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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6abaa25 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60802 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60802) diff --git a/old/60802-0.txt b/old/60802-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ab3b9b7..0000000 --- a/old/60802-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12388 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Colin, by E. F. Benson - -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/license - - -Title: Colin - -Author: E. F. Benson - -Release Date: November 28, 2019 [EBook #60802] -[Last updated: May 4, 2020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLIN *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - - - - - COLIN - - E. F. BENSON - - - - - _By_ E. F. BENSON - - - COLIN - MISS MAPP - PETER - LOVERS AND FRIENDS - DODO WONDERS-- - “QUEEN LUCIA” - ROBIN LINNET - ACROSS THE STREAM - UP AND DOWN - AN AUTUMN SOWING - THE TORTOISE - DAVID BLAIZE - DAVID BLAIZE AND THE BLUE DOOR - MICHAEL - THE OAKLEYITES - ARUNDEL - OUR FAMILY AFFAIRS - - - _New York: George H. Doran Company_ - - - - - COLIN - - BY - E. F. BENSON - - NEW [Illustration: colophon] YORK - - GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923, - - BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - - [Illustration] - - - COLIN. II - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - COLIN - -_Colin_ comprises the first part only of this romance; it will be -completed in a second volume which will tell of the final fading of the -Legend with which the story opens. - - E. F. B. - - - - - COLIN - - - - - _Book One_ - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -Neither superstition nor spiritual aspiration signified anything -particular to the Staniers, and for many generations now they had been -accustomed to regard their rather sinister family legend with cynical -complacency. Age had stolen the strength from it, as from some -long-cellared wine, and in the Victorian era they would, to take their -collective voice, have denied that, either drunk or sober, they believed -it. But it was vaguely pleasant to have so antique a guarantee that they -would be so sumptuously looked after in this world, while as for the -next.... - -The legend dated from the time of Elizabeth, and was closely connected -with the rise of the family into the pre-eminent splendour which it had -enjoyed ever since. The Queen, in one of her regal journeys through her -realm (during which she slept in so incredible a number of beds), -visited the affiliated Cinque Port of Rye, and, after taking dinner with -the mayor, was riding down one of the steep, cobbled ways when her horse -stumbled and came down on its knees. - -She would certainly have had a cruel fall if a young man had not sprung -forward from the crowd and caught her before her Grace’s head was dashed -against the stones. He set her on her feet, swiftly releasing the -virgin’s bosom from his rough embrace, and, kneeling, kissed the hem of -her skirt. - -The Queen bade him rise, and, as she looked at him, made some -Elizabethan ejaculation of appreciative amazement--a “zounds,” or a -“gadzooks,” or something. - -There stood Colin Stanier in the full blossom of his twenty summers, -ruddy as David and blue-eyed as the sea. His cap had fallen off, and he -must needs toss back his head to free his face from the tumble of his -yellow hair. His athletic effort to save her Grace had given him a -moment’s quickened breath, and his parted lips showed the double circle -of his white teeth. - -But, most of all, did his eyes capture the fancy of his Sovereign; they -looked at her, so she thought, with the due appreciation of her majesty, -but in their humility there was mingled something both gay and bold, and -she loved that any man, young or old, high or humble, should look at her -thus. - -She spoke a word of thanks, and bade him wait on her next day at the -Manor of Brede, where she was to lie that night. Then, motioning her -courtiers aside with a testy gesture, she asked him a question or two -while a fresh horse was being caparisoned and brought for her, and -allowed none other but Colin to help her to mount.... - -It was thought to be significant that at supper that night the virgin -sighed, and made her famous remark to my Lord of Essex that she wished -sometimes that she was a milk-maid. - -Colin Stanier’s father was a man of some small substance, owning a -little juicy land that was fine grazing for cattle, and the boy worked -on the farm. He had some strange, magical power over the beasts; a -savage dog would slaver and fawn on him, a vicious horse sheathed its -violence at his touch, and, in especial at this season of lambing-time, -he wrought wonders of midwifery on the ewes and of nursing on the lambs. -This authoritative deftness sprang from no kindly love of animals; -cleverness and contempt, with a dash of pity, was all he worked with, -and this evening, after the Queen had passed on, it was reluctantly -enough that he went down to the low-lying fields where his father’s -sheep were in pregnancy. The old man himself, as Colin ascertained, had -taken the excuse of her Grace’s visit to get more than usually -intoxicated, and the boy guessed that he himself would be alone half the -night with his lantern and his ministries among the ewes. - -So, indeed, it proved, and the moon had sunk an hour after midnight, -when he entered the shed in the lambing-field to take his bite of supper -and get a few hours’ sleep. He crunched his crusty bread and bacon in -his strong teeth, he had a draught of beer, and, wrapping himself in his -cloak, lay down. He believed (on the evidence of his memoirs) that he -then went to sleep. - -Up to this point the story is likely enough; a pedant might unsniffingly -accept it. But then there occurred (or is said to have occurred) the -event which forms the basis of the Stanier legend, and it will certainly -be rejected, in spite of a certain scrap of parchment still extant and -of the three centuries of sequel, by all sensible and twentieth-century -minds. - -For, according to the legend, Colin woke and found himself no longer -alone in the shed; there was standing by him a finely-dressed fellow who -smiled on him. It was still as dark as the pit outside--no faintest ray -of approaching dawn yet streaked the eastern sky, yet for all that Colin -could see his inexplicable visitor quite plainly. - -The stranger briefly introduced himself as his Satanic majesty, and, -according to his usual pleasant custom, offered the boy all that he -could wish for in life--health and beauty (and, indeed, these were his -already) and wealth, honour, and affluence, which at present were sadly -lacking--on the sole condition that at his death his soul was to belong -to his benefactor. The bargain--this was the unusual feature in the -Stanier legend--was to hold good for all his direct descendants who, -unless they definitely renounced the contract on their own behalf, would -be partakers in these benefits and debtors in the other small matter. - -For his part, Colin had no sort of hesitation in accepting so tempting -an offer, and Satan thereupon produced for his perusal (he was able to -read) a slip of parchment on which the conditions were firmly and -plainly stated. A scratch with his knife on the forearm supplied the ink -for the signature, and Satan provided him with a pen. He was bidden to -keep the document as a guarantee of the good faith of his bargainer; the -red cloak flashed for a moment in front of his eyes, dazzling him, and -he staggered and fell back on the heap of straw from which he had just -risen. - -The darkness was thick and impenetrable round him, but at the moment a -distant flash of lightning blinked in through the open door, showing him -that the shed was empty again. Outside, save for the drowsy answer of -the thunder, all was quiet, but in his hand certainly was a slip of -parchment. - -The same, so runs the legend, is reproduced in the magnificent Holbein -of the young man which hangs now above the mantelpiece in the hall of -Stanier. Colin Stanier, first Earl of Yardley, looking hardly older than -he did on this momentous night, stands there in Garter robes with this -little document in his hand. The original parchment, so the loquacious -housekeeper points out to the visitors who to-day go over the house on -the afternoons when it is open to the public, is let into the frame of -the same portrait. - -Certainly there is such a piece of parchment there, just below the title -of the picture, but the ink has so faded that it is impossible to -decipher more than a word or two of it. The word “diabolus” must be more -conjectured than seen, and the ingenious profess to decipher the words -“quodcunque divitiarum, pulchritud” ... so that it would seem that Colin -the shepherd-boy, if he signed it, must have perused and understood -Latin. - -This in itself is so excessively improbable that the whole business may -be discredited from first to last. But there is no doubt whatever that -Colin Stanier did some time sign a Latin document (for his name in ink, -now brown, is perfectly legible) which has perished in the corroding -years, whether he understood it or not, and there seems no doubt about -the date in the bottom left-hand corner.... - -The constructive reader will by this time have got ready his -interpretation about the whole cock-and-bull story, and a very sensible -one it is. The legend is surely what mythologists call ætiological. -There was--he can see it--an old strip of parchment signed by Colin -Stanier, and this, in view of the incredible prosperity of the family, -coupled with the almost incredible history of their dark deeds, would be -quite sufficient to give rise to the legend. In mediæval times, -apparently, such Satanic bargains were, if not common, at any rate not -unknown, and the legend was, no doubt, invented in order to account for -these phenomena, instead of being responsible for them. - -Of legendary significance, too, must be the story of Philip Stanier, -third Earl, who is said to have renounced his part in the bargain, and -thereupon fell from one misfortune into another, was branded with an -incurable and disfiguring disease, and met his death on the dagger of an -injured woman. Ronald Stanier, a nephew of the above, was another such -recusant; he married a shrew, lost a fortune in the South Sea bubble, -and had a singularly inglorious career. - -But such instances as these (in all the long history there are no more -of them, until credence in the legend faded altogether), even if we -could rely on their authenticity, would only seem to prove that those -who renounced the devil and all his works necessarily met with -misfortune in this life, which is happily not the case, and thus they -tend to disprove rather than confirm the whole affair. - -Finally, when we come to more modern times, and examine the records of -the Stanier family from, let us say, the advent of the Hanoverian -dynasty, though their splendour and distinction is ever a crescent, not -a waning moon, there can be no reason to assign a diabolical origin to -such prosperity. There were black sheep among them, of course, but when -will you not find, in records so public as theirs, dark shadows thrown -by the searchlight of history? Bargains with the powers of hell, in any -case, belong to the romantic dusk of the Middle Ages, and cannot find -any serious place in modern chronicles. - - * * * * * - -But to quit these quagmires of superstition for the warranted and -scarcely less fascinating solidity of fact, Colin Stanier next day -obediently craved audience with the Queen at the Manor of Brede. By a -stroke of intuition which does much to account for his prosperous -fortune, he did not make himself _endimanché_, but, with his shepherd’s -crook in his hand and a new-born lamb in his bosom, he presented himself -at the house where the Queen lodged. He would have been contemptuously -turned back with buffets by the halberdiers and yeomen who guarded the -entrance, but the mention of his name sufficed to admit him with a -reluctant alacrity. - -He wore but the breeches and jerkin in which he pursued his work among -the beasts, his shapely legs were bare from knee to ankle, and as he -entered the porch, he kicked off the shoes in which he had walked from -Rye. His crook he insisted on retaining, and the lamb which, obedient to -the spell that he exercised over young living things, lay quiet in his -arms. - -Some fussy Controller of the Queen’s household would have ejected him -and chanced the consequences, but, said Colin very quietly, “It is by -her Majesty’s orders that I present myself, and whether you buffet me or -not, prithee tell the Queen’s Grace that I am here.” - -There was something surprising in the dignity of the boy; and in the -sweet-toned, clear-cut speech, so unlike the utterance of the mumbling -rustic, and the Controller, bidding him wait where he was, shuffled -upstairs, and came back with extraordinary expedition. - -“The Queen’s Grace awaits you, Mr.----” - -“Stanier,” said Colin. - -“Mr. Stanier. But your crook, your lamb----” - -“Let us do her Majesty’s bidding,” said Colin. - -He was ushered into the long hall of Brede Manor, and the Controller, -having thrown the door open, slipped away with an alertness that -suggested that his presence was desirable there no more, and left the -boy, barefooted, clasping his lamb, with a rush-strewn floor to -traverse. There was a table down the centre of it, littered with papers, -and hemmed in with chairs that suggested that their occupants had -hurriedly vacated them. At the end was seated a small, bent figure, -conspicuous for her ruff and her red hair, and her rope of pearls, and -her eyes bright and sharp as a bird’s. - -Colin, sadly pricked on the soles of his feet by the rushes, advanced -across that immeasurable distance, looking downwards on his lamb. When -he had traversed the half of it, he raised his eyes for a moment, and -saw that the Queen, still quite motionless, was steadily regarding him. -Again he bent his eyes on his lamb, and when he had come close to that -formidable figure, he fell on his knees. - -“A lamb, madam,” he said, “which is the first-fruits of the spring. My -crook, which I lay at your Grace’s feet, and myself, who am not worthy -to lie there.” - -Again Colin raised his eyes, and the wretch put into them all the gaiety -and boldness which he gave to the wenches on the farm. Then he dropped -them again, and with his whole stake on the table, waited, gambler as he -was, for the arbitrament. - -“Look at me, Colin Stanier,” said the Queen. - -Colin looked. There was the tiny wrinkled face, the high eyebrows, the -thin-lipped mouth disclosing the discoloured teeth. - -“Madam!” he said. - -“Well, what next?” said Elizabeth impatiently. - -“My body and soul, madam,” said Colin, and once more he put into his -eyes and his eager mouth that semblance of desire which had made -Mistress Moffat, the wife of the mayor, box his ears with a blow that -was more of a caress. - -The Queen felt precisely the same as Mistress Moffat, and drew her hand -down over his smooth chin. “And it is your wish to be my shepherd-boy, -Colin?” she asked. “You desire to be my page?” - -“I am sick with desire,” said Colin. - -“I appoint you,” she said. “I greet and salute you, Colin Stanier.” - -She bent towards him, and neither saint nor devil could have inspired -Colin better at that moment. He kissed her (after all, he had been -offered the greeting) fairly and squarely on her withered cheek, and -then, without pause, kissed the hem of her embroidered gown. He had done -right, just absolutely right. - -“You bold dog!” said the Queen. “Stand up.” - -Colin stood up, with his arms close by his side, as if at attention in -all his shapeliness and beauty, and the Queen clapped her hands. - -The side door opened disclosing halberdiers, and through the door by -which Colin had entered came the Controller. - -“Colin Stanier is my page,” she said, “and of my household. Summon my -lords again; we have not finished with our Spanish business. The lamb--I -will eat that lamb, and none other, at the feast of Easter.” - -Within the week Colin was established in attendance on the Queen, and -the daring felicity which had marked his first dealings with her never -failed nor faltered. His radiant youth, the gaiety of his boyish -spirits, the unfailing tact of his flattery, his roguish innocence, the -fine innate breeding of the yeoman-stock, which is the best blood in -England, wove a spell that seemed to defy the usual fickleness of her -favouritism. Certainly he had wisdom as far beyond his years as it was -beyond his upbringing, and wisdom coming like pure water from the curves -of that beautiful young mouth, made him frankly irresistible to the -fiery and shrewd old woman. - -From being her page he was speedily advanced to the post of confidential -secretary, and queer it was to see the boy seated by her side at some -state council while she rated and stormed at her lords for giving her -some diplomatic advice which her flame-like spirit deemed spiritless. -Then, in mid-tirade, she would stop, tweak her secretary by his rosy -ear, and say, “Eh, Colin, am I not in the right of it?” - -Very often she was not, and then Colin would so deftly insinuate further -considerations, prefacing them by, “As your Grace and Majesty so wisely -has told us” (when her Grace and Majesty had told them precisely the -opposite) that Elizabeth would begin to imagine that she had thought of -these prudent things herself. - -The Court in general followed the example of their royal mistress, and -had not Colin’s nature, below its gaiety and laughter, been made of some -very stern stuff, he must surely have degenerated into a spoilt, vain -child, before ever he came to his full manhood. Men and women alike were -victims of that sunny charm; to be with him made the heart sing, and -none could grudge that a boy on whom God had showered every grace of -mind and body, should find the mere tawdry decorations of riches and -honour his natural heritage. - -Then, too, there was this to consider: the Queen’s fickle and violent -temper might topple down one whom she had visited but yesterday with her -highest favours, and none but Colin could induce her to restore the -light she had withdrawn. If you wanted a boon granted, or even a -vengeance taken, there was no such sure road to its accomplishment as to -secure Colin’s advocacy, no path that led so straight to failure as to -set the boy against you. For such services it was but reasonable that -some token of gratitude should be conferred on him by the suppliant, -some graceful acknowledgment which, in our harsh modern way, we should -now term “commission,” and Colin’s commissions, thus honestly earned, -soon amounted to a very pretty figure. Whether he augmented them or not -by less laudable methods, by threats or what we call by that ugly word -“blackmail,” is a different matter, and need not be gone into. - -Yet, surrounded as he was by all that might have been expected to turn a -boy’s head, Colin remained singularly well-balanced, and whatever tales -might be told about his virtue, the most censorious could find no fault -with his prudence. The Queen created him at the age of twenty-five -Knight of the Garter and Earl of Yardley, a title which his descendants -hold to this day, and presented him with the Manor of Yardley in -Buckinghamshire, and the monastic lands of Tillingham on the hills above -the Romney Marsh. He incorporated the fine dwelling-house of the evicted -abbot into the great and glorious mansion of Stanier, the monks’ -quarters he demolished altogether, and the abbey church became the -parish church of Tillingham for worship, and the chapel and -burying-place of the Staniers for pride. - -But, though the Queen told him once and again that it was time her Colin -took a wife, he protested that while her light was shed on him not Venus -herself could kindle desire in his heart. This was the only instance in -which he disobeyed Gloriana’s wishes, but Gloriana willingly pardoned -his obduracy, and rewarded it with substantial benefits. - -On her death, which occurred when he was thirty, he made a very suitable -match with the heiress of Sir John Reeves, who brought him, in addition -to a magnificent dowry, the considerable acreage which to-day is part of -the London estate of the Staniers. He retired from court-life, and -divided the year between Stanier and London, busy with the embellishment -of his houses, into which he poured those treasures of art which now -glorify them. - -He was, too, as the glades and terraces of Stanier testify, a gardener -on a notable scale, and his passion in this direction led him to evict -his father from the farm where Colin’s own boyhood was passed, which lay -on the level land below the hill, in order to make there the long, -ornamental water which is one of the most agreeable features of the -place. - -His father by this time was an old man of uncouth and intemperate -habits, and it could not perhaps be expected that the young earl should -cherish his declining years with any very personal tenderness. But he -established him in a decent dwelling, gave him an adequate maintenance -with a permission to draw on the brewery for unlimited beer, and made -only the one stipulation that his father should never attempt to gain -access to him. The old man put so liberal an interpretation on his -beer-rights, that he did not enjoy them very long. - -This taint of hardness in Colin’s character was no new feature. He had -left the home of his boyhood without regret or any subsequent affection -of remembrance: he had made his pleasurable life at Court a profitable -affair, whereas others had spent their salaries and fortunes in -maintaining their suitable magnificence, and, like the great Marlborough -a few generations later, he had allowed infatuated women to pay pretty -handsomely for the privilege of adoring him, and the inhumanities, such -as his eviction of his father, with which his married life was -garlanded, was no more than the reasonable development of earlier -tendencies. Always a great stickler for the majesty of the law, he -caused certain sheep-stealers on the edge of his property to be hanged -for their misdeeds, and why should not the lord of Tillingham have -bought their little properties from their widows at a more than -reasonable price? - -Though his own infidelities were notorious, the settlements of his -marriage were secure enough, and when he had already begotten two sons -of the hapless daughter of Sir John Reeves, he invoked the aid of the -law to enable him to put her away and renew his vow of love and honour -to the heiress of my Lord Middlesex. She proved to be a barren crone, -and perhaps had no opportunity of proving her fruitfulness, but she was -so infatuated with him that by the settlements she gave him -unconditionally the Broughton property which so conveniently adjoined -his own. - - * * * * * - -To go back again for a moment to that obscure matter of the Stanier -legend, it appears that on the day on which each of his sons came of -age, their father made them acquainted with the agreement he had made on -behalf of himself and the heirs of his body, and shewed them the signed -parchment. They had, so he pointed out to them, the free choice of -dissociating themselves from that bargain, and of taking the chance of -material prosperity here and of salvation hereafter; he enjoined on them -also the duty of transmitting the legend to their children in the manner -and at the time that it had been made known to themselves. - -Neither Ronald, the elder, nor his brother Philip felt the least qualm -about the future, but they both had a very considerable appreciation of -the present, and on each occasion the parchment was restored to its -strong box with no loss of validity as regards the next generation. -Ronald soon afterwards made one of those prudent marriages for which for -generations the Staniers have been famous; Philip, on the other hand, -who presently made for himself at the Court a position hardly less -brilliant than his father’s had been, found celibacy, with its -accompanying consolations, good enough for him. - -This is too polite an age to speak of his infamies and his amazing -debauches, but his father was never tired of hearing about them, and -used to hang on the boy’s tales when he got leave of absence from the -Court to spend a week at home. Ronald was but a prude in comparison with -the other two, protesting at Philip’s more atrocious experiences. His -notion, so he drunkenly tried to explain himself (for his grandfather’s -pleasures made strong appeal to him) was that there were things that no -gentleman would do, whatever backing he had, and with a curious -superstitious timidity he similarly refused to play dice on the -Communion table in the old monastic chapel.... - -For full forty years after the death of the Queen, Colin, Knight of the -Garter and first Earl of Yardley, revelled at the banquet of life. All -that material prosperity could offer was his; his princely purchases, -his extravagances, his sumptuous hospitalities were powerless to check -the ever-swelling roll of his revenues; he enjoyed a perfect bodily -health, and up to the day of his death his force was unabated, his eye -undimmed, and the gold in his hair untouched by a single thread of -silver. - -As the years went on, his attachment to this stately house of Stanier -grew to a passion, and however little credence we may give to the -legend, it is certain that his descendants inherit from Colin Stanier -that devotion to the place where they were born. No Stanier, so it is -said, is ever completely happy away from the great house that crowns the -hill above the Romney Marsh; it is to them a shrine, a Mecca, a golden -Jerusalem, the home of their hearts, and all the fairest of foreign -lands, the most sunny seas, the most sumptuous palaces are but -wildernesses or hovels in comparison with their home. To such an extent -was this true of Colin, first Earl, that for the last ten years of his -life he scarcely left the place for a night. - -But though his bodily health remained ever serene and youthful, and -youth’s excesses, continued into old age, left him unwrinkled of skin -and vigorous in desire, there grew on him during the last year of his -life a malady neither of body nor of mind, but of the very spirit and -essence of his being. The compact that he believed himself to have made -had been fully and honestly observed by the other high contracting -party, and as the time drew near that his own share in the bargain must -be exacted from him, his spirit, we must suppose, conscious that the -imprint of the divine was so shortly to be surcharged with the stamp and -superscription of hell, was filled with some remorseful terror, that in -itself was a foretaste of damnation. - -He ate, he drank, he slept, he rioted, he brought to Stanier yet more -treasures of exquisite art--Italian pictures, bronzes of Greek -workmanship, Spanish lace, torn, perhaps, from the edges of -altar-cloths, intaglios, Persian Pottery, and Ming porcelain from China. -His passion for beauty, which had all his life been a torch to him, did -not fail him, nor yet the wit and rapier-play of tongue, nor yet the -scandalous chronicles of Philip. But in the midst of beauty or -debauchery, there would come to his mind with such withering of the -spirit as befel Belshazzar when the writing was traced on the wall, the -knowledge of his approaching doom. - -As if to attempt to turn it aside or soften the inexorable fate, he gave -himself to deeds of belated pity and charitableness. He endowed an -almshouse in Rye; he erected a fine tomb over his father’s grave; he -attended daily service in the church which he had desecrated with his -dice-throwings. And all the time his spirit told him that it was too -late, he had made his bed and must lie on it: for he turned to the God -whom he had renounced neither in love nor in sincerity, nor in fear of -Him, but in terror of his true master. - -But when he tried to pray his mind could invoke no holy images, but was -decked with pageants of debauchery, and if he formed his lips to pious -words there dropped from them a stream of obscenities and blasphemy. At -any moment the terror would lay its hand on his spirit, affecting -neither body nor mind, but addressing itself solely to the immortal and -deathless part of him. It was in vain that he attempted to assure -himself, too, that in the ordering of the world neither God nor devil -has a share, for even the atheism in which he had lived deserted him as -the hour of his death drew near. - -The day of his seventieth birthday arrived: the house was full of -guests, and in honour of the occasion there was a feast for the tenants -of the estate in the great hall, while his own friends, making a -company of some fifty, sat at the high table on the dais. All day -distant thunder had muttered obscurely among the hills, and by the time -that the lights were lit in the hall, and the drinking deep, a heavy -pall had overspread the sky. - -Lord Yardley was in fine spirits that night. For years he had had a -presentiment that he would do no more than reach the exact span -appointed for the life of men, and would die on his seventieth birthday, -and here was the day as good as over, and if that presentiment proved to -be unfulfilled he felt that he would face with a stouter scepticism the -other terror. He had just risen from his place to reply to the toast of -the evening, and stood, tall and comely, the figure of a man still in -the prime of life, facing his friends and dependents. Then, even while -he opened his lips to speak, the smile was struck from his face, and -instead of speech there issued from his mouth one wild cry of terror. - -“No, no!” he screamed, and with his arm pushed out in front of him as if -to defend himself against some invisible presence, he fell forward -across the table. - -At that moment the hall leaped into blinding light, and an appalling -riot of thunder answered. Some said that he had been struck and, indeed, -on his forehead there was a small black mark as of burning, but those -nearest felt no shock, and were confident that the stroke which had -fallen on him preceded the flash and the thunder: he had crashed forward -after that cry and that gesture of terror, before even the lightning -descended.... And Ronald reigned in his stead. - - * * * * * - -By the patent of nobility granted to Colin Stanier by Elizabeth, the -estates and title descended not through heirs male only, but through the -female line. If an Earl of Yardley died leaving only female issue, the -girl became Countess of Yardley in her own right, to the exclusion of -sons begotten by her father’s or grandfather’s younger brother. It was -perhaps characteristic of the Queen to frame the charter thus--she had -done so of her own invention and devising--for thus she gratified her -own sense of the capability of her sex, and also felt some phantom of -posthumous delight in securing, as far as she could, that the honours -that she had showered on her favourite should descend in direct line. -But for many generations her foresight and precaution seemed needless, -since each holder of the title bore sons only, and the line was straight -as a larch, from father to son. By some strange arbitrament of fate it -so happened that younger sons (following the unchaste example of Philip) -died in legal celibacy, or, if they married, were childless, or became -so in that generation or the next. Thus the family is unique in having -to this day no collateral branches, and in this the fancifully disposed -may be prone to see a certain diabolical observance of the original -bond. No dowries for daughters had to be provided, and such portions as -were made for younger sons soon rolled back again into the sea of family -affluence. - -The purchase of land formed the main outlet for the flood of -ever-increasing revenue, and as surely as Lord Yardley entered upon his -new acreages, mineral wealth would be discovered on the freshly-acquired -property (as was the case in the Cornish farms, where the Stanier lode -of tin was found), or if when, at a later date, as in a mere freak, he -purchased barren fields fit only for grazing, by the sea, it was not -long before the Prince Regent found that the Sussex coast enjoyed a -bracing and salubrious air, and lo! all the grazing-lands of Lord -Stanier became building sites. Whatever they touched turned to gold, and -that to no anæmic hands incapable of enjoying the lusts and splendours -of life. Honours fell on them thick as autumn leaves: each holder of the -title in turn has won the Garter, and never has the Garter been bestowed -on them without solid merit to carry it. Three have been Prime -Ministers, further three ambassadors to foreign countries on difficult -and delicate businesses; in the Napoleonic wars there was a great -general.... But all these records are public property. - -Less known, perhaps, is the fact that no Lord Yardley has ever yet died -in his bed or received the religious consolation that would fit him to -go forth undismayed on his last dark, solitary journey, and though each -in turn (with the sad exception of Philip, third Earl, and his nephew, -the recusant Ronald) has lived to the comfortable age of seventy, swift -death, sometimes with violence, has been the manner of his exit. Colin, -fourth Earl, committed suicide under circumstances which made it -creditable that he should do so; otherwise strange seizures, -accompanied, it would appear, by some inexplicable terror, has been the -manner of the demise. - -And what, in this brief history of their annals, can be said of the -legend, except that from being a terrible truth to Colin, first Earl, it -has faded even as has faded the ink which records that mythical -bargaining? It is more than a hundred years ago now that the Lord -Yardley of the day caused the parchment to be inserted in the frame of -his infamous ancestor, where it can be seen now every Thursday afternoon -from three to five, when Stanier is open, without fee, to decently-clad -visitors, and the very fact that Lord Yardley (_temp._ George III.) -should have displayed it as a curiosity, is the measure of the -incredulity with which those most closely concerned regarded it. A man -would not put up for all the world to see the warrant that he should -burn eternally in the fires of hell if he viewed it with the slightest -tremor of misgiving. It was blasphemous even to suppose that worldly -prosperity (as said the excellent parson at Stanier who always dined at -the house on Sunday evening and slept it off on Monday morning) was -anything other than the mark of divine favour, and many texts from the -Psalmist could be produced in support of his view. Thus fortified by -port and professional advice, Lord Yardley decreed the insertion of the -document into the frame that held the picture of that ancestor of his -whose signature it bore, and gave a remarkably generous subscription to -the organ-fund. Faded as was the writing then, it has faded into greater -indecipherability since, and with it any remnant of faith in its -validity. - -Yet hardly less curious to the psychologist is the strange nature of -these Staniers. Decked as they are with the embellishment of -distinction, of breeding, and beauty, they have always seemed to their -contemporaries to be lacking in some quality, hard to define but easy to -appreciate or, in their case, to miss. A tale of trouble will very -likely win from them some solid alleviation, but their generosity, you -would find, gave always the impression of being made not out of love or -out of sympathy, but out of contempt. - -Their charm--and God knows how many have fallen victims to it--has been -and is that of some cold brilliance, that attracts even as the beam of a -lighthouse attracts the migrating birds who dash themselves to pieces -against the glass that shields it; it can scarcely be said to be the -fault of the light that the silly feathered things broke themselves -against its transparent, impenetrable armour. It hardly invited: it only -shone on business which did not concern the birds, so there was no -definite design of attraction or cruelty in its beams, only of -brilliance and indifference. That is the habit of light; such, too, are -the habits of birds; the light even might be supposed by sentimentalists -faintly to regret the shattered wing and the brightness of the drowned -plumage. - -But, so it is popularly supposed, it is quite easy, though not very -prudent, to arouse unfavourable emotion in a Stanier; you have but to -vex him or run counter to his wish, and you will very soon find yourself -on the target of a remorseless and vindictive hate. No ray of pity, so -it is said, softens the hardness of that frosty intensity; no -contrition, when once it has been aroused, will thaw it. Forgiveness is -a word quite foreign to their vocabulary, and its nearest equivalent is -a contemptuous indifference. Gratitude, in the same way, figures as an -obsolete term in the language of their emotions. They neither feel it -nor expect it: it has no currency. Whatever you may be privileged to do -for a Stanier, he takes as a mite in the endowment which the world has -always, since the days of our Elizabethan Colin, poured into their -treasuries, while if he has done you a good turn, he has done so as he -would chuck a picked bone to a hungry dog: the proper course for the dog -is to snatch it up and retire into its corner to mumble it. - -It would be strange, then, if, being without ruth or love, a Stanier -could bestow or aspire to friendship with man or woman, and, indeed, -such an anomaly has never occurred. But, then, it must be remembered -that Staniers, as far as we can find out from old letters and diaries -and mere historical documents, never wanted friendship nor, indeed, -comprehended it. Their beauty and their charm made easy for them the -creation of such relationships as they desired, the assuaging of such -thirst as was theirs, after which the sucked rind could be thrown away; -and though through all their generations they have practised those -superb hospitalities which find so apt a setting at Stanier, it is -rather as gods snuffing up the incense of their worshippers than as -entertaining their friends that they fill the great house with all who -are noblest by birth or distinction. - -George IV., for instance, when Prince Regent, stayed there, it may be -remembered, for nearly a fortnight, having been asked for three days, -during which time the entire House of Lords with their wives spent in -noble sections two nights at Stanier, as well as many much younger and -sprightlier little personages just as famous in the proper quarter. The -entire opera from Drury Lane diverted their evening one night, baccarat -(or its equivalent) beguiled another, on yet another the Prince could -not be found.... - - * * * * * - -Not so fortunate, perhaps, save in being the mistresses of all this -splendour, and invariably the mothers of handsome sons, have been the -successive wives in this illustrious line. For with whatever natural -gaiety, with whatever high and independent spirit these ladies married -the sons of the house, they seemed always to have undergone some gloomy -and mysterious transformation. It was as if they were ground in a mill, -and ground exceeding small, and as if the resulting powder of grain was -mixed and kneaded and baked into the Stanier loaf. - -Especially was this the case with her who married the young Lord Stanier -of the day; long before she succeeded to her full honours she had been -crushed into the iron mould designed for the Countesses of Yardley. In -public, dignity and stateliness and fine manner would distinguish her, -but below these desirable insignia of her station, her character and -individuality seemed to have been reduced to pulp, to have been frozen -to death, to have been pounded and brayed in some soul-shattering -mortar. Perhaps when first as a bride she entered through the glass -doors which were only opened when the eldest son brought home his wife, -or when there was welcomed at Stanier some reigning monarch, her heart -would be all afire with love and virgin longing for him with whom she -passed through those fatal portals, but before the honeymoon was over -this process that tamed and stifled and paralysed would have begun its -deadly work. - -For the eldest son and his wife there was reserved a floor in one of the -wings of the house; they had no other establishment in the country, and -here, when not in London, the family dwelt in patriarchal fashion. When -no guests were present, the heir-apparent and his wife breakfasted and -lunched in the privacy of their wing, if so they chose; they had their -own horses, their own household of servants, but every evening, when the -warning bell for dinner sounded, the major-domo came to the door of -their apartments and preceded them down to the great gallery where, with -any other sons and daughters-in-law, they awaited the entrance of Lord -Yardley and his wife. Then came the stately and almost speechless -dinner, served on gold plate, and after that a rubber of whist, -decorous and damning, until Lady Yardley retired on the stroke of ten, -and the sons joined their father in the billiard-room. - -Such evenings were rare (for usually throughout the shooting season -there were guests in the house), but from them we can conjecture some -sketch of the paralysing process: this was the conduct of a family -evening in the mere superficial adventure of dining and passing a -sociable evening, and from it we can estimate something of the effect of -parallel processes applied to the thoughts and the mind and the -aspirations and the desires of a young wife. No Stanier wanted love or -gave it; what he wanted when he took his mate was that in obedience and -subjection she should give him (as she always did) a legitimate and -healthy heir. She was not a Stanier, and though she wore the family -pearls like a halter, she was only there on sufferance and of necessity, -and though her blood would beat with the true ichor in the arteries of -the next generation, she was in herself no more than the sucked -orange-rind. - -The Staniers were too proud to reckon an alliance with any family on the -face of the earth as anything but an honour for the family concerned; -even when, as happened at the close of the eighteenth century, a -princess of the Hohenzollern line was married to the heir, she was -ground in the mill like any other. In her case she shared to the full in -the brutal arrogance of her own family, and had imagined that it was she -who, by this alliance, had conferred, not accepted, an honour. She had -supposed that her husband and his relations would give her the deference -due to royalty, and it took her some little time to learn her lesson, -which she appears to have mastered. - -A hundred years later the Emperor William II. of Germany had a reminder -of it which caused him considerable surprise. On one of his visits to -England he deigned to pass a week-end at Stanier, and though received as -a reigning monarch with opening of the glass doors, he found that his -condescension in remembering that he was connected with the family was -not received with the rapture of humility which he had expected. He had -asked to be treated by the members of the family as Cousin Willie, and -they did so with a nonchalance that was truly amazing. - -Such, in brief, was the rise of the Staniers, and such the outline of -their splendour. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -By the middle of the nineteenth century the fading of the actual deed -signed by Colin Stanier had scarcely kept pace with the fading of the -faith in it: this had become the mildest of effete superstitions. About -that epoch, also, the continuity of Stanier tradition was broken, for -there was born in the direct line not only two sons but a daughter, -Hester, who, a couple of centuries ago, would probably have been -regarded as a changeling, and met an early fate as such. She was as -lovely as the dawn, and had to the full, with every feminine grace -added, a double portion of the Stanier charm, but in her disposition no -faintest trace of traditional inheritance could be found; instead of -their inhuman arrogance, their icy self-sufficiency, she was endowed -with a gaiety and a rollicking gutter-snipe enjoyment of existence, -which laughed to scorn the dignity of birth. - -Being of the inferior sex, her father decreed that she should be brought -up in the image of the tradition which ground so small the women who had -married into the family; she must become, like her own mother, aloof and -calm and infinitely conscious of her position. But neither precept nor -example had the smallest effect on her: for dignity, she had -boisterousness; for calm, buoyant, irrepressible spirits; and for -self-control, a marked tendency to allure and kindle the -susceptibilities of the other sex, were he peer or ploughboy. - -Alone, too, of her race, she had no spark of that passionate affection -for her home that was one of the most salient characteristics of the -others. - -She gave an instance of this defect when, at the age of fifteen, she ran -away from Stanier half-way through August, while the family were in -residence after the season in London, being unable to stand the thought -of that deadly and awful stateliness which would last without break till -January, when the assembling of the Houses of Parliament would take them -all back to the metropolis which she loved with extraordinary fervour. -Part of the way she went in a train, part of the way she rode, and -eventually arrived back at the huge house in St. James’s Square, now -empty and sheeted, and persuaded the caretaker, who had been her nurse -and adored her with unique devotion, to take her in and send no news to -Stanier of her arrival. - -“Darling Cooper,” she said, with her arms round the old woman’s neck and -her delicious face bestowing kisses on her, “unless you promise to say -nothing about my coming here, I shall leave the house and get really -lost. They say a healthy girl can always get a living.” - -“Eh, my dear,” said Cooper, much shocked, “what are you saying?” - -Hester’s look of seraphic ignorance that she had said anything unusual -reassured Cooper. - -“What am I saying?” asked Hester. “I’m just saying what I shall do. I -shall buy a monkey and a barrel-organ and dress like a gipsy and tell -fortunes. But I won’t go back to that awful Stanier.” - -“But it’s your papa’s house,” said Cooper. “Young ladies have to live -with their families till they are married.” - -“This one won’t,” said Hester. “And I believe it’s true, Cooper, that we -own it through the power of the devil. It’s a dreadful place: there’s a -blight on it. Grandmamma was turned to stone there, and mamma has been -turned to stone, and they’re trying to turn me to stone.” - -Poor Cooper was in a fair quandary; she knew that Hester was perfectly -capable of rushing out of the house unless she gave her the desired -promise, and then with what face would she encounter Lord Yardley, how -stammer forth the miserable confession that Hester had been here? Not -less impossible to contemplate was the housing of this entrancing imp, -and keeping to herself the secret of Hester’s whereabouts. Even more -impossible was the third count of giving Hester the promise, and then -breaking it by sending a clandestine communication to her mother, for -that would imply the loss of Hester’s trust in her, and she could not -face the idea of those eyes turned reproachfully on her as on some -treacherous foe. - -She hesitated, and the artful Hester noted her advantage. - -“Darling Cooper, you wouldn’t like me to be turned to stone,” she said. -“I know I should make a lovely statue, but it’s better to be alive.” - -“Eh, my dear, be a good girl and go back to Stanier,” pleaded Cooper. -“Think of your mamma and the anxiety she’s in about you.” - -Hester made “a face.” “It’s silly to say that,” she said. “Mamma -anxious, indeed! Mamma couldn’t be anxious: she’s dead inside.” - -Cooper felt she could not argue the point with any conviction, for she -was entirely of Hester’s opinion. - -“And I’ve had no tea, Cooper,” said the girl, “and I am so hungry.” - -“Bless the child, but I’ll get you your tea,” said Cooper. “And then -you’ll be a good girl and let me send off a telegram....” - -What Hester’s future plans really were she had not yet determined to -herself; she was still acting under the original impulse which had made -her run away. Come what might, she had found the idea of Stanier utterly -impossible that morning; the only thing that mattered was to get away. - -But as Cooper bustled about with the preparations of the tea, she began -to consider what she really expected. She was quite undismayed at what -she had done, and was on that score willing to confront any stone faces -that might be-Gorgon her, but her imagination could not picture what she -was going to do. Would she live here _perdue_ for the next six months -till the family of stone brought their Pharaoh-presence into London -again? She could not imagine that. Was it to come, then, to the -threatened barrel-organ and the monkey and the telling of fortunes? Glib -and ready as had been her speech on that subject, it lacked reality when -seriously contemplated in the mirror of the future. - -But if she was not proposing to live here with Cooper, or to run away -definitely--a prospect for which, at the age of fifteen, she felt -herself, now that it grimly stared her in the face, wholly unripe--there -was nothing to be done, but to-day or to-morrow, or on one of the -conceivable to-morrows, to go back again. And yet her whole nature -revolted against that. - -She was sitting in the window-seat of the big hall as this dismal debate -went on in her head, but all the parties to that conference were agreed -on one thing--namely, that Cooper should not telegraph to her mother, -and that, come what might, Cooper should not be imagined to be an -accomplice. Just then she heard a step on the threshold outside, and -simultaneously the welcome jingle of a tea-tray from the opposite -direction. Hester tiptoed towards the latter of these sounds, and found -Cooper laden with good things on a tray advancing up the corridor. - -“Go back to your room, Cooper,” she whispered; “there is some one at the -door. I will see who it is.” - -“Eh, now, let me open the door,” said Cooper, visibly apprehensive. - -“No! Go away!” whispered Hester, and remained there during imperative -peals of the bell till Cooper had vanished. - -She tried, by peeping sideways out of the hall window, to arrive at the -identity of this impatient visitor, but could see nothing of him. Then, -with cold courage, she went to the front-door and opened it. She -expected something bad--her mother, perhaps, or her brothers’ tutor, or -the groom of the chambers--but she had conjectured nothing so bad as -this, for on the doorstep stood her father. - -That formidable figure was not often encountered by her. In London she -practically never saw him at all; in the country she saw him but once a -day, when, with the rest of the family, she waited in the drawing-room -before dinner for his entrance with her mother. Then they all stood up, -and paired off to go in to dinner. In some remote manner Hester felt -that she had no existence for him, but that he, at close quarters, had a -terrible existence for her. Generally, he took no notice whatever of -her, but to-day she realised that she existed for him in so lively a -manner that he had come up from Stanier to get into touch with her. Such -courage as she had completely oozed out of her: she had become just a -stone out of the family quarry. - -“So you’re here,” he said, shutting the door behind him. - -“Yes,” said Hester. - -“And do you realise what you’ve done?” he asked. - -“I’ve run away,” said she. - -“I don’t mean that,” said he; “that’s soon remedied. But you’ve made me -spend half the day travelling in order to find you. Now you’re going to -suffer for it. Stand up here in front of me.” - -As he spoke he drew off his fine white gloves and put the big sapphire -ring that he wore into his pocket. At that Hester guessed his purpose. - -“I shan’t,” she said. - -He gave her so ill-omened and ugly a glance that her heart quailed. “You -will do as I tell you,” he said. - -Hester felt her pulses beating small and quick. Fear perhaps accounted -for that, but more dominant than fear in her mind was the sense of her -hatred of her father. He was like a devil, one of those contorted -waterspouts on the church at home. She found herself obeying him. - -“Now I am going to punish you,” he said, “for being such a nuisance to -me. By ill-luck you are my daughter, and as you don’t know how a -daughter of mine ought to behave, I am going to show you what happens -when she behaves as you have done. Your mother has often told me that -you are a wilful and vulgar child, disobedient to your governesses, and, -in a word, common. But now you have forced your commonness upon my -notice, and I’m going to make you sorry for having done so. Hold your -head up.” - -He drew back his arm, and with his open hand smacked her across her -cheek; with his left hand he planted a similar and stinging blow. Four -times those white thin fingers of his blazoned themselves on her face, -and then he paused. - -“Well, why don’t you cry?” he said. - -“Because I don’t choose to,” said Hester. - -“Put your head up again,” said he. - -She stood there firm as a rock for half a dozen more of those bitter -blows, and then into his black heart there came a conviction, bitterer -than any punishment he had inflicted on her, that he was beaten. In -sheer rage at this he took her by her shoulders and shook her violently. -And then came the end, for she simply collapsed on the floor, still -untamed. Her bodily force might fail, but she flew no flag of surrender. - -She came to herself again with the sense of Cooper near her. She turned -weary eyes this way and that, but saw nothing of her father. - -“Oh, Cooper, has that devil gone?” she asked. - -“Eh, my lady,” said Cooper, “who are you talking of? There’s no one here -but his lordship.” - -Hester raised herself on her elbow and saw that awful figure standing by -the great chimneypiece. The first thought that came into her mind was -for Cooper. - -“I wish to tell you that ever since I entered the house Cooper has been -saying that she must telegraph to you that I was here,” she said. - -He nodded. “That’s all right then, Cooper,” he said. - -Hester watched her father take the sapphire ring from his waistcoat -pocket. He put this on, and then his gloves. - -“Her ladyship will stay here to-night, Cooper,” he said. “And you will -take her to the station to-morrow morning and bring her down to -Stanier.” - -He did not so much as glance at Hester, and next moment the front door -had closed behind him. - - * * * * * - -Hester arrived back at Stanier next day after this abortive expedition, -and it was clear at once that orders had been issued that no word was to -be said to her on the subject of what she had done. She had mid-day -dinner with her governess, rode afterwards with her brothers, and as -usual stood up when her father entered the drawing-room in the evening. -The awful life had closed like a trap upon her again, rather more -tightly than before, for she was subject to a closer supervision. - -But though the apparent victory was with her father, she knew (and was -somehow aware that he knew it, too) that her spirit had not yielded one -inch to him, and that he, for all his grim autocracy, was conscious, as -regards her, of imperfect mastery. If he had broken her will, so she -acutely argued, she would not now have been watched; her doings would -not, as they certainly were, have been reported to him by the governess. -That was meat and drink to her. But from being a mere grim presence in -the background he had leaped into reality, and with the whole force of -her nature, she hated him. - -The substance of the Stanier legend, faint though the faith in it had -become, was, of course, well known to her, and every morning, looking -like some young sexless angel newly come to earth, she added to her very -tepid prayers the fervent and heartfelt petition that the devil would -not long delay in exacting his part of the bargain. - - * * * * * - -Two years passed, and Hester became aware that there were schemes on -foot for marrying her off with the utmost possible speed. The idea of -marriage in the abstract was wholly to her mind, since then she would be -quit of the terrible life at Stanier, but in the concrete she was not -so content with her selected deliverer. This was the mild and highborn -Marquis of Blakeney, a man precisely twice her age, of plain, serious -mind and irreproachable morals. He adored her in a rapt and tongue-tied -manner, and no doubt Hester had encouraged him with those little smiles -and glances which she found it impossible not to bestow on any male -denizen of this earth, without any distinct ulterior views. But when it -became evident, by his own express declaration made with the permission -of her father, that he entertained such views, Hester wondered whether -it would be really possible to kiss that seal-like whiskered face with -any semblance of wifely enthusiasm. - -Had there been any indication that her pious petition with regard to the -speedy ratification of the Stanier legend as regards her father would be -granted, she would probably have recommended the mild Marquis to take -his vows to other shrines, but her father seemed to be suffering no -inconvenience from her prayers, and she accepted the rapt and -tongue-tied devotion. Instantly all the bonds of discipline and -suppression were relaxed; even in her father’s eyes her engagement made -her something of a personage, and Hester hated him more than ever. - -And then the vengeance of winged, vindictive love, more imperious than -her father, overtook and punished her, breaking her spirit, which he had -never done. At a dance given at Blakeney Castle to celebrate the -engagement, she saw young Ralph Brayton, penniless and debonair, with no -seal-face and no marquisate, and the glance of each pierced through the -heart of the other. He was the son of the family solicitor of Lord -Blakeney, and even while his father was drawing out the schedule of -munificent settlements for the bride-to-be, the bride gave him something -more munificent yet, and settled it, her heart, upon him for all -perpetuity. - -She did her best to disown, if not to stifle, what had come upon her, -and had her marriage but been fixed for a month earlier than the day -appointed, she would probably have married her affianced bridegroom, -and let love hang itself in its own silken noose and chance its being -quite strangled. As it was, even while her room at Stanier was silky and -shimmering with the appurtenances of a bride, she slipped out one night -as the moon set, and joined her lover at the park gates. By dawn they -had come to London, and before evening she was safe in the holding of -her husband’s arms. - -On the news reaching Lord Yardley he had a stroke from which he did not -recover for many years, though he soon regained sufficient power of -babbling speech to make it abundantly clear that he would never see -Hester again. As she was equally determined never to see him, their -wills were in complete harmony. That brutal punishment she had received -from those thin white hands two years before, followed by the bondage of -her life at home, had rendered her perfectly callous as regards him. Had -he been sorry for it, she might have shrugged her pretty shoulders and -forgotten it; for that cold pale slab of womanhood, her mother, she felt -nothing whatever. - -This outrageous marriage of Hester’s, followed by her father’s stroke, -were contrary to all tradition as regards the legend, for these -calamities, indeed, looked as if one of the high contracting parties was -not fulfilling his share of the bargain, and the behaviour of Philip, -Lord Stanier, the stricken man’s eldest son, added weight to the -presumption that the luck of the Staniers (to put it at that) was on the -wane--fading, fading like the ink of the original bond. Instead of -marrying at the age of twenty or twenty-one, as his father and -forefathers had done, he remained obstinately celibate and ludicrously -decorous. In appearance he was dark, heavy of feature, jowled even in -his youth by a fleshiness of neck, and built on massive lines in place -of the slenderness of his race, though somehow, in spite of these -aberrations from the type, he yet presented an example, or, rather, a -parody, of the type. But when you came to mind, and that which lies -behind body and mind alike, that impenetrable essence of individuality, -then the professors in heredity would indeed have held up bewildered -hands of surrender. He was studious and hesitating, his mental processes -went with a tread as deliberate as his foot, and in place of that swift -eagerness of the Stanier mind, which, so to speak, threw a lasso over -the mental quarry with one swing of a lithe arm, and entangled it, poor -Philip crept on hands and knees towards it and advanced ever so -imperceptibly nearer. In the matter of mode of life the difference -between him and the type was most marked of all. Hitherto the eldest son -had married early and wisely for the sole object of the perpetuation of -the breed, and having arrived at that, pursued the ways of youth in -copious indiscretions which his wife, already tamed and paralysed, had -no will to resent. Philip, on the other hand, living in the gloom of the -house beneath the stroke and the shadow that had fallen on his father, -seemed to have missed his youth altogether. Life held for him no -bubbling draught that frothed on his lips and was forgotten; he -abstained from all the fruits of vigour and exuberance. One family -characteristic alone was his--the passionate love of his home, so that -he preferred even in these conditions to live here than find freedom -elsewhere. There he dreamed and studied, and neither love nor passion -nor intrigue came near him. He cared little for his mother; his father -he hated and feared. And yet some germ of romance, perhaps, lay dormant -but potential in his soul, for more and more he read of Italy, and of -the swift flowering of love in the South.... - - * * * * * - -It seemed as if the hellish bargain made three hundred years ago had -indeed become obsolete, for the weeks and months added themselves -together into a swiftly mounting total of years, while a nightmare of -eclipsed existence brooded over the great house at Stanier. Since the -stroke that had fallen on him after Hester’s runaway match, Lord Yardley -would have no guests in the house, and with the constancy of the -original Colin, would never leave the place himself. Grinning and -snarling in his bath-chair, he would be drawn up and down its long -galleries by the hour together, with his battered and petrified spouse -walking by his side, at first unable to speak with any coherence, but as -the years went on attaining to a grim ejaculatory utterance that left no -doubt as to his meaning. - -Sometimes it was his whim to enter the library, and if Philip was there -he would give vent to dreadful and stuttering observations as he -clenched and unclenched the nerveless hands that seemed starving to -throttle his son’s throat. Then, tired with this outpouring of emotion, -he would doze in his chair, and wake from his doze into a paroxysm of -tremulous speechlessness. At dinner-time he would have the riband of the -Garter pinned across his knitted coat and be wheeled, with his wife -walking whitely by his side, into the gallery, where the unmarried -Philip, and his newly-married brother and his wife, stood up at his -entrance, and without recognition he would pass, jibbering, at the head -of that small and dismal procession, into the dining-room. - -He grew ever thinner and more wasted in body, but such was some -consuming fire within him that he needed the sustenance of some growing -and gigantic youth. He was unable to feed himself, and his attendant -standing by him put into that open chasm of a mouth, still lined with -milk-white teeth, his monstrous portions. A couple of bites was -sufficient to prepare for the gulp, and again his mouth was ready to -receive. - -Then, when the solid entertainment was over, and the women gone, there -remained the business of wine, and, sound trencherman though he was, his -capacity over this was even more remarkable. He took his port by the -tumblerful, the first of which he would drink like one thirsty for -water, and this in some awful manner momentarily restored his powers of -speech. Like the first drops before a storm, single words began dripping -from his lips, as this restoration of speech took place, his eye, -brightening with malevolence, fixed itself on Philip, and night after -night he would gather force for the same lunatic tirade. - -“You sitting there,” he would say, “you, Philip, you aren’t a Stanier! -Why don’t you get a bitch to your kennel, and rear a mongrel or two? You -heavy-faced lout, you can’t breed, you can’t drink, you can do nought -but grow blear-eyed over a pack of printed rubbish. There was Hester: -she married some sort of sweeper, and barren she is at that. I take -blame to myself there: if only I had smacked her face a dozen times -instead of once, I’d have tamed her: she would have come to heel. And -the third of you, Ronald there, with your soapy-faced slut of a wife, -you’d be more in your place behind a draper’s counter than here at -Stanier. And they tell me that there’s no news yet that you’re going to -give an heir to the place. Heir, good God....” - -Ronald had less patience than his brother. He would have drunk pretty -stiffly by now, and he would bang the table and make the glasses jingle. - -“Now you keep a civil tongue in your head, father,” he said, “and I’ll -do the same for you. A pretty figure you cut with your Garter and your -costermonger talk. It’s your own nest you’re fouling, and you’ve fouled -it well. There was never yet a Stanier till you who took to a bath-chair -and a bib and a man to feed him when he couldn’t find the way to his own -mouth.” - -“Here, steady, Ronald!” Philip would say. - -“I’m steadier than that palsy-stricken jelly there,” said Ronald. “If he -leaves me alone I leave him alone: it isn’t I who begin. But if you or -he think I’m going to sit here and listen to his gutter-talk, you’re in -error.” - -He left his seat with a final reversal of the decanter and banged out of -the room. - -Then, as likely as not, the old man would begin to whimper. Though, -apparently, he did all he could to make residence at Stanier impossible -for his sons, he seemed above all to fear that he would succeed in doing -so. - -“Your brother gets so easily angered with me,” he would say. “I’m sure I -said nothing to him that a loving father shouldn’t. Go after him, Phil, -and ask him to come back and drink a friendly glass with his poor -father.” - -“I think you had better let him be, sir,” said Philip. “He didn’t relish -what you said of his wife and his childlessness.” - -“Well, I meant nothing, I meant nothing. Mayn’t a father have a bit of -chaff over his wine with his sons? As for his wife, I’m sure she’s a -very decent woman, and if it was that which offended him, there’s that -diamond collar my lady wears. Bid her take it off and give it to Janet -as a present from me. Then we shall be all comfortable again.” - -“I should leave it alone for to-night,” said Philip. “You can give it -her to-morrow. Won’t you come and have your rubber of whist?” - -His eye would brighten again at that, for in his day he had been a great -player, and if he went to the cards straight from his wine, which for a -little made order in the muddle and confusion of his brain, he would -play a hand or two with the skill that had been an instinct with him. -His tortoise-shell kitten must first be brought him, for that was his -mascotte, which reposed on his lap, and for the kitten there was a -saucerful of chopped fish to keep it quiet. It used to drag fragments -from the dish on to the riband of the Garter, and eat from there. - -He could not hold the cards himself, and they were arranged in a stand -in front of him, and his attendant pulled out the one to which he -pointed a quivering finger. If the cards were not in his favour he would -chuck the kitten off his knee. “Drown it; the devil’s in it,” he would -mumble. Then, before long, the gleam of lucidity rent in his clouds by -the wine would close up again, and he would play with lamentable lunatic -cunning, revoking and winking at his valet, and laughing with pleasure -as the tricks were gathered. At the end he would calculate his winnings -and insist on their being paid. They were returned to the loser when his -valet had abstracted them from his pocket.... - -Any attempt to move him from Stanier had to be abandoned, for it brought -on such violent agitation that his life was endangered if it were -persisted in, and even if it had been possible to certify him as insane, -neither Philip nor his brother nor his wife would have consented to his -removal to a private asylum, for some impregnable barrier of family -pride stood in the way. Nor, perhaps, would it have been easy to obtain -the necessary certificate. He had shown no sign of homicidal or suicidal -mania, and it would have been hard to have found any definite delusion -from which he suffered. He was just a very terrible old man, partly -paralytic, who got drunk and lucid together of an evening. He certainly -hated Philip, but Philip’s habits and Philip’s celibacy were the causes -of that; he cheated at cards, but the sane have been known to do -likewise. - -Indeed, it seemed as if after their long and glorious noon in which, as -by some Joshua-stroke, the sun had stayed his course in the zenith, that -the fortunes of the Staniers were dipping swiftly into the cold of an -eternal night. In mockery of that decline their wealth, mounting to more -prodigious heights, resembled some Pharaoh’s pyramid into which so soon -a handful of dust would be laid. In the last decade of the nineteenth -century the long leases of the acres which a hundred years ago had been -let for building land at Brighton were tumbling in, and in place of -ground-rents the houses came into their possession, while, with true -Stanier luck, this coincided with a revival of Brighton as a -watering-place. Fresh lodes were discovered in their Cornish properties, -and the wave of gold rose ever higher, bearing on it those who seemed -likely to be the last of the name. Philip, now a little over forty years -old, was still unmarried; Ronald, ten years his junior, was childless; -and Lady Hester Brayton, now a widow, had neither son nor daughter to -carry on the family. - -Already it looked as if the vultures were coming closer across the -golden sands of the desert on which these survivors were barrenly -gathered, for an acute and far-seeing solicitor had unearthed a family -of labourers living in a cottage in the marsh between Broomhill and -Appledore, who undoubtedly bore the name of Stanier, and he had secured -from the father, who could just write his name, a duly-attested document -to the effect that if Jacob Spurway succeeded in establishing him in the -family possessions and honours, he would pay him the sum of a hundred -thousand pounds in ten annual instalments. That being made secure, it -was worth while secretly to hunt through old wills and leases, and he -had certainly discovered that Colin Stanier (_æt._ Elizabeth) had a -younger brother, Ronald, who inhabited a farm not far from Appledore and -had issue. That issue could, for the most part, be traced, or, at any -rate, firmly inferred right down to the present. Then came a most -gratifying search through the chronicles and pedigrees of the line now -in possession, and, explore as he might, John Spurway could find no -collateral line still in existence. Straight down, from father to son, -as we have seen, ran the generations; till the day of Lady Hester -Brayton, no daughter had been born to an Earl of Yardley, and the line -of such other sons as the lords of Stanier begot had utterly died out. -The chance of establishing this illiterate boor seemed to Mr. Jacob -Spurway a very promising one, and he not only devoted to it his time and -his undoubted abilities, but even made a few clandestine and judicious -purchases. There arrived, for instance, one night at the Stanier cottage -a wholly genuine Elizabethan chair in extremely bad condition, which was -modestly placed in the kitchen behind the door; a tiger-ware jug found -its way to the high chimneypiece and got speedily covered with dust, and -a much-tarnished Elizabethan sealtop spoon made a curious addition to -the Britannia metal equipage for the drinking of tea. - -But if this drab and barren decay of the direct line of Colin Stanier -roused the interest of Mr. Spurway, it appeared in the year 1892 to -interest others not less ingenious, and (to adopt the obsolete terms of -the legend) it really looked as if Satan remembered the bond to which he -was party, and bestirred himself to make amends for his forgetfulness. -And first--with a pang of self-reproach--he turned his attention to this -poor bath-chaired paralytic, now so rapidly approaching his seventieth -year. Then there was Philip to consider, and Ronald.... Lady Hester he -felt less self-reproachful about, for, unhampered by children, and -consoled for the loss of her husband by the very charming attentions of -others, she was in London queen of the smart Bohemia, which was the only -court at all to her mind, and was far more amusing than the garden -parties at Buckingham Palace to which, so pleasant was Bohemia, she was -no longer invited. - -So then, just about the time that Mr. Spurway was sending Elizabethan -relics to the cottage in the Romney Marsh, there came over Lord Yardley -a strange and rather embarrassing amelioration of his stricken state. -From a medical point of view he became inexplicably better, though from -another point of view it could be as confidently stated that he became -irretrievably worse. His clouded faculties were pierced by the sun of -lucidity again, the jerks and quivers of his limbs and his speech gave -way to a more orderly rhythm, and his doctor congratulated himself on -the eventual success of a treatment that for twenty years had produced -no effect whatever. Strictly speaking, that treatment could be more -accurately described as the absence of treatment: Sir Thomas Logan had -said all along that the utmost that doctors could do was to assist -Nature in effecting a cure: a bath-chair and the indulgence of anything -the patient felt inclined to do was the sum of the curative process. Now -at last it bore (professionally speaking) the most gratifying fruit. -Coherence visited his speech, irrespective of the tumblers of port -(indeed, these tumblers of port produced a normal incoherence), his -powerless hands began to grasp the cards again, and before long he was -able to perambulate the galleries through which his bath-chair had so -long wheeled him, on his own feet with the aid of a couple of sticks. -Every week that passed saw some new feat of convalescence and the -strangeness of the physical and mental recovery touched the fringes of -the miraculous. - -But while Sir Thomas Logan, in his constant visits to Stanier during -this amazing recovery, never failed to find some fresh and surprising -testimonial to his skill, he had to put away from himself with something -of an effort certain qualms that insisted on presenting themselves to -him. It seemed even while his patient’s physical and mental faculties -improved in a steady and ascending ratio of progress, that some -spiritual deterioration balanced, or more than balanced, this recovery. -Hard and cruel Lord Yardley had been before the stroke had fallen on -him--without compassion, without human affection--now, in the renewal of -his vital forces, these qualities blazed into a conflagration, and it -was against Philip, above all others, that their heat and fury were -directed. - -While his father was helpless Philip had staunchly remained with him, -sharing with his mother and with Ronald and his wife the daily burden of -companionship. But now there was something intolerable in his father’s -lucid and concentrated hatred of him. Daily now Lord Yardley would come -into the library where Philip was at his books, in order to glut his -passion with proximity. He would take a chair near Philip’s, and, under -pretence of reading, would look at him in silence with lips that -trembled and twitching fingers. Once or twice, goaded by Philip’s steady -ignoring of his presence, he broke out into speeches of hideous abuse, -the more terrible because it was no longer the drunken raving of a -paralytic, but the considered utterance of a clear and hellish brain. - -Acting on the great doctor’s advice, Philip, without saying a word to -his father, made arrangements for leaving Stanier. He talked the matter -over with that marble mother of his, and they settled that he would be -wise to leave England for the time being. If his father, as might so -easily happen, got news of him in London or in some place easily -accessible, the awful law of attraction which his hatred made between -them might lead to new developments: the more prudent thing was that he -should efface himself altogether. - -Italy, to one of Philip’s temperament, appeared an obvious asylum, but -beyond that his whereabouts was to be left vague, so that his mother, -without fear of detection in falsehood, could say that she did not know -where he was. She would write him news of Stanier to some forwarding -agency in Rome, with which he would be in communication, and he would -transmit news of himself through the same channel. - -One morning before the house was astir, Philip came down into the great -hall. Terrible as these last years had been, rising to this climax which -had driven him out, it was with a bleeding of the heart that he left the -home that was knitted into his very being, and beat in his arteries. He -would not allow himself to wonder how long it might be before his -return: it did not seem possible that in his father’s lifetime he should -tread these floors again, and in the astounding rejuvenation that there -had come over Lord Yardley, who could say how long this miracle of -restored vitality might work its wonders? - -As he moved towards the door a ray of early sunlight struck sideways on -to the portrait of Colin Stanier, waking it to another day of its -imperishable youth. It illumined, too, the legendary parchment let into -the frame; by some curious effect of light the writing seemed to Philip -for one startled moment to be legible and distinct.... - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -One morning, within a month of his departure from Stanier, Philip was -coming slowly up from his bathing and basking on the beach, pleasantly -fatigued, agreeably hungry, and stupefied with content. He had swum and -floated in the warm crystal of the sea, diving from deep-water rocks -into the liquid caves, where the sunlight made a shifting net of -luminous scribbles over the jewelled pebbles; he had lain with half-shut -eyes watching the quivering of the hot air over the white bank of -shingle, with the sun warm on his drying shoulders and penetrating, it -seemed, into the marrow of his bones and illuminating the very hearth -and shrine of his spirit. - -The hours had passed but too quickly, and now he was making his -leisurely way through vineyards and olive-farms back to the road where a -little jingling equipage would be waiting to take him up to his villa on -the hill above the town of Capri. On one side of the path was a -sun-flecked wall, where, in the pools of brightness, lizards lay as -immobile as the stones themselves; the edges of these pools of light -bordered by continents of bluish shadow wavered with the slight stirring -of the olive trees above them. Through the interlacement of these boughs -he caught glimpses of the unstained sky and the cliffs that rose to the -island heights. On the other side the olive groves declined towards the -edge of the cliff, and through their branches the sea, doubly tinged -with the sky’s blueness, was not less tranquil than the ether. - -Presently, still climbing upwards, he emerged from the olive groves, -while the vineyards in plots and terraces followed the outline of the -hill. Mingled with them were orchards of lemon trees bearing the globes -of the young green fruit together with flower; and leaf and flower and -fruit alike reeked of an inimitable fragrance. There were pomegranates -bearing crimson flowers thick and waxlike against the wall of an ingle -house that bordered the narrow path; a riot of morning-glory was new -there every day with fresh unfoldings of blown blue trumpets. Out of the -open door came an inspiriting smell of frying, and on the edge of the -weather-stained balcony were rusty petroleum tins in which carnations -bloomed. A space of level plateau, with grass already bleached yellow by -this spell of hot weather, crowned the hill, and again he descended -between lizard-tenanted walls through vineyards and lemon groves. - -His rickety little carriage was waiting, the horse with a smart -pheasant’s feather erect on its head, the driver with a carnation stuck -behind his ear; the harness, for the sake of security, was supplemented -with string. The whip cracked, the horse tossed its pheasant’s feather -and jingled its bells, and, followed by a cloud of dust, Philip creaked -away up the angled road, musing and utterly content. - -He could scarcely believe, as the little equipage ambled up the hill, -that the individual known by his name, and wearing his clothes, who had -lived darkly like a weevil in that joylessness of stately gloom, was the -same as this sun-steeped sprawler in the creaking carriage. He had come -out of a nightmare of tunnel into the wholesome and blessed day, and was -steeped in the colour of the sun. It was but a few weeks ago that, -without anticipation of anything but relief from an intolerable -situation, he had stolen out of Stanier, but swift æons of evolution had -passed over him since then. There was not more difference between the -darkness of those English winter days that had brooded in the halls and -galleries of Stanier and this caressing sun that pervaded sea and sky, -than there was between his acceptance of life then and his embrace of -life now. Now it was enough to be alive: the very conditions of -existence spelled content, and at the close of every day he would have -welcomed a backward shift of the hours so that he might have that -identical day again, instead of welcoming the close of each day in the -assurance of that identical day not coming again. There would be others, -but from the total sum one unit had been subtracted. It had perished: it -had dropped into the well of years. - -Philip had no need to ask himself what constituted the horror of those -closed years, for it was part of his consciousness, which called for no -catechism, that it was his father’s existence; just the fact of him -distilled the poison, thick as dew on a summer night, which made them -thus. He had to the full the Stanier passion for the home itself, but as -long as his father lived, the horror of the man so pervaded the place, -so overrode all other sentiments with regard to it, that he could not -think of the one apart from the other, for hatred, acid and corrosive, -grew like some deadly mildew on the great galleries and the high halls. - -It was no mere passive thing, an absence of love or affection, but a -positive and prosperous growth: a henbane or a deadly nightshade -sprouted and flowered and flourished there. Dwelling on it even for the -toss of his horse’s head, as they clattered off the dusty road on to the -paved way outside the town, Philip felt his hands grow damp. - -He had come straight through to Rome and plunged himself, as in a -cooling bath, in the beauty and magnificence of the antique city. He had -wandered through galleries, had sat in the incense-fragrant dusk of -churches, had spent long hours treading the vestiges of the past, -content for the time to feel the spell of healing which the mere -severing himself from Stanier had set at work. But soon through that -spell there sounded a subtler incantation, coming not from the haunts of -men nor the achievements of the past, but from the lovely heart of the -lovely land itself which had called forth these manifestations. - -He had drifted down to Naples, and across the bay to the enchanted -island hanging like a cloud on the horizon where the sea and sky melted -into each other. As yet he wanted neither man nor woman, the exquisite -physical conditions of the southern summer were in themselves the -restoration he needed, with a truce from all human entanglements. -Potent, indeed, was their efficacy; they ran through his heart like -wine, rejuvenating and narcotic together, and to-day he could scarcely -credit that a fortnight of eventless existence had flowed over him in -one timeless moment of magic, of animal, unreflecting happiness. - -Curious good fortune in elementary material ways had attended him. On -the very day of his arrival, as he strolled out from his hotel in the -dusk up the moon-struck hill above the town, he had paused beneath the -white garden wall of a villa abutting on the path, and even as in -imagination he pictured the serenity and aloofness of it, his eye caught -a placard, easily legible in the moonlight, that it was to let, and with -that came the certainty that he was to be the lessee. - -Next morning he made inquiry and inspection of its cool whitewashed -rooms, tiled, floored and vaulted. Below it lay its terraced garden, -smothered with neglected rose-trees and from the house, along a short -paved walk, there ran a vine-wreathed pergola, and a great stone pine -stood sentinel. A capable _contadina_ with her daughter were easily -found who would look after him, and within twenty-four hours he had -transferred himself from the German-infested hotel. Soon, in answer to -further inquiries, he learned that at the end of his tenure a purchase -might be effected, and the negotiations had begun. - -To-day for the first time he found English news awaiting him, and the -perusal of it was like the sudden and vivid recollection of a nightmare. -Lord Yardley, so his mother wrote, was getting more capable every day; -he had even gone out riding. He had asked no questions as to where -Philip had gone, or when he would return, but he had given orders that -his name should not be mentioned, and once when she had inadvertently -done so, there had been a great explosion of anger. Otherwise life went -on as usual: Sir Thomas had paid a visit yesterday, and was very much -gratified by his examination of his patient, and said he need not come -again, unless any unfavourable change occurred, for another month. His -father sat long after dinner, and the games of whist were often -prolonged till midnight.... - -Philip skimmed through the frozen sheets ... his mother was glad he was -well, and that sea-bathing suited him.... It was very hot, was it -not?--but he always liked the heat.... The hay had been got in, which -was lucky, because the barometer had gone down.... He crumpled them up -with a little shudder as at a sudden draught of chilled air.... - -There was another from his sister Hester. - -“So you’ve run away, like me, so the iceberg tells me,” she wrote. “I -only wonder that you didn’t do it long ago. This is just to congratulate -you. She says, too, that father is ever so much better, which I think is -a pity. Why should he be allowed to get better? Mother says it is like a -miracle, and if it is, I’m sure I know who worked it. - -“Really, Phil, I am delighted that you have awoke to the fact that there -is a world outside Stanier--good Lord, if Stanier was all the world, -what a hell it would be! You used never to be happy away from the place, -I remember, but I gather from what mother says that it became absolutely -impossible for you to stop there. - -“There’s a blight on it, Phil: sometimes I almost feel that I believe in -the legend, for though it’s twenty years since I made my skip, if ever I -have a nightmare, it is that I dream that I am back there, and that my -father is pursuing me over those slippery floors in the dusk. But I -shall come back there, if you’ll allow me, when he’s dead: it’s he who -makes the horror....” - -Once again Philip felt a shiver of goose-flesh, and sending his sister’s -letter to join the other in the empty grate, strolled out into the hot -stillness of the summer afternoon, and he hailed the sun like one -awakening from such a nightmare as Hester had spoken of. All his life he -had been sluggish in the emotions, looking at life in the mirror of -other men’s minds, getting book knowledge of it only in a cloistered -airlessness, not experiencing it for himself--a reader of travels and -not a voyager. But now with his escape from Stanier had come a -quickening of his pulses, and that awakening which had brought home to -him the horror of his father had brought to him also a passionate sense -of the loveliness of the world. - -Regret for the wasted years of drowsy torpor was there, also; here was -he already on the meridian of life, with so small a store of remembered -raptures laid up as in a granary for his old age, when his arm would be -too feeble to ply the sickle in the ripe cornfields. A man, when he -could no longer reap, must live on what he had gathered: without that he -would face hungry and empty years. When the fire within began to burn -low, and he could no longer replenish it, it was ill for him if the -house of his heart could not warm itself with the glow that experience -had already given him. He must gather the grapes of life, and tread them -in his winepress, squeezing out the uttermost drop, so that the ferment -and sunshine of his vintage would be safe in cellar for the comforting -of the days when in his vineyard the leaves were rotting under wintry -skies. Too many days had passed for him unharvested. - -That evening, after his dinner, he strolled down in the warm dusk to the -piazza. The day had been a _festa_ in honour of some local saint, and -there was a show of fireworks on the hill above the town, and in -consequence the piazza and the terrace by the funicular railway, which -commanded a good view of the display, was crowded with the young folk of -the island. Rockets aspired, and bursting in bouquets of feathered fiery -spray, dimmed the stars and illumined the upturned faces of handsome -boys and swift-ripening girlhood. Eager and smiling mouths started out -of the darkness as the rockets broke into flower, eager and young and -ready for love and laughter, fading again and vanishing as the -illumination expired. - -It was this garden of young faces that occupied Philip more than the -fireworks, these shifting groups that formed and reformed, smiling and -talking to each other in the intervals of darkness. The bubbling ferment -of intimate companionship frothed round him, and suddenly he seemed to -himself to be incapsulated, an insoluble fragment floating or sinking in -this heady liquor of life. There came upon him sharp and unexpected as a -blow dealt from behind, a sense of complete loneliness. - -Every one else had his companion: here was a group of chattering boys, -there of laughing girls, here the sexes were mingled. Elder men and -women had a quieter comradeship: they had passed through the fermenting -stage, it might be, but the wine of companionship with who knew what -memories were in solution there, was theirs still. All these rapturous -days he had been alone, and had not noticed it; now his solitariness -crystallised into loneliness. - -With a final sheaf of rockets the display came to an end, and the crowd -began to disperse homewards. The withdrawal took the acuteness from -Philip’s ache, for he had no longer in front of his eyes the example of -what he missed, his hunger was not whetted by the spectacle of food. - -The steps of the last loiterers died away, and soon he was left alone -looking out over the vine-clad slope of the steep hill down to the -Marina. Warm buffets of air wandered up from the land that had lain all -day in its bath of sunlight, rippling round him like the edge of some -spent wave; but already the dew, moistening the drought of day, was -instilling into the air some nameless fragrance of damp earth and herbs -refreshed. Beyond lay the bay, conjectured rather than seen, and, twenty -miles away, a thin necklet of light showed where Naples lay stretched -and smouldering along the margin of the sea. If a wish could have -transported Philip there, he would have left the empty terrace to see -with what errands and adventures the city teemed, even as the brain -teems with thoughts and imaginings. - -Into the impersonal seduction of the summer night some human element of -longing had entered, born of the upturned faces of boys and girls -watching the rockets, and sinking back, bright-eyed and eager, into the -cover of darkness, even as the sword slips into its sheath again. Youth, -in the matter of years, was already past for him, but in his heart until -now youth had not yet been born. No individual face among them all had -flown a signal for him, but collectively they beckoned; it was among -such that he would find the lights of his heart’s harbour shining across -the barren water, and kindling desire in his eyes. - -It was not intellectual companionship that he sought nor the unity and -absorption of love, for Philip was true Stanier and had no use for love; -but he craved for youth, for beauty, for the Southern gaiety and -friendliness, for the upleap and the assuagement of individual desire. -Till middle-age he had lived without the instincts of youth; his tree -was barren of the golden fruits of youth’s delight. Now, sudden as his -change of life, his belated springtime flooded him. - -It was in Naples that he found her, in the studio of an acquaintance he -had made when he was there first, and before midsummer Rosina Viagi was -established in the villa. She was half English by birth, and in her gold -hair, heavy as the metal and her blue eyes, she shewed her mother’s -origin. But her temperament was of the South--fierce and merry, easily -moved to laughter, and as easily to squalls of anger that passed as -swiftly as an April shower, and melted into sunlight again. She so -enthralled his senses that he scarcely noticed, for those first months, -the garish commonness of her mind: it scarcely mattered; he scarcely -heeded what she said so long as it was those full lips which formed the -silly syllables. She was greedy, and he knew it, in the matter of -money, but his generosity quite contented her, and he had got just what -he had desired, one who entirely satisfied his passion and left his mind -altogether unseduced. - -Then with the fulfillment of desire came the leanness that follows, a -swift inevitable Nemesis on the heels of the accomplishment of an -unworthy purpose. He had dreamed of the gleam of romance in those -readings of his at Stanier, and awoke to find but a smouldering wick. -And before the summer was dead, he knew he was to become a father. - -In the autumn the island emptied of its visitors, and Rosina could no -longer spend her evenings at the café or on the piazza, with her -countrywomen casting envious glances at her toilettes, and the men -boldly staring at her beauty. She was genuinely fond of Philip, but her -native gaiety demanded the distraction of crowds, and she yawned in the -long evenings when the squalls battered at the shutters and the panes -streamed with the fretful rain. - -“But are we going to stop here all the winter?” she asked one evening as -she gathered up the piquet cards. “It gets very melancholy. You go for -your great walks, but I hate walking; you sit there over your book, but -I hate reading.” - -Philip laughed. “Am I to clap my hands at the rain,” he said, “and say, -‘Stop at once! Rosina wearies for the sun’?” - -She perched herself on the arm of his chair, a favourite attitude for -her supplications. “No, my dear,” she said, “all your money will not do -that. Besides, even if the rain obeyed you and the sun shone, there -would still be nobody to look at me. But you can do something.” - -“And what’s that?” - -“Just a little apartment in Naples,” she said. “It is so gay in Naples -even if the sirocco blows or if the tramontana bellows. There are the -theatres; there are crowds; there is movement. I cannot be active, but -there I can see others being active. There are fresh faces in the -street, there is gaiety.” - -“Oh, I hate towns!” said Philip. - -She got up and began to speak more rapidly. “You think only of -yourself,” she said. “I mope here; I am miserable. I feel like one of -the snails on the wall, crawling, crawling, and going into a dusty -crevice. That is not my nature. I hate snails, except when they are -cooked, and then I gobble them up, and wipe my mouth and think no more -of them. You can read your book in a town just as well as here, and you -can take a walk in a town. Ah, do, Philip!” - -Suddenly and unexpectedly Philip found himself picturing his days here -alone, without Rosina. He did not consciously evoke the image; it -presented itself to him from outside himself. The island had certainly -cast its spell over him: just to be here, to awake to the sense of its -lotus-land tranquillity, and to go to sleep knowing that a fresh -eventless day would welcome him, made him content. He could imagine -himself now alone in this plain vaulted room, with the storm swirling -through the stone-pine outside, and the smell of burning wood on the -hearth without desiring Rosina’s presence. - -“Well, it might be done,” he said. “We could have a little nook in -Naples, if you liked. I don’t say that I should always be there.” - -Rosina’s eyes sparkled. “No, no, that would be selfish of me,” she said. -“You would come over here for a week when you wished, as you are so fond -of your melancholy island....” She stopped, and her Italian -suspiciousness came to the surface. “You are not thinking of leaving -me?” she asked. - -“Of course I am not,” he said impatiently. “You imagine absurdities.” - -“I have heard of such absurdities. Are you sure?” - -“Yes, you silly baby,” said he. - -She recovered her smiles. “I trust you,” she said. “Yes, where were we? -You will come over here when you want your island, and you will be -there when you want me. Oh, Philip, do you promise me?” - -Her delicious gaiety invaded her again, and she sat herself on the floor -between his knees. - -“Oh, you are kind to me!” she said. “I hope your father will live for -ever, and then you will never leave me. There is no one so kind as you. -We will have a flat, will we not? I know just such an one, that looks on -to the Castello d’Ovo, and all day the carriages go by, and we will go -by, too, and look up at our home, and wonder who are the happy folk who -live there, and every one who sees me will envy me for having a man who -loves me. And we will go to the restaurants where there are lights and -glitter, and the band plays, and I will be happier than the day is long. -Let us go over to-morrow. I will tell Maria to pack....” - -It was just this impetuous prattling childishness which had enthralled -him at first, and even while he told himself now how charming it was, he -knew that he found it a weariness and an unreality. The same Rosina ten -minutes before would be in a gale of temper, then, some ten minutes -after, under a cloud of suspicious surmise. His own acceptance of her -proposal that they would be together at times, at times separate, was, -in reality, a vast relief to him, yet chequering that relief was that -curious male jealousy that the woman whom he had chosen to share his -nights and days should contemplate his absences with his own equanimity. -While he reserved to himself the right of not being utterly devoted to -her, he claimed her devotion to him. - -It had come to that. It was not that his heart beat to another tune, his -eyes did not look elsewhere; simply the swiftly-consumed flame of -passion was now consciously dying down, and while he took no -responsibility for his own cooling, he resented her share in it. He -treated her, in fact, as Staniers had for many generations treated their -wives, but she had an independence which none of those unfortunate -females had enjoyed. He had already made a handsome provision for her; -and he was quite prepared to take a full financial responsibility for -his fatherhood. Yet, while he recognised how little she was to him, he -resented the clear fact of how little he was to her. - -He got up. “You shall have it all your own way, darling,” he said. -“We’ll go across to Naples to-morrow; we’ll find a flat--the one you -know of--and you shall see the crowds and the lights again....” - -“Ah, you are adorable,” said she. “I love you too much, Philip.” - -He established her to her heart’s content, and through the winter -divided the weeks between Naples and the island. She had no hold on his -heart, and on his mind none; but, at any rate, he desired no one else -but her, and as the months went by there grew in him a tenderness which -had not formed part of the original bond. Often her vanity, her childish -love of ostentation, a certain querulousness also which had lately -exhibited itself, made him long for the quiet solitude across the bay. -Sometimes she would be loth to let him go, sometimes in answer to her -petition he would put off his departure, and then before the evening was -over she would have magnified some infinitesimal point of dispute into a -serious disagreement, have watered it with her tears, sobbed out that he -was cruel to her, that she wished he had gone instead of remaining to -make himself a tyrant. He shared her sentiments on that topic, and would -catch the early boat next morning. - -And yet, even as with a sigh of relief he settled himself into his chair -that night by the open fireplace, and congratulated himself on this -recapture of tranquillity, he would miss something.... She was not there -to interrupt him, to scold him, to rage at him, but she had other moods -as well, when she beguiled and enchanted him. That was no deep-seated -spell, nor had it ever been. Its ingredients were but her physical -grace, and the charm of her spontaneous gaiety. - -Perhaps next morning he would get a long scrawled letter from her, -saying that he had been a brute to leave her, that she had not been out -all day, but had sat and cried, and at that he would count himself lucky -in his solitude. And even while he felt as dry as sand towards her, -there would come seething up through its aridity this moist hidden -spring of tenderness. - -He had made just such an escape from her whims and wilfulness one day -towards the end of February, but before the evening was half over he had -tired of this solitude that he had sought. His book did not interest -him, and he felt too restless to go to bed. Restlessness, at any rate, -might be walked off, and he set out to tramp and tranquillise himself. - -The moon was near to its full, the night warm and windless, and the air -alert with the coming of the spring. Over the garden beds hung the -veiled fragrance of wallflowers and freezias, and their scent in some -subtle way suggested her presence. Had she been there she would, in the -mood in which he had left her, have jangled and irritated him, but if a -wish would have brought her he would have wished it. - -He let himself out of the garden gate, and mounted the steep path away -from the town, thinking by brisk movement to dull and fatigue himself -and to get rid of the thought of her. But like a wraith, noiseless and -invisible, she glided along by him, and he could not shake her off. She -did not scold him or nag at him: she was gay and seductive, with the -lure of the springtime tingling about her, and beckoning him. Soon he -found himself actively engaged in some sort of symbolic struggle to -elude her, and taking a rough and steeper path, thought that he would -outpace her. - -Here the way lay over an uncultivated upland, and as he pounded along he -drank in the intoxicating ferment of the vernal night. The earth was -dew-drenched, and the scent of the aromatic plants of the hillside -served but as a whet to his restless thoughts, and still, hurry as he -might, he could not escape from her and from a certain decision that -she seemed to be forcing on him. Finally, regardless of the dew, and -exhausted with the climb, he sat down and began to think it out. - -They had been together now for eight months, and though she often -wearied and annoyed him, he could not imagine going back to the solitary -life which, when first he came to Capri, had been so full of -enchantment. They had rubbed and jarred against each other, but never -had either of them, loose though the tie had been, considered leaving -each other. They had been absolutely faithful, and were, indeed, married -in all but the testimony of a written contract. - -It had been understood from the first that, on his father’s death, -Philip would take up the reins of his government at home, leaving her in -all material matters independent and well off, and in all probability -her dowry, cancelling her history, would enable her to make a favourable -marriage. But though that had been settled between them, Philip found -now, as he sat with her wraith still silent, still invisible, but -insistently present, that not till this moment had he substantially -pictured himself without her, or seen himself looking out for another -woman to be mother of his children. He could see himself going on -quarrelling with Rosina and wanting her again, but the realisation of -his wanting any one else was beyond him. - -On the other hand, his father, in this miraculous recovery of his -powers, might live for years, and who knew whether, long before his -death, both he and Rosina might not welcome it as a deliverance from -each other? - -But not less impossible also than the picturing of himself without -Rosina, was the imagining of her installed as mistress at Stanier. Try -as he might, he could not make visible to himself so unrealisable a -contingency. Rosina at Stanier ... Rosina.... Yet, so soon, she would be -the mother of his child. - -The moon had sunk, and he must grope his way down the hillside which he -had mounted so nimbly in the hope of escape from the presence that -hovered by him. All night it was with him, waiting patiently but -inexorably for the answer he was bound to give. He could not drive it -away, he could not elude it. - -There arrived for him next morning an iced budget from his mother. All -went on as usual with that refrigerator. There had been a gale, and four -elm trees had been blown down.... Easter was early this year; she hoped -for the sake of the holiday-makers that the weather would be fine.... It -was odd to hear of the warm suns and the sitting out in the evening.... -Was he not tired of his solitary life?... - -Philip skimmed his way rapidly through these frigidities, and then -suddenly found himself attending. - -“I have kept my great news to the end,” his mother wrote, “and it makes -us all, your father especially, very happy. We hope before March is over -that Ronald will have an heir. Janet is keeping very well, and your -father positively dotes on her now. The effect on him is most marked. He -certainly feels more kindly to you now that this has come, for the other -day he mentioned your name and wondered where you were. It was not -having a grandchild that was responsible for a great deal of his -bitterness towards you, for you are the eldest....” - -Philip swept the letter off the table and sat with chin supported in the -palms of his hands, staring out of the open window, through which came -the subtle scent of the wallflower. As a traveller traces his journey, -so, spreading the situation out like a map before him, he saw how his -road ran direct and uncurving. Last night, for all his groping and -searching, he could find no such road marked; there was but a track, and -it was interrupted by precipitous unnegotiable places, by marshes and -quagmires through which no wayfarer could find a path. But with the -illumination of this letter it was as if an army of road-makers had been -busy on it. Over the quagmire there was a buttressed causeway, through -the precipitous cliffs a cutting had been blasted. There was yet time; -he would marry Rosina out of hand, and his offspring, not his brother’s, -should be heir of Stanier. - -The marriage making their union valid and legitimatising the child that -should soon be born, took place on the first of March at the English -Consulate, and a week later came the news that a daughter had been born -to his sister-in-law. On the tenth of the same month Rosina gave birth -to twins, both boys. There was no need for any riband to distinguish -them, for never had two more dissimilar pilgrims come forth for their -unconjecturable journey. The elder was dark like Philip, and unlike the -most of his father’s family; the other blue-eyed, like his mother, had a -head thick-dowered with bright pale gold. Never since the days of Colin -Stanier, founder of the race and bargainer in the legend, had gold and -blue been seen together in a Stanier, and “Colin,” said Philip to -himself, “he shall be.” - -During that month the shuttle of fate flew swiftly backwards and -forwards in the loom of the future. Thirty-six years had passed since -Ronald, the latest born of his race, had come into life, ten years more -had passed over Philip’s head before, within a week of his brother and -within a fortnight of his marriage, he saw the perpetuation of his -blood. And the shuttle, so long motionless for the Staniers, did not -pause there in its swift and sudden weavings. - -At Stanier that evening Ronald and his father sat long over their wine. -The disappointment at Ronald’s first child being a girl was utterly -eclipsed in Lord Yardley’s mind by the arrival of an heir at all, and he -had eaten heavily in boisterous spirits, and drunk as in the days when -wine by the tumblerful was needed to rouse him into coherent speech. But -now no attendant was needed to hold his glass to his lips: he was as -free of movement as a normal man. - -“We’ll have another bottle yet, Ronnie,” he said. “There’ll be no whist -to-night, for your mother will have gone upstairs to see after Janet. -Ring the bell, will you?” - -The fresh bottle was brought, and he poured himself out a glassful and -passed it to his son. - -“By God, I haven’t been so happy for years as I’ve been this last week,” -he said. “You’ve made a beginning now, my boy; you’ll have a son next. -And to think of Philip, mouldering away all this time. He’s forty-six -now; he’ll not get in your way. A useless fellow, Philip; sitting like a -crow all day in the library, like some old barren bird. I should like to -have seen his face when he got the news. But I’ll write him to-morrow -myself, and say that if he cares to come home I’ll treat him civilly.” - -“Poor old Phil!” said Ronald. “Do write to him, father. I daresay he -would like to come back. He has been gone a year, come May.” - -Lord Yardley helped himself again. His hand was quite steady, but his -face was violently flushed. Every night now, since the birth of Ronald’s -baby, he had drunk deeply, and but for this heightened colour, more -vivid to-night than usual, the wine seemed scarcely to produce any -effect on him. All day now for a week he had lived in this jovial and -excited mood, talking of little else than the event which had so -enraptured him. - -“And Janet’s but thirty yet,” he went on, forgetting again about Philip, -“and she comes of a fruitful stock: the Armitages aren’t like us; they -run to quantity. Not that I find fault with the quality. But a boy, -Ronald.” - -A servant had come in with a telegram, which he presented to Lord -Yardley, who threw it over to Ronald. - -“Just open it for me,” he said. “See if it requires any answer.” - -Ronald drew a candle nearer him; he was conscious of having drunk a good -deal, and the light seemed dim and veiled. He fumbled over the envelope, -and drawing out the sheet, unfolded it. He stared at it with mouth -fallen open. - -“It’s a joke,” he said in a loud, unsteady voice. “It’s some silly -joke.” - -“Let’s have it, then,” said his father. “Who’s the joker?” - -“It’s from Philip,” said he. “He says that he’s married, and that his -wife has had twins to-day--boys.” - -Lord Yardley rose to his feet, the flush on his face turning to purple. -Then, without a word, he fell forward across the table, crashing down -among the glasses and decanters. - - * * * * * - -A fortnight after the birth of the twins, Rosina, who till then had been -doing well, developed disquieting symptoms with high temperature. Her -illness declared itself as scarlet fever, and on the 6th of April she -died. - -Surely in those spring weeks there had been busy superintendence over -the fortunes of the Staniers. Philip, till lately outcast from his home -and vagrant bachelor, had succeeded to the great property and the -honours and titles of his house. Two lusty sons were his, and there was -no Rosina to vex him with her petulance and common ways. All tenderness -that he had had for her was diverted into the persons of his sons, and -in particular of Colin. In England, in this month of April, the beloved -home awaited the coming of its master with welcome and rejoicing. - - - - - _Book Two_ - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -Colin Stanier had gone straight from the tennis-court to the -bathing-place in the lake below the terraced garden. His cousin Violet, -only daughter of his uncle Ronald, had said that she would equip herself -and follow him, and the boy had swum and dived and dived and swum -waiting for her, until the dressing-bell booming from the turret had -made him reluctantly quit the water. He was just half dry and not at all -dressed when she came. - -“Wretched luck!” she said. “Oh, Colin, do put something on!” - -“In time,” said Colin; “you needn’t look!” - -“I’m not looking. But it was wretched luck. Mother....” - -Colin wrapped a long bath-towel round himself, foraged for cigarettes -and matches in his coat pocket, and sat down by her. - -“Mother?” he asked. - -“Oh, yes. Mother was querulous, and so she wanted some one to be -querulous to.” - -“Couldn’t she be querulous to herself?” asked Colin. - -“No, of course not. You must have a partner or a dummy if you’re being -querulous. I wasn’t more than a dummy, and so when she had finished the -rest of it she was querulous about that. She said I was unsympathetic.” - -“Dummies usually are,” said Colin. “Cigarette?” - -“No, thanks. This one was, because she wanted to come and bathe. Did you -dive off the top step?” - -“Of course not. No audience,” said Colin. “What’s the use of doing -anything terrifying unless you impress somebody? I would have if you had -come down.” - -“I should have been thrilled. Oh, by the way, Raymond has just -telephoned from town to say that he’ll be here by dinner-time. He’s -motoring down.” - -Colin considered this. “Raymond’s the only person older than myself whom -I envy,” he said. “He’s half an hour older than me. Oh, I think I envy -Aunt Hester, but then I adore Aunt Hester. I only hate Raymond.” - -“Just because he’s half an hour older than you?” asked the girl. - -“Isn’t that enough? He gets everything just because of that unlucky -half-hour. He’ll get you, too, if you’re not careful.” - -Colin got up and gathered his clothes together. - -“He’ll have Stanier,” he observed. “Isn’t that enough to make me detest -him? Besides, he’s a boor. Happily, father detests him, too; I think -father must have been like Raymond at his age. That’s the only comfort. -Father will do the best he can for me. And then there’s Aunt Hester’s -money. But what I want is Stanier. Come on.” - -“Aren’t you going to dress?” asked Violet. - -“Certainly not. As soon as I get to the house I shall have to undress -and dress again.” - -“Not shoes?” asked she. - -“Not when the dew is falling. Oh, wet grass is lovely to the feet. We’ll -skirt the terrace and go round by the lawn.” - -“And why is it that you envy Aunt Hester?” asked the girl. - -“Can’t help it. She’s so old and wicked and young.” - -Violet laughed. “That’s a very odd reason for envying anybody,” she -said. “What’s there to envy?” - -“Why, the fact that she’s done it all,” said Colin frowning. “She has -done all she pleased all her life, and she’s just as young as ever. If I -wasn’t her nephew, she would put me under her arm, just as she did her -husband a thousand years ago, and marry me to-morrow. And then you -would marry Raymond, and--and there we would all be. We would play whist -together. My dear, those ghastly days before we were born! Grandfather -with his Garter over his worsted jacket and a kitten on his knee, and -grandmamma and Aunt Janet and your father and mine! They lived here for -years like that. How wonderful and awful!” - -“They’re just as wonderful now,” said Violet. “And....” - -“Not quite so awful; grandfather isn’t here now, and he must have been -the ghastliest. Besides, there’s Aunt Hester here to tone them up, and -you and I, if it comes to that. Not to mention Raymond. I love seeing my -father try to behave nicely to Raymond. Dead failure.” - -Colin tucked his towel round him; it kept slipping first from one -shoulder, then the other. - -“I believe Raymond is falling in love with you,” he said. “He’ll propose -to you before long. Your mother will back him up, so will Uncle Ronald. -They would love to see you mistress here. And you’d like it yourself.” - -“Oh--like it?” said she. She paused a moment. “Colin, you know what I -feel about Stanier,” she said. “I don’t think anybody knows as well as -you. You’ve got the passion for it. Wouldn’t you give anything for it to -be yours? Look at it! There’s nothing like it in the world!” - -They had come up the smooth-shaven grass slope from the lake, and stood -at the entrance through the long yew-hedge that bordered the line of -terraces. There were no ghastly monstrosities in its clipped bastion; no -semblance of peacocks and spread tails to crown it: it flowed downwards, -a steep, uniform embattlement of stiff green, towards the lake, -enclosing the straight terraces and the deep borders of flower-beds. The -topmost of these terraces was paved, and straight from it rose the long -two-storied façade of mellow brick balustraded with the motto, “Nisi -Dominus ædificavit,” in tall letters of lead, and from floor to roof it -was the building of that Colin Stanier whose very image and incarnation -stood and looked at it now. - -So honest and secure had been the workmanship that in the three -centuries which had elapsed since first it nobly rose to crown the hill -above Rye scarcely a stone of its facings had been repaired, or a -mouldering brick withdrawn. It possessed, even in the material of its -fashioning, some inexplicable immortality, even as did the fortunes of -its owners. Its mellowing had but marked their enrichment and stability; -their stability rivalled that of the steadfast house. The sun, in these -long days of June, had not yet quite set, and the red level rays made -the bricks to glow, and gave a semblance as of internal fire to the -attested guarantee of the motto. Whoever had builded, he had builded -well, and the labour of the bricklayers was not lost. - -A couple of years ago Colin, still at Eton, had concocted a mad freak -with Violet. There had been a fancy-dress ball in the house, at which he -had been got up to represent his ancestral namesake, as shewn in the -famous Holbein. There the first Colin appeared as a young man of -twenty-five, but the painter had given him the smooth beauty of boyhood, -and his descendant, in those rich embroidered clothes, might have passed -for the very original and model for the portrait. - -This, then, had been their mad freak: Violet, appearing originally in -the costume of old Colin’s bride, had slipped away to her room, when the -ball was at its height, and changed clothes with her cousin. She had -tucked up her hair under his broad-brimmed jewelled hat, he had -be-wigged himself and easily laced his slimness into her stiff brocaded -gown, and so indistinguishable were they that the boys, Colin’s friends -and contemporaries, had been almost embarrassingly admiring of him, -while her friends had found her not less forward. A slip by Colin in the -matter of hoarse laughter at an encircling arm and an attempt at a kiss -had betrayed him into forgetting his brilliant falsetto and giving the -whole thing away. - -Not less like to each other now than then, they stood at the entrance of -the terraces. He had gained, perhaps, a couple of inches on her in -height, but the piled gold of her hair, and his bare feet equalised -that. No growth of manhood sheathed the smoothness of his cheeks; they -looked like replicas of one type, still almost sexless in the glow of -mere youth. Theirs was the full dower of their race, health and -prosperity, glee and beauty, and the entire absence of any moral -standard. - -Faun and nymph, they stood there together, she in the thin blouse and -white skirt of her tennis-clothes, he in the mere towel of his bathing. -He had but thrown it on anyhow, without thought except to cover himself, -and yet the folds of it fell from his low square shoulders with a -plastic perfection. A hand buried in it held it round his waist, tightly -outlining the springing of his thighs from his body. With her, too, even -the full tennis-skirt, broad at the hem for purposes of activity, could -not conceal the exquisite grace of her figure; above, the blouse -revealed the modelling of her arms and the scarcely perceptible swell of -her breasts. High-bred and delicate were they in the inimitable grace of -their youth; what need had such physical perfection for any dower of the -spirit? - -She filled her eyes with the glow of the sunlit front, and then turned -to him. “Colin, it’s a crime,” she said, “that you aren’t in Raymond’s -place. I don’t like Raymond, and yet, if you’re right and he means to -propose to me, I don’t feel sure that I shall refuse him. It won’t be -him I refuse, if I do, it will be Stanier.” - -“Lord, I know that!” said Colin. “If I was the elder, you’d marry me -to-morrow.” - -“Of course I should, and cut out Aunt Hester. And the funny thing, -darling, is that we’re neither of us in love with the other. We like -each other enormously, but we don’t dote. If you married Aunt Hester I -shouldn’t break my heart, nor would you if I married Raymond.” - -“Not a bit. But I should think him a devilish lucky fellow!” - -She laughed. “So should I,” she said. “In fact, I think him devilish -lucky already. Colin, if I do refuse him, it will be because of you.” - -“Oh, chuck it, Violet!” said he. - -She nodded towards the great stately house. “It’s a big chuck,” she -said. - -From the far side of the house there came the sound of motor-wheels on -the gravel, and after a moment or two the garden door at the centre of -the terrace opened, and Raymond came out. He was not more than an inch -or so shorter than his brother, but his broad, heavy, short-legged build -made him appear short and squat. His eyebrows were thick and black, and -already a strong growth of hair fringed his upper lip. While Colin might -have passed for a boy of eighteen still, the other would have been taken -for a young man of not less than twenty-five. He stood there for a -minute, looking straight out over the terrace, and the marsh below. -Then, turning his eyes, he saw the others in the dusky entrance through -the yew-hedge, and his face lit up. He came towards them. - -“I’ve only just come,” he said. “Had a puncture. How are you, Violet?” - -“All right. But how late you are! We’re all late, in fact. We must go -and dress.” - -Raymond looked up and down Colin’s bath-towel, and his face darkened -again. But he made a call on his cordiality. - -“Hullo, Colin,” he said. “Been bathing? Jolly in the water, I should -think.” - -“Very jolly,” said Colin. “How long are you down for?” - -He had not meant any particular provocation in the question, though he -was perfectly careless as to whether Raymond found it there or not. He -did, and his face flushed. - -“Well, to be quite candid,” he said, “I’m down here for as long as I -please. With your permission, of course.” - -“How jolly!” said Colin in a perfectly smooth voice, which he knew -exasperated his brother. “Come on, Vi, it’s time to dress.” - -“Oh, there’s twenty minutes yet,” said Raymond. “Come for a few minutes’ -stroll, Vi.” - -Colin paused for her answer, slightly smiling, and looking just above -Raymond’s head. The two always quarrelled whenever they met, though -perhaps “quarrel” is both too strong and too superficial a word to -connote the smouldering enmity which existed between them, and which the -presence of the other was sufficient to wreathe with little flapping -flames. Envy, as black as hell and as deep as the sea, existed between -them, and there was no breath too light to blow it into incandescence. -Raymond envied Colin for absolutely all that Colin was, for his skin and -his slimness, his eyes and his hair, and to a degree unutterably -greater, for the winning smile, the light, ingratiating manner that he -himself so miserably lacked, even for a certain brusque heedlessness on -Colin’s part which was interpreted, in his case, into the mere -unselfconsciousness of youth. In the desire to please others, Raymond -held himself to be at least the equal of his brother, yet, where his -efforts earned for him but a tepid respect, Colin would weave an -enchantment. If Raymond made some humorous contribution to the -conversation, glazed eyes and perfunctory comment would be all his -wages, whereas if Colin, eager and careless, had made precisely the same -offering, he would have been awarded attention and laughter. - -Colin, on the other hand, envied his brother not for anything he was, -but for everything he had. Theirs was no superficial antagonism; the -graces of address and person are no subjects for light envy, nor yet the -sceptred fist of regal possessions. That fist was Raymond’s; all would -be his; even Violet, perhaps, Stanier certainly, would be. - -At this moment the antagonism flowered over Violet’s reply. Would she go -for a stroll with Raymond or wouldn’t she? Colin cared not a blade of -grass which she actually did; it was her choice that would feed his -hatred of his brother or make him chuckle over his discomfiture. For an -infinitesimal moment he diverted his gaze from just over Raymond’s head -to where, a tiny angle away, her eyes were level with his. He shook his -head ever so slightly; some drop of water perhaps had lodged itself from -his diving in his ear. - -“Oh, we shall all be late,” said she, “and Uncle Philip hates our being -late. Only twenty minutes, did you say? I must rush. Hair, you know.” - -She scudded off along the paved terrace without one glance behind her. - -“Want a stroll, Raymond?” said Colin. “I haven’t got to undress, only to -dress. I needn’t go for five minutes yet.” - -Raymond had seen the headshake and Colin’s subsequent application of the -palm of a hand to his ear was a transparent device. Colin, he made sure, -meant him to see that just as certainly as he meant Violet to do so. The -success of it enraged him, and not less the knowledge that it was meant -to enrage him. Colin’s hand so skilfully, so carelessly, laid these -traps which silkenly gripped him. He could only snarl when he was -caught, and even to snarl was to give himself away. - -“Oh, thanks very much,” he said, determined not to snarl, “but, after -all, Vi’s right. Father hates us being late. How is he? I haven’t seen -him yet.” - -“Ever so cheerful,” said Colin. “Does he know you are coming, by the -way?” - -“Not unless Vi has told him. I telephoned to her.” - -“Pleasant surprise,” said Colin. “Well, if you don’t want to stroll, I -think I’ll go in. Vi’s delighted that you’ve come.” - -Once again Raymond’s eye lit up. “Is she?” he asked. - -“Didn’t you think so?” said Colin, standing first on one foot and then -on the other, as he slipped on his tennis shoes to walk across the -paving of the terrace. - - * * * * * - -There had been no break since the days of Colin’s grandfather in the -solemnity of the ceremonial that preceded dinner. Now, as then, the -guests, if there were any, or, if not, the rest of the family, were -still magnificently warned of the approach of the great hour, and, -assembling in the long gallery which adjoined the dining-room, waited -for the advent of Lord Yardley. - -That piece of ritual was like the Canon of the Mass, invariable and -significant. It crystallised the centuries of the past into the present; -dinner was the function of the day, dull it might be, but central and -canonical, and the centre of it all was the entrance of the head of the -family. He would not appear till all were ready; his presence made -completion, and the Staniers moved forward by order. So when the -major-domo had respectfully enfolded the flock in the long gallery, he -took his stand by the door into the dining-room. That was the signal to -Lord Yardley’s valet who waited by the door at the other end of the -gallery which led into his master’s rooms. He threw that open, and from -it, punctual as the cuckoo in the clock, out came Lord Yardley, and -every one stood up. - -But in the present reign there had been a slight alteration in the minor -ritual of the assembling, for Colin was almost invariably late, and the -edict had gone forth, while he was but yet fifteen, and newly promoted -to a seat at dinner, that Master Colin was not to be waited for: the -major-domo must regard his jewelled flock as complete without him. He, -with a “Sorry, father,” took his vacant place when he was ready, and his -father’s grim face would soften into a smile. Raymond’s unpunctuality -was a different matter, and he had amended this weakness. - -To-night there were no guests, and when the major-domo took his stand at -the dining-room door to fling it open on the remote entry of Lord -Yardley from the far end of the gallery, all the family but Colin were -assembled. Lord Yardley’s mother, now over eighty, white and watchful -and bloodless, had been as usual the first to arrive, and, leaning on -her stick, had gone to her chair by the fireplace, in which, upright and -silent, she waited during these canonical moments. She always came to -dinner, though not appearing at other meals, for she breakfasted and -lunched in her own rooms, where all day, except for a drive in the -morning, she remained invisible. Now she held up her white hand to -shield her face from the fire, for whatever the heat of the evening, -there was a smouldering log there for incense. - -Ronald Stanier sat opposite her, heavy and baggy-eyed, breathing sherry -into the evening paper. His wife, the querulous Janet, was giving half -an ear to Raymond’s account of his puncture, and inwardly marvelling at -Lady Hester’s toilet. Undeterred by the weight of her sixty years, she -had an early-Victorian frock of pink satin, high in the waist and of -ample skirt. On her undulated wig of pale golden hair, the colour and -lustre of which had not suffered any change of dimness since the day -when she ran away with her handsome young husband, she wore a wreath of -artificial flowers; a collar of pearls encircled her throat which was -still smooth and soft. The dark eyebrows, highly arched, gave her an -expression of whimsical amusement, and bore out the twinkle in her blue -eyes and the little upward curve at the corner of her mouth. She was -quite conscious of her sister-in-law’s censorious gaze; poor Janet had -always looked like a moulting hen.... - -By her stood Violet, who had but this moment hurried in, and whose -entrance was the signal for Lord Yardley’s valet to open the door. She -had heard Colin splashing in his bath as she came along the passage, -though he had just bathed. - -Then, with a simultaneous uprising, everybody stood, old Lady Yardley -leaned on her stick, Ronald put down the evening paper, and Raymond -broke off the interesting history of his punctured wheel. - -Philip Yardley went straight to his mother’s chair, and gave her his -arm. In the dusk, Raymond standing between him and the window was but a -silhouette against the luminous sky. His father did not yet know that he -had arrived, and mistook him for his brother. - -“Colin, what do you mean by being in time for dinner?” he said. “Most -irregular.” - -“It’s I, father,” said Raymond. - -“Oh, Raymond, is it?” said Lord Yardley. “I didn’t know you were here. -Glad to see you.” - -The words were sufficiently cordial, but the tone was very unlike that -in which he had supposed himself to be addressing Colin. That was not -lost on Raymond; for envy, the most elementary of all human passions, is -also highly sensitive. - -“You came from Cambridge?” asked his father, when they had sat down, in -the same tone of studious politeness. “The term’s over, I suppose.” - -“Yes, a week ago,” said Raymond. As he spoke he made some awkward -movement in the unfolding of his napkin, and upset a glass which crashed -on to the floor. Lord Yardley found himself thinking, “Clumsy brute!” - -“Of course; Colin’s been here a week now,” he said, and Raymond did not -miss that. Then Philip Yardley, considering that he had given his son an -adequate welcome, said no more. - -These family dinners were not, especially in Colin’s absence and in -Raymond’s presence, very talkative affairs. Old Lady Yardley seldom -spoke at all, but sat watching first one face and then another, as if -with secret conjectures. Ronald Stanier paid little attention to -anything except to his plate and his glass, and it was usually left to -Violet and Lady Hester to carry on such conversation as there was. But -even they required the stimulus of Colin, and to-night the subdued blink -of spoons on silver-gilt soup-plates reigned uninterrupted. These had -just ceased when Colin appeared, like a lamp brought into a dusky room. - -“Sorry, father,” he said. “I’m late, you know. Where’s my place? Oh, -between Aunt Hester and Violet. Ripping.” - -“Urgent private affairs, Colin?” asked his father. - -“Yes, terribly urgent. And private. Bath.” - -The whole table revived a little, as when the gardener waters a drooping -bed of flowers. - -“But you had only just bathed,” said Violet. - -“That’s just why I wanted a bath. Nothing makes you so messy and sticky -as a bathe. And there were bits of grass between my toes, and a small -fragment of worm.” - -“And how did they get there, dear?” asked Aunt Hester, violently -interested. - -“Because I walked up in bare feet over the grass, Aunt Hester,” said -Colin. “It’s good for the nerves. Come and do it after dinner.” - -Lord Yardley supposed that Colin had not previously seen his brother, -and that seeing him now did not care to notice his presence. So, with -the same chill desire to be fair in all ways to Raymond, he said: - -“Raymond has come, Colin.” - -“Yes, father, we’ve already embraced,” said he. “Golly, I don’t call -that soup. It’s muck. Hullo, granny dear, I haven’t seen you all day. -Good morning.” - -Lady Yardley’s face relaxed; there came on her lips some wraith of a -smile. Colin’s grace and charm of trivial prattle was the only ray that -had power at all to thaw the ancient frost that had so long congealed -her. Ever since her husband’s death, twenty years ago, she had lived -some half of the year here, and now she seldom stirred from Stanier, -waiting for the end. Her life had really ceased within a few years of -her marriage; she had become then the dignified lay-figure, emotionless -and impersonal, typical of the wives of Staniers, and that was all that -her children knew of her. For them the frost had never thawed, nor had -she, even for a moment, lost its cold composure, even when on the night -that the news of Raymond’s and Colin’s birth had come to Stanier, there -came with it the summons that caused her husband to crash among the -glasses on the table. Nothing and nobody except Colin had ever given -brightness to her orbit, where, like some dead moon, she revolved in the -cold inter-stellar space. - -But at the boy’s salutation across the table, she smiled. “My dear, what -an odd time to say good morning,” she said. “Have you had a nice day, -Colin?” - -“Oh, ripping, grandmamma!” said he. “Enjoyed every minute of it.” - -“That’s good. It’s a great waste of time not to enjoy....” Her glance -shifted from him to Lady Hester. “Hester, dear, what a strange gown,” -she said. - -“It’s Aunt Hester’s go-away gown after her marriage,” began Colin. -“She....” - -“Colin,” said his father sharply, “you’re letting your tongue run away -with you.” - -Very unusually, Lady Yardley turned to Philip. “You mustn’t speak to -Colin like that, dear Philip,” she said. “He doesn’t know about those -things. And I like to hear Colin talk.” - -“Very well, mother,” said Philip. - -“Colin didn’t have a mother to teach him what to say, and what not to -say,” continued Lady Yardley; “you must not be harsh to Colin.” - -The stimulus was exhausted and she froze into herself again. - -Colin had been perfectly well aware during this, that Raymond was -present, and that nothing of it was lost on him. It would be too much to -say that he had performed what he and Violet called “the grandmamma -trick” solely to rouse Raymond’s jealousy, but to know that Raymond -glowered and envied was like a round of applause to him. It was from no -sympathy or liking for his grandmother that he thawed her thus and -brought her back from her remoteness; he did it for the gratification -of his own power in which Raymond, above all, was deficient.... Like -some antique bird she had perched for a moment on Colin’s finger; now -she had gone back into her cage again. - -Colin chose that night to take on an air of offended dignity at his -father’s rebuke, and subsided into silence. He knew that every one would -feel his withdrawal, and now even Uncle Ronald who, with hardly less -aloofness than his mother, for he was buried in his glass and platter, -and was remote from everything except his vivid concern with food and -drink, tried to entice the boy out of his shell. Colin was pleased at -this: it was all salutary for Raymond. - -“So you’ve been bathing, Colin,” he said. - -“Yes, Uncle Ronald,” said he. - -“Pleasant in the water?” asked Uncle Ronald. - -“Quite,” said Colin. - -Aunt Hester made the next attempt. They were all trying to please and -mollify him. “About that walking in the grass in bare feet,” she said. -“I should catch cold at my age. And what would my maid think?” - -“I don’t know at all, Aunt Hester,” said Colin very sweetly. - -Raymond cleared his throat. Colin was being sulky and unpleasant, and -he, the eldest, would make things agreeable again. No wonder Colin -subsided after that very ill-chosen remark about Aunt Hester. - -“There’s a wonderful stride been made in this wireless telegraphy, -father,” he said. “There were messages transmitted to Newfoundland -yesterday, so I saw in the paper. A good joke about it in _Punch_. A -fellow said, ‘They’ll be inventing noiseless thunder next.’” - -There was a dead silence, and then Colin laughed loudly. - -“Awfully good, Raymond,” he said. “Very funny. Strawberries, Aunt -Hester?” - -That had hit the mark. Leaning forward to pull the dish towards him, he -saw the flush on Raymond’s face. - -“Really? As far as Newfoundland?” said Lord Yardley. - - * * * * * - -By now the major-domo was standing by the dining-room door again, and -Philip rose. His mother got up and stood, immobile and expressionless, -till the other women had passed out in front of her. Then, as she went -out, she said exactly what she had said for the last sixty years. - -“You will like a game of whist, then, soon?” - -Generally when the women had gone, the others moved up towards the host. -To-night Philip took up his glass and placed himself next Colin. The -decanters were brought round and placed opposite him, and he pushed them -towards Raymond. - -“Help yourself, Raymond,” he said. - -Then he turned round in his armchair to the other boy. - -“Still vexed with me, Colin?” he said quietly. - -“Of course not, father,” he said. “Sorry I sulked. But you did shut me -up with such a bang.” - -“Well, open yourself at the same place,” said Philip. - -“Rather. Aunt Hester’s dress, wasn’t it? Isn’t she too divine? If she -ever dies, which God forbid, you ought to have her stuffed and dressed -just like that, and put in a glass case in the hall to shew how young it -is possible to be when you’re old. But, seriously, do get a portrait -done of her to hang here. There’s nothing of her in the gallery.” - -“Any other orders?” asked Philip. - -“I don’t think so at present. Oh, by the way, are you going to Italy -this year?” - -“Yes, I think I shall go out there before long for a few weeks as usual. -Why?” - -“I thought that perhaps you would take me. I’ve got four months’ -vacation, you see, now that I’m at Cambridge, and I’ve never been to -Italy yet.” - -Philip paused; he was always alone in Italy. That was part of the -spell. “You’d get dreadfully bored, Colin,” he said. “I shall be at the -villa in Capri: there’s nothing to do except swim.” - -Colin divined in his father’s mind some reluctance other than that which -he expressed. He dropped his eyes for a moment, then raised them again -to his father’s face, merry and untroubled. - -“You don’t want me to come with you, father,” he said. “Quite all right, -but why not have told me so?” - -Philip looked at the boy with that expression in his face that no one -else ever saw there; the tenderness for another, the heart’s need of -another, which had shot into fitful flame twenty years ago, had never -quite been extinguished; it had always smouldered there for Colin. - -“I’ll think it over,” he said, and turned round in his chair. - -“You were telling me something about wireless, Raymond,” he said. “As -far as Newfoundland! That is very wonderful. A few years ago scientists -would have laughed at such an idea as at a fairy-tale or a superstition. -But the superstitions of one generation become the science of the next.” - -Raymond by this time was in a state of thorough ill-temper. He had -witnessed all the evening Colin’s easy triumphs; he had seen how Colin, -when annoyed, as he had been at his father’s rebuke, went into his -shell, and instantly every one tried to tempt him out again. Just now in -that low-voiced conversation between his brother and his father, he had -heard his father say, “Still vexed with me?” in a sort of suppliance.... -He determined to try a manœuvre that answered so well. - -“I should have said just the opposite,” he remarked, re-filling his -glass. “I should have thought that the science and beliefs of one -generation became the superstitions of the next. Our legend, for -instance; that was soberly believed once.” - -Philip Yardley did not respond quite satisfactorily. “Ah!” he said, -getting up. “Well, shall we be going?” - -Raymond had just poured himself out a glass of port, and, very -unfortunately, he remembered a precisely similar occasion on which his -father, just when Colin had done the same, proposed an adjournment. He -repeated the exact words Colin had used then. - -“Oh, you might wait till I’ve finished my port,” he said. - -That did not produce the right effect. On the previous occasion his -father had said, “Sorry, old boy,” and had sat down again. - -“You’d better follow us, then,” said Philip. “But don’t drink any more, -Raymond. You’ve had as much as is good for you.” - -Raymond’s face blazed. To be spoken to like that, especially in front of -his uncle and brother, was intolerable. He got up and pushed his -replenished glass away, spilling half of it. Instantly Colin saw his -opportunity, and knowing fairly well what would happen, he put his hand -within Raymond’s arm in brotherly remonstrance. - -“Oh, I say, Raymond!” he said. - -Raymond shook him off. “Leave me alone, can’t you?” he said angrily. - -Then he turned to his father. “I didn’t mean to spill the wine, father,” -he said. “It was an accident.” - -“Accidents are liable to happen, when one loses one’s temper,” said -Philip. “Ring the bell, please.” - -There were two tables for cards laid out in the drawing-room, and -Raymond, coming in only a few seconds after the others, found that, -without waiting for him, the bridge-table had already been made up with -Lady Hester, Violet, his father, and Colin. They had not given him a -chance to play there, and now for the next hour he was condemned to play -whist with his grandmother and his uncle and aunt, a dreary pastime. - -At ten old Lady Yardley went dumbly to bed, and there was the choice -between sitting here until the bridge was over, or of following Uncle -Ronald into the smoking-room. But that he found he could not do; his -jealousy of Colin, both as regards his father and as regards Violet, -constrained him as with cords to stop and watch them, and contrast their -merriment with his own ensconced and sombre broodings. - -And then there was Violet herself. Colin’s conjecture had been perfectly -right, for in the fashion of Staniers, he must be considered as in the -process of falling in love with her. The desire for possession, rather -than devotion, was the main ingredient in the bubbling vat, and that was -very sensibly present. She made a ferment in his blood, and though he -would not have sacrificed anything which he really valued, such as his -prospective lordship of Stanier, for her sake, he could not suffer the -idea that she should not be his. He knew, too, how potent in her was the -Stanier passion for the home, and that he counted as his chief asset, -for he had no illusion that Violet was in love with him. Nor was she, so -he thought, in love with Colin; the two were much more like a couple of -chums than lovers. - -So he sat and watched them round the edge of the newspaper which had -beguiled Uncle Ronald’s impatience for dinner. The corner where he sat -was screened from the players by a large vase of flowers on the table -near them, and Raymond felt that he enjoyed, though without original -intention, the skulking pleasures of the eavesdropper. - -Colin, as usual, was to the fore. Just now he was dummy to his partner, -Aunt Hester, who, having added a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles to -complete her early-Victorian costume, was feeling a shade uneasy. She -had just done what she most emphatically ought not to have done, and was -afraid that both her adversaries had perceived it. Colin had perceived -it, too; otherwise the suit of clubs was deficient. Violet had already -alluded to this. - -“Oh, Aunt Hester!” cried Colin. “What’s the use of pretending you’ve not -revoked? Don’t cling on to that last club; play it, and have done with -it. If you don’t, you’ll revoke again.” - -Aunt Hester still felt cunning; she thought she might be able to bundle -it up in the last trick. “But I ain’t got a club, Colin,” she said, -reverting to mid-Victorian speech. - -“Darling Aunt Hester, you mean ‘haven’t,’” said Colin. “‘Ain’t’ means -‘aren’t,’ and it isn’t grammar even then, though you are my aunt. -‘Ain’t....’” - -Lord Yardley, leaning forward, pulled Colin’s hair. It looked so golden -and attractive, it reminded him.... “Colin, are you dummy, or ain’t -you?” he asked. - -“Certainly, father. Can’t you see Aunt Hester’s playing the hand? I -shouldn’t call it playing, myself. I should call it playing at playing. -Club, please, Aunt Hester.” - -“Well, if you’re dummy, hold your tongue,” said Lord Yardley. “Dummy -isn’t allowed to speak, and....” - -“Oh, those are the old rules,” said Colin. “The new rules make it -incumbent on dummy to talk all the time. Hurrah, there’s Aunt Hester’s -club, aren’t it? One revoke, and a penalty of three tricks....” - -“Doubled,” said his father. - -“Brute,” said Colin, “and no honours at all! Oh yes, fourteen to us -above. Well played, Aunt Hester! Wasn’t it a pity? Your deal, Vi.” - -Colin, having cut the cards, happened to look up at the big vase of -flowers which stood close to the table. As he did so, there was a -trivial glimmer, as of some paper just stirred, behind it. He had -vaguely thought that Uncle Ronald and Raymond had both gone to the -smoking-room, but there was certainly some one there, and which of the -two it was he had really no idea. Every one else, adversaries and -partner, was behaving as if there was no one else in the room, so why -not he? - -“Raymond’s got the hump this evening,” he said cheerfully. “He won at -whist--Lord, what a game!--because I saw Aunt Janet pay him half-a-crown -with an extraordinarily acid expression, and ask for change. So as he’s -won at cards, he will be blighted in love. I expect he’s had a knock -from the young thing at the tobacconist’s in King’s Parade. I think she -likes me best, father. But it’ll be the same daughter-in-law. She -breathes through her nose, and is marvellously genteel. Otherwise she’s -just like Violet.” - -“Pass,” said Violet. - -“Hurrah! I knew it would make you pessimistic to be called like a -tobacconist’s....” - -Philip Yardley laid down his cards and actually laughed. “Colin, you -low, vulgar brute,” he said, “don’t talk so much!” - -Colin imitated Raymond’s voice and manner to perfection. “I should have -said just the opposite,” he remarked. “I should have thought you wanted -me to talk more, and make trumps.” - -Violet caught on. “Oh, you got him exactly, Colin,” she said. “What did -he say that about?” - -“Go on, Colin,” said his father. “We shall never finish.” - -Colin examined his hand. “Three no-trumps,” he said. “Not one, nor two, -but three. Glorious trinity!” - -There was no counter-challenge, and as Lord Yardley considered his lead, -Colin looked up through the vase of flowers once more. There was some -one there still, and he got up to fetch a match from a side-table. That -gave him a clearer view of what lay beyond. - -“Hullo, Raymond?” he said. “Thought you’d gone to the smoking-room.” - -“No; just looking at the paper,” said Raymond. “I’m going now.” - -“Oh, but we’ll have another rubber,” said Colin. “Cut in?” - -“No, thanks,” said Raymond. - -Colin waited till the door had closed behind him. “Lor!” he said. - -“Just shut that door, Colin,” said Lord Yardley. - -Lady Hester was thrilled about the tobacconist’s young thing; it really -would be rather a good joke if one of the boys, following his father’s -example, married a “baggage” of that sort, and she determined to pursue -the subject with Colin on some future occasion. She loved such loose -natural talk as he treated her to; he told her all his escapades. He was -just such a scamp as Colin the first must have been, and with just such -gifts and utter absence of moral sense was he endowed. - -Indeed, the old legend, so it seemed to her, lived again in Colin, -though couched in more modern terms. It was the mediæval style to say -that for the price of the soul, Satan was willing to dower his -beneficiary with all material bounty and graces; more modernly, you said -that this boy was an incorrigible young Adonis, who feared neither God -nor devil. True, the lordship of Stanier was not yet Colin’s, but -something might happen to that grim, graceless Raymond. - -How the two hated each other, and how different were the exhibitions of -their antagonism! Raymond hated with a glowering, bilious secrecy, that -watched and brooded; Colin with a gay contempt, a geniality almost. But -if the shrewd old Lady Hester had been asked to wager which of the two -was the most dangerous to the other, she would without hesitation have -put her money on Colin. - -The second rubber was short, but as hilarious as the first, and on its -conclusion Lady Hester hurried to bed, saying that she would be “a -fright” in the morning if she lost any more sleep. Violet followed her, -Philip withdrew to his own room, and Colin sauntered along to the -smoking-room in quest of whisky. His Uncle Ronald was still there, -rapidly approaching the comatose mood of midnight, which it would have -been inequitable to call intoxication and silly to call sobriety. -Raymond sprawled in a chair by the window. - -“Hullo, Uncle Ronald, still up?” said Colin. “You’ll get scolded.” - -Uncle Ronald lifted a sluggish eyelid. “Hey?” he said. “Oh, Colin, is -it? What’s the time, my boy?” - -“Half-past twelve,” said Colin, adding on another half-hour. He wanted -to get rid of his uncle and see how he stood with his brother. No doubt -they would have a row. - -“Gobbless me,” said Ronald. “I shall turn in. Just a spot more whisky. -Good night, boys.” - -As soon as he had gone Raymond got out of his chair and placed himself -where he could get his heels on the edge of the low fender-kerb. He -hated talking “up” to Colin, and this gave him a couple of inches. - -“I want to ask you something,” he said. - -“Ask away,” said Colin. - -“Did you know I was in the room when you imitated me just now?” - -“Hadn’t given a thought to it,” said Colin. - -“It’s equally offensive whether you mimic me before my face or behind my -back,” said Raymond. “It was damned rude.” - -“Shall I come to you for lessons in manners?” asked Colin. “What do you -charge?” - -Colin spoke with all the lightness of good-humoured banter, well aware -that if Raymond replied at all, he would make some sledge-hammer -rejoinder. He would swing a cudgel against the rapier that pricked him, -yet never land a blow except on the air, or, maybe, his own foot. - -“It’s beastly insolence on your part,” said Raymond. - -“And that’s very polite,” said Colin. “You may mimic me how and where -and when you choose. If it’s like, I shall laugh. If it isn’t, well, I -shall still laugh.” - -“I haven’t got your sense of humour,” said Raymond. - -“Clearly, nor Violet’s. She thought I had got you to a ‘t.’ You probably -heard what she said from your sequestered corner behind your newspaper.” - -Raymond advanced a step. “Look here, Colin, do you mean to imply that I -was listening?” - -Colin laughed. “And I want to ask you a question,” he said. “Didn’t you -know that we all thought you had gone away?” - -Raymond disregarded this. “Then there’s another thing. What do you mean -by telling father about the girl at the tobacconist’s? You know it was -nothing at all.” - -“Rather,” said Colin. “I said so. You seem to forget that I told him -that I was the favourite. That’s the part you didn’t like.” - -Raymond flushed. “It’s all very well for you to say that,” he said. “But -you know perfectly well that my father doesn’t treat us alike. Things -which are quite harmless in his eyes when you do them appear very -different to him when I’m the culprit. I had had a knock from a -tobacconist’s girl, had I? You’re a cad to have told him that quite -apart from its being a lie.” - -Colin laughed with irritating naturalness. “Is this the first lesson in -manners?” he said. “I’m beginning to see the hang of it. You call the -other fellow a cad and a liar. About my father’s not treating us alike, -that’s his affair. But I should never dream of calling you a liar for -saying that. We’re not alike: why should he treat us alike? You’ve got a -foul temper, you see; that doesn’t add to your popularity with anybody.” - -He spoke in the same voice in which he might have told Raymond that he -had a speck of dust on the coat, and yawned rather elaborately. - -“Take care you don’t rouse it,” said Raymond. - -“Why not? It rather amuses me to see you in a rage.” - -“Oh, it does, does it?” said Raymond with his voice quivering. - -“I assure you of it. I’m having a most amusing evening, thanks to you. -And this chat has been the pleasantest part of it. Pity that it’s so -late.” - -Raymond, as usual, had throughout, the worst of these exchanges and was -quite aware of it. He had been ill-bred and abusive through his loss of -temper while Colin, insolent though his speech and his manner had been, -had kept within the bounds of civil retort in his sneers and contempt. -In all probability he would give an account of it all to Violet -to-morrow, and there was no need for him to embroider; a strictly -correct version of what had passed was quite disagreeable enough. - -This Raymond wanted to avoid in view of his desire that Violet should -look on him as favourably as possible. Whether he meant to propose to -her during his visit here, he hardly knew himself, but certainly he -wanted to be in her good books. This, and this alone, prompted him now; -he hated Colin, all the more because he had been absolutely unable to -ruffle him or pierce the fine armour of his composure, but as regards -Violet, and perhaps his father, he feared him. - -“I’m afraid I’ve lost my temper, Colin,” he said. “And I owe you an -apology for all I’ve said. You had annoyed me by mimicking me and by -telling father about that girl at Cambridge.” - -Colin felt that he had pulled the wings off a fly that had annoyed him -by its buzzing; the legs might as well follow.... - -“Certainly you owe me an apology,” he said. “But, considering -everything, I don’t quite know whether you are proposing to pay it.” - -Raymond turned on him fiercely. “Ah, that’s you all over!” he said. - -“Oh, we’re being quite natural,” said Colin. “So much better.” - -He paused a moment. - -“Now I don’t want to be offensive just now,” he said, “so let’s sit down -and try to tolerate each other for a minute. There.” - -Raymond longed to be at his throat, to feel his short, strong fingers -throttling the life out of that smooth white neck. But some careless -superior vitality in Colin made him sit down. - -“Let’s face it, Raymond,” he said. “We loathe each other like poison, -and it is nonsense to pretend we don’t. Unfortunately, you are the -eldest, so in the end you will score, however much I annoy you. But put -yourself in my place; imagine yourself the younger with your foul -temper. You would probably try to kill me. Of course, by accident. But -I’m not intending to kill you. I am very reasonable; you must be -reasonable, too. But just put yourself in my place.” - -Raymond shifted in the chair in which Colin, with a mere gesture of a -finger, had made him sit. “Can’t we possibly get on better together, -Colin?” he said. “After all, as you say, I come into everything on my -father’s death. I have Stanier, I have the millions where you have the -thousands. I can be very useful to you. You adore the place, and I can -let you come here as often and as long as you like, and I can also -prevent your setting foot in it. If you’ll try to be decent to me, I -promise you that you shan’t regret it.” - -Colin put his head on one side and looked at his brother with an air of -pondering wonder. “Oh, that cock won’t fight,” he said. “You know as -well as I do that when you are master here, I would sooner go to hell -than come here, and you would sooner go to hell than let me come. -Perhaps I’ve got a dull imagination, but it’s no use my trying to -imagine that. Do be sensible. If you could do anything to injure me at -this moment when you are proposing a truce, you know that you would do -it. But you can’t. You can’t hurt me in any way whatever. But what you -do know is that I can hurt you in all sorts of ways. I can poison my -father’s mind about you--it’s pretty sick already. I can poison Violet’s -mind, and that’s none too healthy. You see, they both like me most -tremendously, and they don’t very much like you. It’s just the same at -Cambridge. I’ve got fifty friends: you haven’t got one. I dare say it’s -not your fault: anyhow, we’ll call it your misfortune. But you want me -to do something for you in return for nothing you can do for me, or, -perhaps, nothing that you will do for me.” - -Raymond frowned; when he was thinking he usually frowned. When Colin was -thinking he usually smiled. - -“If in the future there is anything I can do for you, Colin,” he said, -“I will do it. I want to be friends with you. Good Lord, isn’t that -reasonable? We’re brothers.” - -Colin leaned forward in his chair. He was aware of the prodigious nature -of what he was meaning to say. “Give me Stanier, Raymond,” he said. -“With what father is leaving me, and with what Aunt Hester is leaving -me, I can easily afford to keep it up. I don’t ask you for any money. I -just want Stanier. Of course, it needn’t actually be mine. But I want to -live here, while you live somewhere else. There’s the Derbyshire house, -for instance. I’ve got Stanier in my blood. If, on father’s death, -you’ll do that, there’s nothing I won’t do for you.” - -He paused. - -“I can do a good deal, you know,” he said. “And I can refrain from doing -a good deal.” - -The proposal was so preposterous that Raymond fairly laughed. Instantly -Colin got up. - -“That sounds pleasant,” he said. “Good night, Raymond. I wouldn’t have -any more whisky, if I were you. Father seemed to think you’d had enough -drink before the end of dinner.” - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -Breakfast at Stanier was a shade less stately than dinner. The table was -invariably laid for the complete tale of its possible consumers, and a -vicarious urn bubbled at the end of the board with an empty teapot in -front of it, in case of old Lady Yardley coming down to breakfast and -dispensing tea. She had not come down for over twenty years, but the urn -still awaited her ministrations. - -On the arrival of tidings that she was having breakfast in her room, the -urn was taken away, and if news filtered through the butler to the -footman that some one else was breakfasting upstairs, a place at the -table was removed. Hot dishes above spirit-lamps stood in a row on the -sideboard, and there remained till somebody had come down or till, from -the removal of knives and forks, it was clear that nobody was coming. - -But when Lady Hester was in the house, these dishes were always sure of -a partaker, for, after her cold bath, she breakfasted downstairs, as she -considered her bedroom a place to sleep and dress in, not to eat in. The -urn would have been removed by this time, for Lady Yardley’s maid would -have taken her tray upstairs, and for Lady Hester and for any one else -who appeared there was brought in a separate equipage of tea or coffee, -hot and fresh, and deposited in front of the occupied chair. - -This morning she was the first to arrive, dressed in a white coat and -blouse and a jaunty little straw hat turned up at the back and decorated -with pheasants’ feathers. Provision of fish and bacon was brought her, -and an ironed copy of a daily paper. There were still four places left -at the table unremoved, and she promised herself a chatty breakfast. - -Raymond was the next comer, but he did not much conduce to chattiness. -He looked heavy-eyed and sulky, only grunted in response to her -salutation, and immured himself behind the _Daily Mail_. Lady Hester -made one further attempt at sociability, and asked him if he had slept -well, but as he had nothing to add to his “No, not very,” she considered -herself free from any further obligation. - -Then there came a very welcome addition to his grievous company, for -Colin entered through the door that opened on to the terrace. Flannel -trousers, coat and shirt open at the neck was all his costume, and there -was a bathing towel over his shoulder. - -“Morning, Aunt Hester,” he said. “Morning, Raymond.” - -He paused in order to make quite sure that Raymond made no response, and -sat down next his aunt. - -“Been bathing,” he said. “Hottest morning that ever was. Why didn’t you -come, too, Aunt Hester? You’d look like a water-nymph. I say, what a -nice hat! Whom are you going to reduce to despair? Hullo, three -letters!” - -“How many of them are love-letters?” asked Aunt Hester archly. - -“All, of course,” said Colin. “There’s one from Cambridge.” - -“That’ll be the young woman in the tobacconist’s shop whom you told us -about,” began Aunt Hester. - -“Sh!” said Colin, nodding towards Raymond. “Sore subject.” - -Raymond, pushing back his chair, could not control himself from casting -one furious glance at Colin, and went out. - -“Well, that’s one bad-tempered young man gone,” said Lady Hester -severely. She could understand people being thieves and liars, but to -fail in pleasantness and geniality was frankly unintelligible to her. - -“Why does he behave like that, my dear?” she continued. “He hadn’t a -word to chuck at me like a bone to a dog, when I wished him good -morning. What makes him like that? He ain’t got a belly-ache, has he?” - -Colin, as he swam in the sunshine this morning, had devoted some amount -of smiling reflection as to his policy with regard to Raymond. Raymond -had rejected his amazing proposal with a derisive laugh; he did not -think that an alliance with his brother was worth that price, and he -must take the consequences of his refusal. - -Violet entered at this moment; that was convenient, for she, too, could -hear about the quarrel last night at one telling. - -“Oh, we had a row last night,” he said. “It was pitched a little higher -than usual, and I suppose Raymond’s suffering from after-effects. He was -perfectly furious with me for having mimicked him, and wasn’t the least -soothed by my saying he might mimic me as often as he pleased. Then I -was told I was a cad and a liar for that nonsense I talked about the -tobacconist’s. After I had stood as much as I could manage, I left him -to his whisky, and I don’t imagine there’ll be much left of it. Oh, I -say, Violet, did you shut the door when you came in? I believe it’s -open; I’ll do it.” - -Colin got up, went to the door which was indeed ajar, and looked out -into the long gallery. Raymond, it so happened, was sitting in the -nearest window-seat lighting his pipe. - -Colin nodded to him. “Just shutting the door,” he said, and drew back -into the dining-room, rattling and pushing the door to make sure that -the latch had gone home. He felt sure that what he had just said to -Raymond (that very innocent piece of information!) would go home, too. - -“He was just outside,” said Colin softly, returning to the -breakfast-table. “Wasn’t it lucky I thought of shutting the door?” - -“Go on; what else?” asked Violet. - -“Nothing more. Of course, it was very awkward his having overheard what -we all said at our bridge. That had riled him. It was best to be sure -that there wouldn’t be a repetition of it this morning. But if people -will sit behind a newspaper and a vase of flowers, it’s difficult to be -aware of their presence. People ought to betray their presence in the -usual manner by coughing or sneezing. I shall have a thorough search of -the room first before I say anything about anybody. If I want to say you -are an old darling, Aunt Hester, I shall look behind the coal-scuttle -first.” - -Colin, whatever his private sentiments were, had an infinite lightness -of touch in the expression of them. He had declared, not to Violet -alone, but to Raymond himself, that he frankly detested him, and yet -there was a grace about the manner of the presentment that rendered his -hatred, if not laudable, at any rate, venial. And his account of the -quarrel last night was touched with the same graceful brush. Without -overstepping the confines of truth, he left the impression that he had -been reasonable and gentle, Raymond headstrong and abusive. - -This, too, was part of his policy; when others were present, he would -make himself winningly agreeable to Raymond, and shew a control and an -indulgence highly creditable in view of his brother’s brusque ways, and -take no provocation at his hands. That would accentuate the partisanship -of the others, which already was his, and would deprive Raymond of any -lingering grain of sympathy. When he and Raymond were alone, he would -exercise none of this self-restraint; he would goad and sting him with a -thousand biting darts. - -The three strolled out presently into the gallery; Lady Hester and -Violet passed Raymond without speech, but Colin sauntered up to him. - -“Coming out to play tennis presently?” he asked. - -Colin’s careful closing of the dining-room door had not been lost on his -brother. Raymond had interpreted it just as Colin wished him to, and he -was boiling with rage. - -“No, I’m not,” said he. - -Colin turned to where Violet was standing, just shrugged his shoulders -with a lift of the eyebrows, and went on towards her without spoken -comment. - -“Tennis soon, Vi?” he asked. “We’ll have to play a single.” - -“Right. That will be jolly,” said Violet. “In half an hour?” - -Colin nodded, and passed on to Lady Hester. “Come out, Aunt Hester, and -let’s sit in the shade somewhere till Vi’s ready. It’s lovely outside.” - -“I must have me sunshade,” said she, “or I shall spoil me complexion.” - -“That’ll never do,” said Colin. “None of your young men will fall in -love with you, if you do that. I’ll get it for you. Which will you have, -the blue one with pink ribands, or the pink one with blue ribands?” - -“Neither, you wretch,” said Aunt Hester. “The yaller one.” - -They found an encampment of basket-chairs under the elms beyond the -terrace, and Colin went straight to the business on which he wanted -certain information. This, too, was an outcome of his meditations in the -swimming-pool. - -“I asked father to take me out to Italy this summer,” he said, “and it -was quite clear that he had some objection to it. Have you any idea what -it was?” - -“My dear, it’s no use asking me,” said Aunt Hester. “Your father’s never -spoken to me about anything of the sort, and he ain’t the sort of man to -ask questions of. But for all these years he has gone off alone for a -month every summer. Perhaps he only just wants to get rid of us all for -a while.” - -Colin extended himself on the grass, shading his eyes against the glare -with his hand. His ultimate goal was still too far off to be -distinguished even in general outline, far less in any detailed aspect. -He was but exploring, not knowing what he should find, not really -knowing what he looked for. - -“Perhaps that’s it,” he said. “In any case, it doesn’t matter much. But -I did wonder why father seemed not to welcome the idea of my going with -him. He usually likes to have me with him. He’s devoted to Italy, isn’t -he, and yet he never talks about it.” - -Colin spoke with lazy indifference, knowing very well that the surest -way of getting information was to avoid any appearance of anxiety to -obtain it, and, above all, not to press for it. Suggestions had to be -made subconsciously to the subject. - -“Never a word,” said Lady Hester, “and never has to my knowledge, since -he brought you and Raymond back twenty years ago.” - -“Were you here then?” asked Colin. - -“Yes, and that was the first time I saw Stanier since I was seventeen. -Your grandfather never spoke to me after my marriage, and for that -matter, I wouldn’t have spoken to him. He was an old brute, my dear, was -your grandfather, and Raymond’ll be as like him as two peas.” - -“Not as two peas, darling,” said Colin, “as one pea to another pea.” - -“Oh, bother your grammar,” said Lady Hester. “Speech is given us to show -what we mean. You know what I mean well enough. But as soon as your -grandfather died, Philip made me welcome here, and has made me welcome -ever since. Yes, my dear, the first I saw of you, you were laughing, and -you ain’t stopped since.” - -“Did you know my mother?” asked Colin quietly. - -He was getting on to his subject again, though Lady Hester was not aware -of it. - -“No. Never set eyes on her. Nobody of the family knew she existed until -you were born, and less than a month after that she was dead. Your -father had left home, one May or June it must have been, for he couldn’t -stand your grandfather any more than I could, and not a word did any one -but your grandmother hear of him, and that only to say it was a fine -day, and he was well, till there came that telegram to say that he was -married and had a pair of twins. Your grandfather was at dinner, -sitting over his wine with your Uncle Ronald--he used to drink enough to -make two men tipsy every night of his life--and up he got when your -uncle read the telegram to him, and crash he went among the decanters, -and that was the end of him. Then your mother died, and back came your -father with you and Raymond, within a twelvemonth of the time he’d gone -away. And not a word about that twelvemonth ever passes his lips.” - -Colin let a suitable pause speak for the mildness of his interest in all -this. “He must have been married, then, very soon after he went to -Italy,” he said. - -“Must have, my dear,” said Lady Hester. - -It was exactly then that Colin began to see a faint outline, shrouded -though it was by the mists of twenty years, that might prove to be the -object of his exploration. Very likely it was only a mirage, some -atmospheric phantom, but he intended to keep his eye on it, and, if -possible, get nearer to it. A certain _nuance_ of haste and promptitude -with which Lady Hester had agreed to his comment perhaps brought it in -sight. - -He sat up, clasping his knees with his hands, and appeared to slide off -into generalities. “How exceedingly little we all know of each other,” -he said. “What do I know of my father, for instance? Hardly anything. -And I know even less of my mother. Just her name, Rosina Viagi, and I -shouldn’t know that if it wasn’t for the picture of her in the gallery. -Who are the Viagis, Aunt Hester? Anybody?” - -“Don’t know at all, my dear,” said she. “I know as little about them as -you. Quite respectable folk, I daresay, though what does it matter if -they weren’t?” - -“Not an atom. Queen Elizabeth wished she was a milk-maid, didn’t she?” - -“Lord, she’d have upset the milk-pails and stampeded the cows!” observed -Lady Hester. “Better for her to be a queen. Why, here’s your father.” - -This was rather an unusual appearance, for Lord Yardley did not -generally shew himself till lunch-time. Colin instantly jumped up. - -“Hurrah, father!” he said. “Come and talk. Cigarette? Chair?” - -Lord Yardley shook his head. “No, dear boy,” he said. “I sent for you -and heard you were out, so I came to look for you. Have five minutes’ -stroll with me.” - -Colin took his father’s arm. “Rather,” he said. “Tell Vi that I’ll be -back in a few minutes if she comes out, will you, Aunt Hester?” - -Philip stopped. “Another time will do, Colin,” he said, “if you’ve made -any arrangement with Violet.” - -“Only vague tennis.” - -They walked off up the shady alley of grass to where, at the end, an -opening cut in the trees gave a wide view over the plain. The ground in -front fell sharply away in slopes of steep turf, dotted with hawthorns a -little past the fulness of their flowering. A couple of miles away the -red roofs of Rye smouldered in the blaze of the day, outlined against -the tidal water of the joined rivers, that went seawards in expanse of -dyke-contained estuary. On each side of it stretched the green levels of -the marsh, with Winchelsea floating there a greener island on the green -of that grassy ocean, and along its margin to the south the sea like a -silver wire was extended between sky and land. To the right for -foreground lay the yew-encompassed terraces, built and planted by Colin -the first, the lowest of which fringed the broad water of the lake, and -along them burned the glory of the June flower-beds. Behind, framed in -the trees between which they had passed, the south-east front of the -house rose red and yellow between the lines of green. - -The two stood silent awhile. - -“Ah, Colin,” said his father, “we’re at one about Stanier. It beats in -your blood as it does in mine. I wish to God that when I was dead....” - -He broke off. - -“I want to talk to you about two things,” he said. “Raymond’s one of -them, but we’ll take the other first. About Italy. I’ll take you with me -if you want to come. I was reluctant, but I am reluctant no longer. -Apart from my inclination which, as I tell you, is for it now not -against it, you’ve got a certain right to come. You and I will live in -the villa where I lived with your mother. I’ve left it you, by the way. -My romance, my marriage with her, and our life together, was so short -and was so utterly cut off from everybody else that, as you know, I’ve -always kept it like that, severed from all of you. But you’re her son, -my dear, and in some ways you are so like her that it’s only right you -should share my memories and my ghosts. They’re twenty-one years old -now, and they’ve faded, but they are there. There’s only one thing I -want of you; that is, not to ask me any questions about her. Certain -things I’ll tell you, but anything I don’t tell you....” - -He broke off for a moment. - -“Anything I don’t tell you is my private affair,” he said. - -“I understand, father,” said Colin. - -“You’ll probably see your Uncle Salvatore,” continued Philip. “So be -prepared for a shock. He usually comes over when he hears I am at the -villa ... but never mind that. He takes himself off when he’s got his -tip. So that’s settled. If you get bored you can go away.” - -“That is good of you, father,” said the boy. - -“Now about the second point,” said Philip; “and that’s Raymond. He’s a -sulky, dark fellow, that brother of yours, Colin.” - -Colin laughed. “Oh, put all the responsibility on me,” he said. - -“Well, what’s to be done with him? He was in the long gallery just now -as I came out, and I spoke to him and was civil. But there he lounged, -didn’t even take his feet off the window-seat, and wouldn’t give me more -than a grunted ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ So I told him what I thought of his -manners.” - -“Oh, did you? How good for him.” - -“Well, I didn’t see why he should sulk at me,” said Philip. “After all, -it’s my house for the present, and if he is to quarter himself there, -without either invitation or warning, the least he can do is to treat me -like his host. I try to treat him like a guest, and like a son, for that -matter. Don’t I?” - -“Yes, dear father,” said Colin. “You always try.” - -“What do you mean, you impertinent boy?” - -Colin laughed again. “Well, you don’t always succeed, you know. You -cover up your dislike of him....” - -“Dislike?” - -“Rather. You hate him, you know.” - -Philip pondered over this. “God forgive me, I believe I do,” he said. -“But, anyhow, I try not to, and that’s the most I can do. And I will be -treated civilly in my own house. How long is he going to stop, do you -know?” - -“I asked him that yesterday,” said Colin. “He said that, with my -permission--sarcastic, you know--he was going to stop as long as he -pleased.” - -Philip frowned. “Oh, did he?” he said. “Perhaps my permission will have -something to do with it.” - -“Oh, do tell him to pack off!” said Colin. “It was so ripping here -before he came. I had a row with him last night, by the way.” - -“What about?” - -“Oh, he chose to swear at me for mimicking him. That is how it began. -But Raymond will quarrel over anything. He’s not particular about the -pretext. Then there was what I said about the tobacconist’s wench.” - -They had passed through the box-hedge on to the terrace just below the -windows of the long gallery. Colin raised his eyes for one half-second -as they came opposite the window-seat which Raymond had been occupying, -and saw the top of his black head just above the sill. He raised his -voice a little. - -“Poor old Raymond,” he said. “We’ve got to make the best of him, -father. I suppose he can’t help being so beastly disagreeable.” - -“He seems to think he’s got a monopoly of it,” said Philip. “But I’ll -show him I can be disagreeable, too. And if he can’t mend his ways, I’ll -just send him packing.” - -“Oh, it would be ripping without him,” said Colin. “He might come back -after you and I have gone to Italy.” - - * * * * * - -In pursuance of his general policy, Colin made the most persevering -attempts at lunch to render himself agreeable to his brother, for the -impression he wished to give was that he was all amiability and thereby -throw into blackest shadow against his own sunlight, Raymond’s -churlishness. A single glance at that glowering face was sufficient to -convince Colin that he had amply overheard the words which had passed -between his father and himself below the open window of the gallery, and -that he writhed under these courtesies which were so clearly of the -routine of “making the best of him.” All the rest of them would see how -manfully Colin persevered, and this geniality was a goad to Raymond’s -fury; he simply could not bring himself to answer with any appearance of -good-fellowship. - -“What have you been at all morning, Raymond?” Colin asked him as he -entered. “I looked for you everywhere.” - -“Been indoors,” said Raymond. - -Colin just shook his head and gave a little sigh of despair, then began -again, determined not to be beaten. He saw his father watching and -listening, and Raymond knew that Lord Yardley was applauding Colin’s -resolve to “make the best of him.” - -“You ought to have come down to the tennis-court and taken on Vi and me -together,” he said. “We shouldn’t have had a chance against you, but -we’d have done our best. Father, you must come and look at Raymond the -next time he plays; he’s become a tremendous crack.” - -Raymond knew perfectly well that either Colin or Violet could beat him -single-handed. Yet how answer this treacherous graciousness? - -“Oh, don’t talk such rot, Colin!” he said. - -He looked up angrily just in time to see Colin and his father exchange a -glance. - -“Well, what shall we do this afternoon?” said Colin, doggedly pleasant. -“Shall we go and play golf? It would be awfully nice of you if you’d -drive me down in your car.” - -“You know perfectly well that I loathe golf,” said Raymond. - -“Sorry,” said Colin. - -Colin laughed, and without the smallest touch of ill-humour, gave it up -and turned to Violet. - -“We’ll have our game in that case, shall we, Vi?” he asked. “Father, may -we have a car to take us down?” - -“By all means,” said Philip. “Hester and I will come down with you, go -for a drive, and pick you up again. You’d like that, Hester?” - -“Oh, but that will leave Raymond alone....” began Colin. - -Raymond broke in: “That’s just what I want you to do with me,” he -snapped. - -Colin got up. “I’ll just go and see granny for a minute,” he said. “I -told her I would look in on her after lunch....” - -Philip had listened to Colin’s advances and Raymond’s rebuffs with a -growing resentment at his elder son’s behaviour, and as the others went -out he beckoned him to stop behind. - -“Look here, Raymond,” he said when the door had closed. “I had to speak -to you after breakfast for your rudeness to me, and all lunch-time -you’ve been as disagreeable as you knew how to be to your brother. And -if you think I’m going to stand these sulks and ill-temper, you’ll very -speedily find yourself mistaken. Colin did all that a good-natured boy -could to give you a chance of making yourself decently agreeable, and -every time he tried you snapped and growled at him.” - -“Do you wish me to answer you or not, sir?” asked Raymond. - -“Certainly. I have every desire to be scrupulously fair to you,” said -Philip. “I will hear anything you wish to say.” - -“Then, father, I wish to say that you’re not fair to me. If I’m late for -dinner, do you chaff me in the way you do Colin? Last night you asked -him with a chuckle, ‘Urgent private affairs?’ That was all the rebuke he -got. If he says he hasn’t finished his wine, you sit down again, and say -‘Sorry.’ If I haven’t, you tell me I’ve had enough already. Colin’s your -favourite, and you show it every minute of the day. You dislike me, you -know.” - -There was quite enough truth in this to make the hearing of it -disagreeable to his father. “I didn’t ask you to discuss my conduct, but -to consider your own,” he said. “But you shall have it your own way. My -conduct to you is the result of yours to me, and yours to everybody -else. Look at yourself and Colin dispassionately, and tell me whether I -could be as fond of you as of him. I acknowledge I’m not. Are you fond -of me, if it comes to that? But I’m polite to you, until you annoy me -beyond endurance, as you are continually doing. If Colin had behaved at -lunch as you’ve behaved, I should have thought he was ill.” - -“And I’m only sulky,” said Raymond. - -“You’re proving it every moment,” said his father. “That’s quite a good -instance.” - -Raymond paused, biting his lip. “You judge Colin’s behaviour to me, -father,” he said, “by what you see of it. You think he’s like that to me -when we’re alone. He’s not: he’s fiendish to me. Don’t you understand -that when you’re there, or anybody else is there, he acts a part, to -make you think that he’s ever so amiable?” - -“And how do you behave to him when you’re alone together?” asked -Philip. “If I take your word about Colin, I must take Colin’s about -you.” - -“You’ve done that already, I expect,” said Raymond. - -His father got up. “I see I haven’t made myself clear,” he said. “Try to -grasp that that’s the sort of remark I don’t intend to stand from you -for a moment. If I have any further complaint to make of you, you leave -the house. You’ve got to be civil and decently behaved. Otherwise you -go. I do not choose to have my general enjoyment of life, or Colin’s, or -your uncle’s, or your aunt’s, spoiled by your impertinences and -snarlings. You’ll have to go away; you can go to St. James’s Square if -you like, but I won’t have you here unless you make a definite effort to -be a pleasanter companion. As I told Colin this morning, you seem to -think that being disagreeable is a monopoly of your own, but you’ll find -that I can be disagreeable, too, and far more effectively than lies in -your power.” - -Philip was quite aware that he was speaking with extreme harshness, with -greater harshness, in fact, than he really intended. But the sight of -that heavy brooding face, the knowledge that this was his elder son, who -would reign at Stanier when he was dead to the exclusion of Colin, made -his tongue bitter beyond control. - -“Well, that’s all I’ve got to say to you,” he said. “I won’t have you -insolent and uncivil to me or any one in this house. I’m master here for -the present, and, rightly or wrongly, I shall do as I choose. And I -won’t have you quarrelling with Colin. You tell me that when I’m not -here and when you’re alone with him, he’s fiendish to you; that was the -word you used. Now don’t repeat that, because I don’t believe it. You’re -jealous of Colin, that’s why you say things like that; you want to -injure him in my eyes. But you only injure yourself.” - -At that moment there came into Philip’s mind some memory, now more than -twenty years old, of himself in Raymond’s position, stung by the lash of -his father’s vituperations, reduced to the dumb impotence of hatred. -Though he felt quite justified in all he had said to the boy, he knew -that his dislike of him had plumed and barbed his arrows, and he -experienced some sort of reluctant sympathy with him. - -“I’ve spoken strongly,” he said, “because I felt strongly, but I’ve -done. If you’ve got anything more to say to me, say it.” - -“No,” said Raymond. - -“Very good. I shan’t refer to it all again, and it’s up to you to do -better in the future. Put a check on yourself. Believe me, that if you -do you will have a better time with me and every one else.... Think it -over, Raymond; be a sensible fellow.” - -The departure of the others gave Raymond abundance of leisure for -solitary reflection, and his father’s remarks plenty of material for the -same. Stinging as those hot-minted sentences had been, he felt no -resentment towards the orator; from his own point of view--a perfectly -reasonable one--his father was justified in what he said. What he did -not know, and what he refused to know, was the truth about Colin, who -neglected no opportunity which quickness of speech and an unrivalled -instinct gave him as to what rankled and festered, of planting his darts -when they were alone together. Raymond accepted Colin’s hatred of him, -just as he accepted his own of Colin, as part of the established order -of things, but what made him rage was this new policy of his brother’s -to win sympathy for himself and odium for him, by public politeness and -affectionate consideration. No one observing that, as his father had -done, could doubt who was the aggressor in their quarrels--the genial, -sweet-tempered boy, or he, the morose and surly. And yet, far more often -than not, it was Colin who intentionally and carefully exasperated him. -It amused Colin, as he had said, to see his brother in a rage, and he -was ingenious at providing himself with causes of entertainment. - -And what, above all, prompted his father’s slating of him just now? -Again it was Colin; it was his championship of his favourite which had -given the sting to his tongue. Here, too, Raymond acquitted his father -of any motive beyond the inevitable one. Nobody could possibly help -liking Colin better than himself, and it was the recognition of that -which made his mind brush aside all thought of his father, and attach -itself with claws and teeth to the root of all this trouble. He was slow -in his mental processes whereas Colin was quick, and Colin could land a -hundred stinging darts, could wave a hundred maddening flags at him, -before he himself got in a charge that went home. That image of the -arena entirely filled his thought. Colin, the light, applauded matador, -himself the savage, dangerous animal. - -But one day--and Raymond clenched his hands till the nails bit the skin, -as he pictured it--that light, lissome figure, with its smiling face and -its graceful air, would side-step and wheel a moment too late, and it -would lie stretched on the sand, while he gored and kneaded it into a -hash of carrion. “Ah!” he said to himself, “that’ll be good; that’ll be -good.” - - * * * * * - -The intensity and vividness of the image surprised him; he came to -himself, sitting on the terrace, with the hum of bees drowsy in the -flower-beds, as if from some doze and dream. He had not arrived at it -from any consecutive interpretation of his hate for Colin; it had not -been evolved out of his mind, but had been flashed on to it as by some -vision outside his own control. But there it was, and now his business -lay in realising it. - -He saw at once that he must be in no hurry. Whether that goring and -kneading of Colin was to be some act of physical violence or the -denouement of a plot which should lead to some disgraceful exposure, -Raymond knew he must plan nothing rashly, must test the strength of -every bolt and rivet in his construction. Above all, he must appear, and -continue to appear, to have taken his father’s strictures to heart, and -for the sake, to put it at its lowest, of being allowed to stay on at -Stanier, to observe the general amenities of sociability, and in -particular to force himself into cordial responses to Colin’s public -attentions. - -Temporarily, that would look bitterly like a victory for Colin; with his -father to back him, it would seem as if Colin had reduced his brother to -decent behaviour. But that could not be helped; he must for many weeks -yet cultivate an assiduous civility and appear to have seen the error of -his sulky ways in order to lull suspicion fast asleep. At present Colin -was always watchful for hostile manœuvres; it would be a work of time -and patience before he would credit that Raymond had plucked his -hostility from him. - -Then there was Violet. Not only had his intemperate churlishness damaged -him with his father, but not less with her. That had to be repaired, for -though to know that Stanier was to her, even as to Colin, an -enchantment, an obsession, she might find that the involved condition of -marrying him in order to become its mistress was one that she could not -face. She did not love him, she did not even like him, but he divined -that her obsession about Stanier, coupled with the aloofness and -independence that characterised her, might make her accept a -companionship that was not positively distasteful to her. - -It was not the Stanier habit to love; love did not form part of the -beauty with which nature had dowered them. The men of the family sought -a healthy mate; for the women of the family, so few had there ever been, -no rule could be deduced. But Violet, so far as he could tell, followed -the men in this, and for witness to her inability to love, in the sense -of poets and romanticists, was her attitude to Colin. - -Had he been the younger, Raymond would have laughed at himself for -entertaining any notion of successful rivalry. Colin, with the lordship -of Stanier, would have been no more vulnerable than was the moon to a -yokel with a pocket-pistol. But he felt very sure that love, as a -relentless and compelling factor in this matter, had no part in her -strong liking for Colin. Neither her feeling for him nor his for her -was ever so slightly dipped in any infinite quality; it was ponderable, -and he himself had in his pocket for weight in the other scale, her -passion for Stanier. - - * * * * * - -Colin strolled gracefully into the smoking-room that evening when the -whist and bridge were over, marvelling at the changed Raymond who had -been so courteous at dinner and so obligingly ready to play whist at -poor granny’s table. He himself had kept up that policy of solicitous -attention to his brother, which had made Raymond grind his teeth at -lunch that day, but the effect this evening was precisely the opposite. -Raymond had replied with, it must be supposed, the utmost cordiality of -which he was capable. It was a grim, heavy demeanour at the best, but -such as it was.... - -No doubt, however, Raymond was saving up for such time as they should be -alone, the full power of his antagonism, and Colin, pausing outside the -smoking-room, considered whether he should not go to bed at once and -deprive his brother of the relief of unloading himself. But the desire -to bait him was too strong, and he turned the door-handle and entered. - -“So you got a wigging after lunch to-day,” he remarked. “It seems to -have brought you to heel a bit. But you can let go now, Raymond. You -haven’t amused me all evening with your tantrums.” - -Raymond looked up from his illustrated paper. He knew as precisely what -“seeing red” meant as did the bull in the arena. He had to wait a moment -till that cleared. - -“Hullo, Colin,” he said. “Have you come for a drink?” - -“Incidentally. My real object was to see you and to have one of our -jolly chats. Did father pitch it in pretty hot? I stuck up for you this -morning when we talked you over.” - -Raymond was off his guard, forgetting that certain knowledge he -possessed was derived from overhearing. “Yes, you said you must make -the best of me ...” he began. - -Colin was on to that like a flash. “Now, how on earth could you have -known that?” he asked. “Father didn’t tell you.... I know! I said that -just as I was passing under the window in the gallery where you were -sitting after breakfast. My word, Raymond, you’ve a perfect genius for -eavesdropping. It was only last night that you hid behind the -flower-vase and heard me mimic you, and if I hadn’t shut the door of the -dining-room this morning, you’d have listened to what Aunt Hester and -Violet and I were saying, and then you overhear my conversation with -father. You’re a perfect wonder.” - -Raymond got up, his eyes blazing. “Take care, Colin,” he said. “Don’t go -too far.” - -Colin laughed. “Ah, that’s better,” he said. “Now you’re more yourself. -I thought I should get at you soon.” - -Raymond felt his mouth go dry, but below the violence of his anger there -was something that made itself heard. “You’ll spoil your chance if you -break out,” it said. “Keep steady....” He drained his glass and turned -to his brother. - -“Sorry, Colin,” he said, “but I’m not going to amuse you to-night.” - -“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Colin. “I’ve hardly begun yet. Your -manner at dinner, now, and your amiability. It was not really a success. -No naturalness about it. It sat on you worse than your sulkiest moods. -You reminded me of some cad in dress-clothes trying to catch the note of -the ordinary well-bred man. Better be natural. I’ll go on sticking up -for you; I’ll persuade father not to pack you off. I’ve a good deal of -influence with him. I shall say you’re injuring yourself by not behaving -like a sulky boor. Besides, you can’t do it; if your geniality at dinner -was an attempt to mimic me, I must tell you that nobody could guess who -it was meant for. Vi was very funny about it.” - -“Really? What did she say?” asked Raymond. - -“Oh, naturally I can’t give her away,” said Colin. “But perhaps you’ll -hear her say it again if you’re conveniently placed.” - -“You know quite well Vi didn’t say anything about it,” said Raymond at a -venture. - -“Naturally, you know best. And, talking of Vi, are you going to propose -to her? I wouldn’t if I were you; take my hint and save yourself being -laughed at.” - -“Most friendly of you,” said Raymond. “But there are some things that -are my business.” - -“And not an affectionate brother’s?” asked Colin. “You don’t know how I -feel for you. It makes me wince when I see you blundering and making the -most terrible _gaffes_. It’s odd that I should have had a brother like -you, and that you should be a Stanier at all.” - -Colin threw a leg over the arm of his chair. It was most astonishing -that not only in public but now, when there was no reason that Raymond -should keep up a semblance of control, that he should be so impervious -to the shafts that in ordinary stung him so intolerably. - -“You’re so awkward, Raymond,” he said. “However much you try, you can’t -charm anybody or make any one like you. You’ve neither manners, nor -looks, nor breeding. You’ve got the curse of the legend without its -benefits. You’re a coward, too; you’d like nothing better than to slit -my throat, and yet you’re so afraid of me that you daren’t even throw -that glass of whisky and soda in my face.” - -For a moment it looked as if Raymond was about to do precisely that; the -suggestion was almost irresistible. But he loosed his hand on it again. - -“That would only give you the opportunity to go to my father and tell -him,” he said. “You would say I had lost my temper with you. I don’t -intend to give you any such opportunity.” - -Even as he spoke he marvelled at his own self-control. But the plain -fact was that the temptation to lose it had no force with him to-night. -For the sake of his ultimate revenge, whatever that might be, that -goring and kneading of Colin, it was no less than necessary that he -should seem to have put away from him all his hostility. Colin and the -rest of them--Violet above all--must grow to be convinced in the change -that had come over him. - -He rose. “Better give it up, Colin,” he said. “You’re not going to rile -me. You’ve had a good try at it, for I never knew you so studiedly -insolent. But it’s no use. Good night.” - - * * * * * - -During the fortnight which intervened before the departure of Lord -Yardley and Colin to Italy, Raymond never once faltered in the task he -had set himself. There was no act of patience too costly for the due -attainment of it, no steadfastness of self-control in the face of -Colin’s gibes that was not worth the reward which it would ultimately -bring. He avoided as far as possible being alone with his brother, but -that, in the mere trivial round of the day, happened often enough to -give Colin the opportunity of planting a dart or two. But now they -seemed to have lost all penetrative force; so far from goading him into -some ill-aimed response, they were but drops of showers on something -waterproof. - -Colin was disposed at first to attribute this incredible meekness to the -effect of his father’s strictures. Raymond had been given to understand -without any possible mistake, that, unless he mended his ways, he would -have to leave Stanier, and that, no doubt, accounted for his assumption -of public amiability. But his imperviousness in private to any -provocation was puzzling. He neither answered Colin’s challenges nor -conducted any offensive of his own. At the most a gleam or a flush told -that some jibe had gone home, but no angry blundering reply would give -opportunity for another. For some reason Raymond banked up his -smouldering fires, not letting them blaze. - -His impotence to make his brother wince and rage profoundly irritated -Colin. He had scarcely known before how deep-rooted was his pleasure in -so doing; how integral a part of his consciousness was his hatred of -him, which now seemed to have been deprived of its daily bread. - -Not less irritating was the effect that Raymond’s changed behaviour -produced on his father and on Violet. His father’s civilities to him -began to lose the edge of their chilliness; a certain cordiality warmed -them. If the boy was really taking himself in hand, Lord Yardley must, -in common duty and justice, encourage and welcome his efforts, and the -day before the departure for Italy, he made an opportunity for -acknowledging this. Once more after lunch, he nodded to Raymond to stay -behind the others. - -“I want to tell you, Raymond,” he said, “that I’m very much pleased with -you. You’ve been making a strong effort with yourself, and you’re -winning all down the line. And how goes it with you and Colin in -private?” - -Raymond took rapid counsel with himself. “Very well indeed, sir,” he -said. “We’ve had no rows at all.” - -“That’s good. Now what are your plans while Colin and I are away? Your -Uncle Ronald and Violet are going to stop on here. I think your aunt’s -going up to London. You can establish yourself at St. James’s Square, if -you like, or remain here.” - -“I’ll stop here if I may,” said Raymond. “I don’t care about London.” - -Philip smiled. “Very good,” he said. “You’ll have to take care of Violet -and keep her amused.” - -Raymond answered with a smile. “I’ll do my best, father,” he said. - -“Well, all good wishes,” said his father. “Let me know how all goes.” - - * * * * * - -Colin had seen throughout this fortnight Raymond’s improvement of his -position with regard to Lord Yardley, and he had felt himself jealously -powerless to stop it. Once he had tried, with some sunnily-told tale of -Raymond’s ill-temper, to put the brake on it, but his father had stopped -him before he was half through with it. “Raymond’s doing very well,” he -said. “I don’t want to hear anything against him.” A further light was -shed for Colin that evening. - -He and Violet, when the rubber of whist was over and Lady Yardley had -gone upstairs, strolled out into the hot dusk of the terrace with linked -arms, but with no more stir of emotion in their hearts than two -schoolboy friends, whose intimacy was to be severed by a month of -holiday, would have experienced. The shadow cast by the long yew hedge -from the moon near to its setting had enveloped them in its clear -darkness, the starlight glimmered on the lake below, and in the elms -beyond the nightingales chanted. - -“Listen at them, look at it all,” said Colin impatiently. “Starlight and -shadow and nightingales and you and me as cool as cucumbers. You look -frightfully attractive, too, to-night, Vi: why on earth don’t I fall -madly in love with you?” - -“Oh, my dear, don’t!” said Violet. “You might make me fall in love with -you. But I suppose I needn’t be afraid. You can’t fall in love with -anybody, Colin, and I daresay I can’t either. But I shall try.” - -“And what do you mean by that?” asked Colin. - -“It’s pretty obvious,” she said. - -“Raymond, do you mean?” asked Colin. - -“Of course. What’s come over him? There’s something attractive about -him, after all; he’s got charm. Who would have thought it?” - -Though Colin had just now truthfully declared that he was in no way in -love with his cousin, he felt a pang of jealousy just as authentic as -that which the notion of Raymond’s possession of Stanier caused in him. - -“But you can’t, Violet!” he said. “That boor....” - -“I’m not so sure that he is a boor. He’s keeping the boor in a box, -anyhow, and has turned the key on him. He’s quite changed. You can’t -deny it.” - -Colin slipped his arm out of Violet’s. “Raymond’s cleverer than I -thought,” he said. “All this fortnight it has puzzled me to know what -he’s been at, but now I see. He’s been improving his position with -father and with you.” - -“He has certainly done that,” said Violet. - -“So, if he asks you, you intend to marry him?” asked Colin. - -“I think so.” - -“I shall hate you if you do,” said he. - -“Why? How can it matter to you? If you were in love with me it would be -different, or if I were in love with you. Oh, we’ve talked it all over -before; there’s nothing new.” - -They had passed through the cut entrance in the yew hedge into the -moonlight, and Violet, turning, looked at her companion. Colin’s face -was brilliantly illuminated. By some optical illusion that came and went -in a flash, he looked at that moment as if his face was lit from within, -so strangely it shone against the dark serge of the hedge for -background. There was an unearthly beauty about it that somehow appalled -her. He seemed like some incarnation, ageless and youthful, of the -fortunes of the house. But the impression was infinitesimal in duration, -and she laughed. - -“Colin, you looked so wonderful just now,” she said. “You looked like -all the Staniers rolled into one.” - -Somehow this annoyed him. “Raymond included, I suppose?” he asked. “But -you’re wrong; there is something new. Hitherto you’ve only considered -Raymond as a necessary adjunct to being mistress here; now you’re -considering him as a man you can imagine loving. Hasn’t he got enough -already? Good God, how I hate him!” - -He had hardly spoken when there emerged from the entrance in the hedge -through which they had just passed, Raymond himself. Colin, white with -fury, turned on him. - -“Hullo, at it again?” he said. “You’ve overheard something nice this -time!” - -Raymond’s mouth twitched, but he gave no other sign. “Father has just -sent me out to tell you that he wants to speak to you before you go to -bed,” he said, and, turning, went straight back to the house. - -Violet waited till the sound of his step had vanished. “Colin, you’re a -brute,” she said. “You’re fiendish!” - -“I know that,” said Colin. “Who ever supposed I was an angel?” - -“And it’s acting like a fool to treat Raymond like that,” she went on. -“Can you afford to make him hate you?” - -He laughed. “I’ve afforded it as long as I can remember,” he said. “It -amuses me.” - -“Well, it doesn’t amuse me to see you behave like a fiend,” said Violet. -“And do you know that you lost your temper? I’ve never seen you do that -yet.” - -Colin licked his lips; his mouth felt dry. “That was an odd thing,” he -observed. “Now I know what I make Raymond feel like when we chat -together. But it’s amazing that Raymond should have done the same to me. -I must go in to father.” - -They moved back into the shadow of the hedge and Colin stopped. - -“I say, Vi, give me a kiss,” he said. - -She drew back a moment, wondering why she did so. “But, my dear, why?” -she asked. - -“We’re cousins,” he said. “Why shouldn’t you? I should awfully like to -kiss you.” - -She had got over her momentary surprise, which was, no doubt, what made -her hesitate. There was no conceivable reason, though they did not kiss -each other, why they should not. - -“And if I won’t?” she said. - -“I shall think it unkind of you.” - -She came close to him. “Oh, Colin, I’m not unkind,” she said, and kissed -him. - -He stood with his hands on her shoulders, not letting her go, though -making no attempt to kiss her again. “That was delicious of you,” he -said. - -Suddenly and quite unexpectedly to herself, Violet found her heart -beating soft and fast, and she was glad of the darkness, for she knew -that a heightened colour had sprung to her face. Was Colin, too, she -wondered, affected in any such way? - -His light laugh, the release of her shoulders from his cool hands, -answered her. - -“Good Lord! To think that perhaps Raymond will be kissing you next,” he -said. “How maddening!” - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -From the first some call of his Italian blood had made itself audible to -Colin; even as their train emerged out of the drip and roaring darkness -of the Mont Cenis tunnel, there had been a whisper in his ears that this -was the land of his birth to which he had come, and that whisper had -grown into full-voiced welcome when, at the hot close of day, he and his -father had strolled out after dinner along the sea-front of Naples. -Though he had never been here yet, sight, scent, and sound alike told -him that he was not so much experiencing what was new as recognising -what, though dormant, had always been part of him, bred into the very -fibre and instinct of him. It was not that he hailed or loved this lure -of the South; it would be more apt to say that he nodded to it, as to an -old acquaintance--taken for granted rather than embraced. - -This claiming and appropriation by Colin of his native place unfroze in -his father the reticence that he had always observed with regard to that -year he had spent in Italy into which had entered birth and death, and -all that his life held of romance. That, till now, had been incapsulated -within him, or at the most, like the ichor in some ductless gland, was -performing some mysterious function in his psychology. Now this claim of -Colin’s on the South, his easy stepping into possession by right of his -parentage, unsealed in Philip the silence he had so long preserved. - -Colin, as he regarded his surroundings with friendly and familiar eyes, -was visibly part of his old romance; the boy’s mother lived again in -that sunny hair, those eyes, and the clear olive skin, just as surely as -did old Colin of the Holbein portrait. But now Stanier was far away, and -the spell of the South as potent as when Philip, flying from the glooms -and jibes of that awful old man, his father, first came under its -enchantment. And Colin, of all that dead time, alone was a vital and -living part of its manifestation. Through the medium of memory he -stirred his father’s blood; Philip felt romance bubble in him again as -he walked along the familiar ways with the flower that had blossomed -from it. He felt, too, that Colin silently (for he asked no question) -seemed to claim the right to certain knowledge; he seemed to present -himself, to be ready, and, indeed, it would be singular if, having -brought him here, his father did not speak of that which, every year, -had taken him on his solitary pilgrimage to the South. - -They were to spend the greater part of the next day in Naples, leaving -by the afternoon boat for Capri, and as they finished their breakfast on -a shady veranda, Philip spoke: - -“Well, we’ve got all the morning,” he said, “to trundle about in. The -museum is very fine; would you like to see it?” - -“No, I should hate it,” said Colin. - -“But it’s a marvellous collection,” said Philip. - -“I daresay; but to see a museum would make me feel like a tourist. At -present I don’t, and it’s lovely.” - -He looked at his father as he spoke, and once again, this time -compellingly, Philip saw confident expectancy in his eyes. Colin was -certainly waiting for something. - -“Then will you come with me on a sentimental journey?” he asked. - -“Ah, father, won’t I just!” he said. “After all, you and I are on a -sentimental journey.” - -There seemed to Philip in his devotion to Colin, something exquisitely -delicate about this. He had wanted but, instinctively had not asked, -waiting for his rights to be offered him. - -“Come, then,” he said. “I’ll show you where we lived, your mother and I. -I’ll show you our old haunts, such as survive. You belong to that life, -Colin.” - -Colin paused a moment, sitting quite still, for a span of clear, -concentrated thought. He desired to say precisely the right thing, the -thing that his father would most value. It was not in the smallest -degree affection for his father which prompted that; it was the wish -that the door should be thrown open as wide as possible--that all the -keys should be put into his hand. - -“I know I do,” he said. “I’ve known that for years, but I had to wait -for you to want me to share it. It had to be you who took me into it.” - -He saw approval gleam in his father’s eyes. This was clearly the right -tack. - -“And you must remember I know nothing whatever about your life with my -mother,” he said. “You’ve got to begin at the beginning. And ... and make -it long, father.” - -It was not surprising that Colin’s presence gave to this sentimental -journey a glow which it had lacked during all those years when Philip -made his annual solitary visit here. Already the mere flight of years, -and the fact that he had never married again, had tinged that long-past -time with something of the opalescence which sunlit mist confers on -objects which in themselves hardly rise above the level of the mean and -the prosaic; and what now survived for him in memory was Rosina’s -gaiety, her beauty, her girlish charm, with forgetfulness for her vapid -vanity, her commonness, and the speed with which his senses even had -been sated with her. But it was an unsubstantial memory of blurred and -far-off days, girt with regrets and the emptiness of desires dead and -unrecoverable. - -Now Colin’s presence gave solidity to it all; it was as if the sunlit -mist had been withdrawn from the dim slopes which it covered, and lo! -the reality was not mean or prosaic, but had absorbed the very tints and -opalescences which had cloaked it. There was Colin, eager and -sympathetic, yet checking any question of his own, and but thirsty for -what his father might give him, and in the person of the boy who was the -only creature in the world whom Philip loved, and in whom Rosina lived, -that tawdry romance of his was glorified. To tell Colin, about his -mother here, in the places where they had lived together, was to make a -shrine of them. - -The flat which he and Rosina had occupied in Naples, when the autumnal -departure of visitors from Capri rendered the island so desolating to -her urban nature, happened to be untenanted, and a couple of lire -secured their admittance. It still held pieces of furniture which had -been there twenty years ago, and Colin, moving quietly to and fro, his -eyes alight with interest in little random memories which his father -recalled, was like a ray of sunlight shining into a place that had long -slept in dust and shadows. Mother and son reacted on each other in -Philip’s mind; a new tenderness blossomed for Rosina out of his love for -Colin, and he wondered at himself for not having brought them together -like this before. - -Here were the chairs which they used to pull out on to the veranda when -the winter sun was warm; here was the Venetian looking-glass which -Rosina could never pass without a glance at her image, and now, as Colin -turned towards it, there were Rosina’s eyes and golden hair that flashed -back at Philip out of the past and made a bridge to the present. - -And there, above all, was the bedroom, with the glitter of sun on the -ceiling cast there from the reflecting sea, where, at the close of a -warm, windy day of March, the first cry of a new-born baby was heard. -And by that same bedside, at the dawn of an April morning, Philip had -seen the flame of Rosina’s life flicker and waver and expire. He -regretted her more to-day than at the hour when she had left him. Some -unconscious magic vested in Colin cast that spell. - -For all these recollections Colin had the same eager, listening face and -the grave smile. Never even in his baiting of Raymond had he shewn a -subtler ingenuity in adapting his means to his end. He used his father’s -affection for him to prize open the locks of a hundred caskets, and -enable him to see what was therein. He wanted to know all that his -father would tell him about that year which preceded his birth, and not -asking questions was the surest way of hearing what he wanted. - -Already he had found that his Aunt Hester knew very little about that -year, or, if she knew, she had not chosen to tell him certain things. -His curiosity, when he had talked to her under the elms, had been but -vague and exploratory, but, it will be remembered, it had become -slightly more definite when, in answer to his comment that his father -and mother must have been married very soon after his arrival in Italy, -Aunt Hester had given a very dry assent. - -Now his curiosity was sharply aroused about that point, for with all his -father’s communicativeness this morning, he had as yet said no word -whatever that bore on the date of their marriage. Colin felt by an -instinct which defied reason, that there was something to be known here; -the marriage, the scene, the date of it, must have passed through his -father’s mind, and yet he did not choose, in all this sudden breakdown -of long reticence, to allude to it. That was undeniably so; a question, -therefore, would certainly be useless, for believing as he did, that his -father had something to conceal, he would not arrive at it in that way. - -They were standing now in the window looking over the bay, and Philip -pointed to the heat-veiled outline of Capri, floating, lyre-shaped, on -the fusing-line of sea and sky. - -“We were there all the summer,” he said, “in the villa you will see this -evening. Then your mother found it melancholy in the autumn and we came -here--I used to go backwards and forwards, for I couldn’t quite tear -myself away from the island altogether.” - -That struck Colin as bearing on his point; it was odd, wasn’t it, that a -newly-married couple should do that? You would have expected them to -live here or there, but together.... Then, afraid that his father would -think he was pondering on that, he changed the topic altogether. - -“I have loved hearing about it all,” he said. “But somehow--don’t be -shocked, father--I can’t feel that Raymond comes into it one atom. We’ve -been realising you and my mother and the squalling thing that I was. But -I can’t feel Raymond with us then any more than he’s with us now. Let’s -keep Italy to ourselves, father. Poor old Raymond!” - -That shifting of the topic was skilfully designed and subtly executed. -Colin confessed to alienation from Raymond and yet with a touch of -affectionate regret. His father was less guarded. - -“Raymond’s got nothing to do with Italy,” he said. “There’s not a single -touch of your mother in him. We’ve got this to ourselves, Colin. Raymond -will have Stanier.” - -“Lucky dog!” said Colin. - -There was one item connected with the marriage that he might safely ask, -and as they went downstairs he put it to his father, watching him very -narrowly. - -“I feel I know all about my mother now,” he said, “except just one -thing.” - -Lord Yardley turned quickly to him. “I’ve told you all I can tell you,” -he said sharply. - -That was precisely what Colin had been waiting for. There was something -more, then. But the question which he was ready with was harmless -enough. - -“I only wanted to know where you were married,” he said. “That’s the one -thing you haven’t told me.” - -There was no doubt that this was a relief to his father; he had clearly -expected something else, not the “where” of the boy’s question, but the -“when,” which by now had definitely crystallised in Colin’s mind. - -“Oh, that!” he said. “Stupid of me not to have told you. We were married -at the British Consulate.” - -They passed out into the noonday. - -“Mind you remember that, Colin,” said his father. “On my death the -marriage will have to be proved; it will save a search. Your birth was -registered there, too. And Raymond’s.” - -Such was the sum of information that Colin took on board with him that -afternoon when they embarked on the steamer for Capri, and though in one -sense it took him back a step, in another it confirmed the idea that had -grown up in his mind. He felt certain (here was the confirmation) that -if he had asked his father when the marriage took place, he would have -been told a date which he would not have believed. Lord Yardley would -have said that they had been married very soon after his arrival -twenty-one years ago. He had waited with obvious anxiety for Colin’s one -question, and he had hailed that question with relief, for he had no -objection to the boy’s knowing where the contract was made. - -And the retrograde step was this: that whereas he had been ready to -think that his father’s marriage was an event subsequent to his own -birth and Raymond’s, he was now forced to conclude (owing to the fact -that his father told and impressed on him to remember, that it had been -performed at the British Consulate) that he and Raymond were -legitimately born in wedlock. That seemed for the present to be a -_cul-de-sac_ in his researches. - -The warm, soft air streamed by, and the wind made by the movement of the -boat enticed Colin out from under the awning into the breeze-tempered -blaze of the sun. He went forward and found in the bows a place where he -could be alone and study, like a map, whatever could be charted of his -discoveries. - -That willingness of his father to tell him where the marriage had taken -place was somehow disconcerting; it implied that the ceremony made valid -whatever had preceded it. He had himself been born in mid-March, and he -did not attempt to believe that his father had been married in the -previous June, the month when he had first come to Italy. But he could -not help believing that his father had married before his own birth. - -Colin was one of those rather rare people who can sit down and think. -Everybody can sit down and let his mind pleasantly wander over a hundred -topics, but comparatively few can tether it, so to speak, so that it -grazes on a small circle only. This accomplishment Colin signally -possessed, and though now there could be no practical issue to his -meditations, he set himself to carve out in clear, cutting strokes what -he would have done in case he had discovered that he and Raymond alike -were born out of wedlock. He imagined that situation to himself; he -cropped at it, he grazed on it.... - -The disclosure, clearly, if the fact had been there, would not have come -out till his father’s death, and he could see himself looking on the -face of the dead without the slightest feeling of reproach. He knew that -his father was leaving him all that could be left away from Raymond; he -was heir also to Aunt Hester’s money. - -But in that case Stanier, and all that went with the title, would not be -Raymond’s at all; Raymond would be nameless and penniless. And Colin’s -beautiful mouth twitched and smiled. “That would have been great fun,” -he said to himself. “Raymond would have been nobody and have had -nothing. Ha! Raymond would not have had Stanier, and I should have -ceased to hate him. I should have made him some small allowance.” - -Yes, Stanier would have passed from Raymond, and it and all that it -meant would have gone to Violet ... and at that the whole picture -started into life and colour. If only now, at this moment, he was -possessed of the knowledge that he and Raymond alike were illegitimate, -with what ardour, with what endless subtlety, would he have impelled -Violet to marry him! How would he have called upon the legendary -benefactor who for so long had prospered and befriended the Staniers, to -lend him all the arts and attractions of the lover! With such wiles to -aid him, he would somehow have forced Violet to give up the idea of -marrying Raymond in order to get Stanier, and instead, renouncing -Stanier, take him, and by her renunciation for love’s sake, find in the -end that she had gained (bread upon the waters) all that she had -imagined was lost. - -And he, Colin, in that case, would be her husband, master of Stanier to -all intents and purposes. Willingly would he have accepted, eagerly -would he have welcomed that. He wanted what he would never get unless -Raymond died, except at some such price as that. But it was no use -thinking about it; his father’s insistence on the place where he and -Rosina were married made it certain that no such fortunate catastrophe -could be revealed at his death. - -Presently Lord Yardley joined him as they passed along the headland on -which Sorrento stands, and there were stories of the visit that he and -Rosina made here during the summer. Colin listened to these with -suppressed irritation; what did he care whether they had spent a week at -Sorrento or not? Of all that his father had to tell him, he had mastered -everything that mattered, and he began to find in these recollections a -rather ridiculous sentimentality. He knew, of course, that he himself -was responsible for this; it was he, Rosina’s son, and his father’s love -for him, that conjured up these tendernesses. He was responsible, too, -in that all the morning he had listened with so apt a sympathy to -similar reminiscences. But then he hoped that he was about to learn -something really worth knowing, whereas now he was convinced that there -was nothing of that sort to know. Fond as his father had always been of -him, he easily detected something new in his voice, his gestures, the -soft eagerness of his eyes; it was as if in him his father was falling -in love with Rosina. - -Sunset burned behind Capri as their steamer drew near to it, and the -eastern side lay in clear shadow though the sea flared with the -reflected fires of the sky, and that, too, seemed to produce more -memories. - -“You are so like her, Colin,” said his father, laying his arm round the -boy’s neck, “and I can imagine that twenty-one years have rolled back, -and that I am bringing her across to Capri for the first time. It was -just such an evening as this, sunset and a crescent moon. I had already -bought the villa; we were going back to it together.” - -“Straight from the Consulate?” asked Colin quietly. - -“What?” asked Philip. - -“From the Consulate, father,” he repeated. - -“Yes, yes, of course,” said Philip quickly, and his voice seemed to ring -utterly untrue. “Straight from the Consulate. Ha! there’s Giacomo, my -boatman. He sees us.” - -“Does he remember my mother?” asked Colin. - -“Surely. But don’t ask him about her. These fellows chatter on for ever, -and it’s half lies.” - -Colin laughed. “As I shouldn’t understand one word of it,” he said, “it -would make little difference whether it was all lies.” - -Once again, and more markedly than ever, as they drove up the angled -dusty road set in stone walls and bordered by the sea of vineyards, the -sense of homecoming seized Colin. It was not that his father was by him -or that he was going to his father’s house; the spell worked through the -other side of his parentage, and he felt himself strangely more akin to -the boys who, trudging homewards, shouted a salutation to their driver, -to the girls who clustered on the doorsteps busy with their needle, than -to the grave man who sat beside him and watched with something of a -lover’s tenderness his smiles and glances and gestures. Philip read -Rosina into them all, and she who had so soon sated him till he wearied -of her, woke in him, through Colin, a love that had never before been -given her. - -“I cannot imagine why I never thought of bringing you out to Italy -before,” said Philip, “or why, when you asked me to take you, I -hesitated.” - -Colin tucked his arm into his father’s. He was wonderfully skilful in -displaying such little signs of affection, which cost him nothing and -meant nothing, but were so well worth while. - -“Do I seem to fit into it all, father?” he said. “I am so glad if I do.” - -“You more than fit into it, my dear,” said Philip. “You’re part of it. -Why on earth did I never see that?” - -“Part of it, am I? That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling all day. I’m at -home here. Not but what I’m very much at home at Stanier.” - -Lord Yardley clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I wish to God you -were my eldest son,” he said. “I would give anything if that were -possible. I would close my eyes ever so contentedly when my time comes -if I knew that you were going to take my place.” - -“Poor old Raymond!” said Colin softly. “He’s doing his best, father.” - -“I suppose he is. But you’re a generous fellow to say that; I shan’t -forget it. Here we are; bundle out.” - -Their carriage had stopped in the piazza, and Colin getting out, felt -his lips curl into a smile of peculiar satisfaction. That his father -should believe him to be a generous fellow was pleasant in itself, and -the entire falsity of his belief added spice to the morsel. He seemed to -like it better just because it was untrue. - - * * * * * - -Colin stepped into the drifting summer existence of visitors to the -island with the same aptness as that which had graced his entry to his -mother’s native land. He went down to the bathing-beach after breakfast -with a book and a packet of cigarettes, and spent a basking amphibious -morning. Sometimes his father accompanied him, and after a -constitutional swim, sat in the shade while Colin played the fish in the -sea or the salamander on the beach. On other mornings Lord Yardley -remained up at the villa, which suited Colin quite well, for this -uninterrupted companionship of his father was very tedious. But he -always managed to leave the impression that he wanted Lord Yardley to -come with him. - -And so much this morning did Colin want to be alone that, had Philip -said that he was coming with him, he would probably have pleaded a -laziness or indisposition, for he had that morning received a letter -from Violet which called for solitary and uninterrupted reflection. -To-day, however, Philip’s brother-in-law, Salvatore Viagi, had announced -his advent, “to pay his fraternal respects and give his heart’s -welcome,” so ran his florid phrase--and Philip remained at the villa to -receive these tributes. - -“It’s a nuisance,” he said, “for I should have liked a dip. But I should -have to hurry back to get here before him.” - -Colin laughed. “You speak as if he might steal the silver,” he said. - -“Perfectly capable of it,” said his father. “No, I shouldn’t have said -that. But he’s perfectly capable of asking for it.” - -Colin perceived that there was no danger of his father’s coming down to -bathe with him. “Surely he can wait till we get back,” he said. “Come -down and bathe, father!” - -Philip shook his head. “No, I can’t,” he said. “Salvatore would think it -very odd and rude if I were not here. He wouldn’t understand: he would -think I was intentionally unceremonious.” - -“He sounds rather a bounder,” observed Colin. - -“He does,” said Philip drily. - - * * * * * - -Colin took Violet’s letter down to the beach with him, and after a short -dip of refreshment from his dusty walk, came out cool and shining from -the sea to dispose himself on the beach that quivered in the hot sun, -and ponder over it. He read it again twice through, stirring it into his -brains and his emotions, till it seemed to form part of him.... - -So Raymond had proposed to her, and, having asked for a week’s delay in -her answer, she, while the matter was still private, had to tell Colin -that, as far as she knew her own intentions, she was meaning to accept -him. And yet this letter in which she said that she was going to marry -his brother, seemed hardly less than a love-letter to himself. - -She appeared to remember that last evening at Stanier when, under the -moon-cast shadow of the yews, she had given him the kiss he asked for, -just as vividly as did Colin. It was vivid to him because he had asked -for that with a definite calculated end in view, and with the same end -in view he had exclaimed how maddening it was to think that Raymond -would kiss her next. No doubt Raymond had done so, and Violet, though -she said she meant to marry him, had, perhaps, begun to know something -more of her own heart. That was why the evening was vivid to her, -exactly as he had intended it should be. She had learned that there was -a difference between him and Raymond, which being mistress at Stanier -might counterbalance, but did not cancel. - -The wetness had dried from Colin’s sun-tanned shoulders, and, lying down -at length on the beach, he drew from his pocket Violet’s letter in order -to study one passage again which had puzzled him. Here it was: - - “You were perfectly brutal to Raymond that evening,” she wrote, - “and he was admirable in his answer to your rudeness. If we are to - remain friends you must not behave to him like that. You don’t like - each other, but he, at any rate now, has control over himself, and - you must copy his example.” - - (“Lord! me copying Raymond’s example,” thought Colin to himself, in - an ecstatic parenthesis.) - - “I shall always do my best to make peace between you, for I am very - fond of you, but Raymond’s side will in the future be mine. You - were nice to me afterwards, but, dear Colin, you mustn’t ask me to - kiss you again. Raymond wouldn’t like it....” - -With this perusal all that was puzzling vanished. “That’s not genuine; -none of that’s genuine,” thought Colin. “She says what she’s trying to -feel, what she thinks she ought to feel, and doesn’t feel.” He turned -the page. - - “I hope my news won’t hurt you,” she went on. “After all, we’ve - settled often enough that we weren’t in love with each other, and - so when that night you said it was maddening to think of Raymond - kissing me next, it couldn’t make any difference to you as you - aren’t in love with me....” - -No, the news did not hurt Colin, so he told himself, in the way that -Violet meant, and she was quite right about the reason of that: he was -not in love with her. But it struck him that the news must undeniably -hurt Violet herself; she was trying to wriggle away from it, while at -the same time she tried to justify herself and that unfortunate (or -should he call it fortunate?) kiss she had given him. - -He glanced hastily over the rest; there were more allusions to that last -evening, more scolding and exhortations about his conduct to Raymond, -and, as a postscript, the request that he should send her just one line, -to say he wasn’t hurt. This letter of hers was absolutely private, but -she had to tell him what was about to happen. In a week’s time both she -and Raymond would write to his father, who, so Raymond thought, was not -unprepared. - -Colin tore off the final half-sheet of Violet’s letter, and with his -stylograph scribbled his answer on it. He had long ago made up his mind -what he should say: - -“VIOLET, MY DEAR” (he wrote), - - “It was delightful of you to tell me, and I send you a million - congratulations. I am so pleased, for now you will be mistress of - Stanier, and you seem quite to have fallen in love with Raymond. I - must be very nice to him, or he’ll never let me come to Stanier in - days to come, and you will take his side, as you say. But how could - I be hurt at your news? It is simply charming. - - “Father and I are having a splendid time out here. I shall try to - persuade him to stop on after this month. Of course we shall come - back before your marriage. When is it to be, do you think? - - “Best love from - - “COLIN.” - - - -The ink in this hot sun dried almost as quickly as he wrote, and he had -scarcely signed his own name when it wore the appearance not of a -tentative sketch but of a finished communication ready for the post, -and, reading it over, he found that this was so: he could not better it. -So slipping it back into his pocket, he went across the beach again for -a longer swim, smiling to himself at the ease with which he had divined -Violet’s real mind, and at the fitness of his reply. As he swam he -analysed his own purpose in writing exactly like that. - -He had expressed himself with all the cordial geniality of which he was -capable: he had welcomed Violet’s choice. He had endorsed, as regards -his own part of the situation, her proposition that he ought not to be -hurt, since they were not in love with each other, and the eagerness of -his endorsement (that swift enthusiastic scrawl) would quite certainly -pique her. He had adopted her attitude, and knew that she would wish he -had another; the same, in fact, which he had expressed when he had said -that it was maddening to think that she would be kissing Raymond next. -Colin knew well how fond she was of him, and his letter would be like -this plunge into the clear crystal of the sea which, while it cooled -you, was glowingly invigorating. - -He was quite prepared to find that in a week’s time she and Raymond -would write to his father saying that they were engaged, but not for a -moment did he believe that they would ever be married. He had but to -keep up his cordial indifference till Violet found it intolerable. To -have remonstrated with her, to have allowed that her news hurt him, was -to give Violet just what she wanted. A loveless marriage faced her, -while all the time she was not heart-whole, and however much she wanted -Stanier, she would be daily more conscious that the conditions on which -she got it were a diet of starvation. - -“She _is_ rather in love with me,” thought Colin, “and very likely my -letter will drive her into accepting him. But if only I can keep cool -and pleasant, she’ll never marry him. Devilish ingenious! And then -there’s Raymond!” - -Colin laughed aloud as he thought of Raymond, who really lay at the -bottom of all these plans. Even if it had been possible now, before -Violet accepted him, to intervene in some way and cause her to refuse -instead of to take him, he would not have stirred a finger, for thus he -would baulk himself of the completeness of Raymond’s discomfiture, since -Raymond would feel the breaking off of his engagement more bitterly than -an original refusal. Let Violet accept him first and then throw him -over. That would be a real counter-irritant to the sting of Raymond’s -primogeniture, an appreciable counterweight to his future possession of -Stanier. - -It had been a check in that fraternal feud that Raymond’s birth and his -own were certainly legitimate, and that nothing now could stand in the -way of his brother’s succession, but if the check in that direction had -not occurred, there would never have been any chance of Violet’s -marrying him, and Raymond would have been spared the wounding -humiliation which instinctively, Colin felt sure, was to be dealt him. -Raymond was genuinely desirous of her; he would feel her loss very -shrewdly. If only, by some diabolical good fortune, Raymond could lose -them both! Colin saw himself, Violet by his side, smilingly observing -Raymond’s final departure from Stanier, and hoping that he would have a -pleasant journey. - - * * * * * - -Alas! it was time to swim shorewards again, for the morning boat from -Naples which was carrying Salvatore Viagi had already gone by on its -tourist route to the Blue Grotto, and Salvatore would have disembarked -at the Marina. He felt curious to see Uncle Salvatore, and was -determined to make himself uncommonly pleasant, for there might be -things which Salvatore knew which his father had not told him. The date -of the marriage, for instance; though he despaired of any practical use -arising from that, Colin would like to know when it took place. - -He dressed and strolled up through the vineyards through which, -twenty-one years ago, his father had gone, tasting for the first time -the liberty and gaiety of the South, and found his little jingling -conveyance awaiting him. His quiet concentrated hate of Raymond sat -smiling beside him up the dusty road, and he rejoiced in its -companionship. - -Colin found that Salvatore had arrived, and his father was waiting lunch -for him, and so without decoration of himself in the way of brushings or -putting on tie or socks, he went straight to the salon. There was -sitting there a very gorgeously-dressed gentleman, and his heart fell as -he saw him, for it would be difficult to cultivate cordial relationships -with so exquisite a bounder, whatever information might be the reward of -his efforts. - -Salvatore was clad in ill-fitting broadcloth, florid with braid; he wore -patent leather shoes, a tie of pink billows in which nestled a -preposterous emerald, cuffs and collar clearly detachable, and a gold -watch-chain from which a large, cheap locket depended. Luxuriant hair, -suspiciously golden and carefully curled, crowned his face; fierce -moustaches, brushed and waxed, were trained away to show a mouth full of -dazzling teeth, and his features were just those of a wax bust, -representing the acme of masculine beauty, that may be seen in the -window of a hairdresser. - -With this troubadour was sitting his father, stiff and starched and -iced. Colin guessed that this period of waiting had been embarrassing, -for both seemed highly relieved at his entry, and the troubadour bounded -to his feet with a tenor cry of welcome. - -“_Collino mio!_” he exclaimed, kissing him, to Colin’s great surprise, -on both cheeks. “Ah, the joy of the day when I behold my own nephew! And -you are so like her, so like her. Look on the image of her which I ever -carry about with me! I do not forget her, no, no!” - -He opened the locket, and showed Colin a photograph faded into -illegibility. - -“Her eyes, her nose, her mouth,” he said. “I see again the features of -my adored Rosina!” - -This was so much worse than could possibly have been expected, that the -only thing to be done was to treat it all as some game, some monstrous -charade. This was the stock of which he had come; his mother was sister -to this marvellous mountebank. At that moment Colin hated his father; -how could he have joined himself to any of such a family? It was clearer -than ever that, whatever the history of that year preceding his birth -had been, it had not begun with marriage. His father had been prey to a -pretty face. - -Then he set himself to play the game. - -“Dear Uncle Salvatore!” he said. “I can’t tell you how I’ve been looking -forward to seeing you. I hurried in, as you see, when I heard you were -here, without dressing or tidying myself. I could not wait. And you -think I am like my mother?” - -“But you are a true Viagi! You are the very image of her. And if I place -myself beside you, my noble brother-in-law will not, I think, fail to -mark a certain family resemblance.” - -He put his hand on Colin’s shoulder as if for a Bank Holiday photograph, -and rose on his toes to make himself the taller. - -At that his noble brother-in-law, catching Colin’s merry glance, which -shouted to him, “Play up, father, play up!” seemed to determine to make -the best of it, too. - -“Amazing resemblance,” he said, rising. “Two brothers. Shall we go in to -lunch? Please go on, Salvatore.” - -“With the escort of my brother Colin,” said Salvatore, in tremendous -good spirits. He had clearly, so he thought, found a friendly heart in -Colin, who would no doubt in time warm the heart of his brother-in-law, -which at present seemed inclined to be chilly. It was desirable that a -more generous warmth should be diffused there, before they came to speak -of financial matters. - -Philip’s efforts in answer to Colin’s unspoken bidding, to see the -humorous side of their visitor, were put to a sad strain before that -portentous meal was over. Salvatore was bent on making a fine and -dashing impression, and adopted for that end a manner compounded of brag -and rich adulation. - -“Your cousins, Collino, my own beloved children!” he exclaimed. “Never -will Vittoria and Cecilia forgive me, if I do not on my return prove to -have got your promise to pay them a visit before you quit Italy. We must -persuade your father to spare you for a day; you must dine and sleep, -and, ho, ho! who knows but that when our ladies have gone to bed, you -and I will not play the bachelor in our gay Naples? It would, I am -afraid, be useless to urge you, my dear Philip, to be of the party, but -ah! the happiness, ah! the honour that there would be in the Palazzo -Viagi, if Lord Yardley would make himself of the family! But I know, I -know: you come here to enjoy your quiet and blessed memories.” - -“Very good of you, Salvatore,” said Philip. “But, as you say, I come -here for quiet. I am afraid I shall hardly be able to get across to -Naples.” - -“Ah! _Il eremito_, as we say! The hermit, is it not?” - -“You speak excellent English, Uncle Salvatore,” said Colin. - -“And should I not? Was not English the language of my adored mother? It -is Vittoria’s dream to go to England. Some day, perhaps, I will take -Vittoria to see the home of her English ancestors, of her grandmother -and of yours, my Colin. But the expense! _Dio!_ the expense of travel. -Once it was not so with the Viagi; they did not need to count their -soldi, and now there are no soldi to count! They were rich once; their -wealth was colossal, and had it not been for nefarious enemies, -slanderers, and swindlers, they would be rich still, and a line of -princes. As it is, they have nothing left them but their pride, and from -that, whatever their poverty, they will never part. I, the head of the -family, proclaim that to the world.” - -“Very proper,” said Philip. - -Salvatore had hit himself quite a severe blow on the chest as he -proclaimed his pride, which had set him coughing. This was curable by a -considerable draught of hock, which started him again on the adulatory -tack. - -“A nectar! Nectar of the gods,” he exclaimed. “There is no such wine to -be obtained in my beggarly country. But you must be a millionaire to -drink it. I would die happy drowned in wine like that.” - -“You must take a bottle or two away with you,” said Philip, rising. “If -you will excuse me for ten minutes, there are a couple of letters I want -to finish for this afternoon’s post. And then, perhaps, you will spare -me a quarter of an hour, Salvatore, for a talk. There will be plenty of -time before your boat goes.” - -“Dear friend, my time is yours,” said Salvatore, “and the boat may go to -Naples without me if we have not finished. I brought a small toilet bag -in case I stopped the night. I can no doubt find a room at some modest -hotel.” - -“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Philip, leaving him and -Colin together. - -Salvatore poured himself out some more of the nectar when the door had -closed (he was making sure of taking a bottle at least with him), and -pointed dramatically to his heart. - -“My noble and venerated brother-in-law has never rallied from the shock -of your mother’s death,” he said. “His heart broke. He lives only for -the day when he will rejoin her. Till then it is a solace to him to -minister to those who were nearest and dearest to Rosina. So generous a -heart! Do you think I made a good impression on him to-day?” - -“Admirable! Excellent!” said Colin. “Now talk to me about the old days, -Uncle Salvatore. A glass of brandy? Did you see my father that year he -spent in Italy, when he married my mother, and when I was born?” - -Salvatore paused in the sipping of his brandy and made a splendid scowl -with gesture of fist and rolling eyes. Quick as a lizard, Colin saw that -he must appear to know facts which hitherto were only conjecture to him, -if he was to learn the cause of these grimaces. - -“I know all, of course, Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “You can speak to me -quite freely.” - -“And yet you ask if I was there!” said Salvatore. “Should I have -permitted it? I was but a boy of eighteen, and in a bank at Rome, but, -had I known, boy as I was, I should have gone to your father and have -said, ‘Marry my sister out of hand or face the vengeance of Salvatore -Viagi.’” - -Colin held out his hand. “You would have done well, Uncle Salvatore,” he -said. “I thank you for my mother’s sake.” - -This was so deeply affecting to Salvatore that he had to take a little -more brandy. This made him take a kindlier view of his noble -brother-in-law. - -“Yet I wrong him,” he said. “There was no need for Salvatore Viagi to -intervene for his sister’s honour. She died Countess of Yardley, an -alliance honourable to both of our families.” - -“Indeed, yes,” said Colin. “I am proud of my Viagi blood. The marriage -was at the British Consulate, of course. What day of the month was it, -do you remember?” - -Salvatore made a negative gesture. “The exact date escapes me,” he said. -“But it was spring: March, it would have been March, I think. Two -letters I got from my beloved Rosina at that time; in one she told of -the marriage, in the next of the birth of her sons. I have those letters -still. Treasured possessions, for the next news of my Rosina was that -her sweet soul had departed! My God, what lamentations were mine! What -floods of never-ceasing tears!” - -Colin thought rapidly and intently as he replenished his uncle’s glass -with brandy. No definite scheme formed itself in his mind, but, whatever -possibilities future reflection might reveal to him, it would clearly be -a good thing to get hold of those letters. He might conceivably want to -destroy them. - -He leaned forward towards Salvatore. “Dear Uncle Salvatore,” he said, “I -am going to ask a tremendous favour of you. I have nothing of my -mother’s, and I never saw her, as you know. But I am learning to love -her, and those letters would be so treasured by me. You have the memory -of her, all those delightful days you must have spent together. Will you -give me those letters? I hope before long to come across to Naples and -see you and my cousins, and it would good of you if you would give me -them. Then I shall have something of hers.” - -A sob sounded in Salvatore’s voice. “You shall have them, my Colin,” he -said, “and in turn perhaps you can do something for me. Intercede, I -pray you, with your father. He is a generous, a noble soul, but he does -not know my needs, and I am too proud to speak of them. Tell him, then, -that you wrung out of me that I am in abject poverty. Vittoria is -growing up, and dowerless maidens are not sought after.” - -“Of course I will do all I can,” said Colin warmly. “I will talk to my -father as soon as you have gone. And I may say that he listens to me.” - -“I will send off the letters to you to-night,” he said. “And what joy -will there be in Casa Viagi, when my girls know that their cousin Colin -is to visit us! When will that happy day be?” - -“Ah, I must write to you about that,” said Colin, noticing that the -Palazzo had become a Casa. “Leave me your card. And now it is time for -you to talk to my father; I will see if he is ready. But not a word of -all we have been saying, to him.” - -“Trust me, my nephew,” said Salvatore gaily. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -Colin used his good offices with his father to such effect that he -succeeded in procuring for Salvatore a further substantial cheque, in -addition to that which he had carried off with the two bottles of wine -that afternoon. His uncle apparently thought better of his reckless -generosity in sending the letters of which Colin was desirous quite -unconditionally, but the receipt of the second cheque was sufficient, -and the morning’s post two days later brought them. - -They were written in ill-spelled English, and contained precisely what -his uncle had told him. The first, dated March 1, gave the information -that she had been married that morning to Philip Lord Stanier; the -second, dated March 17, stated that a week ago she had given birth to -twins. They were quite brief, conveyed no other news, and had evidently -been preserved with care, for the purple ink in which they were written -was quite unfaded. But apart from the fact now definitely known to Colin -that his father had legalised his life with Rosina but ten days before -he himself and Raymond were born, they did not help in any way towards -the attainment of the double object which now was putting out firm, -fibrous roots in his mind as the ideal project, namely to prove by some -means yet utterly unconjecturable the illegitimacy of Raymond and -himself, and, by marrying Violet, who in that case would succeed to the -title and the estates, to become master of Stanier. Indeed these letters -were but a proof the more of what was no doubt sufficiently attested in -the register of the British Consulate, namely, that the marriage had -taken place previously to his own birth. - -It seemed a hopeless business. Even if, by some rare and lucky -mischance, there was any irregularity in the record at the Consulate, -these letters, so long as they were in existence, constituted, if not a -proof, at any rate a strong presumption in favour of the marriage having -taken place on the first of the month, and it might be better to destroy -them out of hand so that such testimony as they afforded could not by -any possibility be produced. And yet he hesitated; somehow, in his -subconscious mind, perhaps, there was a stir and a ferment which bubbled -with a suggestion that had not yet reached his consciousness. Might not -something conceivably be done with them?... It was maddening that just -ten days out of all those uneventful hundreds of days which had elapsed -since, should suffice to wreck any project that he might make. - -And then a bubble of that ferment broke into his conscious mind. There -was the letter, announcing the marriage which had taken place that day -dated March 1. There was the letter dated March 17 announcing the birth -of himself and Raymond a week previously. What if by the insertion of a -single numeral in front of the “1” of the first date, he converted it -into March 31st? As far as these two letters went, they would in that -case show precisely what he desired. - -Psychologically, too, there would be a reasonable interpretation. In his -father, it would be argued, there had sprung up after the birth of his -sons, a tenderness and an affection for the mother of them, and he had -married her so that she, in the future, might bear him legitimate -offspring. Already she had borne two lusty and healthy sons; the union -was vigorous and fruitful. - -Colin got up from the long chair in his bedroom where he had taken these -letters, and began softly pacing up and down the floor, lithe and alert, -and smiling. His father was coming down with him to bathe that morning, -but there was a quarter of an hour yet before he need join him -downstairs, and a great deal of thinking might be put into a quarter of -an hour if you could only concentrate. - -He knew he was very far yet from the attainment of his ambition, for -that register at the Consulate, which somehow he must manage to see, -might contain insuperable obstacles to success. There might, for -instance, be other entries between March 1 of that year and March 31, so -that even if he could contrive to alter the first date into the second -it would throw those other entries, if such existed, out of their -chronological order; the marriage contracted on March 31 would precede -those that lay in between the two dates. In that case he might have to -tear out the page in which this entry occurred, and that might be quite -impossible of accomplishment. - -It would not be wise, at any rate, to tamper with the date on this first -letter of his mother’s, till he knew how the ground lay at the -Consulate. But given that it proved possible to make some alteration in -the register or tear out a page, how conclusively would his case be -established, if, in support of that, there were produced those letters -of his mother? - -Salvatore the troubadour.... Colin frowned and bit his lip at the -thought of Salvatore, who would be ready to swear that, when he parted -with those letters to Colin, the one that conveyed the news of his -sister’s marriage was dated March 1, not March 31. There were experts on -such subjects, too; prying, meticulous men who made a profession of -detecting little things like altered dates, and produced evidence about -a difference of hand or a difference in the analysis of two inks. - -Yet if the register at the Consulate was found to endorse the evidence -of the letters? The same detective-minded folk would examine the record -at the Consulate, and might arrive at the damnable conclusion that it, -too, had been tampered with. And if the letters which bore signs of -being tampered with were in Colin’s possession, and he was known to have -visited the register at the Consulate, there would be an unwelcome -conclusion as to who had committed a forgery. Penal servitude was not -an agreeable substitute for Stanier. - -Colin focused his clear brain, as if it had been a lens, on Salvatore. -He had been very decorative and melodramatic on the subject of his -sister’s honour, but there had been much of cheap strutting, of tinsel, -of footlights about that. And Salvatore, so Colin reasoned with a -melting and a smoothing out of his frown, was not all strutting and -swagger. There was a very real side to that impecunious uncle with his -undowered Vittoria. His concern for his sister’s honour was not surely -so dominant in him as his desire for coin. A suitable cheque would no -doubt induce him to recollect that the first of Rosina’s letters -announced the births of the twins, the second, that of March 31, her -marriage. - -Salvatore, for love of Vittoria (to put it at that), would probably see -the sense of allowing his memory of the dates at the head of this letter -to be faulty. He would not be obliged to perjure himself in any way; all -he had got to do (given that a page had been torn out of the register at -the Consulate, or that the date of the marriage as recorded there was -March 31) was to swear that his sister’s letters had always been in his -possession until he had given them to his attractive nephew.... Yes, -Salvatore would surely not prove an insuperable obstacle; he would rate -the living, himself and Vittoria, higher than the dead. - -For one moment, brief as that in which, according to the legend, the -ancestral Colin had considered whether he should close with that strange -offer made him in the sheep-fold, his descendant, his living -incarnation, hesitated when he thought of his father. His father had -always been devoted to him, and such affection as Colin was capable of -was his. But, after all, Philip would necessarily be dead when (and if) -the discovery was made that Rosina’s letter to her brother gave the date -of the marriage as March 31, and when, on search being made in the -register of the British Consulate, it was discovered that, owing to a -page being missing, there was no record of the marriage at all, or that -the date given there corresponded with that of Rosina’s letter. - -Colin had no intention of producing this evidence in his father’s -lifetime; there might be counter-proofs which his father could produce. -If he could only make some dealing with the register and with the date -on the letter, he would let the whole matter sleep till his father was -dead. Then nothing could hurt him; you cannot hurt the dead. Even -if--Colin gave little thought to this--the spirit of the dead survived -in consciousness of the living, would not his father’s spirit gladly -make this posthumous sacrifice of his earthly honour and rejoice to see -Colin, his beloved, master of Stanier? So his hesitation was fleeting as -breath on a frosty morning, it appeared but mistily, and dispersed. - -His father, out in the garden, was calling him, and with a cheerful -response he picked up his towels and went downstairs. For the present -there was but one necessary step to be taken; he had to get a day in -Naples before he left, and pay a visit to the British Consulate. It was -no use making any further plans beyond that, in his ignorance of what he -should find there. A visit to his uncle, and a night spent there, might -possibly serve as an excuse. - -Philip had also heard from his brother-in-law this morning: the -communication was not so satisfactory to him, as Colin’s post had been. - -“I’ve heard from Salvatore,” he said. “He’s a nauseating fellow, Colin.” - -“Oh, no; only a comic, father,” said Colin gaily. “You take him too -heavily.” - -“Read that,” said Philip. - -The letter was certainly characteristic, and as Colin read his smile -broadened into a laugh. The writer spoke of the deep humiliation it was -for a Viagi to take gifts from any; it had not been so with them once, -for the family had been the dispensers of a royal bounty. Indeed, two -considerations only made it possible for him to do so, the first his -paternal devotion to his two sweet maids, Vittoria and Cecilia, the -second his fraternal devotion to his noble and generous relative. That -sentiment did honour to them both, and with happy tears of gratitude he -acknowledged the safe receipt of the cheque. He wrote with some -distraction, for his sweet maids kept interrupting him to know if he had -sent their most respectful love to their uncle, and had reminded their -dearest Colin that they looked for his advent with prodigious excitement -and pleasure. They demanded to know when that hour would dawn for them. -One bottle of the nectar of France would be preserved for that day to -drink the health of his friend, his relative, his noblest of -benefactors. He signed himself “Viagi,” as if the princely honours had -been restored. - -“Oh, but priceless,” said Colin. “Haven’t you got a sense of humour, -father?” - -“Not where Salvatore is concerned. As for your going over to dine and -sleep, I shan’t let you. Do you know we’ve only got a fortnight more -here, Colin?” - -“I know; isn’t it awful?” said Colin with a sigh. “But about my going -over for a night. I wonder if I hadn’t better do that. It would be kind, -you know. He would like it.” - -Philip passed his hand over the boy’s shoulders. - -“Colin, are you growing wings?” he said. - -“Yes, and they don’t go well with my cloven hoofs. In other words, I -should loathe spending the night there, and yet Uncle Salvatore would -like it. Then I don’t want to leave you.” - -“Don’t then. Salvatore, thanks to you, has got double his usual -allowance. You’ve done enough for him.” - -“Yes, but that didn’t cost me anything,” said Colin. “It only cost you. -I’ve still my debt to pay for the wonderful entertainment he gave me -here. Besides he is actually my uncle: I’m a Viagi. Princely line, -father!” - -“Don’t marry one of the young princesses,” said his father. - -Colin had one moment’s acute thought before he answered. It struck him -that his father could hardly have said that if in his very self he had -loved his mother. But what he had said just came from his very self.... -He laughed. - -“I’ll promise not to, however entrancing Vittoria is,” he said. “Ah, how -divine the sea looks this morning. I long to be in it.” - -A sudden idea occurred to him. - -“Do let us stop on another fortnight, father,” he said. “Can’t we?” - -“I can’t,” said he. “I must get back by the end of the month. But--” he -paused a moment and Colin knew that he had caught his own idea, which -his suggestion was designed to prompt. “There’s no reason why you -shouldn’t have another fortnight here if you want,” he said. - -Colin had fallen behind his father on the narrow path to the -bathing-place, and gave a huge grin of satisfaction at his own subtlety. - -“Oh, I should love that!” he said, “though it won’t be half as much fun -as if you would stop too. And then I can go over to Naples with you when -you start homewards, and make my wings sprout by staying with Uncle -Salvatore.” - -Nothing could have fallen out more conveniently, and Colin, as for the -next two hours he floated in the warm sea and basked on the hot pebbles, -had a very busy mind in his lazy, drifting body. His father’s absence -would certainly make his investigations easier. He could, for instance, -present Lord Yardley’s card at the Consulate with his own, and get leave -to inspect the register with a view to making a copy of it, in -accordance with his father’s wishes. Better yet, he could spend a few -days in Naples, make the acquaintance of the Consul in some casual -manner, and produce his request on the heels of an agreeable impression. -He would not, in any case, be limited to a single visit, or tied by the -necessity of acting at once. He would not have to fire his bribe, with -regard to the letters like a pistol in Salvatore’s face, he would be -careful and deliberate, not risking a false step owing to the need of -taking an immediate one. And all the time the suggestion of stopping on -here alone had not come from himself at all. His father had made it. - -On the way up to the villa again after the morning’s bathe, they often -called at the post-office in the piazza for letters that had arrived by -the midday post. To-day these were handed under the grille to Colin, -and, sorting them out between his father and himself, he observed that -there were two for Lord Yardley in the handwritings of Raymond and -Violet. Possibly these were only the dutiful and trivial communications -of those at home, but possibly Violet’s week of postponement had been -shortened. - -“Two from Stanier for you, father,” he said. “Violet and Raymond. The -rest for me.” - -His father looked at the envelopes. - -“Yes, Raymond’s spider scrawl is evident enough,” he said. “I never saw -such a handwriting except yours; his and yours I can never tell apart. -One wants leisure to decipher you and Raymond.” - -Colin simmered with impatience to see his father put both of these -letters into his pocket, and simmered even more ebulliently when, having -put them on the table at lunch, his father appeared to forget completely -about them, and left them there when lunch was over. But Colin could -remind him of that, and presently the one from Violet lay open. - -His father gave an exclamation of surprise, and then was absorbed in it. -It appeared to be short, for presently he had finished, and, still -without a word to Colin, opened the letter from Raymond. Here -exclamations of impatience at the ugly, illegible handwriting took the -place of surprise, and it was ten minutes more before he spoke to Colin. -He, meantime, had settled with himself, in case these letters contained -what he guessed for certain that they must contain, that since Violet’s -previous warning to him was private, he would let the news that his -father would presently tell him be a big emotional surprise to him. This -would entail dissimulation, but that was no difficulty. Colin knew -himself to be most convincing when his brain, not his sincerity, -dictated his behaviour. - -“Have Violet and Raymond written to you to-day?” asked his father. - -Colin yawned. He generally took a siesta after the long morning in the -sea and sun, and it was already past his usual hour. There was a -pleasant fiction that he retired to write letters. - -“No,” he said, getting up. “Well, I’m off, father. Lots of letters....” - -“Wait a moment. Violet and Raymond send me news which pleases me very -much. They’re engaged to be married.” - -Colin stared, then laughed. - -“I’d forgotten it was the first of April,” he said. “I thought we were -in June.” - -“We are,” said his father. “But it’s no joke, Colin. I’m quite serious.” - -Colin looked fixedly at his father for a moment. - -“Ah!” he said, and getting up walked to the window. He stood there with -his back to the room twirling the blind-string, and seeming to -assimilate the news. Then, as if making a strong effort with himself, he -turned himself again, all sunshine. - -“By Jove, Raymond will be happy!” he said. “How--how perfectly splendid! -He’s head over ears in love with her, has been for the last six months. -Lucky dog! He’s got everything now!” - -He could play on his father like some skilled musician, making the chord -he wanted to sound with never a mistake. Those words “he’s got -everything now,” conveyed exactly the impression he intended, namely, -that Violet was, to him, an important part in Raymond’s possessions. -That was the right chord. - -It sounded. - -“But it was a great surprise to you, Colin,” he said. - -“Yes, father,” said Colin. - -“The surprise, then, was that Violet has accepted him,” said Lord -Yardley gently. He felt himself to be probing Colin’s mind ever so -tenderly, while Colin looked at him wide-eyed like a child who trusts -his surgeon. - -“Yes, father,” he said again. “It surprised me very much.” - -This was magnificent; he knew just what was passing in his father’s -mind; unstinted admiration of himself for having so warm-heartedly -welcomed the news of Raymond’s good fortune, and unstinted sympathy -because his father had guessed a reason why Violet’s engagement was a -shock to him. This was immensely to the good, for when, as he felt no -doubt would happen, Violet threw over Raymond for himself, Lord Yardley -would certainly remember with what magnanimous generosity he had -congratulated Raymond on his success. Whether anything came of his -project about the register or not, he was determined to marry Violet, -for so the thirst of his hatred of his brother would be assuaged. But -how long and how sweet would the drink be, if in the cup was mingled the -other also. - -His father came across the room to where he still stood by the window, -and laid loving hands on his shoulders. - -“Colin, old boy,” he said. “Are you fond of Violet--like that?” - -Colin nodded without speech. - -“I had no idea of it,” said Lord Yardley. “I often watched you and her -together, and I thought you were only as brother and sister. Upon my -word, Raymond seems to have got everything.” - -Colin’s smile was inimitable. It seemed to fight its way to his -beautiful mouth. - -“I’ve got you, father,” he said, out of sheer exuberance of wickedness. - -The subject was renewed that night when they sat under the -vine-wreathed pergola where they had dined. The sun, bowling down the -steep cliff away westward, had just plunged into the sea, and darkness -came swiftly over the sky, without that long-drawn period of fading -English twilight in which day is slowly transformed into night. Here -night leaped from its lair in the East and with a gulp absorbed the -flames of sunset and swiftly the stars sprang from the hiding-places -where all day they had lain concealed, and burning large and low made a -diffused and penetrating greyness of illumination that dripped like -glowing rain from the whole heavens. - -Dim and veiled though that luminance was, compared to the faintest of -the lights of day, it gave a curious macabre distinctness to everything, -and Colin’s face, in a pool of star-shine that filtered between the -trailing garlands of the vines, wore to his father some strange, -wraith-like aspect. So often had he sat here in such light as this with -Rosina opposite him, and all that he loved in Rosina seemed now to have -been reincarnated, spectre-like, in the boy he cared more for than he -cared for all the rest of the world. All that he had missed in the woman -who had satisfied and so soon sated his physical senses, flowered in -Colin with his quick intelligence, his sunny affection.... And his -father, for all his longing, could do nothing to help him in this -darkness which had overshadowed the dawn of love for him. - -Instead of Colin, Raymond had got all, that son of his whom he had never -liked even, and had always, in some naturally-unnatural manner, been -jealous of, in that he would inherit all that his own fingers would one -day relax their hold on. Had it been Colin who would grasp the sceptre -of the Staniers, Philip would, as he had said, close his eyes for his -last sleep in unenvious content. And now Raymond had got the desire of -his heart as well, which, too, was the desire of Colin’s heart. - -All day, since the arrival of those letters, Colin had been very quiet, -yet without any bitterness; grave and sweet, but only a shadow, a ghost -of himself for gaiety. Now his face, pale in the starlight, was -ghostlike also, and his father divined in it an uncomplaining suffering, -infinitely pathetic. - -“Colin, I wish I could do anything for you,” he said, with unusual -emotion. “You are such a dear fellow, and you bear it all with such -wonderful patience. Wouldn’t it do you good now to curse Raymond a -little?” - -Colin felt that he must not overdo the angelic rôle. - -“Oh, I’ve been doing so,” he said, “but I think I shall stop. It’s no -use. It wouldn’t hurt Raymond, even if he knew about it, and it doesn’t -help me. And it’s certainly time I stopped sulking. Have I been very -sulky all evening, father? Apologies.” - -“You’ve been a brick. But about stopping out here alone. Are you sure -you won’t mope and be miserable? Perhaps I might manage to stay out with -you an extra week.” - -That would not do at all. Colin hastened to put that out of the -question. - -“Oh, but you must do nothing of the kind,” he said quickly. “I know -you’ve got to get back. I shan’t mope at all. And I think one gets used -to things quicker alone. There’s only just one thing I wonder about. -Have we both been quite blind about Violet? Has she been in love with -Raymond without our knowing it? I, at any rate, had no idea of it. She’s -in love with him now, I suppose. Did her letter give you that -impression?” - -Philip hesitated. Violet’s letter, short and unemotional, had not given -him any such impression. But so triumphantly successful had been Colin’s -assumption of the unembittered, though disappointed, lover, that he -paused, positively afraid that Colin would regret that Violet’s heart -was not so blissfully engaged as his brother’s. Before he answered Colin -spoke again: - -“Ah, I see,” he said. “She’s in love with him, and you are afraid it -will hurt me to know it. Ripping of you.... After all, she’s lucky, too, -isn’t she? She’s got the fellow she loves, and she’ll be mistress of -Stanier. I think she adores Stanier almost as much as you and I, -father.” - -Colin felt he could not better this as a conclusion. He rose and -stretched himself. - -“There!” he said. “That expresses what I feel in my mind. It has been -cramped all day, and now I’ve stretched it, and am not going to have -cramp any more. What shall we do? Stroll down to the piazza, or sit here -and play piquet? I vote for the piazza. Diversion, you know.” - -Colin pleaded sleepiness on their return from the piazza as an excuse -for early retirement, but the sleepiness was not of the sort that led to -sleep, and he lay long awake, blissfully content and wondering at -himself with an intense and conscious interest. Never before had it so -forcibly struck him that deception was a thing that was dear to him -through some inherent attraction of its own, irrespective of what -material advantages it might bring him; it was lovely in itself, -irrespective of the fruit it bore. Never yet, too, had it struck him at -all that he disliked love, and this was a discovery worth thinking over. - -Often, especially during these last weeks, he had known that his -father’s love for him bored him, as considered as an abstract quality, -though he welcomed it as a means to an end. That end invariably had been -not only the material advantages it brought him, but the gratification -of his own hatred of Raymond. For, so he unerringly observed, his own -endearing of himself to his father served to displace Raymond more and -more, and to-day’s manœuvres were a brilliant counter-attack to the -improved position Raymond had made for himself in those last weeks at -Stanier. But, apart from these ends, he had no use for any love that was -given him, nor any desire to give in return. To hate and to get, he -found, when he looked into himself, was the mainspring which moved -thought, word, and action. - -Outside, the evening breeze had quite died down, but the silent -tranquillity of the summer night was broken by the sound of a footfall -on the garden terrace below the window, which he knew must be that of -his father strolling up and down there. For a moment that rather vexed -him; it seemed to disturb his own isolation, for he wanted to be -entirely encompassed in himself. It was inconsiderate of his father to -go quarter-decking out there, intruding into his own consciousness; -besides, Colin had told him that he was sleepy, and he should have kept -quiet. - -But then the explanation of his ramble up and down occurred to Colin. -There could be no doubt that his father was troubled for him, and was -made restless by thinking of him and his disappointment. That made Colin -smile, not for pleasure in his father’s love, but for pleasure in his -trouble. He was worrying himself over Colin’s aching heart, and the boy -had a smile for that pleasing thought; it had an incense for him. - - * * * * * - -He began to wonder, idly at first, but with growing concentration, -whether he hated his father. He did not wish him ill, but ... but -supposing this business of the register was satisfactorily accomplished, -and supposing he succeeded, as he felt no doubt he would, in causing -Violet to throw over Raymond and marry himself, he did not see that -there would be much gained by his father’s continued existence. He would -be in the way then, he would stand between him and his mastership, -through Violet, of Stanier. That, both from his passion for the place, -and from the joyous triumph of ejecting Raymond, was the true object of -his life: possession and hatred, to get and to hate. His father, when -these preliminary feats had been carried through, would be an obstacle -to his getting, and he supposed that he would hate him then. - -Lying cool and naked under his sheet, Colin suddenly felt himself flush -with the exuberance of desire and vitality. Hate seemed as infinite as -love; you could not plumb the depths of the former any more than you -could scale the heights of the other, while acquisition, the clutching -and the holding, stretched as far as renunciation; he who lived for -himself would not be satisfied until he had grasped all, any more than -he who lived for others would not be satisfied until he had given all, -retaining nothing out of self-love. - -With Violet as his wife, legal owner of Stanier, and Raymond outcast and -disinherited, it seemed to Colin that he would have all he wanted, and -yet in this flush of desire that combed through him now, as the tide -combs through the weeds of the sea, he realised that desire was infinite -and could never be satisfied when once it had become the master passion. -No one who is not content will ever be content, and none so burned with -unsatisfied longing as he. If he could not love he could hate, and if he -could not give he could get. - -The steps on the terrace below had long ceased, though, absorbed in this -fever of himself, he had not noticed their cessation. His activity of -thought communicated itself to his body, and it was impossible in this -galvanic restlessness to lie quiet in bed. Movement was necessary, and, -wrapping his sheet round him, he went to his open window and leaned out. - -The night was starlit and utterly tranquil; no whisper of movement -sounded from the stone-pine that stood in the garden and challenged by -its stirring the most imperceptible of breezes. Yet to his sense the -quiet tingled with some internal and tremendous vibration; a force was -abroad which held it gripped and charged to the uttermost, and it was -this force, whatever it was, that thrilled and possessed him. The warm, -tingling current of it bathed and intoxicated him; it raced through his -veins, bracing his muscles and tightening up the nerves and vigour of -him, and, stretching out his arms, he let the sheet drop from him so as -to drink it in through every thirsting pore of his body. Like the -foaming water in a loch, it rose and rose in him, until the limit of his -capacity was reached, and his level was that of the river that poured it -into him. And at that, so it seemed, when now he had opened himself out -to the utmost to receive it, the pressure which had made him restless -was relieved, and, unutterably tired and content, he went back to bed, -and instantly sank into the profound gulfs of healthy and dreamless -slumber. - -His father had usually finished breakfast when Colin appeared, but next -morning it was the boy who was in advance. - -“Hurrah, I’ve beaten you for once, father,” he said when Lord Yardley -appeared. “The tea’s half cold; shall I get you some more?” - -“No, this will do. Slept well, Colin?” - -“Like a top, like a pig, like a hog, like a dog.” - -“Good.” - -Lord Yardley busied himself with breakfast for a while. - -“Curious things dreams are,” he said. “I dreamed about things I hadn’t -thought of for years. You were so vividly mixed up in them, too, that I -nearly came into your room to see if you were all right.” - -“I was,” said Colin. “I was wonderfully all right. What was the dream?” - -“Oh, one of those preposterous hashes. I began dreaming about Queen -Elizabeth and old Colin. She was paying him a visit at Stanier and asked -to see the parchment on which he signed the bond of the legend. He -shewed it her, but the blood in which he had signed his own name was so -faded that she told him he must sign it again if he wanted it to be -valid. I was present and saw it all, but I had the feeling that I was -invisible. Then came the nightmare part. He pricked his arm to get the -ink, and dipped a pen in it. And then, looking closely at him, I saw -that it wasn’t old Colin at all, but you, and that it wasn’t Queen -Elizabeth but Violet. I told you not to sign, and you didn’t seem -conscious of me, and then I shouted at you, in some nightmare of fear, -and awoke, hearing some strangled scream of my own, I suppose.” - -Colin had been regarding his father as he spoke with wide, eager eyes. -But at the conclusion he laughed and lit a cigarette. - -“Well, if you had come in, you certainly wouldn’t have found me signing -anything,” he said. “But I cut myself shaving this morning. I call that -a prophetic dream. And I must write to Vi and Raymond this morning, so -that will be the signing.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Lord Yardley’s residence at his villa at Capri had, as usual, leaked -into the diplomatic consciousness, and the English Ambassador at Rome, -an old acquaintance of his, had, as usual, reminded him of a friendly -presence in Rome, which would be delighted to welcome him if the welcome -afforded any convenience. To leave by the very early boat from Capri, -and thus catch the Paris express that evening was a fatiguing -performance, would he not, therefore, when the regretted day for his -departure came, take the more reasonable midday boat, dine and spend the -night at the Embassy, and be sent off from there next day in comfort, -for the morning express from Rome entailed only one night in the train -instead of two? The British Consul at Naples would see to his seclusion -in the transit from Naples to Rome, where he would be met and wafted to -the Embassy. Otherwise an early start from Capri, and a hurried train -connection in Rome, would deprive His Excellency of the great pleasure -of a renewal of cordiality. - -His Excellency, it may be remarked, liked an invitation to Stanier, and -there was method in his thoughtfulness. This proposal arrived a week -before Lord Yardley’s departure; a heat wave had drowned the country, -and already he looked with prospective horror on the notion of two -nights in the train.... It entailed a night in Paris, and, if he was to -arrive in England for a debate in the House, a departure from Capri by -the midday boat on Tuesday, instead of the early boat on Wednesday. It -entailed, in fact, a few hours less of Colin. - -Colin saw the shining of his star. Never had anything, for his purpose, -been so excellently opportune. The British Consul would be at the -station to see his father off, and so, beyond doubt, would he himself, -on a visit to Uncle Salvatore. An acquaintanceship would be made under -the most auspicious and authentic circumstances. - -“It all fits in divinely, father,” he said. “I shall come across with -you, see you off from Naples, and then do my duty at Uncle Salvatore’s. -Probably, if there was nothing to take me to Naples, I should never have -gone, but now I shall have to go. Do let me kill two birds with one -stone. I shall see the last of you--one bird--without having to get up -at five in the morning, and I shall have made my visit to Uncle -Salvatore inevitable--two birds. Say ‘yes’ and I’ll write to him at -once.” - -It was in the belief that this arrangement had been made, that Lord -Yardley left Naples a week afterwards. Mr. Cecil, the British Consul, -had come to the station to secure for him the reserved compartment to -Rome, and, that being done, had lingered on the platform till the train -started. At the last moment, as he and Colin stood together there, and -while the train was already in motion, Colin sprang on to the footboard -for a final good-bye, and with a kiss leaped off again. There came a -sharp curve and the swaying carriages behind hid the platform from his -father. - -Colin turned to Mr. Cecil. Salvatore was in the background for the -present. - -“It was delightful of you to come to see my father off,” he said. “He -appreciated it immensely.” - -Colin paused a moment, just the pause that a bather takes before he gets -up speed for a running header into the sea. - -“He left me a small matter to talk to you about,” he said. “I wonder if -I might refer to it now.” - -Mr. Cecil gave a plump, polite little bow. - -“Pray do, Mr. Stanier,” he said. - -“My father wants a copy of the register of his marriage,” he said, “and -he asked me to copy it out for him. The marriage was performed at the -British Consulate, and if you would be so good as to let me copy it and -witness it for me, I should be so grateful. May I call on you in the -morning about it? It will save trouble, he thinks, on his death, if -among his papers there is an attested copy.” - -“A pleasure,” said Mr. Cecil. - -“You are too kind. And you will do me one further kindness? I am going -back to Capri to-morrow for another fortnight, and it would be so good -of you if you would tell me of a decent hotel where I can pass the -night. I shall not be able, I am afraid, to catch the early boat, with -this business of the copying to do, for it leaves, does it not, at nine, -and the Consulate will not be open by then.” - -Colin was at full speed now; his running feet had indeed left the -ground, and he was in the air. But he was already stiffened and taut, so -to speak, for the plunge; he had made all preparation, and fully -anticipated a successful dividing of the waters. For he had already made -himself quite charming to Mr. Cecil, and attributed his lingering on the -platform as much to the pleasure of a sociable ten minutes with him as -to the honour done to his father. - -“But I will not hear of you staying at a hotel,” said Mr. Cecil, “if I -can persuade you to pass the night at my flat. It adjoins the Consulate -offices, and is close to where the Capri boat lies. Indeed, if you wish -to catch the early boat, we can no doubt manage that little business of -yours to-night. It will take only a few minutes.” - -Colin suffered himself to be persuaded, and they drove back to the -Consulate. Office hours were already over, and presently Mr. Cecil led -the way into the archive-room, where, no doubt, Colin’s search would be -rewarded. But there had come in for him a couple of telegrams delivered -after the clerks had gone, and he went to his desk in the adjoining room -to answer these, leaving the boy with the volume containing the year of -his father’s marriage. The month, so said Colin, was not known to him. -His father had told him, but he had forgotten--a few minutes’ search, -however, would doubtless remedy that. - -So Mr. Cecil, leaving an official form with him on which to copy the -entry, fussed away into the next room, and Colin instantly opened the -volume. The year was 1893, and the month, as he very well knew, was -March.... There it was on March the first, and he ran his eye down to -the next entry. Marriages at the Naples Consulate apparently were not -frequent, and the next was dated April the fourth. - -Colin had already his pen in hand to make the copy, and it remained -poised there a moment. There was nothing more necessary than to insert -one figure before the single numeral, and the thing would be done. It -remained after that only to insert a similar “three” in the letter which -his mother had written to Salvatore announcing her marriage. On this hot -evening the ink would dry as soon as it touched the page. And yet he -paused, his brain beginning to bubble with some notion better yet, more -inspired, more magically apt.... - -Colin gave a little sigh and the smile dawned on his face. He wrote in a -“three,” making the date of March 1 into March 31, and then once again -he paused, watching with eager eyes for the ink to dry on the page. -Then, taking up a penknife which lay on the table beside him, he erased, -but not quite erased, the “three” he had just written there. He left -unerased, as if a hurried hand had been employed on the erasure, the -cusp of the figure, and a minute segment of a curve both above and below -it. - -Looking at the entry as he looked at it now, when his work was done, -with but casual carefulness, any inspector of it would say that it -recorded the marriage of Philip Lord Stanier to Rosina Viagi on the -first of March. But had the inspector’s attention been brought to bear -more minutely on it, he must, if directed to hold the page sideways to -the light, have agreed that there had been some erasure made in front of -the figure denoting the day of the month; for there was visible the -scratching of a penknife or some similar instrument. Then, examining it -more closely, he would certainly see the cusp of a “three,” the segment -of the upper curve, and a dot of ink in the place where the lower -segment would have been. - -These remnants would scarcely have struck his eye at all, had not he -noticed that there were the signs of an erasure there. With them, it was -impossible for the veriest tyro in conjecture not to guess what the -erasure had been. - -The whole thing took but a half-minute, and at the expiration of that, -Colin was employed on the transcription of the record of the marriage. -He knew that he had to curb a certain trembling of his hand, to reduce -to a more regular and slower movement the taking of his breath, which -came in pants, as if he had been running. - -Half a minute ago, no notion of what he had already accomplished had -entered his head; his imagination had not travelled further than the -possibility of changing the date which he knew he should find here into -one thirty days later. Out of the void, out of the abyss, this -refinement in forgery had come to him, and he already recognised without -detailed examination how much more astute, how infinitely more cunning, -was this emended tampering. Just now he could spare but a side glance at -that, for he must copy this entry (unaware that pen and pen-knife had -been busy there) and take it to plump Mr. Cecil for his signature, but -the sharp, crisp tap of conviction in his mind told him that he had done -more magnificently well than his conscious brain had ever suggested to -him. - -No longer time than was reasonable for this act of copying alone had -elapsed before Colin laid down his pen and went into the next room. - -“Well, Mr. Stanier, have you done your copying?” asked Cecil. - -“Yes. Shall I bring it here for your signature?” said Colin. - -Mr. Cecil climbed down from the high stool where he was perched like -some fat, cheerful little bird. - -“No, no,” he said. “We must be more business-like than that. I must -compare your copy with the original entry before I give you my -signature.” - -Colin knew that the skill with which he had effected the alteration -which yet left the entry unaltered, would now be put to the test, but he -felt no qualm whatever as to detection. The idea had been inspired, and -he had no doubt that the execution of it was on the same level of -felicitous audacity. They passed back into the archive-room together, -and the Consul sat himself before the volume and the copy. - -“Yes, March the first, March the first,” he said, comparing the two, -“Philip Lord Stanier, Philip Lord Stanier, quite correct. Ha! you have -left out a full stop after his name, Mr. Stanier. Yes, Rosina Viagi, of -93 Via Emmanuele....” - -He wrote underneath his certificate that this was a true and faithful -copy of the entry in the Consular archives, signed his name, stamped it -with the official seal and date, and handed it to Colin. - -“That will serve your father’s purpose,” he said, and replacing the -volume on its shelf, locked the wire door of its bookcase. - -“If you will be so good as to wait five minutes,” he said, “I will just -finish answering a telegram that demands my attention, and then I shall -be at your service for the evening.” - -He gave a discreet little chuckle. - -“We will dine _en garçon_,” he said, “at a restaurant which I find more -than tolerable, and shall no doubt contrive some pleasant way of passing -the evening. Naples keeps late hours, Mr. Stanier, and I should not be -surprised if you found the first boat to Capri inconveniently early. We -shall see.” - -Mr. Cecil appeared to put off the cares and dignity of officialdom with -singular completeness when the day’s work was over, and Colin found he -had an agreeably juvenile companion, ready to throw himself with zest -into the diversions, whatever they might be, of the evening. He ate -with the appetite of a lion-cub, consumed a very special wine in -magnificent quantities, and had a perfect battery of smiles and winks -for the Neapolitans who frequented the restaurant. - -“_Dulce est desipere in loco_,” he remarked gaily, “and that’s about the -sum of the Latin that remains to me, and, after all, it can be expressed -equally well in English by saying ‘All work, no play, makes Jack a dull -boy.’ And when we have finished our wine, all the amusements of this -amusing city are at your disposal. There is an admirable cinematograph -just across the road, there is a music-hall a few doors away, but if you -choose that, you must not hold me responsible for what you hear there. -Or if you think it too hot a night for indoor entertainment, there is -the Galleria Umberto, which is cool and airy, but again, if you choose -that, you must not hold me responsible for what you see there. Children -of nature: that is what we Neapolitans are. We, did I say? Well, I feel -myself one of them, when the Consulate is shut, not when I am on duty, -mark that, Mr. Stanier. But my private life is my own, and then I shed -my English skin.” - -In spite of the diversions of the city, Colin was brisk enough in the -morning to catch the early boat, and once more, as he had done a month -ago on his initial visit to the island, he sequestered himself from the -crowd under the awning, and sought solitude in the dipping bows of the -little steamer. To-day, however, there was no chance of his meditations -being interrupted by his father with tedious talk of days spent at -Sorrento; no irksome demonstrations of love were there to be responded -to, but he could without hindrance explore not only his future path, -but, no less, estimate the significance of what he had done already. - -Once more, then, the register of his father’s marriage was secure in the -keeping of the Consulate, Mr. Cecil had looked at it, compared Colin’s -copy, which now lay safe in the breast-pocket of his coat, with the -original, and had certified it to be correct. Colin had run no risk by -inserting and then erasing a figure which might prove on scrutiny to be -a subsequent addition; Mr. Cecil himself had been unaware that any -change had been wrought on the page. But when the register on Lord -Yardley’s death should be produced in accordance with the plan that was -already ripening and maturing in Colin’s mind, a close scrutiny would -reveal that it had been tampered with. Some hand unknown had clearly -erased a figure there, altering the date from March 31 to March 1. The -object of that would be clear enough, for it legalised the birth of the -twins Rosina had borne. It was in the interest of any of four people to -commit that forgery--of his father, of his mother, of Raymond, and of -himself. Rosina was dead now these many years; his father, when the -register was next produced, would be dead also, and from dead lips could -come neither denial nor defence. Raymond might be left out of the -question altogether, for never yet had he visited his mother’s native -city, and of those alive when the register was produced, suspicion could -only possibly attach to himself. It would have been in his interest to -make that alteration, which should establish his legitimacy as well as -that of his brother. - -Colin, as he sat alone in the bows, fairly burst out laughing, before he -proceeded to consider the wonderful sequel. He would be suspected, would -he?... Then how would it come about that it was he, who in the nobility -of stainless honour would produce his own mother’s letter, given him by -his uncle, in which she announced to her brother that she was married at -the British Consulate on the 31st of March? Had he been responsible for -that erasure in the Consulate register, to legitimatise his own birth, -how, conceivably, could he not only not conceal, but bring forward the -very evidence that proved his illegitimacy? Had he tampered with the -Consular book, he must have destroyed the letter which invalidated his -forgery. But, instead of destroying it, he would produce it. - -There was work ahead of him here and intrigue in which Salvatore must -play a part. The work, of course, was in itself nothing; the insertion -at the top of one of the two letters he owned of just that one figure -which he had inserted and erased again in the register was all the -manual and material business; a bottle of purple ink and five minutes’ -practice would do that. But the intrigue was more difficult. Salvatore -must be induced to acquiesce in the fact that the date of the letter -announcing Rosina’s marriage was subsequent to that announcing the birth -of the twins. That would require thought and circumspection; there must -be no false step there. - -And all this was but a preliminary manœuvring for the great action -whereby, though at the cost of his own legitimacy, he should topple -Raymond down from his place, and send him away outcast and penniless, -and himself, with Violet for wife, now legal owner of all the wealth and -honours of the family, become master of Stanier. She might for the love -of him, which he believed was budding in her heart, throw Raymond over -and marry him without cognisance of what he had done for her. But he -knew, from knowledge of himself, how overmastering the passion for -Stanier could be, and it might happen that she would choose Raymond with -all that marriage to him meant, and stifle the cry of her love. - -In that case (perhaps, indeed, in any case), Colin might find it better -to make known to her the whole, namely that on his father’s death she -would find herself in a position to contest the succession and claim -everything for her own. Which of them, Raymond or himself, would she -choose to have for husband in these changed circumstances? She disliked -and proposed to tolerate the one for the sake of the great prize of -possession; she was devoted to the other, who, so she would learn, had -become possessed of the fact on which her ownership was established. - -Or should he tell her all? Reveal his part in it? On this point he -allowed his decision to remain in abeyance; what he should do, whether -he should tell Violet nothing, or part, or all, must depend on -circumstances, and for the present he would waste no more time over -that. For the present, too, he would keep the signed and certified copy -of his father’s marriage. - -The point which demanded immediate consideration was that concerning -Salvatore. Colin puzzled this out, sometimes baffled and frowning, -sometimes with a clear course lying serene in front of his smiling eyes, -as the steamer, leaving the promontory of the mainland behind, -approached the island. He must see Salvatore, whom he had quite omitted -to see in Naples, as soon as possible, and it would be much better to -see him here, in the privacy of the villa, than seek him, thought Colin, -in the publicity of the Palazzo Viagi, surrounded by those siren dames, -Vittoria and Cecilia. - -He would write at once, a pensive and yet hopeful little epistle to -Uncle Salvatore wondering if he would come across to Capri yet once -again, not for the mere inside of a day only, but for a more hospitable -period. His father had left for England, Colin was alone, and there were -matters to be talked over that weighed on his conscience.... That was a -good phrase; Uncle Salvatore would remember what Colin had already done -in the matter of the reduplicated cheque, and it would seem that the -generous fellow had a debt of conscience yet unliquidated; this conveyed -precisely the right impression. - -In a postscript he would hint at the French nectar which, still dozing -in the cellar.... He hesitated a moment, and then decided not to mention -the subject of his mother’s letters, for it was better that since they -were the sole concern of his visit, Uncle Salvatore should have the -matter sprung upon him.... A bottle of purple ink ... no, that would not -be necessary yet, for the later that you definitely committed yourself -to a course of action the better. - -Colin’s letter produced just the effect that he had calculated on; -Salvatore read into the conscience-clause a generous impulse and -congratulated himself on the departure of that grim, dry brother-in-law -to whom (for he had tried that before) tears and frayed cuffs made no -appeal. He had accordingly given that up, and for his last visit here -made himself nobly resplendent. But to Colin, in the guilelessness of -his blue-eyed boyhood, a tale of pinching and penury might be a suitable -revelation, and it was a proud but shabby figure which presented itself -at the villa a few evenings later, without more luggage than could be -conveniently conveyed in a paper parcel. Colin, who had been observing -the approach from the balcony of his bedroom, ran down, choking with -laughter that must be choked, to let his uncle in. - -“Ah, this is nice,” he said. “You have no idea how welcome you are. It -was good of you to take pity on my loneliness. What a jolly evening we -shall have. And Vittoria and Cecilia? How are they?” - -A gleam brightened Uncle Salvatore’s gloom, and he fervently pressed -Colin’s hand. - -“They are well, thank God,” he said. “And while that is so, what matters -anything?” - -He appeared with a gesture of his hand to pluck some intruding creature -from the region of his heart, and throw it into the garden-beds. Then he -gave a little skip in the air. - -“Collino _mio_!” he said. “You charm away my sad thoughts. Whatever -happens to-morrow, I will be gay to-night. I will not drag your -brightness down into my gloom and darknesses. Away with them, then!” - -Colin fathomed the mountebank mind with an undeviating plummet. The -depth (or shallowness) of it answered his fairest expectations. He found -nothing inconsistent in this aspect of Salvatore with that which he had -last presented here; the two, in fact, tallied with the utmost -exactitude as the expression of one mind. They both chimed true to the -inspiring personality. He waited, completely confident, for the advent -of the opportunity. - -That came towards the end of dinner: without even having been -hilarious, Salvatore had at least been cheerful, and now, as suddenly as -if a tap had been turned off, the flow of his enjoyment ceased. He -sighed, he cleared his throat, he supported his head on his hands, and -stared at the tablecloth. To Colin these signals were unmistakable. - -“You’re in trouble, Uncle Salvatore,” he said softly, “and now for the -first time I am glad that my father has gone back to England. If he were -here, I should not be able to say what I mean to say, for, after all, he -is my father, and he has always been most generous to me. But he is not -equally generous to others who have claims on him. I have tried to make -him see that, and, as you and I know, I have succeeded to some small -extent. But the extent to which I have succeeded does not satisfy me. -Considering all that I know, I am determined to do better for you than I -have been able to make him do. If I am his son, I am equally my mother’s -son. And you are her brother.” - -Colin paused a moment, and, sudden as a highland spate, inspiration -flooded his mind. He had not thought out with any precision what he -meant to say, for that must depend on Salvatore, who might, equally -well, have adopted the attitude of a proud and flashy independence. But -he had declared for frayed cuffs and a fit of gloom, and Colin shaped -his course accordingly. - -“And I can’t forget,” he said, “that it was you who put me in possession -of certain facts when you sent me those two letters of my mother. I -learned from them what I had never dreamed of before. I never in the -wildest nightmare thought that my father had not married your sister -till after my birth. I should have had to know that sometime: on my -father’s death it must have come out. And you have shown a wonderful -delicacy in breaking the fact to me like that. I thank you for that, -Uncle Salvatore; I owe you a deep debt of gratitude which I hope to -repay!” - -Colin listened to his own voice, which seemed to make itself articulate -without any directing will of his own. The summer night was charged with -the force of obedience to which his tongue moved against his teeth, and -his lips formed letters, and his throat gave the gutturals. Literally, -he did not know what he was going to say till he heard himself saying -it. The breeze whispered in the stone-pine, and he spoke.... - -The breeze was still now and the stone-pine was silent. But he had said -enough to make it necessary that Salvatore should reply. Presently a bat -would flit through the arches of the pergola where they dined, or the -wind would stir in the pine, and then he would speak again. There was -just that same stir abroad on the night when he had listened from his -bedroom to his father’s footfalls on the terrace. - -“What do you mean, Collino?” said his uncle excitedly. “I cannot -understand what you say. My sainted Rosina married your father on the -first of March, for I glanced at the letters again before I sent them to -you. Your birth....” - -Colin interrupted. - -“Ah, a bat,” he said. “I love bats. If you hold a handkerchief up does -not a bat come to it? Let us interrupt our conversation for a moment.” - -He spread his handkerchief over his head, and next moment Salvatore -leaped to his feet, for there, beady-eyed and diabolical, with hooked -wings as of parchment, spread out on either side of its furry body, one -of the great southern bats alighted, making a cap for Colin’s golden -head. Only for a moment it stopped there, and then flitted off into the -dusk again. - -“Soft, furry thing,” said Colin. “But you hate them, do you, Uncle -Salvatore? It was stupid of me. Let us talk again!” - -He hitched his chair a little closer to the table, and looked Salvatore -straight in the eyes. - -“But you have forgotten the dates on those letters you gave me,” he -said. “My mother was married to my father not on the first of March, -but on the thirty-first. The second letter recording Raymond’s birth and -mine was written on the seventeenth.” - -Again he paused. - -“Raymond and I were born,” he said slowly and distinctly, “before my -father’s marriage. The letters which you gave me prove it. If further -proof was wanted, you would find it at the Consulate where the marriage -took place. Some one has tampered with the register, and the date has -been made to look as if it recorded the first of March. But it does not: -it records the thirty-first of March, and the ‘three’ has been erased. -But it is still visible. I saw it myself, for I went across to Naples to -see my father off, and subsequently at the Consulate made a copy of the -entry. I should have proposed myself to stay with you that night, Uncle -Salvatore, but I had no spirit left in me to see anybody. When you sent -me those two letters of my mother, I hoped against hope perhaps, that -there was some ghastly mistake. I nearly destroyed them, indeed, in -order that from them, at any rate, there should be no conceivable -evidence. But when I saw the entry in the book at the Consulate, with -the mark of the erasure visible to any careful scrutiny, I knew that it -was no use to fight against facts. On my father’s death, the evidence of -the date of his marriage must be produced, and it will be clear what -happened. My mother bore him two boys--I was one. Subsequently he -married her, hoping, I have no doubt, to beget from her an heir to the -name and the property.” - -The wind sighed heavily in the pine, and little stirs of it rustled the -vine-leaves. - -“Is it at no cost to me,” said Colin, “that I keep my mother’s letter -which proves Raymond and me to be bastards? Oh, it is an ugly word, and -if you were me, you would know that it is an ugly thing. Without my -mother’s letter which you sent me, it would be hard indeed to prove, -indeed, any one might copy out the entry at the Consulate and fail to -see the erasure altogether. Raymond, at my father’s death would -succeed, and I, his twin, beloved of him, would take an honourable place -in the eyes of the world, for it is not nothing to be born a Stanier.” - -Colin’s voice was soft and steadfast. - -“But my mother’s letter to you makes it impossible for me to have honour -in the eyes of the world, and to preserve my own,” he said. “Ah, why did -you send me those two letters, Uncle Salvatore? It was in all innocence -and kindness that you sent them, and you need not remind me that I asked -for them. Having seen them, what could any one with a shred of honour do -but to admit the truth of the whole ghastly business? The only wish that -I have is that my father shall not know that I know. All I want is that -he, when the hour of his death comes, should hope that the terrible -fraud which has been practised, will never be detected. But for that -letter of my mother’s, that would undoubtedly have happened. The -register at the Consulate would have been copied at his death by some -clerk, and the Consul would have certificated its accuracy. Look at me, -then, now, and look at yourself in the same light, you of unblemished -descent, and me and Raymond!” - -Salvatore had certainly woke out of his dejection. - -“But it’s impossible,” he cried, beating the table. “I sent you two -letters; the first, dated March the first, announced my sainted Rosina’s -marriage to your father. Where is it? Produce it!” - -Colin was quite prepared for that. He put his sun-browned fingers into -his breast-pocket, and drew out a paper. - -“I can’t show you the original letters,” he said, “because it was -clearly my duty to put them into inviolable custody as soon as possible. -I sent them, in fact, as soon as I had seen the register at the -Consulate, to my bank, with orders that they were to be kept there until -I gave further instructions, or until the news of my death reached them. -In that case, Uncle Salvatore, I gave instructions that they were to be -sent to my father. But before I despatched them to the bank, I made a -copy of them, and here that copy is.” - -He passed over to his uncle the copy he had made of the letter that -afternoon, before (instead of sending it to the bank) he locked the -original safely away upstairs. It was an accurate copy, except that it -was dated March 31. Salvatore took it and read it; it tallied, but for -the date, with his recollection of it. - -“But it is impossible!” he said. “For years I have known that letter. -When I gave it you it was dated March the first.” - -“Do you imply that I altered it?” asked Colin. “Not a living eye has -seen that letter but mine. Give me any reason for altering it. Why -should I make myself nameless and illegitimate?” - -Salvatore looked that in the face. The validity of it stared at him -unflinchingly. - -“But I can’t believe it; there is some huge mistake,” said Salvatore. -“Often have I read that letter of Rosina’s. March the first was the date -of her marriage. I will swear to that; nothing shall shake my belief in -that.” - -Colin shook his head in answer. - -“What good will that do?” he said. “You gave the letter to me, and no -hand but mine has ever touched it. The letter must be produced some day, -not for many years, I hope and trust, but on my father’s death it must -come to light. How will your recollections stand in the face of that -evidence which all can see?” - -Salvatore glanced round. They were alone with the fitful wind in the -pine. - -“Destroy the letter, Collino,” he said. “Save your mother’s honour and -your own.” - -Colin gave him one glance, soft and pitiful. - -“Ah, you must not suggest that to me,” he said. “You must not add force -to the temptation I can only just resist. But where would my honour be -if I did that? What shred of it would be left me? How could I live a -lie like that?” - -Colin leaned forward and put his hand on Salvatore’s arm. - -“I have got to accept my illegitimacy,” he said. “And if you are sorry -for me, as I think you are, you can shew it best by accepting it too. It -would be infinitely painful to me when this revelation is made, as it -will have to be made on my father’s death, to have you attempting to -save my mother’s honour and my own, as you put it just now, by insisting -that this letter bore another date. I should never have a moment’s peace -if I thought a scene like that was ahead of me. In fact, I want to be -assured against that, and the only way I can think of to make that safe -is that when you get back to Naples to-morrow you should write me a -couple of lines, saying how you feel for me in this discovery that is -new to me. And then I want you to name the discovery, which is the date -of my mother’s marriage. I want you to accept that date, and give me -proof that you accept it.” - -Colin made a gesture with his hand, as if cutting off that topic, and -instantly spoke again. - -“With my cousin Vittoria growing up,” he said, “you must be put to -expenses which it is impossible for you to meet out of the pittance my -father gives you. He wronged you and your family most terribly, and I -must repair that wrong. When I get that letter of yours, Uncle -Salvatore, I will send you a cheque for £500.” - -Colin gave a glance at his uncle, to make sure that there was no -faintest sign of dissent. There was none, and he went on: - -“I see you understand me,” he said, “so let us go a step further. If my -brother Raymond dies before my father, I will make that five hundred -pounds an annuity to you, and I will destroy both the letter I ask you -to write now, and the letter of my mother’s about which we have been -talking. You will never be asked to say anything about either of them. -If on the other hand my father dies first, and if I make the marriage -which I expect to make, I shall have to use your letter and that letter -of my mother’s. You may be asked to swear to the genuineness of the -letter which I hope you will write me to-morrow, and to the recollection -of my mother’s letter which will tally with it. Have another glass of -this delicious French wine.” - -He had no need to think what he was saying, or frame a specious case. He -spoke quite simply and directly as if by some inspiration, as if he was -an Æolian harp hung in the wind which whispered through the stone-pine. - -“I don’t think there is need for any discussion,” he said, “though, of -course, if you like to ask me any question, I will consider whether I -shall answer it. But I don’t think there is need for any question, is -there? You might tell me, I fancy, straight off, whether you accept or -reject my proposal. If you reject it, perhaps I had better tell you that -it is exceedingly unlikely that my father will give you any further -assistance financially, for, as you know, I have a good deal of -influence with him. - -“It would not pay you to refuse, would it? And as to threatening me with -making this conversation of ours public, with a view to getting money -out of me, I know your gentlemanly feelings would revolt against such an -idea. Besides it would be singularly unremunerative, for no one would -possibly believe you. Our conversation and my proposal would strike -anybody as incredible. And you are not perjuring yourself in any way; -you did send me a letter of my mother’s, and you will, I hope, write me -another letter to-morrow, saying that the story of my mother’s marriage -is very shocking, which is indeed true. So shall it be ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ -Uncle Salvatore?” - -Salvatore, superstitious, like most Southern Italians, to the core, -found himself making the sign of the cross below the table. Apart from -the obvious material advantage of accepting Colin’s offer, he felt that -some fierce compelling agency was backing Colin up. That dreadful little -incident of the bat had already upset him, and now in Colin’s blue gay -glance so earnestly fixed on him, he divined some manifestation of the -evil eye, which assuredly it were not wise to provoke into action. And -as if, in turn, Colin divined his thought, he spoke again: - -“Better say ‘yes,’ Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “My friends lead more -enjoyable lives than my enemies. But whatever you answer, I want your -answer now.” - -Perhaps through some strange trick of light played by the guttering -candles, it suddenly seemed to Salvatore that Colin’s eyes undeviatingly -fixed on his face, seemed in themselves luminous, as if a smouldering -light actually burned behind them. - -“I accept,” he said quickly, “for Vittoria’s sake.” - -Colin took up his glass. - -“I thought I should move your paternal heart, dear Uncle Salvatore,” he -said. “I drink to our pleasant bargain.