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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Price of Things
+
+Author: Elinor Glyn
+
+Posting Date: December 7, 2011 [EBook #9809]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 19, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THINGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+                             BY ELINOR GLYN
+
+                                  1919
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+I wrote this book in Paris in the winter of 1917-18--in the midst of
+bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch,
+and only primitive instincts seemed to stand out distinctly.
+
+Life appeared brutal, and our very fashion of speaking, the words we
+used, the way we looked at things, was more realistic--coarser--than in
+times of peace, when civilization can re-assert itself again. This is why
+the story shocks some readers. I quite understand that it might do so;
+but I deem it the duty of writers to make a faithful picture of each
+phase of the era they are living in, that posterity may be correctly
+informed about things, and get the atmosphere of epochs.
+
+The story is, so to speak, rough hewn. But it shows the danger of
+breaking laws, and interfering with fate--whether the laws be of God
+or of Man.
+
+It is also a psychological study of the instincts of two women, which the
+strenuous times brought to the surface. "Amaryllis," with all her
+breeding and gentleness, reacting to nature's call in her fierce fidelity
+to the father of her child--and "Harietta," becoming in herself the
+epitome of the age-old prostitute.
+
+I advise those who are rebuffed by plain words, and a ruthless analysis
+of the result of actions, not to read a single page.
+
+[Signature: Elinor Glyn]
+
+
+
+
+THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane,"
+said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish
+all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things,
+one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one
+discovers hope lying at the bottom of it."
+
+"What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre's
+large grey eyes opened in a puzzled way. She was on her honeymoon in
+Paris at a party at the Russian Embassy, and until now had accepted
+things and not speculated about them. She had lived in the country and
+was as good as gold.
+
+She was accepting her honeymoon with her accustomed calm, although it was
+not causing her any of the thrills which Elsie Goldmore, her school
+friend, had assured her she should discover therein.
+
+Honeymoons! Heavens! But perhaps it was because Sir John was dull. He
+looked dull, she thought, as he stood there talking to the Ambassador. A
+fine figure of an Englishman but--yes--dull. The Russian, on the
+contrary, was not dull. He was huge and ugly and rough-hewn--his eyes
+were yellowish-green and slanted upwards and his face was frankly
+Calmuck. But you knew that you were talking to a personality--to one who
+had probably a number of unknown possibilities about him tucked away
+somewhere.
+
+John had none of these. One could be certain of exactly what he would do
+on any given occasion--and it would always be his duty. The Russian was
+observing this charming English bride critically; she was such a perfect
+specimen of that estimable race--well-shaped, refined and healthy. Chock
+full of temperament too, he reflected--when she should discover herself.
+Temperament and romance and even passion, and there were shrewdness and
+commonsense as well.
+
+"An agreeable task for a man to undertake her education," and he wished
+that he had time.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre asked again:
+
+"How can one not think? I am always thinking."
+
+He smiled indulgently.
+
+"Oh! no, you are not--you only imagine that you are. You have questioned
+nothing--you do right generally because you have a nice character and
+have been well brought up, not from any conscious determination to uplift
+the soul. Yes--is it not so?"
+
+She was startled.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Do you ever ask yourself what things mean? What we are--where we are
+going? What is the end of it all? No--you are happy; you live from day
+to day--and yet you cannot be a very young ego, your eyes are too
+wise--you have had many incarnations. It is merely that in this one life
+the note of awakening has not yet been struck. You certainly must have
+needed sleep."
+
+"Many lives? You believe in that theory?"
+
+She was not accustomed to discuss unorthodox subjects. She was
+interested.
+
+"But of course--how else could there be justice? We draw the reflex of
+every evil action and of every good one, but sometimes not until the next
+incarnation, that is why the heedless ones cannot grasp the truth--they
+see no visible result of either good or evil--evil, in fact, seems
+generally to win if there is a balance either way."
+
+"Why are we not allowed memory then, so that we might profit by
+our lessons?"
+
+"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our
+faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of
+our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds
+us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the
+desire is no more."
+
+"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems
+a paradox."
+
+She was a little disturbed.
+
+"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must
+banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of
+people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at
+all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to
+the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
+But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness;
+there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."
+
+"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be
+happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."
+
+"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the
+sleep was not deep."
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds passing and re-passing in those
+stately rooms.
+
+"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one
+with the fair hair in jade green--she looks radiantly happy."
+
+"And is--she is frankly an animal--exquisitely preserved, damnably
+selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a
+harem houri--and the tenacity of a rat."
+
+"You are severe."
+
+"Not at all. Harietta Boleski is a product of that most astonishing
+nation across the Atlantic--none other could produce her. It is the
+hothouse of the world as regards remarkable types. Here for immediate
+ancestry we have a mother, from heaven knows what European refuse heap,
+arrived in an immigrant ship--father of the 'pore white trash' of the
+south--result: Harietta, fine points, beautiful, quite a lady for
+ordinary purposes. The absence of soul is strikingly apparent to any
+ordinary observer, but one only discovers the vulgarity of spirit if one
+is a student of evolution--or chances to catch her when irritated with
+her modiste or her maid. Other nations cannot produce such beings. Women
+with the attributes of Harietta, were they European, would have surface
+vulgarity showing--and so be out of the running, or they would have real
+passion which would be their undoing--passion is glorious--it is aroused
+by something beyond the physical. Observe her nostril! There is simple,
+delightful animal sensuality for you! Look also at the convex curve below
+the underlip--she will bite off the cherry whether it is hers by right or
+another's, and devour it without a backward thought."
+
+"Boleski--that is a Russian name, is it not?"
+
+"No, Polish--she secured our Stanislass, a great man in his
+country--last year in Berlin, having divorced a no longer required,
+but worthy German husband who had held some post in the American
+Consulate there."
+
+"Is that old man standing obediently beside her your Stanislass?--he
+looks quite cowed."
+
+"A sad sight, is it not? Stanislass, though, is not old, barely forty. He
+had a _b�guin_ for her. She put his intelligence to sleep and bamboozled
+his judgment with a continuous appeal to the senses; she has vampired him
+now. Cloying all his will with her sugared caprices, she makes him scenes
+and so keeps him in subjection. He was one of the Council de l'Empire for
+Poland; the aims of his country were his earnest work, but now ambition
+is no more. He is tired, he has ceased to struggle; she rules and eats
+his soul as she has eaten the souls of others. Shall I present her to
+you? As a type, she is worthy of your attention."
+
+"It sounds as if she had the evil eye, as the Italians say," Amaryllis
+shuddered.
+
+"Only for men. She is really an amiable creature--women like her. She
+is so frankly simple, since for her there are never two issues--only to
+be allowed her own desires--a riot of extravagance, the first
+place--and some one to gratify certain instincts without too many
+refinements when the mood takes her. For the rest, she is kind and
+good-natured and 'jolly,' as you English say, and has no notion that
+she is a road to hell. But they are mostly dead, her other spider
+mates, and cannot tell of it."
+
+"I am much interested. I should like to talk to her. You say that she
+is happy?"
+
+"Obviously--she is an elemental--she never thinks at all, except to plan
+some further benefit for herself. I do not believe in this life that she
+can obtain a soul--her only force is her tenacious will."
+
+"Such force is good, though?"
+
+"Certainly. Even bad force is better than negative Good. One must first
+be strong before one can be serene."
+
+"You are strong."
+
+"Yes, but not good. Hardly a fit companion for sweet little English
+brides with excellent husbands awaiting them."
+
+"I shall judge of that."
+
+"_Tiens!_ So emancipated!"
+
+"If you are bad, how does your theory work that we pay for each action?
+Since by that you must know that it cannot be worth while to be bad."
+
+"It is not--I am aware of it, but when I am bad I am bad deliberately,
+knowing that I must pay."
+
+"That seems stupid of you."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I take very severe exercise when I begin to think of things I should not
+and I become savage when I require happiness--now is our chance for
+making you acquainted with Harietta, she is moving our way."
+
+Madame Boleski swept towards them on the arm of an Austrian Prince and
+the Russian Verisschenzko said, with suave politeness:
+
+"Madame, let me present you to Lady Ardayre. With me she has been
+admiring you from afar."
+
+The two women bowed, and with cheery, disarming simplicity, the American
+made some gracious remarks in a voice which sounded as if she smoked too
+much; it was not disagreeable in tone, nor had she a pronounced
+American accent.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre found herself interested. She admired the superb
+attention to detail shown in Madame Boleski's whole person. Her face was
+touched up with the lightest art, not overdone in any way. Her hair, of
+that very light tone bordering on gold, which sometimes goes with hazel
+eyes, was quite natural and wonderfully done. Her dress was
+perfection--so were her jewels. One saw that her corseti�re was an
+artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken
+off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand--it was well-shaped, save
+that the thumb turned back in a remarkable degree.
+
+"So delighted to meet you," Madame Boleski said. "We are going over to
+London next month and I am just crazy to know more of you delicious
+English people."
+
+They chatted for a few moments and then Madame Boleski swept onwards. She
+was quite stately and graceful and had a well-poised head. Amaryllis
+turned to the Russian and was startled by the expression of fierce,
+sardonic amusement in his yellow-green eyes.
+
+"But surely, she can see that you are laughing at her?" she exclaimed,
+astonished.
+
+"It would convey nothing to her if she did."
+
+"But you looked positively wicked."
+
+"Possibly--I feel it sometimes when I think of Stanislass; he was a very
+good friend of mine."
+
+Sir John Ardayre joined them at this moment and the three walked towards
+the supper room and the Russian said good-night.
+
+"It is not good-bye, Madame. I, too, shall be in your country soon and I
+also hope that I may see you again before you leave Paris."
+
+They arranged a dinner for the following night but one, and said
+au revoir.
+
+An hour later the Russian was seated in a huge English leather chair in
+the little salon of his apartment in the rue Cambon, when Madame Boleski
+very softly entered the room and sat down upon his knee.
+
+"I had to come, darling Brute," she said. "I was jealous of the English
+girl," and she fitted her delicately painted lips to his. "Stanislass
+wanted to talk over his new scheme for Poland, too, and as you know that
+always gets on my nerves."
+
+But Verisschenzko threw his head back impatiently, while he
+answered roughly.
+
+"I am not in the mood for your chastisement to-night. Go back as you
+came, I am thinking of something real, something which makes your
+body of no use to me--it wearies me and I do not even desire your
+presence. Begone!"
+
+Then he kissed her neck insolently and pushed her off his knee.
+
+She pouted resentfully. But suddenly her eyes caught a small case lying
+on a table near--and an eager gleam came into their hazel depths.
+
+"Oh, St�pan! Is it the ruby thing! Oh! You beloved angel, you are going
+to give it to me after all! Oh! I'll rush off at once and leave you, if
+you wish it! Good-night!"
+
+And when she was gone Verisschenzko threw some incense into a silver
+burner and as the clouds of perfume rose into the air:
+
+"Wough!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"What are you doing in Paris, Denzil?"
+
+"I came over for a bit of racing. Awfully glad to see you. Can't we dine
+together? I go back to-morrow." Verisschenzko put his arm through Denzil
+Ardayre's and drew him in to the Caf� de Paris, at the door of which they
+had chanced to meet.
+
+"I had another guest, but she can be consoled with some of Midas' food,
+and I want to talk to you; were you going to eat alone?"
+
+"A fellow threw me over; I meant to have just a snack and go on to a
+theatre. It is good running across you--I thought you were miles away!"
+
+Verisschenzko spoke to the head waiter, and gave him directions as to the
+disposal of the lovely lady who would presently arrive, and then he went
+on to his table, rather at the top, in a fairly secluded corner.
+
+The few people who were already dining--it was early on this May
+night--looked at Denzil Ardayre--he was such a refreshing sight of health
+and youth, so tall and fit and English, with his brown smooth head and
+fearless blue eyes, gay and debonnaire. One could see that he played
+cricket and polo, and any other game that came along, and that not a
+muscle of his frame was out of condition. He had "soldier" written upon
+him--young, gallant, cavalry soldier. Verisschenzko appreciated him;
+nothing complete, human or inanimate, left him unconscious of its
+meaning. They knew one another very well--they had been at Oxford and
+later had shot bears together in the Russian's far-off home.
+
+They talked for a while of casual things, and then Verisschenzko said:
+
+"Some relations of yours are here--Sir John Ardayre and his particularly
+attractive bride. Shall we eat what I had ordered for Collette, or have
+you other fancies after the soup?"
+
+Denzil paid only attention to the first part of the speech--he looked
+surprised and interested.
+
+"John Ardayre here! Of course, he married about ten days ago--he is the
+head of the family as you are aware, but I hardly even know him by sight.
+He is quite ten years older than I am and does not trouble about us, the
+poor younger branch--" and he smiled, showing such good teeth. "Besides,
+as you know, I have been for such a long time in India, and the leaves
+were for sport, not for hunting up relations."
+
+Verisschenzko did not press the matter of his guest's fancies in food,
+and they continued the menu ordered for Collette without further delay.
+
+"I want to hear all that you know about them, the girl is an exquisite
+thing with immense possibilities. Sir John looks--dull."
+
+"He is really a splendid character though," Denzil hastened to assure
+him. "Do you know the family history? But no, of course not, we were too
+busy in the old days enjoying life to trouble to talk of such things!
+Well, it is rather strange in the last generation--things very nearly
+came to an end and John has built it all up again. You are interested in
+heredity?"
+
+"Naturally--what is the story?"
+
+"Our mutual great-grandfather was a tremendous personage in North
+Somerset--the place Ardayre is there. My father was the son of the
+younger son, who had just enough to do him decently at Eton, and enable
+him to scrape along in the old regiment with a pony or two to play with.
+My mother was a Willowbrook, as you know, and a considerable heiress,
+that is how I come out all right, but until John's father, Sir James,
+squandered things, the head of the family was always very rich and full
+of land--and awfully set on the dignity of his race. They had turned the
+cult of it into regular religion."
+
+"The father of this man made a _gaspillage_, then--well?"
+
+"Yes, he was a rotter--a hark-back to his mother's relations; she was a
+Cranmote--they ruin any blood they mix with. I am glad that I come from
+the generation before."
+
+Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
+fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so John
+seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early, she had
+had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away everything he
+could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a tutor at home, for
+some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about thirteen when she died
+and at seventeen went straight into the city. He was determined to make a
+fortune, it has always been said, and redeem the mortgages on
+Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"
+
+Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.
+
+"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a Bulgarian
+snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople! You may well
+smile"--for Verisschenzko had raised his eyebrows in a whimsical
+way--this did sound such a highly coloured incident!
+
+"It was an unusual sort of thing to do, I admit, but the tale grows more
+lurid still, when I tell you that five months after the wedding she
+produced a son by the Lord knows who, one of her own tribe probably, and
+old Sir James was so infatuated with her that he never protested, and
+presently when he and John quarrelled like hell he pretended the little
+brute was his own child--just to spite John."
+
+Verisschenzko's Calmuck eyes narrowed.
+
+"And does this result of the fusion of snake charmers figure in the
+family history? I believe I have met him--his name is Ferdinand, is it
+not, and he is, or was, in some business in Constantinople?"
+
+"That is the creature--he was brought up at Ardayre as though he were the
+heir, and poor John turned out of things. He came to Eton three years
+before I left, but even there they could not turn him into the outside
+semblance of a gentleman. I loathed the little toad, and he loathed
+me--and the sickening part of the thing is that if John does not have a
+son, by the English law of entail Ferdinand comes into Ardayre, and will
+be the head of the family. Old Sir James died about five years ago,
+always protesting this bastard was his own child, though every one knew
+it was a lie. However, by that time John had made enough in the city to
+redeem Ardayre twice over. He had tremendous luck after the South African
+War, so he came into possession and lives there now in great state--I do
+really hope that he will have a son."
+
+"You, too, have the instinct of the family, then--this pride in
+it--since it cannot benefit you either way."
+
+"I believe it is born in us, and though I have never seen Ardayre, I
+should hate this mongrel to have it. I was brought up with a tremendous
+reverence for it, even as a second cousin."
+
+"Well, the new Lady Ardayre looks young enough and of a health to have
+ten sons!"
+
+"Y-es," Denzil acquiesced in a tentative tone.
+
+"Not so?" Verisschenzko glanced up surprised, and then gave his attention
+to the waiter who had brought some Burgundy and was pouring it out into
+his glass.
+
+"Not so you would say?"
+
+"I don't know, I have never seen her--but in the family it is whispered
+that John--poor devil--he had an accident hunting two or three years
+ago. However, it may not any of it be true--here, let us drink to the
+Ardayre son!"
+
+"To the Ardayre son!" and Verisschenzko filled his friend's glass with
+the decanted wine and they both drank together.
+
+"Your cousin is like you," he said presently. "A fatiguing likeness, but
+the same height and make--and voice--strange things these family
+reproductions of an exact type. I have no family, as you know--we are of
+the people, arisen by trade to riches. Could I go beyond my immediate
+parents, could I know cousins and uncles and brothers, should I find this
+same peculiar stamp of family among us all? Who knows? I think not."
+
+"I suppose there is something in it. My father has told me that in
+the picture gallery at Ardayre they are as like as two pins the whole
+way down."
+
+"The concentration upon the idea causes it. In people risen like my
+father and myself, we only resemble a group--a nation; if I have children
+they will resemble me. It is strength in the beginning when an individual
+rises beyond the group, which produces a type. One says 'English' to look
+at you, and then, if one knows, one says 'Ardayre' at once; one gets as
+far as 'Calmuck' with me, that is all, but in years to come it will have
+developed into 'Verisschenzko.'"
+
+"How you study things, St�pan; you are always putting new ideas into my
+head whenever I see you. Life would be just a routine, for all the joy of
+sport, if one did not think. I am going to finish my soldiering this
+autumn and stand for Parliament. It seems waste of time now, with no wars
+in prospect, sticking to it; I want a vaster field."
+
+"You think there can be no wars in prospect--no? Well, who can prophesy?
+There are clouds in the Southeast, but for the moment we will not
+speculate about them--and they may affect my country and not yours. And
+so you will settle down and become a reputable member of Parliament?"
+Then, as Denzil would have spoken perhaps upon the subject of war clouds,
+Verisschenzko hastily continued:
+
+"Will you dine to-morrow night at the Ritz to meet your cousin and his
+wife? They are honouring me."
+
+"I wish I could, but I am off in the morning. What is she like?"
+
+Verisschenzko paid particular attention to the selection of a quail, and
+then he answered:
+
+"She is of the same type as the family, Denzil,--that is, a good
+skeleton--bones in the right place, firm white flesh, colouring as
+yours--well bred, balanced, unawakened as yet. Was she a relation?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so--a cousin of a generation even before mine. I wish I
+could have dined, I would awfully like to have met them; I shall have
+to make a chance in England. It is stupid not to know one's own family,
+but our fathers quarrelled and we have never had a chance of mending
+the break."
+
+"They were at the Russian Embassy last night; the throng admired Lady
+Ardayre very much."
+
+"And what are you doing in Paris, St�pan? The last I heard of you, you
+were on your yacht in the Black Sea."
+
+"I was cruising near countries whose internal affairs interest me for the
+moment. I returned to my _appartement_ in Paris to see a friend of mine,
+Stanislass Boleski--he also has a lovely wife. Look, she has just come
+in with him. She is in the devil of a temper--observe her. If I sit back,
+the pillar hides me--I do not wish them to see me yet."
+
+Denzil glanced down the room; two people were taking their seats by the
+wall. The mask was off Harietta Boleski's face for the moment; it looked
+silly with its raised eyebrows and was full of ill temper and spite. The
+husband had an air of extreme worry on his clever, intellectual face, but
+that he was solicitous to gratify his wife's caprices, any casual
+observer could have perceived.
+
+"You mean the woman with the wonderful _cigrettes_--she is good-looking,
+isn't she? I wonder who it is she has caught sight of now, though? Look
+at the eagerness which has come into her eyes--you can see her in the
+mirror if you want to."
+
+But Verisschenzko had missed nothing, and he bent forward to endeavour
+to identify the person upon whom Madame Boleski's gaze had turned. There
+was nothing to distinguish any individual--the company were of several
+nations--German and Austrian and Balkan and Russian scattered about here
+and there among the French and American _habitu�s_. The only plan would
+be to continue to watch Harietta--but although he did this throughout the
+dinner, not a flicker of her eyelids gave him any further clue.
+
+Denzil was interested--he felt something beyond what appeared on the
+surface was taking place, so he waited for his friend to speak.
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a little, and then he casually gave a r�sum�
+of the character and place of Madame Boleski and her husband, a good deal
+more baldly expressed, but in substance much the same as he had given to
+Amaryllis at the Russian Embassy the night before.
+
+He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.
+
+"Look at her well--she is capable of mischief. Her extreme
+stupidity--only the brain of a rodent or a goat--makes her more
+difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can
+never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays
+is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite
+natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all.
+Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or
+personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves
+even me--I, who am no poor diviner--confused as to whether she is
+telling a lie or the truth."
+
+"What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.
+
+"An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko
+continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of
+the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times,
+and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not
+for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different
+jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information,
+obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital
+importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a
+mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."
+
+"She has lovers?"
+
+"Has had many; her r�le now is that of a great lady and so all is of a
+respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of
+self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she
+would commit b�tises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is
+hidden with the cunning of a fox."
+
+"Who did you say the first husband was--?"
+
+"A German of the name of Von Wendel--he used to beat her with a stick, it
+is said--so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until
+she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any
+one who stood in her way."
+
+"Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty �puis�--one feels sorry
+for the poor man."
+
+Then, as ever, at the mention of the d�bacle of Stanislass,
+Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.
+
+"She has crushed the hope of Poland--for that, indeed, one day she
+must pay."
+
+"But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"
+Denzil remarked.
+
+"Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices--and
+Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our
+Northern world."
+
+His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of
+Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had
+always been drawn to St�pan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the
+Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a
+mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm
+heart of a generous child--capable of every frenzy and of every
+sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the
+one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered
+over many lands--and as they sat there in the Caf� de Paris, the thoughts
+of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in
+Russia and in India between.
+
+"They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said
+presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of
+what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon
+and stars--and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"
+
+"Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,
+St�pan? Twenty-nine years old!"
+
+Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the
+two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced
+Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski
+all smiles and flattering cajoleries now--and then they said
+good-night and went out.
+
+But as St�pan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned
+forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a
+jealous hate.
+
+"Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she
+loves--not the pig-fool who we gave her to--one day I shall kill him--"
+and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"
+
+That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois,
+and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Arm�nonville.
+Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The
+circumstances were interesting--a bride of ten days, and the environment
+so illuminating--and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and
+not saying _anything!_ She did not like people who chattered--and she
+could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid
+respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic
+background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded
+some show of emotion!
+
+John loved her she supposed--of course he did--or he never would have
+asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She
+could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its
+beginning was only three months back!
+
+They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then
+they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she
+could not remember any love-making--she could not remember any of those
+warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was
+propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in
+demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon
+the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and
+restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a
+worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked
+at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons
+and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone
+further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the
+dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.
+
+She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love
+was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies
+had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than
+that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had
+indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once
+supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect
+_something_, and here was nothing--just nothing!
+
+The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He
+had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of
+refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her
+intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not
+too congenial home.
+
+She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of
+some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless
+young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to
+strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours
+as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in
+herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a
+girl, luck did not come her way.
+
+When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of
+marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear,"
+and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned
+over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf
+ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her
+forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or
+gave her any thrill!
+
+"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a
+fellow, but I will try."
+
+Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most
+every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every
+one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and
+petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in
+a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of
+excitement in the whole conventional thing!
+
+There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most
+reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very
+well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked
+well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond
+talking on general subjects!
+
+This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down
+the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and
+polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense
+to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest
+flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really
+interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.
+
+He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew
+to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its
+honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person
+could ever do.
+
+She almost became jealous of it all.
+
+Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece
+had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.
+
+Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's,
+Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not
+allow her stepfather to give her away.
+
+Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an
+Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and
+prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome,
+stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the
+Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids.
+Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!
+
+And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is
+the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the
+altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."
+
+The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in
+the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent
+by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of
+the honeymoon."
+
+This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her
+aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would
+begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not.
+For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and
+been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was
+not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too
+unrefined in the expression of its private affairs and too indiscreet for
+any maiden to remain in ignorance now.
+
+It is true John did kiss her once or twice, but there was no real warmth
+in the embrace, and when, after an excellent dinner her heart began to
+beat with wonderment and excitement, she asked herself what it meant.
+Then, all confused, she murmured something about "Good-night," and
+retired to the magnificent state suite alone.
+
+When she had left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine
+and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but
+an anguish almost of despair in his eyes.
+
+Amaryllis thought of that night--and of other nights since--as she sat
+there at Arm�nonville, in the luminous sensuous dusk.
+
+So this was being married! Well, it was not much of a joy--and why, why
+did John sit silent there? Why?
+
+Surely this is not how the Russian would have sat--that strange Russian!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was nearing sunset in the garden below the Trocad�ro. A tall German
+officer waited impatiently not far from the bronze of a fierce bull in a
+secluded corner under the trees; he was plainly an officer although he
+was clothed in mufti of English make. He was a singularly handsome
+creature in spite of his too wide hips. A fine, sensual, brutal male.
+
+He swore in his own language, and then, through the glorious light,
+a woman came towards him. She wore an unremarkable overcoat and a
+thick veil.
+
+"Hans!" she exclaimed delightedly, and then went on in fluent German with
+a strong American accent.
+
+He looked round to be sure that they were alone, and then he clasped her
+in his arms. He held her so tightly that she panted for breath; he kissed
+her until her lips were bruised, and he murmured guttural words of
+endearment that sounded like an animal's growl.
+
+The woman answered him in like manner. It was as though two brute
+beasts had met.
+
+Then presently they sat upon a seat and talked in low tones. The woman
+protested and declaimed; the man grumbled and demanded. An envelope
+passed between them, and more crude caresses, and before they parted the
+man again held her in close embrace--biting the lobe of her ear until she
+gave a little scream.
+
+"Yes--if there was time--" she gasped huskily. "I should adore you like
+this--but here--in the gardens--Oh! do mind my hat!"
+
+Then he let her go--they had arranged a future meeting. And left alone,
+he sat down upon the bench again and laughed aloud.
+
+The woman almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting
+taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder
+puff, and red greases for her lips.
+
+"My goodness! I can't say that's a mosquito!" and she examined her ear.
+"How tiresome and imprudent of Hans! But Jingo, it was good!--if there
+only had been time--"
+
+Then she, too, laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at
+the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the
+telltale ear.
+
+But on encountering her maid, she was carrying her minute Pekinese dog in
+her arms and was beating him well.
+
+"Regardez, Marie! la vilaine b�te m'a mordu l'oreil!"
+
+"Tiens!" commented the affronted Marie, who adored Fou-Chou. "Et le cher
+petit chien de Madame est si doux!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stanislass Boleski was poring over a voluminous bundle of papers when his
+wife, clad in a diaphanous wrap, came into his sitting room. They had a
+palatial suite at the Rhin. The affairs of Poland were not prospering as
+he had hoped, and these papers required his supreme attention--there was
+German intrigue going on somewhere underneath. He longed for Harietta's
+sympathy which she had been so prodigal in bestowing before she had
+secured her divorce from that brute of a Teutonic husband, whom she
+hated so much. Now she hardly ever listened, and yawned in his face when
+he spoke of Poland and his high aims. But he must make allowances for
+her--she was such a child of impulse, so lovely, so fascinating! And here
+in Paris, admired as she was, how could he wonder at her distraction!
+
+"Stanislass! my old Stannie," she cooed in his ear, "what am I to wear
+to-night for the Montivacchini ball? You will want me to look my best, I
+know, and I just love to please you."
+
+He was all attention at once, pushing the documents aside as she put her
+arms around his neck and pulled his beard, then she drew his head back to
+kiss the part where the hair was growing thin on the top--her eyes fixed
+on the papers.
+
+"You don't want to bother with those tiresome old things any more; go and
+get into your dressing-gown, and come to my room and talk while I am
+polishing my nails,--we can have half an hour before I must dress. I'll
+wait for you here--I must be petted to-night, I am tired and cross."
+
+Stanislass Boleski rose with alacrity. She had not been kind to him for
+days--fretful and capricious and impossible to please. He must not lose
+this chance--if it could only have been when he was not so busy--but--
+
+"Run along, do!" she commanded, tapping her foot.
+
+And putting the papers hastily in a drawer with a spring lock, he went
+gladly from the room.
+
+Her whole aspect changed; she lit a cigarette and hummed a tune, while
+she fingered a key which dangled from her bracelet.
+
+No one eclipsed Madame Boleski in that distinguished crowd later on.
+Her clinging silver brocade, and the one red rose at the edge of the
+extreme d�colletage, were simply the perfection of art. She did not wear
+gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except
+a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to
+refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh!
+they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one
+finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band of homely
+gold! Never!"
+
+Stanislass had argued in those early days--he seldom argued now.
+
+"My love!" he cried, as she burst upon his infatuated vision, when ready
+for the ball, "let me admire you!"
+
+She turned about; she knew that she was perfection.
+
+Her husband kissed her fingers, and then he caught sight of the ruby
+ring. He examined it.
+
+"I had not seen this ruby before," he exclaimed in a surprised voice,
+"and I thought I knew all your jewel case!"
+
+She held out her hand while her big, stupid, appealing hazel eyes
+expressed childish innocence.
+
+"No--I'd put it away, it was of other days--but I do love rubies, and so
+I got it out to-night, it goes with my rose!"
+
+He had perceived this. Had he not become educated in the subtleties of a
+woman's apparel? For was it not his duty often, and his pleasure
+sometimes, to have to assist at her toilet, and to listen for hours to
+discussions of garments, and if they could suit or not. He was even
+accustomed now to waiting in the hot salons in the Rue de la Paix, while
+these stately perfections were being essayed. But the ruby ring worried
+him. Why had she asked him to give her just such a one only last month,
+if she already possessed its fellow?... He had refused because her
+extravagance had grown fantastic, but he had meant to cede later. Every
+pleasure of the senses he always had to secure by bribes.
+
+"I do not understand why?--" he began, but she put her hand over his
+mouth and then kissed him voluptuously before she turned and shrilly
+cried to Marie to bring her ermine cloak.
+
+The maid's eyes were round and sullen with resentment; she had not
+forgotten the beating of Fou-Chou! "As for the ear of Madame!" she said,
+clasping the tiny dog to her heart, as she watched her mistress go
+towards the lift from the sitting-room, "as for that maudite ear, thy
+teeth are innocent, my angel! But I wish that he who is guilty had bitten
+it off!" Then she laughed disdainfully.
+
+"And look at the old fool! He dreams of nothing! And if he dreamed, he
+would not believe--such _insens�s_ are men!"
+
+Meanwhile the Boleskis had arrived at the hotel of the Duchesse di
+Montivacchini, that rich and ravishing American-Italian, who gave the
+most splendid and exclusive entertainments in Paris. So, too, had arrived
+Sir John and Lady Ardayre, brought on from the dinner at the Ritz by
+Verisschenzko.
+
+Denzil had left that morning for England, or he would have had the
+disagreeable experience of meeting his _soi-disant_ cousin, to whom he
+had applied the epithet "toad." For Ferdinand Ardayre had just reached
+the gay city from Constantinople, and had also come to the ball with a
+friend in the Turkish Embassy.
+
+He happened to be standing at the door when the Boleskis were announced,
+and his light eyes devoured Harietta--she seemed to him the ideal of
+things feminine--and he immediately took steps to be presented. Assurance
+was one of his strongest cards. He was a fair man--with the fairness of a
+Turk not European--and there was something mean and chetive in his
+regard. He would have looked over-dressed and un-English in a London
+ball-room, but in that cosmopolitan company he was unremarkable. He had
+been his mother's idol and Sir James had left him everything he could
+scrape from his highly mortgaged property. But certain tastes of his own
+made a Continental life more congenial to him, and he had chosen early to
+enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He
+was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by
+himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm.
+
+The one burning bitterness in his spirit was the knowledge that Sir John
+Ardayre had never recognised him as a brother. During Sir James' lifetime
+there had been silence upon the matter, since John had no legal reason
+for denying the relationship, but once he had become master of Ardayre he
+had let it be known that he refused to believe Ferdinand to be his
+father's son. On the rare occasions when he had to be mentioned, John
+called him "the mongrel" and Ferdinand was aware of this. A silent,
+intense hatred filled his being--more than shared by his mother who,
+until the day of her death, two years before, had always plotted
+vengeance--without being able to accomplish anything. Either mother or
+son would willingly have murdered John if a suitable and safe method had
+presented itself. And now to know that John had married a beautiful
+far-off cousin and might have children, and so forever preclude the
+possibility of his--Ferdinand's--own inheritance of Ardayre was a further
+incentive to hate! If only some means could be discovered to remove John,
+and soon! But while Ferdinand thought these things, watching his
+so-called brother from across the room, he knew that he was impotent.
+Poisons and daggers were not weapons which could be employed in civilised
+Paris in the twentieth century! If they would only come to
+Constantinople!
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre had never seen a Paris ball before. She was enchanted.
+The sumptuous, lofty rooms, with their perfect Louis XV gilt _boiseries_,
+the marvellous clothes of the women, the gaiety in the air! She was
+accustomed to the new weird dances in England, but had not seen them
+performed as she now saw them.
+
+"This orgie of mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as
+he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the
+fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle
+of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the
+skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted--all are
+feverish--all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the
+eve of a cataclysm--it is a dance Macabre."
+
+Amaryllis turned, startled, to look at him, and she saw that his eyes
+were full of melancholy, and not mocking as they usually were.
+
+"A dance Macabre! You do not approve of these tangoes then?"
+
+He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, which was his only form of
+gesticulation.
+
+"Tangoes--or one steps--I neither approve nor disapprove--dancing should
+all have its meaning, as the Greek Orchises had. These dances to the
+Greeks would have meant only one thing--I do not know if they would have
+wished this to take place in public, they were an aesthetic and refined
+people, so I think not. We Russians are the only so-called civilised
+nation who are brutal enough for that; but we are far from being
+civilised really. Orgies are natural to us--they are not to the French or
+the English. Savage sex displays for these nations are an acquired taste,
+a proof of vicious decay, the middle note of the end."
+
+"I learned the tango this Spring--it is charming to dance," Amaryllis
+protested. She was a little uncomfortable--the subject, much as she
+was interested in the Russian's downright views, she found was
+difficult to discuss.
+
+"I am sure you did--you counted time--you moved your charming form this
+way and that--and you had not the slightest idea of anything in it beyond
+anxiety to keep step and do the thing well! Yes--is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis laughed--this was so true!
+
+"What an incredibly false sham it all is!" he went on. "Started by
+niggers or Mexicans for what it obviously means, and brought here
+for respectable mothers, and wives, and girls to perform. For me a
+woman loses all charm when she cheapens the great mystery-ceremonies
+of love--"
+
+"Then you won't dance it with me?" Amaryllis challenged smilingly--she
+would not let him see that she was cast down. "I do so want to dance!"
+
+His eyes grew fierce.
+
+"I beg of you not! I desire to keep the picture I have made of you since
+we met--later I shall dance it myself with a suitable partner, but I do
+not want you mixed with this tarnished herd."
+
+Amaryllis answered with dignity:
+
+"If I thought of it as you do I should not want to dance it at all." She
+was aggrieved that her expressed desire might have made him hold her less
+high--"and you have taken all the bloom from my butterfly's wing--I will
+never enjoy dancing it again--let us go and sit down."
+
+He gave her his arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into
+conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose
+movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring.
+
+"There is your friend, Madame Boleski--she dances--and so well!"
+
+"Harietta is an elemental--as I told you before--it is right that she
+should express herself so. She is very well aware of what it all means
+and delights in it. But look at that lady with the hair going grey--it is
+the Marquise de Saint Vrilli�re--of the bluest blood in France and of a
+rigid respectability. She married her second daughter last week. They all
+spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till
+dark--mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian
+Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses--clasped in the arms of incredible
+scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New
+York--decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers
+before this madness set in!"
+
+"And you say it is a dance Macabre? Tell me just what you mean."
+
+They had reached a comfortable sofa by now in a salon devoted to bridge,
+which was almost empty, the players, so eager to take part in the
+dancing, that they had deserted even this, their favourite game.
+
+"When a nation loses all sense of balance and belies the traditions of
+its whole history, and when masses of civilised individuals experience
+this craze for dancing and miming, and sex display, it presages some
+great upheaval--some calamity. It was thus before the revolution of 1793,
+and since it is affecting England and America and all of Europe it seems,
+the cataclysm will be great."
+
+Amaryllis shivered. "You frighten me," she whispered. "Do you mean some
+war--or some earthquake--or some pestilence, or what?"
+
+"Events will show. But let us talk of something else. A cousin of your
+husband's, who is a very good friend of mine, was here yesterday. He went
+to England to-day, you have not met him yet, I believe--Denzil Ardayre?"
+
+"No--but I know all about him--he plays polo and is in the Zingari."
+
+"He does other things--he will even do more--I shall be curious to hear
+what you think of him. For me he is the type of your best in England.
+We were at Oxford together; we dreamed dreams there--and perhaps time
+will realise some of them. Denzil is a beautiful Englishman, but he is
+not a fool."
+
+A sudden illumination seemed to come into Amaryllis' brain; she felt how
+limited had been all her thoughts and standpoints in life. She had been
+willing to drift on without speculation as to the goal to be reached.
+Indeed, even now, had she any definite goal? She looked at the Russian's
+strong, rugged face, his inscrutable eyes narrowed and gazing ahead--of
+what was he thinking? Not stupid, ordinary things--that was certain.
+
+"It is the second evening, amidst the most unlikely surroundings, that
+you have made me speculate about subjects which never troubled me before.
+Then you leave me unsatisfied--I want to know--definitely to know!"
+
+"Searcher after wisdom!" and he smiled. "No one can teach another very
+much. Enlightenment must come from within; we have reached a better stage
+when we realise that we are units in some vast scheme and responsible for
+its working, and not only atoms floating hither and thither by chance.
+Most people have the brains of grasshoppers; they spring from subject to
+subject, their thoughts are never under control. Their thoughts rule
+them--it is not they who rule their thoughts."
+
+They were seated comfortably on their sofa, and Verisschenzko leaning
+forward from his corner, looked straight into her eyes.
+
+"You control your thoughts?" she asked. "Can you really only let them
+wander where you choose?"
+
+"They very seldom escape me, but I consciously allow them indulgences."
+
+"Such as?"
+
+"Visions--day dreams--which I know ought not to materialise."
+
+Something disturbed her in his regard; it was not easy to meet, so full
+of magnetic emanation. Amaryllis was conscious that she no longer felt
+very calm--she longed to know What his dreams could be.
+
+"Yes--but if I told you, you would send me away."
+
+It seemed that he could read her desire. "I shall order myself to be
+gone presently, because the interest which you cause me to feel would
+interfere with work which I have to do."
+
+"And your dreams? Tell them first?" she knew that she was playing
+with fire.
+
+He looked down now, and she saw that he was not going to gratify her
+curiosity.
+
+"My noblest dream is for the regeneration of a nation--on that I have
+ordered my thoughts to dwell. For the others, the time is not yet for me
+to tell you of them--it may never come. Now answer me, have you yet seen
+your new home, Ardayre?"
+
+"No, but why should you be interested in that? It seems strange that you,
+a Russian, should even know that there is such a place as Ardayre!"
+
+"Continue--I know that it is a wonderful place, and that your husband
+loves it more than his life."
+
+Amaryllis pouted slightly.
+
+"He does indeed! Perhaps I shall grow to do so also when I know it; it is
+the family creed. Sir James--my late father-in-law--was the only
+exception to this rule."
+
+"You must uphold the idea then, and live to do fine things."
+
+"I will try--if only--" then she paused, she could not say "if only John
+would be human and unfreeze to me, and love me, and let us go on the road
+together hand in hand!"
+
+"It is quite useless for a family merely to continue from generation to
+generation piling up possessions, and narrowing its interests. It must do
+this for a time to become solid, and then it should take a vaster view,
+and begin to help the world. Nearly everything is spoiled in all
+civilisation because of this inability to see beyond the nose, this poor
+and paltry outlook."
+
+"People rave vaguely," Amaryllis argued, "about one's duty and vast
+outlooks and those things, but it is difficult to get any one to give
+concrete advice--what would you advise me to do, for instance?"
+
+"I would advise you first to begin asking yourself the reason of
+everything, each day, since Pandora's box has been opened for you in any
+case. 'What caused this? What caused that?' Search for causes--then
+eradicate the roots, if they are not good, do not waste time on trying to
+ameliorate the results! Determine as to why you are put into such and
+such a place, and accomplish what you discover to be the duty of the
+situation. But how serious we have become! I am not a priest to give you
+guidance--I am a man fighting a tremendously strong desire to take you in
+my arms--so come, we will return to the ball room, and I will deliver you
+to your husband."
+
+Amaryllis rose and stood facing him, her heart was beating fast. "If I
+try to do well--to climb the straight road of the soul's advancement,
+will you give me counsel should I need it by the way?"
+
+"Yes, this I will do when I have complete control, but for the moment you
+are causing me emotions, and I wish to keep you a thing apart--of the
+spirit. Hermits and saints subdue the flesh by abstinence and fasting;
+they then become useless to the world. A man can only lead men while he
+remains a man, with a man's passions, so that he should not fight in this
+beyond his strength--only he should _never sully the wrong thing_. Come!
+Return to the husband--and I shall go for a while to hell."
+
+And presently Amaryllis, standing safely with John, saw Verisschenzko
+dancing the maddest one-step with Madame Boleski, their undulations
+outdoing all others in the room!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The day after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis
+had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her
+husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which led from her room.
+
+They would breakfast cosily there, she had arranged, and nothing was
+wanting in the setting of a love scene. The bride wore the most alluring
+cap and daintiest Paris n�glig�, and her fair and pure skin gleamed
+through the diaphanous stuff.
+
+How she longed for John to notice it all, and make love to her! She had
+apprehended a number of delightful possibilities in Paris, none of which
+had materialised, alas! in her case.
+
+John was the same as ever--quiet, dignified, polite and unmoved. She had
+taken to turning out the light before he came to her at night, to hide
+the disappointment and chagrin which she felt might show in her eyes. It
+would be so humiliating if he should see this. There would soon be
+nothing left for her to do but pretend that she was as cold as he was, if
+this last effort of _froufrous_ left him as stolid as usual.
+
+She smoothed out the pale chiffon draperies with a tender hand. She got
+up and looked at herself in the mirror. It was fortunate that the
+reflection of snowy nose and throat and chin, and the pink velvet cheeks,
+required no art to perfect them; it was all natural and quite nice, she
+felt. What a bore it must be to have to touch up like Madame Boleski!
+
+But what was the meaning of all the imputations she had read of in those
+interesting French novels in Paris?--the languors and lassitudes and
+tremors of breakfasting love! There was just such a scene as this in one
+she had devoured on the boat. A _d�jeuner_ of _amants--_certainly they
+had not been married, there was that want of resemblance, but surely this
+could not matter? For a fortnight, three weeks, a month, surely even a
+husband could be as a lover--especially to a mistress who took such pains
+to please his eye!
+
+Would Elsie Goldmore spend such dull breakfasts when she espoused Harry
+Kahn? Elsie Goldmore was a Jewess, perhaps that made the difference,
+perhaps Jews were more expansive--But the people in the novels were not
+Jews. Of course, though, they were French, that must be it! Could it be
+that all Englishmen, to their wives, were like John? This she must
+presently find out.
+
+Meanwhile she would try--oh, try so hard to entice him to be lovely to
+her! He was her own husband; there was absolutely no harm in doing this.
+And how glorious it would be to turn him into a lover! Here in this
+perfectly divine old house! John was so good-looking, too, and had the
+most attractive deep voice, but heavens! the matter-of-factness of
+everything about him!
+
+How long would it all go on?
+
+John came in presently with _The Times_ under his arm. He was
+immaculately dressed in a blue serge suit. Amaryllis had hoped to see
+him in that subduedly gorgeous dressing gown she had persuaded him to
+order at Charvets during their first days. It would have been so
+suitable and intimate and lover-like. But no! there was the blue serge
+suit--and _The Times_.
+
+A shadow fell upon her mood. Her own pink chiffons almost seemed
+out of place!
+
+John glanced at them, and at the glowing, living, delicious bit of young
+womanhood which they adorned. He saw the rebellious ripe cherry of a
+mouth, and the warm, soft tenderness in the grey eyes, and then he
+quickly looked out of the window--his own blue ones expressionless, but
+the hand which held the newspaper clenched rather hard.
+
+"Amn't I a pet!" cooed Amaryllis, deliberately subduing the chill of her
+first disappointment. "Dearest, see I have kept this last and loveliest
+set of garments for the morning of our home-coming--and for you!" and she
+crept close to him and laid her cheek against his cheek.
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her calmly.
+
+"You look most beautiful, darling," he said. "But then, you always do,
+and your frills are perfection. Now I think we ought to have breakfast;
+it is most awfully late."
+
+She sat down in her place and she felt stupid tears rise in her eyes.
+
+She poured out the tea and buttered herself some toast, while John was
+apparently busy at a side table where dwelt the hot dishes.
+
+He selected the daintiest piece of sole for her, and handed her
+the plate.
+
+"I am not hungry," she protested, "keep it for yourself."
+
+He did not press the matter, but took his place and began to talk quietly
+upon the news of the day--in a composed fashion between glances at _The
+Times_ and mouthfuls of sole.
+
+Amaryllis controlled herself. She was too proud and too just to make a
+foolish scene. If this was John's way and her little effort at enticement
+was a failure, she must put up with it. Marriage was a lottery she had
+always heard, and it might be her luck to have drawn a blank. So she
+choked down the rising emotion and answered brightly, showing interest in
+her husband's remarks--and she even managed to eat some omelette, and
+when the business of breakfast was quite over she went to the window and
+John followed her there.
+
+The view which met their eyes was exquisite.
+
+Beyond the perfect stately garden, with its quaint clipped yews and
+masses of spring flowers and velvet lawns, there stretched the vast park
+with its splendid oaks and browsing deer. It was a possession which any
+man could feel proud to own.
+
+John slipped his arm round her waist and drew her to him.
+
+"Amaryllis," he said, and his voice vibrated, "to-day I am going to show
+you everything I love here at Ardayre--because I want you to love it
+all, too. You are of the family, so it must mean something to you, dear."
+
+Amaryllis kindled with re-awakening hope.
+
+"Indeed, it will mean everything to me, John."
+
+He kissed her forehead and murmured something about her dressing quickly,
+and that he would wait for her there in the cedar room. And when she
+returned in about a quarter of an hour in the neatest country clothes, he
+placed her hand on his arm and led her down the great stairs and on
+through the hall into the picture gallery.
+
+It was a wonderful place of green silk and chestnut wainscoting, and all
+the walls of its hundred feet of length were hung with canvases of
+value--portraits principally of those Ardayres who had gone on. Face
+after face looked down on Amaryllis of the same type as John's and her
+own--the brown hair and eyes of grey or blue. Some were a little fairer,
+some a little darker, but all unmistakably stamped "Ardayre."
+
+John pointed out each individual to her, while she hung fondly on his
+arm, from some doubtful crude fourteenth century wooden panels of Johns
+and Denzils, on to Benedict in a furred Henry VII. gown. Then came Henrys
+and Denzils in Elizabethan armour and puffed white satin, and through
+Stuart and Commonwealth to Stuart again, and so to William and Mary
+numbers of Benedicts, and lastly to powdered Georgian James' and Regency
+Denzils and Johns. And the name Amaryllis recurred more than once in
+stately dame or damsel, called after that fair Amaryllis of Elizabeth's
+days who had been maid of honour to the virgin Queen, and had sonnets
+written to her nut brown locks by the gallants of her time.
+
+"How little the women they married seem to have altered the type!" the
+young living Amaryllis exclaimed, when they came nearly to the end. "It
+goes on Ardayre, Ardayre, Ardayre, ever since the very first one. Oh!
+John, if we ever have a son he ought to be even more so--you and I being
+of the same blood--" and then she hesitated and blushed crimson. This was
+the first time she had ever spoken of such a thing.
+
+John held her arm very tightly to his side for a second, and his voice
+was uncertain as he answered:
+
+"Amaryllis, that is the profound desire of my heart, that we should
+have a son."
+
+A strange feeling of exaltation came over Amaryllis, half-innocent,
+wholly ignorant as she was.
+
+She had been stupid--French novels were all nonsense. Marriages in real
+life were always like this--of course they must be--since John said
+plainly and with such deep feeling that his profoundest desire was that
+they should have a son! That meant that she would surely have one. This
+was perfectly glorious, and it must simply be those silly books and Elsie
+Goldmore's too uxorious imagination which had given her some ridiculously
+romantic exaggerated ideas of what love hours would be. She would now be
+contented and never worry again. She nestled closer to her husband and
+looked up at him with eyes sweet and fond, the brown, curly lashes wet
+with tender dew.
+
+"Oh!--darling, when, when do you think we shall have a son?"
+
+Then, for the first time in their lives, John Ardayre clasped her in his
+arms passionately and held her to his heart.
+
+"Ah, God," he whispered hoarsely, as he kissed her fresh young lips.
+"Pray for that, Amaryllis--pray for that, my own."
+
+Then he restrained himself and drew her on to the four last pictures at
+the end of the room. They were of his grandfather and grandmother, and
+his father and mother. And then there was a blank space, and the brighter
+colour of the damask showed that a canvas had been removed.
+
+"Who hung there, John?"
+
+"The accursed snake charmer woman whom my father disgraced the family
+with by bringing home. She was his wife by the law, and a Frenchman
+painted her. It was a fine picture with the bastard Ferdinand in her
+arms--the proof of our shame. I had it taken down and burnt the day the
+place was mine."
+
+Amaryllis was receiving surprises to-day--John's face was full of
+emotion, his eyes were sparkling with hate as he spoke. How he must love
+everything connected with his home, and its honour, and its name--he
+could not be so very cold after all!
+
+She thought of the Russian's words about a family--the uselessness of its
+going on for generations, piling up possessions and narrowing its
+interests. What had the aims been of all these handsome men? She knew the
+earlier history a little, for even though she was of a distant branch
+they had been proud of the connection, and treasured the traditions
+belonging to it. But these were just dry facts of history which she knew,
+so now she asked:
+
+"John, what did any of them do? Did they accomplish great deeds?"
+
+He took her back to the beginning again and began to tell her of the
+achievements of each one. There would be three perhaps, one after
+another, who had filled high posts in the State, and indeed had been
+worthy of the name. Then would come one or two quiet plodding ones, who
+seemed to have done little but sit still and hold on.
+
+Then Denzil Ardayre, knight of Elizabeth's time, pleased Amaryllis most
+of all--though there had been greater soldiers, and more able politicians
+than he later on, culminating in Sir John Ardayre of George IV. days,
+who had hammered against pocket boroughs and corruption until he died an
+old man, the hour the Reform Bill swept aside abuses and the road to
+freedom was won.
+
+"How strange it seems that different ages produce more accentuated stamps
+of breeding than others," Amaryllis said, "even in the same families
+where the blood is all blue. Look, John! that Denzil and the rest of the
+Elizabethans are the most refined, aristocratic creatures you could
+imagine, in their little ruffs. Absolutely intellectual and cultivated
+faces and of old race--and then comes a James period, less intelligent,
+more round featured. And a Cavalier one, gay and gallant, aristocratic
+and chiselled also, but not nearly so clever looking as the Elizabethan.
+Then we get cadaverous William and Mary ones, they might be lawyers or
+business men, not that look of great gentlemen, and the Anne's and the
+first George's are really bucolic! And then that wonderfully refined,
+cultivated, intellectual finish seems to crop up in the later eighteenth
+century again. Have you noticed this, John? You can see it in every
+collection of miniatures and portraits even in the museums."
+
+John responded interestedly:
+
+"The Elizabethans were supremely cultivated gentlemen--no wonder that
+they look as they do--and their lives were always in their hands which
+gives them that air of insouciance."
+
+When the history of the family achievements had been told her down to
+John's father, she paused, still clinging to his arm, and said:
+
+"I am so glad that they did splendid things, aren't you? And we shall not
+drift either. You must teach me to be the most perfect mistress of
+Ardayre, and the most perfect wife for the greatest of them all--because
+your achievement is the finest, John, to have won it all back and
+redeemed it by the work of your own brain."
+
+He pressed the hand on his arm.
+
+"It was hard work--and the home times were ugly in those days, Amaryllis,
+though the goal was worth it, and now we must carry on...." And then his
+reserve seemed to fall upon him again, and he took her through the other
+rooms, and kept to solid facts, and historic descriptions, and his bride
+had continuously the impression that he was mastering some emotion in
+himself, and that this stolidity was a mask.
+
+When lunch time came the usual relations of obvious and commonplace
+goodfellowship had been fully restored between them, and that atmosphere
+of aloofness which seemed impossible to banish enveloped John once more.
+
+Amaryllis sighed--but it was too soon to despair she thought, after the
+hope of John's words, and with her serene temperament she decided to
+leave things as they were for the present and trust to time.
+
+But as her maid brushed out the soft brown hair that night, an unrest and
+longing for something came over her again--what she knew not, nor could
+have put into words. She let herself re-live that one moment when John
+had pressed herewith passion to his heart. Perhaps, perhaps that was the
+beginning of a change in him--perhaps--presently--
+
+But the clock in the long gallery had chimed two, and there was yet no
+sound of John in the dressing-room beyond.
+
+Amaryllis lay in the great splendid gilt bed in the warm darkness, and at
+last tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+What could keep him so long away from her? Why did he not come?
+
+The large Queen Anne windows were wide open, and soft noises of the night
+floated in with the zephyrs. The whole air seemed filled with waiting
+expectancy for something tender and passionate to be.
+
+What was that? Steps upon the terrace--measured steps--and then silence,
+and then a deep sigh. It must be John--out there alone!--when she would
+have loved to have stayed with him, to have woven sweet fancies in the
+luminous darkness, to have taken and given long kisses, to have buried
+her face in the honeysuckle which grew there, steeped in dew. But he had
+said to her after their stately dinner in the great dining-hall:
+
+"Play to me a little, Amaryllis, and then go to bed, child--you must be
+tired out."
+
+And after that he had not spoken more, but pushed her gently towards the
+door with a solemn kiss on the forehead, and just a murmur of
+"Good-night." And she had deceived herself and thought that it meant that
+he would come quickly, and so she had run up the stairs.
+
+But now it was after two in the morning, and would soon be growing
+towards dawn--and John was out there sighing alone!
+
+She crept to the window and leaned upon the sill. She thought that she
+could distinguish his tall figure there by the carved stone bench.
+
+"John!" she called softly, "I am, so lonely--John, dearest--won't
+you come?"
+
+Then she felt that her ears must be deceiving her, for there was the
+sound of a faint suppressed sob, and then, a second afterwards, her
+husband's voice answering cheerily, with its usual casual note:
+
+"You naughty little night bird! Go back to bed--and to sleep--yes--I am
+coming immediately now!"
+
+But when he did steal in silently from the dressing-room an hour later in
+a grey dawn, Amaryllis, worn out with speculation and disappointment, had
+fallen asleep.
+
+He looked down upon her charming face--the long, curly brown lashes
+sweeping the flushed cheek, and at the rounded, beautiful girlish
+form--all his very own to clasp and to kiss and to hold in his arms--and
+two scalding tears gathered in his blue eyes, and he took his place
+beside her without making a sound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Here are the papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense.
+What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all
+these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness
+since the beginning--and now if it wasn't for them we could have a
+glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet
+you under Stanislass' nose. None of the others I have ever had are as
+good in the way of a lover as you."
+
+The man swore in German under his breath.
+
+"Of a lightness always, Harietta! No _d�vouement_, no patriotism....
+Should I have agreed to the divorce, loving your body as I do, had it not
+been a serious matter? The pig-dog who now owns you must be sucked dry of
+information--and then I shall take you back again."
+
+A cunning look came into Madame Boleski's hazel eyes. She had not the
+slightest intention of permitting this--to go back to Hans! To the
+difficulty of making both ends meet! Even though he did cause every inch
+of her well-preserved body to tingle! They had suggested her getting the
+divorce for their own stupid political ends, to be able to place her in
+the arms of Stanislass Boleski, and there she meant to stay! It was
+infinitely more agreeable to be a grande dame in Paris, and presently in
+London, than to be the spouse of Hans in Berlin, where, whatever his
+secret power might be with the authorities, he could give her no great
+social position; and social position was the goal of all Harietta
+Boleski's desires!
+
+She could attract lovers in any class of life--that had never been her
+difficulty. Her trouble had been that she could never force herself into
+good American society, even after she had married Hans, and they had
+dwelt there for a year or more. Her own compatriots would have none of
+her, and so she wanted triumph in other lands. She hated to remember her
+youth of humiliation, trying to play a social game on the earnings of any
+work that she could pick up, between discreet outings with--friends who
+failed to suggest matrimony. Hans, on some secret mission to San
+Francisco, where she had gone as companion to a friend, had seemed a
+veritable Godsend and Prince Charming, when, in her thirtieth year, he
+actually offered legal marriage, completely overcome by her great
+physical charm. But although she loved Hans with whatever of that emotion
+such a nature could be capable of, five years of him and more or less
+genteel poverty had been enough, and now she was free of that, and could
+still enjoy surreptitiously the pleasure of his passion, and reign as a
+_persona grata_ wife of one of the richest men in Poland at the same
+time. That those in authority who had arranged the divorce required of
+her certain tiresome obligations in return for their services, was one of
+those annoying parts of life! She took not the slightest interest in the
+affairs of any country. Nothing really mattered to her, but herself. Her
+whole force was concentrated upon the betterment of the position and
+physical pleasure of Harietta Boleski.
+
+It was this instinct alone which had prompted her to acquire a smattering
+of education--and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had
+been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic
+talent--no mean one--to gain her ends. She was now playing the r�le of a
+lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew--and here was Hans back again,
+and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he
+required from Stanislass she should return to him!
+
+"Tra la la!" she said to herself, there in the room at the Hotel Astoria,
+where she had gone to meet him, "think this if it pleases you! It will
+keep you quiet and won't hurt me!"
+
+For the moment she wanted Hans--the man, and was determined to waste no
+further time on useless discussion. So she began her blandishments,
+taking pride in showing him her beautiful garments, and her string of big
+pearls; each thing exhibited between her voluptuous kisses, until Hans
+grew intoxicated with desire, and became as clay in her hands.
+
+"It is not thy pig-dog of a husband I wish to kill!" he said, after one
+hour had gone by in inarticulate murmurings. "Him I do not fear--it is
+the Russian, Verisschenzko, who fills me with hate--we have regard of
+him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the
+rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be
+unpleasantness for you, my little cat--thy Hans will twist his bear's
+neck, and thine also, if need be!"
+
+"Verisschenzko!" laughed Harietta, "why, I hardly know him; he don't
+amount to a row of pins! He's Stanislass' friend--not mine."
+
+Then she smoothed back Hans' rather fierce, fair moustache from his lips
+and kissed him again--her ruby ring flashing in a ray of sunlight.
+
+"Look! isn't this a lovely jewel, Hans! My old Stannie gave it to me only
+some days ago--it is my new toy--see--"
+
+Hans examined it:
+
+"Thou art a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil
+qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me
+and to all men--the only good thing in thee is thy body--and for that all
+men let thee lie."
+
+Harietta pouted.
+
+"I can't understand when you talk like that, Hans--it's all warbash, as
+we said out West. What are qualities? What is there but the body anyway?
+Great sakes! that's enough for me, and the devil is only in story books
+to frighten children--I'm just like every other woman and I want to have
+a good time."
+
+"I hear that you are going to London soon," said Hans, dropping the
+tutoyage and growing brutally severe, "to conquer new lovers and to wear
+more dresses? But there you will be of great use to me. Your instructions
+will be all ready in cypher by Tuesday night, when you must meet me at
+whatever point is convenient to you, after nine o'clock--here, perhaps?"
+
+Harietta frowned--she had other views for Tuesday night.
+
+"What shall I gain by coming, or by going on with this spying on Stan?
+I'm tired of it all; it breaks my head trying to take in your horrid old
+cypher. I don't think I'll do it any more."
+
+The Prussian's face grew livid and his mouth set like an iron spring. He
+looked at her straight between the eyes, as a lion tamer might have done,
+and he took a cane from where it laid on a bureau near.
+
+"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I
+have done before--if you fail us in a single thing--and do not think we
+are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose
+your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"
+
+Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear--she had felt that
+stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She
+knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of
+the things she had adored in him--but to be degraded and exposed, as well
+as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken
+to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all
+these old papers were, she would have to go on--but since he threatened
+her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so
+there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come
+from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially
+when menaced with a stick?
+
+She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind
+of humour.
+
+Hans crushed her in his arms.
+
+"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"
+
+Harietta became cajoling--no one could have looked more frank or simple,
+as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them
+and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice,
+and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not
+clever like they!
+
+"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and
+always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of
+course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."
+
+She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite
+real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new
+cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.
+
+"To business then, _mein liebchen_--attend carefully to every word. In
+England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the
+highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are
+indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It
+is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers
+are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft,
+and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to
+use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my
+wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands
+clasped behind him--he would have been a very handsome man but for his
+too wide hips.
+
+Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice
+this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful
+quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except
+Verisschenzko--Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to
+him--Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared--much more
+than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but
+she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only
+when--and because--he wanted to, not for the reason that she had
+conquered him.
+
+"Of great use to our country, Harietta, my wife," Hans murmured again,
+clearing his throat.
+
+"I am not your wife, my pretty Hans!" and she raised her eyebrows, and
+curled one corner of her upper lip. "You gave me up at the bidding of the
+higher command--I am your mistress now and then, when I feel
+inclined--but I am Stanislass' wife. I like a man better when I am his
+mistress; there are no tiresome old duties along with it."
+
+Hans growled, he hated to realise this.
+
+"You must be more careful with your speech, Harietta. When you get to
+England you must not say 'along with it'--after the pains I have taken
+with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and
+even a literal translation of another language--but bad grammar--common
+phrases--pah! that is to give the show away!"
+
+Harietta reddened--her vanity disliked criticism.
+
+"I take very good care of my language when it is necessary in the
+world--I am considered to have a lovely voice--but when I'm with you I
+guess I can enjoy a holiday--it's kind of a rest to let yourself go," her
+pronunciation lapsed into the broadest American, just to irritate him,
+and she stood and laughed in his face.
+
+He caught her in his arms. She never failed to appeal to his senses; she
+had won him by that force and so held his brute nature even after five
+years. This was always the reason of whatever success she secured. A man
+had no smallest doubt as to why he was drawn; it was a direct appeal to
+the most primitive animal nature in him. The birth of Love is ever thus
+if we would analyse it truly, but the spirit fortunately so wraps things
+in illusion that generally both participants really believe that the
+mutual attraction is because of higher emotions of the mind, and so they
+are doomed to disappointment when passion is sated, unless the mind
+fulfills the ideal. But if the reality fails to make good, the refined
+spirit turns in disgust from the material, unconsciously resentful in
+that it has suffered deception. With Harietta this disappointment could
+never occur, since she created no illusion that she was appealing to the
+mind at all, and so a man if he were attracted faced no unknown quality,
+but was aware that it was only the animal in him which was drawn, and if
+his senses were his masters, not his servants, her victory was complete.
+
+After some more fierce caresses had come to an end--there was no delicacy
+about Harietta--Hans continued his discourse.
+
+"There has come here to Paris a young man of the name of
+Ardayre--Ferdinand Ardayre--he is slippery, but he can be of the greatest
+value to us. See that you become friends--you can reach him through Abba
+Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his
+brother's wife--for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste
+time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe
+he hates the English--there is a slur on him."
+
+"I have already met him," and Harietta's eyes sparkled. "I hate the wife
+also for my own reasons--yes--how can I help you with this?"
+
+"It is Ferdinand you must concentrate on; I am not concerned with the
+brother or his wife, except in so far as his hate for them can be used to
+our advantage. Do not embark upon this to play games of your own for your
+hate--you may be foolish then and upset matters."
+
+"Very well." The two objects could go together, Harietta felt; she never
+wasted words. It would be a pleasure one day, perhaps, to be able to
+injure that girl whom Verisschenzko certainly respected, if he was not
+actually growing to love her. Harietta did not desire the respect of men
+in the abstract; it could be a great bore--what they thought of her never
+entered her consideration, since she was only occupied with her own
+pleasure in them and how they affected herself. Respect was one of the
+adjuncts of a good social position; and of value merely in that aspect.
+But as Verisschenzko respected no one else, as far as she knew, that must
+mean something annoyingly important.
+
+Seven o'clock struck; she had thoroughly enjoyed being with Hans, he
+satisfied her in many ways, and it was also a relaxation, as she need not
+act. But the joys of the interview were over now, and she had others
+prepared for later on, and must go back to the Rhin to dress. So she
+kissed Hans and left, having arranged to meet him on the Tuesday night
+here in his rooms, and having received precise instructions as to the
+nature of the information to be obtained from Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+Life would be a paradise if only it were not for these ridiculous and
+tiresome political intrigues. Harietta had no taste for actual intrigue,
+its intricacies were a weariness to her. If she could have married a rich
+man in the beginning, she always told herself, she would never have mixed
+herself up in anything of the kind, and now that she _had_ married a rich
+man, she would try to get out of the nuisance as soon as possible.
+Meanwhile, there was Ferdinand--and Ferdinand was becoming in love with
+her--they had met three times since the Montivacchini ball.
+
+"He'll be no difficulty," she decided, with a sigh of relief. It would
+not be as it had been with Verisschenzko, whom she had been directed to
+capture. For in Verisschenzko she had found a master--not a dupe.
+
+When she reached the beautiful Champs-Elys�es, she looked at her diamond
+wrist watch. It was only ten minutes past seven, the dinner at the
+Austrian Embassy was not until half-past eight. Dressing was a serious
+business to Harietta, but she meant to cut it down to half an hour
+to-night, because there was a certain apartment in the Rue Cambon which
+she intended to visit for a few minutes.
+
+"What an original street to have an apartment in!" people always said to
+Verisschenzko. "Nothing but business houses and model hotels for
+travellers!" And the shabby looking _porte-coch�re_ gave no evidence of
+the old Louis XV. mansion within, converted now into a series of offices,
+all but the top flooring looking on to the gardens of the _Minist�re_.
+
+Verisschenzko had taken it for its situation and its isolation, and had
+converted it into a thing of great beauty of panelling and rare pictures
+and the most comfortable chairs. There was absolute silence, too, there
+among the tree tops.
+
+Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no
+lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant,
+was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken
+through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a
+richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk.
+
+Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured
+Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski
+pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair.
+
+"No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, St�pan,
+you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say."
+
+"Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing
+and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some
+cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one.
+
+Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now.
+
+"You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly
+amazed!"
+
+Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in
+the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that
+was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the
+crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself.
+
+She nodded, and that was all.
+
+Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green
+eyes full of a mocking light.
+
+"I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's
+just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it
+might be yours."
+
+Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee.
+
+"You perfect angel, St�pan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the
+caresses at all, but just ordered:
+
+"Now talk."
+
+She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words
+and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her
+own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not,
+because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test
+the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch.
+
+"She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing
+less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can
+have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German
+correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she
+has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's
+brain. Now is the time to obtain the most."
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous
+brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and
+the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to
+the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a
+cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she
+meant to communicate was exposed.
+
+"You imagine things, my child," he scoffed. "I would have to have
+proof--and then if it all should be as you say. Why, that brooch must be
+yours--for I know that it is out of real love for me that you talk, and I
+always pay lavishly for--love."
+
+"Indeed, you know that I adore you, St�pan--and that brooch is just what
+I want. Stanislass has been niggardly beyond words to me lately, and I am
+tired of all my other things."
+
+"Bring me some proof to the reception to-night. I am not dining, but I
+shall be there by eleven for a few moments."
+
+She agreed, and then rose to go--but she pouted again and the convex
+_obstin�_ curve below her under lip seemed to obtrude itself.
+
+"She has gone back to England--your precious bride--I suppose?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"We shall all meet there in a week or so--Stanislass is going to see some
+of his boring countrymen in London--the conference you know about--and
+we have taken a house in Grosvenor Square for some months. I do not know
+many people yet--will you see to it that I do?"
+
+"I will see that you have as many of these handsome Englishmen as will
+completely keep your hands full."
+
+She laughed delightedly.
+
+"But it is women I want; the men I can always get for myself."
+
+"Fear nothing, your reception will be great."
+
+Then she flung herself into his arms and embraced him, and then moved
+towards the door.
+
+"I will telephone to Cartier in the morning," and Verisschenzko opened
+the door for her, "if you bring me some interesting proof of your love
+for me--to-night."
+
+And when she had gone he took up his letter again
+and looked at the address,
+
+_To_
+Lady Ardayre,
+_Ardayre Chase,
+North Somerset,
+Angleterre_.
+
+"I must keep to the things of the spirit with you, precious lady. And
+when I cannot subdue it, there is Harietta for the flesh--wough! but she
+sickens me--even for that!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre could not get any more leave for a considerable time and
+remained quartered in the North, where he played cricket and polo to his
+heart's content, but the head of the family and his charming wife went
+through the feverish season of 1914 in the town house in Brook Street.
+Ardayre was too far away for week-end parties, but they had several
+successful London dinners, and Amaryllis was becoming quite a capable
+hostess, and was much admired in the world.
+
+Very fine of instinct and apprehension at all times she was developing by
+contact with intelligent people--for John had taken care that she only
+mixed with the most select of his friends. The de la Paule family had
+been more than appreciative of her and had guided her and supervised her
+visiting list with care.
+
+Everything was too much of a rush for her to think and analyse things,
+and if she had been asked whether she was happy, she would have thought
+that she was replying with honesty when she affirmed that she was. John
+was not happy and knew it, but none of his emotions ever betrayed
+themselves, and the mask of his stolid content never changed.
+
+They had gone on with their matter-of-fact relations, and when they
+returned to London after a week at Ardayre, all had been much easier,
+because they were seldom alone--and at last Amaryllis had grown to accept
+the situation, and try not to speculate about it. She danced every night
+at balls and continued the usual round, but often at the Op�ra, or the
+Russian ballet, or driving back through the park in the dawn, some wild
+longing for romance would stir in her, and she would nestle close to
+John. And John would perhaps kiss her quietly and speak of ordinary
+things. He went everywhere with her though, and never failed in the
+kindest consideration. He seldom danced himself, and therefore must often
+have been weary, but no suggestion of this ever reached Amaryllis.
+
+"What does he talk to his friends about, I wonder?" she asked herself,
+watching him from across a room, in a great house after dinner one night.
+
+John was seated beside the American Lady Avonwier, a brilliant person who
+did not allow herself to be bored. He appeared calm as usual, and there
+they sat until it was time to go on to a ball.
+
+Everything he said was so sensible, so well informed--perhaps that was a
+nice change for people--and then he was very good-looking and--but oh!
+what was it--what was it which made it all so disappointing and tame!
+
+A week after they had come up to Brook Street, the Boleskis arrived at
+the Mount Lennard House which they had taken in Grosvenor Square, armed
+with every kind of introduction, and Harietta immediately began to dazzle
+the world.
+
+Her dresses and jewels defied all rivalry; they were in a class alone,
+and she was frank and stupid and gracious--and fitted in exactly with
+the spirit of the time.
+
+She restrained her movements in dancing to suit the less advanced English
+taste; she gave to every charity and organized entertainments of a
+fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded
+with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she
+played with them all--ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by
+her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and
+good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one--while
+the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have insured
+any hostess's success!
+
+Harietta had never been so happy in all the thirty-six years of her life.
+This was her hour of triumph. She was here in a country which spoke her
+own language--for her French was deplorably bad--she had an unquestioned
+position, and all would have been without flaw but for this tiresome
+information she was forced to collect.
+
+Verisschenzko had been detained in Paris. The events of the twenty-eighth
+of June at Serajevo were of deep moment to him, and it was not until the
+second week in July that he arrived at the Ritz, full of profound
+preoccupation.
+
+Amaryllis had been to Harietta's dinners and dances, and now the Boleskis
+had been asked down to Ardayre in return for the three days at the end of
+the month, when the coming of age of the young Marquis of Bridgeborough
+would give occasion for great rejoicings, and Amaryllis herself would
+give a ball.
+
+"You cannot ask people down to North Somerset in these days just for the
+pleasure of seeing you, my dear child," Lady de la Paule had said to her
+nephew's wife. "Each season it gets worse; one is flattered if one's
+friends answer an invitation to dinner even, or remain for half an hour
+when it is done. I do not know what things are coming to, etiquette of
+all sorts went long ago--now manners, and even decency have gone. We are
+rapidly becoming savages, openly seizing whatever good thing is offered
+to us no matter from whom, and then throwing it aside the instant we
+catch sight of something new. But one must always go with the tide unless
+one is strong enough to stem it, and frankly _I_ am not. Now
+Bridgeborough's coming of age will make a nice excuse for you to have a
+party at Ardayre. How many people can you put up? Thirty guests and their
+servants at least, and seven or eight more if you use the agent's house."
+
+So thus it had been arranged, and John expressed his pleasure that his
+sweet Amaryllis should show what a hostess she could be.
+
+None but the most interesting people were invited, and the party promised
+to be the greatest success.
+
+Two or three days before they were to go down, Amaryllis coming in late
+in the afternoon, found Verisschenzko's card.
+
+"Oh! John!" she cried delightedly, "that very thrilling Russian whom we
+met in Paris has called. You remember he wrote to me some time ago and
+said he would let us know when he arrived. Oh! would not it be nice to
+have him at our party--let us telephone to him now!"
+
+Verisschenzko answered the call himself, he had just come in; he
+expressed himself as enchanted at the thought of seeing her--and
+yes--with pleasure he would come down to Ardayre for the ball.
+
+"We shall meet to-night, perhaps, at Carlton House Terrace at the German
+Embassy," he said, "and then we can settle everything."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why she felt rather excited as she walked up the
+stairs--she had often thought of Verisschenzko, and hoped he would come
+to England. He was vivid and living and would help her to balance
+herself. She had thought while she dressed that her life had been one
+stupid rush with no end, since that night when they had talked of
+serious things at the Montivacchini h�tel. She had need of the counsel
+he had promised to give her, for this heedless racket was not adding
+lustre to her soul.
+
+Verisschenzko seemed to find her very soon--he was not one of those
+persons who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing
+when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign
+fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he
+had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in his
+advance towards this goal.
+
+He looked at her critically for an instant when they were seated in the
+soft gloom.
+
+"You are changed, Madame. Half the soul is awake now, but the other half
+has gone further to sleep."
+
+"--Yes, I felt you would say that--I do not like myself," and she sighed.
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"I seem to be drifting down such a useless stream--and it is all so mad
+and aimless, and yet it is fun. But every one is tired and restless and
+nobody cares for anything real--I am afraid I am not strong enough to
+stand aside from it though, and I wonder sometimes what I shall become."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her earnestly--he was silent for some seconds.
+
+"Fate may alter the atmosphere. There are things hovering, I fear, of
+which you do not dream, little protected English bride. Perhaps it is
+good that you live while you can."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"Sorrows for the world. But tell me, have you seen Harietta Boleski in
+her London r�le?"
+
+"Yes--she is the greatest success--every one goes to her parties; she is
+coming to mine at Ardayre."
+
+Verisschenzko raised his eyebrows, and nothing could have been more
+sardonically whimsical than his smile.
+
+"I saw Stanislass this morning--he is almost _gaga_ now--a mere
+cypher--she has destroyed his body, as well as his soul."
+
+"They are both coming on the twenty-third."
+
+"It will be an interesting visit I do not doubt--and I shall see the
+Family house!"
+
+"I hope you will like it--I shall love to show it to you, and the
+pictures. It means so much to John."
+
+"Have you met your cousin Denzil yet?".
+
+Verisschenzko was studying her face; it had gained something, it was
+a little finer--but it had lost something too, and there was a shadow
+in her eyes.
+
+"Denzil Ardayre? No--What made you mention him now?"
+
+"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like--your
+husband, you know."
+
+The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
+Russian's unusual views.
+
+"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited
+it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be
+almost as _d�s�quilibr�_ as the rest of the world."
+
+"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something
+dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."
+
+"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot
+be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems
+feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of
+sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to
+the top; we are at the period when this has occurred--we can but
+wait--and watch."
+
+"If we had a new religion?"
+
+"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."
+
+"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary
+things divine!"
+
+"Certainly when they are emplanted upon a true basis. I said
+'make-believe'--that is what kills all good things--make-believe. Most
+of the present-day leaders are throwing dust in their followers' eyes--or
+their own. Priests and politicians, lawyers and financiers--all of them
+are afraid of the truth. Every one lives in a stupid atmosphere of
+self-deception. The religion of the future will teach each individual to
+be true to himself, and when that is accomplished the sixth root race
+will be born. Look at that man over there talking to a woman with haggard
+eyes--can you see them in the gloom? They have all the ugly entities
+around them, the spirits of morphine and nicotine--drawing misfortune and
+bodily decay. Every force has to have its congenial atmosphere, or it
+cannot exist; fishes cannot breathe on land."
+
+Amaryllis looked at the pair; they were well-known people, the man
+celebrated in the literary and artistic section of the world of
+fashion--the woman of high rank and of refined intelligence.
+
+Verisschenzko looked also. "I do not know either of their names," he
+said, "I am simply judging by the obvious deductions to be made by their
+appearances to any one who has developed intuition."
+
+"How I wish I could learn to have that!"
+
+"Read Voltaire's 'Zadig.' Deductive methods are shown in it useful to
+begin upon--observe everything about people, and then having seen
+results, work back to causes, and then realise that all material things
+are the physical expression of an etheric force, and as we can control
+the material, we need thus only attract what etheric waves we desire."
+
+Amaryllis looked again at the pair--both were smoking idly, and she
+remembered having heard that they both "took drugs." It was a phrase
+which had meant nothing to her until now.
+
+"You mean that because they smoke all the time, and it is said they take
+morphine _piq�res_, that they are not only hurting their bodies, but
+drawing spiritual ills as well."
+
+"Obviously. They have surrounded themselves with the drab demagnetising
+current which envelops the body when human beings give up their wills. It
+would be very difficult for anything good to pierce through such
+ambience. Have you ever remarked the strange ends of all people who take
+drugs? They seldom die natural, ordinary deaths. The evil entities which
+they have drawn round them by their own weakness, destroy them at last."
+
+"I do not like the idea that there are these 'entities,' as you call
+them, all around us."
+
+"There are not, they cannot come near us unless we allow them--have I not
+told you that the atmosphere must be congenial? Our own wills can create
+an armour through which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness
+and drifting which are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable
+for the vampires beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You
+represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You
+must fulfil this r�le. I represent a leader of certain thought in my
+country. My soul is given to this--I must only indulge in through
+which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness and drifting which
+are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable for the vampires
+beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent
+an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil
+this r�le. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul
+is given to this--I must only indulge in that over which I am master.
+Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained
+dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and
+for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is _'plus fort que
+vous'_--then you had better throw up the sponge--you have lost the fight,
+and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."
+
+"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"
+
+"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they
+dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings
+afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back
+than the sensualists--what are they accomplishing? They have withered
+nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what
+plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best
+of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to
+alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere
+altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal
+presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which,
+should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will
+end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."
+
+"You reason in this in the same way that you did about the smoking."
+
+"Naturally--that is the only form of sensible reasoning. You must keep
+your judgment perfectly balanced and never let it be obscured by
+prejudice, tradition, custom, or anything but the actual common-sense
+view of the case."
+
+"I think we English like that better than any other quality in
+people--common sense."
+
+Verisschenzko looked away from her to a new stream of guests who had come
+out on the terrace--a splendid-looking group of tall young men and
+exquisite women.
+
+"With all your faults you are a great nation, because although these
+latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the
+individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had
+become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the
+community--you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here.
+Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by
+patriotism and gallantry like the French, some by superstition and
+ignorance worked on by mystic religion, as in my country--some by
+ruthless materialism like Germany; but that dull, solid sense of duty is
+purely English--and it is really a glorious thing."
+
+Amaryllis thought how John represented it exactly!
+
+"I feel that I want to do my duty," she said softly, "but..."
+
+"Continue to feel that and Fate will show you the way. Now I must take
+you back to your husband whom I see in the distance there--he is with
+Harietta Boleski. I wonder what he thinks of her?"
+
+"I have asked him! He says that she is so obvious as to be innocuous, and
+that he likes her clothes!"
+
+Verisschenzko did not answer, and Amaryllis wondered if he agreed
+with John!
+
+They had to pass along a corridor to reach the staircase, upon the
+landing of which they had seen Sir John and Madame Boleski leaning over
+the balustrade, and when they got there they had moved on out of sight,
+so Verisschenzko, bowing, left Amaryllis with Lady de la Paule.
+
+As he retraced his steps later on he saw Sir John Ardayre in earnest
+conversation with Lemon Bridges, the fashionable rising surgeon of the
+day. They stood in an alcove, and Verisschenzko's alert intelligence was
+struck by the expression on John Ardayre's face--it was so sad and
+resigned, as a brave man's who has received death sentence. And as he
+passed close to them he heard these words from John: "It is quite
+hopeless then--I feared so--"
+
+He stopped his descent for a moment and looked again--and then a
+sudden illumination came into his yellow-green eyes, and he went on
+down the stairs.
+
+"There is tragedy here--and how will it affect the Lady of my soul?"
+
+He walked out of the House and into Pall Mall, and there by the Rag met
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"We seem doomed to have unexpected meetings!" cried that young man
+delightedly. "Here I am only up for one night on regimental business, and
+I run into you!"
+
+They walked on together, and Denzil went into the Ritz with
+Verisschenzko and they smoked in his sitting-room. They talked of many
+things for a long time--of the unrest in Europe and the clouds in the
+Southeast--of Denzil's political aims--of things in general--and at last
+Verisschenzko said:
+
+"I have just left your cousin and his wife at the German Embassy; they
+have now gone on to a ball. He makes an indulgent husband--I suppose the
+affair is going well?"
+
+"Very well between them, I believe. That sickening cad Ferdinand is
+circulating rumours--that they can never have any children--but they are
+for his own ends. I must arrange to meet them when I come up next time--I
+hear that the family are enchanted with Amaryllis--"
+
+"She is a thing of flesh and blood and flame--I could love her wildly did
+I think it were wise."
+
+Denzil glanced sharply at his friend. He had not often known him to
+hesitate when attracted by a woman--
+
+"What aspect does the unwisdom take?"
+
+"Certain absorption--I have other and terribly important things to do.
+The husband is most worthy--one wonders what the next few years will
+bring. Their temperaments must be as the poles.
+
+"No one seems to think of temperament when he marries, or heredity, or
+anything, but just desire for the woman--or her money--or something
+quite outside the actual fact." Denzil lit another cigarette. "Marriage
+appears a perfect terror to me--how could one know one was going to
+continue to feel emotion towards some one who might prove to be the most
+awful physical or mental disappointment on intimate acquaintance? I
+believe _affaires de convenance_ selected with thought-out reasoning are
+the best."
+
+Verisschenzko shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That is not necessary. If the brain is disciplined, it is in a condition
+to use its judgment, even when in love, and ought therefore to be able to
+resist the desire to mate if the woman's character or tendencies are
+unsuitable, but most men's brains are only disciplined in regard to
+mental things, and have no real control over their physical desires. I
+have been this morning with Stanislass Boleski--there is a case and a
+warning. Stanislass was a strong man with a splendid brain and immense
+ambition, but no dominion over his senses, so that Succubus has
+completely annihilated all force in him. He should have strangled her
+after the first _etreinte_ as I should have done, had I felt that she
+could ever have any power over me!"
+
+Denzil smiled--St�pan was such a mixture of tenderness and
+complete savagery.
+
+"I always thought the Russian character was the most headstrong and
+undisciplined in the world, and took what it desired regardless of costs.
+But you belie it, old boy!"
+
+"I early said to myself on looking at my countrymen--and especially my
+countrywomen--these people are half genius, half fool; they have all
+the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters
+to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced
+and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he
+not attain!"
+
+"And you have attained."
+
+"I am on the road, but did not affairs of vital importance occupy me at
+the moment I might be capable of ancient excess!"
+
+"It is as well for the head of the Ardayre family that you are occupied
+then!" and Denzil smiled, and then he said, his thoughts drifting back to
+what interested him most:
+
+"You think Europe will be blazing soon, St�pan? I have wondered myself in
+the last month if this hectic peace could continue."
+
+"It cannot. I am here upon business with great issues, but I must not
+speak of facts, and what I say now is not from my knowledge of current
+events, but from my study of etheric currents which the thoughts and
+actions of over-civilised generations have engendered. You do not cram a
+shell with high explosives and leave it among matches with impunity."
+
+The two men looked at one another significantly, and then Denzil said:
+
+"I think I will not retire from the old regiment yet--I shall wait
+another year."
+
+"Yes--I would if I were you."
+
+They smoked silently for a moment--Verisschenzko's Calmuck face fixed and
+inscrutable and Denzil's debonnaire English one usually grave.
+
+"Some one told me that your friend, Madame Boleski, was having a
+tremendous success in London. I wish I could have got leave, I should
+like to have seen the whole thing."
+
+"Harietta is enjoying her luck-moment; she is in her zenith. She has
+baffled me as to where she receives her information from--she is capable
+of betraying both sides to gain some material, and possibly trivial, end.
+She is worth studying if you do come up, for she is unique. Most
+criminals have some stable point in immorality; Harietta is troubled by
+nothing fixed, no law of God or man means anything to her, she is only
+ruled by her sense of self-preservation. Her career is picturesque."
+
+"Had she ever any children?"
+
+Verisschenzko crossed himself.
+
+"Heaven forbid! Think of watching Harietta's instincts coming out in a
+child! Poor Stanislass is at least saved that!"
+
+"What a terrible thought that would be to one! But no man thinks of such
+things in selecting a wife!"
+
+"You will not marry yet--no?"
+
+"Certainly not, there is no necessity that I should. Marriage is only an
+obligation for the heads of families, not for the younger branches."
+
+"But if Sir John Ardayre has no son, you are--in blood--the next
+direct heir."
+
+"And Ferdinand is the next direct heir-in-law--that makes one sick--"
+
+Verisschenzko poured his friend out a whisky and soda and said smiling:
+
+"Then let us drink once more to the Ardayre son!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Lady de la Paule really felt proud of her niece; the party at Ardayre was
+progressing so perfectly. The guests had all arrived in time for the ball
+at Bridgeborough Castle on the twenty-third of July and had assisted next
+day at the garden party, and then a large dinner at Ardayre, and now on
+the last night of their stay Amaryllis' own ball was to take place.
+
+All the other big country houses round were filled also, and nothing
+could have been gayer or more splendidly done than the whole thing.
+
+John Ardayre had been quite enthusiastic about all the arrangements,
+taking the greatest pride in settling everything which could add lustre
+to his Amaryllis' success as a hostess.
+
+The quantities of servants, the perfectly turned-out motors--the
+wonderful chef--all had been his doing, and when most of the party had
+retired to their rooms for a little rest before dinner on the
+twenty-fifth, the evening of the ball, Lady de la Paule and John's
+friend, Lady Avonwier, congratulated him, as he sat with them, the last
+ladies remaining, under the great copper beech tree on the lawn which led
+down to the lake.
+
+"Everything has been perfect, has it not, Mabella?" Lady Avonwier said.
+"I have even been converted about your marvellous Madame Boleski! I
+confess I have avoided her all the season, because we Americans are far
+more exclusive than you English people in regard to whom we know of our
+own countrywomen, and no one would receive such a person in New York, but
+she is so luridly stupid, and such a decoration, that I quite agree you
+were right to invite her, John."
+
+"She seems to me charming," Lady de la Paule confessed. "Not the least
+pretension, and her clothes are marvellous. You are abominably severe,
+Etta. I am quite sure if she wanted to she could succeed in New York."
+
+"Mabella, you simple creature! She just cajoles you all the time--she has
+specialised in cajoling important great ladies! No American would be
+taken in by her, and we resent it in our country when an outsider like
+that barges in. But here, I admit, since she provides us with amusement,
+I have no objection to accepting her, as I would a new nigger band, and
+shall certainly send her a card for my fancy ball next week."
+
+John Ardayre chuckled softly.
+
+"That sound indicates?"--and Etta Avonwier flashed at him her lovely
+clever eyes.
+
+John Ardayre did not answer in words, but both women joined in his smile.
+
+"Yes, we are worldlings," Lady Avonwier admitted, "just measuring people
+up for what they can give us, it is the only way though when the whole
+thing is such a rush!"
+
+"I am so sorry for the poor husband," and Lady de la Paule's fat voice
+was kindly. "He does look such a wretched, cadaverous thing, with that
+black beard and those melancholy black eyes, and emaciated face. Do you
+think she beats him when they are alone?"
+
+"Who knows? She is so primitive, she may be capable even of that!"
+
+"Her clothes are not primitive," and John Ardayre lighted a cigarette.
+"I don't think she really can be such a fool."
+
+"I never suggested that she was a fool at all!" Lady Avonwier was
+decisive. "No one can be a fool who is as tenacious as she is--fools
+are vague people, who let things go. She is merely illiterate and
+stupid as an owl."
+
+"I like your distinction between stupidity and foolishness!" John Ardayre
+often argued with Lady Avonwier; they were excellent friends.
+
+"A stupid person is often a great rest and arrives--a fool makes one
+nervous and loses the game. But who is that walking with Amaryllis at the
+other side of the lake?"
+
+John Ardayre looked up, and on over the water to the glory of the beech
+trees on the rising slope of the park, and there saw moving at the edge
+of them his wife and Verisschenzko, accompanied by two of the great
+tawny dogs.
+
+"Oh! it is the interesting Russian whom we met in Paris, where all the
+charming ladies were supposed to be in love with him. He was to have come
+down for the whole three days. I suppose these Russian and Austrian
+rumours detained him, he has only arrived for to-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And across the lake Amaryllis was saying to Verisschenzko in her soft
+voice, deep as all the Ardayre voices were deep:
+
+"I have brought you here so that you may get the best view of the
+house. I think, indeed, that it is very beautiful from over the water,
+do not you?"
+
+Verisschenzko remained silent for a moment. His face was altered in this
+last week; it looked haggard and thinner, and his peculiar eyes were
+concentrated and intense.
+
+He took in the perfect picture of this English stately home, with its
+Henry VII centre and watch towers, and gabled main buildings, and the
+Queen Anne added Square--all mellowed and amalgamated into a whole of
+exquisite beauty and dignity in the glow of the setting sun.
+
+"How proud you should be of such possessions, you English. The
+accumulation of centuries, conserved by freedom from strife. It is no
+wonder you are so arrogant! You could not be if you had only memories, as
+we have, of wooden barracks up to a hundred and fifty years ago, and
+drunkenness and orgies, and beating of serfs. This is the picture our
+country houses call up--any of the older ones which have escaped being
+burnt. But here you have traditions of harmony and justice and
+obligations to the people nobody fulfilled." And then he took his hat off
+and looked up into the golden sky:
+
+"May nothing happen to hurt England, and may we one day be as free."
+
+A shiver ran through Amaryllis--but something kept her silent; she
+divined that her friend's mood did not desire speech from her yet. He
+spoke again and earnestly a moment or two afterwards.
+
+"Lady of my soul--I am going away to-morrow into a frenzied turmoil. I
+have news from my country, and I must be in the centre of events; we do
+not know what will come of it all. I come down to-day at great sacrifice
+of time to bid you farewell. It may be that I shall never see you again,
+though I think that I shall; but should I not, promise me that you will
+remain my star unsmirched by the paltriness of the world, promise me that
+you will live up to the ideal of this noble home--that you will develop
+your brain and your intuition, that you will be forceful and filled with
+common sense. I would like to have moulded your spiritual being, and
+brought you to the highest, but it is not for me, perhaps, in this
+life--another will come. See that you live worthily."
+
+Amaryllis was deeply moved.
+
+"Indeed, I will try. I have seen so little of you, but I feel that I have
+known you always, and--yes--even I feel that it is true what you said,"
+and she grew rosy with a sweet confusion--"that we were--lovers--I am so
+ignorant and undeveloped, not advanced like you, but when you speak you
+seem to awaken memories; it is as though a transitory light gleamed in
+dark places, and I receive flashes of understanding, and then it grows
+obscured again, but I will try to seize and hold it--indeed, I will try
+to do as you would wish."
+
+They both looked ahead, straight at the splendid house, and then
+Amaryllis looked at Verisschenzko and it seemed as though his face were
+transfigured with some inward light.
+
+"Strange things are coming, child, the cauldron has boiled over, and we
+do not know what the stream may engulf. Think of this evening in the days
+which will be, and remember my words."
+
+His voice vibrated, but he did not look at her, but always across the
+lake at the house.
+
+"Whenever you are in doubt as to the wisdom of a decision between two
+courses--put them to the test of which, if you follow it, will enable you
+to respect your own soul. Never do that which the inward You despises."
+
+"And if both courses look equally good and it is merely a question of
+earthly benefit?"
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"Never be vague. There is an Arab proverb which says: Trust in God but
+tie up your camel."
+
+The setting sun was throwing its last gleams upon the windows of the high
+tower. Nothing more beautiful or impressive could have been imagined than
+the scene. The velvet lawn sloping down to the lake, with a group of
+trees to the right among which nestled the tiny cruciform ancient church,
+while in the distance, on all sides, stretched the vast, gloriously
+timbered park.
+
+Verisschenzko gazed at the wonder of it, and his yellow-green eyes were
+wide with the vision it created in his brain.
+
+No--this should never go to the bastard Ferdinand, whose life in
+Constantinople was a disgrace. This record of fine living and achievement
+of worthy Ardayres should remain the glory of the true blood.
+
+He turned and looked at Amaryllis at his side, so slender, and strong,
+and young--and he said:
+
+"It is necessary above all things that you cultivate a steadiness and
+clearness of judgment, which will enable you to see the great aim in a
+thing, and not be hampered by sentimental jingo and convention, which is
+a danger when a nature is as good and true, but as undeveloped, as yours.
+Whatever circumstance should arise in your life, in relation to the trust
+you hold for this family and this home, bring the keenest common sense to
+bear upon the matter, and keep the end, that you must uphold it and pass
+it on resplendent, in view."
+
+Amaryllis felt that he was transmitting some message to her. His eyes
+were full of inspiration and seemed to see beyond.
+
+What message? She refrained from asking. If he had meant her to
+understand more fully he would have told her plainly. Light would come in
+its own time.
+
+"I promise," was all she said.
+
+They looked at the great tower; the sun had left some of the windows and
+in one they could see the figure of a woman standing there in some light
+dressing-gown.
+
+"That is Harietta Boleski," Verisschenzko remarked, his mood changing,
+and that penetrating and yet inscrutable expression growing in his
+regard. "It is almost too far away to be certain, but I am sure that it
+is she. Am I right? Is that window in her room?"
+
+"Yes--how wonderful of you to be able to recognise her at that distance!"
+
+"Of what is she thinking?--if one can call her planning thoughts! She
+does not gaze at views to appreciate the loveliness of the landscape;
+figures in the scene are all which could hold her attention--and those
+figures are you and me."
+
+"Why should we interest her?"
+
+"There are one or two reasons why we should. I think after all you must
+be very careful of her. I believe if she stays on in England you had
+better not let the acquaintance increase."
+
+"Very well." Amaryllis again did not question him; she felt he knew best.
+
+"She has been most successful here, and at the Bridgeborough ball she
+amused herself with a German officer, and left the other women's men
+alone. He was brought by the party from Broomgrove and was most
+_empress�;_ he got introduced to her at once--just after we came in. I
+expect they will bring him to-night. He and she looked such a magnificent
+pair, dancing a quadrille. It was quite a serious ball to begin with!
+None of those dances of which you disapprove, and all the Yeomanry wore
+their uniforms and the German officer wore his too."
+
+"He was a fine animal, then?"
+
+"Yes--but?"
+
+"You said _a pair_--only an animal could make a pair with Harietta!
+Describe him to me. What was he like? And what uniform did he wear?"
+
+Amaryllis gave a description, of height, and fairness, and of the blue
+and gold coat.
+
+"He would have been really good-looking, only that to our eyes his hips
+are too wide."
+
+"It sounds typically German--there are hundreds such there--some ordinary
+Prussian Infantry regiment, I expect. You say he was introduced to
+Harietta? They were not old friends--no?"
