungenerously +cynical, but it always came back for redismissal. It did not +interfere in the least, however, with her deliberate invitations to +Stephen to come to Ten, Middleton Street, on afternoons or evenings +when Hilda was there. She was like one standing denied in the +Street of Abundance; she had an avidity of the eye for even love's +reflection. + +That was a little later. At first there was the transformation to +lament, the loss, the break. + +"You look," cried Miss Livingstone, the first time Hilda arrived in +the dress of the novice, a kind of under-study of the Sisters' +black and white, "you look like a person in a book, full of salient +points, and yet made so simple to the reader. If you go on wearing +those things I shall end by understanding you perfectly." + +"If you don't understand me," Hilda said, dropping into the corner +of a sofa, "Cela que je m'en doute, it's because you look for too +much elaboration. I am a simple creature, done with rather a broad +brush--voila tout!" + +Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone's was a happy impression. The +neutrality of her hospital dress left Hilda in a manner exposed: +one saw in a special way the significance of lines and curves; it +was an astonishingly vigorous human expression. + +Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin +tucked into her palm, and looked at it. The elbow bent itself in +light blue muslin of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The +colour found a wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, +who was accustomed to the look, and met it with impenetrable +commonplace, being made impatient by nothing in this world so much +as by futility, however charming. + +"Just now," Alicia said, "the shadows under your eyes are brushed +too deep." + +"I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory." + +"Horrible! All the little comforts of life--don't you miss them?" + +"I never had them, my dear--I never had them. Life has never given +me very many luxuries--I don't miss them. An occasional hour to +one's self--and that we get even at the Institution. The +conventions are strictly conserved, believe me." + +"One imagines that kind of place is always clean." + +"When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and +believe myself in Paradise. The repose is there, the angels also-- +dear commanding things--and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And +there is some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds one that after +all one is very like other women." + +"It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how did the sisters +receive you--with the harp and the psaltery?" + +"That was rather," said Hilda gravely, "what I expected. On the +contrary. They snubbed me--they really did. There were two of +them. I said, 'Reverend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents +are strange to me; I shall probably commit horrible sins without +knowing it. Give me your absolution in advance--at least your +blessing.'" + +"Hilda, you didn't!" + +"It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she is, +disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me. Such +diplomacy--funny old thing." + +"They must be devoured with curiosity!" + +"Well, they ask no questions. One sees an everlasting finger on +the lip. It's a little boring. One feels inclined to speak up and +say, 'Mesdames, entendez--it isn't so bad as you think.' But then +their fingers would go into their ears." + +"And the rules, Hilda? I can't imagine you, somehow, under rules." + +"I am attached to the rules; I think about them all day long. They +make the thing simple and--possible. It is a little like living +for the first time in a house all right angles after--after a +lifelong voyage in a small boat." + +"Isn't the house rather empty?" + +"Oh, well!" + +Alicia put out her hand and tucked an irrelevant bit of lace into +Hilda's bosom. "I can tell you who is interested," she cried. +"The Archdeacon--the Archdeacon and Mrs. Barberry. They both dined +here last night; and you lasted from the fish to the pudding. I +got so bored with you, my dear, in your new capacity." + +A new ray of happiness came into the smile of the novice. "What +did they say? Do tell me what they said." + +"There was a difference of opinion. The Archdeacon held that with +God all things were possible. He used an expression more suitable +to a dinner-party; but I think that is what he meant. Mrs. +Barberry thought it wouldn't last. Mrs. Barberry was very cynical. +She said anyone could see that you were as emotional as ever you +could be." + +The eyes of the two women met, and they laughed frankly. A sense +of expansion came between them, in which for an instant they were +silent. + +"Tell me about the hospital," Alicia said presently. "Ah, the +hospital!" Hilda's face changed; there came into her eyes the +moved look that always waked a thrill in Alicia Livingstone, as if +she were suddenly aware that she had stepped upon ground where feet +like hers passed seldom. + +"There is nothing to tell you that is not--sad. Such odds and +ends, of life, thrown together!" + +"Have you had any experiences yet?" + +Hilda stared for a moment absently in front of her, and then turned +her head aside to answer as if she closed her eyes on something. + +"Experiences? Delightful Alicia, speaking your language, no. You +are thinking of the resident surgeon, the medical student, the +interesting patient. My resident surgeon is fifty years old; the +medical student is a Bengali in white cotton and patent leather +shoes. I am occupied in a ward full of deck hands. For these I +hold the bandage and the bottle; they are hardly aware of me." + +"You are sure to have them," Alicia said. "They crop up wherever +you go in this world, either before you or behind you." + +Hilda fixed her eyes attentively upon her companion. "Sometimes," +she said, "you say things that are extremely true in their general +bearing. A fortuneteller with cards gives one the same shock of +surprise. Well, let me tell you, I have been promoted to +temperatures. I took thirty-five to-day. Next week I am to make +poultices; the week after, baths and fomentations." + +"What are the others like--the other novices?" + +"Nearly all Eurasians, one native, a Hindu widow--the Sisters are +almost demonstrative to her--and one or two local European girls: +the commissariat sergeant class, I should think." + +"They don't sound attractive, and I am glad. You will depend the +more upon me." + +Hilda looked thoughtfully at Miss Livingstone. "I will depend," +she said, "a good deal upon you." + +It was Alicia's fate to meet the Archdeacon again that evening at +dinner. "And is she really throwing her heart into the work?" +asked that dignitary, referring to Miss Howe. + +"Oh, I think so," Alicia said. "Yes." + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The labours of the Baker Institution and of the Clarke Mission were +very different in scope, so much so that if they had been secular +bodies working for profit, there would have been hardly a point of +contact between them. As it was they made one, drawing together in +affiliation for the comfort of mutual support in a heathen country +where all the other Englishmen wrote reports, drilled troops, or +played polo, with all the other Englishwomen in the corresponding +female parts. Doubtless the little communities prayed for each +other. One may imagine, not profanely, their petitions rising on +either side of the heedless, multitudinous, idolatrous city, and +meeting at some point in the purer air above the yellow dust-haze. +I am not aware that they held any other mutual duty or privilege, +but this bond was known, and enabled people whose conscience +pricked them in that direction to give little garden teas to which +they invited Clarke Brothers and Baker Sisters, secure in doing a +benevolent