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Though Colin had taken the news of his brother’s engagement with so -touching and unselfish a gentleness, his father, in spite of the joy of -seeing the boy again, looked forward to his arrival at Stanier with -considerable uneasiness. The trouble and the trial for him would be when -he saw Raymond and Violet together, though, to be sure, Violet did not -seem to him to embody any ideal of maidenly rapture with her affianced. -She seemed indeed to tolerate, rather than adore her lover, to permit -rather than to provoke, and to answer with an effort the innumerable -little signals of devotion which Raymond displayed for her. About the -quality of his devotion there could be no question. It was clear that in -his own fashion, and with all his heaviness and awkwardness in -expression, he was utterly in love with her. He had no eyes for any one -but her, but for her his eyes were dog-like in fidelity; when she was -absent his senses dozed. - -They were, just for the present, this party of three. Lady Hester had -gone back to town after the departure of Colin and his father to the -South, and Ronald and his wife had betaken themselves for the month of -July to Marienbad, in order to enable him to continue eating too much -for the next eleven months without ill effects. Every evening old Lady -Yardley appeared for dinner and made the fourth, but she was not so much -a presence as a shadow. In Colin’s absence, she hardly ever spoke, -though each night she monotonously asked when he was expected back. -Then, after the rubber of whist, mutely conducted, she retired again, -and remained invisible till the approach of the next dinner-hour. So -long had she been whitely impassive that Philip scarcely noticed the -mist that was thickening about her mind. - -Raymond, then, was comprehensible enough, he was head over ears in love -with Violet, and nothing and nobody but her had any significance for -him. But dog-like though his devotion was, it struck his father that -there was, in the absence of Violet’s response, something rather animal -about it. Had she met with more than mere toleration his glances, his -little secret caresses, his thirst for contact even of finger-tips or a -leaning shoulder, there would have been the spark, the leap of fire -which gives warmth and life to such things. But without it there was a -certain impalpable grossness: Raymond did not seem to care that his -touch should be responded to, it contented him to touch. - -But though he, to his father’s mind, was comprehensible enough, Violet -puzzled him, for she seemed even before her marriage to have adopted the -traditional impassivity of Stanier brides; she had professed, in the one -interview she had had with him, a quiet acceptance of her position, and -a devotion to Raymond of which the expression seemed to be a mute -passivity. Towards the question of the date of her marriage she had no -contribution to give. Lord Yardley and Raymond must have the settling of -that, and with the same passivity she accepted a date in the first week -of October. Then the great glass doors would be opened, and the -bridegroom’s wing, long shuttered, for Philip’s bride had never come -here, would see the light again. She asked no question whatever about -Colin’s return; his name never presented itself on her lips unless mere -conventional usage caused it to be spoken. It was as if the boy with -whom she had been so intimately a friend, had ceased to exist for her. -But when Philip once consciously noted that omission, he began to wonder -if Violet was not comprehensible after all.... These days, in any case, -after Philip’s return, while Colin still lingered in Italy, were worthy -of the stateliest and deadliest Stanier traditions. - -Colin had been expected all one long July afternoon. His announcement of -his arrival had been ambiguous, for he might catch the early train from -Paris, and thus the earlier boat, but the connection was uncertain, and -if he missed it he would not get to Dover till six in the evening. In -that case he would sleep in London, and come down to Stanier next day. - -Philip had read this out at breakfast that morning, and for once Violet -shewed some interest in Colin. - -“Why not send a motor to Dover, Uncle Philip?” she said. “It can get -there in time for the first boat, and if he is not on it, it can wait -for the second. He will arrive here then by dinner time.” - -Raymond looked up from his paper at the sound of her voice. - -“Vi, darling, what an absurd plan,” he said. “There are a hundred -chances to one on Colin’s not finding the motor. He’ll get straight into -the train from the boat.” - -Violet instantly retreated into that strange shell of hers again. - -“Ah, yes,” she said. - -Philip’s curiosity put forth a horn at this. There was some new element -here, for Raymond seemed to resent the idea of special arrangements -being made for Colin. - -“That’s not a bad idea of yours, Violet,” he said. “It will save Colin -going up to London.” - -As he spoke he kept a sideways eye on Raymond. - -“But, father, think of the crush getting off the boat,” he said. “The -chances are that Colin won’t see your chauffeur.” - -He spoke with an impatient anger which he could not cloak, and which -rang out unmistakably in his voice. - -“We’ll take the off chance then,” said his father. - -Raymond got up. “Just as you like,” he said. - -Philip paused a moment. The relations between himself and Raymond had -been excellent up till to-day. Raymond without charm (which was not his -fault), had been pleasant and agreeable, but now this matter of meeting -Colin had produced a spirit of jealous temper. - -“Naturally I shall do just as I like,” he observed. “Ring the bell, -please, Raymond. The motor will have to start at once.” - - * * * * * - -Though none of the three communicated the news of Colin’s arrival to old -Lady Yardley, it somehow got round to her, _via_ perhaps, some servant’s -gossip about a motor going to Dover, and most unusually she came -downstairs at tea-time with inquiries whether Colin had arrived. It was -soon clear that he could not have caught the early boat, or he would -have been here by now, and thus three hours at least must elapse before -his arrival could be looked for, but in spite of this, old Lady Yardley -did not go back to her room again, but remained upright and vigilant in -her chair on the terrace, where they had had tea, looking out over the -plain where, across the gardens and lake, appeared glimpses of the road -along which the motor must come. - -Philip had intended to go for a ride, but he, too, when his servant told -him that his horse was round, lingered on and shewed no sign of moving. -Neither he nor his mother gave any reason for their remaining so -unusually here, but somehow the cause of it was common property. Colin -was coming. Raymond, similarly, had announced his intention of going to -bathe, but had not gone; instead he fidgeted in his chair, smoked, took -up and dropped the evening paper, and made aimless little excursions up -and down the terrace. His restlessness got on his father’s nerves. - -“Well, go and bathe, if you mean to, Raymond,” he said, “or if you like -take my horse and go for a ride. But, for goodness’ sake, don’t keep -jumping about like that.” - -“Thanks, I think I won’t ride, father,” he said. “I shall be having a -bathe presently. Or would you feel inclined for a game of tennis, Vi?” - -“I think it’s rather too hot,” said she. - -He sat down on the arm of her chair, but she gave no welcome to him, nor -appeared in any way conscious of his proximity. In that rather gross -fashion of his, he gently stroked a tendril of loose hair just behind -her ear. For a moment she suffered that without moving. Then she put up -her hand with a jerky, uncontrolled movement, and brushed his away. - -“Oh, please, Raymond,” she said in a low voice. - -He had a sullen look for that, and, shrugging his shoulders, got up and -went into the house. His father gave a sigh of relief, the reason for -which needed no comment. - -“Colin will be here for dinner, won’t he?” asked old Lady Yardley. - -“Yes, mother,” said Philip. “But won’t you go and rest before that?” - -“I think I will sit here,” said she, “and wait for Colin.” - -Presently Raymond was back again, with a copy of some illustrated paper. -Violet and Philip alike felt the interruption of his presence. They were -both thinking of Colin, and Raymond, even if he sat quiet, was a -disturbance, a distraction.... Soon he was by Violet’s side again, -shewing her some picture which he appeared to think might interest her, -and Philip, watching the girl, felt by some sympathetic vibration how -great an effort it was for her to maintain that passivity which, all -those days, had so encompassed her. The imminence of Colin’s arrival, he -could not but conjecture, was what troubled her tranquillity, and below -it there was some stir, some subaqueous tumult not yet risen to the -surface, and only faintly declaring itself in these rising bubbles.... - -Raymond had placed the paper on her knee, and, turning the page, let his -hand rest on her arm, bare to the elbow. Instantly she let it slip to -her side, and, raising her eyes at the moment, caught Philip’s gaze. The -recognition of something never mentioned between them took place, and -she turned to Raymond’s paper again. - -“Quite excellent,” she said. “Such a good snapshot of Aunt Hester. Show -it to Uncle Philip.” - -Raymond could not refuse to do that, and the moment he had stepped over -to Philip’s side, she got up. - -That passivity was quite out of her reach just now in this tension of -waiting. Soon Colin would be here, and she would have to face and accept -the situation, but the waiting for it.... If only even something could -happen to Colin which would prevent his arrival. Why had she suggested -that sending of the motor to Dover? Had she not done that, he could not -have got here till to-morrow morning, and she would have had time to -harden, to crystallise herself, to render herself impervious to any -touch from outside. - -She was soon to be a Stanier bride, and there in the tall chair with the -ivory cane was the pattern and example for her. It was on old Lady -Yardley that she must frame herself, quenching any fire of her own, and -content to smoulder her life away as mistress of the family home which -she so adored, and of all the countless decorations and riches of her -position. Never had the wonder and glory of the place seemed to her so -compelling as when now, driven from the terrace by Raymond’s -importunity, she walked along its southern front and through the archway -in the yew-hedge where she and Colin had stood on his last night here. -It dozed in the tranquillity of the July evening, yellow and -magnificent, the empress of human habitations. Round it for pillow were -spread its woodlands, on its breast for jewel lay the necklace of deep -flower-beds; tranquil and stable through its three centuries, it seemed -the very symbol and incarnation of the pride of its owners; to be its -mistress and the mother of its lords yet unborn was a fate for which she -would not have exchanged a queen’s diadem. - -Whatever conditions might be attached to it, she would accept them--as -indeed she had already pledged herself to do--with the alacrity with -which its founder had, in the legend, signed his soul away in that -bargain which had so faithfully been kept by the contracting parties.... -And it was not as if she disliked Raymond; she was merely utterly -indifferent to him, and longing for the time when, in the natural course -of things, he would surely grow indifferent to her. How wise and -indulgent to his male frailties would she then show herself; how -studiously and how prudently blind, with the blindness of those who -refuse to see, to any infidelities. - -Had there not been in the world a twin-brother of his, or, even if that -must be, if she had not stood with him under this serge-arch of yews -beneath the midsummer moon and given him that cousinly kiss, she would -not now be feeling that his return, or, at any rate, the waiting for it, -caused a tension that could scarcely be borne. She had made her choice -and had no notion--so her conscious mind told her--of going back on it; -it was just this experience of seeing Colin again for the first time -after her choice had been made that set her nerves twanging at Raymond’s -touch. Could she, by a wish or the wave of a wand, put off Colin’s -advent until she had actually become Raymond’s wife, how passionately -would she have wished, how eagerly have waved. Or if by some magic, -black or white, she could have put Colin out of her life, so that never -would she set eyes on him again or hear his voice, his banishment from -her would at that moment have been accomplished. She would not admit -that she loved him; she doggedly told herself that she did not, and her -will was undeviatingly set on the marriage which would give her Stanier. - -Surely she did not love Colin; they had passed all their lives in the -tranquillity of intimate friendship, unruffled by the faintest breath of -desire. And then, in spite of her dogged assertion, she found that she -asked herself, incredulously enough, whether on that last evening of -Colin’s the seed of fire had not sprouted in her? She disowned the -notion, but still it had reached her consciousness, and then fiercely -she reversed and denied it, for she abhorred the possibility. It would -be better that she should hate Colin than love him. - - * * * * * - -The evening was stiflingly hot, and in the park, where her straying feet -had led her, there was no breath of wind stirring to disperse the -heaviness. The air seemed thick with fecundity and decay; there was the -smell of rotting wood, of crumbling fungi overripe that mingled with the -sharp scent of the bracken and the faint aroma of the oaks, and buzzing -swarms of flies gave token of their carrion banquets. The open ground to -the north of the house was no better; to her sense of overwrought -expectancy, it seemed as if some siege and beleaguerment held her. She -wanted to escape, but an impalpable host beset her, not of these buzzing -flies only and of the impenetrable oppression of the sultry air, through -which she could make no _sortie_, but, internally and spiritually, of -encompassing foes and hostile lines through which her spirit had no -power to break. - -There on the terrace, from which, as from under some fire she could not -face, she had lately escaped, there would be the physical refreshment of -the current of sea-wind moving up, as was its wont towards sunset, -across the levels of the marsh; but there, to this same overwrought -consciousness, would be Raymond, assiduous and loverlike, with odious -little touches of his affectionate fingers. But, so she told herself, it -was enforced on her to get used to them; he had a right to them, and it -was Colin, after all, who was responsible for her shrinking from them, -even as she shrank from the evil buzzings of the flies. If only she had -not kissed Colin, or if, having done that, he had felt a tithe of what -it had come to signify to her. - -But no hint of heart-ache, no wish that fate had decreed otherwise, had -troubled him. He had asked for a cousinly kiss, and in that light -geniality of his he had said, out of mere politeness, and out of hatred -for Raymond (no less light and genial) that it was “maddening” to think -that his brother would be the next visitor there. - -She had waited for his reply to her letter announcing that Raymond had -proposed to her and that she was meaning to accept him, with a quivering -anxiety which gave way when she received his answer to a sense of revolt -which attempted to call itself relief. He seemed, so far from finding -the news “maddening,” to welcome and rejoice in it. He congratulated her -on achieving her ambition of being mistress of Stanier, and on having -fallen in love with Raymond. He could not be “hurt”--as she had -feared--at her news; it was altogether charming. - -She had expressed the charitable hope that he would not be hurt, and -with claws and teeth her charity had come home to roost. It had dreadful -habits in its siesta; it roosted with fixed talons and sleepless lids; -it cried to the horses of the night to go slowly, and delay the dawn, -for so it would prolong the pleasures of its refreshment. And each day -it rose with her, strengthened and more vigorous. Had Colin only -rebelled at her choice, that would have comforted her; she would have -gathered will-power from his very opposition. But with his acquiescing -and welcoming, she had to bear the burden of her choice alone. If he had -only cared he would have stormed at her, and like the Elizabethan flirt, -she would have answered his upbraidings with a smile. As it was, the -smile was his, not hers. Almost, to win his upbraidings, she would have -sacrificed the goodly heritage--all the honour and the secular glory of -it. - -Perhaps by now, for she had wandered far, the rest of them might have -dispersed, her grandmother to the seclusion of her own rooms, Uncle -Philip to the library, and Raymond to the lake, and she let herself into -the house by the front door and passed into the hall. The great Holbein -above the chimney piece smiled at her with Colin’s indifferent lips; the -faded parchment was but a blur in the dark frame, and she went through -into the long gallery which faced the garden front. All seemed still -outside, and after waiting a moment in the entrance, she stepped on to -the terrace, and there they were still; her grandmother alert and -vigilant, Philip beside her, and Raymond dozing in his chair, with his -illustrated paper fallen from his knee. What ailed them all that they -waited like this; above all, what ailed her, that she cared whether they -waited or not? - -Soundless though she hoped her first footfalls on the terrace had been, -they were sufficient to rouse Raymond. He sat up, his sleepiness all -dispersed. - -“Hullo, Vi!” he said. “Where have you been?” - -“Just for a stroll,” said she. - -“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you.” - -Suddenly old Lady Yardley rose, and pointed down on to the road across -the marsh. - -“Colin is coming,” she said. “There’s his motor.” - -Certainly a mile away there was, to Violet’s young eyes, an -infinitesimal speck on the white riband, but to the dimness of the old, -that must surely have been invisible. Lord Yardley, following the -direction of her hand, could see nothing. - -“No, mother, there’s nothing to be seen yet,” he said, proving that he, -too, was absorbed in this unaccountable business of waiting for Colin. - -“But I am right,” she said. “You will see that I am right. I must go to -the front door to welcome him.” - -She let the stick, without which she never moved, slide from her hand, -and with firm step and upright carriage, walked superbly down the -terrace to the door of the gallery. - -“He is coming home,” she cried. “He is coming for his bride, and there -will be another marriage at Stanier. Let the great glass doors be -opened; they have not been opened for the family since I came here sixty -years ago. They were never opened for my poor son Philip. I will open -them, if no one else will. I am strong to-night.” - -Philip moved to her side. - -“No; it’s Raymond you are thinking of, mother,” he said. “They will be -opened in October. You shall see them opened then.” - -She paused, some shade of doubt and anxiety dimming this sudden -brightness, and laid her hand on her son’s shoulder. - -“Raymond?” she said. “Yes, of course, I was thinking of Raymond. -Raymond and Violet. But to please me, my dear, will you not open them -now for Colin? Colin has been so long away, it is as if a bridegroom -came when Colin comes. We are only ourselves here; the Staniers may do -what they like in their own house, may they not? I should love to have -the glass doors open for Colin’s return.” - -The speck she had seen or divined on the road had come very swiftly -nearer, and now it could be seen that some white waving came from it. - -“I believe it is Colin, after all,” said Raymond. “How could she have -seen?” - -Old Lady Yardley turned a grave glance of displeasure on him. - -“Do not interrupt me when I am talking to your father,” she said. “The -glass doors, Philip.” - -Raymond with a smile, half-indulgent of senile whims, half-protesting, -turned to the girl. - -“Glass doors, indeed,” he said. “The next glass doors are for us, eh, -Violet?” - -Surely some spell had seized them all. Violet found herself waiting as -tensely as her grandmother for Philip’s reply. She was hardly conscious -of Raymond’s hand stealing into hers; all hung on her uncle’s answer. -And he, as if he, too, were under the spell, turned furiously on -Raymond. - -“The glass doors are opened when I please,” he said. “Your turn will -come to give orders here, Raymond, but while I am at Stanier I am -master. Once for all understand that.” - -He turned to his mother again. - -“Yes, dear mother,” he said, “you and I will go and open them.” - -Inside the house no less than among the watchers on the terrace the -intelligence that Colin was at hand had curiously spread. Footmen were -in the hall already, and the major-domo was standing at the entrance -door, which he had thrown open, and through which poured a tide of hot -air from the baking gravel of the courtyard. Exactly opposite were the -double glass doors, Venetian in workmanship, and heavily decorated with -wreaths and garlands of coloured glass. The bolts and handles and hinges -were of silver, and old Lady Yardley, crippled and limping no longer, -moved quickly across to them, and unloosing them, threw them open. -Inside was the staircase of cedar wood, carved by Gibbons, which led up -to the main corridor, opposite the door that gave entrance to the suite -of rooms occupied by the eldest son and his wife. - -What strange fancy possessed her brain none knew, and why Philip allowed -and even helped her in the accomplishment of her desire was as obscure -to him as to the others, but with her he pushed the doors back and the -sweet odour of the cedar wood, confined there for the last sixty years, -flowed out like the scent of some ancient vintage. Then, even as the -crunching of the motor on the gravel outside was heard, stopping -abruptly as the car drew up at the door, she swept across to the -entrance. - -Already Colin stood in the doorway. For coolness he had travelled -bareheaded and the gold of his hair, tossed this way and that, made a -shining aureole round his head. His face, tanned by the southern suns, -was dark as bronze below it, and from that ruddy-brown his eyes, -turquoise blue, gleamed like stars. He was more like some lordly -incarnation of life and sunlight and spring-splendour than a handsome -boy, complete and individual; a presence of wonder and enchantment stood -there.... Then, swift as a sword-stroke, the spell which had held them -all was broken; it was but Colin, dusty and hot from his journey, and -jubilant with his return. - -“Granny darling!” he said, kissing her. “How lovely of you to come and -meet me like this. Father! Ever so many thanks for sending the motor for -me. Ah, and there are Violet and Raymond. Raymond, be nice to me; let me -kiss you, for, though we’re grown up, we’re brothers. And Violet; I want -a kiss from Violet, too. She mustn’t grudge me that.... What! The glass -doors open. Ah! of course, in honour of the betrothal. Raymond, you -lucky fellow, how I hate you. But I thought that was only done when the -bridegroom brought his bride home.” - -“A whim of your grandmother’s,” said Philip hastily, disowning -apparently his share in it. - -Instantly Colin was by the old lady’s side again. - -“Granny, how nice of you!” he said. “But you’ve got to find me a bride -first before I go up those stairs. And even then, it’s only the eldest -son who may, isn’t it? But it was nice of you to open the doors because -I was coming home.” - -He had kissed Raymond lightly on the cheek, and Violet no less lightly, -and both in their separate and sundered fashions were burning at it, -Raymond in some smouldering fury at what he knew was Colin’s falseness, -Violet with the hot searing iron of his utter indifference; and then -light as foam and iridescent as a sunlit bubble of the same, he was back -with his father again, leaving them as in some hot desert place. And -dinner must now be put off, growled Raymond to himself, because Colin -wanted to have a bathe first and wash off the dust and dryness of his -journey, and his father would stroll down after him and bring his towel, -so that he might run down at once without going upstairs. - - * * * * * - -Colin had come home, it appeared, with the tactics that were to compass -his strategy rehearsed and ready. Never had his charm been of so sunny -and magical a quality, and, by contrast, never had Raymond appeared more -uncouth and bucolic. But Raymond now, so ran his father’s unspoken -comment on the situation, had an ugly weapon in his hand, under the -blows of which Colin winced and started, for more than ever he was -prodigal of those little touches and caresses which he showered on -Violet. Philip could not blame him for it; it was no more than natural -that a young man, engaged and enamoured, should use the light license -of a lover; indeed, it would have been unnatural if he had not done so. - -Often and often, ten times in the evening, Philip would see Colin take -himself in hand and steadfastly avert his eyes from the corner where -Raymond and Violet sat. But ever and again that curious habit of -self-torture in lovers whom fate has not favoured would assert itself, -and his eyes would creep back to them, and seeing Raymond in some -loverlike posture, recall themselves. And as often the sweetness of his -temper, and his natural gaiety, would reassert its ray, and the usual -light nonsense, the frequent laugh, flowed from him. Exquisite, too, was -his tact with Violet; he recognised, it was clear, that their old -boy-and-girl intimacy must, in these changed conditions, be banished. He -could no longer go away with her alone to spend the morning between -tennis-court and bathing pool, or with his arm round her neck, stroll -off with a joint book to read reclined in the shade. Not only would that -put Raymond into a false position (he, the enamoured, the betrothed) -but, so argued the most pitiless logic of which his father was capable, -that resumption of physical intimacy, as between boy and boy, would be a -tearing of Colin’s very heart-strings not only for himself but for her -also. In such sort of intimacy Colin, with his brisk blood and ardent -lust of living, could scarcely help betraying himself, and surely then, -Violet, little though she might care for Raymond, would see her pool of -tranquil acceptance shattered by this plunge of a stone into the centre -of it. Her liking for Colin was deep, and she would not fail to see that -for her he had even profounder depths. A light would shine in those -drowned caves, and Colin, as wise as he was tender, seemed to shew his -wisdom by keeping on the surface with Violet, and only shining on her -tranquillity, never breaking it. - -Sometimes--so thought his father--he shewed her a face which, in virtue -of their past intimacy, was almost too gaily indifferent; she would -attempt some perfectly trivial exhibition of their old relations, perch -herself on the arm of his chair, and with the contrast of his bronzed -face and golden hair, tell him that he must gild his face like the -grooms in “Macbeth” or dye his hair. But on the instant he would be -alert and spring up, leaving her there, for the need of a cigarette or a -match. He allowed her not the most outside chance of resuming ordinary -cousinly relations with him. His motive was sound enough; loving her he -mistrusted himself. She was sealed to be his brother’s wife, and he must -not trust himself within sight of the notice to trespassers. It was -better to make himself a stranger to her than to run the risk of -betraying himself. So, at least, it struck an outsider to Colin’s -consciousness. - -He avoided, then, all privacy with Violet, and no less carefully he -avoided privacy with Raymond. If the three men were together and his -father left them, Colin would be sure to follow him, and if they all -three sat up together in the smoking-room, Colin would anticipate the -signal of a silence or of his father’s yawning or observation of the -clock, to go to bed himself. Here, again, he almost overdid the part, -for as the first week after his return went by, Philip, firmly -determined to be just to Raymond, thought he saw in him some kind of -brotherly affection for Colin, which the latter either missed or -intentionally failed to respond to. There could be no harm in a -seasonable word, and when, one morning Raymond, after half a dozen chill -responses from his brother, had left him and Colin together, Philip -thought that the seasonable word was no less than Raymond’s due. But the -seasonable word had to be preceded by sympathy. - -He sat down in the window seat by Colin. - -“Well?” he said. - -Those blue eyes, gay but veiled by suffering, answered him. - -“It’s damned hard on you, Colin,” he said. “Are you getting used to it, -old boy?” - -Colin, with one of those inimitable instinctive movements, laid his hand -on his father’s shoulder. - -“No, not a bit,” he said. “But I’ve got to. I can’t go on like this. I -must feel friendly to Raymond and Violet. I must manage to rejoice in -their happiness. Got any prescription for me, father? I’ll take it, -whatever it is. Lord! How happy I used to be.” - -All that Philip had missed in Rosina was here now; the tender, subtle -mind, which should have been the complement of her beauty. His sympathy -was up in arms for this beloved child of hers, and his sense of fairness -elsewhere. - -“Raymond’s doing his best, Colin,” he said. “I wonder....” and he -paused. - -“You can say nothing that will hurt me, father,” said Colin. “Go on.” - -“Well, I wonder if you’re responding to that. To put it frankly, -whenever he makes any approach to you, you snub him.” - -Colin lifted his head. - -“Snub him?” he said. “How on earth can I snub Raymond? He’s got -everything. I might as well snub God.” - -This was a new aspect. - -“I can’t do otherwise, father,” said the boy. “I can only just behave -decently to Raymond in public and avoid him in private. Don’t bother -about Raymond. Raymond hates me, and if I gave him any opportunity, he -would merely gloat over me. I can’t behave differently to him; I’m doing -the best I can. If you aren’t satisfied with me, I’ll go away again till -it’s all over and irrevocable. Perhaps you would allow me to go back to -Capri.” - -Philip’s heart yearned to him. “I wish I could help you,” he said. - -“You do help me. But let’s leave Raymond out of the question. There’s a -matter that bothers me much more, and that’s Violet. If I let myself go -at all, I don’t know where I should be. What am I to do about her? Am I -right, do you think, in the way I’m behaving? We were chums--then she -became to me, as I told you, so much more than a chum. I can’t get back -on to the old footing with her; it would hurt too much. And she’s hurt -that I don’t. I can see that. I think I was wrong to come back here at -all, and yet how lovely it was! You all seemed pleased to see me--all -but Raymond--and I didn’t guess the bitterness of it.” - -It was inevitable that Philip should recall his surprise at Violet’s -passivity. Colin, whose heart he knew, had been, in all outward -appearance, just as passive, and he could not help wondering whether -that passivity of Violet’s cloaked a tumult as profound as Colin’s. The -suspicion had blinked at him before, like some flash of distant -lightning; now it was a little more vivid. If that were true, if from -that quarter a storm were coming up, better a thousand times that it -should come now than later. Tragic, indeed, would it be if, after she -had married Raymond, it burst upon them all.... But he had nothing -approaching evidence on the subject; it might well be that his wish that -Violet could have loved Colin set his imagination to work on what had -really no existence outside his own brain. - -“I hate seeing you suffer, Colin,” he said, “and if you want to go back -to Capri, of course you may. But you’ve got to get used to it some time, -unless you mean to banish yourself from Stanier altogether. Don’t do -that.” - -Colin pressed his father’s arm. - -“I’ll do better, father,” he said. “I’ll begin at once. Where’s Violet?” - -It was in pursuance of this resolve, it must be supposed, that when Lady -Yardley’s rubber of whist was over that night, Colin moved across to the -open door on to the terrace where Violet was standing. In some spasm of -impatience at Raymond’s touch she had just got up from the sofa where he -had planted himself close to her, leaving him with an expression, half -offended, half merely hungry.... - -“Five minutes stroll outside, Vi?” he asked. - -“It’s rather late,” she said. - -“Right,” said Colin cheerfully, and went forth alone, whistling into the -darkness. - -The moment he had gone Violet regretted not having gone too. Since -Colin’s return she had not had a half-hour all told alone with him, and -the tension of his entire indifference to her was becoming intolerable. -She had not dreamed that he would cut himself off from her with this -hideous completeness, nor yet how much she longed for the renewal of the -old intimacy. Bitterest of all was the fact that she meant nothing to -him, for he had never been more light-heartedly gay. Where Philip, -knowing what he did, saw strained and heroic effort, she saw only the -contemptuous ignoring of herself and Raymond.... And now, with that same -craving for self-torture that is an obsession to the luckless in love, -when Colin made his first advance to her again, she must needs reject -it. There was Raymond watching her, and revolt against that hungry look -of his decided her. She stepped out on to the terrace. - -Colin had come to the far end of it; his whistling directed her; and now -in the strong starlight, she could see the glimmer of his shirt-front. -She felt her knees trembling and hid the reason out of sight as she -strolled, as unconcernedly as she could, towards him. Soon he perceived -her and his whistling stopped. - -“Hullo, Vi,” he said, “so you’ve come out after all. That’s ripping.” - -They were close to each other now, and bright was the stream of -starlight on him. - -“Managed to tear yourself away from Raymond for five minutes?” he asked. -“I was beginning to think I should never have a word with you again.” - -“That’s your fault,” said she. “You have been a brute all this last -week.” - -“I? A brute?” said Colin. “What do you mean? I thought I had been -conducting myself superbly....” - -He looked up quickly at the oblong of light that flowed from the open -door into the gallery, and saw that it framed a shadow. - -“Hullo, there’s Raymond,” he said, “looking after us. Here we are, -Raymond. Come and join us.” - -He heard Violet’s clicked tongue of impatience. - -“I had to say that,” he whispered. “He won’t come.” - -Colin’s psychology was correct enough; Raymond had not meant to be seen, -he only meant to see. Besides he had a grievance against Violet for her -impatience just now; he was annoyed with her. - -“No, thanks,” he said, “I’m going to the smoking-room.” - -“That’s to punish you, Vi,” said Colin with a tremble of laughter in his -voice. “But perhaps we had better go in. You mustn’t vex him.” - -Nothing could have been better calculated. - -“Is one of the conditions of my engagement that I mustn’t speak to you?” -she asked. “Certainly it seems like it.” - -Colin tucked his arm into Violet’s. - -“Well, we’ll break it for once,” he said. “Now you’re vexed with me. -That’s very unreasonable of you. You made your choice with your eyes -open. You’ve chosen Raymond and Stanier. It stands to reason we can’t -always be together. You can’t have Raymond and Stanier and me. It was -your own doing. And I thought everything was going so well. Whenever I -look up I see you and him holding hands, or else he’s kissing the back -of your neck.” - -“Ah!” said Violet with a little shiver. - -“You’ve got to get used to it, Vi,” said he. “You’ve got to pay for -having Stanier. Isn’t it worth it?” - -He heard her take a quick breath; her control was swaying like a curtain -in the wind. - -“Oh, don’t be such a brute to me, Colin,” she said. “I hadn’t realised -that--that you would desert me like this.” - -Colin just passed his tongue over his lips. - -“Oh, that doesn’t mean anything to you,” he said. - -“But it does, it does,” said she. - -They were back now in the shadow of the yew-hedge, where one night she -had kissed him. As he thought of that he knew that she was thinking of -it too. - -“Give Raymond up,” he said. “Let him and Stanier go. It will be the -wisest thing you can do.” - -He paused a moment, and all the witchery of the night came to the -reinforcement of his charm. - -“I want you, Vi,” he said. “Promise me. Give me a kiss and seal it.” - -For one second she wavered, and then drew back from him. - -“No, I can’t do that,” she said. “I’ll give you a kiss, but it seals no -promise.” - -“Kiss me then,” said he, now confident. - -There was no mistaking the way in which she surrendered to him. She -stood enfolded by him, lambent and burning. She knew herself to be -bitterly unwise, but for the moment the sweetness was worth all the -waters of Marah that should inundate her. - -“Ah, you darling, never mind your promise,” said he. “I shall have that -later. Just now it’s enough that you should hate Raymond and love me.” - -She buried her face on his shoulder. - -“Colin, Colin, what am I to do?” she whispered. - -He could see well that, though her heart was his, the idea of giving up -Stanier still strove with her. To-night she might consent to marry him; -to-morrow that passion for possession might lay hands on her again. She -was bruised but not broken, and instantly he made up his mind to tell -her the secret of his mother’s letter and of the entry at the Consulate. -That would clinch it for ever. When she knew that by giving up Raymond -and Stanier together, she retained just all she wanted out of her -contract and gained her heart’s desire as well---- - -“What are you to do?” he said. “You are to do exactly what you are -doing. You’re to cling to me, and trust me. Ah, you’re entrancing! But -I’ve got something to tell you, Vi, something stupendous. We must go in; -I can’t tell you here, for not even the trees nor the terrace must know, -though it concerns them.” - -“But, Colin, about Raymond. I can’t be sure....” - -He pressed her to him, thrilled all through at this ebb and flow of her -emotional struggle. - -“You’ve finished with Raymond, I tell you,” he said. “You’ve given him -up and you’ve given up Stanier, haven’t you; you’ve given up -everything?” - -Some diabolical love of cruelty for its own sake; of torturing her by -prolonging the decision which pulled at her this way and that, possessed -him. - -“It’s a proud hour for me, Vi,” he said. “I love Stanier as madly as you -do, and you’ve given it up for me. I adore you for doing that; you’ll -never repent it. I just hug these moments, though there must come an end -to them. Let us go in, or Raymond will be looking for us again. Go -straight to your room. I shall come there in five minutes, for there’s -something I must tell you to-night. I must just have one look at Raymond -first. That’s for my own satisfaction.” - -Colin could not forego that look at Raymond. He knew how he should find -him, prospering with a glass of whisky, disposed, as his father had -said, to be brotherly, having all the winning cards in his hand. Stanier -would be his, and, before that, Violet would be his, and Colin might be -allowed, if he were very amiable, to spend a week here occasionally when -Raymond came to his throne, just as now he had been allowed a starlit -stroll with Violet. These were indulgences that would not be noticed by -his plenitude, morsels let fall from the abundant feast. The life only -of one man, already old, lay between him and the full consummation; -already his foot was on the steps where the throne was set. Just one -glance then at victorious Raymond.... - -Raymond fulfilled the highest expectations. Whisky had made him -magnanimous; he was pleased to have granted Colin that little starlit -stroll with Violet, it was a crumb from the master’s table. His heavy -face wore a look of great complacency as his brother entered. - -“Hullo, Colin,” he said. “Finished making love to Violet?” - -Colin grinned. “You old brute!” he said. “Not content with having -everything yourself, you must mock me for my beggary. You lucky fellow.” - -He poured himself out a drink and sat down. - -“Raymond, I had no idea how devoted Violet was to you till to-night,” he -said. “I think she’s afraid to let herself go, to shew it too much.” - -The grossness of Raymond, his animal proprietorship, was never more -apparent. It was enough for him to desire her. - -“Oh, Vi’s all right,” he said. - -Colin felt his ribs a-quiver with the spasm of his suppressed laughter. -He distrusted his power of control if he subjected himself to further -temptation. - -“I’m off to bed,” he said. “I just looked in to envy you.” - -“Where’s Vi?” asked Raymond. - -Colin bethought himself that he did not want Raymond knocking at -Violet’s door for a good-night kiss. - -“Oh, she went upstairs half an hour ago,” he said. “She told me she was -awfully sleepy. In fact, she soon got tired of me.” - -He drank in a final impression of Raymond’s satisfied face and went -upstairs, going first to his room, where from his locked despatch-case -he took the two letters which Salvatore had given him, and which now -bore the dates of March 17 and March 31. Then, passing down the long -corridor, he came to her room; the door was ajar, and he rapped softly -and then entered. - -Violet, in anticipation of his coming, had sent her maid away, and was -brushing her hair, golden as Colin’s own, before her glass. Often and -often in the days of their intimacy had he come in for a talk during -this ritual; on dry, frosty nights Violet would put out her light, and -pale flashes of electricity and cracklings and sparks would follow the -progress of her brush. Her hair would float up from her head and cling -to Colin’s fingers as sea-weed that had lain unexpanded on the shore -spreads out, floating and undulating, in the return of the tide. -To-night it lay thick and unstirred, rippling for a moment under her -brush, and then subsiding again into a tranquil sheet of gold. - -She saw him enter in the field of her mirror and heard the click of the -key as he turned it. - -“Just in case Raymond takes it into his head to say good-night to you,” -he said. - -She had risen from her chair and stood opposite to him. - -“What have you got to tell me, Colin?” she said. - -He looked at her a moment with parted lips and sparkling eyes. Each -seemed the perfect complement of the other; together they formed one -peerless embodiment of the glory of mankind. Through them both there -passed some quiver of irresistible attraction, and, as two globules of -quick-silver roll into one, so that each is merged and coalesced in the -other, so with arms interlaced and faces joined, they stood there, two -no longer. Even Colin’s hatred for Raymond flickered for that moment and -was nearly extinguished since for Violet he existed no more. Then the -evil flame burned up again, and he loosed Violet’s arms from round his -neck. - -“Now you’re to sit and listen to me,” he said. “What I have got to tell -you will take no time at all.” - -He opened the envelope which he had brought with him, and drew out the -two letters. He had decided not to tell Violet any more than what, when -his father was dead, all the world would know. - -“Salvatore Viagi gave me these,” he said. “He is my mother’s brother, -you know, and I saw him at Capri. They were written by my mother to him, -and announce the birth of Raymond and me and her marriage to my father. -Take them, Vi, look at the dates and read them in order.” - -She gave him one quick glance, took them from him, read them through and -gave them back to him. Then in dead silence she got up and stood close -to him. - -“I see,” she said. “On Uncle Philip’s death, Stanier, everything will be -mine. According to those letters, that is.” - -He nodded. “Yes, on the one condition, of course, that you and I are -wife and husband.” - -She looked at him again with a smile breaking through her gravity. - -“I promised that before I knew,” she said. “And now that I know that -Stanier will be mine, instead of believing that my choice forfeited it, -it isn’t very likely that I shall change my mind.” - -“There’s something else, you know, too,” he said. “You’re marrying....” - -She interrupted. “I’m marrying Colin,” she said. “But as regard you. Is -it horrible for you? Ah ... I’ve been thinking of myself only. Stanier -and myself.” - -She moved away from him and walked to the end of the room, where, -pushing the blind aside, she looked out on to the terrace where they had -stood this evening. As clearly as if she spoke her thoughts aloud, Colin -knew what was the debate within her. It lasted but a moment. - -“Colin, if--if you hate it,” she said, “tear that letter up. I’ve got -you, and I would sooner lose Stanier than let you be hurt. Tear it up! -Let Raymond have Stanier so long as I don’t go with it.... Oh, my dear, -is it the same me, who so few weeks ago chose Raymond, and who so few -hours ago wondered if I could give up Stanier, even though to get it -implied marrying him? And now, nothing whatever matters but you.” - -Instantly Colin felt within himself that irritation which love -invariably produced in him. Just so had his father’s affection, except -in so far as it was fruitful of material benefits, fatigued and annoyed -him, and this proposal of Violet’s, under the same monstrous impulsion, -promised, in so far from being fruitful, to prove itself some scorching -or freezing wind which would wither and blast all that he most desired. -But, bridling his irritation, he laughed. - -“That wouldn’t suit me at all,” he said, “and besides, Vi, how about -honour? Stanier will be legally and rightfully yours. How on earth could -I consent to the suppression of this? But lest you should think me too -much of an angel--father asked me one day how my wings were getting -on--I tell you quite frankly that it will be sweet as honey to send -Raymond packing. My adoring you doesn’t prevent my hating him. And as -for what is called irregularity in birth, who on earth cares? I don’t. -I’m a Stanier all right. Look at half the dukes in England, where do -they spring from? Actresses, flower-girls, the light loves of -disreputable kings. Who cares? And, besides, my case is different: my -father married my mother.” - -Up and down his face her eyes travelled, seeing if she could detect -anywhere a trace of reluctance, and searched in vain. - -“Are you quite sure, Colin?” she asked. - -“Absolutely. There’s no question about it.” - -Once more she held him close to her. - -“Oh, it’s too much,” she whispered. “You and Stanier both mine. My heart -won’t hold it all.” - -“Hearts are wonderfully elastic,” said he. “One’s heart holds everything -it desires, if only it can get it. Now there’s a little more to tell -you.” - -“Yes? Come and sit here. Tell me.” - -She drew him down on to the sofa beside her. - -“Well, my uncle sent me these letters,” said he, “but, naturally, they -won’t be enough by themselves. It was necessary to find out what was the -entry in the register of their marriage. My father had told me where it -took place, at the British Consulate in Naples, and I got the Consul to -let me see the register. I told him I wanted to make a copy of it. I saw -it. The marriage apparently took place not on the 31st of March, but on -the 1st. But then I looked more closely, and saw that there had been an -erasure. In front of the ‘1’ there had been another figure. But whoever -had made that erasure had not done it quite carefully enough. It was -possible to see that a ‘3’ had been scratched out. The date as -originally written was ‘31’ not ‘1.’ That tallies with the date on my -mother’s letter.” - -Colin’s voice took on an expression of tenderness, incredibly sweet. - -“Vi, darling,” he said, “you must try to forgive my father, if it was he -who made or caused to be made that erasure which might so easily have -passed unnoticed, as indeed it did, for when the Consul prepared my copy -with the original he saw nothing of it; word by word he went over the -two together. You must forgive him, though it was a wicked and a -terrible fraud that my father--I suppose--practised, for unless he had -other children, he was robbing you of all that was rightfully yours. - -“I think the reconstruction of it is easy enough. My mother died, and he -was determined that his son, one of them, should succeed. I imagine he -made, or procured the making, of that erasure after my mother’s death. -He had meant to marry her, indeed he did marry her, and I think he must -have desired to repair the wrong, the bitter wrong, he did her in the -person of her children. I’ve got something to forgive him, too, and -willingly I do that. We must both forgive him, Vi. I the bastard, and -you the heiress of Stanier.” - -Violet would have forgiven Satan himself for all the evil wrought on the -face of the earth from the day when first he set foot in Paradise. - -“Oh, Colin, yes,” she said. “Freely, freely!” - -“That’s sweet of you. That is a great weight off my mind. And you’ll -make your forgiveness effective, Vi?” - -She did not grasp this. - -“In what way?” she asked. - -“I mean that you won’t want to make an exposure of this now,” said he. -“I should like my father never to know that I have found out what he -did. I should like him to die thinking that Raymond will succeed him, -and that his fraud is undiscovered. Of course, you would be within your -rights if you insisted on being established as the heiress to Stanier -now. There are certain revenues, certain properties always made over to -the heir on coming of age, and Raymond and I come of age in a few -months. Can you let Raymond enjoy them for my father’s sake? He has -always been amazingly good to me.” - -“Oh, Colin, what a question!” she said. “What do you take me for? Would -that be forgiveness?” - -“That’s settled then; bless you for that. The only objection is that -Raymond scores for the present, but that can’t be helped. And there’s -just one thing more. About--about what has happened between us. Shall I -tell my father to-morrow? Then we can settle how Raymond is to be told.” - -“Oh, Colin, to-morrow?” said she. “So soon?” - -He laughed. “To-night if you like,” he said, “though it’s rather late. -Of course, if you want to put it off, and have Raymond nosing about you -still like a ferret....” - -“Don’t!” - -“He shan’t then. Now I must go. One kiss, Vi.” - -She clung to him. “I’m frightened of Raymond,” she said. “What will he -do?” - -“Howl like a wounded bear, I suppose. Hullo!” - -There was the sound of knocking at the door, and Raymond’s voice: - -“Violet,” he said. “May I come in; just to say good-night?” - -Colin frowned. “Been listening, probably,” he whispered, “and heard -voices.” - -Without pause he went to the door, and turned the key and handle -together. - -“Come in, Raymond,” he said as he opened it. “Violet’s been talking of -nothing but you. So here we all are, bride and bridegroom and best man. -Let’s have one cigarette before we all go to bed.” - -Raymond wore his most savage look. “I thought you had gone to bed,” he -said, “and I thought you said Violet had gone to bed half an hour before -that?” - -“Oh, Raymond, don’t be vexed,” said Colin. “Haven’t you got everything?” - -In just such a voice, dexterously convincing, had he pleaded with Violet -that she should forgive his father.... - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -Philip was waiting in his library for Raymond’s entry, wanting to feel -sorry for him, but as often as he could darken his mind behind that -cloud, the edges of it grew dazzlingly bright with the thought of Colin, -and the sun re-emerging warmed and delighted him.... - -Yet he was sorry for Raymond, and presently he would express his -sympathy, coldly and correctly, he was afraid, with regret and truism -and paternal platitudes; but duty would dictate his sentiments. At the -most he could not hope for more than to give the boy the impression he -was sorry, and conceal from him his immensurable pleasure in the news -Colin had made known to him. All these weeks, ever since, on that -morning in Capri, he had learned of Raymond’s engagement and Colin’s -desire, he had never been free from heartache, and his favourite’s -manliness, his refusal to be embittered, his efforts with himself, gaily -heroic, had but rendered those pangs the more poignant. And in the hour -of his joy Colin had shewn just the same marvellous quickness of -sympathy for Raymond’s sorrow, as, when Philip had first told him of the -engagement, he had shewn for Raymond’s happiness. - -“I would have given anything to spare Raymond this, father,” he had -said. “As you know, I kept all I felt to myself. I didn’t let Violet see -how miserable I was, and how I wanted her. And then last night--it was -like some earthquake within. Everything toppled and fell; Vi and I were -left clinging to each other.” - -After Colin, Philip had seen Violet, and she, too, had spoken to him -with a simplicity and candour.... She had already begun to love Colin, -she thought, before she accepted Raymond, but how she loved Stanier. -She had been worldly, ambitious, stifling the first faint calls of her -heart, thinking, as many a girl thought, whose nature is not yet wholly -awake, that Raymond would “do,” as regards herself, and “do” -magnificently as regards her longing for all that being mistress of -Stanier meant to her. Then came Colin’s return from Italy, and the -whisper of her heart grew louder. She could not help contrasting her -lover with her friend, and in that new light Raymond’s attentions to -her, his caresses, his air--she must confess--of proprietorship grew -odious and insufferable. And then, just as Colin had said, came the -earthquake. In that disruption, all that from the worldly point of view -seemed so precious, turned to dross. - -At that point she hesitated a moment, and Philip had found himself -recording how like she was to Colin. With just that triumphant glow of -happiness with which he had said: “Raymond has got Stanier, father, -Violet and I have got each other,” so Violet now, after her momentary -hesitation, spoke to him. - -“Stanier, for which I longed, Uncle Philip, doesn’t exist for me any -more. How could I weigh it against Colin?” - -Colin’s happiness ... nothing could dim that sunshine for his father, -and the sunshine was not only of to-day, it was the sunshine that had -shone on him and Rosina more than twenty years ago. His heart melted -with the love that through Colin reacted on her. Surely she must rejoice -at the boy’s happiness to-day! Raymond, to be sure, was the fruit of her -body also, but it was through Colin that she lived, he was the memory -and the gracious image of her beauty. - -Raymond entered, snapping the golden thread. - -“You wanted to see me, father,” he said. - -Philip had been attempting to drill himself into a sympathetic bearing -towards his son, but Raymond’s actual presence here in succession to -Colin and Violet, brought sheer helplessness. For the brightness and -beam of the others there was this solid self-sufficiency. It seemed as -if a crime had been averted in the transference of the girl to another -bridegroom. What unnatural union would have been made by this mating of -her! His heart sang; it were vain to try to throttle it into silence. - -“Yes, Raymond; sit down,” said he, indicating a place on the sofa where -he sat. - -“Oh, thanks, it doesn’t matter. I’ll stand,” said Raymond. - -“I’ve got bad news for you,” said Philip. “You must brace yourself to -it.” - -“Let’s have it,” said Raymond. - -Philip felt his sympathy slipping from him. He wanted chiefly to get it -over; there was no use in attempting to lead up to it. - -“It concerns you and Violet,” he said. - -A savage look as of a hungry dog from whom his dinner is being snatched, -came across Raymond’s face. - -“Well?” he said. - -“She wished me to tell you that she can’t marry you,” said his father. -“She asks you to set her free from her engagement.” - -The savagery of that sullen face grew blacker. “I don’t accept that from -you,” he said. “If it’s true, Violet will have to tell me herself.” - -Philip made a great effort with himself. “It is true,” he said, “and I -want at once to tell you that I’m very sorry for you. But it would have -been very painful for her to tell you, and it was I who suggested that I -should break her decision to you. I hope you won’t insist on having it -from her.” - -“She has got to tell me,” said Raymond. “And is that all, father? If so, -I’ll go to her at once.” - -“No, there’s more,” said he. - -Raymond’s face went suddenly white; his mouth twitched, he presented a -mask of hatred. - -“And so it’s Colin who has got to tell me the rest,” he said. “Is that -it?” - -“She is going to marry Colin.” - -For a moment Raymond stood perfectly still; just his hands were moving; -knitted together they made the action of squeezing something. Once it -seemed that he tried to speak, but no word came; only the teeth shewed -in his mouth. - -“Colin has got to tell me then,” he said. “I will see Colin first.” - -Philip got up and laid a hand of authority on Raymond’s shoulder. The -boy, for all his quietness, seemed beside himself with some pent-up fury -all the more dangerous for its suppression. - -“You must not see either of them in the state you are in now,” he said. - -“That’s my affair,” said Raymond. - -“It’s mine, too. You’re my son and so is Colin. You must wait till -you’ve got more used to what has happened. And you must remember this, -that a few weeks ago Colin was in the same case as you are now. He loved -Violet, and it was I then, out in Capri, who told him that Violet was -going to marry you. And he took it like a man, like the generous fellow -he is. His first words were: ‘By Jove, Raymond will be happy!’ I shall -never forget that, and you mustn’t either, Raymond.” - -Raymond gave a dry snap of a laugh. - -“I won’t,” he said. “That’s just what Colin would say. Perfect -character, isn’t he? Only last night I found him talking to Violet in -her bedroom. I wasn’t pleased, and he begged me not to be vexed, as I -had got everything. He had taken Violet from me when he said that, or if -not, he came back when Violet was in bed, and got engaged to her then. -Engaged!” - -“Now stop that, Raymond,” said his father. - -“Very good. He was already engaged to her when he told me I had got -everything. You don’t understand Colin. He hates more than he loves. He -has hated me all my life. ‘By Jove, Raymond will be happy!’ I’ll be even -with Colin some day. Now I’m going to see him. Or shall I say: ‘By -Jove, Colin will be happy?’ Then you’ll consider me a generous fellow.” - -Once again Philip tried to put himself in Raymond’s place, and made -allowance for his bitter blackness. His hand went on to the boy’s -shoulder again, with less of authority and more of attempted affection. - -“Raymond, you must do better than this,” he said. “You would be very -unwise to see Colin and Violet just now, but if you insist on doing so, -you shall see them in my presence. I can’t trust you, in the mood you’re -in, not to be violent, not to say or do something which you would -bitterly repent, and which they would find it hard to forgive. And if, -which I deny, Colin has always hated you, what about yourself?” - -Both of them now were on bed-rock. By implication, by admission, by -denial even, they had got down to the hatred that, like a vein of -murderous gold, ran through the very foundation of the brothers’ -existence. Who knew what struggle might have taken place, what prenatal -wrestling in the very womb of life, of which the present antagonism was -but a sequel, logical and inevitable! - -Even as Philip spoke, he half-realised the futility of bringing argument -to bear on Raymond’s nature, for this hatred sprang from some -ineradicable instinct, an iron law on which intelligence and reason -could but perch like a settling fly. He could deny that Colin hated his -brother, he could urge Raymond to show himself as generous as he -believed Colin to have been, but nothing that he could say, no -persuasion, no authority could mitigate this fraternal hostility. And -even while he denied Colin’s animosity, with the evidence he had already -brought forward to back it, he found himself wondering if at heart Colin -could feel the generosity he had expressed, or whether it was not a mere -superficial good-nature, mingled with contempt perhaps, that had given -voice to it. - -Raymond had ceased from the clutching and squeezing of his hands. - -“You don’t know what Colin is,” he said, “and I know it is no use trying -to convince you. I shan’t try. You judge by what you see of him and me, -and you put me down for a black-hearted, sullen fellow, and he’s your -heart’s darling.” - -“You’ve got no right to say that,” said Philip. - -“But can I help knowing it, father?” asked he. - -Philip felt that his very will-power was in abeyance; he could not even -want to readjust the places which his two sons held in his heart, or, -rather, to find place in his heart for the son who had never been -installed there yet. And there would be no use in “wanting,” even if he -could accomplish that. Colin held every door of his heart, and with a -grudging sense of justice towards Raymond, he was aware that Colin would -grant no admittance to his brother. Or was that conviction only the echo -of his own instinct that he wanted no one but Colin there? He had no -love to spare for Raymond. Such spring of it as bubbled in him must fall -into Colin’s cup, the cup that never could be filled. - -How could he but contrast the two? Here was Raymond, sullen in his -defeat, attempting (and with unwelcome success) to put his father in the -wrong, jealous of the joy that had come to Colin, insisting, -Shylock-like, on such revenge as was in his power, the pound of flesh -which would be his, in making a scene with the girl who had chosen as -her heart bade her, and the boy who was her choice. On the other side -was Colin, who, when faced with an identical situation, had accepted his -ill-luck with a wave of welcome for the more fortunate. And Raymond -would have it that that splendid banner was but a false flag, under -cover of whose whiteness a treacherous attack might be made. - -“I don’t know that we need pursue that,” said Philip. “Your feelings are -outside my control, but what is in my control is to be just to you in -spite of them. I have tried to tell you with all possible sympathy -of----” - -“Of Violet’s jilting me,” interrupted Raymond. “And you have clearly -shewn me, father, your sympathy with Colin’s happiness.” - -Philip felt every nerve jarring. “I am not responsible for your -interpretations of myself,” he said, “nor do I accept them. If your -design is to be intolerably offensive to me, you must work out your -design somewhere else. I am not going to have you stop here in order to -amuse yourself with being rude to me, and spoiling the happiness of -others----” - -“Ah! Just so!” said Raymond. “Colin.” - -Philip was exasperated beyond endurance. - -“Quite right,” he said. “I am not going to have you spoiling Colin’s -happiness. And Violet’s. I should have suggested you leaving Stanier for -the present for your own sake, if you had allowed me to show sympathy -for you. As you do not, I suggest that you should do so for Colin’s -sake. You may go to St. James’s Square if you like, and if you can -manage to behave decently, you may stop on there when we come up next -week. But that depends on yourself. Now if you want to see Violet and -your brother you may, but you will see them here in my presence. I will -send for them now, if that is your wish. When you have seen them you -shall go. Well?” - -Suddenly the idea of leaving Colin and Violet here became insupportable -to Raymond. He _had_ to see them as lovers, and hate them for it: his -hate must be fed with the sight of them. - -“Must I go, father?” he said. - -“Yes; you have forced me to be harsh with you. It was not my intention. -Now do you want to see them?” - -Raymond hesitated: if Colin could be cunning, he could be cunning too. -“I should like to see them both,” he said. - -Philip rang the bell, and in the pause before they came, Raymond went -across to the window-seat, and sat there with face averted, making no -sign, and in the silence Philip reviewed what he had done. He had no -wish, as he had said, to be harsh to Raymond, but what possible gain to -any one was his remaining here? He would be a misery to himself, and no -entertainment to others; and yet the boy wanted to stop, thinking -perhaps that thus he would be sooner able to accept the position. It was -impossible to grudge him any feasible alleviation of the blow that, so -far from stunning him, had awakened all that was worst in him. Much must -depend on his behaviour now to Colin and Violet. - -They entered together. Colin looked first at his father; then, without -pause, seeing the huddled figure in the window-seat, went straight to -Raymond. All else, Violet even, was forgotten. - -He laid his hand on Raymond’s shoulder. “Oh, Raymond,” he said, “we’re -brutes. I know that.” - -Philip thought he had never seen anything so exquisite as that instinct -of Colin’s to go straight to his brother. Could Raymond recognise the -beauty of that?... And was it indeed Raymond who now drew Colin on to -the window-seat beside him? - -“That’s all right, Colin,” he said. “You couldn’t help it. No one can -help it when it comes. I couldn’t.” - -He stood up. “Father’s told me about it all,” he said, “and I just -wanted to see you and Violet for a moment in order to realise it. I’ve -got it now. Good-bye, Colin; good-bye, Violet.” - -He went across to his father with hand outstretched. “Thanks ever so -much for letting me go to St. James’s Square,” he said. “And I’m sorry, -father, for behaving as I did. I know it’s no use just saying that; I’ve -got to prove it. But that’s all I can do for the present.” - -He went straight out of the room without once looking back. - -“Is Raymond going away?” asked Colin. - -“Yes. It’s better so.” - -Colin heard this with a chill of disappointment, for among his -pleasurable anticipations had been that of seeing Raymond wince and -writhe at the recasting of their parts. Raymond would have hourly before -his eyes his own rôle played by another, and with what infinitely -greater grace. The part of heroine would be filled by its “creator,” -but, in this remodelled piece, what sparkle and life she would put into -her scenes. Where she had been wooden and impassive, she would be eager -and responsive, that icy toleration would melt into a bubbling liquor of -joy. Then there would be the part now to be filled by Raymond; would he -fill that with Colin’s tact and sweetness? Of minor characters there -would be his father and grandmother, and with what convincing sincerity -now would they fill their places.... But Raymond’s absence would take -all the sting and fire out of the play. - -“Oh, father, does he feel like that?” asked Colin. “Did he feel he -couldn’t bear to stop? I’m sorry.” - -“No, it was I who told him to go,” said Philip. “He behaved outrageously -just now with me.” - -“But he’s sorry,” said Colin. “He wants to do better. Mayn’t he stop? -He’ll be wretched all alone up in London.” - -A sudden thought struck him, a touch of genius. “But it concerns Vi -most,” he said. “What do you vote, darling?” - -“By all means let him stop,” said she. Nothing but Colin’s wish, here -clearly indicated, could have any weight with her. - -“Then may he, father?” he asked. “That is good of you. Come and tell -him, Vi.” - -Raymond was in the hall. He had just ordered his car, and was now about -to telephone to the housekeeper in town to say he was coming, when Colin -and Violet came out of the library. Philip followed them to complete the -welcome, and saw Colin go up to his brother. - -“Raymond, don’t go,” he said. “We all want you to stop. Vi does, father -does, I do.” - -Raymond saw his father in the doorway. “May I stop, then, father?” he -said. - -“By all means. We all wish it,” said he. - -Raymond looked back again at his brother. Colin was standing just below -the portrait of his ancestor, the very image and incarnation of him. - -“I’ve got you to thank, I expect, Colin,” he said. - -Their eyes met; Colin’s glittered like a sword unsheathed in the -sunlight of his hatred and triumph; Raymond’s smouldered in the -blackness of his hatred and defeat. - -“I wish there was anything I could do for you, Ray,” said Colin gently. - - * * * * * - -The entertainment which Colin had anticipated from these alterations in -the cast of this domestic drama did not fall short of his expectations. -He held Raymond in the hollow of his hand, for Raymond’s devotion to -Violet, gross and animal though it had been, gave Colin a thousand -opportunities of making him writhe with the shrewd stings of jealousy, -and with gay deliberation he planted those darts. The _coup de grâce_ -for Raymond would not come yet, his father’s death would give the signal -for that; but at present there was some very pretty baiting to be done. -Not one of those darts, so becomingly beribboned, failed to hit its -mark: a whispered word to Violet which made the colour spring bright and -eager to her face, a saunter with her along the terrace in the evening, -and, even more than these, Colin’s semblance of sparing Raymond’s -feelings, his suggestion that he should join them in any trivial -pursuit--all these were missiles that maddingly pierced and stung. - -No less adequately did Philip and old Lady Yardley fill their minor -parts; he, with the sun of Colin’s content warming him, was genial and -thoughtful towards Raymond in a way that betrayed without possibility of -mistake the sentiment from which it sprang; while Lady Yardley, braced -and invigorated by the same emotion, was strangely rejuvenated, and her -eyes, dim with age, seemed to pierce the mists of the encompassing years -and grew bright with Colin’s youth. - -As regards his own relations with Violet, Colin found he could, for the -present anyhow, manage very well; the old habits of familiarity and -intimacy appeared to supply response sufficient; for she, shuddering -now, as at some nightmare, at her abandoned engagement to Raymond and -blinded with the splendour of the dawn of her love, saw him as a god -just alighted on the gilded and rosy hills.... Colin shrugged his -shoulders at her illusion; she presented to him no such phantasmal -apparition, but he could give her liking and friendship, just what she -had always had from him. Soon, so he hoped, this vision of himself would -fade from her eyes, for even as he had found his father’s paternal -devotion to him in Capri a fatiguing and boring business, so he foresaw -a much acuter _gêne_ that would spring from a persistence of Violet’s -love. No doubt, however, she would presently become more reasonable. - -What above all fed Colin’s soul was to stroll into the smoking-room when -Violet had gone upstairs, and his father had retired to his library, and -to make Raymond drink a cup more highly spiced with gall than that which -had refreshed him in public. Raymond had usually got there first, while -Colin lingered a moment longer with Violet, and had beside him a -liberally mixed drink, and this would serve for Colin’s text: - -“Hullo, Raymond! Drowning dull care?” he asked. “That’s right. I can’t -bear seeing you so down. By Jove, didn’t Violet look lovely to-night -with her hair brought low over her forehead?” - -“Did she?” said Raymond. He tried to entrench himself in self-control; -he tried to force himself to get up and go, but hatred of Colin easily -stormed those defences. “Stop and listen,” said that compelling voice. -“Glut yourself with it: Love is not for you; hate is as splendid and as -absorbing....” - -“Did she?” echoed Colin. “As if you hadn’t been devouring her all the -evening! But we all have our turn, don’t we? Every dog has its day. Last -week I used to see you and Violet; now you see Violet and me. Tell me, -Raymond, does Violet look happy? We can talk so confidentially, can’t -we, as we have both been in the same position? What a ticklish thing it -is to be a girl’s lover. How it ages one! I feel sixty. But does she -seem happy? She used to wear a sort of haunted look last week. I suppose -that was her wonder and her misgiving at a man’s brutal adoration. It -frightened her. As if we weren’t frightened too! Did the idea of -marriage terrify you as it terrifies me? A girl’s adoration is just as -brutal.” - -Colin moved about the room as he spoke, dropping the sentences out like -measured doses from some phial of a potent drug. After each he paused, -waiting for a reply, and drinking glee from the silence. In that same -silence Raymond was stoking his fires which were already blazing. - -“Yes, every dog has its day,” he said, replenishing his glass. - -“And every dog has his drink,” said Colin. “Lord, how you’ll get your -revenge when your day comes! What sweetness in your cup that Vi and I -will never be allowed to come to Stanier again. You’ll like that, -Raymond. You’ll have married by that time. I wonder if it will be the -tobacconist’s girl who’ll have hooked you. You’ll be happier with her -than Vi, you know, and I shouldn’t wonder if Vi will be happier with me -than with you....” - -Still there was silence on Raymond’s part. - -“You must be more cheerful, Raymond,” said Colin. “Whatever you may do -to me hereafter, you had better remember that I’m top-dog just now. I -shall have to ask father to send you away after all, if you don’t make -yourself more agreeable. It was I who made him allow you to stop here, -and I will certainly have you sent away if you’re not kinder to me. You -must be genial and jolly, though it’s a violence to your nature. You -must buck up and be pleasant. So easy, and so profitable. Nothing to -say?” - -There was a step outside, and their father entered. He carried an opened -letter in his hand. - -“I’ve just had a note from the governor of the asylum at Repstow,” he -said. “One of their patients has escaped, a homicidal lunatic.” - -“Gosh, I’ll lock my door,” said Colin. “No use for him. What else, -father?” - -“It’s no joke, Colin. The keeper at the Repstow Lodge was out attending -to the pheasants’ coops this afternoon, and while he was gone a man -vaulted over the fence, frightened his wife into hysterics, and decamped -with his gun and a bag of cartridges. Then he bolted into the woods. -It’s almost certain that he is the escaped lunatic.” - -Raymond, who had been listening intently, yawned. - -“But they’re out after him, I suppose,” he said. “They’ll be sure to -catch him.” - -Colin wondered what that yawn meant.... To any boy of twenty--to himself -anyhow--there was a spice of excitement about the news. It was -impossible not to be interested. But Raymond did not seem to be -interested.... Or did he wish it to appear that he was not interested? - -Colin, with an eye on Raymond, turned to his father. Two or three more -little darts were ready for his brother, at which he would not yawn.... - -“Oh, father,” said he, “come and sleep in my room and we’ll take -watches. What glorious fun. You shall take the watch from midnight till, -till half-past eight in the morning, and then you’ll wake me up, and -I’ll take the watch till five in the afternoon without a wink of sleep. -Then Raymond and Vi can slumber in safety. Now I shall go upstairs and -say good-night to Vi----” - -“Better not tell her about it to-night,” said Lord Yardley. - -“Rather not: we shall have other things to talk about, thanks. But not a -minute before half-past eight, father. Good-night; good-night, Raymond. -Sleep well.” - -Raymond, in spite of these good wishes, passed an almost sleepless -night. If he shut his eyes it was to see Colin’s mocking face floating -on the darkness of his closed lids, and to have echoing in his ears the -mockery of Colin’s jibes. As he passed Violet’s door on his way up to -bed he had heard the sound of speech and laughter from within, and his -jealousy seemed to arrest his tip-toeing steps, so that what he might -overhear should give it the bitter provender it loved. But some new-born -fear of Colin made him go on instead of lingering: Colin seemed -prospered in all he did by some hellish protection; a mysterious -instinct might warn him that there was a listener, and he would throw -open the door and with a laugh call Violet to see who was eavesdropping -on the threshold.... Then after they had laughed and pointed at him, -Colin would shut the door again, locking it for fear of--of a homicidal -maniac--and the talking would go on again till it was quenched in -kisses.... - -He had tossed and turned as on a gridiron, with the thought of Colin and -Violet together to feed and to keep the fire alive. He did not believe -that Colin loved her; if she had not promised to marry himself, he would -not have sought her. It was from hatred of himself that he had given her -a glance and a smile and whistled her to him, so that she threw away -like a scrap of waste-paper the contract that would have installed her -as mistress of the house she adored. Colin had idly beckoned, just to -gratify his hate, and she had flamed into love for him. - -What subtle arts of contrivance and intrigue were his also! He had -wanted to feast that same hatred on the sight of his brother’s defeat -and discomfiture, and a word from him had been sufficient to make his -father revoke his edict and let him remain at Stanier. Thus Colin earned -fresh laurels in the eyes of the others for his compassionate -forbearance, and by so doing accomplished his own desire of having -Raymond there, like a moth on a pin. - -As the hours went on strange red fancies crossed his brain. He imagined -himself going to his father’s room and smothering him, so that next day -he would be master of Stanier, and free to turn Colin out. Not another -hour should he stay in the place. Out he should go, and Violet with him. -Better still would it be to come behind Colin with a noose in his hand, -which he would draw tight round his neck and laugh to see his face go -black and his eyes start from his head with the strangling.... That -would satisfy him; he could forgive Colin when he lay limp and lifeless -at his feet, but till then he would never know a moment’s peace or a -tranquil hour. - -All this week his fever of hatred had been mounting in his blood, -to-night the heat of it made to flower in his brain this garden of -murderous images. And all the time he was afraid of Colin, afraid of his -barbed tongue, his contemptuous hate, above all, of the luck that caused -him to prosper and be beloved wherever he went. Just at birth one stroke -of ill-luck had befallen him, but that was all.... - -Earlier in the evening, he remembered, an idea had flitted vaguely -through his head, which had suggested to him some lucky accident.... He -had purposely yawned when that notion presented itself, so that Colin -should not see that he took any interest in what was being talked about. - -For the moment he could not recollect what it had been; then he -remembered how his father had come into the smoking-room and told them -that a homicidal lunatic had got hold of a gun and was at large, -probably in the park.... That was it; he had yawned then, for he had -pictured to himself Colin strolling through the leafy ways and suddenly -finding himself face to face with the man. There would be a report and -Colin would lie very still among the bracken till his body was found. -Ants and insects would be creeping about him. - -That had been the faint outline of the picture; now in the dark it -started into colour. What if once again Colin’s luck failed him, and in -some remote glade he found himself alone with Raymond? He himself would -have a gun with him, and he would fire it point-blank at Colin’s face -and leave him there. It would be supposed that the escaped mad-man had -encountered him.... - -It was but a wild imagining, born of a sleepless night, but as he -thought of it, Raymond’s eyelids flickered and closed, and just before -dawn he fell asleep. When he was called a few hours later, that was the -first image that came into his mind, and by the light of day it wore a -soberer, a more solid aspect. What if it was no wild vision of the -night, but a thing that might actually happen? - - * * * * * - -No fresh news when they met at breakfast was to hand about the escaped -man; indeed, in answer to an inquiry sent by Lord Yardley to the asylum, -there came the reply that, though search-parties were out after him, -nothing had as yet been seen of him. Colin was engaged to play a round -of golf on the Rye links, and the chance of falling in with him seemed -so remote that soon after breakfast he went off on his motor-bicycle, -promising, in order to soothe Violet’s apprehensions, to travel at the -rate of not less than forty miles an hour. That did not please her -either; in fact, there was no pleasing her about his expedition, whether -he went fast or slow; so he kissed her, and told her to order her -mourning. At the last moment, however, at his father’s wish, he slipped -a revolver into his pocket. - -Raymond, as usual, refused to play golf, and preferred a wander in the -park with a gun as a defensive measure for himself, and as an offensive -measure against the plague of wood-pigeons. They were most numerous in -the woods that lay on the steep slope through which the road to Repstow -passed. That had been Colin’s road, too, and when Raymond set out a -quarter of an hour later, the dust raised by his motor-bicycle still -hung in the windless air. - -Ten minutes walking brought him to the point where the road which -hitherto had lain across the open grass of the park descended into the -big belt of wood which stretched as far as the lodge-gates. On each side -of it the ground rose sharply, covered on the one side by firs and -birches with groundwork of heather, on the other by the oaks of what was -known as the Old Park. According to tradition they were of the plantings -of Elizabeth’s Colin, and for age and grandeur they might well be so, -for stately and venerable they rose from the short deer-nibbled turf, -well-spaced with full freedom for roots and branch alike. No other trees -were on that slope, but these great, leafy sentinels stood each with his -ring of shade round him, like well-tried veterans who have earned their -leisure and the dignified livery of repose. A low wall of grey stone, -some four feet high, mossy and creviced and feathered with small ferns, -separated this Old Park from the road. - -It was among these great oaks that the pigeons congregated, and Raymond -was soon busy with them. This way and that, startled by his firing, they -flew, often wary and slipping out of the far side of a tree and -interposing its branches between him and them so that he could get no -sight of them, but at other times coming out into the open and giving -him a fair shot. Before long the whole battalion of them were in -commotion, wheeling and flying off and returning again, and in an hour’s -time he had shot some forty of them, not reckoning half a dozen more, -which, winged or otherwise wounded, trailed off on his approach, -fluttering on in front of him. Raymond was quite willing to put any such -out of their misery, if they would only stop still and be killed like -sensible birds, but on a hot morning it was too much to expect him to go -trotting after the silly things, especially when he had killed so many. -He took no pleasure in the cruelty of leaving them to die; he was simply -indifferent. - -He had come almost to the end of his cartridges, and if he was to -continue his shooting, he would have to go back to the house for more -ammunition or borrow some from the keeper at the Repstow lodge. That was -nearer than the house, but before going he sat down in the shade of one -of old Colin’s oaks to cool down and have a cigarette. - -For the last hour he had been completely absorbed in his sport; now with -a snap like that of a released spring his mind leaped back to that which -had occupied it as he walked here and saw the dust of his brother’s -motor-bicycle hanging in the air. He had locked up in his mind, when he -began his shooting, all connection with that, his hate, the sleepless -night with its visions that seemed so wild at the time, but which, on -his waking, had taken on so much quieter and more likely an aspect, and -now, when he unlocked his mind again, he found that they had grown like -fungi in the darkness of a congenial atmosphere. They were solid and -mature: where before there had been but a fairy-ring of imagination, -where nightly elves had danced, there were now those red, firm-fleshed, -poisoned growths, glistening and corrupt. - -His subconscious mind poured out its storage: it had been busy while he -was shooting, and wonderfully acute. It reminded him now that a quarter -of a mile further on, the Old Park came to an end, and one clump of -rhododendrons stood behind the wall which ran along the road. Just here -the road took a sharp turn to the right: a man walking along it (or, for -that matter, bicycling along it) would only come into sight of any one -who might happen to be by that rhododendron bush half-a-dozen yards -before he came to it himself, and anything else he might see there (a -gun, for instance) would be at point-blank range. Such a gun-barrel -would rest conveniently on the top of the wall; any one who happened to -be holding the weapon would be concealed between the wall and the -bush.... - -These pictures seemed to be shewn Raymond rather than to be imagined by -him; it was as if some external agency held open the book which -contained them and turned over the leaves. It might prove to be himself -who would presently lie _perdu_ there, but he had no sense of any -personal volition or share in the matter. His hatred of Colin had -somehow taken counsel (even as doctors consult over a bad case) with the -necessity that Colin should die, and this was their advice; Raymond was -but the patient who in the apathy of sickness was going to do as they -told him, not caring much what happened, only conscious that if this -advice was successful in all its aspects, he would be restored to -complete health. - -He hardly knew if he hated Colin any more; all that he was certain of -was that there existed--somewhere--this black dynamic enmity. He hardly -knew whether it was he who was about to shoot Colin, as presently on his -motor-bicycle he would come round that sharp bend by the rhododendron -bush. All that he was certain of was that Colin would presently lie dead -on the road with his face all shattered by the shot. The homicidal -maniac, of course, escaped from the asylum, must have been his murderer. - -There was no use for more cartridges than the two which he now slipped -into his gun. If the fellow hidden behind the rhododendron bush could -not kill Colin with two shots, he could not kill him with twenty, and -Raymond, looking carefully round, began moving quietly down the slope to -the corner, keeping in the shadow of the leafage of the splendid trees. -His foot was noiseless on the cropped plush of the turf, and he passed -quickly over the patches of sun between the shadows of the oaks, pausing -every now and then to make sure there was no one passing along the road -or the hillside, who was within sight of him. But there was no one to be -seen; after the cessation of his shooting, the deer had come back to -their favourite grazing-ground, and were now cropping at the short, -sweet grass, or lying with twinkling ears alert in the shade. No one was -moving up there at the top of the Old Park, where a foot-path made a -short cut to the house from the Repstow Lodge, or the deer would not be -so tranquil, while his own sharp eye assured him that within the circle -of his vision there was none astir. - -His remembrance of the rhododendron bush close to the angle in the road, -was astonishingly accurate. The top of the grey wall was a most -convenient rest for his gun, and a man coming round the corner from the -direction of Repstow would suddenly find himself within six yards of the -barrels. Probably he would never see them at all; there would be just a -flash of flames close to his startled eyes, perhaps even the report of -the explosion would never reach him. - -That was the only imperfect touch in these schemes which had been thus -presented to Raymond; he would like Colin to know, one-half second -before he died, whose hand had pulled the trigger and put a muzzle on -his mocking mouth and a darkness over his laughing eyes, and he -determined that when the beat of Colin’s approaching motor-bicycle -sounded loud round the corner he would stand up and show himself. It -would be all too late for Colin to swerve or duck then, and he should -just see who had the last laugh. Raymond felt that he would laugh as he -fired.... Till that moment it was best to conceal himself from the road, -and he leaned against the wall, crouching a little, with the muzzle of -his gun resting on it.... It was already after one o’clock. Colin would -be here any minute now. - - * * * * * - -A quarter of an hour before, Colin had arrived at the Repstow lodge with -a puncture in his hind tyre. Luck was kind to him as usual; the puncture -had occurred only a few yards down the road, and he could leave his -machine with the lodge-keeper, and send a mechanic from the garage to -repair it and bring it back to the house. For himself, he would take the -short cut through the top of the Old Park back home; that reduced the -distance by at least a half, and on this hot morning the soft-turfed -shade would be pleasant. - -Then a sudden thought struck him, and he asked whether the escaped -madman had been captured; the walk home would be less exciting but -perhaps pleasanter if they had caught him. And again it appeared that -Colin’s affairs were being well looked after; the man had been found on -the other side of the park half an hour ago; cleverly taken, so the -keeper said. He must have been in the woods all night, and they came -upon him as he dozed, seizing the gun he had possessed himself of before -he woke and getting a noose round his arms. - -So that was all right, and Colin, with a smile for the keeper’s wife and -a sixpenny piece for the small child who regarded him with wide, -wondering eyes, set off for the mile walk to the house. He took his -revolver out of his pocket with the intention of giving it to the -keeper, and having it brought up to the house with the bicycle; but then -thought better of it, and, emptying the cartridges out, replaced it. It -made a rather weighty bulge in his coat, but on general principles it -was wise not to leave fire-arms about. - -The thought of Raymond at his pigeon-shooting occurred to him as he -walked, but no sound of firing came from the direction of the Old Park, -which now lay close in front of him, and he supposed that his brother -would have gone home by this time. What a sullen, awkward fellow he was; -how he winced under Colin’s light artillery; how impotently Raymond -hated him.... Colin could not imagine hating any one like that and not -devising something deadly. But Raymond devised nothing; he just -continued hating and doing nothing. - -Colin had come to the beginning of the Old Park; the path lying along -the top of it wound in and out of the great oaks; below to the right lay -the road with the low stone wall running beside it. The road had been -out of sight hitherto, forming a wider circuit, but just below him now -there was a sharp corner and it came into view. - -But what was that bright line of light on the top of the wall just at -that point? Something caught the sun, vividly gleaming. For some reason -he was imperatively curious to know what gleamed there, just as if it -intimately concerned him, and half-closing his eyes to focus it and -detach it from that baffling background of dappled light and shadow, he -saw. Simultaneously and unbidden the idea of Raymond out shooting -pigeons occurred to him. But what was he doing--if it were -Raymond--hidden behind that dark-leaved rhododendron-bush with his gun -resting on the wall and pointing at the road? That was a singular way of -shooting pigeons, very singular. - -Colin’s face broke into one great smile, and he slipped behind one of -the oaks. Looking out he saw that another tree lower down the slope hid -the rhododendron bush from him, and keeping behind the broad trunk he -advanced down the hill in its direction. Twice again, in similar cover, -he approached, and, peering round the tree, he could now see Raymond -close at hand. Raymond’s back was towards him; he held his gun, with the -end of the barrels resting on the top of the wall, looking at the angle -of the road round which, but for that puncture in his bicycle, he -himself would already have come. - -There was now but one big tree between him and his brother, and on -tiptoe, as noiselessly as a hunting tiger, he crept up to it, and, -drawing his revolver from his pocket, he came within ten paces of him. -Then some faint sound of his advance--a twig, perhaps, snapping beneath -his step--or some sense of another’s presence reached Raymond, and he -turned his head quickly in Colin’s direction. He found himself looking -straight down the barrel of his revolver. - -“Raymond, if you stir except to do precisely what I tell you, I shall -shoot,” said Colin quietly. “If you take your eyes off me I shall -shoot.” - -Colin’s finger was on the trigger, his revolver as steady as if a man of -stone held it. - -“Open the breech of your gun,” he said, “and let the barrels drop.... -Now hold it in one hand, with your arm stretched out.... That’s right. -Good dog!... Now lay the gun down and turn round with your back to -me.... Stop like that without moving.... Remember that I am covering -you, and I could hardly miss at this distance.” - -Colin picked up the gun and took the two cartridges out and put them in -his pocket. Not till they clinked against the revolver cartridges that -lay there did he remember that all the time his pistol had been -unloaded. He stifled a laugh. - -“Take off your cartridge-bag, Raymond,” he said, “and put it on the -ground.” - -“There are no more in it,” said Raymond, speaking for the first time. - -“You ill-conditioned swine, do as I tell you,” said Colin. “I shan’t -give you an order twice again.... Well, what you said seems to be true, -but that’s not the point. The point is that you’re to do as I tell you. -Now have you got any more cartridges in your pockets?” - -“No.” - -Colin thought he had better make sure of this for himself, and passed -his hand over Raymond’s coat-pockets. - -“Now you stand just where you are,” he said, “because we’ve got to talk. -But first I’ll put some cartridges in my own revolver. It has been -perfectly empty all this time. Isn’t that damned funny, Raymond, dear? -There were you expecting every moment would be your last, and obeying me -like the sweet, obedient boy you are. Laugh, can’t you? It’s one of the -funniest things that ever happened.” - -Colin lit a cigarette with shouts of laughter. - -“Well, to business,” he said. “Turn round and let’s see your face. Do -you know a parlour-trick called thought-reading? I’m going to tell you -what you’ve been thinking about. You expected me to come round that -corner on my bike; and from behind the wall you were going to fire -point-blank at me. Not at all a bad idea. There was the homicidal -lunatic, you thought, loose in the woods, and my death would have been -put down to him.... But you would have been hanged for it all the same, -because he was taken nearly an hour ago without firing a shot. So I’ve -saved you from the gallows. Good idea of yours, but it had a flaw in -it.” - -Colin came a step nearer his brother, his eyes dancing. - -“Raymond, I can’t resist it,” he said. “You’ve got to stand quite still, -while I smack your filthy face just once, hard. It’ll hurt you, I’m -afraid, but you’ve just got to bear it. If you resist in any way, I -shall tell my father exactly what has happened this morning as soon as I -get in. I shall tell him at lunch before Violet and the servants. I may -settle to tell him in any case; that depends on how our talk goes off. -But if you don’t stand still like a good boy, I shall certainly tell -him. Now! Shut your eyes and see what I’ll give you.... There! It quite -stung my fingers, so I’m sure it stung your face. Sit down; no, I think -you look nicer standing. Let me think a moment.” - -Colin lit another cigarette, and stared at his brother as he smoked it. - -“You’ve been wise about one thing,” he said, “in not attempting to deny -the truth of my pretty thought-reading. You’re beaten, you see; you -daren’t deny it. You’re a whipped cur, who daren’t even growl. Lucky for -you that you’re such a coward.... Now, I’ve settled what to do with you. -As soon as we get in, you shall write out for me a confession. You shall -say that you intended to shoot me, and put down quite shortly and -clearly what your plan was. You shall sign, and my father and I will -sign it as witnesses. He shan’t read it; I will tell him that it is a -private friendly little matter between you and me, and we just want his -signature. - -“I’m devilish good to you, you know; it’s lucky that that affair about -my revolver-cartridges amused me; that, and smacking your face. Then I -shall send your confession to my bank, to be kept unopened there, except -in case of my death, in which case it is to be sent to my father. -That’ll keep you in order, you see. You won’t dare to make any other -attempt on my life, because if it were successful, it would be known -that you had tried to kill me before, and that would be a suspicious -circumstance. How’s your face?... Answer, can’t you?” - -“It’s all right,” said Raymond. - -“Good Lord, I don’t want to know about your face. What do you say to my -proposal? The alternative is that I tell my father and Violet all about -it. I rather fancy--correct me if I am wrong--that he will believe me. -Shocking affair, but true. Answer.” - -“I accept it,” said Raymond. - -“Of course you do. Now pick up your gun. Did you have good sport with -the pigeons? Answer pleasantly.” - -“I got about forty,” said Raymond. - -“And you hoped to get one more at that corner, didn’t you?” - -“Yes.” - -“Damned rude of you to call me a pigeon. I’ll pay you out for that.” - - * * * * * - -Philip was out on the terrace when the two boys came in. Colin took -Raymond’s arm affectionately when he saw him. - -“Hullo, father,” he said. “We’ve had such a ripping morning. I won my -match, and Raymond downed forty pigeons, and they’ve caught the madman. -Oh, my bicycle punctured, by the way, but that was a blessing in -disguise, for I had a jolly walk through the Old Park, and found -Raymond. We’ve had a nice talk, too, and we want you to witness -something for us after lunch.” - -“What’s that?” said Philip. - -“Oh, just a private little arrangement that only concerns us.... Shan’t -we show it father, Ray?” - -“Oh, I think not,” said he. - -Colin raised his eyebrows as he met his father’s glance. “All right,” he -said. “Just as you like.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -Colin was lying on the beach of the men’s bathing-place at Capri after -an hour’s swim. A great wave of heat had swept over Europe, and now, -though it was late in October, the conditions of summer still prevailed. -It might have been June still, and he here with his father, quietly -making the plans that had turned out so well. On this beach it was that -he lay, pondering his reply to Violet’s letter which told him she was -engaged to Raymond. He had thought out his reply here, that -congratulatory reply, saying how delightful her news was, and as for -feeling hurt.... That had been a thorn to Violet, which had pricked and -stung her, as she had confessed. She had confessed it to him between -dusk and dawn on their marriage-night. - -He knew all about it; that casual kiss in the dusk of the yew-hedge the -night before he and his father left for Italy had begun it; his -indifference to her had made her ache, and his arrival back in England -had made the ache intolerable. To be mistress at Stanier had become -worthless to her, and to reward her sense of its worthlessness, had come -the news that she would not be that only.... - -Colin stirred his sun-stained body to get a fresh bed of hot sand and -pebbles for his back. He had absorbed the heat of those on which he had -been lying, but a little kneading movement of his elbow brought him on -to another baked patch. That was gloriously hot; it made him pant with -pleasure, as he anticipated one more cool rush into the sea. He purred -and thought of the lovely days that had passed, of the lovely day that -was here, of the lovely days that awaited him. Quite methodically, he -began at the beginning. - -Violet and he had been married in the first week of October, on the -very day indeed that had been arranged for her marriage with Raymond. -There was a suave brutality about that; he had made Raymond, under some -slight hint of pressure, advocate it. Raymond (under that same hint) had -become marvellously agreeable; he had been almost sentimental and had -urged Violet to be married on that day. He himself would be best man, if -Colin would allow him, instead of being bridegroom. Her happiness, it -appeared, was of greater import to him than his own. - -Little conversations with Colin in the smoking-room, before Colin went -up to say good-night to Violet, were responsible for this Scotch -sentimentality. Raymond had been quite like a noble character in a -sloshy play. He had understood and entered into the situation; he had -given up without bitterness; he had rejoiced at his brother’s happiness -and had been best man. The happy pair had left that afternoon for Italy. - -The attitude which he had forced on Raymond gave Colin the most intense -satisfaction. He had been made to appear to be affectionate and loving, -high-minded and altruistic, and Colin knew what wormwood that must be to -him. It was tiresome enough, as he knew from his experience of the last -fortnight, to be supposed to love when you only liked, but how -infinitely more galling it must be to be supposed to love when you -hated. But he did Raymond justice; a mere hint at publicity for that -paper which lay at his bankers together with his mother’s letters and -that confirmatory line from Uncle Salvatore, produced wonderful results. -Raymond could be bridled now with a single silken thread. - -Colin’s thought turned over that leaf of the past, and pored over the -present--this delightful, actual present. There was the sun baking his -chest and legs, and the hot sand and pebbles warm to his back, while the -cool, clear sea awaited him when the rapture of heat became no longer -bearable. Violet had not come down with him to-day. She had taken to the -rather more sophisticated bathing establishment at the Marina, where -more complete bathing-dresses were worn, and men did not dress and -undress in the full eye of day. Colin quite agreed with her that the -Marina was more suitable for her; this bay was really the men’s -bathing-place and though women could come here if they chose, they were -rather apt to be embarrassing and embarrassed. She would find the huts -at the Marina more satisfactory and still more satisfactory to him was -to be rid of her for a few hours. - -There was a stern, pitiless insistency about love which bored him. He -could not be quite tranquil when, from moment to moment, he had to make -some kind of response. A glance or a smile served the purpose, but when -Violet was there he had, unless he betrayed himself, always to be on the -look out. This love was a foreign language to him, and he must attend, -if he were to reply intelligently. He liked her, liked her quite -immensely, but that which was a tireless instinct to her was to him a -mental effort. It was no effort, on the other hand, to be with Raymond, -for there his instinct of hatred functioned flawlessly and -automatically. - -Colin turned over that page of the present, and cast his eyes over the -future. At the first glance all seemed prosperous there. His father had -aged considerably during the last few months, and just before their -marriage had had a rather alarming attack of vertigo, when, after a hot -game of tennis, he had gone down with Colin to the bathing-pool to swim -himself cool. The boy had not been the least frightened; he had brought -his father to land without difficulty, and on his own responsibility had -telephoned for his father’s doctor to come down to Stanier. The report -had been quite reassuring, but a man who had left his sixtieth birthday -behind him must not over-exert himself at tennis and then bathe. Nature, -the wise old nurse, protested. - -This suggested eventualities for the future; no doubt his father would -now be more prudent and enjoy a long ripe old age. Colin quite -acquiesced; his father had been so consistently good to him that he -scarcely felt any impatience about that. But what this morning occupied -him with regard to the future was the idea, not of his father’s death, -but of Raymond’s. In this uncertain world accidents or illness might -carry off even the strongest and sulkiest, and he himself would then be -in a very odd position. Supposing (as was natural) his father died -first, Raymond (on the strong case that could be built on the evidence -of his mother’s letter to Salvatore and the erasure in the Consulate -archives), would, no doubt, be incontinently “hoofed out” of his -promised land, and Violet be in possession, with him as husband to the -owner. But if Raymond died first, Colin by his juggling would merely -have robbed himself of the birthright which would be rightfully his. It -had been a great stroke to provide at his father’s death for Raymond’s -penniless illegitimacy, and, by himself marrying Violet, to submerge his -own. Not possibly could he have provided for the eventuality of -Raymond’s pre-deceasing his father as well, but now that he had married -Violet it was worth while brooding and meditating over the other. -Something might conceivably be done, if Raymond died first, though he -could not as yet fashion the manner of it. - - * * * * * - -The morning had sped by all too quickly, and by now the other bathers -had gone and the beach was empty, and Colin plunged once more into that -beloved sea. The cool, brisk welcome of it encompassed him, its vigour -seemed to penetrate his very marrow and brain with its incomparable -refreshment, and he began to think of this problem with a magical -lucidity.... - -Colin regretfully left the water and put his clothes into the boat in -which he had been rowed round from the Marina, meaning to dress on the -way there. Young Antonio, the son of Giacomo, Philip’s old boatman, had -brought him round here, and was now asleep in a strip of shadow at the -top of the beach, waiting till Colin was ready to return. There he lay, -with his shirt open at the neck and a carnation perched behind his ear, -lithe and relaxed like some splendid young Faun. The boy’s mouth smiled -as he slept. - -Was he dreaming, thought Colin, of some amorous adventure proper to his -age and beauty? His black hair grew low on his forehead, the black -lashes swept his smooth, brown cheek; it seemed a pity to awake him, and -for a minute or two Colin studied his face. Violet before now had -remarked on his extraordinary resemblance, except in point of colouring, -to Colin, and he wondered if, through his noble Viagi blood, they were -related. He liked to think he resembled this merry Nino; he would almost -have been willing to give him his blueness of eye and golden hair, and -take in exchange that glossy black, which caught the tints of the sky -among its curls. - -Then Nino stirred, stretched a lazy arm and found his hand resting on -Colin’s shoulder. At that he sprang up. - -“Ah, pardon, signor,” he said. “I slept. You have not been waiting?” - -Colin had picked up Italian with great ease and quickness; it came -naturally to his tongue. - -“I’ve been watching you smiling as you slept, Nino,” he said. “What have -you been dreaming about?” - -Nino laughed. “And if I was not dreaming of the signorino himself,” he -cried. - -“What about me?” demanded Colin. - -“Oh, just a pack of nonsense,” he said. “We were in the boat, and it -moved of itself without my rowing, and together we sat in the stern, and -I was telling you the stories of the island. You have heard the most of -them, I think, by now.... Are you not going to dress?” - -“I’ll dress in the boat,” said Colin. “But there’s that story of Tiberio -which you wouldn’t tell me when the signora was with us.” - -“Indeed a story of Tiberio is not fit for the signora. A fat, bald old -man was Tiberio; and as ugly as a German. Seven palaces he had on Capri; -there was one here, and so shameful were the things done in it that, so -the priests say, the sea rose and swallowed it. But I do not know that -the priests are right. They say that, do you think, signor, to frighten -us from the wickedness of Tiberio? And one day Tiberio saw--_scusi, -signor_....” - -How attractive was the pagan gaiety of these young islanders! They -believed in sunshine and wine and amusement, and a very good creed it -was. They took all things lightly, except the scirocco. Love was a -pleasant pastime, an affair of eager eyes and a kiss and a smile at -parting, for had he not seen Nino himself in a corner of the piazza -yesterday making signals to his girl (or one of them), and then -strolling off in the warm dark? They were quite without any moral sense, -but it was ludicrous to call that wicked. Pleasure sanctified all they -did; they gave it and took it, and slept it off, and sought it again. -How different from the bleak and solemn Northerners! - -Imagine, mused Colin, as this really unspeakable history of Tiberio -gaily unfolded itself, encouraging a gardener’s boy to regale you with -bawdy tales. How he would snigger over the indecency, thus making it -indecent; how heavy and dreary it would all be! But here was Nino with -his dancing eyes and his laughing mouth and his “_scusi, signor,_” and -all was well. These fellows had charm and breeding for their birthright, -and, somehow, minds which vice did not sully. - -The end of the story was rapidly told, with gestures to help out the -meanings of recondite words, for they were approaching the Marina, and -Colin’s signora was waiting for him there, as Nino had already seen with -a backward glance.... An amazing moral was tacked on the conclusion of -those dreadful doings of Tiberio, for when Tiberio died, God permitted -the devil to torture him from morning to night as the anniversary of -that orgy came round. - -“But that’s not likely, Nino,” said Colin, deeply interested. “If -Tiberio were so wicked, the devil would not want to torture him. He -would be the devil’s dear friend.” - -Nino took both oars in one hand for a second and crossed himself. - -“What do you do that for, Nino?” asked Colin. - -“It is safer,” said Nino. “Who knows where the devil is?” - -Colin made an admirably apposite remark: a thing that Neapolitans said, -so Mr. Cecil had told him, when they found themselves talking about the -devil, and Nino was duly appreciative. - -“That is good!” said he. “That muddles him up.... Yes, signor, it is as -you say. If Tiberio were very wicked, he and the devil would be very -good friends. Do you believe in the devil, signor, in England?” - -“We’re not quite sure. And in Capri, Nino?” - -“Not when the sky is blue, like ... like the signor’s eyes,” said Nino. -“But when there is scirocco, we are not so certain.” - -The prow of the boat hissed and was quenched against the sandy beach. -There, under the awning of the stabilimento, was Violet, rather fussed -at the leisurely progress of Colin’s boat, for in two minutes more the -funicular would start, and if they missed that there was the dusty drive -up to the town. - -“Quick, darling, quick,” she called out. “We have only a couple of -minutes.” - -“Oh, don’t fuss,” said he. “Run on, if you want to. Nino and I are -talking folk-lore.” - -He felt in his pockets and spoke in Italian again. - -“Nino, I haven’t got a single penny,” he said, “to pay you for your -boat. If you are in the town to-night, come to the villa and I will pay -you. If not, to-morrow. I shall want your boat again at ten.” - -“_Sicuro!_” said the boy. “_Buon appetit._” - -He stepped into the water and held out his bare arm like a rail for -Colin to lean on as he jumped on to the beach. - -“Thanks,” he said. “Same to you, Nino. Villa Stanier; you know.” - -Violet was waiting at the edge of the beach. The midday steamer had just -come in from Naples, and now there was no need to hurry, for the -funicular would certainly wait for the passengers who were landing in -small boats at the quay. - -“Nice bathe, darling?” she said as Colin joined her. - -Colin found himself mildly irritated by her always saying “darling.” She -could not speak to him without that adjunct, which might surely be taken -for granted. - -“Yes, darling,” he said. “Lovely bathe, darling. And you, darling?” - -There was certainly an obtuseness about Violet which had not been hers -in the old days. She seemed to perceive no impression of banter, however -good-natured, in this repetition. Instead, that slight flush, which -Colin now knew so well, spread over her face. - -“Yes, darling, the water was lovely,” she said. “Like warm silk.” - -“Ugh!” said Colin. “Fancy swimming about in silk. What horrible ideas -you have.” - -“Don’t be so literal,” said she. “Just a silky feeling. Look at these -boat-loads of people. Aren’t they queer? That little round red one, like -a tomato, just getting out.” - -Colin followed her glance; there was no doubt whom she meant, for the -description was exactly apt. But even as he grinned at the vividness of -her vegetable simile, a sense of recognition twanged at his memory. The -past, which he had thought over this morning, was sharply recalled, and -somehow, somehow, the future entered into it. - -“Why, that’s Mr. Cecil,” he said, “the Consul at Naples. You must know -him, Vi.” - -Mr. Cecil greeted Colin with welcome and deference. Consular business -had brought him to Capri; he had no idea that Mr. Stanier was here. Was -Lord Yardley here also? - -“No, but somebody much more important,” laughed Colin. “My wife--we’re -on our honeymoon. Violet, this is Mr. Cecil, who was so kind to me when -I was here last. Mr. Cecil’s our Consul at Naples.” - -It was natural that Mr. Cecil should have his lunch with them, though he -pleaded shortness of time. He was going back by the afternoon boat. - -“But you clearly must have lunch somewhere,” said Colin, “and we’ll give -you a very bad one probably, but a quick one if you are in a hurry. Ah, -that’s delightful of you.” - -Colin was hugely cordial, exerting the utmost of his charm. He even -curtailed his siesta in order to walk down with his visitor to the -Consular office in the town, and gratefully promised, on behalf of -Violet and himself, to spend the night at his house on their way back to -England. He wanted that; he had made up his mind to get that invitation, -for it formed part of the plan which had come to him in his final swim -that morning, before he got into Nino’s boat and heard that horrible -scandal concerning Tiberio. He wanted Violet to pass the night at the -Consulate. There might arise emergencies which would render that -convenient. - - * * * * * - -It was like her to have waited for his return instead of going to her -room for the afternoon sleep, and there she was under the pergola where -they had lunched at the far end of the garden. She was sitting with her -back to the garden-door and did not see him enter, and, quick as a -lizard and as silent-footed, Colin tip-toed into the house. If she saw -him, she would discuss Mr. Cecil, she would linger in the garden, and, -as likely as not, linger in his room, and he wanted his nap. If she -chose to sit out under the pergola, it was no business of his; there was -no proof after all that she was waiting for his return. Another day he -would take a sandwich down to the bathing place, and, like Nino, have -his siesta in some strip of shade down there, where no one would disturb -him or wait for him or want to talk with him. Violet was a dear; it was -hardly possible to have too much of her, but just now and then it was -nice to have no one watching you and loving you. - -A couple of hours later he strolled, still coatless, into the great cool -sitting-room; she was already there, waiting to make tea for him. - -“I never heard you come in, darling,” she said. “I was waiting for your -return in the pergola, and then eventually I came in and peeped into -your room, and there you were fast asleep.” - -“Funny I shouldn’t have seen you,” said Colin. “I just went down with -Mr. Cecil to the piazza, and was back in less than half-an-hour. I adore -Mr. Cecil, he enjoys himself so much, and drinks such a lot of wine. A -gay dog!” - -“Oh, I thought he was a dreadful little man,” said Violet. - -“You’re too refined,” said Colin. “You don’t like little red bounders. -By the way, I’ve solemnly promised him that you and I will spend the -night at his house in Naples on our way home.” - -“Darling, how could you?” asked Violet. - -“To please him. He thinks you’re marvellous, by the way. Don’t elope -with him, Vi. Besides it’s a good thing to be friends with a Consul. He -reserves carriages and oils the wheels of travel.” - -“Colin, you’re full of surprises,” said she. “I should have thought Mr. -Cecil was the very type of man you would have found intolerable.” - -Colin laughed. “You don’t allow for my Viagi blood,” he said. “The -bounding Viagi blood. Shouldn’t I love to see you and Uncle Salvatore -together! Now what shall we do? Let’s go for an enormous walk till -dinner-time.” - -She came behind him and stroked the short hair at the back of his neck. - -“Darling, would you mind if I didn’t come all the way?” she asked. “I’m -rather tired; I had a long swim this morning. I’ll start with you, and -make myself comfortable and wait for you to come back.” - -“Don’t come at all, Vi, if you’re tired,” he said. “I can’t have you -tired. And then if you sit down and wait for me, I shall feel you’re -waiting, and hurry in consequence. Besides, I shall have to come back -the same way.” - -“Then I’ll certainly come with you all the way,” said she. “It’s more -laziness with me than tiredness.” - -Colin moved his head out of reach of the caressing fingers as if by -accident. - -“You tickle me,” he said. “And if you’re obstinate, I shan’t go for a -walk at all, and I shall get fat like Mr. Cecil. Stop at home and be -lazy for once, Vi.” - -Colin, as usual, had his own way, and managed in his inimitable manner -to convey the impression that he was very unselfish in foregoing her -companionship. He established her with a book and a long chair, and, -greatly to his own content, went off alone up the steep hillside of -Monte Solaro. It was but a parody of a path that lay through the dense -bush of aspen and arbutus that clothed the slopes, and he would have had -to keep holding the stiff elastic shoots back for Violet to pass, to -have tarried and dawdled for her less vigorous ascent, had she come with -him. But now, having only his own pace to suit, he soon emerged above -this belt of woodland that buzzed with flies in a hot, stagnant air, and -came to the open uplands that stretched to the summit. - -The September rains and the thick dews of October had refreshed the -drought of the summer, and, as if spring were here already, the dried -and yellow grasses, tall and seeding, stood grounded in a new velvet of -young growth, and tawny autumn lilies reared their powdered stamens -laden with pollen. Still upwards he passed, and the air was cooler, and -a wind spiced with long travel over the sea, blew lightly but steadily -from the north-west. Presently he had reached the top; all the island -lay at his feet, and the peaks of the nearer mainland were below him, -too, floating, promontory after promontory, on the molten rim of the -sea. Far away to the west, like the shadow of a cloud, he could just -descry the coast of Corsica; all the world and the glory of the sea lay -at his feet, and how he lusted for it! What worship and fealty was he -not ready to give for the possession and enjoyment of it? - -There was no crime, thought Colin, that he would not commit if by that -the flame of life burned brighter; he would do a child to death or rob a -sacristy of its holy vessels, or emulate the deeds of Tiberius to feed -that flame ... and he laughed to himself thinking of the amazing history -told by Nino with the black eyes and laughing mouth. Surely Tiberius -must have made an alliance and a love-match with evil itself, such gusto -did he put into his misdeeds. In this connection the thought of the -family legend occurred to him. Dead as the story was, belonging to the -mists of mediævalism, you could not be a Stanier without some feeling of -proprietorship in it. - -Naturally, it was up to anybody to make a bargain for his soul with the -devil if he believed in the existence of such things as devils or souls, -and certainly for generations, when sons of his house came of age, they -had either abjured their original benefactor or made alliance with him. -Of course, they had really made their choice already, but it was quaint -and picturesque to ratify it like that.... But for generations now that -pleasant piece of ritual had dropped into misuse: it would be rather -jolly, mused Colin, when he came of age next March, to renew it. - -The edges of his thoughts lost their sharpness, even as the far-off -capes and headlands below melted into the blue field of sea and sky, and -as he lay in the little sheltered hollow which he had found at the very -summit of the peak, they merged into a blurred panorama of sensation. -His life hitherto, with its schemings and acquirings, became of one -plane with the future and all that he meant the future to bring him; he -saw it as a whole, and found it exquisitely good. Soon now he must -return to the love that awaited him in the villa, and before many days -now he must go back to England; a night at the Consulate first with -Violet, and then just a waiting on events till his father’s death or -Raymond’s.... His eyelids dropped, the wind rustled drowsily in his -ears.... - -Colin sat up with a start; he had not been conscious of having gone to -sleep, but now, wide-awake again, it certainly seemed as if his brain -recorded other impressions than those of this empty eminence. Had there -been some one standing by him, or was it only the black shadow of that -solitary pine which his drowsiness had construed into the figure of a -man? And had there been talking going on, or was it only the whisper of -the wind in the dried grasses which sounded in his ears? In any case, it -was time to go, for the sun had declined westwards, and, losing the -flames and rays of its heat, was already become but a glowing molten -ball close above the sea. How strangely the various states of -consciousness melted into each other, though the sense of identity -persisted. Whatever happened that remained.... - - * * * * * - -At the corner of the garden, perched on the wall which ran alongside the -steep footpath up from the town, was a little paved platform, where they -often sat after dinner. There had been a letter for Colin from his -father which had arrived during his walk, and now, holding it close to -his eyes to catch the last of the swiftly-fading light, he communicated -pieces of its contents to Violet. - -“Raymond’s gone back to Cambridge,” he said. “Father seems reconciled to -his absence. That’s funny now; there’s my elder brother an undergraduate -and me a married man and not of age yet. It was touch and go whether it -wasn’t the other way about, Vi.” - -“Oh, don’t, Colin!” said she. “I can’t bear to think of it.” - -“But you did think of it. Wasn’t that a nice surprise for you when I -told you that to marry me didn’t mean giving up Stanier? That made all -the difference.” - -She came close to him. “Colin, don’t be such a brute,” she said. -“There’s just one thing you mustn’t jest about and that’s my love for -you. I wish almost I wasn’t going to get Stanier in order to show you. -Don’t jest about it.” - -“I won’t then. Serious matter! But don’t you jest about getting Stanier. -Vi, if you would move your head an inch I should get more light.” - -“What else does he say?” she asked. - -Colin ran his eyes down the page. “Lots of affection,” he said. “He -wants us back. Uncle Ronald’s down at Stanier, and Aunt Hester. Then -some more affection. Oh, he has had another little attack of giddiness, -nothing to worry about. So we won’t worry. And Aunt Hester’s going off a -bit, apparently, getting to repeat herself, father says. And then some -more affection.” - -Colin lit a match for his cigarette, disclosing a merry face that swam -before Violet’s eyes after the darkness had closed on it again. - -“That’s so like old people,” he said. “Aunt Hester wrote to me the other -day saying she was quite shocked to see how slowly my father walked. -She’s quite fond of him, but somehow it gives old people a little secret -satisfaction to look for signs of breaking up in each other.” - -“Colin, you’ve got a cruel eye sometimes,” said Violet. - -“Not in the least; only a clear one. And then there’s father saying that -Aunt Hester is beginning to repeat herself, and in the same dip of the -pen he repeats himself for the third time, sending us his love.” - -Violet gave a quick little sigh. “At the risk of repeating myself, you -really are cruel,” she said. “When you love, you have to say it again -and again. You might as well say that if you’re hungry you mustn’t ask -for something to eat, because you ate something yesterday.... It’s a -permanent need of life. I hope you don’t think I’m breaking up because I -have told you more than once that I rather like you.” - -“Poor Vi! Sadly changed!” said Colin, teasing her. - -“I have changed,” she said, “but not sadly. We’re both changed, you -know, Colin. A year ago we no more thought of falling in love with each -other than of killing each other. But I don’t call the change sad.” - -Colin felt extremely amiable this evening, pleasantly fatigued by his -walk, and pleasantly exhilarated by his dinner, but he had to stir up -his brains to find a suitable reply. There was the unfair part of it; -Violet talked on this topic without effort; indeed, it was an effort for -her not to, whereas he had to think.... - -“But you call it serious,” he said. “I mustn’t laugh about it, and I -mustn’t weep. What am I to do?” - -“Nothing, darling. I want you just to be.” - -He determined not to let his amiability be ruffled. - -“I certainly intend to ‘be’ as long as ever I can,” he said. “I love -being. It’s wonderfully agreeable to be. And I would much sooner be here -than at Cambridge with Raymond.” - -“Ah, poor Raymond!” said Violet. - -That exasperated Colin; to pity or to like Raymond appeared to him a sin -against hate. - -“My dear, how can you talk such nonsense?” he said. “That’s pure -sentimentality, Vi, born of the dark and the stars. You don’t really -pity Raymond any more than I do, and I’m sure I don’t. I hate him; I -always have, and I don’t pretend otherwise. Why, just now you were -telling me not to mention him, and two minutes afterwards you are -saying, ‘Poor Raymond.’” - -“You were reminding me of what might have happened,” she said. “It was -that I could not bear to think of. But I can be sorry for Raymond. After -all, he took it very well when Uncle Philip told him what we were going -to do. I believe he wanted me to be happy in spite of himself.” - -This was too much for Colin; the temptation to stop Violet indulging in -any further sympathy with Raymond was irresistible. She should know -about Raymond, and hate him as he himself did. He had promised Raymond -not to tell his father of a certain morning in the Old Park, but he had -never promised not to tell Violet. Why he had not already done so he -hardly knew; perhaps he was keeping it for some specially suitable -occasion, such as the present moment. - -“He wanted you to be happy, did he?” he exclaimed. “Do you really think -that? If so, you won’t think it much longer. Now, do you remember the -morning when there was an escaped lunatic in the park?” - -“Yes,” said she. - -“Raymond went out shooting pigeons, and I played golf. My bicycle -punctured, and I walked home through the Old Park. There I found Raymond -crouching behind the wall meaning to shoot me as I came round that sharp -corner of the road. I came close up behind him while he watched for me -by the rhododendrons, and, oh Lord! we had a scene! Absolutely -scrumptious! There was I covering him with my revolver, which, all the -time, hadn’t got a cartridge in it, and I made him confess what he was -up to....” - -“Stop, Colin; it’s not true!” cried she. - -“It is true. He confessed it, and wrote it all down, and father and I -witnessed it; and he signed it, and it’s at my bank now. Perhaps he -thought you would be happier with him than me, and so from unselfish -notions he had better fire a barrel of Number Five full in my face. All -for your sake, Violet! My word, what unutterable bunkum!” - -His hate had submerged him now; that final bitter ejaculation showed it -clearly enough, and it pierced Violet like some metallic stab. He had no -vestige of consideration for her, no faintest appreciation of the horror -of his stinging narrative, which pealed out with some hellish sort of -gaiety. She could not speak; she could only crouch and shudder. - -Colin got up, scintillating with satisfaction. “I promised him not to -tell father,” he said, “which was an act of great clemency. Perhaps it -will be too great some day and I shall. And I didn’t distinctly mean to -tell you, but you really forced me to when your heart began bleeding -for that swine, and saying he wanted to make you happy. Come, Vi, buck -up! Raymond didn’t get me. It was clever of him, by the way, to see his -opportunity when the looney was loose. I rather respected that. Let’s go -indoors and have our piquet.” - -She got up in silence, just pressed his arm, and went up the gravelled -path towards the house. Colin was about to follow when, looking over the -garden-wall, he saw Nino’s figure coming up the path, and remembered he -had told him that, if he were in the town, he might come up to the -villa, and receive the liras he was owed for his boat this morning. - -Instantly the picture of sitting with Nino out here in the dusk, with a -bottle of wine between them, presented itself. Gay and garrulous would -Nino be, that bright-eyed, laughing Faun, more Faun-like than ever at -night, with Tiberian or more modern tales and wonderful gesticulations. -That would be a welcome relaxation after this tragic, irritating talk -with Violet; he was much more attuned to Nino’s philosophy. Indoors -there would be a game of piquet with those foolish pasteboard -counterfeits of kings and queens and knaves, and five liras as the -result of all that dealing and meditation and exchange of cards. That -knave Nino would be far more amusing.... And even piquet was not the -worst of the tedium he would find indoors. There was Violet, clearly -very much upset by his tale; she would be full of yearnings and -squeezings and emotional spasms. To-morrow she would be more herself -again, and would bring a lighter touch to life than she would be -disposed to give it to-night. He really could not spend the evening with -Violet if it could possibly be avoided. - -He called in a low voice to Nino: - -“Signor!” said Nino, with gay, upturned face. - -“Wait ten minutes, Nino,” he whispered. “If I don’t come out again, you -must go. I shall want your boat to-morrow morning. But wait ten -minutes, and then, perhaps, I shall be able to give you a glass of wine -and hear more stories, if you have half an hour to spare.” - -“_Si_, signor,” whispered Nino, pleased at this mystification and -intrigue. - -Colin followed quickly after Violet. She was in the big studio, where a -cardtable was laid, walking up and down still horrified and agitated. -She placed her hands on Colin’s shoulders and dropped her head there. It -required all his self-control not to jerk himself free. - -“Oh, Colin!” she said. “The horror of it. How can I ever speak to -Raymond again? I wish you hadn’t told me.” - -There was blame in this, but he waived his resentment at that for the -present. - -“I wish I hadn’t indeed, darling,” he said, “if it’s disturbed you so -much, and I’m afraid it has. Go to bed now; you look awfully tired; we -won’t have our piquet to-night. We shall neither of us attend.” - -“It’s all so terrible,” she said. “Supposing your bicycle hadn’t -punctured?” - -He laughed. “I remember I was annoyed when it happened, but it was a -blessing after all,” he said. “The point that concerns us is that it -did, and another point is that you’re not to sit up any longer.” - -“But you’d like a game,” she said. “What will you do with yourself?” - -Colin knew his power very well. He turned, drawing one of her hands that -rested on his shoulder round his neck. - -“The first thing I shall do with myself is to take you to your room,” he -said, “and say good-night to you. The second is to sit up for another -half-hour and think about you. The third to look in on tiptoe and see -that you’re asleep. The fourth, which I hope won’t happen, is to be very -cross with you if you’re not. Now, I’m not going to argue, darling.” - -The ten minutes were passing, and without another word he marched her -to her room, she leaning on him with that soft, feminine, clinging -touch, and closed her Venetian shutters for her, leaving the windows -wide. - -“Now promise me you’ll go to sleep,” he said. “Put it all out of your -mind. Raymond’s at Cambridge. You’ve got not to think about him; I -don’t. Good-night, Vi!” - -At the door he paused a moment, wondering if she had heard him speak to -Nino over the wall. In case she had, it were better to conceal nothing. - -“I’m just going downstairs to give Nino what I owe him for his boat this -morning,” he said. “I told him to come up for it. I shall just peep in -on you, Vi, when I go to bed. If you aren’t asleep, I shall be vexed. -Good-night, darling!” - -Colin went downstairs again and opened the garden door into the road. -There was Nino sitting on the step outside. He beckoned him in and shut -the door behind him. - -“Come and have a glass of wine, Nino,” he said. “Come quietly, the -signora has gone to bed.” - -He led the way into the dining-room, and brought out a bottle of wine. - -“There, sit down,” he said softly. “Cigarettes? Wine? Now for another of -your histories only fit for boys to hear, not women. So Tiberius had -supper with a gilded girl to wait on him, and a gilded boy to give him -wine. And what then?” - -The atrocious tale shocked nobody; this bright-eyed Nino was just a Faun -with the candour of the woodland and the southern night for conscience. -In face and limb and speech he was human, but not of the humanity which -wrestles with evil and distrusts joy. And just as Colin knew himself to -be, except in his northern colouring, another Nino in bodily form, so, -in a resemblance more remarkable yet, he recognised his spiritual -kinship with this incandescent young pagan. Violet, he thought, had once -been like that, but this love had come which in some way had altered -her, giving her a mysterious fatiguing depth, a dim, tiresome profundity -into which she seemed to want to drag him too. All her charm, her -beauty, were hers still, but they had got tinged and stained with this -tedious gravity. She had lost the adorable soullessness, which knew no -instinct beyond its own desire, and on which no frost of chill morality -had ever fallen.... - -Colin had been hospitable towards Nino’s glass; the boy was becoming -Faun and Bacchant in one; he ought to have had a wreath of vine-leaves -in his hair. It amused Colin to see how gracefully intoxication gained -on him; there would be no sort of _vin triste_ about Nino, only a -livelier gesticulation to help out the difficulties of pronunciation. - -“And then the melancholy seized Tiberius,” said Nino with a great -hiccup, “for all that he had done, and it must be a foolish fellow, -signor, who is melancholy for what he has done. I would be more likely -to get the melancholy when I was old for the things I might have done -and had not. And the signor is like me, I think. Ah, thank you, no more -wine. I am already half tipsy. But it is very good wine.” - -“Talk yourself sober, then, Nino,” said Colin, filling his glass. - -“What, then, shall I tell you? All Capri is in love with the signora and -you, some with one and some with the other. It was thought at first that -you must be brother and sister, so like you are, and both golden. You -were too young, they thought, to be married; it was playtime still with -you.” - -“Are you going to marry, Nino?” asked Colin. - -“There is time yet. Presently perhaps. I do not reap in spring.” - -There spoke the Faun, the woodland, the drinker of sweet beverages, who -drank with filled cup till the drink was done, and wiped his mouth and -smiled and was off again. By a luxury in contrast, Colin envisaged -Violet lying cool and white in the room above, sleeping, perhaps, -already in answer to the suggestive influence of his wish, while he -below breathed so much more freely in this atmosphere of Fauns, where -nothing was wicked and nothing was holy, and love was not an affair of -swimming eyes and solemn mouth. Love was a laugh.... Nino, the handsome -boy, no longer existed for him in any personal manner. Nino was just -part of the environment, a product and piece of the joyous paganism with -which the night was thick. The pale-blue flower of the plumbago that -clothed the southern wall of the house nodded in the open window-frame; -the stir of the wind whispered; the star-light, with a moon lately -risen, all strove to be realised, and, Nino seemed some kind of -bilingual interpreter of them, no more than that, who, being boy, spoke -with human voice, and, being Faun, spoke the language of Nature, cruel -and kindly Nature, who loved joy and was utterly indifferent to sorrow. -She went on her course with largesse for lovers and bankruptcy for the -bilious and the puritan. She turned her face away from pain, and, with a -thumb reversed, condemned it. She had no use for suffering or for the -ugly. The bright-eyed and the joyful were her ministers, on whatever -errand they came. Thought and tenderness and any aspiration after the -spiritual were her foes, for in such ascetic fashion of living there was -sorrow, there was fatigue and striving. - -Colin was at home here. Like a fish put back into water, after a panting -excursion into a rarefied air, his gills expanded again, and drank in -the tide. - -“And have you chosen your girl yet, Nino?” he asked. - -“_Dio!_ No. I am but twenty. Presently I will look about and find who is -fat and has a good dowry. There is Seraphina Costi; she has an elder -brother, but the inheritance will be hers. He passes for the son of -Costi, but we all know he is no son of Costi. It was like this, Signor -Colin....” - -“_Si_, Signor Nino,” said Colin. - -“_Scusi!_ But to me you are Signor Colin. No, with loving thanks, no -more wine. My father says it is a waste to drink good wine when one is -drunk. My father was boatman to your father before you and I were born. -That is strange to think on; how the old oaks flourish and bear leaf -still. Two stepmothers already have I had, and there may be a third yet. -Have you stepmothers, signor? I would put all old women out of the way, -and all old men. The world is for the young. Sometimes I think to -myself, would it not be very easy to put my hands round my father’s -neck, and squeeze and squeeze again, and wait till he was still, and -then leave him thus and go to bed. They would find him there in the -morning; perhaps I should be the first to find him, and it would be said -that he had died in his chair, all cool and comfortable.” - -Colin was conscious of some rapturous surprise at himself in his -appreciation of the evening as it was, compared with the evening as it -might have been. Normally, he would have played a couple of games of -piquet with Violet, and thereafter have drowsily rejoined her. There -would have been whispers of love and then sleep, all that was already -routine to him. Instead, he, through the medium of this wonderful Faun, -was finding himself, and that was so much better than finding Violet. -Nino, with those swift gesticulations, was shewing him not Nino, but -himself. But by now the boy was getting extremely drunk--the vision was -clouding over. There was time for just another question or two. - -“But aren’t you afraid of Satana?” asked Colin, “if you kill your -father?” - -“Why should I be afraid? Satana is a good friend to me and I to him. Why -should we fall out, he and I?” - -Those full eyelids drooped, and as, on this morning, the lashes swept -the brown cheek. - -“Nino, you must go to bed,” said Colin. - -“_Si_, signor! But I doubt if I could carry myself down to the Marina -to-night. I have the legs of the old woman, as I shall know when I come -to stand up. May I sleep myself sober in your garden beside the cistern? -It is the signor’s fault--_scusi_--that I am thus; my fault for taking, -but his for giving.” - -Colin rapidly pondered this.... Should Violet be wakeful and open her -Venetian blinds, she would surely see him there. He pointed to the sofa -against the wall. - -“Lie down there, Nino,” he said, “and I will bring you a rug. You will -be more comfortable than on the gravel. You must be off before dawn. -Just wait a minute.” - -Colin kicked off his shoes, so as not to disturb Violet, ran upstairs -and peeped into her room. There was silence and stillness there, and -going into his dressing-room next door, he picked up a folded rug off -his bed, and went downstairs with it. Nino was bowed over the table, -helpless and inert, and Colin choked down a spasm of laughter within -him. - -“Nino, wake up for one minute,” he said. “Put your arm round my neck and -let me lay you down. Oh, do as I tell you, Nino!” - -Nino leaned his whole weight on Colin’s encircled neck, and was laid -down on the sofa. Colin loosed the smart tie with which he had adorned -himself for this visit to the villa, and unbuckled his leather belt, and -taking out a ten lira note from his purse, he thrust it into Nino’s -breast-pocket. - -“I’ve put ten liras in your pocket, Nino; don’t forget.” - -“But that is too much, signor,” murmured Nino with a guarding hand on -his pocket. - -“Not for such an agreeable evening. Good-night; I shall want you and -your boat again to-morrow morning.” - -“_Sicuro!_ _Felice notte_, signor.” - -Colin went up to bed with no desire for sleep, for his blood tingled and -bubbled in his veins. He wished now, amusing though it had been, that he -had not made Nino tipsy so soon, for he longed to continue holding up -the mirror to himself. In that reflecting surface he could see much that -he had only suspected in himself, and this Nino unwaveringly confirmed. -Never, till Nino had so gaily asserted that he did not fear the devil, -for the devil was his very good friend, had Colin so definitely realised -that, whatever the truth about his Elizabethan ancestor might be, he had -accepted the legend as his own experience. - -Twice before had some inkling of this come into his mind, once when -lying here and listening to his father’s footfall on the terrace below -he had realised that hate was as infinite as love, and once again this -afternoon, when betwixt sleeping and waking on the top of Monte Solaro, -he had received the impression of taking part in some dream-like -colloquy. But on both these occasions he had but dealt in abstractions -and imaginings, to-night Nino had shown him himself in the concrete. Ah, -how good it was to be so well looked after, to have this superb youthful -vitality, this rage for enjoyment; above all, never to be worried and -perplexed by any conflict of motives; never to feel the faintest -striving towards a catalogue of tedious aspirations. To take and never -to give, to warm your hands at the glowing fires of hate and stoke those -fires with the dry rubbish called love.... It was worth any price to -secure immunity from these aches and pains of consciousness. - - * * * * * - -Colin announced to Violet his intention of taking his lunch down to the -bathing-place next morning, and having his siesta there, and he saw with -impatient amusement that she instantly put out of sight the fact that -she would spend a solitary day and thought only of him. - -“That will be lovely for you,” she said. “You’ll get a long enough bathe -for once, and not have to break it off to get back to lunch.” - -“And what will you do?” he asked. - -“Think of you enjoying yourself,” said she. - -Colin marvelled in silence. That was a good instance of the change in -Violet; in the old days she would at the most have acquiesced, if -argument were useless. Now the only argument that seemed to have any -weight with her was his enjoyment. Anyhow they were at one about that. - -Colin spent a most satisfactory day. There was Nino waiting for him at -the Marina rather heavy-eyed, but looking precisely as a Bacchant should -after a characteristic night. - -“You were wonderfully drunk last night, Nino,” said Colin, as they -pushed off over the waveless bay. - -Nino grinned. “_Molto, molto!_” he said cheerfully. “But I slept well, -and I shall bathe, and then it will be as if I had drunk no more than a -glass of water.” - -“And will you confess that to the priest?” asked Colin. - -“It may have gone from my mind,” said Nino. “God only remembers -everything. And indeed I do not know much about last night, but that I -enjoyed myself.” - -“That’s all that is worth remembering about anything,” remarked Colin. - -A long bathe followed, and a bask on the beach and again a bathe. Then -came lunch, lying in a strip of shadow and stories from Nino, and sleep, -and it was not till late in the afternoon that Colin found himself -reluctantly loitering back to the villa where Violet awaited him. He -beguiled himself with wondering what he would do if she were not there; -if, as in some fairy-tale, she had disappeared leaving no trace behind. -But hardly had he come within sight of the white garden wall when he saw -her out on the balcony of his room. She waved at him, as if she had gone -there to catch the first sight of him, and then disappeared. Next moment -she was at the garden-gate, walking down to meet him. Was there news, -perhaps from England. Raymond? His father? - -“What is it?” he asked, as he came within speaking distance. “Nothing -wrong?” (“Nothing right?” would have expressed his thought more -accurately.) - -“Nothing,” said she, “I only came to meet you. Nice day?” - -“Delicious. Long bathe, good lunch, long sleep. Stories from Nino.” - -Colin hesitated a moment. He was rather curious to see what Violet would -think of last night. - -“Nino’s an amusing youth,” he said. “He came up here as I told you, for -the money I owed him, and so I gave him a glass of wine, two in fact. He -told me the most horrible tales about Tiberius and others, and then got -frightfully drunk. He simply couldn’t walk, and slept on the sofa in the -dining-room.” - -“Oh, Colin, how disgusting!” said she. “I hope you’ve said you don’t -want his boat any more.” - -“I’ve said nothing of the kind. I want it every day.” - -Violet had nothing to say to this, and Colin felt his irritation at her -rising. - -“Well, what is it?” he said. “Why shouldn’t Nino get drunk?” - -“But you shouldn’t have let him, Colin,” said she. “It’s coarse.” - -“But I come of a low family,” said he. “Viagi one side and Stanier on -the other. How many generations of Staniers have got drunk most nights -of their lives?” - -Violet stopped at the gate. “What would you think of me, Colin, if I -took that little girl who helps in the kitchen and made her drunk?” she -asked. - -“I should think you were a very odd young woman,” said Colin. “But I -should be all for your doing what you wanted to.” - -“Whatever it is?” - -“Don’t you think so? Most people don’t want to do anything at all; it’s -certainly better to do anything than nothing. You may make Maria drunk -as often as you please provided you assure me that you really like it.” - -“I infer that you liked making Nino drunk.” - -Colin clapped his hands. “Bravo!” he said. “You’ve guessed right. I -wanted to find out when Nino was most himself, tipsy or sober, and now I -know that it is sober. I shan’t make him drunk again. I longed to see -pure Faunishness, but Nino sober is Faunier than Nino drunk.” - -“Faunishness?” asked she. - -“Yes, joyful, immoral, wicked, lovely nature. Without a rag to cover, -not its shame, but its glory. Nino is naked sober. He was too heavenly -last night, before--er--the coarseness. He thought of killing his father -because he keeps giving him stepmothers, and is generally rather in the -way. And when I asked him if he weren’t afraid of the devil, he said: -‘Why should I be? The devil is a very good friend to me.’ Wasn’t that -queer? Just as if he were a Stanier. I felt as if Nino were my brother; -though, of course, he could never supplant Raymond in my heart. But then -Raymond’s my twin: that is why we are so wrapped up in each other.” - -Violet felt as if some light-winged creature was settling on her now -here, now there, and stinging her. Just so did Colin make her wince. - -“And as for the wickedness--or coarseness, was it not?--of making any -one drunk,” he added, “I don’t agree with you. If people are most really -themselves when they are rather tipsy, they should be rather tipsy as -often as possible. When is Uncle Ronald at his best? Why when his dear -nephew has been sitting by him after dinner, and filling up his glass -for him. Let’s have tea.... Oh, dear, I can’t do right. I did wrong to -tell you about Raymond yesterday, and I did wrong to tell you about Nino -to-day. I shall lead a double life, darling, and tell you nothing.” - -Dimly, as he spoke, Violet was aware of some reverberation of dismay -that his words and his manner stirred in her. Was Colin really like -that? Were those light words just gibes and jokes--not very pleasant -ones--or were they authentic glimpses of himself? It seemed that her -very faith was at stake; at all costs she must refuse to acknowledge so -unthinkable a possibility.... That could not be Colin; he was just -teasing her. She must reply with the same outrageousness. - -“Darling, lead more than a double life,” she said. “Such lots of people -do that. Lead three or four. I’ll do the same. We’ll have as many lives -as a cat between us.... Now tell me some of Nino’s stories, or I shall -be afraid that they weren’t what mother might call quite nice.” - -“I don’t think for a moment she would call them quite nice,” said he. - - * * * * * - -The month of Indian summer, with warm days and windless nights, passed -by in golden procession, but now with the deepening of autumn the -_ponente_ from the west, veering sometimes to a chillier quarter sucked -the basking out of the bathing, and the evenings grew long with the -passage into November. The sunshine lost its force, rain was scribbled -across it, the grey sea-clouds expunged it, the wind roared in it. It -was like passing out of daylight into some dank and dripping tunnel, -where windows are closed and voices silent, and the magic of the day is -quenched. More tunnel-like even was a certain darkness that fell between -the two yet on their honeymoon, and in that darkness they grew apart -like strangers; they were just passengers who chanced to be together in -the same compartment. - -To Violet that darkness consisted of her own ignorance, or so she felt -it, of what Colin really was, and in proportion as she began to guess at -him, it grew of more nightmare-like impenetrability. He had his moods of -entrancing charm, of eager affection, but now these seemed more like -some will-o’-the-wisp dancing above a marsh, than a flame that while it -consumed, yet fed her and warmed her. His light was not meant for her, -it only happened to fall on her; she was in the circle of its -brightness. - -She could not avoid pursuing the thought and seeing where it led her. -She could see no change in him, she perceived that he had always been -like this, and that it was her own light, so to speak, the illumination -of her love which had revealed him to her. - -She began to question who or what it was that shed that charm and evoked -that enchantment, and shuddered at her own conjecture. Hints as to that -came from other quarters: there was his complete indifference as to his -father’s health; true, Lord Yardley had told him not to worry, for there -was no cause for that, but how could the son of so devoted a father be -so immune to any sort of anxiety? Not less significant was his attitude -towards Raymond, that, namely, of contemptuous hate. He despised Raymond -(that was clear) for his failure to kill him, he hated him, not for -having made his attempt so much as for being Raymond. - -And there was a puzzle for Violet. Raymond, from what Colin had told -her, could now never stand in his way; and at Lord Yardley’s death he -would simply cease to exist as an obstacle to all that Colin desired. -But Colin still hated; it was just the fact of Raymond, not the fact of -Raymond having planned to kill him. And there, indeed, was a true flame -burning. Colin’s feeling about Raymond had an authentic heat of its own. -Hate, in fact, was real to him in a way that love was not. - -There was yet one more puzzle. Colin was determined to spend the night -at the house of the British Consul in Naples. Not once or twice only, -but constantly, he alluded to this. If he wanted it, Violet knew that he -would get it, and for herself it made no great matter. She considered -Mr. Cecil a “little red bounder,” as Colin had phrased it, and could not -understand his insistence on the point. He got impatient now when, he -having alluded to their night in Naples, she asked why he wanted it, and -his answer, the same as ever, that it would please Mr. Cecil, who was a -useful little red bounder, carried no conviction. There was something -behind and she could not conceive what it was. - -The day of their departure was still uncertain, when a second morning of -driving rain caused Colin to come down to breakfast with his mind made -up. - -“It’s quite intolerable,” he said. “Capri without the heat and sun is -like a pantomime without the fairies. What a cursed place; it only -exists in the summer. Let’s go to-day, Vi. We’ll catch the midday -boat.” - -“But it goes in two hours,” said she. - -“The sooner the better.” - -“But, darling....” she said. - -“Oh, Lord, throw your things into your boxes, and sit on them, darling!” -said Colin. “If they’re spoiled you shall have new ones. But I can’t -endure this island any more. We ought to have left before the weather -broke, instead of stopping on.” - -“But I really don’t think I can be ready,” she said. “Besides, you -wanted to stay the night with Mr. Cecil. You can’t pounce on him.” - -“As a matter of fact, I’ve just sent Giuseppe down to the telephone -office to say that we shall arrive to-night,” said Colin. - -Violet felt a justifiable rebellion at this; she choked it down with a -not very convincing lightness. - -“But, darling, you’re being too autocratic,” she said. “How would it be -if you went and I caught you up to-morrow? Then you could have your -adorable Mr. Cecil all to yourself.” - -Colin turned on her with a blaze of white fury in his eyes. Of that she -caught one glimpse, authentic and terrifying. Then, as if by some -magical and instantaneous solvent, it melted before he spoke into his -most charming mood. - -“I know I oughtn’t to have telephoned, darling, until I had consulted -you,” he said. “But it’s your fault; you’ve spoiled me. You’ve made me -think that if I want to do a thing very much, you’ll agree to it. I -apologise. It was stupid of me. Now if you really don’t want to come, -just say so, and I’ll run down to the town and reverse my first message -if it has gone. It shall be exactly as you like.” - -Violet had to take one moment to steady herself. That glimpse of Colin, -the most complete she had had yet of something that lay below, had -gripped her very soul with terror. That stabbed at her and passed, and -from whence it had come she knew not, nor whither it had gone. Only -Colin remained. - -“My dear, of course I’ll come,” she said. - -“Ah, that’s delicious of you,” said he. - -She went upstairs to tell her maid to pack everything at once, as they -were off this morning. She found her knees trembling with the effect of -that moment of abject terror, but already, in its vanishing, it had -taken away with it any impression that could be analysed. Just that -stroke, stunning as a blow, and then Colin again. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -For many years now with Philip Yardley a widower and his mother old, -Stanier had withdrawn itself from the splendour of its traditional -hospitalities, but now with the installation of Violet and Colin there, -on their return from Italy, it blossomed out again into lavish and -magnificent flower. Throughout November a succession of parties -assembled there for the pheasant shooting, and in the early frosts of -that December the wild fowl, snipe and duck and teal in the marshes, and -the unprecedented abundance of woodcock in the park, gave an added -lustre to the battues. In the evening, after an hour’s concert, or some -theatrical entertainment for which the artists had come from London or -Paris, the band reassembled in the long gallery, and dancing kept the -windows bright almost till the rising of the late dawn. - -There were many foreign royalties in England that year, and none left -without a visit to Stanier, accompanied by cousins of the English house. -Stanier, in fact, opened its doors, as in the days before the stroke -fell on Philip’s father, and fairly outshone its own records for -magnificence. Colossal in extravagance, there was yet nothing insensate -in its splendour; it shone, not for purposes of dazzling, but only as -reasserting its inherent and historical gorgeousness. - -Violet seemed born to the position which she now occupied. While Colin’s -father lived, it was his pleasure that she should be hostess here, and -she picked up the reins, and drove the great gold coach along, as if she -had been born and trained all her life for that superb rôle. She and -Colin, at Philip’s wish, occupied the wing which was only tenanted by -the heir and his wife, and though at his death, so he supposed, they -would not step from porch to possession, he loved to give them this -vicarious regency. - -Out of the silver safe there had come for her the toilet set by Paul -Lamerie, boxes and brushes, candle-stick and spirit lamp, and, above -all, the great square mirror mounted on a high base. Amarini of -chiselled metal supported it on each side; there was no such piece known -in museum or royal closet. A double cable-band encircled the base, and -the man who was in charge of the plate showed Colin how, by pressing a -stud in the cable just above the maker’s mark, the side of the base -sprang open disclosing a secret drawer. For some reason not even known -to himself, Colin had not passed on that curious contrivance to Violet. - -Then Philip had brought out for her, as Colin’s wife, those incredible -jewels, which his mother, tenant for life, had long suffered to repose -in their chests, and one night she gleamed with the Stanier pearls, -another she smouldered among the burning pools of the rubies, another -she flashed with the living fire of those cascades of diamonds, and more -than once she wore the sapphire to which so strange a story was -attached. Some said that it had once belonged to the regalia, and that -Elizabeth had no more right to give it to her favourite who founded the -splendour of to-day, than she had to bequeath to him the sceptre of her -realm, but though twice an attempt had been made on the part of the -Crown to recover it, once at Elizabeth’s death, and once with the coming -of the German Dynasty, the Crown had not proved successful on either of -these inauspicious occasions, and had to content itself with what it -had. - -This great stone was of 412 carats in weight, soft cornflower blue in -colour, and matchless in aqueous purity. How it had got among the Crown -jewels none knew, but its possession was even then considered a presage -and a fulfilment of prosperity, for, beyond doubt, Elizabeth had worn it -on her withered breast every day while her fleet was sailing to -encounter the Armada. By tradition the wearer was decked with no other -jewels when it blazed forth, and indeed its blue flame would have -withered any lesser decoration. It figured in the Holbein portrait of -its original possessor in the Stanier line, as a brooch to Colin’s -doublet, and there once more, impersonating his ancestor, Colin wore it -at the fancy dress ball which concluded the last of these December -parties. This took place the night before Raymond came back from -Cambridge. - -Strange undercurrents, swirling and eddying, moved so far below the -surface of the splendour that no faintest disturbance reached it. -Admirable as was the manner in which Violet filled her part, it was not -of her that Philip thought, or at her that he looked, when he waited -with her and Colin for the entrance of royal visitors before dinner in -the great hall. Day after day the glass doors were opened, but to his -way of thinking it was neither for Violet nor for them that they swung -wide, but for Colin. His own life he believed to be nearly consumed, but -about the ash of it there crept red sparks, and these, too, were -Colin’s. All his emotions centred there. It was for him and his -matchless charm, that these great gatherings were arranged. Philip -obliterated himself, and feasted his soul on the sight of Colin as lord -of Stanier. While Raymond lived that could never come to pass, but he -beguiled himself with the fantasy that when his own eyes grew dim in -death, Colin’s splendour would light the halls from which he himself had -faded. That of all the material magnificence of which he still was -master, had power to stimulate him; sceptical of any further future for -himself, and incurious as to what that might be, if it existed at all, -the only future that he desired was for the son on whom all his love was -centred. He knew that he was cheating himself, that this sight of Colin -playing host at Stanier was one that, in all human probability, would -never after his death be realised, but it was in his power now to give -Colin a taste of it, and himself share its sweetness. For this reason he -had arranged that these gorgeous weeks of entertainment should take -place before Raymond got back from Cambridge, for with Raymond here, -Raymond, the heavy and the unbeloved, must necessarily exclude Colin -from the place which his father so rapturously resigned to him. At -Christmas there would be just the family party, and he would be very -civil to his eldest son. - -Such was the course pursued by one of these undercurrents; two others -sprang from Violet, one in direct opposition to that of her -father-in-law. For she knew that, so far from his death dethroning her -and giving the sovereignty to Raymond, it but passed on to her with -complete and personal possession. Could his spirit revisit these earthly -scenes, it would behold her in ownership on her own account of all the -titles and splendours that had been his. Raymond--there alone her -knowledge marched with his desire--would be without status here, while -for Colin there would be just such position as his marriage with her -gave him. She, exalted now by Philip’s desire, to play hostess in virtue -of her marriage, would be hostess indeed hereafter, and Colin host -through his relationship to her. - -These weeks had given her a hint, a foretaste, of what would be hers, -and once more, as in her maidenhood, she felt that she would have made -any marriage in order to robe herself thus. The splendour of what she -was lent had set light to her old ambitions again, and this was all to -be hers, not lent, but her own. She would enter into the fabled -inheritance of the legend, that legend to which, for its very -remoteness, she had never given two serious thoughts. But now, though it -still wore, like a cloak over its head, its unconvincing mediævalism, -the shape of it vaguely outlined and indifferently regarded, had -something sinister about it. It did not matter; it was only an ugly -shadow in the background, but now she averted her eyes from it, instead -of merely not noticing it. - -Here, then, was the second undercurrent, which, sluggish and veiled, yet -steadily moved within her. For though with the passing of the -inheritance to her, it would be she who came within the scope and focus -of the legend, which, frankly, when looked in the face, presented that -meaningless, age-worn countenance, she felt that she was in the grip of -it not directly but, somehow, through Colin. She told herself that by no -combination of diabolical circumstance could that be; for, with the -knowledge that was hers about the date of Colin’s birth and his mother’s -marriage, it was he, he and Raymond, who had passed out of reach of the -parchment with its promises and its penalty. Yet instinct, unconvinced -by reason, told her that it was through Colin that she and the children -she would bear him, would be swept into the mysterious incredible eddy. -Was it the persistent luck that attended him which induced so wildly -superstitious a presage? Like some supernaturally protected being, he -passed along his way. Raymond’s attempt to kill him had, by the merest -most fortuitous circumstance of a punctured tyre, led to Raymond’s utter -helplessness in his hands.... Colin moved on a charmed pilgrimage, -idolised and adored by herself, by his father, by all who came in -contact with him and, she was beginning to see, he had no spark of love -in him that was kindled by these fires. Analyse him and you would find -no faintest trace of it. Perhaps, in spite of his twenty-one years now -so nearly complete, he had remained a child still in respect of the -heart’s emotions. Yet who could hate like Colin? Who, so she shuddered -to think, could have shewn, though but for a second, so white-hot a mask -of fury as he had once turned on herself? - -She could not succeed in forgetting that, and all Colin’s warmth and -eagerness of affection to her ever since, could not wash that out. All -day, perhaps, in the hospitable discharge of their duties, they would -scarcely have a word together, but when at length for a few hours of -rest the house grew silent, he sought her side, relaxed and sleepy, yet -tingling, so she felt, with some quality of vitality that no one else -had a spark of. Youth and high spirits, the zest of life and the endless -power of enjoyment filled the house, but Colin alone, unwearied and -eminent as the sun, lit up all others. It was not the exuberance of his -health and energy that was the source of his burning; something inspired -them. - - * * * * * - -The last night had come. To-morrow morning their guests would depart, -and during the day Raymond would arrive. That night there had been the -fancy dress ball, and she, wearing the crown and necklace and girdle -made by Cellini, had impersonated the ill-fated Duchess of Milan for -whom they were made, and who, while wearing them, had drunk the poisoned -draught which she had herself prepared for her lover. Colin adored that -story; the lover, a mere groom of the chambers, he averred, was a sort -of old Colin Stanier--all prospered with him, even to the removal of his -mistress in this manner, for she was growing old and wearied him with -her insatiable desire. Colin himself had appeared as his ancestor -wearing the great sapphire. - -Violet had undressed and got into bed, while he remained downstairs with -two or three men who still lingered. The Cellini jewels lay on her -dressing-table, and feeling too sleepy to plait her hair, she had just -let it down, and it lay in a spread web of gold over her pillow. Then -the door from his dressing-room softly opened, and he looked in. - -“Not asleep?” he asked. - -“No, but nearly. Oh, Colin, stand under the light a moment. There! The -sapphire is alive to-night. It’s like a blue furnace of flame. Now -shield it from the light.” - -Violet sat up in bed. “But it’s the most extraordinary thing!” she said. -“Not a ray from the lamp touches it, yet it’s burning as brightly as -ever. Where does the light come from? It comes from below it. I believe -it comes from you. I’m frightened of you. Are you a fire?” - -It seemed to him no less than her that some conflagration not lit from -without burnt in the heart of the stone. Blue rays, generated within, -shot from it; it shone with some underlying brilliance, as if, as she -had said, it was he who kindled it. - -“Watch it, then,” he said, unbuckling his cloak. Even as he detached it -from him, the fire in it grew dim; only the reflection from outside fed -it. Incredulous at what she thought she saw, willing to attribute it to -some queer effect of faceted surfaces, she laughed. - -“You’ve killed it,” she said. “I think I shall have to give it you, when -it’s mine, so that you may keep it alive.” - -“Ah, do,” he said. “When you come into your own--may that day be far -distant.” - -“Indeed, yes,” she said. - -He sat down on the edge of his bed, and began unloosing the jewelled -buttons of his doublet. - -“I believe my father would almost give it me now,” he said, “though I -suppose he has no right to, just as Elizabeth gave it to the other -Colin. I simply adore it. I’ve been saying my prayers to it, standing in -front of the picture.” - -“Is that what has kept you?” she asked. - -“No, they didn’t take me long. The Prince kept me; he wanted to hear the -whole of the legend. He was frightfully impressed; he said he felt as if -the original Colin had been telling it him, and expects nightmare. He -also besought me to swear allegiance when I come of age and see what -happens. I really think I shall, though, after all, I haven’t got much -to complain of in the way of what the world can give.” - -“But it will be I, really, to choose whether I do that or not,” said -Violet. - -“Well, I couldn’t tell him that,” said Colin, “though as a matter of -fact, I forgot it. In any case it isn’t I to do that. Raymond’s the -apparent heir-apparent, and dear Raymond has shewn his allegiance pretty -well already, though one doesn’t quite see why Satan made my -bicycle-tyre to puncture. If he had been on Raymond’s side, my face -would have been nearly blown to bits. No, Raymond’s not his favourite. -Fancy Raymond being anybody’s favourite. Oh, Vi, a thousand pardons; he -was yours just for a little.” - -Colin was slowly undressing as he gave utterance to these reflections. -He had taken off his shirt, and his arms, still brown from the tanning -of the sun and sea, were bare to the shoulder. - -“You brute, Colin,” she said, “you brown, bare brute.” - -“Shall I dress again,” said he, “if a bare arm shocks you?” - -“No, I don’t mind that. It’s the brute I object to. By the way, Raymond -comes to-morrow--to-day rather. How on earth can I behave to him with -decency? Don’t you wish he wasn’t coming?” - -Colin picked up a long tress of her hair and wound it round his arm. - -“No, I’m looking forward to his coming,” he said, smiling. “I’m going to -make Raymond wish that he had never been born. I’m going to be -wonderfully agreeable to him, and everything I say shall have a double -meaning. Raymond wanted to kill me; well, I shall shew him that there -are other ways of scoring off people. My father isn’t very fond of -Raymond as it is, but when he sees how pleasant I am to him, and how -black and sulky Raymond is to me, he won’t become any fonder of him. I -must think it all out.... And then all the time Raymond will be -consoling himself with the thought that when father dies his day will -come, and he’ll reign in his stead. There’s the cream of it, Vi! He’ll -be longing for my father to die, you know, and when he does Raymond will -be worse off than ever. And you, you once said, ‘Poor Raymond!’ to me. -Raymond’s got to pay for that. I won’t have Raymond pitied.” - -Never had Colin worn a more radiant face than when, walking in and out -of his dressing-room, brown and lithe, as he divested himself of his -gorgeous dress and put on his night clothes, his beautiful mouth framed -itself to this rhapsody of hatred. There was nothing passionate about -it, except its sincerity; he did not rage and foam on the surface of his -nature, he but gleamed with the fire that seemed so strangely to have -lit up those wonderful rays in the sapphire that he had been wearing. He -still held it in his hand when, after having turned out the lights in -his dressing-room, he closed the door and sprang to her side. - -“I don’t like to leave it alone,” he said. “I must pin it to the -pillows. It will watch over us. With you and it by me, I shall lie in -enchantment between waking and sleeping, floating on the golden sea of -your hair. Raymond, let’s make plans for Raymond....” - -She lay in the warm tide of his tingling vitality, and soon fell asleep. -But presently she tore herself out of the clutch of some hideous vision, -which faded from vagueness into non-existence as she woke and heard his -breathing, and felt his cheek resting on her shoulder. - - * * * * * - -The next night, instead of the long cloth which, evening after evening, -had stretched from the window of the great dining-room to the -Elizabethan sideboard at the other end, there was spread near the fire, -for the night was cold, a small round table that just held the five of -them--Philip and his mother, Violet, Raymond, and Colin--and instead of -the rows of silver sconces in the dark panels, four red-shaded -candlesticks, sufficient for purposes of knife and fork, left the rest -of the room in a velvety dimness. Raymond had arrived only just in time -to dress for dinner, coming into the gallery but half a minute before -his father, while Colin, who all this week had been a model of -punctuality, had not appeared yet. Philip gave his arm to his mother, -and behind, unlinked, came Violet and Raymond. He had advanced to her -with elbow formally crooked, but she, busy with a sleeve-lace that had -caught in her bracelet, moved on apart from him. She had shaken hands -with him, and given him a cool cordial word, but she felt incapable of -more than that. - -Philip sat down with a sigh of relief. - -“A reasonable evening at last,” he said, “though I wouldn’t say that if -Colin were here. I believe he got fresher and livelier every day. Ah, -Raymond, you must know we’ve had some parties here. Colin took your -place, as you had to be at Cambridge.” - -Raymond tried to put into his answer the geniality he did not feel. - -“I know,” he said. “The daily picture papers have been full of Colin. -Are you having more people at Christmas, father?” - -“No, just ourselves as usual.” - -Raymond turned to Violet. “You had a fancy-dress ball last night, hadn’t -you?” he said. “I could have got down yesterday if I had known.” - -Philip conjectured a reproach in this and resented it. The last few -weeks had been planned by him as “Colin’s show.” If Colin could not step -into his shoes when he was dead, he could wear them for a week or two -while he lived. - -“I thought your term was not over till to-day,” he said. - -“I could have got leave,” replied Raymond. “But I understand, father.” - -Philip felt rising in him that ceaseless regret that Colin was not his -first-born. And that jealousy of Colin, implied in Raymond’s “I -understand” irritated his father. He wanted Colin to come and relieve -the situation, as he always did. - -“What exactly do you mean by that?” he asked. - -Suddenly old Lady Yardley joined in. “I know what he means, Philip,” she -said. “He means that he should have been host here, if you were going to -depute one of your sons to do the honours for you, and that you -preferred that Colin should do them instead. That is what he means.” - -“There, mother, that’s enough,” said Philip. - -An embarrassed silence ensued, broken by the sound of running steps in -the gallery. Just as they arrived at the door, which one of the footmen -opened, there was a loud crash and Colin slid in on his back, and had -begun to laugh before he picked himself up. - -“Gosh, what a bang!” he said. “I believe somebody greased the boards in -the hope that I should be in a hurry and fall down. Sorry, father; -sorry, granny; sorry, Violet, for upsetting all your nerves. -Why--Raymond!” - -Colin laid his hand affectionately on his brother’s shoulder. - -“I never knew you had come,” he said. “How are you, dear Raymond? How’s -Cambridge? We have missed you in all this hullabaloo. Every one asked -after you and wanted to know why you weren’t here.” - -Colin took the vacant place between Violet and his grandmother. - -“How far have you all got?” he said. “Oh, very well, I won’t have any -soup. Now this is jolly! Just ourselves, Granny, and short coats and -black ties. Vi, darling, why didn’t you come and pull me out of my bath? -I was just lying soaking there; I had no idea it was so late.” - -Colin spared one fleeting glance at his brother, and began to put into -words some of the things he had thought about in his bath. - -“Raymond, it is time that you came home,” he said. “The pigeons are -worse than ever in the Old Park, and I’m no earthly use at that -snap-shooting between the oaks. Give me a rabbit coming towards me along -a road, not too fast, and a rest for my gun, I can hit it in the face as -well as anybody. But those pigeons among the oaks beat me.” - -“Yes, we might have a morning in the Old Park to-morrow,” said his -father. - -Colin looked at Violet as if she had called his attention to something. - -“Yes, Vi, what?” he asked. - -“Nothing.” - -“Oh, I thought you jogged my elbow. To-morrow, father? Oh, what a bore! -I promised to play golf. But I shall be back by one if I go on my -motor-bicycle. May I join you at that sharp corner in the road; that’s -about half-way to the keeper’s lodge, and I could come on with you from -there.” - -“But that corner is at the far end of the Old Park,” said his father. - -“Is it? The one I mean has a big rhododendron bush close to it. You know -where I mean, Raymond. Is it at the far end?” - -“Yes, that’s the far end,” said Raymond. - -“I believe you’re right. Oh, of course you’re right, and I’m idiotic. -It’s where I picked you up one day in the autumn when you had been after -the pigeons.” - -Colin applied himself to his dinner, and caught the others up. - -“There’s something in my mind connected with that day,” he said, “and I -can’t remember what it is. I had been playing golf, and I punctured, and -walked back along the ridge instead of wheeling my bicycle along the -road. Something funny: I remember laughing. Vi, darling, can’t you -remember? Or didn’t I tell you?” - -Violet saw that even in the red glow of the candle-shades Raymond’s face -had turned white. There was red light upon it, but not of it. - -“You certainly did not tell me,” she said in sheer pity. “I remember the -day, too. There was a man who had escaped from the asylum and stolen a -gun from the keeper’s....” - -“Yes, that’s right,” said Colin. “I believe that’s on the track. A man -with a gun.” - -Philip laughed. - -“One of the most amusing things I ever heard, Colin,” he said. “I am -surprised at Violet’s forgetting it. Is that all?” - -Colin turned to his grandmother. “Granny, they’re all laughing at me -because I can’t remember. Father’s laughing at me, so is Violet. You and -Raymond are the only kind ones. Man with a gun, Raymond shooting -pigeons. That makes two men with a gun. Then there was me.” - -“The very best story, Colin. Most humorous,” said his father. - -Colin sighed. “Sometimes I think of things just as I’m going to sleep,” -he said. “If I think of it to-night, I shall wake Violet and tell her, -and then she’ll remember it if I can’t. Man with a gun....” - -“Oh, Colin, stop it,” said Violet. - -“Well, let’s put it to the vote,” said Colin. “Father and Violet want me -to stop trying to remember it; little do they know how it would amuse -them if I did. Granny and I want me to go on--don’t you, dear--it all -depends on Raymond. What shall I do, Ray?” - -Raymond turned to his father, appearing not to hear Colin’s question. - -“Did you have good sport last week?” he asked. - -“Ah, Raymond votes against us, Granny,” said Colin. “He’s too polite to -tell me directly. We’re squashed, Granny; we’ll squash them at whist -afterwards; you and I shall be partners, and we’ll play Raymond and -father for their immortal souls. It will be like the legend, won’t it? -Violet shall look on and wonder whether her poor husband is going to -heaven or hell. I keep my immortal soul in a drawer close to Violet’s -bedside, Granny. So if we lose, she will have to go up to her bedroom -and bring it down. Oh, I say, I’m talking too much. Nobody else can get -a word in edgeways.” - -It was a fact that the other four were silent, but Raymond had the -faculty of producing silence in his neighbours. Cigarettes had come now -with coffee, and this was the usual signal for old Lady Yardley to rise. -To-night, however, she took no notice of the gold-mounted stick which -was put into her hand by Philip. - -“Never mind them, my dear,” she said, “they are amusing themselves. -Listen to me, Colin.” - -There was no other voice in the room but hers, the servants had gone -out, and again she spoke. No one moved; no one spoke; but Raymond -opposite her leaned forward; Violet leaned left-wise; Philip, with her -stick in his hand leaned to the right. She dropped her voice to a -whisper, but in the tense stillness a shout would not have been more -audible. - -“There are strange things in this house, darling,” said she to Colin. “I -have been here sixty years, and I know better than anybody. Green leaf I -have been, and flower and fruit, and now I am withered. Sixty years ago, -my dear, I sold my soul to the master of it, and from that moment I have -been a ghost, oh, such a happy ghost, looking on at the glory of the -house. And then my son Philip married, and he brought you here, and the -moment I set eyes on you I loved you, for I knew that you were born of -the blood and the bargain....” - -Philip drew back his chair and got up. - -“There’s your stick, mother,” he said. “We’ll follow you quite soon, or -it will be too late for your game of whist.” - -She fumbled for the crook of the handle, and rose; her eyes were bright, -and as blue as the sapphire Colin had worn last night. - -“Yes, but I must talk to Colin again,” she said. “No one understands me -except Colin. There used to be other games than whist, Philip, at -Stanier. There was dice-throwing, you know, on the altar of God. We are -not so wicked now to all appearance. Whist in the gallery; far more -seemly.” - -Raymond held the door open for her, and she hobbled through, Violet -following. As she passed out, Violet looked first at Raymond, and then -swiftly away, with a shudder, at Colin. - -“Don’t be long, Uncle Philip,” she said in a low voice. “Grandmamma is -so queer to-night.” - -Colin moved up next his father. - -“Give me a glass of port, father,” he said. “Here’s Raymond back, and -I’m so glad to see him. Your health, Ray!” - -He drank off his glass. “Father, isn’t it lovely to have Raymond back -again?” he said. “But--this is an aside--he’s putting on flesh. May your -shadow never grow more, Raymond. Tell us all about Cambridge; has it -been delightful? I’m sure it has; for otherwise you wouldn’t look so -prosperous. Speech! Mustn’t we have a speech from him, father?” - -There, on one side of Philip, was Colin, brimming with good humour and -welcome, brimming, too, as he had shewn during dinner with the mere -nonsense born of happiness. On the other side was Raymond, serious and -unresponsive, without a spark to answer this crackling fire. There he -sat, and what sort of host would he have made during these last weeks? -He made no attempt to reply to Colin, and but fingered the stem of his -glass. - -“You might tell us what has been going on, Raymond,” said his father. - -“Nothing particular. Just the ordinary term. I’ve been playing for the -University at soccer. I shall probably be in the team.” - -“And you never told us?” said Colin. “Lord! What a swell he is, father! -We’re not worthy to hear about it; that’s what is the matter with us.” - -Philip turned to Raymond. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s pleasant news. -There’s Colin here, who won’t do anything more violent than golf.” - -“Oh, father! What about shooting pigeons?” said Colin. “Oh, no, Raymond -did that. Bother! There was a man with a gun....” - -Philip got up. “Now don’t get on to that again,” he said. “You’ve amused -us enough for one night....” - -“But I may amuse Vi, mayn’t I, if I think of the rest of it?” asked -Colin. - -Philip turned his back on him and took Raymond’s arm. He had the sense -of behaving with great fairness, but the impartiality demanded effort. - -“Ring the bell, Colin, will you?” he said over his shoulder. “I’m -delighted to hear about your success in the--the football field, -Raymond. Games are taking the place of sport in this generation. Your -Uncle Ronald and I never played games; there was shooting, there was -riding....” - -“Oh, but there’s lots of sport still,” said Colin. “Big game, father; -large animals. Not footballs, things that feel.... And then my bicycle -punctured. Oh, you wanted me to ring.” - -At this rite of whist for the sake of old Lady Yardley, it was necessary -that one of the five should cut out. She herself and Philip took no part -in this chance; the rite was that both should play if there was not -another table to be formed. Raymond turned the highest card, and with a -paper to beguile him, sat just where he had sat when one night the -whist-table had broken up, and he heard Colin’s mimicry. As the four -others cut for deal, some memory of that must have come into Colin’s -mind. - -“What an awful night that was, Vi,” he said, “when we were playing -bridge with Aunt Hester. She revoked, do you remember, and swore she -hadn’t. How we laughed. And then I thought everybody else had gone to -bed, and I--good Lord.... Yes!” - -“Another of Colin’s amusing stories,” said his father. - -“Sh-sh,” said Colin. “Granny, you always turn up the ace for your trump -card. Will you give me lessons?” - -The rubber was very quickly over, and Raymond took Colin’s place. Colin -drew a chair up close to his brother, and instead of reading a paper in -the corner, watched his hand and the play of it with breathless -attention. - -“Raymond; you’re a wizard,” he said at the end of it. “Every plan of -yours was right. You finessed and caught the king, you didn’t finesse -and caught the queen. Why don’t I have luck like yours? It’s enough to -make any fellow jealous; I shan’t look at your hand any more. I shall -look at Violet’s. My poor wife! Raymond’s got all the winning cards -again. Or, if he hasn’t, he’ll turn them into winning cards. He’ll down -you.” - -“Colin, if you would talk just a little less,” said his father, “we -should be able to attend a little more.” - -Raymond, if no one else, fully appreciated the utter absence of reproof -in his father’s voice. If it had been he who had been talking, there -would have been, at the best, a chill politeness there; at the worst, a -withering snub. But this was the candour of friend to friend.... About -that signed paper now, which Colin had deposited at his bank. He himself -had signed some sort of mad confession that he had planned to shoot -Colin. His will had bent to Colin’s like hot wax to strong fingers, but -could he not somehow get possession of it again? While it was in Colin’s -hands, it was like a toasting-fork in which that devil-twin of his -impaled and held him before the fire. All dinner-time Colin had scorched -him, and not less burning was this mocking kindliness which made the one -appear so warmly genial, the other awkward and ungracious. How long -would he be able to stand it? Presently, at the end of the rubber, Colin -would join him in the smoking-room and reveal another aspect, no doubt. -But he could rob him of that further indulgence, he would go to bed as -soon as the rubber was over. - -The next hand finished it and Lady Yardley got up. She had won to-night -from Colin, and clinked a couple of half-sovereigns in her hand. - -“But it will come back to you, darling,” she said. “Everything there is -will come to you if you are wise and careful. My eyes grow dim as I get -older, but there is another sort of sight that gets brighter. Oh, I see -very well.” - -Philip went with her to the door. - -“Your eyes are wonderful yet, mother,” he said. “There are years of -vision in them yet.” - -As if Colin had read Raymond’s thought of going to bed, he turned to -Violet. - -“I may be a little late to-night, darling,” he said. “Raymond and I are -going to have a long talk in the smoking-room.” - -“Oh, I think not,” said Raymond. “I’m tired; I shall go to bed.” - -Colin whisked round to him. “Not just yet, Ray,” he said. “I haven’t -seen you for so long. It would be nice of you to come and have a chat. I -know you will. Persuade him to do as I ask, Vi. Who knows what important -things I may have to tell about?” - -Philip rejoined them. “I shall just come in and have a cigarette with -you boys,” he said. “Good-night, Violet.” - -“Ah, that’s jolly,” said Colin. - -They preceded him to the smoking-room, for he turned into his own room a -moment, and as soon as they were there Colin shut the door. - -“Father will be with us in a minute,” he said, “and I can only just -begin my talk. But if you attempt to go to bed when he does, Raymond, I -shall tell him about the morning when you shot pigeons. Oddly enough, I -have remembered all about it. And to-morrow I’ll telephone for the -envelope I left at my bank. So it’s up to you.” - -Colin came a step closer; with such an eagerness must some Borgia Pope -have looked on the white skin of the victim he had ordered to be flayed. - -“It’s jolly seeing you again, you sulky blackguard,” he said. “Has -anybody smacked your face since I did it for you? You’re going to spend -the whole of the vacation here, unless I get tired of you and send you -away before. Ah, there’s father. Isn’t it jolly, father; Raymond hopes -to spend the whole of the vacation here.” - -Philip did not seem as enthusiastic as Colin about this, but he was -adequately cordial, and, having smoked his cigarette in silence, got up -to go. - -“Are you coming?” he said to his sons. - -Colin nodded to Raymond to answer this. - -“We were just going to have a talk first, father,” he said. - -“Very good. Don’t sit up too late. Colin hasn’t been to bed till three -for the last fortnight.” - -Colin waited till the door was shut. - -“Now for our talk,” he said. “Isn’t Violet looking divine? Aren’t I a -lucky fellow? Even the thought of being mistress of Stanier wasn’t -enough to make her tolerate you. We had a lovely honeymoon, Raymond. We -often talked of you. Lord! How she loathes you! I should think even you -could see that. Now an interesting question. I ask for information. Do -you think she knows about that morning we were speaking of at dinner?” - -“I have no means of telling,” said Raymond. - -“Well, we’ll assume she doesn’t. Now I want you to observe her closely -again to-morrow, and see if you think she knows then. I’ve remembered -all about it, and, as you heard me say, I was thinking of telling her, -just drowsily and quietly to-night. And then to-morrow you’ll guess -whether I have done so or not. Take coffee for breakfast if you think I -have, tea, if you think I haven’t. What a jolly Christmas game!” - -Colin poured himself out a glass of whisky and soda. - -“Fancy father saying that I didn’t care for sport,” he said. “I adore -the thought of the sport I’m going to have with you. You used to be rude -to me when we were alone, now you have got to be polite. I can always -send for that paper which you signed and father witnessed. Now don’t be -tedious and say that the condition on which you signed was that I would -not tell him. What does that matter to me? You wanted to kill me; all -that I do now is in self-defence. Otherwise you might plan to kill me -again.” - -He yawned. “I’m rather sleepy to-night, Raymond,” he said. “I thought -the satisfaction of seeing you again would make me wakeful. I shall go -upstairs. Violet will be pleased that I have not sat up late after all. -I shall sit on her bed and talk to her. Last night her hair made a -golden mat on the pillow. There is a marvellous fragrance in her hair. -Do you remember that from the days--not many of them--when you used to -kiss her? How she winced! Now it’s your turn to wince. We shall talk -about you, no doubt. And remember about the tea and the coffee -to-morrow.” - -Day after day Colin amused himself thus; morning after morning Raymond -had to guess whether Violet had been told, until one evening, wearying -of this particular game, Colin casually mentioned that all his guessings -had been superfluous, for Violet had known ever since one day on their -honeymoon, when she had provoked him by saying, “Poor Raymond.” Even as -a cat with a mouse, so Colin played with him, taking no notice of him -except in ordinary intercourse, for nearly a whole day, and letting him -seem forgotten; then, with quivering shoulders, he would spring on him -again, tap him with sheathed claws and a velvet paw, or with more -forcible reminder, nip him with needle-like teeth. It was useless and -worse than useless for Violet to plead for him; her advocacy, her appeal -to the most elementary feeling of compassion only exasperated Colin. - -“Darling, as if my brain wasn’t busy enough with Raymond, you must go -and add to my work like that!” he said. “I’ve got to cure you of being -sorry for Raymond as well. I thought you were cured when I told you he -tried to murder me. Just let your mind dwell on that. He planned to -shoot me from behind that wall. I’ll take you there to-morrow and show -you the place, to make it more vivid to you. One’s brother must not make -such plans and fail without suffering for it afterwards. Perhaps you -would prefer that he had succeeded? Ah! I made you shudder then. You -trembled deliciously.... I’ve got such a delightful Christmas present -for him, a little green jade pigeon with ruby eyes. It cost a lot of -money. The green--I shall explain to him--is his jealousy of me, for -he’s devoted to you still, and the red eyes are the colour of my blood, -and the whole will remind him of that amusing morning.” - -The new year came in with three nights of sharp frost, and the ice on -the bathing lake grew thick enough to bear. The lake was artificial, -lying in a small natural valley through which a stream ran. A dam some -twelve feet high had been built across the lower end of it, in which was -the sluice gate; thus the stream, confined by the rising ground at the -sides, and the dam at the end, had spread itself into a considerable -sheet of water, shallow where the stream entered it, but some nine feet -deep at the lower end, where was the bathing-place and the header boards -and pavilions for bathers. The dam was planted with rhododendron bushes, -whose roots strengthened the barrier, and in summer the great bank of -blossom overhung the deep water. A path ran behind them crossing the -sluice by a stone bridge with balustrade. - -Raymond had gone down there directly after breakfast, and came back with -the news that he had walked this way and that across the ice, and that -it seemed safe enough. For some reason which Colin failed to fathom, he -seemed in very cheerful spirits to-day; it might be that the end of the -Christmas vacation was approaching, when he would return to Cambridge; -it might be that he, like Colin, himself had seen the rapidity with -which old age was gaining on his father. There was humour in that. -Raymond looked forward, and little wonder, to his own succession here, -not knowing, poor shorn lamb, that he would be worse off than ever when -that unpropitious event occurred. As for the remission of subtle torture -which his return to Cambridge would give him, there were several days -yet, thought Colin; opportunity for much pleasant pigeon-conversation. - -So Raymond got his skates, while Colin and Violet, sitting cosy in the -long gallery, wondered whether it was worth while going out, and he went -down by the long yew hedge to the lake, with brisk foot and brightened -eye. After all, other people besides Colin could make plans, and one of -his had matured this morning into a luscious ripeness. Sleepless nights -had been his, with hands squeezing for Colin’s throat and dawn breaking -in on the fierce disorder of his thoughts, before he had distilled his -brain down to the clear broth. Wild and vagrant fancies got hold of him, -goaded as he was to the verge of desperation by this inhuman -persecution; red madnesses had flashed before him, like the cloaks that -the matadors wave before the bull, and, whether he charged or not, -another ribanded dart pierced him. He had bitten his lip till the blood -flowed in order to recall himself to self-control, and to use those -hours of the night, when Colin was with Violet, to hew out some defence -to the fluttered red and the ribanded dart. There had been his handicap: -hate of Colin had made him violent, whereas Colin’s hate of him had made -Colin calm and self-possessed; he must cease to rage if he hoped to -arrive at any plan. So night after night he had curbed himself, making -his wits reduce their mad galloping to an orderly pace, and pull -steadily in harness. - -The grass was encrusted with the jewels of frost; every step crunched a -miracle of design into powder, and now for the first time since he had -come to Stanier, Raymond fed with the braced joy of a frosty morning on -the banquet which the season spread. He was hungry for it, all these -days he had been starved and tortured, sick with apprehension, and -shuddering at the appearance of Colin with rack and pincers. But now he -was hungry again for the good things of life, and the long draught of -cold air was one of them, and the treading of the earth with muscles -alternately strong and relaxed was another, and the sense of the great -woodlands that would in no distant future be his, was a third, for how -old, how rapidly ageing, was his father; and the _congé_ he would soon -give to Colin and Violet was a fourth, sweeter than any. How sour had -turned his love of Violet, if indeed there had ever been any sweetness -in it. He lusted after her: that he knew, but just because she knew the -events of that morning, when all had gone so awry, he thought of her as -no more than a desirable mistress. Ha! there was a woodcock. In the -frost of the morning it had lain so close that he approached within -twenty yards of it before it got up. He was near enough to see how it -pulled itself forward, grasping a blade of grass in its reed-like bill, -before it could get those long wings free of the ground where it -squatted. With a flip flap, it skidded and swerved through the -rhododendron bushes; even if he had had a gun with him he could scarcely -have got a shot. - -“Flip--flap”; it was just so that he had escaped from Colin’s barrels. -Those nights of thought, when he had bandaged the eyes of rage, had -given him simplicity at last, such simplicity as Colin had so carelessly -arrived at when he came through the oaks of the Old Park. He had trusted -to the extraordinary similarity of his own handwriting to that of Colin, -and had written a letter in Colin’s name to Colin’s bankers, requesting -them to send the letter which he had deposited there last August, with -the note on the outside of it about its eventual delivery in case of his -death, to his brother, Lord Stanier, whose receipt would be -forwarded.... Raymond knew it to be a desperate measure, but, after all, -nothing could be more desperate than his position here, bound hand and -foot to Colin, as long as that sealed envelope remained at Messrs. -Bertram’s. The bank might possibly make a further inquiry; telegraph to -Colin for confirmation, but even if that happened, Colin was doing his -worst already. No such disaster had followed. This morning Raymond had -received from the bank a registered letter, containing the unopened -envelope, forwarded to him by direction of Hon. Colin Stanier. - -So now, as he went briskly towards the frozen lake, the confession which -he had signed was safe in the letter-case he carried in the inside -pocket of his coat, and for very luxury of living over again a mad -moment which now was neutralised, he drew it out and read it. There it -was ... in that crisis of guilt, covered by Colin’s pistol, he had -consented to any terms. But now, let Colin see what would be his -response when next he talked in flashes of that veiled lightning -concerning a shooting of pigeons, concerning a morning when there was a -lunatic at large.... - -Indeed Raymond determined that this very day he would fling the -challenge himself. Instead of sitting dumb under Colin’s blistering -jibes, he would defy him; he would insult and provoke him, till he was -stung into sending to the bank for the famous confession, vowing an -instant disclosure of the whole matter to his father. How Raymond would -snap a finger in his face for that threat, and how, when Colin received -the answer from the bank that the packet in question had been sent by -his own orders to his brother, would he choke with the derisive laughter -of hate! Who without solid proof would credit such a tale? Besides -(Raymond had it all ready now) no doubt Lord Yardley would remember -witnessing with Colin the paper about which he now impotently jabbered. -Had not the brothers come in together, ever so pleasantly, on that -morning of the pigeon-shooting, and asked for his witnessing signature? -That paper (so Raymond now framed it) had set forth how he had -determined to make a better job of brotherhood than he had hitherto -done, and to realise that Violet and Colin were mated in love. And -already the pact had fulfilled itself, for never had the two spent days -of such public fraternal amity. “Write to the bank for it in my name,” -Colin would be supposed to have said, “and tear it up, dear Ray! It’ll -be fun, too, to see if they can distinguish your handwriting from -mine”.... That was what Colin would find waiting for him if he sent to -the bank for the document on which this insane accusation was based. - -His skates, fitted on to boots, clanked in his hand, his foot trod -briskly on the frozen soil that would soon be his own. Those eye-teeth -of Colin’s were drawn; his father aged rapidly, and, without doubt, -before many months, the park-gates would have clapped on to the final -exit of Colin and his wife. Perhaps he would let Stanier to some -dollar-gorged American; he had no feeling for it himself, and the other -two would abhor that. Never yet had Stanier been tenanted by aliens; it -was enough to make the dead turn in their graves. What was more -important, it would make the living writhe. Perhaps Colin--he would be -very rich, alas--would try to take it. The would-be lessees must be -closely scrutinised. - -So here was the lake with its stiff frozen margin; a stamp on it and a -short slide over the black ice produced no cluck of remonstrance. The -pavilion of the bathing-place was on the other side, but a felled -tree-trunk made a comfortable seat for the exchange of his walking shoes -into the boots with skates on them. He had spent a winter month in -Switzerland two years before, and hungered for the bite of the blade on -the sweet fodder of that black field.... Instantly, as in swimming, the -instinct of that balance came back to him, and with long strokes he -curved out on to the delightful playground. Outside edge, and a dropped -turn, an outside back, and a taking up of the direction with the other -foot.... - - * * * * * - -Colin, at this moment, had made up his mind not to skate till after -lunch. - -“I’m lazy,” he said to Violet. “I’m tired of baiting Raymond. He was -more cheerful than I like this morning, Vi. I shall smoke a cigarette -and think of something new. Lord! I’ve got no matches.” - -There was a paper basket handy, and he drew a crumpled envelope from it, -meaning to get a light with it from the log fire. Uncrumpling it he saw -it was addressed to Lord Stanier, and idly turning it over, as he made -his spill, he saw the seal of his own bank. The envelope was registered. - -He tore a narrow strip off the edge of it, and used it for his purpose. - -“I should like to sit here talking to you all morning,” he said, “but -that beastly motor-bicycle of mine has gone wrong again. I think I’ll go -up to the stables to see about it. Skating this afternoon, isn’t it? I -hate seeing Raymond skate because he’s so good at it. But as I want to -skate myself, what’s to be done?” - -Colin floated off in his crisp, graceful manner, and never was he so -alert as when he appeared to be loitering. Why had Raymond received a -registered envelope from Bertram’s? Bertram’s was not Raymond’s bank. -What had that envelope contained? - -He strolled out of the front door; the stables lay to the right, but -Raymond, hugely cheerful that morning, had gone to the lake, which was -in the opposite direction. So deferring the matter of the bicycle he -went down by the yew hedge and along the path on the top of the dam -behind the rhododendrons. He could hear the ring of Raymond’s skates on -the frozen surface. Raymond would have to cease his sport and explain -the matter of the envelope. - - * * * * * - -Hidden by the bushes, he had nearly come to the bridge over the sluice -when from close at hand there came a noise of loud crackings and -splintering across the lake and a great splash. For one moment Colin -stood quite still, his heart beating high and fast; then, with quickened -pace, he walked on to the bridge over the sluice. Some ten yards out was -a large hole in the surface with jagged edges; a cap and fragments of -broken ice floated on it, and bubbles rose from below. - -“He has been carried under the ice,” thought Colin. “How cold it must -be! The water is deep there.” - -What was to be done? Nothing it seemed. He could run up to the house and -get help, a rope, a plank, something to put out across that gaping hole -on which the sunlight glittered, but before he could return all hope -(all chance rather) of saving Raymond must have passed. Was there no -other plan? His mind, usually so ingenious and resourceful, seemed -utterly blank, save for an overwhelming curiosity as to whether Raymond -would come to the surface again, just once, just for a second.... As he -looked, leaning on the balustrade of the bridge, Raymond’s head -appeared; his face was white and wide-eyed, the lips of his open mouth -blue with the cold. Across those ten yards which separated them their -eyes met, Colin’s bright and sparkling with exuberant life, the other’s -stricken with the ultimate and desperate terror. - -Colin waved his hand. - -“So you’ve fallen in,” he said. “I’ll go and see what can be done. If -I’m too late, well, good-bye! Rather cold, isn’t it?” - -The last words were spoken to emptiness. There was the cap still -floating and the stream of bubbles breaking on the surface of the -sparkling water. - -Colin gave one leap in the air like some young colt whose limbs tingle -with the joy of life, and rubbed his hands which were chilled with -leaning on the bridge. Of course it was no use going to the house; the -shock and cold and the soft, smothering water would have done their work -long before he could bring help, and the resources of Stanier, so -powerful for the living had no succour or consolation for the dead. -Indeed, it would be better not to go to the house at all, for he could -not imagine himself, in this ecstatic moment, simulating haste and -horror and all that would be appropriate to the occasion. So making a -circuit through the woods, he strolled ten minutes later into the stable -yard to see about his bicycle. He had a pleasant word for the groom and -a joke for the motor-mechanic. Just then his brain could only be -occupied with trivial things; a great glittering curtain seemed to be -let down across it, behind which were stored treasures and splendours. -Presently, when he came to himself, he would inspect these. - -He showed himself to Violet and his father, who were in the long -gallery, when he got back to the house, said a word about his -motor-bicycle, hoped that Raymond was having a good time, and went into -the smoking-room. Now was the time to pull up that glittering curtain. - -Till then the fact of Raymond’s death, just the removal, the extinction -of him had hidden all that might lie behind it; now Colin saw with an -amazed gasp of interest how all the activity of his brain was needed to -cope with the situation. Raymond was finished with, while his father -still lived. The remote, the unexpected, the unlooked-for had occurred. -Yet not quite unlooked-for ... one morning dreaming on the Capri beach, -Colin had taken this possibility into account, had let it simmer and -mature in his brain, and as outcome had made Violet spend a night at the -house of the British Consul in Naples. How wise that had proved; he -would have been grinding his teeth if he had not done that. - -Swiftly he ran over the whole process from the beginning, and though -there were problems ahead of him, so far his course had been flawless. -First had come the erasure in the Consulate register and the insertion -of that single numeral in his mother’s letter to Salvatore.... He would -have to see dear Uncle Salvatore again.... That had smoothed the way for -his marriage with Violet; that had ensured, even if Raymond lived to be -a hundred, his own mastership and that of his children after him at -Stanier. It was not mastership in name, for he would but be husband to -its mistress, but he knew that name alone would be lacking to the -completeness of possession. He could not have provided better for the -eventuality of his father’s death, which, according to all human -probability, would occur before Raymond’s. But fate, that blind -incalculable chance, had decreed otherwise, and Colin gave a frown and a -muttered exclamation to the recognition of the fact that had he left the -register alone, and torn up, instead of emending his mother’s letter, he -would now be heir to Stanier as he indeed truly was, in his own right. - -It was a pity to have devoted all that ingenuity, to have saddled -himself with considerable expense as regards that troublesome Salvatore, -when fate all the time was busier and wiser than he.... Yet it had been -necessary, and it was no use wasting regret over it. - -What stood in his way now was the letter and the register. With regard -to the former it was easy to destroy it, and to indicate to Salvatore -that all required of him was to hold his tongue, or, if necessary, to -tell a mere simple truth that he had given Colin two letters, one--he -seemed to recollect--dated March 1, in which his sister announced her -marriage, the other a fortnight later, giving news of the birth of the -twins. Uncle Salvatore, with his Viagi pride, so Colin smilingly -reflected, would be glad that the stain on the family honour could be -expunged; Rosina was married when she brought forth. For him, too, it -was pleasant to have the bar sinister lifted from him. It would not, he -allowed, have weighed heavily on him; in any case it would have been -amply compensated for by the enjoyment of Stanier and the expulsion of -Raymond, but now there was no need for that ounce of bitter.... So much, -then, for the letters; they could be destroyed. Violet would ask in vain -for their production to prove her possession. - -“What letters do you mean, darling?” he would answer. Yes, those letters -should perish at once. - -He turned his thoughts to the register. There at this moment it reposed -in that archive-room, bearing the erasure so easily overlooked, so -convincing when pointed out. You had but to look carefully, and, so to -speak, you could see nothing but the erased numeral: it stared at you. -He had, it was true, in his keeping a copy of that entry, certified to -be correct by Mr. Cecil, which bore the earlier date, but, now that -Violet had been informed of that erasure, she would, when Stanier -changed hands, insist on the production of the register, and, knowing -where to look and what to see, her lawyer would draw the conclusion, -which even in the absence of confirming letters, might easily satisfy a -jury. The register had been tampered with, and in whose interests but -Colin’s? And by what hand? Without doubt by his father’s (not that that -would hurt him then) or his own. There was danger, remote perhaps but -alive and smouldering, on that page; it must be quenched. - -Colin recalled his meditations on the Capri beach which foresaw this -contingency with a vividness as clear as was the October air on that -morning. All the circumstances of it were equally sharp-edged in his -memory, the sense of the hot pebbles of the beach on which he lay, the -sea and its crystal embrace awaiting him when he got baked and pining -for its coolness, Nino, the joyous pagan boy asleep in the shade, -Vesuvius across the bay with the thin streamer of smoke. That was the -_milieu_ where thought came clean and clear to you, and clear and clean -that morning had his thoughts been, providing for this very situation. -The pieces of it lay in his brain like the last few fragments of a -puzzle; he had no need even to fit them together, for he could see how -curve corresponded with curve and angle with angle. All was in order, -ready to be joined up, now that Raymond no longer blocked his way, and -the key-piece round which the others fitted was undoubtedly that visit -of Violet to Mr. Cecil. - - * * * * * - -Then came quick steps up the passage, and Violet burst in. - -“Oh, Colin,” she said, “a terrible thing has happened! Uncle Philip and -I walked down to the lake. Raymond was not there; his boots were on the -bank, there was a hole where the ice had given way at the deep end. -Uncle Philip is getting men and ropes....” - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -It was not till well on in the afternoon that the body was recovered. -All day the cold had been intense, and the ropes with the tackle for -this terrible fishing got stiff and frozen. But at sunset they found it; -the stream had carried it along below the ice towards the sluice. - -Philip sat up with Colin in the long gallery when Violet and Lady -Yardley had gone to bed. He felt no sorrow, for he had not liked -Raymond, he had not even loved him with his fatherhood, for all that had -been given to Colin.... Often and often he had longed that Colin had -been the eldest, now there was none other than Colin; he would have all -that his father coveted for him. But though he felt no sorrow, he felt -remorse and pity; remorse that he had not liked this dead son of his, -pity that he had died young. - -“I reproach myself, Colin, most bitterly,” he had been saying. “It was -hard to be kind to poor Raymond, he kept kindness at arm’s length. But I -ought to have tried more. I ought to have taken example from you: you -never wearied of kindness.” - -Colin laid his hand on his father’s arm. All the evening he had been -keeping things together by a tact so supreme that it appeared pure -naturalness. He had talked quite freely about Raymond; recalled a -hundred little incidents in which Raymond was a mild hero; his shooting, -his prospect of playing football for Cambridge.... It was clear, too, -that the tragedy had made very little impression on his grandmother, and -so he had taken it for granted that they would play their rubber of -whist. Why not? - -“You mustn’t think of it like that, father,” he said. “You did what you -could. You made it very jolly for him here. He liked coming home; he -was going to stop here the whole of the Christmas vacation, you know. If -he had not been enjoying it, he would not have done that.” - -Colin revelled in the underlying meaning of his words ... how Raymond -had been enjoying it, hadn’t he? - -Philip’s servant came into the room; he carried on a tray Raymond’s -watch and chain, and a pocket-book. - -“They found these on his lordship’s body, my lord,” he said. “I thought -it best to bring them you.” - -Philip took them, and looked absently at the watch which had stopped at -a few minutes to eleven. - -“He must have fallen in almost immediately,” he said. “I had better look -at what is in his pocket-book. It may contain papers that must be -attended to.” - -Not until that moment had Colin given another thought to what Raymond -had received that morning in the envelope from Bertram’s bank. Now in a -flash he conjectured that whatever it was (and he felt no doubt of what -it was) it would be found in that pocket-book which his father even then -was opening. How lucky it was that he had not told his father about that -attempt of Raymond’s! How splendid would appear his own magnanimity, his -own unfailing kindness to him! He could emphasise them even more by a -reluctance that his father should examine these remains. The water, it -is true, might have got in and soaked the paper, if it was there, into -illegibility, but the leather of the pocket-book seemed to have resisted -well: it might easily prove to contain a legible document. - -He got up in an excitement which his father did not understand. - -“Are you wise to do that, do you think?” he asked in a quick, anxious -voice. “There may be something there which will pain you.” - -“All his papers must be gone through,” said his father. “Have you any -reason, Colin?” - -“I can’t explain,” said Colin. - -Papers were coming out of the pocket-book now, in no way perished by -the long immersion; they were damp but they held together, and Colin -glanced with a lynx’s eye at them as his father unfolded them. There -were a couple of bills, he could see, which Philip laid on one side, and -then he came to a half-sheet of foolscap.... He read a line or two, -looked at the bottom of it and saw his own name.... - -“What is this?” he said. “It’s signed by Raymond and witnessed by you -and me.” - -“Don’t look at it, father,” said Colin, knowing that it was inevitable -that his father must read anything that was witnessed by himself. “Let -me take it and burn it.” - -“No, I can’t do that,” said Philip. “What does this mean? What....” - -“Ah! don’t read it, don’t read it!” said Colin in a voice of piteous -pleading. - -“I must.” - -“Then listen to me instead. I will tell you.” - -Never had his father looked so old and haggard as then. He had seen -enough of what was written there to light horror in his eyes and blanch -his face to a deadly whiteness. - -“Tell me then,” he said. - -Colin sat down on the edge of his father’s chair. - -“It’s a terrible story,” he said, “and I hoped you should never know it. -But it seems inevitable. And remember, father, as I tell you, that -Raymond is dead....” - -His voice failed for a moment. - -“That means forgiveness, doesn’t it?” he said. “Death is forgiveness; -you see what I mean. It’s--it’s you who have to teach me that; you will -see.” - -He collected himself again. - -“It was after I came back from Capri in the summer, and after Vi was -engaged to me,” he said, “that what is referred to there took place. -He--poor Raymond--always hated me. He thought I had your love, which -should have been his as well. And then I had Violet’s love, after she -had accepted him for her husband. There was a thought in that which -made it so bitter that--that it poisoned him. He got poisoned; you must -think of it like that. And the thought, Raymond’s poisoned thought, was -this: He knew that Violet had the passion for Stanier which you and I -have. Yet when she was face to face with the marriage to him, she gave -up Stanier. Father dear, it wasn’t my fault that I loved her, you didn’t -think it was when I told you out in Capri? And it wasn’t her fault when -she fell in love with me.” - -“No, Colin,” he said. “Love is like that. Go on, my dear.” - -Colin spoke with difficulty now. - -“Then came a day,” he said, “when a lunatic escaped from that asylum at -Repstow. You had news of it one night, and told Raymond and me. He was a -homicidal fellow, and he got hold of one of your keeper’s guns. Next -morning Raymond went to shoot pigeons, and I bicycled on my motor to -play golf. And then--then, father, we must suppose that the devil -himself came to Raymond. It wasn’t Raymond who planned what Raymond -did.... He expected me to come back along the road from the lodge, and -he--he hid in the bushes at that sharp corner with his gun resting on -the wall, and his plan was to shoot me. It would have been at the -distance of a few yards only.” - -Lord Yardley interrupted; his voice was hoarse and nearly inaudible. - -“Wait a minute, Colin,” he said. “All this reminds me of something I -have heard, and yet only half heard.” - -Colin nodded. “I know,” he said. “I’ll tell that presently.... There was -poor Raymond waiting for me to come round the corner. There was this -madman loose in the park somewhere, and if the--the plan had succeeded, -it would have been supposed that it was the madman who had killed me. -But an accident happened: my bicycle punctured, and I walked back for -the trudge along the ridge of the Old Park.” - -Colin choked for a moment. - -“I caught the glint of sun on a gun-barrel by the wall at that sharp -corner,” he said, “and I wondered who or what that could be. It could -not be the escaped madman, for they had told me at the lodge that he had -been caught; and then I remembered that Raymond was out shooting -pigeons, and I remembered that Raymond hated me. It occurred to me -definitely then, and I felt sick at the thought, that he was waiting for -me. And then, father, the mere instinct of self-preservation awoke. If -it was Raymond, if I was terribly right, I could not go on like that in -constant fear of my life.... I had to make myself safe. - -“I stole down, taking cover behind the oaks, till I got close and then I -saw it was Raymond. I was white with rage, and I was sick at heart. I -had a revolver with me, for you or Vi--you, I think--had persuaded me to -take it out in case I met the wretched madman, and, father, I _had_ met -a wretched madman. I covered him with it, and then I spoke to him. I -told him that if he moved except as I ordered him, I would kill him. He -collapsed; every atom of fight was out of him, and he emptied his gun of -its cartridges and laid it down. And all the time there wasn’t a -cartridge at all in my revolver: I had taken them out and forgotten to -put them back. It was after he had collapsed that I found that out.” - -A wan smile, as unlike to Colin’s genial heat of mirth as the moonlight -is to the noonday sun, shivered and trembled on his mouth and vanished -again, leaving it so serious, so tender. - -“He confessed,” he said. “But I had to make myself safe. I told him he -must put that confession into writing and sign it, and you and I would -witness it. That was done. I told you--do you remember?--that Raymond -and I had a secret pact, and we wanted your witness to his signature. -That was it; and it is that you hold in your hand now. I sent it to my -bank, Bertram’s, again in self-defence, for I knew that he would not -dare to make any attempt on me, since, if it were successful, however -far from suspicion he seemed to stand, there would come into your hands -the confession that he had attempted to kill me. Look at the envelope, -father. In case of my death, you will read there, it was to be delivered -to you.” - -Philip did not need to look. - -“Go on, Colin,” he said. “How did it come into Raymond’s possession?” - -“I can only conjecture that. But this morning, after poor Ray had gone -out to skate, I wanted a light for my cigarette, and I had no matches. I -drew out something from the waste-paper basket. It was an envelope -directed to Raymond, and on the back was the seal of the bank. His -handwriting, as you know, was exactly like mine, a spider scrawl you -used to call it. I think he must have written to the bank in my name, -asking that what I had deposited there was to be sent to him. He would -never be safe till he had got that. And--and, oh, father, I should never -have been safe when he had got it.” - -There was a long silence; Colin’s head was bent on his father’s -shoulder; he lay there quivering, while in Philip’s face the grimness -grew. Presently Colin spoke again: - -“You said you had heard, or half heard, some of this,” he said. “I will -remind you. One night at dinner, the night Ray got back from Cambridge, -I made the usual nonsensical fool of myself. I seemed to try to -recollect something funny that had happened on the morning when Ray went -out to shoot pigeons. ‘A man with a gun,’ I said, and you and Vi voted -that I was a bore. But I think Raymond knew why I said it, and went on -with it till you were all sick and tired of me. I made a joke of it, you -see; I could not talk of it to him. I could not be heavy and say, ‘I -forgive you; I wipe it out.’ That would have been horrible for him. The -only plan I could think of was to make a joke of it, hoping he would -understand. I think he did; I think he saw what I meant. But yet he -wanted to be safe. Oh, Lord, how I understand that! How anxious I was to -be safe and not to have to tell you. But I have had to. If you had -listened to me, father, you would have burned that paper. Then no one -would ever have known.” (Of course Colin remembered that Violet knew, -but he went on without a pause:) - -“I’m all to pieces to-night,” he said. “I have horrible fears and all -sorts of dreadful things occur to me. That paper is safe nowhere, -father. It wasn’t even safe--poor Ray--at my bank. Supposing Vi, by some -appalling mischance, got to see it. It would poison Raymond’s memory for -her. He did love her, I am sure of that, and though she didn’t love him, -she thinks tenderly and compassionately of him. She is not safe while it -exists. Burn it, father. Just look at it once first, if you want to know -that I have spoken quiet, sober truth, which I did not want to speak, as -you know, and then burn it.” - -Philip’s first instinct was to throw it straight into the smouldering -logs. He believed every word Colin had said, but there was justice to be -done to one who could not plead for himself. He was bound to see that -Raymond had acted the story that Colin had told him. Dry-eyed and grim, -he read it from first word to last, and then stood up. - -“Here it is,” he said. “You have been scrupulously accurate. I should -like you to see me burn it.” - -The paper was damp, and for a little while it steamed above the logs. -Then, with a flap, a flame broke from it. A little black ash clung to -the embers and grew red, then a faint, grey ash ascended and -pirouetted.... Philip’s stern eyes melted, and he turned to his only -son. - -“And now I have got to forget,” he said. - -That seemed the very word Colin was waiting for. - -“That’s easy,” he said. “It’s easy for me, dear father, so it can’t be -difficult, for I’m an awful brute. We shall have to make a pact, you and -I. We must burn what we know out of our hearts, just as you have burned -the evidence of it. It doesn’t exist any more. It was some wretched -dream.” - -“Oh, Colin!” said his father, and in those words was all the wonder of -love which cannot credit the beauty, the splendour, that it -contemplates. - - * * * * * - -Colin saw his father to his room, and then walked back down the great -corridor, quenching the lights as he went, for he had told the butler -that no one need sit up. He drew back the curtains of the window at the -head of the stairs as he passed and looked out on to the clearness of -the frosty midnight. Moonlight lay over the whiteness of the gardens and -terraces, but the yew hedge, black and unfrosted, seemed like some -funeral route to be followed to where the ice gleamed with a strange -vividness as if it were the skylight to some illuminated place below. -Then, letting the curtain fall again, he went softly past the head of -the lit passage where his room and Violet’s lay, to put out the light at -the far end of this corridor. In the last room to the left he knew -Raymond was lying, and he went in. - -The last toilet had been finished and the body lay on its bed below a -sheet. Candles were burning, as if that which lay there dreaded the -darkness, and on the table by the bed was a great bowl of white hothouse -flowers. Colin had not seen Raymond since that white face looked at him -across the rim of broken ice; there had been disfigurement, he imagined, -and, full of curiosity, he turned back the sheet. There were little -scars on the nose and ears particularly, but nothing appalling, and he -looked long at Raymond’s face. The heavy eyelids were closed, the mouth -pouted sullenly; death had not changed him at all; he hardly looked -asleep, drowsy at the most. Not a ray of pity softened Colin’s smiling -face of triumph. - - * * * * * - -For a month after Raymond’s death, the four of them, representing three -generations of Staniers, remained quietly there. His name was mentioned -less and less among them, for, after Colin’s disclosure to his father, -Philip avoided all speech about him, and, as far as he could, all -thought. Horror came with the thought of him. The most his father could -do was to try to forget him. But for an accident in that matter of a -punctured tyre, Colin would now be lying where Raymond lay, and all -sunshine would have passed from his declining years. He was no more than -sixty-six, but he was old; Colin used to wonder at the swift advance of -old age, like some evening shadow, which lengthened so rapidly. But -beyond the shadow Philip’s sky was full of light. His desire had been -realised, though by tragic ways, and his death, neither dreaded nor -wished-for, would realise it. - -There were, however, events in the future which he anticipated with -eagerness; the first was Colin’s coming of age next March. For -generations that festival had been one of high prestige in the family, -and in spite of the recency of Raymond’s death, he meant to celebrate it -with due splendour. - -The other was even more intimately longed-for; early in July, Violet -would, if all were well, become a mother; and to see Colin’s son, to -know that the succession would continue, was the dearest hope of his -life. And these two expectations brought back some St. Martin’s summer -of the spirit to him; he began to look forward, as is the way of youth, -instead of dwelling in the past. The lengthening shadow stayed, it even -retreated.... But Colin had an important piece of business to effect -before his father’s death, and he was waiting, without impatience but -watchfully, for an opportunity to set out on it. As usual, he wanted the -suggestion which would give him this opportunity to come, not from -himself, but from others; he would seem then to do what he desired -because it was urged on him. - -A week of dark, foggy weather towards the end of February favoured his -plans. Influenza was about, and he had a touch of it, in no way serious, -indeed possibly useful. After a couple of days in his room he reappeared -again, but with all the fire gone out of him. He was silent and -depressed, and saw that his father’s eyes watched him with anxiety. - -“Still feeling rather down?” asked Philip one morning, when Colin pushed -an untasted plate away from him at breakfast. - -Colin made a tragic face at the window. Nothing could be seen outside, -the fog was opaque and impenetrable. - -“That’s not very encouraging, father,” he said. “Not convalescing -weather.” - -He appeared to pull himself together. “But there’s nothing to worry -about,” he said. “I should feel depressed in this damp darkness whether -I had had the flue or not.” - -“You want the sun,” said Philip. - -“Ah, the sun! Is there one? Do show it me.” - -Philip walked to the window; thin rain was leaking through the fog. It -certainly was not inspiriting. - -“Well, why not go and see it for yourself?” he said. “There’s sun -somewhere. Go off to the Riviera for a fortnight with Violet.” - -“Oh, that would be divine if we only could,” said Colin. “But--I daresay -it’s funny of me--I don’t want Vi to go through the sort of journey you -have at this time of year. The trains are crammed; a fellow I know had -to stand all the way from Paris to Marseilles. I shouldn’t like her to -do that. Besides we can’t both leave you.” - -“Go alone then. Violet will understand.” - -Colin sighed. - -“I don’t think I feel much like travelling either,” he said. “I’ll stick -it out, father. I can go to bed again. I think that’s the most -comfortable place. Besides the Riviera is like a monkey-house just now.” - -“Go to the villa at Capri then.” - -“Ah, don’t talk of it,” said Colin, getting up. “Can’t I see the -stone-pine frying in the sunshine. And the freesias will be out, and the -wall-flowers. Nino, your old boatman’s son, wrote to me the other day. -He said the spring had come, and the vines were budding, and it was -already hot! Hot! I could have cried for envy. Don’t let’s talk of it.” - -“But I will talk about it,” said Philip. “I’m master here yet....” - -“Father, I don’t like that joke,” said Colin. - -“Very well. We’ll leave it out and be serious. I shall talk to Violet, -too.” - -“No, no, no!” said Colin without conviction. “Hullo, here is Vi. Please -don’t mention the name of that beloved island again or I shall cry. -Morning, Vi. You’re enough sunshine for anyone.” - -Colin strolled out of the room so as to leave the others together, and -presently Philip passed through the long gallery, and was certainly -engaged in telephoning for a while. It was a trunk-call, apparently, for -there was an interval between the ringing up and the subsequent -conversation. All that day neither Philip nor Violet made the least -allusion to Capri, but there was certainly something in the air.... The -last post that night, arriving while they were at cards, brought a -packet for Lord Yardley, which he opened. - -“There, that’s the way to treat obstinate fellows like you, Colin,” he -observed, and tossed over to him the book of tickets to Naples and back. - -“Father and Violet, you’re brutes,” he said. “I give up.” - - * * * * * - -Colin was ever so easily persuaded by Mr. Cecil to spend a couple of -nights, if not more, in Naples, before he went across to the island, and -he had a youthful, pathetic tale to tell. They had had a terrible time -in England. No doubt Mr. Cecil had seen the notice of his brother’s -death--Mr. Cecil could imagine his father’s grief, and indeed his own -and Violet’s. Kind messages, by the way, from them both: they would none -of them forgive him, if he came to England this year and did not reserve -at least a week for them, either in London or at Stanier.... Then Colin -himself had caught influenza, and his father and wife had insisted on -his going south for a week or two and letting the sun soak into him. But -after that month of secluded mourning at Stanier, it was rather -heavenly--Colin looked like a seraph who had strayed into a sad world, -as he said this--to pass a couple of days in some sort of city where -there were many people, and all gay, some stir of life and distraction -from his own sorrowful thoughts. - -“One has to buck up again some time,” said Colin, “and often I longed to -escape from Stanier and just go up to town and dine with some jolly -people, and go to a music-hall, and have supper somewhere, and forget it -all for a time. Shocking of me, I suppose.” - -“No, no, I understand. I quite comprehend that, Colin,” said Cecil. “I -beg your pardon: I should say Lord Stanier.” - -“Oh, don’t,” said Colin. “I hate the title. It was dear Raymond’s. You -never saw him, I think?” - -Mr. Cecil had begun to feel like a family friend. He felt himself a sort -of uncle to this brilliant boy, so shadowed by woe, so eager to escape -out of the shadow. It was his mission, clearly, to aid in this cure, -physical and mental, of sunlight. - -“No, never,” said he, “only you and your wife and your father. A -privilege!” - -Colin drank the hospitable cocktail that stood at his elbow. His -definite plans were yet in the making, but he began to suspect that -alcohol in various forms would be connected with them. He had the -Stanier head as regards drink; it only seemed to collect and clarify his -wits, and he remembered that Mr. Cecil, on that night which he had spent -alone here, had quickly passed through joviality and perhaps want of -dignity, to bland somnolence.... He got up with an air of briskness and -mutual understanding. - -“I’m not going to be a wet-blanket, Mr. Cecil,” he said. “I’ve told you -enough to make you see that I pine for enjoyment again. That little -restaurant where you and I went before--may we dine there again? I want -to see other people enjoying themselves, and I want the sun. Those are -my medicines; be a kind, good doctor to me.” - -Mr. Cecil’s treatment, so he congratulated himself, seemed wonderfully -efficacious that evening. Colin cast all sad thoughts behind him, and -between one thing and another, and specially between one drink and -another, it was after twelve o’clock before they returned from their -dinner to Mr. Cecil’s flat again. Even then, a story was but half-told, -and Mr. Cecil drew his keys from his pocket to unlock a very private -drawer where there were photographs about which he now felt sure Colin -would be sympathetic. - -“You’ll like them,” he giggled, as he produced these prints. “Help -yourself, Colin. I see they have put out some whisky for us.” - -“Oh, Lord, how funny,” said Colin looking at what Mr. Cecil shewed him. -“But I can’t drink unless you do. Say when, Mr. Cecil.” - -Mr. Cecil was looking at the next photograph, and Colin took advantage -of his preoccupation. The big bunch of keys by which this private, this -very private, drawer was opened still dangled from the lock. - -“And this one,” said Mr. Cecil, applying himself to the liberal dose. - -“But what a glorious creature,” said Colin. “May I help myself?” - -Mr. Cecil had a confused idea that Colin had finished his first drink -and wanted another. So he finished his own and wanted another. - -“Of course, my dear boy,” he said. “Just a night-cap, eh? A drop of -whisky at bed-time, I’ve noticed, makes one sleep all the sounder.” - -Colin was on the apex of watchfulness. Photograph after photograph was -handed to him, but long before they came to the end of them the effects -of the night-cap were apparent in Mr. Cecil. The keys still hung from -the lock, and Colin, as he replaced the last of this unblushing series, -got up and stood between this table-drawer and his host. - -“And that statuette there?” he said, pointing to the other side of the -room. “Surely we’ve seen a photograph of that?” - -Mr. Cecil chuckled again; but the chuckle could hardly emerge from his -sleep-slack mouth. - -“Ah, I’ll tell you about that to-morrow,” he said, looking round at it. - -Colin, with one of his caressing, boyish movements, put his hand on Mr. -Cecil’s shoulder, and ever so imperceptibly drew him towards the door. - -“I feel a different fellow altogether,” he said. “I shall sleep like a -top, and I have enjoyed myself. You ought to give up your consular work -and start a cure for depressed young men. You’d make a fortune.” - -They were out in the passage by this time, and it was clear that the -night-cap had banished all thought of his keys from Mr. Cecil’s head. He -saw Colin to his room, lingered a moment to see that he had all he -wanted, and then went to his own. - -“A charming young fellow,” he thought; performed a somnambulistic feat -of undressing, and fell into his bed. - -Colin heard his door shut, and then in a moment turned off his light, -and, stealthily opening his own door, stood in the entry listening for -any sound. For a minute or two there were faint, muffled noises from his -host’s room, but soon all was still, except for the creaking of his own -shirt-front as he breathed. Then, re-entering his room, he stripped and -put on his pyjamas and soft felt slippers which would be noiseless on -the boards outside. Once more he stood there and waited, and now from -inside Mr. Cecil’s room came sounds rhythmical and reassuring. Enough -light dribbled in through the uncurtained windows to guide his steps -without fear of collision, and he glided into the room they had just -left and felt his way to the table where the keys still dangled. He -unloosed them, grasping them in the flap of his jacket, so that they -should not jingle as he moved, and went down the passage to the door of -the consular offices. The big key for the door was in the lock, and -turned noiselessly. - -The archive-room lay to the right, and with the door into the house shut -behind him, he permitted himself the illumination of a match, and passed -through. The shutters were closed, and he lit a candle that stood on the -table for official sealing. There, in the wall, was the locked press -that he so well remembered, and the trial of half-a-dozen of the keys on -the bunch he carried gave him the one he looked for. The date labels -were on the back of the volumes, and he drew out that which comprised -the year he wanted. Quietly he turned over the leaves and found the page -which contained the contract between Rosina Viagi and Philip Lord -Stanier. Even in this one-candle-power light the erasure was visible to -the eye that looked for it. A paper-knife lay among the tools of writing -on the table, and folding the leaf back to its innermost margin he -severed it from the book and thrust it inside the cord of his trousers. - -Bright-eyed and breathing quickly with excitement and success, he -replaced the volume and locked the press. He grasped the keys as before, -blew out the candle, quenching the smouldering wick in his fingers, and -went back, locking the door of the office behind him, into the room from -which he had fetched the keys. He replaced them in the drawer of -unblushing photographs and, pausing for a moment at his own door, -listened for the noise that had reassured him before. There it was, -resonant and rhythmical. He closed his door, turned up his light, and -drew the severed page from his trousers. He had been gone, so his watch -told him, not more than five minutes. - -“Rosina Viagi to Philip Lord Stanier....” March 1, or March 31, mattered -no more. “I have but cancelled a forgery,” he thought to himself as he -pored over it. It was a pity to be obliged to destroy so ingenious a -work, which at one time gave him the mastership of Stanier, but -Raymond’s death had given it him more completely, and it no longer -served his end, but was only a danger. Yet should he destroy it, or.... - -His mind went back to the night that he and Violet had passed together -here. How supreme had been his wisdom over that! For supposing, on his -father’s death, that Violet threatened to contest his succession on the -information he had given her to induce her for certain to marry him, -what now would the register show but an excised leaf? In whose interest -had it been to remove that, except Violet’s, for with its disappearance -there vanished, as far as she knew, all record of the marriage. Had she -had an opportunity of doing so? Certainly, for had she not spent a night -here on the return from their honeymoon? Should she be so unwise as to -send her lawyer here to examine the register on the ground that it had -been tampered with, she would be faced with a tampering of an unexpected -kind. The leaf had gone; but how lucky that before its suspicious -disappearance, Colin had copied out the entry of the marriage and had it -certified as correct by the Consul himself. He had it safe, with its -date, March 1. That would be a surprise to poor Violet when she knew it, -and the finger of suspicion, wavering hitherto, would surely point in -one very definite direction.... As for the letter from Rosina to -Salvatore Viagi, of which she would profess knowledge on Colin’s -authority, what did she mean and where was the letter? Uncle Salvatore, -whom Colin would see to-morrow, would be found to know nothing about it. - -About the destruction of this page.... Colin fingered his own smooth -throat as he considered that. Supposing Violet seriously and obstinately -threatened to contest the succession? And what if, when the page was -found to be missing, it was discovered in some locked and secret -receptacle of her own? That would be devilish funny.... Colin hoped, he -thought, that it would not come to that. He liked Violet, but she must -be good, she must be wise. - -The click of an electric switch and the noise of a step outside sent his -heart thumping in his throat, and next moment he had thrust the page -into his despatch-box and turned the key on it. The step passed his -room, and was no longer audible, and with infinite precaution he turned -the handle, and holding the door just ajar, he listened. It had not gone -the whole length of the passage down to the entry to the consular -offices, and even while he stood there he heard the chink of keys. Then -the step was audible again, and the chink accompanied it. At that -comprehension came to him, confirmed next moment by the repeated click -of the electric switch and the soft closing of his host’s door. - -“My luck holds,” thought Colin, and blessed the powers that so -wonderfully protected him. In another minute he was in bed, but even as -sleep rose softly about him, he woke himself with a laugh. - -“That’s where I’ll put the leaf from the register,” he thought. -“Priceless! Absolutely priceless!” - -It was no news to him when at breakfast next morning Mr. Cecil certified -the accuracy of his interpretation of the step. - -“Amazingly careless I was last night,” he said. “I went straight to bed -after we had looked at those photographs, and fell asleep at once.” - -“Night-cap,” said Colin. “I did exactly the same.” - -“Well, my night-cap fell off,” said Mr. Cecil. “It fell off with a bang. -I hadn’t been to sleep more than a quarter of an hour when I woke with a -start.” - -“Some noise?” asked Colin carelessly. - -“No. I hadn’t heard anything, but my conscience awoke me, and I -remembered I had left my keys in the lock of that private drawer of -mine. I got out of bed in a fine hurry, for not only was that drawer -unlocked--that would never do, eh?--but on the bunch were keys of -cupboards and locked cases in the Consulate. But there the keys were -just where I had left them. I can’t think how I came to forget them when -I went to bed.” - -Colin looked up with an irresistible gaiety of eye and mouth: - -“I know,” he said. “You were so busy looking after your patient.... And -you gave me a lot of medicine, Dr. Cecil, wine, liqueurs, cocktails, -whiskies and sodas. I was as sleepy as an owl when I tumbled into bed. -How thirsty it makes one in the morning to be sleepy at night.” - -Mr. Cecil broke into a chuckle of laughter. - -“Precisely my experience,” he said. “Odd. Now can you amuse yourself -to-day till I’m free again?” - -“Not so much as if you were with me,” said Colin. “But I must pay a duty -call on my uncle. I don’t say it will be amusing. Do you know him? -Salvatore Viagi.” - -Mr. Cecil had not that happiness, and presently Colin went in search of -the mansion which Salvatore had once alluded to as the Palazzo Viagi. - -Leaving nothing to chance that could be covered by design, he had -telegraphed from Rome yesterday to say he would make this visit, and -wanted a private interview with Salvatore. The Palazzo Viagi proved to -be a rather shabby flat in an inconspicuous street, but Salvatore -skipped from his chair with open arms to receive him, and assumed an -expression that was suitable to the late family bereavement and his joy -at seeing Colin. - -“_Collino mio!_” he cried. “What a happy morning is this for your poor -uncle, yet, oh, what a terrible blow has fallen on us since last I saw -you! Dear friend, dear nephew, my heart bled for you when I saw the -news! So young, and with such brilliant prospects. Lamentable indeed. -Enough.” - -He squeezed Colin’s hand and turned away for a moment to hide his -emotion at the death of one on whom he had never set eyes. He wore an -enormous black tie in token of his grief, but was otherwise as -troubadourial as ever. - -“But we must put away sad thoughts,” he continued. “I am all on -tenter-hooks to know what brings you to my humble doors. Not further bad -news: no, not that? Your beloved father is well, I hope. Your beloved -wife also, and your revered grandmother. Yes? Put me out of my -suspense.” - -The health of these was not so much an anxiety at this moment to -Salvatore as the desire to know that all was well with the very pleasant -financial assistance which Colin provided. It was easy, in fact, to -guess the real nature of his suspense, and consequently Colin found a -delicate pleasure in prolonging it a little. - -“Yes, they’re all well,” he said. “My father bore the blow wonderfully -considering how devoted he was to Raymond. Violet, too, and my -grandmother. You can make your affectionate heart at ease about them -all.” - -“Thank God! thank God!” said Salvatore. “I--I got your telegram. I have -made arrangements so that our privacy shall be uninterrupted. I have, in -fact, sent Vittoria and Cecilia to visit friends at Posilippo. Such -reproaches, such entreaties, when they heard their cousin Colin was -expected, but I was adamant.” - -“And how are Vittoria and Cecilia?” asked Colin. The troubadour was -almost dancing with impatience. - -“They are well, I am glad to say; they have the constitution of -ostriches, or whatever is healthiest in the animal kingdom. But time -presses, no doubt, with you, dear fellow; you will be in a hurry; duties -and pleasure no doubt claim you.” - -“No, no,” said Colin. “I am quite at leisure for the day. I am staying -with Mr. Cecil our Consul. He is officially engaged all day, and all the -hours are at our disposal.... So at last I see the home of my mother’s -family. Was it here she lived, Uncle Salvatore?” - -“No, in quite another street. My wretched penury drove me here. Even -with your bounty, dear Collino, I can scarcely make the two ends meet.” - -Colin looked very grave. - -“Indeed, I am very sorry to hear that,” he said. - -“Ah! You have come to me with bad news,” exclaimed Salvatore, unable to -check himself any more. “Break it to me quickly. Vittoria....” - -At last Colin had pity. - -“Let’s come to business, Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “There’s no bad -news, at least if there is you will be making it for yourself. Now, do -you remember two letters of my mother which you once sent me? We had a -talk about them, and I want you to give me your account of them. Can you -describe them to me?” - -Salvatore made a tragic gesture and covered his eyes with his hand. The -ludicrous creature made a farce of all he touched. - -“They are graven on my heart,” he said. “Deep and bitterly are they -graven there. The first that I received, dated on the seventeenth of -March, told me of the birth of her twins, one named Raymond and -yourself. The second, dated March the thirty-first, announced her -marriage which had taken place that day with your father ...” and he -ground his teeth slightly. - -Colin leaned forward to him. - -“Uncle Salvatore you are a marvellous actor!” he said. “Why did you -never go on the stage? I can tell you why. You have no memory at all.” - -Salvatore gave him a hunted kind of look. Was not his very existence -(and that of Vittoria and Cecilia) dependent on the accuracy of this -recollection?... Was Colin putting him to some sort of test to see if he -would stick to his impression of those letters. - -“Dear fellow, those letters and those dates are engraved, as I have -previously assured you, on my heart. Alas! that it should be so....” - -A sudden light dawned on him. - -“You have come to tell me that I am wrong,” he said. “Is it indeed true -that my memory is at fault?” - -“Absolutely with regard to the date of one of those letters,” said -Colin. “The date on that which announced my mother’s marriage was surely -March the first, Uncle Salvatore. You are right about the date of the -other.” - -Colin suddenly broke into a shout of laughter. His uncle’s puckered brow -and his effort to recollect what he knew and what he had been told were -marvellous to behold. Presently he recovered himself. - -“Seriously, Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “I want you to see if you cannot -recollect that the marriage letter was dated March the first. It is very -important that you should do that; it will be disastrous for you if you -don’t. I just want you to recollect clearly that I am right about it. -The letters will never be produced, for I have destroyed them both.... -But surely when you sent me them you thought that it was as I say. -Probably you will never be called upon to swear to your belief, but just -possibly you may. It would be nice if you could recollect that; it would -remove the stain from the honour of your illustrious house, and, also, -parenthetically, from my poor shield.” - -Colin paused a moment with legs crossed in an attitude of lazy ease; he -lay back in his low chair and scratched one ankle with the heel of his -shoe. - -“Mosquitoes already!” he said, “what troublesome things there are in the -world! Mosquitoes you know, Uncle Salvatore, or want of money for -instance. If I were a scheming, inventive fellow, I should try to -arrange to give a pleasant annuity to mosquitoes on the condition of -their not biting me. If one bit me after that, I should withdraw my -annuity. What nonsense I am talking! It is getting into the sun and the -warmth and your delightful society that makes me foolish and cheerful. -Let us get back to what I was saying. I am sure you thought when you -gave me those dear letters that the date of your adored sister’s -marriage was the first of March. In all seriousness I advise you to -remember that it was so. That’s all; I believe we understand each other. -Vittoria’s future, you know, and all the rest of it. And on my father’s -death, I shall be a very rich man. But memory, what a priceless -possession is that! If you only had a good memory, Uncle Salvatore!... -Persuade me that you have a good memory. Reinstate, as far as you can, -the unblemished honour of the Viagis. Yes, that’s all.” - -Colin got up and examined the odious objects that hung on the walls. -There was a picture framed in shells; there was a piece of needlework -framed in sea-weed; there was a chromo-lithograph of something sacred. -All was shabby and awful. A stench of vegetables and the miscellany -called _frutta di mare_ stole in through the windows from the barrows -outside this splendid Palazzo Viagi. - -“But the record at the Consulate,” said Salvatore, with Italian -cautiousness. “You told me that though the date there appeared to be the -same as that which I certainly seem to recollect on the letter....” - -Colin snapped himself round from an absent inspection of, no doubt, -Vittoria’s needlework. - -“But what the deuce has that got to do with you, Uncle Salvatore?” he -said. “I want your recollection of the dates on the letters which we -have been speaking of and of nothing else at all. Do I not see -Vittoria’s handiwork in this beautiful frame of shells? How lucky she -has a set of clever fingers if her father has a bad memory! She will -have herself to support and him as well, will she not? And what do you -know of any register at the Consulate? The noble Viagis would not mix -themselves up with low folk like poor Mr. Cecil. In fact, he told me -that he had not the honour of your acquaintance. Do not give it him. Why -should you know Mr. Cecil? About that letter now....” - -“It was certainly my impression,” began Salvatore. - -Colin interrupted. “I don’t deal with your impressions,” he said. “Was -not the letter concerning my mother’s marriage dated the first of March? -That’s all; yes or no.” - -Salvatore became the complete troubadour again, and his malachite studs -made him forget his black tie. Again he skipped from his chair with open -arms. - -“I swear to it,” he said. “The restoration of my adored idol! It has -been a nightmare to me to think.... Ah, it was just that, a bad -dream.... Were not those letters imprinted on my heart?” - -Colin evaded his embrace; he was like some monstrous goat in broadcloth. - -“That’s all settled then,” he said. “You were only teasing me when you -pretended not to remember. You will be sure not to forget again, won’t -you? Forgetfulness is such a natural failing, but what dreadful -consequences may come of it. Let the thought of them be your nightmare -in the future, Uncle Salvatore. There’ll be pleasant realities instead -if you will only remember, and a pleasant reality is nicer than a bad -dream which comes true.... I’ll be going now, I think....” - -“I cannot permit it,” exclaimed Salvatore. “Some wine, some biscuits!” - -“Neither, thanks,” said Colin. “I had wine last night, though I can’t -remember the biscuits. Probably there were some. Vittoria and Cecilia! -What an anxiety removed with regard to their future!” - -“And your movements, dear Collino?” exclaimed Salvatore. “You go to -Capri?” - -Colin thought of the tawdry, bibulous evening that probably awaited him, -and his uncle’s question put a new idea into his head. His innate love -of wickedness made it desirable to him to hurt those who were fond of -him, if their affection could bring him no advantage. Uncle Salvatore, -at any rate, could do nothing more for him, and he was not sure that Mr. -Cecil could. Mr. Cecil had been a wonderful host last night; he had -fulfilled the utmost requirements of his guest in getting sleepy and -drunk, and was there any more use for Mr. Cecil? Drink and photographs -and leerings at the attractive maidens of Naples was a very stupid sort -of indulgence.... - -“Yes, to-morrow,” he said. “Perhaps even by the afternoon boat to-day.” - -“But alone?” said Salvatore. “How gladly would I relieve your solitude. -I would bring Vittoria and Cecilia; how charming a family party.” - -Colin felt some flamelike quiver of hatred spread through him. His -nerves vibrated with it; it reached to his toes and fingertips. - -“A delightful suggestion,” he said, “for you and Vittoria and whatever -the other one’s name is. But I don’t want any of you, thank you. I -haven’t seen either of them, but I guess what they are like from you. -You’re like--you’re like a mixture of a troubadour and a mountebank, and -the man who cracks the whip at the horses in a circus, Uncle Salvatore. -You’re no good to me any more, but I can be awfully bad for you if you -lose your memory again. You know exactly what I want you to remember, -and you do remember it. You forgot it because I told you to forget it. -Now it has all come back to you, and how nice that is. But if you think -I am going to bore myself with you and Vittoria and the other, you make -a stupendous error. I’m very kind to you, you know; I’m your benefactor -to a considerable extent, so you mustn’t think me unkind when I utterly -refuse to saddle myself with your company. I butter your bread for you, -be content with that. Good-bye. Love to Vittoria!” - - * * * * * - -So that was done, and he strolled back along the sea-front towards the -Consulate. Capri, a little more solid only than a cloud, floated on the -horizon, and with that delightful goal so near, it was miserable to -picture another tiresome crapulous evening with the little red bounder. -Last night, stupid and wearisome though the hours had been, they had -yielded him the prize he sought for, whereas to-night there would be no -prize of any sort in view. Those interminable drinks, those stupid -photographs, why waste time and energy in this second-hand sort of -debauchery? He had been prepared, when he started from England, to spend -with Mr. Cecil as much time as was necessary in order to achieve what -was the main object of his expedition, but that was accomplished now. He -would be so much happier at the villa, where he was, after all, expected -to-day, than in seeing Mr. Cecil get excited and familiar and -photographic and intoxicated. - -The whispering stone-pine, the vine-wreathed pergola, the piazza full of -dusk and youth, the steps of belated passengers on the pathway outside -the garden made sweeter music than the voice of an inebriated Consul -with its hints and giggles. Stout, middle-aged people, if there had to -be such in the world, should keep quiet and read their books, and leave -the mysteries and joys of youth to the young.... It was there, in that -cloud that floated on the horizon, that he had first realised himself -and the hand that led him, in the scent-haunted darkness and the -whispering of the night wind; that fed his soul with a nourishment that -Mr. Cecil’s cocktails and photographs were starvingly lacking in. He -would feast there to-night. - -A promise to spend another night at the Consulate on his return from -Capri made good his desertion to-day, for, in point of fact, Mr. Cecil -felt considerably off-colour this morning, and rather misdoubted his -capacity for carrying off with any semblance of enjoyment a repetition -of last night. His reproaches and disappointment were clearly -complimentary rather than sincere, and the afternoon boat carried Colin -on it. Once he had made that journey with his father, once with Violet, -but could a wish have brought either of them to his side he would no -more have breathed it than have thrown himself off the boat. He did not -want to be jostled and encumbered by love, or hear its gibberish, and -with eager eyes, revelling in the sense of being alone with his errand -already marvellously accomplished, he watched the mainland recede and -the island draw nearer through the fading twilight. - -Lights were springing up along the Marina, and presently there was Nino -alongside in his boat, ready to ferry him ashore. He, with his joyous -paganism, his serene indifference to good or evil, was far closer to -what Colin hungered for than either his father or Violet, but closer -yet, so Colin realised, was the hatred between himself and his own dead -brother.... - -And then presently there was the garden dusky and fragrant with the -odour of wallflowers and freesias, and the whispering of the warm breeze -from the sea, and the oblong of light from the open door to welcome him. - -On the table just within there lay a telegram for him, and with some -vivid presentiment of what it contained, he opened it. His father had -died quite suddenly a few hours ago. - -The whisper of the pine grew louder, and the breeze suddenly freshening, -swept in at the door thick with garden scents, with greeting, with -felicitations. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -Just a fortnight later Colin was lying in one of the window seats of the -long gallery at Stanier reading through some papers which required his -signature. They had come by the post which Nino had just given him, for -he had brought the boy with him from Capri, with a view to making him -his valet. His own, he said, always looked as if he were listening to a -reading of the ten commandments, and Colin had no use for such a person. -Nino, at any rate, would bring cheerfulness and some touch of southern -gaiety with his shaving-water; besides, no servant approached the -Italian in dexterity and willingness. - -And now that the pause of death was over, adjustments, businesses, the -taking up of life again had to begin, and his lawyer was getting things -in shape for his supervision. These particular papers were tedious and -hard to follow and were expressed in that curious legal shibboleth which -makes the unprofessional mind to wander. He tried to attend, but the -effort was like clinging to some slippery edge of ice; he could get no -firm hold of it, and the deep waters kept closing over him. There, below -the terrace, lay the lake where he had seen one such incident happen. - -By that he had become heir to all that this fair, shining spring day -shewed him; his father’s death put him in possession, and now this -morning, wherever he turned his eyes, whether on lake or woodland, or -within on picture and carved ceiling, all were his. This stately home, -the light and desire of his eye, with all that it meant in wealth and -position, had passed again into the hands of Colin Stanier, handed down -from generation to generation, ever more prosperous, from his namesake -who had built its enduring walls and founded its splendours. - -Of his father’s death there was but little to tell him, when, coming -straight back again from Capri, he had arrived here at the set of a -stormy day. Philip had reeled as he crossed the hall one morning, and -fallen on the hearthrug in front of the Holbein. For half an hour he had -lived, quite unconscious and suffering nothing, then his breathing had -ceased. Until the moment of his stroke, that bursting of some large -blood-vessel on the brain, he had been quite well and cheerful, -rejoicing in the fact that Colin by now had found the sun again, and -already longing for his return. - -Violet had been Colin’s informant, and she told him these things with -that air of detachment from him which had characterised her intercourse -with him since Raymond had come home for that last Christmas vacation. -She had watched then with some secret horror dawning in her eyes, -Colin’s incessant torture of his brother. That dismay and darkness which -had spread its shadow on her in the month of their honeymoon, when first -she really began to know Colin, interrupted for a time by their return -home and the high festivals of the autumn, had returned to her then with -a fresh infusion of blackness. Never once had she spoken to him about -his treatment of Raymond, but he was conscious that she watched and -shuddered. It did not seem that her love for him was extinguished; that -horror of hers existed side by side with it; she yearned for his love -even while she shrank from his pitilessness. She feared him, too, not -only for the ruthless iron of him, but for the very charm which had a -power over her more potent yet. - -Then came the weeks after Raymond’s death, and Colin thought he saw in -her a waning of her fear of him; that, he reflected, was natural. Some -time, so he read her mind, she knew she would be mistress here in her -own right; it seemed very reasonable that she should gain confidence. - -For the last few days, when the wheels of life were now beginning to -turn again, he saw with a comprehending sense of entertainment that -there was something in Violet’s mind: she was trying to bring herself -up to a certain point, and it was not hard to guess what that was. She -was silent and preoccupied, and a dozen times a day she seemed on the -verge of speaking of that which he knew was the subject of her thought. -Till to-day her father and mother and Aunt Hester in becoming mourning -had been with them, now they had gone, and Violet’s restlessness had -become quite ludicrous. She had been in and out of the room half a dozen -times; she had sat down to read the paper, and next moment it had -dropped from her lap and she was staring at the fire again lost in -frowning thought. - -Knowing what her communication when it came must be, Colin, from the -very nature of the case could not help her out with it, but he wished -that she would wrestle with and vanquish her hesitation. If it had been -he who in this present juncture had had to speak to Raymond on this -identical subject, how blithely would he have undertaken it. Then, -finally, Violet seemed to make up her mind to take the plunge, and sat -down on the edge of the seat where he lounged. He extended his arm and -put it round her. - -“Well, Vi,” he said, “are you finding it hard to settle down? I am, too, -but we’ve got to do it. My dear, Aunt Hester’s little black bonnet! Did -you ever see anything so chic? Roguish; she gets sprightlier every day!” - -Violet looked at him gravely. - -“There’s something we have to talk about, Colin,” she said, “and we both -know what it is. Will you let me speak for a minute or two without -interrupting me?” - -He put his finger on the line to which he had come in this tiresome -document, which his solicitor assured him required his immediate -attention. - -“An hour or two, darling; the longer the better,” he said. “What is it? -Are you sure I know? Something nice I hope. Ah, is it about my birthday -perhaps? The last affair that dear father was busy over were plans for -my birthday. Of course I have counter-ordered everything and we must -keep it next year. Well, what is it? I won’t interrupt any more.” - -Colin leaned back with his hand still under Violet’s arm, as if to draw -her with him. She bent with him a little way and then disengaged -herself. - -“I hate what lies before me,” she said, “and I ask you to believe that I -have struggled with myself. I have tried, Colin, to give the whole thing -up, to let it be yours. But I can’t. I long to be Lady Yardley in my own -right, as you told me I should be on Uncle Philip’s death. All that it -means! I fancy you understand that. But I think I might have given that -up, if it was only myself of whom I had to think. I don’t know; I can’t -be sure.” - -She paused, not looking at him. She did not want to know till all was -done how he was taking it. Of course he anticipated it: he knew it must -be, and here was the plain point of it.... - -“But I haven’t got only myself to think about,” she said. “Before many -months I shall bear you a child; I shall bear you other children after -that, perhaps. I am thinking of them and of you. Since we married I have -learned things about you. You are hard in a way that I did not know was -possible. You have neither love nor compassion. I must defend my -children against you; the only way I can do it is to be supreme myself. -I must hold the reins, not you. I will be good to you, and shall never -cease loving you, I think, but I can’t put myself in your hands, which I -should do, if I did not now use the knowledge which you yourself -conveyed to me. You did that with your eyes open; you asked for and -accepted what your position here will be, and you did it chiefly out of -hatred to Raymond. That was your motive, and it tells on my decision. -You hate more than you love, and I am frightened for my children. - -“It is true that when I accepted Raymond, I did it because I should get -Stanier--be mistress here anyhow. But I think--I was wavering--that I -should have thrown him over before I married him and have accepted you, -though I knew that marriage with you forfeited the other. Then you told -me it was otherwise, that in forfeiting Stanier, I found it even more -completely.” - -Colin--he had promised not to interrupt--gave no sign of any sort. His -finger still marked the place in this legal document. - -“I have sent for my father’s solicitor,” she said, “and they have told -me he is here. But before I see him I wanted to tell you that I shall -instruct him to contest your succession. I shall tell him about the -register in the Consulate at Naples and about your mother’s letters to -your uncle. You said you would let me have them on your father’s death. -Would you mind giving me them now, therefore? He may wish to see them.” - -Colin moved ever so slightly, and she for the first time looked at him. -There he lay, with those wide, child-like eyes, and the mouth that -sometimes seemed to her to have kissed her very soul away. He had a -smile for her grave glance; just so had he smiled when torturingly he -tried to remember exactly what had happened in the Old Park on the day -that Raymond shot pigeons. But even while she thought of his relentless, -pursuing glee, the charm of him, the sweet supple youth of him, all fire -and softness, smote on her heart. - -“Won’t you go away, till it is all over?” she said. “It will be horrible -for you, Colin, and I don’t want you to suffer. The letters are all I -want of you; I will tell Mr. Markham about the register and he will do -whatever is necessary. Go back to your beloved island; you were robbed -of your stay there. Wait there until all this business, which will be -horrible for you, is done. You can see your dear Mr. Cecil again....” -she added, trying to smile back at him. - -“Yes, I might do that,” said Colin thoughtfully. “In fact, I probably -shall. But I must try to take in what you have been saying. I can’t -understand it: you must explain. You referred, for instance, to my -mother’s letters. What letters? I don’t know of any letters of my -mother as being in existence. Still less have I got any. How could I -have? She died when I was but a few weeks old. Do mothers write letters -to the babies at their breasts?” - -“The two letters to your uncle,” said she. - -Colin planted a levering elbow by his side, and sat up. - -“I suppose it is I who am mad,” he said, “because you talk quite quietly -and coherently, and yet I don’t understand a single word of what you -say. Letters from my mother to my uncle? Ah....” - -He took her hand again, amending his plan in accordance with his talk -with Salvatore. - -“You’re right,” he said. “Uncle Salvatore did once give me two letters -from my mother to him. Little faint things. I destroyed them not so long -ago: one should never keep letters. But you’re right, Vi. Uncle -Salvatore did give me a couple of letters once, but when on earth did I -mention them to you? What a memory you have got! It’s quite true; one -announced my mother’s marriage, the other spoke of the birth of poor -Raymond and me. But what of them? And what--oh, I must be mad--what in -heaven’s name do you mean, when you talk, if I understand you correctly, -about sending somebody out to Naples? The register in the Consulate -there? And my succession? Are they connected? Isn’t it usual for a son -to succeed his father? I’m all at sea--or am I asleep and dreaming? -Pinch me, darling. I want to wake up. What register?” - -Some nightmare sense of slipping, slipping, slipping took hold of -Violet. - -“The erasure in the register,” she said. “All that you told me.” - -Colin swung his legs off the window-seat and got up. There was an -electric bell close at hand and he rang it. - -“There’s some plot,” he said, “and I have no idea what it is. I want a -witness with regard to anything further that you wish to say to me. -What’s his name? Your father’s solicitor, I mean. Oh, yes, Markham. -Don’t speak another word to me.” - -He turned his back on her and waited till a servant came in. - -“Her ladyship wishes to see Mr. Markham,” he said. “Ask Mr. Markham to -come here at once.” - -“Colin....” she began. - -It was just such a face that he turned on her now as he had given to her -one evening at Capri. - -“Not a word,” he said. “Hold your tongue, Violet. You’ll speak -presently.” - -Mr. Markham appeared, precise and florid. Colin shook hands with him. - -“My wife has a statement to make to you,” he said. “I don’t know what it -is: she has not yet made it. But it concerns me and the succession to my -father’s title and estates. It had therefore better be made to you in my -presence. Please tell Mr. Markham what you were about to tell me, -Violet.” - -In dead silence, briefly and clearly, Violet repeated what Colin had -told her on the night that they were engaged. All the time he looked at -her, Mr. Markham would have said, with tenderness and anxiety, and when -she had finished he spoke: - -“I hope you will go into this matter without any delay, Mr. Markham,” he -said. “My wife, as I have already told her, is perfectly right in saying -that my uncle--you will need his address--gave me two letters from my -mother to him. She is right also about the subject of those letters. But -she is under a complete delusion about the dates of them. I destroyed -them not so long ago, I am afraid, so the only person who can possibly -settle this is my uncle, to whom I hope you will apply without delay. No -doubt he will have some recollection of them; indeed, he cherished them -for years, and if the dates were as my wife says that I told her they -were, he must have known that my brother and I were illegitimate. So -much for the letters.” - -Colin found Violet’s eyes fixed on him; her face, deadly pale, wore the -stillness of stone. - -“With regard to my wife’s allegation about the register,” he said. “I -deny that I ever told her any such story. I have this to add: when my -father and I were in Naples last summer, I made, at his request, a copy -of the record of his marriage from the consular register. He thought, I -fancy, that in the event of his death, a certified copy of it, here in -England, might be convenient for the purpose of proving the marriage. I -made that copy myself, and Mr. Cecil, our Consul in Naples, certified it -to be correct. I gave it my lawyer a few days ago, when he was down -here, and it is, of course, open to your inspection.” - -Colin paused and let his eyes rest wistfully on Violet. - -“My wife, of course, Mr. Markham,” he said, “is under a delusion. But -she has made the allegation, and in justice to me, I think you will -agree that it must be investigated. She supposes--don’t you, -darling?--that there is an erasure in the register at the Consulate -showing that it has been tampered with, and that erasure points to an -attempt on some one’s part, presumably my father’s or my own, to -legitimatise his children. In answer to that I am content for the -present to say that when I made the copy I saw no such erasure, nor did -Mr. Cecil who certified the correctness of it. Mr. Cecil, to whom I will -give you an introduction, no doubt will remember the incident. I am glad -I have got that copy, for if the register proves to have been tampered -with, it may be valuable. My belief is that no such erasure exists. May -I suggest, Mr. Markham, that you or some trustworthy person should start -for Naples at once? You will take the affidavits--is it not--of my uncle -with regard to the letters, and of Mr. Cecil with regard to the -genuineness of the copy of my father’s marriage. You will also inspect -the register. The matter is of the utmost and immediate importance.” - -He turned to Violet. “Vi, darling,” he said, “let us agree not to speak -of this again until Mr. Markham has obtained full information about it -all. Now, perhaps, you would like to consult him in private. I will -leave you.” - - * * * * * - -Mr. Markham shared Colin’s view as to the urgency and importance of -setting this matter at rest, and left for Naples that evening with due -introductions to Salvatore and the Consul. Colin had a word with him -before he left, and with tenderness and infinite delicacy, spoke of -Violet’s condition. Women had these strange delusions, he believed, at -such times, and the best way of settling them was to prove that they had -no foundation. Mr. Markham, he was afraid, would find that he had made a -fruitless journey, as far as the ostensible reason for it went, but he -had seen for himself how strongly the delusion had taken hold on his -wife, and in that regard he hoped for the best results. In any case the -thing must be settled.... - - * * * * * - -Never had the sparkle and sunlight of Colin’s nature been so gay as -during these two days when they waited for the news that Mr. Markham -would send from Naples. It had been agreed that the issues of his errand -should not be spoken of until they declared themselves, and here, to all -appearance, was a young couple, adorably adorned with all the gifts of -Nature and inheritance, with the expectation of the splendour of half a -century’s unclouded days spread in front of them. They had lately passed -through the dark valley of intimate bereavement, but swiftly they were -emerging into the unshadowed light, where, in a few months now, the -glory of motherhood, the pride of fatherhood, awaited them. In two days -from now, as both knew, a disclosure would reach them which must be, one -way or the other, of tremendous import, but for the present, pending -that revelation, presage and conjecture, memory even of that interview -with Mr. Markham, which had sent him across the breadth of Europe, were -banished; they were as children in the last hour of holidays, as lovers -between whom must soon a sword be unsheathed. - -They wandered in the woods where in the hot, early spring the daffodils -were punctual, and, “coming before the swallow dares,” took the winds of -March with beauty, and Colin picked her the pale cuckoo-pint which, -intoxicated with nonsense, he told her comes before the cuckoo dares.... -They spoke of the friendship of their childhood which had so swiftly -blossomed into love, and of the blossom of their love that was budding -now. - -All day the enchantment of their home and their companionship waved its -wand over them, and at night, tired with play, they slept the light -sleep of lovers. Certainly, for one or other of them, there must soon -come a savage awakening, or, more justly, the strangle-hold of -nightmare, but there were a few hours yet before the dreams of -spring-time and youth were murdered. - -The third day after Mr. Markham’s departure for Naples was Colin’s -birthday, when he would come of age, and Violet, waking early that -morning, while it was still dark, found herself prey to some crushing -load and presage of disaster, most unpropitious, most unbirthday-like. -For the last two days, these days of waiting for news, they had made for -themselves a little artificial oasis of sunshine and laughter; now some -secret instinct told her that she could linger there no more. To-day, -she felt sure, would come some decisive disclosure, and she dreaded it -with a horror too deep for the plummet of imagination. In that dark hour -before dawn, when the vital forces are at their lowest, she lay hopeless -and helpless. - -Colin had denied all knowledge of what he had himself told her; he had -been eager for Mr. Markham to disprove it.... He knew something which -she did not. What that could be she could form no idea at all. At the -worst, Salvatore would confirm his account of those letters, and no such -erasure as Colin had spoken of would be found in the register. Had he, -then, invented this merely to ensure her marrying him; and now that -Raymond’s death had given him mastership at Stanier, was he simply -denying what never existed at all? From what she knew of him now, he was -capable of having done that in order to make her throw over Raymond, but -it was not that which she dreaded. There was something more; a black -curtain seemed to hang before her, and presently some hot blast would -blow it high in the air, and she would see what lay behind it. - -It was rapidly growing light, and outside the birds were busy with their -early chirrupings. By the window which last night Colin had opened, -pulling back the curtains, the silver of her Paul Lamerie toilet-set -glimmered with the increasing brightness. Colin lay close to her, with -face turned towards her, fast asleep. His cheek was on his hand, the -other arm, languid and slack, was stretched outside the bedclothes, his -mouth was a little parted, and it seemed to be smiling. And then he -stirred and, leaning his head a little back, his smile broadened and he -laughed in his sleep with open mouth. At that some nameless panic seized -her, and, stopping her ears, she buried her face in the clothes. A child -might laugh so, but was the merriment of his dream that of a child? Or -had some sense that did not sleep reminded him that his twenty-first -birthday was now dawning? - -She feigned to be asleep when Nino’s tap came to the door of his -dressing-room, and she heard Colin get up. He spoke to her quietly, but -she did not answer or open her eyes. Then his room door opened and -closed and she was alone. - -Colin was already at breakfast when she came down, and apparently his -mood of the last two days had suffered no ungenial change. - -“Good morning, darling,” he said. “I tried to say that to you before, -but you were busy sleeping. What shall I give you? There’s some nasty -fish and some tepid bacon.” - -He looked at her with some sort of wistful expectancy, as if wondering -if she would remember something, and the thoughts, the wild imaginings -which had made the dawn a plunge into some dark menace, dropped from her -mind like drugged creatures. - -“Colin dear, your birthday. What can I give you?” she said, kissing him. -“It was the first thing I thought of when I woke. We’re the same age -again. I was a year ahead of you till this morning.” - -“Delicious of you to remember it, Vi,” said he. “Yes, we’re forty-two -years old between us. A great age! Hullo, Nino.” - -“_Pella signora_,” said Nino, and gave Violet a telegram. - -Colin watched her fingers fumbling at the gummed flap of the envelope, -as if numb and nerveless. Then with a jerk she tore it across and opened -it. Only once before had he seen a living face as white as that, when -fingers were slipping from the ice. - -“Read it for me,” she said at length. “I don’t seem to see what it -means.” - -Colin took it; it had been sent from Naples late last night, and came -from Mr. Markham. He read: - - “Salvatore Viagi’s account of letters agrees with your husband’s. - Page containing marriages of year and month in question has been - cut out of register at Consulate.” - -Colin passed the sheet back to Violet. She did not take it from his hand -and he let it drop on to the tablecloth. He leaned a little towards her. - -“Vi, you’re magnificent,” he said. “That was a glorious stroke of yours! -That night when you and I stayed at the Consulate. No, darling, don’t -interrupt, let me speak for two or three minutes just as you did a few -mornings ago. Eat your bacon and listen.... I see now the reason of your -pretended reluctance to stay with Mr. Cecil. It put me off the scent -completely at the time.” - -“What scent?” she asked. “What do you mean?” - -“I asked you not to interrupt. There we were on our honeymoon and so -casually, so unthinkingly, I told Mr. Cecil that we would stay with him -on our way home. You objected, but eventually you agreed. Your -reluctance to stay with him, as I say, put me quite off the scent. -Having done that you yielded. Little did I dream then of your superb -project....” - -She gazed at him like some bird hypnotised by the snake that coil after -coil draws nearer. Colin, too, drew nearer; he pushed his chair sideways -and leaned towards her, elbows on the table. - -“I remember that night so well,” he said. “I was sleeping in the -dressing-room next door to you, and the door was wide, for it was hot. I -heard you get out of bed. I heard your latch creak. Oh, yes, you called -to me first, and I did not answer. I called to you this morning, you -remember, and you did not answer. Sometimes one pretends to be asleep. -Till this minute I knew nothing for certain more of what you did. Now I -know. You were playing for a great stake: I applaud you. You got hold of -Mr. Cecil’s keys (he is careless about them) and tore that leaf out of -the register. You knew that on my father’s death his marriage to my -mother must be proved before Raymond or I (poor Raymond) could succeed, -for, of course, it was common property that he lived with her before -they were married. Giuseppe, his boatman, Uncle Salvatore, half-a-dozen -people, could have told you that. And then, oh! a crowning piece of -genius, you make up a cock-and-bull story about erasure and letters -which force us to have the register examined, and lo! there is no record -of the marriage at all. What is the presumption? That Raymond and I -were, well, an ugly word. But just there fate was unkind to you through -no fault of yours, except that failure is a fault and the most fatal -one. You did not know that I had made a copy of the entry and got it -signed and certified by our charming Mr. Cecil, before the curious -disappearance of that page. And then you made just one terrible mistake. -How could you have done it?” - -She turned to him a face of marble, faultlessly chiselled, but wholly -lifeless. - -“What mistake did I make?” she said. - -“You kept that leaf,” said Colin pityingly. “A record of your triumph, I -suppose, like a cotillon-toy, to dream over when you were mistress -here.” - -“Go on,” said she. - -Colin came closer yet. “Darling, will you be awfully nice to me,” he -said, “and give me that leaf as a birthday present? It would be a -delightful souvenir. You know where it is.” - -She paused. She remembered the tradition of the icy self-repression of -the Lady Yardleys who had preceded her, the frost that fell on them. -From personal knowledge there was her grandmother. That Arctic night was -darkening on her now, and she shivered. - -“I don’t know where it is,” she said. “Make up another lie.” - -He rose. “You must learn politeness, Violet,” he said. “You must learn -many useful things. I am being very kind to you. You don’t appreciate -that.” - -Night had not quite fallen yet. - -“Just as you were kind to Raymond,” she said. - -He smiled at her. “Yes, the same sort of kindness,” he said. - -He spoke to her as to a troublesome child with soft persuasion. - -“Now you know where it is quite well, but you want to give me the -trouble of reminding you. You won’t say you’re sorry, or anything of -that sort. Not wise.” - -“Spring the trap on me,” she said. - -“Very well; you put it in the secret drawer in the stand of your lovely -Lamerie looking-glass, the evening we came back from our honeymoon. You -had left me talking to father, but as soon as you had gone, I followed -you. It was pure chance: I suspected nothing then. But I looked in from -my dressing-room and saw you with the secret drawer open, putting -something into it. I went downstairs again. But I am bound to say that -my curiosity was aroused; perhaps you might have been having a -billet-doux from Nino. So I took a suitable opportunity--I think it was -when you were at church--and satisfied myself about it.” - -Colin reviewed this speech, which seemed to come to him impromptu, -except for the one fact that underlay it, which in a few minutes now -would be made manifest to Violet. - -“So poor Nino was not my rival,” he said. “That was such a relief, Vi -darling, for I should have had to send him away. But I never really gave -a serious thought to that, for I believed you liked your poor Colin. But -what I found did surprise me. I could not believe that any one so clever -could have been so stupid as to keep the evidence of her cleverness. -When you have been clever, it is wise to destroy the evidence of your -cleverness. Shall we come?” - -“But my looking-glass? A secret drawer?” said Violet. “There’s no secret -drawer that I know of.” - -“No, no, of course not,” said Colin. “I shall be obliged to show it you. -But wait a minute. I had better have a witness of what I find in the -secret drawer of which you are ignorant. My solicitor is here, but with -this other disclosure, he might urge me to proceed against you for -conspiracy, which I don’t at present intend to do. Your maid, now; no, -you would not like her to know such things about you. She might -blackmail you. How about Nino? He will do no more than understand that a -paper has been found, and that he witnesses to the finding of it. One -has to protect oneself. I had to protect myself against Raymond. May I -ring for Nino?” - -At that the Arctic night fell on Violet, and presently the three of them -were in her bedroom. Round the base of the looking-glass ran a repoussé -cable band, and Colin was explaining to her how, if she pressed the stud -at the corner of it, just where the silversmith’s name--L. A. for -Lamerie--was punched in the metal, the side of the base would fly open. -And so it was; she pressed it herself while he stood aside, and within -was the drawer and the folded paper. - -Colin took a swift step and plucked the paper out, holding it at arm’s -length. - -“There, darling, all your responsibility is over,” he said. “I will keep -it for you now. I will just open it and show you what it is, but do not -come too close or try to snatch it. There! Names of happy couples one -below the other, and in the space next the name the date of their -marriage. Half-way down the page you see the names we are looking for, -Rosina Viagi and Philip Lord Stanier and the date, March the first, -1893.” - -He turned to Nino and spoke in Italian. - -“And you, Nino,” he said, “you saw me take this paper out of the drawer -of the signora’s looking-glass. And now you see me--give me a big -envelope from the table--you see me put it in this envelope and close -it--it is as if I did a conjuring trick--and I sit down and write on the -envelope for the signora to read. I say that in your presence and in -mine the enclosed was taken from the secret drawer in the looking-glass -where it had been placed for safe custody by Violet Stanier, Countess of -Yardley, and given into the care of her husband, Colin Stanier, Earl of -Yardley. Sign it, Nino, and observe that I sign. I date it also. That’s -all, Nino; you may go.” - -Colin laid his hand on Violet’s neck. - -“It has been trying for you, dear,” he said. “Rest a little. But your -mind may be at ease now; the anxiety of having that in your possession -is removed, and it will be in safe keeping. I will give it at once to my -lawyer, with instructions that it is to be delivered to no one except to -me in person, and that at my death it is to be destroyed unopened. It -entirely depends on yourself as to whether it ever sees the light -again.... And then, when you are rested, shall we go for one of our -delicious rambles in the park. What’s that line of Wordsworth? ‘This -one day we’ll give to idleness.’ Thank you, darling, for your lovely -birthday present.” - - * * * * * - -Never on Walpurgis Night nor at Black Mass had there ever been so -fervent an adorer to his god as Colin, so satanic a rite as that which -he had performed on this birthday morning. No need was there for him to -make any vow of lip-service, or by any acceptation of the parchment that -was set in the frame of the Holbein, to confirm his allegiance. The -spirit was more than the letter, and in no wanton ecstasy of evil could -he have made a more sacramental dedication of himself. It was not enough -for him to have forged, ever so cunningly, the evidence which, while -Raymond lived, proved his illegitimacy, nor, more cunningly yet, to have -got rid of that evidence when Raymond’s death cleared for him the steps -to the throne. He must in the very flower and felicity of wickedness -preserve that evidence in order to produce it as the handiwork of his -wife. The edifice would have been incomplete otherwise; it would have -lacked that soaring spire of infamy. But now all was done, and on his -birthday came the consecration of the abominable temple of himself to -the spirit he adored. - - * * * * * - -He came to her room that night and sat as he so often did on the edge of -her bed. - -“You have been perfect to me to-day, darling,” he said. “You have given -me the happiest birthday. You have been so quiet and serene and -controlled. And have you been happy?” - -“Yes, Colin,” said she. - -He pulled off his tie and flapped her fingers with the end of it. - -“I think I shall go south again,” he said. “I was defrauded of my stay -in Capri owing to my father’s death. What about you? Had you not better -stay quietly at home? Get your father and mother to come down.” - -“Just as you please,” said she. - -“Let us settle it like that, then. And look at me a minute, Violet.” - -She raised her eyes to his. - -“Ah, that’s right,” he said. “You’ve had a lesson to-day, darling. It -has tired you, and I will leave you to sleep in one moment. We can’t -have you tired; you must take great care of yourself; eat well, sleep -well, be out a great deal. About that lesson. Take it to heart, Vi. -Never again try to cross my path: it’s much too dangerous. And you’ve no -delusions left about letters and registers, have you? Answer me, dear.” - -“No,” said she. - -“That’s good. Now I’ll leave you.” - - * * * * * - -The March night was warm and moonlit, and Colin stood by the open window -letting the breeze stream in against his skin, and looked out over -terrace and lake and woodland. All that he had so passionately desired -since first he toddled about this stately home of his race was his, and -nothing now could upset his rights. And how wonderful the process of -arriving at it had been: every step of that way was memorable; fraud, -intrigue, trickery, matchless cruelty, had paved the road, and to-day -the road was finished. - -He put out his light, and curled himself up in bed.... Violet’s -first-born must surely be a son, who should learn early and well from -lips that knew what they were saying the sober truth of that which in -the legend wore the habiliment of mediæval superstition. He should learn -how poor Uncle Raymond had allowed himself to love--yes, there was a -time when he had loved mother, and--was not that tiresome for -him--mother happened to prefer father. Well, poor Uncle Raymond had -loved, and that, perhaps, was his undoing, for he had fallen into the -lake, under the ice, and the icy water had smothered him, and the fishes -had nibbled him.... Colin chuckled to himself at the thought of -recounting that. - -For a moment, as he looked out on to the night, he had experienced a -dulness and dimness of spirit as of a cloud passing over the bright -circle of the moon at the thought that he had accomplished all that had -so thrillingly occupied him. But at the thought of his fatherhood, the -brightness shone forth again. How fascinating it would be to till and to -sow in that soft soil, to rear the seedlings that he would water and -tend so carefully, to watch them putting forth the buds of poisonous -flowers that swelled and prospered till they burst the sheaths of -childhood and opened wide-petalled to night and day. - -His thoughts, drowsy and content, turned towards Violet. Certainly there -had been noticeable in her all day a freezing, a congealment. She was -becoming like those impassive portraits of her predecessors, marble -women out of whose eyes looked some half-hidden horror.... - -A flash of lightning, very remote, blinked in through the uncurtained -oblong of the window opposite his bed, and a mutter of thunder, as -drowsy as himself, answered it. He slid his hand underneath his cheek, -and fell asleep. - - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Colin, by E. F. 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Benson. -</title> -<style type="text/css"> - p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} - -.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} - -.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} - -.un {text-decoration:underline;} - -.fint {text-align:center;text-indent:0%; -margin-top:2em;} - -.lftspc {margin-left:.25em;} - -.nind {text-indent:0%;} - -.r {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;} - -small {font-size: 70%;} - -big {font-size: 130%;} - - h1 {text-align:center;clear:both;letter-spacing:.2em; -font-weight:bold;font-size: 250%;} - - h2 {margin-top:4%;margin-bottom:2%;text-align:center;clear:both; - font-size:150%;font-weight:normal;} - - h3 {margin:4% auto 2% auto;text-align:center;clear:both;} - - hr {width:95%;margin:.1em auto .1em auto;clear:both;color:black; -border:2px solid black;} - - hr.full {width: 60%;margin:2% auto 2% auto;border-top:1px solid black; -padding:.1em;border-bottom:1px solid black;border-left:none;border-right:none;} - - table {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;} - - body{margin-left:4%;margin-right:6%;background:#ffffff;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} - -a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - - link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - -a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} - -a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} - -.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} - - img {border:none;} - -.blockquot {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;} - -.pagenum {font-style:normal;position:absolute; -left:95%;font-size:55%;text-align:right;color:gray; -background-color:#ffffff;font-variant:normal;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none;text-indent:0em;} -@media print, handheld -{.pagenum - {display: none;} - } -</style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Colin, by E. F. Benson - -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/license - - -Title: Colin - -Author: E. F. Benson - -Release Date: November 28, 2019 [EBook #60802] -[Last updated: May 4, 2020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLIN *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="340" height="500" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border:2px solid gray;padding:1em;"> -<tr><td class="c"> -<a href="#Book_One">Book One, </a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_I-a">Chapter I, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II-a"> II, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III-a"> III. </a><br /> -<a href="#Book_Two">Book Two, </a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_I-b">Chapter I, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II-b"> II, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III-b"> III, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IV-b"> IV, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_V-b"> V, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VI-b"> VI, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VII-b"> VII, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII-b"> VIII, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IX-b"> IX, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_X-b"> X, </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XI-b"> XI. </a> -</td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p> - -<p class="cb"><span class="un"> COLIN </span><br /> - -E. F. BENSON</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span></p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="font-weight:bold;"> - -<tr><td><span class="un"><i>By</i> E. F. BENSON </span> </td></tr> - -<tr><td> -<span class="smcap">Colin</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Miss Mapp</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Peter</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Lovers and Friends</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Dodo Wonders</span>—<br /> -“<span class="smcap">Queen Lucia</span>”<br /> -<span class="smcap">Robin Linnet</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Across the Stream</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Up and Down</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">An Autumn Sowing</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Tortoise</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">David Blaize</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">David Blaize and the Blue Door</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Michael</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Oakleyites</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Arundel</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Our Family Affairs</span><br /></td></tr> -<tr><td -style="text-decoration:overline;"><i>New York: George H. Doran Company</i></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> </p> - -<hr /> -<h1>COLIN</h1> -<hr /> - -<p> </p> - -<p class="cb">BY<br /> -<big>E. F. BENSON</big><br /> -<br /><br /> -NEW <img src="images/colophon.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="60" -alt="" -/> YORK<br /> -<br /> -GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span><br /> -<br /><small> -COPYRIGHT, 1923,<br /> -<br /> -BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<img src="images/colophon2.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="50" -alt="" -/> <br /> -<br /> -<br /> -COLIN. II<br /> -<br /> -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /></small> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span></p> - -<p class="cb">COLIN</p> - -<p><i>Colin</i> comprises the first part only of this romance; it will be -completed in a second volume which will tell of the final fading of the -Legend with which the story opens.</p> - -<p class="r"> -E. F. B.<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span></p> - -<h1>COLIN</h1> - -<h2><a name="Book_One" id="Book_One"></a><i>Book One</i></h2> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I-a" id="CHAPTER_I-a"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> - -<p>Neither superstition nor spiritual aspiration signified anything -particular to the Staniers, and for many generations now they had been -accustomed to regard their rather sinister family legend with cynical -complacency. Age had stolen the strength from it, as from some -long-cellared wine, and in the Victorian era they would, to take their -collective voice, have denied that, either drunk or sober, they believed -it. But it was vaguely pleasant to have so antique a guarantee that they -would be so sumptuously looked after in this world, while as for the -next....</p> - -<p>The legend dated from the time of Elizabeth, and was closely connected -with the rise of the family into the pre-eminent splendour which it had -enjoyed ever since. The Queen, in one of her regal journeys through her -realm (during which she slept in so incredible a number of beds), -visited the affiliated Cinque Port of Rye, and, after taking dinner with -the mayor, was riding down one of the steep, cobbled ways when her horse -stumbled and came down on its knees.</p> - -<p>She would certainly have had a cruel fall if a young man had not sprung -forward from the crowd and caught her before her Grace’s head was dashed -against the stones. He set her on her feet, swiftly releasing the -virgin’s bosom from his rough embrace, and, kneeling, kissed the hem of -her skirt.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span></p> - -<p>The Queen bade him rise, and, as she looked at him, made some -Elizabethan ejaculation of appreciative amazement—a “zounds,” or a -“gadzooks,” or something.</p> - -<p>There stood Colin Stanier in the full blossom of his twenty summers, -ruddy as David and blue-eyed as the sea. His cap had fallen off, and he -must needs toss back his head to free his face from the tumble of his -yellow hair. His athletic effort to save her Grace had given him a -moment’s quickened breath, and his parted lips showed the double circle -of his white teeth.</p> - -<p>But, most of all, did his eyes capture the fancy of his Sovereign; they -looked at her, so she thought, with the due appreciation of her majesty, -but in their humility there was mingled something both gay and bold, and -she loved that any man, young or old, high or humble, should look at her -thus.</p> - -<p>She spoke a word of thanks, and bade him wait on her next day at the -Manor of Brede, where she was to lie that night. Then, motioning her -courtiers aside with a testy gesture, she asked him a question or two -while a fresh horse was being caparisoned and brought for her, and -allowed none other but Colin to help her to mount....</p> - -<p>It was thought to be significant that at supper that night the virgin -sighed, and made her famous remark to my Lord of Essex that she wished -sometimes that she was a milk-maid.</p> - -<p>Colin Stanier’s father was a man of some small substance, owning a -little juicy land that was fine grazing for cattle, and the boy worked -on the farm. He had some strange, magical power over the beasts; a -savage dog would slaver and fawn on him, a vicious horse sheathed its -violence at his touch, and, in especial at this season of lambing-time, -he wrought wonders of midwifery on the ewes and of nursing on the lambs. -This authoritative deftness sprang from no kindly love of animals; -cleverness and contempt, with a dash of pity, was all he worked with, -and this evening, after the Queen had passed on, it was reluctantly -enough that he went down to the low-lying<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> fields where his father’s -sheep were in pregnancy. The old man himself, as Colin ascertained, had -taken the excuse of her Grace’s visit to get more than usually -intoxicated, and the boy guessed that he himself would be alone half the -night with his lantern and his ministries among the ewes.</p> - -<p>So, indeed, it proved, and the moon had sunk an hour after midnight, -when he entered the shed in the lambing-field to take his bite of supper -and get a few hours’ sleep. He crunched his crusty bread and bacon in -his strong teeth, he had a draught of beer, and, wrapping himself in his -cloak, lay down. He believed (on the evidence of his memoirs) that he -then went to sleep.</p> - -<p>Up to this point the story is likely enough; a pedant might unsniffingly -accept it. But then there occurred (or is said to have occurred) the -event which forms the basis of the Stanier legend, and it will certainly -be rejected, in spite of a certain scrap of parchment still extant and -of the three centuries of sequel, by all sensible and twentieth-century -minds.</p> - -<p>For, according to the legend, Colin woke and found himself no longer -alone in the shed; there was standing by him a finely-dressed fellow who -smiled on him. It was still as dark as the pit outside—no faintest ray -of approaching dawn yet streaked the eastern sky, yet for all that Colin -could see his inexplicable visitor quite plainly.</p> - -<p>The stranger briefly introduced himself as his Satanic majesty, and, -according to his usual pleasant custom, offered the boy all that he -could wish for in life—health and beauty (and, indeed, these were his -already) and wealth, honour, and affluence, which at present were sadly -lacking—on the sole condition that at his death his soul was to belong -to his benefactor. The bargain—this was the unusual feature in the -Stanier legend—was to hold good for all his direct descendants who, -unless they definitely renounced the contract on their own behalf, would -be partakers in these benefits and debtors in the other small matter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span></p> - -<p>For his part, Colin had no sort of hesitation in accepting so tempting -an offer, and Satan thereupon produced for his perusal (he was able to -read) a slip of parchment on which the conditions were firmly and -plainly stated. A scratch with his knife on the forearm supplied the ink -for the signature, and Satan provided him with a pen. He was bidden to -keep the document as a guarantee of the good faith of his bargainer; the -red cloak flashed for a moment in front of his eyes, dazzling him, and -he staggered and fell back on the heap of straw from which he had just -risen.</p> - -<p>The darkness was thick and impenetrable round him, but at the moment a -distant flash of lightning blinked in through the open door, showing him -that the shed was empty again. Outside, save for the drowsy answer of -the thunder, all was quiet, but in his hand certainly was a slip of -parchment.</p> - -<p>The same, so runs the legend, is reproduced in the magnificent Holbein -of the young man which hangs now above the mantelpiece in the hall of -Stanier. Colin Stanier, first Earl of Yardley, looking hardly older than -he did on this momentous night, stands there in Garter robes with this -little document in his hand. The original parchment, so the loquacious -housekeeper points out to the visitors who to-day go over the house on -the afternoons when it is open to the public, is let into the frame of -the same portrait.</p> - -<p>Certainly there is such a piece of parchment there, just below the title -of the picture, but the ink has so faded that it is impossible to -decipher more than a word or two of it. The word “diabolus” must be more -conjectured than seen, and the ingenious profess to decipher the words -“quodcunque divitiarum, pulchritud” ... so that it would seem that Colin -the shepherd-boy, if he signed it, must have perused and understood -Latin.</p> - -<p>This in itself is so excessively improbable that the whole business may -be discredited from first to last. But there is no doubt whatever that -Colin Stanier did some time<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span> sign a Latin document (for his name in ink, -now brown, is perfectly legible) which has perished in the corroding -years, whether he understood it or not, and there seems no doubt about -the date in the bottom left-hand corner....</p> - -<p>The constructive reader will by this time have got ready his -interpretation about the whole cock-and-bull story, and a very sensible -one it is. The legend is surely what mythologists call ætiological. -There was—he can see it—an old strip of parchment signed by Colin -Stanier, and this, in view of the incredible prosperity of the family, -coupled with the almost incredible history of their dark deeds, would be -quite sufficient to give rise to the legend. In mediæval times, -apparently, such Satanic bargains were, if not common, at any rate not -unknown, and the legend was, no doubt, invented in order to account for -these phenomena, instead of being responsible for them.</p> - -<p>Of legendary significance, too, must be the story of Philip Stanier, -third Earl, who is said to have renounced his part in the bargain, and -thereupon fell from one misfortune into another, was branded with an -incurable and disfiguring disease, and met his death on the dagger of an -injured woman. Ronald Stanier, a nephew of the above, was another such -recusant; he married a shrew, lost a fortune in the South Sea bubble, -and had a singularly inglorious career.</p> - -<p>But such instances as these (in all the long history there are no more -of them, until credence in the legend faded altogether), even if we -could rely on their authenticity, would only seem to prove that those -who renounced the devil and all his works necessarily met with -misfortune in this life, which is happily not the case, and thus they -tend to disprove rather than confirm the whole affair.</p> - -<p>Finally, when we come to more modern times, and examine the records of -the Stanier family from, let us say, the advent of the Hanoverian -dynasty, though their splendour and distinction is ever a crescent, not -a waning moon, there can be no reason to assign a diabolical origin to -such<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> prosperity. There were black sheep among them, of course, but when -will you not find, in records so public as theirs, dark shadows thrown -by the searchlight of history? Bargains with the powers of hell, in any -case, belong to the romantic dusk of the Middle Ages, and cannot find -any serious place in modern chronicles.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>But to quit these quagmires of superstition for the warranted and -scarcely less fascinating solidity of fact, Colin Stanier next day -obediently craved audience with the Queen at the Manor of Brede. By a -stroke of intuition which does much to account for his prosperous -fortune, he did not make himself <i>endimanché</i>, but, with his shepherd’s -crook in his hand and a new-born lamb in his bosom, he presented himself -at the house where the Queen lodged. He would have been contemptuously -turned back with buffets by the halberdiers and yeomen who guarded the -entrance, but the mention of his name sufficed to admit him with a -reluctant alacrity.</p> - -<p>He wore but the breeches and jerkin in which he pursued his work among -the beasts, his shapely legs were bare from knee to ankle, and as he -entered the porch, he kicked off the shoes in which he had walked from -Rye. His crook he insisted on retaining, and the lamb which, obedient to -the spell that he exercised over young living things, lay quiet in his -arms.</p> - -<p>Some fussy Controller of the Queen’s household would have ejected him -and chanced the consequences, but, said Colin very quietly, “It is by -her Majesty’s orders that I present myself, and whether you buffet me or -not, prithee tell the Queen’s Grace that I am here.”</p> - -<p>There was something surprising in the dignity of the boy; and in the -sweet-toned, clear-cut speech, so unlike the utterance of the mumbling -rustic, and the Controller, bidding him wait where he was, shuffled -upstairs, and came back with extraordinary expedition.</p> - -<p>“The Queen’s Grace awaits you, Mr.——”</p> - -<p>“Stanier,” said Colin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Mr. Stanier. But your crook, your lamb——”</p> - -<p>“Let us do her Majesty’s bidding,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>He was ushered into the long hall of Brede Manor, and the Controller, -having thrown the door open, slipped away with an alertness that -suggested that his presence was desirable there no more, and left the -boy, barefooted, clasping his lamb, with a rush-strewn floor to -traverse. There was a table down the centre of it, littered with papers, -and hemmed in with chairs that suggested that their occupants had -hurriedly vacated them. At the end was seated a small, bent figure, -conspicuous for her ruff and her red hair, and her rope of pearls, and -her eyes bright and sharp as a bird’s.</p> - -<p>Colin, sadly pricked on the soles of his feet by the rushes, advanced -across that immeasurable distance, looking downwards on his lamb. When -he had traversed the half of it, he raised his eyes for a moment, and -saw that the Queen, still quite motionless, was steadily regarding him. -Again he bent his eyes on his lamb, and when he had come close to that -formidable figure, he fell on his knees.</p> - -<p>“A lamb, madam,” he said, “which is the first-fruits of the spring. My -crook, which I lay at your Grace’s feet, and myself, who am not worthy -to lie there.”</p> - -<p>Again Colin raised his eyes, and the wretch put into them all the gaiety -and boldness which he gave to the wenches on the farm. Then he dropped -them again, and with his whole stake on the table, waited, gambler as he -was, for the arbitrament.</p> - -<p>“Look at me, Colin Stanier,” said the Queen.</p> - -<p>Colin looked. There was the tiny wrinkled face, the high eyebrows, the -thin-lipped mouth disclosing the discoloured teeth.</p> - -<p>“Madam!” he said.</p> - -<p>“Well, what next?” said Elizabeth impatiently.</p> - -<p>“My body and soul, madam,” said Colin, and once more he put into his -eyes and his eager mouth that semblance of desire which had made -Mistress Moffat, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> wife of the mayor, box his ears with a blow that -was more of a caress.</p> - -<p>The Queen felt precisely the same as Mistress Moffat, and drew her hand -down over his smooth chin. “And it is your wish to be my shepherd-boy, -Colin?” she asked. “You desire to be my page?”</p> - -<p>“I am sick with desire,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“I appoint you,” she said. “I greet and salute you, Colin Stanier.”</p> - -<p>She bent towards him, and neither saint nor devil could have inspired -Colin better at that moment. He kissed her (after all, he had been -offered the greeting) fairly and squarely on her withered cheek, and -then, without pause, kissed the hem of her embroidered gown. He had done -right, just absolutely right.</p> - -<p>“You bold dog!” said the Queen. “Stand up.”</p> - -<p>Colin stood up, with his arms close by his side, as if at attention in -all his shapeliness and beauty, and the Queen clapped her hands.</p> - -<p>The side door opened disclosing halberdiers, and through the door by -which Colin had entered came the Controller.</p> - -<p>“Colin Stanier is my page,” she said, “and of my household. Summon my -lords again; we have not finished with our Spanish business. The lamb—I -will eat that lamb, and none other, at the feast of Easter.”</p> - -<p>Within the week Colin was established in attendance on the Queen, and -the daring felicity which had marked his first dealings with her never -failed nor faltered. His radiant youth, the gaiety of his boyish -spirits, the unfailing tact of his flattery, his roguish innocence, the -fine innate breeding of the yeoman-stock, which is the best blood in -England, wove a spell that seemed to defy the usual fickleness of her -favouritism. Certainly he had wisdom as far beyond his years as it was -beyond his upbringing, and wisdom coming like pure water from the curves -of that beautiful young mouth, made him frankly irresistible to the -fiery and shrewd old woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span></p> - -<p>From being her page he was speedily advanced to the post of confidential -secretary, and queer it was to see the boy seated by her side at some -state council while she rated and stormed at her lords for giving her -some diplomatic advice which her flame-like spirit deemed spiritless. -Then, in mid-tirade, she would stop, tweak her secretary by his rosy -ear, and say, “Eh, Colin, am I not in the right of it?”</p> - -<p>Very often she was not, and then Colin would so deftly insinuate further -considerations, prefacing them by, “As your Grace and Majesty so wisely -has told us” (when her Grace and Majesty had told them precisely the -opposite) that Elizabeth would begin to imagine that she had thought of -these prudent things herself.</p> - -<p>The Court in general followed the example of their royal mistress, and -had not Colin’s nature, below its gaiety and laughter, been made of some -very stern stuff, he must surely have degenerated into a spoilt, vain -child, before ever he came to his full manhood. Men and women alike were -victims of that sunny charm; to be with him made the heart sing, and -none could grudge that a boy on whom God had showered every grace of -mind and body, should find the mere tawdry decorations of riches and -honour his natural heritage.</p> - -<p>Then, too, there was this to consider: the Queen’s fickle and violent -temper might topple down one whom she had visited but yesterday with her -highest favours, and none but Colin could induce her to restore the -light she had withdrawn. If you wanted a boon granted, or even a -vengeance taken, there was no such sure road to its accomplishment as to -secure Colin’s advocacy, no path that led so straight to failure as to -set the boy against you. For such services it was but reasonable that -some token of gratitude should be conferred on him by the suppliant, -some graceful acknowledgment which, in our harsh modern way, we should -now term “commission,” and Colin’s commissions, thus honestly earned, -soon amounted to a very pretty figure. Whether he augmented them or not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span> -by less laudable methods, by threats or what we call by that ugly word -“blackmail,” is a different matter, and need not be gone into.</p> - -<p>Yet, surrounded as he was by all that might have been expected to turn a -boy’s head, Colin remained singularly well-balanced, and whatever tales -might be told about his virtue, the most censorious could find no fault -with his prudence. The Queen created him at the age of twenty-five -Knight of the Garter and Earl of Yardley, a title which his descendants -hold to this day, and presented him with the Manor of Yardley in -Buckinghamshire, and the monastic lands of Tillingham on the hills above -the Romney Marsh. He incorporated the fine dwelling-house of the evicted -abbot into the great and glorious mansion of Stanier, the monks’ -quarters he demolished altogether, and the abbey church became the -parish church of Tillingham for worship, and the chapel and -burying-place of the Staniers for pride.</p> - -<p>But, though the Queen told him once and again that it was time her Colin -took a wife, he protested that while her light was shed on him not Venus -herself could kindle desire in his heart. This was the only instance in -which he disobeyed Gloriana’s wishes, but Gloriana willingly pardoned -his obduracy, and rewarded it with substantial benefits.