+
+"I heard him ask Mrs. Nordenheimer, his hostess, who she was, in his
+guttural voice, and Mrs. Nordenheimer came up to me and presented him and
+asked me to introduce him to my guest. So I did. The Nordenheimers are
+those very rich German Jews who bought Broomgrove Park some years ago.
+Every one receives them now."
+
+"And how did Harietta welcome this partner?"
+
+"She looked a little bored, but afterwards they danced several times
+together."
+
+"Ah!"--and that was all Verisschenzko said, but his thoughts ran: "An
+infantry officer--not a large enough capture for Harietta to waste time
+on in a public place--when she is here to advance herself. She danced
+with him because _she was obliged to_. I must ascertain who this man is."
+
+Amaryllis saw that he was preoccupied. They walked on now and round
+through the shrubbery on the left, and so at last to the house again.
+Amaryllis could not chance being late.
+
+Verisschenzko recovered from his abstraction presently and talked of
+many things--of the friendship of the soul, and how it can only thrive
+after there has been in some life a physical passionate love and fusion
+of the bodies.
+
+"I want to think that we have reached this stage, Lady mine. My mission
+on this plane now is so fierce a one, and the work which I must do is so
+absorbing, that I must renounce all but transient physical pleasures. But
+I must keep some radiant star as my lodestone for spiritual delights, and
+ever since we met and spoke at the Russian Embassy it seems as though
+step by step links of memory are awakening and comforting me with
+knowledge of satisfied desire in a former birth, so that now our souls
+can rise to rarer things. I can even see another in the earthly relation
+which once was mine, without jealousy. Child, do you feel this too?"
+
+"I do not know quite what I feel," and Amaryllis looked down, "but I will
+try to show you that I am learning to master my emotions, by thinking
+only of sympathy between our spirits."
+
+"It is well--"
+
+Then they reached the house and entered the green drawing-room in the
+Queen Anne Square, by one of the wide open windows, and there Amaryllis
+held out her two slim hands to Verisschenzko.
+
+"Think of me sometimes, even amidst your turmoil," she whispered, "and I
+shall feel your ambience uplifting my spirit and my will."
+
+"Lady of my Soul!" he cried, exalted once more, and he bent as though to
+kiss her hands, but straightened himself and threw them gently from him.
+
+"No! I will resist all temptations! Now you must dress and dine, and
+dance, and do your duty--and later we will say farewell."
+
+Harietta Boleski stamped across her charming chintz chamber in the great
+tower. She was like an angry wolf in the Zoo, she burst with rage.
+Verisschenzko had never walked by lakes with her, nor bent over with that
+air of devotion.
+
+"He loves that hateful bit of bread and butter! But I shall crush her
+yet--and Ferdinand Ardayre will help me!"
+
+Then she rang her bell violently for Marie, while she kicked aside
+Fou-Chow, who had travelled to England as an adjunct to her beauty,
+concealed in a cloak. His minute body quivered with pain and fear, and he
+looked up at her reproachfully with his round Chinese idol's eyes, then
+he hid under a chair, where Marie found him trembling presently and
+carried him surreptitiously to her room.
+
+"My angel," she told him as they went along the passage, "that she-devil
+will kill thee one day, unless happily I can place thee in safety first.
+But if she does, then I will murder for myself! What has caused her fury
+tonight, some one has spoilt her game."
+
+In the oak-panelled smoking room, deserted by all but these two,
+Verisschenzko spoke to Stanislass, hastily, and in his own tongue.
+
+"The news is of vital importance, Stanislass. You must return with me to
+London; of all things you must show energy now and hold your men
+together. I leave in the morning. You hesitate!--impossible!--Harietta
+keeps you! Bah!--then I wash my hands of you and Poland. Weakling! to
+let a woman rule you. Well; if you choose thus, you can go by yourself
+to hell. I have done with you." And he strode from the room, looking
+more Calmuck and savage than ever in his just wrath. And when he had
+gone the second husband of Harietta leant forward and buried his head in
+his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The picture Gallery made a brilliant setting for that gallant company! A
+collection of England's best, dancing their hardest to a stirring band,
+which sang when the tune of some popular R�vue chorus came in.
+
+"The Song of the Swan," Verisschenzko thought as he observed it all in
+the last few minutes before midnight. He must go away soon. A messenger
+had arrived in hot haste from London, motoring beyond the speed limit,
+and as soon as his servant had packed his things he must return and not
+wait for the morning. All relations between Austria and Servia had been
+broken off, the conflagration had begun, and no time must be wasted
+further. He must be in Russia as soon as it was possible to get there. He
+blamed himself for coming down.
+
+"And yet it was as well," he reflected, because he had become awakened in
+regard to possible double dealing in Harietta. But where were his host
+and hostess--he must bid them farewell.
+
+John Ardayre was valsing with Lady Avonwier and Harietta Boleski
+undulated in the arms of the tall German who had come with the party from
+Broomgrove--but Amaryllis for the moment was absent from the room.
+
+"If I could only know who the beast is before I go, and where she has met
+him previously!" Verisschenzko's thoughts ran. "It is more than ever
+necessary that I master her--and there is so little time."
+
+He waited for a few seconds, the dance was almost done, and when the
+last notes of music ceased and the throng of people swept towards him, he
+fixed Harietta with his eye.
+
+Her evening so far had not been agreeable. She had not been able to have
+a word with St�pan, who had been far from her at the banquet before the
+ball. She was torn with jealousy of Amaryllis; and the advent of Hans,
+when she would have wished to have been free to re-grab Verisschenzko,
+was most unfortunate. It had not been altogether pleasant, his turning up
+at Bridgeborough, but at any rate that one evening was quite enough! She
+really could not be wearied with him more!
+
+His new instructions to her from the higher command were most annoyingly
+difficult too--coming at a time when her whole mind was given to
+consolidating her position in England,--it was really too bad!
+
+If only the tiresome bothers of these stupid old quarrelsome countries
+did not upset matters, she just meant to make Stanislass shut up his ugly
+old Polish home, and settle in some splendid country house like this,
+only nearer London. Now that she had seen what life was in England, she
+knew that this was her goal. No bothersome old other language to be
+learned! Besides, no men were so good-looking as the English, or made
+such safe and prudent lovers, because they did not boast. If any
+information she had been able to collect for Hans in the last year had
+helped his Ober-Lords to stir up trouble, she was almost sorry she had
+given it--unless indeed, ructions between those ridiculous southern
+countries made it so that she could remain in England, then it was a good
+thing. And Hans had assured her that England could not be dragged in.
+Then she laughed to herself as she always did if Hans coerced her--when
+she recollected how she had given his secrets away to Verisschenzko and
+that no matter how he seemed to compel her obedience, she was even with
+him underneath!
+
+She looked now at the Russian standing there, so tall and ugly, and
+weirdly distinguished, and a wild passionate desire for him overcame her,
+as primitive as one a savage might have felt. At that moment she almost
+hated her late husband, for she dared not speak to Verisschenzko with
+Hans there. She must wait until Verisschenzko spoke to her. Hans could
+not prevent that, nor accuse her of disobeying his command. So that it
+was with joy that she saw the Russian approach her. She did not know that
+he was leaving suddenly, and she was wondering if some meeting could not
+be arranged for later on, when Hans would be gone.
+
+"Good evening, Madame!" Verisschenzko said suavely. "May I not have the
+pleasure of a turn with you; it is delightful to meet you again."
+
+Harietta slipped her hand out of Hans' arm and stood still, determined to
+secure St�pan at once since the chance had come.
+
+Verisschenzko divined her intention and continued, his voice serious with
+its mock respect:
+
+"I wonder if I could persuade you to come with me and find your husband.
+You know the house and I do not. I have something I want to talk to him
+about if you won't think me a great bore taking you from your partner,"
+and he bowed politely to Hans.
+
+Harietta introduced them casually, and then said archly:
+
+"I am sure you will excuse me, Captain von Pickelheim. And don't forget
+you have the first one-step after supper!" So Hans was dismissed with a
+ravishing smile.
+
+Verisschenzko had watched the German covertly and saw that with all his
+forced stolidity an angry gleam had come into his eyes.
+
+"They have certainly met before--and he knows me--I must somehow make
+time," then, aloud:
+
+"You are looking a dream of beauty to-night, Harietta," he told her as
+they walked across the hall. "Is there not some quiet corner in the
+garden where we can be alone for a few minutes. You drive me mad."
+
+Harietta loved to hear this, and in triumph she raised her head and drew
+him into one of the sitting-rooms, and so out of the open windows on into
+the darkness beyond the limitations of the lawn.
+
+Twenty minutes afterwards Verisschenzko entered the house alone, a grim
+smile of satisfaction upon his rugged countenance. Jealousy, acting on
+animal passion, had been for once as productive of information as a ruby
+ring or brooch--and what a remarkable type Harietta! Could there be
+anything more elemental on the earth! Meanwhile this lady had gained the
+ball-room by another door, delighted with her adventure, and the thought
+that she had tricked Hans!
+
+"Have you seen our hostess, Madame?" the Russian asked, meeting Lady de
+la Paule. "I have been looking for her everywhere. Is not this a
+charming sight?"
+
+They stayed and talked for a few minutes, watching the joyous company of
+dancers, among whom Amaryllis could now be seen. Verisschenzko wished to
+say farewell to her when the one-step should be done. They would all be
+going into supper, and then would be his chance. He could not delay
+longer--he must be gone.
+
+He was paying little attention to what Lady de la Paule was saying--her
+fat voice prattled on:
+
+"I hope these tiresome little quarrels of the Balkan peoples will settle
+themselves. If Austria should go to war with Servia, it may upset my
+Carlsbad cure."
+
+Then he laughed out suddenly, but instantly checked himself.
+
+"That would be too unfortunate, Madame, we must not anticipate such
+preposterous happenings!"
+
+And as he walked forward to meet Amaryllis his face was set:
+
+"Half the civilised world thinks thus of things. The sinister events in
+the Balkans convey no suggestions of danger, and only matter in that
+they could upset a Carlsbad cure! Alas! how sound asleep these splendid
+people are!"
+
+He met Amaryllis and briefly told her that he must go. She left her
+partner and came with him to the foot of the staircase, which led
+to his room.
+
+"Good-bye, and God keep you," she said feelingly, but she noticed that he
+did not even offer to take her hand.
+
+"All blessings, my Star," and his voice was hoarse, then he turned
+abruptly and went on up the stairs. But when he reached the landing above
+he paused, and looked down at her, moving away among the throng.
+
+"Sweet Lady of my Soul," he whispered softly. "After Harietta I could not
+soil--even thy glove!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Events moved rapidly. Of what use to write of those restless, feverish
+days before the 4th of August, 1914? They are too well known to all the
+world. John, as ever, did his duty, and at once put his name down for
+active service, cajoled a medical board which would otherwise probably
+have condemned him and trained with the North Somerset Yeomanry in
+anticipation of being soon sent to France. But before all this happened,
+the night War was declared; he remained in his own sitting-room at
+Ardayre, and Amaryllis wondered, and towards dawn crept out of bed and
+listened in the passage, but no sound came from within the room.
+
+How very unsatisfactory this strange reserve between them was becoming!
+Would she never be able to surmount it? Must they go on to the end of
+their lives, living like two polite friendly acquaintances, neither
+sharing the other's thoughts? She hardly realised that the War could
+personally concern John. The Yeomanry, she imagined, were only for home
+defence, so at this stage no anxiety troubled her about her husband.
+
+The next day he seemed frightfully preoccupied, and then he talked to her
+seriously of their home and its traditions, and how she must love it and
+understand its meaning. He spoke too of his great wish for a child--and
+Amaryllis wondered at the tone almost of anguish in his voice.
+
+"If only we had a son, Amaryllis, I would not care what came to me. A
+true Ardayre to carry on! The thought of Ferdinand here after me drives
+me perfectly mad!"
+
+Amaryllis knew not what to answer. She looked down and clasped her hands.
+
+John came quite close and gazed into her face, as if therein some comfort
+could be found; then he folded her in his arms.
+
+"Oh! Amaryllis!" he said, and that was all.
+
+"What is it? Oh! what does everything mean?" the poor child cried. "Why,
+why can't we have a son like other people of our age?"
+
+John kissed her again.
+
+"It shall be--it must be so," he answered--and framed her face in
+his hands.
+
+"Amaryllis--I know you have often wondered whether I really loved you.
+You have found me a stupid, unsatisfactory sort of husband--indeed, I am
+but a dull companion at the best of times. Well, I want you to know that
+I do--and I am going to try to change, dear little girl. If I knew that I
+held some corner of your heart it would comfort me."
+
+"Of course, you do, John. Alas! if you would only unbend and be loving to
+me, how happy we could be."
+
+He kissed her once more. "I will try."
+
+That afternoon he went up to London to his medical board, and Amaryllis
+was to join him in Brook Street on the following day.
+
+She was stunned like every one else. War seemed a nightmare--an
+unreality--she had not grasped its meaning as yet. She thought of
+Verisschenzko and his words. What was her duty? Surely at a great crisis
+like this she must have some duty to do?
+
+The library in Brook Street was a comfortable room and was always their
+general sitting-room; its windows looked out on the street.
+
+That evening when John Ardayre arrived he paced up and down it for
+half an hour. He was very pale and lines of thought were stamped
+upon his brow.
+
+He had come to a decision; there only remained the details of a course of
+action to be arranged.
+
+He went to the telephone and called up the Cavalry Club. Yes, Captain
+Ardayre was in, and presently Denzil's voice said surprisedly:
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I heard by chance that you were in town. I suppose your regiment will be
+going out at once. It is your cousin, John Ardayre, speaking, we have not
+met since you were a boy. I have something rather vital I want to say to
+you. Could you possibly come round?"
+
+The two voices were so alike in tone it was quite remarkable, each was
+aware of it as he listened to the other.
+
+"Where are you, and what is the time?".
+
+"I am in our house in Brook Street, number 102, and it is nearly seven.
+Could you manage to come now?"
+
+There was a second or two's pause, then Denzil said:
+
+"All right. I will get into a taxi and be with you in about five
+minutes," and he put the receiver down.
+
+John Ardayre grew paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were
+trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang
+the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to bring him
+some brandy.
+
+Murcheson was an old and valued servant, and he looked at his master with
+concern, but he knew him too to make any remark. If there was any one in
+the world beyond the great surgeon, Lemon Bridges, who could understand
+the preoccupations of John Ardayre, Murcheson was the man.
+
+He brought the old Cognac immediately and retired from the room a
+moment or two before Denzil arrived. Very little trace of emotion
+remained upon the face of the head of the family when his cousin was
+shown in, and he came forward cordially to meet him. Standing opposite
+one another, they might have been brothers, not cousins, the
+resemblance was so strong! Denzil was perhaps fairer, but their heads
+were both small and their limbs had the same long lines. But where as
+John Ardayre suggested undemonstrative stolidity, every atom of the
+younger man was vitally alive.
+
+His eyes were bluer, his hair more bronze, and exuberant perfect health
+glowed in his tanned fresh skin.
+
+Both their voices were peculiarly deep, with the pronunciation of the
+words especially refined. John Ardayre said some civil things with
+composure, and Denzil replied in kind, explaining how he had been
+most anxious to meet John and Amaryllis and heal the breach the
+fathers had made.
+
+John offered him a cigar, and finally the atmosphere seemed to be
+unfrozen as they smoked. But in Denzil's mind there was speculation. It
+was not for just this that he had been asked to come round.
+
+John began to speak presently with a note of deep seriousness in his
+voice. He talked of the war and of his Yeomanry's going out, and of
+Denzil's regiment also. It was quite on the cards that they might both be
+killed--then he spoke of Ferdinand, and the old story of the shame, and
+he told Denzil of his boyhood and its great trials, and of his
+determination to redeem the family home and of the great luck which had
+befallen him in the city after the South African War--and how that the
+thought of worthily handing on the inheritance in the direct male line
+had become the dominating desire of his life.
+
+At first his manner had been very restrained, but gradually the intense
+feeling which was vibrating in him made itself known, and Denzil grew
+to realise how profound was his love for Ardayre and how great his
+family pride.
+
+But underneath all this some absolute agony must be wringing his soul.
+
+Denzil became increasingly interested.
+
+At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his
+narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the
+room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.
+
+"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more
+than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will
+confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very
+carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine.
+It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the bastard, Ferdinand, the
+snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the
+coming time."
+
+Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words
+portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice
+sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.
+
+Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life
+letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was
+not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would
+consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had
+been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's
+unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting
+attitude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he
+listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and
+concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to
+him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and
+stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and
+illumination on his strong, good-looking face.
+
+"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything
+quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable--and however
+much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were
+my father's son. You are the next real heir--Ferdinand could not be; my
+father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and
+the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no
+question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear
+him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It
+was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman,
+but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that
+Ferdinand was no Ardayre."
+
+"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a
+Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in
+his body!"
+
+"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should
+take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"
+
+Denzil clenched his hands.
+
+"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously
+before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has
+been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge
+towards me--and now we--you and I--have the right to save the family and
+its honour and circumvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man.
+Oh!--can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of
+Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to--Oh!--my
+God, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me--tell me that you look at it in
+the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which
+Ferdinand would depose--the disgrace would be yours then, since if
+Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."
+
+The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were
+pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful
+new emotion, as they looked at John.
+
+"Very well," he said, and held out his hand. "I appreciate the tremendous
+faith you have placed in me, and on my word of honour as an Ardayre, I
+will not abuse it, nor take advantage of it afterwards. My regiment will
+go out at once, I suppose, the chances are as likely that I shall be
+killed as you--"
+
+They shook hands silently.
+
+"We must lose no time."
+
+Then John poured out two glasses of brandy, and the toast they drank was
+unspoken. But suddenly Denzil remembered as a strange coincidence that he
+was drinking it for the third time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amaryllis arrived from Ardayre the next afternoon, after John's medical
+board had been squared into pronouncing him fit for active service--and
+he met his wife at the station and was particularly solicitous of her
+well-being. He seemed to be unusually glad to see her, and put his arm
+round her in the motor driving to Brook Street. What would she like to
+do? They could not, of course, go to the theatre, but if she would rather
+they could go out to a restaurant to dine--there were going to be all
+kinds of difficulties about food. Amaryllis, who responded immediately to
+the smallest advance on his part, glowed now with fond sweetness. She had
+been so miserable without him; so crushed and upset by the thought of
+war, and his possible participation in it. All the long night, alone at
+Ardayre, she had tried to realise what it all would mean. It was too
+stupendous, she could not grasp it as yet, it was just a blank horror.
+And now to be in the motor and close to him, and everything ordinary and
+as usual seemed to drive the hideous fact further and further away. She
+would not face it for to-night, she would try to be happy and banish the
+remembrance. No one knew what was happening, nor if the Expeditionary
+Force had or had not crossed to France. John asked her again what she
+would like to do.
+
+She did not want to go out at all, she told him; if the kitchenmaid and
+Murcheson could find them something to eat she would much rather dine
+alone with him, like a regular old Darby and Joan pair--and afterwards
+she would play nice things to him, and John agreed.
+
+When she came down ready for dinner, she was radiant; she had put on a
+new and ravishing tea-gown and her grey eyes were shining with a winsome
+challenge, and her beautiful skin was brilliant with health and
+freshness. A man could not have desired a more delectable creature to
+call his own.
+
+John thought so and at dinner expanded and told her so. He was not a
+practised lover; women had played a very small part in his life--always
+too filled with work and the one dominating idea to make room for them.
+He had none of the tender graciousness ready at his command which
+Denzil would very well have known how to show. But he loved Amaryllis,
+and this was the first time he had permitted the expression of his
+emotion to appear.
+
+She became ever more fascinating, and at length unconscious passion grew
+in her glance. John said some rather clumsy but loving things, and when
+they went back to the library he slipped his arm round her, and drew her
+to his side.
+
+"I love to be near you, John," she whispered; "I like your being so tall
+and so distinguished-looking. I like your clothes--they are so well
+made--" and then she wrinkled her pretty nose--"and I adore the smell of
+the stuff you put on your hair! Oh! I don't know--I just want to be in
+your arms!"
+
+John kissed her. "I must give you a bottle of that lotion--it is supposed
+to do wonders for the hair. It was originally made by an old housekeeper
+of my mother's family in the still room, and I have always kept the
+receipt--there are cloves in it and some other aromatic herbs."
+
+"Yes, that is what I smell, like a clove carnation--it is divine. I
+wonder why scents have such an effect upon one--don't you? Perhaps I am a
+very sensuous creature--they can make me feel wicked or good--some
+scents make me deliciously intoxicated--that one of yours does--when I
+get near you--I want you to hold me and kiss me--John."
+
+Every fibre of John Ardayre's being quivered with pain. The cruel,
+ironical bitterness of things.
+
+"I've never smelt this same scent on any one else," she went on, rubbing
+her soft cheek up and down against his shoulder in the most alluring way.
+"I should know it anywhere for it means just my dear--John!"
+
+He turned away on the pretence of getting a cigarette; he knew that his
+eyes had filled with tears.
+
+Then Murcheson came into the room with the coffee, and this made a
+break--and he immediately asked her to play to him, and settled
+himself in one of the big chairs. He was too much on the rack to
+continue any more love-making then; "what might have been" caused too
+poignant anguish.
+
+He watched her delicate profile outlined against the curtain of green
+silk. It was so pure and young--and her long throat was white as milk. If
+this time next year she should have a child--a son--and he, not killed,
+but sitting there perhaps watching her holding it. How would he feel
+then? Would the certainty of having an Ardayre carry on heal the wild
+rebellion in his soul?
+
+"Ah, God!" he prayed, "take away all feeling--reward this sacrifice--let
+the family go on."
+
+"You don't think you will have really to go to the war, do you, John?"
+Amaryllis asked after she left the piano. "It will be all over, won't it,
+before the New Year, and in any case the Yeomanry are only for home
+defence, aren't they?" and she took a low seat and rested her head
+against his arm.
+
+John stroked her hair.
+
+"I am afraid it will not be over for a long time, Amaryllis. Yes, I
+think we shall go out and pretty soon. You would not wish to stop
+me, child?"
+
+Amaryllis looked straight in front of her.
+
+"What is this thing in us, John, which makes us feel that--yes, we
+would give our nearest and dearest, even if they must be killed? When
+the big thing comes even into the lives which have been perhaps all
+frivolous like mine--it seems to make a great light. There is an
+exaltation, and a pity, and a glory, and a grief, but no holding back.
+Is that patriotism, John?"
+
+"That is one name for it, darling."
+
+"But it is really beyond that in this war, because we are not going to
+fight for England, but for right. I think that feeling that we must give
+is some oblation of the soul which has freed itself from the chains of
+the body at last. For so many years we have all been asleep."
+
+"This is a rude awakening."
+
+They were silent for a little while, each busy with unusual thoughts.
+
+There was a sense of nearness between them--of understanding, new and
+dangerously sweet.
+
+Amaryllis felt it deliciously, sensuously, and took joy in that she was
+touching him.
+
+John thrust it away.
+
+"I must get through to-night," he thought, "but I cannot if this hideous
+pain of knowledge of what I must renounce conquers me--I must be strong."
+
+He went on stroking her hair; it made her thrill and she turned and bit
+one of his fingers playfully with a wicked little laugh.
+
+"I wish I knew what I am feeling, John," she whispered, and her eyes were
+aflame, "I wish I knew--"
+
+"I must teach you!" and with sudden fierceness he bent down and
+kissed her lips.
+
+Then he told her to go to bed.
+
+"You must be tired, Amaryllis, after your journey. Go like a good child."
+
+She pouted. She was all vibrating with some totally new and overmastering
+emotion. She wanted to stay and be made love to. She wanted--she knew not
+what, only everything in her was thrilling with passionate warmth.
+
+"Must I? It is only ten."
+
+"I have a frightful lot of business things to write tonight, Amaryllis.
+Go now and sleep, and I will come and wake you about twelve!" He looked
+lover-like. She sighed.
+
+"Ah! if you would only come now!"
+
+He kissed her almost roughly again and led her to the door. And he stood
+watching her with burning eyes as she went up the stairs.
+
+Then he came back and rang the bell.
+
+"I shall be very late, Murcheson--do not sit up, I will turn out the
+lights. Good-night."
+
+"Very good, Sir John."
+
+And the valet left the room.
+
+But John Ardayre did not write any business letters; he sank back into
+his great leather chair--his lips were trembling, and presently sobs
+shook him, and he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.
+
+Just before twelve had struck, he went out into the hall, and turned off
+the light at the main. The whole house would now be in absolute darkness
+but for an electric torch he carried. He listened--there was not a sound.
+
+Then he crept quietly up to his dressing room and returned with a bottle
+of the clove-scented hair lotion.
+
+"What a mercy she spoke of it," his thoughts ran. "How sensitive women
+are--I should never have remembered such a thing."
+
+Yes--now there was a sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Midnight had struck--and Amaryllis, sleeping peacefully, had been
+dreaming of John.
+
+"Oh! dearest," she whispered drowsily, as but half awakened, she felt
+herself being drawn into a pair of strong arms--"Oh!--you know I love
+that scent of cloves--Oh!--I love you, John!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+When Amaryllis awoke in the morning her head rested on John's breast, and
+his arm encircled her. She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him.
+He was still asleep--and his face was infinitely sad. She bent over and
+kissed him with shy tenderness, but he did not move, he only sighed
+heavily as he lay there.
+
+Why should he look so sad, when they were so happy?
+
+She thought of loving things he had said to her at dinner--and then the
+afterwards!--and she thrilled with emotion. Life seemed a glorious thing
+and--But John was sad, of course, because he must go away. The
+recollection of this fact came upon her suddenly like a blast of cold
+air. They must part. War hung there with its hideous shadow, and John
+must be conscious of it even in his dreams, that was why he sighed.
+
+The irony of things--now--when--Oh! how cruel that he must go.
+
+Then John awoke with a shudder, and saw her there leaning over him with a
+new soft love light in her eyes, and he realised that the anguish of his
+calvary had only just begun.
+
+She was perfectly exquisite at breakfast, a fresh and tender graciousness
+radiated in her every glance; she was subtle and captivating, teasing him
+that he had been so silent in the night. "Why wouldn't you talk to me,
+John? But it was all divine, I did not mind." Then she became full of
+winsome ways and caresses, which she had hitherto been too timid to
+express; and every fond word she spoke stabbed John's heart.
+
+Could she not come and stay somewhere near so as to be with him while he
+was in training? It was unbearable to remain alone.
+
+But he told her that this would be impossible and that she must go back
+to Ardayre.
+
+"I will get leave, if there is a chance, dear little girl."
+
+"Oh! John, you must indeed."
+
+After he had gone out to the War Office, she sang as she undid a bundle
+of late roses he had sent her from Soloman's, on his way.
+
+She must herself put them in water; no servant should have this pleasing
+task. Was it the thought of the imminence of separation which had altered
+John into so dear a lover? She went over his words there in the library.
+She relived the joy of his sudden fierce kiss, when he had said that he
+must teach her as to what her emotions meant.
+
+Ah! how good to learn, how all glorious was life and love!
+
+"Sweetheart," the word rang in her ears. He had never called her that
+before! Indeed, John rarely ever used any term of endearment, and never
+got beyond "Dear" or "Darling" before. But now it was an exquisite
+remembrance! Just the murmured word "Sweetheart!" whispered softly again
+and again in the night.
+
+John came back to lunch, but two of the de la Paule family dropped in
+also, and the talk was all of war, and the difficulty of getting money at
+the banks, and how food would go on, and what the whole thing would mean.
+
+But over Amaryllis some spell had fallen--nothing seemed a reality, she
+could not attend to ordinary things, she felt that she but moved and
+spoke as one still in a dream.
+
+The world, and life, and death, and love, were all a blended mystery
+which was but beginning to unravel for her and drew her nearer to John.
+
+The days went on apace.
+
+John in camp thanked God for the strenuous work of his training that it
+kept him so occupied that he had barely time to think of Amaryllis or the
+tragedy of things. When he had left her on the following afternoon, the
+seventh of August, she had returned to Ardayre alone and began the
+knitting and shirt-making and amateurish hospital committees which all
+well-meaning English women vaguely grasped at before the stern
+necessities brought them organised work to do. Amaryllis wrote constantly
+to John--all through August--and many of the letters contained loving
+allusions which made him wince with pain.
+
+Then the awful news came of Mons, then the Marne--and the Aisne--awful
+and glorious, and a hush and mourning fell over the land, and Amaryllis,
+like every one else, lost interest in all personal things for a time.
+
+A young cousin had been killed and many of her season's partners and
+friends, and now she knew that the North Somerset Yeomanry would shortly
+go out and fight as they had volunteered at once. She was very
+miserable. But when September grew, in spite of all this general sorrow,
+a new horizon presented itself, lit up as if by approaching dawn, for a
+hope had gradually developed--a hope which would mean the rejoicing of
+John's heart.
+
+And the day when first this possibility of future fulfilment was
+pronounced a certainty was one of almost exalted beatitude, and when
+Doctor Geddis drove away down the Northern Avenue, Amaryllis seized a
+coat from the folded pile of John's in the hall, and walked out into the
+park hatless, the wind blowing the curly tendrils of her soft brown hair,
+a radiance not of earth in her eyes. The late September sun was sinking
+and gilding the windows of the noble house, and she turned and looked
+back at it when she was far across the lake.
+
+And the whole of her spirit rose in thankfulness to God, while her soul
+sang a glad magnificat.
+
+She, too, might hand on this great and splendid inheritance! She, too,
+would be the mother of Ardayres!
+
+And now to write to John!
+
+That was a fresh pleasure! What would he say? What would he feel? Dear
+John! His letters had been calm and matter of fact, but that was his way.
+She did not mind it now. He loved her, and what did words matter with
+this glorious knowledge in her heart?
+
+To have a baby! Her very own--and John's!
+
+How wonderful! How utterly divine--!
+
+Her little feet hardly touched the moss beneath them, she wanted to
+skip and sing.
+
+Next May! Next May! A Spring flower--a little life to care for when
+war, of course, would have ended and all the world again could be happy
+and young!
+
+And then she returned by the tiny ancient church. She had the key of it,
+a golden one which John had given her on their first coming down. It hung
+on her bracelet with her own private key.
+
+The sun was pouring through the western window, carpeting the altar steps
+in translucent cloth of gold.
+
+Amaryllis stole up the short aisle, and paused when she came between the
+two tall canopied tombs of recumbent sixteenth century knights, which
+made so dignified a screen for the little side aisles--and then she moved
+on and knelt in the shaft of the sunlight there at the carved rails.
+
+And no one ever raised to God a purer or more fervent prayer.
+
+She stayed until the sun sunk below the window, and then she rose and
+went back to the house, and up to her cedar room. And now she must
+write to John!
+
+She began--once--twice--but tore up each sheet. Her news was a supreme
+happiness, but so difficult to transmit!
+
+At last she finished three sides of her own rather large sized
+note-paper, but as she read over what she had written, she was not quite
+content; it did not express all that she desired John to know.
+
+But how could a mere letter convey the wordless gladness in her heart?
+
+She wanted to tell him how she would worship their baby, and how she
+would pray that they should be given a son--and how she would remember
+all his love words spoken that last time they were together, and weave
+the joy of them round the little form, so that it should grow strong and
+beautiful and radiant, and come to earth welcomed and blessed!
+
+Something of all this finally did get written, and she concluded thus:
+
+"John, is it not all wonderful and blissful and mysterious, this coming
+proof of our love? And when I lie awake I say over and over again the
+sweet name you called me, and which I want to sign! I am not just
+Amaryllis any longer, but your very own 'Sweetheart'!"
+
+John received this letter by the afternoon post in camp. He sat down
+alone in his tent and read and re-read each line. Then he stiffened and
+remained icily still.
+
+He could not have analysed his emotions. They were so intermixed with
+thankfulness and pain--and underneath there was a fierce, primitive
+jealousy burning.
+
+"Sweetheart!" he said aloud, as though the word were anathema! "And must
+I call her that 'Sweetheart'! Oh! God, it is too hard!" and he clenched
+his hands.
+
+By the same post came a letter from Denzil, of whose movements he had
+asked to be kept informed, saying that the 110th Hussars were going out
+at once, so that they would probably soon meet in France.
+
+Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to
+freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it
+was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an
+answer to her tender, exalted words.
+
+"My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will
+disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is."
+
+He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign
+to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you,
+Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he said.
+
+And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when
+it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife
+asking her to meet him in Brook Street.
+
+"I must see her--I cannot bear it," he cried to himself.
+
+And late at night he wrote to Denzil--it was just that he should do this.
+
+"My wife is going to have a baby--if only it should be a son, then it
+will not so much matter if both of us are killed, at least the family
+will be saved, and be able to carry oh."
+
+He tried to make the letter cordial. Denzil had behaved with the most
+perfect delicacy throughout, he must admit, and although they had met
+once and exchanged several letters, not the faintest allusion to the
+subject of their talk in the library at Brook Street had ever been
+made by him.
+
+Denzil had indeed acted and written as though such knowledge between
+them did not exist. He--Denzil--in these last seven weeks had been
+extremely occupied, and while his forces were concentrated upon the
+exhilarating preparations for war, it would happen in rare moments
+before sleep claimed him at night that he would let his thoughts conjure
+a waking dream, infinitely, mystically sweet. And every pulse would
+thrill with ecstasy, and then his will would banish it, and he would
+think of other subjects.
+
+He could not face the marvel of his emotions at this period, nor dwell
+upon the romantically exciting aspect of some things.
+
+He was up in London upon equipment business on the very Saturday that
+John got leave, and he was due to dine at the Carlton with Verisschenzko
+who had that day arrived on vital matters bent.
+
+As they came into the hall, a man stopped to talk to the Russian, and
+Denzil's eyes wandered over the unnumerous and depressed looking company
+collected waiting for their parties to arrive. War had even in those
+early Autumn days set its grim seal upon this festive spot. People looked
+rather ashamed of being seen and no one smiled. He nodded to one or two
+friends, and then his glance fell upon a beautiful, slim, brown-haired
+girl, sitting quietly waiting in an armchair by the restaurant steps.
+
+She wore a plain black frock, but in her belt one huge crimson clove
+carnation was unostentatiously tucked.
+
+"What a lovely creature!" his thoughts ran, and Verisschenzko
+turning from his acquaintance that moment, he said to him as they
+started to advance:
+
+"St�pan, if you want to see something typically English and perfectly
+exquisite, look at that girl in the armchair opposite where the band used
+to be. I wonder who she is?"
+
+"What luck!" cried Verisschenzko. "That is your cousin, Amaryllis
+Ardayre--come along!"
+
+And in a second Denzil found himself being introduced to her, and being
+greeted by her with interested cordiality, as befitted their cousinly
+relationship.
+
+But Verisschenzko, whose eyes missed nothing, remarked that under his
+sunburn, Denzil had grown suddenly very pale. Amaryllis was enchanted to
+see her friend, the Russian. John had gone to the telephone, it
+appeared--and yes, they were dining alone--and, of course, she was sure
+John would love to amalgamate parties, it was so nice of Verisschenzko to
+think of it! There was John now.
+
+The blood rushed back to Denzil's heart, and the colour to his face--he
+had only murmured a few conventional words. Mercifully John would decide
+the matter--it was not his doing that he and Amaryllis had met.
+
+John caught sight of the three as he came along the balcony from the
+telephone, so that he had time to take in the situation; he saw that the
+meeting was quite _impr�vu_, and he had, of course, no choice but to
+accept Verisschenzko's suggestion with a show of grace. At that very
+moment, before they could enter the restaurant, and re-arrange their
+tables, Harietta Boleski and her husband swept upon them--they were
+staying in the hotel. Harietta was enraptured.
+
+What a delightful surprise meeting them! Were they all just together,
+would they not dine with her?
+
+She purred to John, while her eyes took in with satisfaction Denzil's
+extraordinary good looks--and there was St�pan, too! Nothing could be
+more agreeable than to scintillate for them both.
+
+John hailed their advent with relief: it would relax the intolerable
+strain which both he and Denzil would be bound to have to experience. So
+looking at the rest of the party, he indicated that he thought they would
+accept. It suited Verisschenzko also for his own reasons. And any
+suggestion to enlarge the intimate number of four would have been
+received by Denzil with graciousness.
+
+He had not imagined that he would feel such profound emotion on seeing
+Amaryllis, the intensity of it caused him displeasure. It was altogether
+such a remarkable situation. He knew that it would have been of thrilling
+interest to him had it not been for the presence of John. His knowledge
+of what John must be suffering, and the knowledge that John was aware of
+what he also must be feeling, turned the whole circumstance into
+discomfort.
+
+As soon as he recalled himself to Madame Boleski they all went into the
+restaurant to the Boleski table, just inside the door, by the window on
+the right. Harietta put John on one side of her and Denzil at the other,
+and beyond were Verisschenzko and her husband, with Amaryllis between,
+who thus sat nearly opposite Denzil, with her back to the room.
+
+Harietta, when she desired to be, was always an inspiriting hostess,
+making things go. She intended to do her best to-night. The turn affairs
+had taken, England being at war, was quite too tiresome. It had spoilt
+all her country house visits and nullified much of the pleasure and
+profit she was intending to reap from her now secured position in this
+promised land.
+
+Stanislass, too, had been difficult, he had threatened to go back to
+Poland immediately, which he explained was his obvious duty to do--but
+she had fortunately been able to crush that idea completely with tears
+and scenes. Then he suggested Paris, but information from Hans gave her
+occasion to think this might not be a comfortable or indeed quite a safe
+spot, and in all cases if the Frenchmen were fighting for dear life they
+would not have leisure to entertain her, therefore, dull and gloomy as
+England had become, she preferred to remain.
+
+Hans, too, had given her orders. For the present London must be her home,
+and the lease of the Mount Lennard house in Grosvenor Square having
+expired, they had moved to the Carlton Hotel.
+
+The misery of war, the holocaust of all that was noblest, left her
+absolutely cold. It was certainly a pity that those darling young
+guardsmen she had danced with should have had to be killed, but there was
+never any use in crying over spilt milk--better look out for new ones
+coming on. She was quite indifferent as to which country won. It was
+still a great bother collecting information for her former husband, but
+he threatened terrible reprisals if she refused to go on, and as in her
+secret heart she thought that there was no doubt as to who would be
+victor, she felt it might be wiser to remain on good terms with the power
+she believed would win!
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre had been very helpful all the summer--he had moved from
+the Constantinople branch of his business to one in Holland and had just
+returned to England now; he was, in fact, coming to see her later on when
+she should have packed Stanislass safely off to the St. James' Club.
+
+Harietta had no imagination to be inflamed by terrible descriptions of
+things. She saw no actual horrors, therefore war to her was only a
+nuisance--nothing ghastly or to be feared. But it was a disgusting
+nuisance and caused her fatigue. She had continually to remember to
+simulate proper sympathy, and concern and to subdue her vivacity, and
+show enthusiasm for any agreeable war work which could divert her dull
+days. If she had not been more than doubtful of her reception in America,
+even as a Polish magnate's wife, she would have gone over there to escape
+as far as possible from the whole situation, and she had been bored to
+death now for several days. People were too occupied and too grieved to
+go out of their way now to make much of her, and she had been left alone
+to brood. Thus the advent of Verisschenzko, who thrilled her always, and
+a possible new admirer in Denzil, seemed a heaven-sent occurrence.
+Amaryllis and John were undesired but unavoidable appendages who had to
+be swallowed.
+
+Denzil's type particularly attracted her. There was an insouciance about
+him, a _d�bonnair sans g�ne_ which increased the charm of his good looks;
+he had everything of attraction about him which John Ardayre lacked.
+
+Amaryllis, against her will, before the end of the dinner, was conscious
+of the fact also, though Denzil studiously avoided any conversation with
+her beyond what the exigencies of politeness required. He devoted himself
+entirely to Harietta, to her delight, and Verisschenzko and Amaryllis
+talked while John was left to Stanislass. But the very fact of Denzil's
+likeness to John made Amaryllis look at him, and she resented his
+attraction and the interest he aroused in her.
+
+His voice was perhaps even deeper than John's, and how extraordinarily
+well his bronze hair was planted on his forehead; and how perfectly
+groomed and brushed and soldierly he looked!
+
+He seemingly had taken the measure of Madame Boleski, too, and was
+apparently enjoying with a cultivated subtlety the drawing of her out. He
+was no novice it seemed, and there was a whimsical light in his eyes and
+once or twice they had inadvertently met hers with understanding when
+Verisschenzko had made some especially cryptic remark. She knew that she
+would very much have liked to talk to him.
+
+Verisschenzko was observing Amaryllis carefully. There was a new
+expression in her eyes which puzzled him. Her features seemed to be drawn
+with finer lines and pale violet shadows lay beneath her grey eyes. Was
+it the gloom of the war which oppressed her? It could not be altogether
+that, because her regard was serene and even happy.
+
+"Did I not know that nothing could be more unlikely, I should say she was
+going to have a child. What is the mystery?" He found himself very much
+interested. Especially he was anxious to watch what impression Denzil
+made upon her. He saw, as the dinner went on, that Amaryllis was aware
+that he was an attractive creature.
+
+"There is the beginning of a chapter of necessary and
+expedient--romance--here," he decided. "If only Denzil is not killed."
+But what did his growing so pale on learning that she was his cousin
+mean...? that was not a natural circumstance--some deep undercurrents
+were stirred. And in what way was all this going to affect the lady
+of his soul?
+
+They could not have any intimate conversation at dinner; they spoke of
+ordinary things and the war and the horror of it. Russia was moving
+forward, but Verisschenzko did not appear to be very optimistic in spite
+of this. There were things in his country, he told Amaryllis, which might
+handicap the fighting.
+
+Stanislass Boleski looked extremely depressed. He had a hang-dog,
+strained mien and Verisschenzko's contemptuously friendly attitude
+towards him wounded him deeply. Once he had shone as a leader and chief
+in St�pan's life, and now after the stormy scene in the smoking-room at
+Ardayre, that he could greet him casually and not turn from him in anger,
+showed, alas! to where he had sunk in Verisschenzko's estimation--a thing
+of nought--not even worth his disapproval. The dinner to him was a
+painful trial.
+
+John also was far from content. He had been longing to see Amaryllis, and
+yet the sight of her and her fond and insinuating words and caresses had
+caused him exquisite suffering. His emotions were so varied and complex.
+His prayer had been answered, but apart from his natural loathing for all
+subterfuge, every new tenderness towards himself which Amaryllis
+displayed aroused some indefinable jealousy. She had been so glad to see
+him and he had been conscious himself that he had been even unusually
+stolid and self-contained towards her. He knew that she grew disappointed
+and that probably the exalted sentiment which her letter had indicated
+that she was feeling had been chilled before she could put it into words.
+
+All this distressed him, and yet he could not break through the reserve
+of his nature.
+
+And now to crown unfortunate things, there was Denzil brought by fate and
+no one's manoeuvring into Amaryllis' company! Of all things he had hoped
+that they need not meet before he and his cousin should go to the Front.
+And it was all brought about by his own action in insisting that they had
+better dine at a restaurant, as the kitchenmaid, who always remained at
+Brook Street, had gone to see a wounded brother.
+
+Amaryllis had sighed a little as she had consented, with the faint
+protest that they could have eaten something cold.
+
+But on their drive to the Carlton she had become fondly affectionate
+again, nestling close to him, and then she had pulled out the carnation
+from her belt and held it for him to smell.
+
+"I picked it in the greenhouse this morning, the last of them; I have had
+them all around me while there were any, because they remind me of you,
+dearest--and of everything divine."
+
+John felt that he should always now hate that clove stuff for the hair
+and could no longer bear to use it.
+
+He was perfectly aware that Denzil on his hostess' other hand was
+looking everything that a woman could desire, and that his easy
+casualness of manner would be likely to charm. He saw that Amaryllis,
+too, observed him with unconscious interest, and a feeling akin to
+despair filled his heart.
+
+Life for him had always been difficult, and he was accustomed to blows,
+but this one was particularly hard to bear, because he really loved
+Amaryllis and desired happiness with her which he knew could never really
+be attained.
+
+Only Harietta of the whole party was quite content. She intended to annex
+St�pan when they should be drinking coffee in the hall. She looked upon
+Denzil's conquest now as almost an accomplished fact, and so felt that
+she might let him talk to Amaryllis, since the Russian was her real
+object. His ugly rugged face and odd Calmuck eyes always attracted her.
+
+"Why aren't you staying in the hotel, darling Brute?'" she whispered to
+him as they left the restaurant. "If you had been--"
+
+"I am," said Verisschenzko, and leaving her for a moment he went and
+telephoned to his not unintelligent Russian servant at the Ritz to
+arrange about the transference of his rooms.
+
+"She requires the most careful watching--I must waste no time."
+
+And then he returned to the party in the hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre took up his letters which had been forwarded to him from
+the d�p�t where he was stationed. He and Verisschenzko were passing
+through the hall of his mother's house, for a talk and a smoke in his
+sitting-room, after leaving the Carlton.
+
+The house was in St. James' Place, a small, old building, the ground
+floor of which was given over to Denzil whenever he was in London. His
+mother was absent at Bath, where she spent a long autumn cure.
+
+John's letter lay on the top, and Verisschenzko caught the look of
+interest which came into Denzil's face.
+
+"Don't mind me, my dear chap," he remarked, "read your letters." And they
+went on into the sitting-room.
+
+"I want just to look at this one--it is from John Ardayre whom we met
+to-night," and Denzil opened it casually--"I wonder what he is writing to
+me about, he did not say anything at dinner."
+
+He read the short communication and exclaimed: "Good God!" and then
+checked himself. He was obviously stirred, and Verisschenzko watched him
+narrowly. Anything to do with John must concern Amaryllis, and therefore
+was of profound interest to himself.
+
+"No bad news, I hope?" he said.
+
+Denzil was gazing into the fire, and there was a look of wonderment and
+even rapture upon his face.
+
+"Oh! No--rather splendid--" He felt quite the strangest emotion he had
+ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy
+flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to
+link certain things in his mind.
+
+"Tell me, what did you think of your cousin, Lady Ardayre?" he asked
+casually, as though the subject was irrelevant.
+
+"Amaryllis?" and Denzil almost started from a reverie. "Oh, yes, of
+course, she is a lovely creature, is not she, St�pan?"
+
+Verisschenzko narrowed his eyes.
+
+"I have told you that I adore her--but with the spirit--if it were
+not so, she would appeal very strongly to the flesh--Yes?--Did you
+not feel it?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"She is longing to understand life, she is groping; why do you not set
+about her education, Denzil?"
+
+"That is the husband's business."
+
+"Not in this case. I consider it is yours; you are the right mate
+for her. John Ardayre is a good fellow, but he stands for nothing in
+the affair. Why did you waste your time upon Harietta, when time is
+so short?"
+
+"I was given no choice."
+
+"But afterwards, in the hall?"
+
+It was quite evident to Verisschenzko that the mention of Amaryllis was
+causing his friend some unexplainable emotion.
+
+"You did not even exert yourself, then. Why, Denzil?"
+
+Denzil lit a cigarette.
+
+"I thought her awfully attractive--it is the first time I have ever seen
+her--as you know."
+
+"And that was a reason for remaining silent and as stiff as a poker in
+manner! You English are a strange race!"
+
+Denzil smiled--if St�pan only knew everything, what would he say!
+
+"You were made for each other. If I were you, I would not lose a
+second's time!"
+
+"My dear old boy, you seem quite to forget that the girl has a husband
+of her own!"
+
+"Not at all, it is for that reason--just because of that husband. I shall
+say no more, you are quite intelligent enough to understand."
+
+"You think it is all right then for a woman to have a lover?" Denzil
+smiled as he curled rings of smoke. "It is curious how the most
+honourable among us has not much conscience concerning such things."
+
+Verisschenzko knocked off his cigarette ash and spoke contemplatively:
+
+"The world would be an insupportable place for women, if he had! But
+whatever the moral aspect of the matter is in general, circumstances
+arise which alter the point, and that is where the absurd ticketing
+system hampers suitable action. A thing is ticketed 'dishonourable.'
+Pah! it is sometimes, and it is not at others--there is no hard and
+fast rule."
+
+Denzil stretched himself--he was always interested in Verisschenzko's
+reasonings and prepared to listen with enjoyment:
+
+"The general idea is that a man should not make love to another man's
+wife. Man professes this as a creed, and the law enforces it and punishes
+him if he is found out doing so. And if he acted up to this creed as he
+does about stealing goods and behaving like a gentleman over business
+matters, all might be well, but unfortunately that seldom occurs, because
+there is that strong; instinct which is the base of all things working in
+him, and which does not work in regard to any other point of
+honour--i.e., the unconscious desire to re-create his, species, so that
+this one particular branch of moral responsibility cannot be measured,
+judged, or criticised from the same standpoint as any other. No laws can.
+alter human nature, or really control a man's actions when a natural
+force is prompting him unless stern self-analysis discovers the truth to
+the man, and so permits his spirit to regain dominion. The best chance
+would be to resist the first feeling of attraction which a woman
+belonging to another man aroused before it had actually obtained a hold
+upon his senses--but the percentage of men who do this must be very
+small. Some resist--or try to resist the actual possession of the woman
+from moral motives, but many more from motives of expediency and fear of
+consequences. Then to salve conscience the mass of men ride a high moral
+stalking horse, and write and speak condemnation of every back-sliding,
+while their own behaviour coincides with the behaviour they are
+criticising. The hypocrisy of the thing sickens me; no one ever looks any
+question straight in the face, denuded of its man-made sophistries. And
+few realise that a woman is a creature to be fought for--it is
+prehistoric instinct, and if she can't be obtained in fair fight then you
+secure her by strategy. And if a man cannot keep her once he has secured
+her, it is up to him. If I had a wife, I should take good care that she
+_desired_ no other man--but if I bored her, or was a cold and bad lover,
+I should not expect the other men not to try and take her from
+me--because I should know this was a natural instinct with them--like
+taking food. It would probably be no temptation to most of us to steal
+gold lying about in a room, even if we were poor, but a hideous
+temptation to refrain from eating a tempting dish if we were starving
+with hunger and it was before us--and if a woman did succumb to some new
+passion I should blame myself, not her."
+
+Denzil agreed.
+
+"Jealousy is a natural instinct, though," he said, "and although there
+would be not much profit in trying to hold a woman who no longer cared,
+one could not help being mad about it."
+
+"Of course not--that is the sense of personal possession which is
+affronted. Vanity is deeply wounded, and so the power to analyse cause
+and result sleeps. But this attitude which men take up of neglecting a
+woman and then expecting her to be faithful still is quite ridiculous,
+and without logic; they are as usual fogged by convention and can't see
+straight."
+
+Verisschenzko's rough voice was keen--compelling.
+
+Denzil smiled.
+
+"Another of your windmills to fight!"
+
+"I am always fighting convention and shams. Get down to the meaning of a
+thing, and if its true significance coincides with the convention which
+surrounds it, then let that hold, but if convention is a super-imposed
+growth, then amputate it and study the thing without it."
+
+"I suppose a man marries a woman nine times out of ten because he cannot
+obtain her in any other way; then when he has become indifferent by
+possession, he still thinks that she should remain devoted to him. You
+are right, St�pan, it is very illogical."
+
+"Club the creature, or keep her in a cage if you want fidelity through
+fear, but don't expect it if you allow her to remain at large and
+neglected, and don't be such an ass as to imagine that your friends won't
+act just as you yourself would act were she some one's else wife. If a
+woman has that quality in her which arouses sex, married or single, I
+never have observed that men refrained from making love to her."
+
+"All this means that you consider I am quite at liberty to make love to
+Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Quite."
+
+Denzil threw his cigarette end into the fire:
+
+"Well, for once you are wrong, St�pan, in your usually perfect
+deductions," he got up from his chair. "There is a reason in this
+case which makes the thing an absolute impossibility; under no
+possible circumstance while John is alive could I make the smallest
+advance towards Amaryllis! There is another point of honour involved
+in the affair."
+
+Verisschenzko felt that here was some mystery which he had yet to
+elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then
+became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis
+that evening for the first time!
+
+"If this is so, then it is a very great pity," he announced, after a
+moment or two's thought. "Were the times normal, we might leave all to
+Fate and trust to luck, but if you are killed and John is killed, it
+will be a thousand pities for Ferdinand to be the head of the family.
+A creature like that will not enlist, he will be safe while you risk
+your lives."
+
+Denzil went over to the window, apparently to get out a fresh box of
+cigars which were in a cabinet near.
+
+"John writes to-night that there is the chance of an heir after all--so
+perhaps we need not worry," he said, his voice a little hoarse with
+feeling. "I was so awfully glad to hear this--we all loathe the thought
+of Ferdinand."
+
+Verisschenzko actually was startled, and also he was strangely moved.
+
+"When I saw my lady Amaryllis to-night that idea came to me, only as I
+believed it was quite an impossibility--I dismissed it--It is a war
+miracle then?" and he smiled enquiringly.
+
+"Apparently."
+
+The cigar box was selected and Denzil had once more resumed his seat in a
+big chair before either of them spoke again.
+
+"I perfectly understand that there is some mystery here, Denzil--and that
+you cannot tell me--and equally I cannot ask you any questions, but it
+may be that in the days that are coming I could be of assistance to you.
+I have some very curious information which I am holding concerning
+Ferdinand Ardayre in his activities. You can always count on me--"
+Verisschenzko rose from his chair, stirred deeply with the thoughts which
+were coursing through his brain.
+
+"Denzil--I love that woman--I am absolutely determined that I shall not
+do so in any way but in spirit--I long for her to be happy--protected.
+She has an exquisite soul--I would have given her to you with
+contentment. You are her counterpart upon this plane--"
+
+Denzil remained silent, he had never seen St�pan so agitated. The
+situation was altogether very unusual. Then he asked:
+
+"Do you think Ferdinand will make some protest then?"
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"But there is absolutely nothing to be said, the fact of there being a
+child refutes all the old rumours."
+
+"In law--"
+
+"In every way," a flush had mounted to Denzil's forehead.
+
+"You know Lemon Bridges?" Verisschenzko suggested.
+
+"Yes--why do you ask?"
+
+"He is a remarkably clever surgeon. It is said that he is also a
+gentleman; if this news surprises him he will not express his feelings
+probably."
+
+St�pan was observing his friend with the minutest scrutiny now, while he
+spoke lazily once more as though upon a casual topic bent, and he saw
+that a lightning flash of anxiety passed through Denzil's eyes.
+
+"I do not see how any one can have a word to say about the matter," and
+he lit his cigar deliberately. "John is awfully pleased--"
+
+"And so am I--and so are you, and so will be the lady Amaryllis. Thus we
+can only wish for general happiness, and not anticipate difficulties
+which may never occur. When is the event to happen?"
+
+"The beginning of next May," Denzil announced, without hesitation, and
+then the flush deepened, for he suddenly remembered that John had not
+mentioned any date in his letter!
+
+The subject was growing embarrassing, and he asked, so as to change it:
+
+"What is your friend, Madame Boleski, doing now, St�pan?"
+
+"She is receiving news from Germany which I shall endeavour to have her
+transmit to me, and I have some suspicion that she is transmitting any
+information which she can pick up here to Germany, but I cannot yet be
+sure. When I am, then I shall have no mercy. She would betray any country
+for an hour's personal pleasure or gain. I have not yet discovered who
+the man was at the Ardayre ball--I told you about it, did I not? Just
+then more important matters pressed and I could not follow up the clue."
+
+"She is certainly physically attractive, and all the things she says are
+so obvious and easy, she is quite a rest at a dinner, but Lord! think of
+spending one's life with a woman like that!" and Denzil smiled.
+
+"There are very few women whom it would be possible to contemplate in
+calmness spending one's life with, because one's own needs change, and
+the woman's also. The tie is a galling bond unless it can be looked at
+with common sense by both--but I think men are quite as illogical as
+women over it, and of such an incredible vanity! It is because we have
+mixed so much sentiment into such a simple nature-act that all the
+bothers arise, and men are unjust over every thing to do with women.
+All men think, for instance, that a woman must not deceive her lover
+and, at the same time that she is appearing to be his faithful
+mistress, take another for her pleasure and diversion in secret. A man
+would look upon this and rightly as a dishonourable betrayal because it
+would wound his vanity and lower his personal prestige. But the
+illogical part is that he would not hesitate to do the same thing
+himself, and would never see the matter in the light of a betrayal,
+because the Creator has happily equipped him with a rhinoceros hide
+which enables him never to feel stings of self-contempt when viewing
+his own actions towards the other sex."
+
+Denzil laughed aloud.
+
+"You are hard on us, St�pan, but I dare say you are right."
+
+"It is just custom and convention which make us think ourselves such
+gods. Had woman had the same chance always, who knows what she might not
+have become by now! Everything is ticketed, it is called by a name and
+put down under such and such a heading--women are 'weak' and 'illogical'
+and 'unreliable' and men are 'brave' and 'sound' and 'to be
+trusted'--tosh! in quantities of cases--and if so, why so? Women are
+wonderful beings in many ways--of a courage! The way they bear things so
+gladly for men--think of their suffering when they have children. You
+don't know about it probably, men take all this as a matter of
+course--but I saw my sister die--after hours of it--"
+
+Denzil moved his arm rather suddenly and upset the glass of lemon squash
+on a little table near.
+
+Verisschenzko observed this, but went on without a break:
+
+"It is agony for them under the best conditions, and sometimes they
+become divine over it. Amaryllis will be divine--I hope John will take
+care of her--"
+
+A look of concern came into Denzil's face, and Verisschenzko watched him.
+Could any one be more attractive as a splendid mate for Amaryllis, he
+thought. He crushed down all feeling of human jealousy. His intuition
+would probably reveal all the mystery to him presently, and meanwhile if
+he could forward any scheme which would be for the good of Amaryllis and
+the security of the family, he would do so.
+
+"I must leave you now, old man," he said, looking at his watch. "I have a
+rendezvous with Harietta. I shall have to play the part of an ardent
+lover and cannot yet wring her neck."
+
+When Denzil was alone, he stood gazing into the fire.
+
+"That John should take care of her?"--but John was going out to
+fight--and so was he--and they might both be killed--What then?
+
+"St�pan knows, I am certain," he thought, "and he is true as steel; he
+must stand by her if we don't come back."
+
+And then his thoughts flew to the vision of her sitting opposite him at
+the table, with her sweet eyes turned to his now and then, the faint
+violet shadows beneath them and the transparent exquisiteness of her skin
+telling their own story by the added, fragile beauty. Oh! what
+unutterable joy to hold her in his arms and whisper passionate love words
+in her little ears, to live again the dream of her dainty head lying
+prone there on his breast. Every pulse in his being throbbed to bursting,
+seeming almost to suffocate him.
+
+"Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he whispered aloud, and then started at his
+own voice.
+
+He paced up and down the room, clenching his hands. The family might go
+on, but the two members of it must endure the pain of renunciation.
+
+Which was the harder to bear, he wondered--his part of hopeless memory
+and regret, or John's of forced denial and abstinence?
+
+In all the world, no situation could be more strange or more cruel.
+
+He had felt deeply about it before he had seen Amaryllis. He thought of
+the myth of Eros and Psyche. His emotions had been much as Psyche's
+before she lit the lamp. And now the lamp had been lighted--his eyes had
+seen what his arms had clasped, the reality was more lovely than his
+dream, and passion was kindled a hundredfold. It swept him off his feet.
+
+He forgot war and the horror of the time, he forgot everything except
+that he longed for Amaryllis.
+
+"She is mine, absolutely mine," he said wildly. "Not John's."
+
+And then he remembered his promise, given before any personal equation
+had entered into the affair.
+
+Never to take advantage of the situation--afterwards!
+
+And what would the child be like? A true Ardayre, of course--they would
+say that it had harked back, perhaps, to that Elizabethan Denzil whom
+his father had told him was his exact portrait in the picture gallery
+at Ardayre.
+
+He could have laughed at the sardonic humour of everything if he had not
+been too overcome with passionate desire to retain any critical sense.
+
+Then he sat down and forced himself to realise what it meant--parenthood.
+Not much to a man, as a rule. He had looked upon those occult stirrings
+of the spirit of which he had read as romantic nonsense. It was a natural
+thing and all right if a man had a place for him to wish to have a
+son--but otherwise, sentimentality over such things was such rot!
+
+And yet now he found himself thrilling with sentiment. He would like to
+talk to Amaryllis all about it, and listen to her thoughts, too. And then
+he remembered the many discussions with Verisschenzko upon the theory of
+re-birth and of the soul's return again and again until its lessons are
+learned on this plane of existence, and he wondered what soul would
+animate the physical form of this little being who would be his and hers.
+
+And suddenly in his mental vision the walls of the room seemed to fade,
+and he was only conscious of a vastness of space, and knew that for this
+brief moment he was looking into eternity and realising for the first
+time the wonder of things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Verisschenzko had returned to the Carlton and was softly
+walking down the passage towards the Boleskis' rooms. The ante-room door
+was at the corner, and as he was about ten yards from it a man came out
+and strode rapidly towards the lift down the corridor at right angles,
+but the bright light fell upon his face for an instant, and Verisschenzko
+saw that it was Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He waited where he was until he heard the lift doors shut, and even then
+he paced up and down for a time before he entered the sitting-room. There
+must be no suspicion that he had encountered the late visitor.
+
+"Darling Brute, here you are!" Harietta cried delightedly, rising from
+her sofa and throwing herself into his arms. "I've packed Stanislass off
+to the St. James' to play piquet. I have been all alone waiting for you
+for the last hour--I began to fear you would not come."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her, with his cynical, humorous smile, whose
+meaning never reached her. He took in the transparent garments which
+hardly covered her, and then he bent and picked up a man's handkerchief
+which lay on a table near.
+
+"_Tiens_! Harietta!" he remarked lazily. "Since when has Stanislass taken
+to using this very Eastern perfume?" and he sniffed with disgust.
+
+The wide look of startled innocence grew in Madame Boleski's hazel eyes.
+
+"I believe Stanislass must have got a mistress, St�pan. I have
+noticed lately these scents on his things--as you know, he never used
+any before!"
+
+"The handkerchief is marked with 'F.A.' I suppose the _blanchisseuse_
+mixes them in hotels. Let us burn the memento of a husband's straying
+fancies then; the taste in perfumes of his inamorata is anything but
+refined," and Verisschenzko tossed the bit of cambric into the fire which
+sparkled in the grate.
+
+"I've lots of news to tell you, Darling Brute--but I shan't--yet! Have
+you come to England to see that bit of bread and butter--or--?"
+
+But Verisschenzko, with a fierce savagery which she adored, crushed her
+in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+On the Tuesday morning after the Carlton dinner, fate fell upon Denzil
+and Amaryllis in the way the jade does at times, swooping down upon
+them suddenly and then like a whirlwind altering the very current of
+their destiny. It came about quite naturally, too, and not by one of
+those wildly improbable situations which often prove truth to be
+stranger than fiction.
+
+Amaryllis was settled in an empty compartment of the Weymouth express at
+Paddington. She had said good-bye to John the evening before, and he had
+returned to camp. She was going back to Ardayre, and feeling very
+miserable. Everything had been a disillusion. John's reserve seemed to
+have augmented, and she had been unable to break it down, and all the
+new emotions which she was trembling with and longing to express, had
+grown chilled.
+
+Presumably John must be pleased at the possibility of having a son since
+it was his heart's desire; but it almost seemed as though the subject
+embarrassed him! And all the beautiful things which she had meant to say
+to him about it remained unspoken.
+
+He was stolidly matter-of-fact.
+
+What could it all mean?
+
+At last she had become deeply hurt and had cried with a tremour in her
+voice the morning before he left her:
+
+"Oh! John, how different you have become; it can't be the same you who
+once called me 'Sweetheart' and held me so closely in your arms! Have I
+done anything to displease you, dearest? Aren't you glad that I am going
+to have a baby?"
+
+He had kissed her and assured her gravely that he was glad--overjoyed.
+And his eyes had been full of pain, and he had added that he was stupid
+and dull, but that she must not mind--it was only his way.
+
+"Alas!" she had answered and nothing more.
+
+She dwelt upon these things as she sat in the train gazing out of the
+window on the blank side.
+
+Yes. Joy was turning into dead sea fruit. How moving her thoughts had
+been when coming up to meet him!
+
+The marvel of love creating life had exalted her and she had longed to
+pour her tender visionings into the ears of--her lover! For John had been
+thus enshrined in her fond imagination!
+
+The whole idea of having a child to her was a sacred wonder with little
+of earth in it, and she had woven exquisite sentiment round it and had
+dreamed fair dreams of how she would whisper her thoughts to John as she
+lay clasped to his heart; and John, too, would be thrilled with
+exaltation, for was not the glorious mystery his as well--not hers alone?
+
+Now everything looked grey.
+
+Tears rose in her eyes. Then she took herself to task; it was perhaps
+only her foolish romance leading her astray once more. The thought
+might mean nothing to a man beyond the pride of having a son to carry
+on his name. If the baby should be a little girl John might not care
+for it at all!
+
+The tears brimmed over and fell upon a big crimson carnation in her coat,
+a bunch of which John had ordered to be sent her, and which were now
+safely reposing in a card-board box in the rack above her head.
+
+Fortunately she had the carriage to herself. No one had attempted to get
+in, and they would soon be off. To be away from London would be a relief.
+
+Then her thoughts flew to Verisschenzko; he had told her that
+circumstances in his country might require his frequent presence in
+England for the next few months.
+
+She would see him again. What would he tell her to do now? Conquer
+emotion and look at things with common sense.
+
+The picture of the dinner at the Carlton then came back to her, and the
+face of Denzil across the table, so like, and yet so unlike John!
+
+If Denzil had a wife would he be cold to her? Was it in the nature of
+all Ardayres?
+
+At the very instant the train began to move the carriage was invaded by a
+man in khaki who bounded in and almost fell by her knees, and with a
+cheery 'Just done it, Sir!' the guard flung in a dressing-bag and slammed
+the door, and she realised with conscious interest that the intruder was
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"How do you do? By Jove. I am awfully sorry," and he held out his hand.
+"I nearly lost the train and I am afraid I have bundled in without asking
+leave. I am going down to Bath to say good-bye to my mother. I say, do
+forgive me if I startled you," and he looked full of concern.
+
+Amaryllis laughed; she was nervous and overstrung.
+
+"Your entrance was certainly sudden and in this non-stop to Westbury we
+shall have to put up with each other till then--shall you mind?"
+
+"Awfully--Must I say that the truth would be that I am enchanted!"
+
+Fortune had flung him these two hours. He had not planned them, his
+conscience was clear, and he could not help delight rushing through him.
+Two hours with her--alone!
+
+There are some blue eyes which seem to have a spark of the devil lurking
+in them always, even when they are serious. Denzil's were such eyes.
+Women found it difficult to resist his charm, and indeed had never tried
+very hard. Life and its living, knowledge to acquire, work to do, beasts
+to hunt, had not left him too much time to be spoiled by them
+fortunately, and he had passed through several adventures safely and had
+never felt anything but the most transient emotion, until now looking at
+Amaryllis sitting opposite him he knew that he was in love with this
+dream which had materialised.
+
+Amaryllis studied him while they talked of ordinary things and the war
+news and when he would go out. She felt some strong attraction drawing
+her to him. Her sense of depression left her. She found herself noticing
+how the sun which had broken through a cloud turned his immaculately
+brushed hair into bronze. She did a little modelling to amuse herself,
+and so appreciated balance and line.
+
+Everything in Denzil was in the right place, she decided, and above all
+he looked so peculiarly alive. He seemed, indeed, to be the reality of
+what her imagination had built up round the personality of John in the
+weeks of their separation. Denzil believed that he was talking quite
+casually, but his glance was ardent, and atmosphere becomes charged when
+emotions are strong no matter how insignificant words may be. Amaryllis
+_felt_ that he was deeply interested in her.
+
+"You know my friend Verisschenzko well, it seems," she said presently.
+"Is not he a fascinating creature? I always feel stimulated when I am
+with him, and as if I must accomplish great things."
+
+"St�pan is a wonder--we were at Oxford together--he can do anything he
+desires. He is a musician and an artist and is chock full of common
+sense, and there's not a touch of rot. He would have taken honours if he
+had not been sent down."
+
+Amaryllis wanted to know about this, and listened amazedly to the story
+of the mad freak which had so scandalised the Dons.
+
+She had recovered from her nervousness, she was natural and delightful,
+and although the peculiar situation was filling Denzil with excitement
+and emotion, he was too much a man of the world to experience any _g�ne_.
+So they talked for a while with friendliness upon interesting things.
+Then a pause came and Amaryllis looked out of the window, and Denzil had
+time to grow aware that he must hold himself with a tighter hand, a sense
+almost of intoxication had begun to steal over him.
+
+Suddenly Amaryllis grew very pale and her eyelids flickered a little; for
+the first time in her life she felt faint.
+
+He bent forward in anxiety as she leaned her head against the
+cushioned division.
+
+"Oh! what is it, you poor little darling! what can I do for you?" he
+exclaimed, unconscious that he had used a word of endearment; but even
+though things had grown vague for her Amaryllis caught the tenderly
+pronounced 'darling' and, physically ill as she felt, her spirit thrilled
+with some agreeable surprise. He came nearer and pushing up the padded
+divisions between the seats, he lifted her as though she had been a baby
+and laid her flat down. He got out his flask from his dressing bag and
+poured some brandy between her pale lips, then he rubbed her hands,
+murmuring he knew not what of commiseration. She looked so fragile and
+helpless and the probable reason of her indisposition was of such
+infinite solicitude to himself.
+
+"To think that she is feeling like that because--Ah!--and I may not even
+kiss her and comfort her, or tell her I adore her and understand." So his
+thoughts ran.
+
+Presently Amaryllis sat up and opened her eyes. She had not actually
+fainted, but for a few moments everything had grown dim and she was not
+certain of what had happened, or if she had dreamed that Denzil had
+spoken a love word, or whether it was true--she smiled feebly.
+
+"I did feel so queer," she explained. "How silly of me! I have never felt
+faint before--it is stupid"--and then she blushed deeply, remembering
+what certainly must be the cause.
+
+"I am going to open the window wide," he said, appreciating the blush,
+and let it down. "You ought not to sit with your back to the engine like
+that, let us change sides."
+
+He took command and drew her to her feet, and placed her gently in his
+vacant seat; then he sat down opposite her and looked at her with
+anxious eyes.
+
+"I sit that way as a rule because of avoiding the dust, but, of course,
+it was that. I am not generally such a goose though--it is the nastiest
+feeling that I have ever known."
+
+"You poor dear little girl," his deep voice said. "You must shut your
+eyes and not talk now."
+
+She obeyed, and he watched her intently as she lay back with her eyes
+closed, the long lashes resting upon her pale cheeks. She looked childish
+and a little pathetic, and every fibre of his being quivered with desire
+to protect her. He had never felt so profoundly in his life--and the
+whole thing was so complicated. He tried to force himself to remember
+that he was not travelling with _his_ wife whom he could take care of and
+cherish because she was going to have _his_ child, but that he was
+travelling with John's wife whom he hardly knew and must take no more
+interest in than any Ardayre would in the wife of the head of the family!
+
+He could have laughed at the extraordinary irony of the thing, if it had
+not been so moving.
+
+Verisschenzko, had he been there and known the circumstances, would have
+taken joy in analysing what nature was saying to them both!
+
+Amaryllis was only conscious that Denzil seemed the reality of her dream
+of John, and that she liked his nearness--and Denzil only knew that he
+loved her extremely and must banish emotion and remember his given word.
+So he pulled himself together when she sat up presently and began
+talking again, and gradually the atmosphere of throbbing excitement
+between them calmed. They spoke of each other's tastes and likings and
+found many to be the same. Then they spoke of books, and each discovered
+that the other was sufficiently well read to be able to discuss varied
+favourite authors.
+
+An understanding and sympathy had grown up between them before they
+reached Westbury, and yet Denzil was really trying to keep his word in
+the spirit as well as the letter.
+
+Amaryllis felt no constraint--she was more friendly than she would have
+been with any other man she knew so slightly. Were they not cousins, and
+was it not perfectly natural!
+
+They talked of Oxford and of the effect it had upon young men, and again
+they spoke of St�pan and of the dream he and Denzil shared.
+
+"You will go into Parliament, I suppose, when you come back from the
+war?" she remarked at last. "If you have dreams they should become
+realities...."
+
+"That is what I intend to do. The war may last a long time though--but it
+ought to teach one something, and England will be a vastly different
+place after it, and perhaps the younger men who have fought may have a
+greater chance."
+
+"You have pet theories, of course."
+
+"I suppose so--I believe that the first great step will be to give the
+people better homes--the housing question is what I am going to devote my
+energy to. I am sure it is the root of nearly every evil. Every man and
+woman who works should have the right to a good home. I have two supreme
+interests--that is one, and the other is elimination of the wastrels and
+the unfit. I am quite ruthless, perhaps, you will think. But there is
+such a sickening lot of mawkish sentiment mixed up with nearly every
+scheme to benefit workers. I agree with St�pan who always preaches: Get
+down to the commonsense point of view about a thing. Prune the convention
+and religion and sentimentality first and then you can judge."
+
+Amaryllis thought for a moment; her eyes became wide and dreamy, and her
+charmingly set head was a little thrown back. Denzil took in the line of
+her white throat and the curve of her chin--it was not weak. Why was it
+that women with the possibilities of this one always seemed to be some
+other man's property! He had never come across such charm in girls. Or
+was it that marriage developed charm?
+
+They neither of them spoke for a minute or two, each busy with
+speculation.
+
+"I want to do something," Amaryllis said at last, "not, only just make
+shirts and socks," and then the pink flushed her cheeks again suddenly as
+she remembered that she would not be fit for more strenuous work for
+quite a long time--and then the war would be over, of course.
+
+Denzil thought the same thing without the last qualification. He was
+under no delusions as to the speedy end of strife.
+
+He could not help visioning the wonderful interest the hope of a son
+would be to him if she really were his wife--how filled with supreme
+sympathy and tenderness would be the months coming on. How they would
+talk together about their wishes and the mystery and the glory of the
+evolution of life. And here she had blushed at some thought concerning
+it, and no words must pass between them about this sacred thing. He
+longed to ask her many questions--and then a pang of jealousy shook him.
+She would confide to John, not to him, all the emotions aroused by the
+thought of the child--then. He wondered what she would do in the winter
+all alone. Had she relations she was fond of? He wished that she knew his
+Mother, who was the kindest sweetest lady in the world. He said aloud:
+
+"I would like you to meet my Mother. She is going to be at Bath for a
+month. She is almost an invalid with rheumatism in her ankle where she
+broke it five years ago. I believe you would get on."
+
+"I should love to--it is not an impossible distance from us. I will go
+over to see her, if you will tell her about me--so that she won't think
+some stranger is descending upon her some day!"
+
+"She will be so pleased," and he thought that he would be happier knowing
+that they were friends.
+
+"Does she mean a great deal to you? Some mothers do," and she
+sighed--her own was less than emptiness--they had never been near, and
+now her stepfather and the step-family claimed all the affection her
+mother could feel.
+
+"She is a great dear--one of my best friends," and his eyes beamed. "We
+have always been pals--because I have no brothers and sisters I suppose
+she spoilt me!"
+
+"I daresay you were quite a nice little boy!" Amaryllis smiled--"and it
+must be divine to have a son--I expect it would be easy to spoil one."
+
+Denzil clasped his hands rather tightly--she looked so adorable as she
+said that, her eyes soft with inward knowledge of her great hope. How
+impossible it all was that they must remain strangers--casual cousins and
+nothing more.
+
+"It must be an awful responsibility to have children," he said, watching
+her. "Don't you think so?"
+
+The pink flared up again as she answered a rather solemn "Yes."
+
+Then she went on, a little hurriedly:
+
+"One would try to study their characters and lead them to the highest
+good, as gardeners watch over and train plants until they come to
+perfection. But what funny, serious things we are talking about," and she
+gave a little, nervous laugh--"Like two old grandfather philosophers."
+
+"It is rather a treat to talk seriously; one so seldom has the chance to
+meet any one who understands."
+
+"To understand!" and she sighed. "Alas--How quite perfect life would
+be--" and then she stopped abruptly. If she continued her words might
+contain a reflection upon John.
+
+Denzil bent forward eagerly--what had she been going to say?
+
+She saw his blue attractive eyes gazing at her so ardently and some
+delicious thrill passed through her. But Denzil recovered himself, and
+leaned back in his seat--while he abruptly changed the conversation by
+remarking casually:
+
+"I have never seen Ardayre. I would love to look at our common ancestors.
+My father used to say there was an Elizabethan Denzil who was rather like
+me. I suppose we are all stamped with the same brand."
+
+"I know him!" Amaryllis cried delightedly. "He is up at the end of the
+gallery in puffed white satin and a ruff. Of course, you must come and
+see him; he has exactly the same eyes."
+
+"The whole family are alive I believe--we were a tenacious lot!"
+
+"If you and John both get leave at Christmas you must come with him and
+spend it at Ardayre--I shall have made your Mother's acquaintance by
+then, and we must persuade her too."
+
+He gave some friendly answer--while he felt that John might not endorse
+this invitation. If the places were reversed, how would he himself act?
+Difficult as the situation was for him, it was infinitely harder for
+John. Then the train stopped at Westbury.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Denzil had got out to get some papers which he had been to hurried to
+secure at Paddington tipping the guard on the way, so that an old
+gentleman who showed signs of desiring to enter was warded off to another
+compartment. Thus when the train re-started, they were again left alone.
+
+Amaryllis had partially recovered and was looking nearly her usual self,
+but for the violet shadows beneath her eyes. She glanced at the papers
+which he handed to her, and Denzil retired behind the Times. He wanted
+to think; he must not let himself slip out of hand. He must resolutely
+stamp out all the emotion that she was causing him; he despised weakness
+of any sort.
+
+He thought of Verisschenzko's words about laws being powerless to control
+a man's actions, when a natural force is prompting him, unless he uses
+self-analysis, and so by gaining knowledge permits the spirit to conquer.
+He recollected that he had transgressed often without a backward thought
+in past days with other women, but now his honour was engaged even apart
+from his firm belief in St�pan's favourite saying, that a man must never
+sully the wrong thing. Then the argument they had often had about
+indulgences came to him, and the truth of the only possibility of their
+enjoyment being while they remained servants, not masters.
+
+He had had his indulgences in the two hours to Westbury, and had very
+nearly let it conquer him, more than once, and now he must not only curb
+all friendly words and delightful dalliance with forbidden topics, but he
+must _feel_ no more passion.
+
+He made himself read the war news and try to visualize the grim reality
+behind the official phrasing of the communiqu�s. And gradually he became
+calm, and was almost startled when Amaryllis, who had been watching him
+furtively and had begun to wonder if he was really so interested in his
+paper, said timidly:
+
+"Will you pull the window up a little? It seems to be growing cold."
+
+She noticed that his lips were set firmly and that an abstracted
+expression had grown in his eyes.
+
+Then Denzil spoke, now quite naturally and about the war, and
+deliberately kept the conversation to this subject, until Amaryllis lay
+back again in her corner and closed her eyes.
+
+"I am going to have a little sleep," she said.
+
+She too had begun to realise that in more personal investigation of
+mutual tastes there lay some danger. She had become conscious of the fact
+that she was very interested in Denzil--and there he was, not really the
+least like John!
+
+They were silent for some time, and were nearing Frome when he spoke. He
+had been deliberating as to what he ought to do? Get out and leave her,
+to catch his connection to Bath, or sacrifice that and see her safely to
+her destination and perhaps hire a motor from Bridgeborough?
+
+This latter was his strong desire and also seemed the only chivalrous
+thing to do when she still looked so pale, but--
+
+"Here we are almost at Frome," he said.
+
+Her eyes rounded with concern. It would be horrid to be alone. She had
+left her maid in London for a few days' holiday.
+
+"You change here for Bath," she faltered a little uncertainly.
+
+He decided in a second. He could not be inhuman! Duty and desire were
+one!
+
+"Yes--but I am coming on with you. I shall not leave you until I see you
+safely into your own motor. I can hire one perhaps then, to take me on
+the rest of the way."
+
+She was relieved--or she thought it was merely relief, which made a
+sudden lifting in her heart!
+
+"How kind of you. I do feel as if I did not like the thought of being by
+myself, it is so stupid of me--But you can't hire a motor from
+Bridgeborough which would get you to Bath before dark! They are wretched
+things there. You must come with me to Ardayre; it is on the Bath road,
+you know--and we can have a late lunch, and and then I'll send you on in
+the Rolls Royce. You will be there in an hour--in time for tea."
+
+This was a tremendous fresh temptation. He tried to look at it as though
+it did not in reality matter to him more than the appearance suggested.
+Had there been no emotion in his interest in Amaryllis, he would not have
+hesitated, he knew.
+
+Then it was only for him to conquer emotion and behave as he would do
+under ordinary circumstances--it would be a good test of his will.
+
+"All right--that's splendid, and I shall be able to see Ardayre!"
+
+It was when they were in Amaryllis's own little coup� very close to each
+other that strong temptation assailed Denzil. He suddenly felt his
+pulses throbbing wildly and it was with the greatest difficulty he
+prevented himself from clasping her in his arms. He tried to look out of
+the window and take an interest in the park, which was entered very soon
+after leaving the station. He told himself Ardayre was something which
+deserved his attention and he looked for the first view of the house, but
+all his will could only keep his arms from transgressing, it could not
+control the riot of his thoughts.
+
+Amaryllis was conscious in some measure that he was far from calm, and
+her own heart began to beat unaccountably. She talked rather fast about
+the place and its history, and both were relieved when the front door
+came in sight.
+
+There was a welcoming smell of burning logs in the hall to greet them,
+and the old butler could not restrain an expression of startled curiosity
+when he saw Denzil, the likeness to his master was so great.
+
+"This is Captain Ardayre, Filson," Amaryllis said, "Sir John's cousin,"
+and then she gave the order about the motor to take Denzil on to Bath.
+
+They went through the Henry VII inner hall, and on to the green
+drawing-room, with its air of home and comfort, in spite of its great
+size and stateliness.
+
+There were no portraits here, but some fine specimens of the Dutch
+school, and the big tawny dogs rose to welcome their mistress and were
+introduced to their "new relation."
+
+She was utterly fascinating, Denzil thought, playing with them there on
+the great bear skin rug.
+
+"We shall lunch at once," she told him, "and then rush through the
+pictures afterwards before you start for Bath."
+
+They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before
+that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come
+into Amaryllis--nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than
+her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour
+glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted
+for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest.
+
+Denzil had the hardest fight he had ever been through, and he grew almost
+gruff in consequence. He was really suffering.
+
+He admired the way she acted as hostess, and the way the home was done.
+He hardly felt anything else, though apart from her he would have been
+interested in his first view of Ardayre, but she absorbed all other
+emotions, he only knew that he desired to make passionate love to her, or
+to get away as quickly as he could.
+
+"Are you going to remain here all the winter?" he asked her presently, as
+they rose from the table, "or shall you go to London? You will be awfully
+lonely, won't you, if you stay here?"
+
+"I love the country and I am growing to love and understand the place.
+John wants me to so much, it means more to him than anything else in the
+world. I shall remain until after Christmas anyway. But come now, I want
+just to take you into the church, because there are two such fine tombs
+there of both our ancestors, yours and mine. We can go out of the windows
+and come back for coffee in the cedar parlour."
+
+Denzil acquiesced; he wished to see the church. They reached it in a
+minute or two and Amaryllis opened the door with her own key and led him
+on up the aisle to the recumbent knights--and then she whispered their
+history to him, standing where a ray of sunlight turned her brown hair
+into gold.
+
+"I wonder what their lives were," Denzil said, "and if they lived and
+loved and fought their desires--as we do now--the younger one's face
+looks as though he had not always conquered his. St�pan would say his
+indulgences had become his masters, not his servants, I expect."
+
+"Verisschenzko is wonderful--he makes one want to be strong," and
+Amaryllis sighed. "I wonder how many of us even begin to fight our
+desires--"
+
+"One has to be strong always if one wants to attain--but sometimes it is
+only honour which holds one--and weaklings are so pitiful."
+
+"What is honour?" Her eyes searched his face wistfully. "Is it being true
+to some canon of the laws of chivalry, or is it being true to some higher
+thing in one's own soul?"
+
+Denzil leaned against the tomb and he thought deeply: then he looked
+straight into her eyes:
+
+"Honour lies in not betraying a trust reposed in one, either in the
+spirit or in the letter."
+
+"Then, when, we say of a man 'he acted honourably,' we mean that he did
+not betray a trust placed in him, even if it was only perhaps by
+circumstance and not by a person."
+
+"It is simply that'--keeping faith. If a man stole a sum of money from a
+friend, the dishonour would not be in the act of stealing, which is
+another offence--but in abusing his friend's trust in him by committing
+that act."
+
+"Dishonour is a betrayal then--"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Why would this knight"--and she placed her hand on the marble face,
+"have said that he must kill another who had stolen his wife, say, to
+avenge his 'honour'?"
+
+"That is the conventional part of it--what St�pan calls the grafting
+on of a meaning to suit some idea of civilisation. It was a nice way
+of having personal revenges too and teaching people that they could
+not steal anything with impunity. If we analysed that kind of honour
+we would find it was principally vanity. The dishonour really lay with
+the wife, if she deceived her husband--and with the other man if he
+was the husband's friend--if he was not, his abduction of the woman
+was not 'dishonourable' because he was not trusted, it was merely an
+act of theft."
+
+"What then must we do when we are very strongly tempted?" Her voice was
+so low he could hardly hear it.
+
+"It is sometimes wisest to run away," and he turned from her and moved
+towards the door.
+
+She followed wondering. She knew not why she had promoted this
+discussion. She felt that she had been very unbalanced all the day.
+
+They went back to the house almost silently and through the green
+drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William
+Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time,
+filling one vast wall at the turn.
+
+And so they reached the cedar parlour, and found coffee waiting and
+cigarettes.
+
+There was a growing tension between them and each guessed that the other
+was not calm. Amaryllis began showing him the view from the windows
+across the park, and then the old fireplace and panelling of the room.
+
+"We sit here generally when we are alone," she said. "I like it the best
+of all the rooms in the house."
+
+"It is a fitting frame for you."
+
+They lit cigarettes.
+
+Denzil had many things he longed to say to her of the place, and the
+thoughts it called up in him--but he checked himself. The thing was to
+get through with it all quickly and to be gone. They went into the
+picture gallery then, and began from the end, and when they came to the
+Elizabethan Denzil they paused for a little while. The painted likeness
+was extraordinary to the living splendid namesake who gazed up at the old
+panel with such interested eyes.
+
+And Amaryllis was thinking:
+
+"If only John had that something in him which these two have in their
+eyes, how happy we could be."
+
+And Denzil was thinking:
+
+"I hope the child will reproduce the type." He felt it would be some kind
+of satisfaction to himself if she should have a son which should be his
+own image.
+
+"It is so strange," she remarked, "that you should be exactly like this
+Denzil, and yet resemble John who does not remind me of him at all,
+except in the general family look which every one of them share. This one
+might have been painted from you."
+
+He looked down at her suddenly and he was unable to control the
+passionate emotion in his eyes. He was thinking that yes, certainly, the
+child must be like him--and then what message would it convey to her?
+
+Amaryllis was disturbed, she longed to ask him what it was which she
+felt, and why there seemed some illusive remembrance always haunting her.
+She grew confused, and they passed on to another frame which contained
+the Lady Amaryllis who had had the sonnets written to her nut brown
+locks. She was a dainty creature in her stiff farthingale, but bore no
+likeness to the present mistress of Ardayre.
+
+Denzil examined her for some seconds, and then he said reflectively:
+
+"She is a Sweetheart--but she is not you!"
+
+There was some tone of tenderness in his voice when he said the word
+"Sweetheart" and Amaryllis started and drew in her breath. It recalled
+something which had given her joy, a low murmur whispered in the night.
+"Sweetheart!"--a word which John, alas! had never used before nor since,
+except in that one letter in answer to her cry of exaltation--her glad
+Magnificat. What was this echo sounding in her ears? How like Denzil's
+voice was to John's--only a little deeper. Why, why should he have used
+that word "Sweetheart"?
+
+No coherent thought had yet come to her, it was as though she had looked
+for an instant upon some scene which awakened a chord of memory, and then
+that the curtain had dropped before she could define it.
+
+She grew agitated, and Denzil turning, saw that her face was pale, and
+her grey eyes vague and troubled.
+
+"I am quite sure that it is tiring you, showing me all the house like
+this, we won't look at another picture--and really I must be getting on."
+
+She did not contradict him.
+
+"I am afraid that you ought to go perhaps, if you want to arrive by
+daylight."
+
+And as they returned to the green drawing-room she said some nice things
+about wanting to meet his mother, and she tried to be natural and at
+ease, but her hand was cold as ice when he held it in saying good-bye
+before the fire, when Filson had announced the motor.
+
+And if his eyes had shown passionate emotion in the picture gallery, hers
+now filled with question and distress.
+
+"Good-bye, Denzil--"
+
+"Good-bye, Amaryllis--" He could not bring himself to say the usual
+conventionalities, and went towards the door with nothing more.
+
+Her brain was clearing, terror and passion and uncertainty had come in
+like a flood.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+He turned to her side fearfully. Why had she called him now?
+
+"Denzil--?" her face had paled still further, and there was an anguish of
+pleading in it. "Oh, please, what does it all mean?" and she fell forward
+into his arms.
+
+He held her breathlessly. Had she fainted? No--she still stood on her
+feet, but her little face there lying on his breast was as a lily in
+whiteness and tears escaped from her closed eyes.
+
+"For God's sake, Denzil, have you not something to tell me? You cannot
+leave me so!"
+
+He shivered with the misery of things.
+
+"I have nothing to tell you, child." His voice was hoarse. "You are
+overwrought and overstrung. I have nothing to say to you but just
+good-bye."
+
+She held his coat and looked up at him wildly.
+
+"--Denzil--It was you--not--John!"
+
+He unclasped her clinging arms:
+
+"I must go."
+
+"You shall not until you answer me--I have a right to know."
+
+"I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the
+suffering of restraint.
+
+She clung to him again.
+
+"Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh!
+Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in
+uncertainty--tell me the truth or I shall die!"
+
+But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying
+protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course
+for him to follow--he must go, and the brutality of such action made him
+fierce with pain.
+
+She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He
+raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear
+seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really
+ill--?
+
+He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the
+more.
+
+"How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You
+dare not even pretend that you do not understand!"
+
+He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress.
+
+"Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go."
+
+"Denzil--" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops
+glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her--she looked
+but as a suffering child.
+
+"Denzil--if you knew everything, you could not possibly leave me--you
+don't know what has happened--But you must, you will have to
+since--soon--"
+
+He bowed his head and placed her two hands over his face with a
+despairing movement.
+
+"Hush--I implore you--say nothing. I do know, but I love you--I must
+go."
+
+At that she gave a glad cry and drew him close to her.
+
+"You shall not now! I do not care for conventions any more, or for laws,
+or for anything! I am a savage--you are mine! John must know that you are
+mine! The family is all that matters to him, I am only an instrument, a
+medium for its continuance--but Denzil, you and I are young and loving
+and living. It is you I desire, and now I know that I belong to you. You
+are the man and I am the woman--and the child will be our child!"
+
+Her spirit had arisen at last and broken all chains. She was
+transfigured, transformed, translated. No one knowing the gentle
+Amaryllis could have recognised her in this fierce, primitive creature
+claiming her mate!
+
+Furious, answering passion surged through Denzil; it was the supreme
+moment when all artificial restrictions of civilisation were swept away.
+Nature had come to her own. All her forces were working for these two of
+her children brought near by a turn of fate. He strained her in his arms
+wildly--he kissed her lips, and ears, and eyes.
+
+"Mine, mine," he cried, and then "Sweetheart!"
+
+And for some seconds which seemed an eternity of bliss they forgot all
+but the joy of love.
+
+But presently reality fell upon Denzil and he almost groaned.
+
+"I must leave you, precious dear one--even so--I gave my word of honour
+to John that I would never take advantage of the situation. Fate has done
+this thing by bringing us together; it has overwhelmed us. I do not feel
+that we are greatly to blame, but that does not release me from my
+promise. It is all a frightful price that we must pay for pride in the
+Family. Darling, help me to have courage to go."
+
+"I will not--It is shameful cruelty," and she clung to him, "that we must
+be parted now I am yours really--not John's at all. Everything in my
+heart and being cries out to you--you are the reality of my dream lover,
+your image has been growing in my vision for months. I love you, Denzil,
+and it is your right to stay with me now and take care of me, and it is
+my right to tell you of my thoughts about the--child--Ah! if you knew
+what it means to me, the joy, the wonder, the delight! I cannot keep it
+all to myself any longer. I am starving! I am frozen! I want to tell it
+all to my Beloved!"
+
+He held her to him again--and she poured forth the tenderest holy things,
+and he listened enraptured and forgot time and place.
+
+"Denzil," she whispered at last, from the shelter of his arms. "I have
+felt so strange--exalted, ever since--and now I shall have this ever
+present thought of you and love women in my existence--But how is it
+going to be in the years which are coming? How can I go on pretending to
+John?--I cannot--I shall blurt out the truth--For me there is only
+you--not just the you of these last days since we saw each other with our
+eyes--but the you that I had dreamed about and fashioned as my lover--my
+delight--Can I whisper to John all my joy and tenderness as I watch the
+growing up of my little one? No! the thing is monstrous, grotesque--I
+will not face the pain of it all. John gave you to me--he must have done
+so--it was some compact between you both for the family, and if I did not
+love you I should hate you now, and want to kill myself. But I love you,
+I love you, I love you!" and she fiercely clasped her arms once more
+about his neck. "You must take the consequences of your action. I did not
+ask to have this complication in my life. John forced it upon me for his
+own aims, but I have to be reckoned with, and I want my lover, I claim my
+mate." Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes flashed.
+
+"And your lover wants you," and Denzil wildly returned her fond caress,
+"but the choice is not left to me, darling, even if you were my wife, not
+John's. You have forgotten the war--I must go out and fight."
+
+All the warmth and passion died out of her, and she lay back on the
+pillows of the sofa for a moment and closed her eyes. She had
+indeed forgotten that ghastly colossus in her absorption in their
+own two selves.
+
+Yes--he must go out and fight--and John would go too--and they might both
+be killed like all those gallant partners of the season and her cousin,
+and those who had fallen at Mons and the battle of the Marne.
+
+No--she must not be so paltry as to think of personal things, even love.
+She must rise above all selfishness, and not make it harder for her man.
+Her little face grew resigned and sanctified, and Denzil watching her
+with burning, longing eyes, waited for her to speak.
+
+"It is true--for the moment nothing but you and my great desire for you
+was in my mind. But you are right, Denzil; of course, I cannot keep you.
+Only I am glad that just this once we have tasted a brief moment of
+happiness, and--Denzil, I believe our souls belong to each other, even if
+we do not meet again on earth."
+
+And when at last they had parted, and Amaryllis, listening, heard the
+motor go, she rose from the sofa and went out through the window to the
+lawn, and so to the church again, and there lay on the steps of the young
+knight's tomb, sobbing and praying until darkness enveloped the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko.
+The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very
+little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis,
+but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in
+him--the zest of going out to fight!
+
+Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the
+opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct
+things from so far.
+
+They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory
+fashion all through the _hors d'ouvres_ and the soup.
+
+"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel
+inclined to end it all sometimes."
+
+"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool,
+St�pan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the
+composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have
+another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again.
+It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it
+comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's
+just rot."
+
+"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne,
+while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.
+
+"They don't have decent vodka--but the brandy will do the trick," and in
+an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.
+
+"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like
+that--I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom
+and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the
+knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"
+
+"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I
+should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing
+before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed
+about you though, St�pan--you are fundamentally sane."
+
+"I am glad you think that--very few English understand us--"
+
+"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality
+and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to
+sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking
+like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half
+your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary
+to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his
+luck for the moment."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed outright.
+
+"Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!"
+
+"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"
+
+"I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+Denzil looked at him keenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--"
+
+"Then you know how she is?"
+
+"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are
+acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are
+aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off
+to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English,
+you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about
+it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the
+child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I!
+Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that
+is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the
+thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and
+protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions
+might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real
+truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards
+up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."
+
+Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth
+of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak
+all the same.
+
+"Tell me what you know, St�pan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not
+because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."
+
+"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the
+Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I
+feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves
+you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this
+miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen
+her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"
+
+Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko
+understand in a few words--the Russian's imagination filled in the
+details.
+
+He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke.
+
+"So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her--he must indeed be
+obsessed by the family!"
+
+"He is--he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozen
+Amaryllis from the first day."