thing and at the same time embarrassing nobody except, +possibly, the Archdeacon, who was officially exposed to being asked +as well and had no right to complain. The affiliation was thus a +social convenience, since it is unlikely that without it anybody +would have hit upon so ingenious a way of killing, as it were, a +Baker Sister and a Clarke Brother with one stone. It is not +surprising that this degree of intelligence should fail to see the +profound official difference between Baker Sisters and Baker +novices. As the Mother Superior said, it did not seem to occur to +people that there could be in connection with a religious body, +such words as discipline and subordination, which were certainly +made ridiculous for the time being, when she and Sister Ann Frances +were asked to eat ices on the same terms as Miss Hilda Howe. It +must have been more than ever painful to these ladies, regarded +from the official point of view, when it became plain, as it +usually did, that the interest of the afternoon centred in Miss +Howe, whether or not the Archdeacon happened to be present. Their +displeasure was so clear, after the first occasion, that Hilda felt +obliged when the next one came, to fall back on her original +talent, and ate her ice abashed and silent speaking only when she +was spoken to, and then in short words and long hesitations. +Thereupon the Sisters were of opinion that after all poor Miss Howe +could not help her unenviable lot, she was perhaps more to be +pitied on account of it than--anything else. It came to this, that +Sister Ann Frances even had an exhibitor's pride in her, and Hilda +knew the sensations of a barbarian female captive in the bonds of +the Christians. But she could not afford to risk being cut off +from those little garden teas. All told, they were few; ladies +disturbed by ideas of social duties toward missionaries being so +uncommon. + +She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her +with being so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a +gravity which contained an element of satisfaction. "It is, of +course, a pleasure to us to meet," he said, "a pleasure to us +both." That was part of the satisfaction, that he could meet her +candour with the same openness. He was not even afraid to mention +to her the stimulus she gave him always and his difficulty in +defining it, and once he told her how, after a talk with her, he +had lain awake until the small hours unable to stop his excited +rush of thought. He added that he was now personally and selfishly +glad she had chosen as she did three months before; it made a +difference to him, her being in Calcutta, a sensible and material +difference. He had better hope and heart in his work. It was the +last luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman +friend; but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon +should be met with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate +cheerfulness crept into his manner which was new to him; he went +about his duties with the look of a man to whom life had dictated +its terms and who found them acceptable. His blood might have +received some mysterious chemical complement, so much was his eye +clearer, his voice firmer, and the things he found to say more +decisive. Nor did any consideration of their relations disturb +him. He never thought of the oxygen in the air he breathed, and he +seldom thought of Hilda. + +They were walking toward the Institution together the day he +explained to her his gratification that she had elected to remain. +Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came +behind. He had an errand to the Mother Superior--he would go all +the way. It was late in May and late in the afternoon; all the +treetops on the Maidan were bent under the sweep of the south wind, +blowing a caressing coolness from the sea. It spread fragrances +about and shook down blossoms from the gold-mohur trees. One could +see nothing anywhere, so red and yellow as they were, except the +long coat of a Government messenger, a point of scarlet moving in +the perspective of a dusty road. The spreading acres of turf were +baked to every earth-colour; wherever a pine dropped needles and an +old woman swept them up, a trail of dust ran curling along the +ground like smoke. The little party was unusual in walking; +glances of uncomprehending pity were cast at them from victorias +and landaus that rolled past. Even the convalescent British +soldiers facing each other in the clumsy drab cart drawn by humped +bullocks, and marked Garrison Dispensary, stared at the black- +skirts so near the powder of the road. The Sisters in front walked +with their heads slightly bent toward one another; they seemed to +be consulting. Hilda reflected, looking at them, that they always +seemed to be consulting; it was the normal attitude of that long +black veil that flowed behind. + +Arnold walked beside his companion, his hands loosely clasped +behind him, with the air of semi-detachment that young clergymen +sometimes have with their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace +of custom his satisfaction carried, the casual glance might easily +have taken them for a married pair. + +"There is a kind of folly and stupidity in saying it," he said, +"but you have done--you do--a great deal for me." + +She turned toward him with a wistful, measuring look. It searched +his face for an instant and came back baffled. Arnold spoke with +so much kindness, so much appreciation. + +"Very little," she said mechanically, looking at the fresh +footprints of Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret. + +"But I know. And can't you tell me--it would make me so very +happy--that I have done something for you too--something that you +value?" + +Hilda's eyes lightened curiously, reverie came into them, and a +smile. She answered as if she spoke to herself, "I should not know +how to tell you." + +Then scenting wonder in him she added, "You were thinking of +something--in particular?" + +"You have sometimes made me believe," Stephen returned, "that I may +account myself, under God, the accident which induced you to take +up your blessed work. I was thinking of that." + +"Oh," she said, "of that!" and seemed to take refuge in silence. + +"Yes," Arnold said, with infinite gentleness. + +"But you were profoundly the cause! I might say you are, for +without you I doubt whether I should have the--courage--" + +"Oh no! Oh no! He who inspired you in the beginning will sustain +you to the end. Think that. Believe that." + +"Will He?" Her voice was neutral, as if it would not betray too +much, but there was a listlessness that spoke louder in the bend of +her head, the droop of her shoulder. + +"For you perhaps," Arnold said thoughtfully, "there is only one +assurance of it--the satisfaction your vocation brings you now. +That will broaden and increase," he went on, almost with buoyancy, +"growing more and more your supreme good as the years go on." + +"How much you give me credit for!" + +"Not nearly enough--not nearly. Who is there like you?" he +demanded simply. + +His words seemed a baptism. She lifted up her face after them, and +the trace of them was on her eyes and lips. "I have passed two +examinations, at all events," she informed him, with sudden gaiety, +"and Sister Ann Frances says that in two or three months I shall +probably get through the others. Sister Ann Frances thinks me more +intelligent than might be expected. And if I do pass those +examinations I shall be what they call a quick-time probationer. I +shall have got it over in six months. Do you think," she asked, as +if to please herself; "that six months will be long enough?" + +"It depends. There is so much to consider." + +"Yes--it depends. Sometimes I think it will be, but oftener I +think it will take longer." + +"I should be inclined to leave it entirely with the Sisters." + +"I am so undisciplined," murmured Hilda, "I fear I shall cling to +my own opinion. Now we must overtake the others and you must walk +the rest of the way with Sister Ann--no, Sister Margaret, she is +senior." + +"I don't at all see the necessity," Stephen protested. He was +wilful and wayward; he adopted a privileged air, and she scolded +him. In their dispute they laughed so imprudently that Sister Ann +Frances turned her draped head to look back at them. Then they +quickened their steps and joined the elder ladies, and Stephen +walked with Sister Margaret to the door of the Institution. She +mentioned to the Mother Superior afterwards that young Mr. Arnold +was really a delightful conversationalist. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +They talked a great deal in Plymouth about the way the time was +passing in Calcutta during those last three months before Laura +should return, the months of the rains. "Now," said Mrs. Simpson, +early in July, "it will be pouring every day, with great patches of +the Maidan under water, and rivers, my dear, RIVERS, in the back +streets"; and Laura had a reminiscence about how, exactly at that +time, a green mould used to spread itself fresh every morning on +the matting under her bed in Bentinck Street. Later on they would +agree that perhaps by this time there was a "break in the rains," +and that nothing in the world was so trying as a break in the +rains, the sun grilling down and drawing up steam from every +puddle. In September, things, they remembered, would be at their +very worst and most depressing; one had hardly the energy to lift a +finger in September. Mrs. Simpson looked back upon the discomfort +she had endured in Bengal at this time of year with a kind of +regret that it was irretrievably over; she lingered upon a severe +illness which had been part of the experience. She seemed to think +that with a little judicious management she might have spent more +time in that climate, and less in England. There was in her tone a +suggestion of gentle envy of Laura, going forth to these dismal +conditions with her young life in her hands all tricked out for the +sacrifice, which left Duff Lindsay and his white and gold drawing- +room entirely out of consideration. Any sacrifice to Mrs. Simpson +was alluring, she would be killed all day long, in a manner, for +its own sake. + +The victim had taken her passage early in October, and during the +first week of that month Plymouth gathered itself into meetings to +bid her farewell. A curiously sacred character had fastened itself +upon her; it was not in the least realised that she was going out +to be married to an altogether secular young broker moving in +fashionable circles in one of the gayest cities in the world. Ones +or two reverend persons in the course of commending their young +sister to the protection of the Almighty in her approaching +separation from the dear friends who surrounded her in Plymouth, +made references implying that her labours would continue to the +glory of God, taking it as a matter of course. Miss Filbert was by +this time very much impregnated with the idea that they would, she +did not know precisely how, but that would open itself out. Duff +had long been assimilated as part of the programme. All that money +and humility could contribute should be forthcoming from him; she +had a familiar dream of him as her standard-bearer, undistinguished +but for ever safe. + +Yet it was with qualified approval that Mrs. Simpson, amid the +confusion of the Coromandel's preparations for departure at London +Docks, heard the inevitable strains of the Salvation Army rising +aft. Laura immediately cried, "I shall have friends among the +passengers," and Mrs. Simpson so far forgot herself as to say, +"Yes, if they are nice." The ladies were sitting on deck beside +the pile of Laura's very superior cabin luggage. Mrs. Simpson +glanced at it as if it offered a kind of corroboration of the +necessity of their being nice. "There are always a few delightful +Christian people, if one takes the trouble to find them out, at +this end of the ship," she said defensively. "I have never failed +to find it so." + +"I don't think much of Christians who are so hard to discover," +Laura said with decision; and Mrs. Simpson, rebuked, thought of the +mischievous nature of class prejudices. Laura herself--had she not +been drawn from what one might call distinctly the other end of the +ship?--and who, among those who vaunted themselves ladies and +gentlemen, could compare with Laura! The idea that she had shown a +want of sympathy with those dear people who were so strenuously +calling down a blessing on the Coromandel somewhere behind the +smoke stacks, embittered poor Mrs. Simpson's remaining tears of +farewell, and when the bell rang the signal for the last good-bye, +she embraced her young friend with the fervent request, "Do make +friends with them, dear one--make friends with them at once"; and +Laura said, "If they will make friends with me." + +By the time the ship had well got her nose down the coast of Spain, +Miss Filbert had created her atmosphere, and moved about in it from +end to end of the quarter-deck. It was a recognisable thing, her +atmosphere, one never knew when it would discharge a question +relating to the gravest matters; and persons unprepared to give +satisfaction upon this point--one fears there are some on a ship +bound east of Suez--found it blighting. They moved their long +chairs out of the way, they turned pointedly indifferent backs, the +lady who shared Miss Filbert's cabin--she belonged to a smart +cavalry regiment at Mhow--went about saying things with a distinct +edge. Miss Filbert exhausted all the means. She attempted to hold +a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, standing for elevation on +one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but with this the +captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on behalf of the +whist-players inside. In the evening, after dinner, she established +herself in a sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered voice lifted +itself with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about the poverty +of the world and the riches of heaven; the notes mingled with the +churning of the screw, and fell in the darkness beyond the ship's +lights abroad upon the sea. The other passengers listened aloof; +the Coromandel was crowded, but you could have drawn a wide circle +round her chair. On the morning of the fourth day out--she had not +felt quite well enough for adventures before--she found her way to +the second-class saloon, being no doubt fully justified of her +conscience in abandoning the first to the flippancies of its +preference. + +In the second-class end the tone was certainly more like that of +Plymouth. Laura had a grateful sense of this in coming, almost at +once, upon a little group gathered together for praise and prayer, +of which four or five persons of both sexes, labelled "S. A.," +naturally formed the centre. They were not only praying and +praising without discouragement, they had attracted several other +people who had brought their chairs into near and friendly +relation, and even joined sometimes in the chorus of the hymns. +There was a woman in mourning who cried a good deal--her tears +seemed to refresh the Salvationists and inspire them to louder and +more cheerful efforts. There was a man in a wide, soft felt hat +with the malaria of the Terai in the hollows under his eyes; there +was a Church Missionary with an air of charity and forbearance, and +the bushy-eyed colonel of a native regiment looking vigilant +against ridicule, with his wife, whose round red little face +continually waxed and waned in a smile of true contentment. It was +not till later that Laura came to know them all so very well, but +her eye rested on them one after another, with approval, as she +drew near. Without