</p> - -<p>On her death, which occurred when he was thirty, he made a very suitable -match with the heiress of Sir John Reeves, who brought him, in addition -to a magnificent dowry, the considerable acreage which to-day is part of -the London estate of the Staniers. He retired from court-life, and -divided the year between Stanier and London, busy with the embellishment -of his houses, into which he poured those treasures of art which now -glorify them.</p> - -<p>He was, too, as the glades and terraces of Stanier testify, a gardener -on a notable scale, and his passion in this direction led him to evict -his father from the farm where Colin’s own boyhood was passed, which lay -on the level land below the hill, in order to make there the long,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span> -ornamental water which is one of the most agreeable features of the -place.</p> - -<p>His father by this time was an old man of uncouth and intemperate -habits, and it could not perhaps be expected that the young earl should -cherish his declining years with any very personal tenderness. But he -established him in a decent dwelling, gave him an adequate maintenance -with a permission to draw on the brewery for unlimited beer, and made -only the one stipulation that his father should never attempt to gain -access to him. The old man put so liberal an interpretation on his -beer-rights, that he did not enjoy them very long.</p> - -<p>This taint of hardness in Colin’s character was no new feature. He had -left the home of his boyhood without regret or any subsequent affection -of remembrance: he had made his pleasurable life at Court a profitable -affair, whereas others had spent their salaries and fortunes in -maintaining their suitable magnificence, and, like the great Marlborough -a few generations later, he had allowed infatuated women to pay pretty -handsomely for the privilege of adoring him, and the inhumanities, such -as his eviction of his father, with which his married life was -garlanded, was no more than the reasonable development of earlier -tendencies. Always a great stickler for the majesty of the law, he -caused certain sheep-stealers on the edge of his property to be hanged -for their misdeeds, and why should not the lord of Tillingham have -bought their little properties from their widows at a more than -reasonable price?</p> - -<p>Though his own infidelities were notorious, the settlements of his -marriage were secure enough, and when he had already begotten two sons -of the hapless daughter of Sir John Reeves, he invoked the aid of the -law to enable him to put her away and renew his vow of love and honour -to the heiress of my Lord Middlesex. She proved to be a barren crone, -and perhaps had no opportunity of proving her fruitfulness, but she was -so infatuated with him that by the settlements she gave him -unconditionally the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> Broughton property which so conveniently adjoined -his own.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>To go back again for a moment to that obscure matter of the Stanier -legend, it appears that on the day on which each of his sons came of -age, their father made them acquainted with the agreement he had made on -behalf of himself and the heirs of his body, and shewed them the signed -parchment. They had, so he pointed out to them, the free choice of -dissociating themselves from that bargain, and of taking the chance of -material prosperity here and of salvation hereafter; he enjoined on them -also the duty of transmitting the legend to their children in the manner -and at the time that it had been made known to themselves.</p> - -<p>Neither Ronald, the elder, nor his brother Philip felt the least qualm -about the future, but they both had a very considerable appreciation of -the present, and on each occasion the parchment was restored to its -strong box with no loss of validity as regards the next generation. -Ronald soon afterwards made one of those prudent marriages for which for -generations the Staniers have been famous; Philip, on the other hand, -who presently made for himself at the Court a position hardly less -brilliant than his father’s had been, found celibacy, with its -accompanying consolations, good enough for him.</p> - -<p>This is too polite an age to speak of his infamies and his amazing -debauches, but his father was never tired of hearing about them, and -used to hang on the boy’s tales when he got leave of absence from the -Court to spend a week at home. Ronald was but a prude in comparison with -the other two, protesting at Philip’s more atrocious experiences. His -notion, so he drunkenly tried to explain himself (for his grandfather’s -pleasures made strong appeal to him) was that there were things that no -gentleman would do, whatever backing he had, and with a curious -superstitious timidity he similarly refused to play<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> dice on the -Communion table in the old monastic chapel....</p> - -<p>For full forty years after the death of the Queen, Colin, Knight of the -Garter and first Earl of Yardley, revelled at the banquet of life. All -that material prosperity could offer was his; his princely purchases, -his extravagances, his sumptuous hospitalities were powerless to check -the ever-swelling roll of his revenues; he enjoyed a perfect bodily -health, and up to the day of his death his force was unabated, his eye -undimmed, and the gold in his hair untouched by a single thread of -silver.</p> - -<p>As the years went on, his attachment to this stately house of Stanier -grew to a passion, and however little credence we may give to the -legend, it is certain that his descendants inherit from Colin Stanier -that devotion to the place where they were born. No Stanier, so it is -said, is ever completely happy away from the great house that crowns the -hill above the Romney Marsh; it is to them a shrine, a Mecca, a golden -Jerusalem, the home of their hearts, and all the fairest of foreign -lands, the most sunny seas, the most sumptuous palaces are but -wildernesses or hovels in comparison with their home. To such an extent -was this true of Colin, first Earl, that for the last ten years of his -life he scarcely left the place for a night.</p> - -<p>But though his bodily health remained ever serene and youthful, and -youth’s excesses, continued into old age, left him unwrinkled of skin -and vigorous in desire, there grew on him during the last year of his -life a malady neither of body nor of mind, but of the very spirit and -essence of his being. The compact that he believed himself to have made -had been fully and honestly observed by the other high contracting -party, and as the time drew near that his own share in the bargain must -be exacted from him, his spirit, we must suppose, conscious that the -imprint of the divine was so shortly to be surcharged with the stamp and -superscription of hell, was filled with some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span> remorseful terror, that in -itself was a foretaste of damnation.</p> - -<p>He ate, he drank, he slept, he rioted, he brought to Stanier yet more -treasures of exquisite art—Italian pictures, bronzes of Greek -workmanship, Spanish lace, torn, perhaps, from the edges of -altar-cloths, intaglios, Persian Pottery, and Ming porcelain from China. -His passion for beauty, which had all his life been a torch to him, did -not fail him, nor yet the wit and rapier-play of tongue, nor yet the -scandalous chronicles of Philip. But in the midst of beauty or -debauchery, there would come to his mind with such withering of the -spirit as befel Belshazzar when the writing was traced on the wall, the -knowledge of his approaching doom.</p> - -<p>As if to attempt to turn it aside or soften the inexorable fate, he gave -himself to deeds of belated pity and charitableness. He endowed an -almshouse in Rye; he erected a fine tomb over his father’s grave; he -attended daily service in the church which he had desecrated with his -dice-throwings. And all the time his spirit told him that it was too -late, he had made his bed and must lie on it: for he turned to the God -whom he had renounced neither in love nor in sincerity, nor in fear of -Him, but in terror of his true master.</p> - -<p>But when he tried to pray his mind could invoke no holy images, but was -decked with pageants of debauchery, and if he formed his lips to pious -words there dropped from them a stream of obscenities and blasphemy. At -any moment the terror would lay its hand on his spirit, affecting -neither body nor mind, but addressing itself solely to the immortal and -deathless part of him. It was in vain that he attempted to assure -himself, too, that in the ordering of the world neither God nor devil -has a share, for even the atheism in which he had lived deserted him as -the hour of his death drew near.</p> - -<p>The day of his seventieth birthday arrived: the house was full of -guests, and in honour of the occasion there was a feast for the tenants -of the estate in the great hall,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span> while his own friends, making a -company of some fifty, sat at the high table on the dais. All day -distant thunder had muttered obscurely among the hills, and by the time -that the lights were lit in the hall, and the drinking deep, a heavy -pall had overspread the sky.</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley was in fine spirits that night. For years he had had a -presentiment that he would do no more than reach the exact span -appointed for the life of men, and would die on his seventieth birthday, -and here was the day as good as over, and if that presentiment proved to -be unfulfilled he felt that he would face with a stouter scepticism the -other terror. He had just risen from his place to reply to the toast of -the evening, and stood, tall and comely, the figure of a man still in -the prime of life, facing his friends and dependents. Then, even while -he opened his lips to speak, the smile was struck from his face, and -instead of speech there issued from his mouth one wild cry of terror.</p> - -<p>“No, no!” he screamed, and with his arm pushed out in front of him as if -to defend himself against some invisible presence, he fell forward -across the table.</p> - -<p>At that moment the hall leaped into blinding light, and an appalling -riot of thunder answered. Some said that he had been struck and, indeed, -on his forehead there was a small black mark as of burning, but those -nearest felt no shock, and were confident that the stroke which had -fallen on him preceded the flash and the thunder: he had crashed forward -after that cry and that gesture of terror, before even the lightning -descended.... And Ronald reigned in his stead.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>By the patent of nobility granted to Colin Stanier by Elizabeth, the -estates and title descended not through heirs male only, but through the -female line. If an Earl of Yardley died leaving only female issue, the -girl became Countess of Yardley in her own right, to the exclusion of -sons begotten by her father’s or grandfather’s younger<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span> brother. It was -perhaps characteristic of the Queen to frame the charter thus—she had -done so of her own invention and devising—for thus she gratified her -own sense of the capability of her sex, and also felt some phantom of -posthumous delight in securing, as far as she could, that the honours -that she had showered on her favourite should descend in direct line. -But for many generations her foresight and precaution seemed needless, -since each holder of the title bore sons only, and the line was straight -as a larch, from father to son. By some strange arbitrament of fate it -so happened that younger sons (following the unchaste example of Philip) -died in legal celibacy, or, if they married, were childless, or became -so in that generation or the next. Thus the family is unique in having -to this day no collateral branches, and in this the fancifully disposed -may be prone to see a certain diabolical observance of the original -bond. No dowries for daughters had to be provided, and such portions as -were made for younger sons soon rolled back again into the sea of family -affluence.</p> - -<p>The purchase of land formed the main outlet for the flood of -ever-increasing revenue, and as surely as Lord Yardley entered upon his -new acreages, mineral wealth would be discovered on the freshly-acquired -property (as was the case in the Cornish farms, where the Stanier lode -of tin was found), or if when, at a later date, as in a mere freak, he -purchased barren fields fit only for grazing, by the sea, it was not -long before the Prince Regent found that the Sussex coast enjoyed a -bracing and salubrious air, and lo! all the grazing-lands of Lord -Stanier became building sites. Whatever they touched turned to gold, and -that to no anæmic hands incapable of enjoying the lusts and splendours -of life. Honours fell on them thick as autumn leaves: each holder of the -title in turn has won the Garter, and never has the Garter been bestowed -on them without solid merit to carry it. Three have been Prime -Ministers, further three ambassadors to foreign countries on difficult -and delicate businesses; in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span> the Napoleonic wars there was a great -general.... But all these records are public property.</p> - -<p>Less known, perhaps, is the fact that no Lord Yardley has ever yet died -in his bed or received the religious consolation that would fit him to -go forth undismayed on his last dark, solitary journey, and though each -in turn (with the sad exception of Philip, third Earl, and his nephew, -the recusant Ronald) has lived to the comfortable age of seventy, swift -death, sometimes with violence, has been the manner of his exit. Colin, -fourth Earl, committed suicide under circumstances which made it -creditable that he should do so; otherwise strange seizures, -accompanied, it would appear, by some inexplicable terror, has been the -manner of the demise.</p> - -<p>And what, in this brief history of their annals, can be said of the -legend, except that from being a terrible truth to Colin, first Earl, it -has faded even as has faded the ink which records that mythical -bargaining? It is more than a hundred years ago now that the Lord -Yardley of the day caused the parchment to be inserted in the frame of -his infamous ancestor, where it can be seen now every Thursday afternoon -from three to five, when Stanier is open, without fee, to decently-clad -visitors, and the very fact that Lord Yardley (<i>temp.</i> George III.) -should have displayed it as a curiosity, is the measure of the -incredulity with which those most closely concerned regarded it. A man -would not put up for all the world to see the warrant that he should -burn eternally in the fires of hell if he viewed it with the slightest -tremor of misgiving. It was blasphemous even to suppose that worldly -prosperity (as said the excellent parson at Stanier who always dined at -the house on Sunday evening and slept it off on Monday morning) was -anything other than the mark of divine favour, and many texts from the -Psalmist could be produced in support of his view. Thus fortified by -port and professional advice, Lord Yardley decreed the insertion of the -document into the frame that held the picture of that ancestor of his -whose signature it bore, and gave a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span> remarkably generous subscription to -the organ-fund. Faded as was the writing then, it has faded into greater -indecipherability since, and with it any remnant of faith in its -validity.</p> - -<p>Yet hardly less curious to the psychologist is the strange nature of -these Staniers. Decked as they are with the embellishment of -distinction, of breeding, and beauty, they have always seemed to their -contemporaries to be lacking in some quality, hard to define but easy to -appreciate or, in their case, to miss. A tale of trouble will very -likely win from them some solid alleviation, but their generosity, you -would find, gave always the impression of being made not out of love or -out of sympathy, but out of contempt.</p> - -<p>Their charm—and God knows how many have fallen victims to it—has been -and is that of some cold brilliance, that attracts even as the beam of a -lighthouse attracts the migrating birds who dash themselves to pieces -against the glass that shields it; it can scarcely be said to be the -fault of the light that the silly feathered things broke themselves -against its transparent, impenetrable armour. It hardly invited: it only -shone on business which did not concern the birds, so there was no -definite design of attraction or cruelty in its beams, only of -brilliance and indifference. That is the habit of light; such, too, are -the habits of birds; the light even might be supposed by sentimentalists -faintly to regret the shattered wing and the brightness of the drowned -plumage.</p> - -<p>But, so it is popularly supposed, it is quite easy, though not very -prudent, to arouse unfavourable emotion in a Stanier; you have but to -vex him or run counter to his wish, and you will very soon find yourself -on the target of a remorseless and vindictive hate. No ray of pity, so -it is said, softens the hardness of that frosty intensity; no -contrition, when once it has been aroused, will thaw it. Forgiveness is -a word quite foreign to their vocabulary, and its nearest equivalent is -a contemptuous indifference. Gratitude, in the same way, figures as an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span> -obsolete term in the language of their emotions. They neither feel it -nor expect it: it has no currency. Whatever you may be privileged to do -for a Stanier, he takes as a mite in the endowment which the world has -always, since the days of our Elizabethan Colin, poured into their -treasuries, while if he has done you a good turn, he has done so as he -would chuck a picked bone to a hungry dog: the proper course for the dog -is to snatch it up and retire into its corner to mumble it.</p> - -<p>It would be strange, then, if, being without ruth or love, a Stanier -could bestow or aspire to friendship with man or woman, and, indeed, -such an anomaly has never occurred. But, then, it must be remembered -that Staniers, as far as we can find out from old letters and diaries -and mere historical documents, never wanted friendship nor, indeed, -comprehended it. Their beauty and their charm made easy for them the -creation of such relationships as they desired, the assuaging of such -thirst as was theirs, after which the sucked rind could be thrown away; -and though through all their generations they have practised those -superb hospitalities which find so apt a setting at Stanier, it is -rather as gods snuffing up the incense of their worshippers than as -entertaining their friends that they fill the great house with all who -are noblest by birth or distinction.</p> - -<p>George IV., for instance, when Prince Regent, stayed there, it may be -remembered, for nearly a fortnight, having been asked for three days, -during which time the entire House of Lords with their wives spent in -noble sections two nights at Stanier, as well as many much younger and -sprightlier little personages just as famous in the proper quarter. The -entire opera from Drury Lane diverted their evening one night, baccarat -(or its equivalent) beguiled another, on yet another the Prince could -not be found....</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Not so fortunate, perhaps, save in being the mistresses of all this -splendour, and invariably the mothers of hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span>some sons, have been the -successive wives in this illustrious line. For with whatever natural -gaiety, with whatever high and independent spirit these ladies married -the sons of the house, they seemed always to have undergone some gloomy -and mysterious transformation. It was as if they were ground in a mill, -and ground exceeding small, and as if the resulting powder of grain was -mixed and kneaded and baked into the Stanier loaf.</p> - -<p>Especially was this the case with her who married the young Lord Stanier -of the day; long before she succeeded to her full honours she had been -crushed into the iron mould designed for the Countesses of Yardley. In -public, dignity and stateliness and fine manner would distinguish her, -but below these desirable insignia of her station, her character and -individuality seemed to have been reduced to pulp, to have been frozen -to death, to have been pounded and brayed in some soul-shattering -mortar. Perhaps when first as a bride she entered through the glass -doors which were only opened when the eldest son brought home his wife, -or when there was welcomed at Stanier some reigning monarch, her heart -would be all afire with love and virgin longing for him with whom she -passed through those fatal portals, but before the honeymoon was over -this process that tamed and stifled and paralysed would have begun its -deadly work.</p> - -<p>For the eldest son and his wife there was reserved a floor in one of the -wings of the house; they had no other establishment in the country, and -here, when not in London, the family dwelt in patriarchal fashion. When -no guests were present, the heir-apparent and his wife breakfasted and -lunched in the privacy of their wing, if so they chose; they had their -own horses, their own household of servants, but every evening, when the -warning bell for dinner sounded, the major-domo came to the door of -their apartments and preceded them down to the great gallery where, with -any other sons and daughters-in-law, they awaited the entrance of Lord -Yardley and his wife. Then came the stately and almost speechless -dinner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span> served on gold plate, and after that a rubber of whist, -decorous and damning, until Lady Yardley retired on the stroke of ten, -and the sons joined their father in the billiard-room.</p> - -<p>Such evenings were rare (for usually throughout the shooting season -there were guests in the house), but from them we can conjecture some -sketch of the paralysing process: this was the conduct of a family -evening in the mere superficial adventure of dining and passing a -sociable evening, and from it we can estimate something of the effect of -parallel processes applied to the thoughts and the mind and the -aspirations and the desires of a young wife. No Stanier wanted love or -gave it; what he wanted when he took his mate was that in obedience and -subjection she should give him (as she always did) a legitimate and -healthy heir. She was not a Stanier, and though she wore the family -pearls like a halter, she was only there on sufferance and of necessity, -and though her blood would beat with the true ichor in the arteries of -the next generation, she was in herself no more than the sucked -orange-rind.</p> - -<p>The Staniers were too proud to reckon an alliance with any family on the -face of the earth as anything but an honour for the family concerned; -even when, as happened at the close of the eighteenth century, a -princess of the Hohenzollern line was married to the heir, she was -ground in the mill like any other. In her case she shared to the full in -the brutal arrogance of her own family, and had imagined that it was she -who, by this alliance, had conferred, not accepted, an honour. She had -supposed that her husband and his relations would give her the deference -due to royalty, and it took her some little time to learn her lesson, -which she appears to have mastered.</p> - -<p>A hundred years later the Emperor William II. of Germany had a reminder -of it which caused him considerable surprise. On one of his visits to -England he deigned to pass a week-end at Stanier, and though received as -a reigning monarch with opening of the glass<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span> doors, he found that his -condescension in remembering that he was connected with the family was -not received with the rapture of humility which he had expected. He had -asked to be treated by the members of the family as Cousin Willie, and -they did so with a nonchalance that was truly amazing.</p> - -<p>Such, in brief, was the rise of the Staniers, and such the outline of -their splendour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II-a" id="CHAPTER_II-a"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> - -<p>By the middle of the nineteenth century the fading of the actual deed -signed by Colin Stanier had scarcely kept pace with the fading of the -faith in it: this had become the mildest of effete superstitions. About -that epoch, also, the continuity of Stanier tradition was broken, for -there was born in the direct line not only two sons but a daughter, -Hester, who, a couple of centuries ago, would probably have been -regarded as a changeling, and met an early fate as such. She was as -lovely as the dawn, and had to the full, with every feminine grace -added, a double portion of the Stanier charm, but in her disposition no -faintest trace of traditional inheritance could be found; instead of -their inhuman arrogance, their icy self-sufficiency, she was endowed -with a gaiety and a rollicking gutter-snipe enjoyment of existence, -which laughed to scorn the dignity of birth.</p> - -<p>Being of the inferior sex, her father decreed that she should be brought -up in the image of the tradition which ground so small the women who had -married into the family; she must become, like her own mother, aloof and -calm and infinitely conscious of her position. But neither precept nor -example had the smallest effect on her: for dignity, she had -boisterousness; for calm, buoyant, irrepressible spirits; and for -self-control, a marked tendency to allure and kindle the -susceptibilities of the other sex, were he peer or ploughboy.</p> - -<p>Alone, too, of her race, she had no spark of that passionate affection -for her home that was one of the most salient characteristics of the -others.</p> - -<p>She gave an instance of this defect when, at the age of fifteen, she ran -away from Stanier half-way through August, while the family were in -residence after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> season in London, being unable to stand the thought -of that deadly and awful stateliness which would last without break till -January, when the assembling of the Houses of Parliament would take them -all back to the metropolis which she loved with extraordinary fervour. -Part of the way she went in a train, part of the way she rode, and -eventually arrived back at the huge house in St. James’s Square, now -empty and sheeted, and persuaded the caretaker, who had been her nurse -and adored her with unique devotion, to take her in and send no news to -Stanier of her arrival.</p> - -<p>“Darling Cooper,” she said, with her arms round the old woman’s neck and -her delicious face bestowing kisses on her, “unless you promise to say -nothing about my coming here, I shall leave the house and get really -lost. They say a healthy girl can always get a living.”</p> - -<p>“Eh, my dear,” said Cooper, much shocked, “what are you saying?”</p> - -<p>Hester’s look of seraphic ignorance that she had said anything unusual -reassured Cooper.</p> - -<p>“What am I saying?” asked Hester. “I’m just saying what I shall do. I -shall buy a monkey and a barrel-organ and dress like a gipsy and tell -fortunes. But I won’t go back to that awful Stanier.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s your papa’s house,” said Cooper. “Young ladies have to live -with their families till they are married.”</p> - -<p>“This one won’t,” said Hester. “And I believe it’s true, Cooper, that we -own it through the power of the devil. It’s a dreadful place: there’s a -blight on it. Grandmamma was turned to stone there, and mamma has been -turned to stone, and they’re trying to turn me to stone.”</p> - -<p>Poor Cooper was in a fair quandary; she knew that Hester was perfectly -capable of rushing out of the house unless she gave her the desired -promise, and then with what face would she encounter Lord Yardley, how -stammer forth the miserable confession that Hester had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> here? Not -less impossible to contemplate was the housing of this entrancing imp, -and keeping to herself the secret of Hester’s whereabouts. Even more -impossible was the third count of giving Hester the promise, and then -breaking it by sending a clandestine communication to her mother, for -that would imply the loss of Hester’s trust in her, and she could not -face the idea of those eyes turned reproachfully on her as on some -treacherous foe.</p> - -<p>She hesitated, and the artful Hester noted her advantage.</p> - -<p>“Darling Cooper, you wouldn’t like me to be turned to stone,” she said. -“I know I should make a lovely statue, but it’s better to be alive.”</p> - -<p>“Eh, my dear, be a good girl and go back to Stanier,” pleaded Cooper. -“Think of your mamma and the anxiety she’s in about you.”</p> - -<p>Hester made “a face.” “It’s silly to say that,” she said. “Mamma -anxious, indeed! Mamma couldn’t be anxious: she’s dead inside.”</p> - -<p>Cooper felt she could not argue the point with any conviction, for she -was entirely of Hester’s opinion.</p> - -<p>“And I’ve had no tea, Cooper,” said the girl, “and I am so hungry.”</p> - -<p>“Bless the child, but I’ll get you your tea,” said Cooper. “And then -you’ll be a good girl and let me send off a telegram....”</p> - -<p>What Hester’s future plans really were she had not yet determined to -herself; she was still acting under the original impulse which had made -her run away. Come what might, she had found the idea of Stanier utterly -impossible that morning; the only thing that mattered was to get away.</p> - -<p>But as Cooper bustled about with the preparations of the tea, she began -to consider what she really expected. She was quite undismayed at what -she had done, and was on that score willing to confront any stone faces -that might be-Gorgon her, but her imagination could not picture what she -was going to do. Would she live here<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> <i>perdue</i> for the next six months -till the family of stone brought their Pharaoh-presence into London -again? She could not imagine that. Was it to come, then, to the -threatened barrel-organ and the monkey and the telling of fortunes? Glib -and ready as had been her speech on that subject, it lacked reality when -seriously contemplated in the mirror of the future.</p> - -<p>But if she was not proposing to live here with Cooper, or to run away -definitely—a prospect for which, at the age of fifteen, she felt -herself, now that it grimly stared her in the face, wholly unripe—there -was nothing to be done, but to-day or to-morrow, or on one of the -conceivable to-morrows, to go back again. And yet her whole nature -revolted against that.</p> - -<p>She was sitting in the window-seat of the big hall as this dismal debate -went on in her head, but all the parties to that conference were agreed -on one thing—namely, that Cooper should not telegraph to her mother, -and that, come what might, Cooper should not be imagined to be an -accomplice. Just then she heard a step on the threshold outside, and -simultaneously the welcome jingle of a tea-tray from the opposite -direction. Hester tiptoed towards the latter of these sounds, and found -Cooper laden with good things on a tray advancing up the corridor.</p> - -<p>“Go back to your room, Cooper,” she whispered; “there is some one at the -door. I will see who it is.”</p> - -<p>“Eh, now, let me open the door,” said Cooper, visibly apprehensive.</p> - -<p>“No! Go away!” whispered Hester, and remained there during imperative -peals of the bell till Cooper had vanished.</p> - -<p>She tried, by peeping sideways out of the hall window, to arrive at the -identity of this impatient visitor, but could see nothing of him. Then, -with cold courage, she went to the front-door and opened it. She -expected something bad—her mother, perhaps, or her brothers’ tutor, or -the groom of the chambers—but she had conjectured nothing so bad as -this, for on the doorstep stood her father.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span></p> - -<p>That formidable figure was not often encountered by her. In London she -practically never saw him at all; in the country she saw him but once a -day, when, with the rest of the family, she waited in the drawing-room -before dinner for his entrance with her mother. Then they all stood up, -and paired off to go in to dinner. In some remote manner Hester felt -that she had no existence for him, but that he, at close quarters, had a -terrible existence for her. Generally, he took no notice whatever of -her, but to-day she realised that she existed for him in so lively a -manner that he had come up from Stanier to get into touch with her. Such -courage as she had completely oozed out of her: she had become just a -stone out of the family quarry.</p> - -<p>“So you’re here,” he said, shutting the door behind him.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Hester.</p> - -<p>“And do you realise what you’ve done?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ve run away,” said she.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean that,” said he; “that’s soon remedied. But you’ve made me -spend half the day travelling in order to find you. Now you’re going to -suffer for it. Stand up here in front of me.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke he drew off his fine white gloves and put the big sapphire -ring that he wore into his pocket. At that Hester guessed his purpose.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t,” she said.</p> - -<p>He gave her so ill-omened and ugly a glance that her heart quailed. “You -will do as I tell you,” he said.</p> - -<p>Hester felt her pulses beating small and quick. Fear perhaps accounted -for that, but more dominant than fear in her mind was the sense of her -hatred of her father. He was like a devil, one of those contorted -waterspouts on the church at home. She found herself obeying him.</p> - -<p>“Now I am going to punish you,” he said, “for being such a nuisance to -me. By ill-luck you are my daughter, and as you don’t know how a -daughter of mine ought to behave, I am going to show you what happens -when<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span> she behaves as you have done. Your mother has often told me that -you are a wilful and vulgar child, disobedient to your governesses, and, -in a word, common. But now you have forced your commonness upon my -notice, and I’m going to make you sorry for having done so. Hold your -head up.”</p> - -<p>He drew back his arm, and with his open hand smacked her across her -cheek; with his left hand he planted a similar and stinging blow. Four -times those white thin fingers of his blazoned themselves on her face, -and then he paused.</p> - -<p>“Well, why don’t you cry?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Because I don’t choose to,” said Hester.</p> - -<p>“Put your head up again,” said he.</p> - -<p>She stood there firm as a rock for half a dozen more of those bitter -blows, and then into his black heart there came a conviction, bitterer -than any punishment he had inflicted on her, that he was beaten. In -sheer rage at this he took her by her shoulders and shook her violently. -And then came the end, for she simply collapsed on the floor, still -untamed. Her bodily force might fail, but she flew no flag of surrender.</p> - -<p>She came to herself again with the sense of Cooper near her. She turned -weary eyes this way and that, but saw nothing of her father.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Cooper, has that devil gone?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Eh, my lady,” said Cooper, “who are you talking of? There’s no one here -but his lordship.”</p> - -<p>Hester raised herself on her elbow and saw that awful figure standing by -the great chimneypiece. The first thought that came into her mind was -for Cooper.</p> - -<p>“I wish to tell you that ever since I entered the house Cooper has been -saying that she must telegraph to you that I was here,” she said.</p> - -<p>He nodded. “That’s all right then, Cooper,” he said.</p> - -<p>Hester watched her father take the sapphire ring from his waistcoat -pocket. He put this on, and then his gloves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Her ladyship will stay here to-night, Cooper,” he said. “And you will -take her to the station to-morrow morning and bring her down to -Stanier.”</p> - -<p>He did not so much as glance at Hester, and next moment the front door -had closed behind him.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Hester arrived back at Stanier next day after this abortive expedition, -and it was clear at once that orders had been issued that no word was to -be said to her on the subject of what she had done. She had mid-day -dinner with her governess, rode afterwards with her brothers, and as -usual stood up when her father entered the drawing-room in the evening. -The awful life had closed like a trap upon her again, rather more -tightly than before, for she was subject to a closer supervision.</p> - -<p>But though the apparent victory was with her father, she knew (and was -somehow aware that he knew it, too) that her spirit had not yielded one -inch to him, and that he, for all his grim autocracy, was conscious, as -regards her, of imperfect mastery. If he had broken her will, so she -acutely argued, she would not now have been watched; her doings would -not, as they certainly were, have been reported to him by the governess. -That was meat and drink to her. But from being a mere grim presence in -the background he had leaped into reality, and with the whole force of -her nature, she hated him.</p> - -<p>The substance of the Stanier legend, faint though the faith in it had -become, was, of course, well known to her, and every morning, looking -like some young sexless angel newly come to earth, she added to her very -tepid prayers the fervent and heartfelt petition that the devil would -not long delay in exacting his part of the bargain.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Two years passed, and Hester became aware that there were schemes on -foot for marrying her off with the utmost possible speed. The idea of -marriage in the abstract was wholly to her mind, since then she would be -quit of the terrible life at Stanier, but in the concrete she was not -so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> content with her selected deliverer. This was the mild and highborn -Marquis of Blakeney, a man precisely twice her age, of plain, serious -mind and irreproachable morals. He adored her in a rapt and tongue-tied -manner, and no doubt Hester had encouraged him with those little smiles -and glances which she found it impossible not to bestow on any male -denizen of this earth, without any distinct ulterior views. But when it -became evident, by his own express declaration made with the permission -of her father, that he entertained such views, Hester wondered whether -it would be really possible to kiss that seal-like whiskered face with -any semblance of wifely enthusiasm.</p> - -<p>Had there been any indication that her pious petition with regard to the -speedy ratification of the Stanier legend as regards her father would be -granted, she would probably have recommended the mild Marquis to take -his vows to other shrines, but her father seemed to be suffering no -inconvenience from her prayers, and she accepted the rapt and -tongue-tied devotion. Instantly all the bonds of discipline and -suppression were relaxed; even in her father’s eyes her engagement made -her something of a personage, and Hester hated him more than ever.</p> - -<p>And then the vengeance of winged, vindictive love, more imperious than -her father, overtook and punished her, breaking her spirit, which he had -never done. At a dance given at Blakeney Castle to celebrate the -engagement, she saw young Ralph Brayton, penniless and debonair, with no -seal-face and no marquisate, and the glance of each pierced through the -heart of the other. He was the son of the family solicitor of Lord -Blakeney, and even while his father was drawing out the schedule of -munificent settlements for the bride-to-be, the bride gave him something -more munificent yet, and settled it, her heart, upon him for all -perpetuity.</p> - -<p>She did her best to disown, if not to stifle, what had come upon her, -and had her marriage but been fixed for a month earlier than the day -appointed, she would prob<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span>ably have married her affianced bridegroom, -and let love hang itself in its own silken noose and chance its being -quite strangled. As it was, even while her room at Stanier was silky and -shimmering with the appurtenances of a bride, she slipped out one night -as the moon set, and joined her lover at the park gates. By dawn they -had come to London, and before evening she was safe in the holding of -her husband’s arms.</p> - -<p>On the news reaching Lord Yardley he had a stroke from which he did not -recover for many years, though he soon regained sufficient power of -babbling speech to make it abundantly clear that he would never see -Hester again. As she was equally determined never to see him, their -wills were in complete harmony. That brutal punishment she had received -from those thin white hands two years before, followed by the bondage of -her life at home, had rendered her perfectly callous as regards him. Had -he been sorry for it, she might have shrugged her pretty shoulders and -forgotten it; for that cold pale slab of womanhood, her mother, she felt -nothing whatever.</p> - -<p>This outrageous marriage of Hester’s, followed by her father’s stroke, -were contrary to all tradition as regards the legend, for these -calamities, indeed, looked as if one of the high contracting parties was -not fulfilling his share of the bargain, and the behaviour of Philip, -Lord Stanier, the stricken man’s eldest son, added weight to the -presumption that the luck of the Staniers (to put it at that) was on the -wane—fading, fading like the ink of the original bond. Instead of -marrying at the age of twenty or twenty-one, as his father and -forefathers had done, he remained obstinately celibate and ludicrously -decorous. In appearance he was dark, heavy of feature, jowled even in -his youth by a fleshiness of neck, and built on massive lines in place -of the slenderness of his race, though somehow, in spite of these -aberrations from the type, he yet presented an example, or, rather, a -parody, of the type. But when you came to mind, and that which lies -behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span> body and mind alike, that impenetrable essence of individuality, -then the professors in heredity would indeed have held up bewildered -hands of surrender. He was studious and hesitating, his mental processes -went with a tread as deliberate as his foot, and in place of that swift -eagerness of the Stanier mind, which, so to speak, threw a lasso over -the mental quarry with one swing of a lithe arm, and entangled it, poor -Philip crept on hands and knees towards it and advanced ever so -imperceptibly nearer. In the matter of mode of life the difference -between him and the type was most marked of all. Hitherto the eldest son -had married early and wisely for the sole object of the perpetuation of -the breed, and having arrived at that, pursued the ways of youth in -copious indiscretions which his wife, already tamed and paralysed, had -no will to resent. Philip, on the other hand, living in the gloom of the -house beneath the stroke and the shadow that had fallen on his father, -seemed to have missed his youth altogether. Life held for him no -bubbling draught that frothed on his lips and was forgotten; he -abstained from all the fruits of vigour and exuberance. One family -characteristic alone was his—the passionate love of his home, so that -he preferred even in these conditions to live here than find freedom -elsewhere. There he dreamed and studied, and neither love nor passion -nor intrigue came near him. He cared little for his mother; his father -he hated and feared. And yet some germ of romance, perhaps, lay dormant -but potential in his soul, for more and more he read of Italy, and of -the swift flowering of love in the South....</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>It seemed as if the hellish bargain made three hundred years ago had -indeed become obsolete, for the weeks and months added themselves -together into a swiftly mounting total of years, while a nightmare of -eclipsed existence brooded over the great house at Stanier. Since the -stroke that had fallen on him after Hester’s runaway match, Lord Yardley -would have no guests in the house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span> and with the constancy of the -original Colin, would never leave the place himself. Grinning and -snarling in his bath-chair, he would be drawn up and down its long -galleries by the hour together, with his battered and petrified spouse -walking by his side, at first unable to speak with any coherence, but as -the years went on attaining to a grim ejaculatory utterance that left no -doubt as to his meaning.</p> - -<p>Sometimes it was his whim to enter the library, and if Philip was there -he would give vent to dreadful and stuttering observations as he -clenched and unclenched the nerveless hands that seemed starving to -throttle his son’s throat. Then, tired with this outpouring of emotion, -he would doze in his chair, and wake from his doze into a paroxysm of -tremulous speechlessness. At dinner-time he would have the riband of the -Garter pinned across his knitted coat and be wheeled, with his wife -walking whitely by his side, into the gallery, where the unmarried -Philip, and his newly-married brother and his wife, stood up at his -entrance, and without recognition he would pass, jibbering, at the head -of that small and dismal procession, into the dining-room.</p> - -<p>He grew ever thinner and more wasted in body, but such was some -consuming fire within him that he needed the sustenance of some growing -and gigantic youth. He was unable to feed himself, and his attendant -standing by him put into that open chasm of a mouth, still lined with -milk-white teeth, his monstrous portions. A couple of bites was -sufficient to prepare for the gulp, and again his mouth was ready to -receive.</p> - -<p>Then, when the solid entertainment was over, and the women gone, there -remained the business of wine, and, sound trencherman though he was, his -capacity over this was even more remarkable. He took his port by the -tumblerful, the first of which he would drink like one thirsty for -water, and this in some awful manner momentarily restored his powers of -speech. Like the first drops before a storm, single words began dripping -from his lips, as this restoration of speech took place, his eye,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> -brightening with malevolence, fixed itself on Philip, and night after -night he would gather force for the same lunatic tirade.</p> - -<p>“You sitting there,” he would say, “you, Philip, you aren’t a Stanier! -Why don’t you get a bitch to your kennel, and rear a mongrel or two? You -heavy-faced lout, you can’t breed, you can’t drink, you can do nought -but grow blear-eyed over a pack of printed rubbish. There was Hester: -she married some sort of sweeper, and barren she is at that. I take -blame to myself there: if only I had smacked her face a dozen times -instead of once, I’d have tamed her: she would have come to heel. And -the third of you, Ronald there, with your soapy-faced slut of a wife, -you’d be more in your place behind a draper’s counter than here at -Stanier. And they tell me that there’s no news yet that you’re going to -give an heir to the place. Heir, good God....”</p> - -<p>Ronald had less patience than his brother. He would have drunk pretty -stiffly by now, and he would bang the table and make the glasses jingle.</p> - -<p>“Now you keep a civil tongue in your head, father,” he said, “and I’ll -do the same for you. A pretty figure you cut with your Garter and your -costermonger talk. It’s your own nest you’re fouling, and you’ve fouled -it well. There was never yet a Stanier till you who took to a bath-chair -and a bib and a man to feed him when he couldn’t find the way to his own -mouth.”</p> - -<p>“Here, steady, Ronald!” Philip would say.</p> - -<p>“I’m steadier than that palsy-stricken jelly there,” said Ronald. “If he -leaves me alone I leave him alone: it isn’t I who begin. But if you or -he think I’m going to sit here and listen to his gutter-talk, you’re in -error.”</p> - -<p>He left his seat with a final reversal of the decanter and banged out of -the room.</p> - -<p>Then, as likely as not, the old man would begin to whimper. Though, -apparently, he did all he could to make residence at Stanier impossible -for his sons, he seemed above all to fear that he would succeed in doing -so.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Your brother gets so easily angered with me,” he would say. “I’m sure I -said nothing to him that a loving father shouldn’t. Go after him, Phil, -and ask him to come back and drink a friendly glass with his poor -father.”</p> - -<p>“I think you had better let him be, sir,” said Philip. “He didn’t relish -what you said of his wife and his childlessness.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I meant nothing, I meant nothing. Mayn’t a father have a bit of -chaff over his wine with his sons? As for his wife, I’m sure she’s a -very decent woman, and if it was that which offended him, there’s that -diamond collar my lady wears. Bid her take it off and give it to Janet -as a present from me. Then we shall be all comfortable again.”</p> - -<p>“I should leave it alone for to-night,” said Philip. “You can give it -her to-morrow. Won’t you come and have your rubber of whist?”</p> - -<p>His eye would brighten again at that, for in his day he had been a great -player, and if he went to the cards straight from his wine, which for a -little made order in the muddle and confusion of his brain, he would -play a hand or two with the skill that had been an instinct with him. -His tortoise-shell kitten must first be brought him, for that was his -mascotte, which reposed on his lap, and for the kitten there was a -saucerful of chopped fish to keep it quiet. It used to drag fragments -from the dish on to the riband of the Garter, and eat from there.</p> - -<p>He could not hold the cards himself, and they were arranged in a stand -in front of him, and his attendant pulled out the one to which he -pointed a quivering finger. If the cards were not in his favour he would -chuck the kitten off his knee. “Drown it; the devil’s in it,” he would -mumble. Then, before long, the gleam of lucidity rent in his clouds by -the wine would close up again, and he would play with lamentable lunatic -cunning, revoking and winking at his valet, and laughing with pleasure -as the tricks were gathered. At the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span> he would calculate his winnings -and insist on their being paid. They were returned to the loser when his -valet had abstracted them from his pocket....</p> - -<p>Any attempt to move him from Stanier had to be abandoned, for it brought -on such violent agitation that his life was endangered if it were -persisted in, and even if it had been possible to certify him as insane, -neither Philip nor his brother nor his wife would have consented to his -removal to a private asylum, for some impregnable barrier of family -pride stood in the way. Nor, perhaps, would it have been easy to obtain -the necessary certificate. He had shown no sign of homicidal or suicidal -mania, and it would have been hard to have found any definite delusion -from which he suffered. He was just a very terrible old man, partly -paralytic, who got drunk and lucid together of an evening. He certainly -hated Philip, but Philip’s habits and Philip’s celibacy were the causes -of that; he cheated at cards, but the sane have been known to do -likewise.</p> - -<p>Indeed, it seemed as if after their long and glorious noon in which, as -by some Joshua-stroke, the sun had stayed his course in the zenith, that -the fortunes of the Staniers were dipping swiftly into the cold of an -eternal night. In mockery of that decline their wealth, mounting to more -prodigious heights, resembled some Pharaoh’s pyramid into which so soon -a handful of dust would be laid. In the last decade of the nineteenth -century the long leases of the acres which a hundred years ago had been -let for building land at Brighton were tumbling in, and in place of -ground-rents the houses came into their possession, while, with true -Stanier luck, this coincided with a revival of Brighton as a -watering-place. Fresh lodes were discovered in their Cornish properties, -and the wave of gold rose ever higher, bearing on it those who seemed -likely to be the last of the name. Philip, now a little over forty years -old, was still unmarried; Ronald, ten years his junior, was childless; -and Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span> Hester Brayton, now a widow, had neither son nor daughter to -carry on the family.</p> - -<p>Already it looked as if the vultures were coming closer across the -golden sands of the desert on which these survivors were barrenly -gathered, for an acute and far-seeing solicitor had unearthed a family -of labourers living in a cottage in the marsh between Broomhill and -Appledore, who undoubtedly bore the name of Stanier, and he had secured -from the father, who could just write his name, a duly-attested document -to the effect that if Jacob Spurway succeeded in establishing him in the -family possessions and honours, he would pay him the sum of a hundred -thousand pounds in ten annual instalments. That being made secure, it -was worth while secretly to hunt through old wills and leases, and he -had certainly discovered that Colin Stanier (<i>æt.</i> Elizabeth) had a -younger brother, Ronald, who inhabited a farm not far from Appledore and -had issue. That issue could, for the most part, be traced, or, at any -rate, firmly inferred right down to the present. Then came a most -gratifying search through the chronicles and pedigrees of the line now -in possession, and, explore as he might, John Spurway could find no -collateral line still in existence. Straight down, from father to son, -as we have seen, ran the generations; till the day of Lady Hester -Brayton, no daughter had been born to an Earl of Yardley, and the line -of such other sons as the lords of Stanier begot had utterly died out. -The chance of establishing this illiterate boor seemed to Mr. Jacob -Spurway a very promising one, and he not only devoted to it his time and -his undoubted abilities, but even made a few clandestine and judicious -purchases. There arrived, for instance, one night at the Stanier cottage -a wholly genuine Elizabethan chair in extremely bad condition, which was -modestly placed in the kitchen behind the door; a tiger-ware jug found -its way to the high chimneypiece and got speedily covered with dust, and -a much-tarnished Elizabethan seal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span>top spoon made a curious addition to -the Britannia metal equipage for the drinking of tea.</p> - -<p>But if this drab and barren decay of the direct line of Colin Stanier -roused the interest of Mr. Spurway, it appeared in the year 1892 to -interest others not less ingenious, and (to adopt the obsolete terms of -the legend) it really looked as if Satan remembered the bond to which he -was party, and bestirred himself to make amends for his forgetfulness. -And first—with a pang of self-reproach—he turned his attention to this -poor bath-chaired paralytic, now so rapidly approaching his seventieth -year. Then there was Philip to consider, and Ronald.... Lady Hester he -felt less self-reproachful about, for, unhampered by children, and -consoled for the loss of her husband by the very charming attentions of -others, she was in London queen of the smart Bohemia, which was the only -court at all to her mind, and was far more amusing than the garden -parties at Buckingham Palace to which, so pleasant was Bohemia, she was -no longer invited.</p> - -<p>So then, just about the time that Mr. Spurway was sending Elizabethan -relics to the cottage in the Romney Marsh, there came over Lord Yardley -a strange and rather embarrassing amelioration of his stricken state. -From a medical point of view he became inexplicably better, though from -another point of view it could be as confidently stated that he became -irretrievably worse. His clouded faculties were pierced by the sun of -lucidity again, the jerks and quivers of his limbs and his speech gave -way to a more orderly rhythm, and his doctor congratulated himself on -the eventual success of a treatment that for twenty years had produced -no effect whatever. Strictly speaking, that treatment could be more -accurately described as the absence of treatment: Sir Thomas Logan had -said all along that the utmost that doctors could do was to assist -Nature in effecting a cure: a bath-chair and the indulgence of anything -the patient felt inclined to do was the sum of the curative process. Now -at last it bore (professionally speaking) the most gratifying fruit. -Co<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span>herence visited his speech, irrespective of the tumblers of port -(indeed, these tumblers of port produced a normal incoherence), his -powerless hands began to grasp the cards again, and before long he was -able to perambulate the galleries through which his bath-chair had so -long wheeled him, on his own feet with the aid of a couple of sticks. -Every week that passed saw some new feat of convalescence and the -strangeness of the physical and mental recovery touched the fringes of -the miraculous.</p> - -<p>But while Sir Thomas Logan, in his constant visits to Stanier during -this amazing recovery, never failed to find some fresh and surprising -testimonial to his skill, he had to put away from himself with something -of an effort certain qualms that insisted on presenting themselves to -him. It seemed even while his patient’s physical and mental faculties -improved in a steady and ascending ratio of progress, that some -spiritual deterioration balanced, or more than balanced, this recovery. -Hard and cruel Lord Yardley had been before the stroke had fallen on -him—without compassion, without human affection—now, in the renewal of -his vital forces, these qualities blazed into a conflagration, and it -was against Philip, above all others, that their heat and fury were -directed.</p> - -<p>While his father was helpless Philip had staunchly remained with him, -sharing with his mother and with Ronald and his wife the daily burden of -companionship. But now there was something intolerable in his father’s -lucid and concentrated hatred of him. Daily now Lord Yardley would come -into the library where Philip was at his books, in order to glut his -passion with proximity. He would take a chair near Philip’s, and, under -pretence of reading, would look at him in silence with lips that -trembled and twitching fingers. Once or twice, goaded by Philip’s steady -ignoring of his presence, he broke out into speeches of hideous abuse, -the more terrible because it was no longer the drunken raving of a -paralytic, but the considered utterance of a clear and hellish brain.</p> - -<p>Acting on the great doctor’s advice, Philip, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span> saying a word to -his father, made arrangements for leaving Stanier. He talked the matter -over with that marble mother of his, and they settled that he would be -wise to leave England for the time being. If his father, as might so -easily happen, got news of him in London or in some place easily -accessible, the awful law of attraction which his hatred made between -them might lead to new developments: the more prudent thing was that he -should efface himself altogether.</p> - -<p>Italy, to one of Philip’s temperament, appeared an obvious asylum, but -beyond that his whereabouts was to be left vague, so that his mother, -without fear of detection in falsehood, could say that she did not know -where he was. She would write him news of Stanier to some forwarding -agency in Rome, with which he would be in communication, and he would -transmit news of himself through the same channel.</p> - -<p>One morning before the house was astir, Philip came down into the great -hall. Terrible as these last years had been, rising to this climax which -had driven him out, it was with a bleeding of the heart that he left the -home that was knitted into his very being, and beat in his arteries. He -would not allow himself to wonder how long it might be before his -return: it did not seem possible that in his father’s lifetime he should -tread these floors again, and in the astounding rejuvenation that there -had come over Lord Yardley, who could say how long this miracle of -restored vitality might work its wonders?</p> - -<p>As he moved towards the door a ray of early sunlight struck sideways on -to the portrait of Colin Stanier, waking it to another day of its -imperishable youth. It illumined, too, the legendary parchment let into -the frame; by some curious effect of light the writing seemed to Philip -for one startled moment to be legible and distinct....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III-a" id="CHAPTER_III-a"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> - -<p>One morning, within a month of his departure from Stanier, Philip was -coming slowly up from his bathing and basking on the beach, pleasantly -fatigued, agreeably hungry, and stupefied with content. He had swum and -floated in the warm crystal of the sea, diving from deep-water rocks -into the liquid caves, where the sunlight made a shifting net of -luminous scribbles over the jewelled pebbles; he had lain with half-shut -eyes watching the quivering of the hot air over the white bank of -shingle, with the sun warm on his drying shoulders and penetrating, it -seemed, into the marrow of his bones and illuminating the very hearth -and shrine of his spirit.</p> - -<p>The hours had passed but too quickly, and now he was making his -leisurely way through vineyards and olive-farms back to the road where a -little jingling equipage would be waiting to take him up to his villa on -the hill above the town of Capri. On one side of the path was a -sun-flecked wall, where, in the pools of brightness, lizards lay as -immobile as the stones themselves; the edges of these pools of light -bordered by continents of bluish shadow wavered with the slight stirring -of the olive trees above them. Through the interlacement of these boughs -he caught glimpses of the unstained sky and the cliffs that rose to the -island heights. On the other side the olive groves declined towards the -edge of the cliff, and through their branches the sea, doubly tinged -with the sky’s blueness, was not less tranquil than the ether.</p> - -<p>Presently, still climbing upwards, he emerged from the olive groves, -while the vineyards in plots and terraces followed the outline of the -hill. Mingled with them were orchards of lemon trees bearing the globes -of the young green fruit together with flower; and leaf and flower and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span> -fruit alike reeked of an inimitable fragrance. There were pomegranates -bearing crimson flowers thick and waxlike against the wall of an ingle -house that bordered the narrow path; a riot of morning-glory was new -there every day with fresh unfoldings of blown blue trumpets. Out of the -open door came an inspiriting smell of frying, and on the edge of the -weather-stained balcony were rusty petroleum tins in which carnations -bloomed. A space of level plateau, with grass already bleached yellow by -this spell of hot weather, crowned the hill, and again he descended -between lizard-tenanted walls through vineyards and lemon groves.</p> - -<p>His rickety little carriage was waiting, the horse with a smart -pheasant’s feather erect on its head, the driver with a carnation stuck -behind his ear; the harness, for the sake of security, was supplemented -with string. The whip cracked, the horse tossed its pheasant’s feather -and jingled its bells, and, followed by a cloud of dust, Philip creaked -away up the angled road, musing and utterly content.</p> - -<p>He could scarcely believe, as the little equipage ambled up the hill, -that the individual known by his name, and wearing his clothes, who had -lived darkly like a weevil in that joylessness of stately gloom, was the -same as this sun-steeped sprawler in the creaking carriage. He had come -out of a nightmare of tunnel into the wholesome and blessed day, and was -steeped in the colour of the sun. It was but a few weeks ago that, -without anticipation of anything but relief from an intolerable -situation, he had stolen out of Stanier, but swift æons of evolution had -passed over him since then. There was not more difference between the -darkness of those English winter days that had brooded in the halls and -galleries of Stanier and this caressing sun that pervaded sea and sky, -than there was between his acceptance of life then and his embrace of -life now. Now it was enough to be alive: the very conditions of -existence spelled content, and at the close of every day he would have -welcomed a backward shift of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span> the hours so that he might have that -identical day again, instead of welcoming the close of each day in the -assurance of that identical day not coming again. There would be others, -but from the total sum one unit had been subtracted. It had perished: it -had dropped into the well of years.</p> - -<p>Philip had no need to ask himself what constituted the horror of those -closed years, for it was part of his consciousness, which called for no -catechism, that it was his father’s existence; just the fact of him -distilled the poison, thick as dew on a summer night, which made them -thus. He had to the full the Stanier passion for the home itself, but as -long as his father lived, the horror of the man so pervaded the place, -so overrode all other sentiments with regard to it, that he could not -think of the one apart from the other, for hatred, acid and corrosive, -grew like some deadly mildew on the great galleries and the high halls.</p> - -<p>It was no mere passive thing, an absence of love or affection, but a -positive and prosperous growth: a henbane or a deadly nightshade -sprouted and flowered and flourished there. Dwelling on it even for the -toss of his horse’s head, as they clattered off the dusty road on to the -paved way outside the town, Philip felt his hands grow damp.</p> - -<p>He had come straight through to Rome and plunged himself, as in a -cooling bath, in the beauty and magnificence of the antique city. He had -wandered through galleries, had sat in the incense-fragrant dusk of -churches, had spent long hours treading the vestiges of the past, -content for the time to feel the spell of healing which the mere -severing himself from Stanier had set at work. But soon through that -spell there sounded a subtler incantation, coming not from the haunts of -men nor the achievements of the past, but from the lovely heart of the -lovely land itself which had called forth these manifestations.</p> - -<p>He had drifted down to Naples, and across the bay to the enchanted -island hanging like a cloud on the horizon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> where the sea and sky melted -into each other. As yet he wanted neither man nor woman, the exquisite -physical conditions of the southern summer were in themselves the -restoration he needed, with a truce from all human entanglements. -Potent, indeed, was their efficacy; they ran through his heart like -wine, rejuvenating and narcotic together, and to-day he could scarcely -credit that a fortnight of eventless existence had flowed over him in -one timeless moment of magic, of animal, unreflecting happiness.</p> - -<p>Curious good fortune in elementary material ways had attended him. On -the very day of his arrival, as he strolled out from his hotel in the -dusk up the moon-struck hill above the town, he had paused beneath the -white garden wall of a villa abutting on the path, and even as in -imagination he pictured the serenity and aloofness of it, his eye caught -a placard, easily legible in the moonlight, that it was to let, and with -that came the certainty that he was to be the lessee.</p> - -<p>Next morning he made inquiry and inspection of its cool whitewashed -rooms, tiled, floored and vaulted. Below it lay its terraced garden, -smothered with neglected rose-trees and from the house, along a short -paved walk, there ran a vine-wreathed pergola, and a great stone pine -stood sentinel. A capable <i>contadina</i> with her daughter were easily -found who would look after him, and within twenty-four hours he had -transferred himself from the German-infested hotel. Soon, in answer to -further inquiries, he learned that at the end of his tenure a purchase -might be effected, and the negotiations had begun.</p> - -<p>To-day for the first time he found English news awaiting him, and the -perusal of it was like the sudden and vivid recollection of a nightmare. -Lord Yardley, so his mother wrote, was getting more capable every day; -he had even gone out riding. He had asked no questions as to where -Philip had gone, or when he would return, but he had given orders that -his name should not be mentioned, and once when she had inadvertently -done so,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> there had been a great explosion of anger. Otherwise life went -on as usual: Sir Thomas had paid a visit yesterday, and was very much -gratified by his examination of his patient, and said he need not come -again, unless any unfavourable change occurred, for another month. His -father sat long after dinner, and the games of whist were often -prolonged till midnight....</p> - -<p>Philip skimmed through the frozen sheets ... his mother was glad he was -well, and that sea-bathing suited him.... It was very hot, was it -not?—but he always liked the heat.... The hay had been got in, which -was lucky, because the barometer had gone down.... He crumpled them up -with a little shudder as at a sudden draught of chilled air....</p> - -<p>There was another from his sister Hester.</p> - -<p>“So you’ve run away, like me, so the iceberg tells me,” she wrote. “I -only wonder that you didn’t do it long ago. This is just to congratulate -you. She says, too, that father is ever so much better, which I think is -a pity. Why should he be allowed to get better? Mother says it is like a -miracle, and if it is, I’m sure I know who worked it.</p> - -<p>“Really, Phil, I am delighted that you have awoke to the fact that there -is a world outside Stanier—good Lord, if Stanier was all the world, -what a hell it would be! You used never to be happy away from the place, -I remember, but I gather from what mother says that it became absolutely -impossible for you to stop there.</p> - -<p>“There’s a blight on it, Phil: sometimes I almost feel that I believe in -the legend, for though it’s twenty years since I made my skip, if ever I -have a nightmare, it is that I dream that I am back there, and that my -father is pursuing me over those slippery floors in the dusk. But I -shall come back there, if you’ll allow me, when he’s dead: it’s he who -makes the horror....”</p> - -<p>Once again Philip felt a shiver of goose-flesh, and sending his sister’s -letter to join the other in the empty grate, strolled out into the hot -stillness of the summer afternoon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> and he hailed the sun like one -awakening from such a nightmare as Hester had spoken of. All his life he -had been sluggish in the emotions, looking at life in the mirror of -other men’s minds, getting book knowledge of it only in a cloistered -airlessness, not experiencing it for himself—a reader of travels and -not a voyager. But now with his escape from Stanier had come a -quickening of his pulses, and that awakening which had brought home to -him the horror of his father had brought to him also a passionate sense -of the loveliness of the world.</p> - -<p>Regret for the wasted years of drowsy torpor was there, also; here was -he already on the meridian of life, with so small a store of remembered -raptures laid up as in a granary for his old age, when his arm would be -too feeble to ply the sickle in the ripe cornfields. A man, when he -could no longer reap, must live on what he had gathered: without that he -would face hungry and empty years. When the fire within began to burn -low, and he could no longer replenish it, it was ill for him if the -house of his heart could not warm itself with the glow that experience -had already given him. He must gather the grapes of life, and tread them -in his winepress, squeezing out the uttermost drop, so that the ferment -and sunshine of his vintage would be safe in cellar for the comforting -of the days when in his vineyard the leaves were rotting under wintry -skies. Too many days had passed for him unharvested.</p> - -<p>That evening, after his dinner, he strolled down in the warm dusk to the -piazza. The day had been a <i>festa</i> in honour of some local saint, and -there was a show of fireworks on the hill above the town, and in -consequence the piazza and the terrace by the funicular railway, which -commanded a good view of the display, was crowded with the young folk of -the island. Rockets aspired, and bursting in bouquets of feathered fiery -spray, dimmed the stars and illumined the upturned faces of handsome -boys and swift-ripening girlhood. Eager and smiling mouths started out -of the darkness as the rockets broke into<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span> flower, eager and young and -ready for love and laughter, fading again and vanishing as the -illumination expired.</p> - -<p>It was this garden of young faces that occupied Philip more than the -fireworks, these shifting groups that formed and reformed, smiling and -talking to each other in the intervals of darkness. The bubbling ferment -of intimate companionship frothed round him, and suddenly he seemed to -himself to be incapsulated, an insoluble fragment floating or sinking in -this heady liquor of life. There came upon him sharp and unexpected as a -blow dealt from behind, a sense of complete loneliness.</p> - -<p>Every one else had his companion: here was a group of chattering boys, -there of laughing girls, here the sexes were mingled. Elder men and -women had a quieter comradeship: they had passed through the fermenting -stage, it might be, but the wine of companionship with who knew what -memories were in solution there, was theirs still. All these rapturous -days he had been alone, and had not noticed it; now his solitariness -crystallised into loneliness.</p> - -<p>With a final sheaf of rockets the display came to an end, and the crowd -began to disperse homewards. The withdrawal took the acuteness from -Philip’s ache, for he had no longer in front of his eyes the example of -what he missed, his hunger was not whetted by the spectacle of food.</p> - -<p>The steps of the last loiterers died away, and soon he was left alone -looking out over the vine-clad slope of the steep hill down to the -Marina. Warm buffets of air wandered up from the land that had lain all -day in its bath of sunlight, rippling round him like the edge of some -spent wave; but already the dew, moistening the drought of day, was -instilling into the air some nameless fragrance of damp earth and herbs -refreshed. Beyond lay the bay, conjectured rather than seen, and, twenty -miles away, a thin necklet of light showed where Naples lay stretched -and smouldering along the margin of the sea. If a wish could have -transported Philip there, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span> would have left the empty terrace to see -with what errands and adventures the city teemed, even as the brain -teems with thoughts and imaginings.</p> - -<p>Into the impersonal seduction of the summer night some human element of -longing had entered, born of the upturned faces of boys and girls -watching the rockets, and sinking back, bright-eyed and eager, into the -cover of darkness, even as the sword slips into its sheath again. Youth, -in the matter of years, was already past for him, but in his heart until -now youth had not yet been born. No individual face among them all had -flown a signal for him, but collectively they beckoned; it was among -such that he would find the lights of his heart’s harbour shining across -the barren water, and kindling desire in his eyes.</p> - -<p>It was not intellectual companionship that he sought nor the unity and -absorption of love, for Philip was true Stanier and had no use for love; -but he craved for youth, for beauty, for the Southern gaiety and -friendliness, for the upleap and the assuagement of individual desire. -Till middle-age he had lived without the instincts of youth; his tree -was barren of the golden fruits of youth’s delight. Now, sudden as his -change of life, his belated springtime flooded him.</p> - -<p>It was in Naples that he found her, in the studio of an acquaintance he -had made when he was there first, and before midsummer Rosina Viagi was -established in the villa. She was half English by birth, and in her gold -hair, heavy as the metal and her blue eyes, she shewed her mother’s -origin. But her temperament was of the South—fierce and merry, easily -moved to laughter, and as easily to squalls of anger that passed as -swiftly as an April shower, and melted into sunlight again. She so -enthralled his senses that he scarcely noticed, for those first months, -the garish commonness of her mind: it scarcely mattered; he scarcely -heeded what she said so long as it was those full lips which formed the -silly syllables. She was greedy, and he knew it, in the matter of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span> -money, but his generosity quite contented her, and he had got just what -he had desired, one who entirely satisfied his passion and left his mind -altogether unseduced.</p> - -<p>Then with the fulfillment of desire came the leanness that follows, a -swift inevitable Nemesis on the heels of the accomplishment of an -unworthy purpose. He had dreamed of the gleam of romance in those -readings of his at Stanier, and awoke to find but a smouldering wick. -And before the summer was dead, he knew he was to become a father.</p> - -<p>In the autumn the island emptied of its visitors, and Rosina could no -longer spend her evenings at the café or on the piazza, with her -countrywomen casting envious glances at her toilettes, and the men -boldly staring at her beauty. She was genuinely fond of Philip, but her -native gaiety demanded the distraction of crowds, and she yawned in the -long evenings when the squalls battered at the shutters and the panes -streamed with the fretful rain.</p> - -<p>“But are we going to stop here all the winter?” she asked one evening as -she gathered up the piquet cards. “It gets very melancholy. You go for -your great walks, but I hate walking; you sit there over your book, but -I hate reading.”</p> - -<p>Philip laughed. “Am I to clap my hands at the rain,” he said, “and say, -‘Stop at once! Rosina wearies for the sun’?”</p> - -<p>She perched herself on the arm of his chair, a favourite attitude for -her supplications. “No, my dear,” she said, “all your money will not do -that. Besides, even if the rain obeyed you and the sun shone, there -would still be nobody to look at me. But you can do something.”</p> - -<p>“And what’s that?”</p> - -<p>“Just a little apartment in Naples,” she said. “It is so gay in Naples -even if the sirocco blows or if the tramontana bellows. There are the -theatres; there are crowds; there is movement. I cannot be active, but -there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span> I can see others being active. There are fresh faces in the -street, there is gaiety.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I hate towns!” said Philip.</p> - -<p>She got up and began to speak more rapidly. “You think only of -yourself,” she said. “I mope here; I am miserable. I feel like one of -the snails on the wall, crawling, crawling, and going into a dusty -crevice. That is not my nature. I hate snails, except when they are -cooked, and then I gobble them up, and wipe my mouth and think no more -of them. You can read your book in a town just as well as here, and you -can take a walk in a town. Ah, do, Philip!”</p> - -<p>Suddenly and unexpectedly Philip found himself picturing his days here -alone, without Rosina. He did not consciously evoke the image; it -presented itself to him from outside himself. The island had certainly -cast its spell over him: just to be here, to awake to the sense of its -lotus-land tranquillity, and to go to sleep knowing that a fresh -eventless day would welcome him, made him content. He could imagine -himself now alone in this plain vaulted room, with the storm swirling -through the stone-pine outside, and the smell of burning wood on the -hearth without desiring Rosina’s presence.</p> - -<p>“Well, it might be done,” he said. “We could have a little nook in -Naples, if you liked. I don’t say that I should always be there.”</p> - -<p>Rosina’s eyes sparkled. “No, no, that would be selfish of me,” she said. -“You would come over here for a week when you wished, as you are so fond -of your melancholy island....” She stopped, and her Italian -suspiciousness came to the surface. “You are not thinking of leaving -me?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Of course I am not,” he said impatiently. “You imagine absurdities.”</p> - -<p>“I have heard of such absurdities. Are you sure?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you silly baby,” said he.</p> - -<p>She recovered her smiles. “I trust you,” she said. “Yes, where were we? -You will come over here when<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span> you want your island, and you will be -there when you want me. Oh, Philip, do you promise me?”</p> - -<p>Her delicious gaiety invaded her again, and she sat herself on the floor -between his knees.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you are kind to me!” she said. “I hope your father will live for -ever, and then you will never leave me. There is no one so kind as you. -We will have a flat, will we not? I know just such an one, that looks on -to the Castello d’Ovo, and all day the carriages go by, and we will go -by, too, and look up at our home, and wonder who are the happy folk who -live there, and every one who sees me will envy me for having a man who -loves me. And we will go to the restaurants where there are lights and -glitter, and the band plays, and I will be happier than the day is long. -Let us go over to-morrow. I will tell Maria to pack....”</p> - -<p>It was just this impetuous prattling childishness which had enthralled -him at first, and even while he told himself now how charming it was, he -knew that he found it a weariness and an unreality. The same Rosina ten -minutes before would be in a gale of temper, then, some ten minutes -after, under a cloud of suspicious surmise. His own acceptance of her -proposal that they would be together at times, at times separate, was, -in reality, a vast relief to him, yet chequering that relief was that -curious male jealousy that the woman whom he had chosen to share his -nights and days should contemplate his absences with his own equanimity. -While he reserved to himself the right of not being utterly devoted to -her, he claimed her devotion to him.</p> - -<p>It had come to that. It was not that his heart beat to another tune, his -eyes did not look elsewhere; simply the swiftly-consumed flame of -passion was now consciously dying down, and while he took no -responsibility for his own cooling, he resented her share in it. He -treated her, in fact, as Staniers had for many generations treated their -wives, but she had an independence which none of those unfortunate -females had enjoyed. He had already made<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span> a handsome provision for her; -and he was quite prepared to take a full financial responsibility for -his fatherhood. Yet, while he recognised how little she was to him, he -resented the clear fact of how little he was to her.</p> - -<p>He got up. “You shall have it all your own way, darling,” he said. -“We’ll go across to Naples to-morrow; we’ll find a flat—the one you -know of—and you shall see the crowds and the lights again....”</p> - -<p>“Ah, you are adorable,” said she. “I love you too much, Philip.”</p> - -<p>He established her to her heart’s content, and through the winter -divided the weeks between Naples and the island. She had no hold on his -heart, and on his mind none; but, at any rate, he desired no one else -but her, and as the months went by there grew in him a tenderness which -had not formed part of the original bond. Often her vanity, her childish -love of ostentation, a certain querulousness also which had lately -exhibited itself, made him long for the quiet solitude across the bay. -Sometimes she would be loth to let him go, sometimes in answer to her -petition he would put off his departure, and then before the evening was -over she would have magnified some infinitesimal point of dispute into a -serious disagreement, have watered it with her tears, sobbed out that he -was cruel to her, that she wished he had gone instead of remaining to -make himself a tyrant. He shared her sentiments on that topic, and would -catch the early boat next morning.</p> - -<p>And yet, even as with a sigh of relief he settled himself into his chair -that night by the open fireplace, and congratulated himself on this -recapture of tranquillity, he would miss something.... She was not there -to interrupt him, to scold him, to rage at him, but she had other moods -as well, when she beguiled and enchanted him. That was no deep-seated -spell, nor had it ever been. Its ingredients were but her physical -grace, and the charm of her spontaneous gaiety.</p> - -<p>Perhaps next morning he would get a long scrawled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span> letter from her, -saying that he had been a brute to leave her, that she had not been out -all day, but had sat and cried, and at that he would count himself lucky -in his solitude. And even while he felt as dry as sand towards her, -there would come seething up through its aridity this moist hidden -spring of tenderness.</p> - -<p>He had made just such an escape from her whims and wilfulness one day -towards the end of February, but before the evening was half over he had -tired of this solitude that he had sought. His book did not interest -him, and he felt too restless to go to bed. Restlessness, at any rate, -might be walked off, and he set out to tramp and tranquillise himself.</p> - -<p>The moon was near to its full, the night warm and windless, and the air -alert with the coming of the spring. Over the garden beds hung the -veiled fragrance of wallflowers and freezias, and their scent in some -subtle way suggested her presence. Had she been there she would, in the -mood in which he had left her, have jangled and irritated him, but if a -wish would have brought her he would have wished it.</p> - -<p>He let himself out of the garden gate, and mounted the steep path away -from the town, thinking by brisk movement to dull and fatigue himself -and to get rid of the thought of her. But like a wraith, noiseless and -invisible, she glided along by him, and he could not shake her off. She -did not scold him or nag at him: she was gay and seductive, with the -lure of the springtime tingling about her, and beckoning him. Soon he -found himself actively engaged in some sort of symbolic struggle to -elude her, and taking a rough and steeper path, thought that he would -outpace her.</p> - -<p>Here the way lay over an uncultivated upland, and as he pounded along he -drank in the intoxicating ferment of the vernal night. The earth was -dew-drenched, and the scent of the aromatic plants of the hillside -served but as a whet to his restless thoughts, and still, hurry as he -might, he could not escape from her and from a certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span> decision that -she seemed to be forcing on him. Finally, regardless of the dew, and -exhausted with the climb, he sat down and began to think it out.</p> - -<p>They had been together now for eight months, and though she often -wearied and annoyed him, he could not imagine going back to the solitary -life which, when first he came to Capri, had been so full of -enchantment. They had rubbed and jarred against each other, but never -had either of them, loose though the tie had been, considered leaving -each other. They had been absolutely faithful, and were, indeed, married -in all but the testimony of a written contract.</p> - -<p>It had been understood from the first that, on his father’s death, -Philip would take up the reins of his government at home, leaving her in -all material matters independent and well off, and in all probability -her dowry, cancelling her history, would enable her to make a favourable -marriage. But though that had been settled between them, Philip found -now, as he sat with her wraith still silent, still invisible, but -insistently present, that not till this moment had he substantially -pictured himself without her, or seen himself looking out for another -woman to be mother of his children. He could see himself going on -quarrelling with Rosina and wanting her again, but the realisation of -his wanting any one else was beyond him.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, his father, in this miraculous recovery of his -powers, might live for years, and who knew whether, long before his -death, both he and Rosina might not welcome it as a deliverance from -each other?</p> - -<p>But not less impossible also than the picturing of himself without -Rosina, was the imagining of her installed as mistress at Stanier. Try -as he might, he could not make visible to himself so unrealisable a -contingency. Rosina at Stanier ... Rosina.... Yet, so soon, she would be -the mother of his child.</p> - -<p>The moon had sunk, and he must grope his way down the hillside which he -had mounted so nimbly in the hope<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span> of escape from the presence that -hovered by him. All night it was with him, waiting patiently but -inexorably for the answer he was bound to give. He could not drive it -away, he could not elude it.</p> - -<p>There arrived for him next morning an iced budget from his mother. All -went on as usual with that refrigerator. There had been a gale, and four -elm trees had been blown down.... Easter was early this year; she hoped -for the sake of the holiday-makers that the weather would be fine.... It -was odd to hear of the warm suns and the sitting out in the evening.... -Was he not tired of his solitary life?...</p> - -<p>Philip skimmed his way rapidly through these frigidities, and then -suddenly found himself attending.</p> - -<p>“I have kept my great news to the end,” his mother wrote, “and it makes -us all, your father especially, very happy. We hope before March is over -that Ronald will have an heir. Janet is keeping very well, and your -father positively dotes on her now. The effect on him is most marked. He -certainly feels more kindly to you now that this has come, for the other -day he mentioned your name and wondered where you were. It was not -having a grandchild that was responsible for a great deal of his -bitterness towards you, for you are the eldest....”</p> - -<p>Philip swept the letter off the table and sat with chin supported in the -palms of his hands, staring out of the open window, through which came -the subtle scent of the wallflower. As a traveller traces his journey, -so, spreading the situation out like a map before him, he saw how his -road ran direct and uncurving. Last night, for all his groping and -searching, he could find no such road marked; there was but a track, and -it was interrupted by precipitous unnegotiable places, by marshes and -quagmires through which no wayfarer could find a path. But with the -illumination of this letter it was as if an army of road-makers had been -busy on it. Over the quagmire there was a buttressed causeway, through -the precipitous cliffs a cutting had been blasted. There was yet time;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> -he would marry Rosina out of hand, and his offspring, not his brother’s, -should be heir of Stanier.</p> - -<p>The marriage making their union valid and legitimatising the child that -should soon be born, took place on the first of March at the English -Consulate, and a week later came the news that a daughter had been born -to his sister-in-law. On the tenth of the same month Rosina gave birth -to twins, both boys. There was no need for any riband to distinguish -them, for never had two more dissimilar pilgrims come forth for their -unconjecturable journey. The elder was dark like Philip, and unlike the -most of his father’s family; the other blue-eyed, like his mother, had a -head thick-dowered with bright pale gold. Never since the days of Colin -Stanier, founder of the race and bargainer in the legend, had gold and -blue been seen together in a Stanier, and “Colin,” said Philip to -himself, “he shall be.”</p> - -<p>During that month the shuttle of fate flew swiftly backwards and -forwards in the loom of the future. Thirty-six years had passed since -Ronald, the latest born of his race, had come into life, ten years more -had passed over Philip’s head before, within a week of his brother and -within a fortnight of his marriage, he saw the perpetuation of his -blood. And the shuttle, so long motionless for the Staniers, did not -pause there in its swift and sudden weavings.</p> - -<p>At Stanier that evening Ronald and his father sat long over their wine. -The disappointment at Ronald’s first child being a girl was utterly -eclipsed in Lord Yardley’s mind by the arrival of an heir at all, and he -had eaten heavily in boisterous spirits, and drunk as in the days when -wine by the tumblerful was needed to rouse him into coherent speech. But -now no attendant was needed to hold his glass to his lips: he was as -free of movement as a normal man.</p> - -<p>“We’ll have another bottle yet, Ronnie,” he said. “There’ll be no whist -to-night, for your mother will have gone upstairs to see after Janet. -Ring the bell, will you?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The fresh bottle was brought, and he poured himself out a glassful and -passed it to his son.</p> - -<p>“By God, I haven’t been so happy for years as I’ve been this last week,” -he said. “You’ve made a beginning now, my boy; you’ll have a son next. -And to think of Philip, mouldering away all this time. He’s forty-six -now; he’ll not get in your way. A useless fellow, Philip; sitting like a -crow all day in the library, like some old barren bird. I should like to -have seen his face when he got the news. But I’ll write him to-morrow -myself, and say that if he cares to come home I’ll treat him civilly.”</p> - -<p>“Poor old Phil!” said Ronald. “Do write to him, father. I daresay he -would like to come back. He has been gone a year, come May.”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley helped himself again. His hand was quite steady, but his -face was violently flushed. Every night now, since the birth of Ronald’s -baby, he had drunk deeply, and but for this heightened colour, more -vivid to-night than usual, the wine seemed scarcely to produce any -effect on him. All day now for a week he had lived in this jovial and -excited mood, talking of little else than the event which had so -enraptured him.</p> - -<p>“And Janet’s but thirty yet,” he went on, forgetting again about Philip, -“and she comes of a fruitful stock: the Armitages aren’t like us; they -run to quantity. Not that I find fault with the quality. But a boy, -Ronald.”</p> - -<p>A servant had come in with a telegram, which he presented to Lord -Yardley, who threw it over to Ronald.</p> - -<p>“Just open it for me,” he said. “See if it requires any answer.”</p> - -<p>Ronald drew a candle nearer him; he was conscious of having drunk a good -deal, and the light seemed dim and veiled. He fumbled over the envelope, -and drawing out the sheet, unfolded it. He stared at it with mouth -fallen open.</p> - -<p>“It’s a joke,” he said in a loud, unsteady voice. “It’s some silly -joke.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Let’s have it, then,” said his father. “Who’s the joker?”</p> - -<p>“It’s from Philip,” said he. “He says that he’s married, and that his -wife has had twins to-day—boys.”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley rose to his feet, the flush on his face turning to purple. -Then, without a word, he fell forward across the table, crashing down -among the glasses and decanters.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>A fortnight after the birth of the twins, Rosina, who till then had been -doing well, developed disquieting symptoms with high temperature. Her -illness declared itself as scarlet fever, and on the 6th of April she -died.</p> - -<p>Surely in those spring weeks there had been busy superintendence over -the fortunes of the Staniers. Philip, till lately outcast from his home -and vagrant bachelor, had succeeded to the great property and the -honours and titles of his house. Two lusty sons were his, and there was -no Rosina to vex him with her petulance and common ways. All tenderness -that he had had for her was diverted into the persons of his sons, and -in particular of Colin. In England, in this month of April, the beloved -home awaited the coming of its master with welcome and rejoicing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="Book_Two" id="Book_Two"></a><i>Book Two</i></h2> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I-b" id="CHAPTER_I-b"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> - -<p>Colin Stanier had gone straight from the tennis-court to the -bathing-place in the lake below the terraced garden. His cousin Violet, -only daughter of his uncle Ronald, had said that she would equip herself -and follow him, and the boy had swum and dived and dived and swum -waiting for her, until the dressing-bell booming from the turret had -made him reluctantly quit the water. He was just half dry and not at all -dressed when she came.</p> - -<p>“Wretched luck!” she said. “Oh, Colin, do put something on!”</p> - -<p>“In time,” said Colin; “you needn’t look!”</p> - -<p>“I’m not looking. But it was wretched luck. Mother....”</p> - -<p>Colin wrapped a long bath-towel round himself, foraged for cigarettes -and matches in his coat pocket, and sat down by her.</p> - -<p>“Mother?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. Mother was querulous, and so she wanted some one to be -querulous to.”</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t she be querulous to herself?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“No, of course not. You must have a partner or a dummy if you’re being -querulous. I wasn’t more than a dummy, and so when she had finished the -rest of it she was querulous about that. She said I was unsympathetic.”</p> - -<p>“Dummies usually are,” said Colin. “Cigarette?”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks. This one was, because she wanted to come and bathe. Did you -dive off the top step?”</p> - -<p>“Of course not. No audience,” said Colin. “Wha<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span>t’s the use of doing -anything terrifying unless you impress somebody? I would have if you had -come down.”</p> - -<p>“I should have been thrilled. Oh, by the way, Raymond has just -telephoned from town to say that he’ll be here by dinner-time. He’s -motoring down.”</p> - -<p>Colin considered this. “Raymond’s the only person older than myself whom -I envy,” he said. “He’s half an hour older than me. Oh, I think I envy -Aunt Hester, but then I adore Aunt Hester. I only hate Raymond.”</p> - -<p>“Just because he’s half an hour older than you?” asked the girl.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t that enough? He gets everything just because of that unlucky -half-hour. He’ll get you, too, if you’re not careful.”</p> - -<p>Colin got up and gathered his clothes together.</p> - -<p>“He’ll have Stanier,” he observed. “Isn’t that enough to make me detest -him? Besides, he’s a boor. Happily, father detests him, too; I think -father must have been like Raymond at his age. That’s the only comfort. -Father will do the best he can for me. And then there’s Aunt Hester’s -money. But what I want is Stanier. Come on.”</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to dress?” asked Violet.</p> - -<p>“Certainly not. As soon as I get to the house I shall have to undress -and dress again.”</p> - -<p>“Not shoes?” asked she.</p> - -<p>“Not when the dew is falling. Oh, wet grass is lovely to the feet. We’ll -skirt the terrace and go round by the lawn.”</p> - -<p>“And why is it that you envy Aunt Hester?” asked the girl.</p> - -<p>“Can’t help it. She’s so old and wicked and young.”</p> - -<p>Violet laughed. “That’s a very odd reason for envying anybody,” she -said. “What’s there to envy?”</p> - -<p>“Why, the fact that she’s done it all,” said Colin frowning. “She has -done all she pleased all her life, and she’s just as young as ever. If I -wasn’t her nephew, she would put me under her arm, just as she did her -husband a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> thousand years ago, and marry me to-morrow. And then you -would marry Raymond, and—and there we would all be. We would play whist -together. My dear, those ghastly days before we were born! Grandfather -with his Garter over his worsted jacket and a kitten on his knee, and -grandmamma and Aunt Janet and your father and mine! They lived here for -years like that. How wonderful and awful!”</p> - -<p>“They’re just as wonderful now,” said Violet. “And....”</p> - -<p>“Not quite so awful; grandfather isn’t here now, and he must have been -the ghastliest. Besides, there’s Aunt Hester here to tone them up, and -you and I, if it comes to that. Not to mention Raymond. I love seeing my -father try to behave nicely to Raymond. Dead failure.”</p> - -<p>Colin tucked his towel round him; it kept slipping first from one -shoulder, then the other.</p> - -<p>“I believe Raymond is falling in love with you,” he said. “He’ll propose -to you before long. Your mother will back him up, so will Uncle Ronald. -They would love to see you mistress here. And you’d like it yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Oh—like it?” said she. She paused a moment. “Colin, you know what I -feel about Stanier,” she said. “I don’t think anybody knows as well as -you. You’ve got the passion for it. Wouldn’t you give anything for it to -be yours? Look at it! There’s nothing like it in the world!”</p> - -<p>They had come up the smooth-shaven grass slope from the lake, and stood -at the entrance through the long yew-hedge that bordered the line of -terraces. There were no ghastly monstrosities in its clipped bastion; no -semblance of peacocks and spread tails to crown it: it flowed downwards, -a steep, uniform embattlement of stiff green, towards the lake, -enclosing the straight terraces and the deep borders of flower-beds. The -topmost of these terraces was paved, and straight from it rose the long -two-storied façade of mellow brick balustraded with the motto, “Nisi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> -Dominus ædificavit,” in tall letters of lead, and from floor to roof it -was the building of that Colin Stanier whose very image and incarnation -stood and looked at it now.</p> - -<p>So honest and secure had been the workmanship that in the three -centuries which had elapsed since first it nobly rose to crown the hill -above Rye scarcely a stone of its facings had been repaired, or a -mouldering brick withdrawn. It possessed, even in the material of its -fashioning, some inexplicable immortality, even as did the fortunes of -its owners. Its mellowing had but marked their enrichment and stability; -their stability rivalled that of the steadfast house. The sun, in these -long days of June, had not yet quite set, and the red level rays made -the bricks to glow, and gave a semblance as of internal fire to the -attested guarantee of the motto. Whoever had builded, he had builded -well, and the labour of the bricklayers was not lost.</p> - -<p>A couple of years ago Colin, still at Eton, had concocted a mad freak -with Violet. There had been a fancy-dress ball in the house, at which he -had been got up to represent his ancestral namesake, as shewn in the -famous Holbein. There the first Colin appeared as a young man of -twenty-five, but the painter had given him the smooth beauty of boyhood, -and his descendant, in those rich embroidered clothes, might have passed -for the very original and model for the portrait.</p> - -<p>This, then, had been their mad freak: Violet, appearing originally in -the costume of old Colin’s bride, had slipped away to her room, when the -ball was at its height, and changed clothes with her cousin. She had -tucked up her hair under his broad-brimmed jewelled hat, he had -be-wigged himself and easily laced his slimness into her stiff brocaded -gown, and so indistinguishable were they that the boys, Colin’s friends -and contemporaries, had been almost embarrassingly admiring of him, -while her friends had found her not less forward. A slip by Colin in the -matter of hoarse laughter at an encircling arm and an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span> attempt at a kiss -had betrayed him into forgetting his brilliant falsetto and giving the -whole thing away.</p> - -<p>Not less like to each other now than then, they stood at the entrance of -the terraces. He had gained, perhaps, a couple of inches on her in -height, but the piled gold of her hair, and his bare feet equalised -that. No growth of manhood sheathed the smoothness of his cheeks; they -looked like replicas of one type, still almost sexless in the glow of -mere youth. Theirs was the full dower of their race, health and -prosperity, glee and beauty, and the entire absence of any moral -standard.</p> - -<p>Faun and nymph, they stood there together, she in the thin blouse and -white skirt of her tennis-clothes, he in the mere towel of his bathing. -He had but thrown it on anyhow, without thought except to cover himself, -and yet the folds of it fell from his low square shoulders with a -plastic perfection. A hand buried in it held it round his waist, tightly -outlining the springing of his thighs from his body. With her, too, even -the full tennis-skirt, broad at the hem for purposes of activity, could -not conceal the exquisite grace of her figure; above, the blouse -revealed the modelling of her arms and the scarcely perceptible swell of -her breasts. High-bred and delicate were they in the inimitable grace of -their youth; what need had such physical perfection for any dower of the -spirit?</p> - -<p>She filled her eyes with the glow of the sunlit front, and then turned -to him. “Colin, it’s a crime,” she said, “that you aren’t in Raymond’s -place. I don’t like Raymond, and yet, if you’re right and he means to -propose to me, I don’t feel sure that I shall refuse him. It won’t be -him I refuse, if I do, it will be Stanier.”</p> - -<p>“Lord, I know that!” said Colin. “If I was the elder, you’d marry me -to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I should, and cut out Aunt Hester. And the funny thing, -darling, is that we’re neither of us in love with the other. We like -each other enormously, but we don’t dote. If you married Aunt Hester I -should<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span>n’t break my heart, nor would you if I married Raymond.”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit. But I should think him a devilish lucky fellow!”</p> - -<p>She laughed. “So should I,” she said. “In fact, I think him devilish -lucky already. Colin, if I do refuse him, it will be because of you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, chuck it, Violet!” said he.</p> - -<p>She nodded towards the great stately house. “It’s a big chuck,” she -said.</p> - -<p>From the far side of the house there came the sound of motor-wheels on -the gravel, and after a moment or two the garden door at the centre of -the terrace opened, and Raymond came out. He was not more than an inch -or so shorter than his brother, but his broad, heavy, short-legged build -made him appear short and squat. His eyebrows were thick and black, and -already a strong growth of hair fringed his upper lip. While Colin might -have passed for a boy of eighteen still, the other would have been taken -for a young man of not less than twenty-five. He stood there for a -minute, looking straight out over the terrace, and the marsh below. -Then, turning his eyes, he saw the others in the dusky entrance through -the yew-hedge, and his face lit up. He came towards them.</p> - -<p>“I’ve only just come,” he said. “Had a puncture. How are you, Violet?”</p> - -<p>“All right. But how late you are! We’re all late, in fact. We must go -and dress.”</p> - -<p>Raymond looked up and down Colin’s bath-towel, and his face darkened -again. But he made a call on his cordiality.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Colin,” he said. “Been bathing? Jolly in the water, I should -think.”</p> - -<p>“Very jolly,” said Colin. “How long are you down for?”</p> - -<p>He had not meant any particular provocation in the question, though he -was perfectly careless as to whether Raymond found it there or not. He -did, and his face flushed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, to be quite candid,” he said, “I’m down here for as long as I -please. With your permission, of course.”</p> - -<p>“How jolly!” said Colin in a perfectly smooth voice, which he knew -exasperated his brother. “Come on, Vi, it’s time to dress.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there’s twenty minutes yet,” said Raymond. “Come for a few minutes’ -stroll, Vi.”</p> - -<p>Colin paused for her answer, slightly smiling, and looking just above -Raymond’s head. The two always quarrelled whenever they met, though -perhaps “quarrel” is both too strong and too superficial a word to -connote the smouldering enmity which existed between them, and which the -presence of the other was sufficient to wreathe with little flapping -flames. Envy, as black as hell and as deep as the sea, existed between -them, and there was no breath too light to blow it into incandescence. -Raymond envied Colin for absolutely all that Colin was, for his skin and -his slimness, his eyes and his hair, and to a degree unutterably -greater, for the winning smile, the light, ingratiating manner that he -himself so miserably lacked, even for a certain brusque heedlessness on -Colin’s part which was interpreted, in his case, into the mere -unselfconsciousness of youth. In the desire to please others, Raymond -held himself to be at least the equal of his brother, yet, where his -efforts earned for him but a tepid respect, Colin would weave an -enchantment. If Raymond made some humorous contribution to the -conversation, glazed eyes and perfunctory comment would be all his -wages, whereas if Colin, eager and careless, had made precisely the same -offering, he would have been awarded attention and laughter.</p> - -<p>Colin, on the other hand, envied his brother not for anything he was, -but for everything he had. Theirs was no superficial antagonism; the -graces of address and person are no subjects for light envy, nor yet the -sceptred fist of regal possessions. That fist was Raymond’s; all would -be his; even Violet, perhaps, Stanier certainly, would be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span></p> - -<p>At this moment the antagonism flowered over Violet’s reply. Would she go -for a stroll with Raymond or wouldn’t she? Colin cared not a blade of -grass which she actually did; it was her choice that would feed his -hatred of his brother or make him chuckle over his discomfiture. For an -infinitesimal moment he diverted his gaze from just over Raymond’s head -to where, a tiny angle away, her eyes were level with his. He shook his -head ever so slightly; some drop of water perhaps had lodged itself from -his diving in his ear.</p> - -<p>“Oh, we shall all be late,” said she, “and Uncle Philip hates our being -late. Only twenty minutes, did you say? I must rush. Hair, you know.”</p> - -<p>She scudded off along the paved terrace without one glance behind her.</p> - -<p>“Want a stroll, Raymond?” said Colin. “I haven’t got to undress, only to -dress. I needn’t go for five minutes yet.”</p> - -<p>Raymond had seen the headshake and Colin’s subsequent application of the -palm of a hand to his ear was a transparent device. Colin, he made sure, -meant him to see that just as certainly as he meant Violet to do so. The -success of it enraged him, and not less the knowledge that it was meant -to enrage him. Colin’s hand so skilfully, so carelessly, laid these -traps which silkenly gripped him. He could only snarl when he was -caught, and even to snarl was to give himself away.</p> - -<p>“Oh, thanks very much,” he said, determined not to snarl, “but, after -all, Vi’s right. Father hates us being late. How is he? I haven’t seen -him yet.”</p> - -<p>“Ever so cheerful,” said Colin. “Does he know you are coming, by the -way?”</p> - -<p>“Not unless Vi has told him. I telephoned to her.”</p> - -<p>“Pleasant surprise,” said Colin. “Well, if you don’t want to stroll, I -think I’ll go in. Vi’s delighted that you’ve come.”</p> - -<p>Once again Raymond’s eye lit up. “Is she?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you think so?” said Colin, standing first on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span> one foot and then -on the other, as he slipped on his tennis shoes to walk across the -paving of the terrace.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>There had been no break since the days of Colin’s grandfather in the -solemnity of the ceremonial that preceded dinner. Now, as then, the -guests, if there were any, or, if not, the rest of the family, were -still magnificently warned of the approach of the great hour, and, -assembling in the long gallery which adjoined the dining-room, waited -for the advent of Lord Yardley.</p> - -<p>That piece of ritual was like the Canon of the Mass, invariable and -significant. It crystallised the centuries of the past into the present; -dinner was the function of the day, dull it might be, but central and -canonical, and the centre of it all was the entrance of the head of the -family. He would not appear till all were ready; his presence made -completion, and the Staniers moved forward by order. So when the -major-domo had respectfully enfolded the flock in the long gallery, he -took his stand by the door into the dining-room. That was the signal to -Lord Yardley’s valet who waited by the door at the other end of the -gallery which led into his master’s rooms. He threw that open, and from -it, punctual as the cuckoo in the clock, out came Lord Yardley, and -every one stood up.</p> - -<p>But in the present reign there had been a slight alteration in the minor -ritual of the assembling, for Colin was almost invariably late, and the -edict had gone forth, while he was but yet fifteen, and newly promoted -to a seat at dinner, that Master Colin was not to be waited for: the -major-domo must regard his jewelled flock as complete without him. He, -with a “Sorry, father,” took his vacant place when he was ready, and his -father’s grim face would soften into a smile. Raymond’s unpunctuality -was a different matter, and he had amended this weakness.</p> - -<p>To-night there were no guests, and when the major-domo took his stand at -the dining-room door to fling it open on the remote entry of Lord -Yardley from the far<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span> end of the gallery, all the family but Colin were -assembled. Lord Yardley’s mother, now over eighty, white and watchful -and bloodless, had been as usual the first to arrive, and, leaning on -her stick, had gone to her chair by the fireplace, in which, upright and -silent, she waited during these canonical moments. She always came to -dinner, though not appearing at other meals, for she breakfasted and -lunched in her own rooms, where all day, except for a drive in the -morning, she remained invisible. Now she held up her white hand to -shield her face from the fire, for whatever the heat of the evening, -there was a smouldering log there for incense.</p> - -<p>Ronald Stanier sat opposite her, heavy and baggy-eyed, breathing sherry -into the evening paper. His wife, the querulous Janet, was giving half -an ear to Raymond’s account of his puncture, and inwardly marvelling at -Lady Hester’s toilet. Undeterred by the weight of her sixty years, she -had an early-Victorian frock of pink satin, high in the waist and of -ample skirt. On her undulated wig of pale golden hair, the colour and -lustre of which had not suffered any change of dimness since the day -when she ran away with her handsome young husband, she wore a wreath of -artificial flowers; a collar of pearls encircled her throat which was -still smooth and soft. The dark eyebrows, highly arched, gave her an -expression of whimsical amusement, and bore out the twinkle in her blue -eyes and the little upward curve at the corner of her mouth. She was -quite conscious of her sister-in-law’s censorious gaze; poor Janet had -always looked like a moulting hen....</p> - -<p>By her stood Violet, who had but this moment hurried in, and whose -entrance was the signal for Lord Yardley’s valet to open the door. She -had heard Colin splashing in his bath as she came along the passage, -though he had just bathed.</p> - -<p>Then, with a simultaneous uprising, everybody stood, old Lady Yardley -leaned on her stick, Ronald put down<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span> the evening paper, and Raymond -broke off the interesting history of his punctured wheel.</p> - -<p>Philip Yardley went straight to his mother’s chair, and gave her his -arm. In the dusk, Raymond standing between him and the window was but a -silhouette against the luminous sky. His father did not yet know that he -had arrived, and mistook him for his brother.</p> - -<p>“Colin, what do you mean by being in time for dinner?” he said. “Most -irregular.”</p> - -<p>“It’s I, father,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Raymond, is it?” said Lord Yardley. “I didn’t know you were here. -Glad to see you.”</p> - -<p>The words were sufficiently cordial, but the tone was very unlike that -in which he had supposed himself to be addressing Colin. That was not -lost on Raymond; for envy, the most elementary of all human passions, is -also highly sensitive.</p> - -<p>“You came from Cambridge?” asked his father, when they had sat down, in -the same tone of studious politeness. “The term’s over, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, a week ago,” said Raymond. As he spoke he made some awkward -movement in the unfolding of his napkin, and upset a glass which crashed -on to the floor. Lord Yardley found himself thinking, “Clumsy brute!”</p> - -<p>“Of course; Colin’s been here a week now,” he said, and Raymond did not -miss that. Then Philip Yardley, considering that he had given his son an -adequate welcome, said no more.</p> - -<p>These family dinners were not, especially in Colin’s absence and in -Raymond’s presence, very talkative affairs. Old Lady Yardley seldom -spoke at all, but sat watching first one face and then another, as if -with secret conjectures. Ronald Stanier paid little attention to -anything except to his plate and his glass, and it was usually left to -Violet and Lady Hester to carry on such conversation as there was. But -even they required the stimulus of Colin, and to-night the subdued blink -of spoons on silver-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span>gilt soup-plates reigned uninterrupted. These had -just ceased when Colin appeared, like a lamp brought into a dusky room.</p> - -<p>“Sorry, father,” he said. “I’m late, you know. Where’s my place? Oh, -between Aunt Hester and Violet. Ripping.”</p> - -<p>“Urgent private affairs, Colin?” asked his father.</p> - -<p>“Yes, terribly urgent. And private. Bath.”</p> - -<p>The whole table revived a little, as when the gardener waters a drooping -bed of flowers.</p> - -<p>“But you had only just bathed,” said Violet.</p> - -<p>“That’s just why I wanted a bath. Nothing makes you so messy and sticky -as a bathe. And there were bits of grass between my toes, and a small -fragment of worm.”</p> - -<p>“And how did they get there, dear?” asked Aunt Hester, violently -interested.</p> - -<p>“Because I walked up in bare feet over the grass, Aunt Hester,” said -Colin. “It’s good for the nerves. Come and do it after dinner.”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley supposed that Colin had not previously seen his brother, -and that seeing him now did not care to notice his presence. So, with -the same chill desire to be fair in all ways to Raymond, he said:</p> - -<p>“Raymond has come, Colin.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, father, we’ve already embraced,” said he. “Golly, I don’t call -that soup. It’s muck. Hullo, granny dear, I haven’t seen you all day. -Good morning.”</p> - -<p>Lady Yardley’s face relaxed; there came on her lips some wraith of a -smile. Colin’s grace and charm of trivial prattle was the only ray that -had power at all to thaw the ancient frost that had so long congealed -her. Ever since her husband’s death, twenty years ago, she had lived -some half of the year here, and now she seldom stirred from Stanier, -waiting for the end. Her life had really ceased within a few years of -her marriage; she had become then the dignified lay-figure, emotionless -and impersonal, typical of the wives of Staniers, and that was all that -her children knew of her. For them the frost<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> had never thawed, nor had -she, even for a moment, lost its cold composure, even when on the night -that the news of Raymond’s and Colin’s birth had come to Stanier, there -came with it the summons that caused her husband to crash among the -glasses on the table. Nothing and nobody except Colin had ever given -brightness to her orbit, where, like some dead moon, she revolved in the -cold inter-stellar space.</p> - -<p>But at the boy’s salutation across the table, she smiled. “My dear, what -an odd time to say good morning,” she said. “Have you had a nice day, -Colin?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ripping, grandmamma!” said he. “Enjoyed every minute of it.”</p> - -<p>“That’s good. It’s a great waste of time not to enjoy....” Her glance -shifted from him to Lady Hester. “Hester, dear, what a strange gown,” -she said.</p> - -<p>“It’s Aunt Hester’s go-away gown after her marriage,” began Colin. -“She....”</p> - -<p>“Colin,” said his father sharply, “you’re letting your tongue run away -with you.”</p> - -<p>Very unusually, Lady Yardley turned to Philip. “You mustn’t speak to -Colin like that, dear Philip,” she said. “He doesn’t know about those -things. And I like to hear Colin talk.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, mother,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>“Colin didn’t have a mother to teach him what to say, and what not to -say,” continued Lady Yardley; “you must not be harsh to Colin.”</p> - -<p>The stimulus was exhausted and she froze into herself again.</p> - -<p>Colin had been perfectly well aware during this, that Raymond was -present, and that nothing of it was lost on him. It would be too much to -say that he had performed what he and Violet called “the grandmamma -trick” solely to rouse Raymond’s jealousy, but to know that Raymond -glowered and envied was like a round of applause to him. It was from no -sympathy or liking for his grandmother that he thawed her thus and -brought her back from her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span> remoteness; he did it for the gratification -of his own power in which Raymond, above all, was deficient.... Like -some antique bird she had perched for a moment on Colin’s finger; now -she had gone back into her cage again.</p> - -<p>Colin chose that night to take on an air of offended dignity at his -father’s rebuke, and subsided into silence. He knew that every one would -feel his withdrawal, and now even Uncle Ronald who, with hardly less -aloofness than his mother, for he was buried in his glass and platter, -and was remote from everything except his vivid concern with food and -drink, tried to entice the boy out of his shell. Colin was pleased at -this: it was all salutary for Raymond.</p> - -<p>“So you’ve been bathing, Colin,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Uncle Ronald,” said he.</p> - -<p>“Pleasant in the water?” asked Uncle Ronald.</p> - -<p>“Quite,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>Aunt Hester made the next attempt. They were all trying to please and -mollify him. “About that walking in the grass in bare feet,” she said. -“I should catch cold at my age. And what would my maid think?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know at all, Aunt Hester,” said Colin very sweetly.</p> - -<p>Raymond cleared his throat. Colin was being sulky and unpleasant, and -he, the eldest, would make things agreeable again. No wonder Colin -subsided after that very ill-chosen remark about Aunt Hester.</p> - -<p>“There’s a wonderful stride been made in this wireless telegraphy, -father,” he said. “There were messages transmitted to Newfoundland -yesterday, so I saw in the paper. A good joke about it in <i>Punch</i>. A -fellow said, ‘They’ll be inventing noiseless thunder next.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>There was a dead silence, and then Colin laughed loudly.</p> - -<p>“Awfully good, Raymond,” he said. “Very funny. Strawberries, Aunt -Hester?”</p> - -<p>That had hit the mark. Leaning forward to pull the dish towards him, he -saw the flush on Raymond’s face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Really? As far as Newfoundland?” said Lord Yardley.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>By now the major-domo was standing by the dining-room door again, and -Philip rose. His mother got up and stood, immobile and expressionless, -till the other women had passed out in front of her. Then, as she went -out, she said exactly what she had said for the last sixty years.</p> - -<p>“You will like a game of whist, then, soon?”</p> - -<p>Generally when the women had gone, the others moved up towards the host. -To-night Philip took up his glass and placed himself next Colin. The -decanters were brought round and placed opposite him, and he pushed them -towards Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Help yourself, Raymond,” he said.</p> - -<p>Then he turned round in his armchair to the other boy.</p> - -<p>“Still vexed with me, Colin?” he said quietly.</p> - -<p>“Of course not, father,” he said. “Sorry I sulked. But you did shut me -up with such a bang.”</p> - -<p>“Well, open yourself at the same place,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>“Rather. Aunt Hester’s dress, wasn’t it? Isn’t she too divine? If she -ever dies, which God forbid, you ought to have her stuffed and dressed -just like that, and put in a glass case in the hall to shew how young it -is possible to be when you’re old. But, seriously, do get a portrait -done of her to hang here. There’s nothing of her in the gallery.”</p> - -<p>“Any other orders?” asked Philip.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think so at present. Oh, by the way, are you going to Italy -this year?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think I shall go out there before long for a few weeks as usual. -Why?”</p> - -<p>“I thought that perhaps you would take me. I’ve got four months’ -vacation, you see, now that I’m at Cambridge, and I’ve never been to -Italy yet.”</p> - -<p>Philip paused; he was always alone in Italy. That<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span> was part of the -spell. “You’d get dreadfully bored, Colin,” he said. “I shall be at the -villa in Capri: there’s nothing to do except swim.”</p> - -<p>Colin divined in his father’s mind some reluctance other than that which -he expressed. He dropped his eyes for a moment, then raised them again -to his father’s face, merry and untroubled.</p> - -<p>“You don’t want me to come with you, father,” he said. “Quite all right, -but why not have told me so?”</p> - -<p>Philip looked at the boy with that expression in his face that no one -else ever saw there; the tenderness for another, the heart’s need of -another, which had shot into fitful flame twenty years ago, had never -quite been extinguished; it had always smouldered there for Colin.</p> - -<p>“I’ll think it over,” he said, and turned round in his chair.</p> - -<p>“You were telling me something about wireless, Raymond,” he said. “As -far as Newfoundland! That is very wonderful. A few years ago scientists -would have laughed at such an idea as at a fairy-tale or a superstition. -But the superstitions of one generation become the science of the next.”</p> - -<p>Raymond by this time was in a state of thorough ill-temper. He had -witnessed all the evening Colin’s easy triumphs; he had seen how Colin, -when annoyed, as he had been at his father’s rebuke, went into his -shell, and instantly every one tried to tempt him out again. Just now in -that low-voiced conversation between his brother and his father, he had -heard his father say, “Still vexed with me?” in a sort of suppliance.... -He determined to try a manœuvre that answered so well.</p> - -<p>“I should have said just the opposite,” he remarked, re-filling his -glass. “I should have thought that the science and beliefs of one -generation became the superstitions of the next. Our legend, for -instance; that was soberly believed once.”</p> - -<p>Philip Yardley did not respond quite satisfactorily. “Ah!” he said, -getting up. “Well, shall we be going?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Raymond had just poured himself out a glass of port, and, very -unfortunately, he remembered a precisely similar occasion on which his -father, just when Colin had done the same, proposed an adjournment. He -repeated the exact words Colin had used then.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you might wait till I’ve finished my port,” he said.</p> - -<p>That did not produce the right effect. On the previous occasion his -father had said, “Sorry, old boy,” and had sat down again.</p> - -<p>“You’d better follow us, then,” said Philip. “But don’t drink any more, -Raymond. You’ve had as much as is good for you.”</p> - -<p>Raymond’s face blazed. To be spoken to like that, especially in front of -his uncle and brother, was intolerable. He got up and pushed his -replenished glass away, spilling half of it. Instantly Colin saw his -opportunity, and knowing fairly well what would happen, he put his hand -within Raymond’s arm in brotherly remonstrance.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I say, Raymond!” he said.</p> - -<p>Raymond shook him off. “Leave me alone, can’t you?” he said angrily.</p> - -<p>Then he turned to his father. “I didn’t mean to spill the wine, father,” -he said. “It was an accident.”</p> - -<p>“Accidents are liable to happen, when one loses one’s temper,” said -Philip. “Ring the bell, please.”</p> - -<p>There were two tables for cards laid out in the drawing-room, and -Raymond, coming in only a few seconds after the others, found that, -without waiting for him, the bridge-table had already been made up with -Lady Hester, Violet, his father, and Colin. They had not given him a -chance to play there, and now for the next hour he was condemned to play -whist with his grandmother and his uncle and aunt, a dreary pastime.</p> - -<p>At ten old Lady Yardley went dumbly to bed, and there was the choice -between sitting here until the bridge was over, or of following Uncle -Ronald into the smoking-room. But that he found he could not do; his -jealousy of Colin, both as regards his father and as regards Violet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span> -constrained him as with cords to stop and watch them, and contrast their -merriment with his own ensconced and sombre broodings.</p> - -<p>And then there was Violet herself. Colin’s conjecture had been perfectly -right, for in the fashion of Staniers, he must be considered as in the -process of falling in love with her. The desire for possession, rather -than devotion, was the main ingredient in the bubbling vat, and that was -very sensibly present. She made a ferment in his blood, and though he -would not have sacrificed anything which he really valued, such as his -prospective lordship of Stanier, for her sake, he could not suffer the -idea that she should not be his. He knew, too, how potent in her was the -Stanier passion for the home, and that he counted as his chief asset, -for he had no illusion that Violet was in love with him. Nor was she, so -he thought, in love with Colin; the two were much more like a couple of -chums than lovers.</p> - -<p>So he sat and watched them round the edge of the newspaper which had -beguiled Uncle Ronald’s impatience for dinner. The corner where he sat -was screened from the players by a large vase of flowers on the table -near them, and Raymond felt that he enjoyed, though without original -intention, the skulking pleasures of the eavesdropper.</p> - -<p>Colin, as usual, was to the fore. Just now he was dummy to his partner, -Aunt Hester, who, having added a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles to -complete her early-Victorian costume, was feeling a shade uneasy. She -had just done what she most emphatically ought not to have done, and was -afraid that both her adversaries had perceived it. Colin had perceived -it, too; otherwise the suit of clubs was deficient. Violet had already -alluded to this.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Aunt Hester!” cried Colin. “What’s the use of pretending you’ve not -revoked? Don’t cling on to that last club; play it, and have done with -it. If you don’t, you’ll revoke again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Aunt Hester still felt cunning; she thought she might be able to bundle -it up in the last trick. “But I ain’t got a club, Colin,” she said, -reverting to mid-Victorian speech.</p> - -<p>“Darling Aunt Hester, you mean ‘haven’t,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> said Colin. “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Ain’t’ means -‘aren’t,’ and it isn’t grammar even then, though you are my aunt. -‘Ain’t....’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>Lord Yardley, leaning forward, pulled Colin’s hair. It looked so golden -and attractive, it reminded him.... “Colin, are you dummy, or ain’t -you?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Certainly, father. Can’t you see Aunt Hester’s playing the hand? I -shouldn’t call it playing, myself. I should call it playing at playing. -Club, please, Aunt Hester.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you’re dummy, hold your tongue,” said Lord Yardley. “Dummy -isn’t allowed to speak, and....”</p> - -<p>“Oh, those are the old rules,” said Colin. “The new rules make it -incumbent on dummy to talk all the time. Hurrah, there’s Aunt Hester’s -club, aren’t it? One revoke, and a penalty of three tricks....”</p> - -<p>“Doubled,” said his father.</p> - -<p>“Brute,” said Colin, “and no honours at all! Oh yes, fourteen to us -above. Well played, Aunt Hester! Wasn’t it a pity? Your deal, Vi.”</p> - -<p>Colin, having cut the cards, happened to look up at the big vase of -flowers which stood close to the table. As he did so, there was a -trivial glimmer, as of some paper just stirred, behind it. He had -vaguely thought that Uncle Ronald and Raymond had both gone to the -smoking-room, but there was certainly some one there, and which of the -two it was he had really no idea. Every one else, adversaries and -partner, was behaving as if there was no one else in the room, so why -not he?</p> - -<p>“Raymond’s got the hump this evening,” he said cheerfully. “He won at -whist—Lord, what a game!—because I saw Aunt Janet pay him half-a-crown -with an extraordinarily acid expression, and ask for change. So as he’s -won at cards, he will be blighted in love. I expect h<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span>e’s had a knock -from the young thing at the tobacconist’s in King’s Parade. I think she -likes me best, father. But it’ll be the same daughter-in-law. She -breathes through her nose, and is marvellously genteel. Otherwise she’s -just like Violet.”</p> - -<p>“Pass,” said Violet.</p> - -<p>“Hurrah! I knew it would make you pessimistic to be called like a -tobacconist’s....”</p> - -<p>Philip Yardley laid down his cards and actually laughed. “Colin, you -low, vulgar brute,” he said, “don’t talk so much!”</p> - -<p>Colin imitated Raymond’s voice and manner to perfection. “I should have -said just the opposite,” he remarked. “I should have thought you wanted -me to talk more, and make trumps.”</p> - -<p>Violet caught on. “Oh, you got him exactly, Colin,” she said. “What did -he say that about?”</p> - -<p>“Go on, Colin,” said his father. “We shall never finish.”</p> - -<p>Colin examined his hand. “Three no-trumps,” he said. “Not one, nor two, -but three. Glorious trinity!”</p> - -<p>There was no counter-challenge, and as Lord Yardley considered his lead, -Colin looked up through the vase of flowers once more. There was some -one there still, and he got up to fetch a match from a side-table. That -gave him a clearer view of what lay beyond.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Raymond?” he said. “Thought you’d gone to the smoking-room.”</p> - -<p>“No; just looking at the paper,” said Raymond. “I’m going now.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but we’ll have another rubber,” said Colin. “Cut in?”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>Colin waited till the door had closed behind him. “Lor!” he said.</p> - -<p>“Just shut that door, Colin,” said Lord Yardley.</p> - -<p>Lady Hester was thrilled about the tobacconist’s young thing; it really -would be rather a good joke if one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span> boys, following his father’s -example, married a “baggage” of that sort, and she determined to pursue -the subject with Colin on some future occasion. She loved such loose -natural talk as he treated her to; he told her all his escapades. He was -just such a scamp as Colin the first must have been, and with just such -gifts and utter absence of moral sense was he endowed.</p> - -<p>Indeed, the old legend, so it seemed to her, lived again in Colin, -though couched in more modern terms. It was the mediæval style to say -that for the price of the soul, Satan was willing to dower his -beneficiary with all material bounty and graces; more modernly, you said -that this boy was an incorrigible young Adonis, who feared neither God -nor devil. True, the lordship of Stanier was not yet Colin’s, but -something might happen to that grim, graceless Raymond.</p> - -<p>How the two hated each other, and how different were the exhibitions of -their antagonism! Raymond hated with a glowering, bilious secrecy, that -watched and brooded; Colin with a gay contempt, a geniality almost. But -if the shrewd old Lady Hester had been asked to wager which of the two -was the most dangerous to the other, she would without hesitation have -put her money on Colin.</p> - -<p>The second rubber was short, but as hilarious as the first, and on its -conclusion Lady Hester hurried to bed, saying that she would be “a -fright” in the morning if she lost any more sleep. Violet followed her, -Philip withdrew to his own room, and Colin sauntered along to the -smoking-room in quest of whisky. His Uncle Ronald was still there, -rapidly approaching the comatose mood of midnight, which it would have -been inequitable to call intoxication and silly to call sobriety. -Raymond sprawled in a chair by the window.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Uncle Ronald, still up?” said Colin. “You’ll get scolded.”</p> - -<p>Uncle Ronald lifted a sluggish eyelid. “Hey?” he said. “Oh, Colin, is -it? What’s the time, my boy?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Half-past twelve,” said Colin, adding on another half-hour. He wanted -to get rid of his uncle and see how he stood with his brother. No doubt -they would have a row.</p> - -<p>“Gobbless me,” said Ronald. “I shall turn in. Just a spot more whisky. -Good night, boys.”</p> - -<p>As soon as he had gone Raymond got out of his chair and placed himself -where he could get his heels on the edge of the low fender-kerb. He -hated talking “up” to Colin, and this gave him a couple of inches.</p> - -<p>“I want to ask you something,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Ask away,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“Did you know I was in the room when you imitated me just now?”</p> - -<p>“Hadn’t given a thought to it,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“It’s equally offensive whether you mimic me before my face or behind my -back,” said Raymond. “It was damned rude.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I come to you for lessons in manners?” asked Colin. “What do you -charge?”</p> - -<p>Colin spoke with all the lightness of good-humoured banter, well aware -that if Raymond replied at all, he would make some sledge-hammer -rejoinder. He would swing a cudgel against the rapier that pricked him, -yet never land a blow except on the air, or, maybe, his own foot.</p> - -<p>“It’s beastly insolence on your part,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“And that’s very polite,” said Colin. “You may mimic me how and where -and when you choose. If it’s like, I shall laugh. If it isn’t, well, I -shall still laugh.”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t got your sense of humour,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Clearly, nor Violet’s. She thought I had got you to a ‘t.’ You probably -heard what she said from your sequestered corner behind your newspaper.”</p> - -<p>Raymond advanced a step. “Look here, Colin, do you mean to imply that I -was listening?”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed. “And I want to ask you a question,” he said. “Didn’t you -know that we all thought you had gone away?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Raymond disregarded this. “Then there’s another thing. What do you mean -by telling father about the girl at the tobacconist’s? You know it was -nothing at all.”</p> - -<p>“Rather,” said Colin. “I said so. You seem to forget that I told him -that I was the favourite. That’s the part you didn’t like.”</p> - -<p>Raymond flushed. “It’s all very well for you to say that,” he said. “But -you know perfectly well that my father doesn’t treat us alike. Things -which are quite harmless in his eyes when you do them appear very -different to him when I’m the culprit. I had had a knock from a -tobacconist’s girl, had I? You’re a cad to have told him that quite -apart from its being a lie.”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed with irritating naturalness. “Is this the first lesson in -manners?” he said. “I’m beginning to see the hang of it. You call the -other fellow a cad and a liar. About my father’s not treating us alike, -that’s his affair. But I should never dream of calling you a liar for -saying that. We’re not alike: why should he treat us alike? You’ve got a -foul temper, you see; that doesn’t add to your popularity with anybody.”</p> - -<p>He spoke in the same voice in which he might have told Raymond that he -had a speck of dust on the coat, and yawned rather elaborately.</p> - -<p>“Take care you don’t rouse it,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Why not? It rather amuses me to see you in a rage.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it does, does it?” said Raymond with his voice quivering.</p> - -<p>“I assure you of it. I’m having a most amusing evening, thanks to you. -And this chat has been the pleasantest part of it. Pity that it’s so -late.”</p> - -<p>Raymond, as usual, had throughout, the worst of these exchanges and was -quite aware of it. He had been ill-bred and abusive through his loss of -temper while Colin, insolent though his speech and his manner had been, -had kept within the bounds of civil retort in his sneers and contempt. -In all probability he would give an account<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> of it all to Violet -to-morrow, and there was no need for him to embroider; a strictly -correct version of what had passed was quite disagreeable enough.</p> - -<p>This Raymond wanted to avoid in view of his desire that Violet should -look on him as favourably as possible. Whether he meant to propose to -her during his visit here, he hardly knew himself, but certainly he -wanted to be in her good books. This, and this alone, prompted him now; -he hated Colin, all the more because he had been absolutely unable to -ruffle him or pierce the fine armour of his composure, but as regards -Violet, and perhaps his father, he feared him.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid I’ve lost my temper, Colin,” he said. “And I owe you an -apology for all I’ve said. You had annoyed me by mimicking me and by -telling father about that girl at Cambridge.”</p> - -<p>Colin felt that he had pulled the wings off a fly that had annoyed him -by its buzzing; the legs might as well follow....</p> - -<p>“Certainly you owe me an apology,” he said. “But, considering -everything, I don’t quite know whether you are proposing to pay it.”</p> - -<p>Raymond turned on him fiercely. “Ah, that’s you all over!” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, we’re being quite natural,” said Colin. “So much better.”</p> - -<p>He paused a moment.</p> - -<p>“Now I don’t want to be offensive just now,” he said, “so let’s sit down -and try to tolerate each other for a minute. There.”</p> - -<p>Raymond longed to be at his throat, to feel his short, strong fingers -throttling the life out of that smooth white neck. But some careless -superior vitality in Colin made him sit down.</p> - -<p>“Let’s face it, Raymond,” he said. “We loathe each other like poison, -and it is nonsense to pretend we don’t. Unfortunately, you are the -eldest, so in the end you will score, however much I annoy you. But put -yourself in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> my place; imagine yourself the younger with your foul -temper. You would probably try to kill me. Of course, by accident. But -I’m not intending to kill you. I am very reasonable; you must be -reasonable, too. But just put yourself in my place.”</p> - -<p>Raymond shifted in the chair in which Colin, with a mere gesture of a -finger, had made him sit. “Can’t we possibly get on better together, -Colin?” he said. “After all, as you say, I come into everything on my -father’s death. I have Stanier, I have the millions where you have the -thousands. I can be very useful to you. You adore the place, and I can -let you come here as often and as long as you like, and I can also -prevent your setting foot in it. If you’ll try to be decent to me, I -promise you that you shan’t regret it.”</p> - -<p>Colin put his head on one side and looked at his brother with an air of -pondering wonder. “Oh, that cock won’t fight,” he said. “You know as -well as I do that when you are master here, I would sooner go to hell -than come here, and you would sooner go to hell than let me come. -Perhaps I’ve got a dull imagination, but it’s no use my trying to -imagine that. Do be sensible. If you could do anything to injure me at -this moment when you are proposing a truce, you know that you would do -it. But you can’t. You can’t hurt me in any way whatever. But what you -do know is that I can hurt you in all sorts of ways. I can poison my -father’s mind about you—it’s pretty sick already. I can poison Violet’s -mind, and that’s none too healthy. You see, they both like me most -tremendously, and they don’t very much like you. It’s just the same at -Cambridge. I’ve got fifty friends: you haven’t got one. I dare say it’s -not your fault: anyhow, we’ll call it your misfortune. But you want me -to do something for you in return for nothing you can do for me, or, -perhaps, nothing that you will do for me.”</p> - -<p>Raymond frowned; when he was thinking he usually frowned. When Colin was -thinking he usually smiled.</p> - -<p>“If in the future there is anything I can do for you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span> Colin,” he said, -“I will do it. I want to be friends with you. Good Lord, isn’t that -reasonable? We’re brothers.”</p> - -<p>Colin leaned forward in his chair. He was aware of the prodigious nature -of what he was meaning to say. “Give me Stanier, Raymond,” he said. -“With what father is leaving me, and with what Aunt Hester is leaving -me, I can easily afford to keep it up. I don’t ask you for any money. I -just want Stanier. Of course, it needn’t actually be mine. But I want to -live here, while you live somewhere else. There’s the Derbyshire house, -for instance. I’ve got Stanier in my blood. If, on father’s death, -you’ll do that, there’s nothing I won’t do for you.”</p> - -<p>He paused.</p> - -<p>“I can do a good deal, you know,” he said. “And I can refrain from doing -a good deal.”</p> - -<p>The proposal was so preposterous that Raymond fairly laughed. Instantly -Colin got up.</p> - -<p>“That sounds pleasant,” he said. “Good night, Raymond. I wouldn’t have -any more whisky, if I were you. Father seemed to think you’d had enough -drink before the end of dinner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II-b" id="CHAPTER_II-b"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> - -<p>Breakfast at Stanier was a shade less stately than dinner. The table was -invariably laid for the complete tale of its possible consumers, and a -vicarious urn bubbled at the end of the board with an empty teapot in -front of it, in case of old Lady Yardley coming down to breakfast and -dispensing tea. She had not come down for over twenty years, but the urn -still awaited her ministrations.</p> - -<p>On the arrival of tidings that she was having breakfast in her room, the -urn was taken away, and if news filtered through the butler to the -footman that some one else was breakfasting upstairs, a place at the -table was removed. Hot dishes above spirit-lamps stood in a row on the -sideboard, and there remained till somebody had come down or till, from -the removal of knives and forks, it was clear that nobody was coming.</p> - -<p>But when Lady Hester was in the house, these dishes were always sure of -a partaker, for, after her cold bath, she breakfasted downstairs, as she -considered her bedroom a place to sleep and dress in, not to eat in. The -urn would have been removed by this time, for Lady Yardley’s maid would -have taken her tray upstairs, and for Lady Hester and for any one else -who appeared there was brought in a separate equipage of tea or coffee, -hot and fresh, and deposited in front of the occupied chair.</p> - -<p>This morning she was the first to arrive, dressed in a white coat and -blouse and a jaunty little straw hat turned up at the back and decorated -with pheasants’ feathers. Provision of fish and bacon was brought her, -and an ironed copy of a daily paper. There were still four places left -at the table unremoved, and she promised herself a chatty breakfast.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span></p> - -<p>Raymond was the next comer, but he did not much conduce to chattiness. -He looked heavy-eyed and sulky, only grunted in response to her -salutation, and immured himself behind the <i>Daily Mail</i>. Lady Hester -made one further attempt at sociability, and asked him if he had slept -well, but as he had nothing to add to his “No, not very,” she considered -herself free from any further obligation.</p> - -<p>Then there came a very welcome addition to his grievous company, for -Colin entered through the door that opened on to the terrace. Flannel -trousers, coat and shirt open at the neck was all his costume, and there -was a bathing towel over his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Morning, Aunt Hester,” he said. “Morning, Raymond.”</p> - -<p>He paused in order to make quite sure that Raymond made no response, and -sat down next his aunt.</p> - -<p>“Been bathing,” he said. “Hottest morning that ever was. Why didn’t you -come, too, Aunt Hester? You’d look like a water-nymph. I say, what a -nice hat! Whom are you going to reduce to despair? Hullo, three -letters!”</p> - -<p>“How many of them are love-letters?” asked Aunt Hester archly.</p> - -<p>“All, of course,” said Colin. “There’s one from Cambridge.”</p> - -<p>“That’ll be the young woman in the tobacconist’s shop whom you told us -about,” began Aunt Hester.</p> - -<p>“Sh!” said Colin, nodding towards Raymond. “Sore subject.”</p> - -<p>Raymond, pushing back his chair, could not control himself from casting -one furious glance at Colin, and went out.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s one bad-tempered young man gone,” said Lady Hester -severely. She could understand people being thieves and liars, but to -fail in pleasantness and geniality was frankly unintelligible to her.</p> - -<p>“Why does he behave like that, my dear?” she continued. “He hadn’t a -word to chuck at me like a bone<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span> to a dog, when I wished him good -morning. What makes him like that? He ain’t got a belly-ache, has he?”</p> - -<p>Colin, as he swam in the sunshine this morning, had devoted some amount -of smiling reflection as to his policy with regard to Raymond. Raymond -had rejected his amazing proposal with a derisive laugh; he did not -think that an alliance with his brother was worth that price, and he -must take the consequences of his refusal.</p> - -<p>Violet entered at this moment; that was convenient, for she, too, could -hear about the quarrel last night at one telling.</p> - -<p>“Oh, we had a row last night,” he said. “It was pitched a little higher -than usual, and I suppose Raymond’s suffering from after-effects. He was -perfectly furious with me for having mimicked him, and wasn’t the least -soothed by my saying he might mimic me as often as he pleased. Then I -was told I was a cad and a liar for that nonsense I talked about the -tobacconist’s. After I had stood as much as I could manage, I left him -to his whisky, and I don’t imagine there’ll be much left of it. Oh, I -say, Violet, did you shut the door when you came in? I believe it’s -open; I’ll do it.”</p> - -<p>Colin got up, went to the door which was indeed ajar, and looked out -into the long gallery. Raymond, it so happened, was sitting in the -nearest window-seat lighting his pipe.</p> - -<p>Colin nodded to him. “Just shutting the door,” he said, and drew back -into the dining-room, rattling and pushing the door to make sure that -the latch had gone home. He felt sure that what he had just said to -Raymond (that very innocent piece of information!) would go home, too.</p> - -<p>“He was just outside,” said Colin softly, returning to the -breakfast-table. “Wasn’t it lucky I thought of shutting the door?”</p> - -<p>“Go on; what else?” asked Violet.</p> - -<p>“Nothing more. Of course, it was very awkward his having overheard what -we all said at our bridge. That<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span> had riled him. It was best to be sure -that there wouldn’t be a repetition of it this morning. But if people -will sit behind a newspaper and a vase of flowers, it’s difficult to be -aware of their presence. People ought to betray their presence in the -usual manner by coughing or sneezing. I shall have a thorough search of -the room first before I say anything about anybody. If I want to say you -are an old darling, Aunt Hester, I shall look behind the coal-scuttle -first.”</p> - -<p>Colin, whatever his private sentiments were, had an infinite lightness -of touch in the expression of them. He had declared, not to Violet -alone, but to Raymond himself, that he frankly detested him, and yet -there was a grace about the manner of the presentment that rendered his -hatred, if not laudable, at any rate, venial. And his account of the -quarrel last night was touched with the same graceful brush. Without -overstepping the confines of truth, he left the impression that he had -been reasonable and gentle, Raymond headstrong and abusive.</p> - -<p>This, too, was part of his policy; when others were present, he would -make himself winningly agreeable to Raymond, and shew a control and an -indulgence highly creditable in view of his brother’s brusque ways, and -take no provocation at his hands. That would accentuate the partisanship -of the others, which already was his, and would deprive Raymond of any -lingering grain of sympathy. When he and Raymond were alone, he would -exercise none of this self-restraint; he would goad and sting him with a -thousand biting darts.</p> - -<p>The three strolled out presently into the gallery; Lady Hester and -Violet passed Raymond without speech, but Colin sauntered up to him.</p> - -<p>“Coming out to play tennis presently?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Colin’s careful closing of the dining-room door had not been lost on his -brother. Raymond had interpreted it just as Colin wished him to, and he -was boiling with rage.</p> - -<p>“No, I’m not,” said he.</p> - -<p>Colin turned to where Violet was standing, just<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span> shrugged his shoulders -with a lift of the eyebrows, and went on towards her without spoken -comment.</p> - -<p>“Tennis soon, Vi?” he asked. “We’ll have to play a single.”</p> - -<p>“Right. That will be jolly,” said Violet. “In half an hour?”</p> - -<p>Colin nodded, and passed on to Lady Hester. “Come out, Aunt Hester, and -let’s sit in the shade somewhere till Vi’s ready. It’s lovely outside.”</p> - -<p>“I must have me sunshade,” said she, “or I shall spoil me complexion.”</p> - -<p>“That’ll never do,” said Colin. “None of your young men will fall in -love with you, if you do that. I’ll get it for you. Which will you have, -the blue one with pink ribands, or the pink one with blue ribands?”</p> - -<p>“Neither, you wretch,” said Aunt Hester. “The yaller one.”</p> - -<p>They found an encampment of basket-chairs under the elms beyond the -terrace, and Colin went straight to the business on which he wanted -certain information. This, too, was an outcome of his meditations in the -swimming-pool.</p> - -<p>“I asked father to take me out to Italy this summer,” he said, “and it -was quite clear that he had some objection to it. Have you any idea what -it was?”</p> - -<p>“My dear, it’s no use asking me,” said Aunt Hester. “Your father’s never -spoken to me about anything of the sort, and he ain’t the sort of man to -ask questions of. But for all these years he has gone off alone for a -month every summer. Perhaps he only just wants to get rid of us all for -a while.”</p> - -<p>Colin extended himself on the grass, shading his eyes against the glare -with his hand. His ultimate goal was still too far off to be -distinguished even in general outline, far less in any detailed aspect. -He was but exploring, not knowing what he should find, not really -knowing what he looked for.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps that’s it,” he said. “In any case, it does<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span>n’t matter much. But -I did wonder why father seemed not to welcome the idea of my going with -him. He usually likes to have me with him. He’s devoted to Italy, isn’t -he, and yet he never talks about it.”