+
+"My idea was always for this, directly I went to Ardayre. I felt that
+mysterious pull of the family there in that glorious house. I thought she
+would probably simplify things by just taking you for a lover, when you
+met, as you are her counterpart--a perfect mate for her. I had even made
+up my mind to suggest this to her, and influence her as much as I could
+to this end--but lo! the husband takes the matter out of our hands and
+devises a really unique accomplishment of our wishes. Gosh! Denzil! it's
+John who's got the common sense and the genius, not we!"
+
+"Yes, he has--so far, but he did not reckon with human emotion. He might
+have known that directly I should see Amaryllis I should fall in love
+with her, and he ought to have understood that that extraordinary thing,
+nature, might make her draw to me afterwards. Now the situation is
+tragic, however you look at it. John will have the hell of a life if he
+comes back; he can't help feeling jealous every time he sees the child,
+and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be
+great. Amaryllis is wretched--she is passionate and vivid as a humming
+bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human
+power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I
+absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I
+come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and
+I, and if the family makes all this suffering worth while? Perhaps it
+would have been better to leave it to fate!" Denzil sighed and forgot to
+notice a dish the waiter was handing.
+
+"It is perfectly certain," and Verisschenzko grew contemplative, "that
+the result of deliberately turning the current of events like that must
+have some momentous consequence. Mind you, I think you were right. I
+should have advised it as I have told you, because of that swine of a
+Turk, Ferdinand--but it may have deranged some plan of the Cosmos, and
+if so some of you will have to pay for it. I hate that it should be my
+lady Amaryllis. All her sorrow comes from your dramatically honourable
+promise. You can't make love to her now--because a man who is a
+gentleman does not break his word. Now if my plan had been followed, you
+would not have had this limitation and you could have had some joy--but
+who knows! A false position is a gall in any case, and it would have
+soiled my star, which now shines purely. So perhaps all is for the best.
+But have you analysed, now that we are on the subject, what it is 'being
+in love,' old boy?"
+
+"It is divine--and it is hell--"
+
+"All that! Amaryllis is the exact opposite to Harietta Boleski--in this,
+that she attracts as strongly as Harietta could ever do physically, and
+will be no disappointment in soul in the _entre actes_. _Being in love_
+is a physical state of exaltation; _loving_ is the merging of spirit
+which in its white heat has glorified the physical instinct for
+re-creation into a godlike beatitude not of earth. A man could be in love
+with Harietta, he could never love her. A man could always love
+Amaryllis, so much that he would not be aware that half his joy was
+because he was _in love_ with her also."
+
+"You know, St�pan, men, women and every one talk a lot of nonsense about
+other interests in life mattering more, and there being other kinds of
+really better happiness, but it is pure rot; if one is honest one owns
+that there is no real happiness but in the satisfaction of love. Every
+other kind is second best. It is jolly good often, but only a _pis aller_
+in comparison to the real thing.
+
+"And when people deny this, believing they are speaking honestly, it is
+simply because the real thing has not come their way, or they are too
+brutalised by transient indulgences to be able to feel exaltation.
+
+"So here's to love!" and Denzil emptied his glass. "The supreme God--"
+
+_"Ainsi soit il,"_ and St�pan drank in response. "Our toast before has
+always been to the Ardayre son, and now we drink to what I hope has been
+his creator!"
+
+They were silent for some moments, and then Verisschenzko went on:
+
+"When the state of being in love is waning, affection often remains, but
+then one is at the mercy of a new emotion. I'd be nervous if a woman who
+had loved me subsided into feeling affection!"
+
+"Then define loving?"
+
+"Loving throbs with delight in the flesh; it thrills the spirit with
+reverence. It glorifies into beauty commonplace things. It draws nearer
+in sickness and sorrow, and is not the sport of change. When a woman
+loves truly she has the passion of the mistress, the selfless tenderness
+of the mother, the dignity and devotion of the wife. She is all fire and
+snow, all will and frankness, all passion and reserve, she is
+authoritative and obedient--queen and child."
+
+"And a man?"
+
+"He ceases to be a brute and becomes a god."
+
+"Can it last, I wonder?" and again Denzil sighed.
+
+"It could if people were not such fools--they nearly always deliberately
+destroy the loved one's emotion by senseless stupidity--in not grasping
+the fact that no fire burns without fuel. They disillusionise each other.
+The joy once secured, they take no pains to keep it. A woman will do
+things when the lover is an acknowledged possession, which she would not
+have dreamed of doing while desiring to attract the man--and a man
+likewise--neither realising that the whole state of being in love is an
+intoxication of the senses, and that the senses are very easily wearied
+or affronted."
+
+"St�pan--what am I going to do about Amaryllis? If I come back, it will
+be hell--a continual longing and aching, and I want to accomplish
+something in life; it was never my plan to have the whole thing held and
+bounded by passion for a woman. A hopeless passion I can understand
+facing and crushing, but one which you know that the woman returns, and
+that it is only the law and promises you have made which separate you, is
+the most awful torment." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.
+His face was stern. "And her life too--how sickening. You say you are
+going down to Ardayre to see Amaryllis--you will tell me how you find
+her. I have not written--I am trying not to feel."
+
+"Are you interested about the coming child? I am never quite certain how
+much it matters to a man, whether we deceive ourselves and feel sentiment
+simply because we love the woman, whether the emotion is half vanity, or
+whether there is something in the actual state called parenthood? How do
+you feel?"
+
+Denzil thought of his musings upon this subject after he had seen
+Amaryllis at the Carlton.
+
+"It is hard to describe," he answered now, "it is all so interwoven with
+love for Amaryllis that I cannot distinguish which is which, or how I
+feel about the state in the abstract. Women have these mysterious
+emotions, I believe, but I do not think that they come to the average
+man, but if he loves it seems a fulfilment."
+
+"I have two children scattered in Russia, begotten before I had begun to
+think of things and their meanings. I have them finely educated--I loathe
+them. I sicken at the memory of the mothers; I am ashamed when I see in
+them some chance physical likeness to myself. But how will you feel
+presently when you see the child, adoring the mother as you do? What will
+it say to you, looking at you with your own eyes, perhaps? You'll long to
+have some hand in the training of it. You'll desire to watch the budding
+brain and the expanding soul. You'll be drawn closer and closer to
+Amaryllis--it will all pull you with an invisible nature chain--"
+
+"I know it,--that is the tragedy of the whole thing. Those delights will
+be John's--and I hate to think that Amaryllis will be alone for all these
+months--and yet I believe I would prefer that to her being with John. I
+am jealous when I remember that he has rights denied to me--so what must
+he feel, poor devil, when he remembers about me?"
+
+"It is quite a peculiar situation. I wonder what the years will
+develop it into."
+
+"If the child is a girl, the whole thing is in vain."
+
+"It won't be a girl--you will see I am right. When will you and John get
+leave, do you suppose?"
+
+"I don't know, but about Christmas, perhaps, if we are alive--"
+
+"Do you want to see her again, then?"
+
+"I long always to see her--but by Christmas--it would be nearly five
+months. I don't think I could keep my word and not make love to her--if I
+saw her--then."
+
+"You will wish to hear about her--?"
+
+"Always."
+
+After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed.
+Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his
+highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future
+hold? Only one--that of death for either of the men concerned. Well,
+death was busy with England's best--it was no unlikely possibility--and
+as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and
+living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood,
+crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years.
+
+"I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical,
+as was his habit, when he found himself moved.
+
+"I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new
+lover--Ferdinand Ardayre."
+
+"What a combination!"
+
+"Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace.
+Stanislass is quite a _gaga_--he spends his time packed off to play
+piquet at the St. James'--he has no _bosse des cartes_,--it is his
+burdensome duty."
+
+"He does not feel the war?"
+
+"He is numb."
+
+"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"
+
+"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a
+fitting end."
+
+"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.
+
+"My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes."
+
+Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the
+time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John,
+so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her.
+
+John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the
+iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but
+the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in
+self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made
+him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed--he felt
+it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious--they had grown from a girl's
+into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did--and
+then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this
+pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause--he knew that he
+had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He
+thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window
+until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had
+indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she
+reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility
+might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going
+to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the
+appointment, so they spoke at the ball.
+
+Would it have been better if he had let himself go and fondly kissed and
+netted Amaryllis? Or would that have been misleading and still more
+unkind? It was too late now, in any case. He must learn to take the only
+satisfaction which was left to him, the knowledge that there was the hope
+of a true Ardayre to carry on.
+
+He talked long to his wife of his desires for the child's education,
+should it prove a boy, and he should not return, and Amaryllis listened
+dutifully.
+
+Her mind was filled with wonder all the time. She had been through much
+emotion since the passionate outburst after Denzil had gone, but was
+quite calm now. She had classified things in her mind. She felt no
+resentment against John. He ought not to have married her perhaps, but it
+might be that at the time he did not know. Only she wondered when she
+looked at him sitting opposite her, talking gravely about the baby, in
+the library of Brook Street, how he could possibly be feeling. What an
+immense influence the thought of the family must have in his life. She
+understood it in a great measure herself. She remembered Verisschenzko's
+words upon the occasions when he had spoken to her about it, and of her
+duties towards it, and how she must uphold it. She particularly
+remembered that which he had said when they walked by the lake, and he
+had seemed to be transmitting some message to her, which she had not
+understood at the time. Did Verisschenzko know then that John must always
+be heirless and had he been suggesting to her that the line should go on
+through her? Some of the pride in it all had come to her before she had
+left the dark church after parting with Denzil. Perhaps she was
+fulfilling destiny. She must not be angry with John. She did not try to
+cease from loving Denzil. She had not knowingly been unfaithful to
+John--and now, she would be faithful to Denzil, he was her love and her
+mate. Indeed, even in the fortnight which elapsed between her farewell
+to him, and now when she was going to say farewell to John, she had many
+months of tender consolation in the thought of the baby--Denzil's son.
+She could revive and revel in that exquisite exaltation which she had
+experienced at first and which John had withered. Denzil far surpassed
+even the imagined lover into which she had turned John. So now Denzil had
+become the reality, and John the dream.
+
+She felt sorry for her husband too. She was fine enough to understand and
+divine his difficulties.
+
+She found that she felt just nothing for him but a kindly affection. He
+might have been Archie de la Paule--or any of her other cousins. She knew
+that her whole being was given to Denzil--who represented her dream.
+
+She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before
+starting, the tears came to her eyes.
+
+Poor good, cold John!
+
+And when he had departed--all the de la Paule family had been there at
+Brook Street also--Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But
+what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that
+there might be a son!
+
+So both Denzil and John went to the war--and Amaryllis was alone.
+Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her--and it was the
+beginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up at
+Brook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.
+
+"Of course!" she said, and so he came.
+
+The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging
+flowers and cushions and such things--her rooms always breathed an air of
+home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the
+warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.
+
+She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had
+dined with her.
+
+"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea
+and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to
+tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested
+about it all."
+
+Amaryllis blushed a soft pink--he went on with perfect calm.
+
+"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules
+you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or
+discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with
+anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some
+self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has
+wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort
+in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to
+have a baby, do you not think so?"
+
+"Of course I do--" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She
+really wished to talk to her friend.
+
+"Who told you about it?" she asked.
+
+"Denzil."
+
+Amaryllis drew in her breath suddenly. Verisschenzko's eyes were looking
+her through and through.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+"Yes,--he is glad that there may be the possibility of a son for
+the family."
+
+"How do you feel about it? It is an enormous responsibility to have
+children."
+
+"I feel that--I want to do the wisest things from the beginning--"
+
+"You must take great care of yourself, and always remain serene. Never
+let your mind become agitated by speculation as to the _presently_, keep
+all thoughts fixed upon the now."
+
+Amaryllis looked at him a little troubled. What did he know? Something
+tangible, or were these views of his just applicable to any case? Her
+eyes were full of question and pleading.
+
+"What do you want to ask me?" His eyes narrowed in contemplating her.
+
+"I--I--do not know."
+
+"Yes, you want to hear of Denzil--is it not so?"
+
+She clasped her hands.
+
+"Yes--perhaps--"
+
+"He is well--I heard from him yesterday. He asked me to come to you. His
+mother is still at Bath--he wishes you to meet."
+
+Suddenly the impossibleness of everything seemed to come over Amaryllis.
+She rose quickly and threw out her hands:
+
+"Oh! if I could only understand the meaning of things, my friend! I am
+afraid to think!"
+
+"You love Denzil very much--yes?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"Sit down and let us talk about it, lady of my soul. I am your
+mother now."
+
+She sank into her seat beside him, among the green silk pillows--and he
+leaned back and watched her for a while.
+
+"He fulfils some imaginary picture, _hein?_ You had not seen him really
+until we all dined?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were bound to be drawn to him--he is everything a woman could
+desire--but it was not only that--tell me?"
+
+"He was what I had hoped John would be--the likeness is so great--"
+
+"It is much deeper than that--nature was drawing you unconsciously."
+
+She covered her face with her hands. It seemed as if Verisschenzko must
+know the truth. Had Denzil told him, or was it his wonderful intuition
+which was enlightening him now, or was it just her sensitive conscience?
+
+"You see custom and convention and false shames have so distorted most
+natural things that no one has been taught to understand them. Men were
+intended in the scheme of things to love women and to have children;
+women were meant to love men and to desire to be mothers. These instincts
+are primordial, the life of the world depends upon them. They have been
+distorted and abused into sins and vices and excesses and every evil by
+civilisation, so that now we rule them out of every calculation in
+judging of a circumstance; if we are 'nice' people they are taboo.
+Supposing we so suppressed and distorted and misused the other two
+primitive instincts, to obtain food and to kill one's enemy, the world
+would have ended long ago. We have done what we could to distort those
+also, but nothing to the extent to which we have debased the nobility of
+the recreative instinct!"
+
+Amaryllis listened attentively, and he went on:
+
+"It is admitted that we require food to live--and that if we are
+threatened with death from an enemy we have the right to kill him in
+self-defence. But it is never admitted that it is equally natural that we
+desire to recreate our species. Under certain circumstances of vows and
+restrictions, we are permitted to take one partner for life--and--if this
+person turns out to be a fraud for the purpose for which we made the
+promise, we may not have another. Supposing hungry savages were given
+covered dishes purporting to contain food, and upon lifting the cover one
+of them discovered his dish was empty--what would happen? He would bear
+it as long as he could, but when he was starving he would certainly try
+to steal some food from his neighbour--and might even knock him on the
+head and obtain it! Civilisation has controlled primitive instincts, so
+that a civilised man might perhaps prefer to die himself from starvation
+rather than kill or steal. He is master of his actions, _but he is not
+master of the effects of his abstinence--Nature wins these,_ and whatever
+would be the natural physical result of his abstinence occurs. Now you
+can reason this thought out in all its branches, and you will see where
+it leads to--"
+
+Amaryllis mused for some moments--and she saw the justice of his
+reflections.
+
+"But for hundreds of years there have been priests and nuns and companies
+of ascetics," she remarked tentatively.
+
+"There have been hundreds of lunatics also--and madness is not on the
+decrease. When you destroy nature you always produce the abnormal, when
+life survives from your treatment."
+
+"You think that it is natural that one should have a mate then?"--she
+hesitated.
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"It is more important than the keeping of vows?"
+
+"No, the spirit is degraded by the knowledge of broken vows--only one
+must have intelligence to realise what the price of keeping them will be,
+and then summon strength enough to carry out whatever course is best for
+the soul, or best for the ideal one is living for. Sometimes that end
+requires ruthlessness, and sometimes that end requires that we starve in
+one way or another, so _we must_ be prepared for sacrifice perhaps of
+life, or what makes life worth living, if we are strong enough to keep
+vows which we have been short-sighted enough to make too hastily."
+
+Amaryllis gazed in front of her--then she asked softly:
+
+"Do you think it is wicked of me to be thinking of Denzil--not John?"
+
+"No--it is quite natural--the wickedness would be if you pretended to
+John that you were thinking of him. Deception is wickedness."
+
+"Everything is so sad now. Both have gone to fight. I do not dare to
+think at all."
+
+"Yes, you must think--you must think of your child and draw to it all the
+good forces, so that it may come to life unhampered by any weakness of
+balance in you. That must be your constant self-discipline. Keep serene
+and try to live in a world of noble ideals and serenity. Now I am going
+to play to you--"
+
+Amaryllis had never heard Verisschenzko play. He arranged the sofa
+cushions and made her lie comfortably among them, then he went to the
+piano--and presently it seemed to her that her soul was floating upward
+into realms of perfect content. She had never even dreamed of such
+playing. It was like nothing she had ever heard before, the sounds
+touched all the highest chords in her spirit. She did not ask whose was
+the music. She seemed to know that it was Verisschenzko's own, which was
+just talking to her, telling her to be calm and brave and true.
+
+He played for a whole hour--and at last softly and yet more softly, and
+when he finished he saw that she was quietly asleep.
+
+A smile as tender as a mother's came into his rugged face, and he stole
+from the room noiselessly, breathing a blessing as he passed.
+
+And somewhere in France, Denzil and John were thinking of her too, each
+with great love in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Harietta Boleski was growing dissatisfied with her life. England was of
+no amusement to her, and yet Hans insisted upon her staying on. She
+wanted to go to Paris. The war altogether was a supreme bore and upset
+her plans!
+
+She had been so successful in her obvious stupid way that Hans had been
+enabled to transmit the most useful information to his country, which had
+assisted to foil more than one Allied plan. Harietta saw numbers of old
+gentlemen who pulled strings in that time, and although they wearied her,
+she found them easier to extract news from than the younger men. Her
+method was so irresistible: a direct appeal to the senses, and it hardly
+ever failed. If only Hans would consent to her returning to Paris, with
+the help of Ferdinand Ardayre, who was now her slave, she promised
+wonderful things.
+
+Hans, as a Swedish philanthropic gentleman, had been over to give her
+instructions once or twice, and at last had agreed to her crossing
+the Channel.
+
+She told this good news to Ferdinand one afternoon just before Christmas,
+when he came in to see her in London.
+
+"I'm going to Paris, Ferdie, and you must come too. There's no use in
+your pretending that England matters to you, and you are of such use to
+us with your branch business in Holland like that. If I'd thought in the
+beginning that there was a chance to knock out Germany, I would have been
+right on this side, because there's no two ways about it, England's the
+place to have a good time in, but I've information which makes it certain
+that we shall take Calais in the Spring, and so I guess it's safer to
+cling to Kaiser Bill--and get it all done soon, then we can enjoy
+ourselves again. I do pine for a tango! My! I'm just through with this
+dull time!"
+
+Ferdinand was a rest to her, almost as good as Hans. She had not to be
+over-refined--she knew that he was on the same level as herself. He
+amused her too in several ways.
+
+He looked sulky now. It did not suit his plans to go to Paris yet. He was
+trying to collect information for a game of his own. But where Harietta
+went he must go, he was besotted about her, and knew that he could not
+trust her a yard.
+
+He protested a little that they were very well where they were, but as
+she never allowed any one's wishes to interfere with her plans she
+only smiled.
+
+"I'm going on Saturday. We have secured a suite at the Universal this
+time, now that the Rhin is shut up, and it is such a large hotel, you can
+quite well stay there; Stanislass won't notice you among the crowd."
+
+Ferdinand agreed unwillingly--and just then Verisschenzko came in. He had
+not seen Madame Boleski since the night at the Carlton, having taken care
+not to let her know of his further visits to England since.
+
+He looked at Ferdinand Ardayre as though he had been some bit of
+furniture, and he took up Fou-Chow who was cowering beneath a chair. He
+did not speak a word.
+
+Harietta talked for every one for a little while, and then she began to
+feel nervous.
+
+Verisschenzko smiled lazily--he was trying an experiment. The interview
+could not go on like this; Ferdinand Ardayre would certainly have to go.
+
+Now that Verisschenzko had come, Harietta ardently wished that he would.
+
+The most venomous hate was arising in Ferdinand's resentful soul. He felt
+that here was a rival to be dreaded indeed. He saw that Harietta was
+nervous; he had never seen her so before. He shut his teeth and
+determined to stay on.
+
+Verisschenzko continued his disconcerting silence. Harietta felt that
+she should presently scream! She took Fou-Chow from St�pan and pinched
+him cruelly in her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed
+him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if
+she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet
+sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female
+friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when
+she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed
+out of her way.
+
+He showed evident fear of her and ran from her always, so that when
+she wanted to make a picture with him, she was obliged to carry him
+in her arms.
+
+Verisschenzko raised one bushy eyebrow, and a sardonic smile came
+into his eyes.
+
+Madame Boleski saw that she had made a mistake in showing her temper to
+the dog; it would have given her pleasure then to wring its neck!
+
+The two men sat on. She began to grow so uncomfortable that she could
+endure it no more.
+
+"You are coming back to dinner, Mr. Ardayre," she remarked at length,
+"and I want you to get me gardenias to wear, if you will be so kind, and
+I am afraid you will have to hurry as the shops close soon."
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre rose, rage showing in his mean face, but as he had no
+choice he said good-bye. Harietta accompanied him to the door, pressing
+his hand stealthily, then she returned to the Russian with flaming eyes.
+He had not uttered a word.
+
+"How dare you make me so nervous, sitting there like a log! I won't stand
+for such treatment--you Bear!"
+
+"Then sit down. Why do you have that Turk with you at all?"
+
+"He is not a Turk; he's an Englishman and a friend of mine. Why, he is
+the brother of your precious John Ardayre--and they have behaved
+shamefully to him, poor dear boy."
+
+She was still enraged.
+
+"He is not even a pure Turk--some of them are gentlemen. He is just the
+scum of the earth, and no blood relation to John Ardayre."
+
+"He will let them know whether he is or not some day! I hear that your
+bit of bread and butter is going to have a child, and as Ferdie says it
+can't be John's, I suppose it is yours!"
+
+Verisschenzko's face looked dangerous.
+
+"You would do well to guard your words, Harietta. I do not permit you to
+make such remarks to me--and it would be more prudent if you warned your
+friend that he had better not make such assertions either--do you
+understand?"
+
+Harietta felt some twinge of fear at the strange tone in the Russian's
+voice, but she was too out of temper to be cowed now.
+
+"Puh!" and she tossed her head. "If the child is a boy Ferdie will have
+something to say--and as for Amaryllis--I hate her! I'd like to kill her
+with my own hands."
+
+Verisschenzko rose and stood before her--and there was a look in his eyes
+which made her suddenly grow cold.
+
+"Listen," he said icily. "I have warned you once and you know me well
+enough to decide whether I ever speak lightly. I warn you again to be
+careful of your words and your deeds. I shall warn you no more--if you
+transgress a third time--then I will strike."
+
+Harietta grew pale to her painted lips.
+
+How would he strike? Not with a stick as Hans would have done, but
+in some much more deadly way. She changed her manner instantly and
+began to laugh.
+
+"Darling Brute!"
+
+Verisschenzko knew that he had alarmed her sufficiently, so he sat down
+in his chair again and lit a cigarette calmly--then he sniffed the air.
+
+"Your mongrel friend uses the same perfume as Stanislass' mistress!"
+
+"Stanislass' mistress?" she had forgotten for the moment.
+
+"Yes--don't you remember we burnt his scented handkerchief the last time
+we met, because we did not like her taste in perfumes?"
+
+Harietta's ill humour rose again; she was annoyed that she had forgotten
+this incident. Her instinct of self-preservation usually preserved her
+from committing any such mistakes. She felt that it was now advisable to
+become cajoling; also there was something in the face of Verisschenzko
+and his fierceness which aroused renewed passion in her--it was absurd
+to waste time in quarrelling with him when in an hour Stanislass might be
+coming in, so she went over behind his chair and smoothed back his thick
+dark hair.
+
+"You know that I adore you, darling Brute!"
+
+"Of course--" he did not even turn his head towards her. "Have you had
+your heart's desire here in England?"
+
+"Before this stupid war came--yes--now I'm through with it. I'm for
+Paris again."
+
+"I suppose I must have been mistaken, but I thought I caught sight of
+your handsome German friend in the hall just now?"
+
+"German friend--who?"
+
+"Your _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball. I have forgotten his name."
+
+"And so have I."
+
+At that instant Marie appeared at the door and Fou-Chow came from under
+the chair where he was sheltering and pattered towards her with a glad
+tiny whine. The maid's eyes rounded with dislike as she looked at her
+mistress; she realised that the little creature had been roughly treated
+again. She picked him up and could hardly control her voice into a tone
+of respectfulness as she spoke:
+
+"Monsieur Insborg demands if he can see Madame in half an hour. He
+telephoned to Madame but received no reply."
+
+For a second Harietta's eyes betrayed her; they narrowed with alarm, and
+then she said suavely: "I suppose the receiver was off. No, say I am
+dining early for the theatre--but to-morrow at five."
+
+The maid inclined her head and left the room silently, carrying
+Fou-Chow, but as she did so her eyes met Verisschenzko's and their
+expression suggested to him several things:
+
+"Marie loves the dog--so she hates Harietta. Good--we shall see."
+
+Thus his thoughts ran, but aloud he asked what Harietta meant to do with
+her life in Paris, and who had been her lovers here?
+
+"You do say such frightful things to me, St�pan," and she tossed her
+head. "You think that because I took you, I take others! Pah!--and if I
+do--these Englishmen are peaches, just like little school boys--they'd
+not harm a fly. But I only love you, Darling Brute--even though we have
+had a row."
+
+"I know that, of course. I am not jealous, only you have not given me any
+proofs lately, so I am going to retire from the field. I came to say
+good-bye."
+
+He looked adorably attractive, Harietta thought--he made her blood run.
+Ferdinand Ardayre was but an instructed weakling, when one had come
+through his intricacies there was nothing in him. As a lover he was not
+worth the Russian's little finger, and the more Verisschenzko eluded
+her, the higher her passion for him grew; and here he was after months
+of absence and suggesting that he would leave her for ever! This was not
+to be borne!
+
+The enraging part was that she would not dare to try to keep him with
+Hans again upon the scene. She hated Hans once more as she had hated him
+at the Ardayre ball!
+
+Verisschenzko did not attempt to caress her; he sat perfectly still, nor
+did he speak.
+
+Harietta could not think how to cope with this new mood; her weariness
+with the gloom of England and the absence of amusement seemed to render
+St�pan more than ever desirable. He represented the wild, the strong, the
+primitive, the only thing she felt that she desired at that moment--and
+if she let him go to-day he was capable of never coming back to her
+again. It was worth using any means to keep him on. She knew that she
+could obtain some show of love from him if she bribed him with bits of
+news. It would serve Hans right too for daring to turn up so
+inconveniently!
+
+So she came from behind his chair and sat down on Verisschenzko's knee
+and commenced to whisper in his ear.
+
+"Now I am beginning to think that you love me again," he announced
+presently,--"and of course I must always pay for love!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were seated by the fire in two armchairs when Stanislass came in
+from the Club before dinner at eight. Harietta had not even remembered
+that she must dress, so intoxicated with re-awakened passion for
+Verisschenzko had she become. A man for her must be in the room; her
+affection could not keep alight in absence. She had revelled in the joy
+of finding again a complete physical master. She loved him as a tigress
+may love her tamer, the man with the whip; and the knowledge that she was
+deceiving Hans and her husband and Ferdinand added a fillip to her
+satisfaction. But how was she going to be sure to see St�pan again--that
+was the question which still agitated her. Verisschenzko wished to
+further examine Ferdinand Ardayre, and so decided to make every one
+uncomfortable once more by staying on. Stanislass, very nervous with him
+now, talked fast and foolishly. Harietta fidgeted, and in a moment or two
+Ferdinand Ardayre was announced.
+
+He reddened with annoyance to see the Russian had not gone; the flowers
+which he had brought were in a parcel in his hand.
+
+Harietta took them disdainfully without a word of thanks. What a nuisance
+the creature was after all!--and Stanislass was--and everything and
+anything was which kept her from being alone with Verisschenzko!
+
+"When are you coming to see me again, St�pan?" she asked, determined not
+to let him part without some definite future meeting settled.
+
+"I will come back and take coffee with you to-night," he answered
+unexpectedly.
+
+Harietta was enchanted, she had not hoped for this.
+
+"No one bothers so much about dressing now, stay and dine as you are."
+
+"Yes, do," chimed in Stanislass timidly in Russian, "we should be
+so charmed."
+
+"Very well--I will dine--but I must change. I shall not be long though.
+Begin dinner without me, I will join you before the fish." And with no
+further waste of words he left them.
+
+Harietta pushed Stanislass gently from the room with an injunction to be
+quick--and then she returned and held out her arms to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"Now you must not be jealous, Ferdie pet, about Verisschenzko," and she
+patted him. "It is business--I must talk to him to-night; he has an idea
+that you and I are not favourable to the Allies," and she laughed
+delightedly, "and I must get him off this notion!"
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre looked sullen; he was burning with jealousy.
+
+"Will you make it up to me afterwards?"
+
+"But, of course, in the usual way!" and with one of her wonderful kisses
+Harietta went laughing from the room.
+
+Left alone, the young man gave himself a morphine _piq�re_, and then sat
+down and held his head in his hands.
+
+He had heard, as he had told Harietta earlier in the afternoon, that his
+brother's wife was going to have a child, and he could find no way of
+proving legally that it could not be John's, so his venom had grown with
+his impotence.
+
+His mother had said to him once:
+
+"The accursed English will always beat us, my son. Thy real father would
+have put poison in their coffee. We can only hope for revenge some day. I
+fear we shall never gain our desires. The old fool whom thou callest
+father must be sucked dry of everything while he lives, because no
+quarter will be given us once the breath is out of his body."
+
+Was this true? Must the English always beat him? He remembered his hatred
+of Denzil while at Eton, and the dog's life he had often led there. Well,
+he would hit back with an adder's sting when the chance came to him. He
+would like to see both Ardayres ruined and England herself in the dust,
+numbed and conquered. All his English life and education had never made
+him anything but an alien in thought and appearance.
+
+It was his powerlessness which enraged him, but surely the day must come
+when he could make some of them suffer.
+
+Harietta had not appeared in the hall when Verisschenzko returned
+dressed, and she even kept all three men waiting for about ten minutes,
+and then swept in resplendent in yellow brocade and the gardenias, when
+the clock had struck nine and most of the other diners were having
+their coffee.
+
+The atmosphere of restraint and depression was a constant source of
+resentment to her. It was all very well to be dignified and refined for
+some definite end, like securing an unquestioned position, but it was a
+weariness of the flesh to have to keep up this r�le month after month
+with no excitement or reward, and every now and then she felt that she
+must break out even in small ways by wearing too gorgeous and unsuitable
+raiment. She wished that Germany would be quick about winning, then
+things could settle down and she could begin her social career again.
+
+"It don't amount to a row of pins to the people who want to enjoy
+themselves, as I do, if their country is beaten or not; it'll all be the
+same six months after peace is declared, so I'm all for knocking
+whichever seems feeblest out quickly," she had said to Ferdinand, "and
+Paris will always be top of the world for clothes and things that one
+wants, so what do old politics matter?"
+
+She derived some pleasure out of the sensation she created when she went
+into a restaurant, and she really looked extraordinarily handsome.
+
+The dinner amused her, too; it was entertaining to make Ferdinand
+jealous. The emotions of Stanislass had ceased to count to her in any way
+whatsoever.
+
+Verisschenzko had discovered what he required in regard to Ferdinand
+Ardayre before they went into the hall for coffee--there was nothing
+further to be gained by having another t�te-�-t�te with Harietta, so he
+sat down by Stanislass and suggested that the other two should go on to
+the Coliseum without them, and Harietta was obliged to depart reluctantly
+with Ferdinand, having arranged that St�pan should let her know, directly
+he arrived in Paris, whither he was going in a day or two also.
+
+When she had left them Stanislass Boleski turned melancholy eyes to his
+old friend, but remained silent.
+
+"Has it been worth it?" Verisschenzko asked, with certain feeling--they
+had relapsed into Russian.
+
+Stanislass sighed deeply.
+
+"No--far from it--I am broken and finished, St�pan, she has devoured
+my soul--"
+
+"Why don't you kill her! I should."
+
+The Pole clenched one of his transparent looking hands:
+
+"I cannot--I desire her so--she is an obsession. I cannot work--she
+leaves me neither time nor brain. But I want her always, she is a burning
+torment, and a blast, and a sin. I see visions of the chance that I have
+missed, and then all is obliterated by her voluptuous kisses. I die each
+day with jealousy and shame. She withholds herself, and I would pay with
+the blood from my veins to possess her again!"
+
+"You have no longer any delusions about her--you see her as a curse and
+a vampire?"
+
+Stanislass reddened.
+
+"I see everything, but I know only desire. St�pan, she has dragged me
+through every degradation. I am a witness of her unfaithfulness. She
+gives herself to this Turk with hardly a pretence of concealment--I know
+it--I burn with rage, and I can do nothing. She returns to my arms and I
+forget everything. I am a most unhappy man and only death can release me,
+and yet I wish to live because I love her. Each day is fierce longing for
+her--each night away from her hell--" Tears sprang to his hopeless black
+eyes and his voice broke with emotion.
+
+Verisschenzko looked at him and a rough pity tempered his contempt.
+
+Here was a case where an indulgence having become master was exacting a
+hideous toll. But the net was drawing closer and when all the strands
+were in his hands he would act without mercy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+When Amaryllis knew that John was going to get a few days' leave at
+Christmas a strange nervousness took possession of her. The personality
+of Denzil had been growing more real to her ever since they had parted,
+in spite of her endeavours to discipline her mind and control all
+emotion. The thought of him and the thought of the baby were inseparable
+and were seldom absent from her consciousness. All sorts of wonderful
+emotions held her, and exalted her imagination until she felt that Denzil
+was part of her daily life--and with the double interest her love for him
+grew and grew.
+
+She had only seen John during the day when he had come to bid her
+good-bye before leaving for the Front, and most of the time they had been
+surrounded by the de la Paule family. But now she would have to face the
+fact of living with him again in an intimate relationship.
+
+The thought appeared awful to her. There was something in her nature
+which resembled that of the bride of King Caudaules. She could not
+support the idea of belonging now to John; it seemed to her that he must
+have no rights at all. She had written to him dutifully each week letters
+about the place and her Committees in the County. She had not once
+mentioned the coming child.
+
+Denzil's mother had been ill and the visit to Bath had been postponed,
+and after a fortnight alone at Ardayre she had come up to London. She had
+too much time to think there.
+
+St�pan had left her a list of books to get and she had been steadily
+reading them.
+
+How horribly ignorant she had been! She realised that what knowledge she
+had possessed had never been centralised or brought to any use. She had
+known isolated histories of Europe, and never had studied them
+collectively or contemporarily to discover their effect upon human
+evolution. She had learned many things, and then never employed her
+critical faculties about them. A whole new world seemed to be opening to
+her view. She had determined not to be unhappy and not to look ahead, but
+in spite of these good resolutions she would often dream in the firelight
+of the joy of being clasped in Denzil's arms.
+
+When she thought of John it was with tolerance more than affection. What
+did he really mean to her, denuded of the glamour with which she herself
+had surrounded him?
+
+Practically nothing at all.
+
+She was quite aware that her state of being was rendering all her mental
+and emotional faculties particularly sensitive, and she did her utmost to
+remember all Verisschenzko's counsel to discipline herself and remain
+serene. The morning John was expected to arrive she had a hard fight with
+herself. She felt very nervous and ill at ease. Above all things, she
+must not be unkind.
+
+He was bronzed and looked well, he was more expansive also and plainly
+very glad to see her.
+
+He held her close to him and bent to kiss her lips; but some undefined
+reluctance came over her, and she moved her head aside.
+
+Something in her resented the caress. Her lips were now for Denzil and
+for no other man. It was she who was recalcitrant and turned the
+conversation into everyday things.
+
+The de la Paule family had been summoned for luncheon and the
+afternoon passed among them all, and then the evening and the
+t�te-�-t�te dinner came.
+
+John knocked at the door of her room while she was dressing. Her maid had
+just finished her hair and she wondered at herself that she should
+experience a sense of shyness and have to suppress an inclination to
+refuse to let him come in. And once any of these little intimate
+happenings would have given her joy!
+
+She kept Adams there, and hurried into her tea-gown and then walked
+towards the door.
+
+John had not spoken much, but stood by the fire.
+
+How changed things were! Once he had to be persuaded and enticed to stay
+with her at such moments, and it was he who now seemed to desire to do
+so, and it was she who discouraged his wishes!
+
+In Amaryllis' mind an agitation grew. What could she say to him
+presently--if he suggested coming to sleep in her room?
+
+The knowledge in her breast rose as an insurmountable barrier
+between them.
+
+During dinner she kept the conversation entirely upon his life at the
+Front--which indeed really interested her. She was not cold or stiff in
+her manner, but she was unconsciously aloof.
+
+Then they went back into the library, each feeling exceedingly depressed.
+
+When coffee had come and they were quite alone Amaryllis felt she could
+not stand the strain, and went to the piano. She played for quite a long
+time all the things she remembered that John liked best. She wanted the
+music to calm her, and she wanted to gain time. John sat in one of the
+monster chairs and gazed into the fire. He seemed to see pictures in the
+glowing coals.
+
+The strange relentless fate which had pursued him always as far as
+happiness was concerned!
+
+He remembered what his mother had said to him when she lay a-dying with a
+broken heart.
+
+"John, we cannot see what God means in it all. There must be some
+explanation because He cannot be unjust. It is because we have missed the
+point of some lesson, probably, and so are given it again to learn. Do
+not ever be rebellious, my son, and perhaps some day light will come."
+
+He had read an article in some paper lately ridiculing the theory that we
+have had former lives, but, after all, perhaps there was some foundation
+for the belief. Perhaps he was paying in this one for sins in a previous
+birth. That would account for the seeming inexorableness of the
+misfortunes which fell upon him now, since common sense told him that in
+this life such cruel blows were undeserved.
+
+Amaryllis glanced at his face from the piano as she played. It was
+infinitely sad.
+
+A great pity grew in her heart. What ought she to do not to be unkind?
+
+Presently she finished a soft chord and got up and came to his side.
+
+They were both suffering cruelly--but John was going back to fight. She
+must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France
+at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth,
+and she could not let him go again into danger with this black shadow
+between them.
+
+He looked up at her and rose from his chair.
+
+"You play so beautifully," he said hastily. "You take one out of
+oneself. Now it is late and the day has been long. Let us go to bed,
+dearest child."
+
+Amaryllis stiffened suddenly--the moment that she dreaded had come.
+
+"I would rather that you slept in your dressing-room. I have ordered that
+to be prepared--"
+
+He looked at her startled--and then he took her hand.
+
+"Amaryllis--tell me everything. Why are you so changed?"
+
+"I'm trying not to be, John."
+
+"You are trying--that proves that you are, if you must try. Please tell
+me what this means."
+
+She endeavoured to remain calm and not become unhinged.
+
+"It was you yourself who altered me. I came to you all loving and human
+and you froze me. There is nothing to be done."
+
+"Yes, there is. You know that I love you."
+
+"Perhaps you do, but the family matters more to you than I do, or
+anything else in the world."
+
+"That may have been so once, but not now," his voice throbbed with
+feeling.
+
+"Alas!" was all she answered and looked down. John longed to appeal to
+her--but he was too honest to seek to soften her through the link of the
+child. Indeed, the thought of it had grown hateful to him. He only knew
+that he had played for a stake which now seemed worthless. Amaryllis and
+her love mattered more than any child.
+
+He clenched his hands tightly; the pain of things seemed hard to bear.
+
+Why had he not broken the thongs of reserve which held him long days ago
+and made love to her in words? But that would have been dishonest. He
+must at least be true; and he realised now that he had starved her--no
+matter what his motive had been.
+
+"Amaryllis, tell me everything, please," and he held out his hands and
+drew her to the sofa and sat down by her side.
+
+She could not control her emotion any longer, and her voice shook as she
+answered him:
+
+"I know that it was not you--but Denzil, John--and the baby is his,
+not yours."
+
+His face altered. He had not been prepared to hear this thing and he
+was stunned.
+
+"Ferdinand is an awful possibility to contemplate there at Ardayre, if
+you have no son--" She went on, trying to be calm, "but do you not think
+that you might have told me? Surely a woman has the right to select the
+father of her child."
+
+John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.
+
+"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken
+with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you--it was an easy
+transition to find that I loved him--because I was only loving the
+imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not
+make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby,
+that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must
+just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as
+we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."
+
+"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.
+
+"No--it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."
+
+"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again
+'Sweetheart'!"
+
+"No, he did not--he used the word simply in speaking of a picture--but I
+recognised his voice then immediately--it is a little deeper than yours."
+
+"When did you see Denzil?"
+
+She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming to
+Ardayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.
+
+"He would never have spoken to me--it was fate which sent him into the
+train, and then I made him speak--I could not bear it. After I
+recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame.
+He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since.
+It is I alone who must be counted with, John--Denzil will try never to
+see me again."
+
+John groaned aloud.
+
+"Oh God--the misery of it all!"
+
+"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these
+things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to
+me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt
+the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him--I found
+myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to
+me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John--I
+had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and
+living a lie."
+
+Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down
+his cheeks.
+
+He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.
+
+What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to
+have used her for his own aims, however high?
+
+"Amaryllis--you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."
+
+But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the
+piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment.
+She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she
+stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.
+
+"Of course, I forgive you, John--but I cannot cease from loving Denzil,
+that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I
+never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences.
+John dearest, let us be friends--and live as friends, then everything
+won't be so hard."
+
+He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering
+acutely--must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
+
+"But I love you, Amaryllis--I love you, dearest child--"
+
+And now again she said "Alas!"--and that was all.
+
+"Amaryllis--this is a frightful sacrifice to me--must you insist upon
+it?"
+
+Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose--and she
+stood up and faced him.
+
+"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up,
+conventional girl--milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will--I
+had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a
+savage"--her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,--"I
+_could not_ belong to two men--it would utterly degrade me, then I do not
+know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul--and while he
+lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to
+me--fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I
+must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family,
+and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the
+only terms I can offer you now."
+
+John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
+
+Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his
+brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
+
+"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And
+when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must
+love it because it is mine and an Ardayre--and the comfort of that must
+fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for
+the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of
+life--perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."
+
+John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow
+and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips--those he told himself he
+must renounce for evermore.
+
+"Amaryllis,"--his voice was husky still, "yes--I will be your friend,
+darling--and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but
+it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and
+living--and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped
+against hope--and then when I knew that everything was impossible--I
+felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't
+know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I
+gratified all your wishes perhaps--Ah!--I see it was very cruel. Darling,
+I would have told you the truth--presently--but then the war came, and
+the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."
+
+She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes--her one idea was now to
+comfort him since she need no longer fear.
+
+"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me--I do not know, perhaps
+I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family
+pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand--or his children which may
+be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented--I cannot be sure. But
+somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual
+things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must
+be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant
+yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid--I don't know really. I have
+only been wondering--but perhaps there are powerful currents connected
+with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force
+of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."
+
+They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear
+her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his
+emotion at last.
+
+"It may be so--"
+
+"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on,
+"then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir--and now--if the
+child is a boy--"
+
+John started.
+
+"We neither of us thought of that."
+
+"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist--it is
+only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too--but surely the
+war cannot go on long now?"
+
+John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or
+whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a
+speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not
+to agitate her mind--events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.
+
+He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows;
+he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened
+interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come
+to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future,
+and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and
+took her hand:
+
+"Go to bed now, dear girl,--and to-morrow I shall have quite conquered
+all the feelings which could disturb you, and just remember always that I
+am indeed your friend."
+
+She understood at last the greatness of his sacrifice and the fineness of
+his soul, and she fell into a passion of weeping and ran from the room.
+
+But John, left alone, sank down into the same chair as he had done once
+before on the night he was waiting for Denzil, and, as then, he buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The next day they met at breakfast. John had not slept at all and was
+very pale and Amaryllis's eyes still showed the deepened violet shadows
+from much weeping. But they were both quite calm.
+
+She came over to John and kissed his forehead with gentle tenderness and
+then gave him his tea. They tried to talk in a friendly way as of old
+before any new emotions had come into their lives. And gradually the
+strain became lessened.
+
+They arranged to go out shopping, and John bought Amaryllis a new
+emerald ring.
+
+"Green is the colour of hope," she said. "I want green, John,
+because it will make me think of the springtime and nature, and all
+beautiful things."
+
+They lunched at a restaurant and in the afternoon went down to Ardayre.
+John had many things to attend to and would be occupied all the
+following day.
+
+There had been no Christmas feasting, but there were gifts to be
+distributed and various other duties and ceremonies to be gone through,
+although they had missed the Christmas day. Amaryllis tried in every way
+to be helpful to her husband, and he appreciated her stateliness and
+sweet manners with all the tenants and people on the estate.
+
+So the four days passed quite smoothly, and the last night of the old
+year came.
+
+"I don't think that you must sit up for it, dear," John said after
+dinner. "It will only tire you, and it is always a rather sad moment
+unless one has a party as we always had in old days."
+
+Amaryllis went obediently to her room and stayed there; sleep was far
+from her eyes. What was the rest of her life going to be without Denzil?
+And what of John? Would they settle down into a real quiet friendship
+when he came back, and the child was born? Or would she have always to
+feel that he loved her and was for ever suffering pain?
+
+The more she thought the less clear the issue became, and the deeper the
+sadness in the atmosphere.
+
+At last she slipped down onto the big white bear-skin rug and
+began to pray.
+
+But when the clock struck midnight, and the New Year bells rang out, a
+dreadful depression fell upon her, a sense of foreboding and fear.
+
+She tried to tell herself that she was foolish, and it was all caused
+only because she was so highly strung and sensitive now, on account of
+her state. But the thought would persist that danger threatened some one
+she loved. Was it Denzil, or John?
+
+Amaryllis tried to force herself from her unhappy impressions by thinking
+of what she could do presently in the summer, when she would be quite
+well again, though her greatest work must always be to try to make John
+happy, if by then he had come home.
+
+She heard him go into his room at about one o'clock, and then she crept
+noiselessly to her great gilt bed.
+
+John had waited for the New Year by the cedar parlour fire. The room was
+so filled with the radiance of Amaryllis that he liked being there.
+
+And he, too, was thinking of what their new life would be should he
+chance to come through. The ache in his heart would gradually subside, he
+supposed, but how would he bear the long years, knowing that Amaryllis
+was thinking of Denzil--and longing for him--and if fate made them
+meet--what then?
+
+How could he endure to know that these two beings were suffering?
+
+There seemed no clear outlook ahead. But, as he knew only too well death
+could hardly fail to intervene, and if it should claim Denzil, then he
+must console Amaryllis' grief. But if happily it could be he who were
+taken, then their future path would be clear.
+
+He could not forget the third eventuality, that he and Denzil might both
+be killed. He thought and thought over them all, and at last he decided
+to add a letter to his will. If he should be killed he would ask Denzil
+to marry Amaryllis immediately, without waiting for the conventional
+year. The times were too strenuous, and she must not be left
+unprotected--alone with the child.
+
+He got up and began the letter to his lawyer, and so the
+instructions ran:
+
+"I request my cousin Denzil Benedict Ardayre to marry Amaryllis, my wife,
+as soon as possible after my death, if he can get leave and is still
+alive. I confide her to his care and ask them both not to let any
+conventional idea of mourning stand in the way of these, my urgent last
+commands. And I ask my cousin Denzil, if he lives through the war, to
+take great care of the bringing up of the child."
+
+He read thus far, and when he came to "the child" he scratched it out
+and wrote "my child" deliberately, and then he went on to add his wishes
+for its education, should it be a boy. The will had already amply
+provided for Amaryllis, so that she would be a rich woman for the rest
+of her days.
+
+When all this was clearly copied out and sealed up in an envelope
+addressed to his lawyer, the clock struck twelve.
+
+The silence in the old house was complete; there was no revelry for the
+first time for many years, even the servants far off in their wing had
+gone to rest.
+
+It seemed to John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from
+him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He
+could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was
+it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after
+all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of
+sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and
+was soon in bed.
+
+And then he slept soundly until late in the morning, and awoke refreshed
+and serene on New Year's day.
+
+His leave was up on the third of January and he returned to London,
+but he would not let Amaryllis undergo the fatigue of accompanying
+him. He said good-bye to her there at Ardayre. She felt extremely sad
+and unhappy.
+
+Had she done well, after all, to have told John the truth? Should she
+have borne things as they were and waited until the end of the war? But
+no, that would have been impossible to her nature. If she might not have
+Denzil for her lover, she would have no other man.
+
+John's cheerfulness astonished her--it was so uniform, it could not be
+assumed. Perhaps she did not yet understand him, perhaps in his heart he
+was glad that all pretences had come to an end.
+
+They had the most affectionate parting. John never was sentimental, and
+he went off with brave, cheery words, and every injunction that she was
+to take the greatest care of herself.
+
+"Remember, Amaryllis, that you are the most precious thing on earth to
+me--and you must think also of the child."
+
+She promised him that she would carry out all his wishes in this
+respect and remain quietly at Ardayre until the first of April, when
+perhaps he could get leave again and then she would go to London for
+the birth of the baby.
+
+John turned and waved his hand as he went off down the avenue, and
+Amaryllis watched the motor until it was out of sight, the tears slowly
+brimming over and running down her cheeks.
+
+She noticed that at the turn in the avenue a telegraph boy passed the car
+and came straight on. The wire was not for John evidently, so she would
+wait at the door to see. It proved to be for her, and from Denzil's
+mother, saying that she was en route for Dorchester, motoring, and would
+stop at Ardayre on the chance of finding its mistress at home. Amaryllis
+felt suddenly excited; she had often longed for this and yet in some way
+she had feared it also. What new emotions might the meeting not arouse?
+
+It was quite early after luncheon that Mrs. Ardayre was announced.
+Amaryllis had waited in the green drawing room, thinking that she would
+come. She was playing the piano at the far end to try and lighten her
+feeling of depression, when the door opened, and to her astonishment
+quite a young, slight woman came into the room. She was a little lame,
+and walked with a stick. For a moment Amaryllis thought she must be
+mistaken, and rose with a vague, but gracious look in her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre held out her hand and smiled:
+
+"I hope you got my telegram in time," she said cordially. "I felt I must
+not lose the opportunity of making your acquaintance. My son has been so
+anxious for us to meet."
+
+"You--you can't be Denzil's mother, surely!" Amaryllis exclaimed. "He is
+much too old to be your son!"
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled again--while Amaryllis made her sit down on the sofa
+beside her and helped her off with her furs. "I am forty-nine years old,
+Amaryllis--if I may call you so--but one ought never to grow old in body.
+It is not necessary, and it is not agreeable to the eye!"
+
+Amaryllis looked at her carefully in the full side light. It was the
+shape of her face, she decided, which gave her such youth. There were no
+unsightly bones to cause shadows and the skin was smooth and ivory--and
+her eyes were bright brown; their expression was very humorous as well as
+kindly, and Amaryllis was drawn to her at once.
+
+They talked about their desire to know one another and about the family,
+and the place, and the war--and at last they spoke of Denzil, and Mrs.
+Ardayre told of what his life was, and his whereabouts now, and then grew
+retrospective.
+
+"He is the dearest boy in the world," she said. "We have been friends
+always, and now he will not allow me to be anxious about him. I really
+think that as far as the frightfulness of things will let him be, he
+is actually enjoying his life! Men are such queer creatures, they like
+to fight!"
+
+Amaryllis asked what was her latest news of him, and where he was, and
+listened interestedly to Mrs. Ardayre's replies:
+
+"The cavalry have not had very much to do lately, fortunately," she
+remarked. "My husband has just gone back, but I suppose if there is a
+shortage of men for the trenches, they will be dismounted perhaps."
+
+"I expect so--then we shall have to use all our courage and control
+our fears."
+
+Amaryllis turned the conversation back to Denzil again, and drew his
+mother out. She would like to have heard incidents of his childhood and
+of how he looked when he was a little boy, but she was too timid to ask
+any deliberate questions. She felt drawn to this lady, she looked so
+young and human. Perhaps she was not so wonderful in evening dress, but
+her figure was boyish in its slim spareness--in these serge travelling
+clothes she hardly looked thirty-five!
+
+She wondered what Denzil had told his mother about her--probably that she
+was going to have a child, but nothing more.
+
+They talked in the most friendly way for half an hour, and then Amaryllis
+asked her guest if she would like to come and see the house and
+especially the picture gallery and the Elizabethan Denzil hanging there.
+
+"It is just my boy!" Mrs. Ardayre cried, when they stood in front of it.
+"Eyes and all, they are bold and true and so loving. Oh! my dear child,
+you can't think what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has
+adored him--the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and
+my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when
+he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a
+tree. I daresay I am the silliest of them all!"
+
+Amaryllis listened, enchanted.
+
+"You see he has not one touch of me in him," Mrs. Ardayre went on, "but I
+was so frantically in love with my husband when he was born, he naturally
+was all Ardayre. Does it not interest you, Amaryllis, to wonder what your
+little one, when it comes, will look like? It ought to be pronouncedly of
+the family, your being also an Ardayre."
+
+"Indeed yes, I am very curious. And how we all hope that it will
+be a son!"
+
+"Is there a portrait of your husband here? Denzil says they are alike."
+
+"There is one in my sitting room; it is going to be moved in here
+presently, when mine is done next year. It is by Sargent, almost the last
+portrait he painted. Let us go there now and see it."
+
+"But there is no likeness," Mrs. Ardayre exclaimed presently, when they
+had gone to the cedar parlour and were examining the picture of John.
+"Can you discover it?"
+
+"I thought they were very alike once--but I do not altogether see it
+now."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with
+my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of
+the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I
+have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my
+husband and delighted in being the mother of his son."
+
+"There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and
+the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet
+know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather
+think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the
+child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the
+man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though."
+
+Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did
+not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a
+fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, passionately in love with
+him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child!
+Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing
+any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John!
+
+Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that
+she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy
+on her face.
+
+There was some mystery here.
+
+She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis.
+It was not a great deal. He had arrived at Bath that time looking very
+stern and abstracted, and had mentioned rather shortly that he had come
+down with the head of the family's wife in the train, and had gone on to
+Ardayre with her, after meeting them the previous night at dinner for the
+first time.
+
+He had not been at all expansive, but later in the evening when they had
+sat by her sitting room fire, he had suddenly said something which had
+startled her greatly:
+
+"Mum--I want you to know Amaryllis Ardayre. I am madly in love with
+her--she is going to have a baby, and she seems to be so alone."
+
+It must be one of those sudden passions, and the idea seemed in some way
+to jar a little. Denzil to have fallen in love with a woman whom he knew
+was going to have a child!
+
+She had said something of this to him, and he had turned eyes full of
+pain to her and even reproach.
+
+"Mum--you always understand me--I am not a beast, you know--I haven't
+anything more to say, only I want you to be really kind to her--and get
+to know her well."
+
+And he had not mentioned the subject again, but had been very preoccupied
+during all his three days' visit, which state she could not account for
+by the fact of the war--Denzil, she knew, was an enthusiastic soldier,
+and to be going out to fight would naturally be to him a keen joy. What
+did it all mean? And here was this sweet creature speaking of divine love
+mysteries and looking up at the portrait of her dull, unattractive
+husband with melancholy eyes, whereas they had sparkled with interest
+when Denzil was the subject of conversation! Could she, too, have fallen
+in love with Denzil in one night at dinner and a journey in the train!
+
+It was all very remarkable.
+
+They had tea together in the green drawing room, and by that time they
+had become very good friends.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre told Amaryllis of the little old manor home she had in
+Kent--The Moat, it was called, and of her garden and the pleasure it
+was to her.
+
+"I had about twelve thousand a year of my own, you know," she said, "and
+ever since Denzil was born I have each year put by half of it, so that
+when he was twenty-one I was able to hand over to him quite a decent sum
+that he might be independent and free. It is so humiliating for a man to
+have to be subservient to a woman, even a mother, and I go on doing the
+same every year. All the last years of his life my husband was very
+delicate--he was so badly wounded in the South African War, you know--so
+we lived very quietly at The Moat and in my tiny house in London. I hope
+you will let me show you them both one day."
+
+Amaryllis said she would be delighted, and added:
+
+"You will come and see me, won't you? I am going up to our house in Brook
+Street at the beginning of April, and I am praying that I may have a
+little son about the first week in May."
+
+Just before Mrs. Ardayre went on to Dorchester, she asked Amaryllis if
+she had any message to send Denzil--she wanted to watch her face. It
+flushed slightly and her deep soft voice said a little eagerly:
+
+"Yes--tell him I have been so delighted to meet you, and you are just
+what he said I should find you!--and tell him I sent him all sorts of
+good wishes--" and then she became a little confused.
+
+"I should so love a photograph of you--would you give me one, I wonder?"
+the elder woman asked quickly, to avoid any pause, and while Amaryllis
+went out of the room to get it, she thought:
+
+"She is certainly in love with Denzil. It could not have been the first
+time he had seen her--at the dinner--and yet he never tells lies." And
+she grew more and more puzzled and interested.
+
+When Amaryllis was alone after the motor with Mrs. Ardayre in it had
+departed, an uncontrollable fit of restlessness came over her. The visit
+had stirred up all her emotions again; she could not grieve any more
+about the tragedy of John; her whole being was vibrating with thoughts
+of Denzil and desire for his presence--she could see his face and feel
+the joy of his kisses.
+
+At that moment she would have flung everything in life away to rush
+into his arms!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Denzil was wounded at Neuve Chapelle on March 10th, 1915, though not
+seriously--a flesh wound in the side. He had done most gallantly and was
+to get a D.S.O. He had been in hospital for two weeks and was almost well
+when Amaryllis came up to Brook Street, on the first of April. She had
+read his name in the list of wounded, and had telegraphed to his mother
+in great anxiety, but had been reassured, and now she throbbed with
+longing to see him.
+
+To know that soon he would be going back again to the Front, was almost
+more than she could bear. She was feeling wonderfully well herself. Her
+splendid constitution and her youth made natural things cause her little
+distress. She was neither nervous nor fretful, nor oppressed with fancies
+and moods. And she looked very beautiful with her added dignity of mien
+and perfectly chosen clothes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre came at once to see her the morning after her arrival, and
+suggested that Denzil should come when out driving that afternoon.
+Amaryllis tried to accept this suggestion calmly, and not show her joy,
+and Mrs. Ardayre left, promising to bring her son about four.
+
+Denzil had said to his Mother when he knew that Amaryllis was coming
+to London:
+
+"Mum, I want to see Amaryllis--please arrange it for me. And Mum, don't
+ask me anything about it; just leave me there when we drive and come and
+fetch me when I must go in again."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre was a very modern person, but she could not help exclaiming
+in a half voice while she sat by her son's bed:
+
+"You know she is going to have a baby in a month, dear boy, perhaps she
+won't care to see you now."
+
+A flush rose to Denzil's forehead: "Yes, I do know," he said a little
+hurriedly, "but we are not conventional in these days. I wish to see her;
+please, darling Mother, do what I ask."
+
+And then he had turned the conversation.
+
+So his mother had obediently arranged matters, and at about four in the
+afternoon left him at the Brook Street door.
+
+Early as it was, Amaryllis had made the tea, and expected to see both
+Denzil and his mother. The room was full of hyacinths and daffodils, and
+she herself looked like a spring flower, as she sat on the sofa among the
+green silk cushions, wrapped in a pale parma violet tea-gown.
+
+The butler announced "Captain Ardayre," and Denzil came in slowly, and
+murmured "How do you do?"
+
+But as soon as the door was closed upon him, he started forward,
+forgetting his stiff side.
+
+He covered her hands with kisses, he could not contain his joy; and
+then he drew back and looked at her with worship and reverence in his
+blue eyes.
+
+The most mysterious, quivering emotions were coursing through him, mixed
+with triumph, as he took in the picture she made. This delicate,
+beautiful creature! And to see her--so!
+
+Amaryllis lowered her head in a sweet confusion; her feelings were no
+less aroused. She was thrilling with passionate welcome and delicious
+shyness. Nature was indeed ruling them both, and with a glad "Darling
+Angel!" Denzil sat down beside her and clasped her in his arms. Then for
+a few seconds delirious pleasure was all that they knew.
+
+"Let me look at you again, Sweetheart," he ordered presently, with a tone
+of command and possession in his very deep voice, which caused Amaryllis
+delight. It made her feel that she really belonged to him.
+
+"To me you have never been so beautiful--and every scrap of you is mine."
+
+"Absolutely yours."
+
+"I had to come--I cannot help whether it is right or wrong. I must go
+back to the Front as soon as I am fit, and I could not have borne to go
+without seeing you, darling one."
+
+They had a hundred things to say to each other about themselves--and
+about the baby, and the next hour was very sacred and wonderful.
+Denzil was a superlatively perfect lover and knew the immense value of
+tender words.
+
+He intoxicated Amaryllis' imagination with the moving things he said.
+
+Alas! how many worthy men miss themselves, and make their loved ones
+miss the best part of life's joys by their mulish silence and refusal
+to gratify this desire of all women to be _told_ that they are loved,
+to have the fact expressed in passionate speech! No deeds make up for
+this omission.
+
+Denzil had none of these limitations; he said everything which could
+cajole and excite the imagination. He murmured a hundred affecting
+tendernesses in her ears. He caressed her--he commanded and mastered her,
+and then assured her that he was her slave. He was arrogant and
+humble--arrogant when he claimed her love, humble in his worship. He
+spoke of the child and what it meant to him that it should be his and
+hers. He caused her to feel that he was strong and protective and that
+she was to be cherished and adored. He made pictures of how it would be
+if he could spend a whole day and night with her presently in June, when
+she would be quite well, and of how thrilled with interest he would be to
+see the baby, and that, of course, it _must_ be exactly like himself! And
+Amaryllis' eyes, all soft and swimming with emotion answered him.
+
+Naturally, since she loved him so passionately, it would be his image!
+Had not his own mother accounted for his pronounced Ardayre stamp by her
+having been so in love with his father--so, of course, this would
+re-occur! It was all dear to think about!
+
+They spent another hour of divine intoxication, and then the clock
+struck six.
+
+It sounded like a knell.
+
+Amaryllis gave a little cry.
+
+"Denzil, it is altogether unnatural that you should have to go. To
+think that you must leave me, and may not even welcome your son! To
+think that by the law we are sinning, because I am sitting here clasped
+in your arms! To think that I may not have the joy of showing you the
+exquisite little clothes, and the pink silk cot--all the things which
+have given me such pleasure to arrange.... It is all too cruel! You
+know that eighteenth century engraving in the series of Moreau le
+Jeune, of the married lovers playing with the darling, teeny cap
+together! Well, I have it beside my bed, and every day I look at it and
+pretend it is you and me!"
+
+"Darling--Darling!"--and Denzil fiercely kissed her, he was so
+deeply moved.
+
+"It is all holy and beautiful, the coming to earth of a soul. It only
+makes me long to be good and noble and worthy of this wonderful thing.
+But for us--we who love truly and purely, it has all been turned into
+something forbidden and wrong."
+
+"Heart of me--I must have some news of you. I cannot starve there in the
+trenches, knowing that all the letters that should be mine are going to
+John. My mother is really trustworthy, will you let her be with you as
+often as you can, that she may be able to tell me how you are, precious
+one? When the seventh of May comes I shall go perfectly mad with suspense
+and anxiety. I will arrange that my mother sends me at once a telegram."
+
+"Denzil!" and Amaryllis clung to him.
+
+"It is an impossible situation," and he gave a great sigh. "I shall tell
+John that I have seen you--I cannot help it, the times are too precarious
+to have acted otherwise. And afterwards, when the war is over, we must
+face the matter and decide what is best to be done."
+
+"_I_ cannot live without you, Denzil, and that I know."
+
+They said good-bye at last silently, after many kisses and tears, and
+Denzil came out into the darkening street to his mother in the motor,
+with white, set face.
+
+"I am a little troubled, dearest boy," she whispered, as they went along.
+"I feel that there is something underneath all this and that Amaryllis
+means some great thing in your life--the whole aspect of everything fills
+me with discomfort. It is unlike your usual, sensitive refinement,
+Denzil, to have gone to see her--now--"
+
+"I understand exactly what you mean, Mother. I should say the same thing
+myself in your place. I can't explain anything, only I beg of you to
+trust me. Amaryllis is an angel of purity and sweetness; perhaps some day
+you will understand."
+
+She took his hand into her muff and held it:
+
+"You know I have no conventions, dearest, and my creed is to believe what
+you say, but I cannot account for the situation because of your only
+having met Amaryllis so lately for the first time. I could understand it
+perfectly if you had been her lover, and the child was your child, but
+she has not been married a whole year yet to John!"
+
+Denzil answered nothing--he pressed his mother's hand.
+
+She returned the pressure:
+
+"We will talk no more about it."
+
+"And you will go on being kind?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Before they reached the hospital door in Park Lane Mrs. Ardayre had been
+instructed to send an immediate telegram the moment the baby was born,
+and to comfort and take care of Amaryllis, and tell her son every little
+detail as to her welfare and about the child.
+
+"I will try not to form any opinion, Denzil; and some day perhaps things
+will be made plain, for it would break my heart to believe that you are a
+dishonourable man."
+
+"You need not worry, Mum dearest. Indeed, I am not that. It is just a
+tragic story, but I cannot say more. Only take care of Amaryllis, and
+send me news as often as you can."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The telegram to say that Amaryllis had a little son came to John Ardayre
+on the night before he went into the trenches again at the second battle
+of Ypres on May 9th, 1915. He had been waiting in feverish impatience
+and expectancy all the day, and, in fact, for three days for news.
+
+His whole inner life since that New Year's night had been strangely
+serene, in spite of its frightful outward turmoil and stress. He had
+taken the tumult of Neuve Chapelle calmly, and had come through it and
+all the beginning of the Ypres battle without a scratch. He had felt that
+he was looking upon it all from some detached standpoint, and that it in
+no way personally concerned him.
+
+He had seen Denzil do the splendid thing and he had felt a distinct
+distress when he had seen him fall wounded.
+
+Denzil was just back now and in the trenches again with the rest of the
+dismounted cavalry. They might meet in the attack at dawn.
+
+When John read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion
+was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the
+billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must
+have received bad news.
+
+Then it seemed as though he went mad!
+
+The repression of his life appeared to fall from him, he became as a new
+man. All his comrades were astonished at him, and a Scotch Corporal was
+heard to remark that it was "na canny--the Captain was fey."
+
+The Ardayres were saved! The family would carry on!
+
+Fondest love welled up in his heart for Amaryllis. If he only came
+through he would devote his life to showing her his gratitude and
+showering everything upon her that her heart could desire--and
+perhaps--perhaps the joy of the baby would make up for the absence of
+Denzil. This thought stayed with him and comforted him.
+
+Lady de la Paule had wired:
+
+"A splendid little son born 11:45 A.M. seventh May--Amaryllis
+well--all love."
+
+And an hour or two before this Denzil had also received the news from his
+Mother. He, too, had grown exalted and thanked God.
+
+So the day that the Germans were to fail at Ypres, and destiny was to
+accomplish itself for these two men--dawned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of what use to write of that terrible fight and of the gas and the horror
+and the mud? John Ardayre seemed to bear a charmed life as he led his men
+"over the top." For an hour wild with exaltation and gladness, he rallied
+them and cheered them on. The scene of blood and carnage has been too
+often repeated on other fateful days, and as often well described, when
+acts of glorious heroism occurred again and again. John had rushed
+forward to succour a wounded trooper when a shell crashed near them, and
+he fell to the ground. And then he know what the great thing was the New
+Year had promised him. For death was going to straighten out
+matters--John was going beyond. Well, he had never been rebellious, and
+he knew now that light had come. But the sky above seemed to be darkening
+curiously, and the terrible noise to be growing dim, when he was
+conscious that a man was crawling towards him, dragging a leg, and then
+his eyes opened wildly for an instant, and he saw that it was Denzil all
+covered with blood.
+
+"Are we both going West, Denzil?" he demanded faintly. "At least I am--"
+then he gasped a little, while a stream of scarlet flowed from his
+shattered side.
+
+"I've asked you in a letter to marry Amaryllis immediately--if you get
+home. I hope your number is not up, too, because she will be all alone.
+Take care of her, Denzil, and take care of the child...." His voice grew
+lower and lower, and the last words came in spasms: "There is an Ardayre
+son, you know--so it's all right. The family is saved from Ferdinand and
+I am very glad to die."
+
+Denzil tried to get out his flask, but before he could reach John's lips
+with it he saw that it would be of no avail--for Death had claimed the
+head of the Family. And above his mangled body John's face wore a look of
+calm serenity, and his firm lips smiled.
+
+Then things became all vague for Denzil and he remembered nothing more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was more than two months before Denzil was well enough to be brought
+from Boulogne, and then he had a relapse and for the whole of July was
+dangerously ill. At one moment there seemed to be no hope of saving his
+leg, and his mother ate her heart out with anxiety.
+
+And Amaryllis, back at Ardayre with the little Benedict, wept many tears.
+
+John's death had deeply grieved her. She realised his steadfast kindness
+and affection for her. He had written her a letter just before the battle
+had begun--a short epistle telling her calmly that the chances would be
+perhaps even for any man to come out of it alive--and assuring her of his
+greatest devotion.
+
+"I know that Denzil went to see you, my dear little girl. He has told me
+about it. And I know that you love each other. There is only one chance
+for us in the future--and that lies with the child. It may be that when
+it comes to you it may fill your life and satisfy you. This is my
+prayer--otherwise we must see what can be arranged about things; because
+I cannot allow you to be unhappy. You were an innocent factor in all
+this, and it would be unjust that you should be hurt."
+
+How good and generous John had always been.
+
+And his letter to his lawyers! To make things smooth for her--and for
+Denzil--how marvellously kind!
+
+Her mourning for John was real and deep, as it would have been for a
+brother. But during the month of intense anxiety about Denzil everything
+else was numbed, even her interest in her son.
+
+By the end of August he was out of danger, although little hope was
+entertained that he would ever walk easily. But this was a minor
+thing--and gradually it began to be some consolation to the two women who
+loved him to know that he was safely wounded and would probably not be
+fit for active service again for a very long time.
+
+They wrote letters to one another, but they decided not to meet.
+Six months must elapse at least, they both felt--even in spite of
+John's commands.
+
+Another shell must have fallen not far off, for his body was never
+found--only his field glasses, broken and battered. And there would have
+been no actual information about his death had not Denzil seen him die.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Harietta Boleski and Stanislass and Ferdinand Ardayre had remained in
+Paris, with visits to Fontainebleau.
+
+When John had been killed, Harietta had been extremely perturbed.
+
+"Now St�pan will be able to marry that odious bit of bread and butter,
+and he is sure to do it after the year!" This thought rankled with her
+and embittered everything. Nothing pleased her. She grew more than ever
+rebellious at the dullness she had to live in. War was an imposition
+which ought not to be tolerated and she often told Hans so. At last she
+grew to take quite an interest in her spying for lack of more agreeable
+things to do.
+
+And so the months went by and November came, and a madness of jealousy
+was gradually augmenting in Harietta for Amaryllis Ardayre.
+
+Verisschenzko had gone to Russia in September, and she was convinced
+that he loved Amaryllis and that the child was his child. She could not
+conceive of a spiritual devotion, and something had altered all St�pan's
+ways. From the moment he returned to Paris until he had left she had
+tried and been unable to invoke any response in him, and she had felt
+like a foiled tigress when another has eaten her prey.
+
+As the impossibility of moving him forced itself upon her unwilling
+understanding, so the wildest passion for him grew, and when he left in
+September she was quite ill for a week with chagrin; then she became
+moody and more than ever capricious, and made Stanislass' life a hell,
+while Ferdinand Ardayre had little less misery to endure.
+
+An incident late in November caused her jealousy to burst into flame.
+
+She heard that Verisschenzko had returned from Russia and she went to his
+rooms to see him. The Russian servant who was accustomed to receive her
+was there waiting for his master who had not yet arrived. Without a word
+she passed the old man when he opened the door, and made her way into the
+sitting room, and then into the bedroom beyond. She did not believe that
+St�pan was not there and wanted to make sure. It was empty but a light
+burned before an Ikon, the doors of which were closed.
+
+Curiosity made Harietta go close and examine it. She knew the room so
+well and had never seen it there before. The table beneath it was
+arranged like an altar, and the Ikon was let in to the carved boiserie of
+the wall. It must have been since he had parted with her that this
+ridiculous thing had been done! She had not entered his _appartement_
+since June. She felt angry that the shrine should be closed and that she
+could not look upon it, for it must certainly be something which
+Verisschenzko prized.
+
+She bent nearer and shook the little doors; they resisted her, and her
+temper rose. Then some force seemed to propel her to commit sacrilege.
+She shook and shook and tore at the golden clasp, her irritation giving
+strength and cunning to her hands; and at last the small bolt came undone
+and the doors flew open--and an exquisitely painted modern picture of the
+Virgin disclosed itself, holding the Christ child in her arms. But for
+all the saintliness in the eyes of Mary, the face was an exact portrait
+of Amaryllis Ardayre!
+
+A frenzy of rage seized Harietta. Her rival reigned now indeed! This was
+positive proof to her, not of spiritual meaning--not of the mystic,
+abstract aloofness of worship which lay deep in St�pan's nature and had
+caused him to have Amaryllis transfigured into the symbol of purity, a
+daily reminder that she must always be for him the lady of his soul--such
+things had no meaning for Harietta. The Ikon was merely a material proof
+that Verisschenzko loved Amaryllis--and, of course, as soon as the year
+of mourning should be over he would make her his wife.
+
+She trembled with passionate resentment. Nothing had ever moved her so
+forcibly. She took out her pearl hatpin and stabbed out the eyes of the
+Virgin, almost shaking with passion, and scratched and obliterated the
+face of the Christ child. This done, she extinguished the little lamp and
+slammed to the doors.
+
+She laughed savagely as she went back into the sittingroom.
+
+"The Virgin indeed!--and _his_ child!--well, I've taught him!" and she
+flung past the Russian servant with a look which was a curse, so that the
+old man crossed himself and quickly barred the entrance door, when she
+stamped off down the stairs.
+
+Arrived in her gilded salon at the Universal, she would like to have
+wrung some one's neck. She had never been so full of rage in her life.
+She did find a little satisfaction in a kick at Fou-Chow, who fled
+whining to his faithful Marie who had come in to carry away her mistress'
+sable cloak.
+
+The maid's face became thunderous. A look of sullen hate gleamed in her
+dark eyes.
+
+"She will kick thee, my angel, just once too often," she murmured to the
+wee creature when she had carried him from the room. "And then we shall
+see, thy Marie knows that which may punish her some day soon!"
+
+Harietta, quite indifferent to these matters, telephoned immediately to
+Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He must come to her instantly without a moment's delay! And she
+stamped her foot.
+
+A plan which might give her some satisfaction to execute had evolved
+itself in her brain.
+
+He was in his room in another part of the building, and hastened to obey
+her command. She was livid with anger and seemed to have grown old.
+
+She went over and kissed him voluptuously and then she began:
+
+"Ferdie," and she whispered hoarsely, "now you have got to do something
+for me. You are not going to let the child of Verisschenzko be master of
+Ardayre! We are going to gain time and perhaps some day be able to do
+away with it. Now I have got a plan which will lighten your heart."
+
+She knew that she could count upon him, for since the birth of the
+little Benedict and the death of John, Ferdinand had stormed with threats
+of vengeance, while knowing his impotency.
+
+His life with Harietta had grown a torment and a hell--but with every
+fresh unkindness and pang of jealousy she caused him, his low passion for
+her increased. He knew that she loved Verisschenzko, whom he hated with
+all his might--and if she now proposed to hurt both his enemies, he would
+assist her joyfully.
+
+"Tell it me," he begged.
+
+So she drew him to the sofa and picked up a block and pencil.
+
+"Do you possess any of the writing of your dead brother, John, or if you
+don't, can you get some from anywhere?"
+
+Ferdinand's face blazed with excitement. What was she going to suggest?
+
+"I always keep one letter--in which he ordered me never to address him
+and told me I was not of his blood but was a mongrel Turk."
+
+"That is splendid--where is it? Have you got it here?"
+
+"Yes, in my despatch box. I'll go and fetch it now."
+
+"Very well. I will get rid of Stanislass for the evening and we can have
+some hours alone--and you will see if I don't help you to worry them
+hideously, Ferdie, even if that is all we can do!"
+
+And when he had left her presence, she paced the room excitedly.
+
+"It will prevent St�pan's marrying her at all events for; a long time."
+
+The thought that she had lost Verisschenzko completely unbalanced her.
+It was the first time in her life that she had had to relinquish a man.
+She hated to have to realise how highly he must hold Amaryllis. He seemed
+the only thing she wanted now in life, and she knew that he was quite
+beyond her, and that indeed he had never been hers; the one human being
+whom she had attracted and yet never been able to intoxicate and draw
+against his will. She went over all their past meetings. With what
+supreme insolence he had invariably treated her--even in moments when he
+permitted himself to feel passion! And how she adored him! She would have
+crawled to him now on the ground. She had not known she could feel so
+much. Every animal, sensual desire made her throb with rage. She would
+have torn the flesh from Amaryllis' face had she been there, and thrust
+her hatpin into her real eyes.
+
+But the spoke should be put in the wheel of Verisschenzko's marrying her!
+And perhaps some other revenge would come. Hans?--Hans should be made to
+carry the scheme through--Hans and Ferdinand. She dug her nails into the
+palms of her hands. No wild animal in its cage could have felt more rage.
+
+Then when Ferdinand returned with John's letter, she controlled herself
+and sat down at the table beside him and supervised his attempts at
+copying the writing, while she unfolded the details of her scheme.
+
+"You know John's body was never found," she informed him presently. "I
+heard all the details from a man who was there--they only picked up his
+glasses and his boot. He could very well have been taken prisoner by the
+Germans and be in hospital there, too ill to have written for all this
+time. Now think how he ought to word his first letter to his precious
+bread and butter wife!"
+
+"There must only be the fewest words, because I don't know what
+terms they were on. I think a postcard, if we get one, would be the
+best thing."
+
+"Of course?--I have some one who can see to that--it will be worth
+waiting the week for--we'll procure several, and meanwhile you must
+practise his hand."
+
+At the end of half an hour a very creditable forgery had been secured,
+and the two jealous beings felt satisfied with their work for the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It had been arranged that Denzil and his mother should spend Christmas
+with Amaryllis at Ardayre. Both felt that it was going to be the most
+wonderful moment when they should meet. There were no obstacles now to
+their happiness and everything promised to be full of joy. The months
+which had gone by since John's death had been turning Amaryllis into a
+more serene and forceful being. The whole burden of the estate had
+fallen upon her young shoulders and she had endeavoured to carry it with
+dignity and success--and yet have time to spare for her war
+organisations in the county. She had developed extraordinarily and had
+grown from a very pretty girl into a most beautiful young woman. What
+would Denzil think of her? That was her preoccupation--and what would he
+think of the baby Benedict?
+
+The great rooms at Ardayre were shut up except the green drawing room,
+and she lived in her own apartments, the cedar parlour being her chief
+pleasure. It was now filled with her books and all the personal
+belongings which expressed her taste. The nurseries for the heir were
+just above.
+
+Her guests were to be there on the twenty-third of December, and when the
+hour came for the motor to arrive from the station Amaryllis grew hot and
+cold with excitement. She had made herself look quite exquisite in a soft
+black frock, and her heart was beating almost to suffocation when she
+heard the footsteps in the hall. Then the green drawing room door opened
+and Colonel and Mrs. Ardayre were announced and were immediately greeted
+by the great tawny dogs and then by their mistress. A pang contracted her
+heart when she caught sight of Denzil--he was so very pale and thin, and
+he walked painfully and slowly with a stick. It was only a wreck of the
+splendid lover who had come to Ardayre before. But he was always Denzil
+of the ardent eyes and the crisp bronze hair!
+
+They were people of the world, and so the welcoming speeches went off
+easily, and they sat round the tea-table with its singing kettle and its
+delectable buns and Devonshire cream, and Amaryllis was gracious and
+radiant and full of dignity and charm. But inwardly she felt deliciously
+shy and happy.
+
+They had neither met nor written any love letters since the April day
+when they had parted in Brook Street, which now seemed to be an age away.
+
+Her attraction for Denzil had increased a hundredfold. He thought as she
+sat there pouring out the tea, of how he would woo her with subtlety
+before he would claim her for his own. He was stimulated by her sweet
+shyness and her tender aloofness. The tea seemed to him to be
+interminably long and he wished for it to end.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre behaved with admirable tact; she spoke of all sorts of light
+and friendly things, and then asked about the baby. Was he not wonderful,
+now at seven months old!
+
+The lovely vivid pink deepened in Amaryllis' smooth velvet cheeks, and
+her grey eyes became soft as a doe's.
+
+"You shall see him in the morning--he will be asleep now. Of course, to
+me he is wonderful, but I daresay he is only an ordinary child."
+
+She had peeped at Denzil and had seen that his face fell a little as she
+said they should only see the baby the next day, and she had felt a wave
+of joy. She knew that she meant to take him up quietly presently--just he
+and she alone!
+
+After they had finished tea, Mrs. Ardayre suggested that she should go
+to her room.
+
+"I am tired, Amaryllis, my dear," she announced cheerily,--"and I shall
+rest for an hour before dinner."
+
+"Come then and I will show you both your rooms."
+
+They came up the broad staircase with her, Denzil a step at a time,
+slowly, and at the top she stopped and said to him:
+
+"Perhaps you will remember that is the door of the cedar parlour at
+the end of the passage--you will find me there when I have installed
+your mother comfortably. Your room is next to hers," and she pointed
+to two doors through the archway of the gallery. Then she went on with
+Mrs. Ardayre.
+
+Some contrary nervousness made her remain for quite a little while.
+
+Was Cousin Beatrice sure that she was comfortable? Had she everything she
+wanted? Her maid was already unpacking, and all was warm and fresh
+scented with lavender and bowls of violets on the dressing table.
+
+"My dear child, it is Paradise, and you are a perfect angel--I shall
+revel in it after the cold journey down."
+
+So at last there was no excuse to stay longer, and Amaryllis left the
+room; but in the passage it seemed as though her knees were trembling,
+and as she passed the top of the staircase she leaned for a second or two
+on the balustrade.
+
+The longed for moment had come!
+
+When she opened the door of the cedar parlour, with its soft lamps and
+great glowing logs, she saw Denzil was already there, seated on the sofa
+beside the fire.
+
+She ran to him before he could rise, the movement she knew was pain to
+him--and she sank down beside him and held out her hands.
+
+"Beloved darling!" he whispered in exaltation, and she slipped forward
+into his arms.
+
+Oh! the bliss of it all! After the months of separation, and the horrible
+trenches and the battles and the suffering, the days and nights of
+agonising pain! It seemed to Denzil that his being melted within
+him--Heaven itself had come.
+
+They could not speak coherently for some moments, everything was too
+filled with holy joy.
+
+"At last! at last!" he cried presently. "Now we shall part no more!"
+
+Then he had to be assured that she loved him still.
+
+"It is I who must take care of you now, Denzil, and I shall love to do
+that," she cooed.
+
+"I have not thought much of the hurt," he answered her, "for all these
+months I have just been living for this day, and now it has come,
+darling one, and I can hardly believe that it is true, it is so
+absolutely divine--"
+
+They could not talk of anything but themselves and love for an hour,
+they told each other of their longings and anxieties--and at last they
+spoke of John.
+
+"He was so splendid," Denzil said, "unselfish to the very end," and then
+he described to Amaryllis how he actually had died, and of his last
+words, and their thought for her.
+
+"If he could see us, I think that he would be glad that we are happy."
+
+"I know that he would," but the tears had gathered in her eyes.
+
+Denzil stroked her hand gently; he did not make any lover's caress, and
+she appreciated his understanding, and after a little she leaned
+against his arm.
+
+"Denzil--when we live here together, we must always try to carry out all
+that John would have wished to do. It meant his very soul--and you will
+help me to be a worthy mother of the Ardayre son."
+
+She had not spoken of the child before--some unaccountable shyness had
+restrained her, even in their fondest moments. And yet the thought had
+never been absent from either. It had throbbed there in their hearts. It
+was going to be so exquisite to whisper about it presently!
+
+And Denzil had waited until she mentioned this dear interest. He did not
+wish to assume any rights, or take anything for granted. She should be
+queen, not only of his heart, but of everything, until she should herself
+accord him authority.
+
+But his eyes grew wistful now as he leaned nearer to her.
+
+"Darling, am I not going to be allowed to see--my son!"
+
+Then, with a cry, Amaryllis bent forward and was clasped in his arms. All
+her wayward shyness melted, and she poured forth her delight in the
+baby--their very own!
+
+"You will see that he is just you, Denzil,--as we knew that he would be,
+and now I will go and fetch him for you and bring him here, because the
+stairs up to the nursery are so steep they might hurt you to climb."
+
+She left him swiftly, and was not long gone, and Denzil sat there
+by the fire trembling with an emotion which he could not have
+described in words.
+
+The door opened again and Amaryllis returned with the tiny sleeping form,
+in its long white nightgown and wrapped in a great fleecy shawl.
+
+She crept up to him very softly. The little one was sound asleep. She
+made a sign to Denzil not to rise, and she bent down and placed the
+bundle tenderly in his arms.
+
+Then they gazed at the little face together with worshipping eyes.
+
+It was just a round pink and white cherub like thousands of others in the
+world; the very long eyelashes, sweeping the sleep-flushed cheeks, and
+minute rings of bronze-gold hair curling over the edge of the close
+cambric cap; but it seemed to those two looking at it to be unique, and
+more beautiful than the dawn.
+
+"Isn't he perfect, Denzil!" whispered Amaryllis, in ecstasy.
+
+"Marvellous!" and Denzil's voice was awed.
+
+Then the wonder and the divinity of love and its spirit of creation came
+over them both and a mist of deep feeling grew in both their eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At dinner they were all so happy together. Mrs. Ardayre was a note of
+harmony anywhere. She had gradually grown to understand the situation in
+the months of her son's recovering from his wounds and although no actual
+words had passed between them Denzil felt that his mother had divined the
+truth and it made things easier.
+
+Afterwards, in the green drawing room, Amaryllis played to them and
+delighted their ears, and then they went up to the cedar parlour and sat
+round the fire and talked and made plans.
+
+If it should be quite hopeless that Denzil could ever return to the
+front, or be of service behind the lines, he meant to enter Parliament.
+The thought that his active soldiering was probably done was very bitter
+to him, and the two women who loved him tried to create an enthusiasm for
+the parliamentary idea. The one certainty was that his adventurous spirit
+would never remain behind in the background, whatever occurred.
+
+They would be married at the beginning of February, they decided. The
+whole of their world knew of John's written wishes, and no unkind
+comments would be likely to arise.
+
+And when Beatrice Ardayre left them alone to say good-night to each
+other, Denzil drew Amaryllis back to his side!
+
+"I think the world is going to be a totally new place, darling--after the
+war. If it goes on very long the gradual privation and suffering and
+misery will create a new order of things, and all of us should be ready
+to face it. Only fools and weaklings cling to past systems when the
+on-rolling wave has washed away their uses. Whatever seems for the real
+good of England must be one's only aim, even if it means abandoning what
+was the ideal of the Family for all these hundreds of years. You will
+advance with me, Sweetheart, will you not, even if it should seem to be a
+chasm we are crossing?"
+
+"Denzil, of course I will."
+
+He sighed a little.
+
+"The old order made England great--but that cycle is over for all the
+world--and what we shall have to do is to stand steady and try to
+direct the new on-rush, so that it makes us greater and does not sweep
+civilisation into darkness, as when Rome fell. It may be a fairly easy
+matter because, as St�pan says, we have got such fundamental common
+sense. It would be much less hard if the people at the top were really
+courageous and unhampered by trying to secure votes, or whatever it is,
+which makes them wobble and surrender at the wrong moment. If the
+politicians could have that dogged, serene steadfastness which the
+Tommies, and almost every man has in the trenches, how supreme we
+should be--!"
+
+"I hope so, but one must have vision as well so that one can look right
+ahead and not stumble over retained old prejudices; people so often want
+a thing and yet have not will enough to eliminate qualities in themselves
+which must obviously prevent their obtaining their desire."
+
+Denzil was not looking at her now, he was gazing ahead with his blue
+eyes filled with light, and she saw that there was something far beyond
+the physical magnetism which drew her to him, and a pride and joy filled
+her. She would indeed be his helpmate in all his undertakings and
+striving for noble ends. They talked for some time of these things and
+their plans to aid in their fulfilment, and then they gradually spoke of
+Verisschenzko and Amaryllis asked what was the latest news--he was in
+Russia, she supposed.
+
+"St�pan will be arriving in London next week. I heard from him to-day.
+Won't you ask him down, darling, to spend the New Year with us here--it
+would be so good to see the dear old boy again."
+
+This was agreed upon, and then they drifted back to lovers' whisperings,
+and presently they said a fond good-night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Christmas Day of 1915, and the weeks which followed were like some happy
+dream for Denzil and Amaryllis. Each hour seemed to discover some new
+aspect which caused further understanding and love to augment. They spent
+long late afternoons in the cedar parlour dipping into books and a
+delicious pleasure was for Amaryllis to be nestled in Denzil's arms on
+the sofa while he read aloud to her in his deep, magnetic voice.
+
+Beatrice Ardayre at this period was like a pleased mother cat purring in
+the sun while her kittens gambol. Her well-beloved was content, and she
+was satisfied. She always seemed to be there when wanted and yet to leave
+the lovers principally to themselves.
+
+Another of their joys was to motor about the beautiful country, exploring
+the old, old churches and quaint farmhouses and manors with which North
+Somerset abounds; and they went all over the estate also and saw all the
+people who were their people and their friends. The union was thoroughly
+approved of, and although the engagement was not to be officially
+announced until after the New Year it was quite understood, as the
+tenants had all heard of John's instructions in his will. But perhaps the
+most supreme joy of all was when they could play with the baby Benedict
+together alone for half an hour before he went to bed. Then they were
+just as foolish and primitive as any other two young things with their
+firstborn. He was a very fine and forward baby and already expressed a
+spirit and will of his own, and it always gave Denzil the very strangest
+thrill when he seized and clung firmly to one of his fingers with his
+tiny, strong, chubby hand. And over all his qualities and perfections his
+parents then said wonderful things together!
+
+Every subtle and exquisite pleasure, mystical, symbolical and material,
+which either had ever dreamed of as connected with this living proof of
+love, was realised for them. And to know that soon, soon, they would be
+united for always--wedded--not merely engaged. Oh! that was
+glorious--when passion need be under no restraint--when there need be no
+good-night!
+
+For in this the chivalry of Denzil never failed--and each day they grew
+to respect each other more.
+
+Verisschenzko was to arrive in time for dinner on the last day of
+the old year. That afternoon was one of even unusually perfect
+happiness--motoring slowly round the park and up on to the hills in
+Amaryllis' little two-seater which she drove herself. They got out at the
+top and leaned upon a gate from which they seemed to be looking down over
+the world. Peaceful, smiling, prosperous England! Miles and miles of her
+fairest country lay there in front of them, giving no echo of war.
+
+"If we had been born sixty years ago, Denzil, what different thoughts
+this view would be creating in our minds. We would have no
+speculation--no uncertainty--we should feel just happy that it is ours
+and would be ours for ever! The world was asleep then!"
+
+"St�pan would say that it was resting before the throes of struggle must
+begin. Now we are going to face something much greater than the actual
+war in France, but if we are strong we ought to come through. We have
+always been saner than other peoples, so perhaps our upheaval will be
+saner too."
+
+"Whatever there is to face, we shall be together, Denzil, and nothing
+can really matter then--and we must make our little Benedict armed
+for the future, so that he will be fitted to cope with the conditions
+of his day."
+
+"Look there at the blue distance, darling, could anything be more
+peaceful? How can anyone in the country realise that not two hundred
+miles away this awful war is grinding on?"
+
+Denzil put an arm round her and drew her close to him and clasped
+her fondly.
+
+"But just for a little we must try to forget about it. I never dreamed of
+such perfect happiness as we are having, Sweetheart,--my own!"
+
+"Nor I, Denzil,--I am almost afraid--"
+
+But he kissed her passionately and bade this thought begone. Afraid of
+what? Nothing mattered since they would always be together. February
+would soon come, and then they would never part again.
+
+So the vague foreboding passed from Amaryllis' heart, and in fond
+visionings they whispered plans for the spring and the summer and the
+growing years. And so at last they returned to the house and found the
+after-noon post waiting for them. Filson had just brought it in and
+Amaryllis' letters lay in a pile on her writing table.
+
+There happened to be none for Denzil and he went over to the fireplace
+and was stroking the head of Mercury, the greatest of the big tawny dogs,
+when he was startled by a little ominous cry from his Beloved, and on
+looking up he saw that she had sunk into a chair, her face deadly pale,
+while there had fluttered to the floor at her feet a torn envelope and a
+foreign looking postcard.
+
+What could this mean?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Verisschenzko had come straight through from Petrograd to England. He had
+been delayed and had never returned to Paris since September. He knew
+nothing of Harietta's sacrilege as yet. But he had at last accumulated
+sufficient proof against her to have her entirely in his hands.
+
+He thought over the whole matter as he came down in the train to Ardayre.
+She was a grave danger to the Allies and had betrayed them again and
+again. He must have no mercy. Her last crimes had been against France,
+her punishment would be easier to manage there.
+
+The strain of cruelty in his nature came uppermost as he reviewed the
+evil which she had done. Stanislass' haunted face seemed to look at him
+out of the mist of the half-lit carriage. What might not Poland have
+accomplished with such a leader as Boleski had been before this baneful
+passion fell upon him! Then he conjured up the? imaged faces of the brave
+Frenchmen who were betrayed by Harietta to Hans, and shot in Germany.
+
+A spy's death in war time was not an ignoble one, and they had gone there
+with their lives in their hands. Had Harietta been true to that side, and
+had she been acting from patriotism, he could have desired to save her
+the death sentence now. But she had never been true; no country mattered
+to her; she had given to him secrets as well as to Hans! Then he laughed
+to himself grimly. So her _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball was the first
+husband! The man who used to beat her with a stick--and who had let her
+divorce him in obedience to the higher command!
+
+How clever the whole thing was! If it had not all been so serious, it
+would have been interesting to allow her to live longer to watch what
+next she would do, but the issues at stake were too vital to delay. He
+would not hesitate; he would denounce her to the French authorities
+immediately on his return to Paris, and without one qualm or regret. She
+had lived well and played "crooked"--and now it was meet that she should
+pay the price.
+
+Filson announced him in the green drawing room when he reached Ardayre,
+but only Denzil rose to greet him and wrung his hand. He noticed that his
+friend's face looked stern and rather pale.
+
+"I'm so awfully glad that you have come, St�pan," and they exchanged
+handshakes and greetings. "You are about the only person I should want to
+see just now, because you know the whole history. Something unprecedented
+has happened. A communication has come apparently from John to Amaryllis
+from a prisoners' camp in Germany, and yet as far as one can be certain
+of anything I am certain that I saw him die--"
+
+Verisschenzko was greatly startled. What a frightful complication it
+would make should John be alive!
+
+"The letter--merely a postcard enclosed in an envelope--came by this
+afternoon's post--and as you can understand, it has frightfully upset us
+all. It is a sort of thing about which one cannot analyse one's feelings.
+John had a right to his life and we ought to be glad--but the idea of
+giving up Amaryllis--of having all the suffering and the parting
+again--St�pan, it is cruelly hard."
+
+Verisschenzko sat down in one of the big chairs, and Euterpe, the lesser
+tawny dog, came and pushed her nose into his hand. He patted her silky
+head absently. He was collecting his thoughts; the shock of this news was
+considerable and he must steady his judgment.
+
+"John wrote to her himself, you say? It is not a message through a third
+person--no?"
+
+"It appears to be in his own writing." Denzil stood leaning on the
+mantelpiece, and his face seemed to grow more haggard with each word.
+"Merely saying that he was taken prisoner by the enemy when they made the
+counter attack, and that he had been too ill to write or speak until now.
+I can't understand it--because they did not make the counter attack until
+after I was carried in--and even though I was unconscious then, the
+stretcher bearers must have seen John when they lifted me if he had been
+there. Nothing was found but his glasses and we concluded another shell
+had burst somewhere near his body after I was carried in. St�pan, I swear
+to God I saw him die."
+
+"It sounds extraordinary. Try to tell me every detail, Denzil."
+
+So the story of John's last moments was gone over again, and all the most
+minute events which had occurred. And at the end of it the two solid
+facts stood out incontrovertibly--John's body was never found, but Denzil
+had seen him die.