pausing in his chant--it happened to be one of +triumph--without even looking at her, the leader indicated an empty +chair. It was his own chair. "Colonel Markin, S. A." was printed +in black letters on its striped canvas back; Laura noticed that. + +After it was over, the little gathering, Colonel Markin specially +distinguished her. He did it delicately. "I hope you won't mind +my expressin' my thanks for the help you gave us in the singin'," +he said. "Such a voice I've seldom had the pleasure to join with. +May I ask where you got it trained?" + +He was a narrow-chested man with longish sandy hair and thin +features. His eyes were large, blue, and protruding, his forehead +very high and white. There was a pinkness about the root of his +nose, and a scanty yellow moustache upon his upper lip, while his +chin was partly hidden by a beard equally scanty and even more +yellow. He had extremely long white hands; one could not help +observing them as they clasped his book of devotion. + +Laura looked at him with profound appreciation of these details. +She knew Colonel Markin by reputation, he had done a great work +among the Cingalese. "It was trained," she said, casting down her +eyes, "on the battlefields of our Army." + +Colonel Markin attempted to straighten his shoulders and to stiffen +his chin. He seemed vaguely aware of a military tradition which +might make it necessary for him, as a very senior officer indeed, +to say something. But the impression was transitory. Instead of +using any rigour he held out his hand. Laura took it reverently, +and the bones shut up, like the sticks of a fan, in her grasp. +"Welcome, comrade!" he said, and there was a pause, as there should +be after such an apostrophe. + +"When you came among us this afternoon," Colonel Markin resumed, "I +noticed you. There was something about the way you put your hand +over your eyes when I addressed our Heavenly Father that spoke to +me. It spoke to me and said, 'Here we have a soul that knows what +salvation means--there's no doubt about that.' Then when you +raised a Hallelujah I said to myself, 'That's got the right ring to +it.' And so you're a sister in arms!" + +"I was," Laura murmured. + +"You was--you were. Well, well--I want to hear all about it. It +is now," continued Colonel Markin, as two bells struck and a +steward passed them with a bugle, "the hour for our dinner, and I +suppose that you too," he bent his head respectfully towards the +other half of the ship, "partake of some meal at this time. But if +you will seek us out again at the meeting between four and five I +shall be at your service afterwards, and pleased," he took her hand +again, "PLEASED to see you." + +Laura went back to the evening meeting, and after that missed none +of these privileges. In due course she was asked to address it, +and then her position became enviable from all points of view, for +people who did not draw up their chairs and admire her inspirations +sat at a distance and admired her clothes. Very soon, at her +special request, she was allowed to resign her original place at +table and take a revolving chair at the nine o'clock breakfast, one +o'clock dinner, and six o'clock tea which sustained the second +saloon. Daily, ascending the companion ladder to the main deck aft +she gradually faded from cognisance forward. There they lay back +in their long chairs and sipped their long drinks, and with neutral +eyes and lips they let the blessing go. + +In the intervals between the exercises Miss Filbert came and went +in the cabin of three young Salvationists of her own sex. They +could always make room for her, difficult as it may appear; she +held for them an indefinite store of fascination. Laura would +extend herself on a top berth beside the round-eyed Norwegian to +whom it belonged, with the cropped head of the owner pillowed on +her sisterly arm, and thus they passed hours, discussing +conversions as medical students might discuss cases, relating, +comparing. They talked a great deal about Colonel Markin. They +said it was a beautiful life. More beautiful if possible had been +the life of Mrs. Markin, who was his second wife, and who had been +"promoted to glory" six months before. She had gained promotion +through jungle fever, which had carried her off in three days. The +first Mrs. Markin had died of drink--that was what had sent the +Colonel into the Army, she, the first Mrs. Markin, having willed +her property away from him. Colonel Markin had often rejoiced +publicly that the lady had been of this disposition, the results to +him had been so blessed. Apparently he spoke without reserve of +his domestic affairs in connection with his spiritual experiences, +using both the Mrs. Markins when it was desirable as "illustrations." +The five had reached this degree of intimacy by the time the +Coromandel was nearing Port Said, and every day the hemispheres of +sea and sky they watched through the porthole above the Norwegian +girl's berth grew bluer. + +From the first Colonel Markin had urged Miss Filbert's immediate +return to the Army. He found her sympathetic to the idea, willing +indeed to embrace it with open arms, but there were difficulties. +Mr. Lindsay, as a difficulty, was almost insuperable to anything +like a prompt step in that direction. Colonel Markin admitted it +himself. He was bound to admit it he said, but nothing, since he +joined the Army, had ever been so painful to him. "I wish I could +deny it," he said with frankness; "but there is no doubt that for +the present your first duty is towards your gentleman, towards him +who placed that ring upon your finger." There was no sarcasm in +his describing Lindsay as a gentleman; he used the term in a kind +of extra special sense where a person less accustomed to polite +usages might have spoken of Laura's young man. "But remember, my +child," he continued, "it is only your poor vile body that is yours +to dispose of, your soul belongs to God Almighty, and no earthly +husband, especially as you say he is still in his sins, is going to +have the right to interfere." This may seem vague, as the +statement of a position, but Laura found it immensely fortifying. +That and similar arguments built her up in her determination to +take up what Colonel Markin called her life-work again at the +earliest opportunity. She had forfeited her rank, that she +accepted humbly as a proper punishment, ardently hoping it would be +found sufficient. She would go back as a private, take her place +in the ranks, and nothing in her married life should interfere with +the things that cried out to be done in Bentinck Street. Somehow +she had less hope of securing Lindsay as a spiritual companion in +arms since she had confided the affair to Colonel Markin. As he +said, they must hope for the best, but he could not help admitting +that he took a gloomy view of Lindsay. + +"Once he has secured you," the Colonel said, with an appreciative +glance at Laura's complexion, "what will he care about his soul? +Nothing." + +Their enthusiasm had ample opportunity to strengthen, their mutual +satisfactions to expand, in the close confines of life on board +ship, and as if to seal and sanctify the voyage permanently a +conversion took place in the second saloon, owning Laura's agency. +It was the maid of the lady in the cavalry regiment, a hardened +heart, as two stewards and a bandmaster on board could testify. +When this occurred the time that was to elapse between Laura's +marriage and her return to the ranks was shortened to one week. +"And quite long enough," Colonel Markin said, "considering how much +more we need you than your gentleman does, my dear sister." + +It was plain to them all that Colonel Markin had very special views +about his dear sister. The other dear sisters looked on with +pleasurable interest, admitting the propriety of it, as Colonel +Markin walked up and down the deck with Laura, examining