</p> - -<p>Colin spoke with lazy indifference, knowing very well that the surest -way of getting information was to avoid any appearance of anxiety to -obtain it, and, above all, not to press for it. Suggestions had to be -made subconsciously to the subject.</p> - -<p>“Never a word,” said Lady Hester, “and never has to my knowledge, since -he brought you and Raymond back twenty years ago.”</p> - -<p>“Were you here then?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“Yes, and that was the first time I saw Stanier since I was seventeen. -Your grandfather never spoke to me after my marriage, and for that -matter, I wouldn’t have spoken to him. He was an old brute, my dear, was -your grandfather, and Raymond’ll be as like him as two peas.”</p> - -<p>“Not as two peas, darling,” said Colin, “as one pea to another pea.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, bother your grammar,” said Lady Hester. “Speech is given us to show -what we mean. You know what I mean well enough. But as soon as your -grandfather died, Philip made me welcome here, and has made me welcome -ever since. Yes, my dear, the first I saw of you, you were laughing, and -you ain’t stopped since.”</p> - -<p>“Did you know my mother?” asked Colin quietly.</p> - -<p>He was getting on to his subject again, though Lady Hester was not aware -of it.</p> - -<p>“No. Never set eyes on her. Nobody of the family knew she existed until -you were born, and less than a month after that she was dead. Your -father had left home, one May or June it must have been, for he couldn’t -stand your grandfather any more than I could, and not a word did any one -but your grandmother hear of him, and that only to say it was a fine -day, and he was well, till there came that telegram to say that he was -married and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span> had a pair of twins. Your grandfather was at dinner, -sitting over his wine with your Uncle Ronald—he used to drink enough to -make two men tipsy every night of his life—and up he got when your -uncle read the telegram to him, and crash he went among the decanters, -and that was the end of him. Then your mother died, and back came your -father with you and Raymond, within a twelvemonth of the time he’d gone -away. And not a word about that twelvemonth ever passes his lips.”</p> - -<p>Colin let a suitable pause speak for the mildness of his interest in all -this. “He must have been married, then, very soon after he went to -Italy,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Must have, my dear,” said Lady Hester.</p> - -<p>It was exactly then that Colin began to see a faint outline, shrouded -though it was by the mists of twenty years, that might prove to be the -object of his exploration. Very likely it was only a mirage, some -atmospheric phantom, but he intended to keep his eye on it, and, if -possible, get nearer to it. A certain <i>nuance</i> of haste and promptitude -with which Lady Hester had agreed to his comment perhaps brought it in -sight.</p> - -<p>He sat up, clasping his knees with his hands, and appeared to slide off -into generalities. “How exceedingly little we all know of each other,” -he said. “What do I know of my father, for instance? Hardly anything. -And I know even less of my mother. Just her name, Rosina Viagi, and I -shouldn’t know that if it wasn’t for the picture of her in the gallery. -Who are the Viagis, Aunt Hester? Anybody?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t know at all, my dear,” said she. “I know as little about them as -you. Quite respectable folk, I daresay, though what does it matter if -they weren’t?”</p> - -<p>“Not an atom. Queen Elizabeth wished she was a milk-maid, didn’t she?”</p> - -<p>“Lord, she’d have upset the milk-pails and stampeded the cows!” observed -Lady Hester. “Better for her to be a queen. Why, here’s your father.”</p> - -<p>This was rather an unusual appearance, for Lord Yard<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span>ley did not -generally shew himself till lunch-time. Colin instantly jumped up.</p> - -<p>“Hurrah, father!” he said. “Come and talk. Cigarette? Chair?”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley shook his head. “No, dear boy,” he said. “I sent for you -and heard you were out, so I came to look for you. Have five minutes’ -stroll with me.”</p> - -<p>Colin took his father’s arm. “Rather,” he said. “Tell Vi that I’ll be -back in a few minutes if she comes out, will you, Aunt Hester?”</p> - -<p>Philip stopped. “Another time will do, Colin,” he said, “if you’ve made -any arrangement with Violet.”</p> - -<p>“Only vague tennis.”</p> - -<p>They walked off up the shady alley of grass to where, at the end, an -opening cut in the trees gave a wide view over the plain. The ground in -front fell sharply away in slopes of steep turf, dotted with hawthorns a -little past the fulness of their flowering. A couple of miles away the -red roofs of Rye smouldered in the blaze of the day, outlined against -the tidal water of the joined rivers, that went seawards in expanse of -dyke-contained estuary. On each side of it stretched the green levels of -the marsh, with Winchelsea floating there a greener island on the green -of that grassy ocean, and along its margin to the south the sea like a -silver wire was extended between sky and land. To the right for -foreground lay the yew-encompassed terraces, built and planted by Colin -the first, the lowest of which fringed the broad water of the lake, and -along them burned the glory of the June flower-beds. Behind, framed in -the trees between which they had passed, the south-east front of the -house rose red and yellow between the lines of green.</p> - -<p>The two stood silent awhile.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Colin,” said his father, “we’re at one about Stanier. It beats in -your blood as it does in mine. I wish to God that when I was dead....”</p> - -<p>He broke off.</p> - -<p>“I want to talk to you about two things,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span> “Raymond’s one of -them, but we’ll take the other first. About Italy. I’ll take you with me -if you want to come. I was reluctant, but I am reluctant no longer. -Apart from my inclination which, as I tell you, is for it now not -against it, you’ve got a certain right to come. You and I will live in -the villa where I lived with your mother. I’ve left it you, by the way. -My romance, my marriage with her, and our life together, was so short -and was so utterly cut off from everybody else that, as you know, I’ve -always kept it like that, severed from all of you. But you’re her son, -my dear, and in some ways you are so like her that it’s only right you -should share my memories and my ghosts. They’re twenty-one years old -now, and they’ve faded, but they are there. There’s only one thing I -want of you; that is, not to ask me any questions about her. Certain -things I’ll tell you, but anything I don’t tell you....”</p> - -<p>He broke off for a moment.</p> - -<p>“Anything I don’t tell you is my private affair,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I understand, father,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“You’ll probably see your Uncle Salvatore,” continued Philip. “So be -prepared for a shock. He usually comes over when he hears I am at the -villa ... but never mind that. He takes himself off when he’s got his -tip. So that’s settled. If you get bored you can go away.”</p> - -<p>“That is good of you, father,” said the boy.</p> - -<p>“Now about the second point,” said Philip; “and that’s Raymond. He’s a -sulky, dark fellow, that brother of yours, Colin.”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed. “Oh, put all the responsibility on me,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Well, what’s to be done with him? He was in the long gallery just now -as I came out, and I spoke to him and was civil. But there he lounged, -didn’t even take his feet off the window-seat, and wouldn’t give me more -than a grunted ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ So I told him what I thought of his -manners.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, did you? How good for him.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I didn’t see why he should sulk at me,” said Philip. “After all, -it’s my house for the present, and if he is to quarter himself there, -without either invitation or warning, the least he can do is to treat me -like his host. I try to treat him like a guest, and like a son, for that -matter. Don’t I?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear father,” said Colin. “You always try.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, you impertinent boy?”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed again. “Well, you don’t always succeed, you know. You -cover up your dislike of him....”</p> - -<p>“Dislike?”</p> - -<p>“Rather. You hate him, you know.”</p> - -<p>Philip pondered over this. “God forgive me, I believe I do,” he said. -“But, anyhow, I try not to, and that’s the most I can do. And I will be -treated civilly in my own house. How long is he going to stop, do you -know?”</p> - -<p>“I asked him that yesterday,” said Colin. “He said that, with my -permission—sarcastic, you know—he was going to stop as long as he -pleased.”</p> - -<p>Philip frowned. “Oh, did he?” he said. “Perhaps my permission will have -something to do with it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, do tell him to pack off!” said Colin. “It was so ripping here -before he came. I had a row with him last night, by the way.”</p> - -<p>“What about?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he chose to swear at me for mimicking him. That is how it began. -But Raymond will quarrel over anything. He’s not particular about the -pretext. Then there was what I said about the tobacconist’s wench.”</p> - -<p>They had passed through the box-hedge on to the terrace just below the -windows of the long gallery. Colin raised his eyes for one half-second -as they came opposite the window-seat which Raymond had been occupying, -and saw the top of his black head just above the sill. He raised his -voice a little.</p> - -<p>“Poor old Raymond,” he said. “We’ve got to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span> the best of him, -father. I suppose he can’t help being so beastly disagreeable.”</p> - -<p>“He seems to think he’s got a monopoly of it,” said Philip. “But I’ll -show him I can be disagreeable, too. And if he can’t mend his ways, I’ll -just send him packing.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it would be ripping without him,” said Colin. “He might come back -after you and I have gone to Italy.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>In pursuance of his general policy, Colin made the most persevering -attempts at lunch to render himself agreeable to his brother, for the -impression he wished to give was that he was all amiability and thereby -throw into blackest shadow against his own sunlight, Raymond’s -churlishness. A single glance at that glowering face was sufficient to -convince Colin that he had amply overheard the words which had passed -between his father and himself below the open window of the gallery, and -that he writhed under these courtesies which were so clearly of the -routine of “making the best of him.” All the rest of them would see how -manfully Colin persevered, and this geniality was a goad to Raymond’s -fury; he simply could not bring himself to answer with any appearance of -good-fellowship.</p> - -<p>“What have you been at all morning, Raymond?” Colin asked him as he -entered. “I looked for you everywhere.”</p> - -<p>“Been indoors,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>Colin just shook his head and gave a little sigh of despair, then began -again, determined not to be beaten. He saw his father watching and -listening, and Raymond knew that Lord Yardley was applauding Colin’s -resolve to “make the best of him.”</p> - -<p>“You ought to have come down to the tennis-court and taken on Vi and me -together,” he said. “We shouldn’t have had a chance against you, but -we’d have done our best. Father, you must come and look at Raymond the -next time he plays; he’s become a tremendous crack.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Raymond knew perfectly well that either Colin or Violet could beat him -single-handed. Yet how answer this treacherous graciousness?</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t talk such rot, Colin!” he said.</p> - -<p>He looked up angrily just in time to see Colin and his father exchange a -glance.</p> - -<p>“Well, what shall we do this afternoon?” said Colin, doggedly pleasant. -“Shall we go and play golf? It would be awfully nice of you if you’d -drive me down in your car.”</p> - -<p>“You know perfectly well that I loathe golf,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Sorry,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>Colin laughed, and without the smallest touch of ill-humour, gave it up -and turned to Violet.</p> - -<p>“We’ll have our game in that case, shall we, Vi?” he asked. “Father, may -we have a car to take us down?”</p> - -<p>“By all means,” said Philip. “Hester and I will come down with you, go -for a drive, and pick you up again. You’d like that, Hester?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but that will leave Raymond alone....” began Colin.</p> - -<p>Raymond broke in: “That’s just what I want you to do with me,” he -snapped.</p> - -<p>Colin got up. “I’ll just go and see granny for a minute,” he said. “I -told her I would look in on her after lunch....”</p> - -<p>Philip had listened to Colin’s advances and Raymond’s rebuffs with a -growing resentment at his elder son’s behaviour, and as the others went -out he beckoned him to stop behind.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Raymond,” he said when the door had closed. “I had to speak -to you after breakfast for your rudeness to me, and all lunch-time -you’ve been as disagreeable as you knew how to be to your brother. And -if you think I’m going to stand these sulks and ill-temper, you’ll very -speedily find yourself mistaken. Colin did all that a good-natured boy -could to give you a chance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span> making yourself decently agreeable, and -every time he tried you snapped and growled at him.”</p> - -<p>“Do you wish me to answer you or not, sir?” asked Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Certainly. I have every desire to be scrupulously fair to you,” said -Philip. “I will hear anything you wish to say.”</p> - -<p>“Then, father, I wish to say that you’re not fair to me. If I’m late for -dinner, do you chaff me in the way you do Colin? Last night you asked -him with a chuckle, ‘Urgent private affairs?’ That was all the rebuke he -got. If he says he hasn’t finished his wine, you sit down again, and say -‘Sorry.’ If I haven’t, you tell me I’ve had enough already. Colin’s your -favourite, and you show it every minute of the day. You dislike me, you -know.”</p> - -<p>There was quite enough truth in this to make the hearing of it -disagreeable to his father. “I didn’t ask you to discuss my conduct, but -to consider your own,” he said. “But you shall have it your own way. My -conduct to you is the result of yours to me, and yours to everybody -else. Look at yourself and Colin dispassionately, and tell me whether I -could be as fond of you as of him. I acknowledge I’m not. Are you fond -of me, if it comes to that? But I’m polite to you, until you annoy me -beyond endurance, as you are continually doing. If Colin had behaved at -lunch as you’ve behaved, I should have thought he was ill.”</p> - -<p>“And I’m only sulky,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“You’re proving it every moment,” said his father. “That’s quite a good -instance.”</p> - -<p>Raymond paused, biting his lip. “You judge Colin’s behaviour to me, -father,” he said, “by what you see of it. You think he’s like that to me -when we’re alone. He’s not: he’s fiendish to me. Don’t you understand -that when you’re there, or anybody else is there, he acts a part, to -make you think that he’s ever so amiable?”</p> - -<p>“And how do you behave to him when you’re alone to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span>gether?” asked -Philip. “If I take your word about Colin, I must take Colin’s about -you.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve done that already, I expect,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>His father got up. “I see I haven’t made myself clear,” he said. “Try to -grasp that that’s the sort of remark I don’t intend to stand from you -for a moment. If I have any further complaint to make of you, you leave -the house. You’ve got to be civil and decently behaved. Otherwise you -go. I do not choose to have my general enjoyment of life, or Colin’s, or -your uncle’s, or your aunt’s, spoiled by your impertinences and -snarlings. You’ll have to go away; you can go to St. James’s Square if -you like, but I won’t have you here unless you make a definite effort to -be a pleasanter companion. As I told Colin this morning, you seem to -think that being disagreeable is a monopoly of your own, but you’ll find -that I can be disagreeable, too, and far more effectively than lies in -your power.”</p> - -<p>Philip was quite aware that he was speaking with extreme harshness, with -greater harshness, in fact, than he really intended. But the sight of -that heavy brooding face, the knowledge that this was his elder son, who -would reign at Stanier when he was dead to the exclusion of Colin, made -his tongue bitter beyond control.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s all I’ve got to say to you,” he said. “I won’t have you -insolent and uncivil to me or any one in this house. I’m master here for -the present, and, rightly or wrongly, I shall do as I choose. And I -won’t have you quarrelling with Colin. You tell me that when I’m not -here and when you’re alone with him, he’s fiendish to you; that was the -word you used. Now don’t repeat that, because I don’t believe it. You’re -jealous of Colin, that’s why you say things like that; you want to -injure him in my eyes. But you only injure yourself.”</p> - -<p>At that moment there came into Philip’s mind some memory, now more than -twenty years old, of himself in Raymond’s position, stung by the lash of -his father’s vituperations, reduced to the dumb impotence of hatred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span> -Though he felt quite justified in all he had said to the boy, he knew -that his dislike of him had plumed and barbed his arrows, and he -experienced some sort of reluctant sympathy with him.</p> - -<p>“I’ve spoken strongly,” he said, “because I felt strongly, but I’ve -done. If you’ve got anything more to say to me, say it.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Very good. I shan’t refer to it all again, and it’s up to you to do -better in the future. Put a check on yourself. Believe me, that if you -do you will have a better time with me and every one else.... Think it -over, Raymond; be a sensible fellow.”</p> - -<p>The departure of the others gave Raymond abundance of leisure for -solitary reflection, and his father’s remarks plenty of material for the -same. Stinging as those hot-minted sentences had been, he felt no -resentment towards the orator; from his own point of view—a perfectly -reasonable one—his father was justified in what he said. What he did -not know, and what he refused to know, was the truth about Colin, who -neglected no opportunity which quickness of speech and an unrivalled -instinct gave him as to what rankled and festered, of planting his darts -when they were alone together. Raymond accepted Colin’s hatred of him, -just as he accepted his own of Colin, as part of the established order -of things, but what made him rage was this new policy of his brother’s -to win sympathy for himself and odium for him, by public politeness and -affectionate consideration. No one observing that, as his father had -done, could doubt who was the aggressor in their quarrels—the genial, -sweet-tempered boy, or he, the morose and surly. And yet, far more often -than not, it was Colin who intentionally and carefully exasperated him. -It amused Colin, as he had said, to see his brother in a rage, and he -was ingenious at providing himself with causes of entertainment.</p> - -<p>And what, above all, prompted his father’s slating of him just now? -Again it was Colin; it was his champion<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span>ship of his favourite which had -given the sting to his tongue. Here, too, Raymond acquitted his father -of any motive beyond the inevitable one. Nobody could possibly help -liking Colin better than himself, and it was the recognition of that -which made his mind brush aside all thought of his father, and attach -itself with claws and teeth to the root of all this trouble. He was slow -in his mental processes whereas Colin was quick, and Colin could land a -hundred stinging darts, could wave a hundred maddening flags at him, -before he himself got in a charge that went home. That image of the -arena entirely filled his thought. Colin, the light, applauded matador, -himself the savage, dangerous animal.</p> - -<p>But one day—and Raymond clenched his hands till the nails bit the skin, -as he pictured it—that light, lissome figure, with its smiling face and -its graceful air, would side-step and wheel a moment too late, and it -would lie stretched on the sand, while he gored and kneaded it into a -hash of carrion. “Ah!” he said to himself, “that’ll be good; that’ll be -good.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The intensity and vividness of the image surprised him; he came to -himself, sitting on the terrace, with the hum of bees drowsy in the -flower-beds, as if from some doze and dream. He had not arrived at it -from any consecutive interpretation of his hate for Colin; it had not -been evolved out of his mind, but had been flashed on to it as by some -vision outside his own control. But there it was, and now his business -lay in realising it.</p> - -<p>He saw at once that he must be in no hurry. Whether that goring and -kneading of Colin was to be some act of physical violence or the -denouement of a plot which should lead to some disgraceful exposure, -Raymond knew he must plan nothing rashly, must test the strength of -every bolt and rivet in his construction. Above all, he must appear, and -continue to appear, to have taken his father’s strictures to heart, and -for the sake, to put it at its lowest, of being allowed to stay on at -Stanier, to observe the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span> general amenities of sociability, and in -particular to force himself into cordial responses to Colin’s public -attentions.</p> - -<p>Temporarily, that would look bitterly like a victory for Colin; with his -father to back him, it would seem as if Colin had reduced his brother to -decent behaviour. But that could not be helped; he must for many weeks -yet cultivate an assiduous civility and appear to have seen the error of -his sulky ways in order to lull suspicion fast asleep. At present Colin -was always watchful for hostile manœuvres; it would be a work of time -and patience before he would credit that Raymond had plucked his -hostility from him.</p> - -<p>Then there was Violet. Not only had his intemperate churlishness damaged -him with his father, but not less with her. That had to be repaired, for -though to know that Stanier was to her, even as to Colin, an -enchantment, an obsession, she might find that the involved condition of -marrying him in order to become its mistress was one that she could not -face. She did not love him, she did not even like him, but he divined -that her obsession about Stanier, coupled with the aloofness and -independence that characterised her, might make her accept a -companionship that was not positively distasteful to her.</p> - -<p>It was not the Stanier habit to love; love did not form part of the -beauty with which nature had dowered them. The men of the family sought -a healthy mate; for the women of the family, so few had there ever been, -no rule could be deduced. But Violet, so far as he could tell, followed -the men in this, and for witness to her inability to love, in the sense -of poets and romanticists, was her attitude to Colin.</p> - -<p>Had he been the younger, Raymond would have laughed at himself for -entertaining any notion of successful rivalry. Colin, with the lordship -of Stanier, would have been no more vulnerable than was the moon to a -yokel with a pocket-pistol. But he felt very sure that love, as a -relentless and compelling factor in this matter, had no part in her -strong liking for Colin. Neither her feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> for him nor his for her -was ever so slightly dipped in any infinite quality; it was ponderable, -and he himself had in his pocket for weight in the other scale, her -passion for Stanier.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin strolled gracefully into the smoking-room that evening when the -whist and bridge were over, marvelling at the changed Raymond who had -been so courteous at dinner and so obligingly ready to play whist at -poor granny’s table. He himself had kept up that policy of solicitous -attention to his brother, which had made Raymond grind his teeth at -lunch that day, but the effect this evening was precisely the opposite. -Raymond had replied with, it must be supposed, the utmost cordiality of -which he was capable. It was a grim, heavy demeanour at the best, but -such as it was....</p> - -<p>No doubt, however, Raymond was saving up for such time as they should be -alone, the full power of his antagonism, and Colin, pausing outside the -smoking-room, considered whether he should not go to bed at once and -deprive his brother of the relief of unloading himself. But the desire -to bait him was too strong, and he turned the door-handle and entered.</p> - -<p>“So you got a wigging after lunch to-day,” he remarked. “It seems to -have brought you to heel a bit. But you can let go now, Raymond. You -haven’t amused me all evening with your tantrums.”</p> - -<p>Raymond looked up from his illustrated paper. He knew as precisely what -“seeing red” meant as did the bull in the arena. He had to wait a moment -till that cleared.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Colin,” he said. “Have you come for a drink?”</p> - -<p>“Incidentally. My real object was to see you and to have one of our -jolly chats. Did father pitch it in pretty hot? I stuck up for you this -morning when we talked you over.”</p> - -<p>Raymond was off his guard, forgetting that certain knowledge he -possessed was derived from overhearing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span> “Yes, you said you must make -the best of me ...” he began.</p> - -<p>Colin was on to that like a flash. “Now, how on earth could you have -known that?” he asked. “Father didn’t tell you.... I know! I said that -just as I was passing under the window in the gallery where you were -sitting after breakfast. My word, Raymond, you’ve a perfect genius for -eavesdropping. It was only last night that you hid behind the -flower-vase and heard me mimic you, and if I hadn’t shut the door of the -dining-room this morning, you’d have listened to what Aunt Hester and -Violet and I were saying, and then you overhear my conversation with -father. You’re a perfect wonder.”</p> - -<p>Raymond got up, his eyes blazing. “Take care, Colin,” he said. “Don’t go -too far.”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed. “Ah, that’s better,” he said. “Now you’re more yourself. -I thought I should get at you soon.”</p> - -<p>Raymond felt his mouth go dry, but below the violence of his anger there -was something that made itself heard. “You’ll spoil your chance if you -break out,” it said. “Keep steady....” He drained his glass and turned -to his brother.</p> - -<p>“Sorry, Colin,” he said, “but I’m not going to amuse you to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Colin. “I’ve hardly begun yet. Your -manner at dinner, now, and your amiability. It was not really a success. -No naturalness about it. It sat on you worse than your sulkiest moods. -You reminded me of some cad in dress-clothes trying to catch the note of -the ordinary well-bred man. Better be natural. I’ll go on sticking up -for you; I’ll persuade father not to pack you off. I’ve a good deal of -influence with him. I shall say you’re injuring yourself by not behaving -like a sulky boor. Besides, you can’t do it; if your geniality at dinner -was an attempt to mimic me, I must tell you that nobody could guess who -it was meant for. Vi was very funny about it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Really? What did she say?” asked Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Oh, naturally I can’t give her away,” said Colin. “But perhaps you’ll -hear her say it again if you’re conveniently placed.”</p> - -<p>“You know quite well Vi didn’t say anything about it,” said Raymond at a -venture.</p> - -<p>“Naturally, you know best. And, talking of Vi, are you going to propose -to her? I wouldn’t if I were you; take my hint and save yourself being -laughed at.”</p> - -<p>“Most friendly of you,” said Raymond. “But there are some things that -are my business.”</p> - -<p>“And not an affectionate brother’s?” asked Colin. “You don’t know how I -feel for you. It makes me wince when I see you blundering and making the -most terrible <i>gaffes</i>. It’s odd that I should have had a brother like -you, and that you should be a Stanier at all.”</p> - -<p>Colin threw a leg over the arm of his chair. It was most astonishing -that not only in public but now, when there was no reason that Raymond -should keep up a semblance of control, that he should be so impervious -to the shafts that in ordinary stung him so intolerably.</p> - -<p>“You’re so awkward, Raymond,” he said. “However much you try, you can’t -charm anybody or make any one like you. You’ve neither manners, nor -looks, nor breeding. You’ve got the curse of the legend without its -benefits. You’re a coward, too; you’d like nothing better than to slit -my throat, and yet you’re so afraid of me that you daren’t even throw -that glass of whisky and soda in my face.”</p> - -<p>For a moment it looked as if Raymond was about to do precisely that; the -suggestion was almost irresistible. But he loosed his hand on it again.</p> - -<p>“That would only give you the opportunity to go to my father and tell -him,” he said. “You would say I had lost my temper with you. I don’t -intend to give you any such opportunity.”</p> - -<p>Even as he spoke he marvelled at his own self-control. But the plain -fact was that the temptation to lose it had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span> no force with him to-night. -For the sake of his ultimate revenge, whatever that might be, that -goring and kneading of Colin, it was no less than necessary that he -should seem to have put away from him all his hostility. Colin and the -rest of them—Violet above all—must grow to be convinced in the change -that had come over him.</p> - -<p>He rose. “Better give it up, Colin,” he said. “You’re not going to rile -me. You’ve had a good try at it, for I never knew you so studiedly -insolent. But it’s no use. Good night.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>During the fortnight which intervened before the departure of Lord -Yardley and Colin to Italy, Raymond never once faltered in the task he -had set himself. There was no act of patience too costly for the due -attainment of it, no steadfastness of self-control in the face of -Colin’s gibes that was not worth the reward which it would ultimately -bring. He avoided as far as possible being alone with his brother, but -that, in the mere trivial round of the day, happened often enough to -give Colin the opportunity of planting a dart or two. But now they -seemed to have lost all penetrative force; so far from goading him into -some ill-aimed response, they were but drops of showers on something -waterproof.</p> - -<p>Colin was disposed at first to attribute this incredible meekness to the -effect of his father’s strictures. Raymond had been given to understand -without any possible mistake, that, unless he mended his ways, he would -have to leave Stanier, and that, no doubt, accounted for his assumption -of public amiability. But his imperviousness in private to any -provocation was puzzling. He neither answered Colin’s challenges nor -conducted any offensive of his own. At the most a gleam or a flush told -that some jibe had gone home, but no angry blundering reply would give -opportunity for another. For some reason Raymond banked up his -smouldering fires, not letting them blaze.</p> - -<p>His impotence to make his brother wince and rage pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span>foundly irritated -Colin. He had scarcely known before how deep-rooted was his pleasure in -so doing; how integral a part of his consciousness was his hatred of -him, which now seemed to have been deprived of its daily bread.</p> - -<p>Not less irritating was the effect that Raymond’s changed behaviour -produced on his father and on Violet. His father’s civilities to him -began to lose the edge of their chilliness; a certain cordiality warmed -them. If the boy was really taking himself in hand, Lord Yardley must, -in common duty and justice, encourage and welcome his efforts, and the -day before the departure for Italy, he made an opportunity for -acknowledging this. Once more after lunch, he nodded to Raymond to stay -behind the others.</p> - -<p>“I want to tell you, Raymond,” he said, “that I’m very much pleased with -you. You’ve been making a strong effort with yourself, and you’re -winning all down the line. And how goes it with you and Colin in -private?”</p> - -<p>Raymond took rapid counsel with himself. “Very well indeed, sir,” he -said. “We’ve had no rows at all.”</p> - -<p>“That’s good. Now what are your plans while Colin and I are away? Your -Uncle Ronald and Violet are going to stop on here. I think your aunt’s -going up to London. You can establish yourself at St. James’s Square, if -you like, or remain here.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll stop here if I may,” said Raymond. “I don’t care about London.”</p> - -<p>Philip smiled. “Very good,” he said. “You’ll have to take care of Violet -and keep her amused.”</p> - -<p>Raymond answered with a smile. “I’ll do my best, father,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Well, all good wishes,” said his father. “Let me know how all goes.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin had seen throughout this fortnight Raymond’s improvement of his -position with regard to Lord Yard<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span>ley, and he had felt himself jealously -powerless to stop it. Once he had tried, with some sunnily-told tale of -Raymond’s ill-temper, to put the brake on it, but his father had stopped -him before he was half through with it. “Raymond’s doing very well,” he -said. “I don’t want to hear anything against him.” A further light was -shed for Colin that evening.</p> - -<p>He and Violet, when the rubber of whist was over and Lady Yardley had -gone upstairs, strolled out into the hot dusk of the terrace with linked -arms, but with no more stir of emotion in their hearts than two -schoolboy friends, whose intimacy was to be severed by a month of -holiday, would have experienced. The shadow cast by the long yew hedge -from the moon near to its setting had enveloped them in its clear -darkness, the starlight glimmered on the lake below, and in the elms -beyond the nightingales chanted.</p> - -<p>“Listen at them, look at it all,” said Colin impatiently. “Starlight and -shadow and nightingales and you and me as cool as cucumbers. You look -frightfully attractive, too, to-night, Vi: why on earth don’t I fall -madly in love with you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear, don’t!” said Violet. “You might make me fall in love with -you. But I suppose I needn’t be afraid. You can’t fall in love with -anybody, Colin, and I daresay I can’t either. But I shall try.”</p> - -<p>“And what do you mean by that?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“It’s pretty obvious,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Raymond, do you mean?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“Of course. What’s come over him? There’s something attractive about -him, after all; he’s got charm. Who would have thought it?”</p> - -<p>Though Colin had just now truthfully declared that he was in no way in -love with his cousin, he felt a pang of jealousy just as authentic as -that which the notion of Raymond’s possession of Stanier caused in him.</p> - -<p>“But you can’t, Violet!” he said. “That boor....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I’m not so sure that he is a boor. He’s keeping the boor in a box, -anyhow, and has turned the key on him. He’s quite changed. You can’t -deny it.”</p> - -<p>Colin slipped his arm out of Violet’s. “Raymond’s cleverer than I -thought,” he said. “All this fortnight it has puzzled me to know what -he’s been at, but now I see. He’s been improving his position with -father and with you.”</p> - -<p>“He has certainly done that,” said Violet.</p> - -<p>“So, if he asks you, you intend to marry him?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“I think so.”</p> - -<p>“I shall hate you if you do,” said he.</p> - -<p>“Why? How can it matter to you? If you were in love with me it would be -different, or if I were in love with you. Oh, we’ve talked it all over -before; there’s nothing new.”</p> - -<p>They had passed through the cut entrance in the yew hedge into the -moonlight, and Violet, turning, looked at her companion. Colin’s face -was brilliantly illuminated. By some optical illusion that came and went -in a flash, he looked at that moment as if his face was lit from within, -so strangely it shone against the dark serge of the hedge for -background. There was an unearthly beauty about it that somehow appalled -her. He seemed like some incarnation, ageless and youthful, of the -fortunes of the house. But the impression was infinitesimal in duration, -and she laughed.</p> - -<p>“Colin, you looked so wonderful just now,” she said. “You looked like -all the Staniers rolled into one.”</p> - -<p>Somehow this annoyed him. “Raymond included, I suppose?” he asked. “But -you’re wrong; there is something new. Hitherto you’ve only considered -Raymond as a necessary adjunct to being mistress here; now you’re -considering him as a man you can imagine loving. Hasn’t he got enough -already? Good God, how I hate him!”</p> - -<p>He had hardly spoken when there emerged from the entrance in the hedge -through which they had just passed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span> Raymond himself. Colin, white with -fury, turned on him.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, at it again?” he said. “You’ve overheard something nice this -time!”</p> - -<p>Raymond’s mouth twitched, but he gave no other sign. “Father has just -sent me out to tell you that he wants to speak to you before you go to -bed,” he said, and, turning, went straight back to the house.</p> - -<p>Violet waited till the sound of his step had vanished. “Colin, you’re a -brute,” she said. “You’re fiendish!”</p> - -<p>“I know that,” said Colin. “Who ever supposed I was an angel?”</p> - -<p>“And it’s acting like a fool to treat Raymond like that,” she went on. -“Can you afford to make him hate you?”</p> - -<p>He laughed. “I’ve afforded it as long as I can remember,” he said. “It -amuses me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it doesn’t amuse me to see you behave like a fiend,” said Violet. -“And do you know that you lost your temper? I’ve never seen you do that -yet.”</p> - -<p>Colin licked his lips; his mouth felt dry. “That was an odd thing,” he -observed. “Now I know what I make Raymond feel like when we chat -together. But it’s amazing that Raymond should have done the same to me. -I must go in to father.”</p> - -<p>They moved back into the shadow of the hedge and Colin stopped.</p> - -<p>“I say, Vi, give me a kiss,” he said.</p> - -<p>She drew back a moment, wondering why she did so. “But, my dear, why?” -she asked.</p> - -<p>“We’re cousins,” he said. “Why shouldn’t you? I should awfully like to -kiss you.”</p> - -<p>She had got over her momentary surprise, which was, no doubt, what made -her hesitate. There was no conceivable reason, though they did not kiss -each other, why they should not.</p> - -<p>“And if I won’t?” she said.</p> - -<p>“I shall think it unkind of you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>She came close to him. “Oh, Colin, I’m not unkind,” she said, and kissed -him.</p> - -<p>He stood with his hands on her shoulders, not letting her go, though -making no attempt to kiss her again. “That was delicious of you,” he -said.</p> - -<p>Suddenly and quite unexpectedly to herself, Violet found her heart -beating soft and fast, and she was glad of the darkness, for she knew -that a heightened colour had sprung to her face. Was Colin, too, she -wondered, affected in any such way?</p> - -<p>His light laugh, the release of her shoulders from his cool hands, -answered her.</p> - -<p>“Good Lord! To think that perhaps Raymond will be kissing you next,” he -said. “How maddening!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III-b" id="CHAPTER_III-b"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> - -<p>From the first some call of his Italian blood had made itself audible to -Colin; even as their train emerged out of the drip and roaring darkness -of the Mont Cenis tunnel, there had been a whisper in his ears that this -was the land of his birth to which he had come, and that whisper had -grown into full-voiced welcome when, at the hot close of day, he and his -father had strolled out after dinner along the sea-front of Naples. -Though he had never been here yet, sight, scent, and sound alike told -him that he was not so much experiencing what was new as recognising -what, though dormant, had always been part of him, bred into the very -fibre and instinct of him. It was not that he hailed or loved this lure -of the South; it would be more apt to say that he nodded to it, as to an -old acquaintance—taken for granted rather than embraced.</p> - -<p>This claiming and appropriation by Colin of his native place unfroze in -his father the reticence that he had always observed with regard to that -year he had spent in Italy into which had entered birth and death, and -all that his life held of romance. That, till now, had been incapsulated -within him, or at the most, like the ichor in some ductless gland, was -performing some mysterious function in his psychology. Now this claim of -Colin’s on the South, his easy stepping into possession by right of his -parentage, unsealed in Philip the silence he had so long preserved.</p> - -<p>Colin, as he regarded his surroundings with friendly and familiar eyes, -was visibly part of his old romance; the boy’s mother lived again in -that sunny hair, those eyes, and the clear olive skin, just as surely as -did old Colin of the Holbein portrait. But now Stanier was far away, and -the spell of the South as potent as when Philip, flying<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span> from the glooms -and jibes of that awful old man, his father, first came under its -enchantment. And Colin, of all that dead time, alone was a vital and -living part of its manifestation. Through the medium of memory he -stirred his father’s blood; Philip felt romance bubble in him again as -he walked along the familiar ways with the flower that had blossomed -from it. He felt, too, that Colin silently (for he asked no question) -seemed to claim the right to certain knowledge; he seemed to present -himself, to be ready, and, indeed, it would be singular if, having -brought him here, his father did not speak of that which, every year, -had taken him on his solitary pilgrimage to the South.</p> - -<p>They were to spend the greater part of the next day in Naples, leaving -by the afternoon boat for Capri, and as they finished their breakfast on -a shady veranda, Philip spoke:</p> - -<p>“Well, we’ve got all the morning,” he said, “to trundle about in. The -museum is very fine; would you like to see it?”</p> - -<p>“No, I should hate it,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“But it’s a marvellous collection,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>“I daresay; but to see a museum would make me feel like a tourist. At -present I don’t, and it’s lovely.”</p> - -<p>He looked at his father as he spoke, and once again, this time -compellingly, Philip saw confident expectancy in his eyes. Colin was -certainly waiting for something.</p> - -<p>“Then will you come with me on a sentimental journey?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Ah, father, won’t I just!” he said. “After all, you and I are on a -sentimental journey.”</p> - -<p>There seemed to Philip in his devotion to Colin, something exquisitely -delicate about this. He had wanted but, instinctively had not asked, -waiting for his rights to be offered him.</p> - -<p>“Come, then,” he said. “I’ll show you where we lived, your mother and I. -I’ll show you our old haunts, such as survive. You belong to that life, -Colin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Colin paused a moment, sitting quite still, for a span of clear, -concentrated thought. He desired to say precisely the right thing, the -thing that his father would most value. It was not in the smallest -degree affection for his father which prompted that; it was the wish -that the door should be thrown open as wide as possible—that all the -keys should be put into his hand.</p> - -<p>“I know I do,” he said. “I’ve known that for years, but I had to wait -for you to want me to share it. It had to be you who took me into it.”</p> - -<p>He saw approval gleam in his father’s eyes. This was clearly the right -tack.</p> - -<p>“And you must remember I know nothing whatever about your life with my -mother,” he said. “You’ve got to begin at the beginning. And ... and make -it long, father.”</p> - -<p>It was not surprising that Colin’s presence gave to this sentimental -journey a glow which it had lacked during all those years when Philip -made his annual solitary visit here. Already the mere flight of years, -and the fact that he had never married again, had tinged that long-past -time with something of the opalescence which sunlit mist confers on -objects which in themselves hardly rise above the level of the mean and -the prosaic; and what now survived for him in memory was Rosina’s -gaiety, her beauty, her girlish charm, with forgetfulness for her vapid -vanity, her commonness, and the speed with which his senses even had -been sated with her. But it was an unsubstantial memory of blurred and -far-off days, girt with regrets and the emptiness of desires dead and -unrecoverable.</p> - -<p>Now Colin’s presence gave solidity to it all; it was as if the sunlit -mist had been withdrawn from the dim slopes which it covered, and lo! -the reality was not mean or prosaic, but had absorbed the very tints and -opalescences which had cloaked it. There was Colin, eager and -sympathetic, yet checking any question of his own, and but thirsty for -what his father might give him, and in the person of the boy who was the -only creature in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span> world whom Philip loved, and in whom Rosina lived, -that tawdry romance of his was glorified. To tell Colin, about his -mother here, in the places where they had lived together, was to make a -shrine of them.</p> - -<p>The flat which he and Rosina had occupied in Naples, when the autumnal -departure of visitors from Capri rendered the island so desolating to -her urban nature, happened to be untenanted, and a couple of lire -secured their admittance. It still held pieces of furniture which had -been there twenty years ago, and Colin, moving quietly to and fro, his -eyes alight with interest in little random memories which his father -recalled, was like a ray of sunlight shining into a place that had long -slept in dust and shadows. Mother and son reacted on each other in -Philip’s mind; a new tenderness blossomed for Rosina out of his love for -Colin, and he wondered at himself for not having brought them together -like this before.</p> - -<p>Here were the chairs which they used to pull out on to the veranda when -the winter sun was warm; here was the Venetian looking-glass which -Rosina could never pass without a glance at her image, and now, as Colin -turned towards it, there were Rosina’s eyes and golden hair that flashed -back at Philip out of the past and made a bridge to the present.</p> - -<p>And there, above all, was the bedroom, with the glitter of sun on the -ceiling cast there from the reflecting sea, where, at the close of a -warm, windy day of March, the first cry of a new-born baby was heard. -And by that same bedside, at the dawn of an April morning, Philip had -seen the flame of Rosina’s life flicker and waver and expire. He -regretted her more to-day than at the hour when she had left him. Some -unconscious magic vested in Colin cast that spell.</p> - -<p>For all these recollections Colin had the same eager, listening face and -the grave smile. Never even in his baiting of Raymond had he shewn a -subtler ingenuity in adapting his means to his end. He used his father’s -affection for him to prize open the locks of a hundred cas<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span>kets, and -enable him to see what was therein. He wanted to know all that his -father would tell him about that year which preceded his birth, and not -asking questions was the surest way of hearing what he wanted.</p> - -<p>Already he had found that his Aunt Hester knew very little about that -year, or, if she knew, she had not chosen to tell him certain things. -His curiosity, when he had talked to her under the elms, had been but -vague and exploratory, but, it will be remembered, it had become -slightly more definite when, in answer to his comment that his father -and mother must have been married very soon after his arrival in Italy, -Aunt Hester had given a very dry assent.</p> - -<p>Now his curiosity was sharply aroused about that point, for with all his -father’s communicativeness this morning, he had as yet said no word -whatever that bore on the date of their marriage. Colin felt by an -instinct which defied reason, that there was something to be known here; -the marriage, the scene, the date of it, must have passed through his -father’s mind, and yet he did not choose, in all this sudden breakdown -of long reticence, to allude to it. That was undeniably so; a question, -therefore, would certainly be useless, for believing as he did, that his -father had something to conceal, he would not arrive at it in that way.</p> - -<p>They were standing now in the window looking over the bay, and Philip -pointed to the heat-veiled outline of Capri, floating, lyre-shaped, on -the fusing-line of sea and sky.</p> - -<p>“We were there all the summer,” he said, “in the villa you will see this -evening. Then your mother found it melancholy in the autumn and we came -here—I used to go backwards and forwards, for I couldn’t quite tear -myself away from the island altogether.”</p> - -<p>That struck Colin as bearing on his point; it was odd, wasn’t it, that a -newly-married couple should do that? You would have expected them to -live here or there, but together.... Then, afraid that his father would -think<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span> he was pondering on that, he changed the topic altogether.</p> - -<p>“I have loved hearing about it all,” he said. “But somehow—don’t be -shocked, father—I can’t feel that Raymond comes into it one atom. We’ve -been realising you and my mother and the squalling thing that I was. But -I can’t feel Raymond with us then any more than he’s with us now. Let’s -keep Italy to ourselves, father. Poor old Raymond!”</p> - -<p>That shifting of the topic was skilfully designed and subtly executed. -Colin confessed to alienation from Raymond and yet with a touch of -affectionate regret. His father was less guarded.</p> - -<p>“Raymond’s got nothing to do with Italy,” he said. “There’s not a single -touch of your mother in him. We’ve got this to ourselves, Colin. Raymond -will have Stanier.”</p> - -<p>“Lucky dog!” said Colin.</p> - -<p>There was one item connected with the marriage that he might safely ask, -and as they went downstairs he put it to his father, watching him very -narrowly.</p> - -<p>“I feel I know all about my mother now,” he said, “except just one -thing.”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley turned quickly to him. “I’ve told you all I can tell you,” -he said sharply.</p> - -<p>That was precisely what Colin had been waiting for. There was something -more, then. But the question which he was ready with was harmless -enough.</p> - -<p>“I only wanted to know where you were married,” he said. “That’s the one -thing you haven’t told me.”</p> - -<p>There was no doubt that this was a relief to his father; he had clearly -expected something else, not the “where” of the boy’s question, but the -“when,” which by now had definitely crystallised in Colin’s mind.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that!” he said. “Stupid of me not to have told you. We were married -at the British Consulate.”</p> - -<p>They passed out into the noonday.</p> - -<p>“Mind you remember that, Colin,” said his father. “On my death the -marriage will have to be proved; it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span> will save a search. Your birth was -registered there, too. And Raymond’s.”</p> - -<p>Such was the sum of information that Colin took on board with him that -afternoon when they embarked on the steamer for Capri, and though in one -sense it took him back a step, in another it confirmed the idea that had -grown up in his mind. He felt certain (here was the confirmation) that -if he had asked his father when the marriage took place, he would have -been told a date which he would not have believed. Lord Yardley would -have said that they had been married very soon after his arrival -twenty-one years ago. He had waited with obvious anxiety for Colin’s one -question, and he had hailed that question with relief, for he had no -objection to the boy’s knowing where the contract was made.</p> - -<p>And the retrograde step was this: that whereas he had been ready to -think that his father’s marriage was an event subsequent to his own -birth and Raymond’s, he was now forced to conclude (owing to the fact -that his father told and impressed on him to remember, that it had been -performed at the British Consulate) that he and Raymond were -legitimately born in wedlock. That seemed for the present to be a -<i>cul-de-sac</i> in his researches.</p> - -<p>The warm, soft air streamed by, and the wind made by the movement of the -boat enticed Colin out from under the awning into the breeze-tempered -blaze of the sun. He went forward and found in the bows a place where he -could be alone and study, like a map, whatever could be charted of his -discoveries.</p> - -<p>That willingness of his father to tell him where the marriage had taken -place was somehow disconcerting; it implied that the ceremony made valid -whatever had preceded it. He had himself been born in mid-March, and he -did not attempt to believe that his father had been married in the -previous June, the month when he had first come to Italy. But he could -not help believing that his father had married before his own birth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span></p> - -<p>Colin was one of those rather rare people who can sit down and think. -Everybody can sit down and let his mind pleasantly wander over a hundred -topics, but comparatively few can tether it, so to speak, so that it -grazes on a small circle only. This accomplishment Colin signally -possessed, and though now there could be no practical issue to his -meditations, he set himself to carve out in clear, cutting strokes what -he would have done in case he had discovered that he and Raymond alike -were born out of wedlock. He imagined that situation to himself; he -cropped at it, he grazed on it....</p> - -<p>The disclosure, clearly, if the fact had been there, would not have come -out till his father’s death, and he could see himself looking on the -face of the dead without the slightest feeling of reproach. He knew that -his father was leaving him all that could be left away from Raymond; he -was heir also to Aunt Hester’s money.</p> - -<p>But in that case Stanier, and all that went with the title, would not be -Raymond’s at all; Raymond would be nameless and penniless. And Colin’s -beautiful mouth twitched and smiled. “That would have been great fun,” -he said to himself. “Raymond would have been nobody and have had -nothing. Ha! Raymond would not have had Stanier, and I should have -ceased to hate him. I should have made him some small allowance.”</p> - -<p>Yes, Stanier would have passed from Raymond, and it and all that it -meant would have gone to Violet ... and at that the whole picture -started into life and colour. If only now, at this moment, he was -possessed of the knowledge that he and Raymond alike were illegitimate, -with what ardour, with what endless subtlety, would he have impelled -Violet to marry him! How would he have called upon the legendary -benefactor who for so long had prospered and befriended the Staniers, to -lend him all the arts and attractions of the lover! With such wiles to -aid him, he would somehow have forced Violet to give up the idea of -marrying Raymond in order to get Stanier, and instead, renouncing -Stanier, take him, and by her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span> renunciation for love’s sake, find in the -end that she had gained (bread upon the waters) all that she had -imagined was lost.</p> - -<p>And he, Colin, in that case, would be her husband, master of Stanier to -all intents and purposes. Willingly would he have accepted, eagerly -would he have welcomed that. He wanted what he would never get unless -Raymond died, except at some such price as that. But it was no use -thinking about it; his father’s insistence on the place where he and -Rosina were married made it certain that no such fortunate catastrophe -could be revealed at his death.</p> - -<p>Presently Lord Yardley joined him as they passed along the headland on -which Sorrento stands, and there were stories of the visit that he and -Rosina made here during the summer. Colin listened to these with -suppressed irritation; what did he care whether they had spent a week at -Sorrento or not? Of all that his father had to tell him, he had mastered -everything that mattered, and he began to find in these recollections a -rather ridiculous sentimentality. He knew, of course, that he himself -was responsible for this; it was he, Rosina’s son, and his father’s love -for him, that conjured up these tendernesses. He was responsible, too, -in that all the morning he had listened with so apt a sympathy to -similar reminiscences. But then he hoped that he was about to learn -something really worth knowing, whereas now he was convinced that there -was nothing of that sort to know. Fond as his father had always been of -him, he easily detected something new in his voice, his gestures, the -soft eagerness of his eyes; it was as if in him his father was falling -in love with Rosina.</p> - -<p>Sunset burned behind Capri as their steamer drew near to it, and the -eastern side lay in clear shadow though the sea flared with the -reflected fires of the sky, and that, too, seemed to produce more -memories.</p> - -<p>“You are so like her, Colin,” said his father, laying his arm round the -boy’s neck, “and I can imagine that twenty-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span>one years have rolled back, -and that I am bringing her across to Capri for the first time. It was -just such an evening as this, sunset and a crescent moon. I had already -bought the villa; we were going back to it together.”</p> - -<p>“Straight from the Consulate?” asked Colin quietly.</p> - -<p>“What?” asked Philip.</p> - -<p>“From the Consulate, father,” he repeated.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, of course,” said Philip quickly, and his voice seemed to ring -utterly untrue. “Straight from the Consulate. Ha! there’s Giacomo, my -boatman. He sees us.”</p> - -<p>“Does he remember my mother?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“Surely. But don’t ask him about her. These fellows chatter on for ever, -and it’s half lies.”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed. “As I shouldn’t understand one word of it,” he said, “it -would make little difference whether it was all lies.”</p> - -<p>Once again, and more markedly than ever, as they drove up the angled -dusty road set in stone walls and bordered by the sea of vineyards, the -sense of homecoming seized Colin. It was not that his father was by him -or that he was going to his father’s house; the spell worked through the -other side of his parentage, and he felt himself strangely more akin to -the boys who, trudging homewards, shouted a salutation to their driver, -to the girls who clustered on the doorsteps busy with their needle, than -to the grave man who sat beside him and watched with something of a -lover’s tenderness his smiles and glances and gestures. Philip read -Rosina into them all, and she who had so soon sated him till he wearied -of her, woke in him, through Colin, a love that had never before been -given her.</p> - -<p>“I cannot imagine why I never thought of bringing you out to Italy -before,” said Philip, “or why, when you asked me to take you, I -hesitated.”</p> - -<p>Colin tucked his arm into his father’s. He was wonderfully skilful in -displaying such little signs of affection, which cost him nothing and -meant nothing, but were so well worth while.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do I seem to fit into it all, father?” he said. “I am so glad if I do.”</p> - -<p>“You more than fit into it, my dear,” said Philip. “You’re part of it. -Why on earth did I never see that?”</p> - -<p>“Part of it, am I? That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling all day. I’m at -home here. Not but what I’m very much at home at Stanier.”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I wish to God you -were my eldest son,” he said. “I would give anything if that were -possible. I would close my eyes ever so contentedly when my time comes -if I knew that you were going to take my place.”</p> - -<p>“Poor old Raymond!” said Colin softly. “He’s doing his best, father.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose he is. But you’re a generous fellow to say that; I shan’t -forget it. Here we are; bundle out.”</p> - -<p>Their carriage had stopped in the piazza, and Colin getting out, felt -his lips curl into a smile of peculiar satisfaction. That his father -should believe him to be a generous fellow was pleasant in itself, and -the entire falsity of his belief added spice to the morsel. He seemed to -like it better just because it was untrue.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin stepped into the drifting summer existence of visitors to the -island with the same aptness as that which had graced his entry to his -mother’s native land. He went down to the bathing-beach after breakfast -with a book and a packet of cigarettes, and spent a basking amphibious -morning. Sometimes his father accompanied him, and after a -constitutional swim, sat in the shade while Colin played the fish in the -sea or the salamander on the beach. On other mornings Lord Yardley -remained up at the villa, which suited Colin quite well, for this -uninterrupted companionship of his father was very tedious. But he -always managed to leave the impression that he wanted Lord Yardley to -come with him.</p> - -<p>And so much this morning did Colin want to be alone that, had Philip -said that he was coming with him, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span> would probably have pleaded a -laziness or indisposition, for he had that morning received a letter -from Violet which called for solitary and uninterrupted reflection. -To-day, however, Philip’s brother-in-law, Salvatore Viagi, had announced -his advent, “to pay his fraternal respects and give his heart’s -welcome,” so ran his florid phrase—and Philip remained at the villa to -receive these tributes.</p> - -<p>“It’s a nuisance,” he said, “for I should have liked a dip. But I should -have to hurry back to get here before him.”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed. “You speak as if he might steal the silver,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Perfectly capable of it,” said his father. “No, I shouldn’t have said -that. But he’s perfectly capable of asking for it.”</p> - -<p>Colin perceived that there was no danger of his father’s coming down to -bathe with him. “Surely he can wait till we get back,” he said. “Come -down and bathe, father!”</p> - -<p>Philip shook his head. “No, I can’t,” he said. “Salvatore would think it -very odd and rude if I were not here. He wouldn’t understand: he would -think I was intentionally unceremonious.”</p> - -<p>“He sounds rather a bounder,” observed Colin.</p> - -<p>“He does,” said Philip drily.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin took Violet’s letter down to the beach with him, and after a short -dip of refreshment from his dusty walk, came out cool and shining from -the sea to dispose himself on the beach that quivered in the hot sun, -and ponder over it. He read it again twice through, stirring it into his -brains and his emotions, till it seemed to form part of him....</p> - -<p>So Raymond had proposed to her, and, having asked for a week’s delay in -her answer, she, while the matter was still private, had to tell Colin -that, as far as she knew her own intentions, she was meaning to accept -him. And yet this letter in which she said that she was going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span> marry -his brother, seemed hardly less than a love-letter to himself.</p> - -<p>She appeared to remember that last evening at Stanier when, under the -moon-cast shadow of the yews, she had given him the kiss he asked for, -just as vividly as did Colin. It was vivid to him because he had asked -for that with a definite calculated end in view, and with the same end -in view he had exclaimed how maddening it was to think that Raymond -would kiss her next. No doubt Raymond had done so, and Violet, though -she said she meant to marry him, had, perhaps, begun to know something -more of her own heart. That was why the evening was vivid to her, -exactly as he had intended it should be. She had learned that there was -a difference between him and Raymond, which being mistress at Stanier -might counterbalance, but did not cancel.</p> - -<p>The wetness had dried from Colin’s sun-tanned shoulders, and, lying down -at length on the beach, he drew from his pocket Violet’s letter in order -to study one passage again which had puzzled him. Here it was:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“You were perfectly brutal to Raymond that evening,” she wrote, -“and he was admirable in his answer to your rudeness. If we are to -remain friends you must not behave to him like that. You don’t like -each other, but he, at any rate now, has control over himself, and -you must copy his example.”</p> - -<p>(“Lord! me copying Raymond’s example,” thought Colin to himself, in -an ecstatic parenthesis.)</p> - -<p>“I shall always do my best to make peace between you, for I am very -fond of you, but Raymond’s side will in the future be mine. You -were nice to me afterwards, but, dear Colin, you mustn’t ask me to -kiss you again. Raymond wouldn’t like it....”</p></div> - -<p>With this perusal all that was puzzling vanished. “That’s not genuine; -none of that’s genuine,” thought Colin. “She says what she’s trying to -feel, what she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span> thinks she ought to feel, and doesn’t feel.” He turned -the page.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“I hope my news won’t hurt you,” she went on. “After all, we’ve -settled often enough that we weren’t in love with each other, and -so when that night you said it was maddening to think of Raymond -kissing me next, it couldn’t make any difference to you as you -aren’t in love with me....”</p></div> - -<p>No, the news did not hurt Colin, so he told himself, in the way that -Violet meant, and she was quite right about the reason of that: he was -not in love with her. But it struck him that the news must undeniably -hurt Violet herself; she was trying to wriggle away from it, while at -the same time she tried to justify herself and that unfortunate (or -should he call it fortunate?) kiss she had given him.</p> - -<p>He glanced hastily over the rest; there were more allusions to that last -evening, more scolding and exhortations about his conduct to Raymond, -and, as a postscript, the request that he should send her just one line, -to say he wasn’t hurt. This letter of hers was absolutely private, but -she had to tell him what was about to happen. In a week’s time both she -and Raymond would write to his father, who, so Raymond thought, was not -unprepared.</p> - -<p>Colin tore off the final half-sheet of Violet’s letter, and with his -stylograph scribbled his answer on it. He had long ago made up his mind -what he should say:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind">“<span class="smcap">Violet, my dear</span>” (he wrote),<br /> -</p> - -<p>“It was delightful of you to tell me, and I send you a million -congratulations. I am so pleased, for now you will be mistress of -Stanier, and you seem quite to have fallen in love with Raymond. I -must be very nice to him, or he’ll never let me come to Stanier in -days to come, and you will take his side, as you say. But how could -I be hurt at your news? It is simply charming.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Father and I are having a splendid time out here. I shall try to -persuade him to stop on after this month. Of course we shall come -back before your marriage. When is it to be, do you think?</p> - -<p class="r"> -“Best love from <br /> -“<span class="smcap">Colin</span>.”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>The ink in this hot sun dried almost as quickly as he wrote, and he had -scarcely signed his own name when it wore the appearance not of a -tentative sketch but of a finished communication ready for the post, -and, reading it over, he found that this was so: he could not better it. -So slipping it back into his pocket, he went across the beach again for -a longer swim, smiling to himself at the ease with which he had divined -Violet’s real mind, and at the fitness of his reply. As he swam he -analysed his own purpose in writing exactly like that.</p> - -<p>He had expressed himself with all the cordial geniality of which he was -capable: he had welcomed Violet’s choice. He had endorsed, as regards -his own part of the situation, her proposition that he ought not to be -hurt, since they were not in love with each other, and the eagerness of -his endorsement (that swift enthusiastic scrawl) would quite certainly -pique her. He had adopted her attitude, and knew that she would wish he -had another; the same, in fact, which he had expressed when he had said -that it was maddening to think that she would be kissing Raymond next. -Colin knew well how fond she was of him, and his letter would be like -this plunge into the clear crystal of the sea which, while it cooled -you, was glowingly invigorating.</p> - -<p>He was quite prepared to find that in a week’s time she and Raymond -would write to his father saying that they were engaged, but not for a -moment did he believe that they would ever be married. He had but to -keep up his cordial indifference till Violet found it intolerable. To -have remonstrated with her, to have allowed that her news hurt him, was -to give Violet just what she wanted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> A loveless marriage faced her, -while all the time she was not heart-whole, and however much she wanted -Stanier, she would be daily more conscious that the conditions on which -she got it were a diet of starvation.</p> - -<p>“She <i>is</i> rather in love with me,” thought Colin, “and very likely my -letter will drive her into accepting him. But if only I can keep cool -and pleasant, she’ll never marry him. Devilish ingenious! And then -there’s Raymond!”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed aloud as he thought of Raymond, who really lay at the -bottom of all these plans. Even if it had been possible now, before -Violet accepted him, to intervene in some way and cause her to refuse -instead of to take him, he would not have stirred a finger, for thus he -would baulk himself of the completeness of Raymond’s discomfiture, since -Raymond would feel the breaking off of his engagement more bitterly than -an original refusal. Let Violet accept him first and then throw him -over. That would be a real counter-irritant to the sting of Raymond’s -primogeniture, an appreciable counterweight to his future possession of -Stanier.</p> - -<p>It had been a check in that fraternal feud that Raymond’s birth and his -own were certainly legitimate, and that nothing now could stand in the -way of his brother’s succession, but if the check in that direction had -not occurred, there would never have been any chance of Violet’s -marrying him, and Raymond would have been spared the wounding -humiliation which instinctively, Colin felt sure, was to be dealt him. -Raymond was genuinely desirous of her; he would feel her loss very -shrewdly. If only, by some diabolical good fortune, Raymond could lose -them both! Colin saw himself, Violet by his side, smilingly observing -Raymond’s final departure from Stanier, and hoping that he would have a -pleasant journey.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Alas! it was time to swim shorewards again, for the morning boat from -Naples which was carrying Salvatore Viagi had already gone by on its -tourist route to the Blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span> Grotto, and Salvatore would have disembarked -at the Marina. He felt curious to see Uncle Salvatore, and was -determined to make himself uncommonly pleasant, for there might be -things which Salvatore knew which his father had not told him. The date -of the marriage, for instance; though he despaired of any practical use -arising from that, Colin would like to know when it took place.</p> - -<p>He dressed and strolled up through the vineyards through which, -twenty-one years ago, his father had gone, tasting for the first time -the liberty and gaiety of the South, and found his little jingling -conveyance awaiting him. His quiet concentrated hate of Raymond sat -smiling beside him up the dusty road, and he rejoiced in its -companionship.</p> - -<p>Colin found that Salvatore had arrived, and his father was waiting lunch -for him, and so without decoration of himself in the way of brushings or -putting on tie or socks, he went straight to the salon. There was -sitting there a very gorgeously-dressed gentleman, and his heart fell as -he saw him, for it would be difficult to cultivate cordial relationships -with so exquisite a bounder, whatever information might be the reward of -his efforts.</p> - -<p>Salvatore was clad in ill-fitting broadcloth, florid with braid; he wore -patent leather shoes, a tie of pink billows in which nestled a -preposterous emerald, cuffs and collar clearly detachable, and a gold -watch-chain from which a large, cheap locket depended. Luxuriant hair, -suspiciously golden and carefully curled, crowned his face; fierce -moustaches, brushed and waxed, were trained away to show a mouth full of -dazzling teeth, and his features were just those of a wax bust, -representing the acme of masculine beauty, that may be seen in the -window of a hairdresser.</p> - -<p>With this troubadour was sitting his father, stiff and starched and -iced. Colin guessed that this period of waiting had been embarrassing, -for both seemed highly relieved at his entry, and the troubadour bounded -to his feet with a tenor cry of welcome.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>Collino mio!</i>” he exclaimed, kissing him, to Colin’s great surprise, -on both cheeks. “Ah, the joy of the day when I behold my own nephew! And -you are so like her, so like her. Look on the image of her which I ever -carry about with me! I do not forget her, no, no!”</p> - -<p>He opened the locket, and showed Colin a photograph faded into -illegibility.</p> - -<p>“Her eyes, her nose, her mouth,” he said. “I see again the features of -my adored Rosina!”</p> - -<p>This was so much worse than could possibly have been expected, that the -only thing to be done was to treat it all as some game, some monstrous -charade. This was the stock of which he had come; his mother was sister -to this marvellous mountebank. At that moment Colin hated his father; -how could he have joined himself to any of such a family? It was clearer -than ever that, whatever the history of that year preceding his birth -had been, it had not begun with marriage. His father had been prey to a -pretty face.</p> - -<p>Then he set himself to play the game.</p> - -<p>“Dear Uncle Salvatore!” he said. “I can’t tell you how I’ve been looking -forward to seeing you. I hurried in, as you see, when I heard you were -here, without dressing or tidying myself. I could not wait. And you -think I am like my mother?”</p> - -<p>“But you are a true Viagi! You are the very image of her. And if I place -myself beside you, my noble brother-in-law will not, I think, fail to -mark a certain family resemblance.”</p> - -<p>He put his hand on Colin’s shoulder as if for a Bank Holiday photograph, -and rose on his toes to make himself the taller.</p> - -<p>At that his noble brother-in-law, catching Colin’s merry glance, which -shouted to him, “Play up, father, play up!” seemed to determine to make -the best of it, too.</p> - -<p>“Amazing resemblance,” he said, rising. “Two brothers. Shall we go in to -lunch? Please go on, Salvatore.”</p> - -<p>“With the escort of my brother Colin,” said Salvatore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span> in tremendous -good spirits. He had clearly, so he thought, found a friendly heart in -Colin, who would no doubt in time warm the heart of his brother-in-law, -which at present seemed inclined to be chilly. It was desirable that a -more generous warmth should be diffused there, before they came to speak -of financial matters.</p> - -<p>Philip’s efforts in answer to Colin’s unspoken bidding, to see the -humorous side of their visitor, were put to a sad strain before that -portentous meal was over. Salvatore was bent on making a fine and -dashing impression, and adopted for that end a manner compounded of brag -and rich adulation.</p> - -<p>“Your cousins, Collino, my own beloved children!” he exclaimed. “Never -will Vittoria and Cecilia forgive me, if I do not on my return prove to -have got your promise to pay them a visit before you quit Italy. We must -persuade your father to spare you for a day; you must dine and sleep, -and, ho, ho! who knows but that when our ladies have gone to bed, you -and I will not play the bachelor in our gay Naples? It would, I am -afraid, be useless to urge you, my dear Philip, to be of the party, but -ah! the happiness, ah! the honour that there would be in the Palazzo -Viagi, if Lord Yardley would make himself of the family! But I know, I -know: you come here to enjoy your quiet and blessed memories.”</p> - -<p>“Very good of you, Salvatore,” said Philip. “But, as you say, I come -here for quiet. I am afraid I shall hardly be able to get across to -Naples.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! <i>Il eremito</i>, as we say! The hermit, is it not?”</p> - -<p>“You speak excellent English, Uncle Salvatore,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“And should I not? Was not English the language of my adored mother? It -is Vittoria’s dream to go to England. Some day, perhaps, I will take -Vittoria to see the home of her English ancestors, of her grandmother -and of yours, my Colin. But the expense! <i>Dio!</i> the expense of travel. -Once it was not so with the Viagi; they did not need to count their -soldi, and now there are no soldi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span> to count! They were rich once; their -wealth was colossal, and had it not been for nefarious enemies, -slanderers, and swindlers, they would be rich still, and a line of -princes. As it is, they have nothing left them but their pride, and from -that, whatever their poverty, they will never part. I, the head of the -family, proclaim that to the world.”</p> - -<p>“Very proper,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>Salvatore had hit himself quite a severe blow on the chest as he -proclaimed his pride, which had set him coughing. This was curable by a -considerable draught of hock, which started him again on the adulatory -tack.</p> - -<p>“A nectar! Nectar of the gods,” he exclaimed. “There is no such wine to -be obtained in my beggarly country. But you must be a millionaire to -drink it. I would die happy drowned in wine like that.”</p> - -<p>“You must take a bottle or two away with you,” said Philip, rising. “If -you will excuse me for ten minutes, there are a couple of letters I want -to finish for this afternoon’s post. And then, perhaps, you will spare -me a quarter of an hour, Salvatore, for a talk. There will be plenty of -time before your boat goes.”</p> - -<p>“Dear friend, my time is yours,” said Salvatore, “and the boat may go to -Naples without me if we have not finished. I brought a small toilet bag -in case I stopped the night. I can no doubt find a room at some modest -hotel.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Philip, leaving him and -Colin together.</p> - -<p>Salvatore poured himself out some more of the nectar when the door had -closed (he was making sure of taking a bottle at least with him), and -pointed dramatically to his heart.</p> - -<p>“My noble and venerated brother-in-law has never rallied from the shock -of your mother’s death,” he said. “His heart broke. He lives only for -the day when he will rejoin her. Till then it is a solace to him to -minister to those who were nearest and dearest to Rosina. So gener<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span>ous a -heart! Do you think I made a good impression on him to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Admirable! Excellent!” said Colin. “Now talk to me about the old days, -Uncle Salvatore. A glass of brandy? Did you see my father that year he -spent in Italy, when he married my mother, and when I was born?”</p> - -<p>Salvatore paused in the sipping of his brandy and made a splendid scowl -with gesture of fist and rolling eyes. Quick as a lizard, Colin saw that -he must appear to know facts which hitherto were only conjecture to him, -if he was to learn the cause of these grimaces.</p> - -<p>“I know all, of course, Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “You can speak to me -quite freely.”</p> - -<p>“And yet you ask if I was there!” said Salvatore. “Should I have -permitted it? I was but a boy of eighteen, and in a bank at Rome, but, -had I known, boy as I was, I should have gone to your father and have -said, ‘Marry my sister out of hand or face the vengeance of Salvatore -Viagi.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>Colin held out his hand. “You would have done well, Uncle Salvatore,” he -said. “I thank you for my mother’s sake.”</p> - -<p>This was so deeply affecting to Salvatore that he had to take a little -more brandy. This made him take a kindlier view of his noble -brother-in-law.</p> - -<p>“Yet I wrong him,” he said. “There was no need for Salvatore Viagi to -intervene for his sister’s honour. She died Countess of Yardley, an -alliance honourable to both of our families.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, yes,” said Colin. “I am proud of my Viagi blood. The marriage -was at the British Consulate, of course. What day of the month was it, -do you remember?”</p> - -<p>Salvatore made a negative gesture. “The exact date escapes me,” he said. -“But it was spring: March, it would have been March, I think. Two -letters I got from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> my beloved Rosina at that time; in one she told of -the marriage, in the next of the birth of her sons. I have those letters -still. Treasured possessions, for the next news of my Rosina was that -her sweet soul had departed! My God, what lamentations were mine! What -floods of never-ceasing tears!”</p> - -<p>Colin thought rapidly and intently as he replenished his uncle’s glass -with brandy. No definite scheme formed itself in his mind, but, whatever -possibilities future reflection might reveal to him, it would clearly be -a good thing to get hold of those letters. He might conceivably want to -destroy them.</p> - -<p>He leaned forward towards Salvatore. “Dear Uncle Salvatore,” he said, “I -am going to ask a tremendous favour of you. I have nothing of my -mother’s, and I never saw her, as you know. But I am learning to love -her, and those letters would be so treasured by me. You have the memory -of her, all those delightful days you must have spent together. Will you -give me those letters? I hope before long to come across to Naples and -see you and my cousins, and it would good of you if you would give me -them. Then I shall have something of hers.”</p> - -<p>A sob sounded in Salvatore’s voice. “You shall have them, my Colin,” he -said, “and in turn perhaps you can do something for me. Intercede, I -pray you, with your father. He is a generous, a noble soul, but he does -not know my needs, and I am too proud to speak of them. Tell him, then, -that you wrung out of me that I am in abject poverty. Vittoria is -growing up, and dowerless maidens are not sought after.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I will do all I can,” said Colin warmly. “I will talk to my -father as soon as you have gone. And I may say that he listens to me.”</p> - -<p>“I will send off the letters to you to-night,” he said. “And what joy -will there be in Casa Viagi, when my girls know that their cousin Colin -is to visit us! When will that happy day be?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I must write to you about that,” said Colin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span> noticing that the -Palazzo had become a Casa. “Leave me your card. And now it is time for -you to talk to my father; I will see if he is ready. But not a word of -all we have been saying, to him.”</p> - -<p>“Trust me, my nephew,” said Salvatore gaily.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV-b" id="CHAPTER_IV-b"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> - -<p>Colin used his good offices with his father to such effect that he -succeeded in procuring for Salvatore a further substantial cheque, in -addition to that which he had carried off with the two bottles of wine -that afternoon. His uncle apparently thought better of his reckless -generosity in sending the letters of which Colin was desirous quite -unconditionally, but the receipt of the second cheque was sufficient, -and the morning’s post two days later brought them.</p> - -<p>They were written in ill-spelled English, and contained precisely what -his uncle had told him. The first, dated March 1, gave the information -that she had been married that morning to Philip Lord Stanier; the -second, dated March 17, stated that a week ago she had given birth to -twins. They were quite brief, conveyed no other news, and had evidently -been preserved with care, for the purple ink in which they were written -was quite unfaded. But apart from the fact now definitely known to Colin -that his father had legalised his life with Rosina but ten days before -he himself and Raymond were born, they did not help in any way towards -the attainment of the double object which now was putting out firm, -fibrous roots in his mind as the ideal project, namely to prove by some -means yet utterly unconjecturable the illegitimacy of Raymond and -himself, and, by marrying Violet, who in that case would succeed to the -title and the estates, to become master of Stanier. Indeed these letters -were but a proof the more of what was no doubt sufficiently attested in -the register of the British Consulate, namely, that the marriage had -taken place previously to his own birth.</p> - -<p>It seemed a hopeless business. Even if, by some rare and lucky -mischance, there was any irregularity in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span> record at the Consulate, -these letters, so long as they were in existence, constituted, if not a -proof, at any rate a strong presumption in favour of the marriage having -taken place on the first of the month, and it might be better to destroy -them out of hand so that such testimony as they afforded could not by -any possibility be produced. And yet he hesitated; somehow, in his -subconscious mind, perhaps, there was a stir and a ferment which bubbled -with a suggestion that had not yet reached his consciousness. Might not -something conceivably be done with them?... It was maddening that just -ten days out of all those uneventful hundreds of days which had elapsed -since, should suffice to wreck any project that he might make.</p> - -<p>And then a bubble of that ferment broke into his conscious mind. There -was the letter, announcing the marriage which had taken place that day -dated March 1. There was the letter dated March 17 announcing the birth -of himself and Raymond a week previously. What if by the insertion of a -single numeral in front of the “1” of the first date, he converted it -into March 31st? As far as these two letters went, they would in that -case show precisely what he desired.</p> - -<p>Psychologically, too, there would be a reasonable interpretation. In his -father, it would be argued, there had sprung up after the birth of his -sons, a tenderness and an affection for the mother of them, and he had -married her so that she, in the future, might bear him legitimate -offspring. Already she had borne two lusty and healthy sons; the union -was vigorous and fruitful.</p> - -<p>Colin got up from the long chair in his bedroom where he had taken these -letters, and began softly pacing up and down the floor, lithe and alert, -and smiling. His father was coming down with him to bathe that morning, -but there was a quarter of an hour yet before he need join him -downstairs, and a great deal of thinking might be put into a quarter of -an hour if you could only concentrate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span></p> - -<p>He knew he was very far yet from the attainment of his ambition, for -that register at the Consulate, which somehow he must manage to see, -might contain insuperable obstacles to success. There might, for -instance, be other entries between March 1 of that year and March 31, so -that even if he could contrive to alter the first date into the second -it would throw those other entries, if such existed, out of their -chronological order; the marriage contracted on March 31 would precede -those that lay in between the two dates. In that case he might have to -tear out the page in which this entry occurred, and that might be quite -impossible of accomplishment.</p> - -<p>It would not be wise, at any rate, to tamper with the date on this first -letter of his mother’s, till he knew how the ground lay at the -Consulate. But given that it proved possible to make some alteration in -the register or tear out a page, how conclusively would his case be -established, if, in support of that, there were produced those letters -of his mother?</p> - -<p>Salvatore the troubadour.... Colin frowned and bit his lip at the -thought of Salvatore, who would be ready to swear that, when he parted -with those letters to Colin, the one that conveyed the news of his -sister’s marriage was dated March 1, not March 31. There were experts on -such subjects, too; prying, meticulous men who made a profession of -detecting little things like altered dates, and produced evidence about -a difference of hand or a difference in the analysis of two inks.</p> - -<p>Yet if the register at the Consulate was found to endorse the evidence -of the letters? The same detective-minded folk would examine the record -at the Consulate, and might arrive at the damnable conclusion that it, -too, had been tampered with. And if the letters which bore signs of -being tampered with were in Colin’s possession, and he was known to have -visited the register at the Consulate, there would be an unwelcome -conclusion as to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span> who had committed a forgery. Penal servitude was not -an agreeable substitute for Stanier.</p> - -<p>Colin focused his clear brain, as if it had been a lens, on Salvatore. -He had been very decorative and melodramatic on the subject of his -sister’s honour, but there had been much of cheap strutting, of tinsel, -of footlights about that. And Salvatore, so Colin reasoned with a -melting and a smoothing out of his frown, was not all strutting and -swagger. There was a very real side to that impecunious uncle with his -undowered Vittoria. His concern for his sister’s honour was not surely -so dominant in him as his desire for coin. A suitable cheque would no -doubt induce him to recollect that the first of Rosina’s letters -announced the births of the twins, the second, that of March 31, her -marriage.</p> - -<p>Salvatore, for love of Vittoria (to put it at that), would probably see -the sense of allowing his memory of the dates at the head of this letter -to be faulty. He would not be obliged to perjure himself in any way; all -he had got to do (given that a page had been torn out of the register at -the Consulate, or that the date of the marriage as recorded there was -March 31) was to swear that his sister’s letters had always been in his -possession until he had given them to his attractive nephew.... Yes, -Salvatore would surely not prove an insuperable obstacle; he would rate -the living, himself and Vittoria, higher than the dead.</p> - -<p>For one moment, brief as that in which, according to the legend, the -ancestral Colin had considered whether he should close with that strange -offer made him in the sheep-fold, his descendant, his living -incarnation, hesitated when he thought of his father. His father had -always been devoted to him, and such affection as Colin was capable of -was his. But, after all, Philip would necessarily be dead when (and if) -the discovery was made that Rosina’s letter to her brother gave the date -of the marriage as March 31, and when, on search being<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span> made in the -register of the British Consulate, it was discovered that, owing to a -page being missing, there was no record of the marriage at all, or that -the date given there corresponded with that of Rosina’s letter.</p> - -<p>Colin had no intention of producing this evidence in his father’s -lifetime; there might be counter-proofs which his father could produce. -If he could only make some dealing with the register and with the date -on the letter, he would let the whole matter sleep till his father was -dead. Then nothing could hurt him; you cannot hurt the dead. Even -if—Colin gave little thought to this—the spirit of the dead survived -in consciousness of the living, would not his father’s spirit gladly -make this posthumous sacrifice of his earthly honour and rejoice to see -Colin, his beloved, master of Stanier? So his hesitation was fleeting as -breath on a frosty morning, it appeared but mistily, and dispersed.</p> - -<p>His father, out in the garden, was calling him, and with a cheerful -response he picked up his towels and went downstairs. For the present -there was but one necessary step to be taken; he had to get a day in -Naples before he left, and pay a visit to the British Consulate. It was -no use making any further plans beyond that, in his ignorance of what he -should find there. A visit to his uncle, and a night spent there, might -possibly serve as an excuse.</p> - -<p>Philip had also heard from his brother-in-law this morning: the -communication was not so satisfactory to him, as Colin’s post had been.</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard from Salvatore,” he said. “He’s a nauseating fellow, Colin.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; only a comic, father,” said Colin gaily. “You take him too -heavily.”</p> - -<p>“Read that,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>The letter was certainly characteristic, and as Colin read his smile -broadened into a laugh. The writer spoke of the deep humiliation it was -for a Viagi to take gifts from any; it had not been so with them once, -for the family had been the dispensers of a royal bounty. Indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span> two -considerations only made it possible for him to do so, the first his -paternal devotion to his two sweet maids, Vittoria and Cecilia, the -second his fraternal devotion to his noble and generous relative. That -sentiment did honour to them both, and with happy tears of gratitude he -acknowledged the safe receipt of the cheque. He wrote with some -distraction, for his sweet maids kept interrupting him to know if he had -sent their most respectful love to their uncle, and had reminded their -dearest Colin that they looked for his advent with prodigious excitement -and pleasure. They demanded to know when that hour would dawn for them. -One bottle of the nectar of France would be preserved for that day to -drink the health of his friend, his relative, his noblest of -benefactors. He signed himself “Viagi,” as if the princely honours had -been restored.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but priceless,” said Colin. “Haven’t you got a sense of humour, -father?”</p> - -<p>“Not where Salvatore is concerned. As for your going over to dine and -sleep, I shan’t let you. Do you know we’ve only got a fortnight more -here, Colin?”</p> - -<p>“I know; isn’t it awful?” said Colin with a sigh. “But about my going -over for a night. I wonder if I hadn’t better do that. It would be kind, -you know. He would like it.”</p> - -<p>Philip passed his hand over the boy’s shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Colin, are you growing wings?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, and they don’t go well with my cloven hoofs. In other words, I -should loathe spending the night there, and yet Uncle Salvatore would -like it. Then I don’t want to leave you.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t then. Salvatore, thanks to you, has got double his usual -allowance. You’ve done enough for him.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but that didn’t cost me anything,” said Colin. “It only cost you. -I’ve still my debt to pay for the wonderful entertainment he gave me -here. Besides he is actually my uncle: I’m a Viagi. Princely line, -father!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t marry one of the young princesses,” said his father.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span></p> - -<p>Colin had one moment’s acute thought before he answered. It struck him -that his father could hardly have said that if in his very self he had -loved his mother. But what he had said just came from his very self.... -He laughed.</p> - -<p>“I’ll promise not to, however entrancing Vittoria is,” he said. “Ah, how -divine the sea looks this morning. I long to be in it.”</p> - -<p>A sudden idea occurred to him.</p> - -<p>“Do let us stop on another fortnight, father,” he said. “Can’t we?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t,” said he. “I must get back by the end of the month. But—” he -paused a moment and Colin knew that he had caught his own idea, which -his suggestion was designed to prompt. “There’s no reason why you -shouldn’t have another fortnight here if you want,” he said.</p> - -<p>Colin had fallen behind his father on the narrow path to the -bathing-place, and gave a huge grin of satisfaction at his own subtlety.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I should love that!” he said, “though it won’t be half as much fun -as if you would stop too. And then I can go over to Naples with you when -you start homewards, and make my wings sprout by staying with Uncle -Salvatore.”</p> - -<p>Nothing could have fallen out more conveniently, and Colin, as for the -next two hours he floated in the warm sea and basked on the hot pebbles, -had a very busy mind in his lazy, drifting body. His father’s absence -would certainly make his investigations easier. He could, for instance, -present Lord Yardley’s card at the Consulate with his own, and get leave -to inspect the register with a view to making a copy of it, in -accordance with his father’s wishes. Better yet, he could spend a few -days in Naples, make the acquaintance of the Consul in some casual -manner, and produce his request on the heels of an agreeable impression. -He would not, in any case, be limited to a single visit, or tied by the -necessity of acting at once.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span> He would not have to fire his bribe, with -regard to the letters like a pistol in Salvatore’s face, he would be -careful and deliberate, not risking a false step owing to the need of -taking an immediate one. And all the time the suggestion of stopping on -here alone had not come from himself at all. His father had made it.</p> - -<p>On the way up to the villa again after the morning’s bathe, they often -called at the post-office in the piazza for letters that had arrived by -the midday post. To-day these were handed under the grille to Colin, -and, sorting them out between his father and himself, he observed that -there were two for Lord Yardley in the handwritings of Raymond and -Violet. Possibly these were only the dutiful and trivial communications -of those at home, but possibly Violet’s week of postponement had been -shortened.</p> - -<p>“Two from Stanier for you, father,” he said. “Violet and Raymond. The -rest for me.”</p> - -<p>His father looked at the envelopes.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Raymond’s spider scrawl is evident enough,” he said. “I never saw -such a handwriting except yours; his and yours I can never tell apart. -One wants leisure to decipher you and Raymond.”</p> - -<p>Colin simmered with impatience to see his father put both of these -letters into his pocket, and simmered even more ebulliently when, having -put them on the table at lunch, his father appeared to forget completely -about them, and left them there when lunch was over. But Colin could -remind him of that, and presently the one from Violet lay open.</p> - -<p>His father gave an exclamation of surprise, and then was absorbed in it. -It appeared to be short, for presently he had finished, and, still -without a word to Colin, opened the letter from Raymond. Here -exclamations of impatience at the ugly, illegible handwriting took the -place of surprise, and it was ten minutes more before he spoke to Colin. -He, meantime, had settled with himself, in case these letters contained -what he guessed for certain that they must contain, that since Violet’s -previous<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span> warning to him was private, he would let the news that his -father would presently tell him be a big emotional surprise to him. This -would entail dissimulation, but that was no difficulty. Colin knew -himself to be most convincing when his brain, not his sincerity, -dictated his behaviour.</p> - -<p>“Have Violet and Raymond written to you to-day?” asked his father.</p> - -<p>Colin yawned. He generally took a siesta after the long morning in the -sea and sun, and it was already past his usual hour. There was a -pleasant fiction that he retired to write letters.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, getting up. “Well, I’m off, father. Lots of letters....”</p> - -<p>“Wait a moment. Violet and Raymond send me news which pleases me very -much. They’re engaged to be married.”</p> - -<p>Colin stared, then laughed.</p> - -<p>“I’d forgotten it was the first of April,” he said. “I thought we were -in June.”</p> - -<p>“We are,” said his father. “But it’s no joke, Colin. I’m quite serious.”</p> - -<p>Colin looked fixedly at his father for a moment.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he said, and getting up walked to the window. He stood there with -his back to the room twirling the blind-string, and seeming to -assimilate the news. Then, as if making a strong effort with himself, he -turned himself again, all sunshine.</p> - -<p>“By Jove, Raymond will be happy!” he said. “How—how perfectly splendid! -He’s head over ears in love with her, has been for the last six months. -Lucky dog! He’s got everything now!”</p> - -<p>He could play on his father like some skilled musician, making the chord -he wanted to sound with never a mistake. Those words “he’s got -everything now,” conveyed exactly the impression he intended, namely, -that Violet was, to him, an important part in Raymond’s possessions. -That was the right chord.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span></p> - -<p>It sounded.</p> - -<p>“But it was a great surprise to you, Colin,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, father,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“The surprise, then, was that Violet has accepted him,” said Lord -Yardley gently. He felt himself to be probing Colin’s mind ever so -tenderly, while Colin looked at him wide-eyed like a child who trusts -his surgeon.</p> - -<p>“Yes, father,” he said again. “It surprised me very much.”</p> - -<p>This was magnificent; he knew just what was passing in his father’s -mind; unstinted admiration of himself for having so warm-heartedly -welcomed the news of Raymond’s good fortune, and unstinted sympathy -because his father had guessed a reason why Violet’s engagement was a -shock to him. This was immensely to the good, for when, as he felt no -doubt would happen, Violet threw over Raymond for himself, Lord Yardley -would certainly remember with what magnanimous generosity he had -congratulated Raymond on his success. Whether anything came of his -project about the register or not, he was determined to marry Violet, -for so the thirst of his hatred of his brother would be assuaged. But -how long and how sweet would the drink be, if in the cup was mingled the -other also.</p> - -<p>His father came across the room to where he still stood by the window, -and laid loving hands on his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Colin, old boy,” he said. “Are you fond of Violet—like that?”</p> - -<p>Colin nodded without speech.</p> - -<p>“I had no idea of it,” said Lord Yardley. “I often watched you and her -together, and I thought you were only as brother and sister. Upon my -word, Raymond seems to have got everything.”</p> - -<p>Colin’s smile was inimitable. It seemed to fight its way to his -beautiful mouth.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got you, father,” he said, out of sheer exuberance of wickedness.</p> - -<p>The subject was renewed that night when they sat under<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> the -vine-wreathed pergola where they had dined. The sun, bowling down the -steep cliff away westward, had just plunged into the sea, and darkness -came swiftly over the sky, without that long-drawn period of fading -English twilight in which day is slowly transformed into night. Here -night leaped from its lair in the East and with a gulp absorbed the -flames of sunset and swiftly the stars sprang from the hiding-places -where all day they had lain concealed, and burning large and low made a -diffused and penetrating greyness of illumination that dripped like -glowing rain from the whole heavens.</p> - -<p>Dim and veiled though that luminance was, compared to the faintest of -the lights of day, it gave a curious macabre distinctness to everything, -and Colin’s face, in a pool of star-shine that filtered between the -trailing garlands of the vines, wore to his father some strange, -wraith-like aspect. So often had he sat here in such light as this with -Rosina opposite him, and all that he loved in Rosina seemed now to have -been reincarnated, spectre-like, in the boy he cared more for than he -cared for all the rest of the world. All that he had missed in the woman -who had satisfied and so soon sated his physical senses, flowered in -Colin with his quick intelligence, his sunny affection.... And his -father, for all his longing, could do nothing to help him in this -darkness which had overshadowed the dawn of love for him.</p> - -<p>Instead of Colin, Raymond had got all, that son of his whom he had never -liked even, and had always, in some naturally-unnatural manner, been -jealous of, in that he would inherit all that his own fingers would one -day relax their hold on. Had it been Colin who would grasp the sceptre -of the Staniers, Philip would, as he had said, close his eyes for his -last sleep in unenvious content. And now Raymond had got the desire of -his heart as well, which, too, was the desire of Colin’s heart.</p> - -<p>All day, since the arrival of those letters, Colin had been very quiet, -yet without any bitterness; grave and sweet, but only a shadow, a ghost -of himself for gaiety.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span> Now his face, pale in the starlight, was -ghostlike also, and his father divined in it an uncomplaining suffering, -infinitely pathetic.</p> - -<p>“Colin, I wish I could do anything for you,” he said, with unusual -emotion. “You are such a dear fellow, and you bear it all with such -wonderful patience. Wouldn’t it do you good now to curse Raymond a -little?”</p> - -<p>Colin felt that he must not overdo the angelic rôle.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve been doing so,” he said, “but I think I shall stop. It’s no -use. It wouldn’t hurt Raymond, even if he knew about it, and it doesn’t -help me. And it’s certainly time I stopped sulking. Have I been very -sulky all evening, father? Apologies.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve been a brick. But about stopping out here alone. Are you sure -you won’t mope and be miserable? Perhaps I might manage to stay out with -you an extra week.”</p> - -<p>That would not do at all. Colin hastened to put that out of the -question.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but you must do nothing of the kind,” he said quickly. “I know -you’ve got to get back. I shan’t mope at all. And I think one gets used -to things quicker alone. There’s only just one thing I wonder about. -Have we both been quite blind about Violet? Has she been in love with -Raymond without our knowing it? I, at any rate, had no idea of it. She’s -in love with him now, I suppose. Did her letter give you that -impression?”</p> - -<p>Philip hesitated. Violet’s letter, short and unemotional, had not given -him any such impression. But so triumphantly successful had been Colin’s -assumption of the unembittered, though disappointed, lover, that he -paused, positively afraid that Colin would regret that Violet’s heart -was not so blissfully engaged as his brother’s. Before he answered Colin -spoke again:</p> - -<p>“Ah, I see,” he said. “She’s in love with him, and you are afraid it -will hurt me to know it. Ripping of you.... After all, she’s lucky, too, -isn’t she? She’s got the fellow she loves, and she’ll be mistress of -Stanier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> I think she adores Stanier almost as much as you and I, -father.”</p> - -<p>Colin felt he could not better this as a conclusion. He rose and -stretched himself.</p> - -<p>“There!” he said. “That expresses what I feel in my mind. It has been -cramped all day, and now I’ve stretched it, and am not going to have -cramp any more. What shall we do? Stroll down to the piazza, or sit here -and play piquet? I vote for the piazza. Diversion, you know.”</p> - -<p>Colin pleaded sleepiness on their return from the piazza as an excuse -for early retirement, but the sleepiness was not of the sort that led to -sleep, and he lay long awake, blissfully content and wondering at -himself with an intense and conscious interest. Never before had it so -forcibly struck him that deception was a thing that was dear to him -through some inherent attraction of its own, irrespective of what -material advantages it might bring him; it was lovely in itself, -irrespective of the fruit it bore. Never yet, too, had it struck him at -all that he disliked love, and this was a discovery worth thinking over.</p> - -<p>Often, especially during these last weeks, he had known that his -father’s love for him bored him, as considered as an abstract quality, -though he welcomed it as a means to an end. That end invariably had been -not only the material advantages it brought him, but the gratification -of his own hatred of Raymond. For, so he unerringly observed, his own -endearing of himself to his father served to displace Raymond more and -more, and to-day’s manœuvres were a brilliant counter-attack to the -improved position Raymond had made for himself in those last weeks at -Stanier. But, apart from these ends, he had no use for any love that was -given him, nor any desire to give in return. To hate and to get, he -found, when he looked into himself, was the mainspring which moved -thought, word, and action.</p> - -<p>Outside, the evening breeze had quite died down, but the silent -tranquillity of the summer night was broken<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span> by the sound of a footfall -on the garden terrace below the window, which he knew must be that of -his father strolling up and down there. For a moment that rather vexed -him; it seemed to disturb his own isolation, for he wanted to be -entirely encompassed in himself. It was inconsiderate of his father to -go quarter-decking out there, intruding into his own consciousness; -besides, Colin had told him that he was sleepy, and he should have kept -quiet.</p> - -<p>But then the explanation of his ramble up and down occurred to Colin. -There could be no doubt that his father was troubled for him, and was -made restless by thinking of him and his disappointment. That made Colin -smile, not for pleasure in his father’s love, but for pleasure in his -trouble. He was worrying himself over Colin’s aching heart, and the boy -had a smile for that pleasing thought; it had an incense for him.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>He began to wonder, idly at first, but with growing concentration, -whether he hated his father. He did not wish him ill, but ... but -supposing this business of the register was satisfactorily accomplished, -and supposing he succeeded, as he felt no doubt he would, in causing -Violet to throw over Raymond and marry himself, he did not see that -there would be much gained by his father’s continued existence. He would -be in the way then, he would stand between him and his mastership, -through Violet, of Stanier. That, both from his passion for the place, -and from the joyous triumph of ejecting Raymond, was the true object of -his life: possession and hatred, to get and to hate. His father, when -these preliminary feats had been carried through, would be an obstacle -to his getting, and he supposed that he would hate him then.</p> - -<p>Lying cool and naked under his sheet, Colin suddenly felt himself flush -with the exuberance of desire and vitality. Hate seemed as infinite as -love; you could not plumb the depths of the former any more than you -could scale the heights of the other, while acquisition, the clutching -and the holding, stretched as far as renunciation; he who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span> lived for -himself would not be satisfied until he had grasped all, any more than -he who lived for others would not be satisfied until he had given all, -retaining nothing out of self-love.</p> - -<p>With Violet as his wife, legal owner of Stanier, and Raymond outcast and -disinherited, it seemed to Colin that he would have all he wanted, and -yet in this flush of desire that combed through him now, as the tide -combs through the weeds of the sea, he realised that desire was infinite -and could never be satisfied when once it had become the master passion. -No one who is not content will ever be content, and none so burned with -unsatisfied longing as he. If he could not love he could hate, and if he -could not give he could get.</p> - -<p>The steps on the terrace below had long ceased, though, absorbed in this -fever of himself, he had not noticed their cessation. His activity of -thought communicated itself to his body, and it was impossible in this -galvanic restlessness to lie quiet in bed. Movement was necessary, and, -wrapping his sheet round him, he went to his open window and leaned out.</p> - -<p>The night was starlit and utterly tranquil; no whisper of movement -sounded from the stone-pine that stood in the garden and challenged by -its stirring the most imperceptible of breezes. Yet to his sense the -quiet tingled with some internal and tremendous vibration; a force was -abroad which held it gripped and charged to the uttermost, and it was -this force, whatever it was, that thrilled and possessed him. The warm, -tingling current of it bathed and intoxicated him; it raced through his -veins, bracing his muscles and tightening up the nerves and vigour of -him, and, stretching out his arms, he let the sheet drop from him so as -to drink it in through every thirsting pore of his body. Like the -foaming water in a loch, it rose and rose in him, until the limit of his -capacity was reached, and his level was that of the river that poured it -into him. And at that, so it seemed, when now he had opened himself out -to the utmost to receive it, the pres<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span>sure which had made him restless -was relieved, and, unutterably tired and content, he went back to bed, -and instantly sank into the profound gulfs of healthy and dreamless -slumber.</p> - -<p>His father had usually finished breakfast when Colin appeared, but next -morning it was the boy who was in advance.</p> - -<p>“Hurrah, I’ve beaten you for once, father,” he said when Lord Yardley -appeared. “The tea’s half cold; shall I get you some more?”</p> - -<p>“No, this will do. Slept well, Colin?”</p> - -<p>“Like a top, like a pig, like a hog, like a dog.”</p> - -<p>“Good.”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley busied himself with breakfast for a while.</p> - -<p>“Curious things dreams are,” he said. “I dreamed about things I hadn’t -thought of for years. You were so vividly mixed up in them, too, that I -nearly came into your room to see if you were all right.”</p> - -<p>“I was,” said Colin. “I was wonderfully all right. What was the dream?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, one of those preposterous hashes. I began dreaming about Queen -Elizabeth and old Colin. She was paying him a visit at Stanier and asked -to see the parchment on which he signed the bond of the legend. He -shewed it her, but the blood in which he had signed his own name was so -faded that she told him he must sign it again if he wanted it to be -valid. I was present and saw it all, but I had the feeling that I was -invisible. Then came the nightmare part. He pricked his arm to get the -ink, and dipped a pen in it. And then, looking closely at him, I saw -that it wasn’t old Colin at all, but you, and that it wasn’t Queen -Elizabeth but Violet. I told you not to sign, and you didn’t seem -conscious of me, and then I shouted at you, in some nightmare of fear, -and awoke, hearing some strangled scream of my own, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>Colin had been regarding his father as he spoke with wide, eager eyes. -But at the conclusion he laughed and lit a cigarette.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, if you had come in, you certainly wouldn’t have found me signing -anything,” he said. “But I cut myself shaving this morning. I call that -a prophetic dream. And I must write to Vi and Raymond this morning, so -that will be the signing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V-b" id="CHAPTER_V-b"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> - -<p>Lord Yardley’s residence at his villa at Capri had, as usual, leaked -into the diplomatic consciousness, and the English Ambassador at Rome, -an old acquaintance of his, had, as usual, reminded him of a friendly -presence in Rome, which would be delighted to welcome him if the welcome -afforded any convenience. To leave by the very early boat from Capri, -and thus catch the Paris express that evening was a fatiguing -performance, would he not, therefore, when the regretted day for his -departure came, take the more reasonable midday boat, dine and spend the -night at the Embassy, and be sent off from there next day in comfort, -for the morning express from Rome entailed only one night in the train -instead of two? The British Consul at Naples would see to his seclusion -in the transit from Naples to Rome, where he would be met and wafted to -the Embassy. Otherwise an early start from Capri, and a hurried train -connection in Rome, would deprive His Excellency of the great pleasure -of a renewal of cordiality.</p> - -<p>His Excellency, it may be remarked, liked an invitation to Stanier, and -there was method in his thoughtfulness. This proposal arrived a week -before Lord Yardley’s departure; a heat wave had drowned the country, -and already he looked with prospective horror on the notion of two -nights in the train.... It entailed a night in Paris, and, if he was to -arrive in England for a debate in the House, a departure from Capri by -the midday boat on Tuesday, instead of the early boat on Wednesday. It -entailed, in fact, a few hours less of Colin.</p> - -<p>Colin saw the shining of his star. Never had anything, for his purpose, -been so excellently opportune. The Brit<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span>ish Consul would be at the -station to see his father off, and so, beyond doubt, would he himself, -on a visit to Uncle Salvatore. An acquaintanceship would be made under -the most auspicious and authentic circumstances.</p> - -<p>“It all fits in divinely, father,” he said. “I shall come across with -you, see you off from Naples, and then do my duty at Uncle Salvatore’s. -Probably, if there was nothing to take me to Naples, I should never have -gone, but now I shall have to go. Do let me kill two birds with one -stone. I shall see the last of you—one bird—without having to get up -at five in the morning, and I shall have made my visit to Uncle -Salvatore inevitable—two birds. Say ‘yes’ and I’ll write to him at -once.”</p> - -<p>It was in the belief that this arrangement had been made, that Lord -Yardley left Naples a week afterwards. Mr. Cecil, the British Consul, -had come to the station to secure for him the reserved compartment to -Rome, and, that being done, had lingered on the platform till the train -started. At the last moment, as he and Colin stood together there, and -while the train was already in motion, Colin sprang on to the footboard -for a final good-bye, and with a kiss leaped off again. There came a -sharp curve and the swaying carriages behind hid the platform from his -father.</p> - -<p>Colin turned to Mr. Cecil. Salvatore was in the background for the -present.</p> - -<p>“It was delightful of you to come to see my father off,” he said. “He -appreciated it immensely.”</p> - -<p>Colin paused a moment, just the pause that a bather takes before he gets -up speed for a running header into the sea.</p> - -<p>“He left me a small matter to talk to you about,” he said. “I wonder if -I might refer to it now.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil gave a plump, polite little bow.</p> - -<p>“Pray do, Mr. Stanier,” he said.</p> - -<p>“My father wants a copy of the register of his marriage,” he said, “and -he asked me to copy it out for him. The marriage was performed at the -British Consulate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span> and if you would be so good as to let me copy it and -witness it for me, I should be so grateful. May I call on you in the -morning about it? It will save trouble, he thinks, on his death, if -among his papers there is an attested copy.”</p> - -<p>“A pleasure,” said Mr. Cecil.</p> - -<p>“You are too kind. And you will do me one further kindness? I am going -back to Capri to-morrow for another fortnight, and it would be so good -of you if you would tell me of a decent hotel where I can pass the -night. I shall not be able, I am afraid, to catch the early boat, with -this business of the copying to do, for it leaves, does it not, at nine, -and the Consulate will not be open by then.”</p> - -<p>Colin was at full speed now; his running feet had indeed left the -ground, and he was in the air. But he was already stiffened and taut, so -to speak, for the plunge; he had made all preparation, and fully -anticipated a successful dividing of the waters. For he had already made -himself quite charming to Mr. Cecil, and attributed his lingering on the -platform as much to the pleasure of a sociable ten minutes with him as -to the honour done to his father.</p> - -<p>“But I will not hear of you staying at a hotel,” said Mr. Cecil, “if I -can persuade you to pass the night at my flat. It adjoins the Consulate -offices, and is close to where the Capri boat lies. Indeed, if you wish -to catch the early boat, we can no doubt manage that little business of -yours to-night. It will take only a few minutes.”</p> - -<p>Colin suffered himself to be persuaded, and they drove back to the -Consulate. Office hours were already over, and presently Mr. Cecil led -the way into the archive-room, where, no doubt, Colin’s search would be -rewarded. But there had come in for him a couple of telegrams delivered -after the clerks had gone, and he went to his desk in the adjoining room -to answer these, leaving the boy with the volume containing the year of -his father’s marriage. The month, so said Colin, was not known to him. -His father<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span> had told him, but he had forgotten—a few minutes’ search, -however, would doubtless remedy that.</p> - -<p>So Mr. Cecil, leaving an official form with him on which to copy the -entry, fussed away into the next room, and Colin instantly opened the -volume. The year was 1893, and the month, as he very well knew, was -March.... There it was on March the first, and he ran his eye down to -the next entry. Marriages at the Naples Consulate apparently were not -frequent, and the next was dated April the fourth.</p> - -<p>Colin had already his pen in hand to make the copy, and it remained -poised there a moment. There was nothing more necessary than to insert -one figure before the single numeral, and the thing would be done. It -remained after that only to insert a similar “three” in the letter which -his mother had written to Salvatore announcing her marriage. On this hot -evening the ink would dry as soon as it touched the page. And yet he -paused, his brain beginning to bubble with some notion better yet, more -inspired, more magically apt....</p> - -<p>Colin gave a little sigh and the smile dawned on his face. He wrote in a -“three,” making the date of March 1 into March 31, and then once again -he paused, watching with eager eyes for the ink to dry on the page. -Then, taking up a penknife which lay on the table beside him, he erased, -but not quite erased, the “three” he had just written there. He left -unerased, as if a hurried hand had been employed on the erasure, the -cusp of the figure, and a minute segment of a curve both above and below -it.</p> - -<p>Looking at the entry as he looked at it now, when his work was done, -with but casual carefulness, any inspector of it would say that it -recorded the marriage of Philip Lord Stanier to Rosina Viagi on the -first of March. But had the inspector’s attention been brought to bear -more minutely on it, he must, if directed to hold the page sideways to -the light, have agreed that there had been some erasure made in front of -the figure denoting the day of the month; for there was visible the -scratching of a pen<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span>knife or some similar instrument. Then, examining it -more closely, he would certainly see the cusp of a “three,” the segment -of the upper curve, and a dot of ink in the place where the lower -segment would have been.</p> - -<p>These remnants would scarcely have struck his eye at all, had not he -noticed that there were the signs of an erasure there. With them, it was -impossible for the veriest tyro in conjecture not to guess what the -erasure had been.</p> - -<p>The whole thing took but a half-minute, and at the expiration of that, -Colin was employed on the transcription of the record of the marriage. -He knew that he had to curb a certain trembling of his hand, to reduce -to a more regular and slower movement the taking of his breath, which -came in pants, as if he had been running.</p> - -<p>Half a minute ago, no notion of what he had already accomplished had -entered his head; his imagination had not travelled further than the -possibility of changing the date which he knew he should find here into -one thirty days later. Out of the void, out of the abyss, this -refinement in forgery had come to him, and he already recognised without -detailed examination how much more astute, how infinitely more cunning, -was this emended tampering. Just now he could spare but a side glance at -that, for he must copy this entry (unaware that pen and pen-knife had -been busy there) and take it to plump Mr. Cecil for his signature, but -the sharp, crisp tap of conviction in his mind told him that he had done -more magnificently well than his conscious brain had ever suggested to -him.</p> - -<p>No longer time than was reasonable for this act of copying alone had -elapsed before Colin laid down his pen and went into the next room.</p> - -<p>“Well, Mr. Stanier, have you done your copying?” asked Cecil.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Shall I bring it here for your signature?” said Colin.</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil climbed down from the high stool where he was perched like -some fat, cheerful little bird.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span></p> - -<p>“No, no,” he said. “We must be more business-like than that. I must -compare your copy with the original entry before I give you my -signature.”</p> - -<p>Colin knew that the skill with which he had effected the alteration -which yet left the entry unaltered, would now be put to the test, but he -felt no qualm whatever as to detection. The idea had been inspired, and -he had no doubt that the execution of it was on the same level of -felicitous audacity. They passed back into the archive-room together, -and the Consul sat himself before the volume and the copy.</p> - -<p>“Yes, March the first, March the first,” he said, comparing the two, -“Philip Lord Stanier, Philip Lord Stanier, quite correct. Ha! you have -left out a full stop after his name, Mr. Stanier. Yes, Rosina Viagi, of -93 Via Emmanuele....”</p> - -<p>He wrote underneath his certificate that this was a true and faithful -copy of the entry in the Consular archives, signed his name, stamped it -with the official seal and date, and handed it to Colin.</p> - -<p>“That will serve your father’s purpose,” he said, and replacing the -volume on its shelf, locked the wire door of its bookcase.</p> - -<p>“If you will be so good as to wait five minutes,” he said, “I will just -finish answering a telegram that demands my attention, and then I shall -be at your service for the evening.”</p> - -<p>He gave a discreet little chuckle.</p> - -<p>“We will dine <i>en garçon</i>,” he said, “at a restaurant which I find more -than tolerable, and shall no doubt contrive some pleasant way of passing -the evening. Naples keeps late hours, Mr. Stanier, and I should not be -surprised if you found the first boat to Capri inconveniently early. We -shall see.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil appeared to put off the cares and dignity of officialdom with -singular completeness when the day’s work was over, and Colin found he -had an agreeably juvenile companion, ready to throw himself with zest -into<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span> the diversions, whatever they might be, of the evening. He ate -with the appetite of a lion-cub, consumed a very special wine in -magnificent quantities, and had a perfect battery of smiles and winks -for the Neapolitans who frequented the restaurant.</p> - -<p>“<i>Dulce est desipere in loco</i>,” he remarked gaily, “and that’s about the -sum of the Latin that remains to me, and, after all, it can be expressed -equally well in English by saying ‘All work, no play, makes Jack a dull -boy.’ And when we have finished our wine, all the amusements of this -amusing city are at your disposal. There is an admirable cinematograph -just across the road, there is a music-hall a few doors away, but if you -choose that, you must not hold me responsible for what you hear there. -Or if you think it too hot a night for indoor entertainment, there is -the Galleria Umberto, which is cool and airy, but again, if you choose -that, you must not hold me responsible for what you see there. Children -of nature: that is what we Neapolitans are. We, did I say? Well, I feel -myself one of them, when the Consulate is shut, not when I am on duty, -mark that, Mr. Stanier. But my private life is my own, and then I shed -my English skin.”</p> - -<p>In spite of the diversions of the city, Colin was brisk enough in the -morning to catch the early boat, and once more, as he had done a month -ago on his initial visit to the island, he sequestered himself from the -crowd under the awning, and sought solitude in the dipping bows of the -little steamer. To-day, however, there was no chance of his meditations -being interrupted by his father with tedious talk of days spent at -Sorrento; no irksome demonstrations of love were there to be responded -to, but he could without hindrance explore not only his future path, -but, no less, estimate the significance of what he had done already.</p> - -<p>Once more, then, the register of his father’s marriage was secure in the -keeping of the Consulate, Mr. Cecil had looked at it, compared Colin’s -copy, which now lay safe in the breast-pocket of his coat, with the -original, and had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span> certified it to be correct. Colin had run no risk by -inserting and then erasing a figure which might prove on scrutiny to be -a subsequent addition; Mr. Cecil himself had been unaware that any -change had been wrought on the page. But when the register on Lord -Yardley’s death should be produced in accordance with the plan that was -already ripening and maturing in Colin’s mind, a close scrutiny would -reveal that it had been tampered with. Some hand unknown had clearly -erased a figure there, altering the date from March 31 to March 1. The -object of that would be clear enough, for it legalised the birth of the -twins Rosina had borne. It was in the interest of any of four people to -commit that forgery—of his father, of his mother, of Raymond, and of -himself. Rosina was dead now these many years; his father, when the -register was next produced, would be dead also, and from dead lips could -come neither denial nor defence. Raymond might be left out of the -question altogether, for never yet had he visited his mother’s native -city, and of those alive when the register was produced, suspicion could -only possibly attach to himself. It would have been in his interest to -make that alteration, which should establish his legitimacy as well as -that of his brother.</p> - -<p>Colin, as he sat alone in the bows, fairly burst out laughing, before he -proceeded to consider the wonderful sequel. He would be suspected, would -he?... Then how would it come about that it was he, who in the nobility -of stainless honour would produce his own mother’s letter, given him by -his uncle, in which she announced to her brother that she was married at -the British Consulate on the 31st of March? Had he been responsible for -that erasure in the Consulate register, to legitimatise his own birth, -how, conceivably, could he not only not conceal, but bring forward the -very evidence that proved his illegitimacy? Had he tampered with the -Consular book, he must have destroyed the letter which invalidated his -forgery. But, instead of destroying it, he would produce it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span></p> - -<p>There was work ahead of him here and intrigue in which Salvatore must -play a part. The work, of course, was in itself nothing; the insertion -at the top of one of the two letters he owned of just that one figure -which he had inserted and erased again in the register was all the -manual and material business; a bottle of purple ink and five minutes’ -practice would do that. But the intrigue was more difficult. Salvatore -must be induced to acquiesce in the fact that the date of the letter -announcing Rosina’s marriage was subsequent to that announcing the birth -of the twins. That would require thought and circumspection; there must -be no false step there.</p> - -<p>And all this was but a preliminary manœuvring for the great action -whereby, though at the cost of his own legitimacy, he should topple -Raymond down from his place, and send him away outcast and penniless, -and himself, with Violet for wife, now legal owner of all the wealth and -honours of the family, become master of Stanier. She might for the love -of him, which he believed was budding in her heart, throw Raymond over -and marry him without cognisance of what he had done for her. But he -knew, from knowledge of himself, how overmastering the passion for -Stanier could be, and it might happen that she would choose Raymond with -all that marriage to him meant, and stifle the cry of her love.</p> - -<p>In that case (perhaps, indeed, in any case), Colin might find it better -to make known to her the whole, namely that on his father’s death she -would find herself in a position to contest the succession and claim -everything for her own. Which of them, Raymond or himself, would she -choose to have for husband in these changed circumstances? She disliked -and proposed to tolerate the one for the sake of the great prize of -possession; she was devoted to the other, who, so she would learn, had -become possessed of the fact on which her ownership was established.</p> - -<p>Or should he tell her all? Reveal his part in it? On this point he -allowed his decision to remain in abeyance; what he should do, whether -he should tell Violet nothing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span> or part, or all, must depend on -circumstances, and for the present he would waste no more time over -that. For the present, too, he would keep the signed and certified copy -of his father’s marriage.</p> - -<p>The point which demanded immediate consideration was that concerning -Salvatore. Colin puzzled this out, sometimes baffled and frowning, -sometimes with a clear course lying serene in front of his smiling eyes, -as the steamer, leaving the promontory of the mainland behind, -approached the island. He must see Salvatore, whom he had quite omitted -to see in Naples, as soon as possible, and it would be much better to -see him here, in the privacy of the villa, than seek him, thought Colin, -in the publicity of the Palazzo Viagi, surrounded by those siren dames, -Vittoria and Cecilia.</p> - -<p>He would write at once, a pensive and yet hopeful little epistle to -Uncle Salvatore wondering if he would come across to Capri yet once -again, not for the mere inside of a day only, but for a more hospitable -period. His father had left for England, Colin was alone, and there were -matters to be talked over that weighed on his conscience.... That was a -good phrase; Uncle Salvatore would remember what Colin had already done -in the matter of the reduplicated cheque, and it would seem that the -generous fellow had a debt of conscience yet unliquidated; this conveyed -precisely the right impression.</p> - -<p>In a postscript he would hint at the French nectar which, still dozing -in the cellar.... He hesitated a moment, and then decided not to mention -the subject of his mother’s letters, for it was better that since they -were the sole concern of his visit, Uncle Salvatore should have the -matter sprung upon him.... A bottle of purple ink ... no, that would not -be necessary yet, for the later that you definitely committed yourself -to a course of action the better.</p> - -<p>Colin’s letter produced just the effect that he had calculated on; -Salvatore read into the conscience-clause a generous impulse and -congratulated himself on the de<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span>parture of that grim, dry brother-in-law -to whom (for he had tried that before) tears and frayed cuffs made no -appeal. He had accordingly given that up, and for his last visit here -made himself nobly resplendent. But to Colin, in the guilelessness of -his blue-eyed boyhood, a tale of pinching and penury might be a suitable -revelation, and it was a proud but shabby figure which presented itself -at the villa a few evenings later, without more luggage than could be -conveniently conveyed in a paper parcel. Colin, who had been observing -the approach from the balcony of his bedroom, ran down, choking with -laughter that must be choked, to let his uncle in.</p> - -<p>“Ah, this is nice,” he said. “You have no idea how welcome you are. It -was good of you to take pity on my loneliness. What a jolly evening we -shall have. And Vittoria and Cecilia? How are they?”</p> - -<p>A gleam brightened Uncle Salvatore’s gloom, and he fervently pressed -Colin’s hand.</p> - -<p>“They are well, thank God,” he said. “And while that is so, what matters -anything?”</p> - -<p>He appeared with a gesture of his hand to pluck some intruding creature -from the region of his heart, and throw it into the garden-beds. Then he -gave a little skip in the air.</p> - -<p>“Collino <i>mio</i>!” he said. “You charm away my sad thoughts. Whatever -happens to-morrow, I will be gay to-night. I will not drag your -brightness down into my gloom and darknesses. Away with them, then!”</p> - -<p>Colin fathomed the mountebank mind with an undeviating plummet. The -depth (or shallowness) of it answered his fairest expectations. He found -nothing inconsistent in this aspect of Salvatore with that which he had -last presented here; the two, in fact, tallied with the utmost -exactitude as the expression of one mind. They both chimed true to the -inspiring personality. He waited, completely confident, for the advent -of the opportunity.</p> - -<p>That came towards the end of dinner: without even<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span> having been -hilarious, Salvatore had at least been cheerful, and now, as suddenly as -if a tap had been turned off, the flow of his enjoyment ceased. He -sighed, he cleared his throat, he supported his head on his hands, and -stared at the tablecloth. To Colin these signals were unmistakable.</p> - -<p>“You’re in trouble, Uncle Salvatore,” he said softly, “and now for the -first time I am glad that my father has gone back to England. If he were -here, I should not be able to say what I mean to say, for, after all, he -is my father, and he has always been most generous to me. But he is not -equally generous to others who have claims on him. I have tried to make -him see that, and, as you and I know, I have succeeded to some small -extent. But the extent to which I have succeeded does not satisfy me. -Considering all that I know, I am determined to do better for you than I -have been able to make him do. If I am his son, I am equally my mother’s -son. And you are her brother.”</p> - -<p>Colin paused a moment, and, sudden as a highland spate, inspiration -flooded his mind. He had not thought out with any precision what he -meant to say, for that must depend on Salvatore, who might, equally -well, have adopted the attitude of a proud and flashy independence. But -he had declared for frayed cuffs and a fit of gloom, and Colin shaped -his course accordingly.</p> - -<p>“And I can’t forget,” he said, “that it was you who put me in possession -of certain facts when you sent me those two letters of my mother. I -learned from them what I had never dreamed of before. I never in the -wildest nightmare thought that my father had not married your sister -till after my birth. I should have had to know that sometime: on my -father’s death it must have come out. And you have shown a wonderful -delicacy in breaking the fact to me like that. I thank you for that, -Uncle Salvatore; I owe you a deep debt of gratitude which I hope to -repay!”</p> - -<p>Colin listened to his own voice, which seemed to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span> itself articulate -without any directing will of his own. The summer night was charged with -the force of obedience to which his tongue moved against his teeth, and -his lips formed letters, and his throat gave the gutturals. Literally, -he did not know what he was going to say till he heard himself saying -it. The breeze whispered in the stone-pine, and he spoke....</p> - -<p>The breeze was still now and the stone-pine was silent. But he had said -enough to make it necessary that Salvatore should reply. Presently a bat -would flit through the arches of the pergola where they dined, or the -wind would stir in the pine, and then he would speak again. There was -just that same stir abroad on the night when he had listened from his -bedroom to his father’s footfalls on the terrace.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, Collino?” said his uncle excitedly. “I cannot -understand what you say. My sainted Rosina married your father on the -first of March, for I glanced at the letters again before I sent them to -you. Your birth....”</p> - -<p>Colin interrupted.</p> - -<p>“Ah, a bat,” he said. “I love bats. If you hold a handkerchief up does -not a bat come to it? Let us interrupt our conversation for a moment.”</p> - -<p>He spread his handkerchief over his head, and next moment Salvatore -leaped to his feet, for there, beady-eyed and diabolical, with hooked -wings as of parchment, spread out on either side of its furry body, one -of the great southern bats alighted, making a cap for Colin’s golden -head. Only for a moment it stopped there, and then flitted off into the -dusk again.</p> - -<p>“Soft, furry thing,” said Colin. “But you hate them, do you, Uncle -Salvatore? It was stupid of me. Let us talk again!”</p> - -<p>He hitched his chair a little closer to the table, and looked Salvatore -straight in the eyes.</p> - -<p>“But you have forgotten the dates on those letters you gave me,” he -said. “My mother was married to my father<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span> not on the first of March, -but on the thirty-first. The second letter recording Raymond’s birth and -mine was written on the seventeenth.”</p> - -<p>Again he paused.</p> - -<p>“Raymond and I were born,” he said slowly and distinctly, “before my -father’s marriage. The letters which you gave me prove it. If further -proof was wanted, you would find it at the Consulate where the marriage -took place. Some one has tampered with the register, and the date has -been made to look as if it recorded the first of March. But it does not: -it records the thirty-first of March, and the ‘three’ has been erased. -But it is still visible. I saw it myself, for I went across to Naples to -see my father off, and subsequently at the Consulate made a copy of the -entry. I should have proposed myself to stay with you that night, Uncle -Salvatore, but I had no spirit left in me to see anybody. When you sent -me those two letters of my mother, I hoped against hope perhaps, that -there was some ghastly mistake. I nearly destroyed them, indeed, in -order that from them, at any rate, there should be no conceivable -evidence. But when I saw the entry in the book at the Consulate, with -the mark of the erasure visible to any careful scrutiny, I knew that it -was no use to fight against facts. On my father’s death, the evidence of -the date of his marriage must be produced, and it will be clear what -happened. My mother bore him two boys—I was one. Subsequently he -married her, hoping, I have no doubt, to beget from her an heir to the -name and the property.”</p> - -<p>The wind sighed heavily in the pine, and little stirs of it rustled the -vine-leaves.</p> - -<p>“Is it at no cost to me,” said Colin, “that I keep my mother’s letter -which proves Raymond and me to be bastards? Oh, it is an ugly word, and -if you were me, you would know that it is an ugly thing. Without my -mother’s letter which you sent me, it would be hard indeed to prove, -indeed, any one might copy out the entry at the Consulate and fail to -see the erasure altogether. Ray<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span>mond, at my father’s death would -succeed, and I, his twin, beloved of him, would take an honourable place -in the eyes of the world, for it is not nothing to be born a Stanier.”</p> - -<p>Colin’s voice was soft and steadfast.</p> - -<p>“But my mother’s letter to you makes it impossible for me to have honour -in the eyes of the world, and to preserve my own,” he said. “Ah, why did -you send me those two letters, Uncle Salvatore? It was in all innocence -and kindness that you sent them, and you need not remind me that I asked -for them. Having seen them, what could any one with a shred of honour do -but to admit the truth of the whole ghastly business? The only wish that -I have is that my father shall not know that I know. All I want is that -he, when the hour of his death comes, should hope that the terrible -fraud which has been practised, will never be detected. But for that -letter of my mother’s, that would undoubtedly have happened. The -register at the Consulate would have been copied at his death by some -clerk, and the Consul would have certificated its accuracy. Look at me, -then, now, and look at yourself in the same light, you of unblemished -descent, and me and Raymond!”</p> - -<p>Salvatore had certainly woke out of his dejection.</p> - -<p>“But it’s impossible,” he cried, beating the table. “I sent you two -letters; the first, dated March the first, announced my sainted Rosina’s -marriage to your father. Where is it? Produce it!”</p> - -<p>Colin was quite prepared for that. He put his sun-browned fingers into -his breast-pocket, and drew out a paper.</p> - -<p>“I can’t show you the original letters,” he said, “because it was -clearly my duty to put them into inviolable custody as soon as possible. -I sent them, in fact, as soon as I had seen the register at the -Consulate, to my bank, with orders that they were to be kept there until -I gave further instructions, or until the news of my death reached them. -In that case, Uncle Salvatore, I gave instructions<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span> that they were to be -sent to my father. But before I despatched them to the bank, I made a -copy of them, and here that copy is.”</p> - -<p>He passed over to his uncle the copy he had made of the letter that -afternoon, before (instead of sending it to the bank) he locked the -original safely away upstairs. It was an accurate copy, except that it -was dated March 31. Salvatore took it and read it; it tallied, but for -the date, with his recollection of it.</p> - -<p>“But it is impossible!” he said. “For years I have known that letter. -When I gave it you it was dated March the first.”</p> - -<p>“Do you imply that I altered it?” asked Colin. “Not a living eye has -seen that letter but mine. Give me any reason for altering it. Why -should I make myself nameless and illegitimate?”</p> - -<p>Salvatore looked that in the face. The validity of it stared at him -unflinchingly.</p> - -<p>“But I can’t believe it; there is some huge mistake,” said Salvatore. -“Often have I read that letter of Rosina’s. March the first was the date -of her marriage. I will swear to that; nothing shall shake my belief in -that.”</p> - -<p>Colin shook his head in answer.</p> - -<p>“What good will that do?” he said. “You gave the letter to me, and no -hand but mine has ever touched it. The letter must be produced some day, -not for many years, I hope and trust, but on my father’s death it must -come to light. How will your recollections stand in the face of that -evidence which all can see?”</p> - -<p>Salvatore glanced round. They were alone with the fitful wind in the -pine.</p> - -<p>“Destroy the letter, Collino,” he said. “Save your mother’s honour and -your own.”</p> - -<p>Colin gave him one glance, soft and pitiful.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you must not suggest that to me,” he said. “You must not add force -to the temptation I can only just resist. But where would my honour be -if I did that?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span> What shred of it would be left me? How could I live a -lie like that?”</p> - -<p>Colin leaned forward and put his hand on Salvatore’s arm.</p> - -<p>“I have got to accept my illegitimacy,” he said. “And if you are sorry -for me, as I think you are, you can shew it best by accepting it too. It -would be infinitely painful to me when this revelation is made, as it -will have to be made on my father’s death, to have you attempting to -save my mother’s honour and my own, as you put it just now, by insisting -that this letter bore another date. I should never have a moment’s peace -if I thought a scene like that was ahead of me. In fact, I want to be -assured against that, and the only way I can think of to make that safe -is that when you get back to Naples to-morrow you should write me a -couple of lines, saying how you feel for me in this discovery that is -new to me. And then I want you to name the discovery, which is the date -of my mother’s marriage. I want you to accept that date, and give me -proof that you accept it.”</p> - -<p>Colin made a gesture with his hand, as if cutting off that topic, and -instantly spoke again.</p> - -<p>“With my cousin Vittoria growing up,” he said, “you must be put to -expenses which it is impossible for you to meet out of the pittance my -father gives you. He wronged you and your family most terribly, and I -must repair that wrong. When I get that letter of yours, Uncle -Salvatore, I will send you a cheque for £500.”</p> - -<p>Colin gave a glance at his uncle, to make sure that there was no -faintest sign of dissent. There was none, and he went on:</p> - -<p>“I see you understand me,” he said, “so let us go a step further. If my -brother Raymond dies before my father, I will make that five hundred -pounds an annuity to you, and I will destroy both the letter I ask you -to write now, and the letter of my mother’s about which we have been -talking. You will never be asked to say anything about either of them. -If on the other hand my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> father dies first, and if I make the marriage -which I expect to make, I shall have to use your letter and that letter -of my mother’s. You may be asked to swear to the genuineness of the -letter which I hope you will write me to-morrow, and to the recollection -of my mother’s letter which will tally with it. Have another glass of -this delicious French wine.”</p> - -<p>He had no need to think what he was saying, or frame a specious case. He -spoke quite simply and directly as if by some inspiration, as if he was -an Æolian harp hung in the wind which whispered through the stone-pine.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think there is need for any discussion,” he said, “though, of -course, if you like to ask me any question, I will consider whether I -shall answer it. But I don’t think there is need for any question, is -there? You might tell me, I fancy, straight off, whether you accept or -reject my proposal. If you reject it, perhaps I had better tell you that -it is exceedingly unlikely that my father will give you any further -assistance financially, for, as you know, I have a good deal of -influence with him.</p> - -<p>“It would not pay you to refuse, would it? And as to threatening me with -making this conversation of ours public, with a view to getting money -out of me, I know your gentlemanly feelings would revolt against such an -idea. Besides it would be singularly unremunerative, for no one would -possibly believe you. Our conversation and my proposal would strike -anybody as incredible. And you are not perjuring yourself in any way; -you did send me a letter of my mother’s, and you will, I hope, write me -another letter to-morrow, saying that the story of my mother’s marriage -is very shocking, which is indeed true. So shall it be ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ -Uncle Salvatore?”</p> - -<p>Salvatore, superstitious, like most Southern Italians, to the core, -found himself making the sign of the cross below the table. Apart from -the obvious material advantage of accepting Colin’s offer, he felt that -some fierce compelling agency was backing Colin up. That dreadful little -in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span>cident of the bat had already upset him, and now in Colin’s blue gay -glance so earnestly fixed on him, he divined some manifestation of the -evil eye, which assuredly it were not wise to provoke into action. And -as if, in turn, Colin divined his thought, he spoke again:</p> - -<p>“Better say ‘yes,’ Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “My friends lead more -enjoyable lives than my enemies. But whatever you answer, I want your -answer now.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps through some strange trick of light played by the guttering -candles, it suddenly seemed to Salvatore that Colin’s eyes undeviatingly -fixed on his face, seemed in themselves luminous, as if a smouldering -light actually burned behind them.</p> - -<p>“I accept,” he said quickly, “for Vittoria’s sake.”</p> - -<p>Colin took up his glass.</p> - -<p>“I thought I should move your paternal heart, dear Uncle Salvatore,” he -said. “I drink to our pleasant bargain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI-b" id="CHAPTER_VI-b"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> - -<p>Though Colin had taken the news of his brother’s engagement with so -touching and unselfish a gentleness, his father, in spite of the joy of -seeing the boy again, looked forward to his arrival at Stanier with -considerable uneasiness. The trouble and the trial for him would be when -he saw Raymond and Violet together, though, to be sure, Violet did not -seem to him to embody any ideal of maidenly rapture with her affianced. -She seemed indeed to tolerate, rather than adore her lover, to permit -rather than to provoke, and to answer with an effort the innumerable -little signals of devotion which Raymond displayed for her. About the -quality of his devotion there could be no question. It was clear that in -his own fashion, and with all his heaviness and awkwardness in -expression, he was utterly in love with her. He had no eyes for any one -but her, but for her his eyes were dog-like in fidelity; when she was -absent his senses dozed.</p> - -<p>They were, just for the present, this party of three. Lady Hester had -gone back to town after the departure of Colin and his father to the -South, and Ronald and his wife had betaken themselves for the month of -July to Marienbad, in order to enable him to continue eating too much -for the next eleven months without ill effects. Every evening old Lady -Yardley appeared for dinner and made the fourth, but she was not so much -a presence as a shadow. In Colin’s absence, she hardly ever spoke, -though each night she monotonously asked when he was expected back. -Then, after the rubber of whist, mutely conducted, she retired again, -and remained invisible till the approach of the next dinner-hour. So -long had she been whitely impassive that Philip scarcely noticed the -mist that was thickening about her mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span></p> - -<p>Raymond, then, was comprehensible enough, he was head over ears in love -with Violet, and nothing and nobody but her had any significance for -him. But dog-like though his devotion was, it struck his father that -there was, in the absence of Violet’s response, something rather animal -about it. Had she met with more than mere toleration his glances, his -little secret caresses, his thirst for contact even of finger-tips or a -leaning shoulder, there would have been the spark, the leap of fire -which gives warmth and life to such things. But without it there was a -certain impalpable grossness: Raymond did not seem to care that his -touch should be responded to, it contented him to touch.