+
+"How long will it take to communicate with him, I wonder? We can through
+the American Ambassador, I suppose, because he gives no address. It must
+be awful for him lying there wounded with no news. I say this because I
+suppose I must accept his own writing, but I, cannot yet bring myself to
+believe that he can be alive."
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a moment, then he asked:
+
+"May I see my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+"Yes, she told me to bring you to her as soon as I should have explained
+to you the whole affair. Come now."
+
+They went up the stairs together, and they hardly spoke a word. And
+when they reached the cedar parlour Denzil let Verisschenzko go in in
+front of him.
+
+"I have brought St�pan to you," he told Amaryllis. "I am going to leave
+you to talk now."
+
+Amaryllis was white as milk and her grey eyes were disturbed and very
+troubled. She held out her two hands to Verisschenzko and he kissed them
+with affectionate worship.
+
+"Lady of my Soul!"
+
+"Oh! St�pan,--comfort me--give me counsel. It is such a terrible moment
+in my life. What am I to do?"
+
+"It is indeed difficult for you--we must think it all out--"
+
+"Poor John--I ought to be glad that he is alive, and I am--really--only,
+oh! St�pan, I love Denzil so dearly. It is all too awfully complicated.
+What so greatly astonishes me about it is that John has not written
+deliriously, or as though he has lost his memory, and yet if we had
+carried out his instructions and wishes we should be married now, Denzil
+and I,--and he never alludes to the possibility of this! It is written as
+though no complications could enter into the case--"
+
+"It sounds strange--may I see the letter?"
+
+She got up and went over to the writing table and returned with a packet
+and the envelope which contained the card. It was not one which prisoners
+use as a rule; it had the picture of a German town on it and the
+postmark on the envelope was of a place in Holland. Verisschenzko read it
+carefully:
+
+"I have been too ill to write before--I was taken prisoner in the counter
+attack and was unconscious. I am sending this by the kindness of a nurse
+through Holland. Everyone must have believed that I was dead. I am
+longing for news of you, dearest. I shall soon be well. Do not worry. I
+am going to be moved and will write again with address.
+
+"All love,--
+
+"JOHN."
+
+The writing was rather feeble as a very ill person's would naturally be,
+but the name "John" was firm and very legible.
+
+"You are certain that it is his writing?"
+
+"Yes"--and then she handed him another letter from the packet--John's
+last one to her. "You can see for yourself--it is the same hand."
+
+St�pan took both over to the lamp, and was bending to examine them when
+he gave a little cry:
+
+"Sapristi!"--and instead of looking at the writings he sniffed strongly
+at the card, and then again. Amaryllis watched him amazedly.
+
+"The same! By the Lord, it is the work of Ferdinand. No one could mistake
+his scent who had once smelt it. The muskrat, the scorpion! But he has
+betrayed himself."
+
+Amaryllis grew paler as she came close beside him.
+
+"St�pan, oh, tell me! What do you mean?"
+
+"I believe this to be a forgery--the scent is a clue to me. Smell
+it--there is a lingering sickly aroma round it. It came in an envelope,
+you see,--that would preserve it. It is an Eastern perfume, very
+heavy,--what do you say?"
+
+She wrinkled her delicate nose:
+
+"Yes, there is some scent from it. One perceives it at first and then it
+goes off. Oh, St�pan, please do not torture me. Can you be quite sure?"
+
+"I am absolutely certain that whether it is in John's writing or not,
+Ferdinand, or some one who uses his unique scent, has touched that card.
+Now we must investigate everything."
+
+He walked up and down the room in agitation for a few moments; talking
+rapidly to himself--half in Russian--Amaryllis caught bits.
+"Ferdinand--how to his advantage? None. What then? Harietta?
+Harietta--but why for her?"
+
+Then he sat down and stared into the fire, his yellow-green eyes blazing
+with intelligence, his clear brain balancing up things. But now he did
+not speak his thoughts aloud.
+
+"She is jealous. I remember--she imagined that it is my child. She
+believes I may marry Amaryllis. It is as plain as day!"
+
+He jumped up and excitedly held out his hands.
+
+"Let us fetch Denzil," he cried joyously. "I can explain everything."
+
+Amaryllis left the room swiftly and called when she got outside his door:
+
+"Denzil--do come."
+
+He joined them in a second or two--there as he was, in a blue silk
+dressing gown, as he had just been going to dress for dinner.
+
+He looked from one face to the other anxiously and St�pan
+immediately spoke.
+
+"I think that the card is a forgery, Denzil. I believe it to have been
+written by Ferdinand Ardayre--at the instigation of Harietta Boleski.
+She would have means to obtain the postcard, and have it sent through
+Holland too."
+
+"But why--why should she?" Amaryllis exclaimed in wonderment. "What
+possible reason could she have for wishing to be so cruel to us. We were
+always very nice to her, as you know."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed cynically.
+
+"She was jealous of you all the same. But Denzil, I track it by the
+scent. I know Ferdinand uses that scent," he held out the card. "Smell."
+
+Denzil sniffed as Amaryllis had done.
+
+"It is so faint I should not have remarked it unless you had told me--but
+I daresay if it was a scent one had smelt before, one would be struck by
+it! But how are you going to prove it, St�pan? We shall have to have
+convincing proof--because I am the only witness of poor John's death, and
+it could easily be said that I am too deeply interested to be reliable.
+For God's sake, old friend, think of some way of making a certainty."
+
+"I have a way which I can enforce as soon as I reach Paris. Meanwhile say
+nothing to any one and put the thought of it out of your heads. The
+evidence of your own eyes convinced you that John is dead; you found it
+difficult to accept that he was alive even when seeing what appeared to
+be his own writing, but if I assure you that this is forged you can be at
+peace. Is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis' lips were trembling; the shock and then this counter
+shock were unhinging her. She was horrified at herself that she
+should not catch at every straw to prove John was alive, instead of
+feeling some sense of relief when Verisschenzko protested that the
+postcard was a forgery.
+
+Poor John! Good, and kind, and unselfish. It was all too agitating. But
+was just life such a very great thing? She knew that had she the choice
+she would rather be dead than separated now from Denzil. And if John were
+really to be alive--what misery he would be obliged to suffer, knowing
+the situation.
+
+"Quite apart from what to me is a convincing proof, the scent,"
+Verisschenzko went on, "the card must be a forgery because of John's
+seeming oblivion of the possibility that you two might have already
+carried out his wishes. All this would have been very unlike him. But if
+it is, as I think, Ferdinand's and Harietta Boleski's work, they would
+not be likely to know that John had desired that Denzil should marry you,
+Amaryllis, and so would have thought a short card with longings to see
+you would be a natural thing to write. Indeed you can be at rest. And now
+I will go and dress for dinner, and we will forget disturbing thoughts."
+
+Amaryllis and Denzil will always remember St�pan's wonderful tact and
+goodness to them that evening; he kept everything calm and thrilled them
+all with his stories and his conversation and his own wonderfully
+magnetic personality. And after dinner he played to them in the green
+drawing room and, as Mrs. Ardayre said, seemed to bring peace and healing
+to all their troubled souls.
+
+But when he was alone with Denzil late, after the two women had retired
+to bed, he sunk into a deep chair in the smoking room and suddenly burst
+into a peal of cynical laughter.
+
+"What the devil's up?" demanded Denzil, astonished.
+
+"I am thinking of Harietta's exquisite mistake. She believes the baby is
+mine! She is mad with a goat's jealousy; she supposes it is I who will
+marry Amaryllis--hence her plot! Does it not show how the good are
+protected and the evil fall into their own traps!"
+
+"Of course! She was in love with you!"
+
+"In love! Mon Dieu! you call that love! I mastered her body and was
+unobtainable. She was never able to draw me more than a person could to
+whom I should pay two hundred francs. She knew that perfectly--it enraged
+her always. The threads are now completely in my hands. Conceive of it,
+Denzil! The man at the Ardayre ball was her first husband for whom she
+always retained some kind of animal affection--because he used to beat
+her. They married her to Stanislass just to obtain the secrets of Poland,
+and any other thing which she could pick' up. Her marvellous stupidity
+and incredible want of all moral restraint has made her the most
+brilliant spy. No principles to hamper her--nothing. She has only tripped
+up through jealousy now. When she felt that she had lost me she grew to
+desire me with the only part of her nature with which she desires
+anything, her flesh--then she became unbalanced, and in September before
+I left, gave the clue into my hands. I shall not bore you with all the
+details, but I have them both--she and Ferdinand Ardayre. The first
+husband has gone back to Germany from Sweden, but we shall secure him,
+too, presently. Meanwhile I shall hand Harietta to the French
+authorities--her last exploits are against France. She has enabled the
+Germans to shoot six or seven brave fellows, besides giving information
+of the most important kind wormed from foolish elderly adorers and above
+all from Stanislass himself."
+
+"She will be shot, I suppose."
+
+"Probably. But first she shall confess about the postcard from the
+prison camp. I shall go to Paris immediately, Denzil; there must be
+no delay."
+
+"You will not feel the slightest twinge because she was your mistress, if
+she is shot, St�pan? I ask because the combination of possible emotions
+is interesting and unusual."
+
+"Not for an instant--" and suddenly Verisschenzko's yellow-green eyes
+flashed fire and his face grew transfigured with fierce hate. "You do not
+know the affection I had for Stanislass from my boyhood--he was my
+leader, my ideal. No paltry aims--a great pioneer of freedom on the
+sanest lines. He might have altered the history of our two countries--he
+was the light we need, and this foul, loathsome creature has destroyed
+not only his soul and his body, but the protector and defender of a
+conception of freedom which might have been realised. I would strangle
+her with my own hands."
+
+"Stanislass must have been a weakling, St�pan, to have let her destroy
+him. He could never have ruled. It strikes me that this is the proof of
+another of your theories. It must be some debt of his previous life that
+he is paying to this woman. He was given his chance to use strength
+against her and failed."
+
+The hate died out of Verisschenzko's face--and the look of calm
+reasoning returned.
+
+"Yes, you are right, Denzil. You are wiser than I. So I shall not give
+her up, for punishment of her crimes. I shall only give her up because of
+justice--she must not be at large. You see, even in my case,--I who pride
+myself on being balanced, can have my true point of view obsessed by
+hate. It is an ignoble passion, my son!"
+
+"You will catch Ferdinand too?"
+
+"Undoubtedly--he is just a rotten little snipe, but he does mischief as
+Harietta's tool--and through his business in Holland."
+
+"He loathes the English--that is his reason, but Madame Boleski has no
+incentive like that."
+
+"Harietta has no country--she would be willing to betray any one of them
+to gratify any personal desire. If she had been a patriot exclusively
+working for Germany, one could have respected her, but she has often
+betrayed their secrets to me--for jewels--and other things she required
+at the moment. No mercy can be shown at all."
+
+"In these days there is no use in having sentiment just because a spy is
+a woman--but I am glad it is not my duty to deliver her up."
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"I cannot help my nature, Denzil,--or rather the attributes of the nation
+into which in this life I am born. I shall hand Harietta over to justice
+without a regret."
+
+Then they parted for the night with much of the disturbance and the
+complex emotions removed from Denzil's heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+When Verisschenzko reached Paris and discovered the desecration of the
+Ikon, an icy rage came over him. He knew, even before questioning his old
+servant, that it could only be the work of Harietta. Jealousy alone would
+be the cause of such a wanton act. It revealed to him the certainty of
+his theory that she had imagined the little Benedict to be his child. No
+further proof that the postcard was a forgery was really needed, but he
+would see her once more and obtain extra confirmation.
+
+His yellow-green eyes gleamed in a curious way as he stood looking at the
+mutilated picture.
+
+That her ridiculous and accursed hatpin should have dared to touch the
+eyes of his soul's lady, and scratch out the face of the child!
+
+But he must not let this emotion of personal anger affect what he
+intended in any case to do from motives of justice. In the morning he
+would give all his proofs of her guilt to the French authorities, and let
+the law take its course--but to-night he would make her come there to his
+apartment and hear from him an indictment of her crimes.
+
+He sat down in the comfortable chair in his own sitting room and
+began to think.
+
+His face was ominous; all the fierce passions of his nation and of his
+nature held him for a while.
+
+His dog, an intelligent terrier whom he loved, sat there before the fire
+and watched him, wagging his stump of a tail now and then nervously, but
+not daring to approach. Then, after half an hour had gone by, he rose and
+went to the telephone. He called up the Universal and asked to be put
+through to the apartment of Madame Boleski, and soon heard Harietta's
+voice. It was a little anxious--and yet insolent too.
+
+"Yes? Is that you St�pan! Darling Brute! What do you want?"
+
+"You--cannot you come and dine with me to-night--alone?"
+
+His voice was honey sweet, with a spontaneous, frank ring in it, only his
+face still looked as a fiend's.
+
+"You have just arrived? How divine!"
+
+"This instant, so I rushed at once to the telephone. I long for
+you--come--now."
+
+He allowed passion to quiver in the last notes--he must be sure that she
+would be drawn.
+
+"He cannot have opened the doors of the Ikon," Harietta thought. "I will
+go--to see him again will be worth it anyway!"
+
+"All right!--in half an hour!"
+
+"_Soit_,"--and he put the receiver down.
+
+Then he went again to the Ikon and examined the doors; by slamming them
+very hard and readjusting one small golden nail, he could give the
+fastening the appearance of its having been jammed and impossible to
+open. He ordered a wonderful dinner and some Ch�teau Ykem of 1900.
+Harietta, he remembered, liked it better than Champagne. Its sweetness
+and its strength appealed to her taste. The room was warm and
+delightful with its blazing wood fire. He looked round before he went
+to dress, and then he laughed softly, and again Fin nervously wagged
+his stump of a tail.
+
+Harietta arrived punctually. She had made herself extremely beautiful.
+Her overmastering desire to see Verisschenzko had allowed her usually
+keen sense of self-preservation partially to sleep. But even so,
+underneath there was some undefined sense of uneasiness.
+
+St�pan met her in the hall, and greeted her in his usual abrupt way
+without ceremony.
+
+"You will leave your cloak in my room," he suggested, wishing to give her
+the chance to look at the Ikon's jammed doors and so put her at her ease.
+
+The moment she found herself alone, she went swiftly to the shrine. She
+examined it closely--no the bolt had not been mended. She pulled at the
+doors but she could not open them, and she remembered with relief that
+she had slammed them hard. That would account for things. He certainly
+could not yet know of her action. The evening would be one of pleasure
+after all! And there was never any use in speculating about to-morrows!
+
+Verisschenzko was waiting for her in the sitting-room, and they went
+straight in to dinner. A little table was drawn up to the fire; all
+appeared deliciously intimate, and Harietta's spirits rose.
+
+To her Verisschenzko appeared the most attractive creature on earth.
+Indeed, he had a wonderful magnetism which had intoxicated many women
+before her day. He was looking at her now with eyes unclouded by glamour.
+He saw that she was painted and obvious, and without real charm. She
+could no longer even affect his senses. He saw nothing but the reality,
+the animal, blatant reality, and in his memory there remained the pierced
+out orbs of the Virgin and the scratched face of the Christ child.
+
+Everything fierce and cunning in his nature was in action--he was
+glorying in the torture he meant to inflict, the torture of jealousy and
+unsatisfied suspicion.
+
+He talked subtly, deliberately stirring her curiosity and arousing her
+apprehension. He had not mentioned Amaryllis, and yet he had conveyed to
+her, as though it were an unconscious admission, that he had been in
+England with her, and that she reigned in his soul. Then he used every
+one of his arts of fascination so that all Harietta's desires were
+inflamed once more, and by the time she had eaten of the rich Russian
+dishes and drank of the Ch�teau Ykem she was experiencing the strongest
+emotion she had ever known in her life, while a sense of impotence to
+move him augmented her other feelings.
+
+Her eyes swam with passion, as she leaned over the table whispering words
+of the most violent love in his ears.
+
+Verisschenzko remained absolutely unstirred.
+
+"How silly you were to send that postcard to Lady Ardayre," he remarked
+contemplatively in the middle of one of her burning sentences. "It was
+not worthy of your usual methods--a child could see that it was a
+forgery. If you had not done that I might have made you very happy
+to-night--for the last time--my little goat!"
+
+"St�pan--what card? But you are going to make me happy anyway, darling
+Brute; that is what I have come for, and you know it!"
+
+Her eyes were not so successfully innocent as usual when she lied. She
+was uneasy at his stolidity, some fear stayed with her that perhaps he
+meant not to gratify her desires just to be provoking. He had teased her
+more than once before.
+
+Verisschenzko went on, lighting his cigarette calmly:
+
+"It was a silly plot--Ferdinand Ardayre wrote it and you dictated it; I
+perceived the whole thing at once. You did it because you were jealous of
+Lady Ardayre--you believe that I love her--"
+
+"I do not know anything about a card, but I _am_ jealous about that
+hateful bit of bread and butter," and her eyes flashed. "It is so unlike
+you to worry over such a creature--I'm what you like!"
+
+He laughed softly. "A man has many sides--you appeal to his lowest.
+Fortunately it is not in command of him all the time--but let me tell you
+more about the forgery. You over-reached yourselves--you made John ignore
+something which would have been his first thought, thus the fraud was
+exposed at once."
+
+Her jealousy blazed up, so that she forgot herself and prudence.
+
+"You mean about the child--your child--"
+
+The ominous gleam came into Verisschenzko's eyes.
+
+"My child--you spoke of it once before and I warned you--I never
+speak idly."
+
+She got up from the table and came and flung her arms round his neck.
+
+"St�pan, I love you--I love you! I would like to kill Amaryllis and the
+child--I want you--why are you so changed?"
+
+He only laughed scornfully again, while he disengaged her arms.
+
+"Do you know how I found out? By the perfume--the same as you told me
+must be that of Stanislass' mistress--on the handkerchief marked 'F.A.'
+The whole thing was dramatically childish. You thought to prove her
+husband was still alive, would stop my marriage with Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Then you are going to marry her!"
+
+Harietta's hazel eyes flashed fire, her face had grown distorted with
+passion and her cheeks burned beyond the rouge.
+
+She appeared a most revolting sight to St�pan. He watched her with cold,
+critical eyes. As she put out her hands he noticed how the thumbs turned
+right back. How had he ever been able to touch her in the past! He
+shivered with disgust and degradation at the thought.
+
+She saw his movement of repulsion, and completely lost her head.
+
+She flung herself into his arms and almost strangled him in her furious
+embrace, while she threw all restraint to the winds and poured out a
+torrent of passion, intermingled with curses for one who had dared to try
+and rob her of this adored mate.
+
+It was a wonderful and very sickening exhibition, Verisschenzko thought.
+He remained as a statue of ice. Then when she had exhausted herself a
+little, he spoke with withering calm.
+
+"Control yourself, Harietta; such emotion will leave ugly lines, and you
+cannot afford to spoil the one good you possess. I have not the least
+desire for you--I find that you look plain and only bore me. But now
+listen to me for a little--I have something to say!" His voice changed
+from the cynical callousness to a deep note of gravity: "You need not
+even tell me in words that you sent the forgery--you have given me ample
+proof. That subject is finished--but I will make you listen to the
+recital of some of your vile deeds." The note grew sterner and his eyes
+held her cowed. "Ah! what instruments of the devil are such women as
+you--possessing the greatest of all power over men you have used it only
+for ill--wherever you have passed there is a trail of degradation and
+slime. Think of Stanislass! A man of fine purpose and lofty ideals. What
+is he now? A poor lifeless semblance of a man with neither brain nor
+will. You have used him--not even to gratify your own low lust, but to
+betray countries--and one of them your husband's country, which ought to
+have been your own."
+
+She sank to her knees at his side; he went on mercilessly. He spoke of
+many names which she knew, and then he came to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"They tell me he is drinking and sodden with morphine, and raves wildly
+of you. Think of them all--where are they now? Dead many of them--and you
+have survived and prospered like a vampire, sucking their blood. Do you
+ever think of a human being but your own degraded self? You would
+sacrifice your nearest and dearest for a moment's personal gain. You are
+not caught and strangled because the outside good natures come easily to
+you. It makes things smooth to smile and commit little acts of showy
+kindness which cost you nothing. You live and breathe and have your being
+like a great maggot fattening on a putrid corpse. I blush to think that I
+have ever used your body for my own ends, loathing you all the time. I
+have watched you cynically when I should have wrung your neck."
+
+She sobbed hoarsely and held out her hands.
+
+"For all these things you might still have gone free, Harietta--and fate
+would punish you in time, but you have committed that great crime for
+which there can be no mercy. You have acted the part of a spy. A wretched
+spy, not for patriotism but for your own ends--you have not been faithful
+to either side. Have you not often given me the secrets of your late
+husband Hans? Do you care one atom which country wins? Not you. The
+whole sordid business has had only one aim--some personal gratification."
+
+He paused--and she began to speak, now choking with rage, but he motioned
+her to be silent.
+
+"Do you think so lightly of the great issues which are shaking the world
+that you imagine that you can do these things with impunity? I tell you
+that soon you must pay the price. I am not the only one who knows of
+your ways."
+
+She got up from the floor now and tossed her head. Important things had
+never been to her realities--her fear left her. What agitated her now was
+that St�pan, whom she adored, should speak to her in such a tone. She
+threw herself into his arms once more, passionately proclaiming her love.
+
+He thrust her from him in shrinking disgust, and the cruel vein in his
+character was aroused.
+
+"Love!--do not dare to desecrate the name of love. You do not know what
+it means. I do--and this shall always remain with you as a remembrance. I
+love Amaryllis Ardayre. She is my ideal of a woman--tender and restrained
+and true--I shall always lay my life at her feet. I love her with a love
+such beings as you cannot dream of, knowing only the senses and playing
+only to them. That will be your knowledge always, that I worship and
+reverence this woman, and hold you in supreme contempt."
+
+Harietta writhed and whined on the sofa where she had fallen.
+
+"Go," he went on icily. "I have no further use for you, and my car is
+waiting below. You may as well avail yourself of it and return to your
+hotel. In the morning the last proof of the interest I have taken in you
+may be given, but to-night you can sleep."
+
+Harietta cried aloud--she was frightened at last. What did he mean? But
+even fear was swallowed up in the frantic thought that he had done with
+her, that he would never any more hold her in his arms. Her world lay in
+ruins, he seemed the one and only good. She grovelled on the floor and
+kissed his feet.
+
+"Master, Master! Keep me near you--I will be your slave--"
+
+But Verisschenzko pushed her gently aside with his foot and going to a
+table near took up a cigarette. He lighted it serenely, glancing
+indifferently at the dishevelled heap of a woman still crouching on
+the floor.
+
+"Enough of this dramatic nonsense," and he blew a ring of smoke. "I
+advise you to go quietly to bed--you may not sleep so softly on
+future nights."
+
+Fear overcame her again--what could he mean? She got up and held on to
+the table, searching his face with burning eyes.
+
+"Why should I not sleep so softly always?" and her voice was thick.
+
+He laughed hoarsely.
+
+"Who knows? Life is a gamble in these days. You must ask your interesting
+German friend."
+
+She became ghastly white--that there was real danger was beginning
+to dawn upon her. The rouge stood out like that on the painted face
+of a clown.
+
+Verisschenzko remained completely unmoved. He pressed the bell, and his
+Russian servant, warned beforehand, brought him in his fur coat and hat,
+and assisted him to put them on.
+
+"I will take Madame to get her cloak," he announced calmly. "Wait here
+to show us out."
+
+There was nothing for Harietta to do but follow him, as he went towards
+the bedroom door. She was stunned.
+
+He walked over to the Ikon, and slipping a paper knife under them opened
+wide the doors; then he turned to her, and the very life melted within
+her when she saw his face.
+
+"This is your work," and he pointed to the mutilations, "and for that and
+many other things, Harietta, you shall at last pay the price. Now come, I
+will take you back to your lover, and your husband--both will be waiting
+and longing for your return. Come!"
+
+She dropped on the floor and refused to move so that he was obliged to
+call in the servant, and together they lifted her, the one holding her
+up, while the other wrapped her in her cloak. Then, each supporting her,
+they made their way down the stairs, and placed her in the waiting motor,
+Verisschenzko taking the seat at her side--and so they drove to the
+Universal. She should sleep to-night in peace and have time to think over
+the events of the evening. But to-morrow he must no longer delay about
+giving information to the authorities.
+
+She cowered in the motor until they had almost reached the door, when she
+flung her arms round his neck and kissed him wildly again, sobbing with
+rage and terror:
+
+"You shall not marry Amaryllis; I will kill you both first."
+
+He smiled in the darkness, and she felt that he was mocking her, and
+suddenly turned and bit his arm, her teeth meeting in the cloth of his
+fur-lined coat.
+
+He shook her off as he would have done a rat:
+
+"Never quite apropos, Harietta! Always a little late! But here we have
+arrived, and you will not care for your admirers, the concierge, and the
+lift men, to see you in such a state. Put your veil over your face and go
+quietly to your rooms. I will wish you a very good-night--and farewell!"
+
+He got out and stood with mock respect uncovered to assist her, and she
+was obliged to follow him. The hall porter and the numerous personnel of
+the hotel were looking on.
+
+He bowed once more and appeared to kiss her hand:
+
+"Good-bye, Harietta! Sleep well."
+
+Then he re-entered the car and was whirled away.
+
+She staggered for a second and then moved forward to the lift. But as she
+went in, two tall men who had been waiting stepped forward and joined
+her, and all three were carried aloft, and as she walked to her salon she
+saw that they were following her.
+
+"There will be no more kicks for thee, my Angel!" the maid, peeping
+from a door, whispered exultingly to Fou-Chow! "Thy Marie has saved
+thee at last!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Verisschenzko again reached his own sitting room he paced up and
+down for half an hour. He was horribly agitated, and angry with himself
+for being so.
+
+Denzil had been right; when it came to the point, it was a ghastly thing
+to have to do, to give a woman up to death--even though her crimes amply
+justified such action.
+
+And what was death?
+
+To such a one as Harietta what would death mean?
+
+A sinking into oblivion for a period, and then a rebirth in some sphere
+of suffering where the first lessons of the meanings of things might be
+learned? That would seem to be the probable working of the law--so that
+she might eventually obtain a soul.
+
+He must not speculate further about her though, he must keep his nerve.
+
+And his own life--what would it now become? Would the spirit of freedom,
+stirring in his beloved country, arrive at any good? Or would the red
+current of revolution, once let loose, swamp all reason and flow in
+rivers of blood?
+
+He would be powerless to help if he let weakness overmaster him now.
+
+The immediate picture looked black and hopeless to his far-seeing eyes.
+
+But his place must be in Petrograd now, until the end. His activities,
+which had obliged him to be away from Russia, were finished, and new ones
+had begun which he must direct, there in the heart of things.
+
+"The world is aching for freedom, God," his stormy thoughts ran, "but we
+cannot hope to receive it until we have paid the price of the �ons of
+greed and self-seeking which have held us, the ignorance, the low
+material gain. We must now reap that sowing. The divine Christ--one
+man--was enough as a sacrifice in that old period of the world's day--but
+now there must be a holocaust of the bravest and best for our
+purification."
+
+He threw himself into his chair and gazed into the glowing embers. What
+pictures were forming themselves there? Nations arising glorified by a
+new religion of common sense, education universally enjoyed, the great
+forces studied, and Nature's fundamental principles reckoned with and
+understood.
+
+To hunt his food.
+
+To recreate his species.
+
+_And to kill his enemy._
+
+A bright blade sheathed but ready, a clear judgment trained and used,
+ideals nobly striven for, and Wisdom the High Priest of God.
+
+These were the visions he saw in the fire, and he started to his feet and
+stretched out his arms.
+
+"Strength, God! Strength!" that was his prayer.
+
+"That we may go--
+Armoured and militant,
+New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps
+To those great altitudes whereat the weak
+Live not, but only the strong
+Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve."
+
+Then he sat down and wrote to Denzil.
+
+"I have all the needed proofs, my friend. Marry my soul's lady in peace
+and make her happy. There come some phases in a man's life which require
+all his will to face. I hope I am no weakling. I return to Russia
+immediately. Events there will enable me to blot out some disturbing
+memories.
+
+"The end is not yet. Indeed, I feel that my real life is only just
+beginning.
+
+"Ferdinand Ardayre is deeply incriminated with Harietta; it is only a
+question of a little time and he will be taken too. Then, Denzil, you, in
+the natural course of events, would have been the Head of the Family. You
+will need all your philosophy never to feel any jar in the situation with
+your son as the years go on. You will have to look at it squarely, dear
+old friend, and know that it is impossible to have interfered with
+destiny and to have gone scott free. Then you will be able to accept
+title affair with common sense and prize what you have obtained, without
+spoiling it with futile regrets. You have paid most of your score with
+wounds and suffering, and now can expect what happiness the agony of the
+world can let a man enjoy.
+
+"My blessings to you both and to the Ardayre son.
+
+"And now adieu for a long time."
+
+He had hardly written the last line when the telephone rang, and the
+frantic voice of Stanislass, his ancient friend, called to him!
+
+Harietta had been taken away to St. Lazare--her maid had denounced her.
+What could be done?
+
+A great wave of relief swept over St�pan. So he was not to be the
+instrument of justice after all!
+
+How profoundly he thanked God!
+
+But the irony of the thing shook him.
+
+Harietta would pay with her life for having maltreated a dog!
+
+Truly the workings of fate were marvellous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The days in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of
+frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe that
+she was to die.
+
+Stanislass and Ferdinand, and even Verisschenzko, would save her!
+
+She loathed the hard bed at St. Lazare, and the discomfort, and the
+ugliness, and the Sister of Charity!
+
+She spent hours tramping her cell like a wild beast in a cage. She would
+roar with inarticulate fury, and cry aloud to her husband, and her
+lovers, one after another, and then she would cower in a corner, shaking
+with fear.
+
+The greatest pain of all was the thought that St�pan and Amaryllis would
+marry and be happy. Once or twice foam gathered at the corners of her
+lips when she thought of this.
+
+If she could have reached Marie, that would have given her some
+satisfaction--to tear out her eyes! For Ferdinand Ardayre had told her
+how Marie had given her up, working quietly until she had all necessary
+proofs, and then denouncing her.
+
+When Stanislass had returned from the Club, whither she had despatched
+him for the evening, so that she might be free to dine with
+Verisschenzko, he found that she had already been taken away.
+
+The shock, when he discovered that nothing could be done, had nearly
+killed him--he now lay dangerously ill in a Maison de Sant�, happily
+unconscious of events.
+
+For Ferdinand Ardayre the blow had fallen with crushing force. The one
+strong thing in his weak nature was his passion for Harietta--and to be
+robbed of her in such a way!
+
+He battled impotently against fate, unable even to try to use any means
+in his possession to get the death sentence commuted, because he was too
+deeply implicated himself to make any stir.
+
+He saw her in the prison after the trial, with the bars between and the
+warders near. And the awful change in Tier paralysed him with grief. On
+the morrow she was to die--the usual death of a spy.
+
+Her hair was wild and her face without rouge was haggard and wan.
+
+She implored him to save her.
+
+The frightful pain of knowing that he could do nothing made Ferdinand
+desperate, and then suddenly he became inspired with an idea.
+
+He could at all events remove some of the agony of terror from her, and
+enable her to go to her death without a hideous scene. He remembered "La
+Tosca"--the same method might serve again!
+
+He managed to whisper to her in broken sentences that she would certainly
+be saved. The plan was all prepared, he assured her. The rifles would
+contain blank cartridges, and she must pretend to fall--and afterwards he
+would come, having bribed every one and made the path smooth.
+
+He lied so fervently that Harietta was convinced, her material brain
+catching at any straw. She must dress herself and look her best, he told
+her, so as to make an impression upon all the men concerned; and then,
+when he had to leave her, he arranged with the prison doctor that she
+might receive a strong _piq�re_ of morphine, so that she would be
+serene. She spent the night dreaming quite happily and at four o'clock
+was awakened and began to dress.
+
+The drug had calmed all her terrors and her dramatic instinct held
+full sway.
+
+She arranged her toilet with the utmost care, using all her arts to
+beautify herself. In her ears were Stanislass' ruby earrings and she wore
+St�pan's ring and brooch.
+
+Death to her was an impossibility--she had never seen any one die.
+
+It was a wonderfully fine part she would have to play, with Ferdinand
+there really going to save her! That was all! She must even be sweet at
+last to the poor sister, whom she had snarled at hitherto.
+
+If she could only have seen St�pan once more! Stanislass and his broken
+life and fond devotion never gave her a thought or troubled her at all.
+After she was free, she would find some means to pay out Hans! She hated
+him. If it had not been for Hans and his tiresome old higher command
+with their stupid intrigues, she would still be free. That she had
+betrayed countries--that she was guilty in any way never presented
+itself to her mind.
+
+All Verisschenzko's passionate indictment had fallen upon unheeding ears.
+The morphine now left her only sufficiently conscious for fundamental
+instincts to act.
+
+She felt that she was a beautiful woman going to be the chief figure in a
+wonderfully dramatic scene. Nothing solemn had touched her. Her brain was
+light and now only filled with cunning and _coqueterie_; she meant to
+charm her guards and executioners to the last man! And ready at length,
+she walked nonchalantly out of the prison and into the waiting car which
+was to carry her to Vincennes.
+
+Now the end of all this is best told in the words of a young French
+soldier who was an eye witness and wrote the whole thing down. To pen the
+hideous horror I find too difficult a task.
+
+"Sunday--11 in the evening.
+
+"We had only returned at that moment from our day's leave, when the
+Lieutenant came to us to announce that we should be of the _piquet_
+to-morrow morning for the execution of Madame Boleski, the spy.
+
+"He said this to us in his monotonous voice as though he had been saying
+'To-morrow--_Revue d'Armes_'--but for us, after a whole day passed far
+from barracks, it was a rather brusque return to military realities!
+
+"At once it became necessary that we look through our accountrements for
+the show. No small affair! and for more than an hour there was brushing
+and polishing of straps and buckles. It was nearly two o'clock in the
+morning before we could turn in.
+
+"Many of us could not sleep--we are all between eighteen and nineteen
+years old, and the idea to see a woman killed agitated us. But little by
+little the whole band dozed."
+
+"Monday morning.
+
+"At four o'clock--reveille. We dress in haste in the dark. Ten minutes
+later we all find ourselves in the courtyard.
+
+"'_A droit alignement couvres sur deux_.'
+
+"The Lieutenant made the call."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The detachment moves off in the night, marching in slow cadence--that
+step which so peculiarly gives the impression of restrained force and
+condensed power.
+
+"We leave the fort and gain the artillery butts--true landscape of the
+front! Trenches, stripped trees, abandoned wagons!
+
+"And in the middle of all that--our silhouettes of carbines,
+casques and sacs.
+
+"Absolute silence.
+
+"We stop--we advance--and suddenly in the dawn which has begun, we arrive
+at our destination--the execution ground.
+
+"'_Cannoniers--halte! Couvres sur deux. A droite alignement_.'"
+
+"A rattle of arms. And there in front of us, at hardly fifteen yards, we
+catch sight of the post.
+
+"Up till now we had scarcely felt anything--just startled impressions,
+almost of curiosity, but now I begin to experience the first strong
+sensation.
+
+"The post! Symbol of all this sinister ceremony. A short post--not higher
+than one's shoulder! There it stands in front of the shooting butts. And
+to think that nearly every Monday--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now the troops from the Square, which is in reality rectangular, the
+shooting butt constituting one of its sides. Then in the grim dawn we
+wait quietly for what is to come. One after another, we see several
+automobiles approach, and each time we ask ourselves, 'Is not this the
+condemned?'
+
+"No--they are journalists--officers--_avocats_--and presently a hearse,
+out of which is lifted the coffin.
+
+"The undertakers' men, who presently will proceed to the business of
+placing the body there, laugh and talk together as they sit and smoke.
+They are old _habitu�s!_"
+
+"One was cold standing still! It begins to be quite light. The condemned
+one may arrive at any moment, because the execution has been fixed for
+exactly at the rising of the sun.
+
+"The men of the platoon load their rifles. The number of them is
+twelve--four sergeants, four corporals, four soldiers.
+
+"And then there are the _Chasseurs � pied_."
+
+"All of a sudden, two more cars appear, escorted by a company of
+dragoons.
+
+"This time it is She.
+
+"They stop--out of the first one, officers descend. The Commissaire of
+the Government who has, condemned Madame Boleski to death and who had
+gone a little more than an hour ago to awake her in her cell. The
+Captain, reporter, and two other Captains. The door of the second auto
+opens, two gendarmes get out--a Sister of St. Lazare (what a terrible
+_m�tier_ for her!)--and then Harietta Boleski!
+
+"And at once, accompanied by the nun and followed by the gendarmes, she
+penetrates into the square of men.
+
+"Until now we have been enduring a period of waiting, we have been asking
+ourselves if it will have an effect upon us--but now we have no more
+doubt. The effect has begun!
+
+"'Present arms!'
+
+"All together we render honour to the dead woman--for one considers a
+person condemned as already dead. And the bugles begin to play the
+March--_Do sol do do Sol do do, Mi mi mi_--
+
+"They play slowly--very softly and in the minor key.
+
+"Harietta Boleski walks quickly, the sister can hardly keep by her side.
+She is tall, beautiful, very elegant. A large hat with floating lace veil
+thrown back and splendid earrings. A dark dress--pretty shoes.
+
+"She looks at the troops and the _piquet d'ex�cution_ a little
+disdainfully, and then she smiles gaily--it is almost a titter. The
+sister taps her gently on the shoulder, as if to recall her to a sense of
+order, but she makes one careless gesture and walks up to the post.
+
+"The bugles are sounding plaintively, slowly and more slowly all the
+time.
+
+"She pauses in front of us--and with us it is now, 'Does this make us
+feel something?' We must hold ourselves not to grow faint.
+
+"To see this woman go by with the trumpets sounding ever. To say to
+ourselves that in sixty seconds she will be no more. There will be no
+life in that beautiful body. Ah! that is an emotion, believe me!
+
+"Never has the great problem been brought more forcibly before my spirit.
+
+"It is during the second when she passes before me that I receive
+the most profound impression, more even than at the actual moment of
+the firing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is beside the post. The bugles stop their mournful
+sound. They tie her to it, but not tightly, only so that her fall may not
+be too hard. A gendarme presents her with a bandeau for her eyes, which
+she pushes aside with scorn.
+
+"And when an officer reads the sentence, Harietta Boleski smiles."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"At twelve yards the platoon is lined up. The sentence has been read.
+
+"Madame Boleski embraces the Sister of Charity, who is very overcome.
+She even whispers a few words to comfort her. They stand back from the
+post. The adjutant who commands the platoon raises his sword--the rifles
+come in into position--two seconds--and the sword falls!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"A salute!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is no more.
+
+"The fair body drops to earth and immediately an Adjutant of
+Dragoons goes swiftly to the post, revolver pointed, and gives the
+_coup de grace_.
+
+"_'Arme sur l'�paule--Droit. A droit. En avant. Marche!'_
+
+"And we file past the corpse while the trumpets recommence to sound.
+
+"Harietta Boleski is lying down. She seems to be only reposing, so
+beautiful she looks.
+
+"The ball had entered her heart (we knew this later) so that her death
+has been instantaneous.
+
+"All the troops have defiled before her now.
+
+"We regain our quarters.
+
+"But as we file into the courtyard the sun gilds the highest window of
+the fortress. The day has begun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus perished Harietta Boleski in the thirty-seventh year of her age--in
+the midst of the zest of life. The times are to strenuous for sentiment.
+
+So perish all spies!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Price of Things
+
+Author: Elinor Glyn
+
+Posting Date: December 7, 2011 [EBook #9809]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 19, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THINGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+                             BY ELINOR GLYN
+
+                                  1919
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+I wrote this book in Paris in the winter of 1917-18--in the midst of
+bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch,
+and only primitive instincts seemed to stand out distinctly.
+
+Life appeared brutal, and our very fashion of speaking, the words we
+used, the way we looked at things, was more realistic--coarser--than in
+times of peace, when civilization can re-assert itself again. This is why
+the story shocks some readers. I quite understand that it might do so;
+but I deem it the duty of writers to make a faithful picture of each
+phase of the era they are living in, that posterity may be correctly
+informed about things, and get the atmosphere of epochs.
+
+The story is, so to speak, rough hewn. But it shows the danger of
+breaking laws, and interfering with fate--whether the laws be of God
+or of Man.
+
+It is also a psychological study of the instincts of two women, which the
+strenuous times brought to the surface. "Amaryllis," with all her
+breeding and gentleness, reacting to nature's call in her fierce fidelity
+to the father of her child--and "Harietta," becoming in herself the
+epitome of the age-old prostitute.
+
+I advise those who are rebuffed by plain words, and a ruthless analysis
+of the result of actions, not to read a single page.
+
+[Signature: Elinor Glyn]
+
+
+
+
+THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane,"
+said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish
+all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things,
+one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one
+discovers hope lying at the bottom of it."
+
+"What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre's
+large grey eyes opened in a puzzled way. She was on her honeymoon in
+Paris at a party at the Russian Embassy, and until now had accepted
+things and not speculated about them. She had lived in the country and
+was as good as gold.
+
+She was accepting her honeymoon with her accustomed calm, although it was
+not causing her any of the thrills which Elsie Goldmore, her school
+friend, had assured her she should discover therein.
+
+Honeymoons! Heavens! But perhaps it was because Sir John was dull. He
+looked dull, she thought, as he stood there talking to the Ambassador. A
+fine figure of an Englishman but--yes--dull. The Russian, on the
+contrary, was not dull. He was huge and ugly and rough-hewn--his eyes
+were yellowish-green and slanted upwards and his face was frankly
+Calmuck. But you knew that you were talking to a personality--to one who
+had probably a number of unknown possibilities about him tucked away
+somewhere.
+
+John had none of these. One could be certain of exactly what he would do
+on any given occasion--and it would always be his duty. The Russian was
+observing this charming English bride critically; she was such a perfect
+specimen of that estimable race--well-shaped, refined and healthy. Chock
+full of temperament too, he reflected--when she should discover herself.
+Temperament and romance and even passion, and there were shrewdness and
+commonsense as well.
+
+"An agreeable task for a man to undertake her education," and he wished
+that he had time.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre asked again:
+
+"How can one not think? I am always thinking."
+
+He smiled indulgently.
+
+"Oh! no, you are not--you only imagine that you are. You have questioned
+nothing--you do right generally because you have a nice character and
+have been well brought up, not from any conscious determination to uplift
+the soul. Yes--is it not so?"
+
+She was startled.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Do you ever ask yourself what things mean? What we are--where we are
+going? What is the end of it all? No--you are happy; you live from day
+to day--and yet you cannot be a very young ego, your eyes are too
+wise--you have had many incarnations. It is merely that in this one life
+the note of awakening has not yet been struck. You certainly must have
+needed sleep."
+
+"Many lives? You believe in that theory?"
+
+She was not accustomed to discuss unorthodox subjects. She was
+interested.
+
+"But of course--how else could there be justice? We draw the reflex of
+every evil action and of every good one, but sometimes not until the next
+incarnation, that is why the heedless ones cannot grasp the truth--they
+see no visible result of either good or evil--evil, in fact, seems
+generally to win if there is a balance either way."
+
+"Why are we not allowed memory then, so that we might profit by
+our lessons?"
+
+"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our
+faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of
+our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds
+us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the
+desire is no more."
+
+"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems
+a paradox."
+
+She was a little disturbed.
+
+"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must
+banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of
+people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at
+all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to
+the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
+But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness;
+there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."
+
+"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be
+happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."
+
+"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the
+sleep was not deep."
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds passing and re-passing in those
+stately rooms.
+
+"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one
+with the fair hair in jade green--she looks radiantly happy."
+
+"And is--she is frankly an animal--exquisitely preserved, damnably
+selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a
+harem houri--and the tenacity of a rat."
+
+"You are severe."
+
+"Not at all. Harietta Boleski is a product of that most astonishing
+nation across the Atlantic--none other could produce her. It is the
+hothouse of the world as regards remarkable types. Here for immediate
+ancestry we have a mother, from heaven knows what European refuse heap,
+arrived in an immigrant ship--father of the 'pore white trash' of the
+south--result: Harietta, fine points, beautiful, quite a lady for
+ordinary purposes. The absence of soul is strikingly apparent to any
+ordinary observer, but one only discovers the vulgarity of spirit if one
+is a student of evolution--or chances to catch her when irritated with
+her modiste or her maid. Other nations cannot produce such beings. Women
+with the attributes of Harietta, were they European, would have surface
+vulgarity showing--and so be out of the running, or they would have real
+passion which would be their undoing--passion is glorious--it is aroused
+by something beyond the physical. Observe her nostril! There is simple,
+delightful animal sensuality for you! Look also at the convex curve below
+the underlip--she will bite off the cherry whether it is hers by right or
+another's, and devour it without a backward thought."
+
+"Boleski--that is a Russian name, is it not?"
+
+"No, Polish--she secured our Stanislass, a great man in his
+country--last year in Berlin, having divorced a no longer required,
+but worthy German husband who had held some post in the American
+Consulate there."
+
+"Is that old man standing obediently beside her your Stanislass?--he
+looks quite cowed."
+
+"A sad sight, is it not? Stanislass, though, is not old, barely forty. He
+had a _beguin_ for her. She put his intelligence to sleep and bamboozled
+his judgment with a continuous appeal to the senses; she has vampired him
+now. Cloying all his will with her sugared caprices, she makes him scenes
+and so keeps him in subjection. He was one of the Council de l'Empire for
+Poland; the aims of his country were his earnest work, but now ambition
+is no more. He is tired, he has ceased to struggle; she rules and eats
+his soul as she has eaten the souls of others. Shall I present her to
+you? As a type, she is worthy of your attention."
+
+"It sounds as if she had the evil eye, as the Italians say," Amaryllis
+shuddered.
+
+"Only for men. She is really an amiable creature--women like her. She
+is so frankly simple, since for her there are never two issues--only to
+be allowed her own desires--a riot of extravagance, the first
+place--and some one to gratify certain instincts without too many
+refinements when the mood takes her. For the rest, she is kind and
+good-natured and 'jolly,' as you English say, and has no notion that
+she is a road to hell. But they are mostly dead, her other spider
+mates, and cannot tell of it."
+
+"I am much interested. I should like to talk to her. You say that she
+is happy?"
+
+"Obviously--she is an elemental--she never thinks at all, except to plan
+some further benefit for herself. I do not believe in this life that she
+can obtain a soul--her only force is her tenacious will."
+
+"Such force is good, though?"
+
+"Certainly. Even bad force is better than negative Good. One must first
+be strong before one can be serene."
+
+"You are strong."
+
+"Yes, but not good. Hardly a fit companion for sweet little English
+brides with excellent husbands awaiting them."
+
+"I shall judge of that."
+
+"_Tiens!_ So emancipated!"
+
+"If you are bad, how does your theory work that we pay for each action?
+Since by that you must know that it cannot be worth while to be bad."
+
+"It is not--I am aware of it, but when I am bad I am bad deliberately,
+knowing that I must pay."
+
+"That seems stupid of you."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I take very severe exercise when I begin to think of things I should not
+and I become savage when I require happiness--now is our chance for
+making you acquainted with Harietta, she is moving our way."
+
+Madame Boleski swept towards them on the arm of an Austrian Prince and
+the Russian Verisschenzko said, with suave politeness:
+
+"Madame, let me present you to Lady Ardayre. With me she has been
+admiring you from afar."
+
+The two women bowed, and with cheery, disarming simplicity, the American
+made some gracious remarks in a voice which sounded as if she smoked too
+much; it was not disagreeable in tone, nor had she a pronounced
+American accent.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre found herself interested. She admired the superb
+attention to detail shown in Madame Boleski's whole person. Her face was
+touched up with the lightest art, not overdone in any way. Her hair, of
+that very light tone bordering on gold, which sometimes goes with hazel
+eyes, was quite natural and wonderfully done. Her dress was
+perfection--so were her jewels. One saw that her corsetiere was an
+artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken
+off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand--it was well-shaped, save
+that the thumb turned back in a remarkable degree.
+
+"So delighted to meet you," Madame Boleski said. "We are going over to
+London next month and I am just crazy to know more of you delicious
+English people."
+
+They chatted for a few moments and then Madame Boleski swept onwards. She
+was quite stately and graceful and had a well-poised head. Amaryllis
+turned to the Russian and was startled by the expression of fierce,
+sardonic amusement in his yellow-green eyes.
+
+"But surely, she can see that you are laughing at her?" she exclaimed,
+astonished.
+
+"It would convey nothing to her if she did."
+
+"But you looked positively wicked."
+
+"Possibly--I feel it sometimes when I think of Stanislass; he was a very
+good friend of mine."
+
+Sir John Ardayre joined them at this moment and the three walked towards
+the supper room and the Russian said good-night.
+
+"It is not good-bye, Madame. I, too, shall be in your country soon and I
+also hope that I may see you again before you leave Paris."
+
+They arranged a dinner for the following night but one, and said
+au revoir.
+
+An hour later the Russian was seated in a huge English leather chair in
+the little salon of his apartment in the rue Cambon, when Madame Boleski
+very softly entered the room and sat down upon his knee.
+
+"I had to come, darling Brute," she said. "I was jealous of the English
+girl," and she fitted her delicately painted lips to his. "Stanislass
+wanted to talk over his new scheme for Poland, too, and as you know that
+always gets on my nerves."
+
+But Verisschenzko threw his head back impatiently, while he
+answered roughly.
+
+"I am not in the mood for your chastisement to-night. Go back as you
+came, I am thinking of something real, something which makes your
+body of no use to me--it wearies me and I do not even desire your
+presence. Begone!"
+
+Then he kissed her neck insolently and pushed her off his knee.
+
+She pouted resentfully. But suddenly her eyes caught a small case lying
+on a table near--and an eager gleam came into their hazel depths.
+
+"Oh, Stepan! Is it the ruby thing! Oh! You beloved angel, you are going
+to give it to me after all! Oh! I'll rush off at once and leave you, if
+you wish it! Good-night!"
+
+And when she was gone Verisschenzko threw some incense into a silver
+burner and as the clouds of perfume rose into the air:
+
+"Wough!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"What are you doing in Paris, Denzil?"
+
+"I came over for a bit of racing. Awfully glad to see you. Can't we dine
+together? I go back to-morrow." Verisschenzko put his arm through Denzil
+Ardayre's and drew him in to the Cafe de Paris, at the door of which they
+had chanced to meet.
+
+"I had another guest, but she can be consoled with some of Midas' food,
+and I want to talk to you; were you going to eat alone?"
+
+"A fellow threw me over; I meant to have just a snack and go on to a
+theatre. It is good running across you--I thought you were miles away!"
+
+Verisschenzko spoke to the head waiter, and gave him directions as to the
+disposal of the lovely lady who would presently arrive, and then he went
+on to his table, rather at the top, in a fairly secluded corner.
+
+The few people who were already dining--it was early on this May
+night--looked at Denzil Ardayre--he was such a refreshing sight of health
+and youth, so tall and fit and English, with his brown smooth head and
+fearless blue eyes, gay and debonnaire. One could see that he played
+cricket and polo, and any other game that came along, and that not a
+muscle of his frame was out of condition. He had "soldier" written upon
+him--young, gallant, cavalry soldier. Verisschenzko appreciated him;
+nothing complete, human or inanimate, left him unconscious of its
+meaning. They knew one another very well--they had been at Oxford and
+later had shot bears together in the Russian's far-off home.
+
+They talked for a while of casual things, and then Verisschenzko said:
+
+"Some relations of yours are here--Sir John Ardayre and his particularly
+attractive bride. Shall we eat what I had ordered for Collette, or have
+you other fancies after the soup?"
+
+Denzil paid only attention to the first part of the speech--he looked
+surprised and interested.
+
+"John Ardayre here! Of course, he married about ten days ago--he is the
+head of the family as you are aware, but I hardly even know him by sight.
+He is quite ten years older than I am and does not trouble about us, the
+poor younger branch--" and he smiled, showing such good teeth. "Besides,
+as you know, I have been for such a long time in India, and the leaves
+were for sport, not for hunting up relations."
+
+Verisschenzko did not press the matter of his guest's fancies in food,
+and they continued the menu ordered for Collette without further delay.
+
+"I want to hear all that you know about them, the girl is an exquisite
+thing with immense possibilities. Sir John looks--dull."
+
+"He is really a splendid character though," Denzil hastened to assure
+him. "Do you know the family history? But no, of course not, we were too
+busy in the old days enjoying life to trouble to talk of such things!
+Well, it is rather strange in the last generation--things very nearly
+came to an end and John has built it all up again. You are interested in
+heredity?"
+
+"Naturally--what is the story?"
+
+"Our mutual great-grandfather was a tremendous personage in North
+Somerset--the place Ardayre is there. My father was the son of the
+younger son, who had just enough to do him decently at Eton, and enable
+him to scrape along in the old regiment with a pony or two to play with.
+My mother was a Willowbrook, as you know, and a considerable heiress,
+that is how I come out all right, but until John's father, Sir James,
+squandered things, the head of the family was always very rich and full
+of land--and awfully set on the dignity of his race. They had turned the
+cult of it into regular religion."
+
+"The father of this man made a _gaspillage_, then--well?"
+
+"Yes, he was a rotter--a hark-back to his mother's relations; she was a
+Cranmote--they ruin any blood they mix with. I am glad that I come from
+the generation before."
+
+Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
+fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so John
+seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early, she had
+had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away everything he
+could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a tutor at home, for
+some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about thirteen when she died
+and at seventeen went straight into the city. He was determined to make a
+fortune, it has always been said, and redeem the mortgages on
+Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"
+
+Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.
+
+"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a Bulgarian
+snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople! You may well
+smile"--for Verisschenzko had raised his eyebrows in a whimsical
+way--this did sound such a highly coloured incident!
+
+"It was an unusual sort of thing to do, I admit, but the tale grows more
+lurid still, when I tell you that five months after the wedding she
+produced a son by the Lord knows who, one of her own tribe probably, and
+old Sir James was so infatuated with her that he never protested, and
+presently when he and John quarrelled like hell he pretended the little
+brute was his own child--just to spite John."
+
+Verisschenzko's Calmuck eyes narrowed.
+
+"And does this result of the fusion of snake charmers figure in the
+family history? I believe I have met him--his name is Ferdinand, is it
+not, and he is, or was, in some business in Constantinople?"
+
+"That is the creature--he was brought up at Ardayre as though he were the
+heir, and poor John turned out of things. He came to Eton three years
+before I left, but even there they could not turn him into the outside
+semblance of a gentleman. I loathed the little toad, and he loathed
+me--and the sickening part of the thing is that if John does not have a
+son, by the English law of entail Ferdinand comes into Ardayre, and will
+be the head of the family. Old Sir James died about five years ago,
+always protesting this bastard was his own child, though every one knew
+it was a lie. However, by that time John had made enough in the city to
+redeem Ardayre twice over. He had tremendous luck after the South African
+War, so he came into possession and lives there now in great state--I do
+really hope that he will have a son."
+
+"You, too, have the instinct of the family, then--this pride in
+it--since it cannot benefit you either way."
+
+"I believe it is born in us, and though I have never seen Ardayre, I
+should hate this mongrel to have it. I was brought up with a tremendous
+reverence for it, even as a second cousin."
+
+"Well, the new Lady Ardayre looks young enough and of a health to have
+ten sons!"
+
+"Y-es," Denzil acquiesced in a tentative tone.
+
+"Not so?" Verisschenzko glanced up surprised, and then gave his attention
+to the waiter who had brought some Burgundy and was pouring it out into
+his glass.
+
+"Not so you would say?"
+
+"I don't know, I have never seen her--but in the family it is whispered
+that John--poor devil--he had an accident hunting two or three years
+ago. However, it may not any of it be true--here, let us drink to the
+Ardayre son!"
+
+"To the Ardayre son!" and Verisschenzko filled his friend's glass with
+the decanted wine and they both drank together.
+
+"Your cousin is like you," he said presently. "A fatiguing likeness, but
+the same height and make--and voice--strange things these family
+reproductions of an exact type. I have no family, as you know--we are of
+the people, arisen by trade to riches. Could I go beyond my immediate
+parents, could I know cousins and uncles and brothers, should I find this
+same peculiar stamp of family among us all? Who knows? I think not."
+
+"I suppose there is something in it. My father has told me that in
+the picture gallery at Ardayre they are as like as two pins the whole
+way down."
+
+"The concentration upon the idea causes it. In people risen like my
+father and myself, we only resemble a group--a nation; if I have children
+they will resemble me. It is strength in the beginning when an individual
+rises beyond the group, which produces a type. One says 'English' to look
+at you, and then, if one knows, one says 'Ardayre' at once; one gets as
+far as 'Calmuck' with me, that is all, but in years to come it will have
+developed into 'Verisschenzko.'"
+
+"How you study things, Stepan; you are always putting new ideas into my
+head whenever I see you. Life would be just a routine, for all the joy of
+sport, if one did not think. I am going to finish my soldiering this
+autumn and stand for Parliament. It seems waste of time now, with no wars
+in prospect, sticking to it; I want a vaster field."
+
+"You think there can be no wars in prospect--no? Well, who can prophesy?
+There are clouds in the Southeast, but for the moment we will not
+speculate about them--and they may affect my country and not yours. And
+so you will settle down and become a reputable member of Parliament?"
+Then, as Denzil would have spoken perhaps upon the subject of war clouds,
+Verisschenzko hastily continued:
+
+"Will you dine to-morrow night at the Ritz to meet your cousin and his
+wife? They are honouring me."
+
+"I wish I could, but I am off in the morning. What is she like?"
+
+Verisschenzko paid particular attention to the selection of a quail, and
+then he answered:
+
+"She is of the same type as the family, Denzil,--that is, a good
+skeleton--bones in the right place, firm white flesh, colouring as
+yours--well bred, balanced, unawakened as yet. Was she a relation?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so--a cousin of a generation even before mine. I wish I
+could have dined, I would awfully like to have met them; I shall have
+to make a chance in England. It is stupid not to know one's own family,
+but our fathers quarrelled and we have never had a chance of mending
+the break."
+
+"They were at the Russian Embassy last night; the throng admired Lady
+Ardayre very much."
+
+"And what are you doing in Paris, Stepan? The last I heard of you, you
+were on your yacht in the Black Sea."
+
+"I was cruising near countries whose internal affairs interest me for the
+moment. I returned to my _appartement_ in Paris to see a friend of mine,
+Stanislass Boleski--he also has a lovely wife. Look, she has just come
+in with him. She is in the devil of a temper--observe her. If I sit back,
+the pillar hides me--I do not wish them to see me yet."
+
+Denzil glanced down the room; two people were taking their seats by the
+wall. The mask was off Harietta Boleski's face for the moment; it looked
+silly with its raised eyebrows and was full of ill temper and spite. The
+husband had an air of extreme worry on his clever, intellectual face, but
+that he was solicitous to gratify his wife's caprices, any casual
+observer could have perceived.
+
+"You mean the woman with the wonderful _cigrettes_--she is good-looking,
+isn't she? I wonder who it is she has caught sight of now, though? Look
+at the eagerness which has come into her eyes--you can see her in the
+mirror if you want to."
+
+But Verisschenzko had missed nothing, and he bent forward to endeavour
+to identify the person upon whom Madame Boleski's gaze had turned. There
+was nothing to distinguish any individual--the company were of several
+nations--German and Austrian and Balkan and Russian scattered about here
+and there among the French and American _habitues_. The only plan would
+be to continue to watch Harietta--but although he did this throughout the
+dinner, not a flicker of her eyelids gave him any further clue.
+
+Denzil was interested--he felt something beyond what appeared on the
+surface was taking place, so he waited for his friend to speak.
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a little, and then he casually gave a resume
+of the character and place of Madame Boleski and her husband, a good deal
+more baldly expressed, but in substance much the same as he had given to
+Amaryllis at the Russian Embassy the night before.
+
+He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.
+
+"Look at her well--she is capable of mischief. Her extreme
+stupidity--only the brain of a rodent or a goat--makes her more
+difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can
+never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays
+is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite
+natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all.
+Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or
+personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves
+even me--I, who am no poor diviner--confused as to whether she is
+telling a lie or the truth."
+
+"What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.
+
+"An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko
+continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of
+the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times,
+and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not
+for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different
+jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information,
+obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital
+importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a
+mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."
+
+"She has lovers?"
+
+"Has had many; her role now is that of a great lady and so all is of a
+respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of
+self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she
+would commit betises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is
+hidden with the cunning of a fox."
+
+"Who did you say the first husband was--?"
+
+"A German of the name of Von Wendel--he used to beat her with a stick, it
+is said--so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until
+she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any
+one who stood in her way."
+
+"Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty epuise--one feels sorry
+for the poor man."
+
+Then, as ever, at the mention of the debacle of Stanislass,
+Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.
+
+"She has crushed the hope of Poland--for that, indeed, one day she
+must pay."
+
+"But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"
+Denzil remarked.
+
+"Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices--and
+Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our
+Northern world."
+
+His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of
+Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had
+always been drawn to Stepan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the
+Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a
+mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm
+heart of a generous child--capable of every frenzy and of every
+sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the
+one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered
+over many lands--and as they sat there in the Cafe de Paris, the thoughts
+of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in
+Russia and in India between.
+
+"They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said
+presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of
+what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon
+and stars--and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"
+
+"Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,
+Stepan? Twenty-nine years old!"
+
+Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the
+two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced
+Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski
+all smiles and flattering cajoleries now--and then they said
+good-night and went out.
+
+But as Stepan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned
+forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a
+jealous hate.
+
+"Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she
+loves--not the pig-fool who we gave her to--one day I shall kill him--"
+and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"
+
+That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois,
+and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Armenonville.
+Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The
+circumstances were interesting--a bride of ten days, and the environment
+so illuminating--and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and
+not saying _anything!_ She did not like people who chattered--and she
+could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid
+respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic
+background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded
+some show of emotion!
+
+John loved her she supposed--of course he did--or he never would have
+asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She
+could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its
+beginning was only three months back!
+
+They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then
+they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she
+could not remember any love-making--she could not remember any of those
+warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was
+propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in
+demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon
+the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and
+restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a
+worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked
+at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons
+and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone
+further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the
+dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.
+
+She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love
+was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies
+had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than
+that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had
+indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once
+supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect
+_something_, and here was nothing--just nothing!
+
+The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He
+had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of
+refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her
+intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not
+too congenial home.
+
+She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of
+some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless
+young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to
+strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours
+as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in
+herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a
+girl, luck did not come her way.
+
+When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of
+marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear,"
+and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned
+over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf
+ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her
+forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or
+gave her any thrill!
+
+"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a
+fellow, but I will try."
+
+Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most
+every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every
+one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and
+petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in
+a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of
+excitement in the whole conventional thing!
+
+There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most
+reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very
+well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked
+well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond
+talking on general subjects!
+
+This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down
+the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and
+polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense
+to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest
+flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really
+interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.
+
+He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew
+to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its
+honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person
+could ever do.
+
+She almost became jealous of it all.
+
+Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece
+had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.
+
+Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's,
+Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not
+allow her stepfather to give her away.
+
+Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an
+Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and
+prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome,
+stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the
+Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids.
+Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!
+
+And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is
+the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the
+altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."
+
+The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in
+the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent
+by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of
+the honeymoon."
+
+This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her
+aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would
+begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not.
+For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and
+been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was
+not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too
+unrefined in the expression of its private affairs and too indiscreet for
+any maiden to remain in ignorance now.
+
+It is true John did kiss her once or twice, but there was no real warmth
+in the embrace, and when, after an excellent dinner her heart began to
+beat with wonderment and excitement, she asked herself what it meant.
+Then, all confused, she murmured something about "Good-night," and
+retired to the magnificent state suite alone.
+
+When she had left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine
+and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but
+an anguish almost of despair in his eyes.
+
+Amaryllis thought of that night--and of other nights since--as she sat
+there at Armenonville, in the luminous sensuous dusk.
+
+So this was being married! Well, it was not much of a joy--and why, why
+did John sit silent there? Why?
+
+Surely this is not how the Russian would have sat--that strange Russian!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was nearing sunset in the garden below the Trocadero. A tall German
+officer waited impatiently not far from the bronze of a fierce bull in a
+secluded corner under the trees; he was plainly an officer although he
+was clothed in mufti of English make. He was a singularly handsome
+creature in spite of his too wide hips. A fine, sensual, brutal male.
+
+He swore in his own language, and then, through the glorious light,
+a woman came towards him. She wore an unremarkable overcoat and a
+thick veil.
+
+"Hans!" she exclaimed delightedly, and then went on in fluent German with
+a strong American accent.
+
+He looked round to be sure that they were alone, and then he clasped her
+in his arms. He held her so tightly that she panted for breath; he kissed
+her until her lips were bruised, and he murmured guttural words of
+endearment that sounded like an animal's growl.
+
+The woman answered him in like manner. It was as though two brute
+beasts had met.
+
+Then presently they sat upon a seat and talked in low tones. The woman
+protested and declaimed; the man grumbled and demanded. An envelope
+passed between them, and more crude caresses, and before they parted the
+man again held her in close embrace--biting the lobe of her ear until she
+gave a little scream.
+
+"Yes--if there was time--" she gasped huskily. "I should adore you like
+this--but here--in the gardens--Oh! do mind my hat!"
+
+Then he let her go--they had arranged a future meeting. And left alone,
+he sat down upon the bench again and laughed aloud.
+
+The woman almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting
+taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder
+puff, and red greases for her lips.
+
+"My goodness! I can't say that's a mosquito!" and she examined her ear.
+"How tiresome and imprudent of Hans! But Jingo, it was good!--if there
+only had been time--"
+
+Then she, too, laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at
+the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the
+telltale ear.
+
+But on encountering her maid, she was carrying her minute Pekinese dog in
+her arms and was beating him well.
+
+"Regardez, Marie! la vilaine bete m'a mordu l'oreil!"
+
+"Tiens!" commented the affronted Marie, who adored Fou-Chou. "Et le cher
+petit chien de Madame est si doux!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stanislass Boleski was poring over a voluminous bundle of papers when his
+wife, clad in a diaphanous wrap, came into his sitting room. They had a
+palatial suite at the Rhin. The affairs of Poland were not prospering as
+he had hoped, and these papers required his supreme attention--there was
+German intrigue going on somewhere underneath. He longed for Harietta's
+sympathy which she had been so prodigal in bestowing before she had
+secured her divorce from that brute of a Teutonic husband, whom she
+hated so much. Now she hardly ever listened, and yawned in his face when
+he spoke of Poland and his high aims. But he must make allowances for
+her--she was such a child of impulse, so lovely, so fascinating! And here
+in Paris, admired as she was, how could he wonder at her distraction!
+
+"Stanislass! my old Stannie," she cooed in his ear, "what am I to wear
+to-night for the Montivacchini ball? You will want me to look my best, I
+know, and I just love to please you."
+
+He was all attention at once, pushing the documents aside as she put her
+arms around his neck and pulled his beard, then she drew his head back to
+kiss the part where the hair was growing thin on the top--her eyes fixed
+on the papers.
+
+"You don't want to bother with those tiresome old things any more; go and
+get into your dressing-gown, and come to my room and talk while I am
+polishing my nails,--we can have half an hour before I must dress. I'll
+wait for you here--I must be petted to-night, I am tired and cross."
+
+Stanislass Boleski rose with alacrity. She had not been kind to him for
+days--fretful and capricious and impossible to please. He must not lose
+this chance--if it could only have been when he was not so busy--but--
+
+"Run along, do!" she commanded, tapping her foot.
+
+And putting the papers hastily in a drawer with a spring lock, he went
+gladly from the room.
+
+Her whole aspect changed; she lit a cigarette and hummed a tune, while
+she fingered a key which dangled from her bracelet.
+
+No one eclipsed Madame Boleski in that distinguished crowd later on.
+Her clinging silver brocade, and the one red rose at the edge of the
+extreme decolletage, were simply the perfection of art. She did not wear
+gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except
+a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to
+refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh!
+they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one
+finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band of homely
+gold! Never!"
+
+Stanislass had argued in those early days--he seldom argued now.
+
+"My love!" he cried, as she burst upon his infatuated vision, when ready
+for the ball, "let me admire you!"
+
+She turned about; she knew that she was perfection.
+
+Her husband kissed her fingers, and then he caught sight of the ruby
+ring. He examined it.
+
+"I had not seen this ruby before," he exclaimed in a surprised voice,
+"and I thought I knew all your jewel case!"
+
+She held out her hand while her big, stupid, appealing hazel eyes
+expressed childish innocence.
+
+"No--I'd put it away, it was of other days--but I do love rubies, and so
+I got it out to-night, it goes with my rose!"
+
+He had perceived this. Had he not become educated in the subtleties of a
+woman's apparel? For was it not his duty often, and his pleasure
+sometimes, to have to assist at her toilet, and to listen for hours to
+discussions of garments, and if they could suit or not. He was even
+accustomed now to waiting in the hot salons in the Rue de la Paix, while
+these stately perfections were being essayed. But the ruby ring worried
+him. Why had she asked him to give her just such a one only last month,
+if she already possessed its fellow?... He had refused because her
+extravagance had grown fantastic, but he had meant to cede later. Every
+pleasure of the senses he always had to secure by bribes.
+
+"I do not understand why?--" he began, but she put her hand over his
+mouth and then kissed him voluptuously before she turned and shrilly
+cried to Marie to bring her ermine cloak.
+
+The maid's eyes were round and sullen with resentment; she had not
+forgotten the beating of Fou-Chou! "As for the ear of Madame!" she said,
+clasping the tiny dog to her heart, as she watched her mistress go
+towards the lift from the sitting-room, "as for that maudite ear, thy
+teeth are innocent, my angel! But I wish that he who is guilty had bitten
+it off!" Then she laughed disdainfully.
+
+"And look at the old fool! He dreams of nothing! And if he dreamed, he
+would not believe--such _insenses_ are men!"
+
+Meanwhile the Boleskis had arrived at the hotel of the Duchesse di
+Montivacchini, that rich and ravishing American-Italian, who gave the
+most splendid and exclusive entertainments in Paris. So, too, had arrived
+Sir John and Lady Ardayre, brought on from the dinner at the Ritz by
+Verisschenzko.
+
+Denzil had left that morning for England, or he would have had the
+disagreeable experience of meeting his _soi-disant_ cousin, to whom he
+had applied the epithet "toad." For Ferdinand Ardayre had just reached
+the gay city from Constantinople, and had also come to the ball with a
+friend in the Turkish Embassy.
+
+He happened to be standing at the door when the Boleskis were announced,
+and his light eyes devoured Harietta--she seemed to him the ideal of
+things feminine--and he immediately took steps to be presented. Assurance
+was one of his strongest cards. He was a fair man--with the fairness of a
+Turk not European--and there was something mean and chetive in his
+regard. He would have looked over-dressed and un-English in a London
+ball-room, but in that cosmopolitan company he was unremarkable. He had
+been his mother's idol and Sir James had left him everything he could
+scrape from his highly mortgaged property. But certain tastes of his own
+made a Continental life more congenial to him, and he had chosen early to
+enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He
+was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by
+himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm.
+
+The one burning bitterness in his spirit was the knowledge that Sir John
+Ardayre had never recognised him as a brother. During Sir James' lifetime
+there had been silence upon the matter, since John had no legal reason
+for denying the relationship, but once he had become master of Ardayre he
+had let it be known that he refused to believe Ferdinand to be his
+father's son. On the rare occasions when he had to be mentioned, John
+called him "the mongrel" and Ferdinand was aware of this. A silent,
+intense hatred filled his being--more than shared by his mother who,
+until the day of her death, two years before, had always plotted
+vengeance--without being able to accomplish anything. Either mother or
+son would willingly have murdered John if a suitable and safe method had
+presented itself. And now to know that John had married a beautiful
+far-off cousin and might have children, and so forever preclude the
+possibility of his--Ferdinand's--own inheritance of Ardayre was a further
+incentive to hate! If only some means could be discovered to remove John,
+and soon! But while Ferdinand thought these things, watching his
+so-called brother from across the room, he knew that he was impotent.
+Poisons and daggers were not weapons which could be employed in civilised
+Paris in the twentieth century! If they would only come to
+Constantinople!
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre had never seen a Paris ball before. She was enchanted.
+The sumptuous, lofty rooms, with their perfect Louis XV gilt _boiseries_,
+the marvellous clothes of the women, the gaiety in the air! She was
+accustomed to the new weird dances in England, but had not seen them
+performed as she now saw them.
+
+"This orgie of mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as
+he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the
+fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle
+of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the
+skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted--all are
+feverish--all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the
+eve of a cataclysm--it is a dance Macabre."
+
+Amaryllis turned, startled, to look at him, and she saw that his eyes
+were full of melancholy, and not mocking as they usually were.
+
+"A dance Macabre! You do not approve of these tangoes then?"
+
+He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, which was his only form of
+gesticulation.
+
+"Tangoes--or one steps--I neither approve nor disapprove--dancing should
+all have its meaning, as the Greek Orchises had. These dances to the
+Greeks would have meant only one thing--I do not know if they would have
+wished this to take place in public, they were an aesthetic and refined
+people, so I think not. We Russians are the only so-called civilised
+nation who are brutal enough for that; but we are far from being
+civilised really. Orgies are natural to us--they are not to the French or
+the English. Savage sex displays for these nations are an acquired taste,
+a proof of vicious decay, the middle note of the end."
+
+"I learned the tango this Spring--it is charming to dance," Amaryllis
+protested. She was a little uncomfortable--the subject, much as she
+was interested in the Russian's downright views, she found was
+difficult to discuss.
+
+"I am sure you did--you counted time--you moved your charming form this
+way and that--and you had not the slightest idea of anything in it beyond
+anxiety to keep step and do the thing well! Yes--is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis laughed--this was so true!
+
+"What an incredibly false sham it all is!" he went on. "Started by
+niggers or Mexicans for what it obviously means, and brought here
+for respectable mothers, and wives, and girls to perform. For me a
+woman loses all charm when she cheapens the great mystery-ceremonies
+of love--"
+
+"Then you won't dance it with me?" Amaryllis challenged smilingly--she
+would not let him see that she was cast down. "I do so want to dance!"
+
+His eyes grew fierce.
+
+"I beg of you not! I desire to keep the picture I have made of you since
+we met--later I shall dance it myself with a suitable partner, but I do
+not want you mixed with this tarnished herd."
+
+Amaryllis answered with dignity:
+
+"If I thought of it as you do I should not want to dance it at all." She
+was aggrieved that her expressed desire might have made him hold her less
+high--"and you have taken all the bloom from my butterfly's wing--I will
+never enjoy dancing it again--let us go and sit down."
+
+He gave her his arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into
+conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose
+movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring.
+
+"There is your friend, Madame Boleski--she dances--and so well!"
+
+"Harietta is an elemental--as I told you before--it is right that she
+should express herself so. She is very well aware of what it all means
+and delights in it. But look at that lady with the hair going grey--it is
+the Marquise de Saint Vrilliere--of the bluest blood in France and of a
+rigid respectability. She married her second daughter last week. They all
+spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till
+dark--mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian
+Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses--clasped in the arms of incredible
+scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New
+York--decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers
+before this madness set in!"
+
+"And you say it is a dance Macabre? Tell me just what you mean."
+
+They had reached a comfortable sofa by now in a salon devoted to bridge,
+which was almost empty, the players, so eager to take part in the
+dancing, that they had deserted even this, their favourite game.
+
+"When a nation loses all sense of balance and belies the traditions of
+its whole history, and when masses of civilised individuals experience
+this craze for dancing and miming, and sex display, it presages some
+great upheaval--some calamity. It was thus before the revolution of 1793,
+and since it is affecting England and America and all of Europe it seems,
+the cataclysm will be great."
+
+Amaryllis shivered. "You frighten me," she whispered. "Do you mean some
+war--or some earthquake--or some pestilence, or what?"
+
+"Events will show. But let us talk of something else. A cousin of your
+husband's, who is a very good friend of mine, was here yesterday. He went
+to England to-day, you have not met him yet, I believe--Denzil Ardayre?"
+
+"No--but I know all about him--he plays polo and is in the Zingari."
+
+"He does other things--he will even do more--I shall be curious to hear
+what you think of him. For me he is the type of your best in England.
+We were at Oxford together; we dreamed dreams there--and perhaps time
+will realise some of them. Denzil is a beautiful Englishman, but he is
+not a fool."
+
+A sudden illumination seemed to come into Amaryllis' brain; she felt how
+limited had been all her thoughts and standpoints in life. She had been
+willing to drift on without speculation as to the goal to be reached.
+Indeed, even now, had she any definite goal? She looked at the Russian's
+strong, rugged face, his inscrutable eyes narrowed and gazing ahead--of
+what was he thinking? Not stupid, ordinary things--that was certain.
+
+"It is the second evening, amidst the most unlikely surroundings, that
+you have made me speculate about subjects which never troubled me before.
+Then you leave me unsatisfied--I want to know--definitely to know!"
+
+"Searcher after wisdom!" and he smiled. "No one can teach another very
+much. Enlightenment must come from within; we have reached a better stage
+when we realise that we are units in some vast scheme and responsible for
+its working, and not only atoms floating hither and thither by chance.
+Most people have the brains of grasshoppers; they spring from subject to
+subject, their thoughts are never under control. Their thoughts rule
+them--it is not they who rule their thoughts."
+
+They were seated comfortably on their sofa, and Verisschenzko leaning
+forward from his corner, looked straight into her eyes.
+
+"You control your thoughts?" she asked. "Can you really only let them
+wander where you choose?"
+
+"They very seldom escape me, but I consciously allow them indulgences."
+
+"Such as?"
+
+"Visions--day dreams--which I know ought not to materialise."
+
+Something disturbed her in his regard; it was not easy to meet, so full
+of magnetic emanation. Amaryllis was conscious that she no longer felt
+very calm--she longed to know What his dreams could be.
+
+"Yes--but if I told you, you would send me away."
+
+It seemed that he could read her desire. "I shall order myself to be
+gone presently, because the interest which you cause me to feel would
+interfere with work which I have to do."
+
+"And your dreams? Tell them first?" she knew that she was playing
+with fire.
+
+He looked down now, and she saw that he was not going to gratify her
+curiosity.
+
+"My noblest dream is for the regeneration of a nation--on that I have
+ordered my thoughts to dwell. For the others, the time is not yet for me
+to tell you of them--it may never come. Now answer me, have you yet seen
+your new home, Ardayre?"
+
+"No, but why should you be interested in that? It seems strange that you,
+a Russian, should even know that there is such a place as Ardayre!"
+
+"Continue--I know that it is a wonderful place, and that your husband
+loves it more than his life."
+
+Amaryllis pouted slightly.
+
+"He does indeed! Perhaps I shall grow to do so also when I know it; it is
+the family creed. Sir James--my late father-in-law--was the only
+exception to this rule."
+
+"You must uphold the idea then, and live to do fine things."
+
+"I will try--if only--" then she paused, she could not say "if only John
+would be human and unfreeze to me, and love me, and let us go on the road
+together hand in hand!"
+
+"It is quite useless for a family merely to continue from generation to
+generation piling up possessions, and narrowing its interests. It must do
+this for a time to become solid, and then it should take a vaster view,
+and begin to help the world. Nearly everything is spoiled in all
+civilisation because of this inability to see beyond the nose, this poor
+and paltry outlook."
+
+"People rave vaguely," Amaryllis argued, "about one's duty and vast
+outlooks and those things, but it is difficult to get any one to give
+concrete advice--what would you advise me to do, for instance?"
+
+"I would advise you first to begin asking yourself the reason of
+everything, each day, since Pandora's box has been opened for you in any
+case. 'What caused this? What caused that?' Search for causes--then
+eradicate the roots, if they are not good, do not waste time on trying to
+ameliorate the results! Determine as to why you are put into such and
+such a place, and accomplish what you discover to be the duty of the
+situation. But how serious we have become! I am not a priest to give you
+guidance--I am a man fighting a tremendously strong desire to take you in
+my arms--so come, we will return to the ball room, and I will deliver you
+to your husband."
+
+Amaryllis rose and stood facing him, her heart was beating fast. "If I
+try to do well--to climb the straight road of the soul's advancement,
+will you give me counsel should I need it by the way?"
+
+"Yes, this I will do when I have complete control, but for the moment you
+are causing me emotions, and I wish to keep you a thing apart--of the
+spirit. Hermits and saints subdue the flesh by abstinence and fasting;
+they then become useless to the world. A man can only lead men while he
+remains a man, with a man's passions, so that he should not fight in this
+beyond his strength--only he should _never sully the wrong thing_. Come!
+Return to the husband--and I shall go for a while to hell."
+
+And presently Amaryllis, standing safely with John, saw Verisschenzko
+dancing the maddest one-step with Madame Boleski, their undulations
+outdoing all others in the room!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The day after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis
+had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her
+husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which led from her room.
+
+They would breakfast cosily there, she had arranged, and nothing was
+wanting in the setting of a love scene. The bride wore the most alluring
+cap and daintiest Paris neglige, and her fair and pure skin gleamed
+through the diaphanous stuff.
+
+How she longed for John to notice it all, and make love to her! She had
+apprehended a number of delightful possibilities in Paris, none of which
+had materialised, alas! in her case.
+
+John was the same as ever--quiet, dignified, polite and unmoved. She had
+taken to turning out the light before he came to her at night, to hide
+the disappointment and chagrin which she felt might show in her eyes. It
+would be so humiliating if he should see this. There would soon be
+nothing left for her to do but pretend that she was as cold as he was, if
+this last effort of _froufrous_ left him as stolid as usual.
+
+She smoothed out the pale chiffon draperies with a tender hand. She got
+up and looked at herself in the mirror. It was fortunate that the
+reflection of snowy nose and throat and chin, and the pink velvet cheeks,
+required no art to perfect them; it was all natural and quite nice, she
+felt. What a bore it must be to have to touch up like Madame Boleski!
+
+But what was the meaning of all the imputations she had read of in those
+interesting French novels in Paris?--the languors and lassitudes and
+tremors of breakfasting love! There was just such a scene as this in one
+she had devoured on the boat. A _dejeuner_ of _amants--_certainly they
+had not been married, there was that want of resemblance, but surely this
+could not matter? For a fortnight, three weeks, a month, surely even a
+husband could be as a lover--especially to a mistress who took such pains
+to please his eye!
+
+Would Elsie Goldmore spend such dull breakfasts when she espoused Harry
+Kahn? Elsie Goldmore was a Jewess, perhaps that made the difference,
+perhaps Jews were more expansive--But the people in the novels were not
+Jews. Of course, though, they were French, that must be it! Could it be
+that all Englishmen, to their wives, were like John? This she must
+presently find out.
+
+Meanwhile she would try--oh, try so hard to entice him to be lovely to
+her! He was her own husband; there was absolutely no harm in doing this.
+And how glorious it would be to turn him into a lover! Here in this
+perfectly divine old house! John was so good-looking, too, and had the
+most attractive deep voice, but heavens! the matter-of-factness of
+everything about him!
+
+How long would it all go on?
+
+John came in presently with _The Times_ under his arm. He was
+immaculately dressed in a blue serge suit. Amaryllis had hoped to see
+him in that subduedly gorgeous dressing gown she had persuaded him to
+order at Charvets during their first days. It would have been so
+suitable and intimate and lover-like. But no! there was the blue serge
+suit--and _The Times_.
+
+A shadow fell upon her mood. Her own pink chiffons almost seemed
+out of place!
+
+John glanced at them, and at the glowing, living, delicious bit of young
+womanhood which they adorned. He saw the rebellious ripe cherry of a
+mouth, and the warm, soft tenderness in the grey eyes, and then he
+quickly looked out of the window--his own blue ones expressionless, but
+the hand which held the newspaper clenched rather hard.
+
+"Amn't I a pet!" cooed Amaryllis, deliberately subduing the chill of her
+first disappointment. "Dearest, see I have kept this last and loveliest
+set of garments for the morning of our home-coming--and for you!" and she
+crept close to him and laid her cheek against his cheek.
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her calmly.
+
+"You look most beautiful, darling," he said. "But then, you always do,
+and your frills are perfection. Now I think we ought to have breakfast;
+it is most awfully late."
+
+She sat down in her place and she felt stupid tears rise in her eyes.
+
+She poured out the tea and buttered herself some toast, while John was
+apparently busy at a side table where dwelt the hot dishes.
+
+He selected the daintiest piece of sole for her, and handed her
+the plate.
+
+"I am not hungry," she protested, "keep it for yourself."
+
+He did not press the matter, but took his place and began to talk quietly
+upon the news of the day--in a composed fashion between glances at _The
+Times_ and mouthfuls of sole.
+
+Amaryllis controlled herself. She was too proud and too just to make a
+foolish scene. If this was John's way and her little effort at enticement
+was a failure, she must put up with it. Marriage was a lottery she had
+always heard, and it might be her luck to have drawn a blank. So she
+choked down the rising emotion and answered brightly, showing interest in
+her husband's remarks--and she even managed to eat some omelette, and
+when the business of breakfast was quite over she went to the window and
+John followed her there.
+
+The view which met their eyes was exquisite.
+
+Beyond the perfect stately garden, with its quaint clipped yews and
+masses of spring flowers and velvet lawns, there stretched the vast park
+with its splendid oaks and browsing deer. It was a possession which any
+man could feel proud to own.
+
+John slipped his arm round her waist and drew her to him.
+
+"Amaryllis," he said, and his voice vibrated, "to-day I am going to show
+you everything I love here at Ardayre--because I want you to love it
+all, too. You are of the family, so it must mean something to you, dear."
+
+Amaryllis kindled with re-awakening hope.
+
+"Indeed, it will mean everything to me, John."
+
+He kissed her forehead and murmured something about her dressing quickly,
+and that he would wait for her there in the cedar room. And when she
+returned in about a quarter of an hour in the neatest country clothes, he
+placed her hand on his arm and led her down the great stairs and on
+through the hall into the picture gallery.
+
+It was a wonderful place of green silk and chestnut wainscoting, and all
+the walls of its hundred feet of length were hung with canvases of
+value--portraits principally of those Ardayres who had gone on. Face
+after face looked down on Amaryllis of the same type as John's and her
+own--the brown hair and eyes of grey or blue. Some were a little fairer,
+some a little darker, but all unmistakably stamped "Ardayre."
+
+John pointed out each individual to her, while she hung fondly on his
+arm, from some doubtful crude fourteenth century wooden panels of Johns
+and Denzils, on to Benedict in a furred Henry VII. gown. Then came Henrys
+and Denzils in Elizabethan armour and puffed white satin, and through
+Stuart and Commonwealth to Stuart again, and so to William and Mary
+numbers of Benedicts, and lastly to powdered Georgian James' and Regency
+Denzils and Johns. And the name Amaryllis recurred more than once in
+stately dame or damsel, called after that fair Amaryllis of Elizabeth's
+days who had been maid of honour to the virgin Queen, and had sonnets
+written to her nut brown locks by the gallants of her time.
+
+"How little the women they married seem to have altered the type!" the
+young living Amaryllis exclaimed, when they came nearly to the end. "It
+goes on Ardayre, Ardayre, Ardayre, ever since the very first one. Oh!
+John, if we ever have a son he ought to be even more so--you and I being
+of the same blood--" and then she hesitated and blushed crimson. This was
+the first time she had ever spoken of such a thing.
+
+John held her arm very tightly to his side for a second, and his voice
+was uncertain as he answered:
+
+"Amaryllis, that is the profound desire of my heart, that we should
+have a son."
+
+A strange feeling of exaltation came over Amaryllis, half-innocent,
+wholly ignorant as she was.
+
+She had been stupid--French novels were all nonsense. Marriages in real
+life were always like this--of course they must be--since John said
+plainly and with such deep feeling that his profoundest desire was that
+they should have a son! That meant that she would surely have one. This
+was perfectly glorious, and it must simply be those silly books and Elsie
+Goldmore's too uxorious imagination which had given her some ridiculously
+romantic exaggerated ideas of what love hours would be. She would now be
+contented and never worry again. She nestled closer to her husband and
+looked up at him with eyes sweet and fond, the brown, curly lashes wet
+with tender dew.
+
+"Oh!--darling, when, when do you think we shall have a son?"
+
+Then, for the first time in their lives, John Ardayre clasped her in his
+arms passionately and held her to his heart.
+
+"Ah, God," he whispered hoarsely, as he kissed her fresh young lips.
+"Pray for that, Amaryllis--pray for that, my own."
+
+Then he restrained himself and drew her on to the four last pictures at
+the end of the room. They were of his grandfather and grandmother, and
+his father and mother. And then there was a blank space, and the brighter
+colour of the damask showed that a canvas had been removed.
+
+"Who hung there, John?"
+
+"The accursed snake charmer woman whom my father disgraced the family
+with by bringing home. She was his wife by the law, and a Frenchman
+painted her. It was a fine picture with the bastard Ferdinand in her
+arms--the proof of our shame. I had it taken down and burnt the day the
+place was mine."
+
+Amaryllis was receiving surprises to-day--John's face was full of
+emotion, his eyes were sparkling with hate as he spoke. How he must love
+everything connected with his home, and its honour, and its name--he
+could not be so very cold after all!
+
+She thought of the Russian's words about a family--the uselessness of its
+going on for generations, piling up possessions and narrowing its
+interests. What had the aims been of all these handsome men? She knew the
+earlier history a little, for even though she was of a distant branch
+they had been proud of the connection, and treasured the traditions
+belonging to it. But these were just dry facts of history which she knew,
+so now she asked:
+
+"John, what did any of them do? Did they accomplish great deeds?"
+
+He took her back to the beginning again and began to tell her of the
+achievements of each one. There would be three perhaps, one after
+another, who had filled high posts in the State, and indeed had been
+worthy of the name. Then would come one or two quiet plodding ones, who
+seemed to have done little but sit still and hold on.
+
+Then Denzil Ardayre, knight of Elizabeth's time, pleased Amaryllis most
+of all--though there had been greater soldiers, and more able politicians
+than he later on, culminating in Sir John Ardayre of George IV. days,
+who had hammered against pocket boroughs and corruption until he died an
+old man, the hour the Reform Bill swept aside abuses and the road to
+freedom was won.
+
+"How strange it seems that different ages produce more accentuated stamps
+of breeding than others," Amaryllis said, "even in the same families
+where the blood is all blue. Look, John! that Denzil and the rest of the
+Elizabethans are the most refined, aristocratic creatures you could
+imagine, in their little ruffs. Absolutely intellectual and cultivated
+faces and of old race--and then comes a James period, less intelligent,
+more round featured. And a Cavalier one, gay and gallant, aristocratic
+and chiselled also, but not nearly so clever looking as the Elizabethan.
+Then we get cadaverous William and Mary ones, they might be lawyers or
+business men, not that look of great gentlemen, and the Anne's and the
+first George's are really bucolic! And then that wonderfully refined,
+cultivated, intellectual finish seems to crop up in the later eighteenth
+century again. Have you noticed this, John? You can see it in every
+collection of miniatures and portraits even in the museums."
+
+John responded interestedly:
+
+"The Elizabethans were supremely cultivated gentlemen--no wonder that
+they look as they do--and their lives were always in their hands which
+gives them that air of insouciance."
+
+When the history of the family achievements had been told her down to
+John's father, she paused, still clinging to his arm, and said:
+
+"I am so glad that they did splendid things, aren't you? And we shall not
+drift either. You must teach me to be the most perfect mistress of
+Ardayre, and the most perfect wife for the greatest of them all--because
+your achievement is the finest, John, to have won it all back and
+redeemed it by the work of your own brain."
+
+He pressed the hand on his arm.
+
+"It was hard work--and the home times were ugly in those days, Amaryllis,
+though the goal was worth it, and now we must carry on...." And then his
+reserve seemed to fall upon him again, and he took her through the other
+rooms, and kept to solid facts, and historic descriptions, and his bride
+had continuously the impression that he was mastering some emotion in
+himself, and that this stolidity was a mask.
+
+When lunch time came the usual relations of obvious and commonplace
+goodfellowship had been fully restored between them, and that atmosphere
+of aloofness which seemed impossible to banish enveloped John once more.
+
+Amaryllis sighed--but it was too soon to despair she thought, after the
+hope of John's words, and with her serene temperament she decided to
+leave things as they were for the present and trust to time.
+
+But as her maid brushed out the soft brown hair that night, an unrest and
+longing for something came over her again--what she knew not, nor could
+have put into words. She let herself re-live that one moment when John
+had pressed herewith passion to his heart. Perhaps, perhaps that was the
+beginning of a change in him--perhaps--presently--
+
+But the clock in the long gallery had chimed two, and there was yet no
+sound of John in the dressing-room beyond.
+
+Amaryllis lay in the great splendid gilt bed in the warm darkness, and at
+last tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+What could keep him so long away from her? Why did he not come?
+
+The large Queen Anne windows were wide open, and soft noises of the night
+floated in with the zephyrs. The whole air seemed filled with waiting
+expectancy for something tender and passionate to be.
+
+What was that? Steps upon the terrace--measured steps--and then silence,
+and then a deep sigh. It must be John--out there alone!--when she would
+have loved to have stayed with him, to have woven sweet fancies in the
+luminous darkness, to have taken and given long kisses, to have buried
+her face in the honeysuckle which grew there, steeped in dew. But he had
+said to her after their stately dinner in the great dining-hall:
+
+"Play to me a little, Amaryllis, and then go to bed, child--you must be
+tired out."
+
+And after that he had not spoken more, but pushed her gently towards the
+door with a solemn kiss on the forehead, and just a murmur of
+"Good-night." And she had deceived herself and thought that it meant that
+he would come quickly, and so she had run up the stairs.
+
+But now it was after two in the morning, and would soon be growing
+towards dawn--and John was out there sighing alone!
+
+She crept to the window and leaned upon the sill. She thought that she
+could distinguish his tall figure there by the carved stone bench.
+
+"John!" she called softly, "I am, so lonely--John, dearest--won't
+you come?"
+
+Then she felt that her ears must be deceiving her, for there was the
+sound of a faint suppressed sob, and then, a second afterwards, her
+husband's voice answering cheerily, with its usual casual note:
+
+"You naughty little night bird! Go back to bed--and to sleep--yes--I am
+coming immediately now!"
+
+But when he did steal in silently from the dressing-room an hour later in
+a grey dawn, Amaryllis, worn out with speculation and disappointment, had
+fallen asleep.
+
+He looked down upon her charming face--the long, curly brown lashes
+sweeping the flushed cheek, and at the rounded, beautiful girlish
+form--all his very own to clasp and to kiss and to hold in his arms--and
+two scalding tears gathered in his blue eyes, and he took his place
+beside her without making a sound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Here are the papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense.
+What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all
+these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness
+since the beginning--and now if it wasn't for them we could have a
+glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet
+you under Stanislass' nose. None of the others I have ever had are as
+good in the way of a lover as you."
+
+The man swore in German under his breath.
+
+"Of a lightness always, Harietta! No _devouement_, no patriotism....
+Should I have agreed to the divorce, loving your body as I do, had it not
+been a serious matter? The pig-dog who now owns you must be sucked dry of
+information--and then I shall take you back again."
+
+A cunning look came into Madame Boleski's hazel eyes. She had not the
+slightest intention of permitting this--to go back to Hans! To the
+difficulty of making both ends meet! Even though he did cause every inch
+of her well-preserved body to tingle! They had suggested her getting the
+divorce for their own stupid political ends, to be able to place her in
+the arms of Stanislass Boleski, and there she meant to stay! It was
+infinitely more agreeable to be a grande dame in Paris, and presently in
+London, than to be the spouse of Hans in Berlin, where, whatever his
+secret power might be with the authorities, he could give her no great
+social position; and social position was the goal of all Harietta
+Boleski's desires!
+
+She could attract lovers in any class of life--that had never been her
+difficulty. Her trouble had been that she could never force herself into
+good American society, even after she had married Hans, and they had
+dwelt there for a year or more. Her own compatriots would have none of
+her, and so she wanted triumph in other lands. She hated to remember her
+youth of humiliation, trying to play a social game on the earnings of any
+work that she could pick up, between discreet outings with--friends who
+failed to suggest matrimony. Hans, on some secret mission to San
+Francisco, where she had gone as companion to a friend, had seemed a
+veritable Godsend and Prince Charming, when, in her thirtieth year, he
+actually offered legal marriage, completely overcome by her great
+physical charm. But although she loved Hans with whatever of that emotion
+such a nature could be capable of, five years of him and more or less
+genteel poverty had been enough, and now she was free of that, and could
+still enjoy surreptitiously the pleasure of his passion, and reign as a
+_persona grata_ wife of one of the richest men in Poland at the same
+time. That those in authority who had arranged the divorce required of
+her certain tiresome obligations in return for their services, was one of
+those annoying parts of life! She took not the slightest interest in the
+affairs of any country. Nothing really mattered to her, but herself. Her
+whole force was concentrated upon the betterment of the position and
+physical pleasure of Harietta Boleski.