her lovely +nature, "drawing her out" on the subject of her faith and her +assurance. It was natural, as he told her, that in her peculiar +situation she should have doubts and difficulties. He urged her to +lay bare her heart, and she laid it bare. One evening--it was +heavenly moonlight on the Indian Ocean, and they were two days past +Aden on the long south-east run to Ceylon--she came and stood +before him with a small packet in her hand. She was all in white, +and more like an angel than Markin expected ever to see anything in +this world, though as to the next his anticipations may have been +extravagant. + +"Now I wonder," said he, "where you are going to sit down?" + +A youngster in the Police got up and pushed his chair forward, but +Laura shook her head. + +"I am going out there," she said, pointing to the farthermost stern +where passengers were not encouraged to sit, "and I want to consult +you." + +Markin got up. "If there's anything pressin' on your mind," he +said, "you can't do better." + +Laura said nothing until they were alone with the rushing of the +screw, two Lascars, some coils of rope, and the hand-steering gear. +Then she opened the packet. "These," she said, "these are pressing +on my mind." + +She held out a string of pearls, a necklace of pearls and +turquoises, a heavy band bracelet studded, Delhi fashion, with +gems, one or two lesser fantasies. + +"Jewellery!" said Markin. "Real or imitation?" + +"So far as that goes they are good. Mr. Lindsay gave them to me. +But what have I to do with jewels, the very emblem of the folly of +the world, the desire that itches in palms that know no good works, +the price of sin!" She leaned against the masthead as she spoke, +the wind blew her hair and her skirt out toward the following seas. +With that look in her eyes she seemed a creature who had alighted +on the ship but who could not stay. + +Colonel Markin held the pearls up in the moonlight. + +"They must have cost something to buy," he said. + +Laura was silent. + +"And so they're a trouble to you. Have you taken them to the Lord +in prayer?" + +"Oh, many times." + +"Couldn't seem to hear any answer?" + +"The only answer I could hear was. 'So long as you have them I +will not speak with you.'" + +"That seems pretty plain and clear. And yet?" said the Colonel, +fondling the turquoises, "nobody can say there's any harm in such +things, especially if you don't wear them." + +"Colonel, they are my great temptation. I don't know that I +wouldn't wear them. And when I wear them I can think of nothing +sacred, nothing holy. When they were given to me I used--I used to +get up in the night to look at them." + +"Shall I lay it before the Almighty? That bracelet's got a +remarkably good clasp." + +"Oh no--no! I must part with them. To-night I can do it, to- +night--" + +"There's nobody on this ship that will give you any price for +them." + +"I would not think of selling them. It would be sending them from +my hands to do harm to some other poor creature, weaker than I!" + +"You can't return them to-night." + +"I wouldn't return them. That would be the same as keeping them." + +"Then what--oh, I see!" exclaimed Markin. "You want to give them +to the Army. Well, in my capacity, on behalf of General Booth--" + +"No," cried Laura with sudden excitement, "not that either. I will +give them to nobody. But this is what I will do!" She seized the +bracelet and flung it far out into the opaline track of the vessel, +and the smaller objects, before her companion could stop her, +followed it. Then he caught her wrist. + +"Stop!" he cried. "You've gone off your head--you've got fever. +You're acting wicked with that jewellery. Stop and let us reason +it out together." + +She already had the turquoises, and with a jerk of her left hand, +she freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught +the handrail as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. +He turned and stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest +puissance of feeling she had known, looking at the pearls. As he +stared she kissed them twice, and then, leaning over the ship's +side, let them slowly slide out of her fingers and fall into the +waves below. The moonlight gave them a divine gleam as they fell. +She turned to Markin with tears in her eyes. "Now," she faltered, +"I can be happy again. But not to-night." + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +While the Coromandel was throbbing out her regulation number of +knots towards Colombo, October was passing over Bengal. It went +with lethargy, the rains were too close on its heels; but at the +end of the long hot days, when the resplendent sun struck down on +the glossy trees and the over-lush Maidan, there often stole +through Calcutta a breath of the coming respite of December. The +blue smoke of the people's cooking fires began to hang again in the +streets, the pungent smell of it was pleasant in the still air. +The south wind turned back at the Sunderbunds; instead of it, one +met round corners a sudden crispness that stayed just long enough +to be recognised and melted damply away. A week might have two or +three of such promises and foretastes. + +Hilda Howe, approaching the end of her probation at the Baker +Institution, threw the dormitory window wide to them, went out to +seek them. They gave her a new stirring of vitality, something +deep within her leaped up responding to the voucher the evenings +brought that presently they would bring something new and different. +She vibrated to an irrepressible pulse of accord with that; it made +her hand strong and her brain clear for the unimportant matters +that remained within the scope of the monotonous moment. There had +come upon her a stimulating assurance that it would be only a +moment--now. She did not consider this, she could hardly be said +to be intelligently aware of it, but it underlay all that she said +and did. Her spirits gained an enviable lightness, she began again +to see beautiful, touching things in the life that carried her on +with it. She explained to Stephen Arnold that she was immensely +happy at having passed the last of her nursing examinations. + +"I hardly dare ask you," he said, "what you are going to do now." + +He looked furtive and anxious; she saw that he did, and the +perception irritated her. She had to tell herself that she had +given him the right to look in any way he pleased--indeed yes. + +"I hardly dare ask myself," she answered, and was immediately +conscious that for the first time in the history of their relations +she had spoken to him that which was expedient. + +"I hope the Sisters are not trying to influence you," he said +firmly. + +"Fancy!" she cried irrelevantly. "I heard the other day that +Sister Ann Frances had described me as the pride of the Baker +Institution!" She laughed with delight at the humour of it, and he +smiled too. When she laughed, he had nearly always now confidence +enough to smile too. + +"You might ask for another six months." + +"Heavens, no! No--I shall make up my mind." + +"Then you may go away," Arnold said. They were standing at the +crossing of the wide red road from which they would go in different +directions. She saw that the question was momentous to him. She +also saw how curiously the sun sallowed him, and how many more +hollows he had in his face than most people. She had a pathetic +impression of the figure he made in his coarse gown and shoes. +"God's wayfarer," she murmured. There was pity in her mind, +infinite pity. Her thought had no other tinge. It was a curiously +simple feeling, and seemed to bring her an inconsistent lightness +of heart. + +"Come too," she said aloud, "come and be a Clarke Brother where the +climatic conditions suit you better. The world wants Clarke +Brothers everywhere." + +He looked at her and tried to smile, but his lips quivered. He +opened them in an effort to speak, gave it up, and turned away +silently, lifting his hat. Hilda watched him for an instant as he +went. His figure took strange proportions through the tears that +sprang to her eyes, and she marvelled at the gaiety with which she +had touched, had almost revealed, her heart's desire. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +"I knew it would happen in the end," Hilda said, "and it has +happened. The Archdeacon has asked me to tea." + +She was speaking to Alicia Livingstone in the dormitory, changing +at the same time for a "turn" at the hospital. It was six o'clock +in the afternoon. Alicia's landau stood at the door of the Baker +Institution. She had come to find that Miss Howe was just going on +duty and could not be taken for a drive. + +"When?" asked Alicia, staring out of the window at the crows in a +tamarind tree. + +"Last Saturday. He said he had promised some friends of his the +pleasure of meeting me. They had besieged him, he said, and they +were his best friends, on all his committees." + +"Only ladies?" The crows, with a shriek of defiance at nothing in +particular, having flown away, Miss Livingstone transferred her +attention. + +"Bless me, yes. What Archdeacon has dear men friends! And +lesquelles pense-tu, mon Dieu!" + +"Lesquelles?" + +"Mrs. Jack Forrester, Mrs. Fitz--what you may call him up on the +frontier, the Brigadier gentleman--Lady Dolly!" + +"You were well chaperoned." + +"And--my dear--he didn't ask a single Sister!" Hilda turned upon +her a face which appeared still to glow with the stimulus of the +archidiaconal function. "And--it was wicked considering the +occasion--I dropped the character. I let myself out!" + +"You didn't shock the Archdeacon?" + +"Not in the least. But, my dear love, did you ever permit yourself +the reflection that the Venerable Gambell is a bachelor?" + +"Hilda, you shall not! We all love him--you shall not lead him +astray!" + +"You would not think of--the altar?" + +Miss Livingstone's pale small smile fell like a snowflake upon +Hilda's mood, and was swallowed up. "You are very preposterous," +she said. "Go on. You always amuse one." Then, as if Hilda's +going on were precisely the thing she could not quite endure, she +said quickly, "The Coromandel is telegraphed from Colombo to-day." + +"Ah!" said Hilda. + +"He leaves for Madras to-morrow. The thing is to take place there, +you know." + +"Then nothing but shipwreck can save him." + +"Nothing but--what a horrible idea! Don't you think they may be +happy? I really think they may." + +"There is not one of the elements that give people, when they +commit the paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that +they may not be miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I +should pity him less. But he's not. He's immensely dependent on +his tastes, his friends, his circumstances." + +Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an attention caught +upon an accidental phrase. "The paramount stupidity." She did not +repeat it aloud, she turned it over in her mind. + +"You are thinking," Hilda said accusingly. "What are you thinking +about?" + +"Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday. I thought him looking +rather wretched." + +A shadow of grave consideration winged itself across Hilda's eyes. + +"He works so much too hard," she said. "It is an appalling waste. +But he will offer himself up." + +Alicia looked unsatisfied. She had hoped for something that would +throw more light upon the paramount stupidity. "He brought Mr. +Lappe to tea," she said. + +The shadow went. "Should you think Brother Lappe," Miss Howe +demanded, "specially fitted for the cure of souls? Never, never, +could I allow the process of my regeneration to come through +Brother Lappe. He has such a little nose, and such wide pink +cheeks, and such fat sloping shoulders. Dear succulent Brother +Lappe!" + +A Sister passed through the dormitory on a visit of inspection. +Alicia bowed sweetly, and the Sister inclined herself briefly with +a cloistered smile. As she disappeared Hilda threw a black skirt +over her head, making a veil of it flowing backward, and rendered +the visit, the noiseless measured step, the little deprecating +movements of inquiry, the benevolent recognition of a visitor from +a world where people carried parasols and wore spotted muslins. +She even effaced herself at the door on the track of the other to +make it perfect, and came back in the happy expansion of an +artistic effort to find Alicia's regard penetrated with the light +of a new conviction. + +"Hilda," she said, "I should like to know what this last year has +really been to you." + +"It has been very valuable," Miss Howe replied. Then she turned +quickly away to hang up the black petticoat, and stood like that, +shaking out its folds, so that Alicia might not see anything +curious in her face as she heard her own words and understood what +they meant. Very valuable! She did understand, suddenly, +completely. Very valuable! A year of the oddest experiences, a +pictorial year, which she would look back upon, with its core in a +dusty priest. . . . + +A probationer came rapidly along the dormitory to where Hilda +stood. She had the olive cheeks and the liquid eyes of the +country; her lips were parted in a smile. + +"Miss Howe," she said, in the quick clicking syllables of her race, +"Sister Margaret wishes you to come immediately to the surgical +ward. A case has come in, and Miss Gonsalvez is there, but Sister +Margaret will not be bothered with Miss Gonsalvez. She says you +are due by right in five minutes,"--the messenger's smile broadened +irresponsibly, and she put a fondling touch upon Hilda's apron +string,--"so will you please to make haste!" + +"What's the case?" asked Hilda; "I hope it isn't another ship's +hold accident." But Alicia, a shade paler than before, put up her +hand. "Wait till I'm gone," she said, and went quickly. The girl +had opened her lips, however, but to say that she didn't know, she +had only been seized to take the message, though it must be +something serious since they had sent for both the resident +surgeons. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Dr. Livingstone's concern was personal, that was plain in the way +he stood looking at the floor of the corridor with his hands in his +pockets, before Hilda reached him. Regret was written all over the +lines of his pausing figure with the compressed irritation which +saved that feeling in the Englishman's way from being too obvious. + +"This is a bad business, Miss Howe." + +"I've just come over--I haven't heard. Who is it?" + +"It's my cousin, poor chap--Arnold, the padre. He's been badly +knifed in the bazar." + +The news passed over her and left her looking with a curious face +at chance. It was lifted a little, with composed lips, and eyes +which refused to be taken by surprise. There was inquiry in them, +also a defence. Chance, looking back, saw an invincible silent +readiness, and a pallor which might be that of any woman. But the +doctor was also looking, so she said, "That is very sad," and moved +near enough to the wall to put her hand against it. She was not +faint, but the wall was a fact on which one could, for the moment, +rely. + +"They've got the man--one of those Cabuli money-lenders. The +police had no trouble with him. He said it was the order of Allah-- +the brute! Stray case of fanaticism, I suppose. It seems Arnold +was walking along as usual, without a notion, and the fellow sprang +on him, and in two seconds the thing was done. Hadn't a chance, +poor beggar." + +"Where is it?" + +"Root of the left lung. About five inches deep. The artery pretty +well cut through, I fancy." + +"Then--" + +"Oh no--we can't do anything. The haemorrhage must be tremendous. +But he may live through the night. Are you going to Sister +Margaret?" + +His nod took it for granted, and he went on. Hilda walked slowly +forward, her