</p> - -<p>But though he, to his father’s mind, was comprehensible enough, Violet -puzzled him, for she seemed even before her marriage to have adopted the -traditional impassivity of Stanier brides; she had professed, in the one -interview she had had with him, a quiet acceptance of her position, and -a devotion to Raymond of which the expression seemed to be a mute -passivity. Towards the question of the date of her marriage she had no -contribution to give. Lord Yardley and Raymond must have the settling of -that, and with the same passivity she accepted a date in the first week -of October. Then the great glass doors would be opened, and the -bridegroom’s wing, long shuttered, for Philip’s bride had never come -here, would see the light again. She asked no question whatever about -Colin’s return; his name never presented itself on her lips unless mere -conventional usage caused it to be spoken. It was as if the boy with -whom she had been so intimately a friend, had ceased to exist for her. -But when Philip once consciously noted that omission, he began to wonder -if Violet was not comprehensible after all.... These days, in any case, -after Philip’s return, while Colin still lingered in Italy, were worthy -of the stateliest and deadliest Stanier traditions.</p> - -<p>Colin had been expected all one long July afternoon. His announcement of -his arrival had been ambiguous, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span> he might catch the early train from -Paris, and thus the earlier boat, but the connection was uncertain, and -if he missed it he would not get to Dover till six in the evening. In -that case he would sleep in London, and come down to Stanier next day.</p> - -<p>Philip had read this out at breakfast that morning, and for once Violet -shewed some interest in Colin.</p> - -<p>“Why not send a motor to Dover, Uncle Philip?” she said. “It can get -there in time for the first boat, and if he is not on it, it can wait -for the second. He will arrive here then by dinner time.”</p> - -<p>Raymond looked up from his paper at the sound of her voice.</p> - -<p>“Vi, darling, what an absurd plan,” he said. “There are a hundred -chances to one on Colin’s not finding the motor. He’ll get straight into -the train from the boat.”</p> - -<p>Violet instantly retreated into that strange shell of hers again.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes,” she said.</p> - -<p>Philip’s curiosity put forth a horn at this. There was some new element -here, for Raymond seemed to resent the idea of special arrangements -being made for Colin.</p> - -<p>“That’s not a bad idea of yours, Violet,” he said. “It will save Colin -going up to London.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke he kept a sideways eye on Raymond.</p> - -<p>“But, father, think of the crush getting off the boat,” he said. “The -chances are that Colin won’t see your chauffeur.”</p> - -<p>He spoke with an impatient anger which he could not cloak, and which -rang out unmistakably in his voice.</p> - -<p>“We’ll take the off chance then,” said his father.</p> - -<p>Raymond got up. “Just as you like,” he said.</p> - -<p>Philip paused a moment. The relations between himself and Raymond had -been excellent up till to-day. Raymond without charm (which was not his -fault), had been pleasant and agreeable, but now this matter of meeting -Colin had produced a spirit of jealous temper.</p> - -<p>“Naturally I shall do just as I like,” he observed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span> “Ring the bell, -please, Raymond. The motor will have to start at once.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Though none of the three communicated the news of Colin’s arrival to old -Lady Yardley, it somehow got round to her, <i>via</i> perhaps, some servant’s -gossip about a motor going to Dover, and most unusually she came -downstairs at tea-time with inquiries whether Colin had arrived. It was -soon clear that he could not have caught the early boat, or he would -have been here by now, and thus three hours at least must elapse before -his arrival could be looked for, but in spite of this, old Lady Yardley -did not go back to her room again, but remained upright and vigilant in -her chair on the terrace, where they had had tea, looking out over the -plain where, across the gardens and lake, appeared glimpses of the road -along which the motor must come.</p> - -<p>Philip had intended to go for a ride, but he, too, when his servant told -him that his horse was round, lingered on and shewed no sign of moving. -Neither he nor his mother gave any reason for their remaining so -unusually here, but somehow the cause of it was common property. Colin -was coming. Raymond, similarly, had announced his intention of going to -bathe, but had not gone; instead he fidgeted in his chair, smoked, took -up and dropped the evening paper, and made aimless little excursions up -and down the terrace. His restlessness got on his father’s nerves.</p> - -<p>“Well, go and bathe, if you mean to, Raymond,” he said, “or if you like -take my horse and go for a ride. But, for goodness’ sake, don’t keep -jumping about like that.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, I think I won’t ride, father,” he said. “I shall be having a -bathe presently. Or would you feel inclined for a game of tennis, Vi?”</p> - -<p>“I think it’s rather too hot,” said she.</p> - -<p>He sat down on the arm of her chair, but she gave no welcome to him, nor -appeared in any way conscious of his proximity. In that rather gross -fashion of his, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> gently stroked a tendril of loose hair just behind -her ear. For a moment she suffered that without moving. Then she put up -her hand with a jerky, uncontrolled movement, and brushed his away.</p> - -<p>“Oh, please, Raymond,” she said in a low voice.</p> - -<p>He had a sullen look for that, and, shrugging his shoulders, got up and -went into the house. His father gave a sigh of relief, the reason for -which needed no comment.</p> - -<p>“Colin will be here for dinner, won’t he?” asked old Lady Yardley.</p> - -<p>“Yes, mother,” said Philip. “But won’t you go and rest before that?”</p> - -<p>“I think I will sit here,” said she, “and wait for Colin.”</p> - -<p>Presently Raymond was back again, with a copy of some illustrated paper. -Violet and Philip alike felt the interruption of his presence. They were -both thinking of Colin, and Raymond, even if he sat quiet, was a -disturbance, a distraction.... Soon he was by Violet’s side again, -shewing her some picture which he appeared to think might interest her, -and Philip, watching the girl, felt by some sympathetic vibration how -great an effort it was for her to maintain that passivity which, all -those days, had so encompassed her. The imminence of Colin’s arrival, he -could not but conjecture, was what troubled her tranquillity, and below -it there was some stir, some subaqueous tumult not yet risen to the -surface, and only faintly declaring itself in these rising bubbles....</p> - -<p>Raymond had placed the paper on her knee, and, turning the page, let his -hand rest on her arm, bare to the elbow. Instantly she let it slip to -her side, and, raising her eyes at the moment, caught Philip’s gaze. The -recognition of something never mentioned between them took place, and -she turned to Raymond’s paper again.</p> - -<p>“Quite excellent,” she said. “Such a good snapshot of Aunt Hester. Show -it to Uncle Philip.”</p> - -<p>Raymond could not refuse to do that, and the moment he had stepped over -to Philip’s side, she got up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span></p> - -<p>That passivity was quite out of her reach just now in this tension of -waiting. Soon Colin would be here, and she would have to face and accept -the situation, but the waiting for it.... If only even something could -happen to Colin which would prevent his arrival. Why had she suggested -that sending of the motor to Dover? Had she not done that, he could not -have got here till to-morrow morning, and she would have had time to -harden, to crystallise herself, to render herself impervious to any -touch from outside.</p> - -<p>She was soon to be a Stanier bride, and there in the tall chair with the -ivory cane was the pattern and example for her. It was on old Lady -Yardley that she must frame herself, quenching any fire of her own, and -content to smoulder her life away as mistress of the family home which -she so adored, and of all the countless decorations and riches of her -position. Never had the wonder and glory of the place seemed to her so -compelling as when now, driven from the terrace by Raymond’s -importunity, she walked along its southern front and through the archway -in the yew-hedge where she and Colin had stood on his last night here. -It dozed in the tranquillity of the July evening, yellow and -magnificent, the empress of human habitations. Round it for pillow were -spread its woodlands, on its breast for jewel lay the necklace of deep -flower-beds; tranquil and stable through its three centuries, it seemed -the very symbol and incarnation of the pride of its owners; to be its -mistress and the mother of its lords yet unborn was a fate for which she -would not have exchanged a queen’s diadem.</p> - -<p>Whatever conditions might be attached to it, she would accept them—as -indeed she had already pledged herself to do—with the alacrity with -which its founder had, in the legend, signed his soul away in that -bargain which had so faithfully been kept by the contracting parties.... -And it was not as if she disliked Raymond; she was merely utterly -indifferent to him, and longing for the time when, in the natural course -of things, he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span> surely grow indifferent to her. How wise and -indulgent to his male frailties would she then show herself; how -studiously and how prudently blind, with the blindness of those who -refuse to see, to any infidelities.</p> - -<p>Had there not been in the world a twin-brother of his, or, even if that -must be, if she had not stood with him under this serge-arch of yews -beneath the midsummer moon and given him that cousinly kiss, she would -not now be feeling that his return, or, at any rate, the waiting for it, -caused a tension that could scarcely be borne. She had made her choice -and had no notion—so her conscious mind told her—of going back on it; -it was just this experience of seeing Colin again for the first time -after her choice had been made that set her nerves twanging at Raymond’s -touch. Could she, by a wish or the wave of a wand, put off Colin’s -advent until she had actually become Raymond’s wife, how passionately -would she have wished, how eagerly have waved. Or if by some magic, -black or white, she could have put Colin out of her life, so that never -would she set eyes on him again or hear his voice, his banishment from -her would at that moment have been accomplished. She would not admit -that she loved him; she doggedly told herself that she did not, and her -will was undeviatingly set on the marriage which would give her Stanier.</p> - -<p>Surely she did not love Colin; they had passed all their lives in the -tranquillity of intimate friendship, unruffled by the faintest breath of -desire. And then, in spite of her dogged assertion, she found that she -asked herself, incredulously enough, whether on that last evening of -Colin’s the seed of fire had not sprouted in her? She disowned the -notion, but still it had reached her consciousness, and then fiercely -she reversed and denied it, for she abhorred the possibility. It would -be better that she should hate Colin than love him.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The evening was stiflingly hot, and in the park, where her straying feet -had led her, there was no breath of wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span> stirring to disperse the -heaviness. The air seemed thick with fecundity and decay; there was the -smell of rotting wood, of crumbling fungi overripe that mingled with the -sharp scent of the bracken and the faint aroma of the oaks, and buzzing -swarms of flies gave token of their carrion banquets. The open ground to -the north of the house was no better; to her sense of overwrought -expectancy, it seemed as if some siege and beleaguerment held her. She -wanted to escape, but an impalpable host beset her, not of these buzzing -flies only and of the impenetrable oppression of the sultry air, through -which she could make no <i>sortie</i>, but, internally and spiritually, of -encompassing foes and hostile lines through which her spirit had no -power to break.</p> - -<p>There on the terrace, from which, as from under some fire she could not -face, she had lately escaped, there would be the physical refreshment of -the current of sea-wind moving up, as was its wont towards sunset, -across the levels of the marsh; but there, to this same overwrought -consciousness, would be Raymond, assiduous and loverlike, with odious -little touches of his affectionate fingers. But, so she told herself, it -was enforced on her to get used to them; he had a right to them, and it -was Colin, after all, who was responsible for her shrinking from them, -even as she shrank from the evil buzzings of the flies. If only she had -not kissed Colin, or if, having done that, he had felt a tithe of what -it had come to signify to her.</p> - -<p>But no hint of heart-ache, no wish that fate had decreed otherwise, had -troubled him. He had asked for a cousinly kiss, and in that light -geniality of his he had said, out of mere politeness, and out of hatred -for Raymond (no less light and genial) that it was “maddening” to think -that his brother would be the next visitor there.</p> - -<p>She had waited for his reply to her letter announcing that Raymond had -proposed to her and that she was meaning to accept him, with a quivering -anxiety which gave way when she received his answer to a sense of revolt -which attempted to call itself relief. He seemed, so far<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span> from finding -the news “maddening,” to welcome and rejoice in it. He congratulated her -on achieving her ambition of being mistress of Stanier, and on having -fallen in love with Raymond. He could not be “hurt”—as she had -feared—at her news; it was altogether charming.</p> - -<p>She had expressed the charitable hope that he would not be hurt, and -with claws and teeth her charity had come home to roost. It had dreadful -habits in its siesta; it roosted with fixed talons and sleepless lids; -it cried to the horses of the night to go slowly, and delay the dawn, -for so it would prolong the pleasures of its refreshment. And each day -it rose with her, strengthened and more vigorous. Had Colin only -rebelled at her choice, that would have comforted her; she would have -gathered will-power from his very opposition. But with his acquiescing -and welcoming, she had to bear the burden of her choice alone. If he had -only cared he would have stormed at her, and like the Elizabethan flirt, -she would have answered his upbraidings with a smile. As it was, the -smile was his, not hers. Almost, to win his upbraidings, she would have -sacrificed the goodly heritage—all the honour and the secular glory of -it.</p> - -<p>Perhaps by now, for she had wandered far, the rest of them might have -dispersed, her grandmother to the seclusion of her own rooms, Uncle -Philip to the library, and Raymond to the lake, and she let herself into -the house by the front door and passed into the hall. The great Holbein -above the chimney piece smiled at her with Colin’s indifferent lips; the -faded parchment was but a blur in the dark frame, and she went through -into the long gallery which faced the garden front. All seemed still -outside, and after waiting a moment in the entrance, she stepped on to -the terrace, and there they were still; her grandmother alert and -vigilant, Philip beside her, and Raymond dozing in his chair, with his -illustrated paper fallen from his knee. What ailed them all that they -waited like this; above all, what ailed her, that she cared whether they -waited or not?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span></p> - -<p>Soundless though she hoped her first footfalls on the terrace had been, -they were sufficient to rouse Raymond. He sat up, his sleepiness all -dispersed.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Vi!” he said. “Where have you been?”</p> - -<p>“Just for a stroll,” said she.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you.”</p> - -<p>Suddenly old Lady Yardley rose, and pointed down on to the road across -the marsh.</p> - -<p>“Colin is coming,” she said. “There’s his motor.”</p> - -<p>Certainly a mile away there was, to Violet’s young eyes, an -infinitesimal speck on the white riband, but to the dimness of the old, -that must surely have been invisible. Lord Yardley, following the -direction of her hand, could see nothing.</p> - -<p>“No, mother, there’s nothing to be seen yet,” he said, proving that he, -too, was absorbed in this unaccountable business of waiting for Colin.</p> - -<p>“But I am right,” she said. “You will see that I am right. I must go to -the front door to welcome him.”</p> - -<p>She let the stick, without which she never moved, slide from her hand, -and with firm step and upright carriage, walked superbly down the -terrace to the door of the gallery.</p> - -<p>“He is coming home,” she cried. “He is coming for his bride, and there -will be another marriage at Stanier. Let the great glass doors be -opened; they have not been opened for the family since I came here sixty -years ago. They were never opened for my poor son Philip. I will open -them, if no one else will. I am strong to-night.”</p> - -<p>Philip moved to her side.</p> - -<p>“No; it’s Raymond you are thinking of, mother,” he said. “They will be -opened in October. You shall see them opened then.”</p> - -<p>She paused, some shade of doubt and anxiety dimming this sudden -brightness, and laid her hand on her son’s shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Raymond?” she said. “Yes, of course, I was think<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span>ing of Raymond. -Raymond and Violet. But to please me, my dear, will you not open them -now for Colin? Colin has been so long away, it is as if a bridegroom -came when Colin comes. We are only ourselves here; the Staniers may do -what they like in their own house, may they not? I should love to have -the glass doors open for Colin’s return.”</p> - -<p>The speck she had seen or divined on the road had come very swiftly -nearer, and now it could be seen that some white waving came from it.</p> - -<p>“I believe it is Colin, after all,” said Raymond. “How could she have -seen?”</p> - -<p>Old Lady Yardley turned a grave glance of displeasure on him.</p> - -<p>“Do not interrupt me when I am talking to your father,” she said. “The -glass doors, Philip.”</p> - -<p>Raymond with a smile, half-indulgent of senile whims, half-protesting, -turned to the girl.</p> - -<p>“Glass doors, indeed,” he said. “The next glass doors are for us, eh, -Violet?”</p> - -<p>Surely some spell had seized them all. Violet found herself waiting as -tensely as her grandmother for Philip’s reply. She was hardly conscious -of Raymond’s hand stealing into hers; all hung on her uncle’s answer. -And he, as if he, too, were under the spell, turned furiously on -Raymond.</p> - -<p>“The glass doors are opened when I please,” he said. “Your turn will -come to give orders here, Raymond, but while I am at Stanier I am -master. Once for all understand that.”</p> - -<p>He turned to his mother again.</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear mother,” he said, “you and I will go and open them.”</p> - -<p>Inside the house no less than among the watchers on the terrace the -intelligence that Colin was at hand had curiously spread. Footmen were -in the hall already, and the major-domo was standing at the entrance -door, which he had thrown open, and through which poured a tide<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span> of hot -air from the baking gravel of the courtyard. Exactly opposite were the -double glass doors, Venetian in workmanship, and heavily decorated with -wreaths and garlands of coloured glass. The bolts and handles and hinges -were of silver, and old Lady Yardley, crippled and limping no longer, -moved quickly across to them, and unloosing them, threw them open. -Inside was the staircase of cedar wood, carved by Gibbons, which led up -to the main corridor, opposite the door that gave entrance to the suite -of rooms occupied by the eldest son and his wife.</p> - -<p>What strange fancy possessed her brain none knew, and why Philip allowed -and even helped her in the accomplishment of her desire was as obscure -to him as to the others, but with her he pushed the doors back and the -sweet odour of the cedar wood, confined there for the last sixty years, -flowed out like the scent of some ancient vintage. Then, even as the -crunching of the motor on the gravel outside was heard, stopping -abruptly as the car drew up at the door, she swept across to the -entrance.</p> - -<p>Already Colin stood in the doorway. For coolness he had travelled -bareheaded and the gold of his hair, tossed this way and that, made a -shining aureole round his head. His face, tanned by the southern suns, -was dark as bronze below it, and from that ruddy-brown his eyes, -turquoise blue, gleamed like stars. He was more like some lordly -incarnation of life and sunlight and spring-splendour than a handsome -boy, complete and individual; a presence of wonder and enchantment stood -there.... Then, swift as a sword-stroke, the spell which had held them -all was broken; it was but Colin, dusty and hot from his journey, and -jubilant with his return.</p> - -<p>“Granny darling!” he said, kissing her. “How lovely of you to come and -meet me like this. Father! Ever so many thanks for sending the motor for -me. Ah, and there are Violet and Raymond. Raymond, be nice to me; let me -kiss you, for, though we’re grown up, we’re brothers. And Violet; I want -a kiss from Violet, too.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> She mustn’t grudge me that.... What! The glass -doors open. Ah! of course, in honour of the betrothal. Raymond, you -lucky fellow, how I hate you. But I thought that was only done when the -bridegroom brought his bride home.”</p> - -<p>“A whim of your grandmother’s,” said Philip hastily, disowning -apparently his share in it.</p> - -<p>Instantly Colin was by the old lady’s side again.</p> - -<p>“Granny, how nice of you!” he said. “But you’ve got to find me a bride -first before I go up those stairs. And even then, it’s only the eldest -son who may, isn’t it? But it was nice of you to open the doors because -I was coming home.”</p> - -<p>He had kissed Raymond lightly on the cheek, and Violet no less lightly, -and both in their separate and sundered fashions were burning at it, -Raymond in some smouldering fury at what he knew was Colin’s falseness, -Violet with the hot searing iron of his utter indifference; and then -light as foam and iridescent as a sunlit bubble of the same, he was back -with his father again, leaving them as in some hot desert place. And -dinner must now be put off, growled Raymond to himself, because Colin -wanted to have a bathe first and wash off the dust and dryness of his -journey, and his father would stroll down after him and bring his towel, -so that he might run down at once without going upstairs.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin had come home, it appeared, with the tactics that were to compass -his strategy rehearsed and ready. Never had his charm been of so sunny -and magical a quality, and, by contrast, never had Raymond appeared more -uncouth and bucolic. But Raymond now, so ran his father’s unspoken -comment on the situation, had an ugly weapon in his hand, under the -blows of which Colin winced and started, for more than ever he was -prodigal of those little touches and caresses which he showered on -Violet. Philip could not blame him for it; it was no more than natural -that a young man, engaged and enamoured, should use<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span> the light license -of a lover; indeed, it would have been unnatural if he had not done so.</p> - -<p>Often and often, ten times in the evening, Philip would see Colin take -himself in hand and steadfastly avert his eyes from the corner where -Raymond and Violet sat. But ever and again that curious habit of -self-torture in lovers whom fate has not favoured would assert itself, -and his eyes would creep back to them, and seeing Raymond in some -loverlike posture, recall themselves. And as often the sweetness of his -temper, and his natural gaiety, would reassert its ray, and the usual -light nonsense, the frequent laugh, flowed from him. Exquisite, too, was -his tact with Violet; he recognised, it was clear, that their old -boy-and-girl intimacy must, in these changed conditions, be banished. He -could no longer go away with her alone to spend the morning between -tennis-court and bathing pool, or with his arm round her neck, stroll -off with a joint book to read reclined in the shade. Not only would that -put Raymond into a false position (he, the enamoured, the betrothed) -but, so argued the most pitiless logic of which his father was capable, -that resumption of physical intimacy, as between boy and boy, would be a -tearing of Colin’s very heart-strings not only for himself but for her -also. In such sort of intimacy Colin, with his brisk blood and ardent -lust of living, could scarcely help betraying himself, and surely then, -Violet, little though she might care for Raymond, would see her pool of -tranquil acceptance shattered by this plunge of a stone into the centre -of it. Her liking for Colin was deep, and she would not fail to see that -for her he had even profounder depths. A light would shine in those -drowned caves, and Colin, as wise as he was tender, seemed to shew his -wisdom by keeping on the surface with Violet, and only shining on her -tranquillity, never breaking it.</p> - -<p>Sometimes—so thought his father—he shewed her a face which, in virtue -of their past intimacy, was almost too gaily indifferent; she would -attempt some perfectly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span> trivial exhibition of their old relations, perch -herself on the arm of his chair, and with the contrast of his bronzed -face and golden hair, tell him that he must gild his face like the -grooms in “Macbeth” or dye his hair. But on the instant he would be -alert and spring up, leaving her there, for the need of a cigarette or a -match. He allowed her not the most outside chance of resuming ordinary -cousinly relations with him. His motive was sound enough; loving her he -mistrusted himself. She was sealed to be his brother’s wife, and he must -not trust himself within sight of the notice to trespassers. It was -better to make himself a stranger to her than to run the risk of -betraying himself. So, at least, it struck an outsider to Colin’s -consciousness.</p> - -<p>He avoided, then, all privacy with Violet, and no less carefully he -avoided privacy with Raymond. If the three men were together and his -father left them, Colin would be sure to follow him, and if they all -three sat up together in the smoking-room, Colin would anticipate the -signal of a silence or of his father’s yawning or observation of the -clock, to go to bed himself. Here, again, he almost overdid the part, -for as the first week after his return went by, Philip, firmly -determined to be just to Raymond, thought he saw in him some kind of -brotherly affection for Colin, which the latter either missed or -intentionally failed to respond to. There could be no harm in a -seasonable word, and when, one morning Raymond, after half a dozen chill -responses from his brother, had left him and Colin together, Philip -thought that the seasonable word was no less than Raymond’s due. But the -seasonable word had to be preceded by sympathy.</p> - -<p>He sat down in the window seat by Colin.</p> - -<p>“Well?” he said.</p> - -<p>Those blue eyes, gay but veiled by suffering, answered him.</p> - -<p>“It’s damned hard on you, Colin,” he said. “Are you getting used to it, -old boy?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Colin, with one of those inimitable instinctive movements, laid his hand -on his father’s shoulder.</p> - -<p>“No, not a bit,” he said. “But I’ve got to. I can’t go on like this. I -must feel friendly to Raymond and Violet. I must manage to rejoice in -their happiness. Got any prescription for me, father? I’ll take it, -whatever it is. Lord! How happy I used to be.”</p> - -<p>All that Philip had missed in Rosina was here now; the tender, subtle -mind, which should have been the complement of her beauty. His sympathy -was up in arms for this beloved child of hers, and his sense of fairness -elsewhere.</p> - -<p>“Raymond’s doing his best, Colin,” he said. “I wonder....” and he -paused.</p> - -<p>“You can say nothing that will hurt me, father,” said Colin. “Go on.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I wonder if you’re responding to that. To put it frankly, -whenever he makes any approach to you, you snub him.”</p> - -<p>Colin lifted his head.</p> - -<p>“Snub him?” he said. “How on earth can I snub Raymond? He’s got -everything. I might as well snub God.”</p> - -<p>This was a new aspect.</p> - -<p>“I can’t do otherwise, father,” said the boy. “I can only just behave -decently to Raymond in public and avoid him in private. Don’t bother -about Raymond. Raymond hates me, and if I gave him any opportunity, he -would merely gloat over me. I can’t behave differently to him; I’m doing -the best I can. If you aren’t satisfied with me, I’ll go away again till -it’s all over and irrevocable. Perhaps you would allow me to go back to -Capri.”</p> - -<p>Philip’s heart yearned to him. “I wish I could help you,” he said.</p> - -<p>“You do help me. But let’s leave Raymond out of the question. There’s a -matter that bothers me much more, and that’s Violet. If I let myself go -at all, I don’t know where I should be. What am I to do about her? Am I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span> -right, do you think, in the way I’m behaving? We were chums—then she -became to me, as I told you, so much more than a chum. I can’t get back -on to the old footing with her; it would hurt too much. And she’s hurt -that I don’t. I can see that. I think I was wrong to come back here at -all, and yet how lovely it was! You all seemed pleased to see me—all -but Raymond—and I didn’t guess the bitterness of it.”</p> - -<p>It was inevitable that Philip should recall his surprise at Violet’s -passivity. Colin, whose heart he knew, had been, in all outward -appearance, just as passive, and he could not help wondering whether -that passivity of Violet’s cloaked a tumult as profound as Colin’s. The -suspicion had blinked at him before, like some flash of distant -lightning; now it was a little more vivid. If that were true, if from -that quarter a storm were coming up, better a thousand times that it -should come now than later. Tragic, indeed, would it be if, after she -had married Raymond, it burst upon them all.... But he had nothing -approaching evidence on the subject; it might well be that his wish that -Violet could have loved Colin set his imagination to work on what had -really no existence outside his own brain.</p> - -<p>“I hate seeing you suffer, Colin,” he said, “and if you want to go back -to Capri, of course you may. But you’ve got to get used to it some time, -unless you mean to banish yourself from Stanier altogether. Don’t do -that.”</p> - -<p>Colin pressed his father’s arm.</p> - -<p>“I’ll do better, father,” he said. “I’ll begin at once. Where’s Violet?”</p> - -<p>It was in pursuance of this resolve, it must be supposed, that when Lady -Yardley’s rubber of whist was over that night, Colin moved across to the -open door on to the terrace where Violet was standing. In some spasm of -impatience at Raymond’s touch she had just got up from the sofa where he -had planted himself close to her, leaving him with an expression, half -offended, half merely hungry....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Five minutes stroll outside, Vi?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“It’s rather late,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Right,” said Colin cheerfully, and went forth alone, whistling into the -darkness.</p> - -<p>The moment he had gone Violet regretted not having gone too. Since -Colin’s return she had not had a half-hour all told alone with him, and -the tension of his entire indifference to her was becoming intolerable. -She had not dreamed that he would cut himself off from her with this -hideous completeness, nor yet how much she longed for the renewal of the -old intimacy. Bitterest of all was the fact that she meant nothing to -him, for he had never been more light-heartedly gay. Where Philip, -knowing what he did, saw strained and heroic effort, she saw only the -contemptuous ignoring of herself and Raymond.... And now, with that same -craving for self-torture that is an obsession to the luckless in love, -when Colin made his first advance to her again, she must needs reject -it. There was Raymond watching her, and revolt against that hungry look -of his decided her. She stepped out on to the terrace.</p> - -<p>Colin had come to the far end of it; his whistling directed her; and now -in the strong starlight, she could see the glimmer of his shirt-front. -She felt her knees trembling and hid the reason out of sight as she -strolled, as unconcernedly as she could, towards him. Soon he perceived -her and his whistling stopped.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Vi,” he said, “so you’ve come out after all. That’s ripping.”</p> - -<p>They were close to each other now, and bright was the stream of -starlight on him.</p> - -<p>“Managed to tear yourself away from Raymond for five minutes?” he asked. -“I was beginning to think I should never have a word with you again.”</p> - -<p>“That’s your fault,” said she. “You have been a brute all this last -week.”</p> - -<p>“I? A brute?” said Colin. “What do you mean? I thought I had been -conducting myself superbly....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He looked up quickly at the oblong of light that flowed from the open -door into the gallery, and saw that it framed a shadow.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, there’s Raymond,” he said, “looking after us. Here we are, -Raymond. Come and join us.”</p> - -<p>He heard Violet’s clicked tongue of impatience.</p> - -<p>“I had to say that,” he whispered. “He won’t come.”</p> - -<p>Colin’s psychology was correct enough; Raymond had not meant to be seen, -he only meant to see. Besides he had a grievance against Violet for her -impatience just now; he was annoyed with her.</p> - -<p>“No, thanks,” he said, “I’m going to the smoking-room.”</p> - -<p>“That’s to punish you, Vi,” said Colin with a tremble of laughter in his -voice. “But perhaps we had better go in. You mustn’t vex him.”</p> - -<p>Nothing could have been better calculated.</p> - -<p>“Is one of the conditions of my engagement that I mustn’t speak to you?” -she asked. “Certainly it seems like it.”</p> - -<p>Colin tucked his arm into Violet’s.</p> - -<p>“Well, we’ll break it for once,” he said. “Now you’re vexed with me. -That’s very unreasonable of you. You made your choice with your eyes -open. You’ve chosen Raymond and Stanier. It stands to reason we can’t -always be together. You can’t have Raymond and Stanier and me. It was -your own doing. And I thought everything was going so well. Whenever I -look up I see you and him holding hands, or else he’s kissing the back -of your neck.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” said Violet with a little shiver.</p> - -<p>“You’ve got to get used to it, Vi,” said he. “You’ve got to pay for -having Stanier. Isn’t it worth it?”</p> - -<p>He heard her take a quick breath; her control was swaying like a curtain -in the wind.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t be such a brute to me, Colin,” she said. “I hadn’t realised -that—that you would desert me like this.”</p> - -<p>Colin just passed his tongue over his lips.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, that doesn’t mean anything to you,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But it does, it does,” said she.</p> - -<p>They were back now in the shadow of the yew-hedge, where one night she -had kissed him. As he thought of that he knew that she was thinking of -it too.</p> - -<p>“Give Raymond up,” he said. “Let him and Stanier go. It will be the -wisest thing you can do.”</p> - -<p>He paused a moment, and all the witchery of the night came to the -reinforcement of his charm.</p> - -<p>“I want you, Vi,” he said. “Promise me. Give me a kiss and seal it.”</p> - -<p>For one second she wavered, and then drew back from him.</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t do that,” she said. “I’ll give you a kiss, but it seals no -promise.”</p> - -<p>“Kiss me then,” said he, now confident.</p> - -<p>There was no mistaking the way in which she surrendered to him. She -stood enfolded by him, lambent and burning. She knew herself to be -bitterly unwise, but for the moment the sweetness was worth all the -waters of Marah that should inundate her.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you darling, never mind your promise,” said he. “I shall have that -later. Just now it’s enough that you should hate Raymond and love me.”</p> - -<p>She buried her face on his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Colin, Colin, what am I to do?” she whispered.</p> - -<p>He could see well that, though her heart was his, the idea of giving up -Stanier still strove with her. To-night she might consent to marry him; -to-morrow that passion for possession might lay hands on her again. She -was bruised but not broken, and instantly he made up his mind to tell -her the secret of his mother’s letter and of the entry at the Consulate. -That would clinch it for ever. When she knew that by giving up Raymond -and Stanier together, she retained just all she wanted out of her -contract and gained her heart’s desire as well——</p> - -<p>“What are you to do?” he said. “You are to do exactly what you are -doing. You’re to cling to me, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span> trust me. Ah, you’re entrancing! But -I’ve got something to tell you, Vi, something stupendous. We must go in; -I can’t tell you here, for not even the trees nor the terrace must know, -though it concerns them.”</p> - -<p>“But, Colin, about Raymond. I can’t be sure....”</p> - -<p>He pressed her to him, thrilled all through at this ebb and flow of her -emotional struggle.</p> - -<p>“You’ve finished with Raymond, I tell you,” he said. “You’ve given him -up and you’ve given up Stanier, haven’t you; you’ve given up -everything?”</p> - -<p>Some diabolical love of cruelty for its own sake; of torturing her by -prolonging the decision which pulled at her this way and that, possessed -him.</p> - -<p>“It’s a proud hour for me, Vi,” he said. “I love Stanier as madly as you -do, and you’ve given it up for me. I adore you for doing that; you’ll -never repent it. I just hug these moments, though there must come an end -to them. Let us go in, or Raymond will be looking for us again. Go -straight to your room. I shall come there in five minutes, for there’s -something I must tell you to-night. I must just have one look at Raymond -first. That’s for my own satisfaction.”</p> - -<p>Colin could not forego that look at Raymond. He knew how he should find -him, prospering with a glass of whisky, disposed, as his father had -said, to be brotherly, having all the winning cards in his hand. Stanier -would be his, and, before that, Violet would be his, and Colin might be -allowed, if he were very amiable, to spend a week here occasionally when -Raymond came to his throne, just as now he had been allowed a starlit -stroll with Violet. These were indulgences that would not be noticed by -his plenitude, morsels let fall from the abundant feast. The life only -of one man, already old, lay between him and the full consummation; -already his foot was on the steps where the throne was set. Just one -glance then at victorious Raymond....</p> - -<p>Raymond fulfilled the highest expectations. Whisky had made him -magnanimous; he was pleased to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span> granted Colin that little starlit -stroll with Violet, it was a crumb from the master’s table. His heavy -face wore a look of great complacency as his brother entered.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Colin,” he said. “Finished making love to Violet?”</p> - -<p>Colin grinned. “You old brute!” he said. “Not content with having -everything yourself, you must mock me for my beggary. You lucky fellow.”</p> - -<p>He poured himself out a drink and sat down.</p> - -<p>“Raymond, I had no idea how devoted Violet was to you till to-night,” he -said. “I think she’s afraid to let herself go, to shew it too much.”</p> - -<p>The grossness of Raymond, his animal proprietorship, was never more -apparent. It was enough for him to desire her.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Vi’s all right,” he said.</p> - -<p>Colin felt his ribs a-quiver with the spasm of his suppressed laughter. -He distrusted his power of control if he subjected himself to further -temptation.</p> - -<p>“I’m off to bed,” he said. “I just looked in to envy you.”</p> - -<p>“Where’s Vi?” asked Raymond.</p> - -<p>Colin bethought himself that he did not want Raymond knocking at -Violet’s door for a good-night kiss.</p> - -<p>“Oh, she went upstairs half an hour ago,” he said. “She told me she was -awfully sleepy. In fact, she soon got tired of me.”</p> - -<p>He drank in a final impression of Raymond’s satisfied face and went -upstairs, going first to his room, where from his locked despatch-case -he took the two letters which Salvatore had given him, and which now -bore the dates of March 17 and March 31. Then, passing down the long -corridor, he came to her room; the door was ajar, and he rapped softly -and then entered.</p> - -<p>Violet, in anticipation of his coming, had sent her maid away, and was -brushing her hair, golden as Colin’s own, before her glass. Often and -often in the days of their intimacy had he come in for a talk during -this ritual; on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span> dry, frosty nights Violet would put out her light, and -pale flashes of electricity and cracklings and sparks would follow the -progress of her brush. Her hair would float up from her head and cling -to Colin’s fingers as sea-weed that had lain unexpanded on the shore -spreads out, floating and undulating, in the return of the tide. -To-night it lay thick and unstirred, rippling for a moment under her -brush, and then subsiding again into a tranquil sheet of gold.</p> - -<p>She saw him enter in the field of her mirror and heard the click of the -key as he turned it.</p> - -<p>“Just in case Raymond takes it into his head to say good-night to you,” -he said.</p> - -<p>She had risen from her chair and stood opposite to him.</p> - -<p>“What have you got to tell me, Colin?” she said.</p> - -<p>He looked at her a moment with parted lips and sparkling eyes. Each -seemed the perfect complement of the other; together they formed one -peerless embodiment of the glory of mankind. Through them both there -passed some quiver of irresistible attraction, and, as two globules of -quick-silver roll into one, so that each is merged and coalesced in the -other, so with arms interlaced and faces joined, they stood there, two -no longer. Even Colin’s hatred for Raymond flickered for that moment and -was nearly extinguished since for Violet he existed no more. Then the -evil flame burned up again, and he loosed Violet’s arms from round his -neck.</p> - -<p>“Now you’re to sit and listen to me,” he said. “What I have got to tell -you will take no time at all.”</p> - -<p>He opened the envelope which he had brought with him, and drew out the -two letters. He had decided not to tell Violet any more than what, when -his father was dead, all the world would know.</p> - -<p>“Salvatore Viagi gave me these,” he said. “He is my mother’s brother, -you know, and I saw him at Capri. They were written by my mother to him, -and announce the birth of Raymond and me and her marriage to my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> father. -Take them, Vi, look at the dates and read them in order.”</p> - -<p>She gave him one quick glance, took them from him, read them through and -gave them back to him. Then in dead silence she got up and stood close -to him.</p> - -<p>“I see,” she said. “On Uncle Philip’s death, Stanier, everything will be -mine. According to those letters, that is.”</p> - -<p>He nodded. “Yes, on the one condition, of course, that you and I are -wife and husband.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him again with a smile breaking through her gravity.</p> - -<p>“I promised that before I knew,” she said. “And now that I know that -Stanier will be mine, instead of believing that my choice forfeited it, -it isn’t very likely that I shall change my mind.”</p> - -<p>“There’s something else, you know, too,” he said. “You’re marrying....”</p> - -<p>She interrupted. “I’m marrying Colin,” she said. “But as regard you. Is -it horrible for you? Ah ... I’ve been thinking of myself only. Stanier -and myself.”</p> - -<p>She moved away from him and walked to the end of the room, where, -pushing the blind aside, she looked out on to the terrace where they had -stood this evening. As clearly as if she spoke her thoughts aloud, Colin -knew what was the debate within her. It lasted but a moment.</p> - -<p>“Colin, if—if you hate it,” she said, “tear that letter up. I’ve got -you, and I would sooner lose Stanier than let you be hurt. Tear it up! -Let Raymond have Stanier so long as I don’t go with it.... Oh, my dear, -is it the same me, who so few weeks ago chose Raymond, and who so few -hours ago wondered if I could give up Stanier, even though to get it -implied marrying him? And now, nothing whatever matters but you.”</p> - -<p>Instantly Colin felt within himself that irritation which love -invariably produced in him. Just so had his father’s affection, except -in so far as it was fruitful of material<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span> benefits, fatigued and annoyed -him, and this proposal of Violet’s, under the same monstrous impulsion, -promised, in so far from being fruitful, to prove itself some scorching -or freezing wind which would wither and blast all that he most desired. -But, bridling his irritation, he laughed.</p> - -<p>“That wouldn’t suit me at all,” he said, “and besides, Vi, how about -honour? Stanier will be legally and rightfully yours. How on earth could -I consent to the suppression of this? But lest you should think me too -much of an angel—father asked me one day how my wings were getting -on—I tell you quite frankly that it will be sweet as honey to send -Raymond packing. My adoring you doesn’t prevent my hating him. And as -for what is called irregularity in birth, who on earth cares? I don’t. -I’m a Stanier all right. Look at half the dukes in England, where do -they spring from? Actresses, flower-girls, the light loves of -disreputable kings. Who cares? And, besides, my case is different: my -father married my mother.”</p> - -<p>Up and down his face her eyes travelled, seeing if she could detect -anywhere a trace of reluctance, and searched in vain.</p> - -<p>“Are you quite sure, Colin?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Absolutely. There’s no question about it.”</p> - -<p>Once more she held him close to her.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s too much,” she whispered. “You and Stanier both mine. My heart -won’t hold it all.”</p> - -<p>“Hearts are wonderfully elastic,” said he. “One’s heart holds everything -it desires, if only it can get it. Now there’s a little more to tell -you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes? Come and sit here. Tell me.”</p> - -<p>She drew him down on to the sofa beside her.</p> - -<p>“Well, my uncle sent me these letters,” said he, “but, naturally, they -won’t be enough by themselves. It was necessary to find out what was the -entry in the register of their marriage. My father had told me where it -took place, at the British Consulate in Naples, and I got the Consul to -let me see the register. I told him I wanted to make a copy of it. I saw -it. The marriage apparently<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span> took place not on the 31st of March, but on -the 1st. But then I looked more closely, and saw that there had been an -erasure. In front of the ‘1’ there had been another figure. But whoever -had made that erasure had not done it quite carefully enough. It was -possible to see that a ‘3’ had been scratched out. The date as -originally written was ‘31’ not ‘1.’ That tallies with the date on my -mother’s letter.”</p> - -<p>Colin’s voice took on an expression of tenderness, incredibly sweet.</p> - -<p>“Vi, darling,” he said, “you must try to forgive my father, if it was he -who made or caused to be made that erasure which might so easily have -passed unnoticed, as indeed it did, for when the Consul prepared my copy -with the original he saw nothing of it; word by word he went over the -two together. You must forgive him, though it was a wicked and a -terrible fraud that my father—I suppose—practised, for unless he had -other children, he was robbing you of all that was rightfully yours.</p> - -<p>“I think the reconstruction of it is easy enough. My mother died, and he -was determined that his son, one of them, should succeed. I imagine he -made, or procured the making, of that erasure after my mother’s death. -He had meant to marry her, indeed he did marry her, and I think he must -have desired to repair the wrong, the bitter wrong, he did her in the -person of her children. I’ve got something to forgive him, too, and -willingly I do that. We must both forgive him, Vi. I the bastard, and -you the heiress of Stanier.”</p> - -<p>Violet would have forgiven Satan himself for all the evil wrought on the -face of the earth from the day when first he set foot in Paradise.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin, yes,” she said. “Freely, freely!”</p> - -<p>“That’s sweet of you. That is a great weight off my mind. And you’ll -make your forgiveness effective, Vi?”</p> - -<p>She did not grasp this.</p> - -<p>“In what way?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I mean that you won’t want to make an exposure of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span> this now,” said he. -“I should like my father never to know that I have found out what he -did. I should like him to die thinking that Raymond will succeed him, -and that his fraud is undiscovered. Of course, you would be within your -rights if you insisted on being established as the heiress to Stanier -now. There are certain revenues, certain properties always made over to -the heir on coming of age, and Raymond and I come of age in a few -months. Can you let Raymond enjoy them for my father’s sake? He has -always been amazingly good to me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin, what a question!” she said. “What do you take me for? Would -that be forgiveness?”</p> - -<p>“That’s settled then; bless you for that. The only objection is that -Raymond scores for the present, but that can’t be helped. And there’s -just one thing more. About—about what has happened between us. Shall I -tell my father to-morrow? Then we can settle how Raymond is to be told.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin, to-morrow?” said she. “So soon?”</p> - -<p>He laughed. “To-night if you like,” he said, “though it’s rather late. -Of course, if you want to put it off, and have Raymond nosing about you -still like a ferret....”</p> - -<p>“Don’t!”</p> - -<p>“He shan’t then. Now I must go. One kiss, Vi.”</p> - -<p>She clung to him. “I’m frightened of Raymond,” she said. “What will he -do?”</p> - -<p>“Howl like a wounded bear, I suppose. Hullo!”</p> - -<p>There was the sound of knocking at the door, and Raymond’s voice:</p> - -<p>“Violet,” he said. “May I come in; just to say good-night?”</p> - -<p>Colin frowned. “Been listening, probably,” he whispered, “and heard -voices.”</p> - -<p>Without pause he went to the door, and turned the key and handle -together.</p> - -<p>“Come in, Raymond,” he said as he opened it. “Violet’s been talking of -nothing but you. So here we all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span> are, bride and bridegroom and best man. -Let’s have one cigarette before we all go to bed.”</p> - -<p>Raymond wore his most savage look. “I thought you had gone to bed,” he -said, “and I thought you said Violet had gone to bed half an hour before -that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Raymond, don’t be vexed,” said Colin. “Haven’t you got everything?”</p> - -<p>In just such a voice, dexterously convincing, had he pleaded with Violet -that she should forgive his father....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII-b" id="CHAPTER_VII-b"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> - -<p>Philip was waiting in his library for Raymond’s entry, wanting to feel -sorry for him, but as often as he could darken his mind behind that -cloud, the edges of it grew dazzlingly bright with the thought of Colin, -and the sun re-emerging warmed and delighted him....</p> - -<p>Yet he was sorry for Raymond, and presently he would express his -sympathy, coldly and correctly, he was afraid, with regret and truism -and paternal platitudes; but duty would dictate his sentiments. At the -most he could not hope for more than to give the boy the impression he -was sorry, and conceal from him his immensurable pleasure in the news -Colin had made known to him. All these weeks, ever since, on that -morning in Capri, he had learned of Raymond’s engagement and Colin’s -desire, he had never been free from heartache, and his favourite’s -manliness, his refusal to be embittered, his efforts with himself, gaily -heroic, had but rendered those pangs the more poignant. And in the hour -of his joy Colin had shewn just the same marvellous quickness of -sympathy for Raymond’s sorrow, as, when Philip had first told him of the -engagement, he had shewn for Raymond’s happiness.</p> - -<p>“I would have given anything to spare Raymond this, father,” he had -said. “As you know, I kept all I felt to myself. I didn’t let Violet see -how miserable I was, and how I wanted her. And then last night—it was -like some earthquake within. Everything toppled and fell; Vi and I were -left clinging to each other.”</p> - -<p>After Colin, Philip had seen Violet, and she, too, had spoken to him -with a simplicity and candour.... She had already begun to love Colin, -she thought, before she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span> accepted Raymond, but how she loved Stanier. -She had been worldly, ambitious, stifling the first faint calls of her -heart, thinking, as many a girl thought, whose nature is not yet wholly -awake, that Raymond would “do,” as regards herself, and “do” -magnificently as regards her longing for all that being mistress of -Stanier meant to her. Then came Colin’s return from Italy, and the -whisper of her heart grew louder. She could not help contrasting her -lover with her friend, and in that new light Raymond’s attentions to -her, his caresses, his air—she must confess—of proprietorship grew -odious and insufferable. And then, just as Colin had said, came the -earthquake. In that disruption, all that from the worldly point of view -seemed so precious, turned to dross.</p> - -<p>At that point she hesitated a moment, and Philip had found himself -recording how like she was to Colin. With just that triumphant glow of -happiness with which he had said: “Raymond has got Stanier, father, -Violet and I have got each other,” so Violet now, after her momentary -hesitation, spoke to him.</p> - -<p>“Stanier, for which I longed, Uncle Philip, doesn’t exist for me any -more. How could I weigh it against Colin?”</p> - -<p>Colin’s happiness ... nothing could dim that sunshine for his father, -and the sunshine was not only of to-day, it was the sunshine that had -shone on him and Rosina more than twenty years ago. His heart melted -with the love that through Colin reacted on her. Surely she must rejoice -at the boy’s happiness to-day! Raymond, to be sure, was the fruit of her -body also, but it was through Colin that she lived, he was the memory -and the gracious image of her beauty.</p> - -<p>Raymond entered, snapping the golden thread.</p> - -<p>“You wanted to see me, father,” he said.</p> - -<p>Philip had been attempting to drill himself into a sympathetic bearing -towards his son, but Raymond’s actual presence here in succession to -Colin and Violet, brought sheer helplessness. For the brightness and -beam of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span> others there was this solid self-sufficiency. It seemed as -if a crime had been averted in the transference of the girl to another -bridegroom. What unnatural union would have been made by this mating of -her! His heart sang; it were vain to try to throttle it into silence.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Raymond; sit down,” said he, indicating a place on the sofa where -he sat.</p> - -<p>“Oh, thanks, it doesn’t matter. I’ll stand,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got bad news for you,” said Philip. “You must brace yourself to -it.”</p> - -<p>“Let’s have it,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>Philip felt his sympathy slipping from him. He wanted chiefly to get it -over; there was no use in attempting to lead up to it.</p> - -<p>“It concerns you and Violet,” he said.</p> - -<p>A savage look as of a hungry dog from whom his dinner is being snatched, -came across Raymond’s face.</p> - -<p>“Well?” he said.</p> - -<p>“She wished me to tell you that she can’t marry you,” said his father. -“She asks you to set her free from her engagement.”</p> - -<p>The savagery of that sullen face grew blacker. “I don’t accept that from -you,” he said. “If it’s true, Violet will have to tell me herself.”</p> - -<p>Philip made a great effort with himself. “It is true,” he said, “and I -want at once to tell you that I’m very sorry for you. But it would have -been very painful for her to tell you, and it was I who suggested that I -should break her decision to you. I hope you won’t insist on having it -from her.”</p> - -<p>“She has got to tell me,” said Raymond. “And is that all, father? If so, -I’ll go to her at once.”</p> - -<p>“No, there’s more,” said he.</p> - -<p>Raymond’s face went suddenly white; his mouth twitched, he presented a -mask of hatred.</p> - -<p>“And so it’s Colin who has got to tell me the rest,” he said. “Is that -it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“She is going to marry Colin.”</p> - -<p>For a moment Raymond stood perfectly still; just his hands were moving; -knitted together they made the action of squeezing something. Once it -seemed that he tried to speak, but no word came; only the teeth shewed -in his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Colin has got to tell me then,” he said. “I will see Colin first.”</p> - -<p>Philip got up and laid a hand of authority on Raymond’s shoulder. The -boy, for all his quietness, seemed beside himself with some pent-up fury -all the more dangerous for its suppression.</p> - -<p>“You must not see either of them in the state you are in now,” he said.</p> - -<p>“That’s my affair,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“It’s mine, too. You’re my son and so is Colin. You must wait till -you’ve got more used to what has happened. And you must remember this, -that a few weeks ago Colin was in the same case as you are now. He loved -Violet, and it was I then, out in Capri, who told him that Violet was -going to marry you. And he took it like a man, like the generous fellow -he is. His first words were: ‘By Jove, Raymond will be happy!’ I shall -never forget that, and you mustn’t either, Raymond.”</p> - -<p>Raymond gave a dry snap of a laugh.</p> - -<p>“I won’t,” he said. “That’s just what Colin would say. Perfect -character, isn’t he? Only last night I found him talking to Violet in -her bedroom. I wasn’t pleased, and he begged me not to be vexed, as I -had got everything. He had taken Violet from me when he said that, or if -not, he came back when Violet was in bed, and got engaged to her then. -Engaged!”</p> - -<p>“Now stop that, Raymond,” said his father.</p> - -<p>“Very good. He was already engaged to her when he told me I had got -everything. You don’t understand Colin. He hates more than he loves. He -has hated me all my life. ‘By Jove, Raymond will be happy!’ I’ll be even -with Colin some day. Now I’m going to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> him. Or shall I say: ‘By -Jove, Colin will be happy?’ Then you’ll consider me a generous fellow.”</p> - -<p>Once again Philip tried to put himself in Raymond’s place, and made -allowance for his bitter blackness. His hand went on to the boy’s -shoulder again, with less of authority and more of attempted affection.</p> - -<p>“Raymond, you must do better than this,” he said. “You would be very -unwise to see Colin and Violet just now, but if you insist on doing so, -you shall see them in my presence. I can’t trust you, in the mood you’re -in, not to be violent, not to say or do something which you would -bitterly repent, and which they would find it hard to forgive. And if, -which I deny, Colin has always hated you, what about yourself?”</p> - -<p>Both of them now were on bed-rock. By implication, by admission, by -denial even, they had got down to the hatred that, like a vein of -murderous gold, ran through the very foundation of the brothers’ -existence. Who knew what struggle might have taken place, what prenatal -wrestling in the very womb of life, of which the present antagonism was -but a sequel, logical and inevitable!</p> - -<p>Even as Philip spoke, he half-realised the futility of bringing argument -to bear on Raymond’s nature, for this hatred sprang from some -ineradicable instinct, an iron law on which intelligence and reason -could but perch like a settling fly. He could deny that Colin hated his -brother, he could urge Raymond to show himself as generous as he -believed Colin to have been, but nothing that he could say, no -persuasion, no authority could mitigate this fraternal hostility. And -even while he denied Colin’s animosity, with the evidence he had already -brought forward to back it, he found himself wondering if at heart Colin -could feel the generosity he had expressed, or whether it was not a mere -superficial good-nature, mingled with contempt perhaps, that had given -voice to it.</p> - -<p>Raymond had ceased from the clutching and squeezing of his hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You don’t know what Colin is,” he said, “and I know it is no use trying -to convince you. I shan’t try. You judge by what you see of him and me, -and you put me down for a black-hearted, sullen fellow, and he’s your -heart’s darling.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve got no right to say that,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>“But can I help knowing it, father?” asked he.</p> - -<p>Philip felt that his very will-power was in abeyance; he could not even -want to readjust the places which his two sons held in his heart, or, -rather, to find place in his heart for the son who had never been -installed there yet. And there would be no use in “wanting,” even if he -could accomplish that. Colin held every door of his heart, and with a -grudging sense of justice towards Raymond, he was aware that Colin would -grant no admittance to his brother. Or was that conviction only the echo -of his own instinct that he wanted no one but Colin there? He had no -love to spare for Raymond. Such spring of it as bubbled in him must fall -into Colin’s cup, the cup that never could be filled.</p> - -<p>How could he but contrast the two? Here was Raymond, sullen in his -defeat, attempting (and with unwelcome success) to put his father in the -wrong, jealous of the joy that had come to Colin, insisting, -Shylock-like, on such revenge as was in his power, the pound of flesh -which would be his, in making a scene with the girl who had chosen as -her heart bade her, and the boy who was her choice. On the other side -was Colin, who, when faced with an identical situation, had accepted his -ill-luck with a wave of welcome for the more fortunate. And Raymond -would have it that that splendid banner was but a false flag, under -cover of whose whiteness a treacherous attack might be made.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that we need pursue that,” said Philip. “Your feelings are -outside my control, but what is in my control is to be just to you in -spite of them. I have tried to tell you with all possible sympathy -of——”</p> - -<p>“Of Violet’s jilting me,” interrupted Raymond. “And<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span> you have clearly -shewn me, father, your sympathy with Colin’s happiness.”</p> - -<p>Philip felt every nerve jarring. “I am not responsible for your -interpretations of myself,” he said, “nor do I accept them. If your -design is to be intolerably offensive to me, you must work out your -design somewhere else. I am not going to have you stop here in order to -amuse yourself with being rude to me, and spoiling the happiness of -others——”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Just so!” said Raymond. “Colin.”</p> - -<p>Philip was exasperated beyond endurance.</p> - -<p>“Quite right,” he said. “I am not going to have you spoiling Colin’s -happiness. And Violet’s. I should have suggested you leaving Stanier for -the present for your own sake, if you had allowed me to show sympathy -for you. As you do not, I suggest that you should do so for Colin’s -sake. You may go to St. James’s Square if you like, and if you can -manage to behave decently, you may stop on there when we come up next -week. But that depends on yourself. Now if you want to see Violet and -your brother you may, but you will see them here in my presence. I will -send for them now, if that is your wish. When you have seen them you -shall go. Well?”</p> - -<p>Suddenly the idea of leaving Colin and Violet here became insupportable -to Raymond. He <i>had</i> to see them as lovers, and hate them for it: his -hate must be fed with the sight of them.</p> - -<p>“Must I go, father?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes; you have forced me to be harsh with you. It was not my intention. -Now do you want to see them?”</p> - -<p>Raymond hesitated: if Colin could be cunning, he could be cunning too. -“I should like to see them both,” he said.</p> - -<p>Philip rang the bell, and in the pause before they came, Raymond went -across to the window-seat, and sat there with face averted, making no -sign, and in the silence Philip reviewed what he had done. He had no -wish, as he had said, to be harsh to Raymond, but what possible gain to -any one was his remaining here? He would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span> a misery to himself, and no -entertainment to others; and yet the boy wanted to stop, thinking -perhaps that thus he would be sooner able to accept the position. It was -impossible to grudge him any feasible alleviation of the blow that, so -far from stunning him, had awakened all that was worst in him. Much must -depend on his behaviour now to Colin and Violet.</p> - -<p>They entered together. Colin looked first at his father; then, without -pause, seeing the huddled figure in the window-seat, went straight to -Raymond. All else, Violet even, was forgotten.</p> - -<p>He laid his hand on Raymond’s shoulder. “Oh, Raymond,” he said, “we’re -brutes. I know that.”</p> - -<p>Philip thought he had never seen anything so exquisite as that instinct -of Colin’s to go straight to his brother. Could Raymond recognise the -beauty of that?... And was it indeed Raymond who now drew Colin on to -the window-seat beside him?</p> - -<p>“That’s all right, Colin,” he said. “You couldn’t help it. No one can -help it when it comes. I couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>He stood up. “Father’s told me about it all,” he said, “and I just -wanted to see you and Violet for a moment in order to realise it. I’ve -got it now. Good-bye, Colin; good-bye, Violet.”</p> - -<p>He went across to his father with hand outstretched. “Thanks ever so -much for letting me go to St. James’s Square,” he said. “And I’m sorry, -father, for behaving as I did. I know it’s no use just saying that; I’ve -got to prove it. But that’s all I can do for the present.”</p> - -<p>He went straight out of the room without once looking back.</p> - -<p>“Is Raymond going away?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“Yes. It’s better so.”</p> - -<p>Colin heard this with a chill of disappointment, for among his -pleasurable anticipations had been that of seeing Raymond wince and -writhe at the recasting of their parts. Raymond would have hourly before -his eyes his own rôle played by another, and with what infinitely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span> -greater grace. The part of heroine would be filled by its “creator,” -but, in this remodelled piece, what sparkle and life she would put into -her scenes. Where she had been wooden and impassive, she would be eager -and responsive, that icy toleration would melt into a bubbling liquor of -joy. Then there would be the part now to be filled by Raymond; would he -fill that with Colin’s tact and sweetness? Of minor characters there -would be his father and grandmother, and with what convincing sincerity -now would they fill their places.... But Raymond’s absence would take -all the sting and fire out of the play.</p> - -<p>“Oh, father, does he feel like that?” asked Colin. “Did he feel he -couldn’t bear to stop? I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“No, it was I who told him to go,” said Philip. “He behaved outrageously -just now with me.”</p> - -<p>“But he’s sorry,” said Colin. “He wants to do better. Mayn’t he stop? -He’ll be wretched all alone up in London.”</p> - -<p>A sudden thought struck him, a touch of genius. “But it concerns Vi -most,” he said. “What do you vote, darling?”</p> - -<p>“By all means let him stop,” said she. Nothing but Colin’s wish, here -clearly indicated, could have any weight with her.</p> - -<p>“Then may he, father?” he asked. “That is good of you. Come and tell -him, Vi.”</p> - -<p>Raymond was in the hall. He had just ordered his car, and was now about -to telephone to the housekeeper in town to say he was coming, when Colin -and Violet came out of the library. Philip followed them to complete the -welcome, and saw Colin go up to his brother.</p> - -<p>“Raymond, don’t go,” he said. “We all want you to stop. Vi does, father -does, I do.”</p> - -<p>Raymond saw his father in the doorway. “May I stop, then, father?” he -said.</p> - -<p>“By all means. We all wish it,” said he.</p> - -<p>Raymond looked back again at his brother. Colin was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span> standing just below -the portrait of his ancestor, the very image and incarnation of him.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got you to thank, I expect, Colin,” he said.</p> - -<p>Their eyes met; Colin’s glittered like a sword unsheathed in the -sunlight of his hatred and triumph; Raymond’s smouldered in the -blackness of his hatred and defeat.</p> - -<p>“I wish there was anything I could do for you, Ray,” said Colin gently.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The entertainment which Colin had anticipated from these alterations in -the cast of this domestic drama did not fall short of his expectations. -He held Raymond in the hollow of his hand, for Raymond’s devotion to -Violet, gross and animal though it had been, gave Colin a thousand -opportunities of making him writhe with the shrewd stings of jealousy, -and with gay deliberation he planted those darts. The <i>coup de grâce</i> -for Raymond would not come yet, his father’s death would give the signal -for that; but at present there was some very pretty baiting to be done. -Not one of those darts, so becomingly beribboned, failed to hit its -mark: a whispered word to Violet which made the colour spring bright and -eager to her face, a saunter with her along the terrace in the evening, -and, even more than these, Colin’s semblance of sparing Raymond’s -feelings, his suggestion that he should join them in any trivial -pursuit—all these were missiles that maddingly pierced and stung.</p> - -<p>No less adequately did Philip and old Lady Yardley fill their minor -parts; he, with the sun of Colin’s content warming him, was genial and -thoughtful towards Raymond in a way that betrayed without possibility of -mistake the sentiment from which it sprang; while Lady Yardley, braced -and invigorated by the same emotion, was strangely rejuvenated, and her -eyes, dim with age, seemed to pierce the mists of the encompassing years -and grew bright with Colin’s youth.</p> - -<p>As regards his own relations with Violet, Colin found<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span> he could, for the -present anyhow, manage very well; the old habits of familiarity and -intimacy appeared to supply response sufficient; for she, shuddering -now, as at some nightmare, at her abandoned engagement to Raymond and -blinded with the splendour of the dawn of her love, saw him as a god -just alighted on the gilded and rosy hills.... Colin shrugged his -shoulders at her illusion; she presented to him no such phantasmal -apparition, but he could give her liking and friendship, just what she -had always had from him. Soon, so he hoped, this vision of himself would -fade from her eyes, for even as he had found his father’s paternal -devotion to him in Capri a fatiguing and boring business, so he foresaw -a much acuter <i>gêne</i> that would spring from a persistence of Violet’s -love. No doubt, however, she would presently become more reasonable.</p> - -<p>What above all fed Colin’s soul was to stroll into the smoking-room when -Violet had gone upstairs, and his father had retired to his library, and -to make Raymond drink a cup more highly spiced with gall than that which -had refreshed him in public. Raymond had usually got there first, while -Colin lingered a moment longer with Violet, and had beside him a -liberally mixed drink, and this would serve for Colin’s text:</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Raymond! Drowning dull care?” he asked. “That’s right. I can’t -bear seeing you so down. By Jove, didn’t Violet look lovely to-night -with her hair brought low over her forehead?”</p> - -<p>“Did she?” said Raymond. He tried to entrench himself in self-control; -he tried to force himself to get up and go, but hatred of Colin easily -stormed those defences. “Stop and listen,” said that compelling voice. -“Glut yourself with it: Love is not for you; hate is as splendid and as -absorbing....”</p> - -<p>“Did she?” echoed Colin. “As if you hadn’t been devouring her all the -evening! But we all have our turn, don’t we? Every dog has its day. Last -week I used to see you and Violet; now you see Violet and me. Tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span> me, -Raymond, does Violet look happy? We can talk so confidentially, can’t -we, as we have both been in the same position? What a ticklish thing it -is to be a girl’s lover. How it ages one! I feel sixty. But does she -seem happy? She used to wear a sort of haunted look last week. I suppose -that was her wonder and her misgiving at a man’s brutal adoration. It -frightened her. As if we weren’t frightened too! Did the idea of -marriage terrify you as it terrifies me? A girl’s adoration is just as -brutal.”</p> - -<p>Colin moved about the room as he spoke, dropping the sentences out like -measured doses from some phial of a potent drug. After each he paused, -waiting for a reply, and drinking glee from the silence. In that same -silence Raymond was stoking his fires which were already blazing.</p> - -<p>“Yes, every dog has its day,” he said, replenishing his glass.</p> - -<p>“And every dog has his drink,” said Colin. “Lord, how you’ll get your -revenge when your day comes! What sweetness in your cup that Vi and I -will never be allowed to come to Stanier again. You’ll like that, -Raymond. You’ll have married by that time. I wonder if it will be the -tobacconist’s girl who’ll have hooked you. You’ll be happier with her -than Vi, you know, and I shouldn’t wonder if Vi will be happier with me -than with you....”</p> - -<p>Still there was silence on Raymond’s part.</p> - -<p>“You must be more cheerful, Raymond,” said Colin. “Whatever you may do -to me hereafter, you had better remember that I’m top-dog just now. I -shall have to ask father to send you away after all, if you don’t make -yourself more agreeable. It was I who made him allow you to stop here, -and I will certainly have you sent away if you’re not kinder to me. You -must be genial and jolly, though it’s a violence to your nature. You -must buck up and be pleasant. So easy, and so profitable. Nothing to -say?”</p> - -<p>There was a step outside, and their father entered. He carried an opened -letter in his hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ve just had a note from the governor of the asylum at Repstow,” he -said. “One of their patients has escaped, a homicidal lunatic.”</p> - -<p>“Gosh, I’ll lock my door,” said Colin. “No use for him. What else, -father?”</p> - -<p>“It’s no joke, Colin. The keeper at the Repstow Lodge was out attending -to the pheasants’ coops this afternoon, and while he was gone a man -vaulted over the fence, frightened his wife into hysterics, and decamped -with his gun and a bag of cartridges. Then he bolted into the woods. -It’s almost certain that he is the escaped lunatic.”</p> - -<p>Raymond, who had been listening intently, yawned.</p> - -<p>“But they’re out after him, I suppose,” he said. “They’ll be sure to -catch him.”</p> - -<p>Colin wondered what that yawn meant.... To any boy of twenty—to himself -anyhow—there was a spice of excitement about the news. It was -impossible not to be interested. But Raymond did not seem to be -interested.... Or did he wish it to appear that he was not interested?</p> - -<p>Colin, with an eye on Raymond, turned to his father. Two or three more -little darts were ready for his brother, at which he would not yawn....</p> - -<p>“Oh, father,” said he, “come and sleep in my room and we’ll take -watches. What glorious fun. You shall take the watch from midnight till, -till half-past eight in the morning, and then you’ll wake me up, and -I’ll take the watch till five in the afternoon without a wink of sleep. -Then Raymond and Vi can slumber in safety. Now I shall go upstairs and -say good-night to Vi——”</p> - -<p>“Better not tell her about it to-night,” said Lord Yardley.</p> - -<p>“Rather not: we shall have other things to talk about, thanks. But not a -minute before half-past eight, father. Good-night; good-night, Raymond. -Sleep well.”</p> - -<p>Raymond, in spite of these good wishes, passed an almost sleepless -night. If he shut his eyes it was to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span> Colin’s mocking face floating -on the darkness of his closed lids, and to have echoing in his ears the -mockery of Colin’s jibes. As he passed Violet’s door on his way up to -bed he had heard the sound of speech and laughter from within, and his -jealousy seemed to arrest his tip-toeing steps, so that what he might -overhear should give it the bitter provender it loved. But some new-born -fear of Colin made him go on instead of lingering: Colin seemed -prospered in all he did by some hellish protection; a mysterious -instinct might warn him that there was a listener, and he would throw -open the door and with a laugh call Violet to see who was eavesdropping -on the threshold.... Then after they had laughed and pointed at him, -Colin would shut the door again, locking it for fear of—of a homicidal -maniac—and the talking would go on again till it was quenched in -kisses....</p> - -<p>He had tossed and turned as on a gridiron, with the thought of Colin and -Violet together to feed and to keep the fire alive. He did not believe -that Colin loved her; if she had not promised to marry himself, he would -not have sought her. It was from hatred of himself that he had given her -a glance and a smile and whistled her to him, so that she threw away -like a scrap of waste-paper the contract that would have installed her -as mistress of the house she adored. Colin had idly beckoned, just to -gratify his hate, and she had flamed into love for him.</p> - -<p>What subtle arts of contrivance and intrigue were his also! He had -wanted to feast that same hatred on the sight of his brother’s defeat -and discomfiture, and a word from him had been sufficient to make his -father revoke his edict and let him remain at Stanier. Thus Colin earned -fresh laurels in the eyes of the others for his compassionate -forbearance, and by so doing accomplished his own desire of having -Raymond there, like a moth on a pin.</p> - -<p>As the hours went on strange red fancies crossed his brain. He imagined -himself going to his father’s room and smothering him, so that next day -he would be master<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span> of Stanier, and free to turn Colin out. Not another -hour should he stay in the place. Out he should go, and Violet with him. -Better still would it be to come behind Colin with a noose in his hand, -which he would draw tight round his neck and laugh to see his face go -black and his eyes start from his head with the strangling.... That -would satisfy him; he could forgive Colin when he lay limp and lifeless -at his feet, but till then he would never know a moment’s peace or a -tranquil hour.</p> - -<p>All this week his fever of hatred had been mounting in his blood, -to-night the heat of it made to flower in his brain this garden of -murderous images. And all the time he was afraid of Colin, afraid of his -barbed tongue, his contemptuous hate, above all, of the luck that caused -him to prosper and be beloved wherever he went. Just at birth one stroke -of ill-luck had befallen him, but that was all....</p> - -<p>Earlier in the evening, he remembered, an idea had flitted vaguely -through his head, which had suggested to him some lucky accident.... He -had purposely yawned when that notion presented itself, so that Colin -should not see that he took any interest in what was being talked about.</p> - -<p>For the moment he could not recollect what it had been; then he -remembered how his father had come into the smoking-room and told them -that a homicidal lunatic had got hold of a gun and was at large, -probably in the park.... That was it; he had yawned then, for he had -pictured to himself Colin strolling through the leafy ways and suddenly -finding himself face to face with the man. There would be a report and -Colin would lie very still among the bracken till his body was found. -Ants and insects would be creeping about him.</p> - -<p>That had been the faint outline of the picture; now in the dark it -started into colour. What if once again Colin’s luck failed him, and in -some remote glade he found himself alone with Raymond? He himself would -have a gun with him, and he would fire it point-blank at Coli<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span>n’s face -and leave him there. It would be supposed that the escaped mad-man had -encountered him....</p> - -<p>It was but a wild imagining, born of a sleepless night, but as he -thought of it, Raymond’s eyelids flickered and closed, and just before -dawn he fell asleep. When he was called a few hours later, that was the -first image that came into his mind, and by the light of day it wore a -soberer, a more solid aspect. What if it was no wild vision of the -night, but a thing that might actually happen?</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>No fresh news when they met at breakfast was to hand about the escaped -man; indeed, in answer to an inquiry sent by Lord Yardley to the asylum, -there came the reply that, though search-parties were out after him, -nothing had as yet been seen of him. Colin was engaged to play a round -of golf on the Rye links, and the chance of falling in with him seemed -so remote that soon after breakfast he went off on his motor-bicycle, -promising, in order to soothe Violet’s apprehensions, to travel at the -rate of not less than forty miles an hour. That did not please her -either; in fact, there was no pleasing her about his expedition, whether -he went fast or slow; so he kissed her, and told her to order her -mourning. At the last moment, however, at his father’s wish, he slipped -a revolver into his pocket.</p> - -<p>Raymond, as usual, refused to play golf, and preferred a wander in the -park with a gun as a defensive measure for himself, and as an offensive -measure against the plague of wood-pigeons. They were most numerous in -the woods that lay on the steep slope through which the road to Repstow -passed. That had been Colin’s road, too, and when Raymond set out a -quarter of an hour later, the dust raised by his motor-bicycle still -hung in the windless air.</p> - -<p>Ten minutes walking brought him to the point where the road which -hitherto had lain across the open grass of the park descended into the -big belt of wood which stretched as far as the lodge-gates. On each side -of it the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span> ground rose sharply, covered on the one side by firs and -birches with groundwork of heather, on the other by the oaks of what was -known as the Old Park. According to tradition they were of the plantings -of Elizabeth’s Colin, and for age and grandeur they might well be so, -for stately and venerable they rose from the short deer-nibbled turf, -well-spaced with full freedom for roots and branch alike. No other trees -were on that slope, but these great, leafy sentinels stood each with his -ring of shade round him, like well-tried veterans who have earned their -leisure and the dignified livery of repose. A low wall of grey stone, -some four feet high, mossy and creviced and feathered with small ferns, -separated this Old Park from the road.</p> - -<p>It was among these great oaks that the pigeons congregated, and Raymond -was soon busy with them. This way and that, startled by his firing, they -flew, often wary and slipping out of the far side of a tree and -interposing its branches between him and them so that he could get no -sight of them, but at other times coming out into the open and giving -him a fair shot. Before long the whole battalion of them were in -commotion, wheeling and flying off and returning again, and in an hour’s -time he had shot some forty of them, not reckoning half a dozen more, -which, winged or otherwise wounded, trailed off on his approach, -fluttering on in front of him. Raymond was quite willing to put any such -out of their misery, if they would only stop still and be killed like -sensible birds, but on a hot morning it was too much to expect him to go -trotting after the silly things, especially when he had killed so many. -He took no pleasure in the cruelty of leaving them to die; he was simply -indifferent.</p> - -<p>He had come almost to the end of his cartridges, and if he was to -continue his shooting, he would have to go back to the house for more -ammunition or borrow some from the keeper at the Repstow lodge. That was -nearer than the house, but before going he sat down in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span> shade of one -of old Colin’s oaks to cool down and have a cigarette.</p> - -<p>For the last hour he had been completely absorbed in his sport; now with -a snap like that of a released spring his mind leaped back to that which -had occupied it as he walked here and saw the dust of his brother’s -motor-bicycle hanging in the air. He had locked up in his mind, when he -began his shooting, all connection with that, his hate, the sleepless -night with its visions that seemed so wild at the time, but which, on -his waking, had taken on so much quieter and more likely an aspect, and -now, when he unlocked his mind again, he found that they had grown like -fungi in the darkness of a congenial atmosphere. They were solid and -mature: where before there had been but a fairy-ring of imagination, -where nightly elves had danced, there were now those red, firm-fleshed, -poisoned growths, glistening and corrupt.</p> - -<p>His subconscious mind poured out its storage: it had been busy while he -was shooting, and wonderfully acute. It reminded him now that a quarter -of a mile further on, the Old Park came to an end, and one clump of -rhododendrons stood behind the wall which ran along the road. Just here -the road took a sharp turn to the right: a man walking along it (or, for -that matter, bicycling along it) would only come into sight of any one -who might happen to be by that rhododendron bush half-a-dozen yards -before he came to it himself, and anything else he might see there (a -gun, for instance) would be at point-blank range. Such a gun-barrel -would rest conveniently on the top of the wall; any one who happened to -be holding the weapon would be concealed between the wall and the -bush....</p> - -<p>These pictures seemed to be shewn Raymond rather than to be imagined by -him; it was as if some external agency held open the book which -contained them and turned over the leaves. It might prove to be himself -who would presently lie <i>perdu</i> there, but he had no sense of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span> any -personal volition or share in the matter. His hatred of Colin had -somehow taken counsel (even as doctors consult over a bad case) with the -necessity that Colin should die, and this was their advice; Raymond was -but the patient who in the apathy of sickness was going to do as they -told him, not caring much what happened, only conscious that if this -advice was successful in all its aspects, he would be restored to -complete health.</p> - -<p>He hardly knew if he hated Colin any more; all that he was certain of -was that there existed—somewhere—this black dynamic enmity. He hardly -knew whether it was he who was about to shoot Colin, as presently on his -motor-bicycle he would come round that sharp bend by the rhododendron -bush. All that he was certain of was that Colin would presently lie dead -on the road with his face all shattered by the shot. The homicidal -maniac, of course, escaped from the asylum, must have been his murderer.</p> - -<p>There was no use for more cartridges than the two which he now slipped -into his gun. If the fellow hidden behind the rhododendron bush could -not kill Colin with two shots, he could not kill him with twenty, and -Raymond, looking carefully round, began moving quietly down the slope to -the corner, keeping in the shadow of the leafage of the splendid trees. -His foot was noiseless on the cropped plush of the turf, and he passed -quickly over the patches of sun between the shadows of the oaks, pausing -every now and then to make sure there was no one passing along the road -or the hillside, who was within sight of him. But there was no one to be -seen; after the cessation of his shooting, the deer had come back to -their favourite grazing-ground, and were now cropping at the short, -sweet grass, or lying with twinkling ears alert in the shade. No one was -moving up there at the top of the Old Park, where a foot-path made a -short cut to the house from the Repstow Lodge, or the deer would not be -so tranquil, while his own sharp eye assured him that within the circle -of his vision there was none astir.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span></p> - -<p>His remembrance of the rhododendron bush close to the angle in the road, -was astonishingly accurate. The top of the grey wall was a most -convenient rest for his gun, and a man coming round the corner from the -direction of Repstow would suddenly find himself within six yards of the -barrels. Probably he would never see them at all; there would be just a -flash of flames close to his startled eyes, perhaps even the report of -the explosion would never reach him.</p> - -<p>That was the only imperfect touch in these schemes which had been thus -presented to Raymond; he would like Colin to know, one-half second -before he died, whose hand had pulled the trigger and put a muzzle on -his mocking mouth and a darkness over his laughing eyes, and he -determined that when the beat of Colin’s approaching motor-bicycle -sounded loud round the corner he would stand up and show himself. It -would be all too late for Colin to swerve or duck then, and he should -just see who had the last laugh. Raymond felt that he would laugh as he -fired.... Till that moment it was best to conceal himself from the road, -and he leaned against the wall, crouching a little, with the muzzle of -his gun resting on it.... It was already after one o’clock. Colin would -be here any minute now.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>A quarter of an hour before, Colin had arrived at the Repstow lodge with -a puncture in his hind tyre. Luck was kind to him as usual; the puncture -had occurred only a few yards down the road, and he could leave his -machine with the lodge-keeper, and send a mechanic from the garage to -repair it and bring it back to the house. For himself, he would take the -short cut through the top of the Old Park back home; that reduced the -distance by at least a half, and on this hot morning the soft-turfed -shade would be pleasant.</p> - -<p>Then a sudden thought struck him, and he asked whether the escaped -madman had been captured; the walk home would be less exciting but -perhaps pleasanter if<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> they had caught him. And again it appeared that -Colin’s affairs were being well looked after; the man had been found on -the other side of the park half an hour ago; cleverly taken, so the -keeper said. He must have been in the woods all night, and they came -upon him as he dozed, seizing the gun he had possessed himself of before -he woke and getting a noose round his arms.</p> - -<p>So that was all right, and Colin, with a smile for the keeper’s wife and -a sixpenny piece for the small child who regarded him with wide, -wondering eyes, set off for the mile walk to the house. He took his -revolver out of his pocket with the intention of giving it to the -keeper, and having it brought up to the house with the bicycle; but then -thought better of it, and, emptying the cartridges out, replaced it. It -made a rather weighty bulge in his coat, but on general principles it -was wise not to leave fire-arms about.</p> - -<p>The thought of Raymond at his pigeon-shooting occurred to him as he -walked, but no sound of firing came from the direction of the Old Park, -which now lay close in front of him, and he supposed that his brother -would have gone home by this time. What a sullen, awkward fellow he was; -how he winced under Colin’s light artillery; how impotently Raymond -hated him.... Colin could not imagine hating any one like that and not -devising something deadly. But Raymond devised nothing; he just -continued hating and doing nothing.</p> - -<p>Colin had come to the beginning of the Old Park; the path lying along -the top of it wound in and out of the great oaks; below to the right lay -the road with the low stone wall running beside it. The road had been -out of sight hitherto, forming a wider circuit, but just below him now -there was a sharp corner and it came into view.</p> - -<p>But what was that bright line of light on the top of the wall just at -that point? Something caught the sun, vividly gleaming. For some reason -he was imperatively curious to know what gleamed there, just as if it -intimately concerned him, and half-closing his eyes to focus<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span> it and -detach it from that baffling background of dappled light and shadow, he -saw. Simultaneously and unbidden the idea of Raymond out shooting -pigeons occurred to him. But what was he doing—if it were -Raymond—hidden behind that dark-leaved rhododendron-bush with his gun -resting on the wall and pointing at the road? That was a singular way of -shooting pigeons, very singular.</p> - -<p>Colin’s face broke into one great smile, and he slipped behind one of -the oaks. Looking out he saw that another tree lower down the slope hid -the rhododendron bush from him, and keeping behind the broad trunk he -advanced down the hill in its direction. Twice again, in similar cover, -he approached, and, peering round the tree, he could now see Raymond -close at hand. Raymond’s back was towards him; he held his gun, with the -end of the barrels resting on the top of the wall, looking at the angle -of the road round which, but for that puncture in his bicycle, he -himself would already have come.</p> - -<p>There was now but one big tree between him and his brother, and on -tiptoe, as noiselessly as a hunting tiger, he crept up to it, and, -drawing his revolver from his pocket, he came within ten paces of him. -Then some faint sound of his advance—a twig, perhaps, snapping beneath -his step—or some sense of another’s presence reached Raymond, and he -turned his head quickly in Colin’s direction. He found himself looking -straight down the barrel of his revolver.</p> - -<p>“Raymond, if you stir except to do precisely what I tell you, I shall -shoot,” said Colin quietly. “If you take your eyes off me I shall -shoot.”</p> - -<p>Colin’s finger was on the trigger, his revolver as steady as if a man of -stone held it.</p> - -<p>“Open the breech of your gun,” he said, “and let the barrels drop.... -Now hold it in one hand, with your arm stretched out.... That’s right. -Good dog!... Now lay the gun down and turn round with your back to -me.... Stop like that without moving.... Remem<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span>ber that I am covering -you, and I could hardly miss at this distance.”</p> - -<p>Colin picked up the gun and took the two cartridges out and put them in -his pocket. Not till they clinked against the revolver cartridges that -lay there did he remember that all the time his pistol had been -unloaded. He stifled a laugh.</p> - -<p>“Take off your cartridge-bag, Raymond,” he said, “and put it on the -ground.”</p> - -<p>“There are no more in it,” said Raymond, speaking for the first time.</p> - -<p>“You ill-conditioned swine, do as I tell you,” said Colin. “I shan’t -give you an order twice again.... Well, what you said seems to be true, -but that’s not the point. The point is that you’re to do as I tell you. -Now have you got any more cartridges in your pockets?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>Colin thought he had better make sure of this for himself, and passed -his hand over Raymond’s coat-pockets.</p> - -<p>“Now you stand just where you are,” he said, “because we’ve got to talk. -But first I’ll put some cartridges in my own revolver. It has been -perfectly empty all this time. Isn’t that damned funny, Raymond, dear? -There were you expecting every moment would be your last, and obeying me -like the sweet, obedient boy you are. Laugh, can’t you? It’s one of the -funniest things that ever happened.”</p> - -<p>Colin lit a cigarette with shouts of laughter.</p> - -<p>“Well, to business,” he said. “Turn round and let’s see your face. Do -you know a parlour-trick called thought-reading? I’m going to tell you -what you’ve been thinking about. You expected me to come round that -corner on my bike; and from behind the wall you were going to fire -point-blank at me. Not at all a bad idea. There was the homicidal -lunatic, you thought, loose in the woods, and my death would have been -put down to him.... But you would have been hanged for it all the same, -because he was taken nearly an hour ago without firing a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span> shot. So I’ve -saved you from the gallows. Good idea of yours, but it had a flaw in -it.”</p> - -<p>Colin came a step nearer his brother, his eyes dancing.</p> - -<p>“Raymond, I can’t resist it,” he said. “You’ve got to stand quite still, -while I smack your filthy face just once, hard. It’ll hurt you, I’m -afraid, but you’ve just got to bear it. If you resist in any way, I -shall tell my father exactly what has happened this morning as soon as I -get in. I shall tell him at lunch before Violet and the servants. I may -settle to tell him in any case; that depends on how our talk goes off. -But if you don’t stand still like a good boy, I shall certainly tell -him. Now! Shut your eyes and see what I’ll give you.... There! It quite -stung my fingers, so I’m sure it stung your face. Sit down; no, I think -you look nicer standing. Let me think a moment.”</p> - -<p>Colin lit another cigarette, and stared at his brother as he smoked it.</p> - -<p>“You’ve been wise about one thing,” he said, “in not attempting to deny -the truth of my pretty thought-reading. You’re beaten, you see; you -daren’t deny it. You’re a whipped cur, who daren’t even growl. Lucky for -you that you’re such a coward.... Now, I’ve settled what to do with you. -As soon as we get in, you shall write out for me a confession. You shall -say that you intended to shoot me, and put down quite shortly and -clearly what your plan was. You shall sign, and my father and I will -sign it as witnesses. He shan’t read it; I will tell him that it is a -private friendly little matter between you and me, and we just want his -signature.</p> - -<p>“I’m devilish good to you, you know; it’s lucky that that affair about -my revolver-cartridges amused me; that, and smacking your face. Then I -shall send your confession to my bank, to be kept unopened there, except -in case of my death, in which case it is to be sent to my father. -That’ll keep you in order, you see. You won’t dare to make any other -attempt on my life, because if it were successful, it would be known -that you had tried to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> kill me before, and that would be a suspicious -circumstance. How’s your face?... Answer, can’t you?”</p> - -<p>“It’s all right,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Good Lord, I don’t want to know about your face. What do you say to my -proposal? The alternative is that I tell my father and Violet all about -it. I rather fancy—correct me if I am wrong—that he will believe me. -Shocking affair, but true. Answer.”</p> - -<p>“I accept it,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Of course you do. Now pick up your gun. Did you have good sport with -the pigeons? Answer pleasantly.”</p> - -<p>“I got about forty,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“And you hoped to get one more at that corner, didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Damned rude of you to call me a pigeon. I’ll pay you out for that.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Philip was out on the terrace when the two boys came in. Colin took -Raymond’s arm affectionately when he saw him.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, father,” he said. “We’ve had such a ripping morning. I won my -match, and Raymond downed forty pigeons, and they’ve caught the madman. -Oh, my bicycle punctured, by the way, but that was a blessing in -disguise, for I had a jolly walk through the Old Park, and found -Raymond. We’ve had a nice talk, too, and we want you to witness -something for us after lunch.”</p> - -<p>“What’s that?” said Philip.</p> - -<p>“Oh, just a private little arrangement that only concerns us.... Shan’t -we show it father, Ray?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I think not,” said he.</p> - -<p>Colin raised his eyebrows as he met his father’s glance. “All right,” he -said. “Just as you like.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII-b" id="CHAPTER_VIII-b"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> - -<p>Colin was lying on the beach of the men’s bathing-place at Capri after -an hour’s swim. A great wave of heat had swept over Europe, and now, -though it was late in October, the conditions of summer still prevailed. -It might have been June still, and he here with his father, quietly -making the plans that had turned out so well. On this beach it was that -he lay, pondering his reply to Violet’s letter which told him she was -engaged to Raymond. He had thought out his reply here, that -congratulatory reply, saying how delightful her news was, and as for -feeling hurt.... That had been a thorn to Violet, which had pricked and -stung her, as she had confessed. She had confessed it to him between -dusk and dawn on their marriage-night.</p> - -<p>He knew all about it; that casual kiss in the dusk of the yew-hedge the -night before he and his father left for Italy had begun it; his -indifference to her had made her ache, and his arrival back in England -had made the ache intolerable. To be mistress at Stanier had become -worthless to her, and to reward her sense of its worthlessness, had come -the news that she would not be that only....</p> - -<p>Colin stirred his sun-stained body to get a fresh bed of hot sand and -pebbles for his back. He had absorbed the heat of those on which he had -been lying, but a little kneading movement of his elbow brought him on -to another baked patch. That was gloriously hot; it made him pant with -pleasure, as he anticipated one more cool rush into the sea. He purred -and thought of the lovely days that had passed, of the lovely day that -was here, of the lovely days that awaited him. Quite methodically, he -began at the beginning.</p> - -<p>Violet and he had been married in the first week of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span> October, on the -very day indeed that had been arranged for her marriage with Raymond. -There was a suave brutality about that; he had made Raymond, under some -slight hint of pressure, advocate it. Raymond (under that same hint) had -become marvellously agreeable; he had been almost sentimental and had -urged Violet to be married on that day. He himself would be best man, if -Colin would allow him, instead of being bridegroom. Her happiness, it -appeared, was of greater import to him than his own.</p> - -<p>Little conversations with Colin in the smoking-room, before Colin went -up to say good-night to Violet, were responsible for this Scotch -sentimentality. Raymond had been quite like a noble character in a -sloshy play. He had understood and entered into the situation; he had -given up without bitterness; he had rejoiced at his brother’s happiness -and had been best man. The happy pair had left that afternoon for Italy.</p> - -<p>The attitude which he had forced on Raymond gave Colin the most intense -satisfaction. He had been made to appear to be affectionate and loving, -high-minded and altruistic, and Colin knew what wormwood that must be to -him. It was tiresome enough, as he knew from his experience of the last -fortnight, to be supposed to love when you only liked, but how -infinitely more galling it must be to be supposed to love when you -hated. But he did Raymond justice; a mere hint at publicity for that -paper which lay at his bankers together with his mother’s letters and -that confirmatory line from Uncle Salvatore, produced wonderful results. -Raymond could be bridled now with a single silken thread.</p> - -<p>Colin’s thought turned over that leaf of the past, and pored over the -present—this delightful, actual present. There was the sun baking his -chest and legs, and the hot sand and pebbles warm to his back, while the -cool, clear sea awaited him when the rapture of heat became no longer -bearable. Violet had not come down with him to-day. She had taken to the -rather more sophisticated<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span> bathing establishment at the Marina, where -more complete bathing-dresses were worn, and men did not dress and -undress in the full eye of day. Colin quite agreed with her that the -Marina was more suitable for her; this bay was really the men’s -bathing-place and though women could come here if they chose, they were -rather apt to be embarrassing and embarrassed. She would find the huts -at the Marina more satisfactory and still more satisfactory to him was -to be rid of her for a few hours.</p> - -<p>There was a stern, pitiless insistency about love which bored him. He -could not be quite tranquil when, from moment to moment, he had to make -some kind of response. A glance or a smile served the purpose, but when -Violet was there he had, unless he betrayed himself, always to be on the -look out. This love was a foreign language to him, and he must attend, -if he were to reply intelligently. He liked her, liked her quite -immensely, but that which was a tireless instinct to her was to him a -mental effort. It was no effort, on the other hand, to be with Raymond, -for there his instinct of hatred functioned flawlessly and -automatically.</p> - -<p>Colin turned over that page of the present, and cast his eyes over the -future. At the first glance all seemed prosperous there. His father had -aged considerably during the last few months, and just before their -marriage had had a rather alarming attack of vertigo, when, after a hot -game of tennis, he had gone down with Colin to the bathing-pool to swim -himself cool. The boy had not been the least frightened; he had brought -his father to land without difficulty, and on his own responsibility had -telephoned for his father’s doctor to come down to Stanier. The report -had been quite reassuring, but a man who had left his sixtieth birthday -behind him must not over-exert himself at tennis and then bathe. Nature, -the wise old nurse, protested.</p> - -<p>This suggested eventualities for the future; no doubt his father would -now be more prudent and enjoy a long ripe old age. Colin quite -acquiesced; his father had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span> so consistently good to him that he -scarcely felt any impatience about that. But what this morning occupied -him with regard to the future was the idea, not of his father’s death, -but of Raymond’s. In this uncertain world accidents or illness might -carry off even the strongest and sulkiest, and he himself would then be -in a very odd position. Supposing (as was natural) his father died -first, Raymond (on the strong case that could be built on the evidence -of his mother’s letter to Salvatore and the erasure in the Consulate -archives), would, no doubt, be incontinently “hoofed out” of his -promised land, and Violet be in possession, with him as husband to the -owner. But if Raymond died first, Colin by his juggling would merely -have robbed himself of the birthright which would be rightfully his. It -had been a great stroke to provide at his father’s death for Raymond’s -penniless illegitimacy, and, by himself marrying Violet, to submerge his -own. Not possibly could he have provided for the eventuality of -Raymond’s pre-deceasing his father as well, but now that he had married -Violet it was worth while brooding and meditating over the other. -Something might conceivably be done, if Raymond died first, though he -could not as yet fashion the manner of it.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The morning had sped by all too quickly, and by now the other bathers -had gone and the beach was empty, and Colin plunged once more into that -beloved sea. The cool, brisk welcome of it encompassed him, its vigour -seemed to penetrate his very marrow and brain with its incomparable -refreshment, and he began to think of this problem with a magical -lucidity....</p> - -<p>Colin regretfully left the water and put his clothes into the boat in -which he had been rowed round from the Marina, meaning to dress on the -way there. Young Antonio, the son of Giacomo, Philip’s old boatman, had -brought him round here, and was now asleep in a strip of shadow at the -top of the beach, waiting till Colin was ready to return. There he lay, -with his shirt open at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> the neck and a carnation perched behind his ear, -lithe and relaxed like some splendid young Faun. The boy’s mouth smiled -as he slept.</p> - -<p>Was he dreaming, thought Colin, of some amorous adventure proper to his -age and beauty? His black hair grew low on his forehead, the black -lashes swept his smooth, brown cheek; it seemed a pity to awake him, and -for a minute or two Colin studied his face. Violet before now had -remarked on his extraordinary resemblance, except in point of colouring, -to Colin, and he wondered if, through his noble Viagi blood, they were -related. He liked to think he resembled this merry Nino; he would almost -have been willing to give him his blueness of eye and golden hair, and -take in exchange that glossy black, which caught the tints of the sky -among its curls.</p> - -<p>Then Nino stirred, stretched a lazy arm and found his hand resting on -Colin’s shoulder. At that he sprang up.</p> - -<p>“Ah, pardon, signor,” he said. “I slept. You have not been waiting?”</p> - -<p>Colin had picked up Italian with great ease and quickness; it came -naturally to his tongue.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been watching you smiling as you slept, Nino,” he said. “What have -you been dreaming about?”</p> - -<p>Nino laughed. “And if I was not dreaming of the signorino himself,” he -cried.</p> - -<p>“What about me?” demanded Colin.</p> - -<p>“Oh, just a pack of nonsense,” he said. “We were in the boat, and it -moved of itself without my rowing, and together we sat in the stern, and -I was telling you the stories of the island. You have heard the most of -them, I think, by now.... Are you not going to dress?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll dress in the boat,” said Colin. “But there’s that story of Tiberio -which you wouldn’t tell me when the signora was with us.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed a story of Tiberio is not fit for the signora. A fat, bald old -man was Tiberio; and as ugly as a German. Seven palaces he had on Capri; -there was one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span> here, and so shameful were the things done in it that, so -the priests say, the sea rose and swallowed it. But I do not know that -the priests are right. They say that, do you think, signor, to frighten -us from the wickedness of Tiberio? And one day Tiberio saw—<i>scusi, -signor</i>....”</p> - -<p>How attractive was the pagan gaiety of these young islanders! They -believed in sunshine and wine and amusement, and a very good creed it -was. They took all things lightly, except the scirocco. Love was a -pleasant pastime, an affair of eager eyes and a kiss and a smile at -parting, for had he not seen Nino himself in a corner of the piazza -yesterday making signals to his girl (or one of them), and then -strolling off in the warm dark? They were quite without any moral sense, -but it was ludicrous to call that wicked. Pleasure sanctified all they -did; they gave it and took it, and slept it off, and sought it again. -How different from the bleak and solemn Northerners!</p> - -<p>Imagine, mused Colin, as this really unspeakable history of Tiberio -gaily unfolded itself, encouraging a gardener’s boy to regale you with -bawdy tales. How he would snigger over the indecency, thus making it -indecent; how heavy and dreary it would all be! But here was Nino with -his dancing eyes and his laughing mouth and his “<i>scusi, signor,</i>” and -all was well. These fellows had charm and breeding for their birthright, -and, somehow, minds which vice did not sully.</p> - -<p>The end of the story was rapidly told, with gestures to help out the -meanings of recondite words, for they were approaching the Marina, and -Colin’s signora was waiting for him there, as Nino had already seen with -a backward glance.... An amazing moral was tacked on the conclusion of -those dreadful doings of Tiberio, for when Tiberio died, God permitted -the devil to torture him from morning to night as the anniversary of -that orgy came round.</p> - -<p>“But that’s not likely, Nino,” said Colin, deeply interested. “If -Tiberio were so wicked, the devil would not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span> want to torture him. He -would be the devil’s dear friend.”</p> - -<p>Nino took both oars in one hand for a second and crossed himself.</p> - -<p>“What do you do that for, Nino?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“It is safer,” said Nino. “Who knows where the devil is?”</p> - -<p>Colin made an admirably apposite remark: a thing that Neapolitans said, -so Mr. Cecil had told him, when they found themselves talking about the -devil, and Nino was duly appreciative.</p> - -<p>“That is good!” said he. “That muddles him up.... Yes, signor, it is as -you say. If Tiberio were very wicked, he and the devil would be very -good friends. Do you believe in the devil, signor, in England?”</p> - -<p>“We’re not quite sure. And in Capri, Nino?”</p> - -<p>“Not when the sky is blue, like ... like the signor’s eyes,” said Nino. -“But when there is scirocco, we are not so certain.”</p> - -<p>The prow of the boat hissed and was quenched against the sandy beach. -There, under the awning of the stabilimento, was Violet, rather fussed -at the leisurely progress of Colin’s boat, for in two minutes more the -funicular would start, and if they missed that there was the dusty drive -up to the town.</p> - -<p>“Quick, darling, quick,” she called out. “We have only a couple of -minutes.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t fuss,” said he. “Run on, if you want to. Nino and I are -talking folk-lore.”</p> - -<p>He felt in his pockets and spoke in Italian again.</p> - -<p>“Nino, I haven’t got a single penny,” he said, “to pay you for your -boat. If you are in the town to-night, come to the villa and I will pay -you. If not, to-morrow. I shall want your boat again at ten.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Sicuro!</i>” said the boy. “<i>Buon appetit.</i>”</p> - -<p>He stepped into the water and held out his bare arm like a rail for -Colin to lean on as he jumped on to the beach.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Thanks,” he said. “Same to you, Nino. Villa Stanier; you know.”</p> - -<p>Violet was waiting at the edge of the beach. The midday steamer had just -come in from Naples, and now there was no need to hurry, for the -funicular would certainly wait for the passengers who were landing in -small boats at the quay.</p> - -<p>“Nice bathe, darling?” she said as Colin joined her.</p> - -<p>Colin found himself mildly irritated by her always saying “darling.” She -could not speak to him without that adjunct, which might surely be taken -for granted.</p> - -<p>“Yes, darling,” he said. “Lovely bathe, darling. And you, darling?”</p> - -<p>There was certainly an obtuseness about Violet which had not been hers -in the old days. She seemed to perceive no impression of banter, however -good-natured, in this repetition. Instead, that slight flush, which -Colin now knew so well, spread over her face.</p> - -<p>“Yes, darling, the water was lovely,” she said. “Like warm silk.”</p> - -<p>“Ugh!” said Colin. “Fancy swimming about in silk. What horrible ideas -you have.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be so literal,” said she. “Just a silky feeling. Look at these -boat-loads of people. Aren’t they queer? That little round red one, like -a tomato, just getting out.”</p> - -<p>Colin followed her glance; there was no doubt whom she meant, for the -description was exactly apt. But even as he grinned at the vividness of -her vegetable simile, a sense of recognition twanged at his memory. The -past, which he had thought over this morning, was sharply recalled, and -somehow, somehow, the future entered into it.</p> - -<p>“Why, that’s Mr. Cecil,” he said, “the Consul at Naples. You must know -him, Vi.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil greeted Colin with welcome and deference. Consular business -had brought him to Capri; he had no idea that Mr. Stanier was here. Was -Lord Yardley here also?</p> - -<p>“No, but somebody much more important,” laughed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span> Colin. “My wife—we’re -on our honeymoon. Violet, this is Mr. Cecil, who was so kind to me when -I was here last. Mr. Cecil’s our Consul at Naples.”</p> - -<p>It was natural that Mr. Cecil should have his lunch with them, though he -pleaded shortness of time. He was going back by the afternoon boat.</p> - -<p>“But you clearly must have lunch somewhere,” said Colin, “and we’ll give -you a very bad one probably, but a quick one if you are in a hurry. Ah, -that’s delightful of you.”</p> - -<p>Colin was hugely cordial, exerting the utmost of his charm. He even -curtailed his siesta in order to walk down with his visitor to the -Consular office in the town, and gratefully promised, on behalf of -Violet and himself, to spend the night at his house on their way back to -England. He wanted that; he had made up his mind to get that invitation, -for it formed part of the plan which had come to him in his final swim -that morning, before he got into Nino’s boat and heard that horrible -scandal concerning Tiberio. He wanted Violet to pass the night at the -Consulate. There might arise emergencies which would render that -convenient.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>It was like her to have waited for his return instead of going to her -room for the afternoon sleep, and there she was under the pergola where -they had lunched at the far end of the garden. She was sitting with her -back to the garden-door and did not see him enter, and, quick as a -lizard and as silent-footed, Colin tip-toed into the house. If she saw -him, she would discuss Mr. Cecil, she would linger in the garden, and, -as likely as not, linger in his room, and he wanted his nap. If she -chose to sit out under the pergola, it was no business of his; there was -no proof after all that she was waiting for his return. Another day he -would take a sandwich down to the bathing place, and, like Nino, have -his siesta in some strip of shade down there, where no one would disturb -him or wait for him or want to talk with him. Violet was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span> dear; it was -hardly possible to have too much of her, but just now and then it was -nice to have no one watching you and loving you.</p> - -<p>A couple of hours later he strolled, still coatless, into the great cool -sitting-room; she was already there, waiting to make tea for him.</p> - -<p>“I never heard you come in, darling,” she said. “I was waiting for your -return in the pergola, and then eventually I came in and peeped into -your room, and there you were fast asleep.”</p> - -<p>“Funny I shouldn’t have seen you,” said Colin. “I just went down with -Mr. Cecil to the piazza, and was back in less than half-an-hour. I adore -Mr. Cecil, he enjoys himself so much, and drinks such a lot of wine. A -gay dog!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I thought he was a dreadful little man,” said Violet.</p> - -<p>“You’re too refined,” said Colin. “You don’t like little red bounders. -By the way, I’ve solemnly promised him that you and I will spend the -night at his house in Naples on our way home.”</p> - -<p>“Darling, how could you?” asked Violet.</p> - -<p>“To please him. He thinks you’re marvellous, by the way. Don’t elope -with him, Vi. Besides it’s a good thing to be friends with a Consul. He -reserves carriages and oils the wheels of travel.”</p> - -<p>“Colin, you’re full of surprises,” said she. “I should have thought Mr. -Cecil was the very type of man you would have found intolerable.”</p> - -<p>Colin laughed. “You don’t allow for my Viagi blood,” he said. “The -bounding Viagi blood. Shouldn’t I love to see you and Uncle Salvatore -together! Now what shall we do? Let’s go for an enormous walk till -dinner-time.”</p> - -<p>She came behind him and stroked the short hair at the back of his neck.</p> - -<p>“Darling, would you mind if I didn’t come all the way?” she asked. “I’m -rather tired; I had a long swim<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span> this morning. I’ll start with you, and -make myself comfortable and wait for you to come back.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t come at all, Vi, if you’re tired,” he said. “I can’t have you -tired. And then if you sit down and wait for me, I shall feel you’re -waiting, and hurry in consequence. Besides, I shall have to come back -the same way.”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll certainly come with you all the way,” said she. “It’s more -laziness with me than tiredness.”</p> - -<p>Colin moved his head out of reach of the caressing fingers as if by -accident.</p> - -<p>“You tickle me,” he said. “And if you’re obstinate, I shan’t go for a -walk at all, and I shall get fat like Mr. Cecil. Stop at home and be -lazy for once, Vi.”</p> - -<p>Colin, as usual, had his own way, and managed in his inimitable manner -to convey the impression that he was very unselfish in foregoing her -companionship. He established her with a book and a long chair, and, -greatly to his own content, went off alone up the steep hillside of -Monte Solaro. It was but a parody of a path that lay through the dense -bush of aspen and arbutus that clothed the slopes, and he would have had -to keep holding the stiff elastic shoots back for Violet to pass, to -have tarried and dawdled for her less vigorous ascent, had she come with -him. But now, having only his own pace to suit, he soon emerged above -this belt of woodland that buzzed with flies in a hot, stagnant air, and -came to the open uplands that stretched to the summit.</p> - -<p>The September rains and the thick dews of October had refreshed the -drought of the summer, and, as if spring were here already, the dried -and yellow grasses, tall and seeding, stood grounded in a new velvet of -young growth, and tawny autumn lilies reared their powdered stamens -laden with pollen. Still upwards he passed, and the air was cooler, and -a wind spiced with long travel over the sea, blew lightly but steadily -from the north-west. Presently he had reached the top; all the island -lay at his feet, and the peaks of the nearer mainland were below him, -too, floating, promontory after promontory, on the molten<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span> rim of the -sea. Far away to the west, like the shadow of a cloud, he could just -descry the coast of Corsica; all the world and the glory of the sea lay -at his feet, and how he lusted for it! What worship and fealty was he -not ready to give for the possession and enjoyment of it?</p> - -<p>There was no crime, thought Colin, that he would not commit if by that -the flame of life burned brighter; he would do a child to death or rob a -sacristy of its holy vessels, or emulate the deeds of Tiberius to feed -that flame ... and he laughed to himself thinking of the amazing history -told by Nino with the black eyes and laughing mouth. Surely Tiberius -must have made an alliance and a love-match with evil itself, such gusto -did he put into his misdeeds. In this connection the thought of the -family legend occurred to him. Dead as the story was, belonging to the -mists of mediævalism, you could not be a Stanier without some feeling of -proprietorship in it.</p> - -<p>Naturally, it was up to anybody to make a bargain for his soul with the -devil if he believed in the existence of such things as devils or souls, -and certainly for generations, when sons of his house came of age, they -had either abjured their original benefactor or made alliance with him. -Of course, they had really made their choice already, but it was quaint -and picturesque to ratify it like that.... But for generations now that -pleasant piece of ritual had dropped into misuse: it would be rather -jolly, mused Colin, when he came of age next March, to renew it.</p> - -<p>The edges of his thoughts lost their sharpness, even as the far-off -capes and headlands below melted into the blue field of sea and sky, and -as he lay in the little sheltered hollow which he had found at the very -summit of the peak, they merged into a blurred panorama of sensation. -His life hitherto, with its schemings and acquirings, became of one -plane with the future and all that he meant the future to bring him; he -saw it as a whole, and found it exquisitely good. Soon now he must -return to the love that awaited him in the villa, and before many days -now he must go back to England; a night at the Consulate<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span> first with -Violet, and then just a waiting on events till his father’s death or -Raymond’s.... His eyelids dropped, the wind rustled drowsily in his -ears....</p> - -<p>Colin sat up with a start; he had not been conscious of having gone to -sleep, but now, wide-awake again, it certainly seemed as if his brain -recorded other impressions than those of this empty eminence. Had there -been some one standing by him, or was it only the black shadow of that -solitary pine which his drowsiness had construed into the figure of a -man? And had there been talking going on, or was it only the whisper of -the wind in the dried grasses which sounded in his ears? In any case, it -was time to go, for the sun had declined westwards, and, losing the -flames and rays of its heat, was already become but a glowing molten -ball close above the sea. How strangely the various states of -consciousness melted into each other, though the sense of identity -persisted. Whatever happened that remained....</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>At the corner of the garden, perched on the wall which ran alongside the -steep footpath up from the town, was a little paved platform, where they -often sat after dinner. There had been a letter for Colin from his -father which had arrived during his walk, and now, holding it close to -his eyes to catch the last of the swiftly-fading light, he communicated -pieces of its contents to Violet.</p> - -<p>“Raymond’s gone back to Cambridge,” he said. “Father seems reconciled to -his absence. That’s funny now; there’s my elder brother an undergraduate -and me a married man and not of age yet. It was touch and go whether it -wasn’t the other way about, Vi.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t, Colin!” said she. “I can’t bear to think of it.”</p> - -<p>“But you did think of it. Wasn’t that a nice surprise for you when I -told you that to marry me didn’t mean giving up Stanier? That made all -the difference.”</p> - -<p>She came close to him. “Colin, don’t be such a brute,” she said. -“There’s just one thing you mustn’t jest about<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span> and that’s my love for -you. I wish almost I wasn’t going to get Stanier in order to show you. -Don’t jest about it.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t then. Serious matter! But don’t you jest about getting Stanier. -Vi, if you would move your head an inch I should get more light.”</p> - -<p>“What else does he say?” she asked.</p> - -<p>Colin ran his eyes down the page. “Lots of affection,” he said. “He -wants us back. Uncle Ronald’s down at Stanier, and Aunt Hester. Then -some more affection. Oh, he has had another little attack of giddiness, -nothing to worry about. So we won’t worry. And Aunt Hester’s going off a -bit, apparently, getting to repeat herself, father says. And then some -more affection.”</p> - -<p>Colin lit a match for his cigarette, disclosing a merry face that swam -before Violet’s eyes after the darkness had closed on it again.</p> - -<p>“That’s so like old people,” he said. “Aunt Hester wrote to me the other -day saying she was quite shocked to see how slowly my father walked. -She’s quite fond of him, but somehow it gives old people a little secret -satisfaction to look for signs of breaking up in each other.”</p> - -<p>“Colin, you’ve got a cruel eye sometimes,” said Violet.</p> - -<p>“Not in the least; only a clear one. And then there’s father saying that -Aunt Hester is beginning to repeat herself, and in the same dip of the -pen he repeats himself for the third time, sending us his love.”</p> - -<p>Violet gave a quick little sigh. “At the risk of repeating myself, you -really are cruel,” she said. “When you love, you have to say it again -and again. You might as well say that if you’re hungry you mustn’t ask -for something to eat, because you ate something yesterday.... It’s a -permanent need of life. I hope you don’t think I’m breaking up because I -have told you more than once that I rather like you.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Vi! Sadly changed!” said Colin, teasing her.</p> - -<p>“I have changed,” she said, “but not sadly. We’re both changed, you -know, Colin. A year ago we no more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span> thought of falling in love with each -other than of killing each other. But I don’t call the change sad.”</p> - -<p>Colin felt extremely amiable this evening, pleasantly fatigued by his -walk, and pleasantly exhilarated by his dinner, but he had to stir up -his brains to find a suitable reply. There was the unfair part of it; -Violet talked on this topic without effort; indeed, it was an effort for -her not to, whereas he had to think....</p> - -<p>“But you call it serious,” he said. “I mustn’t laugh about it, and I -mustn’t weep. What am I to do?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, darling. I want you just to be.”</p> - -<p>He determined not to let his amiability be ruffled.</p> - -<p>“I certainly intend to ‘be’ as long as ever I can,” he said. “I love -being. It’s wonderfully agreeable to be. And I would much sooner be here -than at Cambridge with Raymond.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, poor Raymond!” said Violet.</p> - -<p>That exasperated Colin; to pity or to like Raymond appeared to him a sin -against hate.</p> - -<p>“My dear, how can you talk such nonsense?” he said. “That’s pure -sentimentality, Vi, born of the dark and the stars. You don’t really -pity Raymond any more than I do, and I’m sure I don’t. I hate him; I -always have, and I don’t pretend otherwise. Why, just now you were -telling me not to mention him, and two minutes afterwards you are -saying, ‘Poor Raymond.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“You were reminding me of what might have happened,” she said. “It was -that I could not bear to think of. But I can be sorry for Raymond. After -all, he took it very well when Uncle Philip told him what we were going -to do. I believe he wanted me to be happy in spite of himself.”</p> - -<p>This was too much for Colin; the temptation to stop Violet indulging in -any further sympathy with Raymond was irresistible. She should know -about Raymond, and hate him as he himself did. He had promised Raymond -not to tell his father of a certain morning in the Old Park, but he had -never promised not to tell Violet. Why<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span> he had not already done so he -hardly knew; perhaps he was keeping it for some specially suitable -occasion, such as the present moment.</p> - -<p>“He wanted you to be happy, did he?” he exclaimed. “Do you really think -that? If so, you won’t think it much longer. Now, do you remember the -morning when there was an escaped lunatic in the park?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said she.</p> - -<p>“Raymond went out shooting pigeons, and I played golf. My bicycle -punctured, and I walked home through the Old Park. There I found Raymond -crouching behind the wall meaning to shoot me as I came round that sharp -corner of the road. I came close up behind him while he watched for me -by the rhododendrons, and, oh Lord! we had a scene! Absolutely -scrumptious! There was I covering him with my revolver, which, all the -time, hadn’t got a cartridge in it, and I made him confess what he was -up to....”</p> - -<p>“Stop, Colin; it’s not true!” cried she.</p> - -<p>“It is true. He confessed it, and wrote it all down, and father and I -witnessed it; and he signed it, and it’s at my bank now. Perhaps he -thought you would be happier with him than me, and so from unselfish -notions he had better fire a barrel of Number Five full in my face. All -for your sake, Violet! My word, what unutterable bunkum!”</p> - -<p>His hate had submerged him now; that final bitter ejaculation showed it -clearly enough, and it pierced Violet like some metallic stab. He had no -vestige of consideration for her, no faintest appreciation of the horror -of his stinging narrative, which pealed out with some hellish sort of -gaiety. She could not speak; she could only crouch and shudder.</p> - -<p>Colin got up, scintillating with satisfaction. “I promised him not to -tell father,” he said, “which was an act of great clemency. Perhaps it -will be too great some day and I shall. And I didn’t distinctly mean to -tell you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span> but you really forced me to when your heart began bleeding -for that swine, and saying he wanted to make you happy. Come, Vi, buck -up! Raymond didn’t get me. It was clever of him, by the way, to see his -opportunity when the looney was loose. I rather respected that. Let’s go -indoors and have our piquet.”</p> - -<p>She got up in silence, just pressed his arm, and went up the gravelled -path towards the house. Colin was about to follow when, looking over the -garden-wall, he saw Nino’s figure coming up the path, and remembered he -had told him that, if he were in the town, he might come up to the -villa, and receive the liras he was owed for his boat this morning.</p> - -<p>Instantly the picture of sitting with Nino out here in the dusk, with a -bottle of wine between them, presented itself. Gay and garrulous would -Nino be, that bright-eyed, laughing Faun, more Faun-like than ever at -night, with Tiberian or more modern tales and wonderful gesticulations. -That would be a welcome relaxation after this tragic, irritating talk -with Violet; he was much more attuned to Nino’s philosophy. Indoors -there would be a game of piquet with those foolish pasteboard -counterfeits of kings and queens and knaves, and five liras as the -result of all that dealing and meditation and exchange of cards. That -knave Nino would be far more amusing.... And even piquet was not the -worst of the tedium he would find indoors. There was Violet, clearly -very much upset by his tale; she would be full of yearnings and -squeezings and emotional spasms. To-morrow she would be more herself -again, and would bring a lighter touch to life than she would be -disposed to give it to-night. He really could not spend the evening with -Violet if it could possibly be avoided.</p> - -<p>He called in a low voice to Nino:</p> - -<p>“Signor!” said Nino, with gay, upturned face.</p> - -<p>“Wait ten minutes, Nino,” he whispered. “If I don’t come out again, you -must go. I shall want your boat to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span>-morrow morning. But wait ten -minutes, and then, perhaps, I shall be able to give you a glass of wine -and hear more stories, if you have half an hour to spare.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Si</i>, signor,” whispered Nino, pleased at this mystification and -intrigue.</p> - -<p>Colin followed quickly after Violet. She was in the big studio, where a -cardtable was laid, walking up and down still horrified and agitated. -She placed her hands on Colin’s shoulders and dropped her head there. It -required all his self-control not to jerk himself free.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin!” she said. “The horror of it. How can I ever speak to -Raymond again? I wish you hadn’t told me.”</p> - -<p>There was blame in this, but he waived his resentment at that for the -present.</p> - -<p>“I wish I hadn’t indeed, darling,” he said, “if it’s disturbed you so -much, and I’m afraid it has. Go to bed now; you look awfully tired; we -won’t have our piquet to-night. We shall neither of us attend.”</p> - -<p>“It’s all so terrible,” she said. “Supposing your bicycle hadn’t -punctured?”</p> - -<p>He laughed. “I remember I was annoyed when it happened, but it was a -blessing after all,” he said. “The point that concerns us is that it -did, and another point is that you’re not to sit up any longer.”</p> - -<p>“But you’d like a game,” she said. “What will you do with yourself?”</p> - -<p>Colin knew his power very well. He turned, drawing one of her hands that -rested on his shoulder round his neck.</p> - -<p>“The first thing I shall do with myself is to take you to your room,” he -said, “and say good-night to you. The second is to sit up for another -half-hour and think about you. The third to look in on tiptoe and see -that you’re asleep. The fourth, which I hope won’t happen, is to be very -cross with you if you’re not. Now, I’m not going to argue, darling.”</p> - -<p>The ten minutes were passing, and without another<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span> word he marched her -to her room, she leaning on him with that soft, feminine, clinging -touch, and closed her Venetian shutters for her, leaving the windows -wide.</p> - -<p>“Now promise me you’ll go to sleep,” he said. “Put it all out of your -mind. Raymond’s at Cambridge. You’ve got not to think about him; I -don’t. Good-night, Vi!”</p> - -<p>At the door he paused a moment, wondering if she had heard him speak to -Nino over the wall. In case she had, it were better to conceal nothing.</p> - -<p>“I’m just going downstairs to give Nino what I owe him for his boat this -morning,” he said. “I told him to come up for it. I shall just peep in -on you, Vi, when I go to bed. If you aren’t asleep, I shall be vexed. -Good-night, darling!”</p> - -<p>Colin went downstairs again and opened the garden door into the road. -There was Nino sitting on the step outside. He beckoned him in and shut -the door behind him.</p> - -<p>“Come and have a glass of wine, Nino,” he said. “Come quietly, the -signora has gone to bed.”</p> - -<p>He led the way into the dining-room, and brought out a bottle of wine.</p> - -<p>“There, sit down,” he said softly. “Cigarettes? Wine? Now for another of -your histories only fit for boys to hear, not women. So Tiberius had -supper with a gilded girl to wait on him, and a gilded boy to give him -wine. And what then?”</p> - -<p>The atrocious tale shocked nobody; this bright-eyed Nino was just a Faun -with the candour of the woodland and the southern night for conscience. -In face and limb and speech he was human, but not of the humanity which -wrestles with evil and distrusts joy. And just as Colin knew himself to -be, except in his northern colouring, another Nino in bodily form, so, -in a resemblance more remarkable yet, he recognised his spiritual -kinship with this incandescent young pagan. Violet, he thought, had once -been like that, but this love had come which in some way<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span> had altered -her, giving her a mysterious fatiguing depth, a dim, tiresome profundity -into which she seemed to want to drag him too. All her charm, her -beauty, were hers still, but they had got tinged and stained with this -tedious gravity. She had lost the adorable soullessness, which knew no -instinct beyond its own desire, and on which no frost of chill morality -had ever fallen....</p> - -<p>Colin had been hospitable towards Nino’s glass; the boy was becoming -Faun and Bacchant in one; he ought to have had a wreath of vine-leaves -in his hair. It amused Colin to see how gracefully intoxication gained -on him; there would be no sort of <i>vin triste</i> about Nino, only a -livelier gesticulation to help out the difficulties of pronunciation.</p> - -<p>“And then the melancholy seized Tiberius,” said Nino with a great -hiccup, “for all that he had done, and it must be a foolish fellow, -signor, who is melancholy for what he has done. I would be more likely -to get the melancholy when I was old for the things I might have done -and had not. And the signor is like me, I think. Ah, thank you, no more -wine. I am already half tipsy. But it is very good wine.”</p> - -<p>“Talk yourself sober, then, Nino,” said Colin, filling his glass.</p> - -<p>“What, then, shall I tell you? All Capri is in love with the signora and -you, some with one and some with the other. It was thought at first that -you must be brother and sister, so like you are, and both golden. You -were too young, they thought, to be married; it was playtime still with -you.”</p> - -<p>“Are you going to marry, Nino?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“There is time yet. Presently perhaps. I do not reap in spring.”</p> - -<p>There spoke the Faun, the woodland, the drinker of sweet beverages, who -drank with filled cup till the drink was done, and wiped his mouth and -smiled and was off again. By a luxury in contrast, Colin envisaged -Violet lying cool and white in the room above, sleeping, per<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span>haps, -already in answer to the suggestive influence of his wish, while he -below breathed so much more freely in this atmosphere of Fauns, where -nothing was wicked and nothing was holy, and love was not an affair of -swimming eyes and solemn mouth. Love was a laugh.... Nino, the handsome -boy, no longer existed for him in any personal manner. Nino was just -part of the environment, a product and piece of the joyous paganism with -which the night was thick. The pale-blue flower of the plumbago that -clothed the southern wall of the house nodded in the open window-frame; -the stir of the wind whispered; the star-light, with a moon lately -risen, all strove to be realised, and, Nino seemed some kind of -bilingual interpreter of them, no more than that, who, being boy, spoke -with human voice, and, being Faun, spoke the language of Nature, cruel -and kindly Nature, who loved joy and was utterly indifferent to sorrow. -She went on her course with largesse for lovers and bankruptcy for the -bilious and the puritan. She turned her face away from pain, and, with a -thumb reversed, condemned it. She had no use for suffering or for the -ugly. The bright-eyed and the joyful were her ministers, on whatever -errand they came. Thought and tenderness and any aspiration after the -spiritual were her foes, for in such ascetic fashion of living there was -sorrow, there was fatigue and striving.</p> - -<p>Colin was at home here. Like a fish put back into water, after a panting -excursion into a rarefied air, his gills expanded again, and drank in -the tide.</p> - -<p>“And have you chosen your girl yet, Nino?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“<i>Dio!</i> No. I am but twenty. Presently I will look about and find who is -fat and has a good dowry. There is Seraphina Costi; she has an elder -brother, but the inheritance will be hers. He passes for the son of -Costi, but we all know he is no son of Costi. It was like this, Signor -Colin....”</p> - -<p>“<i>Si</i>, Signor Nino,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“<i>Scusi!</i> But to me you are Signor Colin. No, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span> loving thanks, no -more wine. My father says it is a waste to drink good wine when one is -drunk. My father was boatman to your father before you and I were born. -That is strange to think on; how the old oaks flourish and bear leaf -still. Two stepmothers already have I had, and there may be a third yet. -Have you stepmothers, signor? I would put all old women out of the way, -and all old men. The world is for the young. Sometimes I think to -myself, would it not be very easy to put my hands round my father’s -neck, and squeeze and squeeze again, and wait till he was still, and -then leave him thus and go to bed. They would find him there in the -morning; perhaps I should be the first to find him, and it would be said -that he had died in his chair, all cool and comfortable.”</p> - -<p>Colin was conscious of some rapturous surprise at himself in his -appreciation of the evening as it was, compared with the evening as it -might have been. Normally, he would have played a couple of games of -piquet with Violet, and thereafter have drowsily rejoined her. There -would have been whispers of love and then sleep, all that was already -routine to him. Instead, he, through the medium of this wonderful Faun, -was finding himself, and that was so much better than finding Violet. -Nino, with those swift gesticulations, was shewing him not Nino, but -himself. But by now the boy was getting extremely drunk—the vision was -clouding over. There was time for just another question or two.</p> - -<p>“But aren’t you afraid of Satana?” asked Colin, “if you kill your -father?”</p> - -<p>“Why should I be afraid? Satana is a good friend to me and I to him. Why -should we fall out, he and I?”</p> - -<p>Those full eyelids drooped, and as, on this morning, the lashes swept -the brown cheek.</p> - -<p>“Nino, you must go to bed,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“<i>Si</i>, signor! But I doubt if I could carry myself down to the Marina -to-night. I have the legs of the old woman, as I shall know when I come -to stand up. May I sleep myself sober in your garden beside the cistern? -It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span> the signor’s fault—<i>scusi</i>—that I am thus; my fault for taking, -but his for giving.”</p> - -<p>Colin rapidly pondered this.... Should Violet be wakeful and open her -Venetian blinds, she would surely see him there. He pointed to the sofa -against the wall.</p> - -<p>“Lie down there, Nino,” he said, “and I will bring you a rug. You will -be more comfortable than on the gravel. You must be off before dawn. -Just wait a minute.”</p> - -<p>Colin kicked off his shoes, so as not to disturb Violet, ran upstairs -and peeped into her room. There was silence and stillness there, and -going into his dressing-room next door, he picked up a folded rug off -his bed, and went downstairs with it. Nino was bowed over the table, -helpless and inert, and Colin choked down a spasm of laughter within -him.</p> - -<p>“Nino, wake up for one minute,” he said. “Put your arm round my neck and -let me lay you down. Oh, do as I tell you, Nino!”</p> - -<p>Nino leaned his whole weight on Colin’s encircled neck, and was laid -down on the sofa. Colin loosed the smart tie with which he had adorned -himself for this visit to the villa, and unbuckled his leather belt, and -taking out a ten lira note from his purse, he thrust it into Nino’s -breast-pocket.</p> - -<p>“I’ve put ten liras in your pocket, Nino; don’t forget.”</p> - -<p>“But that is too much, signor,” murmured Nino with a guarding hand on -his pocket.</p> - -<p>“Not for such an agreeable evening. Good-night; I shall want you and -your boat again to-morrow morning.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Sicuro!</i> <i>Felice notte</i>, signor.”</p> - -<p>Colin went up to bed with no desire for sleep, for his blood tingled and -bubbled in his veins. He wished now, amusing though it had been, that he -had not made Nino tipsy so soon, for he longed to continue holding up -the mirror to himself. In that reflecting surface he could see much that -he had only suspected in himself, and this Nino unwaveringly confirmed. -Never, till Nino had so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span> gaily asserted that he did not fear the devil, -for the devil was his very good friend, had Colin so definitely realised -that, whatever the truth about his Elizabethan ancestor might be, he had -accepted the legend as his own experience.</p> - -<p>Twice before had some inkling of this come into his mind, once when -lying here and listening to his father’s footfall on the terrace below -he had realised that hate was as infinite as love, and once again this -afternoon, when betwixt sleeping and waking on the top of Monte Solaro, -he had received the impression of taking part in some dream-like -colloquy. But on both these occasions he had but dealt in abstractions -and imaginings, to-night Nino had shown him himself in the concrete. Ah, -how good it was to be so well looked after, to have this superb youthful -vitality, this rage for enjoyment; above all, never to be worried and -perplexed by any conflict of motives; never to feel the faintest -striving towards a catalogue of tedious aspirations. To take and never -to give, to warm your hands at the glowing fires of hate and stoke those -fires with the dry rubbish called love.... It was worth any price to -secure immunity from these aches and pains of consciousness.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin announced to Violet his intention of taking his lunch down to the -bathing-place next morning, and having his siesta there, and he saw with -impatient amusement that she instantly put out of sight the fact that -she would spend a solitary day and thought only of him.</p> - -<p>“That will be lovely for you,” she said. “You’ll get a long enough bathe -for once, and not have to break it off to get back to lunch.”</p> - -<p>“And what will you do?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Think of you enjoying yourself,” said she.</p> - -<p>Colin marvelled in silence. That was a good instance of the change in -Violet; in the old days she would at the most have acquiesced, if -argument were useless. Now the only argument that seemed to have any -weight with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span> her was his enjoyment. Anyhow they were at one about that.</p> - -<p>Colin spent a most satisfactory day. There was Nino waiting for him at -the Marina rather heavy-eyed, but looking precisely as a Bacchant should -after a characteristic night.</p> - -<p>“You were wonderfully drunk last night, Nino,” said Colin, as they -pushed off over the waveless bay.</p> - -<p>Nino grinned. “<i>Molto, molto!</i>” he said cheerfully. “But I slept well, -and I shall bathe, and then it will be as if I had drunk no more than a -glass of water.”</p> - -<p>“And will you confess that to the priest?” asked Colin.</p> - -<p>“It may have gone from my mind,” said Nino. “God only remembers -everything. And indeed I do not know much about last night, but that I -enjoyed myself.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all that is worth remembering about anything,” remarked Colin.</p> - -<p>A long bathe followed, and a bask on the beach and again a bathe. Then -came lunch, lying in a strip of shadow and stories from Nino, and sleep, -and it was not till late in the afternoon that Colin found himself -reluctantly loitering back to the villa where Violet awaited him. He -beguiled himself with wondering what he would do if she were not there; -if, as in some fairy-tale, she had disappeared leaving no trace behind. -But hardly had he come within sight of the white garden wall when he saw -her out on the balcony of his room. She waved at him, as if she had gone -there to catch the first sight of him, and then disappeared. Next moment -she was at the garden-gate, walking down to meet him. Was there news, -perhaps from England. Raymond? His father?</p> - -<p>“What is it?” he asked, as he came within speaking distance. “Nothing -wrong?” (“Nothing right?” would have expressed his thought more -accurately.)</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” said she, “I only came to meet you. Nice day?”</p> - -<p>“Delicious. Long bathe, good lunch, long sleep. Stories from Nino.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Colin hesitated a moment. He was rather curious to see what Violet would -think of last night.</p> - -<p>“Nino’s an amusing youth,” he said. “He came up here as I told you, for -the money I owed him, and so I gave him a glass of wine, two in fact. He -told me the most horrible tales about Tiberius and others, and then got -frightfully drunk. He simply couldn’t walk, and slept on the sofa in the -dining-room.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin, how disgusting!” said she. “I hope you’ve said you don’t -want his boat any more.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve said nothing of the kind. I want it every day.”</p> - -<p>Violet had nothing to say to this, and Colin felt his irritation at her -rising.</p> - -<p>“Well, what is it?” he said. “Why shouldn’t Nino get drunk?”</p> - -<p>“But you shouldn’t have let him, Colin,” said she. “It’s coarse.”</p> - -<p>“But I come of a low family,” said he. “Viagi one side and Stanier on -the other. How many generations of Staniers have got drunk most nights -of their lives?”</p> - -<p>Violet stopped at the gate. “What would you think of me, Colin, if I -took that little girl who helps in the kitchen and made her drunk?” she -asked.</p> - -<p>“I should think you were a very odd young woman,” said Colin. “But I -should be all for your doing what you wanted to.”</p> - -<p>“Whatever it is?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think so? Most people don’t want to do anything at all; it’s -certainly better to do anything than nothing. You may make Maria drunk -as often as you please provided you assure me that you really like it.”</p> - -<p>“I infer that you liked making Nino drunk.”</p> - -<p>Colin clapped his hands. “Bravo!” he said. “You’ve guessed right. I -wanted to find out when Nino was most himself, tipsy or sober, and now I -know that it is sober. I shan’t make him drunk again. I longed to see -pure Faunishness, but Nino sober is Faunier than Nino drunk.”</p> - -<p>“Faunishness?” asked she.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, joyful, immoral, wicked, lovely nature. Without a rag to cover, -not its shame, but its glory. Nino is naked sober. He was too heavenly -last night, before—er—the coarseness. He thought of killing his father -because he keeps giving him stepmothers, and is generally rather in the -way. And when I asked him if he weren’t afraid of the devil, he said: -‘Why should I be? The devil is a very good friend to me.’ Wasn’t that -queer? Just as if he were a Stanier. I felt as if Nino were my brother; -though, of course, he could never supplant Raymond in my heart. But then -Raymond’s my twin: that is why we are so wrapped up in each other.”</p> - -<p>Violet felt as if some light-winged creature was settling on her now -here, now there, and stinging her. Just so did Colin make her wince.</p> - -<p>“And as for the wickedness—or coarseness, was it not?—of making any -one drunk,” he added, “I don’t agree with you. If people are most really -themselves when they are rather tipsy, they should be rather tipsy as -often as possible. When is Uncle Ronald at his best? Why when his dear -nephew has been sitting by him after dinner, and filling up his glass -for him. Let’s have tea.... Oh, dear, I can’t do right. I did wrong to -tell you about Raymond yesterday, and I did wrong to tell you about Nino -to-day. I shall lead a double life, darling, and tell you nothing.”</p> - -<p>Dimly, as he spoke, Violet was aware of some reverberation of dismay -that his words and his manner stirred in her. Was Colin really like -that? Were those light words just gibes and jokes—not very pleasant -ones—or were they authentic glimpses of himself? It seemed that her -very faith was at stake; at all costs she must refuse to acknowledge so -unthinkable a possibility.... That could not be Colin; he was just -teasing her. She must reply with the same outrageousness.