+
+It was this instinct alone which had prompted her to acquire a smattering
+of education--and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had
+been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic
+talent--no mean one--to gain her ends. She was now playing the role of a
+lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew--and here was Hans back again,
+and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he
+required from Stanislass she should return to him!
+
+"Tra la la!" she said to herself, there in the room at the Hotel Astoria,
+where she had gone to meet him, "think this if it pleases you! It will
+keep you quiet and won't hurt me!"
+
+For the moment she wanted Hans--the man, and was determined to waste no
+further time on useless discussion. So she began her blandishments,
+taking pride in showing him her beautiful garments, and her string of big
+pearls; each thing exhibited between her voluptuous kisses, until Hans
+grew intoxicated with desire, and became as clay in her hands.
+
+"It is not thy pig-dog of a husband I wish to kill!" he said, after one
+hour had gone by in inarticulate murmurings. "Him I do not fear--it is
+the Russian, Verisschenzko, who fills me with hate--we have regard of
+him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the
+rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be
+unpleasantness for you, my little cat--thy Hans will twist his bear's
+neck, and thine also, if need be!"
+
+"Verisschenzko!" laughed Harietta, "why, I hardly know him; he don't
+amount to a row of pins! He's Stanislass' friend--not mine."
+
+Then she smoothed back Hans' rather fierce, fair moustache from his lips
+and kissed him again--her ruby ring flashing in a ray of sunlight.
+
+"Look! isn't this a lovely jewel, Hans! My old Stannie gave it to me only
+some days ago--it is my new toy--see--"
+
+Hans examined it:
+
+"Thou art a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil
+qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me
+and to all men--the only good thing in thee is thy body--and for that all
+men let thee lie."
+
+Harietta pouted.
+
+"I can't understand when you talk like that, Hans--it's all warbash, as
+we said out West. What are qualities? What is there but the body anyway?
+Great sakes! that's enough for me, and the devil is only in story books
+to frighten children--I'm just like every other woman and I want to have
+a good time."
+
+"I hear that you are going to London soon," said Hans, dropping the
+tutoyage and growing brutally severe, "to conquer new lovers and to wear
+more dresses? But there you will be of great use to me. Your instructions
+will be all ready in cypher by Tuesday night, when you must meet me at
+whatever point is convenient to you, after nine o'clock--here, perhaps?"
+
+Harietta frowned--she had other views for Tuesday night.
+
+"What shall I gain by coming, or by going on with this spying on Stan?
+I'm tired of it all; it breaks my head trying to take in your horrid old
+cypher. I don't think I'll do it any more."
+
+The Prussian's face grew livid and his mouth set like an iron spring. He
+looked at her straight between the eyes, as a lion tamer might have done,
+and he took a cane from where it laid on a bureau near.
+
+"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I
+have done before--if you fail us in a single thing--and do not think we
+are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose
+your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"
+
+Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear--she had felt that
+stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She
+knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of
+the things she had adored in him--but to be degraded and exposed, as well
+as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken
+to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all
+these old papers were, she would have to go on--but since he threatened
+her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so
+there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come
+from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially
+when menaced with a stick?
+
+She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind
+of humour.
+
+Hans crushed her in his arms.
+
+"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"
+
+Harietta became cajoling--no one could have looked more frank or simple,
+as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them
+and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice,
+and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not
+clever like they!
+
+"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and
+always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of
+course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."
+
+She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite
+real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new
+cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.
+
+"To business then, _mein liebchen_--attend carefully to every word. In
+England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the
+highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are
+indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It
+is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers
+are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft,
+and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to
+use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my
+wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands
+clasped behind him--he would have been a very handsome man but for his
+too wide hips.
+
+Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice
+this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful
+quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except
+Verisschenzko--Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to
+him--Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared--much more
+than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but
+she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only
+when--and because--he wanted to, not for the reason that she had
+conquered him.
+
+"Of great use to our country, Harietta, my wife," Hans murmured again,
+clearing his throat.
+
+"I am not your wife, my pretty Hans!" and she raised her eyebrows, and
+curled one corner of her upper lip. "You gave me up at the bidding of the
+higher command--I am your mistress now and then, when I feel
+inclined--but I am Stanislass' wife. I like a man better when I am his
+mistress; there are no tiresome old duties along with it."
+
+Hans growled, he hated to realise this.
+
+"You must be more careful with your speech, Harietta. When you get to
+England you must not say 'along with it'--after the pains I have taken
+with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and
+even a literal translation of another language--but bad grammar--common
+phrases--pah! that is to give the show away!"
+
+Harietta reddened--her vanity disliked criticism.
+
+"I take very good care of my language when it is necessary in the
+world--I am considered to have a lovely voice--but when I'm with you I
+guess I can enjoy a holiday--it's kind of a rest to let yourself go," her
+pronunciation lapsed into the broadest American, just to irritate him,
+and she stood and laughed in his face.
+
+He caught her in his arms. She never failed to appeal to his senses; she
+had won him by that force and so held his brute nature even after five
+years. This was always the reason of whatever success she secured. A man
+had no smallest doubt as to why he was drawn; it was a direct appeal to
+the most primitive animal nature in him. The birth of Love is ever thus
+if we would analyse it truly, but the spirit fortunately so wraps things
+in illusion that generally both participants really believe that the
+mutual attraction is because of higher emotions of the mind, and so they
+are doomed to disappointment when passion is sated, unless the mind
+fulfills the ideal. But if the reality fails to make good, the refined
+spirit turns in disgust from the material, unconsciously resentful in
+that it has suffered deception. With Harietta this disappointment could
+never occur, since she created no illusion that she was appealing to the
+mind at all, and so a man if he were attracted faced no unknown quality,
+but was aware that it was only the animal in him which was drawn, and if
+his senses were his masters, not his servants, her victory was complete.
+
+After some more fierce caresses had come to an end--there was no delicacy
+about Harietta--Hans continued his discourse.
+
+"There has come here to Paris a young man of the name of
+Ardayre--Ferdinand Ardayre--he is slippery, but he can be of the greatest
+value to us. See that you become friends--you can reach him through Abba
+Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his
+brother's wife--for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste
+time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe
+he hates the English--there is a slur on him."
+
+"I have already met him," and Harietta's eyes sparkled. "I hate the wife
+also for my own reasons--yes--how can I help you with this?"
+
+"It is Ferdinand you must concentrate on; I am not concerned with the
+brother or his wife, except in so far as his hate for them can be used to
+our advantage. Do not embark upon this to play games of your own for your
+hate--you may be foolish then and upset matters."
+
+"Very well." The two objects could go together, Harietta felt; she never
+wasted words. It would be a pleasure one day, perhaps, to be able to
+injure that girl whom Verisschenzko certainly respected, if he was not
+actually growing to love her. Harietta did not desire the respect of men
+in the abstract; it could be a great bore--what they thought of her never
+entered her consideration, since she was only occupied with her own
+pleasure in them and how they affected herself. Respect was one of the
+adjuncts of a good social position; and of value merely in that aspect.
+But as Verisschenzko respected no one else, as far as she knew, that must
+mean something annoyingly important.
+
+Seven o'clock struck; she had thoroughly enjoyed being with Hans, he
+satisfied her in many ways, and it was also a relaxation, as she need not
+act. But the joys of the interview were over now, and she had others
+prepared for later on, and must go back to the Rhin to dress. So she
+kissed Hans and left, having arranged to meet him on the Tuesday night
+here in his rooms, and having received precise instructions as to the
+nature of the information to be obtained from Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+Life would be a paradise if only it were not for these ridiculous and
+tiresome political intrigues. Harietta had no taste for actual intrigue,
+its intricacies were a weariness to her. If she could have married a rich
+man in the beginning, she always told herself, she would never have mixed
+herself up in anything of the kind, and now that she _had_ married a rich
+man, she would try to get out of the nuisance as soon as possible.
+Meanwhile, there was Ferdinand--and Ferdinand was becoming in love with
+her--they had met three times since the Montivacchini ball.
+
+"He'll be no difficulty," she decided, with a sigh of relief. It would
+not be as it had been with Verisschenzko, whom she had been directed to
+capture. For in Verisschenzko she had found a master--not a dupe.
+
+When she reached the beautiful Champs-Elysees, she looked at her diamond
+wrist watch. It was only ten minutes past seven, the dinner at the
+Austrian Embassy was not until half-past eight. Dressing was a serious
+business to Harietta, but she meant to cut it down to half an hour
+to-night, because there was a certain apartment in the Rue Cambon which
+she intended to visit for a few minutes.
+
+"What an original street to have an apartment in!" people always said to
+Verisschenzko. "Nothing but business houses and model hotels for
+travellers!" And the shabby looking _porte-cochere_ gave no evidence of
+the old Louis XV. mansion within, converted now into a series of offices,
+all but the top flooring looking on to the gardens of the _Ministere_.
+
+Verisschenzko had taken it for its situation and its isolation, and had
+converted it into a thing of great beauty of panelling and rare pictures
+and the most comfortable chairs. There was absolute silence, too, there
+among the tree tops.
+
+Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no
+lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant,
+was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken
+through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a
+richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk.
+
+Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured
+Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski
+pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair.
+
+"No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, Stepan,
+you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say."
+
+"Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing
+and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some
+cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one.
+
+Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now.
+
+"You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly
+amazed!"
+
+Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in
+the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that
+was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the
+crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself.
+
+She nodded, and that was all.
+
+Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green
+eyes full of a mocking light.
+
+"I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's
+just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it
+might be yours."
+
+Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee.
+
+"You perfect angel, Stepan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the
+caresses at all, but just ordered:
+
+"Now talk."
+
+She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words
+and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her
+own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not,
+because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test
+the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch.
+
+"She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing
+less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can
+have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German
+correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she
+has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's
+brain. Now is the time to obtain the most."
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous
+brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and
+the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to
+the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a
+cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she
+meant to communicate was exposed.
+
+"You imagine things, my child," he scoffed. "I would have to have
+proof--and then if it all should be as you say. Why, that brooch must be
+yours--for I know that it is out of real love for me that you talk, and I
+always pay lavishly for--love."
+
+"Indeed, you know that I adore you, Stepan--and that brooch is just what
+I want. Stanislass has been niggardly beyond words to me lately, and I am
+tired of all my other things."
+
+"Bring me some proof to the reception to-night. I am not dining, but I
+shall be there by eleven for a few moments."
+
+She agreed, and then rose to go--but she pouted again and the convex
+_obstine_ curve below her under lip seemed to obtrude itself.
+
+"She has gone back to England--your precious bride--I suppose?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"We shall all meet there in a week or so--Stanislass is going to see some
+of his boring countrymen in London--the conference you know about--and
+we have taken a house in Grosvenor Square for some months. I do not know
+many people yet--will you see to it that I do?"
+
+"I will see that you have as many of these handsome Englishmen as will
+completely keep your hands full."
+
+She laughed delightedly.
+
+"But it is women I want; the men I can always get for myself."
+
+"Fear nothing, your reception will be great."
+
+Then she flung herself into his arms and embraced him, and then moved
+towards the door.
+
+"I will telephone to Cartier in the morning," and Verisschenzko opened
+the door for her, "if you bring me some interesting proof of your love
+for me--to-night."
+
+And when she had gone he took up his letter again
+and looked at the address,
+
+_To_
+Lady Ardayre,
+_Ardayre Chase,
+North Somerset,
+Angleterre_.
+
+"I must keep to the things of the spirit with you, precious lady. And
+when I cannot subdue it, there is Harietta for the flesh--wough! but she
+sickens me--even for that!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre could not get any more leave for a considerable time and
+remained quartered in the North, where he played cricket and polo to his
+heart's content, but the head of the family and his charming wife went
+through the feverish season of 1914 in the town house in Brook Street.
+Ardayre was too far away for week-end parties, but they had several
+successful London dinners, and Amaryllis was becoming quite a capable
+hostess, and was much admired in the world.
+
+Very fine of instinct and apprehension at all times she was developing by
+contact with intelligent people--for John had taken care that she only
+mixed with the most select of his friends. The de la Paule family had
+been more than appreciative of her and had guided her and supervised her
+visiting list with care.
+
+Everything was too much of a rush for her to think and analyse things,
+and if she had been asked whether she was happy, she would have thought
+that she was replying with honesty when she affirmed that she was. John
+was not happy and knew it, but none of his emotions ever betrayed
+themselves, and the mask of his stolid content never changed.
+
+They had gone on with their matter-of-fact relations, and when they
+returned to London after a week at Ardayre, all had been much easier,
+because they were seldom alone--and at last Amaryllis had grown to accept
+the situation, and try not to speculate about it. She danced every night
+at balls and continued the usual round, but often at the Opera, or the
+Russian ballet, or driving back through the park in the dawn, some wild
+longing for romance would stir in her, and she would nestle close to
+John. And John would perhaps kiss her quietly and speak of ordinary
+things. He went everywhere with her though, and never failed in the
+kindest consideration. He seldom danced himself, and therefore must often
+have been weary, but no suggestion of this ever reached Amaryllis.
+
+"What does he talk to his friends about, I wonder?" she asked herself,
+watching him from across a room, in a great house after dinner one night.
+
+John was seated beside the American Lady Avonwier, a brilliant person who
+did not allow herself to be bored. He appeared calm as usual, and there
+they sat until it was time to go on to a ball.
+
+Everything he said was so sensible, so well informed--perhaps that was a
+nice change for people--and then he was very good-looking and--but oh!
+what was it--what was it which made it all so disappointing and tame!
+
+A week after they had come up to Brook Street, the Boleskis arrived at
+the Mount Lennard House which they had taken in Grosvenor Square, armed
+with every kind of introduction, and Harietta immediately began to dazzle
+the world.
+
+Her dresses and jewels defied all rivalry; they were in a class alone,
+and she was frank and stupid and gracious--and fitted in exactly with
+the spirit of the time.
+
+She restrained her movements in dancing to suit the less advanced English
+taste; she gave to every charity and organized entertainments of a
+fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded
+with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she
+played with them all--ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by
+her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and
+good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one--while
+the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have insured
+any hostess's success!
+
+Harietta had never been so happy in all the thirty-six years of her life.
+This was her hour of triumph. She was here in a country which spoke her
+own language--for her French was deplorably bad--she had an unquestioned
+position, and all would have been without flaw but for this tiresome
+information she was forced to collect.
+
+Verisschenzko had been detained in Paris. The events of the twenty-eighth
+of June at Serajevo were of deep moment to him, and it was not until the
+second week in July that he arrived at the Ritz, full of profound
+preoccupation.
+
+Amaryllis had been to Harietta's dinners and dances, and now the Boleskis
+had been asked down to Ardayre in return for the three days at the end of
+the month, when the coming of age of the young Marquis of Bridgeborough
+would give occasion for great rejoicings, and Amaryllis herself would
+give a ball.
+
+"You cannot ask people down to North Somerset in these days just for the
+pleasure of seeing you, my dear child," Lady de la Paule had said to her
+nephew's wife. "Each season it gets worse; one is flattered if one's
+friends answer an invitation to dinner even, or remain for half an hour
+when it is done. I do not know what things are coming to, etiquette of
+all sorts went long ago--now manners, and even decency have gone. We are
+rapidly becoming savages, openly seizing whatever good thing is offered
+to us no matter from whom, and then throwing it aside the instant we
+catch sight of something new. But one must always go with the tide unless
+one is strong enough to stem it, and frankly _I_ am not. Now
+Bridgeborough's coming of age will make a nice excuse for you to have a
+party at Ardayre. How many people can you put up? Thirty guests and their
+servants at least, and seven or eight more if you use the agent's house."
+
+So thus it had been arranged, and John expressed his pleasure that his
+sweet Amaryllis should show what a hostess she could be.
+
+None but the most interesting people were invited, and the party promised
+to be the greatest success.
+
+Two or three days before they were to go down, Amaryllis coming in late
+in the afternoon, found Verisschenzko's card.
+
+"Oh! John!" she cried delightedly, "that very thrilling Russian whom we
+met in Paris has called. You remember he wrote to me some time ago and
+said he would let us know when he arrived. Oh! would not it be nice to
+have him at our party--let us telephone to him now!"
+
+Verisschenzko answered the call himself, he had just come in; he
+expressed himself as enchanted at the thought of seeing her--and
+yes--with pleasure he would come down to Ardayre for the ball.
+
+"We shall meet to-night, perhaps, at Carlton House Terrace at the German
+Embassy," he said, "and then we can settle everything."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why she felt rather excited as she walked up the
+stairs--she had often thought of Verisschenzko, and hoped he would come
+to England. He was vivid and living and would help her to balance
+herself. She had thought while she dressed that her life had been one
+stupid rush with no end, since that night when they had talked of
+serious things at the Montivacchini hotel. She had need of the counsel
+he had promised to give her, for this heedless racket was not adding
+lustre to her soul.
+
+Verisschenzko seemed to find her very soon--he was not one of those
+persons who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing
+when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign
+fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he
+had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in his
+advance towards this goal.
+
+He looked at her critically for an instant when they were seated in the
+soft gloom.
+
+"You are changed, Madame. Half the soul is awake now, but the other half
+has gone further to sleep."
+
+"--Yes, I felt you would say that--I do not like myself," and she sighed.
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"I seem to be drifting down such a useless stream--and it is all so mad
+and aimless, and yet it is fun. But every one is tired and restless and
+nobody cares for anything real--I am afraid I am not strong enough to
+stand aside from it though, and I wonder sometimes what I shall become."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her earnestly--he was silent for some seconds.
+
+"Fate may alter the atmosphere. There are things hovering, I fear, of
+which you do not dream, little protected English bride. Perhaps it is
+good that you live while you can."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"Sorrows for the world. But tell me, have you seen Harietta Boleski in
+her London role?"
+
+"Yes--she is the greatest success--every one goes to her parties; she is
+coming to mine at Ardayre."
+
+Verisschenzko raised his eyebrows, and nothing could have been more
+sardonically whimsical than his smile.
+
+"I saw Stanislass this morning--he is almost _gaga_ now--a mere
+cypher--she has destroyed his body, as well as his soul."
+
+"They are both coming on the twenty-third."
+
+"It will be an interesting visit I do not doubt--and I shall see the
+Family house!"
+
+"I hope you will like it--I shall love to show it to you, and the
+pictures. It means so much to John."
+
+"Have you met your cousin Denzil yet?".
+
+Verisschenzko was studying her face; it had gained something, it was
+a little finer--but it had lost something too, and there was a shadow
+in her eyes.
+
+"Denzil Ardayre? No--What made you mention him now?"
+
+"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like--your
+husband, you know."
+
+The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
+Russian's unusual views.
+
+"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited
+it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be
+almost as _desequilibre_ as the rest of the world."
+
+"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something
+dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."
+
+"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot
+be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems
+feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of
+sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to
+the top; we are at the period when this has occurred--we can but
+wait--and watch."
+
+"If we had a new religion?"
+
+"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."
+
+"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary
+things divine!"
+
+"Certainly when they are emplanted upon a true basis. I said
+'make-believe'--that is what kills all good things--make-believe. Most
+of the present-day leaders are throwing dust in their followers' eyes--or
+their own. Priests and politicians, lawyers and financiers--all of them
+are afraid of the truth. Every one lives in a stupid atmosphere of
+self-deception. The religion of the future will teach each individual to
+be true to himself, and when that is accomplished the sixth root race
+will be born. Look at that man over there talking to a woman with haggard
+eyes--can you see them in the gloom? They have all the ugly entities
+around them, the spirits of morphine and nicotine--drawing misfortune and
+bodily decay. Every force has to have its congenial atmosphere, or it
+cannot exist; fishes cannot breathe on land."
+
+Amaryllis looked at the pair; they were well-known people, the man
+celebrated in the literary and artistic section of the world of
+fashion--the woman of high rank and of refined intelligence.
+
+Verisschenzko looked also. "I do not know either of their names," he
+said, "I am simply judging by the obvious deductions to be made by their
+appearances to any one who has developed intuition."
+
+"How I wish I could learn to have that!"
+
+"Read Voltaire's 'Zadig.' Deductive methods are shown in it useful to
+begin upon--observe everything about people, and then having seen
+results, work back to causes, and then realise that all material things
+are the physical expression of an etheric force, and as we can control
+the material, we need thus only attract what etheric waves we desire."
+
+Amaryllis looked again at the pair--both were smoking idly, and she
+remembered having heard that they both "took drugs." It was a phrase
+which had meant nothing to her until now.
+
+"You mean that because they smoke all the time, and it is said they take
+morphine _piqures_, that they are not only hurting their bodies, but
+drawing spiritual ills as well."
+
+"Obviously. They have surrounded themselves with the drab demagnetising
+current which envelops the body when human beings give up their wills. It
+would be very difficult for anything good to pierce through such
+ambience. Have you ever remarked the strange ends of all people who take
+drugs? They seldom die natural, ordinary deaths. The evil entities which
+they have drawn round them by their own weakness, destroy them at last."
+
+"I do not like the idea that there are these 'entities,' as you call
+them, all around us."
+
+"There are not, they cannot come near us unless we allow them--have I not
+told you that the atmosphere must be congenial? Our own wills can create
+an armour through which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness
+and drifting which are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable
+for the vampires beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You
+represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You
+must fulfil this role. I represent a leader of certain thought in my
+country. My soul is given to this--I must only indulge in through
+which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness and drifting which
+are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable for the vampires
+beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent
+an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil
+this role. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul
+is given to this--I must only indulge in that over which I am master.
+Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained
+dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and
+for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is _'plus fort que
+vous'_--then you had better throw up the sponge--you have lost the fight,
+and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."
+
+"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"
+
+"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they
+dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings
+afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back
+than the sensualists--what are they accomplishing? They have withered
+nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what
+plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best
+of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to
+alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere
+altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal
+presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which,
+should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will
+end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."
+
+"You reason in this in the same way that you did about the smoking."
+
+"Naturally--that is the only form of sensible reasoning. You must keep
+your judgment perfectly balanced and never let it be obscured by
+prejudice, tradition, custom, or anything but the actual common-sense
+view of the case."
+
+"I think we English like that better than any other quality in
+people--common sense."
+
+Verisschenzko looked away from her to a new stream of guests who had come
+out on the terrace--a splendid-looking group of tall young men and
+exquisite women.
+
+"With all your faults you are a great nation, because although these
+latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the
+individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had
+become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the
+community--you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here.
+Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by
+patriotism and gallantry like the French, some by superstition and
+ignorance worked on by mystic religion, as in my country--some by
+ruthless materialism like Germany; but that dull, solid sense of duty is
+purely English--and it is really a glorious thing."
+
+Amaryllis thought how John represented it exactly!
+
+"I feel that I want to do my duty," she said softly, "but..."
+
+"Continue to feel that and Fate will show you the way. Now I must take
+you back to your husband whom I see in the distance there--he is with
+Harietta Boleski. I wonder what he thinks of her?"
+
+"I have asked him! He says that she is so obvious as to be innocuous, and
+that he likes her clothes!"
+
+Verisschenzko did not answer, and Amaryllis wondered if he agreed
+with John!
+
+They had to pass along a corridor to reach the staircase, upon the
+landing of which they had seen Sir John and Madame Boleski leaning over
+the balustrade, and when they got there they had moved on out of sight,
+so Verisschenzko, bowing, left Amaryllis with Lady de la Paule.
+
+As he retraced his steps later on he saw Sir John Ardayre in earnest
+conversation with Lemon Bridges, the fashionable rising surgeon of the
+day. They stood in an alcove, and Verisschenzko's alert intelligence was
+struck by the expression on John Ardayre's face--it was so sad and
+resigned, as a brave man's who has received death sentence. And as he
+passed close to them he heard these words from John: "It is quite
+hopeless then--I feared so--"
+
+He stopped his descent for a moment and looked again--and then a
+sudden illumination came into his yellow-green eyes, and he went on
+down the stairs.
+
+"There is tragedy here--and how will it affect the Lady of my soul?"
+
+He walked out of the House and into Pall Mall, and there by the Rag met
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"We seem doomed to have unexpected meetings!" cried that young man
+delightedly. "Here I am only up for one night on regimental business, and
+I run into you!"
+
+They walked on together, and Denzil went into the Ritz with
+Verisschenzko and they smoked in his sitting-room. They talked of many
+things for a long time--of the unrest in Europe and the clouds in the
+Southeast--of Denzil's political aims--of things in general--and at last
+Verisschenzko said:
+
+"I have just left your cousin and his wife at the German Embassy; they
+have now gone on to a ball. He makes an indulgent husband--I suppose the
+affair is going well?"
+
+"Very well between them, I believe. That sickening cad Ferdinand is
+circulating rumours--that they can never have any children--but they are
+for his own ends. I must arrange to meet them when I come up next time--I
+hear that the family are enchanted with Amaryllis--"
+
+"She is a thing of flesh and blood and flame--I could love her wildly did
+I think it were wise."
+
+Denzil glanced sharply at his friend. He had not often known him to
+hesitate when attracted by a woman--
+
+"What aspect does the unwisdom take?"
+
+"Certain absorption--I have other and terribly important things to do.
+The husband is most worthy--one wonders what the next few years will
+bring. Their temperaments must be as the poles.
+
+"No one seems to think of temperament when he marries, or heredity, or
+anything, but just desire for the woman--or her money--or something
+quite outside the actual fact." Denzil lit another cigarette. "Marriage
+appears a perfect terror to me--how could one know one was going to
+continue to feel emotion towards some one who might prove to be the most
+awful physical or mental disappointment on intimate acquaintance? I
+believe _affaires de convenance_ selected with thought-out reasoning are
+the best."
+
+Verisschenzko shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That is not necessary. If the brain is disciplined, it is in a condition
+to use its judgment, even when in love, and ought therefore to be able to
+resist the desire to mate if the woman's character or tendencies are
+unsuitable, but most men's brains are only disciplined in regard to
+mental things, and have no real control over their physical desires. I
+have been this morning with Stanislass Boleski--there is a case and a
+warning. Stanislass was a strong man with a splendid brain and immense
+ambition, but no dominion over his senses, so that Succubus has
+completely annihilated all force in him. He should have strangled her
+after the first _etreinte_ as I should have done, had I felt that she
+could ever have any power over me!"
+
+Denzil smiled--Stepan was such a mixture of tenderness and
+complete savagery.
+
+"I always thought the Russian character was the most headstrong and
+undisciplined in the world, and took what it desired regardless of costs.
+But you belie it, old boy!"
+
+"I early said to myself on looking at my countrymen--and especially my
+countrywomen--these people are half genius, half fool; they have all
+the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters
+to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced
+and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he
+not attain!"
+
+"And you have attained."
+
+"I am on the road, but did not affairs of vital importance occupy me at
+the moment I might be capable of ancient excess!"
+
+"It is as well for the head of the Ardayre family that you are occupied
+then!" and Denzil smiled, and then he said, his thoughts drifting back to
+what interested him most:
+
+"You think Europe will be blazing soon, Stepan? I have wondered myself in
+the last month if this hectic peace could continue."
+
+"It cannot. I am here upon business with great issues, but I must not
+speak of facts, and what I say now is not from my knowledge of current
+events, but from my study of etheric currents which the thoughts and
+actions of over-civilised generations have engendered. You do not cram a
+shell with high explosives and leave it among matches with impunity."
+
+The two men looked at one another significantly, and then Denzil said:
+
+"I think I will not retire from the old regiment yet--I shall wait
+another year."
+
+"Yes--I would if I were you."
+
+They smoked silently for a moment--Verisschenzko's Calmuck face fixed and
+inscrutable and Denzil's debonnaire English one usually grave.
+
+"Some one told me that your friend, Madame Boleski, was having a
+tremendous success in London. I wish I could have got leave, I should
+like to have seen the whole thing."
+
+"Harietta is enjoying her luck-moment; she is in her zenith. She has
+baffled me as to where she receives her information from--she is capable
+of betraying both sides to gain some material, and possibly trivial, end.
+She is worth studying if you do come up, for she is unique. Most
+criminals have some stable point in immorality; Harietta is troubled by
+nothing fixed, no law of God or man means anything to her, she is only
+ruled by her sense of self-preservation. Her career is picturesque."
+
+"Had she ever any children?"
+
+Verisschenzko crossed himself.
+
+"Heaven forbid! Think of watching Harietta's instincts coming out in a
+child! Poor Stanislass is at least saved that!"
+
+"What a terrible thought that would be to one! But no man thinks of such
+things in selecting a wife!"
+
+"You will not marry yet--no?"
+
+"Certainly not, there is no necessity that I should. Marriage is only an
+obligation for the heads of families, not for the younger branches."
+
+"But if Sir John Ardayre has no son, you are--in blood--the next
+direct heir."
+
+"And Ferdinand is the next direct heir-in-law--that makes one sick--"
+
+Verisschenzko poured his friend out a whisky and soda and said smiling:
+
+"Then let us drink once more to the Ardayre son!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Lady de la Paule really felt proud of her niece; the party at Ardayre was
+progressing so perfectly. The guests had all arrived in time for the ball
+at Bridgeborough Castle on the twenty-third of July and had assisted next
+day at the garden party, and then a large dinner at Ardayre, and now on
+the last night of their stay Amaryllis' own ball was to take place.
+
+All the other big country houses round were filled also, and nothing
+could have been gayer or more splendidly done than the whole thing.
+
+John Ardayre had been quite enthusiastic about all the arrangements,
+taking the greatest pride in settling everything which could add lustre
+to his Amaryllis' success as a hostess.
+
+The quantities of servants, the perfectly turned-out motors--the
+wonderful chef--all had been his doing, and when most of the party had
+retired to their rooms for a little rest before dinner on the
+twenty-fifth, the evening of the ball, Lady de la Paule and John's
+friend, Lady Avonwier, congratulated him, as he sat with them, the last
+ladies remaining, under the great copper beech tree on the lawn which led
+down to the lake.
+
+"Everything has been perfect, has it not, Mabella?" Lady Avonwier said.
+"I have even been converted about your marvellous Madame Boleski! I
+confess I have avoided her all the season, because we Americans are far
+more exclusive than you English people in regard to whom we know of our
+own countrywomen, and no one would receive such a person in New York, but
+she is so luridly stupid, and such a decoration, that I quite agree you
+were right to invite her, John."
+
+"She seems to me charming," Lady de la Paule confessed. "Not the least
+pretension, and her clothes are marvellous. You are abominably severe,
+Etta. I am quite sure if she wanted to she could succeed in New York."
+
+"Mabella, you simple creature! She just cajoles you all the time--she has
+specialised in cajoling important great ladies! No American would be
+taken in by her, and we resent it in our country when an outsider like
+that barges in. But here, I admit, since she provides us with amusement,
+I have no objection to accepting her, as I would a new nigger band, and
+shall certainly send her a card for my fancy ball next week."
+
+John Ardayre chuckled softly.
+
+"That sound indicates?"--and Etta Avonwier flashed at him her lovely
+clever eyes.
+
+John Ardayre did not answer in words, but both women joined in his smile.
+
+"Yes, we are worldlings," Lady Avonwier admitted, "just measuring people
+up for what they can give us, it is the only way though when the whole
+thing is such a rush!"
+
+"I am so sorry for the poor husband," and Lady de la Paule's fat voice
+was kindly. "He does look such a wretched, cadaverous thing, with that
+black beard and those melancholy black eyes, and emaciated face. Do you
+think she beats him when they are alone?"
+
+"Who knows? She is so primitive, she may be capable even of that!"
+
+"Her clothes are not primitive," and John Ardayre lighted a cigarette.
+"I don't think she really can be such a fool."
+
+"I never suggested that she was a fool at all!" Lady Avonwier was
+decisive. "No one can be a fool who is as tenacious as she is--fools
+are vague people, who let things go. She is merely illiterate and
+stupid as an owl."
+
+"I like your distinction between stupidity and foolishness!" John Ardayre
+often argued with Lady Avonwier; they were excellent friends.
+
+"A stupid person is often a great rest and arrives--a fool makes one
+nervous and loses the game. But who is that walking with Amaryllis at the
+other side of the lake?"
+
+John Ardayre looked up, and on over the water to the glory of the beech
+trees on the rising slope of the park, and there saw moving at the edge
+of them his wife and Verisschenzko, accompanied by two of the great
+tawny dogs.
+
+"Oh! it is the interesting Russian whom we met in Paris, where all the
+charming ladies were supposed to be in love with him. He was to have come
+down for the whole three days. I suppose these Russian and Austrian
+rumours detained him, he has only arrived for to-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And across the lake Amaryllis was saying to Verisschenzko in her soft
+voice, deep as all the Ardayre voices were deep:
+
+"I have brought you here so that you may get the best view of the
+house. I think, indeed, that it is very beautiful from over the water,
+do not you?"
+
+Verisschenzko remained silent for a moment. His face was altered in this
+last week; it looked haggard and thinner, and his peculiar eyes were
+concentrated and intense.
+
+He took in the perfect picture of this English stately home, with its
+Henry VII centre and watch towers, and gabled main buildings, and the
+Queen Anne added Square--all mellowed and amalgamated into a whole of
+exquisite beauty and dignity in the glow of the setting sun.
+
+"How proud you should be of such possessions, you English. The
+accumulation of centuries, conserved by freedom from strife. It is no
+wonder you are so arrogant! You could not be if you had only memories, as
+we have, of wooden barracks up to a hundred and fifty years ago, and
+drunkenness and orgies, and beating of serfs. This is the picture our
+country houses call up--any of the older ones which have escaped being
+burnt. But here you have traditions of harmony and justice and
+obligations to the people nobody fulfilled." And then he took his hat off
+and looked up into the golden sky:
+
+"May nothing happen to hurt England, and may we one day be as free."
+
+A shiver ran through Amaryllis--but something kept her silent; she
+divined that her friend's mood did not desire speech from her yet. He
+spoke again and earnestly a moment or two afterwards.
+
+"Lady of my soul--I am going away to-morrow into a frenzied turmoil. I
+have news from my country, and I must be in the centre of events; we do
+not know what will come of it all. I come down to-day at great sacrifice
+of time to bid you farewell. It may be that I shall never see you again,
+though I think that I shall; but should I not, promise me that you will
+remain my star unsmirched by the paltriness of the world, promise me that
+you will live up to the ideal of this noble home--that you will develop
+your brain and your intuition, that you will be forceful and filled with
+common sense. I would like to have moulded your spiritual being, and
+brought you to the highest, but it is not for me, perhaps, in this
+life--another will come. See that you live worthily."
+
+Amaryllis was deeply moved.
+
+"Indeed, I will try. I have seen so little of you, but I feel that I have
+known you always, and--yes--even I feel that it is true what you said,"
+and she grew rosy with a sweet confusion--"that we were--lovers--I am so
+ignorant and undeveloped, not advanced like you, but when you speak you
+seem to awaken memories; it is as though a transitory light gleamed in
+dark places, and I receive flashes of understanding, and then it grows
+obscured again, but I will try to seize and hold it--indeed, I will try
+to do as you would wish."
+
+They both looked ahead, straight at the splendid house, and then
+Amaryllis looked at Verisschenzko and it seemed as though his face were
+transfigured with some inward light.
+
+"Strange things are coming, child, the cauldron has boiled over, and we
+do not know what the stream may engulf. Think of this evening in the days
+which will be, and remember my words."
+
+His voice vibrated, but he did not look at her, but always across the
+lake at the house.
+
+"Whenever you are in doubt as to the wisdom of a decision between two
+courses--put them to the test of which, if you follow it, will enable you
+to respect your own soul. Never do that which the inward You despises."
+
+"And if both courses look equally good and it is merely a question of
+earthly benefit?"
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"Never be vague. There is an Arab proverb which says: Trust in God but
+tie up your camel."
+
+The setting sun was throwing its last gleams upon the windows of the high
+tower. Nothing more beautiful or impressive could have been imagined than
+the scene. The velvet lawn sloping down to the lake, with a group of
+trees to the right among which nestled the tiny cruciform ancient church,
+while in the distance, on all sides, stretched the vast, gloriously
+timbered park.
+
+Verisschenzko gazed at the wonder of it, and his yellow-green eyes were
+wide with the vision it created in his brain.
+
+No--this should never go to the bastard Ferdinand, whose life in
+Constantinople was a disgrace. This record of fine living and achievement
+of worthy Ardayres should remain the glory of the true blood.
+
+He turned and looked at Amaryllis at his side, so slender, and strong,
+and young--and he said:
+
+"It is necessary above all things that you cultivate a steadiness and
+clearness of judgment, which will enable you to see the great aim in a
+thing, and not be hampered by sentimental jingo and convention, which is
+a danger when a nature is as good and true, but as undeveloped, as yours.
+Whatever circumstance should arise in your life, in relation to the trust
+you hold for this family and this home, bring the keenest common sense to
+bear upon the matter, and keep the end, that you must uphold it and pass
+it on resplendent, in view."
+
+Amaryllis felt that he was transmitting some message to her. His eyes
+were full of inspiration and seemed to see beyond.
+
+What message? She refrained from asking. If he had meant her to
+understand more fully he would have told her plainly. Light would come in
+its own time.
+
+"I promise," was all she said.
+
+They looked at the great tower; the sun had left some of the windows and
+in one they could see the figure of a woman standing there in some light
+dressing-gown.
+
+"That is Harietta Boleski," Verisschenzko remarked, his mood changing,
+and that penetrating and yet inscrutable expression growing in his
+regard. "It is almost too far away to be certain, but I am sure that it
+is she. Am I right? Is that window in her room?"
+
+"Yes--how wonderful of you to be able to recognise her at that distance!"
+
+"Of what is she thinking?--if one can call her planning thoughts! She
+does not gaze at views to appreciate the loveliness of the landscape;
+figures in the scene are all which could hold her attention--and those
+figures are you and me."
+
+"Why should we interest her?"
+
+"There are one or two reasons why we should. I think after all you must
+be very careful of her. I believe if she stays on in England you had
+better not let the acquaintance increase."
+
+"Very well." Amaryllis again did not question him; she felt he knew best.
+
+"She has been most successful here, and at the Bridgeborough ball she
+amused herself with a German officer, and left the other women's men
+alone. He was brought by the party from Broomgrove and was most
+_empresse;_ he got introduced to her at once--just after we came in. I
+expect they will bring him to-night. He and she looked such a magnificent
+pair, dancing a quadrille. It was quite a serious ball to begin with!
+None of those dances of which you disapprove, and all the Yeomanry wore
+their uniforms and the German officer wore his too."
+
+"He was a fine animal, then?"
+
+"Yes--but?"
+
+"You said _a pair_--only an animal could make a pair with Harietta!
+Describe him to me. What was he like? And what uniform did he wear?"
+
+Amaryllis gave a description, of height, and fairness, and of the blue
+and gold coat.
+
+"He would have been really good-looking, only that to our eyes his hips
+are too wide."
+
+"It sounds typically German--there are hundreds such there--some ordinary
+Prussian Infantry regiment, I expect. You say he was introduced to
+Harietta? They were not old friends--no?"
+
+"I heard him ask Mrs. Nordenheimer, his hostess, who she was, in his
+guttural voice, and Mrs. Nordenheimer came up to me and presented him and
+asked me to introduce him to my guest. So I did. The Nordenheimers are
+those very rich German Jews who bought Broomgrove Park some years ago.
+Every one receives them now."
+
+"And how did Harietta welcome this partner?"
+
+"She looked a little bored, but afterwards they danced several times
+together."
+
+"Ah!"--and that was all Verisschenzko said, but his thoughts ran: "An
+infantry officer--not a large enough capture for Harietta to waste time
+on in a public place--when she is here to advance herself. She danced
+with him because _she was obliged to_. I must ascertain who this man is."
+
+Amaryllis saw that he was preoccupied. They walked on now and round
+through the shrubbery on the left, and so at last to the house again.
+Amaryllis could not chance being late.
+
+Verisschenzko recovered from his abstraction presently and talked of
+many things--of the friendship of the soul, and how it can only thrive
+after there has been in some life a physical passionate love and fusion
+of the bodies.
+
+"I want to think that we have reached this stage, Lady mine. My mission
+on this plane now is so fierce a one, and the work which I must do is so
+absorbing, that I must renounce all but transient physical pleasures. But
+I must keep some radiant star as my lodestone for spiritual delights, and
+ever since we met and spoke at the Russian Embassy it seems as though
+step by step links of memory are awakening and comforting me with
+knowledge of satisfied desire in a former birth, so that now our souls
+can rise to rarer things. I can even see another in the earthly relation
+which once was mine, without jealousy. Child, do you feel this too?"
+
+"I do not know quite what I feel," and Amaryllis looked down, "but I will
+try to show you that I am learning to master my emotions, by thinking
+only of sympathy between our spirits."
+
+"It is well--"
+
+Then they reached the house and entered the green drawing-room in the
+Queen Anne Square, by one of the wide open windows, and there Amaryllis
+held out her two slim hands to Verisschenzko.
+
+"Think of me sometimes, even amidst your turmoil," she whispered, "and I
+shall feel your ambience uplifting my spirit and my will."
+
+"Lady of my Soul!" he cried, exalted once more, and he bent as though to
+kiss her hands, but straightened himself and threw them gently from him.
+
+"No! I will resist all temptations! Now you must dress and dine, and
+dance, and do your duty--and later we will say farewell."
+
+Harietta Boleski stamped across her charming chintz chamber in the great
+tower. She was like an angry wolf in the Zoo, she burst with rage.
+Verisschenzko had never walked by lakes with her, nor bent over with that
+air of devotion.
+
+"He loves that hateful bit of bread and butter! But I shall crush her
+yet--and Ferdinand Ardayre will help me!"
+
+Then she rang her bell violently for Marie, while she kicked aside
+Fou-Chow, who had travelled to England as an adjunct to her beauty,
+concealed in a cloak. His minute body quivered with pain and fear, and he
+looked up at her reproachfully with his round Chinese idol's eyes, then
+he hid under a chair, where Marie found him trembling presently and
+carried him surreptitiously to her room.
+
+"My angel," she told him as they went along the passage, "that she-devil
+will kill thee one day, unless happily I can place thee in safety first.
+But if she does, then I will murder for myself! What has caused her fury
+tonight, some one has spoilt her game."
+
+In the oak-panelled smoking room, deserted by all but these two,
+Verisschenzko spoke to Stanislass, hastily, and in his own tongue.
+
+"The news is of vital importance, Stanislass. You must return with me to
+London; of all things you must show energy now and hold your men
+together. I leave in the morning. You hesitate!--impossible!--Harietta
+keeps you! Bah!--then I wash my hands of you and Poland. Weakling! to
+let a woman rule you. Well; if you choose thus, you can go by yourself
+to hell. I have done with you." And he strode from the room, looking
+more Calmuck and savage than ever in his just wrath. And when he had
+gone the second husband of Harietta leant forward and buried his head in
+his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The picture Gallery made a brilliant setting for that gallant company! A
+collection of England's best, dancing their hardest to a stirring band,
+which sang when the tune of some popular Revue chorus came in.
+
+"The Song of the Swan," Verisschenzko thought as he observed it all in
+the last few minutes before midnight. He must go away soon. A messenger
+had arrived in hot haste from London, motoring beyond the speed limit,
+and as soon as his servant had packed his things he must return and not
+wait for the morning. All relations between Austria and Servia had been
+broken off, the conflagration had begun, and no time must be wasted
+further. He must be in Russia as soon as it was possible to get there. He
+blamed himself for coming down.
+
+"And yet it was as well," he reflected, because he had become awakened in
+regard to possible double dealing in Harietta. But where were his host
+and hostess--he must bid them farewell.
+
+John Ardayre was valsing with Lady Avonwier and Harietta Boleski
+undulated in the arms of the tall German who had come with the party from
+Broomgrove--but Amaryllis for the moment was absent from the room.
+
+"If I could only know who the beast is before I go, and where she has met
+him previously!" Verisschenzko's thoughts ran. "It is more than ever
+necessary that I master her--and there is so little time."
+
+He waited for a few seconds, the dance was almost done, and when the
+last notes of music ceased and the throng of people swept towards him, he
+fixed Harietta with his eye.
+
+Her evening so far had not been agreeable. She had not been able to have
+a word with Stepan, who had been far from her at the banquet before the
+ball. She was torn with jealousy of Amaryllis; and the advent of Hans,
+when she would have wished to have been free to re-grab Verisschenzko,
+was most unfortunate. It had not been altogether pleasant, his turning up
+at Bridgeborough, but at any rate that one evening was quite enough! She
+really could not be wearied with him more!
+
+His new instructions to her from the higher command were most annoyingly
+difficult too--coming at a time when her whole mind was given to
+consolidating her position in England,--it was really too bad!
+
+If only the tiresome bothers of these stupid old quarrelsome countries
+did not upset matters, she just meant to make Stanislass shut up his ugly
+old Polish home, and settle in some splendid country house like this,
+only nearer London. Now that she had seen what life was in England, she
+knew that this was her goal. No bothersome old other language to be
+learned! Besides, no men were so good-looking as the English, or made
+such safe and prudent lovers, because they did not boast. If any
+information she had been able to collect for Hans in the last year had
+helped his Ober-Lords to stir up trouble, she was almost sorry she had
+given it--unless indeed, ructions between those ridiculous southern
+countries made it so that she could remain in England, then it was a good
+thing. And Hans had assured her that England could not be dragged in.
+Then she laughed to herself as she always did if Hans coerced her--when
+she recollected how she had given his secrets away to Verisschenzko and
+that no matter how he seemed to compel her obedience, she was even with
+him underneath!
+
+She looked now at the Russian standing there, so tall and ugly, and
+weirdly distinguished, and a wild passionate desire for him overcame her,
+as primitive as one a savage might have felt. At that moment she almost
+hated her late husband, for she dared not speak to Verisschenzko with
+Hans there. She must wait until Verisschenzko spoke to her. Hans could
+not prevent that, nor accuse her of disobeying his command. So that it
+was with joy that she saw the Russian approach her. She did not know that
+he was leaving suddenly, and she was wondering if some meeting could not
+be arranged for later on, when Hans would be gone.
+
+"Good evening, Madame!" Verisschenzko said suavely. "May I not have the
+pleasure of a turn with you; it is delightful to meet you again."
+
+Harietta slipped her hand out of Hans' arm and stood still, determined to
+secure Stepan at once since the chance had come.
+
+Verisschenzko divined her intention and continued, his voice serious with
+its mock respect:
+
+"I wonder if I could persuade you to come with me and find your husband.
+You know the house and I do not. I have something I want to talk to him
+about if you won't think me a great bore taking you from your partner,"
+and he bowed politely to Hans.
+
+Harietta introduced them casually, and then said archly:
+
+"I am sure you will excuse me, Captain von Pickelheim. And don't forget
+you have the first one-step after supper!" So Hans was dismissed with a
+ravishing smile.
+
+Verisschenzko had watched the German covertly and saw that with all his
+forced stolidity an angry gleam had come into his eyes.
+
+"They have certainly met before--and he knows me--I must somehow make
+time," then, aloud:
+
+"You are looking a dream of beauty to-night, Harietta," he told her as
+they walked across the hall. "Is there not some quiet corner in the
+garden where we can be alone for a few minutes. You drive me mad."
+
+Harietta loved to hear this, and in triumph she raised her head and drew
+him into one of the sitting-rooms, and so out of the open windows on into
+the darkness beyond the limitations of the lawn.
+
+Twenty minutes afterwards Verisschenzko entered the house alone, a grim
+smile of satisfaction upon his rugged countenance. Jealousy, acting on
+animal passion, had been for once as productive of information as a ruby
+ring or brooch--and what a remarkable type Harietta! Could there be
+anything more elemental on the earth! Meanwhile this lady had gained the
+ball-room by another door, delighted with her adventure, and the thought
+that she had tricked Hans!
+
+"Have you seen our hostess, Madame?" the Russian asked, meeting Lady de
+la Paule. "I have been looking for her everywhere. Is not this a
+charming sight?"
+
+They stayed and talked for a few minutes, watching the joyous company of
+dancers, among whom Amaryllis could now be seen. Verisschenzko wished to
+say farewell to her when the one-step should be done. They would all be
+going into supper, and then would be his chance. He could not delay
+longer--he must be gone.
+
+He was paying little attention to what Lady de la Paule was saying--her
+fat voice prattled on:
+
+"I hope these tiresome little quarrels of the Balkan peoples will settle
+themselves. If Austria should go to war with Servia, it may upset my
+Carlsbad cure."
+
+Then he laughed out suddenly, but instantly checked himself.
+
+"That would be too unfortunate, Madame, we must not anticipate such
+preposterous happenings!"
+
+And as he walked forward to meet Amaryllis his face was set:
+
+"Half the civilised world thinks thus of things. The sinister events in
+the Balkans convey no suggestions of danger, and only matter in that
+they could upset a Carlsbad cure! Alas! how sound asleep these splendid
+people are!"
+
+He met Amaryllis and briefly told her that he must go. She left her
+partner and came with him to the foot of the staircase, which led
+to his room.
+
+"Good-bye, and God keep you," she said feelingly, but she noticed that he
+did not even offer to take her hand.
+
+"All blessings, my Star," and his voice was hoarse, then he turned
+abruptly and went on up the stairs. But when he reached the landing above
+he paused, and looked down at her, moving away among the throng.
+
+"Sweet Lady of my Soul," he whispered softly. "After Harietta I could not
+soil--even thy glove!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Events moved rapidly. Of what use to write of those restless, feverish
+days before the 4th of August, 1914? They are too well known to all the
+world. John, as ever, did his duty, and at once put his name down for
+active service, cajoled a medical board which would otherwise probably
+have condemned him and trained with the North Somerset Yeomanry in
+anticipation of being soon sent to France. But before all this happened,
+the night War was declared; he remained in his own sitting-room at
+Ardayre, and Amaryllis wondered, and towards dawn crept out of bed and
+listened in the passage, but no sound came from within the room.
+
+How very unsatisfactory this strange reserve between them was becoming!
+Would she never be able to surmount it? Must they go on to the end of
+their lives, living like two polite friendly acquaintances, neither
+sharing the other's thoughts? She hardly realised that the War could
+personally concern John. The Yeomanry, she imagined, were only for home
+defence, so at this stage no anxiety troubled her about her husband.
+
+The next day he seemed frightfully preoccupied, and then he talked to her
+seriously of their home and its traditions, and how she must love it and
+understand its meaning. He spoke too of his great wish for a child--and
+Amaryllis wondered at the tone almost of anguish in his voice.
+
+"If only we had a son, Amaryllis, I would not care what came to me. A
+true Ardayre to carry on! The thought of Ferdinand here after me drives
+me perfectly mad!"
+
+Amaryllis knew not what to answer. She looked down and clasped her hands.
+
+John came quite close and gazed into her face, as if therein some comfort
+could be found; then he folded her in his arms.
+
+"Oh! Amaryllis!" he said, and that was all.
+
+"What is it? Oh! what does everything mean?" the poor child cried. "Why,
+why can't we have a son like other people of our age?"
+
+John kissed her again.
+
+"It shall be--it must be so," he answered--and framed her face in
+his hands.
+
+"Amaryllis--I know you have often wondered whether I really loved you.
+You have found me a stupid, unsatisfactory sort of husband--indeed, I am
+but a dull companion at the best of times. Well, I want you to know that
+I do--and I am going to try to change, dear little girl. If I knew that I
+held some corner of your heart it would comfort me."
+
+"Of course, you do, John. Alas! if you would only unbend and be loving to
+me, how happy we could be."
+
+He kissed her once more. "I will try."
+
+That afternoon he went up to London to his medical board, and Amaryllis
+was to join him in Brook Street on the following day.
+
+She was stunned like every one else. War seemed a nightmare--an
+unreality--she had not grasped its meaning as yet. She thought of
+Verisschenzko and his words. What was her duty? Surely at a great crisis
+like this she must have some duty to do?
+
+The library in Brook Street was a comfortable room and was always their
+general sitting-room; its windows looked out on the street.
+
+That evening when John Ardayre arrived he paced up and down it for
+half an hour. He was very pale and lines of thought were stamped
+upon his brow.
+
+He had come to a decision; there only remained the details of a course of
+action to be arranged.
+
+He went to the telephone and called up the Cavalry Club. Yes, Captain
+Ardayre was in, and presently Denzil's voice said surprisedly:
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I heard by chance that you were in town. I suppose your regiment will be
+going out at once. It is your cousin, John Ardayre, speaking, we have not
+met since you were a boy. I have something rather vital I want to say to
+you. Could you possibly come round?"
+
+The two voices were so alike in tone it was quite remarkable, each was
+aware of it as he listened to the other.
+
+"Where are you, and what is the time?".
+
+"I am in our house in Brook Street, number 102, and it is nearly seven.
+Could you manage to come now?"
+
+There was a second or two's pause, then Denzil said:
+
+"All right. I will get into a taxi and be with you in about five
+minutes," and he put the receiver down.
+
+John Ardayre grew paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were
+trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang
+the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to bring him
+some brandy.
+
+Murcheson was an old and valued servant, and he looked at his master with
+concern, but he knew him too to make any remark. If there was any one in
+the world beyond the great surgeon, Lemon Bridges, who could understand
+the preoccupations of John Ardayre, Murcheson was the man.
+
+He brought the old Cognac immediately and retired from the room a
+moment or two before Denzil arrived. Very little trace of emotion
+remained upon the face of the head of the family when his cousin was
+shown in, and he came forward cordially to meet him. Standing opposite
+one another, they might have been brothers, not cousins, the
+resemblance was so strong! Denzil was perhaps fairer, but their heads
+were both small and their limbs had the same long lines. But where as
+John Ardayre suggested undemonstrative stolidity, every atom of the
+younger man was vitally alive.
+
+His eyes were bluer, his hair more bronze, and exuberant perfect health
+glowed in his tanned fresh skin.
+
+Both their voices were peculiarly deep, with the pronunciation of the
+words especially refined. John Ardayre said some civil things with
+composure, and Denzil replied in kind, explaining how he had been
+most anxious to meet John and Amaryllis and heal the breach the
+fathers had made.
+
+John offered him a cigar, and finally the atmosphere seemed to be
+unfrozen as they smoked. But in Denzil's mind there was speculation. It
+was not for just this that he had been asked to come round.
+
+John began to speak presently with a note of deep seriousness in his
+voice. He talked of the war and of his Yeomanry's going out, and of
+Denzil's regiment also. It was quite on the cards that they might both be
+killed--then he spoke of Ferdinand, and the old story of the shame, and
+he told Denzil of his boyhood and its great trials, and of his
+determination to redeem the family home and of the great luck which had
+befallen him in the city after the South African War--and how that the
+thought of worthily handing on the inheritance in the direct male line
+had become the dominating desire of his life.
+
+At first his manner had been very restrained, but gradually the intense
+feeling which was vibrating in him made itself known, and Denzil grew
+to realise how profound was his love for Ardayre and how great his
+family pride.
+
+But underneath all this some absolute agony must be wringing his soul.
+
+Denzil became increasingly interested.
+
+At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his
+narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the
+room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.
+
+"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more
+than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will
+confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very
+carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine.
+It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the bastard, Ferdinand, the
+snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the
+coming time."
+
+Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words
+portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice
+sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.
+
+Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life
+letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was
+not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would
+consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had
+been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's
+unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting
+attitude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he
+listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and
+concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to
+him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and
+stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and
+illumination on his strong, good-looking face.
+
+"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything
+quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable--and however
+much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were
+my father's son. You are the next real heir--Ferdinand could not be; my
+father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and
+the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no
+question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear
+him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It
+was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman,
+but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that
+Ferdinand was no Ardayre."
+
+"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a
+Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in
+his body!"
+
+"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should
+take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"
+
+Denzil clenched his hands.
+
+"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously
+before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has
+been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge
+towards me--and now we--you and I--have the right to save the family and
+its honour and circumvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man.
+Oh!--can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of
+Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to--Oh!--my
+God, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me--tell me that you look at it in
+the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which
+Ferdinand would depose--the disgrace would be yours then, since if
+Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."
+
+The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were
+pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful
+new emotion, as they looked at John.
+
+"Very well," he said, and held out his hand. "I appreciate the tremendous
+faith you have placed in me, and on my word of honour as an Ardayre, I
+will not abuse it, nor take advantage of it afterwards. My regiment will
+go out at once, I suppose, the chances are as likely that I shall be
+killed as you--"
+
+They shook hands silently.
+
+"We must lose no time."
+
+Then John poured out two glasses of brandy, and the toast they drank was
+unspoken. But suddenly Denzil remembered as a strange coincidence that he
+was drinking it for the third time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amaryllis arrived from Ardayre the next afternoon, after John's medical
+board had been squared into pronouncing him fit for active service--and
+he met his wife at the station and was particularly solicitous of her
+well-being. He seemed to be unusually glad to see her, and put his arm
+round her in the motor driving to Brook Street. What would she like to
+do? They could not, of course, go to the theatre, but if she would rather
+they could go out to a restaurant to dine--there were going to be all
+kinds of difficulties about food. Amaryllis, who responded immediately to
+the smallest advance on his part, glowed now with fond sweetness. She had
+been so miserable without him; so crushed and upset by the thought of
+war, and his possible participation in it. All the long night, alone at
+Ardayre, she had tried to realise what it all would mean. It was too
+stupendous, she could not grasp it as yet, it was just a blank horror.
+And now to be in the motor and close to him, and everything ordinary and
+as usual seemed to drive the hideous fact further and further away. She
+would not face it for to-night, she would try to be happy and banish the
+remembrance. No one knew what was happening, nor if the Expeditionary
+Force had or had not crossed to France. John asked her again what she
+would like to do.
+
+She did not want to go out at all, she told him; if the kitchenmaid and
+Murcheson could find them something to eat she would much rather dine
+alone with him, like a regular old Darby and Joan pair--and afterwards
+she would play nice things to him, and John agreed.
+
+When she came down ready for dinner, she was radiant; she had put on a
+new and ravishing tea-gown and her grey eyes were shining with a winsome
+challenge, and her beautiful skin was brilliant with health and
+freshness. A man could not have desired a more delectable creature to
+call his own.
+
+John thought so and at dinner expanded and told her so. He was not a
+practised lover; women had played a very small part in his life--always
+too filled with work and the one dominating idea to make room for them.
+He had none of the tender graciousness ready at his command which
+Denzil would very well have known how to show. But he loved Amaryllis,
+and this was the first time he had permitted the expression of his
+emotion to appear.
+
+She became ever more fascinating, and at length unconscious passion grew
+in her glance. John said some rather clumsy but loving things, and when
+they went back to the library he slipped his arm round her, and drew her
+to his side.
+
+"I love to be near you, John," she whispered; "I like your being so tall
+and so distinguished-looking. I like your clothes--they are so well
+made--" and then she wrinkled her pretty nose--"and I adore the smell of
+the stuff you put on your hair! Oh! I don't know--I just want to be in
+your arms!"
+
+John kissed her. "I must give you a bottle of that lotion--it is supposed
+to do wonders for the hair. It was originally made by an old housekeeper
+of my mother's family in the still room, and I have always kept the
+receipt--there are cloves in it and some other aromatic herbs."
+
+"Yes, that is what I smell, like a clove carnation--it is divine. I
+wonder why scents have such an effect upon one--don't you? Perhaps I am a
+very sensuous creature--they can make me feel wicked or good--some
+scents make me deliciously intoxicated--that one of yours does--when I
+get near you--I want you to hold me and kiss me--John."
+
+Every fibre of John Ardayre's being quivered with pain. The cruel,
+ironical bitterness of things.
+
+"I've never smelt this same scent on any one else," she went on, rubbing
+her soft cheek up and down against his shoulder in the most alluring way.
+"I should know it anywhere for it means just my dear--John!"
+
+He turned away on the pretence of getting a cigarette; he knew that his
+eyes had filled with tears.
+
+Then Murcheson came into the room with the coffee, and this made a
+break--and he immediately asked her to play to him, and settled
+himself in one of the big chairs. He was too much on the rack to
+continue any more love-making then; "what might have been" caused too
+poignant anguish.
+
+He watched her delicate profile outlined against the curtain of green
+silk. It was so pure and young--and her long throat was white as milk. If
+this time next year she should have a child--a son--and he, not killed,
+but sitting there perhaps watching her holding it. How would he feel
+then? Would the certainty of having an Ardayre carry on heal the wild
+rebellion in his soul?
+
+"Ah, God!" he prayed, "take away all feeling--reward this sacrifice--let
+the family go on."
+
+"You don't think you will have really to go to the war, do you, John?"
+Amaryllis asked after she left the piano. "It will be all over, won't it,
+before the New Year, and in any case the Yeomanry are only for home
+defence, aren't they?" and she took a low seat and rested her head
+against his arm.
+
+John stroked her hair.
+
+"I am afraid it will not be over for a long time, Amaryllis. Yes, I
+think we shall go out and pretty soon. You would not wish to stop
+me, child?"
+
+Amaryllis looked straight in front of her.
+
+"What is this thing in us, John, which makes us feel that--yes, we
+would give our nearest and dearest, even if they must be killed? When
+the big thing comes even into the lives which have been perhaps all
+frivolous like mine--it seems to make a great light. There is an
+exaltation, and a pity, and a glory, and a grief, but no holding back.
+Is that patriotism, John?"
+
+"That is one name for it, darling."
+
+"But it is really beyond that in this war, because we are not going to
+fight for England, but for right. I think that feeling that we must give
+is some oblation of the soul which has freed itself from the chains of
+the body at last. For so many years we have all been asleep."
+
+"This is a rude awakening."
+
+They were silent for a little while, each busy with unusual thoughts.
+
+There was a sense of nearness between them--of understanding, new and
+dangerously sweet.
+
+Amaryllis felt it deliciously, sensuously, and took joy in that she was
+touching him.
+
+John thrust it away.
+
+"I must get through to-night," he thought, "but I cannot if this hideous
+pain of knowledge of what I must renounce conquers me--I must be strong."
+
+He went on stroking her hair; it made her thrill and she turned and bit
+one of his fingers playfully with a wicked little laugh.
+
+"I wish I knew what I am feeling, John," she whispered, and her eyes were
+aflame, "I wish I knew--"
+
+"I must teach you!" and with sudden fierceness he bent down and
+kissed her lips.
+
+Then he told her to go to bed.
+
+"You must be tired, Amaryllis, after your journey. Go like a good child."
+
+She pouted. She was all vibrating with some totally new and overmastering
+emotion. She wanted to stay and be made love to. She wanted--she knew not
+what, only everything in her was thrilling with passionate warmth.
+
+"Must I? It is only ten."
+
+"I have a frightful lot of business things to write tonight, Amaryllis.
+Go now and sleep, and I will come and wake you about twelve!" He looked
+lover-like. She sighed.
+
+"Ah! if you would only come now!"
+
+He kissed her almost roughly again and led her to the door. And he stood
+watching her with burning eyes as she went up the stairs.
+
+Then he came back and rang the bell.
+
+"I shall be very late, Murcheson--do not sit up, I will turn out the
+lights. Good-night."
+
+"Very good, Sir John."
+
+And the valet left the room.
+
+But John Ardayre did not write any business letters; he sank back into
+his great leather chair--his lips were trembling, and presently sobs
+shook him, and he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.
+
+Just before twelve had struck, he went out into the hall, and turned off
+the light at the main. The whole house would now be in absolute darkness
+but for an electric torch he carried. He listened--there was not a sound.
+
+Then he crept quietly up to his dressing room and returned with a bottle
+of the clove-scented hair lotion.
+
+"What a mercy she spoke of it," his thoughts ran. "How sensitive women
+are--I should never have remembered such a thing."
+
+Yes--now there was a sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Midnight had struck--and Amaryllis, sleeping peacefully, had been
+dreaming of John.
+
+"Oh! dearest," she whispered drowsily, as but half awakened, she felt
+herself being drawn into a pair of strong arms--"Oh!--you know I love
+that scent of cloves--Oh!--I love you, John!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+When Amaryllis awoke in the morning her head rested on John's breast, and
+his arm encircled her. She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him.
+He was still asleep--and his face was infinitely sad. She bent over and
+kissed him with shy tenderness, but he did not move, he only sighed
+heavily as he lay there.
+
+Why should he look so sad, when they were so happy?
+
+She thought of loving things he had said to her at dinner--and then the
+afterwards!--and she thrilled with emotion. Life seemed a glorious thing
+and--But John was sad, of course, because he must go away. The
+recollection of this fact came upon her suddenly like a blast of cold
+air. They must part. War hung there with its hideous shadow, and John
+must be conscious of it even in his dreams, that was why he sighed.
+
+The irony of things--now--when--Oh! how cruel that he must go.
+
+Then John awoke with a shudder, and saw her there leaning over him with a
+new soft love light in her eyes, and he realised that the anguish of his
+calvary had only just begun.
+
+She was perfectly exquisite at breakfast, a fresh and tender graciousness
+radiated in her every glance; she was subtle and captivating, teasing him
+that he had been so silent in the night. "Why wouldn't you talk to me,
+John? But it was all divine, I did not mind." Then she became full of
+winsome ways and caresses, which she had hitherto been too timid to
+express; and every fond word she spoke stabbed John's heart.
+
+Could she not come and stay somewhere near so as to be with him while he
+was in training? It was unbearable to remain alone.
+
+But he told her that this would be impossible and that she must go back
+to Ardayre.
+
+"I will get leave, if there is a chance, dear little girl."
+
+"Oh! John, you must indeed."
+
+After he had gone out to the War Office, she sang as she undid a bundle
+of late roses he had sent her from Soloman's, on his way.
+
+She must herself put them in water; no servant should have this pleasing
+task. Was it the thought of the imminence of separation which had altered
+John into so dear a lover? She went over his words there in the library.
+She relived the joy of his sudden fierce kiss, when he had said that he
+must teach her as to what her emotions meant.
+
+Ah! how good to learn, how all glorious was life and love!
+
+"Sweetheart," the word rang in her ears. He had never called her that
+before! Indeed, John rarely ever used any term of endearment, and never
+got beyond "Dear" or "Darling" before. But now it was an exquisite
+remembrance! Just the murmured word "Sweetheart!" whispered softly again
+and again in the night.
+
+John came back to lunch, but two of the de la Paule family dropped in
+also, and the talk was all of war, and the difficulty of getting money at
+the banks, and how food would go on, and what the whole thing would mean.
+
+But over Amaryllis some spell had fallen--nothing seemed a reality, she
+could not attend to ordinary things, she felt that she but moved and
+spoke as one still in a dream.
+
+The world, and life, and death, and love, were all a blended mystery
+which was but beginning to unravel for her and drew her nearer to John.
+
+The days went on apace.
+
+John in camp thanked God for the strenuous work of his training that it
+kept him so occupied that he had barely time to think of Amaryllis or the
+tragedy of things. When he had left her on the following afternoon, the
+seventh of August, she had returned to Ardayre alone and began the
+knitting and shirt-making and amateurish hospital committees which all
+well-meaning English women vaguely grasped at before the stern
+necessities brought them organised work to do. Amaryllis wrote constantly
+to John--all through August--and many of the letters contained loving
+allusions which made him wince with pain.
+
+Then the awful news came of Mons, then the Marne--and the Aisne--awful
+and glorious, and a hush and mourning fell over the land, and Amaryllis,
+like every one else, lost interest in all personal things for a time.
+
+A young cousin had been killed and many of her season's partners and
+friends, and now she knew that the North Somerset Yeomanry would shortly
+go out and fight as they had volunteered at once. She was very
+miserable. But when September grew, in spite of all this general sorrow,
+a new horizon presented itself, lit up as if by approaching dawn, for a
+hope had gradually developed--a hope which would mean the rejoicing of
+John's heart.
+
+And the day when first this possibility of future fulfilment was
+pronounced a certainty was one of almost exalted beatitude, and when
+Doctor Geddis drove away down the Northern Avenue, Amaryllis seized a
+coat from the folded pile of John's in the hall, and walked out into the
+park hatless, the wind blowing the curly tendrils of her soft brown hair,
+a radiance not of earth in her eyes. The late September sun was sinking
+and gilding the windows of the noble house, and she turned and looked
+back at it when she was far across the lake.
+
+And the whole of her spirit rose in thankfulness to God, while her soul
+sang a glad magnificat.
+
+She, too, might hand on this great and splendid inheritance! She, too,
+would be the mother of Ardayres!
+
+And now to write to John!
+
+That was a fresh pleasure! What would he say? What would he feel? Dear
+John! His letters had been calm and matter of fact, but that was his way.
+She did not mind it now. He loved her, and what did words matter with
+this glorious knowledge in her heart?
+
+To have a baby! Her very own--and John's!
+
+How wonderful! How utterly divine--!
+
+Her little feet hardly touched the moss beneath them, she wanted to
+skip and sing.
+
+Next May! Next May! A Spring flower--a little life to care for when
+war, of course, would have ended and all the world again could be happy
+and young!
+
+And then she returned by the tiny ancient church. She had the key of it,
+a golden one which John had given her on their first coming down. It hung
+on her bracelet with her own private key.
+
+The sun was pouring through the western window, carpeting the altar steps
+in translucent cloth of gold.
+
+Amaryllis stole up the short aisle, and paused when she came between the
+two tall canopied tombs of recumbent sixteenth century knights, which
+made so dignified a screen for the little side aisles--and then she moved
+on and knelt in the shaft of the sunlight there at the carved rails.
+
+And no one ever raised to God a purer or more fervent prayer.
+
+She stayed until the sun sunk below the window, and then she rose and
+went back to the house, and up to her cedar room. And now she must
+write to John!
+
+She began--once--twice--but tore up each sheet. Her news was a supreme
+happiness, but so difficult to transmit!
+
+At last she finished three sides of her own rather large sized
+note-paper, but as she read over what she had written, she was not quite
+content; it did not express all that she desired John to know.
+
+But how could a mere letter convey the wordless gladness in her heart?
+
+She wanted to tell him how she would worship their baby, and how she
+would pray that they should be given a son--and how she would remember
+all his love words spoken that last time they were together, and weave
+the joy of them round the little form, so that it should grow strong and
+beautiful and radiant, and come to earth welcomed and blessed!
+
+Something of all this finally did get written, and she concluded thus:
+
+"John, is it not all wonderful and blissful and mysterious, this coming
+proof of our love? And when I lie awake I say over and over again the
+sweet name you called me, and which I want to sign! I am not just
+Amaryllis any longer, but your very own 'Sweetheart'!"
+
+John received this letter by the afternoon post in camp. He sat down
+alone in his tent and read and re-read each line. Then he stiffened and
+remained icily still.
+
+He could not have analysed his emotions. They were so intermixed with
+thankfulness and pain--and underneath there was a fierce, primitive
+jealousy burning.
+
+"Sweetheart!" he said aloud, as though the word were anathema! "And must
+I call her that 'Sweetheart'! Oh! God, it is too hard!" and he clenched
+his hands.
+
+By the same post came a letter from Denzil, of whose movements he had
+asked to be kept informed, saying that the 110th Hussars were going out
+at once, so that they would probably soon meet in France.
+
+Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to
+freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it
+was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an
+answer to her tender, exalted words.
+
+"My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will
+disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is."
+
+He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign
+to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you,
+Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he said.
+
+And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when
+it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife
+asking her to meet him in Brook Street.
+
+"I must see her--I cannot bear it," he cried to himself.
+
+And late at night he wrote to Denzil--it was just that he should do this.
+
+"My wife is going to have a baby--if only it should be a son, then it
+will not so much matter if both of us are killed, at least the family
+will be saved, and be able to carry oh."
+
+He tried to make the letter cordial. Denzil had behaved with the most
+perfect delicacy throughout, he must admit, and although they had met
+once and exchanged several letters, not the faintest allusion to the
+subject of their talk in the library at Brook Street had ever been
+made by him.
+
+Denzil had indeed acted and written as though such knowledge between
+them did not exist. He--Denzil--in these last seven weeks had been
+extremely occupied, and while his forces were concentrated upon the
+exhilarating preparations for war, it would happen in rare moments
+before sleep claimed him at night that he would let his thoughts conjure
+a waking dream, infinitely, mystically sweet. And every pulse would
+thrill with ecstasy, and then his will would banish it, and he would
+think of other subjects.
+
+He could not face the marvel of his emotions at this period, nor dwell
+upon the romantically exciting aspect of some things.
+
+He was up in London upon equipment business on the very Saturday that
+John got leave, and he was due to dine at the Carlton with Verisschenzko
+who had that day arrived on vital matters bent.
+
+As they came into the hall, a man stopped to talk to the Russian, and
+Denzil's eyes wandered over the unnumerous and depressed looking company
+collected waiting for their parties to arrive. War had even in those
+early Autumn days set its grim seal upon this festive spot. People looked
+rather ashamed of being seen and no one smiled. He nodded to one or two
+friends, and then his glance fell upon a beautiful, slim, brown-haired
+girl, sitting quietly waiting in an armchair by the restaurant steps.
+
+She wore a plain black frock, but in her belt one huge crimson clove
+carnation was unostentatiously tucked.
+
+"What a lovely creature!" his thoughts ran, and Verisschenzko
+turning from his acquaintance that moment, he said to him as they
+started to advance:
+
+"Stepan, if you want to see something typically English and perfectly
+exquisite, look at that girl in the armchair opposite where the band used
+to be. I wonder who she is?"
+
+"What luck!" cried Verisschenzko. "That is your cousin, Amaryllis
+Ardayre--come along!"
+
+And in a second Denzil found himself being introduced to her, and being
+greeted by her with interested cordiality, as befitted their cousinly
+relationship.
+
+But Verisschenzko, whose eyes missed nothing, remarked that under his
+sunburn, Denzil had grown suddenly very pale. Amaryllis was enchanted to
+see her friend, the Russian. John had gone to the telephone, it
+appeared--and yes, they were dining alone--and, of course, she was sure
+John would love to amalgamate parties, it was so nice of Verisschenzko to
+think of it! There was John now.
+
+The blood rushed back to Denzil's heart, and the colour to his face--he
+had only murmured a few conventional words. Mercifully John would decide
+the matter--it was not his doing that he and Amaryllis had met.
+
+John caught sight of the three as he came along the balcony from the
+telephone, so that he had time to take in the situation; he saw that the
+meeting was quite _imprevu_, and he had, of course, no choice but to
+accept Verisschenzko's suggestion with a show of grace. At that very
+moment, before they could enter the restaurant, and re-arrange their
+tables, Harietta Boleski and her husband swept upon them--they were
+staying in the hotel. Harietta was enraptured.
+
+What a delightful surprise meeting them! Were they all just together,
+would they not dine with her?
+
+She purred to John, while her eyes took in with satisfaction Denzil's
+extraordinary good looks--and there was Stepan, too! Nothing could be
+more agreeable than to scintillate for them both.
+
+John hailed their advent with relief: it would relax the intolerable
+strain which both he and Denzil would be bound to have to experience. So
+looking at the rest of the party, he indicated that he thought they would
+accept. It suited Verisschenzko also for his own reasons. And any
+suggestion to enlarge the intimate number of four would have been
+received by Denzil with graciousness.
+
+He had not imagined that he would feel such profound emotion on seeing
+Amaryllis, the intensity of it caused him displeasure. It was altogether
+such a remarkable situation. He knew that it would have been of thrilling
+interest to him had it not been for the presence of John. His knowledge
+of what John must be suffering, and the knowledge that John was aware of
+what he also must be feeling, turned the whole circumstance into
+discomfort.
+
+As soon as he recalled himself to Madame Boleski they all went into the
+restaurant to the Boleski table, just inside the door, by the window on
+the right. Harietta put John on one side of her and Denzil at the other,
+and beyond were Verisschenzko and her husband, with Amaryllis between,
+who thus sat nearly opposite Denzil, with her back to the room.
+
+Harietta, when she desired to be, was always an inspiriting hostess,
+making things go. She intended to do her best to-night. The turn affairs
+had taken, England being at war, was quite too tiresome. It had spoilt
+all her country house visits and nullified much of the pleasure and
+profit she was intending to reap from her now secured position in this
+promised land.
+
+Stanislass, too, had been difficult, he had threatened to go back to
+Poland immediately, which he explained was his obvious duty to do--but
+she had fortunately been able to crush that idea completely with tears
+and scenes. Then he suggested Paris, but information from Hans gave her
+occasion to think this might not be a comfortable or indeed quite a safe
+spot, and in all cases if the Frenchmen were fighting for dear life they
+would not have leisure to entertain her, therefore, dull and gloomy as
+England had become, she preferred to remain.
+
+Hans, too, had given her orders. For the present London must be her home,
+and the lease of the Mount Lennard house in Grosvenor Square having
+expired, they had moved to the Carlton Hotel.
+
+The misery of war, the holocaust of all that was noblest, left her
+absolutely cold. It was certainly a pity that those darling young
+guardsmen she had danced with should have had to be killed, but there was
+never any use in crying over spilt milk--better look out for new ones
+coming on. She was quite indifferent as to which country won. It was
+still a great bother collecting information for her former husband, but
+he threatened terrible reprisals if she refused to go on, and as in her
+secret heart she thought that there was no doubt as to who would be
+victor, she felt it might be wiser to remain on good terms with the power
+she believed would win!
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre had been very helpful all the summer--he had moved from
+the Constantinople branch of his business to one in Holland and had just
+returned to England now; he was, in fact, coming to see her later on when
+she should have packed Stanislass safely off to the St. James' Club.
+
+Harietta had no imagination to be inflamed by terrible descriptions of
+things. She saw no actual horrors, therefore war to her was only a
+nuisance--nothing ghastly or to be feared. But it was a disgusting
+nuisance and caused her fatigue. She had continually to remember to
+simulate proper sympathy, and concern and to subdue her vivacity, and
+show enthusiasm for any agreeable war work which could divert her dull
+days. If she had not been more than doubtful of her reception in America,
+even as a Polish magnate's wife, she would have gone over there to escape
+as far as possible from the whole situation, and she had been bored to
+death now for several days. People were too occupied and too grieved to
+go out of their way now to make much of her, and she had been left alone
+to brood. Thus the advent of Verisschenzko, who thrilled her always, and
+a possible new admirer in Denzil, seemed a heaven-sent occurrence.
+Amaryllis and John were undesired but unavoidable appendages who had to
+be swallowed.
+
+Denzil's type particularly attracted her. There was an insouciance about
+him, a _debonnair sans gene_ which increased the charm of his good looks;
+he had everything of attraction about him which John Ardayre lacked.
+
+Amaryllis, against her will, before the end of the dinner, was conscious
+of the fact also, though Denzil studiously avoided any conversation with
+her beyond what the exigencies of politeness required. He devoted himself
+entirely to Harietta, to her delight, and Verisschenzko and Amaryllis
+talked while John was left to Stanislass. But the very fact of Denzil's
+likeness to John made Amaryllis look at him, and she resented his
+attraction and the interest he aroused in her.
+
+His voice was perhaps even deeper than John's, and how extraordinarily
+well his bronze hair was planted on his forehead; and how perfectly
+groomed and brushed and soldierly he looked!
+
+He seemingly had taken the measure of Madame Boleski, too, and was
+apparently enjoying with a cultivated subtlety the drawing of her out. He
+was no novice it seemed, and there was a whimsical light in his eyes and
+once or twice they had inadvertently met hers with understanding when
+Verisschenzko had made some especially cryptic remark. She knew that she
+would very much have liked to talk to him.
+
+Verisschenzko was observing Amaryllis carefully. There was a new
+expression in her eyes which puzzled him. Her features seemed to be drawn
+with finer lines and pale violet shadows lay beneath her grey eyes. Was
+it the gloom of the war which oppressed her? It could not be altogether
+that, because her regard was serene and even happy.
+
+"Did I not know that nothing could be more unlikely, I should say she was
+going to have a child. What is the mystery?" He found himself very much
+interested. Especially he was anxious to watch what impression Denzil
+made upon her. He saw, as the dinner went on, that Amaryllis was aware
+that he was an attractive creature.
+
+"There is the beginning of a chapter of necessary and
+expedient--romance--here," he decided. "If only Denzil is not killed."
+But what did his growing so pale on learning that she was his cousin
+mean...? that was not a natural circumstance--some deep undercurrents
+were stirred. And in what way was all this going to affect the lady
+of his soul?
+
+They could not have any intimate conversation at dinner; they spoke of
+ordinary things and the war and the horror of it. Russia was moving
+forward, but Verisschenzko did not appear to be very optimistic in spite
+of this. There were things in his country, he told Amaryllis, which might
+handicap the fighting.
+
+Stanislass Boleski looked extremely depressed. He had a hang-dog,
+strained mien and Verisschenzko's contemptuously friendly attitude
+towards him wounded him deeply. Once he had shone as a leader and chief
+in Stepan's life, and now after the stormy scene in the smoking-room at
+Ardayre, that he could greet him casually and not turn from him in anger,
+showed, alas! to where he had sunk in Verisschenzko's estimation--a thing
+of nought--not even worth his disapproval. The dinner to him was a
+painful trial.
+
+John also was far from content. He had been longing to see Amaryllis, and
+yet the sight of her and her fond and insinuating words and caresses had
+caused him exquisite suffering. His emotions were so varied and complex.
+His prayer had been answered, but apart from his natural loathing for all
+subterfuge, every new tenderness towards himself which Amaryllis
+displayed aroused some indefinable jealousy. She had been so glad to see
+him and he had been conscious himself that he had been even unusually
+stolid and self-contained towards her. He knew that she grew disappointed
+and that probably the exalted sentiment which her letter had indicated
+that she was feeling had been chilled before she could put it into words.
+
+All this distressed him, and yet he could not break through the reserve
+of his nature.
+
+And now to crown unfortunate things, there was Denzil brought by fate and
+no one's manoeuvring into Amaryllis' company! Of all things he had hoped
+that they need not meet before he and his cousin should go to the Front.
+And it was all brought about by his own action in insisting that they had
+better dine at a restaurant, as the kitchenmaid, who always remained at
+Brook Street, had gone to see a wounded brother.
+
+Amaryllis had sighed a little as she had consented, with the faint
+protest that they could have eaten something cold.
+
+But on their drive to the Carlton she had become fondly affectionate
+again, nestling close to him, and then she had pulled out the carnation
+from her belt and held it for him to smell.
+
+"I picked it in the greenhouse this morning, the last of them; I have had
+them all around me while there were any, because they remind me of you,
+dearest--and of everything divine."
+
+John felt that he should always now hate that clove stuff for the hair
+and could no longer bear to use it.
+
+He was perfectly aware that Denzil on his hostess' other hand was
+looking everything that a woman could desire, and that his easy
+casualness of manner would be likely to charm. He saw that Amaryllis,
+too, observed him with unconscious interest, and a feeling akin to
+despair filled his heart.
+
+Life for him had always been difficult, and he was accustomed to blows,
+but this one was particularly hard to bear, because he really loved
+Amaryllis and desired happiness with her which he knew could never really
+be attained.
+
+Only Harietta of the whole party was quite content. She intended to annex
+Stepan when they should be drinking coffee in the hall. She looked upon
+Denzil's conquest now as almost an accomplished fact, and so felt that
+she might let him talk to Amaryllis, since the Russian was her real
+object. His ugly rugged face and odd Calmuck eyes always attracted her.
+
+"Why aren't you staying in the hotel, darling Brute?'" she whispered to
+him as they left the restaurant. "If you had been--"
+
+"I am," said Verisschenzko, and leaving her for a moment he went and
+telephoned to his not unintelligent Russian servant at the Ritz to
+arrange about the transference of his rooms.
+
+"She requires the most careful watching--I must waste no time."
+
+And then he returned to the party in the hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre took up his letters which had been forwarded to him from
+the depot where he was stationed. He and Verisschenzko were passing
+through the hall of his mother's house, for a talk and a smoke in his
+sitting-room, after leaving the Carlton.
+
+The house was in St. James' Place, a small, old building, the ground
+floor of which was given over to Denzil whenever he was in London. His
+mother was absent at Bath, where she spent a long autumn cure.
+
+John's letter lay on the top, and Verisschenzko caught the look of
+interest which came into Denzil's face.
+
+"Don't mind me, my dear chap," he remarked, "read your letters." And they
+went on into the sitting-room.
+
+"I want just to look at this one--it is from John Ardayre whom we met
+to-night," and Denzil opened it casually--"I wonder what he is writing to
+me about, he did not say anything at dinner."
+
+He read the short communication and exclaimed: "Good God!" and then
+checked himself. He was obviously stirred, and Verisschenzko watched him
+narrowly. Anything to do with John must concern Amaryllis, and therefore
+was of profound interest to himself.
+
+"No bad news, I hope?" he said.
+
+Denzil was gazing into the fire, and there was a look of wonderment and
+even rapture upon his face.
+
+"Oh! No--rather splendid--" He felt quite the strangest emotion he had
+ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy
+flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to
+link certain things in his mind.
+
+"Tell me, what did you think of your cousin, Lady Ardayre?" he asked
+casually, as though the subject was irrelevant.
+
+"Amaryllis?" and Denzil almost started from a reverie. "Oh, yes, of
+course, she is a lovely creature, is not she, Stepan?"
+
+Verisschenzko narrowed his eyes.
+
+"I have told you that I adore her--but with the spirit--if it were
+not so, she would appeal very strongly to the flesh--Yes?--Did you
+not feel it?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"She is longing to understand life, she is groping; why do you not set
+about her education, Denzil?"
+
+"That is the husband's business."
+
+"Not in this case. I consider it is yours; you are the right mate
+for her. John Ardayre is a good fellow, but he stands for nothing in
+the affair. Why did you waste your time upon Harietta, when time is
+so short?"
+
+"I was given no choice."
+
+"But afterwards, in the hall?"
+
+It was quite evident to Verisschenzko that the mention of Amaryllis was
+causing his friend some unexplainable emotion.
+
+"You did not even exert yourself, then. Why, Denzil?"
+
+Denzil lit a cigarette.
+
+"I thought her awfully attractive--it is the first time I have ever seen
+her--as you know."
+
+"And that was a reason for remaining silent and as stiff as a poker in
+manner! You English are a strange race!"
+
+Denzil smiled--if Stepan only knew everything, what would he say!
+
+"You were made for each other. If I were you, I would not lose a
+second's time!"
+
+"My dear old boy, you seem quite to forget that the girl has a husband
+of her own!"
+
+"Not at all, it is for that reason--just because of that husband. I shall
+say no more, you are quite intelligent enough to understand."
+
+"You think it is all right then for a woman to have a lover?" Denzil
+smiled as he curled rings of smoke. "It is curious how the most
+honourable among us has not much conscience concerning such things."
+
+Verisschenzko knocked off his cigarette ash and spoke contemplatively:
+
+"The world would be an insupportable place for women, if he had! But
+whatever the moral aspect of the matter is in general, circumstances
+arise which alter the point, and that is where the absurd ticketing
+system hampers suitable action. A thing is ticketed 'dishonourable.'
+Pah! it is sometimes, and it is not at others--there is no hard and
+fast rule."
+
+Denzil stretched himself--he was always interested in Verisschenzko's
+reasonings and prepared to listen with enjoyment:
+
+"The general idea is that a man should not make love to another man's
+wife. Man professes this as a creed, and the law enforces it and punishes
+him if he is found out doing so. And if he acted up to this creed as he
+does about stealing goods and behaving like a gentleman over business
+matters, all might be well, but unfortunately that seldom occurs, because
+there is that strong; instinct which is the base of all things working in
+him, and which does not work in regard to any other point of
+honour--i.e., the unconscious desire to re-create his, species, so that
+this one particular branch of moral responsibility cannot be measured,
+judged, or criticised from the same standpoint as any other. No laws can.
+alter human nature, or really control a man's actions when a natural
+force is prompting him unless stern self-analysis discovers the truth to
+the man, and so permits his spirit to regain dominion. The best chance
+would be to resist the first feeling of attraction which a woman
+belonging to another man aroused before it had actually obtained a hold
+upon his senses--but the percentage of men who do this must be very
+small. Some resist--or try to resist the actual possession of the woman
+from moral motives, but many more from motives of expediency and fear of
+consequences. Then to salve conscience the mass of men ride a high moral
+stalking horse, and write and speak condemnation of every back-sliding,
+while their own behaviour coincides with the behaviour they are
+criticising. The hypocrisy of the thing sickens me; no one ever looks any
+question straight in the face, denuded of its man-made sophistries. And
+few realise that a woman is a creature to be fought for--it is
+prehistoric instinct, and if she can't be obtained in fair fight then you
+secure her by strategy. And if a man cannot keep her once he has secured
+her, it is up to him. If I had a wife, I should take good care that she
+_desired_ no other man--but if I bored her, or was a cold and bad lover,
+I should not expect the other men not to try and take her from
+me--because I should know this was a natural instinct with them--like
+taking food. It would probably be no temptation to most of us to steal
+gold lying about in a room, even if we were poor, but a hideous
+temptation to refrain from eating a tempting dish if we were starving
+with hunger and it was before us--and if a woman did succumb to some new
+passion I should blame myself, not her."
+
+Denzil agreed.
+
+"Jealousy is a natural instinct, though," he said, "and although there
+would be not much profit in trying to hold a woman who no longer cared,
+one could not help being mad about it."
+
+"Of course not--that is the sense of personal possession which is
+affronted. Vanity is deeply wounded, and so the power to analyse cause
+and result sleeps. But this attitude which men take up of neglecting a
+woman and then expecting her to be faithful still is quite ridiculous,
+and without logic; they are as usual fogged by convention and can't see
+straight."
+
+Verisschenzko's rough voice was keen--compelling.
+
+Denzil smiled.
+
+"Another of your windmills to fight!"
+
+"I am always fighting convention and shams. Get down to the meaning of a
+thing, and if its true significance coincides with the convention which
+surrounds it, then let that hold, but if convention is a super-imposed
+growth, then amputate it and study the thing without it."
+
+"I suppose a man marries a woman nine times out of ten because he cannot
+obtain her in any other way; then when he has become indifferent by
+possession, he still thinks that she should remain devoted to him. You
+are right, Stepan, it is very illogical."
+
+"Club the creature, or keep her in a cage if you want fidelity through
+fear, but don't expect it if you allow her to remain at large and
+neglected, and don't be such an ass as to imagine that your friends won't
+act just as you yourself would act were she some one's else wife. If a
+woman has that quality in her which arouses sex, married or single, I
+never have observed that men refrained from making love to her."
+
+"All this means that you consider I am quite at liberty to make love to
+Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Quite."
+
+Denzil threw his cigarette end into the fire:
+
+"Well, for once you are wrong, Stepan, in your usually perfect
+deductions," he got up from his chair. "There is a reason in this
+case which makes the thing an absolute impossibility; under no
+possible circumstance while John is alive could I make the smallest
+advance towards Amaryllis! There is another point of honour involved
+in the affair."
+
+Verisschenzko felt that here was some mystery which he had yet to
+elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then
+became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis
+that evening for the first time!
+
+"If this is so, then it is a very great pity," he announced, after a
+moment or two's thought. "Were the times normal, we might leave all to
+Fate and trust to luck, but if you are killed and John is killed, it
+will be a thousand pities for Ferdinand to be the head of the family.
+A creature like that will not enlist, he will be safe while you risk
+your lives."
+
+Denzil went over to the window, apparently to get out a fresh box of
+cigars which were in a cabinet near.
+
+"John writes to-night that there is the chance of an heir after all--so
+perhaps we need not worry," he said, his voice a little hoarse with
+feeling. "I was so awfully glad to hear this--we all loathe the thought
+of Ferdinand."
+
+Verisschenzko actually was startled, and also he was strangely moved.
+
+"When I saw my lady Amaryllis to-night that idea came to me, only as I
+believed it was quite an impossibility--I dismissed it--It is a war
+miracle then?" and he smiled enquiringly.
+
+"Apparently."
+
+The cigar box was selected and Denzil had once more resumed his seat in a
+big chair before either of them spoke again.
+
+"I perfectly understand that there is some mystery here, Denzil--and that
+you cannot tell me--and equally I cannot ask you any questions, but it
+may be that in the days that are coming I could be of assistance to you.
+I have some very curious information which I am holding concerning
+Ferdinand Ardayre in his activities. You can always count on me--"
+Verisschenzko rose from his chair, stirred deeply with the thoughts which
+were coursing through his brain.
+
+"Denzil--I love that woman--I am absolutely determined that I shall not
+do so in any way but in spirit--I long for her to be happy--protected.
+She has an exquisite soul--I would have given her to you with
+contentment. You are her counterpart upon this plane--"
+
+Denzil remained silent, he had never seen Stepan so agitated. The
+situation was altogether very unusual. Then he asked:
+
+"Do you think Ferdinand will make some protest then?"
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"But there is absolutely nothing to be said, the fact of there being a
+child refutes all the old rumours."
+
+"In law--"
+
+"In every way," a flush had mounted to Denzil's forehead.
+
+"You know Lemon Bridges?" Verisschenzko suggested.
+
+"Yes--why do you ask?"
+
+"He is a remarkably clever surgeon. It is said that he is also a
+gentleman; if this news surprises him he will not express his feelings
+probably."
+
+Stepan was observing his friend with the minutest scrutiny now, while he
+spoke lazily once more as though upon a casual topic bent, and he saw
+that a lightning flash of anxiety passed through Denzil's eyes.
+
+"I do not see how any one can have a word to say about the matter," and
+he lit his cigar deliberately. "John is awfully pleased--"
+
+"And so am I--and so are you, and so will be the lady Amaryllis. Thus we
+can only wish for general happiness, and not anticipate difficulties
+which may never occur. When is the event to happen?"
+
+"The beginning of next May," Denzil announced, without hesitation, and
+then the flush deepened, for he suddenly remembered that John had not
+mentioned any date in his letter!
+
+The subject was growing embarrassing, and he asked, so as to change it:
+
+"What is your friend, Madame Boleski, doing now, Stepan?"
+
+"She is receiving news from Germany which I shall endeavour to have her
+transmit to me, and I have some suspicion that she is transmitting any
+information which she can pick up here to Germany, but I cannot yet be
+sure. When I am, then I shall have no mercy. She would betray any country
+for an hour's personal pleasure or gain. I have not yet discovered who
+the man was at the Ardayre ball--I told you about it, did I not? Just
+then more important matters pressed and I could not follow up the clue."
+
+"She is certainly physically attractive, and all the things she says are
+so obvious and easy, she is quite a rest at a dinner, but Lord! think of
+spending one's life with a woman like that!" and Denzil smiled.
+
+"There are very few women whom it would be possible to contemplate in
+calmness spending one's life with, because one's own needs change, and
+the woman's also. The tie is a galling bond unless it can be looked at
+with common sense by both--but I think men are quite as illogical as
+women over it, and of such an incredible vanity! It is because we have
+mixed so much sentiment into such a simple nature-act that all the
+bothers arise, and men are unjust over every thing to do with women.
+All men think, for instance, that a woman must not deceive her lover
+and, at the same time that she is appearing to be his faithful
+mistress, take another for her pleasure and diversion in secret. A man
+would look upon this and rightly as a dishonourable betrayal because it
+would wound his vanity and lower his personal prestige. But the
+illogical part is that he would not hesitate to do the same thing
+himself, and would never see the matter in the light of a betrayal,
+because the Creator has happily equipped him with a rhinoceros hide
+which enables him never to feel stings of self-contempt when viewing
+his own actions towards the other sex."
+
+Denzil laughed aloud.
+
+"You are hard on us, Stepan, but I dare say you are right."
+
+"It is just custom and convention which make us think ourselves such
+gods. Had woman had the same chance always, who knows what she might not
+have become by now! Everything is ticketed, it is called by a name and
+put down under such and such a heading--women are 'weak' and 'illogical'
+and 'unreliable' and men are 'brave' and 'sound' and 'to be
+trusted'--tosh! in quantities of cases--and if so, why so? Women are
+wonderful beings in many ways--of a courage! The way they bear things so
+gladly for men--think of their suffering when they have children. You
+don't know about it probably, men take all this as a matter of
+course--but I saw my sister die--after hours of it--"
+
+Denzil moved his arm rather suddenly and upset the glass of lemon squash
+on a little table near.
+
+Verisschenzko observed this, but went on without a break:
+
+"It is agony for them under the best conditions, and sometimes they
+become divine over it. Amaryllis will be divine--I hope John will take
+care of her--"
+
+A look of concern came into Denzil's face, and Verisschenzko watched him.
+Could any one be more attractive as a splendid mate for Amaryllis, he
+thought. He crushed down all feeling of human jealousy. His intuition
+would probably reveal all the mystery to him presently, and meanwhile if
+he could forward any scheme which would be for the good of Amaryllis and
+the security of the family, he would do so.