head bent, with absorbed uncertain steps. A bar of +evening sunlight came before her, she looked up and stepped outside +the open door. She was handling this thing that had happened, +taking possession of it. It lay in her mind in the midst of a +suddenly stricken and tenderly saddened consciousness. It lay +there passively; it did not rise and grapple with her, it was a +thing that had happened--in Burra Bazar. The pity of it assailed +her. Tears came into her eyes, and an infinite grieved solicitude +gathered about her heart. "So?" she said to herself, thinking that +he was young and loved his work, and that now his hand would be +stayed from the use it had found. One of the ugly outrages of +life, leaving nothing on the mouth but that brief acceptance. It +came to hers with a note of the profound and of the supreme. She +turned resolutely from searching her heart for any wild despair. +She would not for an instant consider what she ought to feel. +"So," she said, and pressed her lips till they stopped trembling, +and went into the hospital. + +She asked a question or two, in search of Sister Margaret and the +new case. It was "located," an assistant surgeon told her, in +Private Ward Number Two. She went more and more slowly toward +Private Ward Number Two. + +The door was open; she stood in it for an instant with eyes nerved +to receive the tragedy. The room seemed curiously empty of any +such thing, a door opposite was also open, with an arched verandah +outside; the low sun streamed through this upon the floor with its +usual tranquillity. Beyond the arches, netted to keep the crows +away, it made pictures with the tops of the trees. There was the +small iron bed with the confused outline under the bedclothes, very +quiet, and the Sister--the whitewashed wall rose sharp behind her +black draperies--sitting with a book in her hands. Some scraps of +lint on the floor beside the bed, and hardly anything else except +the silence which had almost a presence, and a faint smell of +carbolic acid, and a certain feeling of impotence and abandonment +and waiting which seemed to be in the air. Arnold moved on the +pillow and saw her standing in the door. The bars of the bed's +foot were in the way, he tried to lift his head to surmount the +obstruction, and the Sister perceived her too. + +"I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?" +she said, with her little pink smile. "And I'm afraid Miss Howe +isn't in time to be of much use to us, is she?" It was the bedside +pleasantry that expected no reply, that indeed forbade one. + +"I'm sorry," Hilda said. As she moved into the room she detached +her eyes from Arnold's, feeling as she did so that it was like +tearing something. + +"There was so little to do," Sister Margaret said; "Surgeon-Major +Wills saw at once where the mischief lay. Nothing disagreeable was +necessary, was it, Mr. Arnold? Perfect quiet, perfect rest--that's +an easy prescription to take." She had rather prominent very blue +eyes, and an aquiline nose, and a small firm mouth, and her pink +cheeks were beginning to be a little pendulous with age. Hilda +gazed at her silently, noting about her authority and her flowing +draperies something classical. Was she like one of the Fates? She +approached the bed to do something to the pillow--Hilda had an +impulse to push her away with the cry, "It is not time yet-- +Atropos!" + +"I must go now for an hour or so," the Sister went on. "That poor +creature in Number Six needs me; they daren't give her any more +morphia. You don't need it--happy boy!" she said to Stephen, and +at the look he sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the +door. Dear Sister, she was none of the Fates, she was obliged to +give directions to Hilda standing in the door with her back turned. +Happily for a deserved reputation for self-command they were few. +It was chief and absolute that no one should be admitted. A +bulletin had been put up at the hospital door for the information +of inquiries; later on when the doctor came again there would be +another. + +She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had +vanished; a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, +the background gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, +she had given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved +closer to the bed and stood beside him. Since there was nothing to +do there was nothing to say. Stephen put out his hand and touched +a fold of her dress. + +The room filled itself with something that had not been there +before, his impotent love. Hilda knelt down beside the bed and +pressed her forehead against the hand upon the covering, the hand +that had so little more to do. Then Arnold spoke. + +"You dear woman!" he said. "You dear woman!" She kept her head +bowed like that and did not answer. It was his happiest moment. +One might say he had lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, +a kind of baptism for his heart. He spoke again. + +"We must bear this," he panted. "It is--less cruel--than it seems. +You don't know how much it is for the best." + +She lifted her wet face. "You mustn't talk," she faltered. + +"What difference--" he did not finish the sentence. His words were +too few to waste. He paused and made another effort. + +"If this had not happened I would have been--counted--among the +unfaithful," he said. "I know now. I would have abandoned--my +post. And gladly--without a regret--for you." + +"Ah!" Hilda cried, with a vivid note of pain. "Would you? I am +sorry for that! I am sorry!" + +She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive +delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her +with the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she +might have had to do with the forging of those shackles--the price +of the year that had been very valuable. + +"My God is a jealous God," Arnold said. "He has delivered me--into +His own hands--for the honour of His name. I acknowledge--I am +content." + +"No, indeed no! It was a wicked, horrible chance! Don't charge +your God with it." + +His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least possible attention. +"You did love me," he said. He spoke as if he were already dead. + +"I did indeed," Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her +hands again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard +only the affirmation in it. + +He stroked her hair. "It is good to know that," he said, "very, +good. I should have married you." He went on with sudden boldness +and a new note of strength in his voice, "Think of that! You would +have been mine--to protect and work for. We should have gone +together to England--where I could easily have got a curacy-- +easily." + +Hilda looked up. "Would you like to marry me now?" she asked +eagerly, but he shook his head. + +"You don't understand," he said. "It is the dear sin God has +turned my back upon." + +Then it came to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going +unassoiled to his God, with the divine indifference of the dying. +Only his imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, +"It is a little light flame that I have lit with my own taper that +has gone out--that has gone out--and presently the grave will +extinguish that." She sat quiet and sombre in the growing +darkness, and presently Arnold slept. + +He slept through the bringing of a lamp, the arrival of flowers, +subdued knocks of inquirers who would not be stayed by the +bulletin--the visit of Surgeon-Major Wills, who felt his pulse +without wakening him. "Holding out wonderfully," the doctor said. +"Don't rouse him for the soup. He'll go out in about six hours +without any pain. May not wake at all." + +The door opened again to admit the probationer come to relieve Miss +Howe. Hilda beckoned her into the corridor. "You can go back," +she said, "I will take your turn." + +"But the Mother