</p> - -<p>“Darling, lead more than a double life,” she said. “Such lots of people -do that. Lead three or four. I’ll do the same. We’ll have as many lives -as a cat between<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span> us.... Now tell me some of Nino’s stories, or I shall -be afraid that they weren’t what mother might call quite nice.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think for a moment she would call them quite nice,” said he.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The month of Indian summer, with warm days and windless nights, passed -by in golden procession, but now with the deepening of autumn the -<i>ponente</i> from the west, veering sometimes to a chillier quarter sucked -the basking out of the bathing, and the evenings grew long with the -passage into November. The sunshine lost its force, rain was scribbled -across it, the grey sea-clouds expunged it, the wind roared in it. It -was like passing out of daylight into some dank and dripping tunnel, -where windows are closed and voices silent, and the magic of the day is -quenched. More tunnel-like even was a certain darkness that fell between -the two yet on their honeymoon, and in that darkness they grew apart -like strangers; they were just passengers who chanced to be together in -the same compartment.</p> - -<p>To Violet that darkness consisted of her own ignorance, or so she felt -it, of what Colin really was, and in proportion as she began to guess at -him, it grew of more nightmare-like impenetrability. He had his moods of -entrancing charm, of eager affection, but now these seemed more like -some will-o’-the-wisp dancing above a marsh, than a flame that while it -consumed, yet fed her and warmed her. His light was not meant for her, -it only happened to fall on her; she was in the circle of its -brightness.</p> - -<p>She could not avoid pursuing the thought and seeing where it led her. -She could see no change in him, she perceived that he had always been -like this, and that it was her own light, so to speak, the illumination -of her love which had revealed him to her.</p> - -<p>She began to question who or what it was that shed that charm and evoked -that enchantment, and shuddered at her own conjecture. Hints as to that -came from other<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">{257}</a></span> quarters: there was his complete indifference as to his -father’s health; true, Lord Yardley had told him not to worry, for there -was no cause for that, but how could the son of so devoted a father be -so immune to any sort of anxiety? Not less significant was his attitude -towards Raymond, that, namely, of contemptuous hate. He despised Raymond -(that was clear) for his failure to kill him, he hated him, not for -having made his attempt so much as for being Raymond.</p> - -<p>And there was a puzzle for Violet. Raymond, from what Colin had told -her, could now never stand in his way; and at Lord Yardley’s death he -would simply cease to exist as an obstacle to all that Colin desired. -But Colin still hated; it was just the fact of Raymond, not the fact of -Raymond having planned to kill him. And there, indeed, was a true flame -burning. Colin’s feeling about Raymond had an authentic heat of its own. -Hate, in fact, was real to him in a way that love was not.</p> - -<p>There was yet one more puzzle. Colin was determined to spend the night -at the house of the British Consul in Naples. Not once or twice only, -but constantly, he alluded to this. If he wanted it, Violet knew that he -would get it, and for herself it made no great matter. She considered -Mr. Cecil a “little red bounder,” as Colin had phrased it, and could not -understand his insistence on the point. He got impatient now when, he -having alluded to their night in Naples, she asked why he wanted it, and -his answer, the same as ever, that it would please Mr. Cecil, who was a -useful little red bounder, carried no conviction. There was something -behind and she could not conceive what it was.</p> - -<p>The day of their departure was still uncertain, when a second morning of -driving rain caused Colin to come down to breakfast with his mind made -up.</p> - -<p>“It’s quite intolerable,” he said. “Capri without the heat and sun is -like a pantomime without the fairies. What a cursed place; it only -exists in the summer. Let’s go to-day, Vi. We’ll catch the midday -boat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">{258}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“But it goes in two hours,” said she.</p> - -<p>“The sooner the better.”</p> - -<p>“But, darling....” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord, throw your things into your boxes, and sit on them, darling!” -said Colin. “If they’re spoiled you shall have new ones. But I can’t -endure this island any more. We ought to have left before the weather -broke, instead of stopping on.”</p> - -<p>“But I really don’t think I can be ready,” she said. “Besides, you -wanted to stay the night with Mr. Cecil. You can’t pounce on him.”</p> - -<p>“As a matter of fact, I’ve just sent Giuseppe down to the telephone -office to say that we shall arrive to-night,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>Violet felt a justifiable rebellion at this; she choked it down with a -not very convincing lightness.</p> - -<p>“But, darling, you’re being too autocratic,” she said. “How would it be -if you went and I caught you up to-morrow? Then you could have your -adorable Mr. Cecil all to yourself.”</p> - -<p>Colin turned on her with a blaze of white fury in his eyes. Of that she -caught one glimpse, authentic and terrifying. Then, as if by some -magical and instantaneous solvent, it melted before he spoke into his -most charming mood.</p> - -<p>“I know I oughtn’t to have telephoned, darling, until I had consulted -you,” he said. “But it’s your fault; you’ve spoiled me. You’ve made me -think that if I want to do a thing very much, you’ll agree to it. I -apologise. It was stupid of me. Now if you really don’t want to come, -just say so, and I’ll run down to the town and reverse my first message -if it has gone. It shall be exactly as you like.”</p> - -<p>Violet had to take one moment to steady herself. That glimpse of Colin, -the most complete she had had yet of something that lay below, had -gripped her very soul with terror. That stabbed at her and passed, and -from whence<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">{259}</a></span> it had come she knew not, nor whither it had gone. Only -Colin remained.</p> - -<p>“My dear, of course I’ll come,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Ah, that’s delicious of you,” said he.</p> - -<p>She went upstairs to tell her maid to pack everything at once, as they -were off this morning. She found her knees trembling with the effect of -that moment of abject terror, but already, in its vanishing, it had -taken away with it any impression that could be analysed. Just that -stroke, stunning as a blow, and then Colin again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">{260}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX-b" id="CHAPTER_IX-b"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> - -<p>For many years now with Philip Yardley a widower and his mother old, -Stanier had withdrawn itself from the splendour of its traditional -hospitalities, but now with the installation of Violet and Colin there, -on their return from Italy, it blossomed out again into lavish and -magnificent flower. Throughout November a succession of parties -assembled there for the pheasant shooting, and in the early frosts of -that December the wild fowl, snipe and duck and teal in the marshes, and -the unprecedented abundance of woodcock in the park, gave an added -lustre to the battues. In the evening, after an hour’s concert, or some -theatrical entertainment for which the artists had come from London or -Paris, the band reassembled in the long gallery, and dancing kept the -windows bright almost till the rising of the late dawn.</p> - -<p>There were many foreign royalties in England that year, and none left -without a visit to Stanier, accompanied by cousins of the English house. -Stanier, in fact, opened its doors, as in the days before the stroke -fell on Philip’s father, and fairly outshone its own records for -magnificence. Colossal in extravagance, there was yet nothing insensate -in its splendour; it shone, not for purposes of dazzling, but only as -reasserting its inherent and historical gorgeousness.</p> - -<p>Violet seemed born to the position which she now occupied. While Colin’s -father lived, it was his pleasure that she should be hostess here, and -she picked up the reins, and drove the great gold coach along, as if she -had been born and trained all her life for that superb rôle. She and -Colin, at Philip’s wish, occupied the wing which was only tenanted by -the heir and his wife, and though at his death, so he supposed, they -would not step from porch<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">{261}</a></span> to possession, he loved to give them this -vicarious regency.</p> - -<p>Out of the silver safe there had come for her the toilet set by Paul -Lamerie, boxes and brushes, candle-stick and spirit lamp, and, above -all, the great square mirror mounted on a high base. Amarini of -chiselled metal supported it on each side; there was no such piece known -in museum or royal closet. A double cable-band encircled the base, and -the man who was in charge of the plate showed Colin how, by pressing a -stud in the cable just above the maker’s mark, the side of the base -sprang open disclosing a secret drawer. For some reason not even known -to himself, Colin had not passed on that curious contrivance to Violet.</p> - -<p>Then Philip had brought out for her, as Colin’s wife, those incredible -jewels, which his mother, tenant for life, had long suffered to repose -in their chests, and one night she gleamed with the Stanier pearls, -another she smouldered among the burning pools of the rubies, another -she flashed with the living fire of those cascades of diamonds, and more -than once she wore the sapphire to which so strange a story was -attached. Some said that it had once belonged to the regalia, and that -Elizabeth had no more right to give it to her favourite who founded the -splendour of to-day, than she had to bequeath to him the sceptre of her -realm, but though twice an attempt had been made on the part of the -Crown to recover it, once at Elizabeth’s death, and once with the coming -of the German Dynasty, the Crown had not proved successful on either of -these inauspicious occasions, and had to content itself with what it -had.</p> - -<p>This great stone was of 412 carats in weight, soft cornflower blue in -colour, and matchless in aqueous purity. How it had got among the Crown -jewels none knew, but its possession was even then considered a presage -and a fulfilment of prosperity, for, beyond doubt, Elizabeth had worn it -on her withered breast every day while her fleet was sailing to -encounter the Armada. By tradition the wearer was decked with no other -jewels when it blazed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">{262}</a></span> forth, and indeed its blue flame would have -withered any lesser decoration. It figured in the Holbein portrait of -its original possessor in the Stanier line, as a brooch to Colin’s -doublet, and there once more, impersonating his ancestor, Colin wore it -at the fancy dress ball which concluded the last of these December -parties. This took place the night before Raymond came back from -Cambridge.</p> - -<p>Strange undercurrents, swirling and eddying, moved so far below the -surface of the splendour that no faintest disturbance reached it. -Admirable as was the manner in which Violet filled her part, it was not -of her that Philip thought, or at her that he looked, when he waited -with her and Colin for the entrance of royal visitors before dinner in -the great hall. Day after day the glass doors were opened, but to his -way of thinking it was neither for Violet nor for them that they swung -wide, but for Colin. His own life he believed to be nearly consumed, but -about the ash of it there crept red sparks, and these, too, were -Colin’s. All his emotions centred there. It was for him and his -matchless charm, that these great gatherings were arranged. Philip -obliterated himself, and feasted his soul on the sight of Colin as lord -of Stanier. While Raymond lived that could never come to pass, but he -beguiled himself with the fantasy that when his own eyes grew dim in -death, Colin’s splendour would light the halls from which he himself had -faded. That of all the material magnificence of which he still was -master, had power to stimulate him; sceptical of any further future for -himself, and incurious as to what that might be, if it existed at all, -the only future that he desired was for the son on whom all his love was -centred. He knew that he was cheating himself, that this sight of Colin -playing host at Stanier was one that, in all human probability, would -never after his death be realised, but it was in his power now to give -Colin a taste of it, and himself share its sweetness. For this reason he -had arranged that these gorgeous weeks of entertainment should<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">{263}</a></span> take -place before Raymond got back from Cambridge, for with Raymond here, -Raymond, the heavy and the unbeloved, must necessarily exclude Colin -from the place which his father so rapturously resigned to him. At -Christmas there would be just the family party, and he would be very -civil to his eldest son.</p> - -<p>Such was the course pursued by one of these undercurrents; two others -sprang from Violet, one in direct opposition to that of her -father-in-law. For she knew that, so far from his death dethroning her -and giving the sovereignty to Raymond, it but passed on to her with -complete and personal possession. Could his spirit revisit these earthly -scenes, it would behold her in ownership on her own account of all the -titles and splendours that had been his. Raymond—there alone her -knowledge marched with his desire—would be without status here, while -for Colin there would be just such position as his marriage with her -gave him. She, exalted now by Philip’s desire, to play hostess in virtue -of her marriage, would be hostess indeed hereafter, and Colin host -through his relationship to her.</p> - -<p>These weeks had given her a hint, a foretaste, of what would be hers, -and once more, as in her maidenhood, she felt that she would have made -any marriage in order to robe herself thus. The splendour of what she -was lent had set light to her old ambitions again, and this was all to -be hers, not lent, but her own. She would enter into the fabled -inheritance of the legend, that legend to which, for its very -remoteness, she had never given two serious thoughts. But now, though it -still wore, like a cloak over its head, its unconvincing mediævalism, -the shape of it vaguely outlined and indifferently regarded, had -something sinister about it. It did not matter; it was only an ugly -shadow in the background, but now she averted her eyes from it, instead -of merely not noticing it.</p> - -<p>Here, then, was the second undercurrent, which, sluggish and veiled, yet -steadily moved within her. For though with the passing of the -inheritance to her, it would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">{264}</a></span> be she who came within the scope and focus -of the legend, which, frankly, when looked in the face, presented that -meaningless, age-worn countenance, she felt that she was in the grip of -it not directly but, somehow, through Colin. She told herself that by no -combination of diabolical circumstance could that be; for, with the -knowledge that was hers about the date of Colin’s birth and his mother’s -marriage, it was he, he and Raymond, who had passed out of reach of the -parchment with its promises and its penalty. Yet instinct, unconvinced -by reason, told her that it was through Colin that she and the children -she would bear him, would be swept into the mysterious incredible eddy. -Was it the persistent luck that attended him which induced so wildly -superstitious a presage? Like some supernaturally protected being, he -passed along his way. Raymond’s attempt to kill him had, by the merest -most fortuitous circumstance of a punctured tyre, led to Raymond’s utter -helplessness in his hands.... Colin moved on a charmed pilgrimage, -idolised and adored by herself, by his father, by all who came in -contact with him and, she was beginning to see, he had no spark of love -in him that was kindled by these fires. Analyse him and you would find -no faintest trace of it. Perhaps, in spite of his twenty-one years now -so nearly complete, he had remained a child still in respect of the -heart’s emotions. Yet who could hate like Colin? Who, so she shuddered -to think, could have shewn, though but for a second, so white-hot a mask -of fury as he had once turned on herself?</p> - -<p>She could not succeed in forgetting that, and all Colin’s warmth and -eagerness of affection to her ever since, could not wash that out. All -day, perhaps, in the hospitable discharge of their duties, they would -scarcely have a word together, but when at length for a few hours of -rest the house grew silent, he sought her side, relaxed and sleepy, yet -tingling, so she felt, with some quality of vitality that no one else -had a spark of. Youth and high spirits, the zest of life and the endless -power of enjoyment filled the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">{265}</a></span> house, but Colin alone, unwearied and -eminent as the sun, lit up all others. It was not the exuberance of his -health and energy that was the source of his burning; something inspired -them.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The last night had come. To-morrow morning their guests would depart, -and during the day Raymond would arrive. That night there had been the -fancy dress ball, and she, wearing the crown and necklace and girdle -made by Cellini, had impersonated the ill-fated Duchess of Milan for -whom they were made, and who, while wearing them, had drunk the poisoned -draught which she had herself prepared for her lover. Colin adored that -story; the lover, a mere groom of the chambers, he averred, was a sort -of old Colin Stanier—all prospered with him, even to the removal of his -mistress in this manner, for she was growing old and wearied him with -her insatiable desire. Colin himself had appeared as his ancestor -wearing the great sapphire.</p> - -<p>Violet had undressed and got into bed, while he remained downstairs with -two or three men who still lingered. The Cellini jewels lay on her -dressing-table, and feeling too sleepy to plait her hair, she had just -let it down, and it lay in a spread web of gold over her pillow. Then -the door from his dressing-room softly opened, and he looked in.</p> - -<p>“Not asleep?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“No, but nearly. Oh, Colin, stand under the light a moment. There! The -sapphire is alive to-night. It’s like a blue furnace of flame. Now -shield it from the light.”</p> - -<p>Violet sat up in bed. “But it’s the most extraordinary thing!” she said. -“Not a ray from the lamp touches it, yet it’s burning as brightly as -ever. Where does the light come from? It comes from below it. I believe -it comes from you. I’m frightened of you. Are you a fire?”</p> - -<p>It seemed to him no less than her that some conflagration not lit from -without burnt in the heart of the stone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">{266}</a></span> Blue rays, generated within, -shot from it; it shone with some underlying brilliance, as if, as she -had said, it was he who kindled it.</p> - -<p>“Watch it, then,” he said, unbuckling his cloak. Even as he detached it -from him, the fire in it grew dim; only the reflection from outside fed -it. Incredulous at what she thought she saw, willing to attribute it to -some queer effect of faceted surfaces, she laughed.</p> - -<p>“You’ve killed it,” she said. “I think I shall have to give it you, when -it’s mine, so that you may keep it alive.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, do,” he said. “When you come into your own—may that day be far -distant.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, yes,” she said.</p> - -<p>He sat down on the edge of his bed, and began unloosing the jewelled -buttons of his doublet.</p> - -<p>“I believe my father would almost give it me now,” he said, “though I -suppose he has no right to, just as Elizabeth gave it to the other -Colin. I simply adore it. I’ve been saying my prayers to it, standing in -front of the picture.”</p> - -<p>“Is that what has kept you?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“No, they didn’t take me long. The Prince kept me; he wanted to hear the -whole of the legend. He was frightfully impressed; he said he felt as if -the original Colin had been telling it him, and expects nightmare. He -also besought me to swear allegiance when I come of age and see what -happens. I really think I shall, though, after all, I haven’t got much -to complain of in the way of what the world can give.”</p> - -<p>“But it will be I, really, to choose whether I do that or not,” said -Violet.</p> - -<p>“Well, I couldn’t tell him that,” said Colin, “though as a matter of -fact, I forgot it. In any case it isn’t I to do that. Raymond’s the -apparent heir-apparent, and dear Raymond has shewn his allegiance pretty -well already, though one doesn’t quite see why Satan made my -bicycle-tyre to puncture. If he had been on Raymond’s side, my face -would have been nearly blown to bits. No,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">{267}</a></span> Raymond’s not his favourite. -Fancy Raymond being anybody’s favourite. Oh, Vi, a thousand pardons; he -was yours just for a little.”</p> - -<p>Colin was slowly undressing as he gave utterance to these reflections. -He had taken off his shirt, and his arms, still brown from the tanning -of the sun and sea, were bare to the shoulder.</p> - -<p>“You brute, Colin,” she said, “you brown, bare brute.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I dress again,” said he, “if a bare arm shocks you?”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t mind that. It’s the brute I object to. By the way, Raymond -comes to-morrow—to-day rather. How on earth can I behave to him with -decency? Don’t you wish he wasn’t coming?”</p> - -<p>Colin picked up a long tress of her hair and wound it round his arm.</p> - -<p>“No, I’m looking forward to his coming,” he said, smiling. “I’m going to -make Raymond wish that he had never been born. I’m going to be -wonderfully agreeable to him, and everything I say shall have a double -meaning. Raymond wanted to kill me; well, I shall shew him that there -are other ways of scoring off people. My father isn’t very fond of -Raymond as it is, but when he sees how pleasant I am to him, and how -black and sulky Raymond is to me, he won’t become any fonder of him. I -must think it all out.... And then all the time Raymond will be -consoling himself with the thought that when father dies his day will -come, and he’ll reign in his stead. There’s the cream of it, Vi! He’ll -be longing for my father to die, you know, and when he does Raymond will -be worse off than ever. And you, you once said, ‘Poor Raymond!’ to me. -Raymond’s got to pay for that. I won’t have Raymond pitied.”</p> - -<p>Never had Colin worn a more radiant face than when, walking in and out -of his dressing-room, brown and lithe, as he divested himself of his -gorgeous dress and put on his night clothes, his beautiful mouth framed -itself to this rhapsody of hatred. There was nothing passionate about<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">{268}</a></span> -it, except its sincerity; he did not rage and foam on the surface of his -nature, he but gleamed with the fire that seemed so strangely to have -lit up those wonderful rays in the sapphire that he had been wearing. He -still held it in his hand when, after having turned out the lights in -his dressing-room, he closed the door and sprang to her side.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like to leave it alone,” he said. “I must pin it to the -pillows. It will watch over us. With you and it by me, I shall lie in -enchantment between waking and sleeping, floating on the golden sea of -your hair. Raymond, let’s make plans for Raymond....”</p> - -<p>She lay in the warm tide of his tingling vitality, and soon fell asleep. -But presently she tore herself out of the clutch of some hideous vision, -which faded from vagueness into non-existence as she woke and heard his -breathing, and felt his cheek resting on her shoulder.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The next night, instead of the long cloth which, evening after evening, -had stretched from the window of the great dining-room to the -Elizabethan sideboard at the other end, there was spread near the fire, -for the night was cold, a small round table that just held the five of -them—Philip and his mother, Violet, Raymond, and Colin—and instead of -the rows of silver sconces in the dark panels, four red-shaded -candlesticks, sufficient for purposes of knife and fork, left the rest -of the room in a velvety dimness. Raymond had arrived only just in time -to dress for dinner, coming into the gallery but half a minute before -his father, while Colin, who all this week had been a model of -punctuality, had not appeared yet. Philip gave his arm to his mother, -and behind, unlinked, came Violet and Raymond. He had advanced to her -with elbow formally crooked, but she, busy with a sleeve-lace that had -caught in her bracelet, moved on apart from him. She had shaken hands -with him, and given him a cool cordial word, but she felt incapable of -more than that.</p> - -<p>Philip sat down with a sigh of relief.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">{269}</a></span></p> - -<p>“A reasonable evening at last,” he said, “though I wouldn’t say that if -Colin were here. I believe he got fresher and livelier every day. Ah, -Raymond, you must know we’ve had some parties here. Colin took your -place, as you had to be at Cambridge.”</p> - -<p>Raymond tried to put into his answer the geniality he did not feel.</p> - -<p>“I know,” he said. “The daily picture papers have been full of Colin. -Are you having more people at Christmas, father?”</p> - -<p>“No, just ourselves as usual.”</p> - -<p>Raymond turned to Violet. “You had a fancy-dress ball last night, hadn’t -you?” he said. “I could have got down yesterday if I had known.”</p> - -<p>Philip conjectured a reproach in this and resented it. The last few -weeks had been planned by him as “Colin’s show.” If Colin could not step -into his shoes when he was dead, he could wear them for a week or two -while he lived.</p> - -<p>“I thought your term was not over till to-day,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I could have got leave,” replied Raymond. “But I understand, father.”</p> - -<p>Philip felt rising in him that ceaseless regret that Colin was not his -first-born. And that jealousy of Colin, implied in Raymond’s “I -understand” irritated his father. He wanted Colin to come and relieve -the situation, as he always did.</p> - -<p>“What exactly do you mean by that?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Suddenly old Lady Yardley joined in. “I know what he means, Philip,” she -said. “He means that he should have been host here, if you were going to -depute one of your sons to do the honours for you, and that you -preferred that Colin should do them instead. That is what he means.”</p> - -<p>“There, mother, that’s enough,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>An embarrassed silence ensued, broken by the sound of running steps in -the gallery. Just as they arrived at the door, which one of the footmen -opened, there was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">{270}</a></span> loud crash and Colin slid in on his back, and had -begun to laugh before he picked himself up.</p> - -<p>“Gosh, what a bang!” he said. “I believe somebody greased the boards in -the hope that I should be in a hurry and fall down. Sorry, father; -sorry, granny; sorry, Violet, for upsetting all your nerves. -Why—Raymond!”</p> - -<p>Colin laid his hand affectionately on his brother’s shoulder.</p> - -<p>“I never knew you had come,” he said. “How are you, dear Raymond? How’s -Cambridge? We have missed you in all this hullabaloo. Every one asked -after you and wanted to know why you weren’t here.”</p> - -<p>Colin took the vacant place between Violet and his grandmother.</p> - -<p>“How far have you all got?” he said. “Oh, very well, I won’t have any -soup. Now this is jolly! Just ourselves, Granny, and short coats and -black ties. Vi, darling, why didn’t you come and pull me out of my bath? -I was just lying soaking there; I had no idea it was so late.”</p> - -<p>Colin spared one fleeting glance at his brother, and began to put into -words some of the things he had thought about in his bath.</p> - -<p>“Raymond, it is time that you came home,” he said. “The pigeons are -worse than ever in the Old Park, and I’m no earthly use at that -snap-shooting between the oaks. Give me a rabbit coming towards me along -a road, not too fast, and a rest for my gun, I can hit it in the face as -well as anybody. But those pigeons among the oaks beat me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, we might have a morning in the Old Park to-morrow,” said his -father.</p> - -<p>Colin looked at Violet as if she had called his attention to something.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Vi, what?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I thought you jogged my elbow. To-morrow, father? Oh, what a bore! -I promised to play golf. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">{271}</a></span> I shall be back by one if I go on my -motor-bicycle. May I join you at that sharp corner in the road; that’s -about half-way to the keeper’s lodge, and I could come on with you from -there.”</p> - -<p>“But that corner is at the far end of the Old Park,” said his father.</p> - -<p>“Is it? The one I mean has a big rhododendron bush close to it. You know -where I mean, Raymond. Is it at the far end?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s the far end,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“I believe you’re right. Oh, of course you’re right, and I’m idiotic. -It’s where I picked you up one day in the autumn when you had been after -the pigeons.”</p> - -<p>Colin applied himself to his dinner, and caught the others up.</p> - -<p>“There’s something in my mind connected with that day,” he said, “and I -can’t remember what it is. I had been playing golf, and I punctured, and -walked back along the ridge instead of wheeling my bicycle along the -road. Something funny: I remember laughing. Vi, darling, can’t you -remember? Or didn’t I tell you?”</p> - -<p>Violet saw that even in the red glow of the candle-shades Raymond’s face -had turned white. There was red light upon it, but not of it.</p> - -<p>“You certainly did not tell me,” she said in sheer pity. “I remember the -day, too. There was a man who had escaped from the asylum and stolen a -gun from the keeper’s....”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s right,” said Colin. “I believe that’s on the track. A man -with a gun.”</p> - -<p>Philip laughed.</p> - -<p>“One of the most amusing things I ever heard, Colin,” he said. “I am -surprised at Violet’s forgetting it. Is that all?”</p> - -<p>Colin turned to his grandmother. “Granny, they’re all laughing at me -because I can’t remember. Father’s laughing at me, so is Violet. You and -Raymond are the only kind ones. Man with a gun, Raymond shooting<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">{272}</a></span> -pigeons. That makes two men with a gun. Then there was me.”</p> - -<p>“The very best story, Colin. Most humorous,” said his father.</p> - -<p>Colin sighed. “Sometimes I think of things just as I’m going to sleep,” -he said. “If I think of it to-night, I shall wake Violet and tell her, -and then she’ll remember it if I can’t. Man with a gun....”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin, stop it,” said Violet.</p> - -<p>“Well, let’s put it to the vote,” said Colin. “Father and Violet want me -to stop trying to remember it; little do they know how it would amuse -them if I did. Granny and I want me to go on—don’t you, dear—it all -depends on Raymond. What shall I do, Ray?”</p> - -<p>Raymond turned to his father, appearing not to hear Colin’s question.</p> - -<p>“Did you have good sport last week?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Raymond votes against us, Granny,” said Colin. “He’s too polite to -tell me directly. We’re squashed, Granny; we’ll squash them at whist -afterwards; you and I shall be partners, and we’ll play Raymond and -father for their immortal souls. It will be like the legend, won’t it? -Violet shall look on and wonder whether her poor husband is going to -heaven or hell. I keep my immortal soul in a drawer close to Violet’s -bedside, Granny. So if we lose, she will have to go up to her bedroom -and bring it down. Oh, I say, I’m talking too much. Nobody else can get -a word in edgeways.”</p> - -<p>It was a fact that the other four were silent, but Raymond had the -faculty of producing silence in his neighbours. Cigarettes had come now -with coffee, and this was the usual signal for old Lady Yardley to rise. -To-night, however, she took no notice of the gold-mounted stick which -was put into her hand by Philip.</p> - -<p>“Never mind them, my dear,” she said, “they are amusing themselves. -Listen to me, Colin.”</p> - -<p>There was no other voice in the room but hers, the servants had gone -out, and again she spoke. No one moved;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">{273}</a></span> no one spoke; but Raymond -opposite her leaned forward; Violet leaned left-wise; Philip, with her -stick in his hand leaned to the right. She dropped her voice to a -whisper, but in the tense stillness a shout would not have been more -audible.</p> - -<p>“There are strange things in this house, darling,” said she to Colin. “I -have been here sixty years, and I know better than anybody. Green leaf I -have been, and flower and fruit, and now I am withered. Sixty years ago, -my dear, I sold my soul to the master of it, and from that moment I have -been a ghost, oh, such a happy ghost, looking on at the glory of the -house. And then my son Philip married, and he brought you here, and the -moment I set eyes on you I loved you, for I knew that you were born of -the blood and the bargain....”</p> - -<p>Philip drew back his chair and got up.</p> - -<p>“There’s your stick, mother,” he said. “We’ll follow you quite soon, or -it will be too late for your game of whist.”</p> - -<p>She fumbled for the crook of the handle, and rose; her eyes were bright, -and as blue as the sapphire Colin had worn last night.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I must talk to Colin again,” she said. “No one understands me -except Colin. There used to be other games than whist, Philip, at -Stanier. There was dice-throwing, you know, on the altar of God. We are -not so wicked now to all appearance. Whist in the gallery; far more -seemly.”</p> - -<p>Raymond held the door open for her, and she hobbled through, Violet -following. As she passed out, Violet looked first at Raymond, and then -swiftly away, with a shudder, at Colin.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be long, Uncle Philip,” she said in a low voice. “Grandmamma is -so queer to-night.”</p> - -<p>Colin moved up next his father.</p> - -<p>“Give me a glass of port, father,” he said. “Here’s Raymond back, and -I’m so glad to see him. Your health, Ray!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">{274}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He drank off his glass. “Father, isn’t it lovely to have Raymond back -again?” he said. “But—this is an aside—he’s putting on flesh. May your -shadow never grow more, Raymond. Tell us all about Cambridge; has it -been delightful? I’m sure it has; for otherwise you wouldn’t look so -prosperous. Speech! Mustn’t we have a speech from him, father?”</p> - -<p>There, on one side of Philip, was Colin, brimming with good humour and -welcome, brimming, too, as he had shewn during dinner with the mere -nonsense born of happiness. On the other side was Raymond, serious and -unresponsive, without a spark to answer this crackling fire. There he -sat, and what sort of host would he have made during these last weeks? -He made no attempt to reply to Colin, and but fingered the stem of his -glass.</p> - -<p>“You might tell us what has been going on, Raymond,” said his father.</p> - -<p>“Nothing particular. Just the ordinary term. I’ve been playing for the -University at soccer. I shall probably be in the team.”</p> - -<p>“And you never told us?” said Colin. “Lord! What a swell he is, father! -We’re not worthy to hear about it; that’s what is the matter with us.”</p> - -<p>Philip turned to Raymond. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s pleasant news. -There’s Colin here, who won’t do anything more violent than golf.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, father! What about shooting pigeons?” said Colin. “Oh, no, Raymond -did that. Bother! There was a man with a gun....”</p> - -<p>Philip got up. “Now don’t get on to that again,” he said. “You’ve amused -us enough for one night....”</p> - -<p>“But I may amuse Vi, mayn’t I, if I think of the rest of it?” asked -Colin.</p> - -<p>Philip turned his back on him and took Raymond’s arm. He had the sense -of behaving with great fairness, but the impartiality demanded effort.</p> - -<p>“Ring the bell, Colin, will you?” he said over his shoulder. “I’m -delighted to hear about your success in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">{275}</a></span>—the football field, -Raymond. Games are taking the place of sport in this generation. Your -Uncle Ronald and I never played games; there was shooting, there was -riding....”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but there’s lots of sport still,” said Colin. “Big game, father; -large animals. Not footballs, things that feel.... And then my bicycle -punctured. Oh, you wanted me to ring.”</p> - -<p>At this rite of whist for the sake of old Lady Yardley, it was necessary -that one of the five should cut out. She herself and Philip took no part -in this chance; the rite was that both should play if there was not -another table to be formed. Raymond turned the highest card, and with a -paper to beguile him, sat just where he had sat when one night the -whist-table had broken up, and he heard Colin’s mimicry. As the four -others cut for deal, some memory of that must have come into Colin’s -mind.</p> - -<p>“What an awful night that was, Vi,” he said, “when we were playing -bridge with Aunt Hester. She revoked, do you remember, and swore she -hadn’t. How we laughed. And then I thought everybody else had gone to -bed, and I—good Lord.... Yes!”</p> - -<p>“Another of Colin’s amusing stories,” said his father.</p> - -<p>“Sh-sh,” said Colin. “Granny, you always turn up the ace for your trump -card. Will you give me lessons?”</p> - -<p>The rubber was very quickly over, and Raymond took Colin’s place. Colin -drew a chair up close to his brother, and instead of reading a paper in -the corner, watched his hand and the play of it with breathless -attention.</p> - -<p>“Raymond; you’re a wizard,” he said at the end of it. “Every plan of -yours was right. You finessed and caught the king, you didn’t finesse -and caught the queen. Why don’t I have luck like yours? It’s enough to -make any fellow jealous; I shan’t look at your hand any more. I shall -look at Violet’s. My poor wife! Raymond’s got all the winning cards -again. Or, if he hasn’t, he’ll turn them into winning cards. He’ll down -you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">{276}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Colin, if you would talk just a little less,” said his father, “we -should be able to attend a little more.”</p> - -<p>Raymond, if no one else, fully appreciated the utter absence of reproof -in his father’s voice. If it had been he who had been talking, there -would have been, at the best, a chill politeness there; at the worst, a -withering snub. But this was the candour of friend to friend.... About -that signed paper now, which Colin had deposited at his bank. He himself -had signed some sort of mad confession that he had planned to shoot -Colin. His will had bent to Colin’s like hot wax to strong fingers, but -could he not somehow get possession of it again? While it was in Colin’s -hands, it was like a toasting-fork in which that devil-twin of his -impaled and held him before the fire. All dinner-time Colin had scorched -him, and not less burning was this mocking kindliness which made the one -appear so warmly genial, the other awkward and ungracious. How long -would he be able to stand it? Presently, at the end of the rubber, Colin -would join him in the smoking-room and reveal another aspect, no doubt. -But he could rob him of that further indulgence, he would go to bed as -soon as the rubber was over.</p> - -<p>The next hand finished it and Lady Yardley got up. She had won to-night -from Colin, and clinked a couple of half-sovereigns in her hand.</p> - -<p>“But it will come back to you, darling,” she said. “Everything there is -will come to you if you are wise and careful. My eyes grow dim as I get -older, but there is another sort of sight that gets brighter. Oh, I see -very well.”</p> - -<p>Philip went with her to the door.</p> - -<p>“Your eyes are wonderful yet, mother,” he said. “There are years of -vision in them yet.”</p> - -<p>As if Colin had read Raymond’s thought of going to bed, he turned to -Violet.</p> - -<p>“I may be a little late to-night, darling,” he said. “Raymond and I are -going to have a long talk in the smoking-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">{277}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I think not,” said Raymond. “I’m tired; I shall go to bed.”</p> - -<p>Colin whisked round to him. “Not just yet, Ray,” he said. “I haven’t -seen you for so long. It would be nice of you to come and have a chat. I -know you will. Persuade him to do as I ask, Vi. Who knows what important -things I may have to tell about?”</p> - -<p>Philip rejoined them. “I shall just come in and have a cigarette with -you boys,” he said. “Good-night, Violet.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, that’s jolly,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>They preceded him to the smoking-room, for he turned into his own room a -moment, and as soon as they were there Colin shut the door.</p> - -<p>“Father will be with us in a minute,” he said, “and I can only just -begin my talk. But if you attempt to go to bed when he does, Raymond, I -shall tell him about the morning when you shot pigeons. Oddly enough, I -have remembered all about it. And to-morrow I’ll telephone for the -envelope I left at my bank. So it’s up to you.”</p> - -<p>Colin came a step closer; with such an eagerness must some Borgia Pope -have looked on the white skin of the victim he had ordered to be flayed.</p> - -<p>“It’s jolly seeing you again, you sulky blackguard,” he said. “Has -anybody smacked your face since I did it for you? You’re going to spend -the whole of the vacation here, unless I get tired of you and send you -away before. Ah, there’s father. Isn’t it jolly, father; Raymond hopes -to spend the whole of the vacation here.”</p> - -<p>Philip did not seem as enthusiastic as Colin about this, but he was -adequately cordial, and, having smoked his cigarette in silence, got up -to go.</p> - -<p>“Are you coming?” he said to his sons.</p> - -<p>Colin nodded to Raymond to answer this.</p> - -<p>“We were just going to have a talk first, father,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Very good. Don’t sit up too late. Colin hasn’t been to bed till three -for the last fortnight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">{278}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Colin waited till the door was shut.</p> - -<p>“Now for our talk,” he said. “Isn’t Violet looking divine? Aren’t I a -lucky fellow? Even the thought of being mistress of Stanier wasn’t -enough to make her tolerate you. We had a lovely honeymoon, Raymond. We -often talked of you. Lord! How she loathes you! I should think even you -could see that. Now an interesting question. I ask for information. Do -you think she knows about that morning we were speaking of at dinner?”</p> - -<p>“I have no means of telling,” said Raymond.</p> - -<p>“Well, we’ll assume she doesn’t. Now I want you to observe her closely -again to-morrow, and see if you think she knows then. I’ve remembered -all about it, and, as you heard me say, I was thinking of telling her, -just drowsily and quietly to-night. And then to-morrow you’ll guess -whether I have done so or not. Take coffee for breakfast if you think I -have, tea, if you think I haven’t. What a jolly Christmas game!”</p> - -<p>Colin poured himself out a glass of whisky and soda.</p> - -<p>“Fancy father saying that I didn’t care for sport,” he said. “I adore -the thought of the sport I’m going to have with you. You used to be rude -to me when we were alone, now you have got to be polite. I can always -send for that paper which you signed and father witnessed. Now don’t be -tedious and say that the condition on which you signed was that I would -not tell him. What does that matter to me? You wanted to kill me; all -that I do now is in self-defence. Otherwise you might plan to kill me -again.”</p> - -<p>He yawned. “I’m rather sleepy to-night, Raymond,” he said. “I thought -the satisfaction of seeing you again would make me wakeful. I shall go -upstairs. Violet will be pleased that I have not sat up late after all. -I shall sit on her bed and talk to her. Last night her hair made a -golden mat on the pillow. There is a marvellous fragrance in her hair. -Do you remember that from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">{279}</a></span> days—not many of them—when you used to -kiss her? How she winced! Now it’s your turn to wince. We shall talk -about you, no doubt. And remember about the tea and the coffee -to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>Day after day Colin amused himself thus; morning after morning Raymond -had to guess whether Violet had been told, until one evening, wearying -of this particular game, Colin casually mentioned that all his guessings -had been superfluous, for Violet had known ever since one day on their -honeymoon, when she had provoked him by saying, “Poor Raymond.” Even as -a cat with a mouse, so Colin played with him, taking no notice of him -except in ordinary intercourse, for nearly a whole day, and letting him -seem forgotten; then, with quivering shoulders, he would spring on him -again, tap him with sheathed claws and a velvet paw, or with more -forcible reminder, nip him with needle-like teeth. It was useless and -worse than useless for Violet to plead for him; her advocacy, her appeal -to the most elementary feeling of compassion only exasperated Colin.</p> - -<p>“Darling, as if my brain wasn’t busy enough with Raymond, you must go -and add to my work like that!” he said. “I’ve got to cure you of being -sorry for Raymond as well. I thought you were cured when I told you he -tried to murder me. Just let your mind dwell on that. He planned to -shoot me from behind that wall. I’ll take you there to-morrow and show -you the place, to make it more vivid to you. One’s brother must not make -such plans and fail without suffering for it afterwards. Perhaps you -would prefer that he had succeeded? Ah! I made you shudder then. You -trembled deliciously.... I’ve got such a delightful Christmas present -for him, a little green jade pigeon with ruby eyes. It cost a lot of -money. The green—I shall explain to him—is his jealousy of me, for -he’s devoted to you still, and the red eyes are the colour of my blood, -and the whole will remind him of that amusing morning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">{280}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The new year came in with three nights of sharp frost, and the ice on -the bathing lake grew thick enough to bear. The lake was artificial, -lying in a small natural valley through which a stream ran. A dam some -twelve feet high had been built across the lower end of it, in which was -the sluice gate; thus the stream, confined by the rising ground at the -sides, and the dam at the end, had spread itself into a considerable -sheet of water, shallow where the stream entered it, but some nine feet -deep at the lower end, where was the bathing-place and the header boards -and pavilions for bathers. The dam was planted with rhododendron bushes, -whose roots strengthened the barrier, and in summer the great bank of -blossom overhung the deep water. A path ran behind them crossing the -sluice by a stone bridge with balustrade.</p> - -<p>Raymond had gone down there directly after breakfast, and came back with -the news that he had walked this way and that across the ice, and that -it seemed safe enough. For some reason which Colin failed to fathom, he -seemed in very cheerful spirits to-day; it might be that the end of the -Christmas vacation was approaching, when he would return to Cambridge; -it might be that he, like Colin, himself had seen the rapidity with -which old age was gaining on his father. There was humour in that. -Raymond looked forward, and little wonder, to his own succession here, -not knowing, poor shorn lamb, that he would be worse off than ever when -that unpropitious event occurred. As for the remission of subtle torture -which his return to Cambridge would give him, there were several days -yet, thought Colin; opportunity for much pleasant pigeon-conversation.</p> - -<p>So Raymond got his skates, while Colin and Violet, sitting cosy in the -long gallery, wondered whether it was worth while going out, and he went -down by the long yew hedge to the lake, with brisk foot and brightened -eye. After all, other people besides Colin could make plans, and one of -his had matured this morning into a luscious ripeness. Sleepless nights -had been his, with hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">{281}</a></span> squeezing for Colin’s throat and dawn breaking -in on the fierce disorder of his thoughts, before he had distilled his -brain down to the clear broth. Wild and vagrant fancies got hold of him, -goaded as he was to the verge of desperation by this inhuman -persecution; red madnesses had flashed before him, like the cloaks that -the matadors wave before the bull, and, whether he charged or not, -another ribanded dart pierced him. He had bitten his lip till the blood -flowed in order to recall himself to self-control, and to use those -hours of the night, when Colin was with Violet, to hew out some defence -to the fluttered red and the ribanded dart. There had been his handicap: -hate of Colin had made him violent, whereas Colin’s hate of him had made -Colin calm and self-possessed; he must cease to rage if he hoped to -arrive at any plan. So night after night he had curbed himself, making -his wits reduce their mad galloping to an orderly pace, and pull -steadily in harness.</p> - -<p>The grass was encrusted with the jewels of frost; every step crunched a -miracle of design into powder, and now for the first time since he had -come to Stanier, Raymond fed with the braced joy of a frosty morning on -the banquet which the season spread. He was hungry for it, all these -days he had been starved and tortured, sick with apprehension, and -shuddering at the appearance of Colin with rack and pincers. But now he -was hungry again for the good things of life, and the long draught of -cold air was one of them, and the treading of the earth with muscles -alternately strong and relaxed was another, and the sense of the great -woodlands that would in no distant future be his, was a third, for how -old, how rapidly ageing, was his father; and the <i>congé</i> he would soon -give to Colin and Violet was a fourth, sweeter than any. How sour had -turned his love of Violet, if indeed there had ever been any sweetness -in it. He lusted after her: that he knew, but just because she knew the -events of that morning, when all had gone so awry, he thought of her as -no more than a desirable mistress. Ha! there was a woodcock.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">{282}</a></span> In the -frost of the morning it had lain so close that he approached within -twenty yards of it before it got up. He was near enough to see how it -pulled itself forward, grasping a blade of grass in its reed-like bill, -before it could get those long wings free of the ground where it -squatted. With a flip flap, it skidded and swerved through the -rhododendron bushes; even if he had had a gun with him he could scarcely -have got a shot.</p> - -<p>“Flip—flap”; it was just so that he had escaped from Colin’s barrels. -Those nights of thought, when he had bandaged the eyes of rage, had -given him simplicity at last, such simplicity as Colin had so carelessly -arrived at when he came through the oaks of the Old Park. He had trusted -to the extraordinary similarity of his own handwriting to that of Colin, -and had written a letter in Colin’s name to Colin’s bankers, requesting -them to send the letter which he had deposited there last August, with -the note on the outside of it about its eventual delivery in case of his -death, to his brother, Lord Stanier, whose receipt would be -forwarded.... Raymond knew it to be a desperate measure, but, after all, -nothing could be more desperate than his position here, bound hand and -foot to Colin, as long as that sealed envelope remained at Messrs. -Bertram’s. The bank might possibly make a further inquiry; telegraph to -Colin for confirmation, but even if that happened, Colin was doing his -worst already. No such disaster had followed. This morning Raymond had -received from the bank a registered letter, containing the unopened -envelope, forwarded to him by direction of Hon. Colin Stanier.</p> - -<p>So now, as he went briskly towards the frozen lake, the confession which -he had signed was safe in the letter-case he carried in the inside -pocket of his coat, and for very luxury of living over again a mad -moment which now was neutralised, he drew it out and read it. There it -was ... in that crisis of guilt, covered by Colin’s pistol, he had -consented to any terms. But now, let Colin see what would be his -response when next he talked in flashes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283">{283}</a></span> that veiled lightning -concerning a shooting of pigeons, concerning a morning when there was a -lunatic at large....</p> - -<p>Indeed Raymond determined that this very day he would fling the -challenge himself. Instead of sitting dumb under Colin’s blistering -jibes, he would defy him; he would insult and provoke him, till he was -stung into sending to the bank for the famous confession, vowing an -instant disclosure of the whole matter to his father. How Raymond would -snap a finger in his face for that threat, and how, when Colin received -the answer from the bank that the packet in question had been sent by -his own orders to his brother, would he choke with the derisive laughter -of hate! Who without solid proof would credit such a tale? Besides -(Raymond had it all ready now) no doubt Lord Yardley would remember -witnessing with Colin the paper about which he now impotently jabbered. -Had not the brothers come in together, ever so pleasantly, on that -morning of the pigeon-shooting, and asked for his witnessing signature? -That paper (so Raymond now framed it) had set forth how he had -determined to make a better job of brotherhood than he had hitherto -done, and to realise that Violet and Colin were mated in love. And -already the pact had fulfilled itself, for never had the two spent days -of such public fraternal amity. “Write to the bank for it in my name,” -Colin would be supposed to have said, “and tear it up, dear Ray! It’ll -be fun, too, to see if they can distinguish your handwriting from -mine”.... That was what Colin would find waiting for him if he sent to -the bank for the document on which this insane accusation was based.</p> - -<p>His skates, fitted on to boots, clanked in his hand, his foot trod -briskly on the frozen soil that would soon be his own. Those eye-teeth -of Colin’s were drawn; his father aged rapidly, and, without doubt, -before many months, the park-gates would have clapped on to the final -exit of Colin and his wife. Perhaps he would let Stanier to some -dollar-gorged American; he had no feeling for it himself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284">{284}</a></span> and the other -two would abhor that. Never yet had Stanier been tenanted by aliens; it -was enough to make the dead turn in their graves. What was more -important, it would make the living writhe. Perhaps Colin—he would be -very rich, alas—would try to take it. The would-be lessees must be -closely scrutinised.</p> - -<p>So here was the lake with its stiff frozen margin; a stamp on it and a -short slide over the black ice produced no cluck of remonstrance. The -pavilion of the bathing-place was on the other side, but a felled -tree-trunk made a comfortable seat for the exchange of his walking shoes -into the boots with skates on them. He had spent a winter month in -Switzerland two years before, and hungered for the bite of the blade on -the sweet fodder of that black field.... Instantly, as in swimming, the -instinct of that balance came back to him, and with long strokes he -curved out on to the delightful playground. Outside edge, and a dropped -turn, an outside back, and a taking up of the direction with the other -foot....</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin, at this moment, had made up his mind not to skate till after -lunch.</p> - -<p>“I’m lazy,” he said to Violet. “I’m tired of baiting Raymond. He was -more cheerful than I like this morning, Vi. I shall smoke a cigarette -and think of something new. Lord! I’ve got no matches.”</p> - -<p>There was a paper basket handy, and he drew a crumpled envelope from it, -meaning to get a light with it from the log fire. Uncrumpling it he saw -it was addressed to Lord Stanier, and idly turning it over, as he made -his spill, he saw the seal of his own bank. The envelope was registered.</p> - -<p>He tore a narrow strip off the edge of it, and used it for his purpose.</p> - -<p>“I should like to sit here talking to you all morning,” he said, “but -that beastly motor-bicycle of mine has gone wrong again. I think I’ll go -up to the stables to see about it. Skating this afternoon, isn’t it? I -hate seeing Ray<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285">{285}</a></span>mond skate because he’s so good at it. But as I want to -skate myself, what’s to be done?”</p> - -<p>Colin floated off in his crisp, graceful manner, and never was he so -alert as when he appeared to be loitering. Why had Raymond received a -registered envelope from Bertram’s? Bertram’s was not Raymond’s bank. -What had that envelope contained?</p> - -<p>He strolled out of the front door; the stables lay to the right, but -Raymond, hugely cheerful that morning, had gone to the lake, which was -in the opposite direction. So deferring the matter of the bicycle he -went down by the yew hedge and along the path on the top of the dam -behind the rhododendrons. He could hear the ring of Raymond’s skates on -the frozen surface. Raymond would have to cease his sport and explain -the matter of the envelope.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Hidden by the bushes, he had nearly come to the bridge over the sluice -when from close at hand there came a noise of loud crackings and -splintering across the lake and a great splash. For one moment Colin -stood quite still, his heart beating high and fast; then, with quickened -pace, he walked on to the bridge over the sluice. Some ten yards out was -a large hole in the surface with jagged edges; a cap and fragments of -broken ice floated on it, and bubbles rose from below.</p> - -<p>“He has been carried under the ice,” thought Colin. “How cold it must -be! The water is deep there.”</p> - -<p>What was to be done? Nothing it seemed. He could run up to the house and -get help, a rope, a plank, something to put out across that gaping hole -on which the sunlight glittered, but before he could return all hope -(all chance rather) of saving Raymond must have passed. Was there no -other plan? His mind, usually so ingenious and resourceful, seemed -utterly blank, save for an overwhelming curiosity as to whether Raymond -would come to the surface again, just once, just for a second.... As he -looked, leaning on the balustrade of the bridge, Raymond’s head -appeared; his face was white and wide-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286">{286}</a></span>eyed, the lips of his open mouth -blue with the cold. Across those ten yards which separated them their -eyes met, Colin’s bright and sparkling with exuberant life, the other’s -stricken with the ultimate and desperate terror.</p> - -<p>Colin waved his hand.</p> - -<p>“So you’ve fallen in,” he said. “I’ll go and see what can be done. If -I’m too late, well, good-bye! Rather cold, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>The last words were spoken to emptiness. There was the cap still -floating and the stream of bubbles breaking on the surface of the -sparkling water.</p> - -<p>Colin gave one leap in the air like some young colt whose limbs tingle -with the joy of life, and rubbed his hands which were chilled with -leaning on the bridge. Of course it was no use going to the house; the -shock and cold and the soft, smothering water would have done their work -long before he could bring help, and the resources of Stanier, so -powerful for the living had no succour or consolation for the dead. -Indeed, it would be better not to go to the house at all, for he could -not imagine himself, in this ecstatic moment, simulating haste and -horror and all that would be appropriate to the occasion. So making a -circuit through the woods, he strolled ten minutes later into the stable -yard to see about his bicycle. He had a pleasant word for the groom and -a joke for the motor-mechanic. Just then his brain could only be -occupied with trivial things; a great glittering curtain seemed to be -let down across it, behind which were stored treasures and splendours. -Presently, when he came to himself, he would inspect these.</p> - -<p>He showed himself to Violet and his father, who were in the long -gallery, when he got back to the house, said a word about his -motor-bicycle, hoped that Raymond was having a good time, and went into -the smoking-room. Now was the time to pull up that glittering curtain.</p> - -<p>Till then the fact of Raymond’s death, just the removal, the extinction -of him had hidden all that might lie behind it; now Colin saw with an -amazed gasp of interest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287">{287}</a></span> how all the activity of his brain was needed to -cope with the situation. Raymond was finished with, while his father -still lived. The remote, the unexpected, the unlooked-for had occurred. -Yet not quite unlooked-for ... one morning dreaming on the Capri beach, -Colin had taken this possibility into account, had let it simmer and -mature in his brain, and as outcome had made Violet spend a night at the -house of the British Consul in Naples. How wise that had proved; he -would have been grinding his teeth if he had not done that.</p> - -<p>Swiftly he ran over the whole process from the beginning, and though -there were problems ahead of him, so far his course had been flawless. -First had come the erasure in the Consulate register and the insertion -of that single numeral in his mother’s letter to Salvatore.... He would -have to see dear Uncle Salvatore again.... That had smoothed the way for -his marriage with Violet; that had ensured, even if Raymond lived to be -a hundred, his own mastership and that of his children after him at -Stanier. It was not mastership in name, for he would but be husband to -its mistress, but he knew that name alone would be lacking to the -completeness of possession. He could not have provided better for the -eventuality of his father’s death, which, according to all human -probability, would occur before Raymond’s. But fate, that blind -incalculable chance, had decreed otherwise, and Colin gave a frown and a -muttered exclamation to the recognition of the fact that had he left the -register alone, and torn up, instead of emending his mother’s letter, he -would now be heir to Stanier as he indeed truly was, in his own right.</p> - -<p>It was a pity to have devoted all that ingenuity, to have saddled -himself with considerable expense as regards that troublesome Salvatore, -when fate all the time was busier and wiser than he.... Yet it had been -necessary, and it was no use wasting regret over it.</p> - -<p>What stood in his way now was the letter and the register. With regard -to the former it was easy to destroy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288">{288}</a></span> it, and to indicate to Salvatore -that all required of him was to hold his tongue, or, if necessary, to -tell a mere simple truth that he had given Colin two letters, one—he -seemed to recollect—dated March 1, in which his sister announced her -marriage, the other a fortnight later, giving news of the birth of the -twins. Uncle Salvatore, with his Viagi pride, so Colin smilingly -reflected, would be glad that the stain on the family honour could be -expunged; Rosina was married when she brought forth. For him, too, it -was pleasant to have the bar sinister lifted from him. It would not, he -allowed, have weighed heavily on him; in any case it would have been -amply compensated for by the enjoyment of Stanier and the expulsion of -Raymond, but now there was no need for that ounce of bitter.... So much, -then, for the letters; they could be destroyed. Violet would ask in vain -for their production to prove her possession.</p> - -<p>“What letters do you mean, darling?” he would answer. Yes, those letters -should perish at once.</p> - -<p>He turned his thoughts to the register. There at this moment it reposed -in that archive-room, bearing the erasure so easily overlooked, so -convincing when pointed out. You had but to look carefully, and, so to -speak, you could see nothing but the erased numeral: it stared at you. -He had, it was true, in his keeping a copy of that entry, certified to -be correct by Mr. Cecil, which bore the earlier date, but, now that -Violet had been informed of that erasure, she would, when Stanier -changed hands, insist on the production of the register, and, knowing -where to look and what to see, her lawyer would draw the conclusion, -which even in the absence of confirming letters, might easily satisfy a -jury. The register had been tampered with, and in whose interests but -Colin’s? And by what hand? Without doubt by his father’s (not that that -would hurt him then) or his own. There was danger, remote perhaps but -alive and smouldering, on that page; it must be quenched.</p> - -<p>Colin recalled his meditations on the Capri beach which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289">{289}</a></span> foresaw this -contingency with a vividness as clear as was the October air on that -morning. All the circumstances of it were equally sharp-edged in his -memory, the sense of the hot pebbles of the beach on which he lay, the -sea and its crystal embrace awaiting him when he got baked and pining -for its coolness, Nino, the joyous pagan boy asleep in the shade, -Vesuvius across the bay with the thin streamer of smoke. That was the -<i>milieu</i> where thought came clean and clear to you, and clear and clean -that morning had his thoughts been, providing for this very situation. -The pieces of it lay in his brain like the last few fragments of a -puzzle; he had no need even to fit them together, for he could see how -curve corresponded with curve and angle with angle. All was in order, -ready to be joined up, now that Raymond no longer blocked his way, and -the key-piece round which the others fitted was undoubtedly that visit -of Violet to Mr. Cecil.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Then came quick steps up the passage, and Violet burst in.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin,” she said, “a terrible thing has happened! Uncle Philip and -I walked down to the lake. Raymond was not there; his boots were on the -bank, there was a hole where the ice had given way at the deep end. -Uncle Philip is getting men and ropes....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290">{290}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X-b" id="CHAPTER_X-b"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> - -<p>It was not till well on in the afternoon that the body was recovered. -All day the cold had been intense, and the ropes with the tackle for -this terrible fishing got stiff and frozen. But at sunset they found it; -the stream had carried it along below the ice towards the sluice.</p> - -<p>Philip sat up with Colin in the long gallery when Violet and Lady -Yardley had gone to bed. He felt no sorrow, for he had not liked -Raymond, he had not even loved him with his fatherhood, for all that had -been given to Colin.... Often and often he had longed that Colin had -been the eldest, now there was none other than Colin; he would have all -that his father coveted for him. But though he felt no sorrow, he felt -remorse and pity; remorse that he had not liked this dead son of his, -pity that he had died young.</p> - -<p>“I reproach myself, Colin, most bitterly,” he had been saying. “It was -hard to be kind to poor Raymond, he kept kindness at arm’s length. But I -ought to have tried more. I ought to have taken example from you: you -never wearied of kindness.”</p> - -<p>Colin laid his hand on his father’s arm. All the evening he had been -keeping things together by a tact so supreme that it appeared pure -naturalness. He had talked quite freely about Raymond; recalled a -hundred little incidents in which Raymond was a mild hero; his shooting, -his prospect of playing football for Cambridge.... It was clear, too, -that the tragedy had made very little impression on his grandmother, and -so he had taken it for granted that they would play their rubber of -whist. Why not?</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t think of it like that, father,” he said. “You did what you -could. You made it very jolly for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291">{291}</a></span> him here. He liked coming home; he -was going to stop here the whole of the Christmas vacation, you know. If -he had not been enjoying it, he would not have done that.”</p> - -<p>Colin revelled in the underlying meaning of his words ... how Raymond -had been enjoying it, hadn’t he?</p> - -<p>Philip’s servant came into the room; he carried on a tray Raymond’s -watch and chain, and a pocket-book.</p> - -<p>“They found these on his lordship’s body, my lord,” he said. “I thought -it best to bring them you.”</p> - -<p>Philip took them, and looked absently at the watch which had stopped at -a few minutes to eleven.</p> - -<p>“He must have fallen in almost immediately,” he said. “I had better look -at what is in his pocket-book. It may contain papers that must be -attended to.”</p> - -<p>Not until that moment had Colin given another thought to what Raymond -had received that morning in the envelope from Bertram’s bank. Now in a -flash he conjectured that whatever it was (and he felt no doubt of what -it was) it would be found in that pocket-book which his father even then -was opening. How lucky it was that he had not told his father about that -attempt of Raymond’s! How splendid would appear his own magnanimity, his -own unfailing kindness to him! He could emphasise them even more by a -reluctance that his father should examine these remains. The water, it -is true, might have got in and soaked the paper, if it was there, into -illegibility, but the leather of the pocket-book seemed to have resisted -well: it might easily prove to contain a legible document.</p> - -<p>He got up in an excitement which his father did not understand.</p> - -<p>“Are you wise to do that, do you think?” he asked in a quick, anxious -voice. “There may be something there which will pain you.”</p> - -<p>“All his papers must be gone through,” said his father. “Have you any -reason, Colin?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t explain,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>Papers were coming out of the pocket-book now, in no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292">{292}</a></span> way perished by -the long immersion; they were damp but they held together, and Colin -glanced with a lynx’s eye at them as his father unfolded them. There -were a couple of bills, he could see, which Philip laid on one side, and -then he came to a half-sheet of foolscap.... He read a line or two, -looked at the bottom of it and saw his own name....</p> - -<p>“What is this?” he said. “It’s signed by Raymond and witnessed by you -and me.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t look at it, father,” said Colin, knowing that it was inevitable -that his father must read anything that was witnessed by himself. “Let -me take it and burn it.”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t do that,” said Philip. “What does this mean? What....”</p> - -<p>“Ah! don’t read it, don’t read it!” said Colin in a voice of piteous -pleading.</p> - -<p>“I must.”</p> - -<p>“Then listen to me instead. I will tell you.”</p> - -<p>Never had his father looked so old and haggard as then. He had seen -enough of what was written there to light horror in his eyes and blanch -his face to a deadly whiteness.</p> - -<p>“Tell me then,” he said.</p> - -<p>Colin sat down on the edge of his father’s chair.</p> - -<p>“It’s a terrible story,” he said, “and I hoped you should never know it. -But it seems inevitable. And remember, father, as I tell you, that -Raymond is dead....”</p> - -<p>His voice failed for a moment.</p> - -<p>“That means forgiveness, doesn’t it?” he said. “Death is forgiveness; -you see what I mean. It’s—it’s you who have to teach me that; you will -see.”</p> - -<p>He collected himself again.</p> - -<p>“It was after I came back from Capri in the summer, and after Vi was -engaged to me,” he said, “that what is referred to there took place. -He—poor Raymond—always hated me. He thought I had your love, which -should have been his as well. And then I had Violet’s love, after she -had accepted him for her husband. There was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293">{293}</a></span> thought in that which -made it so bitter that—that it poisoned him. He got poisoned; you must -think of it like that. And the thought, Raymond’s poisoned thought, was -this: He knew that Violet had the passion for Stanier which you and I -have. Yet when she was face to face with the marriage to him, she gave -up Stanier. Father dear, it wasn’t my fault that I loved her, you didn’t -think it was when I told you out in Capri? And it wasn’t her fault when -she fell in love with me.”</p> - -<p>“No, Colin,” he said. “Love is like that. Go on, my dear.”</p> - -<p>Colin spoke with difficulty now.</p> - -<p>“Then came a day,” he said, “when a lunatic escaped from that asylum at -Repstow. You had news of it one night, and told Raymond and me. He was a -homicidal fellow, and he got hold of one of your keeper’s guns. Next -morning Raymond went to shoot pigeons, and I bicycled on my motor to -play golf. And then—then, father, we must suppose that the devil -himself came to Raymond. It wasn’t Raymond who planned what Raymond -did.... He expected me to come back along the road from the lodge, and -he—he hid in the bushes at that sharp corner with his gun resting on -the wall, and his plan was to shoot me. It would have been at the -distance of a few yards only.”</p> - -<p>Lord Yardley interrupted; his voice was hoarse and nearly inaudible.</p> - -<p>“Wait a minute, Colin,” he said. “All this reminds me of something I -have heard, and yet only half heard.”</p> - -<p>Colin nodded. “I know,” he said. “I’ll tell that presently.... There was -poor Raymond waiting for me to come round the corner. There was this -madman loose in the park somewhere, and if the—the plan had succeeded, -it would have been supposed that it was the madman who had killed me. -But an accident happened: my bicycle punctured, and I walked back for -the trudge along the ridge of the Old Park.”</p> - -<p>Colin choked for a moment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294">{294}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I caught the glint of sun on a gun-barrel by the wall at that sharp -corner,” he said, “and I wondered who or what that could be. It could -not be the escaped madman, for they had told me at the lodge that he had -been caught; and then I remembered that Raymond was out shooting -pigeons, and I remembered that Raymond hated me. It occurred to me -definitely then, and I felt sick at the thought, that he was waiting for -me. And then, father, the mere instinct of self-preservation awoke. If -it was Raymond, if I was terribly right, I could not go on like that in -constant fear of my life.... I had to make myself safe.</p> - -<p>“I stole down, taking cover behind the oaks, till I got close and then I -saw it was Raymond. I was white with rage, and I was sick at heart. I -had a revolver with me, for you or Vi—you, I think—had persuaded me to -take it out in case I met the wretched madman, and, father, I <i>had</i> met -a wretched madman. I covered him with it, and then I spoke to him. I -told him that if he moved except as I ordered him, I would kill him. He -collapsed; every atom of fight was out of him, and he emptied his gun of -its cartridges and laid it down. And all the time there wasn’t a -cartridge at all in my revolver: I had taken them out and forgotten to -put them back. It was after he had collapsed that I found that out.”</p> - -<p>A wan smile, as unlike to Colin’s genial heat of mirth as the moonlight -is to the noonday sun, shivered and trembled on his mouth and vanished -again, leaving it so serious, so tender.</p> - -<p>“He confessed,” he said. “But I had to make myself safe. I told him he -must put that confession into writing and sign it, and you and I would -witness it. That was done. I told you—do you remember?—that Raymond -and I had a secret pact, and we wanted your witness to his signature. -That was it; and it is that you hold in your hand now. I sent it to my -bank, Bertram’s, again in self-defence, for I knew that he would not -dare to make any attempt on me, since, if it were successful, however -far<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295">{295}</a></span> from suspicion he seemed to stand, there would come into your hands -the confession that he had attempted to kill me. Look at the envelope, -father. In case of my death, you will read there, it was to be delivered -to you.”</p> - -<p>Philip did not need to look.</p> - -<p>“Go on, Colin,” he said. “How did it come into Raymond’s possession?”</p> - -<p>“I can only conjecture that. But this morning, after poor Ray had gone -out to skate, I wanted a light for my cigarette, and I had no matches. I -drew out something from the waste-paper basket. It was an envelope -directed to Raymond, and on the back was the seal of the bank. His -handwriting, as you know, was exactly like mine, a spider scrawl you -used to call it. I think he must have written to the bank in my name, -asking that what I had deposited there was to be sent to him. He would -never be safe till he had got that. And—and, oh, father, I should never -have been safe when he had got it.”</p> - -<p>There was a long silence; Colin’s head was bent on his father’s -shoulder; he lay there quivering, while in Philip’s face the grimness -grew. Presently Colin spoke again:</p> - -<p>“You said you had heard, or half heard, some of this,” he said. “I will -remind you. One night at dinner, the night Ray got back from Cambridge, -I made the usual nonsensical fool of myself. I seemed to try to -recollect something funny that had happened on the morning when Ray went -out to shoot pigeons. ‘A man with a gun,’ I said, and you and Vi voted -that I was a bore. But I think Raymond knew why I said it, and went on -with it till you were all sick and tired of me. I made a joke of it, you -see; I could not talk of it to him. I could not be heavy and say, ‘I -forgive you; I wipe it out.’ That would have been horrible for him. The -only plan I could think of was to make a joke of it, hoping he would -understand. I think he did; I think he saw what I meant. But yet he -wanted to be safe. Oh, Lord, how I understand that! How anxious I was to -be safe and not to have to tell you. But I have had to. If you had -listened<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296">{296}</a></span> to me, father, you would have burned that paper. Then no one -would ever have known.” (Of course Colin remembered that Violet knew, -but he went on without a pause:)</p> - -<p>“I’m all to pieces to-night,” he said. “I have horrible fears and all -sorts of dreadful things occur to me. That paper is safe nowhere, -father. It wasn’t even safe—poor Ray—at my bank. Supposing Vi, by some -appalling mischance, got to see it. It would poison Raymond’s memory for -her. He did love her, I am sure of that, and though she didn’t love him, -she thinks tenderly and compassionately of him. She is not safe while it -exists. Burn it, father. Just look at it once first, if you want to know -that I have spoken quiet, sober truth, which I did not want to speak, as -you know, and then burn it.”</p> - -<p>Philip’s first instinct was to throw it straight into the smouldering -logs. He believed every word Colin had said, but there was justice to be -done to one who could not plead for himself. He was bound to see that -Raymond had acted the story that Colin had told him. Dry-eyed and grim, -he read it from first word to last, and then stood up.</p> - -<p>“Here it is,” he said. “You have been scrupulously accurate. I should -like you to see me burn it.”</p> - -<p>The paper was damp, and for a little while it steamed above the logs. -Then, with a flap, a flame broke from it. A little black ash clung to -the embers and grew red, then a faint, grey ash ascended and -pirouetted.... Philip’s stern eyes melted, and he turned to his only -son.</p> - -<p>“And now I have got to forget,” he said.</p> - -<p>That seemed the very word Colin was waiting for.</p> - -<p>“That’s easy,” he said. “It’s easy for me, dear father, so it can’t be -difficult, for I’m an awful brute. We shall have to make a pact, you and -I. We must burn what we know out of our hearts, just as you have burned -the evidence of it. It doesn’t exist any more. It was some wretched -dream.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Colin!” said his father, and in those words was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297">{297}</a></span> all the wonder of -love which cannot credit the beauty, the splendour, that it -contemplates.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin saw his father to his room, and then walked back down the great -corridor, quenching the lights as he went, for he had told the butler -that no one need sit up. He drew back the curtains of the window at the -head of the stairs as he passed and looked out on to the clearness of -the frosty midnight. Moonlight lay over the whiteness of the gardens and -terraces, but the yew hedge, black and unfrosted, seemed like some -funeral route to be followed to where the ice gleamed with a strange -vividness as if it were the skylight to some illuminated place below. -Then, letting the curtain fall again, he went softly past the head of -the lit passage where his room and Violet’s lay, to put out the light at -the far end of this corridor. In the last room to the left he knew -Raymond was lying, and he went in.</p> - -<p>The last toilet had been finished and the body lay on its bed below a -sheet. Candles were burning, as if that which lay there dreaded the -darkness, and on the table by the bed was a great bowl of white hothouse -flowers. Colin had not seen Raymond since that white face looked at him -across the rim of broken ice; there had been disfigurement, he imagined, -and, full of curiosity, he turned back the sheet. There were little -scars on the nose and ears particularly, but nothing appalling, and he -looked long at Raymond’s face. The heavy eyelids were closed, the mouth -pouted sullenly; death had not changed him at all; he hardly looked -asleep, drowsy at the most. Not a ray of pity softened Colin’s smiling -face of triumph.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>For a month after Raymond’s death, the four of them, representing three -generations of Staniers, remained quietly there. His name was mentioned -less and less among them, for, after Colin’s disclosure to his father, -Philip avoided all speech about him, and, as far as he could, all -thought. Horror came with the thought of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298">{298}</a></span> him. The most his father could -do was to try to forget him. But for an accident in that matter of a -punctured tyre, Colin would now be lying where Raymond lay, and all -sunshine would have passed from his declining years. He was no more than -sixty-six, but he was old; Colin used to wonder at the swift advance of -old age, like some evening shadow, which lengthened so rapidly. But -beyond the shadow Philip’s sky was full of light. His desire had been -realised, though by tragic ways, and his death, neither dreaded nor -wished-for, would realise it.</p> - -<p>There were, however, events in the future which he anticipated with -eagerness; the first was Colin’s coming of age next March. For -generations that festival had been one of high prestige in the family, -and in spite of the recency of Raymond’s death, he meant to celebrate it -with due splendour.</p> - -<p>The other was even more intimately longed-for; early in July, Violet -would, if all were well, become a mother; and to see Colin’s son, to -know that the succession would continue, was the dearest hope of his -life. And these two expectations brought back some St. Martin’s summer -of the spirit to him; he began to look forward, as is the way of youth, -instead of dwelling in the past. The lengthening shadow stayed, it even -retreated.... But Colin had an important piece of business to effect -before his father’s death, and he was waiting, without impatience but -watchfully, for an opportunity to set out on it. As usual, he wanted the -suggestion which would give him this opportunity to come, not from -himself, but from others; he would seem then to do what he desired -because it was urged on him.</p> - -<p>A week of dark, foggy weather towards the end of February favoured his -plans. Influenza was about, and he had a touch of it, in no way serious, -indeed possibly useful. After a couple of days in his room he reappeared -again, but with all the fire gone out of him. He was silent and -depressed, and saw that his father’s eyes watched him with anxiety.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299">{299}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Still feeling rather down?” asked Philip one morning, when Colin pushed -an untasted plate away from him at breakfast.</p> - -<p>Colin made a tragic face at the window. Nothing could be seen outside, -the fog was opaque and impenetrable.</p> - -<p>“That’s not very encouraging, father,” he said. “Not convalescing -weather.”</p> - -<p>He appeared to pull himself together. “But there’s nothing to worry -about,” he said. “I should feel depressed in this damp darkness whether -I had had the flue or not.”</p> - -<p>“You want the sun,” said Philip.</p> - -<p>“Ah, the sun! Is there one? Do show it me.”</p> - -<p>Philip walked to the window; thin rain was leaking through the fog. It -certainly was not inspiriting.</p> - -<p>“Well, why not go and see it for yourself?” he said. “There’s sun -somewhere. Go off to the Riviera for a fortnight with Violet.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that would be divine if we only could,” said Colin. “But—I daresay -it’s funny of me—I don’t want Vi to go through the sort of journey you -have at this time of year. The trains are crammed; a fellow I know had -to stand all the way from Paris to Marseilles. I shouldn’t like her to -do that. Besides we can’t both leave you.”</p> - -<p>“Go alone then. Violet will understand.”</p> - -<p>Colin sighed.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I feel much like travelling either,” he said. “I’ll stick -it out, father. I can go to bed again. I think that’s the most -comfortable place. Besides the Riviera is like a monkey-house just now.”</p> - -<p>“Go to the villa at Capri then.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, don’t talk of it,” said Colin, getting up. “Can’t I see the -stone-pine frying in the sunshine. And the freesias will be out, and the -wall-flowers. Nino, your old boatman’s son, wrote to me the other day. -He said the spring had come, and the vines were budding, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300">{300}</a></span> was -already hot! Hot! I could have cried for envy. Don’t let’s talk of it.”</p> - -<p>“But I will talk about it,” said Philip. “I’m master here yet....”</p> - -<p>“Father, I don’t like that joke,” said Colin.</p> - -<p>“Very well. We’ll leave it out and be serious. I shall talk to Violet, -too.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, no!” said Colin without conviction. “Hullo, here is Vi. Please -don’t mention the name of that beloved island again or I shall cry. -Morning, Vi. You’re enough sunshine for anyone.”</p> - -<p>Colin strolled out of the room so as to leave the others together, and -presently Philip passed through the long gallery, and was certainly -engaged in telephoning for a while. It was a trunk-call, apparently, for -there was an interval between the ringing up and the subsequent -conversation. All that day neither Philip nor Violet made the least -allusion to Capri, but there was certainly something in the air.... The -last post that night, arriving while they were at cards, brought a -packet for Lord Yardley, which he opened.</p> - -<p>“There, that’s the way to treat obstinate fellows like you, Colin,” he -observed, and tossed over to him the book of tickets to Naples and back.</p> - -<p>“Father and Violet, you’re brutes,” he said. “I give up.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Colin was ever so easily persuaded by Mr. Cecil to spend a couple of -nights, if not more, in Naples, before he went across to the island, and -he had a youthful, pathetic tale to tell. They had had a terrible time -in England. No doubt Mr. Cecil had seen the notice of his brother’s -death—Mr. Cecil could imagine his father’s grief, and indeed his own -and Violet’s. Kind messages, by the way, from them both: they would none -of them forgive him, if he came to England this year and did not reserve -at least a week for them, either in London or at Stanier.... Then Colin -himself had caught influenza,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301">{301}</a></span> and his father and wife had insisted on -his going south for a week or two and letting the sun soak into him. But -after that month of secluded mourning at Stanier, it was rather -heavenly—Colin looked like a seraph who had strayed into a sad world, -as he said this—to pass a couple of days in some sort of city where -there were many people, and all gay, some stir of life and distraction -from his own sorrowful thoughts.</p> - -<p>“One has to buck up again some time,” said Colin, “and often I longed to -escape from Stanier and just go up to town and dine with some jolly -people, and go to a music-hall, and have supper somewhere, and forget it -all for a time. Shocking of me, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, I understand. I quite comprehend that, Colin,” said Cecil. “I -beg your pardon: I should say Lord Stanier.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t,” said Colin. “I hate the title. It was dear Raymond’s. You -never saw him, I think?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil had begun to feel like a family friend. He felt himself a sort -of uncle to this brilliant boy, so shadowed by woe, so eager to escape -out of the shadow. It was his mission, clearly, to aid in this cure, -physical and mental, of sunlight.</p> - -<p>“No, never,” said he, “only you and your wife and your father. A -privilege!”</p> - -<p>Colin drank the hospitable cocktail that stood at his elbow. His -definite plans were yet in the making, but he began to suspect that -alcohol in various forms would be connected with them. He had the -Stanier head as regards drink; it only seemed to collect and clarify his -wits, and he remembered that Mr. Cecil, on that night which he had spent -alone here, had quickly passed through joviality and perhaps want of -dignity, to bland somnolence.... He got up with an air of briskness and -mutual understanding.</p> - -<p>“I’m not going to be a wet-blanket, Mr. Cecil,” he said. “I’ve told you -enough to make you see that I pine for enjoyment again. That little -restaurant where you and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302">{302}</a></span> I went before—may we dine there again? I want -to see other people enjoying themselves, and I want the sun. Those are -my medicines; be a kind, good doctor to me.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil’s treatment, so he congratulated himself, seemed wonderfully -efficacious that evening. Colin cast all sad thoughts behind him, and -between one thing and another, and specially between one drink and -another, it was after twelve o’clock before they returned from their -dinner to Mr. Cecil’s flat again. Even then, a story was but half-told, -and Mr. Cecil drew his keys from his pocket to unlock a very private -drawer where there were photographs about which he now felt sure Colin -would be sympathetic.</p> - -<p>“You’ll like them,” he giggled, as he produced these prints. “Help -yourself, Colin. I see they have put out some whisky for us.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord, how funny,” said Colin looking at what Mr. Cecil shewed him. -“But I can’t drink unless you do. Say when, Mr. Cecil.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil was looking at the next photograph, and Colin took advantage -of his preoccupation. The big bunch of keys by which this private, this -very private, drawer was opened still dangled from the lock.</p> - -<p>“And this one,” said Mr. Cecil, applying himself to the liberal dose.</p> - -<p>“But what a glorious creature,” said Colin. “May I help myself?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil had a confused idea that Colin had finished his first drink -and wanted another. So he finished his own and wanted another.</p> - -<p>“Of course, my dear boy,” he said. “Just a night-cap, eh? A drop of -whisky at bed-time, I’ve noticed, makes one sleep all the sounder.”</p> - -<p>Colin was on the apex of watchfulness. Photograph after photograph was -handed to him, but long before they came to the end of them the effects -of the night-cap were apparent in Mr. Cecil. The keys still hung from -the lock, and Colin, as he replaced the last of this unblushing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303">{303}</a></span> series, -got up and stood between this table-drawer and his host.</p> - -<p>“And that statuette there?” he said, pointing to the other side of the -room. “Surely we’ve seen a photograph of that?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil chuckled again; but the chuckle could hardly emerge from his -sleep-slack mouth.</p> - -<p>“Ah, I’ll tell you about that to-morrow,” he said, looking round at it.</p> - -<p>Colin, with one of his caressing, boyish movements, put his hand on Mr. -Cecil’s shoulder, and ever so imperceptibly drew him towards the door.</p> - -<p>“I feel a different fellow altogether,” he said. “I shall sleep like a -top, and I have enjoyed myself. You ought to give up your consular work -and start a cure for depressed young men. You’d make a fortune.”</p> - -<p>They were out in the passage by this time, and it was clear that the -night-cap had banished all thought of his keys from Mr. Cecil’s head. He -saw Colin to his room, lingered a moment to see that he had all he -wanted, and then went to his own.</p> - -<p>“A charming young fellow,” he thought; performed a somnambulistic feat -of undressing, and fell into his bed.</p> - -<p>Colin heard his door shut, and then in a moment turned off his light, -and, stealthily opening his own door, stood in the entry listening for -any sound. For a minute or two there were faint, muffled noises from his -host’s room, but soon all was still, except for the creaking of his own -shirt-front as he breathed. Then, re-entering his room, he stripped and -put on his pyjamas and soft felt slippers which would be noiseless on -the boards outside. Once more he stood there and waited, and now from -inside Mr. Cecil’s room came sounds rhythmical and reassuring. Enough -light dribbled in through the uncurtained windows to guide his steps -without fear of collision, and he glided into the room they had just -left and felt his way to the table where the keys still dangled. He -unloosed them, grasping them in the flap of his jacket, so that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304">{304}</a></span> -should not jingle as he moved, and went down the passage to the door of -the consular offices. The big key for the door was in the lock, and -turned noiselessly.</p> - -<p>The archive-room lay to the right, and with the door into the house shut -behind him, he permitted himself the illumination of a match, and passed -through. The shutters were closed, and he lit a candle that stood on the -table for official sealing. There, in the wall, was the locked press -that he so well remembered, and the trial of half-a-dozen of the keys on -the bunch he carried gave him the one he looked for. The date labels -were on the back of the volumes, and he drew out that which comprised -the year he wanted. Quietly he turned over the leaves and found the page -which contained the contract between Rosina Viagi and Philip Lord -Stanier. Even in this one-candle-power light the erasure was visible to -the eye that looked for it. A paper-knife lay among the tools of writing -on the table, and folding the leaf back to its innermost margin he -severed it from the book and thrust it inside the cord of his trousers.</p> - -<p>Bright-eyed and breathing quickly with excitement and success, he -replaced the volume and locked the press. He grasped the keys as before, -blew out the candle, quenching the smouldering wick in his fingers, and -went back, locking the door of the office behind him, into the room from -which he had fetched the keys. He replaced them in the drawer of -unblushing photographs and, pausing for a moment at his own door, -listened for the noise that had reassured him before. There it was, -resonant and rhythmical. He closed his door, turned up his light, and -drew the severed page from his trousers. He had been gone, so his watch -told him, not more than five minutes.</p> - -<p>“Rosina Viagi to Philip Lord Stanier....” March 1, or March 31, mattered -no more. “I have but cancelled a forgery,” he thought to himself as he -pored over it. It was a pity to be obliged to destroy so ingenious a -work, which at one time gave him the mastership of Stanier, but -Raymond’s death had given it him more completely,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_305" id="page_305">{305}</a></span> and it no longer -served his end, but was only a danger. Yet should he destroy it, or....</p> - -<p>His mind went back to the night that he and Violet had passed together -here. How supreme had been his wisdom over that! For supposing, on his -father’s death, that Violet threatened to contest his succession on the -information he had given her to induce her for certain to marry him, -what now would the register show but an excised leaf? In whose interest -had it been to remove that, except Violet’s, for with its disappearance -there vanished, as far as she knew, all record of the marriage. Had she -had an opportunity of doing so? Certainly, for had she not spent a night -here on the return from their honeymoon? Should she be so unwise as to -send her lawyer here to examine the register on the ground that it had -been tampered with, she would be faced with a tampering of an unexpected -kind. The leaf had gone; but how lucky that before its suspicious -disappearance, Colin had copied out the entry of the marriage and had it -certified as correct by the Consul himself. He had it safe, with its -date, March 1. That would be a surprise to poor Violet when she knew it, -and the finger of suspicion, wavering hitherto, would surely point in -one very definite direction.... As for the letter from Rosina to -Salvatore Viagi, of which she would profess knowledge on Colin’s -authority, what did she mean and where was the letter? Uncle Salvatore, -whom Colin would see to-morrow, would be found to know nothing about it.</p> - -<p>About the destruction of this page.... Colin fingered his own smooth -throat as he considered that. Supposing Violet seriously and obstinately -threatened to contest the succession? And what if, when the page was -found to be missing, it was discovered in some locked and secret -receptacle of her own? That would be devilish funny.... Colin hoped, he -thought, that it would not come to that. He liked Violet, but she must -be good, she must be wise.</p> - -<p>The click of an electric switch and the noise of a step outside sent his -heart thumping in his throat, and next<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_306" id="page_306">{306}</a></span> moment he had thrust the page -into his despatch-box and turned the key on it. The step passed his -room, and was no longer audible, and with infinite precaution he turned -the handle, and holding the door just ajar, he listened. It had not gone -the whole length of the passage down to the entry to the consular -offices, and even while he stood there he heard the chink of keys. Then -the step was audible again, and the chink accompanied it. At that -comprehension came to him, confirmed next moment by the repeated click -of the electric switch and the soft closing of his host’s door.</p> - -<p>“My luck holds,” thought Colin, and blessed the powers that so -wonderfully protected him. In another minute he was in bed, but even as -sleep rose softly about him, he woke himself with a laugh.</p> - -<p>“That’s where I’ll put the leaf from the register,” he thought. -“Priceless! Absolutely priceless!”</p> - -<p>It was no news to him when at breakfast next morning Mr. Cecil certified -the accuracy of his interpretation of the step.</p> - -<p>“Amazingly careless I was last night,” he said. “I went straight to bed -after we had looked at those photographs, and fell asleep at once.”</p> - -<p>“Night-cap,” said Colin. “I did exactly the same.”</p> - -<p>“Well, my night-cap fell off,” said Mr. Cecil. “It fell off with a bang. -I hadn’t been to sleep more than a quarter of an hour when I woke with a -start.”</p> - -<p>“Some noise?” asked Colin carelessly.</p> - -<p>“No. I hadn’t heard anything, but my conscience awoke me, and I -remembered I had left my keys in the lock of that private drawer of -mine. I got out of bed in a fine hurry, for not only was that drawer -unlocked—that would never do, eh?—but on the bunch were keys of -cupboards and locked cases in the Consulate. But there the keys were -just where I had left them. I can’t think how I came to forget them when -I went to bed.”</p> - -<p>Colin looked up with an irresistible gaiety of eye and mouth:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_307" id="page_307">{307}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I know,” he said. “You were so busy looking after your patient.... And -you gave me a lot of medicine, Dr. Cecil, wine, liqueurs, cocktails, -whiskies and sodas. I was as sleepy as an owl when I tumbled into bed. -How thirsty it makes one in the morning to be sleepy at night.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil broke into a chuckle of laughter.</p> - -<p>“Precisely my experience,” he said. “Odd. Now can you amuse yourself -to-day till I’m free again?”</p> - -<p>“Not so much as if you were with me,” said Colin. “But I must pay a duty -call on my uncle. I don’t say it will be amusing. Do you know him? -Salvatore Viagi.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cecil had not that happiness, and presently Colin went in search of -the mansion which Salvatore had once alluded to as the Palazzo Viagi.</p> - -<p>Leaving nothing to chance that could be covered by design, he had -telegraphed from Rome yesterday to say he would make this visit, and -wanted a private interview with Salvatore. The Palazzo Viagi proved to -be a rather shabby flat in an inconspicuous street, but Salvatore -skipped from his chair with open arms to receive him, and assumed an -expression that was suitable to the late family bereavement and his joy -at seeing Colin.</p> - -<p>“<i>Collino mio!</i>” he cried. “What a happy morning is this for your poor -uncle, yet, oh, what a terrible blow has fallen on us since last I saw -you! Dear friend, dear nephew, my heart bled for you when I saw the -news! So young, and with such brilliant prospects. Lamentable indeed. -Enough.”</p> - -<p>He squeezed Colin’s hand and turned away for a moment to hide his -emotion at the death of one on whom he had never set eyes. He wore an -enormous black tie in token of his grief, but was otherwise as -troubadourial as ever.</p> - -<p>“But we must put away sad thoughts,” he continued. “I am all on -tenter-hooks to know what brings you to my humble doors. Not further bad -news: no, not that? Your beloved father is well, I hope. Your beloved -wife also,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_308" id="page_308">{308}</a></span> and your revered grandmother. Yes? Put me out of my -suspense.”</p> - -<p>The health of these was not so much an anxiety at this moment to -Salvatore as the desire to know that all was well with the very pleasant -financial assistance which Colin provided. It was easy, in fact, to -guess the real nature of his suspense, and consequently Colin found a -delicate pleasure in prolonging it a little.</p> - -<p>“Yes, they’re all well,” he said. “My father bore the blow wonderfully -considering how devoted he was to Raymond. Violet, too, and my -grandmother. You can make your affectionate heart at ease about them -all.”</p> - -<p>“Thank God! thank God!” said Salvatore. “I—I got your telegram. I have -made arrangements so that our privacy shall be uninterrupted. I have, in -fact, sent Vittoria and Cecilia to visit friends at Posilippo. Such -reproaches, such entreaties, when they heard their cousin Colin was -expected, but I was adamant.”</p> - -<p>“And how are Vittoria and Cecilia?” asked Colin. The troubadour was -almost dancing with impatience.</p> - -<p>“They are well, I am glad to say; they have the constitution of -ostriches, or whatever is healthiest in the animal kingdom. But time -presses, no doubt, with you, dear fellow; you will be in a hurry; duties -and pleasure no doubt claim you.”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” said Colin. “I am quite at leisure for the day. I am staying -with Mr. Cecil our Consul. He is officially engaged all day, and all the -hours are at our disposal.... So at last I see the home of my mother’s -family. Was it here she lived, Uncle Salvatore?”</p> - -<p>“No, in quite another street. My wretched penury drove me here. Even -with your bounty, dear Collino, I can scarcely make the two ends meet.”</p> - -<p>Colin looked very grave.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, I am very sorry to hear that,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Ah! You have come to me with bad news,” exclaimed Salvatore, unable to -check himself any more. “Break it to me quickly. Vittoria....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_309" id="page_309">{309}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>At last Colin had pity.</p> - -<p>“Let’s come to business, Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “There’s no bad -news, at least if there is you will be making it for yourself. Now, do -you remember two letters of my mother which you once sent me? We had a -talk about them, and I want you to give me your account of them. Can you -describe them to me?”</p> - -<p>Salvatore made a tragic gesture and covered his eyes with his hand. The -ludicrous creature made a farce of all he touched.</p> - -<p>“They are graven on my heart,” he said. “Deep and bitterly are they -graven there. The first that I received, dated on the seventeenth of -March, told me of the birth of her twins, one named Raymond and -yourself. The second, dated March the thirty-first, announced her -marriage which had taken place that day with your father ...” and he -ground his teeth slightly.</p> - -<p>Colin leaned forward to him.</p> - -<p>“Uncle Salvatore you are a marvellous actor!” he said. “Why did you -never go on the stage? I can tell you why. You have no memory at all.”</p> - -<p>Salvatore gave him a hunted kind of look. Was not his very existence -(and that of Vittoria and Cecilia) dependent on the accuracy of this -recollection?... Was Colin putting him to some sort of test to see if he -would stick to his impression of those letters.</p> - -<p>“Dear fellow, those letters and those dates are engraved, as I have -previously assured you, on my heart. Alas! that it should be so....”</p> - -<p>A sudden light dawned on him.</p> - -<p>“You have come to tell me that I am wrong,” he said. “Is it indeed true -that my memory is at fault?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely with regard to the date of one of those letters,” said -Colin. “The date on that which announced my mother’s marriage was surely -March the first, Uncle Salvatore. You are right about the date of the -other.”</p> - -<p>Colin suddenly broke into a shout of laughter. His uncle’s puckered brow -and his effort to recollect what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_310" id="page_310">{310}</a></span> he knew and what he had been told were -marvellous to behold. Presently he recovered himself.</p> - -<p>“Seriously, Uncle Salvatore,” he said. “I want you to see if you cannot -recollect that the marriage letter was dated March the first. It is very -important that you should do that; it will be disastrous for you if you -don’t. I just want you to recollect clearly that I am right about it. -The letters will never be produced, for I have destroyed them both.... -But surely when you sent me them you thought that it was as I say. -Probably you will never be called upon to swear to your belief, but just -possibly you may. It would be nice if you could recollect that; it would -remove the stain from the honour of your illustrious house, and, also, -parenthetically, from my poor shield.”</p> - -<p>Colin paused a moment with legs crossed in an attitude of lazy ease; he -lay back in his low chair and scratched one ankle with the heel of his -shoe.</p> - -<p>“Mosquitoes already!” he said, “what troublesome things there are in the -world! Mosquitoes you know, Uncle Salvatore, or want of money for -instance. If I were a scheming, inventive fellow, I should try to -arrange to give a pleasant annuity to mosquitoes on the condition of -their not biting me. If one bit me after that, I should withdraw my -annuity. What nonsense I am talking! It is getting into the sun and the -warmth and your delightful society that makes me foolish and cheerful. -Let us get back to what I was saying. I am sure you thought when you -gave me those dear letters that the date of your adored sister’s -marriage was the first of March. In all seriousness I advise you to -remember that it was so. That’s all; I believe we understand each other. -Vittoria’s future, you know, and all the rest of it. And on my father’s -death, I shall be a very rich man. But memory, what a priceless -possession is that! If you only had a good memory, Uncle Salvatore!... -Persuade me that you have a good memory. Reinstate, as far as you can, -the unblemished honour of the Viagis. Yes, that’s all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_311" id="page_311">{311}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Colin got up and examined the odious objects that hung on the walls. -There was a picture framed in shells; there was a piece of needlework -framed in sea-weed; there was a chromo-lithograph of something sacred. -All was shabby and awful. A stench of vegetables and the miscellany -called <i>frutta di mare</i> stole in through the windows from the barrows -outside this splendid Palazzo Viagi.</p> - -<p>“But the record at the Consulate,” said Salvatore, with Italian -cautiousness. “You told me that though the date there appeared to be the -same as that which I certainly seem to recollect on the letter....”</p> - -<p>Colin snapped himself round from an absent inspection of, no doubt, -Vittoria’s needlework.</p> - -<p>“But what the deuce has that got to do with you, Uncle Salvatore?” he -said. “I want your recollection of the dates on the letters which we -have been speaking of and of nothing else at all. Do I not see -Vittoria’s handiwork in this beautiful frame of shells? How lucky she -has a set of clever fingers if her father has a bad memory! She will -have herself to support and him as well, will she not? And what do you -know of any register at the Consulate? The noble Viagis would not mix -themselves up with low folk like poor Mr. Cecil. In fact, he told me -that he had not the honour of your acquaintance. Do not give it him. Why -should you know Mr. Cecil? About that letter now....”</p> - -<p>“It was certainly my impression,” began Salvatore.</p> - -<p>Colin interrupted. “I don’t deal with your impressions,” he said. “Was -not the letter concerning my mother’s marriage dated the first of March? -That’s all; yes or no.”</p> - -<p>Salvatore became the complete troubadour again, and his malachite studs -made him forget his black tie. Again he skipped from his chair with open -arms.</p> - -<p>“I swear to it,” he said. “The restoration of my adored idol! It has -been a nightmare to me to think.... Ah, it was just that, a bad -dream.... Were not those letters imprinted on my heart?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_312" id="page_312">{312}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Colin evaded his embrace; he was like some monstrous goat in broadcloth.</p> - -<p>“That’s all settled then,” he said. “You were only teasing me when you -pretended not to remember. You will be sure not to forget again, won’t -you? Forgetfulness is such a natural failing, but what dreadful -consequences may come of it. Let the thought of them be your nightmare -in the future, Uncle Salvatore. There’ll be pleasant realities instead -if you will only remember, and a pleasant reality is nicer than a bad -dream which comes true.... I’ll be going now, I think....”</p> - -<p>“I cannot permit it,” exclaimed Salvatore. “Some wine, some biscuits!”</p> - -<p>“Neither, thanks,” said Colin. “I had wine last night, though I can’t -remember the biscuits. Probably there were some. Vittoria and Cecilia! -What an anxiety removed with regard to their future!”</p> - -<p>“And your movements, dear Collino?” exclaimed Salvatore. “You go to -Capri?”</p> - -<p>Colin thought of the tawdry, bibulous evening that probably awaited him, -and his uncle’s question put a new idea into his head. His innate love -of wickedness made it desirable to him to hurt those who were fond of -him, if their affection could bring him no advantage. Uncle Salvatore, -at any rate, could do nothing more for him, and he was not sure that Mr. -Cecil could. Mr. Cecil had been a wonderful host last night; he had -fulfilled the utmost requirements of his guest in getting sleepy and -drunk, and was there any more use for Mr. Cecil? Drink and photographs -and leerings at the attractive maidens of Naples was a very stupid sort -of indulgence....</p> - -<p>“Yes, to-morrow,” he said. “Perhaps even by the afternoon boat to-day.”</p> - -<p>“But alone?” said Salvatore. “How gladly would I relieve your solitude. -I would bring Vittoria and Cecilia; how charming a family party.”</p> - -<p>Colin felt some flamelike quiver of hatred spread<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_313" id="page_313">{313}</a></span> through him. His -nerves vibrated with it; it reached to his toes and fingertips.</p> - -<p>“A delightful suggestion,” he said, “for you and Vittoria and whatever -the other one’s name is. But I don’t want any of you, thank you. I -haven’t seen either of them, but I guess what they are like from you. -You’re like—you’re like a mixture of a troubadour and a mountebank, and -the man who cracks the whip at the horses in a circus, Uncle Salvatore. -You’re no good to me any more, but I can be awfully bad for you if you -lose your memory again. You know exactly what I want you to remember, -and you do remember it. You forgot it because I told you to forget it. -Now it has all come back to you, and how nice that is. But if you think -I am going to bore myself with you and Vittoria and the other, you make -a stupendous error. I’m very kind to you, you know; I’m your benefactor -to a considerable extent, so you mustn’t think me unkind when I utterly -refuse to saddle myself with your company. I butter your bread for you, -be content with that. Good-bye. Love to Vittoria!”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>So that was done, and he strolled back along the sea-front towards the -Consulate. Capri, a little more solid only than a cloud, floated on the -horizon, and with that delightful goal so near, it was miserable to -picture another tiresome crapulous evening with the little red bounder. -Last night, stupid and wearisome though the hours had been, they had -yielded him the prize he sought for, whereas to-night there would be no -prize of any sort in view. Those interminable drinks, those stupid -photographs, why waste time and energy in this second-hand sort of -debauchery? He had been prepared, when he started from England, to spend -with Mr. Cecil as much time as was necessary in order to achieve what -was the main object of his expedition, but that was accomplished now. He -would be so much happier at the villa, where he was, after all, expected -to-day, than in seeing Mr. Cecil<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_314" id="page_314">{314}</a></span> get excited and familiar and -photographic and intoxicated.</p> - -<p>The whispering stone-pine, the vine-wreathed pergola, the piazza full of -dusk and youth, the steps of belated passengers on the pathway outside -the garden made sweeter music than the voice of an inebriated Consul -with its hints and giggles. Stout, middle-aged people, if there had to -be such in the world, should keep quiet and read their books, and leave -the mysteries and joys of youth to the young.... It was there, in that -cloud that floated on the horizon, that he had first realised himself -and the hand that led him, in the scent-haunted darkness and the -whispering of the night wind; that fed his soul with a nourishment that -Mr. Cecil’s cocktails and photographs were starvingly lacking in. He -would feast there to-night.</p> - -<p>A promise to spend another night at the Consulate on his return from -Capri made good his desertion to-day, for, in point of fact, Mr. Cecil -felt considerably off-colour this morning, and rather misdoubted his -capacity for carrying off with any semblance of enjoyment a repetition -of last night. His reproaches and disappointment were clearly -complimentary rather than sincere, and the afternoon boat carried Colin -on it. Once he had made that journey with his father, once with Violet, -but could a wish have brought either of them to his side he would no -more have breathed it than have thrown himself off the boat. He did not -want to be jostled and encumbered by love, or hear its gibberish, and -with eager eyes, revelling in the sense of being alone with his errand -already marvellously accomplished, he watched the mainland recede and -the island draw nearer through the fading twilight.</p> - -<p>Lights were springing up along the Marina, and presently there was Nino -alongside in his boat, ready to ferry him ashore. He, with his joyous -paganism, his serene indifference to good or evil, was far closer to -what Colin hungered for than either his father or Violet, but closer -yet, so Colin realised, was the hatred between himself and his own dead -brother....</p> - -<p>And then presently there was the garden dusky and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_315" id="page_315">{315}</a></span> fragrant with the -odour of wallflowers and freesias, and the whispering of the warm breeze -from the sea, and the oblong of light from the open door to welcome him.</p> - -<p>On the table just within there lay a telegram for him, and with some -vivid presentiment of what it contained, he opened it. His father had -died quite suddenly a few hours ago.</p> - -<p>The whisper of the pine grew louder, and the breeze suddenly freshening, -swept in at the door thick with garden scents, with greeting, with -felicitations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_316" id="page_316">{316}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI-b" id="CHAPTER_XI-b"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> - -<p>Just a fortnight later Colin was lying in one of the window seats of the -long gallery at Stanier reading through some papers which required his -signature. They had come by the post which Nino had just given him, for -he had brought the boy with him from Capri, with a view to making him -his valet. His own, he said, always looked as if he were listening to a -reading of the ten commandments, and Colin had no use for such a person. -Nino, at any rate, would bring cheerfulness and some touch of southern -gaiety with his shaving-water; besides, no servant approached the -Italian in dexterity and willingness.</p> - -<p>And now that the pause of death was over, adjustments, businesses, the -taking up of life again had to begin, and his lawyer was getting things -in shape for his supervision. These particular papers were tedious and -hard to follow and were expressed in that curious legal shibboleth which -makes the unprofessional mind to wander. He tried to attend, but the -effort was like clinging to some slippery edge of ice; he could get no -firm hold of it, and the deep waters kept closing over him. There, below -the terrace, lay the lake where he had seen one such incident happen.</p> - -<p>By that he had become heir to all that this fair, shining spring day -shewed him; his father’s death put him in possession, and now this -morning, wherever he turned his eyes, whether on lake or woodland, or -within on picture and carved ceiling, all were his. This stately home, -the light and desire of his eye, with all that it meant in wealth and -position, had passed again into the hands of Colin Stanier, handed down -from generation to generation, ever more prosperous, from his namesake -who had built its enduring walls and founded its splendours.</p> - -<p>Of his father’s death there was but little to tell him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_317" id="page_317">{317}</a></span> when, coming -straight back again from Capri, he had arrived here at the set of a -stormy day. Philip had reeled as he crossed the hall one morning, and -fallen on the hearthrug in front of the Holbein. For half an hour he had -lived, quite unconscious and suffering nothing, then his breathing had -ceased. Until the moment of his stroke, that bursting of some large -blood-vessel on the brain, he had been quite well and cheerful, -rejoicing in the fact that Colin by now had found the sun again, and -already longing for his return.</p> - -<p>Violet had been Colin’s informant, and she told him these things with -that air of detachment from him which had characterised her intercourse -with him since Raymond had come home for that last Christmas vacation. -She had watched then with some secret horror dawning in her eyes, -Colin’s incessant torture of his brother. That dismay and darkness which -had spread its shadow on her in the month of their honeymoon, when first -she really began to know Colin, interrupted for a time by their return -home and the high festivals of the autumn, had returned to her then with -a fresh infusion of blackness. Never once had she spoken to him about -his treatment of Raymond, but he was conscious that she watched and -shuddered. It did not seem that her love for him was extinguished; that -horror of hers existed side by side with it; she yearned for his love -even while she shrank from his pitilessness. She feared him, too, not -only for the ruthless iron of him, but for the very charm which had a -power over her more potent yet.</p> - -<p>Then came the weeks after Raymond’s death, and Colin thought he saw in -her a waning of her fear of him; that, he reflected, was natural. Some -time, so he read her mind, she knew she would be mistress here in her -own right; it seemed very reasonable that she should gain confidence.</p> - -<p>For the last few days, when the wheels of life were now beginning to -turn again, he saw with a comprehending sense of entertainment that -there was something in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_318" id="page_318">{318}</a></span> Violet’s mind: she was trying to bring herself -up to a certain point, and it was not hard to guess what that was. She -was silent and preoccupied, and a dozen times a day she seemed on the -verge of speaking of that which he knew was the subject of her thought. -Till to-day her father and mother and Aunt Hester in becoming mourning -had been with them, now they had gone, and Violet’s restlessness had -become quite ludicrous. She had been in and out of the room half a dozen -times; she had sat down to read the paper, and next moment it had -dropped from her lap and she was staring at the fire again lost in -frowning thought.</p> - -<p>Knowing what her communication when it came must be, Colin, from the -very nature of the case could not help her out with it, but he wished -that she would wrestle with and vanquish her hesitation. If it had been -he who in this present juncture had had to speak to Raymond on this -identical subject, how blithely would he have undertaken it. Then, -finally, Violet seemed to make up her mind to take the plunge, and sat -down on the edge of the seat where he lounged. He extended his arm and -put it round her.</p> - -<p>“Well, Vi,” he said, “are you finding it hard to settle down? I am, too, -but we’ve got to do it. My dear, Aunt Hester’s little black bonnet! Did -you ever see anything so chic? Roguish; she gets sprightlier every day!”</p> - -<p>Violet looked at him gravely.</p> - -<p>“There’s something we have to talk about, Colin,” she said, “and we both -know what it is. Will you let me speak for a minute or two without -interrupting me?”</p> - -<p>He put his finger on the line to which he had come in this tiresome -document, which his solicitor assured him required his immediate -attention.</p> - -<p>“An hour or two, darling; the longer the better,” he said. “What is it? -Are you sure I know? Something nice I hope. Ah, is it about my birthday -perhaps? The last affair that dear father was busy over were plans for -my birthday. Of course I have counter-ordered every<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_319" id="page_319">{319}</a></span>thing and we must -keep it next year. Well, what is it? I won’t interrupt any more.”</p> - -<p>Colin leaned back with his hand still under Violet’s arm, as if to draw -her with him. She bent with him a little way and then disengaged -herself.</p> - -<p>“I hate what lies before me,” she said, “and I ask you to believe that I -have struggled with myself. I have tried, Colin, to give the whole thing -up, to let it be yours. But I can’t. I long to be Lady Yardley in my own -right, as you told me I should be on Uncle Philip’s death. All that it -means! I fancy you understand that. But I think I might have given that -up, if it was only myself of whom I had to think. I don’t know; I can’t -be sure.”</p> - -<p>She paused, not looking at him. She did not want to know till all was -done how he was taking it. Of course he anticipated it: he knew it must -be, and here was the plain point of it....</p> - -<p>“But I haven’t got only myself to think about,” she said. “Before many -months I shall bear you a child; I shall bear you other children after -that, perhaps. I am thinking of them and of you. Since we married I have -learned things about you. You are hard in a way that I did not know was -possible. You have neither love nor compassion. I must defend my -children against you; the only way I can do it is to be supreme myself. -I must hold the reins, not you. I will be good to you, and shall never -cease loving you, I think, but I can’t put myself in your hands, which I -should do, if I did not now use the knowledge which you yourself -conveyed to me. You did that with your eyes open; you asked for and -accepted what your position here will be, and you did it chiefly out of -hatred to Raymond. That was your motive, and it tells on my decision. -You hate more than you love, and I am frightened for my children.</p> - -<p>“It is true that when I accepted Raymond, I did it because I should get -Stanier—be mistress here anyhow. But I think—I was wavering—that I -should have thrown him over before I married him and have accepted you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_320" id="page_320">{320}</a></span> -though I knew that marriage with you forfeited the other. Then you told -me it was otherwise, that in forfeiting Stanier, I found it even more -completely.”</p> - -<p>Colin—he had promised not to interrupt—gave no sign of any sort. His -finger still marked the place in this legal document.</p> - -<p>“I have sent for my father’s solicitor,” she said, “and they have told -me he is here. But before I see him I wanted to tell you that I shall -instruct him to contest your succession. I shall tell him about the -register in the Consulate at Naples and about your mother’s letters to -your uncle. You said you would let me have them on your father’s death. -Would you mind giving me them now, therefore? He may wish to see them.”</p> - -<p>Colin moved ever so slightly, and she for the first time looked at him. -There he lay, with those wide, child-like eyes, and the mouth that -sometimes seemed to her to have kissed her very soul away. He had a -smile for her grave glance; just so had he smiled when torturingly he -tried to remember exactly what had happened in the Old Park on the day -that Raymond shot pigeons. But even while she thought of his relentless, -pursuing glee, the charm of him, the sweet supple youth of him, all fire -and softness, smote on her heart.</p> - -<p>“Won’t you go away, till it is all over?” she said. “It will be horrible -for you, Colin, and I don’t want you to suffer. The letters are all I -want of you; I will tell Mr. Markham about the register and he will do -whatever is necessary. Go back to your beloved island; you were robbed -of your stay there. Wait there until all this business, which will be -horrible for you, is done. You can see your dear Mr. Cecil again....” -she added, trying to smile back at him.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I might do that,” said Colin thoughtfully. “In fact, I probably -shall. But I must try to take in what you have been saying. I can’t -understand it: you must explain. You referred, for instance, to my -mother’s letters. What letters? I don’t know of any letters of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_321" id="page_321">{321}</a></span> -mother as being in existence. Still less have I got any. How could I -have? She died when I was but a few weeks old. Do mothers write letters -to the babies at their breasts?”</p> - -<p>“The two letters to your uncle,” said she.</p> - -<p>Colin planted a levering elbow by his side, and sat up.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it is I who am mad,” he said, “because you talk quite quietly -and coherently, and yet I don’t understand a single word of what you -say. Letters from my mother to my uncle? Ah....”</p> - -<p>He took her hand again, amending his plan in accordance with his talk -with Salvatore.</p> - -<p>“You’re right,” he said. “Uncle Salvatore did once give me two letters -from my mother to him. Little faint things. I destroyed them not so long -ago: one should never keep letters. But you’re right, Vi. Uncle -Salvatore did give me a couple of letters once, but when on earth did I -mention them to you? What a memory you have got! It’s quite true; one -announced my mother’s marriage, the other spoke of the birth of poor -Raymond and me. But what of them? And what—oh, I must be mad—what in -heaven’s name do you mean, when you talk, if I understand you correctly, -about sending somebody out to Naples? The register in the Consulate -there? And my succession? Are they connected? Isn’t it usual for a son -to succeed his father? I’m all at sea—or am I asleep and dreaming? -Pinch me, darling. I want to wake up. What register?”</p> - -<p>Some nightmare sense of slipping, slipping, slipping took hold of -Violet.</p> - -<p>“The erasure in the register,” she said. “All that you told me.”</p> - -<p>Colin swung his legs off the window-seat and got up. There was an -electric bell close at hand and he rang it.</p> - -<p>“There’s some plot,” he said, “and I have no idea what it is. I want a -witness with regard to anything further that you wish to say to me. -What’s his name? Your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_322" id="page_322">{322}</a></span> father’s solicitor, I mean. Oh, yes, Markham. -Don’t speak another word to me.”</p> - -<p>He turned his back on her and waited till a servant came in.</p> - -<p>“Her ladyship wishes to see Mr. Markham,” he said. “Ask Mr. Markham to -come here at once.”</p> - -<p>“Colin....” she began.</p> - -<p>It was just such a face that he turned on her now as he had given to her -one evening at Capri.</p> - -<p>“Not a word,” he said. “Hold your tongue, Violet. You’ll speak -presently.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Markham appeared, precise and florid. Colin shook hands with him.</p> - -<p>“My wife has a statement to make to you,” he said. “I don’t know what it -is: she has not yet made it. But it concerns me and the succession to my -father’s title and estates. It had therefore better be made to you in my -presence. Please tell Mr. Markham what you were about to tell me, -Violet.”</p> - -<p>In dead silence, briefly and clearly, Violet repeated what Colin had -told her on the night that they were engaged. All the time he looked at -her, Mr. Markham would have said, with tenderness and anxiety, and when -she had finished he spoke:</p> - -<p>“I hope you will go into this matter without any delay, Mr. Markham,” he -said. “My wife, as I have already told her, is perfectly right in saying -that my uncle—you will need his address—gave me two letters from my -mother to him. She is right also about the subject of those letters. But -she is under a complete delusion about the dates of them. I destroyed -them not so long ago, I am afraid, so the only person who can possibly -settle this is my uncle, to whom I hope you will apply without delay. No -doubt he will have some recollection of them; indeed, he cherished them -for years, and if the dates were as my wife says that I told her they -were, he must have known that my brother and I were illegitimate. So -much for the letters.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_323" id="page_323">{323}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Colin found Violet’s eyes fixed on him; her face, deadly pale, wore the -stillness of stone.</p> - -<p>“With regard to my wife’s allegation about the register,” he said. “I -deny that I ever told her any such story. I have this to add: when my -father and I were in Naples last summer, I made, at his request, a copy -of the record of his marriage from the consular register. He thought, I -fancy, that in the event of his death, a certified copy of it, here in -England, might be convenient for the purpose of proving the marriage. I -made that copy myself, and Mr. Cecil, our Consul in Naples, certified it -to be correct. I gave it my lawyer a few days ago, when he was down -here, and it is, of course, open to your inspection.”</p> - -<p>Colin paused and let his eyes rest wistfully on Violet.</p> - -<p>“My wife, of course, Mr. Markham,” he said, “is under a delusion. But -she has made the allegation, and in justice to me, I think you will -agree that it must be investigated. She supposes—don’t you, -darling?—that there is an erasure in the register at the Consulate -showing that it has been tampered with, and that erasure points to an -attempt on some one’s part, presumably my father’s or my own, to -legitimatise his children. In answer to that I am content for the -present to say that when I made the copy I saw no such erasure, nor did -Mr. Cecil who certified the correctness of it. Mr. Cecil, to whom I will -give you an introduction, no doubt will remember the incident. I am glad -I have got that copy, for if the register proves to have been tampered -with, it may be valuable. My belief is that no such erasure exists. May -I suggest, Mr. Markham, that you or some trustworthy person should start -for Naples at once? You will take the affidavits—is it not—of my uncle -with regard to the letters, and of Mr. Cecil with regard to the -genuineness of the copy of my father’s marriage. You will also inspect -the register. The matter is of the utmost and immediate importance.”</p> - -<p>He turned to Violet. “Vi, darling,” he said, “let us agree not to speak -of this again until Mr. Markham has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_324" id="page_324">{324}</a></span> obtained full information about it -all. Now, perhaps, you would like to consult him in private. I will -leave you.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Mr. Markham shared Colin’s view as to the urgency and importance of -setting this matter at rest, and left for Naples that evening with due -introductions to Salvatore and the Consul. Colin had a word with him -before he left, and with tenderness and infinite delicacy, spoke of -Violet’s condition. Women had these strange delusions, he believed, at -such times, and the best way of settling them was to prove that they had -no foundation. Mr. Markham, he was afraid, would find that he had made a -fruitless journey, as far as the ostensible reason for it went, but he -had seen for himself how strongly the delusion had taken hold on his -wife, and in that regard he hoped for the best results. In any case the -thing must be settled....</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Never had the sparkle and sunlight of Colin’s nature been so gay as -during these two days when they waited for the news that Mr. Markham -would send from Naples. It had been agreed that the issues of his errand -should not be spoken of until they declared themselves, and here, to all -appearance, was a young couple, adorably adorned with all the gifts of -Nature and inheritance, with the expectation of the splendour of half a -century’s unclouded days spread in front of them. They had lately passed -through the dark valley of intimate bereavement, but swiftly they were -emerging into the unshadowed light, where, in a few months now, the -glory of motherhood, the pride of fatherhood, awaited them. In two days -from now, as both knew, a disclosure would reach them which must be, one -way or the other, of tremendous import, but for the present, pending -that revelation, presage and conjecture, memory even of that interview -with Mr. Markham, which had sent him across the breadth of Europe, were -banished; they were as children in the last hour of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_325" id="page_325">{325}</a></span> holidays, as lovers -between whom must soon a sword be unsheathed.</p> - -<p>They wandered in the woods where in the hot, early spring the daffodils -were punctual, and, “coming before the swallow dares,” took the winds of -March with beauty, and Colin picked her the pale cuckoo-pint which, -intoxicated with nonsense, he told her comes before the cuckoo dares.... -They spoke of the friendship of their childhood which had so swiftly -blossomed into love, and of the blossom of their love that was budding -now.</p> - -<p>All day the enchantment of their home and their companionship waved its -wand over them, and at night, tired with play, they slept the light -sleep of lovers. Certainly, for one or other of them, there must soon -come a savage awakening, or, more justly, the strangle-hold of -nightmare, but there were a few hours yet before the dreams of -spring-time and youth were murdered.</p> - -<p>The third day after Mr. Markham’s departure for Naples was Colin’s -birthday, when he would come of age, and Violet, waking early that -morning, while it was still dark, found herself prey to some crushing -load and presage of disaster, most unpropitious, most unbirthday-like. -For the last two days, these days of waiting for news, they had made for -themselves a little artificial oasis of sunshine and laughter; now some -secret instinct told her that she could linger there no more. To-day, -she felt sure, would come some decisive disclosure, and she dreaded it -with a horror too deep for the plummet of imagination. In that dark hour -before dawn, when the vital forces are at their lowest, she lay hopeless -and helpless.</p> - -<p>Colin had denied all knowledge of what he had himself told her; he had -been eager for Mr. Markham to disprove it.... He knew something which -she did not. What that could be she could form no idea at all. At the -worst, Salvatore would confirm his account of those letters, and no such -erasure as Colin had spoken of would be found in the register. Had he, -then, invented this merely to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_326" id="page_326">{326}</a></span> ensure her marrying him; and now that -Raymond’s death had given him mastership at Stanier, was he simply -denying what never existed at all? From what she knew of him now, he was -capable of having done that in order to make her throw over Raymond, but -it was not that which she dreaded. There was something more; a black -curtain seemed to hang before her, and presently some hot blast would -blow it high in the air, and she would see what lay behind it.</p> - -<p>It was rapidly growing light, and outside the birds were busy with their -early chirrupings. By the window which last night Colin had opened, -pulling back the curtains, the silver of her Paul Lamerie toilet-set -glimmered with the increasing brightness. Colin lay close to her, with -face turned towards her, fast asleep. His cheek was on his hand, the -other arm, languid and slack, was stretched outside the bedclothes, his -mouth was a little parted, and it seemed to be smiling. And then he -stirred and, leaning his head a little back, his smile broadened and he -laughed in his sleep with open mouth. At that some nameless panic seized -her, and, stopping her ears, she buried her face in the clothes. A child -might laugh so, but was the merriment of his dream that of a child? Or -had some sense that did not sleep reminded him that his twenty-first -birthday was now dawning?</p> - -<p>She feigned to be asleep when Nino’s tap came to the door of his -dressing-room, and she heard Colin get up. He spoke to her quietly, but -she did not answer or open her eyes. Then his room door opened and -closed and she was alone.</p> - -<p>Colin was already at breakfast when she came down, and apparently his -mood of the last two days had suffered no ungenial change.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, darling,” he said. “I tried to say that to you before, -but you were busy sleeping. What shall I give you? There’s some nasty -fish and some tepid bacon.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her with some sort of wistful expectancy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_327" id="page_327">{327}</a></span> as if wondering -if she would remember something, and the thoughts, the wild imaginings -which had made the dawn a plunge into some dark menace, dropped from her -mind like drugged creatures.</p> - -<p>“Colin dear, your birthday. What can I give you?” she said, kissing him. -“It was the first thing I thought of when I woke. We’re the same age -again. I was a year ahead of you till this morning.”</p> - -<p>“Delicious of you to remember it, Vi,” said he. “Yes, we’re forty-two -years old between us. A great age! Hullo, Nino.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Pella signora</i>,” said Nino, and gave Violet a telegram.</p> - -<p>Colin watched her fingers fumbling at the gummed flap of the envelope, -as if numb and nerveless. Then with a jerk she tore it across and opened -it. Only once before had he seen a living face as white as that, when -fingers were slipping from the ice.</p> - -<p>“Read it for me,” she said at length. “I don’t seem to see what it -means.”</p> - -<p>Colin took it; it had been sent from Naples late last night, and came -from Mr. Markham. He read:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Salvatore Viagi’s account of letters agrees with your husband’s. -Page containing marriages of year and month in question has been -cut out of register at Consulate.”</p></div> - -<p>Colin passed the sheet back to Violet. She did not take it from his hand -and he let it drop on to the tablecloth. He leaned a little towards her.</p> - -<p>“Vi, you’re magnificent,” he said. “That was a glorious stroke of yours! -That night when you and I stayed at the Consulate. No, darling, don’t -interrupt, let me speak for two or three minutes just as you did a few -mornings ago. Eat your bacon and listen.... I see now the reason of your -pretended reluctance to stay with Mr. Cecil. It put me off the scent -completely at the time.”</p> - -<p>“What scent?” she asked. “What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I asked you not to interrupt. There we were on our<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_328" id="page_328">{328}</a></span> honeymoon and so -casually, so unthinkingly, I told Mr. Cecil that we would stay with him -on our way home. You objected, but eventually you agreed. Your -reluctance to stay with him, as I say, put me quite off the scent. -Having done that you yielded. Little did I dream then of your superb -project....”</p> - -<p>She gazed at him like some bird hypnotised by the snake that coil after -coil draws nearer. Colin, too, drew nearer; he pushed his chair sideways -and leaned towards her, elbows on the table.</p> - -<p>“I remember that night so well,” he said. “I was sleeping in the -dressing-room next door to you, and the door was wide, for it was hot. I -heard you get out of bed. I heard your latch creak. Oh, yes, you called -to me first, and I did not answer. I called to you this morning, you -remember, and you did not answer. Sometimes one pretends to be asleep. -Till this minute I knew nothing for certain more of what you did. Now I -know. You were playing for a great stake: I applaud you. You got hold of -Mr. Cecil’s keys (he is careless about them) and tore that leaf out of -the register. You knew that on my father’s death his marriage to my -mother must be proved before Raymond or I (poor Raymond) could succeed, -for, of course, it was common property that he lived with her before -they were married. Giuseppe, his boatman, Uncle Salvatore, half-a-dozen -people, could have told you that. And then, oh! a crowning piece of -genius, you make up a cock-and-bull story about erasure and letters -which force us to have the register examined, and lo! there is no record -of the marriage at all. What is the presumption? That Raymond and I -were, well, an ugly word. But just there fate was unkind to you through -no fault of yours, except that failure is a fault and the most fatal -one. You did not know that I had made a copy of the entry and got it -signed and certified by our charming Mr. Cecil, before the curious -disappearance of that page. And then you made just one terrible mistake. -How could you have done it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_329" id="page_329">{329}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>She turned to him a face of marble, faultlessly chiselled, but wholly -lifeless.</p> - -<p>“What mistake did I make?” she said.</p> - -<p>“You kept that leaf,” said Colin pityingly. “A record of your triumph, I -suppose, like a cotillon-toy, to dream over when you were mistress -here.”</p> - -<p>“Go on,” said she.</p> - -<p>Colin came closer yet. “Darling, will you be awfully nice to me,” he -said, “and give me that leaf as a birthday present? It would be a -delightful souvenir. You know where it is.”</p> - -<p>She paused. She remembered the tradition of the icy self-repression of -the Lady Yardleys who had preceded her, the frost that fell on them. -From personal knowledge there was her grandmother. That Arctic night was -darkening on her now, and she shivered.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know where it is,” she said. “Make up another lie.”</p> - -<p>He rose. “You must learn politeness, Violet,” he said. “You must learn -many useful things. I am being very kind to you. You don’t appreciate -that.”</p> - -<p>Night had not quite fallen yet.</p> - -<p>“Just as you were kind to Raymond,” she said.</p> - -<p>He smiled at her. “Yes, the same sort of kindness,” he said.</p> - -<p>He spoke to her as to a troublesome child with soft persuasion.</p> - -<p>“Now you know where it is quite well, but you want to give me the -trouble of reminding you. You won’t say you’re sorry, or anything of -that sort. Not wise.”</p> - -<p>“Spring the trap on me,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Very well; you put it in the secret drawer in the stand of your lovely -Lamerie looking-glass, the evening we came back from our honeymoon. You -had left me talking to father, but as soon as you had gone, I followed -you. It was pure chance: I suspected nothing then. But I looked in from -my dressing-room and saw you with the secret drawer open, putting -something into it. I went<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_330" id="page_330">{330}</a></span> downstairs again. But I am bound to say that -my curiosity was aroused; perhaps you might have been having a -billet-doux from Nino. So I took a suitable opportunity—I think it was -when you were at church—and satisfied myself about it.”</p> - -<p>Colin reviewed this speech, which seemed to come to him impromptu, -except for the one fact that underlay it, which in a few minutes now -would be made manifest to Violet.</p> - -<p>“So poor Nino was not my rival,” he said. “That was such a relief, Vi -darling, for I should have had to send him away. But I never really gave -a serious thought to that, for I believed you liked your poor Colin. But -what I found did surprise me. I could not believe that any one so clever -could have been so stupid as to keep the evidence of her cleverness. -When you have been clever, it is wise to destroy the evidence of your -cleverness. Shall we come?”</p> - -<p>“But my looking-glass? A secret drawer?” said Violet. “There’s no secret -drawer that I know of.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, of course not,” said Colin. “I shall be obliged to show it you. -But wait a minute. I had better have a witness of what I find in the -secret drawer of which you are ignorant. My solicitor is here, but with -this other disclosure, he might urge me to proceed against you for -conspiracy, which I don’t at present intend to do. Your maid, now; no, -you would not like her to know such things about you. She might -blackmail you. How about Nino? He will do no more than understand that a -paper has been found, and that he witnesses to the finding of it. One -has to protect oneself. I had to protect myself against Raymond. May I -ring for Nino?”</p> - -<p>At that the Arctic night fell on Violet, and presently the three of them -were in her bedroom. Round the base of the looking-glass ran a repoussé -cable band, and Colin was explaining to her how, if she pressed the stud -at the corner of it, just where the silversmith’s name—L. A. for -Lamerie—was punched in the metal, the side of the base<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_331" id="page_331">{331}</a></span> would fly open. -And so it was; she pressed it herself while he stood aside, and within -was the drawer and the folded paper.</p> - -<p>Colin took a swift step and plucked the paper out, holding it at arm’s -length.</p> - -<p>“There, darling, all your responsibility is over,” he said. “I will keep -it for you now. I will just open it and show you what it is, but do not -come too close or try to snatch it. There! Names of happy couples one -below the other, and in the space next the name the date of their -marriage. Half-way down the page you see the names we are looking for, -Rosina Viagi and Philip Lord Stanier and the date, March the first, -1893.”</p> - -<p>He turned to Nino and spoke in Italian.</p> - -<p>“And you, Nino,” he said, “you saw me take this paper out of the drawer -of the signora’s looking-glass. And now you see me—give me a big -envelope from the table—you see me put it in this envelope and close -it—it is as if I did a conjuring trick—and I sit down and write on the -envelope for the signora to read. I say that in your presence and in -mine the enclosed was taken from the secret drawer in the looking-glass -where it had been placed for safe custody by Violet Stanier, Countess of -Yardley, and given into the care of her husband, Colin Stanier, Earl of -Yardley. Sign it, Nino, and observe that I sign. I date it also. That’s -all, Nino; you may go.”</p> - -<p>Colin laid his hand on Violet’s neck.</p> - -<p>“It has been trying for you, dear,” he said. “Rest a little. But your -mind may be at ease now; the anxiety of having that in your possession -is removed, and it will be in safe keeping. I will give it at once to my -lawyer, with instructions that it is to be delivered to no one except to -me in person, and that at my death it is to be destroyed unopened. It -entirely depends on yourself as to whether it ever sees the light -again.... And then, when you are rested, shall we go for one of our -delicious rambles in the park. What’s that line of Wordsworth? ‘This<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_332" id="page_332">{332}</a></span> -one day we’ll give to idleness.’ Thank you, darling, for your lovely -birthday present.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Never on Walpurgis Night nor at Black Mass had there ever been so -fervent an adorer to his god as Colin, so satanic a rite as that which -he had performed on this birthday morning. No need was there for him to -make any vow of lip-service, or by any acceptation of the parchment that -was set in the frame of the Holbein, to confirm his allegiance. The -spirit was more than the letter, and in no wanton ecstasy of evil could -he have made a more sacramental dedication of himself. It was not enough -for him to have forged, ever so cunningly, the evidence which, while -Raymond lived, proved his illegitimacy, nor, more cunningly yet, to have -got rid of that evidence when Raymond’s death cleared for him the steps -to the throne. He must in the very flower and felicity of wickedness -preserve that evidence in order to produce it as the handiwork of his -wife. The edifice would have been incomplete otherwise; it would have -lacked that soaring spire of infamy. But now all was done, and on his -birthday came the consecration of the abominable temple of himself to -the spirit he adored.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>He came to her room that night and sat as he so often did on the edge of -her bed.</p> - -<p>“You have been perfect to me to-day, darling,” he said. “You have given -me the happiest birthday. You have been so quiet and serene and -controlled. And have you been happy?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Colin,” said she.</p> - -<p>He pulled off his tie and flapped her fingers with the end of it.</p> - -<p>“I think I shall go south again,” he said. “I was defrauded of my stay -in Capri owing to my father’s death. What about you? Had you not better -stay quietly at home? Get your father and mother to come down.”</p> - -<p>“Just as you please,” said she.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_333" id="page_333">{333}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Let us settle it like that, then. And look at me a minute, Violet.”</p> - -<p>She raised her eyes to his.</p> - -<p>“Ah, that’s right,” he said. “You’ve had a lesson to-day, darling. It -has tired you, and I will leave you to sleep in one moment. We can’t -have you tired; you must take great care of yourself; eat well, sleep -well, be out a great deal. About that lesson. Take it to heart, Vi. -Never again try to cross my path: it’s much too dangerous. And you’ve no -delusions left about letters and registers, have you? Answer me, dear.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said she.</p> - -<p>“That’s good. Now I’ll leave you.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The March night was warm and moonlit, and Colin stood by the open window -letting the breeze stream in against his skin, and looked out over -terrace and lake and woodland. All that he had so passionately desired -since first he toddled about this stately home of his race was his, and -nothing now could upset his rights. And how wonderful the process of -arriving at it had been: every step of that way was memorable; fraud, -intrigue, trickery, matchless cruelty, had paved the road, and to-day -the road was finished.</p> - -<p>He put out his light, and curled himself up in bed.... Violet’s -first-born must surely be a son, who should learn early and well from -lips that knew what they were saying the sober truth of that which in -the legend wore the habiliment of mediæval superstition. He should learn -how poor Uncle Raymond had allowed himself to love—yes, there was a -time when he had loved mother, and—was not that tiresome for -him—mother happened to prefer father. Well, poor Uncle Raymond had -loved, and that, perhaps, was his undoing, for he had fallen into the -lake, under the ice, and the icy water had smothered him, and the fishes -had nibbled him.... Colin chuckled to himself at the thought of -recounting that.</p> - -<p>For a moment, as he looked out on to the night, he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_334" id="page_334">{334}</a></span> experienced a -dulness and dimness of spirit as of a cloud passing over the bright -circle of the moon at the thought that he had accomplished all that had -so thrillingly occupied him. But at the thought of his fatherhood, the -brightness shone forth again. How fascinating it would be to till and to -sow in that soft soil, to rear the seedlings that he would water and -tend so carefully, to watch them putting forth the buds of poisonous -flowers that swelled and prospered till they burst the sheaths of -childhood and opened wide-petalled to night and day.</p> - -<p>His thoughts, drowsy and content, turned towards Violet. Certainly there -had been noticeable in her all day a freezing, a congealment. She was -becoming like those impassive portraits of her predecessors, marble -women out of whose eyes looked some half-hidden horror....</p> - -<p>A flash of lightning, very remote, blinked in through the uncurtained -oblong of the window opposite his bed, and a mutter of thunder, as -drowsy as himself, answered it. He slid his hand underneath his cheek, -and fell asleep.</p> - -<p class="fint">THE END</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Colin, by E. F. 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