+
+"I must leave you now, old man," he said, looking at his watch. "I have a
+rendezvous with Harietta. I shall have to play the part of an ardent
+lover and cannot yet wring her neck."
+
+When Denzil was alone, he stood gazing into the fire.
+
+"That John should take care of her?"--but John was going out to
+fight--and so was he--and they might both be killed--What then?
+
+"Stepan knows, I am certain," he thought, "and he is true as steel; he
+must stand by her if we don't come back."
+
+And then his thoughts flew to the vision of her sitting opposite him at
+the table, with her sweet eyes turned to his now and then, the faint
+violet shadows beneath them and the transparent exquisiteness of her skin
+telling their own story by the added, fragile beauty. Oh! what
+unutterable joy to hold her in his arms and whisper passionate love words
+in her little ears, to live again the dream of her dainty head lying
+prone there on his breast. Every pulse in his being throbbed to bursting,
+seeming almost to suffocate him.
+
+"Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he whispered aloud, and then started at his
+own voice.
+
+He paced up and down the room, clenching his hands. The family might go
+on, but the two members of it must endure the pain of renunciation.
+
+Which was the harder to bear, he wondered--his part of hopeless memory
+and regret, or John's of forced denial and abstinence?
+
+In all the world, no situation could be more strange or more cruel.
+
+He had felt deeply about it before he had seen Amaryllis. He thought of
+the myth of Eros and Psyche. His emotions had been much as Psyche's
+before she lit the lamp. And now the lamp had been lighted--his eyes had
+seen what his arms had clasped, the reality was more lovely than his
+dream, and passion was kindled a hundredfold. It swept him off his feet.
+
+He forgot war and the horror of the time, he forgot everything except
+that he longed for Amaryllis.
+
+"She is mine, absolutely mine," he said wildly. "Not John's."
+
+And then he remembered his promise, given before any personal equation
+had entered into the affair.
+
+Never to take advantage of the situation--afterwards!
+
+And what would the child be like? A true Ardayre, of course--they would
+say that it had harked back, perhaps, to that Elizabethan Denzil whom
+his father had told him was his exact portrait in the picture gallery
+at Ardayre.
+
+He could have laughed at the sardonic humour of everything if he had not
+been too overcome with passionate desire to retain any critical sense.
+
+Then he sat down and forced himself to realise what it meant--parenthood.
+Not much to a man, as a rule. He had looked upon those occult stirrings
+of the spirit of which he had read as romantic nonsense. It was a natural
+thing and all right if a man had a place for him to wish to have a
+son--but otherwise, sentimentality over such things was such rot!
+
+And yet now he found himself thrilling with sentiment. He would like to
+talk to Amaryllis all about it, and listen to her thoughts, too. And then
+he remembered the many discussions with Verisschenzko upon the theory of
+re-birth and of the soul's return again and again until its lessons are
+learned on this plane of existence, and he wondered what soul would
+animate the physical form of this little being who would be his and hers.
+
+And suddenly in his mental vision the walls of the room seemed to fade,
+and he was only conscious of a vastness of space, and knew that for this
+brief moment he was looking into eternity and realising for the first
+time the wonder of things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Verisschenzko had returned to the Carlton and was softly
+walking down the passage towards the Boleskis' rooms. The ante-room door
+was at the corner, and as he was about ten yards from it a man came out
+and strode rapidly towards the lift down the corridor at right angles,
+but the bright light fell upon his face for an instant, and Verisschenzko
+saw that it was Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He waited where he was until he heard the lift doors shut, and even then
+he paced up and down for a time before he entered the sitting-room. There
+must be no suspicion that he had encountered the late visitor.
+
+"Darling Brute, here you are!" Harietta cried delightedly, rising from
+her sofa and throwing herself into his arms. "I've packed Stanislass off
+to the St. James' to play piquet. I have been all alone waiting for you
+for the last hour--I began to fear you would not come."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her, with his cynical, humorous smile, whose
+meaning never reached her. He took in the transparent garments which
+hardly covered her, and then he bent and picked up a man's handkerchief
+which lay on a table near.
+
+"_Tiens_! Harietta!" he remarked lazily. "Since when has Stanislass taken
+to using this very Eastern perfume?" and he sniffed with disgust.
+
+The wide look of startled innocence grew in Madame Boleski's hazel eyes.
+
+"I believe Stanislass must have got a mistress, Stepan. I have
+noticed lately these scents on his things--as you know, he never used
+any before!"
+
+"The handkerchief is marked with 'F.A.' I suppose the _blanchisseuse_
+mixes them in hotels. Let us burn the memento of a husband's straying
+fancies then; the taste in perfumes of his inamorata is anything but
+refined," and Verisschenzko tossed the bit of cambric into the fire which
+sparkled in the grate.
+
+"I've lots of news to tell you, Darling Brute--but I shan't--yet! Have
+you come to England to see that bit of bread and butter--or--?"
+
+But Verisschenzko, with a fierce savagery which she adored, crushed her
+in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+On the Tuesday morning after the Carlton dinner, fate fell upon Denzil
+and Amaryllis in the way the jade does at times, swooping down upon
+them suddenly and then like a whirlwind altering the very current of
+their destiny. It came about quite naturally, too, and not by one of
+those wildly improbable situations which often prove truth to be
+stranger than fiction.
+
+Amaryllis was settled in an empty compartment of the Weymouth express at
+Paddington. She had said good-bye to John the evening before, and he had
+returned to camp. She was going back to Ardayre, and feeling very
+miserable. Everything had been a disillusion. John's reserve seemed to
+have augmented, and she had been unable to break it down, and all the
+new emotions which she was trembling with and longing to express, had
+grown chilled.
+
+Presumably John must be pleased at the possibility of having a son since
+it was his heart's desire; but it almost seemed as though the subject
+embarrassed him! And all the beautiful things which she had meant to say
+to him about it remained unspoken.
+
+He was stolidly matter-of-fact.
+
+What could it all mean?
+
+At last she had become deeply hurt and had cried with a tremour in her
+voice the morning before he left her:
+
+"Oh! John, how different you have become; it can't be the same you who
+once called me 'Sweetheart' and held me so closely in your arms! Have I
+done anything to displease you, dearest? Aren't you glad that I am going
+to have a baby?"
+
+He had kissed her and assured her gravely that he was glad--overjoyed.
+And his eyes had been full of pain, and he had added that he was stupid
+and dull, but that she must not mind--it was only his way.
+
+"Alas!" she had answered and nothing more.
+
+She dwelt upon these things as she sat in the train gazing out of the
+window on the blank side.
+
+Yes. Joy was turning into dead sea fruit. How moving her thoughts had
+been when coming up to meet him!
+
+The marvel of love creating life had exalted her and she had longed to
+pour her tender visionings into the ears of--her lover! For John had been
+thus enshrined in her fond imagination!
+
+The whole idea of having a child to her was a sacred wonder with little
+of earth in it, and she had woven exquisite sentiment round it and had
+dreamed fair dreams of how she would whisper her thoughts to John as she
+lay clasped to his heart; and John, too, would be thrilled with
+exaltation, for was not the glorious mystery his as well--not hers alone?
+
+Now everything looked grey.
+
+Tears rose in her eyes. Then she took herself to task; it was perhaps
+only her foolish romance leading her astray once more. The thought
+might mean nothing to a man beyond the pride of having a son to carry
+on his name. If the baby should be a little girl John might not care
+for it at all!
+
+The tears brimmed over and fell upon a big crimson carnation in her coat,
+a bunch of which John had ordered to be sent her, and which were now
+safely reposing in a card-board box in the rack above her head.
+
+Fortunately she had the carriage to herself. No one had attempted to get
+in, and they would soon be off. To be away from London would be a relief.
+
+Then her thoughts flew to Verisschenzko; he had told her that
+circumstances in his country might require his frequent presence in
+England for the next few months.
+
+She would see him again. What would he tell her to do now? Conquer
+emotion and look at things with common sense.
+
+The picture of the dinner at the Carlton then came back to her, and the
+face of Denzil across the table, so like, and yet so unlike John!
+
+If Denzil had a wife would he be cold to her? Was it in the nature of
+all Ardayres?
+
+At the very instant the train began to move the carriage was invaded by a
+man in khaki who bounded in and almost fell by her knees, and with a
+cheery 'Just done it, Sir!' the guard flung in a dressing-bag and slammed
+the door, and she realised with conscious interest that the intruder was
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"How do you do? By Jove. I am awfully sorry," and he held out his hand.
+"I nearly lost the train and I am afraid I have bundled in without asking
+leave. I am going down to Bath to say good-bye to my mother. I say, do
+forgive me if I startled you," and he looked full of concern.
+
+Amaryllis laughed; she was nervous and overstrung.
+
+"Your entrance was certainly sudden and in this non-stop to Westbury we
+shall have to put up with each other till then--shall you mind?"
+
+"Awfully--Must I say that the truth would be that I am enchanted!"
+
+Fortune had flung him these two hours. He had not planned them, his
+conscience was clear, and he could not help delight rushing through him.
+Two hours with her--alone!
+
+There are some blue eyes which seem to have a spark of the devil lurking
+in them always, even when they are serious. Denzil's were such eyes.
+Women found it difficult to resist his charm, and indeed had never tried
+very hard. Life and its living, knowledge to acquire, work to do, beasts
+to hunt, had not left him too much time to be spoiled by them
+fortunately, and he had passed through several adventures safely and had
+never felt anything but the most transient emotion, until now looking at
+Amaryllis sitting opposite him he knew that he was in love with this
+dream which had materialised.
+
+Amaryllis studied him while they talked of ordinary things and the war
+news and when he would go out. She felt some strong attraction drawing
+her to him. Her sense of depression left her. She found herself noticing
+how the sun which had broken through a cloud turned his immaculately
+brushed hair into bronze. She did a little modelling to amuse herself,
+and so appreciated balance and line.
+
+Everything in Denzil was in the right place, she decided, and above all
+he looked so peculiarly alive. He seemed, indeed, to be the reality of
+what her imagination had built up round the personality of John in the
+weeks of their separation. Denzil believed that he was talking quite
+casually, but his glance was ardent, and atmosphere becomes charged when
+emotions are strong no matter how insignificant words may be. Amaryllis
+_felt_ that he was deeply interested in her.
+
+"You know my friend Verisschenzko well, it seems," she said presently.
+"Is not he a fascinating creature? I always feel stimulated when I am
+with him, and as if I must accomplish great things."
+
+"Stepan is a wonder--we were at Oxford together--he can do anything he
+desires. He is a musician and an artist and is chock full of common
+sense, and there's not a touch of rot. He would have taken honours if he
+had not been sent down."
+
+Amaryllis wanted to know about this, and listened amazedly to the story
+of the mad freak which had so scandalised the Dons.
+
+She had recovered from her nervousness, she was natural and delightful,
+and although the peculiar situation was filling Denzil with excitement
+and emotion, he was too much a man of the world to experience any _gene_.
+So they talked for a while with friendliness upon interesting things.
+Then a pause came and Amaryllis looked out of the window, and Denzil had
+time to grow aware that he must hold himself with a tighter hand, a sense
+almost of intoxication had begun to steal over him.
+
+Suddenly Amaryllis grew very pale and her eyelids flickered a little; for
+the first time in her life she felt faint.
+
+He bent forward in anxiety as she leaned her head against the
+cushioned division.
+
+"Oh! what is it, you poor little darling! what can I do for you?" he
+exclaimed, unconscious that he had used a word of endearment; but even
+though things had grown vague for her Amaryllis caught the tenderly
+pronounced 'darling' and, physically ill as she felt, her spirit thrilled
+with some agreeable surprise. He came nearer and pushing up the padded
+divisions between the seats, he lifted her as though she had been a baby
+and laid her flat down. He got out his flask from his dressing bag and
+poured some brandy between her pale lips, then he rubbed her hands,
+murmuring he knew not what of commiseration. She looked so fragile and
+helpless and the probable reason of her indisposition was of such
+infinite solicitude to himself.
+
+"To think that she is feeling like that because--Ah!--and I may not even
+kiss her and comfort her, or tell her I adore her and understand." So his
+thoughts ran.
+
+Presently Amaryllis sat up and opened her eyes. She had not actually
+fainted, but for a few moments everything had grown dim and she was not
+certain of what had happened, or if she had dreamed that Denzil had
+spoken a love word, or whether it was true--she smiled feebly.
+
+"I did feel so queer," she explained. "How silly of me! I have never felt
+faint before--it is stupid"--and then she blushed deeply, remembering
+what certainly must be the cause.
+
+"I am going to open the window wide," he said, appreciating the blush,
+and let it down. "You ought not to sit with your back to the engine like
+that, let us change sides."
+
+He took command and drew her to her feet, and placed her gently in his
+vacant seat; then he sat down opposite her and looked at her with
+anxious eyes.
+
+"I sit that way as a rule because of avoiding the dust, but, of course,
+it was that. I am not generally such a goose though--it is the nastiest
+feeling that I have ever known."
+
+"You poor dear little girl," his deep voice said. "You must shut your
+eyes and not talk now."
+
+She obeyed, and he watched her intently as she lay back with her eyes
+closed, the long lashes resting upon her pale cheeks. She looked childish
+and a little pathetic, and every fibre of his being quivered with desire
+to protect her. He had never felt so profoundly in his life--and the
+whole thing was so complicated. He tried to force himself to remember
+that he was not travelling with _his_ wife whom he could take care of and
+cherish because she was going to have _his_ child, but that he was
+travelling with John's wife whom he hardly knew and must take no more
+interest in than any Ardayre would in the wife of the head of the family!
+
+He could have laughed at the extraordinary irony of the thing, if it had
+not been so moving.
+
+Verisschenzko, had he been there and known the circumstances, would have
+taken joy in analysing what nature was saying to them both!
+
+Amaryllis was only conscious that Denzil seemed the reality of her dream
+of John, and that she liked his nearness--and Denzil only knew that he
+loved her extremely and must banish emotion and remember his given word.
+So he pulled himself together when she sat up presently and began
+talking again, and gradually the atmosphere of throbbing excitement
+between them calmed. They spoke of each other's tastes and likings and
+found many to be the same. Then they spoke of books, and each discovered
+that the other was sufficiently well read to be able to discuss varied
+favourite authors.
+
+An understanding and sympathy had grown up between them before they
+reached Westbury, and yet Denzil was really trying to keep his word in
+the spirit as well as the letter.
+
+Amaryllis felt no constraint--she was more friendly than she would have
+been with any other man she knew so slightly. Were they not cousins, and
+was it not perfectly natural!
+
+They talked of Oxford and of the effect it had upon young men, and again
+they spoke of Stepan and of the dream he and Denzil shared.
+
+"You will go into Parliament, I suppose, when you come back from the
+war?" she remarked at last. "If you have dreams they should become
+realities...."
+
+"That is what I intend to do. The war may last a long time though--but it
+ought to teach one something, and England will be a vastly different
+place after it, and perhaps the younger men who have fought may have a
+greater chance."
+
+"You have pet theories, of course."
+
+"I suppose so--I believe that the first great step will be to give the
+people better homes--the housing question is what I am going to devote my
+energy to. I am sure it is the root of nearly every evil. Every man and
+woman who works should have the right to a good home. I have two supreme
+interests--that is one, and the other is elimination of the wastrels and
+the unfit. I am quite ruthless, perhaps, you will think. But there is
+such a sickening lot of mawkish sentiment mixed up with nearly every
+scheme to benefit workers. I agree with Stepan who always preaches: Get
+down to the commonsense point of view about a thing. Prune the convention
+and religion and sentimentality first and then you can judge."
+
+Amaryllis thought for a moment; her eyes became wide and dreamy, and her
+charmingly set head was a little thrown back. Denzil took in the line of
+her white throat and the curve of her chin--it was not weak. Why was it
+that women with the possibilities of this one always seemed to be some
+other man's property! He had never come across such charm in girls. Or
+was it that marriage developed charm?
+
+They neither of them spoke for a minute or two, each busy with
+speculation.
+
+"I want to do something," Amaryllis said at last, "not, only just make
+shirts and socks," and then the pink flushed her cheeks again suddenly as
+she remembered that she would not be fit for more strenuous work for
+quite a long time--and then the war would be over, of course.
+
+Denzil thought the same thing without the last qualification. He was
+under no delusions as to the speedy end of strife.
+
+He could not help visioning the wonderful interest the hope of a son
+would be to him if she really were his wife--how filled with supreme
+sympathy and tenderness would be the months coming on. How they would
+talk together about their wishes and the mystery and the glory of the
+evolution of life. And here she had blushed at some thought concerning
+it, and no words must pass between them about this sacred thing. He
+longed to ask her many questions--and then a pang of jealousy shook him.
+She would confide to John, not to him, all the emotions aroused by the
+thought of the child--then. He wondered what she would do in the winter
+all alone. Had she relations she was fond of? He wished that she knew his
+Mother, who was the kindest sweetest lady in the world. He said aloud:
+
+"I would like you to meet my Mother. She is going to be at Bath for a
+month. She is almost an invalid with rheumatism in her ankle where she
+broke it five years ago. I believe you would get on."
+
+"I should love to--it is not an impossible distance from us. I will go
+over to see her, if you will tell her about me--so that she won't think
+some stranger is descending upon her some day!"
+
+"She will be so pleased," and he thought that he would be happier knowing
+that they were friends.
+
+"Does she mean a great deal to you? Some mothers do," and she
+sighed--her own was less than emptiness--they had never been near, and
+now her stepfather and the step-family claimed all the affection her
+mother could feel.
+
+"She is a great dear--one of my best friends," and his eyes beamed. "We
+have always been pals--because I have no brothers and sisters I suppose
+she spoilt me!"
+
+"I daresay you were quite a nice little boy!" Amaryllis smiled--"and it
+must be divine to have a son--I expect it would be easy to spoil one."
+
+Denzil clasped his hands rather tightly--she looked so adorable as she
+said that, her eyes soft with inward knowledge of her great hope. How
+impossible it all was that they must remain strangers--casual cousins and
+nothing more.
+
+"It must be an awful responsibility to have children," he said, watching
+her. "Don't you think so?"
+
+The pink flared up again as she answered a rather solemn "Yes."
+
+Then she went on, a little hurriedly:
+
+"One would try to study their characters and lead them to the highest
+good, as gardeners watch over and train plants until they come to
+perfection. But what funny, serious things we are talking about," and she
+gave a little, nervous laugh--"Like two old grandfather philosophers."
+
+"It is rather a treat to talk seriously; one so seldom has the chance to
+meet any one who understands."
+
+"To understand!" and she sighed. "Alas--How quite perfect life would
+be--" and then she stopped abruptly. If she continued her words might
+contain a reflection upon John.
+
+Denzil bent forward eagerly--what had she been going to say?
+
+She saw his blue attractive eyes gazing at her so ardently and some
+delicious thrill passed through her. But Denzil recovered himself, and
+leaned back in his seat--while he abruptly changed the conversation by
+remarking casually:
+
+"I have never seen Ardayre. I would love to look at our common ancestors.
+My father used to say there was an Elizabethan Denzil who was rather like
+me. I suppose we are all stamped with the same brand."
+
+"I know him!" Amaryllis cried delightedly. "He is up at the end of the
+gallery in puffed white satin and a ruff. Of course, you must come and
+see him; he has exactly the same eyes."
+
+"The whole family are alive I believe--we were a tenacious lot!"
+
+"If you and John both get leave at Christmas you must come with him and
+spend it at Ardayre--I shall have made your Mother's acquaintance by
+then, and we must persuade her too."
+
+He gave some friendly answer--while he felt that John might not endorse
+this invitation. If the places were reversed, how would he himself act?
+Difficult as the situation was for him, it was infinitely harder for
+John. Then the train stopped at Westbury.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Denzil had got out to get some papers which he had been to hurried to
+secure at Paddington tipping the guard on the way, so that an old
+gentleman who showed signs of desiring to enter was warded off to another
+compartment. Thus when the train re-started, they were again left alone.
+
+Amaryllis had partially recovered and was looking nearly her usual self,
+but for the violet shadows beneath her eyes. She glanced at the papers
+which he handed to her, and Denzil retired behind the Times. He wanted
+to think; he must not let himself slip out of hand. He must resolutely
+stamp out all the emotion that she was causing him; he despised weakness
+of any sort.
+
+He thought of Verisschenzko's words about laws being powerless to control
+a man's actions, when a natural force is prompting him, unless he uses
+self-analysis, and so by gaining knowledge permits the spirit to conquer.
+He recollected that he had transgressed often without a backward thought
+in past days with other women, but now his honour was engaged even apart
+from his firm belief in Stepan's favourite saying, that a man must never
+sully the wrong thing. Then the argument they had often had about
+indulgences came to him, and the truth of the only possibility of their
+enjoyment being while they remained servants, not masters.
+
+He had had his indulgences in the two hours to Westbury, and had very
+nearly let it conquer him, more than once, and now he must not only curb
+all friendly words and delightful dalliance with forbidden topics, but he
+must _feel_ no more passion.
+
+He made himself read the war news and try to visualize the grim reality
+behind the official phrasing of the communiques. And gradually he became
+calm, and was almost startled when Amaryllis, who had been watching him
+furtively and had begun to wonder if he was really so interested in his
+paper, said timidly:
+
+"Will you pull the window up a little? It seems to be growing cold."
+
+She noticed that his lips were set firmly and that an abstracted
+expression had grown in his eyes.
+
+Then Denzil spoke, now quite naturally and about the war, and
+deliberately kept the conversation to this subject, until Amaryllis lay
+back again in her corner and closed her eyes.
+
+"I am going to have a little sleep," she said.
+
+She too had begun to realise that in more personal investigation of
+mutual tastes there lay some danger. She had become conscious of the fact
+that she was very interested in Denzil--and there he was, not really the
+least like John!
+
+They were silent for some time, and were nearing Frome when he spoke. He
+had been deliberating as to what he ought to do? Get out and leave her,
+to catch his connection to Bath, or sacrifice that and see her safely to
+her destination and perhaps hire a motor from Bridgeborough?
+
+This latter was his strong desire and also seemed the only chivalrous
+thing to do when she still looked so pale, but--
+
+"Here we are almost at Frome," he said.
+
+Her eyes rounded with concern. It would be horrid to be alone. She had
+left her maid in London for a few days' holiday.
+
+"You change here for Bath," she faltered a little uncertainly.
+
+He decided in a second. He could not be inhuman! Duty and desire were
+one!
+
+"Yes--but I am coming on with you. I shall not leave you until I see you
+safely into your own motor. I can hire one perhaps then, to take me on
+the rest of the way."
+
+She was relieved--or she thought it was merely relief, which made a
+sudden lifting in her heart!
+
+"How kind of you. I do feel as if I did not like the thought of being by
+myself, it is so stupid of me--But you can't hire a motor from
+Bridgeborough which would get you to Bath before dark! They are wretched
+things there. You must come with me to Ardayre; it is on the Bath road,
+you know--and we can have a late lunch, and and then I'll send you on in
+the Rolls Royce. You will be there in an hour--in time for tea."
+
+This was a tremendous fresh temptation. He tried to look at it as though
+it did not in reality matter to him more than the appearance suggested.
+Had there been no emotion in his interest in Amaryllis, he would not have
+hesitated, he knew.
+
+Then it was only for him to conquer emotion and behave as he would do
+under ordinary circumstances--it would be a good test of his will.
+
+"All right--that's splendid, and I shall be able to see Ardayre!"
+
+It was when they were in Amaryllis's own little coupe very close to each
+other that strong temptation assailed Denzil. He suddenly felt his
+pulses throbbing wildly and it was with the greatest difficulty he
+prevented himself from clasping her in his arms. He tried to look out of
+the window and take an interest in the park, which was entered very soon
+after leaving the station. He told himself Ardayre was something which
+deserved his attention and he looked for the first view of the house, but
+all his will could only keep his arms from transgressing, it could not
+control the riot of his thoughts.
+
+Amaryllis was conscious in some measure that he was far from calm, and
+her own heart began to beat unaccountably. She talked rather fast about
+the place and its history, and both were relieved when the front door
+came in sight.
+
+There was a welcoming smell of burning logs in the hall to greet them,
+and the old butler could not restrain an expression of startled curiosity
+when he saw Denzil, the likeness to his master was so great.
+
+"This is Captain Ardayre, Filson," Amaryllis said, "Sir John's cousin,"
+and then she gave the order about the motor to take Denzil on to Bath.
+
+They went through the Henry VII inner hall, and on to the green
+drawing-room, with its air of home and comfort, in spite of its great
+size and stateliness.
+
+There were no portraits here, but some fine specimens of the Dutch
+school, and the big tawny dogs rose to welcome their mistress and were
+introduced to their "new relation."
+
+She was utterly fascinating, Denzil thought, playing with them there on
+the great bear skin rug.
+
+"We shall lunch at once," she told him, "and then rush through the
+pictures afterwards before you start for Bath."
+
+They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before
+that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come
+into Amaryllis--nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than
+her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour
+glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted
+for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest.
+
+Denzil had the hardest fight he had ever been through, and he grew almost
+gruff in consequence. He was really suffering.
+
+He admired the way she acted as hostess, and the way the home was done.
+He hardly felt anything else, though apart from her he would have been
+interested in his first view of Ardayre, but she absorbed all other
+emotions, he only knew that he desired to make passionate love to her, or
+to get away as quickly as he could.
+
+"Are you going to remain here all the winter?" he asked her presently, as
+they rose from the table, "or shall you go to London? You will be awfully
+lonely, won't you, if you stay here?"
+
+"I love the country and I am growing to love and understand the place.
+John wants me to so much, it means more to him than anything else in the
+world. I shall remain until after Christmas anyway. But come now, I want
+just to take you into the church, because there are two such fine tombs
+there of both our ancestors, yours and mine. We can go out of the windows
+and come back for coffee in the cedar parlour."
+
+Denzil acquiesced; he wished to see the church. They reached it in a
+minute or two and Amaryllis opened the door with her own key and led him
+on up the aisle to the recumbent knights--and then she whispered their
+history to him, standing where a ray of sunlight turned her brown hair
+into gold.
+
+"I wonder what their lives were," Denzil said, "and if they lived and
+loved and fought their desires--as we do now--the younger one's face
+looks as though he had not always conquered his. Stepan would say his
+indulgences had become his masters, not his servants, I expect."
+
+"Verisschenzko is wonderful--he makes one want to be strong," and
+Amaryllis sighed. "I wonder how many of us even begin to fight our
+desires--"
+
+"One has to be strong always if one wants to attain--but sometimes it is
+only honour which holds one--and weaklings are so pitiful."
+
+"What is honour?" Her eyes searched his face wistfully. "Is it being true
+to some canon of the laws of chivalry, or is it being true to some higher
+thing in one's own soul?"
+
+Denzil leaned against the tomb and he thought deeply: then he looked
+straight into her eyes:
+
+"Honour lies in not betraying a trust reposed in one, either in the
+spirit or in the letter."
+
+"Then, when, we say of a man 'he acted honourably,' we mean that he did
+not betray a trust placed in him, even if it was only perhaps by
+circumstance and not by a person."
+
+"It is simply that'--keeping faith. If a man stole a sum of money from a
+friend, the dishonour would not be in the act of stealing, which is
+another offence--but in abusing his friend's trust in him by committing
+that act."
+
+"Dishonour is a betrayal then--"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Why would this knight"--and she placed her hand on the marble face,
+"have said that he must kill another who had stolen his wife, say, to
+avenge his 'honour'?"
+
+"That is the conventional part of it--what Stepan calls the grafting
+on of a meaning to suit some idea of civilisation. It was a nice way
+of having personal revenges too and teaching people that they could
+not steal anything with impunity. If we analysed that kind of honour
+we would find it was principally vanity. The dishonour really lay with
+the wife, if she deceived her husband--and with the other man if he
+was the husband's friend--if he was not, his abduction of the woman
+was not 'dishonourable' because he was not trusted, it was merely an
+act of theft."
+
+"What then must we do when we are very strongly tempted?" Her voice was
+so low he could hardly hear it.
+
+"It is sometimes wisest to run away," and he turned from her and moved
+towards the door.
+
+She followed wondering. She knew not why she had promoted this
+discussion. She felt that she had been very unbalanced all the day.
+
+They went back to the house almost silently and through the green
+drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William
+Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time,
+filling one vast wall at the turn.
+
+And so they reached the cedar parlour, and found coffee waiting and
+cigarettes.
+
+There was a growing tension between them and each guessed that the other
+was not calm. Amaryllis began showing him the view from the windows
+across the park, and then the old fireplace and panelling of the room.
+
+"We sit here generally when we are alone," she said. "I like it the best
+of all the rooms in the house."
+
+"It is a fitting frame for you."
+
+They lit cigarettes.
+
+Denzil had many things he longed to say to her of the place, and the
+thoughts it called up in him--but he checked himself. The thing was to
+get through with it all quickly and to be gone. They went into the
+picture gallery then, and began from the end, and when they came to the
+Elizabethan Denzil they paused for a little while. The painted likeness
+was extraordinary to the living splendid namesake who gazed up at the old
+panel with such interested eyes.
+
+And Amaryllis was thinking:
+
+"If only John had that something in him which these two have in their
+eyes, how happy we could be."
+
+And Denzil was thinking:
+
+"I hope the child will reproduce the type." He felt it would be some kind
+of satisfaction to himself if she should have a son which should be his
+own image.
+
+"It is so strange," she remarked, "that you should be exactly like this
+Denzil, and yet resemble John who does not remind me of him at all,
+except in the general family look which every one of them share. This one
+might have been painted from you."
+
+He looked down at her suddenly and he was unable to control the
+passionate emotion in his eyes. He was thinking that yes, certainly, the
+child must be like him--and then what message would it convey to her?
+
+Amaryllis was disturbed, she longed to ask him what it was which she
+felt, and why there seemed some illusive remembrance always haunting her.
+She grew confused, and they passed on to another frame which contained
+the Lady Amaryllis who had had the sonnets written to her nut brown
+locks. She was a dainty creature in her stiff farthingale, but bore no
+likeness to the present mistress of Ardayre.
+
+Denzil examined her for some seconds, and then he said reflectively:
+
+"She is a Sweetheart--but she is not you!"
+
+There was some tone of tenderness in his voice when he said the word
+"Sweetheart" and Amaryllis started and drew in her breath. It recalled
+something which had given her joy, a low murmur whispered in the night.
+"Sweetheart!"--a word which John, alas! had never used before nor since,
+except in that one letter in answer to her cry of exaltation--her glad
+Magnificat. What was this echo sounding in her ears? How like Denzil's
+voice was to John's--only a little deeper. Why, why should he have used
+that word "Sweetheart"?
+
+No coherent thought had yet come to her, it was as though she had looked
+for an instant upon some scene which awakened a chord of memory, and then
+that the curtain had dropped before she could define it.
+
+She grew agitated, and Denzil turning, saw that her face was pale, and
+her grey eyes vague and troubled.
+
+"I am quite sure that it is tiring you, showing me all the house like
+this, we won't look at another picture--and really I must be getting on."
+
+She did not contradict him.
+
+"I am afraid that you ought to go perhaps, if you want to arrive by
+daylight."
+
+And as they returned to the green drawing-room she said some nice things
+about wanting to meet his mother, and she tried to be natural and at
+ease, but her hand was cold as ice when he held it in saying good-bye
+before the fire, when Filson had announced the motor.
+
+And if his eyes had shown passionate emotion in the picture gallery, hers
+now filled with question and distress.
+
+"Good-bye, Denzil--"
+
+"Good-bye, Amaryllis--" He could not bring himself to say the usual
+conventionalities, and went towards the door with nothing more.
+
+Her brain was clearing, terror and passion and uncertainty had come in
+like a flood.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+He turned to her side fearfully. Why had she called him now?
+
+"Denzil--?" her face had paled still further, and there was an anguish of
+pleading in it. "Oh, please, what does it all mean?" and she fell forward
+into his arms.
+
+He held her breathlessly. Had she fainted? No--she still stood on her
+feet, but her little face there lying on his breast was as a lily in
+whiteness and tears escaped from her closed eyes.
+
+"For God's sake, Denzil, have you not something to tell me? You cannot
+leave me so!"
+
+He shivered with the misery of things.
+
+"I have nothing to tell you, child." His voice was hoarse. "You are
+overwrought and overstrung. I have nothing to say to you but just
+good-bye."
+
+She held his coat and looked up at him wildly.
+
+"--Denzil--It was you--not--John!"
+
+He unclasped her clinging arms:
+
+"I must go."
+
+"You shall not until you answer me--I have a right to know."
+
+"I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the
+suffering of restraint.
+
+She clung to him again.
+
+"Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh!
+Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in
+uncertainty--tell me the truth or I shall die!"
+
+But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying
+protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course
+for him to follow--he must go, and the brutality of such action made him
+fierce with pain.
+
+She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He
+raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear
+seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really
+ill--?
+
+He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the
+more.
+
+"How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You
+dare not even pretend that you do not understand!"
+
+He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress.
+
+"Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go."
+
+"Denzil--" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops
+glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her--she looked
+but as a suffering child.
+
+"Denzil--if you knew everything, you could not possibly leave me--you
+don't know what has happened--But you must, you will have to
+since--soon--"
+
+He bowed his head and placed her two hands over his face with a
+despairing movement.
+
+"Hush--I implore you--say nothing. I do know, but I love you--I must
+go."
+
+At that she gave a glad cry and drew him close to her.
+
+"You shall not now! I do not care for conventions any more, or for laws,
+or for anything! I am a savage--you are mine! John must know that you are
+mine! The family is all that matters to him, I am only an instrument, a
+medium for its continuance--but Denzil, you and I are young and loving
+and living. It is you I desire, and now I know that I belong to you. You
+are the man and I am the woman--and the child will be our child!"
+
+Her spirit had arisen at last and broken all chains. She was
+transfigured, transformed, translated. No one knowing the gentle
+Amaryllis could have recognised her in this fierce, primitive creature
+claiming her mate!
+
+Furious, answering passion surged through Denzil; it was the supreme
+moment when all artificial restrictions of civilisation were swept away.
+Nature had come to her own. All her forces were working for these two of
+her children brought near by a turn of fate. He strained her in his arms
+wildly--he kissed her lips, and ears, and eyes.
+
+"Mine, mine," he cried, and then "Sweetheart!"
+
+And for some seconds which seemed an eternity of bliss they forgot all
+but the joy of love.
+
+But presently reality fell upon Denzil and he almost groaned.
+
+"I must leave you, precious dear one--even so--I gave my word of honour
+to John that I would never take advantage of the situation. Fate has done
+this thing by bringing us together; it has overwhelmed us. I do not feel
+that we are greatly to blame, but that does not release me from my
+promise. It is all a frightful price that we must pay for pride in the
+Family. Darling, help me to have courage to go."
+
+"I will not--It is shameful cruelty," and she clung to him, "that we must
+be parted now I am yours really--not John's at all. Everything in my
+heart and being cries out to you--you are the reality of my dream lover,
+your image has been growing in my vision for months. I love you, Denzil,
+and it is your right to stay with me now and take care of me, and it is
+my right to tell you of my thoughts about the--child--Ah! if you knew
+what it means to me, the joy, the wonder, the delight! I cannot keep it
+all to myself any longer. I am starving! I am frozen! I want to tell it
+all to my Beloved!"
+
+He held her to him again--and she poured forth the tenderest holy things,
+and he listened enraptured and forgot time and place.
+
+"Denzil," she whispered at last, from the shelter of his arms. "I have
+felt so strange--exalted, ever since--and now I shall have this ever
+present thought of you and love women in my existence--But how is it
+going to be in the years which are coming? How can I go on pretending to
+John?--I cannot--I shall blurt out the truth--For me there is only
+you--not just the you of these last days since we saw each other with our
+eyes--but the you that I had dreamed about and fashioned as my lover--my
+delight--Can I whisper to John all my joy and tenderness as I watch the
+growing up of my little one? No! the thing is monstrous, grotesque--I
+will not face the pain of it all. John gave you to me--he must have done
+so--it was some compact between you both for the family, and if I did not
+love you I should hate you now, and want to kill myself. But I love you,
+I love you, I love you!" and she fiercely clasped her arms once more
+about his neck. "You must take the consequences of your action. I did not
+ask to have this complication in my life. John forced it upon me for his
+own aims, but I have to be reckoned with, and I want my lover, I claim my
+mate." Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes flashed.
+
+"And your lover wants you," and Denzil wildly returned her fond caress,
+"but the choice is not left to me, darling, even if you were my wife, not
+John's. You have forgotten the war--I must go out and fight."
+
+All the warmth and passion died out of her, and she lay back on the
+pillows of the sofa for a moment and closed her eyes. She had
+indeed forgotten that ghastly colossus in her absorption in their
+own two selves.
+
+Yes--he must go out and fight--and John would go too--and they might both
+be killed like all those gallant partners of the season and her cousin,
+and those who had fallen at Mons and the battle of the Marne.
+
+No--she must not be so paltry as to think of personal things, even love.
+She must rise above all selfishness, and not make it harder for her man.
+Her little face grew resigned and sanctified, and Denzil watching her
+with burning, longing eyes, waited for her to speak.
+
+"It is true--for the moment nothing but you and my great desire for you
+was in my mind. But you are right, Denzil; of course, I cannot keep you.
+Only I am glad that just this once we have tasted a brief moment of
+happiness, and--Denzil, I believe our souls belong to each other, even if
+we do not meet again on earth."
+
+And when at last they had parted, and Amaryllis, listening, heard the
+motor go, she rose from the sofa and went out through the window to the
+lawn, and so to the church again, and there lay on the steps of the young
+knight's tomb, sobbing and praying until darkness enveloped the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko.
+The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very
+little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis,
+but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in
+him--the zest of going out to fight!
+
+Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the
+opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct
+things from so far.
+
+They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory
+fashion all through the _hors d'ouvres_ and the soup.
+
+"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel
+inclined to end it all sometimes."
+
+"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool,
+Stepan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the
+composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have
+another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again.
+It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it
+comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's
+just rot."
+
+"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne,
+while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.
+
+"They don't have decent vodka--but the brandy will do the trick," and in
+an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.
+
+"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like
+that--I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom
+and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the
+knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"
+
+"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I
+should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing
+before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed
+about you though, Stepan--you are fundamentally sane."
+
+"I am glad you think that--very few English understand us--"
+
+"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality
+and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to
+sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking
+like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half
+your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary
+to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his
+luck for the moment."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed outright.
+
+"Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!"
+
+"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"
+
+"I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+Denzil looked at him keenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--"
+
+"Then you know how she is?"
+
+"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are
+acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are
+aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off
+to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English,
+you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about
+it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the
+child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I!
+Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that
+is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the
+thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and
+protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions
+might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real
+truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards
+up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."
+
+Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth
+of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak
+all the same.
+
+"Tell me what you know, Stepan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not
+because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."
+
+"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the
+Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I
+feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves
+you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this
+miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen
+her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"
+
+Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko
+understand in a few words--the Russian's imagination filled in the
+details.
+
+He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke.
+
+"So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her--he must indeed be
+obsessed by the family!"
+
+"He is--he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozen
+Amaryllis from the first day."
+
+"My idea was always for this, directly I went to Ardayre. I felt that
+mysterious pull of the family there in that glorious house. I thought she
+would probably simplify things by just taking you for a lover, when you
+met, as you are her counterpart--a perfect mate for her. I had even made
+up my mind to suggest this to her, and influence her as much as I could
+to this end--but lo! the husband takes the matter out of our hands and
+devises a really unique accomplishment of our wishes. Gosh! Denzil! it's
+John who's got the common sense and the genius, not we!"
+
+"Yes, he has--so far, but he did not reckon with human emotion. He might
+have known that directly I should see Amaryllis I should fall in love
+with her, and he ought to have understood that that extraordinary thing,
+nature, might make her draw to me afterwards. Now the situation is
+tragic, however you look at it. John will have the hell of a life if he
+comes back; he can't help feeling jealous every time he sees the child,
+and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be
+great. Amaryllis is wretched--she is passionate and vivid as a humming
+bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human
+power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I
+absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I
+come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and
+I, and if the family makes all this suffering worth while? Perhaps it
+would have been better to leave it to fate!" Denzil sighed and forgot to
+notice a dish the waiter was handing.
+
+"It is perfectly certain," and Verisschenzko grew contemplative, "that
+the result of deliberately turning the current of events like that must
+have some momentous consequence. Mind you, I think you were right. I
+should have advised it as I have told you, because of that swine of a
+Turk, Ferdinand--but it may have deranged some plan of the Cosmos, and
+if so some of you will have to pay for it. I hate that it should be my
+lady Amaryllis. All her sorrow comes from your dramatically honourable
+promise. You can't make love to her now--because a man who is a
+gentleman does not break his word. Now if my plan had been followed, you
+would not have had this limitation and you could have had some joy--but
+who knows! A false position is a gall in any case, and it would have
+soiled my star, which now shines purely. So perhaps all is for the best.
+But have you analysed, now that we are on the subject, what it is 'being
+in love,' old boy?"
+
+"It is divine--and it is hell--"
+
+"All that! Amaryllis is the exact opposite to Harietta Boleski--in this,
+that she attracts as strongly as Harietta could ever do physically, and
+will be no disappointment in soul in the _entre actes_. _Being in love_
+is a physical state of exaltation; _loving_ is the merging of spirit
+which in its white heat has glorified the physical instinct for
+re-creation into a godlike beatitude not of earth. A man could be in love
+with Harietta, he could never love her. A man could always love
+Amaryllis, so much that he would not be aware that half his joy was
+because he was _in love_ with her also."
+
+"You know, Stepan, men, women and every one talk a lot of nonsense about
+other interests in life mattering more, and there being other kinds of
+really better happiness, but it is pure rot; if one is honest one owns
+that there is no real happiness but in the satisfaction of love. Every
+other kind is second best. It is jolly good often, but only a _pis aller_
+in comparison to the real thing.
+
+"And when people deny this, believing they are speaking honestly, it is
+simply because the real thing has not come their way, or they are too
+brutalised by transient indulgences to be able to feel exaltation.
+
+"So here's to love!" and Denzil emptied his glass. "The supreme God--"
+
+_"Ainsi soit il,"_ and Stepan drank in response. "Our toast before has
+always been to the Ardayre son, and now we drink to what I hope has been
+his creator!"
+
+They were silent for some moments, and then Verisschenzko went on:
+
+"When the state of being in love is waning, affection often remains, but
+then one is at the mercy of a new emotion. I'd be nervous if a woman who
+had loved me subsided into feeling affection!"
+
+"Then define loving?"
+
+"Loving throbs with delight in the flesh; it thrills the spirit with
+reverence. It glorifies into beauty commonplace things. It draws nearer
+in sickness and sorrow, and is not the sport of change. When a woman
+loves truly she has the passion of the mistress, the selfless tenderness
+of the mother, the dignity and devotion of the wife. She is all fire and
+snow, all will and frankness, all passion and reserve, she is
+authoritative and obedient--queen and child."
+
+"And a man?"
+
+"He ceases to be a brute and becomes a god."
+
+"Can it last, I wonder?" and again Denzil sighed.
+
+"It could if people were not such fools--they nearly always deliberately
+destroy the loved one's emotion by senseless stupidity--in not grasping
+the fact that no fire burns without fuel. They disillusionise each other.
+The joy once secured, they take no pains to keep it. A woman will do
+things when the lover is an acknowledged possession, which she would not
+have dreamed of doing while desiring to attract the man--and a man
+likewise--neither realising that the whole state of being in love is an
+intoxication of the senses, and that the senses are very easily wearied
+or affronted."
+
+"Stepan--what am I going to do about Amaryllis? If I come back, it will
+be hell--a continual longing and aching, and I want to accomplish
+something in life; it was never my plan to have the whole thing held and
+bounded by passion for a woman. A hopeless passion I can understand
+facing and crushing, but one which you know that the woman returns, and
+that it is only the law and promises you have made which separate you, is
+the most awful torment." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.
+His face was stern. "And her life too--how sickening. You say you are
+going down to Ardayre to see Amaryllis--you will tell me how you find
+her. I have not written--I am trying not to feel."
+
+"Are you interested about the coming child? I am never quite certain how
+much it matters to a man, whether we deceive ourselves and feel sentiment
+simply because we love the woman, whether the emotion is half vanity, or
+whether there is something in the actual state called parenthood? How do
+you feel?"
+
+Denzil thought of his musings upon this subject after he had seen
+Amaryllis at the Carlton.
+
+"It is hard to describe," he answered now, "it is all so interwoven with
+love for Amaryllis that I cannot distinguish which is which, or how I
+feel about the state in the abstract. Women have these mysterious
+emotions, I believe, but I do not think that they come to the average
+man, but if he loves it seems a fulfilment."
+
+"I have two children scattered in Russia, begotten before I had begun to
+think of things and their meanings. I have them finely educated--I loathe
+them. I sicken at the memory of the mothers; I am ashamed when I see in
+them some chance physical likeness to myself. But how will you feel
+presently when you see the child, adoring the mother as you do? What will
+it say to you, looking at you with your own eyes, perhaps? You'll long to
+have some hand in the training of it. You'll desire to watch the budding
+brain and the expanding soul. You'll be drawn closer and closer to
+Amaryllis--it will all pull you with an invisible nature chain--"
+
+"I know it,--that is the tragedy of the whole thing. Those delights will
+be John's--and I hate to think that Amaryllis will be alone for all these
+months--and yet I believe I would prefer that to her being with John. I
+am jealous when I remember that he has rights denied to me--so what must
+he feel, poor devil, when he remembers about me?"
+
+"It is quite a peculiar situation. I wonder what the years will
+develop it into."
+
+"If the child is a girl, the whole thing is in vain."
+
+"It won't be a girl--you will see I am right. When will you and John get
+leave, do you suppose?"
+
+"I don't know, but about Christmas, perhaps, if we are alive--"
+
+"Do you want to see her again, then?"
+
+"I long always to see her--but by Christmas--it would be nearly five
+months. I don't think I could keep my word and not make love to her--if I
+saw her--then."
+
+"You will wish to hear about her--?"
+
+"Always."
+
+After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed.
+Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his
+highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future
+hold? Only one--that of death for either of the men concerned. Well,
+death was busy with England's best--it was no unlikely possibility--and
+as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and
+living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood,
+crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years.
+
+"I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical,
+as was his habit, when he found himself moved.
+
+"I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new
+lover--Ferdinand Ardayre."
+
+"What a combination!"
+
+"Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace.
+Stanislass is quite a _gaga_--he spends his time packed off to play
+piquet at the St. James'--he has no _bosse des cartes_,--it is his
+burdensome duty."
+
+"He does not feel the war?"
+
+"He is numb."
+
+"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"
+
+"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a
+fitting end."
+
+"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.
+
+"My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes."
+
+Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the
+time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John,
+so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her.
+
+John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the
+iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but
+the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in
+self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made
+him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed--he felt
+it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious--they had grown from a girl's
+into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did--and
+then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this
+pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause--he knew that he
+had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He
+thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window
+until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had
+indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she
+reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility
+might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going
+to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the
+appointment, so they spoke at the ball.
+
+Would it have been better if he had let himself go and fondly kissed and
+netted Amaryllis? Or would that have been misleading and still more
+unkind? It was too late now, in any case. He must learn to take the only
+satisfaction which was left to him, the knowledge that there was the hope
+of a true Ardayre to carry on.
+
+He talked long to his wife of his desires for the child's education,
+should it prove a boy, and he should not return, and Amaryllis listened
+dutifully.
+
+Her mind was filled with wonder all the time. She had been through much
+emotion since the passionate outburst after Denzil had gone, but was
+quite calm now. She had classified things in her mind. She felt no
+resentment against John. He ought not to have married her perhaps, but it
+might be that at the time he did not know. Only she wondered when she
+looked at him sitting opposite her, talking gravely about the baby, in
+the library of Brook Street, how he could possibly be feeling. What an
+immense influence the thought of the family must have in his life. She
+understood it in a great measure herself. She remembered Verisschenzko's
+words upon the occasions when he had spoken to her about it, and of her
+duties towards it, and how she must uphold it. She particularly
+remembered that which he had said when they walked by the lake, and he
+had seemed to be transmitting some message to her, which she had not
+understood at the time. Did Verisschenzko know then that John must always
+be heirless and had he been suggesting to her that the line should go on
+through her? Some of the pride in it all had come to her before she had
+left the dark church after parting with Denzil. Perhaps she was
+fulfilling destiny. She must not be angry with John. She did not try to
+cease from loving Denzil. She had not knowingly been unfaithful to
+John--and now, she would be faithful to Denzil, he was her love and her
+mate. Indeed, even in the fortnight which elapsed between her farewell
+to him, and now when she was going to say farewell to John, she had many
+months of tender consolation in the thought of the baby--Denzil's son.
+She could revive and revel in that exquisite exaltation which she had
+experienced at first and which John had withered. Denzil far surpassed
+even the imagined lover into which she had turned John. So now Denzil had
+become the reality, and John the dream.
+
+She felt sorry for her husband too. She was fine enough to understand and
+divine his difficulties.
+
+She found that she felt just nothing for him but a kindly affection. He
+might have been Archie de la Paule--or any of her other cousins. She knew
+that her whole being was given to Denzil--who represented her dream.
+
+She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before
+starting, the tears came to her eyes.
+
+Poor good, cold John!
+
+And when he had departed--all the de la Paule family had been there at
+Brook Street also--Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But
+what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that
+there might be a son!
+
+So both Denzil and John went to the war--and Amaryllis was alone.
+Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her--and it was the
+beginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up at
+Brook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.
+
+"Of course!" she said, and so he came.
+
+The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging
+flowers and cushions and such things--her rooms always breathed an air of
+home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the
+warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.
+
+She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had
+dined with her.
+
+"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea
+and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to
+tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested
+about it all."
+
+Amaryllis blushed a soft pink--he went on with perfect calm.
+
+"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules
+you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or
+discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with
+anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some
+self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has
+wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort
+in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to
+have a baby, do you not think so?"
+
+"Of course I do--" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She
+really wished to talk to her friend.
+
+"Who told you about it?" she asked.
+
+"Denzil."
+
+Amaryllis drew in her breath suddenly. Verisschenzko's eyes were looking
+her through and through.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+"Yes,--he is glad that there may be the possibility of a son for
+the family."
+
+"How do you feel about it? It is an enormous responsibility to have
+children."
+
+"I feel that--I want to do the wisest things from the beginning--"
+
+"You must take great care of yourself, and always remain serene. Never
+let your mind become agitated by speculation as to the _presently_, keep
+all thoughts fixed upon the now."
+
+Amaryllis looked at him a little troubled. What did he know? Something
+tangible, or were these views of his just applicable to any case? Her
+eyes were full of question and pleading.
+
+"What do you want to ask me?" His eyes narrowed in contemplating her.
+
+"I--I--do not know."
+
+"Yes, you want to hear of Denzil--is it not so?"
+
+She clasped her hands.
+
+"Yes--perhaps--"
+
+"He is well--I heard from him yesterday. He asked me to come to you. His
+mother is still at Bath--he wishes you to meet."
+
+Suddenly the impossibleness of everything seemed to come over Amaryllis.
+She rose quickly and threw out her hands:
+
+"Oh! if I could only understand the meaning of things, my friend! I am
+afraid to think!"
+
+"You love Denzil very much--yes?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"Sit down and let us talk about it, lady of my soul. I am your
+mother now."
+
+She sank into her seat beside him, among the green silk pillows--and he
+leaned back and watched her for a while.
+
+"He fulfils some imaginary picture, _hein?_ You had not seen him really
+until we all dined?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were bound to be drawn to him--he is everything a woman could
+desire--but it was not only that--tell me?"
+
+"He was what I had hoped John would be--the likeness is so great--"
+
+"It is much deeper than that--nature was drawing you unconsciously."
+
+She covered her face with her hands. It seemed as if Verisschenzko must
+know the truth. Had Denzil told him, or was it his wonderful intuition
+which was enlightening him now, or was it just her sensitive conscience?
+
+"You see custom and convention and false shames have so distorted most
+natural things that no one has been taught to understand them. Men were
+intended in the scheme of things to love women and to have children;
+women were meant to love men and to desire to be mothers. These instincts
+are primordial, the life of the world depends upon them. They have been
+distorted and abused into sins and vices and excesses and every evil by
+civilisation, so that now we rule them out of every calculation in
+judging of a circumstance; if we are 'nice' people they are taboo.
+Supposing we so suppressed and distorted and misused the other two
+primitive instincts, to obtain food and to kill one's enemy, the world
+would have ended long ago. We have done what we could to distort those
+also, but nothing to the extent to which we have debased the nobility of
+the recreative instinct!"
+
+Amaryllis listened attentively, and he went on:
+
+"It is admitted that we require food to live--and that if we are
+threatened with death from an enemy we have the right to kill him in
+self-defence. But it is never admitted that it is equally natural that we
+desire to recreate our species. Under certain circumstances of vows and
+restrictions, we are permitted to take one partner for life--and--if this
+person turns out to be a fraud for the purpose for which we made the
+promise, we may not have another. Supposing hungry savages were given
+covered dishes purporting to contain food, and upon lifting the cover one
+of them discovered his dish was empty--what would happen? He would bear
+it as long as he could, but when he was starving he would certainly try
+to steal some food from his neighbour--and might even knock him on the
+head and obtain it! Civilisation has controlled primitive instincts, so
+that a civilised man might perhaps prefer to die himself from starvation
+rather than kill or steal. He is master of his actions, _but he is not
+master of the effects of his abstinence--Nature wins these,_ and whatever
+would be the natural physical result of his abstinence occurs. Now you
+can reason this thought out in all its branches, and you will see where
+it leads to--"
+
+Amaryllis mused for some moments--and she saw the justice of his
+reflections.
+
+"But for hundreds of years there have been priests and nuns and companies
+of ascetics," she remarked tentatively.
+
+"There have been hundreds of lunatics also--and madness is not on the
+decrease. When you destroy nature you always produce the abnormal, when
+life survives from your treatment."
+
+"You think that it is natural that one should have a mate then?"--she
+hesitated.
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"It is more important than the keeping of vows?"
+
+"No, the spirit is degraded by the knowledge of broken vows--only one
+must have intelligence to realise what the price of keeping them will be,
+and then summon strength enough to carry out whatever course is best for
+the soul, or best for the ideal one is living for. Sometimes that end
+requires ruthlessness, and sometimes that end requires that we starve in
+one way or another, so _we must_ be prepared for sacrifice perhaps of
+life, or what makes life worth living, if we are strong enough to keep
+vows which we have been short-sighted enough to make too hastily."
+
+Amaryllis gazed in front of her--then she asked softly:
+
+"Do you think it is wicked of me to be thinking of Denzil--not John?"
+
+"No--it is quite natural--the wickedness would be if you pretended to
+John that you were thinking of him. Deception is wickedness."
+
+"Everything is so sad now. Both have gone to fight. I do not dare to
+think at all."
+
+"Yes, you must think--you must think of your child and draw to it all the
+good forces, so that it may come to life unhampered by any weakness of
+balance in you. That must be your constant self-discipline. Keep serene
+and try to live in a world of noble ideals and serenity. Now I am going
+to play to you--"
+
+Amaryllis had never heard Verisschenzko play. He arranged the sofa
+cushions and made her lie comfortably among them, then he went to the
+piano--and presently it seemed to her that her soul was floating upward
+into realms of perfect content. She had never even dreamed of such
+playing. It was like nothing she had ever heard before, the sounds
+touched all the highest chords in her spirit. She did not ask whose was
+the music. She seemed to know that it was Verisschenzko's own, which was
+just talking to her, telling her to be calm and brave and true.
+
+He played for a whole hour--and at last softly and yet more softly, and
+when he finished he saw that she was quietly asleep.
+
+A smile as tender as a mother's came into his rugged face, and he stole
+from the room noiselessly, breathing a blessing as he passed.
+
+And somewhere in France, Denzil and John were thinking of her too, each
+with great love in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Harietta Boleski was growing dissatisfied with her life. England was of
+no amusement to her, and yet Hans insisted upon her staying on. She
+wanted to go to Paris. The war altogether was a supreme bore and upset
+her plans!
+
+She had been so successful in her obvious stupid way that Hans had been
+enabled to transmit the most useful information to his country, which had
+assisted to foil more than one Allied plan. Harietta saw numbers of old
+gentlemen who pulled strings in that time, and although they wearied her,
+she found them easier to extract news from than the younger men. Her
+method was so irresistible: a direct appeal to the senses, and it hardly
+ever failed. If only Hans would consent to her returning to Paris, with
+the help of Ferdinand Ardayre, who was now her slave, she promised
+wonderful things.
+
+Hans, as a Swedish philanthropic gentleman, had been over to give her
+instructions once or twice, and at last had agreed to her crossing
+the Channel.
+
+She told this good news to Ferdinand one afternoon just before Christmas,
+when he came in to see her in London.
+
+"I'm going to Paris, Ferdie, and you must come too. There's no use in
+your pretending that England matters to you, and you are of such use to
+us with your branch business in Holland like that. If I'd thought in the
+beginning that there was a chance to knock out Germany, I would have been
+right on this side, because there's no two ways about it, England's the
+place to have a good time in, but I've information which makes it certain
+that we shall take Calais in the Spring, and so I guess it's safer to
+cling to Kaiser Bill--and get it all done soon, then we can enjoy
+ourselves again. I do pine for a tango! My! I'm just through with this
+dull time!"
+
+Ferdinand was a rest to her, almost as good as Hans. She had not to be
+over-refined--she knew that he was on the same level as herself. He
+amused her too in several ways.
+
+He looked sulky now. It did not suit his plans to go to Paris yet. He was
+trying to collect information for a game of his own. But where Harietta
+went he must go, he was besotted about her, and knew that he could not
+trust her a yard.
+
+He protested a little that they were very well where they were, but as
+she never allowed any one's wishes to interfere with her plans she
+only smiled.
+
+"I'm going on Saturday. We have secured a suite at the Universal this
+time, now that the Rhin is shut up, and it is such a large hotel, you can
+quite well stay there; Stanislass won't notice you among the crowd."
+
+Ferdinand agreed unwillingly--and just then Verisschenzko came in. He had
+not seen Madame Boleski since the night at the Carlton, having taken care
+not to let her know of his further visits to England since.
+
+He looked at Ferdinand Ardayre as though he had been some bit of
+furniture, and he took up Fou-Chow who was cowering beneath a chair. He
+did not speak a word.
+
+Harietta talked for every one for a little while, and then she began to
+feel nervous.
+
+Verisschenzko smiled lazily--he was trying an experiment. The interview
+could not go on like this; Ferdinand Ardayre would certainly have to go.
+
+Now that Verisschenzko had come, Harietta ardently wished that he would.
+
+The most venomous hate was arising in Ferdinand's resentful soul. He felt
+that here was a rival to be dreaded indeed. He saw that Harietta was
+nervous; he had never seen her so before. He shut his teeth and
+determined to stay on.
+
+Verisschenzko continued his disconcerting silence. Harietta felt that
+she should presently scream! She took Fou-Chow from Stepan and pinched
+him cruelly in her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed
+him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if
+she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet
+sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female
+friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when
+she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed
+out of her way.
+
+He showed evident fear of her and ran from her always, so that when
+she wanted to make a picture with him, she was obliged to carry him
+in her arms.
+
+Verisschenzko raised one bushy eyebrow, and a sardonic smile came
+into his eyes.
+
+Madame Boleski saw that she had made a mistake in showing her temper to
+the dog; it would have given her pleasure then to wring its neck!
+
+The two men sat on. She began to grow so uncomfortable that she could
+endure it no more.
+
+"You are coming back to dinner, Mr. Ardayre," she remarked at length,
+"and I want you to get me gardenias to wear, if you will be so kind, and
+I am afraid you will have to hurry as the shops close soon."
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre rose, rage showing in his mean face, but as he had no
+choice he said good-bye. Harietta accompanied him to the door, pressing
+his hand stealthily, then she returned to the Russian with flaming eyes.
+He had not uttered a word.
+
+"How dare you make me so nervous, sitting there like a log! I won't stand
+for such treatment--you Bear!"
+
+"Then sit down. Why do you have that Turk with you at all?"
+
+"He is not a Turk; he's an Englishman and a friend of mine. Why, he is
+the brother of your precious John Ardayre--and they have behaved
+shamefully to him, poor dear boy."
+
+She was still enraged.
+
+"He is not even a pure Turk--some of them are gentlemen. He is just the
+scum of the earth, and no blood relation to John Ardayre."
+
+"He will let them know whether he is or not some day! I hear that your
+bit of bread and butter is going to have a child, and as Ferdie says it
+can't be John's, I suppose it is yours!"
+
+Verisschenzko's face looked dangerous.
+
+"You would do well to guard your words, Harietta. I do not permit you to
+make such remarks to me--and it would be more prudent if you warned your
+friend that he had better not make such assertions either--do you
+understand?"
+
+Harietta felt some twinge of fear at the strange tone in the Russian's
+voice, but she was too out of temper to be cowed now.
+
+"Puh!" and she tossed her head. "If the child is a boy Ferdie will have
+something to say--and as for Amaryllis--I hate her! I'd like to kill her
+with my own hands."
+
+Verisschenzko rose and stood before her--and there was a look in his eyes
+which made her suddenly grow cold.
+
+"Listen," he said icily. "I have warned you once and you know me well
+enough to decide whether I ever speak lightly. I warn you again to be
+careful of your words and your deeds. I shall warn you no more--if you
+transgress a third time--then I will strike."
+
+Harietta grew pale to her painted lips.
+
+How would he strike? Not with a stick as Hans would have done, but
+in some much more deadly way. She changed her manner instantly and
+began to laugh.
+
+"Darling Brute!"
+
+Verisschenzko knew that he had alarmed her sufficiently, so he sat down
+in his chair again and lit a cigarette calmly--then he sniffed the air.
+
+"Your mongrel friend uses the same perfume as Stanislass' mistress!"
+
+"Stanislass' mistress?" she had forgotten for the moment.
+
+"Yes--don't you remember we burnt his scented handkerchief the last time
+we met, because we did not like her taste in perfumes?"
+
+Harietta's ill humour rose again; she was annoyed that she had forgotten
+this incident. Her instinct of self-preservation usually preserved her
+from committing any such mistakes. She felt that it was now advisable to
+become cajoling; also there was something in the face of Verisschenzko
+and his fierceness which aroused renewed passion in her--it was absurd
+to waste time in quarrelling with him when in an hour Stanislass might be
+coming in, so she went over behind his chair and smoothed back his thick
+dark hair.
+
+"You know that I adore you, darling Brute!"
+
+"Of course--" he did not even turn his head towards her. "Have you had
+your heart's desire here in England?"
+
+"Before this stupid war came--yes--now I'm through with it. I'm for
+Paris again."
+
+"I suppose I must have been mistaken, but I thought I caught sight of
+your handsome German friend in the hall just now?"
+
+"German friend--who?"
+
+"Your _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball. I have forgotten his name."
+
+"And so have I."
+
+At that instant Marie appeared at the door and Fou-Chow came from under
+the chair where he was sheltering and pattered towards her with a glad
+tiny whine. The maid's eyes rounded with dislike as she looked at her
+mistress; she realised that the little creature had been roughly treated
+again. She picked him up and could hardly control her voice into a tone
+of respectfulness as she spoke:
+
+"Monsieur Insborg demands if he can see Madame in half an hour. He
+telephoned to Madame but received no reply."
+
+For a second Harietta's eyes betrayed her; they narrowed with alarm, and
+then she said suavely: "I suppose the receiver was off. No, say I am
+dining early for the theatre--but to-morrow at five."
+
+The maid inclined her head and left the room silently, carrying
+Fou-Chow, but as she did so her eyes met Verisschenzko's and their
+expression suggested to him several things:
+
+"Marie loves the dog--so she hates Harietta. Good--we shall see."
+
+Thus his thoughts ran, but aloud he asked what Harietta meant to do with
+her life in Paris, and who had been her lovers here?
+
+"You do say such frightful things to me, Stepan," and she tossed her
+head. "You think that because I took you, I take others! Pah!--and if I
+do--these Englishmen are peaches, just like little school boys--they'd
+not harm a fly. But I only love you, Darling Brute--even though we have
+had a row."
+
+"I know that, of course. I am not jealous, only you have not given me any
+proofs lately, so I am going to retire from the field. I came to say
+good-bye."
+
+He looked adorably attractive, Harietta thought--he made her blood run.
+Ferdinand Ardayre was but an instructed weakling, when one had come
+through his intricacies there was nothing in him. As a lover he was not
+worth the Russian's little finger, and the more Verisschenzko eluded
+her, the higher her passion for him grew; and here he was after months
+of absence and suggesting that he would leave her for ever! This was not
+to be borne!
+
+The enraging part was that she would not dare to try to keep him with
+Hans again upon the scene. She hated Hans once more as she had hated him
+at the Ardayre ball!
+
+Verisschenzko did not attempt to caress her; he sat perfectly still, nor
+did he speak.
+
+Harietta could not think how to cope with this new mood; her weariness
+with the gloom of England and the absence of amusement seemed to render
+Stepan more than ever desirable. He represented the wild, the strong, the
+primitive, the only thing she felt that she desired at that moment--and
+if she let him go to-day he was capable of never coming back to her
+again. It was worth using any means to keep him on. She knew that she
+could obtain some show of love from him if she bribed him with bits of
+news. It would serve Hans right too for daring to turn up so
+inconveniently!
+
+So she came from behind his chair and sat down on Verisschenzko's knee
+and commenced to whisper in his ear.
+
+"Now I am beginning to think that you love me again," he announced
+presently,--"and of course I must always pay for love!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were seated by the fire in two armchairs when Stanislass came in
+from the Club before dinner at eight. Harietta had not even remembered
+that she must dress, so intoxicated with re-awakened passion for
+Verisschenzko had she become. A man for her must be in the room; her
+affection could not keep alight in absence. She had revelled in the joy
+of finding again a complete physical master. She loved him as a tigress
+may love her tamer, the man with the whip; and the knowledge that she was
+deceiving Hans and her husband and Ferdinand added a fillip to her
+satisfaction. But how was she going to be sure to see Stepan again--that
+was the question which still agitated her. Verisschenzko wished to
+further examine Ferdinand Ardayre, and so decided to make every one
+uncomfortable once more by staying on. Stanislass, very nervous with him
+now, talked fast and foolishly. Harietta fidgeted, and in a moment or two
+Ferdinand Ardayre was announced.
+
+He reddened with annoyance to see the Russian had not gone; the flowers
+which he had brought were in a parcel in his hand.
+
+Harietta took them disdainfully without a word of thanks. What a nuisance
+the creature was after all!--and Stanislass was--and everything and
+anything was which kept her from being alone with Verisschenzko!
+
+"When are you coming to see me again, Stepan?" she asked, determined not
+to let him part without some definite future meeting settled.
+
+"I will come back and take coffee with you to-night," he answered
+unexpectedly.
+
+Harietta was enchanted, she had not hoped for this.
+
+"No one bothers so much about dressing now, stay and dine as you are."
+
+"Yes, do," chimed in Stanislass timidly in Russian, "we should be
+so charmed."
+
+"Very well--I will dine--but I must change. I shall not be long though.
+Begin dinner without me, I will join you before the fish." And with no
+further waste of words he left them.
+
+Harietta pushed Stanislass gently from the room with an injunction to be
+quick--and then she returned and held out her arms to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"Now you must not be jealous, Ferdie pet, about Verisschenzko," and she
+patted him. "It is business--I must talk to him to-night; he has an idea
+that you and I are not favourable to the Allies," and she laughed
+delightedly, "and I must get him off this notion!"
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre looked sullen; he was burning with jealousy.
+
+"Will you make it up to me afterwards?"
+
+"But, of course, in the usual way!" and with one of her wonderful kisses
+Harietta went laughing from the room.
+
+Left alone, the young man gave himself a morphine _piqure_, and then sat
+down and held his head in his hands.
+
+He had heard, as he had told Harietta earlier in the afternoon, that his
+brother's wife was going to have a child, and he could find no way of
+proving legally that it could not be John's, so his venom had grown with
+his impotence.
+
+His mother had said to him once:
+
+"The accursed English will always beat us, my son. Thy real father would
+have put poison in their coffee. We can only hope for revenge some day. I
+fear we shall never gain our desires. The old fool whom thou callest
+father must be sucked dry of everything while he lives, because no
+quarter will be given us once the breath is out of his body."
+
+Was this true? Must the English always beat him? He remembered his hatred
+of Denzil while at Eton, and the dog's life he had often led there. Well,
+he would hit back with an adder's sting when the chance came to him. He
+would like to see both Ardayres ruined and England herself in the dust,
+numbed and conquered. All his English life and education had never made
+him anything but an alien in thought and appearance.
+
+It was his powerlessness which enraged him, but surely the day must come
+when he could make some of them suffer.
+
+Harietta had not appeared in the hall when Verisschenzko returned
+dressed, and she even kept all three men waiting for about ten minutes,
+and then swept in resplendent in yellow brocade and the gardenias, when
+the clock had struck nine and most of the other diners were having
+their coffee.
+
+The atmosphere of restraint and depression was a constant source of
+resentment to her. It was all very well to be dignified and refined for
+some definite end, like securing an unquestioned position, but it was a
+weariness of the flesh to have to keep up this role month after month
+with no excitement or reward, and every now and then she felt that she
+must break out even in small ways by wearing too gorgeous and unsuitable
+raiment. She wished that Germany would be quick about winning, then
+things could settle down and she could begin her social career again.
+
+"It don't amount to a row of pins to the people who want to enjoy
+themselves, as I do, if their country is beaten or not; it'll all be the
+same six months after peace is declared, so I'm all for knocking
+whichever seems feeblest out quickly," she had said to Ferdinand, "and
+Paris will always be top of the world for clothes and things that one
+wants, so what do old politics matter?"
+
+She derived some pleasure out of the sensation she created when she went
+into a restaurant, and she really looked extraordinarily handsome.
+
+The dinner amused her, too; it was entertaining to make Ferdinand
+jealous. The emotions of Stanislass had ceased to count to her in any way
+whatsoever.
+
+Verisschenzko had discovered what he required in regard to Ferdinand
+Ardayre before they went into the hall for coffee--there was nothing
+further to be gained by having another tete-a-tete with Harietta, so he
+sat down by Stanislass and suggested that the other two should go on to
+the Coliseum without them, and Harietta was obliged to depart reluctantly
+with Ferdinand, having arranged that Stepan should let her know, directly
+he arrived in Paris, whither he was going in a day or two also.
+
+When she had left them Stanislass Boleski turned melancholy eyes to his
+old friend, but remained silent.
+
+"Has it been worth it?" Verisschenzko asked, with certain feeling--they
+had relapsed into Russian.
+
+Stanislass sighed deeply.
+
+"No--far from it--I am broken and finished, Stepan, she has devoured
+my soul--"
+
+"Why don't you kill her! I should."
+
+The Pole clenched one of his transparent looking hands:
+
+"I cannot--I desire her so--she is an obsession. I cannot work--she
+leaves me neither time nor brain. But I want her always, she is a burning
+torment, and a blast, and a sin. I see visions of the chance that I have
+missed, and then all is obliterated by her voluptuous kisses. I die each
+day with jealousy and shame. She withholds herself, and I would pay with
+the blood from my veins to possess her again!"
+
+"You have no longer any delusions about her--you see her as a curse and
+a vampire?"
+
+Stanislass reddened.
+
+"I see everything, but I know only desire. Stepan, she has dragged me
+through every degradation. I am a witness of her unfaithfulness. She
+gives herself to this Turk with hardly a pretence of concealment--I know
+it--I burn with rage, and I can do nothing. She returns to my arms and I
+forget everything. I am a most unhappy man and only death can release me,
+and yet I wish to live because I love her. Each day is fierce longing for
+her--each night away from her hell--" Tears sprang to his hopeless black
+eyes and his voice broke with emotion.
+
+Verisschenzko looked at him and a rough pity tempered his contempt.
+
+Here was a case where an indulgence having become master was exacting a
+hideous toll. But the net was drawing closer and when all the strands
+were in his hands he would act without mercy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+When Amaryllis knew that John was going to get a few days' leave at
+Christmas a strange nervousness took possession of her. The personality
+of Denzil had been growing more real to her ever since they had parted,
+in spite of her endeavours to discipline her mind and control all
+emotion. The thought of him and the thought of the baby were inseparable
+and were seldom absent from her consciousness. All sorts of wonderful
+emotions held her, and exalted her imagination until she felt that Denzil
+was part of her daily life--and with the double interest her love for him
+grew and grew.
+
+She had only seen John during the day when he had come to bid her
+good-bye before leaving for the Front, and most of the time they had been
+surrounded by the de la Paule family. But now she would have to face the
+fact of living with him again in an intimate relationship.
+
+The thought appeared awful to her. There was something in her nature
+which resembled that of the bride of King Caudaules. She could not
+support the idea of belonging now to John; it seemed to her that he must
+have no rights at all. She had written to him dutifully each week letters
+about the place and her Committees in the County. She had not once
+mentioned the coming child.
+
+Denzil's mother had been ill and the visit to Bath had been postponed,
+and after a fortnight alone at Ardayre she had come up to London. She had
+too much time to think there.
+
+Stepan had left her a list of books to get and she had been steadily
+reading them.
+
+How horribly ignorant she had been! She realised that what knowledge she
+had possessed had never been centralised or brought to any use. She had
+known isolated histories of Europe, and never had studied them
+collectively or contemporarily to discover their effect upon human
+evolution. She had learned many things, and then never employed her
+critical faculties about them. A whole new world seemed to be opening to
+her view. She had determined not to be unhappy and not to look ahead, but
+in spite of these good resolutions she would often dream in the firelight
+of the joy of being clasped in Denzil's arms.
+
+When she thought of John it was with tolerance more than affection. What
+did he really mean to her, denuded of the glamour with which she herself
+had surrounded him?
+
+Practically nothing at all.
+
+She was quite aware that her state of being was rendering all her mental
+and emotional faculties particularly sensitive, and she did her utmost to
+remember all Verisschenzko's counsel to discipline herself and remain
+serene. The morning John was expected to arrive she had a hard fight with
+herself. She felt very nervous and ill at ease. Above all things, she
+must not be unkind.
+
+He was bronzed and looked well, he was more expansive also and plainly
+very glad to see her.
+
+He held her close to him and bent to kiss her lips; but some undefined
+reluctance came over her, and she moved her head aside.
+
+Something in her resented the caress. Her lips were now for Denzil and
+for no other man. It was she who was recalcitrant and turned the
+conversation into everyday things.
+
+The de la Paule family had been summoned for luncheon and the
+afternoon passed among them all, and then the evening and the
+tete-a-tete dinner came.
+
+John knocked at the door of her room while she was dressing. Her maid had
+just finished her hair and she wondered at herself that she should
+experience a sense of shyness and have to suppress an inclination to
+refuse to let him come in. And once any of these little intimate
+happenings would have given her joy!
+
+She kept Adams there, and hurried into her tea-gown and then walked
+towards the door.
+
+John had not spoken much, but stood by the fire.
+
+How changed things were! Once he had to be persuaded and enticed to stay
+with her at such moments, and it was he who now seemed to desire to do
+so, and it was she who discouraged his wishes!
+
+In Amaryllis' mind an agitation grew. What could she say to him
+presently--if he suggested coming to sleep in her room?
+
+The knowledge in her breast rose as an insurmountable barrier
+between them.
+
+During dinner she kept the conversation entirely upon his life at the
+Front--which indeed really interested her. She was not cold or stiff in
+her manner, but she was unconsciously aloof.
+
+Then they went back into the library, each feeling exceedingly depressed.
+
+When coffee had come and they were quite alone Amaryllis felt she could
+not stand the strain, and went to the piano. She played for quite a long
+time all the things she remembered that John liked best. She wanted the
+music to calm her, and she wanted to gain time. John sat in one of the
+monster chairs and gazed into the fire. He seemed to see pictures in the
+glowing coals.
+
+The strange relentless fate which had pursued him always as far as
+happiness was concerned!
+
+He remembered what his mother had said to him when she lay a-dying with a
+broken heart.
+
+"John, we cannot see what God means in it all. There must be some
+explanation because He cannot be unjust. It is because we have missed the
+point of some lesson, probably, and so are given it again to learn. Do
+not ever be rebellious, my son, and perhaps some day light will come."
+
+He had read an article in some paper lately ridiculing the theory that we
+have had former lives, but, after all, perhaps there was some foundation
+for the belief. Perhaps he was paying in this one for sins in a previous
+birth. That would account for the seeming inexorableness of the
+misfortunes which fell upon him now, since common sense told him that in
+this life such cruel blows were undeserved.
+
+Amaryllis glanced at his face from the piano as she played. It was
+infinitely sad.
+
+A great pity grew in her heart. What ought she to do not to be unkind?
+
+Presently she finished a soft chord and got up and came to his side.
+
+They were both suffering cruelly--but John was going back to fight. She
+must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France
+at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth,
+and she could not let him go again into danger with this black shadow
+between them.
+
+He looked up at her and rose from his chair.
+
+"You play so beautifully," he said hastily. "You take one out of
+oneself. Now it is late and the day has been long. Let us go to bed,
+dearest child."
+
+Amaryllis stiffened suddenly--the moment that she dreaded had come.
+
+"I would rather that you slept in your dressing-room. I have ordered that
+to be prepared--"
+
+He looked at her startled--and then he took her hand.
+
+"Amaryllis--tell me everything. Why are you so changed?"
+
+"I'm trying not to be, John."
+
+"You are trying--that proves that you are, if you must try. Please tell
+me what this means."
+
+She endeavoured to remain calm and not become unhinged.
+
+"It was you yourself who altered me. I came to you all loving and human
+and you froze me. There is nothing to be done."
+
+"Yes, there is. You know that I love you."
+
+"Perhaps you do, but the family matters more to you than I do, or
+anything else in the world."
+
+"That may have been so once, but not now," his voice throbbed with
+feeling.
+
+"Alas!" was all she answered and looked down. John longed to appeal to
+her--but he was too honest to seek to soften her through the link of the
+child. Indeed, the thought of it had grown hateful to him. He only knew
+that he had played for a stake which now seemed worthless. Amaryllis and
+her love mattered more than any child.
+
+He clenched his hands tightly; the pain of things seemed hard to bear.
+
+Why had he not broken the thongs of reserve which held him long days ago
+and made love to her in words? But that would have been dishonest. He
+must at least be true; and he realised now that he had starved her--no
+matter what his motive had been.
+
+"Amaryllis, tell me everything, please," and he held out his hands and
+drew her to the sofa and sat down by her side.
+
+She could not control her emotion any longer, and her voice shook as she
+answered him:
+
+"I know that it was not you--but Denzil, John--and the baby is his,
+not yours."
+
+His face altered. He had not been prepared to hear this thing and he
+was stunned.
+
+"Ferdinand is an awful possibility to contemplate there at Ardayre, if
+you have no son--" She went on, trying to be calm, "but do you not think
+that you might have told me? Surely a woman has the right to select the
+father of her child."
+
+John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.
+
+"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken
+with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you--it was an easy
+transition to find that I loved him--because I was only loving the
+imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not
+make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby,
+that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must
+just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as
+we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."
+
+"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.
+
+"No--it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."
+
+"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again
+'Sweetheart'!"
+
+"No, he did not--he used the word simply in speaking of a picture--but I
+recognised his voice then immediately--it is a little deeper than yours."
+
+"When did you see Denzil?"
+
+She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming to
+Ardayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.
+
+"He would never have spoken to me--it was fate which sent him into the
+train, and then I made him speak--I could not bear it. After I
+recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame.
+He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since.
+It is I alone who must be counted with, John--Denzil will try never to
+see me again."
+
+John groaned aloud.
+
+"Oh God--the misery of it all!"
+
+"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these
+things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to
+me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt
+the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him--I found
+myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to
+me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John--I
+had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and
+living a lie."
+
+Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down
+his cheeks.
+
+He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.
+
+What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to
+have used her for his own aims, however high?
+
+"Amaryllis--you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."
+
+But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the
+piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment.
+She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she
+stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.
+
+"Of course, I forgive you, John--but I cannot cease from loving Denzil,
+that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I
+never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences.
+John dearest, let us be friends--and live as friends, then everything
+won't be so hard."
+
+He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering
+acutely--must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
+
+"But I love you, Amaryllis--I love you, dearest child--"
+
+And now again she said "Alas!"--and that was all.
+
+"Amaryllis--this is a frightful sacrifice to me--must you insist upon
+it?"
+
+Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose--and she
+stood up and faced him.
+
+"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up,
+conventional girl--milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will--I
+had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a
+savage"--her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,--"I
+_could not_ belong to two men--it would utterly degrade me, then I do not
+know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul--and while he
+lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to
+me--fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I
+must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family,
+and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the
+only terms I can offer you now."
+
+John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
+
+Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his
+brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
+
+"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And
+when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must
+love it because it is mine and an Ardayre--and the comfort of that must
+fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for
+the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of
+life--perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."
+
+John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow
+and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips--those he told himself he
+must renounce for evermore.
+
+"Amaryllis,"--his voice was husky still, "yes--I will be your friend,
+darling--and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but
+it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and
+living--and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped
+against hope--and then when I knew that everything was impossible--I
+felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't
+know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I
+gratified all your wishes perhaps--Ah!--I see it was very cruel. Darling,
+I would have told you the truth--presently--but then the war came, and
+the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."
+
+She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes--her one idea was now to
+comfort him since she need no longer fear.
+
+"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me--I do not know, perhaps
+I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family
+pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand--or his children which may
+be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented--I cannot be sure. But
+somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual
+things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must
+be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant
+yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid--I don't know really. I have
+only been wondering--but perhaps there are powerful currents connected
+with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force
+of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."
+
+They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear
+her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his
+emotion at last.
+
+"It may be so--"
+
+"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on,
+"then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir--and now--if the
+child is a boy--"
+
+John started.
+
+"We neither of us thought of that."
+
+"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist--it is
+only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too--but surely the
+war cannot go on long now?"
+
+John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or
+whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a
+speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not
+to agitate her mind--events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.
+
+He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows;
+he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened
+interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come
+to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future,
+and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and
+took her hand:
+
+"Go to bed now, dear girl,--and to-morrow I shall have quite conquered
+all the feelings which could disturb you, and just remember always that I
+am indeed your friend."
+
+She understood at last the greatness of his sacrifice and the fineness of
+his soul, and she fell into a passion of weeping and ran from the room.
+
+But John, left alone, sank down into the same chair as he had done once
+before on the night he was waiting for Denzil, and, as then, he buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The next day they met at breakfast. John had not slept at all and was
+very pale and Amaryllis's eyes still showed the deepened violet shadows
+from much weeping. But they were both quite calm.
+
+She came over to John and kissed his forehead with gentle tenderness and
+then gave him his tea. They tried to talk in a friendly way as of old
+before any new emotions had come into their lives. And gradually the
+strain became lessened.
+
+They arranged to go out shopping, and John bought Amaryllis a new
+emerald ring.
+
+"Green is the colour of hope," she said. "I want green, John,
+because it will make me think of the springtime and nature, and all
+beautiful things."
+
+They lunched at a restaurant and in the afternoon went down to Ardayre.
+John had many things to attend to and would be occupied all the
+following day.
+
+There had been no Christmas feasting, but there were gifts to be
+distributed and various other duties and ceremonies to be gone through,
+although they had missed the Christmas day. Amaryllis tried in every way
+to be helpful to her husband, and he appreciated her stateliness and
+sweet manners with all the tenants and people on the estate.
+
+So the four days passed quite smoothly, and the last night of the old
+year came.
+
+"I don't think that you must sit up for it, dear," John said after
+dinner. "It will only tire you, and it is always a rather sad moment
+unless one has a party as we always had in old days."
+
+Amaryllis went obediently to her room and stayed there; sleep was far
+from her eyes. What was the rest of her life going to be without Denzil?
+And what of John? Would they settle down into a real quiet friendship
+when he came back, and the child was born? Or would she have always to
+feel that he loved her and was for ever suffering pain?
+
+The more she thought the less clear the issue became, and the deeper the
+sadness in the atmosphere.
+
+At last she slipped down onto the big white bear-skin rug and
+began to pray.
+
+But when the clock struck midnight, and the New Year bells rang out, a
+dreadful depression fell upon her, a sense of foreboding and fear.
+
+She tried to tell herself that she was foolish, and it was all caused
+only because she was so highly strung and sensitive now, on account of
+her state. But the thought would persist that danger threatened some one
+she loved. Was it Denzil, or John?
+
+Amaryllis tried to force herself from her unhappy impressions by thinking
+of what she could do presently in the summer, when she would be quite
+well again, though her greatest work must always be to try to make John
+happy, if by then he had come home.
+
+She heard him go into his room at about one o'clock, and then she crept
+noiselessly to her great gilt bed.
+
+John had waited for the New Year by the cedar parlour fire. The room was
+so filled with the radiance of Amaryllis that he liked being there.
+
+And he, too, was thinking of what their new life would be should he
+chance to come through. The ache in his heart would gradually subside, he
+supposed, but how would he bear the long years, knowing that Amaryllis
+was thinking of Denzil--and longing for him--and if fate made them
+meet--what then?
+
+How could he endure to know that these two beings were suffering?
+
+There seemed no clear outlook ahead. But, as he knew only too well death
+could hardly fail to intervene, and if it should claim Denzil, then he
+must console Amaryllis' grief. But if happily it could be he who were
+taken, then their future path would be clear.
+
+He could not forget the third eventuality, that he and Denzil might both
+be killed. He thought and thought over them all, and at last he decided
+to add a letter to his will. If he should be killed he would ask Denzil
+to marry Amaryllis immediately, without waiting for the conventional
+year. The times were too strenuous, and she must not be left
+unprotected--alone with the child.
+
+He got up and began the letter to his lawyer, and so the
+instructions ran:
+
+"I request my cousin Denzil Benedict Ardayre to marry Amaryllis, my wife,
+as soon as possible after my death, if he can get leave and is still
+alive. I confide her to his care and ask them both not to let any
+conventional idea of mourning stand in the way of these, my urgent last
+commands. And I ask my cousin Denzil, if he lives through the war, to
+take great care of the bringing up of the child."
+
+He read thus far, and when he came to "the child" he scratched it out
+and wrote "my child" deliberately, and then he went on to add his wishes
+for its education, should it be a boy. The will had already amply
+provided for Amaryllis, so that she would be a rich woman for the rest
+of her days.
+
+When all this was clearly copied out and sealed up in an envelope
+addressed to his lawyer, the clock struck twelve.
+
+The silence in the old house was complete; there was no revelry for the
+first time for many years, even the servants far off in their wing had
+gone to rest.
+
+It seemed to John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from
+him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He
+could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was
+it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after
+all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of
+sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and
+was soon in bed.
+
+And then he slept soundly until late in the morning, and awoke refreshed
+and serene on New Year's day.
+
+His leave was up on the third of January and he returned to London,
+but he would not let Amaryllis undergo the fatigue of accompanying
+him. He said good-bye to her there at Ardayre. She felt extremely sad
+and unhappy.
+
+Had she done well, after all, to have told John the truth? Should she
+have borne things as they were and waited until the end of the war? But
+no, that would have been impossible to her nature. If she might not have
+Denzil for her lover, she would have no other man.
+
+John's cheerfulness astonished her--it was so uniform, it could not be
+assumed. Perhaps she did not yet understand him, perhaps in his heart he
+was glad that all pretences had come to an end.
+
+They had the most affectionate parting. John never was sentimental, and
+he went off with brave, cheery words, and every injunction that she was
+to take the greatest care of herself.
+
+"Remember, Amaryllis, that you are the most precious thing on earth to
+me--and you must think also of the child."
+
+She promised him that she would carry out all his wishes in this
+respect and remain quietly at Ardayre until the first of April, when
+perhaps he could get leave again and then she would go to London for
+the birth of the baby.
+
+John turned and waved his hand as he went off down the avenue, and
+Amaryllis watched the motor until it was out of sight, the tears slowly
+brimming over and running down her cheeks.
+
+She noticed that at the turn in the avenue a telegraph boy passed the car
+and came straight on. The wire was not for John evidently, so she would
+wait at the door to see. It proved to be for her, and from Denzil's
+mother, saying that she was en route for Dorchester, motoring, and would
+stop at Ardayre on the chance of finding its mistress at home. Amaryllis
+felt suddenly excited; she had often longed for this and yet in some way
+she had feared it also. What new emotions might the meeting not arouse?
+
+It was quite early after luncheon that Mrs. Ardayre was announced.
+Amaryllis had waited in the green drawing room, thinking that she would
+come. She was playing the piano at the far end to try and lighten her
+feeling of depression, when the door opened, and to her astonishment
+quite a young, slight woman came into the room. She was a little lame,
+and walked with a stick. For a moment Amaryllis thought she must be
+mistaken, and rose with a vague, but gracious look in her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre held out her hand and smiled:
+
+"I hope you got my telegram in time," she said cordially. "I felt I must
+not lose the opportunity of making your acquaintance. My son has been so
+anxious for us to meet."
+
+"You--you can't be Denzil's mother, surely!" Amaryllis exclaimed. "He is
+much too old to be your son!"
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled again--while Amaryllis made her sit down on the sofa
+beside her and helped her off with her furs. "I am forty-nine years old,
+Amaryllis--if I may call you so--but one ought never to grow old in body.
+It is not necessary, and it is not agreeable to the eye!"
+
+Amaryllis looked at her carefully in the full side light. It was the
+shape of her face, she decided, which gave her such youth. There were no
+unsightly bones to cause shadows and the skin was smooth and ivory--and
+her eyes were bright brown; their expression was very humorous as well as
+kindly, and Amaryllis was drawn to her at once.
+
+They talked about their desire to know one another and about the family,
+and the place, and the war--and at last they spoke of Denzil, and Mrs.
+Ardayre told of what his life was, and his whereabouts now, and then grew
+retrospective.
+
+"He is the dearest boy in the world," she said. "We have been friends
+always, and now he will not allow me to be anxious about him. I really
+think that as far as the frightfulness of things will let him be, he
+is actually enjoying his life! Men are such queer creatures, they like
+to fight!"
+
+Amaryllis asked what was her latest news of him, and where he was, and
+listened interestedly to Mrs. Ardayre's replies:
+
+"The cavalry have not had very much to do lately, fortunately," she
+remarked. "My husband has just gone back, but I suppose if there is a
+shortage of men for the trenches, they will be dismounted perhaps."
+
+"I expect so--then we shall have to use all our courage and control
+our fears."
+
+Amaryllis turned the conversation back to Denzil again, and drew his
+mother out. She would like to have heard incidents of his childhood and
+of how he looked when he was a little boy, but she was too timid to ask
+any deliberate questions. She felt drawn to this lady, she looked so
+young and human. Perhaps she was not so wonderful in evening dress, but
+her figure was boyish in its slim spareness--in these serge travelling
+clothes she hardly looked thirty-five!
+
+She wondered what Denzil had told his mother about her--probably that she
+was going to have a child, but nothing more.
+
+They talked in the most friendly way for half an hour, and then Amaryllis
+asked her guest if she would like to come and see the house and
+especially the picture gallery and the Elizabethan Denzil hanging there.
+
+"It is just my boy!" Mrs. Ardayre cried, when they stood in front of it.
+"Eyes and all, they are bold and true and so loving. Oh! my dear child,
+you can't think what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has
+adored him--the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and
+my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when
+he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a
+tree. I daresay I am the silliest of them all!"
+
+Amaryllis listened, enchanted.
+
+"You see he has not one touch of me in him," Mrs. Ardayre went on, "but I
+was so frantically in love with my husband when he was born, he naturally
+was all Ardayre. Does it not interest you, Amaryllis, to wonder what your
+little one, when it comes, will look like? It ought to be pronouncedly of
+the family, your being also an Ardayre."
+
+"Indeed yes, I am very curious. And how we all hope that it will
+be a son!"
+
+"Is there a portrait of your husband here? Denzil says they are alike."
+
+"There is one in my sitting room; it is going to be moved in here
+presently, when mine is done next year. It is by Sargent, almost the last
+portrait he painted. Let us go there now and see it."
+
+"But there is no likeness," Mrs. Ardayre exclaimed presently, when they
+had gone to the cedar parlour and were examining the picture of John.
+"Can you discover it?"
+
+"I thought they were very alike once--but I do not altogether see it
+now."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with
+my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of
+the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I
+have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my
+husband and delighted in being the mother of his son."
+
+"There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and
+the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet
+know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather
+think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the
+child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the
+man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though."
+
+Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did
+not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a
+fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, passionately in love with
+him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child!
+Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing
+any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John!
+
+Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that
+she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy
+on her face.
+
+There was some mystery here.
+
+She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis.
+It was not a great deal. He had arrived at Bath that time looking very
+stern and abstracted, and had mentioned rather shortly that he had come
+down with the head of the family's wife in the train, and had gone on to
+Ardayre with her, after meeting them the previous night at dinner for the
+first time.
+
+He had not been at all expansive, but later in the evening when they had
+sat by her sitting room fire, he had suddenly said something which had
+startled her greatly:
+
+"Mum--I want you to know Amaryllis Ardayre. I am madly in love with
+her--she is going to have a baby, and she seems to be so alone."
+
+It must be one of those sudden passions, and the idea seemed in some way
+to jar a little. Denzil to have fallen in love with a woman whom he knew
+was going to have a child!
+
+She had said something of this to him, and he had turned eyes full of
+pain to her and even reproach.
+
+"Mum--you always understand me--I am not a beast, you know--I haven't
+anything more to say, only I want you to be really kind to her--and get
+to know her well."
+
+And he had not mentioned the subject again, but had been very preoccupied
+during all his three days' visit, which state she could not account for
+by the fact of the war--Denzil, she knew, was an enthusiastic soldier,
+and to be going out to fight would naturally be to him a keen joy. What
+did it all mean? And here was this sweet creature speaking of divine love
+mysteries and looking up at the portrait of her dull, unattractive
+husband with melancholy eyes, whereas they had sparkled with interest
+when Denzil was the subject of conversation! Could she, too, have fallen
+in love with Denzil in one night at dinner and a journey in the train!
+
+It was all very remarkable.
+
+They had tea together in the green drawing room, and by that time they
+had become very good friends.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre told Amaryllis of the little old manor home she had in
+Kent--The Moat, it was called, and of her garden and the pleasure it
+was to her.
+
+"I had about twelve thousand a year of my own, you know," she said, "and
+ever since Denzil was born I have each year put by half of it, so that
+when he was twenty-one I was able to hand over to him quite a decent sum
+that he might be independent and free. It is so humiliating for a man to
+have to be subservient to a woman, even a mother, and I go on doing the
+same every year. All the last years of his life my husband was very
+delicate--he was so badly wounded in the South African War, you know--so
+we lived very quietly at The Moat and in my tiny house in London. I hope
+you will let me show you them both one day."
+
+Amaryllis said she would be delighted, and added:
+
+"You will come and see me, won't you? I am going up to our house in Brook
+Street at the beginning of April, and I am praying that I may have a
+little son about the first week in May."
+
+Just before Mrs. Ardayre went on to Dorchester, she asked Amaryllis if
+she had any message to send Denzil--she wanted to watch her face. It
+flushed slightly and her deep soft voice said a little eagerly:
+
+"Yes--tell him I have been so delighted to meet you, and you are just
+what he said I should find you!--and tell him I sent him all sorts of
+good wishes--" and then she became a little confused.
+
+"I should so love a photograph of you--would you give me one, I wonder?"
+the elder woman asked quickly, to avoid any pause, and while Amaryllis
+went out of the room to get it, she thought:
+
+"She is certainly in love with Denzil. It could not have been the first
+time he had seen her--at the dinner--and yet he never tells lies." And
+she grew more and more puzzled and interested.
+
+When Amaryllis was alone after the motor with Mrs. Ardayre in it had
+departed, an uncontrollable fit of restlessness came over her. The visit
+had stirred up all her emotions again; she could not grieve any more
+about the tragedy of John; her whole being was vibrating with thoughts
+of Denzil and desire for his presence--she could see his face and feel
+the joy of his kisses.
+
+At that moment she would have flung everything in life away to rush
+into his arms!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Denzil was wounded at Neuve Chapelle on March 10th, 1915, though not
+seriously--a flesh wound in the side. He had done most gallantly and was
+to get a D.S.O. He had been in hospital for two weeks and was almost well
+when Amaryllis came up to Brook Street, on the first of April. She had
+read his name in the list of wounded, and had telegraphed to his mother
+in great anxiety, but had been reassured, and now she throbbed with
+longing to see him.