Superior--you know how particular about the rules--" + +"Say nothing about it. Go to bed. I am not coming." + +"Then, Miss Howe, I shall be obliged to report it." + +"Report and be--report if you like. There is nothing for you to do +here to-night," and Hilda softly closed the door. There was a +whispered expostulation when Sister Margaret came back, but Miss +Howe said, "It is arranged," and with a little silent nod of +appreciation the Sister settled into her chair, her finger marking +a place in the Church Service. Hilda sat nearer to the bed, her +elbow on the table, shading her eyes from the lamp, and watched. + +"Is it not odd," whispered Sister Margaret, as the night wore on, +"he has refused to be confessed before he goes? He will not see +the Brother Superior--or any of them. Strange, is it not?" + +Together they watched the quick short breathing. It seemed +strangely impossible to sleep against such odds. They saw the +lines of the face grow sharper and whiter, the dark eye-sockets +sink to a curious roundness, a greyness gather about the mouth. +There were times when they looked at each other in the last +surmise. Yet the feeble pulse persisted--persisted. + +"I believe now," said Sister Margaret, "that he may go on like this +until the morning. I am going to take half an hour's nap. Rouse +me at once if he wakes," and she took an attitude of casual repose, +turning the Prayer-book open on her knee for readier use, open at +"Prayers for the Dying." + +The jackals had wailed themselves out, and there was a long, dark +period when nothing but the sudden cry of a night bird in the +hospital garden came between Hilda and the very vivid perception +she had at that hour of the value and significance of the earthly +lot. She lifted her head and listened to that, it seemed a +comment. Suddenly, then, a harsh quarrelling of dogs--Christian +dogs--arose in the distance and died away, and again there was +night and silence. Night for hours. Time for reflection, alone +with death and the lamp, upon the year that had been very valuable. +"I would have married you," she whispered. "Yes, I would." Later +her lips moved again. "I would have taken the consequence;" and +again, "I would have paid any penalty." There he lay, a burden +that she would never bear, a burden that would be gone in the +morning. There were moments when she cried out on Fate for doing +her this kindness. + +The long singing drone of a steamer's signal came across the city +from the river, once, twice, thrice; and presently the sparrows +began their twittering in the bushes near the verandah, an +unexpected unanimous bird talk that died as suddenly and as +irrelevantly away. A conservancy cart lumbered past creaking; the +far shrill whistle of an awakening factory cut the air from Howrah; +the first solitary foot smote through the dawn upon the pavement. +The light showed grey beyond the scanty curtains. A noise of +something being moved reverberated in the hospital below, and +Arnold opened his eyes. They made him in a manner himself again, +and he fixed them upon Hilda as if they could never alter. She +leaned nearer him and made a sign of inquiry toward the sleeping +Sister, with the farewells, the commendations of poor mortality +speeding itself forth, lying upon her lap. Arnold comprehended, +and she was amazed to see the mask of his face charge itself with a +faint smile as he shook his head. He made a little movement; she +saw what he wanted and took his hand in hers. The smile was still +in his eyes as he looked at her, and then at the cheated Sister. +"I would have married you," she whispered passionately as if that +could stay him. "Yes, I would." + +So in the end he trusted the new wings of his mortal love to bear +his soul to its immortality. They carried their burden buoyantly, +it was such a little way. The lamp was still holding its own +against the paleness from the windows when the meaning finally went +out of his clasp of Hilda's hand, without a struggle to stay, and +she saw that in an instant when she was not looking, he had closed +his eyes upon the world. She sat on beside him for a long time +after that, watching tenderly, and would not withdraw her hand--it +seemed an abandonment. + + + +Three hours later Miss Howe, passing out of the hospital gate, was +overtaken by Duff Lindsay, riding, with a look of singular +animation and vigour. He flung himself off his horse to speak to +her, and as he approached he drew from his inner coat pocket the +brown envelope of a telegram. + +"Good-morning," he said. "You do look fagged. I have a--curious-- +piece of news." + +"Alicia told me that you were starting early this morning for +Madras!" + +"I should have been, but for this." + +"Read it to me," Hilda said, "I'm tired." + +"Oh, do you very much mind? I would rather--" + +She took the missive; it was dated the day before, Colombo, and +read-- + + +"Do not expect me was married this morning to Colonel Markin S A we +may not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers glory be to +God Laura Markin" + + +She raised her eyes to his with the gravest, saddest irony. + +"Then you--you also are delivered," she said; but he said "What?" +without special heed; and I doubt whether he ever took the trouble +to understand her reference to their joint indebtedness. + +"One hopes he isn't a brute," Lindsay went on with most impersonal +solicitude, "and can support her. I suppose there isn't any way +one could do anything for her. I heard a story only yesterday +about a girl changing her mind on the way out. By Jove, I didn't +suppose it would happen to me!" + +"If you are hurt anywhere," Hilda said absently, "it is only your +vanity, I fancy." + +"Ah, my vanity is very sore!" He paused for an instant, wondering +to find so little expansion in her. "I came to ask after Arnold," +he said. "How is he?" + +"He is dead. He died at half-past five this morning." + +She left him with even less than her usual circumstance, and turned +in at the gate of the Baker Institution. It happened to be the +last day of her probation. + + + +There has never been any difficulty in explaining Lindsay's +marriage with Alicia Livingstone even to himself; the reasons for +it, indeed, were so many and so obvious that he wondered often why +they had not struck him earlier. But it is worth noting, perhaps, +that the immediate precipitating cause arose in one evening service +at the Cathedral, where it had its birth in the very individual +charm of the nape of Alicia's neck, as she knelt upon her hassock +in the fitting and graceful act of the responses. His instincts in +these matters seem to have had a generous range, considering the +tenets he was born to, but it was to him then a delightful +reflection, often since repeated, that in the sheltered garden of +delicate perfumes where this sweet person took her spiritual +pleasure there was no rank vegetation. + +It is much to Miss Hilda Howe's credit that amid the distractions +of her most successful London season she never quite abandons these +two to the social joys that circle round the Ochterlony Monument +and the arid scenic consolations of the Maidan. Her own experience +there is one of the things, I fancy, that make her fond of saying +that the stage is the merest cardboard presentation, and that one +day she means to leave it, to coax back to her bosom the life which +is her heritage in the wider, simpler ways of the world. She never +mentions that experience more directly or less ardently. But I +fear the promise I have quoted is one that she makes too often. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE PATH OF A STAR *** + +This file should be named pstar10.txt or pstar10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, pstar11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, pstar10a.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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