+
+To know that soon he would be going back again to the Front, was almost
+more than she could bear. She was feeling wonderfully well herself. Her
+splendid constitution and her youth made natural things cause her little
+distress. She was neither nervous nor fretful, nor oppressed with fancies
+and moods. And she looked very beautiful with her added dignity of mien
+and perfectly chosen clothes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre came at once to see her the morning after her arrival, and
+suggested that Denzil should come when out driving that afternoon.
+Amaryllis tried to accept this suggestion calmly, and not show her joy,
+and Mrs. Ardayre left, promising to bring her son about four.
+
+Denzil had said to his Mother when he knew that Amaryllis was coming
+to London:
+
+"Mum, I want to see Amaryllis--please arrange it for me. And Mum, don't
+ask me anything about it; just leave me there when we drive and come and
+fetch me when I must go in again."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre was a very modern person, but she could not help exclaiming
+in a half voice while she sat by her son's bed:
+
+"You know she is going to have a baby in a month, dear boy, perhaps she
+won't care to see you now."
+
+A flush rose to Denzil's forehead: "Yes, I do know," he said a little
+hurriedly, "but we are not conventional in these days. I wish to see her;
+please, darling Mother, do what I ask."
+
+And then he had turned the conversation.
+
+So his mother had obediently arranged matters, and at about four in the
+afternoon left him at the Brook Street door.
+
+Early as it was, Amaryllis had made the tea, and expected to see both
+Denzil and his mother. The room was full of hyacinths and daffodils, and
+she herself looked like a spring flower, as she sat on the sofa among the
+green silk cushions, wrapped in a pale parma violet tea-gown.
+
+The butler announced "Captain Ardayre," and Denzil came in slowly, and
+murmured "How do you do?"
+
+But as soon as the door was closed upon him, he started forward,
+forgetting his stiff side.
+
+He covered her hands with kisses, he could not contain his joy; and
+then he drew back and looked at her with worship and reverence in his
+blue eyes.
+
+The most mysterious, quivering emotions were coursing through him, mixed
+with triumph, as he took in the picture she made. This delicate,
+beautiful creature! And to see her--so!
+
+Amaryllis lowered her head in a sweet confusion; her feelings were no
+less aroused. She was thrilling with passionate welcome and delicious
+shyness. Nature was indeed ruling them both, and with a glad "Darling
+Angel!" Denzil sat down beside her and clasped her in his arms. Then for
+a few seconds delirious pleasure was all that they knew.
+
+"Let me look at you again, Sweetheart," he ordered presently, with a tone
+of command and possession in his very deep voice, which caused Amaryllis
+delight. It made her feel that she really belonged to him.
+
+"To me you have never been so beautiful--and every scrap of you is mine."
+
+"Absolutely yours."
+
+"I had to come--I cannot help whether it is right or wrong. I must go
+back to the Front as soon as I am fit, and I could not have borne to go
+without seeing you, darling one."
+
+They had a hundred things to say to each other about themselves--and
+about the baby, and the next hour was very sacred and wonderful.
+Denzil was a superlatively perfect lover and knew the immense value of
+tender words.
+
+He intoxicated Amaryllis' imagination with the moving things he said.
+
+Alas! how many worthy men miss themselves, and make their loved ones
+miss the best part of life's joys by their mulish silence and refusal
+to gratify this desire of all women to be _told_ that they are loved,
+to have the fact expressed in passionate speech! No deeds make up for
+this omission.
+
+Denzil had none of these limitations; he said everything which could
+cajole and excite the imagination. He murmured a hundred affecting
+tendernesses in her ears. He caressed her--he commanded and mastered her,
+and then assured her that he was her slave. He was arrogant and
+humble--arrogant when he claimed her love, humble in his worship. He
+spoke of the child and what it meant to him that it should be his and
+hers. He caused her to feel that he was strong and protective and that
+she was to be cherished and adored. He made pictures of how it would be
+if he could spend a whole day and night with her presently in June, when
+she would be quite well, and of how thrilled with interest he would be to
+see the baby, and that, of course, it _must_ be exactly like himself! And
+Amaryllis' eyes, all soft and swimming with emotion answered him.
+
+Naturally, since she loved him so passionately, it would be his image!
+Had not his own mother accounted for his pronounced Ardayre stamp by her
+having been so in love with his father--so, of course, this would
+re-occur! It was all dear to think about!
+
+They spent another hour of divine intoxication, and then the clock
+struck six.
+
+It sounded like a knell.
+
+Amaryllis gave a little cry.
+
+"Denzil, it is altogether unnatural that you should have to go. To
+think that you must leave me, and may not even welcome your son! To
+think that by the law we are sinning, because I am sitting here clasped
+in your arms! To think that I may not have the joy of showing you the
+exquisite little clothes, and the pink silk cot--all the things which
+have given me such pleasure to arrange.... It is all too cruel! You
+know that eighteenth century engraving in the series of Moreau le
+Jeune, of the married lovers playing with the darling, teeny cap
+together! Well, I have it beside my bed, and every day I look at it and
+pretend it is you and me!"
+
+"Darling--Darling!"--and Denzil fiercely kissed her, he was so
+deeply moved.
+
+"It is all holy and beautiful, the coming to earth of a soul. It only
+makes me long to be good and noble and worthy of this wonderful thing.
+But for us--we who love truly and purely, it has all been turned into
+something forbidden and wrong."
+
+"Heart of me--I must have some news of you. I cannot starve there in the
+trenches, knowing that all the letters that should be mine are going to
+John. My mother is really trustworthy, will you let her be with you as
+often as you can, that she may be able to tell me how you are, precious
+one? When the seventh of May comes I shall go perfectly mad with suspense
+and anxiety. I will arrange that my mother sends me at once a telegram."
+
+"Denzil!" and Amaryllis clung to him.
+
+"It is an impossible situation," and he gave a great sigh. "I shall tell
+John that I have seen you--I cannot help it, the times are too precarious
+to have acted otherwise. And afterwards, when the war is over, we must
+face the matter and decide what is best to be done."
+
+"_I_ cannot live without you, Denzil, and that I know."
+
+They said good-bye at last silently, after many kisses and tears, and
+Denzil came out into the darkening street to his mother in the motor,
+with white, set face.
+
+"I am a little troubled, dearest boy," she whispered, as they went along.
+"I feel that there is something underneath all this and that Amaryllis
+means some great thing in your life--the whole aspect of everything fills
+me with discomfort. It is unlike your usual, sensitive refinement,
+Denzil, to have gone to see her--now--"
+
+"I understand exactly what you mean, Mother. I should say the same thing
+myself in your place. I can't explain anything, only I beg of you to
+trust me. Amaryllis is an angel of purity and sweetness; perhaps some day
+you will understand."
+
+She took his hand into her muff and held it:
+
+"You know I have no conventions, dearest, and my creed is to believe what
+you say, but I cannot account for the situation because of your only
+having met Amaryllis so lately for the first time. I could understand it
+perfectly if you had been her lover, and the child was your child, but
+she has not been married a whole year yet to John!"
+
+Denzil answered nothing--he pressed his mother's hand.
+
+She returned the pressure:
+
+"We will talk no more about it."
+
+"And you will go on being kind?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Before they reached the hospital door in Park Lane Mrs. Ardayre had been
+instructed to send an immediate telegram the moment the baby was born,
+and to comfort and take care of Amaryllis, and tell her son every little
+detail as to her welfare and about the child.
+
+"I will try not to form any opinion, Denzil; and some day perhaps things
+will be made plain, for it would break my heart to believe that you are a
+dishonourable man."
+
+"You need not worry, Mum dearest. Indeed, I am not that. It is just a
+tragic story, but I cannot say more. Only take care of Amaryllis, and
+send me news as often as you can."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The telegram to say that Amaryllis had a little son came to John Ardayre
+on the night before he went into the trenches again at the second battle
+of Ypres on May 9th, 1915. He had been waiting in feverish impatience
+and expectancy all the day, and, in fact, for three days for news.
+
+His whole inner life since that New Year's night had been strangely
+serene, in spite of its frightful outward turmoil and stress. He had
+taken the tumult of Neuve Chapelle calmly, and had come through it and
+all the beginning of the Ypres battle without a scratch. He had felt that
+he was looking upon it all from some detached standpoint, and that it in
+no way personally concerned him.
+
+He had seen Denzil do the splendid thing and he had felt a distinct
+distress when he had seen him fall wounded.
+
+Denzil was just back now and in the trenches again with the rest of the
+dismounted cavalry. They might meet in the attack at dawn.
+
+When John read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion
+was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the
+billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must
+have received bad news.
+
+Then it seemed as though he went mad!
+
+The repression of his life appeared to fall from him, he became as a new
+man. All his comrades were astonished at him, and a Scotch Corporal was
+heard to remark that it was "na canny--the Captain was fey."
+
+The Ardayres were saved! The family would carry on!
+
+Fondest love welled up in his heart for Amaryllis. If he only came
+through he would devote his life to showing her his gratitude and
+showering everything upon her that her heart could desire--and
+perhaps--perhaps the joy of the baby would make up for the absence of
+Denzil. This thought stayed with him and comforted him.
+
+Lady de la Paule had wired:
+
+"A splendid little son born 11:45 A.M. seventh May--Amaryllis
+well--all love."
+
+And an hour or two before this Denzil had also received the news from his
+Mother. He, too, had grown exalted and thanked God.
+
+So the day that the Germans were to fail at Ypres, and destiny was to
+accomplish itself for these two men--dawned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of what use to write of that terrible fight and of the gas and the horror
+and the mud? John Ardayre seemed to bear a charmed life as he led his men
+"over the top." For an hour wild with exaltation and gladness, he rallied
+them and cheered them on. The scene of blood and carnage has been too
+often repeated on other fateful days, and as often well described, when
+acts of glorious heroism occurred again and again. John had rushed
+forward to succour a wounded trooper when a shell crashed near them, and
+he fell to the ground. And then he know what the great thing was the New
+Year had promised him. For death was going to straighten out
+matters--John was going beyond. Well, he had never been rebellious, and
+he knew now that light had come. But the sky above seemed to be darkening
+curiously, and the terrible noise to be growing dim, when he was
+conscious that a man was crawling towards him, dragging a leg, and then
+his eyes opened wildly for an instant, and he saw that it was Denzil all
+covered with blood.
+
+"Are we both going West, Denzil?" he demanded faintly. "At least I am--"
+then he gasped a little, while a stream of scarlet flowed from his
+shattered side.
+
+"I've asked you in a letter to marry Amaryllis immediately--if you get
+home. I hope your number is not up, too, because she will be all alone.
+Take care of her, Denzil, and take care of the child...." His voice grew
+lower and lower, and the last words came in spasms: "There is an Ardayre
+son, you know--so it's all right. The family is saved from Ferdinand and
+I am very glad to die."
+
+Denzil tried to get out his flask, but before he could reach John's lips
+with it he saw that it would be of no avail--for Death had claimed the
+head of the Family. And above his mangled body John's face wore a look of
+calm serenity, and his firm lips smiled.
+
+Then things became all vague for Denzil and he remembered nothing more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was more than two months before Denzil was well enough to be brought
+from Boulogne, and then he had a relapse and for the whole of July was
+dangerously ill. At one moment there seemed to be no hope of saving his
+leg, and his mother ate her heart out with anxiety.
+
+And Amaryllis, back at Ardayre with the little Benedict, wept many tears.
+
+John's death had deeply grieved her. She realised his steadfast kindness
+and affection for her. He had written her a letter just before the battle
+had begun--a short epistle telling her calmly that the chances would be
+perhaps even for any man to come out of it alive--and assuring her of his
+greatest devotion.
+
+"I know that Denzil went to see you, my dear little girl. He has told me
+about it. And I know that you love each other. There is only one chance
+for us in the future--and that lies with the child. It may be that when
+it comes to you it may fill your life and satisfy you. This is my
+prayer--otherwise we must see what can be arranged about things; because
+I cannot allow you to be unhappy. You were an innocent factor in all
+this, and it would be unjust that you should be hurt."
+
+How good and generous John had always been.
+
+And his letter to his lawyers! To make things smooth for her--and for
+Denzil--how marvellously kind!
+
+Her mourning for John was real and deep, as it would have been for a
+brother. But during the month of intense anxiety about Denzil everything
+else was numbed, even her interest in her son.
+
+By the end of August he was out of danger, although little hope was
+entertained that he would ever walk easily. But this was a minor
+thing--and gradually it began to be some consolation to the two women who
+loved him to know that he was safely wounded and would probably not be
+fit for active service again for a very long time.
+
+They wrote letters to one another, but they decided not to meet.
+Six months must elapse at least, they both felt--even in spite of
+John's commands.
+
+Another shell must have fallen not far off, for his body was never
+found--only his field glasses, broken and battered. And there would have
+been no actual information about his death had not Denzil seen him die.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Harietta Boleski and Stanislass and Ferdinand Ardayre had remained in
+Paris, with visits to Fontainebleau.
+
+When John had been killed, Harietta had been extremely perturbed.
+
+"Now Stepan will be able to marry that odious bit of bread and butter,
+and he is sure to do it after the year!" This thought rankled with her
+and embittered everything. Nothing pleased her. She grew more than ever
+rebellious at the dullness she had to live in. War was an imposition
+which ought not to be tolerated and she often told Hans so. At last she
+grew to take quite an interest in her spying for lack of more agreeable
+things to do.
+
+And so the months went by and November came, and a madness of jealousy
+was gradually augmenting in Harietta for Amaryllis Ardayre.
+
+Verisschenzko had gone to Russia in September, and she was convinced
+that he loved Amaryllis and that the child was his child. She could not
+conceive of a spiritual devotion, and something had altered all Stepan's
+ways. From the moment he returned to Paris until he had left she had
+tried and been unable to invoke any response in him, and she had felt
+like a foiled tigress when another has eaten her prey.
+
+As the impossibility of moving him forced itself upon her unwilling
+understanding, so the wildest passion for him grew, and when he left in
+September she was quite ill for a week with chagrin; then she became
+moody and more than ever capricious, and made Stanislass' life a hell,
+while Ferdinand Ardayre had little less misery to endure.
+
+An incident late in November caused her jealousy to burst into flame.
+
+She heard that Verisschenzko had returned from Russia and she went to his
+rooms to see him. The Russian servant who was accustomed to receive her
+was there waiting for his master who had not yet arrived. Without a word
+she passed the old man when he opened the door, and made her way into the
+sitting room, and then into the bedroom beyond. She did not believe that
+Stepan was not there and wanted to make sure. It was empty but a light
+burned before an Ikon, the doors of which were closed.
+
+Curiosity made Harietta go close and examine it. She knew the room so
+well and had never seen it there before. The table beneath it was
+arranged like an altar, and the Ikon was let in to the carved boiserie of
+the wall. It must have been since he had parted with her that this
+ridiculous thing had been done! She had not entered his _appartement_
+since June. She felt angry that the shrine should be closed and that she
+could not look upon it, for it must certainly be something which
+Verisschenzko prized.
+
+She bent nearer and shook the little doors; they resisted her, and her
+temper rose. Then some force seemed to propel her to commit sacrilege.
+She shook and shook and tore at the golden clasp, her irritation giving
+strength and cunning to her hands; and at last the small bolt came undone
+and the doors flew open--and an exquisitely painted modern picture of the
+Virgin disclosed itself, holding the Christ child in her arms. But for
+all the saintliness in the eyes of Mary, the face was an exact portrait
+of Amaryllis Ardayre!
+
+A frenzy of rage seized Harietta. Her rival reigned now indeed! This was
+positive proof to her, not of spiritual meaning--not of the mystic,
+abstract aloofness of worship which lay deep in Stepan's nature and had
+caused him to have Amaryllis transfigured into the symbol of purity, a
+daily reminder that she must always be for him the lady of his soul--such
+things had no meaning for Harietta. The Ikon was merely a material proof
+that Verisschenzko loved Amaryllis--and, of course, as soon as the year
+of mourning should be over he would make her his wife.
+
+She trembled with passionate resentment. Nothing had ever moved her so
+forcibly. She took out her pearl hatpin and stabbed out the eyes of the
+Virgin, almost shaking with passion, and scratched and obliterated the
+face of the Christ child. This done, she extinguished the little lamp and
+slammed to the doors.
+
+She laughed savagely as she went back into the sittingroom.
+
+"The Virgin indeed!--and _his_ child!--well, I've taught him!" and she
+flung past the Russian servant with a look which was a curse, so that the
+old man crossed himself and quickly barred the entrance door, when she
+stamped off down the stairs.
+
+Arrived in her gilded salon at the Universal, she would like to have
+wrung some one's neck. She had never been so full of rage in her life.
+She did find a little satisfaction in a kick at Fou-Chow, who fled
+whining to his faithful Marie who had come in to carry away her mistress'
+sable cloak.
+
+The maid's face became thunderous. A look of sullen hate gleamed in her
+dark eyes.
+
+"She will kick thee, my angel, just once too often," she murmured to the
+wee creature when she had carried him from the room. "And then we shall
+see, thy Marie knows that which may punish her some day soon!"
+
+Harietta, quite indifferent to these matters, telephoned immediately to
+Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He must come to her instantly without a moment's delay! And she
+stamped her foot.
+
+A plan which might give her some satisfaction to execute had evolved
+itself in her brain.
+
+He was in his room in another part of the building, and hastened to obey
+her command. She was livid with anger and seemed to have grown old.
+
+She went over and kissed him voluptuously and then she began:
+
+"Ferdie," and she whispered hoarsely, "now you have got to do something
+for me. You are not going to let the child of Verisschenzko be master of
+Ardayre! We are going to gain time and perhaps some day be able to do
+away with it. Now I have got a plan which will lighten your heart."
+
+She knew that she could count upon him, for since the birth of the
+little Benedict and the death of John, Ferdinand had stormed with threats
+of vengeance, while knowing his impotency.
+
+His life with Harietta had grown a torment and a hell--but with every
+fresh unkindness and pang of jealousy she caused him, his low passion for
+her increased. He knew that she loved Verisschenzko, whom he hated with
+all his might--and if she now proposed to hurt both his enemies, he would
+assist her joyfully.
+
+"Tell it me," he begged.
+
+So she drew him to the sofa and picked up a block and pencil.
+
+"Do you possess any of the writing of your dead brother, John, or if you
+don't, can you get some from anywhere?"
+
+Ferdinand's face blazed with excitement. What was she going to suggest?
+
+"I always keep one letter--in which he ordered me never to address him
+and told me I was not of his blood but was a mongrel Turk."
+
+"That is splendid--where is it? Have you got it here?"
+
+"Yes, in my despatch box. I'll go and fetch it now."
+
+"Very well. I will get rid of Stanislass for the evening and we can have
+some hours alone--and you will see if I don't help you to worry them
+hideously, Ferdie, even if that is all we can do!"
+
+And when he had left her presence, she paced the room excitedly.
+
+"It will prevent Stepan's marrying her at all events for; a long time."
+
+The thought that she had lost Verisschenzko completely unbalanced her.
+It was the first time in her life that she had had to relinquish a man.
+She hated to have to realise how highly he must hold Amaryllis. He seemed
+the only thing she wanted now in life, and she knew that he was quite
+beyond her, and that indeed he had never been hers; the one human being
+whom she had attracted and yet never been able to intoxicate and draw
+against his will. She went over all their past meetings. With what
+supreme insolence he had invariably treated her--even in moments when he
+permitted himself to feel passion! And how she adored him! She would have
+crawled to him now on the ground. She had not known she could feel so
+much. Every animal, sensual desire made her throb with rage. She would
+have torn the flesh from Amaryllis' face had she been there, and thrust
+her hatpin into her real eyes.
+
+But the spoke should be put in the wheel of Verisschenzko's marrying her!
+And perhaps some other revenge would come. Hans?--Hans should be made to
+carry the scheme through--Hans and Ferdinand. She dug her nails into the
+palms of her hands. No wild animal in its cage could have felt more rage.
+
+Then when Ferdinand returned with John's letter, she controlled herself
+and sat down at the table beside him and supervised his attempts at
+copying the writing, while she unfolded the details of her scheme.
+
+"You know John's body was never found," she informed him presently. "I
+heard all the details from a man who was there--they only picked up his
+glasses and his boot. He could very well have been taken prisoner by the
+Germans and be in hospital there, too ill to have written for all this
+time. Now think how he ought to word his first letter to his precious
+bread and butter wife!"
+
+"There must only be the fewest words, because I don't know what
+terms they were on. I think a postcard, if we get one, would be the
+best thing."
+
+"Of course?--I have some one who can see to that--it will be worth
+waiting the week for--we'll procure several, and meanwhile you must
+practise his hand."
+
+At the end of half an hour a very creditable forgery had been secured,
+and the two jealous beings felt satisfied with their work for the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It had been arranged that Denzil and his mother should spend Christmas
+with Amaryllis at Ardayre. Both felt that it was going to be the most
+wonderful moment when they should meet. There were no obstacles now to
+their happiness and everything promised to be full of joy. The months
+which had gone by since John's death had been turning Amaryllis into a
+more serene and forceful being. The whole burden of the estate had
+fallen upon her young shoulders and she had endeavoured to carry it with
+dignity and success--and yet have time to spare for her war
+organisations in the county. She had developed extraordinarily and had
+grown from a very pretty girl into a most beautiful young woman. What
+would Denzil think of her? That was her preoccupation--and what would he
+think of the baby Benedict?
+
+The great rooms at Ardayre were shut up except the green drawing room,
+and she lived in her own apartments, the cedar parlour being her chief
+pleasure. It was now filled with her books and all the personal
+belongings which expressed her taste. The nurseries for the heir were
+just above.
+
+Her guests were to be there on the twenty-third of December, and when the
+hour came for the motor to arrive from the station Amaryllis grew hot and
+cold with excitement. She had made herself look quite exquisite in a soft
+black frock, and her heart was beating almost to suffocation when she
+heard the footsteps in the hall. Then the green drawing room door opened
+and Colonel and Mrs. Ardayre were announced and were immediately greeted
+by the great tawny dogs and then by their mistress. A pang contracted her
+heart when she caught sight of Denzil--he was so very pale and thin, and
+he walked painfully and slowly with a stick. It was only a wreck of the
+splendid lover who had come to Ardayre before. But he was always Denzil
+of the ardent eyes and the crisp bronze hair!
+
+They were people of the world, and so the welcoming speeches went off
+easily, and they sat round the tea-table with its singing kettle and its
+delectable buns and Devonshire cream, and Amaryllis was gracious and
+radiant and full of dignity and charm. But inwardly she felt deliciously
+shy and happy.
+
+They had neither met nor written any love letters since the April day
+when they had parted in Brook Street, which now seemed to be an age away.
+
+Her attraction for Denzil had increased a hundredfold. He thought as she
+sat there pouring out the tea, of how he would woo her with subtlety
+before he would claim her for his own. He was stimulated by her sweet
+shyness and her tender aloofness. The tea seemed to him to be
+interminably long and he wished for it to end.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre behaved with admirable tact; she spoke of all sorts of light
+and friendly things, and then asked about the baby. Was he not wonderful,
+now at seven months old!
+
+The lovely vivid pink deepened in Amaryllis' smooth velvet cheeks, and
+her grey eyes became soft as a doe's.
+
+"You shall see him in the morning--he will be asleep now. Of course, to
+me he is wonderful, but I daresay he is only an ordinary child."
+
+She had peeped at Denzil and had seen that his face fell a little as she
+said they should only see the baby the next day, and she had felt a wave
+of joy. She knew that she meant to take him up quietly presently--just he
+and she alone!
+
+After they had finished tea, Mrs. Ardayre suggested that she should go
+to her room.
+
+"I am tired, Amaryllis, my dear," she announced cheerily,--"and I shall
+rest for an hour before dinner."
+
+"Come then and I will show you both your rooms."
+
+They came up the broad staircase with her, Denzil a step at a time,
+slowly, and at the top she stopped and said to him:
+
+"Perhaps you will remember that is the door of the cedar parlour at
+the end of the passage--you will find me there when I have installed
+your mother comfortably. Your room is next to hers," and she pointed
+to two doors through the archway of the gallery. Then she went on with
+Mrs. Ardayre.
+
+Some contrary nervousness made her remain for quite a little while.
+
+Was Cousin Beatrice sure that she was comfortable? Had she everything she
+wanted? Her maid was already unpacking, and all was warm and fresh
+scented with lavender and bowls of violets on the dressing table.
+
+"My dear child, it is Paradise, and you are a perfect angel--I shall
+revel in it after the cold journey down."
+
+So at last there was no excuse to stay longer, and Amaryllis left the
+room; but in the passage it seemed as though her knees were trembling,
+and as she passed the top of the staircase she leaned for a second or two
+on the balustrade.
+
+The longed for moment had come!
+
+When she opened the door of the cedar parlour, with its soft lamps and
+great glowing logs, she saw Denzil was already there, seated on the sofa
+beside the fire.
+
+She ran to him before he could rise, the movement she knew was pain to
+him--and she sank down beside him and held out her hands.
+
+"Beloved darling!" he whispered in exaltation, and she slipped forward
+into his arms.
+
+Oh! the bliss of it all! After the months of separation, and the horrible
+trenches and the battles and the suffering, the days and nights of
+agonising pain! It seemed to Denzil that his being melted within
+him--Heaven itself had come.
+
+They could not speak coherently for some moments, everything was too
+filled with holy joy.
+
+"At last! at last!" he cried presently. "Now we shall part no more!"
+
+Then he had to be assured that she loved him still.
+
+"It is I who must take care of you now, Denzil, and I shall love to do
+that," she cooed.
+
+"I have not thought much of the hurt," he answered her, "for all these
+months I have just been living for this day, and now it has come,
+darling one, and I can hardly believe that it is true, it is so
+absolutely divine--"
+
+They could not talk of anything but themselves and love for an hour,
+they told each other of their longings and anxieties--and at last they
+spoke of John.
+
+"He was so splendid," Denzil said, "unselfish to the very end," and then
+he described to Amaryllis how he actually had died, and of his last
+words, and their thought for her.
+
+"If he could see us, I think that he would be glad that we are happy."
+
+"I know that he would," but the tears had gathered in her eyes.
+
+Denzil stroked her hand gently; he did not make any lover's caress, and
+she appreciated his understanding, and after a little she leaned
+against his arm.
+
+"Denzil--when we live here together, we must always try to carry out all
+that John would have wished to do. It meant his very soul--and you will
+help me to be a worthy mother of the Ardayre son."
+
+She had not spoken of the child before--some unaccountable shyness had
+restrained her, even in their fondest moments. And yet the thought had
+never been absent from either. It had throbbed there in their hearts. It
+was going to be so exquisite to whisper about it presently!
+
+And Denzil had waited until she mentioned this dear interest. He did not
+wish to assume any rights, or take anything for granted. She should be
+queen, not only of his heart, but of everything, until she should herself
+accord him authority.
+
+But his eyes grew wistful now as he leaned nearer to her.
+
+"Darling, am I not going to be allowed to see--my son!"
+
+Then, with a cry, Amaryllis bent forward and was clasped in his arms. All
+her wayward shyness melted, and she poured forth her delight in the
+baby--their very own!
+
+"You will see that he is just you, Denzil,--as we knew that he would be,
+and now I will go and fetch him for you and bring him here, because the
+stairs up to the nursery are so steep they might hurt you to climb."
+
+She left him swiftly, and was not long gone, and Denzil sat there
+by the fire trembling with an emotion which he could not have
+described in words.
+
+The door opened again and Amaryllis returned with the tiny sleeping form,
+in its long white nightgown and wrapped in a great fleecy shawl.
+
+She crept up to him very softly. The little one was sound asleep. She
+made a sign to Denzil not to rise, and she bent down and placed the
+bundle tenderly in his arms.
+
+Then they gazed at the little face together with worshipping eyes.
+
+It was just a round pink and white cherub like thousands of others in the
+world; the very long eyelashes, sweeping the sleep-flushed cheeks, and
+minute rings of bronze-gold hair curling over the edge of the close
+cambric cap; but it seemed to those two looking at it to be unique, and
+more beautiful than the dawn.
+
+"Isn't he perfect, Denzil!" whispered Amaryllis, in ecstasy.
+
+"Marvellous!" and Denzil's voice was awed.
+
+Then the wonder and the divinity of love and its spirit of creation came
+over them both and a mist of deep feeling grew in both their eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At dinner they were all so happy together. Mrs. Ardayre was a note of
+harmony anywhere. She had gradually grown to understand the situation in
+the months of her son's recovering from his wounds and although no actual
+words had passed between them Denzil felt that his mother had divined the
+truth and it made things easier.
+
+Afterwards, in the green drawing room, Amaryllis played to them and
+delighted their ears, and then they went up to the cedar parlour and sat
+round the fire and talked and made plans.
+
+If it should be quite hopeless that Denzil could ever return to the
+front, or be of service behind the lines, he meant to enter Parliament.
+The thought that his active soldiering was probably done was very bitter
+to him, and the two women who loved him tried to create an enthusiasm for
+the parliamentary idea. The one certainty was that his adventurous spirit
+would never remain behind in the background, whatever occurred.
+
+They would be married at the beginning of February, they decided. The
+whole of their world knew of John's written wishes, and no unkind
+comments would be likely to arise.
+
+And when Beatrice Ardayre left them alone to say good-night to each
+other, Denzil drew Amaryllis back to his side!
+
+"I think the world is going to be a totally new place, darling--after the
+war. If it goes on very long the gradual privation and suffering and
+misery will create a new order of things, and all of us should be ready
+to face it. Only fools and weaklings cling to past systems when the
+on-rolling wave has washed away their uses. Whatever seems for the real
+good of England must be one's only aim, even if it means abandoning what
+was the ideal of the Family for all these hundreds of years. You will
+advance with me, Sweetheart, will you not, even if it should seem to be a
+chasm we are crossing?"
+
+"Denzil, of course I will."
+
+He sighed a little.
+
+"The old order made England great--but that cycle is over for all the
+world--and what we shall have to do is to stand steady and try to
+direct the new on-rush, so that it makes us greater and does not sweep
+civilisation into darkness, as when Rome fell. It may be a fairly easy
+matter because, as Stepan says, we have got such fundamental common
+sense. It would be much less hard if the people at the top were really
+courageous and unhampered by trying to secure votes, or whatever it is,
+which makes them wobble and surrender at the wrong moment. If the
+politicians could have that dogged, serene steadfastness which the
+Tommies, and almost every man has in the trenches, how supreme we
+should be--!"
+
+"I hope so, but one must have vision as well so that one can look right
+ahead and not stumble over retained old prejudices; people so often want
+a thing and yet have not will enough to eliminate qualities in themselves
+which must obviously prevent their obtaining their desire."
+
+Denzil was not looking at her now, he was gazing ahead with his blue
+eyes filled with light, and she saw that there was something far beyond
+the physical magnetism which drew her to him, and a pride and joy filled
+her. She would indeed be his helpmate in all his undertakings and
+striving for noble ends. They talked for some time of these things and
+their plans to aid in their fulfilment, and then they gradually spoke of
+Verisschenzko and Amaryllis asked what was the latest news--he was in
+Russia, she supposed.
+
+"Stepan will be arriving in London next week. I heard from him to-day.
+Won't you ask him down, darling, to spend the New Year with us here--it
+would be so good to see the dear old boy again."
+
+This was agreed upon, and then they drifted back to lovers' whisperings,
+and presently they said a fond good-night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Christmas Day of 1915, and the weeks which followed were like some happy
+dream for Denzil and Amaryllis. Each hour seemed to discover some new
+aspect which caused further understanding and love to augment. They spent
+long late afternoons in the cedar parlour dipping into books and a
+delicious pleasure was for Amaryllis to be nestled in Denzil's arms on
+the sofa while he read aloud to her in his deep, magnetic voice.
+
+Beatrice Ardayre at this period was like a pleased mother cat purring in
+the sun while her kittens gambol. Her well-beloved was content, and she
+was satisfied. She always seemed to be there when wanted and yet to leave
+the lovers principally to themselves.
+
+Another of their joys was to motor about the beautiful country, exploring
+the old, old churches and quaint farmhouses and manors with which North
+Somerset abounds; and they went all over the estate also and saw all the
+people who were their people and their friends. The union was thoroughly
+approved of, and although the engagement was not to be officially
+announced until after the New Year it was quite understood, as the
+tenants had all heard of John's instructions in his will. But perhaps the
+most supreme joy of all was when they could play with the baby Benedict
+together alone for half an hour before he went to bed. Then they were
+just as foolish and primitive as any other two young things with their
+firstborn. He was a very fine and forward baby and already expressed a
+spirit and will of his own, and it always gave Denzil the very strangest
+thrill when he seized and clung firmly to one of his fingers with his
+tiny, strong, chubby hand. And over all his qualities and perfections his
+parents then said wonderful things together!
+
+Every subtle and exquisite pleasure, mystical, symbolical and material,
+which either had ever dreamed of as connected with this living proof of
+love, was realised for them. And to know that soon, soon, they would be
+united for always--wedded--not merely engaged. Oh! that was
+glorious--when passion need be under no restraint--when there need be no
+good-night!
+
+For in this the chivalry of Denzil never failed--and each day they grew
+to respect each other more.
+
+Verisschenzko was to arrive in time for dinner on the last day of
+the old year. That afternoon was one of even unusually perfect
+happiness--motoring slowly round the park and up on to the hills in
+Amaryllis' little two-seater which she drove herself. They got out at the
+top and leaned upon a gate from which they seemed to be looking down over
+the world. Peaceful, smiling, prosperous England! Miles and miles of her
+fairest country lay there in front of them, giving no echo of war.
+
+"If we had been born sixty years ago, Denzil, what different thoughts
+this view would be creating in our minds. We would have no
+speculation--no uncertainty--we should feel just happy that it is ours
+and would be ours for ever! The world was asleep then!"
+
+"Stepan would say that it was resting before the throes of struggle must
+begin. Now we are going to face something much greater than the actual
+war in France, but if we are strong we ought to come through. We have
+always been saner than other peoples, so perhaps our upheaval will be
+saner too."
+
+"Whatever there is to face, we shall be together, Denzil, and nothing
+can really matter then--and we must make our little Benedict armed
+for the future, so that he will be fitted to cope with the conditions
+of his day."
+
+"Look there at the blue distance, darling, could anything be more
+peaceful? How can anyone in the country realise that not two hundred
+miles away this awful war is grinding on?"
+
+Denzil put an arm round her and drew her close to him and clasped
+her fondly.
+
+"But just for a little we must try to forget about it. I never dreamed of
+such perfect happiness as we are having, Sweetheart,--my own!"
+
+"Nor I, Denzil,--I am almost afraid--"
+
+But he kissed her passionately and bade this thought begone. Afraid of
+what? Nothing mattered since they would always be together. February
+would soon come, and then they would never part again.
+
+So the vague foreboding passed from Amaryllis' heart, and in fond
+visionings they whispered plans for the spring and the summer and the
+growing years. And so at last they returned to the house and found the
+after-noon post waiting for them. Filson had just brought it in and
+Amaryllis' letters lay in a pile on her writing table.
+
+There happened to be none for Denzil and he went over to the fireplace
+and was stroking the head of Mercury, the greatest of the big tawny dogs,
+when he was startled by a little ominous cry from his Beloved, and on
+looking up he saw that she had sunk into a chair, her face deadly pale,
+while there had fluttered to the floor at her feet a torn envelope and a
+foreign looking postcard.
+
+What could this mean?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Verisschenzko had come straight through from Petrograd to England. He had
+been delayed and had never returned to Paris since September. He knew
+nothing of Harietta's sacrilege as yet. But he had at last accumulated
+sufficient proof against her to have her entirely in his hands.
+
+He thought over the whole matter as he came down in the train to Ardayre.
+She was a grave danger to the Allies and had betrayed them again and
+again. He must have no mercy. Her last crimes had been against France,
+her punishment would be easier to manage there.
+
+The strain of cruelty in his nature came uppermost as he reviewed the
+evil which she had done. Stanislass' haunted face seemed to look at him
+out of the mist of the half-lit carriage. What might not Poland have
+accomplished with such a leader as Boleski had been before this baneful
+passion fell upon him! Then he conjured up the? imaged faces of the brave
+Frenchmen who were betrayed by Harietta to Hans, and shot in Germany.
+
+A spy's death in war time was not an ignoble one, and they had gone there
+with their lives in their hands. Had Harietta been true to that side, and
+had she been acting from patriotism, he could have desired to save her
+the death sentence now. But she had never been true; no country mattered
+to her; she had given to him secrets as well as to Hans! Then he laughed
+to himself grimly. So her _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball was the first
+husband! The man who used to beat her with a stick--and who had let her
+divorce him in obedience to the higher command!
+
+How clever the whole thing was! If it had not all been so serious, it
+would have been interesting to allow her to live longer to watch what
+next she would do, but the issues at stake were too vital to delay. He
+would not hesitate; he would denounce her to the French authorities
+immediately on his return to Paris, and without one qualm or regret. She
+had lived well and played "crooked"--and now it was meet that she should
+pay the price.
+
+Filson announced him in the green drawing room when he reached Ardayre,
+but only Denzil rose to greet him and wrung his hand. He noticed that his
+friend's face looked stern and rather pale.
+
+"I'm so awfully glad that you have come, Stepan," and they exchanged
+handshakes and greetings. "You are about the only person I should want to
+see just now, because you know the whole history. Something unprecedented
+has happened. A communication has come apparently from John to Amaryllis
+from a prisoners' camp in Germany, and yet as far as one can be certain
+of anything I am certain that I saw him die--"
+
+Verisschenzko was greatly startled. What a frightful complication it
+would make should John be alive!
+
+"The letter--merely a postcard enclosed in an envelope--came by this
+afternoon's post--and as you can understand, it has frightfully upset us
+all. It is a sort of thing about which one cannot analyse one's feelings.
+John had a right to his life and we ought to be glad--but the idea of
+giving up Amaryllis--of having all the suffering and the parting
+again--Stepan, it is cruelly hard."
+
+Verisschenzko sat down in one of the big chairs, and Euterpe, the lesser
+tawny dog, came and pushed her nose into his hand. He patted her silky
+head absently. He was collecting his thoughts; the shock of this news was
+considerable and he must steady his judgment.
+
+"John wrote to her himself, you say? It is not a message through a third
+person--no?"
+
+"It appears to be in his own writing." Denzil stood leaning on the
+mantelpiece, and his face seemed to grow more haggard with each word.
+"Merely saying that he was taken prisoner by the enemy when they made the
+counter attack, and that he had been too ill to write or speak until now.
+I can't understand it--because they did not make the counter attack until
+after I was carried in--and even though I was unconscious then, the
+stretcher bearers must have seen John when they lifted me if he had been
+there. Nothing was found but his glasses and we concluded another shell
+had burst somewhere near his body after I was carried in. Stepan, I swear
+to God I saw him die."
+
+"It sounds extraordinary. Try to tell me every detail, Denzil."
+
+So the story of John's last moments was gone over again, and all the most
+minute events which had occurred. And at the end of it the two solid
+facts stood out incontrovertibly--John's body was never found, but Denzil
+had seen him die.
+
+"How long will it take to communicate with him, I wonder? We can through
+the American Ambassador, I suppose, because he gives no address. It must
+be awful for him lying there wounded with no news. I say this because I
+suppose I must accept his own writing, but I, cannot yet bring myself to
+believe that he can be alive."
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a moment, then he asked:
+
+"May I see my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+"Yes, she told me to bring you to her as soon as I should have explained
+to you the whole affair. Come now."
+
+They went up the stairs together, and they hardly spoke a word. And
+when they reached the cedar parlour Denzil let Verisschenzko go in in
+front of him.
+
+"I have brought Stepan to you," he told Amaryllis. "I am going to leave
+you to talk now."
+
+Amaryllis was white as milk and her grey eyes were disturbed and very
+troubled. She held out her two hands to Verisschenzko and he kissed them
+with affectionate worship.
+
+"Lady of my Soul!"
+
+"Oh! Stepan,--comfort me--give me counsel. It is such a terrible moment
+in my life. What am I to do?"
+
+"It is indeed difficult for you--we must think it all out--"
+
+"Poor John--I ought to be glad that he is alive, and I am--really--only,
+oh! Stepan, I love Denzil so dearly. It is all too awfully complicated.
+What so greatly astonishes me about it is that John has not written
+deliriously, or as though he has lost his memory, and yet if we had
+carried out his instructions and wishes we should be married now, Denzil
+and I,--and he never alludes to the possibility of this! It is written as
+though no complications could enter into the case--"
+
+"It sounds strange--may I see the letter?"
+
+She got up and went over to the writing table and returned with a packet
+and the envelope which contained the card. It was not one which prisoners
+use as a rule; it had the picture of a German town on it and the
+postmark on the envelope was of a place in Holland. Verisschenzko read it
+carefully:
+
+"I have been too ill to write before--I was taken prisoner in the counter
+attack and was unconscious. I am sending this by the kindness of a nurse
+through Holland. Everyone must have believed that I was dead. I am
+longing for news of you, dearest. I shall soon be well. Do not worry. I
+am going to be moved and will write again with address.
+
+"All love,--
+
+"JOHN."
+
+The writing was rather feeble as a very ill person's would naturally be,
+but the name "John" was firm and very legible.
+
+"You are certain that it is his writing?"
+
+"Yes"--and then she handed him another letter from the packet--John's
+last one to her. "You can see for yourself--it is the same hand."
+
+Stepan took both over to the lamp, and was bending to examine them when
+he gave a little cry:
+
+"Sapristi!"--and instead of looking at the writings he sniffed strongly
+at the card, and then again. Amaryllis watched him amazedly.
+
+"The same! By the Lord, it is the work of Ferdinand. No one could mistake
+his scent who had once smelt it. The muskrat, the scorpion! But he has
+betrayed himself."
+
+Amaryllis grew paler as she came close beside him.
+
+"Stepan, oh, tell me! What do you mean?"
+
+"I believe this to be a forgery--the scent is a clue to me. Smell
+it--there is a lingering sickly aroma round it. It came in an envelope,
+you see,--that would preserve it. It is an Eastern perfume, very
+heavy,--what do you say?"
+
+She wrinkled her delicate nose:
+
+"Yes, there is some scent from it. One perceives it at first and then it
+goes off. Oh, Stepan, please do not torture me. Can you be quite sure?"
+
+"I am absolutely certain that whether it is in John's writing or not,
+Ferdinand, or some one who uses his unique scent, has touched that card.
+Now we must investigate everything."
+
+He walked up and down the room in agitation for a few moments; talking
+rapidly to himself--half in Russian--Amaryllis caught bits.
+"Ferdinand--how to his advantage? None. What then? Harietta?
+Harietta--but why for her?"
+
+Then he sat down and stared into the fire, his yellow-green eyes blazing
+with intelligence, his clear brain balancing up things. But now he did
+not speak his thoughts aloud.
+
+"She is jealous. I remember--she imagined that it is my child. She
+believes I may marry Amaryllis. It is as plain as day!"
+
+He jumped up and excitedly held out his hands.
+
+"Let us fetch Denzil," he cried joyously. "I can explain everything."
+
+Amaryllis left the room swiftly and called when she got outside his door:
+
+"Denzil--do come."
+
+He joined them in a second or two--there as he was, in a blue silk
+dressing gown, as he had just been going to dress for dinner.
+
+He looked from one face to the other anxiously and Stepan
+immediately spoke.
+
+"I think that the card is a forgery, Denzil. I believe it to have been
+written by Ferdinand Ardayre--at the instigation of Harietta Boleski.
+She would have means to obtain the postcard, and have it sent through
+Holland too."
+
+"But why--why should she?" Amaryllis exclaimed in wonderment. "What
+possible reason could she have for wishing to be so cruel to us. We were
+always very nice to her, as you know."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed cynically.
+
+"She was jealous of you all the same. But Denzil, I track it by the
+scent. I know Ferdinand uses that scent," he held out the card. "Smell."
+
+Denzil sniffed as Amaryllis had done.
+
+"It is so faint I should not have remarked it unless you had told me--but
+I daresay if it was a scent one had smelt before, one would be struck by
+it! But how are you going to prove it, Stepan? We shall have to have
+convincing proof--because I am the only witness of poor John's death, and
+it could easily be said that I am too deeply interested to be reliable.
+For God's sake, old friend, think of some way of making a certainty."
+
+"I have a way which I can enforce as soon as I reach Paris. Meanwhile say
+nothing to any one and put the thought of it out of your heads. The
+evidence of your own eyes convinced you that John is dead; you found it
+difficult to accept that he was alive even when seeing what appeared to
+be his own writing, but if I assure you that this is forged you can be at
+peace. Is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis' lips were trembling; the shock and then this counter
+shock were unhinging her. She was horrified at herself that she
+should not catch at every straw to prove John was alive, instead of
+feeling some sense of relief when Verisschenzko protested that the
+postcard was a forgery.
+
+Poor John! Good, and kind, and unselfish. It was all too agitating. But
+was just life such a very great thing? She knew that had she the choice
+she would rather be dead than separated now from Denzil. And if John were
+really to be alive--what misery he would be obliged to suffer, knowing
+the situation.
+
+"Quite apart from what to me is a convincing proof, the scent,"
+Verisschenzko went on, "the card must be a forgery because of John's
+seeming oblivion of the possibility that you two might have already
+carried out his wishes. All this would have been very unlike him. But if
+it is, as I think, Ferdinand's and Harietta Boleski's work, they would
+not be likely to know that John had desired that Denzil should marry you,
+Amaryllis, and so would have thought a short card with longings to see
+you would be a natural thing to write. Indeed you can be at rest. And now
+I will go and dress for dinner, and we will forget disturbing thoughts."
+
+Amaryllis and Denzil will always remember Stepan's wonderful tact and
+goodness to them that evening; he kept everything calm and thrilled them
+all with his stories and his conversation and his own wonderfully
+magnetic personality. And after dinner he played to them in the green
+drawing room and, as Mrs. Ardayre said, seemed to bring peace and healing
+to all their troubled souls.
+
+But when he was alone with Denzil late, after the two women had retired
+to bed, he sunk into a deep chair in the smoking room and suddenly burst
+into a peal of cynical laughter.
+
+"What the devil's up?" demanded Denzil, astonished.
+
+"I am thinking of Harietta's exquisite mistake. She believes the baby is
+mine! She is mad with a goat's jealousy; she supposes it is I who will
+marry Amaryllis--hence her plot! Does it not show how the good are
+protected and the evil fall into their own traps!"
+
+"Of course! She was in love with you!"
+
+"In love! Mon Dieu! you call that love! I mastered her body and was
+unobtainable. She was never able to draw me more than a person could to
+whom I should pay two hundred francs. She knew that perfectly--it enraged
+her always. The threads are now completely in my hands. Conceive of it,
+Denzil! The man at the Ardayre ball was her first husband for whom she
+always retained some kind of animal affection--because he used to beat
+her. They married her to Stanislass just to obtain the secrets of Poland,
+and any other thing which she could pick' up. Her marvellous stupidity
+and incredible want of all moral restraint has made her the most
+brilliant spy. No principles to hamper her--nothing. She has only tripped
+up through jealousy now. When she felt that she had lost me she grew to
+desire me with the only part of her nature with which she desires
+anything, her flesh--then she became unbalanced, and in September before
+I left, gave the clue into my hands. I shall not bore you with all the
+details, but I have them both--she and Ferdinand Ardayre. The first
+husband has gone back to Germany from Sweden, but we shall secure him,
+too, presently. Meanwhile I shall hand Harietta to the French
+authorities--her last exploits are against France. She has enabled the
+Germans to shoot six or seven brave fellows, besides giving information
+of the most important kind wormed from foolish elderly adorers and above
+all from Stanislass himself."
+
+"She will be shot, I suppose."
+
+"Probably. But first she shall confess about the postcard from the
+prison camp. I shall go to Paris immediately, Denzil; there must be
+no delay."
+
+"You will not feel the slightest twinge because she was your mistress, if
+she is shot, Stepan? I ask because the combination of possible emotions
+is interesting and unusual."
+
+"Not for an instant--" and suddenly Verisschenzko's yellow-green eyes
+flashed fire and his face grew transfigured with fierce hate. "You do not
+know the affection I had for Stanislass from my boyhood--he was my
+leader, my ideal. No paltry aims--a great pioneer of freedom on the
+sanest lines. He might have altered the history of our two countries--he
+was the light we need, and this foul, loathsome creature has destroyed
+not only his soul and his body, but the protector and defender of a
+conception of freedom which might have been realised. I would strangle
+her with my own hands."
+
+"Stanislass must have been a weakling, Stepan, to have let her destroy
+him. He could never have ruled. It strikes me that this is the proof of
+another of your theories. It must be some debt of his previous life that
+he is paying to this woman. He was given his chance to use strength
+against her and failed."
+
+The hate died out of Verisschenzko's face--and the look of calm
+reasoning returned.
+
+"Yes, you are right, Denzil. You are wiser than I. So I shall not give
+her up, for punishment of her crimes. I shall only give her up because of
+justice--she must not be at large. You see, even in my case,--I who pride
+myself on being balanced, can have my true point of view obsessed by
+hate. It is an ignoble passion, my son!"
+
+"You will catch Ferdinand too?"
+
+"Undoubtedly--he is just a rotten little snipe, but he does mischief as
+Harietta's tool--and through his business in Holland."
+
+"He loathes the English--that is his reason, but Madame Boleski has no
+incentive like that."
+
+"Harietta has no country--she would be willing to betray any one of them
+to gratify any personal desire. If she had been a patriot exclusively
+working for Germany, one could have respected her, but she has often
+betrayed their secrets to me--for jewels--and other things she required
+at the moment. No mercy can be shown at all."
+
+"In these days there is no use in having sentiment just because a spy is
+a woman--but I am glad it is not my duty to deliver her up."
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"I cannot help my nature, Denzil,--or rather the attributes of the nation
+into which in this life I am born. I shall hand Harietta over to justice
+without a regret."
+
+Then they parted for the night with much of the disturbance and the
+complex emotions removed from Denzil's heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+When Verisschenzko reached Paris and discovered the desecration of the
+Ikon, an icy rage came over him. He knew, even before questioning his old
+servant, that it could only be the work of Harietta. Jealousy alone would
+be the cause of such a wanton act. It revealed to him the certainty of
+his theory that she had imagined the little Benedict to be his child. No
+further proof that the postcard was a forgery was really needed, but he
+would see her once more and obtain extra confirmation.
+
+His yellow-green eyes gleamed in a curious way as he stood looking at the
+mutilated picture.
+
+That her ridiculous and accursed hatpin should have dared to touch the
+eyes of his soul's lady, and scratch out the face of the child!
+
+But he must not let this emotion of personal anger affect what he
+intended in any case to do from motives of justice. In the morning he
+would give all his proofs of her guilt to the French authorities, and let
+the law take its course--but to-night he would make her come there to his
+apartment and hear from him an indictment of her crimes.
+
+He sat down in the comfortable chair in his own sitting room and
+began to think.
+
+His face was ominous; all the fierce passions of his nation and of his
+nature held him for a while.
+
+His dog, an intelligent terrier whom he loved, sat there before the fire
+and watched him, wagging his stump of a tail now and then nervously, but
+not daring to approach. Then, after half an hour had gone by, he rose and
+went to the telephone. He called up the Universal and asked to be put
+through to the apartment of Madame Boleski, and soon heard Harietta's
+voice. It was a little anxious--and yet insolent too.
+
+"Yes? Is that you Stepan! Darling Brute! What do you want?"
+
+"You--cannot you come and dine with me to-night--alone?"
+
+His voice was honey sweet, with a spontaneous, frank ring in it, only his
+face still looked as a fiend's.
+
+"You have just arrived? How divine!"
+
+"This instant, so I rushed at once to the telephone. I long for
+you--come--now."
+
+He allowed passion to quiver in the last notes--he must be sure that she
+would be drawn.
+
+"He cannot have opened the doors of the Ikon," Harietta thought. "I will
+go--to see him again will be worth it anyway!"
+
+"All right!--in half an hour!"
+
+"_Soit_,"--and he put the receiver down.
+
+Then he went again to the Ikon and examined the doors; by slamming them
+very hard and readjusting one small golden nail, he could give the
+fastening the appearance of its having been jammed and impossible to
+open. He ordered a wonderful dinner and some Chateau Ykem of 1900.
+Harietta, he remembered, liked it better than Champagne. Its sweetness
+and its strength appealed to her taste. The room was warm and
+delightful with its blazing wood fire. He looked round before he went
+to dress, and then he laughed softly, and again Fin nervously wagged
+his stump of a tail.
+
+Harietta arrived punctually. She had made herself extremely beautiful.
+Her overmastering desire to see Verisschenzko had allowed her usually
+keen sense of self-preservation partially to sleep. But even so,
+underneath there was some undefined sense of uneasiness.
+
+Stepan met her in the hall, and greeted her in his usual abrupt way
+without ceremony.
+
+"You will leave your cloak in my room," he suggested, wishing to give her
+the chance to look at the Ikon's jammed doors and so put her at her ease.
+
+The moment she found herself alone, she went swiftly to the shrine. She
+examined it closely--no the bolt had not been mended. She pulled at the
+doors but she could not open them, and she remembered with relief that
+she had slammed them hard. That would account for things. He certainly
+could not yet know of her action. The evening would be one of pleasure
+after all! And there was never any use in speculating about to-morrows!
+
+Verisschenzko was waiting for her in the sitting-room, and they went
+straight in to dinner. A little table was drawn up to the fire; all
+appeared deliciously intimate, and Harietta's spirits rose.
+
+To her Verisschenzko appeared the most attractive creature on earth.
+Indeed, he had a wonderful magnetism which had intoxicated many women
+before her day. He was looking at her now with eyes unclouded by glamour.
+He saw that she was painted and obvious, and without real charm. She
+could no longer even affect his senses. He saw nothing but the reality,
+the animal, blatant reality, and in his memory there remained the pierced
+out orbs of the Virgin and the scratched face of the Christ child.
+
+Everything fierce and cunning in his nature was in action--he was
+glorying in the torture he meant to inflict, the torture of jealousy and
+unsatisfied suspicion.
+
+He talked subtly, deliberately stirring her curiosity and arousing her
+apprehension. He had not mentioned Amaryllis, and yet he had conveyed to
+her, as though it were an unconscious admission, that he had been in
+England with her, and that she reigned in his soul. Then he used every
+one of his arts of fascination so that all Harietta's desires were
+inflamed once more, and by the time she had eaten of the rich Russian
+dishes and drank of the Chateau Ykem she was experiencing the strongest
+emotion she had ever known in her life, while a sense of impotence to
+move him augmented her other feelings.
+
+Her eyes swam with passion, as she leaned over the table whispering words
+of the most violent love in his ears.
+
+Verisschenzko remained absolutely unstirred.
+
+"How silly you were to send that postcard to Lady Ardayre," he remarked
+contemplatively in the middle of one of her burning sentences. "It was
+not worthy of your usual methods--a child could see that it was a
+forgery. If you had not done that I might have made you very happy
+to-night--for the last time--my little goat!"
+
+"Stepan--what card? But you are going to make me happy anyway, darling
+Brute; that is what I have come for, and you know it!"
+
+Her eyes were not so successfully innocent as usual when she lied. She
+was uneasy at his stolidity, some fear stayed with her that perhaps he
+meant not to gratify her desires just to be provoking. He had teased her
+more than once before.
+
+Verisschenzko went on, lighting his cigarette calmly:
+
+"It was a silly plot--Ferdinand Ardayre wrote it and you dictated it; I
+perceived the whole thing at once. You did it because you were jealous of
+Lady Ardayre--you believe that I love her--"
+
+"I do not know anything about a card, but I _am_ jealous about that
+hateful bit of bread and butter," and her eyes flashed. "It is so unlike
+you to worry over such a creature--I'm what you like!"
+
+He laughed softly. "A man has many sides--you appeal to his lowest.
+Fortunately it is not in command of him all the time--but let me tell you
+more about the forgery. You over-reached yourselves--you made John ignore
+something which would have been his first thought, thus the fraud was
+exposed at once."
+
+Her jealousy blazed up, so that she forgot herself and prudence.
+
+"You mean about the child--your child--"
+
+The ominous gleam came into Verisschenzko's eyes.
+
+"My child--you spoke of it once before and I warned you--I never
+speak idly."
+
+She got up from the table and came and flung her arms round his neck.
+
+"Stepan, I love you--I love you! I would like to kill Amaryllis and the
+child--I want you--why are you so changed?"
+
+He only laughed scornfully again, while he disengaged her arms.
+
+"Do you know how I found out? By the perfume--the same as you told me
+must be that of Stanislass' mistress--on the handkerchief marked 'F.A.'
+The whole thing was dramatically childish. You thought to prove her
+husband was still alive, would stop my marriage with Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Then you are going to marry her!"
+
+Harietta's hazel eyes flashed fire, her face had grown distorted with
+passion and her cheeks burned beyond the rouge.
+
+She appeared a most revolting sight to Stepan. He watched her with cold,
+critical eyes. As she put out her hands he noticed how the thumbs turned
+right back. How had he ever been able to touch her in the past! He
+shivered with disgust and degradation at the thought.
+
+She saw his movement of repulsion, and completely lost her head.
+
+She flung herself into his arms and almost strangled him in her furious
+embrace, while she threw all restraint to the winds and poured out a
+torrent of passion, intermingled with curses for one who had dared to try
+and rob her of this adored mate.
+
+It was a wonderful and very sickening exhibition, Verisschenzko thought.
+He remained as a statue of ice. Then when she had exhausted herself a
+little, he spoke with withering calm.
+
+"Control yourself, Harietta; such emotion will leave ugly lines, and you
+cannot afford to spoil the one good you possess. I have not the least
+desire for you--I find that you look plain and only bore me. But now
+listen to me for a little--I have something to say!" His voice changed
+from the cynical callousness to a deep note of gravity: "You need not
+even tell me in words that you sent the forgery--you have given me ample
+proof. That subject is finished--but I will make you listen to the
+recital of some of your vile deeds." The note grew sterner and his eyes
+held her cowed. "Ah! what instruments of the devil are such women as
+you--possessing the greatest of all power over men you have used it only
+for ill--wherever you have passed there is a trail of degradation and
+slime. Think of Stanislass! A man of fine purpose and lofty ideals. What
+is he now? A poor lifeless semblance of a man with neither brain nor
+will. You have used him--not even to gratify your own low lust, but to
+betray countries--and one of them your husband's country, which ought to
+have been your own."
+
+She sank to her knees at his side; he went on mercilessly. He spoke of
+many names which she knew, and then he came to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"They tell me he is drinking and sodden with morphine, and raves wildly
+of you. Think of them all--where are they now? Dead many of them--and you
+have survived and prospered like a vampire, sucking their blood. Do you
+ever think of a human being but your own degraded self? You would
+sacrifice your nearest and dearest for a moment's personal gain. You are
+not caught and strangled because the outside good natures come easily to
+you. It makes things smooth to smile and commit little acts of showy
+kindness which cost you nothing. You live and breathe and have your being
+like a great maggot fattening on a putrid corpse. I blush to think that I
+have ever used your body for my own ends, loathing you all the time. I
+have watched you cynically when I should have wrung your neck."
+
+She sobbed hoarsely and held out her hands.
+
+"For all these things you might still have gone free, Harietta--and fate
+would punish you in time, but you have committed that great crime for
+which there can be no mercy. You have acted the part of a spy. A wretched
+spy, not for patriotism but for your own ends--you have not been faithful
+to either side. Have you not often given me the secrets of your late
+husband Hans? Do you care one atom which country wins? Not you. The
+whole sordid business has had only one aim--some personal gratification."
+
+He paused--and she began to speak, now choking with rage, but he motioned
+her to be silent.
+
+"Do you think so lightly of the great issues which are shaking the world
+that you imagine that you can do these things with impunity? I tell you
+that soon you must pay the price. I am not the only one who knows of
+your ways."
+
+She got up from the floor now and tossed her head. Important things had
+never been to her realities--her fear left her. What agitated her now was
+that Stepan, whom she adored, should speak to her in such a tone. She
+threw herself into his arms once more, passionately proclaiming her love.
+
+He thrust her from him in shrinking disgust, and the cruel vein in his
+character was aroused.
+
+"Love!--do not dare to desecrate the name of love. You do not know what
+it means. I do--and this shall always remain with you as a remembrance. I
+love Amaryllis Ardayre. She is my ideal of a woman--tender and restrained
+and true--I shall always lay my life at her feet. I love her with a love
+such beings as you cannot dream of, knowing only the senses and playing
+only to them. That will be your knowledge always, that I worship and
+reverence this woman, and hold you in supreme contempt."
+
+Harietta writhed and whined on the sofa where she had fallen.
+
+"Go," he went on icily. "I have no further use for you, and my car is
+waiting below. You may as well avail yourself of it and return to your
+hotel. In the morning the last proof of the interest I have taken in you
+may be given, but to-night you can sleep."
+
+Harietta cried aloud--she was frightened at last. What did he mean? But
+even fear was swallowed up in the frantic thought that he had done with
+her, that he would never any more hold her in his arms. Her world lay in
+ruins, he seemed the one and only good. She grovelled on the floor and
+kissed his feet.
+
+"Master, Master! Keep me near you--I will be your slave--"
+
+But Verisschenzko pushed her gently aside with his foot and going to a
+table near took up a cigarette. He lighted it serenely, glancing
+indifferently at the dishevelled heap of a woman still crouching on
+the floor.
+
+"Enough of this dramatic nonsense," and he blew a ring of smoke. "I
+advise you to go quietly to bed--you may not sleep so softly on
+future nights."
+
+Fear overcame her again--what could he mean? She got up and held on to
+the table, searching his face with burning eyes.
+
+"Why should I not sleep so softly always?" and her voice was thick.
+
+He laughed hoarsely.
+
+"Who knows? Life is a gamble in these days. You must ask your interesting
+German friend."
+
+She became ghastly white--that there was real danger was beginning
+to dawn upon her. The rouge stood out like that on the painted face
+of a clown.
+
+Verisschenzko remained completely unmoved. He pressed the bell, and his
+Russian servant, warned beforehand, brought him in his fur coat and hat,
+and assisted him to put them on.
+
+"I will take Madame to get her cloak," he announced calmly. "Wait here
+to show us out."
+
+There was nothing for Harietta to do but follow him, as he went towards
+the bedroom door. She was stunned.
+
+He walked over to the Ikon, and slipping a paper knife under them opened
+wide the doors; then he turned to her, and the very life melted within
+her when she saw his face.
+
+"This is your work," and he pointed to the mutilations, "and for that and
+many other things, Harietta, you shall at last pay the price. Now come, I
+will take you back to your lover, and your husband--both will be waiting
+and longing for your return. Come!"
+
+She dropped on the floor and refused to move so that he was obliged to
+call in the servant, and together they lifted her, the one holding her
+up, while the other wrapped her in her cloak. Then, each supporting her,
+they made their way down the stairs, and placed her in the waiting motor,
+Verisschenzko taking the seat at her side--and so they drove to the
+Universal. She should sleep to-night in peace and have time to think over
+the events of the evening. But to-morrow he must no longer delay about
+giving information to the authorities.
+
+She cowered in the motor until they had almost reached the door, when she
+flung her arms round his neck and kissed him wildly again, sobbing with
+rage and terror:
+
+"You shall not marry Amaryllis; I will kill you both first."
+
+He smiled in the darkness, and she felt that he was mocking her, and
+suddenly turned and bit his arm, her teeth meeting in the cloth of his
+fur-lined coat.
+
+He shook her off as he would have done a rat:
+
+"Never quite apropos, Harietta! Always a little late! But here we have
+arrived, and you will not care for your admirers, the concierge, and the
+lift men, to see you in such a state. Put your veil over your face and go
+quietly to your rooms. I will wish you a very good-night--and farewell!"
+
+He got out and stood with mock respect uncovered to assist her, and she
+was obliged to follow him. The hall porter and the numerous personnel of
+the hotel were looking on.
+
+He bowed once more and appeared to kiss her hand:
+
+"Good-bye, Harietta! Sleep well."
+
+Then he re-entered the car and was whirled away.
+
+She staggered for a second and then moved forward to the lift. But as she
+went in, two tall men who had been waiting stepped forward and joined
+her, and all three were carried aloft, and as she walked to her salon she
+saw that they were following her.
+
+"There will be no more kicks for thee, my Angel!" the maid, peeping
+from a door, whispered exultingly to Fou-Chow! "Thy Marie has saved
+thee at last!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Verisschenzko again reached his own sitting room he paced up and
+down for half an hour. He was horribly agitated, and angry with himself
+for being so.
+
+Denzil had been right; when it came to the point, it was a ghastly thing
+to have to do, to give a woman up to death--even though her crimes amply
+justified such action.
+
+And what was death?
+
+To such a one as Harietta what would death mean?
+
+A sinking into oblivion for a period, and then a rebirth in some sphere
+of suffering where the first lessons of the meanings of things might be
+learned? That would seem to be the probable working of the law--so that
+she might eventually obtain a soul.
+
+He must not speculate further about her though, he must keep his nerve.
+
+And his own life--what would it now become? Would the spirit of freedom,
+stirring in his beloved country, arrive at any good? Or would the red
+current of revolution, once let loose, swamp all reason and flow in
+rivers of blood?
+
+He would be powerless to help if he let weakness overmaster him now.
+
+The immediate picture looked black and hopeless to his far-seeing eyes.
+
+But his place must be in Petrograd now, until the end. His activities,
+which had obliged him to be away from Russia, were finished, and new ones
+had begun which he must direct, there in the heart of things.
+
+"The world is aching for freedom, God," his stormy thoughts ran, "but we
+cannot hope to receive it until we have paid the price of the aeons of
+greed and self-seeking which have held us, the ignorance, the low
+material gain. We must now reap that sowing. The divine Christ--one
+man--was enough as a sacrifice in that old period of the world's day--but
+now there must be a holocaust of the bravest and best for our
+purification."
+
+He threw himself into his chair and gazed into the glowing embers. What
+pictures were forming themselves there? Nations arising glorified by a
+new religion of common sense, education universally enjoyed, the great
+forces studied, and Nature's fundamental principles reckoned with and
+understood.
+
+To hunt his food.
+
+To recreate his species.
+
+_And to kill his enemy._
+
+A bright blade sheathed but ready, a clear judgment trained and used,
+ideals nobly striven for, and Wisdom the High Priest of God.
+
+These were the visions he saw in the fire, and he started to his feet and
+stretched out his arms.
+
+"Strength, God! Strength!" that was his prayer.
+
+"That we may go--
+Armoured and militant,
+New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps
+To those great altitudes whereat the weak
+Live not, but only the strong
+Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve."
+
+Then he sat down and wrote to Denzil.
+
+"I have all the needed proofs, my friend. Marry my soul's lady in peace
+and make her happy. There come some phases in a man's life which require
+all his will to face. I hope I am no weakling. I return to Russia
+immediately. Events there will enable me to blot out some disturbing
+memories.
+
+"The end is not yet. Indeed, I feel that my real life is only just
+beginning.
+
+"Ferdinand Ardayre is deeply incriminated with Harietta; it is only a
+question of a little time and he will be taken too. Then, Denzil, you, in
+the natural course of events, would have been the Head of the Family. You
+will need all your philosophy never to feel any jar in the situation with
+your son as the years go on. You will have to look at it squarely, dear
+old friend, and know that it is impossible to have interfered with
+destiny and to have gone scott free. Then you will be able to accept
+title affair with common sense and prize what you have obtained, without
+spoiling it with futile regrets. You have paid most of your score with
+wounds and suffering, and now can expect what happiness the agony of the
+world can let a man enjoy.
+
+"My blessings to you both and to the Ardayre son.
+
+"And now adieu for a long time."
+
+He had hardly written the last line when the telephone rang, and the
+frantic voice of Stanislass, his ancient friend, called to him!
+
+Harietta had been taken away to St. Lazare--her maid had denounced her.
+What could be done?
+
+A great wave of relief swept over Stepan. So he was not to be the
+instrument of justice after all!
+
+How profoundly he thanked God!
+
+But the irony of the thing shook him.
+
+Harietta would pay with her life for having maltreated a dog!
+
+Truly the workings of fate were marvellous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The days in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of
+frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe that
+she was to die.
+
+Stanislass and Ferdinand, and even Verisschenzko, would save her!
+
+She loathed the hard bed at St. Lazare, and the discomfort, and the
+ugliness, and the Sister of Charity!
+
+She spent hours tramping her cell like a wild beast in a cage. She would
+roar with inarticulate fury, and cry aloud to her husband, and her
+lovers, one after another, and then she would cower in a corner, shaking
+with fear.
+
+The greatest pain of all was the thought that Stepan and Amaryllis would
+marry and be happy. Once or twice foam gathered at the corners of her
+lips when she thought of this.
+
+If she could have reached Marie, that would have given her some
+satisfaction--to tear out her eyes! For Ferdinand Ardayre had told her
+how Marie had given her up, working quietly until she had all necessary
+proofs, and then denouncing her.
+
+When Stanislass had returned from the Club, whither she had despatched
+him for the evening, so that she might be free to dine with
+Verisschenzko, he found that she had already been taken away.
+
+The shock, when he discovered that nothing could be done, had nearly
+killed him--he now lay dangerously ill in a Maison de Sante, happily
+unconscious of events.
+
+For Ferdinand Ardayre the blow had fallen with crushing force. The one
+strong thing in his weak nature was his passion for Harietta--and to be
+robbed of her in such a way!
+
+He battled impotently against fate, unable even to try to use any means
+in his possession to get the death sentence commuted, because he was too
+deeply implicated himself to make any stir.
+
+He saw her in the prison after the trial, with the bars between and the
+warders near. And the awful change in Tier paralysed him with grief. On
+the morrow she was to die--the usual death of a spy.
+
+Her hair was wild and her face without rouge was haggard and wan.
+
+She implored him to save her.
+
+The frightful pain of knowing that he could do nothing made Ferdinand
+desperate, and then suddenly he became inspired with an idea.
+
+He could at all events remove some of the agony of terror from her, and
+enable her to go to her death without a hideous scene. He remembered "La
+Tosca"--the same method might serve again!
+
+He managed to whisper to her in broken sentences that she would certainly
+be saved. The plan was all prepared, he assured her. The rifles would
+contain blank cartridges, and she must pretend to fall--and afterwards he
+would come, having bribed every one and made the path smooth.
+
+He lied so fervently that Harietta was convinced, her material brain
+catching at any straw. She must dress herself and look her best, he told
+her, so as to make an impression upon all the men concerned; and then,
+when he had to leave her, he arranged with the prison doctor that she
+might receive a strong _piqure_ of morphine, so that she would be
+serene. She spent the night dreaming quite happily and at four o'clock
+was awakened and began to dress.
+
+The drug had calmed all her terrors and her dramatic instinct held
+full sway.
+
+She arranged her toilet with the utmost care, using all her arts to
+beautify herself. In her ears were Stanislass' ruby earrings and she wore
+Stepan's ring and brooch.
+
+Death to her was an impossibility--she had never seen any one die.
+
+It was a wonderfully fine part she would have to play, with Ferdinand
+there really going to save her! That was all! She must even be sweet at
+last to the poor sister, whom she had snarled at hitherto.
+
+If she could only have seen Stepan once more! Stanislass and his broken
+life and fond devotion never gave her a thought or troubled her at all.
+After she was free, she would find some means to pay out Hans! She hated
+him. If it had not been for Hans and his tiresome old higher command
+with their stupid intrigues, she would still be free. That she had
+betrayed countries--that she was guilty in any way never presented
+itself to her mind.
+
+All Verisschenzko's passionate indictment had fallen upon unheeding ears.
+The morphine now left her only sufficiently conscious for fundamental
+instincts to act.
+
+She felt that she was a beautiful woman going to be the chief figure in a
+wonderfully dramatic scene. Nothing solemn had touched her. Her brain was
+light and now only filled with cunning and _coqueterie_; she meant to
+charm her guards and executioners to the last man! And ready at length,
+she walked nonchalantly out of the prison and into the waiting car which
+was to carry her to Vincennes.
+
+Now the end of all this is best told in the words of a young French
+soldier who was an eye witness and wrote the whole thing down. To pen the
+hideous horror I find too difficult a task.
+
+"Sunday--11 in the evening.
+
+"We had only returned at that moment from our day's leave, when the
+Lieutenant came to us to announce that we should be of the _piquet_
+to-morrow morning for the execution of Madame Boleski, the spy.
+
+"He said this to us in his monotonous voice as though he had been saying
+'To-morrow--_Revue d'Armes_'--but for us, after a whole day passed far
+from barracks, it was a rather brusque return to military realities!
+
+"At once it became necessary that we look through our accountrements for
+the show. No small affair! and for more than an hour there was brushing
+and polishing of straps and buckles. It was nearly two o'clock in the
+morning before we could turn in.
+
+"Many of us could not sleep--we are all between eighteen and nineteen
+years old, and the idea to see a woman killed agitated us. But little by
+little the whole band dozed."
+
+"Monday morning.
+
+"At four o'clock--reveille. We dress in haste in the dark. Ten minutes
+later we all find ourselves in the courtyard.
+
+"'_A droit alignement couvres sur deux_.'
+
+"The Lieutenant made the call."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The detachment moves off in the night, marching in slow cadence--that
+step which so peculiarly gives the impression of restrained force and
+condensed power.
+
+"We leave the fort and gain the artillery butts--true landscape of the
+front! Trenches, stripped trees, abandoned wagons!
+
+"And in the middle of all that--our silhouettes of carbines,
+casques and sacs.
+
+"Absolute silence.
+
+"We stop--we advance--and suddenly in the dawn which has begun, we arrive
+at our destination--the execution ground.
+
+"'_Cannoniers--halte! Couvres sur deux. A droite alignement_.'"
+
+"A rattle of arms. And there in front of us, at hardly fifteen yards, we
+catch sight of the post.
+
+"Up till now we had scarcely felt anything--just startled impressions,
+almost of curiosity, but now I begin to experience the first strong
+sensation.
+
+"The post! Symbol of all this sinister ceremony. A short post--not higher
+than one's shoulder! There it stands in front of the shooting butts. And
+to think that nearly every Monday--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now the troops from the Square, which is in reality rectangular, the
+shooting butt constituting one of its sides. Then in the grim dawn we
+wait quietly for what is to come. One after another, we see several
+automobiles approach, and each time we ask ourselves, 'Is not this the
+condemned?'
+
+"No--they are journalists--officers--_avocats_--and presently a hearse,
+out of which is lifted the coffin.
+
+"The undertakers' men, who presently will proceed to the business of
+placing the body there, laugh and talk together as they sit and smoke.
+They are old _habitues!_"
+
+"One was cold standing still! It begins to be quite light. The condemned
+one may arrive at any moment, because the execution has been fixed for
+exactly at the rising of the sun.
+
+"The men of the platoon load their rifles. The number of them is
+twelve--four sergeants, four corporals, four soldiers.
+
+"And then there are the _Chasseurs a pied_."
+
+"All of a sudden, two more cars appear, escorted by a company of
+dragoons.
+
+"This time it is She.
+
+"They stop--out of the first one, officers descend. The Commissaire of
+the Government who has, condemned Madame Boleski to death and who had
+gone a little more than an hour ago to awake her in her cell. The
+Captain, reporter, and two other Captains. The door of the second auto
+opens, two gendarmes get out--a Sister of St. Lazare (what a terrible
+_metier_ for her!)--and then Harietta Boleski!
+
+"And at once, accompanied by the nun and followed by the gendarmes, she
+penetrates into the square of men.
+
+"Until now we have been enduring a period of waiting, we have been asking
+ourselves if it will have an effect upon us--but now we have no more
+doubt. The effect has begun!
+
+"'Present arms!'
+
+"All together we render honour to the dead woman--for one considers a
+person condemned as already dead. And the bugles begin to play the
+March--_Do sol do do Sol do do, Mi mi mi_--
+
+"They play slowly--very softly and in the minor key.
+
+"Harietta Boleski walks quickly, the sister can hardly keep by her side.
+She is tall, beautiful, very elegant. A large hat with floating lace veil
+thrown back and splendid earrings. A dark dress--pretty shoes.
+
+"She looks at the troops and the _piquet d'execution_ a little
+disdainfully, and then she smiles gaily--it is almost a titter. The
+sister taps her gently on the shoulder, as if to recall her to a sense of
+order, but she makes one careless gesture and walks up to the post.
+
+"The bugles are sounding plaintively, slowly and more slowly all the
+time.
+
+"She pauses in front of us--and with us it is now, 'Does this make us
+feel something?' We must hold ourselves not to grow faint.
+
+"To see this woman go by with the trumpets sounding ever. To say to
+ourselves that in sixty seconds she will be no more. There will be no
+life in that beautiful body. Ah! that is an emotion, believe me!
+
+"Never has the great problem been brought more forcibly before my spirit.
+
+"It is during the second when she passes before me that I receive
+the most profound impression, more even than at the actual moment of
+the firing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is beside the post. The bugles stop their mournful
+sound. They tie her to it, but not tightly, only so that her fall may not
+be too hard. A gendarme presents her with a bandeau for her eyes, which
+she pushes aside with scorn.
+
+"And when an officer reads the sentence, Harietta Boleski smiles."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"At twelve yards the platoon is lined up. The sentence has been read.
+
+"Madame Boleski embraces the Sister of Charity, who is very overcome.
+She even whispers a few words to comfort her. They stand back from the
+post. The adjutant who commands the platoon raises his sword--the rifles
+come in into position--two seconds--and the sword falls!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"A salute!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is no more.
+
+"The fair body drops to earth and immediately an Adjutant of
+Dragoons goes swiftly to the post, revolver pointed, and gives the
+_coup de grace_.
+
+"_'Arme sur l'epaule--Droit. A droit. En avant. Marche!'_
+
+"And we file past the corpse while the trumpets recommence to sound.
+
+"Harietta Boleski is lying down. She seems to be only reposing, so
+beautiful she looks.
+
+"The ball had entered her heart (we knew this later) so that her death
+has been instantaneous.
+
+"All the troops have defiled before her now.
+
+"We regain our quarters.
+
+"But as we file into the courtyard the sun gilds the highest window of
+the fortress. The day has begun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus perished Harietta Boleski in the thirty-seventh year of her age--in
+the midst of the zest of life. The times are to strenuous for sentiment.
+
+So perish all spies!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
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+Title: The Price of Things
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+Author: Elinor Glyn
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+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9809]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THINGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+                             BY ELINOR GLYN
+
+                                  1919
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+I wrote this book in Paris in the winter of 1917-18--in the midst of
+bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch,
+and only primitive instincts seemed to stand out distinctly.
+
+Life appeared brutal, and our very fashion of speaking, the words we
+used, the way we looked at things, was more realistic--coarser--than in
+times of peace, when civilization can re-assert itself again. This is why
+the story shocks some readers. I quite understand that it might do so;
+but I deem it the duty of writers to make a faithful picture of each
+phase of the era they are living in, that posterity may be correctly
+informed about things, and get the atmosphere of epochs.
+
+The story is, so to speak, rough hewn. But it shows the danger of
+breaking laws, and interfering with fate--whether the laws be of God
+or of Man.
+
+It is also a psychological study of the instincts of two women, which the
+strenuous times brought to the surface. "Amaryllis," with all her
+breeding and gentleness, reacting to nature's call in her fierce fidelity
+to the father of her child--and "Harietta," becoming in herself the
+epitome of the age-old prostitute.
+
+I advise those who are rebuffed by plain words, and a ruthless analysis
+of the result of actions, not to read a single page.
+
+[Signature: Elinor Glyn]
+
+
+
+
+THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane,"
+said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish
+all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things,
+one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one
+discovers hope lying at the bottom of it."
+
+"What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre's
+large grey eyes opened in a puzzled way. She was on her honeymoon in
+Paris at a party at the Russian Embassy, and until now had accepted
+things and not speculated about them. She had lived in the country and
+was as good as gold.
+
+She was accepting her honeymoon with her accustomed calm, although it was
+not causing her any of the thrills which Elsie Goldmore, her school
+friend, had assured her she should discover therein.
+
+Honeymoons! Heavens! But perhaps it was because Sir John was dull. He
+looked dull, she thought, as he stood there talking to the Ambassador. A
+fine figure of an Englishman but--yes--dull. The Russian, on the
+contrary, was not dull. He was huge and ugly and rough-hewn--his eyes
+were yellowish-green and slanted upwards and his face was frankly
+Calmuck. But you knew that you were talking to a personality--to one who
+had probably a number of unknown possibilities about him tucked away
+somewhere.
+
+John had none of these. One could be certain of exactly what he would do
+on any given occasion--and it would always be his duty. The Russian was
+observing this charming English bride critically; she was such a perfect
+specimen of that estimable race--well-shaped, refined and healthy. Chock
+full of temperament too, he reflected--when she should discover herself.
+Temperament and romance and even passion, and there were shrewdness and
+commonsense as well.
+
+"An agreeable task for a man to undertake her education," and he wished
+that he had time.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre asked again:
+
+"How can one not think? I am always thinking."
+
+He smiled indulgently.
+
+"Oh! no, you are not--you only imagine that you are. You have questioned
+nothing--you do right generally because you have a nice character and
+have been well brought up, not from any conscious determination to uplift
+the soul. Yes--is it not so?"
+
+She was startled.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Do you ever ask yourself what things mean? What we are--where we are
+going? What is the end of it all? No--you are happy; you live from day
+to day--and yet you cannot be a very young ego, your eyes are too
+wise--you have had many incarnations. It is merely that in this one life
+the note of awakening has not yet been struck. You certainly must have
+needed sleep."
+
+"Many lives? You believe in that theory?"
+
+She was not accustomed to discuss unorthodox subjects. She was
+interested.
+
+"But of course--how else could there be justice? We draw the reflex of
+every evil action and of every good one, but sometimes not until the next
+incarnation, that is why the heedless ones cannot grasp the truth--they
+see no visible result of either good or evil--evil, in fact, seems
+generally to win if there is a balance either way."
+
+"Why are we not allowed memory then, so that we might profit by
+our lessons?"
+
+"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our
+faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of
+our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds
+us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the
+desire is no more."
+
+"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems
+a paradox."
+
+She was a little disturbed.
+
+"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must
+banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of
+people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at
+all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to
+the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
+But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness;
+there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."
+
+"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be
+happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."
+
+"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the
+sleep was not deep."
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds passing and re-passing in those
+stately rooms.
+
+"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one
+with the fair hair in jade green--she looks radiantly happy."
+
+"And is--she is frankly an animal--exquisitely preserved, damnably
+selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a
+harem houri--and the tenacity of a rat."
+
+"You are severe."
+
+"Not at all. Harietta Boleski is a product of that most astonishing
+nation across the Atlantic--none other could produce her. It is the
+hothouse of the world as regards remarkable types. Here for immediate
+ancestry we have a mother, from heaven knows what European refuse heap,
+arrived in an immigrant ship--father of the 'pore white trash' of the
+south--result: Harietta, fine points, beautiful, quite a lady for
+ordinary purposes. The absence of soul is strikingly apparent to any
+ordinary observer, but one only discovers the vulgarity of spirit if one
+is a student of evolution--or chances to catch her when irritated with
+her modiste or her maid. Other nations cannot produce such beings. Women
+with the attributes of Harietta, were they European, would have surface
+vulgarity showing--and so be out of the running, or they would have real
+passion which would be their undoing--passion is glorious--it is aroused
+by something beyond the physical. Observe her nostril! There is simple,
+delightful animal sensuality for you! Look also at the convex curve below
+the underlip--she will bite off the cherry whether it is hers by right or
+another's, and devour it without a backward thought."
+
+"Boleski--that is a Russian name, is it not?"
+
+"No, Polish--she secured our Stanislass, a great man in his
+country--last year in Berlin, having divorced a no longer required,
+but worthy German husband who had held some post in the American
+Consulate there."
+
+"Is that old man standing obediently beside her your Stanislass?--he
+looks quite cowed."
+
+"A sad sight, is it not? Stanislass, though, is not old, barely forty. He
+had a _beguin_ for her. She put his intelligence to sleep and bamboozled
+his judgment with a continuous appeal to the senses; she has vampired him
+now. Cloying all his will with her sugared caprices, she makes him scenes
+and so keeps him in subjection. He was one of the Council de l'Empire for
+Poland; the aims of his country were his earnest work, but now ambition
+is no more. He is tired, he has ceased to struggle; she rules and eats
+his soul as she has eaten the souls of others. Shall I present her to
+you? As a type, she is worthy of your attention."
+
+"It sounds as if she had the evil eye, as the Italians say," Amaryllis
+shuddered.
+
+"Only for men. She is really an amiable creature--women like her. She
+is so frankly simple, since for her there are never two issues--only to
+be allowed her own desires--a riot of extravagance, the first
+place--and some one to gratify certain instincts without too many
+refinements when the mood takes her. For the rest, she is kind and
+good-natured and 'jolly,' as you English say, and has no notion that
+she is a road to hell. But they are mostly dead, her other spider
+mates, and cannot tell of it."
+
+"I am much interested. I should like to talk to her. You say that she
+is happy?"
+
+"Obviously--she is an elemental--she never thinks at all, except to plan
+some further benefit for herself. I do not believe in this life that she
+can obtain a soul--her only force is her tenacious will."
+
+"Such force is good, though?"
+
+"Certainly. Even bad force is better than negative Good. One must first
+be strong before one can be serene."
+
+"You are strong."
+
+"Yes, but not good. Hardly a fit companion for sweet little English
+brides with excellent husbands awaiting them."
+
+"I shall judge of that."
+
+"_Tiens!_ So emancipated!"
+
+"If you are bad, how does your theory work that we pay for each action?
+Since by that you must know that it cannot be worth while to be bad."
+
+"It is not--I am aware of it, but when I am bad I am bad deliberately,
+knowing that I must pay."
+
+"That seems stupid of you."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I take very severe exercise when I begin to think of things I should not
+and I become savage when I require happiness--now is our chance for
+making you acquainted with Harietta, she is moving our way."
+
+Madame Boleski swept towards them on the arm of an Austrian Prince and
+the Russian Verisschenzko said, with suave politeness:
+
+"Madame, let me present you to Lady Ardayre. With me she has been
+admiring you from afar."
+
+The two women bowed, and with cheery, disarming simplicity, the American
+made some gracious remarks in a voice which sounded as if she smoked too
+much; it was not disagreeable in tone, nor had she a pronounced
+American accent.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre found herself interested. She admired the superb
+attention to detail shown in Madame Boleski's whole person. Her face was
+touched up with the lightest art, not overdone in any way. Her hair, of
+that very light tone bordering on gold, which sometimes goes with hazel
+eyes, was quite natural and wonderfully done. Her dress was
+perfection--so were her jewels. One saw that her corsetiere was an
+artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken
+off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand--it was well-shaped, save
+that the thumb turned back in a remarkable degree.
+
+"So delighted to meet you," Madame Boleski said. "We are going over to
+London next month and I am just crazy to know more of you delicious
+English people."
+
+They chatted for a few moments and then Madame Boleski swept onwards. She
+was quite stately and graceful and had a well-poised head. Amaryllis
+turned to the Russian and was startled by the expression of fierce,
+sardonic amusement in his yellow-green eyes.
+
+"But surely, she can see that you are laughing at her?" she exclaimed,
+astonished.
+
+"It would convey nothing to her if she did."
+
+"But you looked positively wicked."
+
+"Possibly--I feel it sometimes when I think of Stanislass; he was a very
+good friend of mine."
+
+Sir John Ardayre joined them at this moment and the three walked towards
+the supper room and the Russian said good-night.
+
+"It is not good-bye, Madame. I, too, shall be in your country soon and I
+also hope that I may see you again before you leave Paris."
+
+They arranged a dinner for the following night but one, and said
+au revoir.
+
+An hour later the Russian was seated in a huge English leather chair in
+the little salon of his apartment in the rue Cambon, when Madame Boleski
+very softly entered the room and sat down upon his knee.
+
+"I had to come, darling Brute," she said. "I was jealous of the English
+girl," and she fitted her delicately painted lips to his. "Stanislass
+wanted to talk over his new scheme for Poland, too, and as you know that
+always gets on my nerves."
+
+But Verisschenzko threw his head back impatiently, while he
+answered roughly.
+
+"I am not in the mood for your chastisement to-night. Go back as you
+came, I am thinking of something real, something which makes your
+body of no use to me--it wearies me and I do not even desire your
+presence. Begone!"
+
+Then he kissed her neck insolently and pushed her off his knee.
+
+She pouted resentfully. But suddenly her eyes caught a small case lying
+on a table near--and an eager gleam came into their hazel depths.
+
+"Oh, Stepan! Is it the ruby thing! Oh! You beloved angel, you are going
+to give it to me after all! Oh! I'll rush off at once and leave you, if
+you wish it! Good-night!"
+
+And when she was gone Verisschenzko threw some incense into a silver
+burner and as the clouds of perfume rose into the air:
+
+"Wough!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"What are you doing in Paris, Denzil?"
+
+"I came over for a bit of racing. Awfully glad to see you. Can't we dine
+together? I go back to-morrow." Verisschenzko put his arm through Denzil
+Ardayre's and drew him in to the Cafe de Paris, at the door of which they
+had chanced to meet.
+
+"I had another guest, but she can be consoled with some of Midas' food,
+and I want to talk to you; were you going to eat alone?"
+
+"A fellow threw me over; I meant to have just a snack and go on to a
+theatre. It is good running across you--I thought you were miles away!"
+
+Verisschenzko spoke to the head waiter, and gave him directions as to the
+disposal of the lovely lady who would presently arrive, and then he went
+on to his table, rather at the top, in a fairly secluded corner.
+
+The few people who were already dining--it was early on this May
+night--looked at Denzil Ardayre--he was such a refreshing sight of health
+and youth, so tall and fit and English, with his brown smooth head and
+fearless blue eyes, gay and debonnaire. One could see that he played
+cricket and polo, and any other game that came along, and that not a
+muscle of his frame was out of condition. He had "soldier" written upon
+him--young, gallant, cavalry soldier. Verisschenzko appreciated him;
+nothing complete, human or inanimate, left him unconscious of its
+meaning. They knew one another very well--they had been at Oxford and
+later had shot bears together in the Russian's far-off home.
+
+They talked for a while of casual things, and then Verisschenzko said:
+
+"Some relations of yours are here--Sir John Ardayre and his particularly
+attractive bride. Shall we eat what I had ordered for Collette, or have
+you other fancies after the soup?"
+
+Denzil paid only attention to the first part of the speech--he looked
+surprised and interested.
+
+"John Ardayre here! Of course, he married about ten days ago--he is the
+head of the family as you are aware, but I hardly even know him by sight.
+He is quite ten years older than I am and does not trouble about us, the
+poor younger branch--" and he smiled, showing such good teeth. "Besides,
+as you know, I have been for such a long time in India, and the leaves
+were for sport, not for hunting up relations."
+
+Verisschenzko did not press the matter of his guest's fancies in food,
+and they continued the menu ordered for Collette without further delay.
+
+"I want to hear all that you know about them, the girl is an exquisite
+thing with immense possibilities. Sir John looks--dull."
+
+"He is really a splendid character though," Denzil hastened to assure
+him. "Do you know the family history? But no, of course not, we were too
+busy in the old days enjoying life to trouble to talk of such things!
+Well, it is rather strange in the last generation--things very nearly
+came to an end and John has built it all up again. You are interested in
+heredity?"
+
+"Naturally--what is the story?"
+
+"Our mutual great-grandfather was a tremendous personage in North
+Somerset--the place Ardayre is there. My father was the son of the
+younger son, who had just enough to do him decently at Eton, and enable
+him to scrape along in the old regiment with a pony or two to play with.
+My mother was a Willowbrook, as you know, and a considerable heiress,
+that is how I come out all right, but until John's father, Sir James,
+squandered things, the head of the family was always very rich and full
+of land--and awfully set on the dignity of his race. They had turned the
+cult of it into regular religion."
+
+"The father of this man made a _gaspillage_, then--well?"
+
+"Yes, he was a rotter--a hark-back to his mother's relations; she was a
+Cranmote--they ruin any blood they mix with. I am glad that I come from
+the generation before."
+
+Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
+fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so John
+seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early, she had
+had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away everything he
+could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a tutor at home, for
+some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about thirteen when she died
+and at seventeen went straight into the city. He was determined to make a
+fortune, it has always been said, and redeem the mortgages on
+Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"
+
+Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.
+
+"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a Bulgarian
+snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople! You may well
+smile"--for Verisschenzko had raised his eyebrows in a whimsical
+way--this did sound such a highly coloured incident!
+
+"It was an unusual sort of thing to do, I admit, but the tale grows more
+lurid still, when I tell you that five months after the wedding she
+produced a son by the Lord knows who, one of her own tribe probably, and
+old Sir James was so infatuated with her that he never protested, and
+presently when he and John quarrelled like hell he pretended the little
+brute was his own child--just to spite John."
+
+Verisschenzko's Calmuck eyes narrowed.
+
+"And does this result of the fusion of snake charmers figure in the
+family history? I believe I have met him--his name is Ferdinand, is it
+not, and he is, or was, in some business in Constantinople?"
+
+"That is the creature--he was brought up at Ardayre as though he were the
+heir, and poor John turned out of things. He came to Eton three years
+before I left, but even there they could not turn him into the outside
+semblance of a gentleman. I loathed the little toad, and he loathed
+me--and the sickening part of the thing is that if John does not have a
+son, by the English law of entail Ferdinand comes into Ardayre, and will
+be the head of the family. Old Sir James died about five years ago,
+always protesting this bastard was his own child, though every one knew
+it was a lie. However, by that time John had made enough in the city to
+redeem Ardayre twice over. He had tremendous luck after the South African
+War, so he came into possession and lives there now in great state--I do
+really hope that he will have a son."
+
+"You, too, have the instinct of the family, then--this pride in
+it--since it cannot benefit you either way."
+
+"I believe it is born in us, and though I have never seen Ardayre, I
+should hate this mongrel to have it. I was brought up with a tremendous
+reverence for it, even as a second cousin."
+
+"Well, the new Lady Ardayre looks young enough and of a health to have
+ten sons!"
+
+"Y-es," Denzil acquiesced in a tentative tone.
+
+"Not so?" Verisschenzko glanced up surprised, and then gave his attention
+to the waiter who had brought some Burgundy and was pouring it out into
+his glass.
+
+"Not so you would say?"
+
+"I don't know, I have never seen her--but in the family it is whispered
+that John--poor devil--he had an accident hunting two or three years
+ago. However, it may not any of it be true--here, let us drink to the
+Ardayre son!"
+
+"To the Ardayre son!" and Verisschenzko filled his friend's glass with
+the decanted wine and they both drank together.
+
+"Your cousin is like you," he said presently. "A fatiguing likeness, but
+the same height and make--and voice--strange things these family
+reproductions of an exact type. I have no family, as you know--we are of
+the people, arisen by trade to riches. Could I go beyond my immediate
+parents, could I know cousins and uncles and brothers, should I find this
+same peculiar stamp of family among us all? Who knows? I think not."
+
+"I suppose there is something in it. My father has told me that in
+the picture gallery at Ardayre they are as like as two pins the whole
+way down."
+
+"The concentration upon the idea causes it. In people risen like my
+father and myself, we only resemble a group--a nation; if I have children
+they will resemble me. It is strength in the beginning when an individual
+rises beyond the group, which produces a type. One says 'English' to look
+at you, and then, if one knows, one says 'Ardayre' at once; one gets as
+far as 'Calmuck' with me, that is all, but in years to come it will have
+developed into 'Verisschenzko.'"
+
+"How you study things, Stepan; you are always putting new ideas into my
+head whenever I see you. Life would be just a routine, for all the joy of
+sport, if one did not think. I am going to finish my soldiering this
+autumn and stand for Parliament. It seems waste of time now, with no wars
+in prospect, sticking to it; I want a vaster field."
+
+"You think there can be no wars in prospect--no? Well, who can prophesy?
+There are clouds in the Southeast, but for the moment we will not
+speculate about them--and they may affect my country and not yours. And
+so you will settle down and become a reputable member of Parliament?"
+Then, as Denzil would have spoken perhaps upon the subject of war clouds,
+Verisschenzko hastily continued:
+
+"Will you dine to-morrow night at the Ritz to meet your cousin and his
+wife? They are honouring me."
+
+"I wish I could, but I am off in the morning. What is she like?"
+
+Verisschenzko paid particular attention to the selection of a quail, and
+then he answered:
+
+"She is of the same type as the family, Denzil,--that is, a good
+skeleton--bones in the right place, firm white flesh, colouring as
+yours--well bred, balanced, unawakened as yet. Was she a relation?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so--a cousin of a generation even before mine. I wish I
+could have dined, I would awfully like to have met them; I shall have
+to make a chance in England. It is stupid not to know one's own family,
+but our fathers quarrelled and we have never had a chance of mending
+the break."
+
+"They were at the Russian Embassy last night; the throng admired Lady
+Ardayre very much."
+
+"And what are you doing in Paris, Stepan? The last I heard of you, you
+were on your yacht in the Black Sea."
+
+"I was cruising near countries whose internal affairs interest me for the
+moment. I returned to my _appartement_ in Paris to see a friend of mine,
+Stanislass Boleski--he also has a lovely wife. Look, she has just come
+in with him. She is in the devil of a temper--observe her. If I sit back,
+the pillar hides me--I do not wish them to see me yet."
+
+Denzil glanced down the room; two people were taking their seats by the
+wall. The mask was off Harietta Boleski's face for the moment; it looked
+silly with its raised eyebrows and was full of ill temper and spite. The
+husband had an air of extreme worry on his clever, intellectual face, but
+that he was solicitous to gratify his wife's caprices, any casual
+observer could have perceived.
+
+"You mean the woman with the wonderful _cigrettes_--she is good-looking,
+isn't she? I wonder who it is she has caught sight of now, though? Look
+at the eagerness which has come into her eyes--you can see her in the
+mirror if you want to."
+
+But Verisschenzko had missed nothing, and he bent forward to endeavour
+to identify the person upon whom Madame Boleski's gaze had turned. There
+was nothing to distinguish any individual--the company were of several
+nations--German and Austrian and Balkan and Russian scattered about here
+and there among the French and American _habitues_. The only plan would
+be to continue to watch Harietta--but although he did this throughout the
+dinner, not a flicker of her eyelids gave him any further clue.
+
+Denzil was interested--he felt something beyond what appeared on the
+surface was taking place, so he waited for his friend to speak.
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a little, and then he casually gave a resume
+of the character and place of Madame Boleski and her husband, a good deal
+more baldly expressed, but in substance much the same as he had given to
+Amaryllis at the Russian Embassy the night before.
+
+He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.
+
+"Look at her well--she is capable of mischief. Her extreme
+stupidity--only the brain of a rodent or a goat--makes her more
+difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can
+never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays
+is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite
+natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all.
+Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or
+personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves
+even me--I, who am no poor diviner--confused as to whether she is
+telling a lie or the truth."
+
+"What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.
+
+"An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko
+continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of
+the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times,
+and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not
+for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different
+jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information,
+obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital
+importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a
+mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."
+
+"She has lovers?"
+
+"Has had many; her role now is that of a great lady and so all is of a
+respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of
+self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she
+would commit betises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is
+hidden with the cunning of a fox."
+
+"Who did you say the first husband was--?"
+
+"A German of the name of Von Wendel--he used to beat her with a stick, it
+is said--so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until
+she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any
+one who stood in her way."
+
+"Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty epuise--one feels sorry
+for the poor man."
+
+Then, as ever, at the mention of the debacle of Stanislass,
+Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.
+
+"She has crushed the hope of Poland--for that, indeed, one day she
+must pay."
+
+"But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"
+Denzil remarked.
+
+"Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices--and
+Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our
+Northern world."
+
+His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of
+Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had
+always been drawn to Stepan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the
+Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a
+mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm
+heart of a generous child--capable of every frenzy and of every
+sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the
+one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered
+over many lands--and as they sat there in the Cafe de Paris, the thoughts
+of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in
+Russia and in India between.
+
+"They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said
+presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of
+what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon
+and stars--and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"
+
+"Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,
+Stepan? Twenty-nine years old!"
+
+Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the
+two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced
+Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski
+all smiles and flattering cajoleries now--and then they said
+good-night and went out.
+
+But as Stepan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned
+forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a
+jealous hate.
+
+"Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she
+loves--not the pig-fool who we gave her to--one day I shall kill him--"
+and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"
+
+That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois,
+and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Armenonville.
+Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The
+circumstances were interesting--a bride of ten days, and the environment
+so illuminating--and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and
+not saying _anything!_ She did not like people who chattered--and she
+could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid
+respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic
+background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded
+some show of emotion!
+
+John loved her she supposed--of course he did--or he never would have
+asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She
+could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its
+beginning was only three months back!
+
+They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then
+they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she
+could not remember any love-making--she could not remember any of those
+warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was
+propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in
+demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon
+the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and
+restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a
+worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked
+at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons
+and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone
+further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the
+dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.
+
+She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love
+was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies
+had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than
+that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had
+indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once
+supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect
+_something_, and here was nothing--just nothing!
+
+The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He
+had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of
+refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her
+intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not
+too congenial home.
+
+She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of
+some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless
+young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to
+strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours
+as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in
+herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a
+girl, luck did not come her way.
+
+When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of
+marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear,"
+and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned
+over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf
+ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her
+forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or
+gave her any thrill!
+
+"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a
+fellow, but I will try."
+
+Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most
+every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every
+one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and
+petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in
+a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of
+excitement in the whole conventional thing!
+
+There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most
+reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very
+well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked
+well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond
+talking on general subjects!
+
+This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down
+the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and
+polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense
+to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest
+flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really
+interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.
+
+He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew
+to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its
+honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person
+could ever do.
+
+She almost became jealous of it all.
+
+Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece
+had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.
+
+Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's,
+Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not
+allow her stepfather to give her away.
+
+Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an
+Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and
+prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome,
+stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the
+Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids.
+Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!
+
+And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is
+the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the
+altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."
+
+The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in
+the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent
+by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of
+the honeymoon."
+
+This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her
+aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would
+begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not.
+For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and
+been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was
+not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too
+unrefined in the expression of its private affairs and too indiscreet for
+any maiden to remain in ignorance now.
+
+It is true John did kiss her once or twice, but there was no real warmth
+in the embrace, and when, after an excellent dinner her heart began to
+beat with wonderment and excitement, she asked herself what it meant.
+Then, all confused, she murmured something about "Good-night," and
+retired to the magnificent state suite alone.
+
+When she had left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine
+and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but
+an anguish almost of despair in his eyes.
+
+Amaryllis thought of that night--and of other nights since--as she sat
+there at Armenonville, in the luminous sensuous dusk.
+
+So this was being married! Well, it was not much of a joy--and why, why
+did John sit silent there? Why?
+
+Surely this is not how the Russian would have sat--that strange Russian!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was nearing sunset in the garden below the Trocadero. A tall German
+officer waited impatiently not far from the bronze of a fierce bull in a
+secluded corner under the trees; he was plainly an officer although he
+was clothed in mufti of English make. He was a singularly handsome
+creature in spite of his too wide hips. A fine, sensual, brutal male.
+
+He swore in his own language, and then, through the glorious light,
+a woman came towards him. She wore an unremarkable overcoat and a
+thick veil.
+
+"Hans!" she exclaimed delightedly, and then went on in fluent German with
+a strong American accent.
+
+He looked round to be sure that they were alone, and then he clasped her
+in his arms. He held her so tightly that she panted for breath; he kissed
+her until her lips were bruised, and he murmured guttural words of
+endearment that sounded like an animal's growl.
+
+The woman answered him in like manner. It was as though two brute
+beasts had met.
+
+Then presently they sat upon a seat and talked in low tones. The woman
+protested and declaimed; the man grumbled and demanded. An envelope
+passed between them, and more crude caresses, and before they parted the
+man again held her in close embrace--biting the lobe of her ear until she
+gave a little scream.
+
+"Yes--if there was time--" she gasped huskily. "I should adore you like
+this--but here--in the gardens--Oh! do mind my hat!"
+
+Then he let her go--they had arranged a future meeting. And left alone,
+he sat down upon the bench again and laughed aloud.
+
+The woman almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting
+taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder
+puff, and red greases for her lips.
+
+"My goodness! I can't say that's a mosquito!" and she examined her ear.
+"How tiresome and imprudent of Hans! But Jingo, it was good!--if there
+only had been time--"
+
+Then she, too, laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at
+the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the
+telltale ear.
+
+But on encountering her maid, she was carrying her minute Pekinese dog in
+her arms and was beating him well.
+
+"Regardez, Marie! la vilaine bete m'a mordu l'oreil!"
+
+"Tiens!" commented the affronted Marie, who adored Fou-Chou. "Et le cher
+petit chien de Madame est si doux!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stanislass Boleski was poring over a voluminous bundle of papers when his
+wife, clad in a diaphanous wrap, came into his sitting room. They had a
+palatial suite at the Rhin. The affairs of Poland were not prospering as
+he had hoped, and these papers required his supreme attention--there was
+German intrigue going on somewhere underneath. He longed for Harietta's
+sympathy which she had been so prodigal in bestowing before she had
+secured her divorce from that brute of a Teutonic husband, whom she
+hated so much. Now she hardly ever listened, and yawned in his face when
+he spoke of Poland and his high aims. But he must make allowances for
+her--she was such a child of impulse, so lovely, so fascinating! And here
+in Paris, admired as she was, how could he wonder at her distraction!
+
+"Stanislass! my old Stannie," she cooed in his ear, "what am I to wear
+to-night for the Montivacchini ball? You will want me to look my best, I
+know, and I just love to please you."
+
+He was all attention at once, pushing the documents aside as she put her
+arms around his neck and pulled his beard, then she drew his head back to
+kiss the part where the hair was growing thin on the top--her eyes fixed
+on the papers.
+
+"You don't want to bother with those tiresome old things any more; go and
+get into your dressing-gown, and come to my room and talk while I am
+polishing my nails,--we can have half an hour before I must dress. I'll
+wait for you here--I must be petted to-night, I am tired and cross."
+
+Stanislass Boleski rose with alacrity. She had not been kind to him for
+days--fretful and capricious and impossible to please. He must not lose
+this chance--if it could only have been when he was not so busy--but--
+
+"Run along, do!" she commanded, tapping her foot.
+
+And putting the papers hastily in a drawer with a spring lock, he went
+gladly from the room.
+
+Her whole aspect changed; she lit a cigarette and hummed a tune, while
+she fingered a key which dangled from her bracelet.
+
+No one eclipsed Madame Boleski in that distinguished crowd later on.
+Her clinging silver brocade, and the one red rose at the edge of the
+extreme decolletage, were simply the perfection of art. She did not wear
+gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except
+a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to
+refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh!
+they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one
+finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band of homely
+gold! Never!"
+
+Stanislass had argued in those early days--he seldom argued now.
+
+"My love!" he cried, as she burst upon his infatuated vision, when ready
+for the ball, "let me admire you!"
+
+She turned about; she knew that she was perfection.
+
+Her husband kissed her fingers, and then he caught sight of the ruby
+ring. He examined it.
+
+"I had not seen this ruby before," he exclaimed in a surprised voice,
+"and I thought I knew all your jewel case!"
+
+She held out her hand while her big, stupid, appealing hazel eyes
+expressed childish innocence.
+
+"No--I'd put it away, it was of other days--but I do love rubies, and so
+I got it out to-night, it goes with my rose!"
+
+He had perceived this. Had he not become educated in the subtleties of a
+woman's apparel? For was it not his duty often, and his pleasure
+sometimes, to have to assist at her toilet, and to listen for hours to
+discussions of garments, and if they could suit or not. He was even
+accustomed now to waiting in the hot salons in the Rue de la Paix, while
+these stately perfections were being essayed. But the ruby ring worried
+him. Why had she asked him to give her just such a one only last month,
+if she already possessed its fellow?... He had refused because her
+extravagance had grown fantastic, but he had meant to cede later. Every
+pleasure of the senses he always had to secure by bribes.
+
+"I do not understand why?--" he began, but she put her hand over his
+mouth and then kissed him voluptuously before she turned and shrilly
+cried to Marie to bring her ermine cloak.
+
+The maid's eyes were round and sullen with resentment; she had not
+forgotten the beating of Fou-Chou! "As for the ear of Madame!" she said,
+clasping the tiny dog to her heart, as she watched her mistress go
+towards the lift from the sitting-room, "as for that maudite ear, thy
+teeth are innocent, my angel! But I wish that he who is guilty had bitten
+it off!" Then she laughed disdainfully.
+
+"And look at the old fool! He dreams of nothing! And if he dreamed, he
+would not believe--such _insenses_ are men!"
+
+Meanwhile the Boleskis had arrived at the hotel of the Duchesse di
+Montivacchini, that rich and ravishing American-Italian, who gave the
+most splendid and exclusive entertainments in Paris. So, too, had arrived
+Sir John and Lady Ardayre, brought on from the dinner at the Ritz by
+Verisschenzko.
+
+Denzil had left that morning for England, or he would have had the
+disagreeable experience of meeting his _soi-disant_ cousin, to whom he
+had applied the epithet "toad." For Ferdinand Ardayre had just reached
+the gay city from Constantinople, and had also come to the ball with a
+friend in the Turkish Embassy.
+
+He happened to be standing at the door when the Boleskis were announced,
+and his light eyes devoured Harietta--she seemed to him the ideal of
+things feminine--and he immediately took steps to be presented. Assurance
+was one of his strongest cards. He was a fair man--with the fairness of a
+Turk not European--and there was something mean and chetive in his
+regard. He would have looked over-dressed and un-English in a London
+ball-room, but in that cosmopolitan company he was unremarkable. He had
+been his mother's idol and Sir James had left him everything he could
+scrape from his highly mortgaged property. But certain tastes of his own
+made a Continental life more congenial to him, and he had chosen early to
+enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He
+was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by
+himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm.
+
+The one burning bitterness in his spirit was the knowledge that Sir John
+Ardayre had never recognised him as a brother. During Sir James' lifetime
+there had been silence upon the matter, since John had no legal reason
+for denying the relationship, but once he had become master of Ardayre he
+had let it be known that he refused to believe Ferdinand to be his
+father's son. On the rare occasions when he had to be mentioned, John
+called him "the mongrel" and Ferdinand was aware of this. A silent,
+intense hatred filled his being--more than shared by his mother who,
+until the day of her death, two years before, had always plotted
+vengeance--without being able to accomplish anything. Either mother or
+son would willingly have murdered John if a suitable and safe method had
+presented itself. And now to know that John had married a beautiful
+far-off cousin and might have children, and so forever preclude the
+possibility of his--Ferdinand's--own inheritance of Ardayre was a further
+incentive to hate! If only some means could be discovered to remove John,
+and soon! But while Ferdinand thought these things, watching his
+so-called brother from across the room, he knew that he was impotent.
+Poisons and daggers were not weapons which could be employed in civilised
+Paris in the twentieth century! If they would only come to
+Constantinople!
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre had never seen a Paris ball before. She was enchanted.
+The sumptuous, lofty rooms, with their perfect Louis XV gilt _boiseries_,
+the marvellous clothes of the women, the gaiety in the air! She was
+accustomed to the new weird dances in England, but had not seen them
+performed as she now saw them.
+
+"This orgie of mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as
+he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the
+fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle
+of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the
+skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted--all are
+feverish--all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the
+eve of a cataclysm--it is a dance Macabre."
+
+Amaryllis turned, startled, to look at him, and she saw that his eyes
+were full of melancholy, and not mocking as they usually were.
+
+"A dance Macabre! You do not approve of these tangoes then?"
+
+He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, which was his only form of
+gesticulation.
+
+"Tangoes--or one steps--I neither approve nor disapprove--dancing should
+all have its meaning, as the Greek Orchises had. These dances to the
+Greeks would have meant only one thing--I do not know if they would have
+wished this to take place in public, they were an aesthetic and refined
+people, so I think not. We Russians are the only so-called civilised
+nation who are brutal enough for that; but we are far from being
+civilised really. Orgies are natural to us--they are not to the French or
+the English. Savage sex displays for these nations are an acquired taste,
+a proof of vicious decay, the middle note of the end."
+
+"I learned the tango this Spring--it is charming to dance," Amaryllis
+protested. She was a little uncomfortable--the subject, much as she
+was interested in the Russian's downright views, she found was
+difficult to discuss.
+
+"I am sure you did--you counted time--you moved your charming form this
+way and that--and you had not the slightest idea of anything in it beyond
+anxiety to keep step and do the thing well! Yes--is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis laughed--this was so true!
+
+"What an incredibly false sham it all is!" he went on. "Started by
+niggers or Mexicans for what it obviously means, and brought here
+for respectable mothers, and wives, and girls to perform. For me a
+woman loses all charm when she cheapens the great mystery-ceremonies
+of love--"
+
+"Then you won't dance it with me?" Amaryllis challenged smilingly--she
+would not let him see that she was cast down. "I do so want to dance!"
+
+His eyes grew fierce.
+
+"I beg of you not! I desire to keep the picture I have made of you since
+we met--later I shall dance it myself with a suitable partner, but I do
+not want you mixed with this tarnished herd."
+
+Amaryllis answered with dignity:
+
+"If I thought of it as you do I should not want to dance it at all." She
+was aggrieved that her expressed desire might have made him hold her less
+high--"and you have taken all the bloom from my butterfly's wing--I will
+never enjoy dancing it again--let us go and sit down."
+
+He gave her his arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into
+conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose
+movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring.
+
+"There is your friend, Madame Boleski--she dances--and so well!"
+
+"Harietta is an elemental--as I told you before--it is right that she
+should express herself so. She is very well aware of what it all means
+and delights in it. But look at that lady with the hair going grey--it is
+the Marquise de Saint Vrilliere--of the bluest blood in France and of a
+rigid respectability. She married her second daughter last week. They all
+spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till
+dark--mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian
+Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses--clasped in the arms of incredible
+scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New
+York--decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers
+before this madness set in!"
+
+"And you say it is a dance Macabre? Tell me just what you mean."
+
+They had reached a comfortable sofa by now in a salon devoted to bridge,
+which was almost empty, the players, so eager to take part in the
+dancing, that they had deserted even this, their favourite game.
+
+"When a nation loses all sense of balance and belies the traditions of
+its whole history, and when masses of civilised individuals experience
+this craze for dancing and miming, and sex display, it presages some
+great upheaval--some calamity. It was thus before the revolution of 1793,
+and since it is affecting England and America and all of Europe it seems,
+the cataclysm will be great."
+
+Amaryllis shivered. "You frighten me," she whispered. "Do you mean some
+war--or some earthquake--or some pestilence, or what?"
+
+"Events will show. But let us talk of something else. A cousin of your
+husband's, who is a very good friend of mine, was here yesterday. He went
+to England to-day, you have not met him yet, I believe--Denzil Ardayre?"
+
+"No--but I know all about him--he plays polo and is in the Zingari."
+
+"He does other things--he will even do more--I shall be curious to hear
+what you think of him. For me he is the type of your best in England.
+We were at Oxford together; we dreamed dreams there--and perhaps time
+will realise some of them. Denzil is a beautiful Englishman, but he is
+not a fool."
+
+A sudden illumination seemed to come into Amaryllis' brain; she felt how
+limited had been all her thoughts and standpoints in life. She had been
+willing to drift on without speculation as to the goal to be reached.
+Indeed, even now, had she any definite goal? She looked at the Russian's
+strong, rugged face, his inscrutable eyes narrowed and gazing ahead--of
+what was he thinking? Not stupid, ordinary things--that was certain.
+
+"It is the second evening, amidst the most unlikely surroundings, that
+you have made me speculate about subjects which never troubled me before.
+Then you leave me unsatisfied--I want to know--definitely to know!"
+
+"Searcher after wisdom!" and he smiled. "No one can teach another very
+much. Enlightenment must come from within; we have reached a better stage
+when we realise that we are units in some vast scheme and responsible for
+its working, and not only atoms floating hither and thither by chance.
+Most people have the brains of grasshoppers; they spring from subject to
+subject, their thoughts are never under control. Their thoughts rule
+them--it is not they who rule their thoughts."
+
+They were seated comfortably on their sofa, and Verisschenzko leaning
+forward from his corner, looked straight into her eyes.
+
+"You control your thoughts?" she asked. "Can you really only let them
+wander where you choose?"
+
+"They very seldom escape me, but I consciously allow them indulgences."
+
+"Such as?"
+
+"Visions--day dreams--which I know ought not to materialise."
+
+Something disturbed her in his regard; it was not easy to meet, so full
+of magnetic emanation. Amaryllis was conscious that she no longer felt
+very calm--she longed to know What his dreams could be.
+
+"Yes--but if I told you, you would send me away."
+
+It seemed that he could read her desire. "I shall order myself to be
+gone presently, because the interest which you cause me to feel would
+interfere with work which I have to do."
+
+"And your dreams? Tell them first?" she knew that she was playing
+with fire.
+
+He looked down now, and she saw that he was not going to gratify her
+curiosity.
+
+"My noblest dream is for the regeneration of a nation--on that I have
+ordered my thoughts to dwell. For the others, the time is not yet for me
+to tell you of them--it may never come. Now answer me, have you yet seen
+your new home, Ardayre?"
+
+"No, but why should you be interested in that? It seems strange that you,
+a Russian, should even know that there is such a place as Ardayre!"
+
+"Continue--I know that it is a wonderful place, and that your husband
+loves it more than his life."
+
+Amaryllis pouted slightly.
+
+"He does indeed! Perhaps I shall grow to do so also when I know it; it is
+the family creed. Sir James--my late father-in-law--was the only
+exception to this rule."
+
+"You must uphold the idea then, and live to do fine things."
+
+"I will try--if only--" then she paused, she could not say "if only John
+would be human and unfreeze to me, and love me, and let us go on the road
+together hand in hand!"
+
+"It is quite useless for a family merely to continue from generation to
+generation piling up possessions, and narrowing its interests. It must do
+this for a time to become solid, and then it should take a vaster view,
+and begin to help the world. Nearly everything is spoiled in all
+civilisation because of this inability to see beyond the nose, this poor
+and paltry outlook."
+
+"People rave vaguely," Amaryllis argued, "about one's duty and vast
+outlooks and those things, but it is difficult to get any one to give
+concrete advice--what would you advise me to do, for instance?"
+
+"I would advise you first to begin asking yourself the reason of
+everything, each day, since Pandora's box has been opened for you in any
+case. 'What caused this? What caused that?' Search for causes--then
+eradicate the roots, if they are not good, do not waste time on trying to
+ameliorate the results! Determine as to why you are put into such and
+such a place, and accomplish what you discover to be the duty of the
+situation. But how serious we have become! I am not a priest to give you
+guidance--I am a man fighting a tremendously strong desire to take you in
+my arms--so come, we will return to the ball room, and I will deliver you
+to your husband."
+
+Amaryllis rose and stood facing him, her heart was beating fast. "If I
+try to do well--to climb the straight road of the soul's advancement,
+will you give me counsel should I need it by the way?"
+
+"Yes, this I will do when I have complete control, but for the moment you
+are causing me emotions, and I wish to keep you a thing apart--of the
+spirit. Hermits and saints subdue the flesh by abstinence and fasting;
+they then become useless to the world. A man can only lead men while he
+remains a man, with a man's passions, so that he should not fight in this
+beyond his strength--only he should _never sully the wrong thing_. Come!
+Return to the husband--and I shall go for a while to hell."
+
+And presently Amaryllis, standing safely with John, saw Verisschenzko
+dancing the maddest one-step with Madame Boleski, their undulations
+outdoing all others in the room!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The day after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis
+had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her
+husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which led from her room.
+
+They would breakfast cosily there, she had arranged, and nothing was
+wanting in the setting of a love scene. The bride wore the most alluring
+cap and daintiest Paris neglige, and her fair and pure skin gleamed
+through the diaphanous stuff.
+
+How she longed for John to notice it all, and make love to her! She had
+apprehended a number of delightful possibilities in Paris, none of which
+had materialised, alas! in her case.
+
+John was the same as ever--quiet, dignified, polite and unmoved. She had
+taken to turning out the light before he came to her at night, to hide
+the disappointment and chagrin which she felt might show in her eyes. It
+would be so humiliating if he should see this. There would soon be
+nothing left for her to do but pretend that she was as cold as he was, if
+this last effort of _froufrous_ left him as stolid as usual.
+
+She smoothed out the pale chiffon draperies with a tender hand. She got
+up and looked at herself in the mirror. It was fortunate that the
+reflection of snowy nose and throat and chin, and the pink velvet cheeks,
+required no art to perfect them; it was all natural and quite nice, she
+felt. What a bore it must be to have to touch up like Madame Boleski!
+
+But what was the meaning of all the imputations she had read of in those
+interesting French novels in Paris?--the languors and lassitudes and
+tremors of breakfasting love! There was just such a scene as this in one
+she had devoured on the boat. A _dejeuner_ of _amants--_certainly they
+had not been married, there was that want of resemblance, but surely this
+could not matter? For a fortnight, three weeks, a month, surely even a
+husband could be as a lover--especially to a mistress who took such pains
+to please his eye!
+
+Would Elsie Goldmore spend such dull breakfasts when she espoused Harry
+Kahn? Elsie Goldmore was a Jewess, perhaps that made the difference,
+perhaps Jews were more expansive--But the people in the novels were not
+Jews. Of course, though, they were French, that must be it! Could it be
+that all Englishmen, to their wives, were like John? This she must
+presently find out.
+
+Meanwhile she would try--oh, try so hard to entice him to be lovely to
+her! He was her own husband; there was absolutely no harm in doing this.
+And how glorious it would be to turn him into a lover! Here in this
+perfectly divine old house! John was so good-looking, too, and had the
+most attractive deep voice, but heavens! the matter-of-factness of
+everything about him!
+
+How long would it all go on?
+
+John came in presently with _The Times_ under his arm. He was
+immaculately dressed in a blue serge suit. Amaryllis had hoped to see
+him in that subduedly gorgeous dressing gown she had persuaded him to
+order at Charvets during their first days. It would have been so
+suitable and intimate and lover-like. But no! there was the blue serge
+suit--and _The Times_.
+
+A shadow fell upon her mood. Her own pink chiffons almost seemed
+out of place!
+
+John glanced at them, and at the glowing, living, delicious bit of young
+womanhood which they adorned. He saw the rebellious ripe cherry of a
+mouth, and the warm, soft tenderness in the grey eyes, and then he
+quickly looked out of the window--his own blue ones expressionless, but
+the hand which held the newspaper clenched rather hard.
+
+"Amn't I a pet!" cooed Amaryllis, deliberately subduing the chill of her
+first disappointment. "Dearest, see I have kept this last and loveliest
+set of garments for the morning of our home-coming--and for you!" and she
+crept close to him and laid her cheek against his cheek.
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her calmly.
+
+"You look most beautiful, darling," he said. "But then, you always do,
+and your frills are perfection. Now I think we ought to have breakfast;
+it is most awfully late."
+
+She sat down in her place and she felt stupid tears rise in her eyes.
+
+She poured out the tea and buttered herself some toast, while John was
+apparently busy at a side table where dwelt the hot dishes.
+
+He selected the daintiest piece of sole for her, and handed her
+the plate.
+
+"I am not hungry," she protested, "keep it for yourself."
+
+He did not press the matter, but took his place and began to talk quietly
+upon the news of the day--in a composed fashion between glances at _The
+Times_ and mouthfuls of sole.
+
+Amaryllis controlled herself. She was too proud and too just to make a
+foolish scene. If this was John's way and her little effort at enticement
+was a failure, she must put up with it. Marriage was a lottery she had
+always heard, and it might be her luck to have drawn a blank. So she
+choked down the rising emotion and answered brightly, showing interest in
+her husband's remarks--and she even managed to eat some omelette, and
+when the business of breakfast was quite over she went to the window and
+John followed her there.
+
+The view which met their eyes was exquisite.
+
+Beyond the perfect stately garden, with its quaint clipped yews and
+masses of spring flowers and velvet lawns, there stretched the vast park
+with its splendid oaks and browsing deer. It was a possession which any
+man could feel proud to own.
+
+John slipped his arm round her waist and drew her to him.
+
+"Amaryllis," he said, and his voice vibrated, "to-day I am going to show
+you everything I love here at Ardayre--because I want you to love it
+all, too. You are of the family, so it must mean something to you, dear."
+
+Amaryllis kindled with re-awakening hope.
+
+"Indeed, it will mean everything to me, John."
+
+He kissed her forehead and murmured something about her dressing quickly,
+and that he would wait for her there in the cedar room. And when she
+returned in about a quarter of an hour in the neatest country clothes, he
+placed her hand on his arm and led her down the great stairs and on
+through the hall into the picture gallery.
+
+It was a wonderful place of green silk and chestnut wainscoting, and all
+the walls of its hundred feet of length were hung with canvases of
+value--portraits principally of those Ardayres who had gone on. Face
+after face looked down on Amaryllis of the same type as John's and her
+own--the brown hair and eyes of grey or blue. Some were a little fairer,
+some a little darker, but all unmistakably stamped "Ardayre."
+
+John pointed out each individual to her, while she hung fondly on his
+arm, from some doubtful crude fourteenth century wooden panels of Johns
+and Denzils, on to Benedict in a furred Henry VII. gown. Then came Henrys
+and Denzils in Elizabethan armour and puffed white satin, and through
+Stuart and Commonwealth to Stuart again, and so to William and Mary
+numbers of Benedicts, and lastly to powdered Georgian James' and Regency
+Denzils and Johns. And the name Amaryllis recurred more than once in
+stately dame or damsel, called after that fair Amaryllis of Elizabeth's
+days who had been maid of honour to the virgin Queen, and had sonnets
+written to her nut brown locks by the gallants of her time.
+
+"How little the women they married seem to have altered the type!" the
+young living Amaryllis exclaimed, when they came nearly to the end. "It
+goes on Ardayre, Ardayre, Ardayre, ever since the very first one. Oh!
+John, if we ever have a son he ought to be even more so--you and I being
+of the same blood--" and then she hesitated and blushed crimson. This was
+the first time she had ever spoken of such a thing.
+
+John held her arm very tightly to his side for a second, and his voice
+was uncertain as he answered:
+
+"Amaryllis, that is the profound desire of my heart, that we should
+have a son."
+
+A strange feeling of exaltation came over Amaryllis, half-innocent,
+wholly ignorant as she was.
+
+She had been stupid--French novels were all nonsense. Marriages in real
+life were always like this--of course they must be--since John said
+plainly and with such deep feeling that his profoundest desire was that
+they should have a son! That meant that she would surely have one. This
+was perfectly glorious, and it must simply be those silly books and Elsie
+Goldmore's too uxorious imagination which had given her some ridiculously
+romantic exaggerated ideas of what love hours would be. She would now be
+contented and never worry again. She nestled closer to her husband and
+looked up at him with eyes sweet and fond, the brown, curly lashes wet
+with tender dew.
+
+"Oh!--darling, when, when do you think we shall have a son?"
+
+Then, for the first time in their lives, John Ardayre clasped her in his
+arms passionately and held her to his heart.
+
+"Ah, God," he whispered hoarsely, as he kissed her fresh young lips.
+"Pray for that, Amaryllis--pray for that, my own."
+
+Then he restrained himself and drew her on to the four last pictures at
+the end of the room. They were of his grandfather and grandmother, and
+his father and mother. And then there was a blank space, and the brighter
+colour of the damask showed that a canvas had been removed.
+
+"Who hung there, John?"
+
+"The accursed snake charmer woman whom my father disgraced the family
+with by bringing home. She was his wife by the law, and a Frenchman
+painted her. It was a fine picture with the bastard Ferdinand in her
+arms--the proof of our shame. I had it taken down and burnt the day the
+place was mine."
+
+Amaryllis was receiving surprises to-day--John's face was full of
+emotion, his eyes were sparkling with hate as he spoke. How he must love
+everything connected with his home, and its honour, and its name--he
+could not be so very cold after all!
+
+She thought of the Russian's words about a family--the uselessness of its
+going on for generations, piling up possessions and narrowing its
+interests. What had the aims been of all these handsome men? She knew the
+earlier history a little, for even though she was of a distant branch
+they had been proud of the connection, and treasured the traditions
+belonging to it. But these were just dry facts of history which she knew,
+so now she asked:
+
+"John, what did any of them do? Did they accomplish great deeds?"
+
+He took her back to the beginning again and began to tell her of the
+achievements of each one. There would be three perhaps, one after
+another, who had filled high posts in the State, and indeed had been
+worthy of the name. Then would come one or two quiet plodding ones, who
+seemed to have done little but sit still and hold on.
+
+Then Denzil Ardayre, knight of Elizabeth's time, pleased Amaryllis most
+of all--though there had been greater soldiers, and more able politicians
+than he later on, culminating in Sir John Ardayre of George IV. days,
+who had hammered against pocket boroughs and corruption until he died an
+old man, the hour the Reform Bill swept aside abuses and the road to
+freedom was won.
+
+"How strange it seems that different ages produce more accentuated stamps
+of breeding than others," Amaryllis said, "even in the same families
+where the blood is all blue. Look, John! that Denzil and the rest of the
+Elizabethans are the most refined, aristocratic creatures you could
+imagine, in their little ruffs. Absolutely intellectual and cultivated
+faces and of old race--and then comes a James period, less intelligent,
+more round featured. And a Cavalier one, gay and gallant, aristocratic
+and chiselled also, but not nearly so clever looking as the Elizabethan.
+Then we get cadaverous William and Mary ones, they might be lawyers or
+business men, not that look of great gentlemen, and the Anne's and the
+first George's are really bucolic! And then that wonderfully refined,
+cultivated, intellectual finish seems to crop up in the later eighteenth
+century again. Have you noticed this, John? You can see it in every
+collection of miniatures and portraits even in the museums."
+
+John responded interestedly:
+
+"The Elizabethans were supremely cultivated gentlemen--no wonder that
+they look as they do--and their lives were always in their hands which
+gives them that air of insouciance."
+
+When the history of the family achievements had been told her down to
+John's father, she paused, still clinging to his arm, and said:
+
+"I am so glad that they did splendid things, aren't you? And we shall not
+drift either. You must teach me to be the most perfect mistress of
+Ardayre, and the most perfect wife for the greatest of them all--because
+your achievement is the finest, John, to have won it all back and
+redeemed it by the work of your own brain."
+
+He pressed the hand on his arm.
+
+"It was hard work--and the home times were ugly in those days, Amaryllis,
+though the goal was worth it, and now we must carry on...." And then his
+reserve seemed to fall upon him again, and he took her through the other
+rooms, and kept to solid facts, and historic descriptions, and his bride
+had continuously the impression that he was mastering some emotion in
+himself, and that this stolidity was a mask.
+
+When lunch time came the usual relations of obvious and commonplace
+goodfellowship had been fully restored between them, and that atmosphere
+of aloofness which seemed impossible to banish enveloped John once more.
+
+Amaryllis sighed--but it was too soon to despair she thought, after the
+hope of John's words, and with her serene temperament she decided to
+leave things as they were for the present and trust to time.
+
+But as her maid brushed out the soft brown hair that night, an unrest and
+longing for something came over her again--what she knew not, nor could
+have put into words. She let herself re-live that one moment when John
+had pressed herewith passion to his heart. Perhaps, perhaps that was the
+beginning of a change in him--perhaps--presently--
+
+But the clock in the long gallery had chimed two, and there was yet no
+sound of John in the dressing-room beyond.
+
+Amaryllis lay in the great splendid gilt bed in the warm darkness, and at
+last tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+What could keep him so long away from her? Why did he not come?
+
+The large Queen Anne windows were wide open, and soft noises of the night
+floated in with the zephyrs. The whole air seemed filled with waiting
+expectancy for something tender and passionate to be.
+
+What was that? Steps upon the terrace--measured steps--and then silence,
+and then a deep sigh. It must be John--out there alone!--when she would
+have loved to have stayed with him, to have woven sweet fancies in the
+luminous darkness, to have taken and given long kisses, to have buried
+her face in the honeysuckle which grew there, steeped in dew. But he had
+said to her after their stately dinner in the great dining-hall:
+
+"Play to me a little, Amaryllis, and then go to bed, child--you must be
+tired out."
+
+And after that he had not spoken more, but pushed her gently towards the
+door with a solemn kiss on the forehead, and just a murmur of
+"Good-night." And she had deceived herself and thought that it meant that
+he would come quickly, and so she had run up the stairs.
+
+But now it was after two in the morning, and would soon be growing
+towards dawn--and John was out there sighing alone!
+
+She crept to the window and leaned upon the sill. She thought that she
+could distinguish his tall figure there by the carved stone bench.
+
+"John!" she called softly, "I am, so lonely--John, dearest--won't
+you come?"
+
+Then she felt that her ears must be deceiving her, for there was the
+sound of a faint suppressed sob, and then, a second afterwards, her
+husband's voice answering cheerily, with its usual casual note:
+
+"You naughty little night bird! Go back to bed--and to sleep--yes--I am
+coming immediately now!"
+
+But when he did steal in silently from the dressing-room an hour later in
+a grey dawn, Amaryllis, worn out with speculation and disappointment, had
+fallen asleep.
+
+He looked down upon her charming face--the long, curly brown lashes
+sweeping the flushed cheek, and at the rounded, beautiful girlish
+form--all his very own to clasp and to kiss and to hold in his arms--and
+two scalding tears gathered in his blue eyes, and he took his place
+beside her without making a sound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Here are the papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense.
+What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all
+these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness
+since the beginning--and now if it wasn't for them we could have a
+glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet
+you under Stanislass' nose. None of the others I have ever had are as
+good in the way of a lover as you."
+
+The man swore in German under his breath.
+
+"Of a lightness always, Harietta! No _devouement_, no patriotism....
+Should I have agreed to the divorce, loving your body as I do, had it not
+been a serious matter? The pig-dog who now owns you must be sucked dry of
+information--and then I shall take you back again."
+
+A cunning look came into Madame Boleski's hazel eyes. She had not the
+slightest intention of permitting this--to go back to Hans! To the
+difficulty of making both ends meet! Even though he did cause every inch
+of her well-preserved body to tingle! They had suggested her getting the
+divorce for their own stupid political ends, to be able to place her in
+the arms of Stanislass Boleski, and there she meant to stay! It was
+infinitely more agreeable to be a grande dame in Paris, and presently in
+London, than to be the spouse of Hans in Berlin, where, whatever his
+secret power might be with the authorities, he could give her no great
+social position; and social position was the goal of all Harietta
+Boleski's desires!
+
+She could attract lovers in any class of life--that had never been her
+difficulty. Her trouble had been that she could never force herself into
+good American society, even after she had married Hans, and they had
+dwelt there for a year or more. Her own compatriots would have none of
+her, and so she wanted triumph in other lands. She hated to remember her
+youth of humiliation, trying to play a social game on the earnings of any
+work that she could pick up, between discreet outings with--friends who
+failed to suggest matrimony. Hans, on some secret mission to San
+Francisco, where she had gone as companion to a friend, had seemed a
+veritable Godsend and Prince Charming, when, in her thirtieth year, he
+actually offered legal marriage, completely overcome by her great
+physical charm. But although she loved Hans with whatever of that emotion
+such a nature could be capable of, five years of him and more or less
+genteel poverty had been enough, and now she was free of that, and could
+still enjoy surreptitiously the pleasure of his passion, and reign as a
+_persona grata_ wife of one of the richest men in Poland at the same
+time. That those in authority who had arranged the divorce required of
+her certain tiresome obligations in return for their services, was one of
+those annoying parts of life! She took not the slightest interest in the
+affairs of any country. Nothing really mattered to her, but herself. Her
+whole force was concentrated upon the betterment of the position and
+physical pleasure of Harietta Boleski.
+
+It was this instinct alone which had prompted her to acquire a smattering
+of education--and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had
+been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic
+talent--no mean one--to gain her ends. She was now playing the role of a
+lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew--and here was Hans back again,
+and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he
+required from Stanislass she should return to him!
+
+"Tra la la!" she said to herself, there in the room at the Hotel Astoria,
+where she had gone to meet him, "think this if it pleases you! It will
+keep you quiet and won't hurt me!"
+
+For the moment she wanted Hans--the man, and was determined to waste no
+further time on useless discussion. So she began her blandishments,
+taking pride in showing him her beautiful garments, and her string of big
+pearls; each thing exhibited between her voluptuous kisses, until Hans
+grew intoxicated with desire, and became as clay in her hands.
+
+"It is not thy pig-dog of a husband I wish to kill!" he said, after one
+hour had gone by in inarticulate murmurings. "Him I do not fear--it is
+the Russian, Verisschenzko, who fills me with hate--we have regard of
+him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the
+rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be
+unpleasantness for you, my little cat--thy Hans will twist his bear's
+neck, and thine also, if need be!"
+
+"Verisschenzko!" laughed Harietta, "why, I hardly know him; he don't
+amount to a row of pins! He's Stanislass' friend--not mine."
+
+Then she smoothed back Hans' rather fierce, fair moustache from his lips
+and kissed him again--her ruby ring flashing in a ray of sunlight.
+
+"Look! isn't this a lovely jewel, Hans! My old Stannie gave it to me only
+some days ago--it is my new toy--see--"
+
+Hans examined it:
+
+"Thou art a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil
+qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me
+and to all men--the only good thing in thee is thy body--and for that all
+men let thee lie."
+
+Harietta pouted.
+
+"I can't understand when you talk like that, Hans--it's all warbash, as
+we said out West. What are qualities? What is there but the body anyway?
+Great sakes! that's enough for me, and the devil is only in story books
+to frighten children--I'm just like every other woman and I want to have
+a good time."
+
+"I hear that you are going to London soon," said Hans, dropping the
+tutoyage and growing brutally severe, "to conquer new lovers and to wear
+more dresses? But there you will be of great use to me. Your instructions
+will be all ready in cypher by Tuesday night, when you must meet me at
+whatever point is convenient to you, after nine o'clock--here, perhaps?"
+
+Harietta frowned--she had other views for Tuesday night.
+
+"What shall I gain by coming, or by going on with this spying on Stan?
+I'm tired of it all; it breaks my head trying to take in your horrid old
+cypher. I don't think I'll do it any more."
+
+The Prussian's face grew livid and his mouth set like an iron spring. He
+looked at her straight between the eyes, as a lion tamer might have done,
+and he took a cane from where it laid on a bureau near.
+
+"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I
+have done before--if you fail us in a single thing--and do not think we
+are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose
+your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"
+
+Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear--she had felt that
+stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She
+knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of
+the things she had adored in him--but to be degraded and exposed, as well
+as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken
+to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all
+these old papers were, she would have to go on--but since he threatened
+her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so
+there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come
+from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially
+when menaced with a stick?
+
+She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind
+of humour.
+
+Hans crushed her in his arms.
+
+"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"
+
+Harietta became cajoling--no one could have looked more frank or simple,
+as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them
+and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice,
+and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not
+clever like they!
+
+"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and
+always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of
+course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."
+
+She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite
+real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new
+cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.
+
+"To business then, _mein liebchen_--attend carefully to every word. In
+England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the
+highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are
+indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It
+is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers
+are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft,
+and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to
+use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my
+wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands
+clasped behind him--he would have been a very handsome man but for his
+too wide hips.
+
+Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice
+this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful
+quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except
+Verisschenzko--Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to
+him--Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared--much more
+than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but
+she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only
+when--and because--he wanted to, not for the reason that she had
+conquered him.
+
+"Of great use to our country, Harietta, my wife," Hans murmured again,
+clearing his throat.
+
+"I am not your wife, my pretty Hans!" and she raised her eyebrows, and
+curled one corner of her upper lip. "You gave me up at the bidding of the
+higher command--I am your mistress now and then, when I feel
+inclined--but I am Stanislass' wife. I like a man better when I am his
+mistress; there are no tiresome old duties along with it."
+
+Hans growled, he hated to realise this.
+
+"You must be more careful with your speech, Harietta. When you get to
+England you must not say 'along with it'--after the pains I have taken
+with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and
+even a literal translation of another language--but bad grammar--common
+phrases--pah! that is to give the show away!"
+
+Harietta reddened--her vanity disliked criticism.
+
+"I take very good care of my language when it is necessary in the
+world--I am considered to have a lovely voice--but when I'm with you I
+guess I can enjoy a holiday--it's kind of a rest to let yourself go," her
+pronunciation lapsed into the broadest American, just to irritate him,
+and she stood and laughed in his face.
+
+He caught her in his arms. She never failed to appeal to his senses; she
+had won him by that force and so held his brute nature even after five
+years. This was always the reason of whatever success she secured. A man
+had no smallest doubt as to why he was drawn; it was a direct appeal to
+the most primitive animal nature in him. The birth of Love is ever thus
+if we would analyse it truly, but the spirit fortunately so wraps things
+in illusion that generally both participants really believe that the
+mutual attraction is because of higher emotions of the mind, and so they
+are doomed to disappointment when passion is sated, unless the mind
+fulfills the ideal. But if the reality fails to make good, the refined
+spirit turns in disgust from the material, unconsciously resentful in
+that it has suffered deception. With Harietta this disappointment could
+never occur, since she created no illusion that she was appealing to the
+mind at all, and so a man if he were attracted faced no unknown quality,
+but was aware that it was only the animal in him which was drawn, and if
+his senses were his masters, not his servants, her victory was complete.
+
+After some more fierce caresses had come to an end--there was no delicacy
+about Harietta--Hans continued his discourse.
+
+"There has come here to Paris a young man of the name of
+Ardayre--Ferdinand Ardayre--he is slippery, but he can be of the greatest
+value to us. See that you become friends--you can reach him through Abba
+Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his
+brother's wife--for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste
+time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe
+he hates the English--there is a slur on him."
+
+"I have already met him," and Harietta's eyes sparkled. "I hate the wife
+also for my own reasons--yes--how can I help you with this?"
+
+"It is Ferdinand you must concentrate on; I am not concerned with the
+brother or his wife, except in so far as his hate for them can be used to
+our advantage. Do not embark upon this to play games of your own for your
+hate--you may be foolish then and upset matters."
+
+"Very well." The two objects could go together, Harietta felt; she never
+wasted words. It would be a pleasure one day, perhaps, to be able to
+injure that girl whom Verisschenzko certainly respected, if he was not
+actually growing to love her. Harietta did not desire the respect of men
+in the abstract; it could be a great bore--what they thought of her never
+entered her consideration, since she was only occupied with her own
+pleasure in them and how they affected herself. Respect was one of the
+adjuncts of a good social position; and of value merely in that aspect.
+But as Verisschenzko respected no one else, as far as she knew, that must
+mean something annoyingly important.
+
+Seven o'clock struck; she had thoroughly enjoyed being with Hans, he
+satisfied her in many ways, and it was also a relaxation, as she need not
+act. But the joys of the interview were over now, and she had others
+prepared for later on, and must go back to the Rhin to dress. So she
+kissed Hans and left, having arranged to meet him on the Tuesday night
+here in his rooms, and having received precise instructions as to the
+nature of the information to be obtained from Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+Life would be a paradise if only it were not for these ridiculous and
+tiresome political intrigues. Harietta had no taste for actual intrigue,
+its intricacies were a weariness to her. If she could have married a rich
+man in the beginning, she always told herself, she would never have mixed
+herself up in anything of the kind, and now that she _had_ married a rich
+man, she would try to get out of the nuisance as soon as possible.
+Meanwhile, there was Ferdinand--and Ferdinand was becoming in love with
+her--they had met three times since the Montivacchini ball.
+
+"He'll be no difficulty," she decided, with a sigh of relief. It would
+not be as it had been with Verisschenzko, whom she had been directed to
+capture. For in Verisschenzko she had found a master--not a dupe.
+
+When she reached the beautiful Champs-Elysees, she looked at her diamond
+wrist watch. It was only ten minutes past seven, the dinner at the
+Austrian Embassy was not until half-past eight. Dressing was a serious
+business to Harietta, but she meant to cut it down to half an hour
+to-night, because there was a certain apartment in the Rue Cambon which
+she intended to visit for a few minutes.
+
+"What an original street to have an apartment in!" people always said to
+Verisschenzko. "Nothing but business houses and model hotels for
+travellers!" And the shabby looking _porte-cochere_ gave no evidence of
+the old Louis XV. mansion within, converted now into a series of offices,
+all but the top flooring looking on to the gardens of the _Ministere_.
+
+Verisschenzko had taken it for its situation and its isolation, and had
+converted it into a thing of great beauty of panelling and rare pictures
+and the most comfortable chairs. There was absolute silence, too, there
+among the tree tops.
+
+Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no
+lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant,
+was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken
+through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a
+richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk.
+
+Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured
+Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski
+pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair.
+
+"No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, Stepan,
+you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say."
+
+"Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing
+and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some
+cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one.
+
+Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now.
+
+"You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly
+amazed!"
+
+Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in
+the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that
+was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the
+crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself.
+
+She nodded, and that was all.
+
+Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green
+eyes full of a mocking light.
+
+"I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's
+just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it
+might be yours."
+
+Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee.
+
+"You perfect angel, Stepan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the
+caresses at all, but just ordered:
+
+"Now talk."
+
+She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words
+and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her
+own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not,
+because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test
+the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch.
+
+"She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing
+less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can
+have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German
+correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she
+has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's
+brain. Now is the time to obtain the most."
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous
+brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and
+the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to
+the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a
+cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she
+meant to communicate was exposed.
+
+"You imagine things, my child," he scoffed. "I would have to have
+proof--and then if it all should be as you say. Why, that brooch must be
+yours--for I know that it is out of real love for me that you talk, and I
+always pay lavishly for--love."
+
+"Indeed, you know that I adore you, Stepan--and that brooch is just what
+I want. Stanislass has been niggardly beyond words to me lately, and I am
+tired of all my other things."
+
+"Bring me some proof to the reception to-night. I am not dining, but I
+shall be there by eleven for a few moments."
+
+She agreed, and then rose to go--but she pouted again and the convex
+_obstine_ curve below her under lip seemed to obtrude itself.
+
+"She has gone back to England--your precious bride--I suppose?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"We shall all meet there in a week or so--Stanislass is going to see some
+of his boring countrymen in London--the conference you know about--and
+we have taken a house in Grosvenor Square for some months. I do not know
+many people yet--will you see to it that I do?"
+
+"I will see that you have as many of these handsome Englishmen as will
+completely keep your hands full."
+
+She laughed delightedly.
+
+"But it is women I want; the men I can always get for myself."
+
+"Fear nothing, your reception will be great."
+
+Then she flung herself into his arms and embraced him, and then moved
+towards the door.
+
+"I will telephone to Cartier in the morning," and Verisschenzko opened
+the door for her, "if you bring me some interesting proof of your love
+for me--to-night."
+
+And when she had gone he took up his letter again
+and looked at the address,
+
+_To_
+Lady Ardayre,
+_Ardayre Chase,
+North Somerset,
+Angleterre_.
+
+"I must keep to the things of the spirit with you, precious lady. And
+when I cannot subdue it, there is Harietta for the flesh--wough! but she
+sickens me--even for that!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre could not get any more leave for a considerable time and
+remained quartered in the North, where he played cricket and polo to his
+heart's content, but the head of the family and his charming wife went
+through the feverish season of 1914 in the town house in Brook Street.
+Ardayre was too far away for week-end parties, but they had several
+successful London dinners, and Amaryllis was becoming quite a capable
+hostess, and was much admired in the world.
+
+Very fine of instinct and apprehension at all times she was developing by
+contact with intelligent people--for John had taken care that she only
+mixed with the most select of his friends. The de la Paule family had
+been more than appreciative of her and had guided her and supervised her
+visiting list with care.
+
+Everything was too much of a rush for her to think and analyse things,
+and if she had been asked whether she was happy, she would have thought
+that she was replying with honesty when she affirmed that she was. John
+was not happy and knew it, but none of his emotions ever betrayed
+themselves, and the mask of his stolid content never changed.
+
+They had gone on with their matter-of-fact relations, and when they
+returned to London after a week at Ardayre, all had been much easier,
+because they were seldom alone--and at last Amaryllis had grown to accept
+the situation, and try not to speculate about it. She danced every night
+at balls and continued the usual round, but often at the Opera, or the
+Russian ballet, or driving back through the park in the dawn, some wild
+longing for romance would stir in her, and she would nestle close to
+John. And John would perhaps kiss her quietly and speak of ordinary
+things. He went everywhere with her though, and never failed in the
+kindest consideration. He seldom danced himself, and therefore must often
+have been weary, but no suggestion of this ever reached Amaryllis.
+
+"What does he talk to his friends about, I wonder?" she asked herself,
+watching him from across a room, in a great house after dinner one night.
+
+John was seated beside the American Lady Avonwier, a brilliant person who
+did not allow herself to be bored. He appeared calm as usual, and there
+they sat until it was time to go on to a ball.
+
+Everything he said was so sensible, so well informed--perhaps that was a
+nice change for people--and then he was very good-looking and--but oh!
+what was it--what was it which made it all so disappointing and tame!
+
+A week after they had come up to Brook Street, the Boleskis arrived at
+the Mount Lennard House which they had taken in Grosvenor Square, armed
+with every kind of introduction, and Harietta immediately began to dazzle
+the world.
+
+Her dresses and jewels defied all rivalry; they were in a class alone,
+and she was frank and stupid and gracious--and fitted in exactly with
+the spirit of the time.
+
+She restrained her movements in dancing to suit the less advanced English
+taste; she gave to every charity and organized entertainments of a
+fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded
+with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she
+played with them all--ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by
+her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and
+good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one--while
+the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have insured
+any hostess's success!
+
+Harietta had never been so happy in all the thirty-six years of her life.
+This was her hour of triumph. She was here in a country which spoke her
+own language--for her French was deplorably bad--she had an unquestioned
+position, and all would have been without flaw but for this tiresome
+information she was forced to collect.
+
+Verisschenzko had been detained in Paris. The events of the twenty-eighth
+of June at Serajevo were of deep moment to him, and it was not until the
+second week in July that he arrived at the Ritz, full of profound
+preoccupation.
+
+Amaryllis had been to Harietta's dinners and dances, and now the Boleskis
+had been asked down to Ardayre in return for the three days at the end of
+the month, when the coming of age of the young Marquis of Bridgeborough
+would give occasion for great rejoicings, and Amaryllis herself would
+give a ball.
+
+"You cannot ask people down to North Somerset in these days just for the
+pleasure of seeing you, my dear child," Lady de la Paule had said to her
+nephew's wife. "Each season it gets worse; one is flattered if one's
+friends answer an invitation to dinner even, or remain for half an hour
+when it is done. I do not know what things are coming to, etiquette of
+all sorts went long ago--now manners, and even decency have gone. We are
+rapidly becoming savages, openly seizing whatever good thing is offered
+to us no matter from whom, and then throwing it aside the instant we
+catch sight of something new. But one must always go with the tide unless
+one is strong enough to stem it, and frankly _I_ am not. Now
+Bridgeborough's coming of age will make a nice excuse for you to have a
+party at Ardayre. How many people can you put up? Thirty guests and their
+servants at least, and seven or eight more if you use the agent's house."
+
+So thus it had been arranged, and John expressed his pleasure that his
+sweet Amaryllis should show what a hostess she could be.
+
+None but the most interesting people were invited, and the party promised
+to be the greatest success.
+
+Two or three days before they were to go down, Amaryllis coming in late
+in the afternoon, found Verisschenzko's card.
+
+"Oh! John!" she cried delightedly, "that very thrilling Russian whom we
+met in Paris has called. You remember he wrote to me some time ago and
+said he would let us know when he arrived. Oh! would not it be nice to
+have him at our party--let us telephone to him now!"
+
+Verisschenzko answered the call himself, he had just come in; he
+expressed himself as enchanted at the thought of seeing her--and
+yes--with pleasure he would come down to Ardayre for the ball.
+
+"We shall meet to-night, perhaps, at Carlton House Terrace at the German
+Embassy," he said, "and then we can settle everything."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why she felt rather excited as she walked up the
+stairs--she had often thought of Verisschenzko, and hoped he would come
+to England. He was vivid and living and would help her to balance
+herself. She had thought while she dressed that her life had been one
+stupid rush with no end, since that night when they had talked of
+serious things at the Montivacchini hotel. She had need of the counsel
+he had promised to give her, for this heedless racket was not adding
+lustre to her soul.
+
+Verisschenzko seemed to find her very soon--he was not one of those
+persons who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing
+when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign
+fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he
+had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in his
+advance towards this goal.
+
+He looked at her critically for an instant when they were seated in the
+soft gloom.
+
+"You are changed, Madame. Half the soul is awake now, but the other half
+has gone further to sleep."
+
+"--Yes, I felt you would say that--I do not like myself," and she sighed.
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"I seem to be drifting down such a useless stream--and it is all so mad
+and aimless, and yet it is fun. But every one is tired and restless and
+nobody cares for anything real--I am afraid I am not strong enough to
+stand aside from it though, and I wonder sometimes what I shall become."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her earnestly--he was silent for some seconds.
+
+"Fate may alter the atmosphere. There are things hovering, I fear, of
+which you do not dream, little protected English bride. Perhaps it is
+good that you live while you can."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"Sorrows for the world. But tell me, have you seen Harietta Boleski in
+her London role?"
+
+"Yes--she is the greatest success--every one goes to her parties; she is
+coming to mine at Ardayre."
+
+Verisschenzko raised his eyebrows, and nothing could have been more
+sardonically whimsical than his smile.
+
+"I saw Stanislass this morning--he is almost _gaga_ now--a mere
+cypher--she has destroyed his body, as well as his soul."
+
+"They are both coming on the twenty-third."
+
+"It will be an interesting visit I do not doubt--and I shall see the
+Family house!"
+
+"I hope you will like it--I shall love to show it to you, and the
+pictures. It means so much to John."
+
+"Have you met your cousin Denzil yet?".
+
+Verisschenzko was studying her face; it had gained something, it was
+a little finer--but it had lost something too, and there was a shadow
+in her eyes.
+
+"Denzil Ardayre? No--What made you mention him now?"
+
+"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like--your
+husband, you know."
+
+The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
+Russian's unusual views.
+
+"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited
+it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be
+almost as _desequilibre_ as the rest of the world."
+
+"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something
+dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."
+
+"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot
+be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems
+feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of
+sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to
+the top; we are at the period when this has occurred--we can but
+wait--and watch."
+
+"If we had a new religion?"
+
+"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."
+
+"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary
+things divine!"
+
+"Certainly when they are emplanted upon a true basis. I said
+'make-believe'--that is what kills all good things--make-believe. Most
+of the present-day leaders are throwing dust in their followers' eyes--or
+their own. Priests and politicians, lawyers and financiers--all of them
+are afraid of the truth. Every one lives in a stupid atmosphere of
+self-deception. The religion of the future will teach each individual to
+be true to himself, and when that is accomplished the sixth root race
+will be born. Look at that man over there talking to a woman with haggard
+eyes--can you see them in the gloom? They have all the ugly entities
+around them, the spirits of morphine and nicotine--drawing misfortune and
+bodily decay. Every force has to have its congenial atmosphere, or it
+cannot exist; fishes cannot breathe on land."
+
+Amaryllis looked at the pair; they were well-known people, the man
+celebrated in the literary and artistic section of the world of
+fashion--the woman of high rank and of refined intelligence.
+
+Verisschenzko looked also. "I do not know either of their names," he
+said, "I am simply judging by the obvious deductions to be made by their
+appearances to any one who has developed intuition."
+
+"How I wish I could learn to have that!"
+
+"Read Voltaire's 'Zadig.' Deductive methods are shown in it useful to
+begin upon--observe everything about people, and then having seen
+results, work back to causes, and then realise that all material things
+are the physical expression of an etheric force, and as we can control
+the material, we need thus only attract what etheric waves we desire."
+
+Amaryllis looked again at the pair--both were smoking idly, and she
+remembered having heard that they both "took drugs." It was a phrase
+which had meant nothing to her until now.
+
+"You mean that because they smoke all the time, and it is said they take
+morphine _piqures_, that they are not only hurting their bodies, but
+drawing spiritual ills as well."
+
+"Obviously. They have surrounded themselves with the drab demagnetising
+current which envelops the body when human beings give up their wills. It
+would be very difficult for anything good to pierce through such
+ambience. Have you ever remarked the strange ends of all people who take
+drugs? They seldom die natural, ordinary deaths. The evil entities which
+they have drawn round them by their own weakness, destroy them at last."
+
+"I do not like the idea that there are these 'entities,' as you call
+them, all around us."
+
+"There are not, they cannot come near us unless we allow them--have I not
+told you that the atmosphere must be congenial? Our own wills can create
+an armour through which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness
+and drifting which are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable
+for the vampires beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You
+represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You
+must fulfil this role. I represent a leader of certain thought in my
+country. My soul is given to this--I must only indulge in through
+which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness and drifting which
+are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable for the vampires
+beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent
+an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil
+this role. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul
+is given to this--I must only indulge in that over which I am master.
+Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained
+dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and
+for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is _'plus fort que
+vous'_--then you had better throw up the sponge--you have lost the fight,
+and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."
+
+"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"
+
+"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they
+dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings
+afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back
+than the sensualists--what are they accomplishing? They have withered
+nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what
+plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best
+of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to
+alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere
+altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal
+presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which,
+should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will
+end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."
+
+"You reason in this in the same way that you did about the smoking."
+
+"Naturally--that is the only form of sensible reasoning. You must keep
+your judgment perfectly balanced and never let it be obscured by
+prejudice, tradition, custom, or anything but the actual common-sense
+view of the case."
+
+"I think we English like that better than any other quality in
+people--common sense."
+
+Verisschenzko looked away from her to a new stream of guests who had come
+out on the terrace--a splendid-looking group of tall young men and
+exquisite women.
+
+"With all your faults you are a great nation, because although these
+latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the
+individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had
+become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the
+community--you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here.
+Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by
+patriotism and gallantry like the French, some by superstition and
+ignorance worked on by mystic religion, as in my country--some by
+ruthless materialism like Germany; but that dull, solid sense of duty is
+purely English--and it is really a glorious thing."
+
+Amaryllis thought how John represented it exactly!
+
+"I feel that I want to do my duty," she said softly, "but..."
+
+"Continue to feel that and Fate will show you the way. Now I must take
+you back to your husband whom I see in the distance there--he is with
+Harietta Boleski. I wonder what he thinks of her?"
+
+"I have asked him! He says that she is so obvious as to be innocuous, and
+that he likes her clothes!"
+
+Verisschenzko did not answer, and Amaryllis wondered if he agreed
+with John!
+
+They had to pass along a corridor to reach the staircase, upon the
+landing of which they had seen Sir John and Madame Boleski leaning over
+the balustrade, and when they got there they had moved on out of sight,
+so Verisschenzko, bowing, left Amaryllis with Lady de la Paule.
+
+As he retraced his steps later on he saw Sir John Ardayre in earnest
+conversation with Lemon Bridges, the fashionable rising surgeon of the
+day. They stood in an alcove, and Verisschenzko's alert intelligence was
+struck by the expression on John Ardayre's face--it was so sad and
+resigned, as a brave man's who has received death sentence. And as he
+passed close to them he heard these words from John: "It is quite
+hopeless then--I feared so--"
+
+He stopped his descent for a moment and looked again--and then a
+sudden illumination came into his yellow-green eyes, and he went on
+down the stairs.
+
+"There is tragedy here--and how will it affect the Lady of my soul?"
+
+He walked out of the House and into Pall Mall, and there by the Rag met
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"We seem doomed to have unexpected meetings!" cried that young man
+delightedly. "Here I am only up for one night on regimental business, and
+I run into you!"
+
+They walked on together, and Denzil went into the Ritz with
+Verisschenzko and they smoked in his sitting-room. They talked of many
+things for a long time--of the unrest in Europe and the clouds in the
+Southeast--of Denzil's political aims--of things in general--and at last
+Verisschenzko said:
+
+"I have just left your cousin and his wife at the German Embassy; they
+have now gone on to a ball. He makes an indulgent husband--I suppose the
+affair is going well?"
+
+"Very well between them, I believe. That sickening cad Ferdinand is
+circulating rumours--that they can never have any children--but they are
+for his own ends. I must arrange to meet them when I come up next time--I
+hear that the family are enchanted with Amaryllis--"
+
+"She is a thing of flesh and blood and flame--I could love her wildly did
+I think it were wise."
+
+Denzil glanced sharply at his friend. He had not often known him to
+hesitate when attracted by a woman--
+
+"What aspect does the unwisdom take?"
+
+"Certain absorption--I have other and terribly important things to do.
+The husband is most worthy--one wonders what the next few years will
+bring. Their temperaments must be as the poles.
+
+"No one seems to think of temperament when he marries, or heredity, or
+anything, but just desire for the woman--or her money--or something
+quite outside the actual fact." Denzil lit another cigarette. "Marriage
+appears a perfect terror to me--how could one know one was going to
+continue to feel emotion towards some one who might prove to be the most
+awful physical or mental disappointment on intimate acquaintance? I
+believe _affaires de convenance_ selected with thought-out reasoning are
+the best."
+
+Verisschenzko shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That is not necessary. If the brain is disciplined, it is in a condition
+to use its judgment, even when in love, and ought therefore to be able to
+resist the desire to mate if the woman's character or tendencies are
+unsuitable, but most men's brains are only disciplined in regard to
+mental things, and have no real control over their physical desires. I
+have been this morning with Stanislass Boleski--there is a case and a
+warning. Stanislass was a strong man with a splendid brain and immense
+ambition, but no dominion over his senses, so that Succubus has
+completely annihilated all force in him. He should have strangled her
+after the first _etreinte_ as I should have done, had I felt that she
+could ever have any power over me!"
+
+Denzil smiled--Stepan was such a mixture of tenderness and
+complete savagery.
+
+"I always thought the Russian character was the most headstrong and
+undisciplined in the world, and took what it desired regardless of costs.
+But you belie it, old boy!"
+
+"I early said to myself on looking at my countrymen--and especially my
+countrywomen--these people are half genius, half fool; they have all
+the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters
+to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced
+and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he
+not attain!"
+
+"And you have attained."
+
+"I am on the road, but did not affairs of vital importance occupy me at
+the moment I might be capable of ancient excess!"
+
+"It is as well for the head of the Ardayre family that you are occupied
+then!" and Denzil smiled, and then he said, his thoughts drifting back to
+what interested him most:
+
+"You think Europe will be blazing soon, Stepan? I have wondered myself in
+the last month if this hectic peace could continue."
+
+"It cannot. I am here upon business with great issues, but I must not
+speak of facts, and what I say now is not from my knowledge of current
+events, but from my study of etheric currents which the thoughts and
+actions of over-civilised generations have engendered. You do not cram a
+shell with high explosives and leave it among matches with impunity."
+
+The two men looked at one another significantly, and then Denzil said:
+
+"I think I will not retire from the old regiment yet--I shall wait
+another year."
+
+"Yes--I would if I were you."
+
+They smoked silently for a moment--Verisschenzko's Calmuck face fixed and
+inscrutable and Denzil's debonnaire English one usually grave.
+
+"Some one told me that your friend, Madame Boleski, was having a
+tremendous success in London. I wish I could have got leave, I should
+like to have seen the whole thing."
+
+"Harietta is enjoying her luck-moment; she is in her zenith. She has
+baffled me as to where she receives her information from--she is capable
+of betraying both sides to gain some material, and possibly trivial, end.
+She is worth studying if you do come up, for she is unique. Most
+criminals have some stable point in immorality; Harietta is troubled by
+nothing fixed, no law of God or man means anything to her, she is only
+ruled by her sense of self-preservation. Her career is picturesque."
+
+"Had she ever any children?"
+
+Verisschenzko crossed himself.
+
+"Heaven forbid! Think of watching Harietta's instincts coming out in a
+child! Poor Stanislass is at least saved that!"
+
+"What a terrible thought that would be to one! But no man thinks of such
+things in selecting a wife!"
+
+"You will not marry yet--no?"
+
+"Certainly not, there is no necessity that I should. Marriage is only an
+obligation for the heads of families, not for the younger branches."
+
+"But if Sir John Ardayre has no son, you are--in blood--the next
+direct heir."
+
+"And Ferdinand is the next direct heir-in-law--that makes one sick--"
+
+Verisschenzko poured his friend out a whisky and soda and said smiling:
+
+"Then let us drink once more to the Ardayre son!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Lady de la Paule really felt proud of her niece; the party at Ardayre was
+progressing so perfectly. The guests had all arrived in time for the ball
+at Bridgeborough Castle on the twenty-third of July and had assisted next
+day at the garden party, and then a large dinner at Ardayre, and now on
+the last night of their stay Amaryllis' own ball was to take place.
+
+All the other big country houses round were filled also, and nothing
+could have been gayer or more splendidly done than the whole thing.
+
+John Ardayre had been quite enthusiastic about all the arrangements,
+taking the greatest pride in settling everything which could add lustre
+to his Amaryllis' success as a hostess.
+
+The quantities of servants, the perfectly turned-out motors--the
+wonderful chef--all had been his doing, and when most of the party had
+retired to their rooms for a little rest before dinner on the
+twenty-fifth, the evening of the ball, Lady de la Paule and John's
+friend, Lady Avonwier, congratulated him, as he sat with them, the last
+ladies remaining, under the great copper beech tree on the lawn which led
+down to the lake.
+
+"Everything has been perfect, has it not, Mabella?" Lady Avonwier said.
+"I have even been converted about your marvellous Madame Boleski! I
+confess I have avoided her all the season, because we Americans are far
+more exclusive than you English people in regard to whom we know of our
+own countrywomen, and no one would receive such a person in New York, but
+she is so luridly stupid, and such a decoration, that I quite agree you
+were right to invite her, John."
+
+"She seems to me charming," Lady de la Paule confessed. "Not the least
+pretension, and her clothes are marvellous. You are abominably severe,
+Etta. I am quite sure if she wanted to she could succeed in New York."
+
+"Mabella, you simple creature! She just cajoles you all the time--she has
+specialised in cajoling important great ladies! No American would be
+taken in by her, and we resent it in our country when an outsider like
+that barges in. But here, I admit, since she provides us with amusement,
+I have no objection to accepting her, as I would a new nigger band, and
+shall certainly send her a card for my fancy ball next week."
+
+John Ardayre chuckled softly.
+
+"That sound indicates?"--and Etta Avonwier flashed at him her lovely
+clever eyes.
+
+John Ardayre did not answer in words, but both women joined in his smile.
+
+"Yes, we are worldlings," Lady Avonwier admitted, "just measuring people
+up for what they can give us, it is the only way though when the whole
+thing is such a rush!"
+
+"I am so sorry for the poor husband," and Lady de la Paule's fat voice
+was kindly. "He does look such a wretched, cadaverous thing, with that
+black beard and those melancholy black eyes, and emaciated face. Do you
+think she beats him when they are alone?"
+
+"Who knows? She is so primitive, she may be capable even of that!"
+
+"Her clothes are not primitive," and John Ardayre lighted a cigarette.
+"I don't think she really can be such a fool."
+
+"I never suggested that she was a fool at all!" Lady Avonwier was
+decisive. "No one can be a fool who is as tenacious as she is--fools
+are vague people, who let things go. She is merely illiterate and
+stupid as an owl."
+
+"I like your distinction between stupidity and foolishness!" John Ardayre
+often argued with Lady Avonwier; they were excellent friends.
+
+"A stupid person is often a great rest and arrives--a fool makes one
+nervous and loses the game. But who is that walking with Amaryllis at the
+other side of the lake?"
+
+John Ardayre looked up, and on over the water to the glory of the beech
+trees on the rising slope of the park, and there saw moving at the edge
+of them his wife and Verisschenzko, accompanied by two of the great
+tawny dogs.
+
+"Oh! it is the interesting Russian whom we met in Paris, where all the
+charming ladies were supposed to be in love with him. He was to have come
+down for the whole three days. I suppose these Russian and Austrian
+rumours detained him, he has only arrived for to-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And across the lake Amaryllis was saying to Verisschenzko in her soft
+voice, deep as all the Ardayre voices were deep:
+
+"I have brought you here so that you may get the best view of the
+house. I think, indeed, that it is very beautiful from over the water,
+do not you?"
+
+Verisschenzko remained silent for a moment. His face was altered in this
+last week; it looked haggard and thinner, and his peculiar eyes were
+concentrated and intense.
+
+He took in the perfect picture of this English stately home, with its
+Henry VII centre and watch towers, and gabled main buildings, and the
+Queen Anne added Square--all mellowed and amalgamated into a whole of
+exquisite beauty and dignity in the glow of the setting sun.
+
+"How proud you should be of such possessions, you English. The
+accumulation of centuries, conserved by freedom from strife. It is no
+wonder you are so arrogant! You could not be if you had only memories, as
+we have, of wooden barracks up to a hundred and fifty years ago, and
+drunkenness and orgies, and beating of serfs. This is the picture our
+country houses call up--any of the older ones which have escaped being
+burnt. But here you have traditions of harmony and justice and
+obligations to the people nobody fulfilled." And then he took his hat off
+and looked up into the golden sky:
+
+"May nothing happen to hurt England, and may we one day be as free."
+
+A shiver ran through Amaryllis--but something kept her silent; she
+divined that her friend's mood did not desire speech from her yet. He
+spoke again and earnestly a moment or two afterwards.
+
+"Lady of my soul--I am going away to-morrow into a frenzied turmoil. I
+have news from my country, and I must be in the centre of events; we do
+not know what will come of it all. I come down to-day at great sacrifice
+of time to bid you farewell. It may be that I shall never see you again,
+though I think that I shall; but should I not, promise me that you will
+remain my star unsmirched by the paltriness of the world, promise me that
+you will live up to the ideal of this noble home--that you will develop
+your brain and your intuition, that you will be forceful and filled with
+common sense. I would like to have moulded your spiritual being, and
+brought you to the highest, but it is not for me, perhaps, in this
+life--another will come. See that you live worthily."
+
+Amaryllis was deeply moved.
+
+"Indeed, I will try. I have seen so little of you, but I feel that I have
+known you always, and--yes--even I feel that it is true what you said,"
+and she grew rosy with a sweet confusion--"that we were--lovers--I am so
+ignorant and undeveloped, not advanced like you, but when you speak you
+seem to awaken memories; it is as though a transitory light gleamed in
+dark places, and I receive flashes of understanding, and then it grows
+obscured again, but I will try to seize and hold it--indeed, I will try
+to do as you would wish."
+
+They both looked ahead, straight at the splendid house, and then
+Amaryllis looked at Verisschenzko and it seemed as though his face were
+transfigured with some inward light.
+
+"Strange things are coming, child, the cauldron has boiled over, and we
+do not know what the stream may engulf. Think of this evening in the days
+which will be, and remember my words."
+
+His voice vibrated, but he did not look at her, but always across the
+lake at the house.
+
+"Whenever you are in doubt as to the wisdom of a decision between two
+courses--put them to the test of which, if you follow it, will enable you
+to respect your own soul. Never do that which the inward You despises."
+
+"And if both courses look equally good and it is merely a question of
+earthly benefit?"
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"Never be vague. There is an Arab proverb which says: Trust in God but
+tie up your camel."
+
+The setting sun was throwing its last gleams upon the windows of the high
+tower. Nothing more beautiful or impressive could have been imagined than
+the scene. The velvet lawn sloping down to the lake, with a group of
+trees to the right among which nestled the tiny cruciform ancient church,
+while in the distance, on all sides, stretched the vast, gloriously
+timbered park.
+
+Verisschenzko gazed at the wonder of it, and his yellow-green eyes were
+wide with the vision it created in his brain.
+
+No--this should never go to the bastard Ferdinand, whose life in
+Constantinople was a disgrace. This record of fine living and achievement
+of worthy Ardayres should remain the glory of the true blood.
+
+He turned and looked at Amaryllis at his side, so slender, and strong,
+and young--and he said:
+
+"It is necessary above all things that you cultivate a steadiness and
+clearness of judgment, which will enable you to see the great aim in a
+thing, and not be hampered by sentimental jingo and convention, which is
+a danger when a nature is as good and true, but as undeveloped, as yours.
+Whatever circumstance should arise in your life, in relation to the trust
+you hold for this family and this home, bring the keenest common sense to
+bear upon the matter, and keep the end, that you must uphold it and pass
+it on resplendent, in view."
+
+Amaryllis felt that he was transmitting some message to her. His eyes
+were full of inspiration and seemed to see beyond.
+
+What message? She refrained from asking. If he had meant her to
+understand more fully he would have told her plainly. Light would come in
+its own time.
+
+"I promise," was all she said.
+
+They looked at the great tower; the sun had left some of the windows and
+in one they could see the figure of a woman standing there in some light
+dressing-gown.
+
+"That is Harietta Boleski," Verisschenzko remarked, his mood changing,
+and that penetrating and yet inscrutable expression growing in his
+regard. "It is almost too far away to be certain, but I am sure that it
+is she. Am I right? Is that window in her room?"
+
+"Yes--how wonderful of you to be able to recognise her at that distance!"
+
+"Of what is she thinking?--if one can call her planning thoughts! She
+does not gaze at views to appreciate the loveliness of the landscape;
+figures in the scene are all which could hold her attention--and those
+figures are you and me."
+
+"Why should we interest her?"
+
+"There are one or two reasons why we should. I think after all you must
+be very careful of her. I believe if she stays on in England you had
+better not let the acquaintance increase."
+
+"Very well." Amaryllis again did not question him; she felt he knew best.
+
+"She has been most successful here, and at the Bridgeborough ball she
+amused herself with a German officer, and left the other women's men
+alone. He was brought by the party from Broomgrove and was most
+_empresse;_ he got introduced to her at once--just after we came in. I
+expect they will bring him to-night. He and she looked such a magnificent
+pair, dancing a quadrille. It was quite a serious ball to begin with!
+None of those dances of which you disapprove, and all the Yeomanry wore
+their uniforms and the German officer wore his too."
+
+"He was a fine animal, then?"
+
+"Yes--but?"
+
+"You said _a pair_--only an animal could make a pair with Harietta!
+Describe him to me. What was he like? And what uniform did he wear?"
+
+Amaryllis gave a description, of height, and fairness, and of the blue
+and gold coat.
+
+"He would have been really good-looking, only that to our eyes his hips
+are too wide."
+
+"It sounds typically German--there are hundreds such there--some ordinary
+Prussian Infantry regiment, I expect. You say he was introduced to
+Harietta? They were not old friends--no?"
+
+"I heard him ask Mrs. Nordenheimer, his hostess, who she was, in his
+guttural voice, and Mrs. Nordenheimer came up to me and presented him and
+asked me to introduce him to my guest. So I did. The Nordenheimers are
+those very rich German Jews who bought Broomgrove Park some years ago.
+Every one receives them now."
+
+"And how did Harietta welcome this partner?"
+
+"She looked a little bored, but afterwards they danced several times
+together."
+
+"Ah!"--and that was all Verisschenzko said, but his thoughts ran: "An
+infantry officer--not a large enough capture for Harietta to waste time
+on in a public place--when she is here to advance herself. She danced
+with him because _she was obliged to_. I must ascertain who this man is."
+
+Amaryllis saw that he was preoccupied. They walked on now and round
+through the shrubbery on the left, and so at last to the house again.
+Amaryllis could not chance being late.
+
+Verisschenzko recovered from his abstraction presently and talked of
+many things--of the friendship of the soul, and how it can only thrive
+after there has been in some life a physical passionate love and fusion
+of the bodies.
+
+"I want to think that we have reached this stage, Lady mine. My mission
+on this plane now is so fierce a one, and the work which I must do is so
+absorbing, that I must renounce all but transient physical pleasures. But
+I must keep some radiant star as my lodestone for spiritual delights, and
+ever since we met and spoke at the Russian Embassy it seems as though
+step by step links of memory are awakening and comforting me with
+knowledge of satisfied desire in a former birth, so that now our souls
+can rise to rarer things. I can even see another in the earthly relation
+which once was mine, without jealousy. Child, do you feel this too?"
+
+"I do not know quite what I feel," and Amaryllis looked down, "but I will
+try to show you that I am learning to master my emotions, by thinking
+only of sympathy between our spirits."
+
+"It is well--"
+
+Then they reached the house and entered the green drawing-room in the
+Queen Anne Square, by one of the wide open windows, and there Amaryllis
+held out her two slim hands to Verisschenzko.
+
+"Think of me sometimes, even amidst your turmoil," she whispered, "and I
+shall feel your ambience uplifting my spirit and my will."
+
+"Lady of my Soul!" he cried, exalted once more, and he bent as though to
+kiss her hands, but straightened himself and threw them gently from him.
+
+"No! I will resist all temptations! Now you must dress and dine, and
+dance, and do your duty--and later we will say farewell."
+
+Harietta Boleski stamped across her charming chintz chamber in the great
+tower. She was like an angry wolf in the Zoo, she burst with rage.
+Verisschenzko had never walked by lakes with her, nor bent over with that
+air of devotion.
+
+"He loves that hateful bit of bread and butter! But I shall crush her
+yet--and Ferdinand Ardayre will help me!"
+
+Then she rang her bell violently for Marie, while she kicked aside
+Fou-Chow, who had travelled to England as an adjunct to her beauty,
+concealed in a cloak. His minute body quivered with pain and fear, and he
+looked up at her reproachfully with his round Chinese idol's eyes, then
+he hid under a chair, where Marie found him trembling presently and
+carried him surreptitiously to her room.
+
+"My angel," she told him as they went along the passage, "that she-devil
+will kill thee one day, unless happily I can place thee in safety first.
+But if she does, then I will murder for myself! What has caused her fury
+tonight, some one has spoilt her game."
+
+In the oak-panelled smoking room, deserted by all but these two,
+Verisschenzko spoke to Stanislass, hastily, and in his own tongue.
+
+"The news is of vital importance, Stanislass. You must return with me to
+London; of all things you must show energy now and hold your men
+together. I leave in the morning. You hesitate!--impossible!--Harietta
+keeps you! Bah!--then I wash my hands of you and Poland. Weakling! to
+let a woman rule you. Well; if you choose thus, you can go by yourself
+to hell. I have done with you." And he strode from the room, looking
+more Calmuck and savage than ever in his just wrath. And when he had
+gone the second husband of Harietta leant forward and buried his head in
+his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The picture Gallery made a brilliant setting for that gallant company! A
+collection of England's best, dancing their hardest to a stirring band,
+which sang when the tune of some popular Revue chorus came in.
+
+"The Song of the Swan," Verisschenzko thought as he observed it all in
+the last few minutes before midnight. He must go away soon. A messenger
+had arrived in hot haste from London, motoring beyond the speed limit,
+and as soon as his servant had packed his things he must return and not
+wait for the morning. All relations between Austria and Servia had been
+broken off, the conflagration had begun, and no time must be wasted
+further. He must be in Russia as soon as it was possible to get there. He
+blamed himself for coming down.
+
+"And yet it was as well," he reflected, because he had become awakened in
+regard to possible double dealing in Harietta. But where were his host
+and hostess--he must bid them farewell.
+
+John Ardayre was valsing with Lady Avonwier and Harietta Boleski
+undulated in the arms of the tall German who had come with the party from
+Broomgrove--but Amaryllis for the moment was absent from the room.
+
+"If I could only know who the beast is before I go, and where she has met
+him previously!" Verisschenzko's thoughts ran. "It is more than ever
+necessary that I master her--and there is so little time."
+
+He waited for a few seconds, the dance was almost done, and when the
+last notes of music ceased and the throng of people swept towards him, he
+fixed Harietta with his eye.
+
+Her evening so far had not been agreeable. She had not been able to have
+a word with Stepan, who had been far from her at the banquet before the
+ball. She was torn with jealousy of Amaryllis; and the advent of Hans,
+when she would have wished to have been free to re-grab Verisschenzko,
+was most unfortunate. It had not been altogether pleasant, his turning up
+at Bridgeborough, but at any rate that one evening was quite enough! She
+really could not be wearied with him more!
+
+His new instructions to her from the higher command were most annoyingly
+difficult too--coming at a time when her whole mind was given to
+consolidating her position in England,--it was really too bad!
+
+If only the tiresome bothers of these stupid old quarrelsome countries
+did not upset matters, she just meant to make Stanislass shut up his ugly
+old Polish home, and settle in some splendid country house like this,
+only nearer London. Now that she had seen what life was in England, she
+knew that this was her goal. No bothersome old other language to be
+learned! Besides, no men were so good-looking as the English, or made
+such safe and prudent lovers, because they did not boast. If any
+information she had been able to collect for Hans in the last year had
+helped his Ober-Lords to stir up trouble, she was almost sorry she had
+given it--unless indeed, ructions between those ridiculous southern
+countries made it so that she could remain in England, then it was a good
+thing. And Hans had assured her that England could not be dragged in.
+Then she laughed to herself as she always did if Hans coerced her--when
+she recollected how she had given his secrets away to Verisschenzko and
+that no matter how he seemed to compel her obedience, she was even with
+him underneath!
+
+She looked now at the Russian standing there, so tall and ugly, and
+weirdly distinguished, and a wild passionate desire for him overcame her,
+as primitive as one a savage might have felt. At that moment she almost
+hated her late husband, for she dared not speak to Verisschenzko with
+Hans there. She must wait until Verisschenzko spoke to her. Hans could
+not prevent that, nor accuse her of disobeying his command. So that it
+was with joy that she saw the Russian approach her. She did not know that
+he was leaving suddenly, and she was wondering if some meeting could not
+be arranged for later on, when Hans would be gone.
+
+"Good evening, Madame!" Verisschenzko said suavely. "May I not have the
+pleasure of a turn with you; it is delightful to meet you again."
+
+Harietta slipped her hand out of Hans' arm and stood still, determined to
+secure Stepan at once since the chance had come.
+
+Verisschenzko divined her intention and continued, his voice serious with
+its mock respect:
+
+"I wonder if I could persuade you to come with me and find your husband.
+You know the house and I do not. I have something I want to talk to him
+about if you won't think me a great bore taking you from your partner,"
+and he bowed politely to Hans.
+
+Harietta introduced them casually, and then said archly:
+
+"I am sure you will excuse me, Captain von Pickelheim. And don't forget
+you have the first one-step after supper!" So Hans was dismissed with a
+ravishing smile.
+
+Verisschenzko had watched the German covertly and saw that with all his
+forced stolidity an angry gleam had come into his eyes.
+
+"They have certainly met before--and he knows me--I must somehow make
+time," then, aloud:
+
+"You are looking a dream of beauty to-night, Harietta," he told her as
+they walked across the hall. "Is there not some quiet corner in the
+garden where we can be alone for a few minutes. You drive me mad."
+
+Harietta loved to hear this, and in triumph she raised her head and drew
+him into one of the sitting-rooms, and so out of the open windows on into
+the darkness beyond the limitations of the lawn.
+
+Twenty minutes afterwards Verisschenzko entered the house alone, a grim
+smile of satisfaction upon his rugged countenance. Jealousy, acting on
+animal passion, had been for once as productive of information as a ruby
+ring or brooch--and what a remarkable type Harietta! Could there be
+anything more elemental on the earth! Meanwhile this lady had gained the
+ball-room by another door, delighted with her adventure, and the thought
+that she had tricked Hans!
+
+"Have you seen our hostess, Madame?" the Russian asked, meeting Lady de
+la Paule. "I have been looking for her everywhere. Is not this a
+charming sight?"
+
+They stayed and talked for a few minutes, watching the joyous company of
+dancers, among whom Amaryllis could now be seen. Verisschenzko wished to
+say farewell to her when the one-step should be done. They would all be
+going into supper, and then would be his chance. He could not delay
+longer--he must be gone.
+
+He was paying little attention to what Lady de la Paule was saying--her
+fat voice prattled on:
+
+"I hope these tiresome little quarrels of the Balkan peoples will settle
+themselves. If Austria should go to war with Servia, it may upset my
+Carlsbad cure."
+
+Then he laughed out suddenly, but instantly checked himself.
+
+"That would be too unfortunate, Madame, we must not anticipate such
+preposterous happenings!"
+
+And as he walked forward to meet Amaryllis his face was set:
+
+"Half the civilised world thinks thus of things. The sinister events in
+the Balkans convey no suggestions of danger, and only matter in that
+they could upset a Carlsbad cure! Alas! how sound asleep these splendid
+people are!"
+
+He met Amaryllis and briefly told her that he must go. She left her
+partner and came with him to the foot of the staircase, which led
+to his room.
+
+"Good-bye, and God keep you," she said feelingly, but she noticed that he
+did not even offer to take her hand.
+
+"All blessings, my Star," and his voice was hoarse, then he turned
+abruptly and went on up the stairs. But when he reached the landing above
+he paused, and looked down at her, moving away among the throng.
+
+"Sweet Lady of my Soul," he whispered softly. "After Harietta I could not
+soil--even thy glove!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Events moved rapidly. Of what use to write of those restless, feverish
+days before the 4th of August, 1914? They are too well known to all the
+world. John, as ever, did his duty, and at once put his name down for
+active service, cajoled a medical board which would otherwise probably
+have condemned him and trained with the North Somerset Yeomanry in
+anticipation of being soon sent to France. But before all this happened,
+the night War was declared; he remained in his own sitting-room at
+Ardayre, and Amaryllis wondered, and towards dawn crept out of bed and
+listened in the passage, but no sound came from within the room.
+
+How very unsatisfactory this strange reserve between them was becoming!
+Would she never be able to surmount it? Must they go on to the end of
+their lives, living like two polite friendly acquaintances, neither
+sharing the other's thoughts? She hardly realised that the War could
+personally concern John. The Yeomanry, she imagined, were only for home
+defence, so at this stage no anxiety troubled her about her husband.
+
+The next day he seemed frightfully preoccupied, and then he talked to her
+seriously of their home and its traditions, and how she must love it and
+understand its meaning. He spoke too of his great wish for a child--and
+Amaryllis wondered at the tone almost of anguish in his voice.
+
+"If only we had a son, Amaryllis, I would not care what came to me. A
+true Ardayre to carry on! The thought of Ferdinand here after me drives
+me perfectly mad!"
+
+Amaryllis knew not what to answer. She looked down and clasped her hands.
+
+John came quite close and gazed into her face, as if therein some comfort
+could be found; then he folded her in his arms.
+
+"Oh! Amaryllis!" he said, and that was all.
+
+"What is it? Oh! what does everything mean?" the poor child cried. "Why,
+why can't we have a son like other people of our age?"
+
+John kissed her again.
+
+"It shall be--it must be so," he answered--and framed her face in
+his hands.
+
+"Amaryllis--I know you have often wondered whether I really loved you.
+You have found me a stupid, unsatisfactory sort of husband--indeed, I am
+but a dull companion at the best of times. Well, I want you to know that
+I do--and I am going to try to change, dear little girl. If I knew that I
+held some corner of your heart it would comfort me."
+
+"Of course, you do, John. Alas! if you would only unbend and be loving to
+me, how happy we could be."
+
+He kissed her once more. "I will try."
+
+That afternoon he went up to London to his medical board, and Amaryllis
+was to join him in Brook Street on the following day.
+
+She was stunned like every one else. War seemed a nightmare--an
+unreality--she had not grasped its meaning as yet. She thought of
+Verisschenzko and his words. What was her duty? Surely at a great crisis
+like this she must have some duty to do?
+
+The library in Brook Street was a comfortable room and was always their
+general sitting-room; its windows looked out on the street.
+
+That evening when John Ardayre arrived he paced up and down it for
+half an hour. He was very pale and lines of thought were stamped
+upon his brow.
+
+He had come to a decision; there only remained the details of a course of
+action to be arranged.
+
+He went to the telephone and called up the Cavalry Club. Yes, Captain
+Ardayre was in, and presently Denzil's voice said surprisedly:
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I heard by chance that you were in town. I suppose your regiment will be
+going out at once. It is your cousin, John Ardayre, speaking, we have not
+met since you were a boy. I have something rather vital I want to say to
+you. Could you possibly come round?"
+
+The two voices were so alike in tone it was quite remarkable, each was
+aware of it as he listened to the other.
+
+"Where are you, and what is the time?".
+
+"I am in our house in Brook Street, number 102, and it is nearly seven.
+Could you manage to come now?"
+
+There was a second or two's pause, then Denzil said:
+
+"All right. I will get into a taxi and be with you in about five
+minutes," and he put the receiver down.
+
+John Ardayre grew paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were
+trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang
+the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to bring him
+some brandy.
+
+Murcheson was an old and valued servant, and he looked at his master with
+concern, but he knew him too to make any remark. If there was any one in
+the world beyond the great surgeon, Lemon Bridges, who could understand
+the preoccupations of John Ardayre, Murcheson was the man.
+
+He brought the old Cognac immediately and retired from the room a
+moment or two before Denzil arrived. Very little trace of emotion
+remained upon the face of the head of the family when his cousin was
+shown in, and he came forward cordially to meet him. Standing opposite
+one another, they might have been brothers, not cousins, the
+resemblance was so strong! Denzil was perhaps fairer, but their heads
+were both small and their limbs had the same long lines. But where as
+John Ardayre suggested undemonstrative stolidity, every atom of the
+younger man was vitally alive.
+
+His eyes were bluer, his hair more bronze, and exuberant perfect health
+glowed in his tanned fresh skin.
+
+Both their voices were peculiarly deep, with the pronunciation of the
+words especially refined. John Ardayre said some civil things with
+composure, and Denzil replied in kind, explaining how he had been
+most anxious to meet John and Amaryllis and heal the breach the
+fathers had made.
+
+John offered him a cigar, and finally the atmosphere seemed to be
+unfrozen as they smoked. But in Denzil's mind there was speculation. It
+was not for just this that he had been asked to come round.
+
+John began to speak presently with a note of deep seriousness in his
+voice. He talked of the war and of his Yeomanry's going out, and of
+Denzil's regiment also. It was quite on the cards that they might both be
+killed--then he spoke of Ferdinand, and the old story of the shame, and
+he told Denzil of his boyhood and its great trials, and of his
+determination to redeem the family home and of the great luck which had
+befallen him in the city after the South African War--and how that the
+thought of worthily handing on the inheritance in the direct male line
+had become the dominating desire of his life.
+
+At first his manner had been very restrained, but gradually the intense
+feeling which was vibrating in him made itself known, and Denzil grew
+to realise how profound was his love for Ardayre and how great his
+family pride.
+
+But underneath all this some absolute agony must be wringing his soul.
+
+Denzil became increasingly interested.
+
+At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his
+narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the
+room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.
+
+"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more
+than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will
+confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very
+carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine.
+It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the bastard, Ferdinand, the
+snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the
+coming time."
+
+Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words
+portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice
+sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.
+
+Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life
+letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was
+not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would
+consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had
+been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's
+unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting
+attitude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he
+listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and
+concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to
+him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and
+stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and
+illumination on his strong, good-looking face.
+
+"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything
+quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable--and however
+much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were
+my father's son. You are the next real heir--Ferdinand could not be; my
+father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and
+the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no
+question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear
+him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It
+was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman,
+but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that
+Ferdinand was no Ardayre."
+
+"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a
+Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in
+his body!"
+
+"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should
+take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"
+
+Denzil clenched his hands.
+
+"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously
+before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has
+been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge
+towards me--and now we--you and I--have the right to save the family and
+its honour and circumvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man.
+Oh!--can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of
+Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to--Oh!--my
+God, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me--tell me that you look at it in
+the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which
+Ferdinand would depose--the disgrace would be yours then, since if
+Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."
+
+The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were
+pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful
+new emotion, as they looked at John.
+
+"Very well," he said, and held out his hand. "I appreciate the tremendous
+faith you have placed in me, and on my word of honour as an Ardayre, I
+will not abuse it, nor take advantage of it afterwards. My regiment will
+go out at once, I suppose, the chances are as likely that I shall be
+killed as you--"
+
+They shook hands silently.
+
+"We must lose no time."
+
+Then John poured out two glasses of brandy, and the toast they drank was
+unspoken. But suddenly Denzil remembered as a strange coincidence that he
+was drinking it for the third time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amaryllis arrived from Ardayre the next afternoon, after John's medical
+board had been squared into pronouncing him fit for active service--and
+he met his wife at the station and was particularly solicitous of her
+well-being. He seemed to be unusually glad to see her, and put his arm
+round her in the motor driving to Brook Street. What would she like to
+do? They could not, of course, go to the theatre, but if she would rather
+they could go out to a restaurant to dine--there were going to be all
+kinds of difficulties about food. Amaryllis, who responded immediately to
+the smallest advance on his part, glowed now with fond sweetness. She had
+been so miserable without him; so crushed and upset by the thought of
+war, and his possible participation in it. All the long night, alone at
+Ardayre, she had tried to realise what it all would mean. It was too
+stupendous, she could not grasp it as yet, it was just a blank horror.
+And now to be in the motor and close to him, and everything ordinary and
+as usual seemed to drive the hideous fact further and further away. She
+would not face it for to-night, she would try to be happy and banish the
+remembrance. No one knew what was happening, nor if the Expeditionary
+Force had or had not crossed to France. John asked her again what she
+would like to do.
+
+She did not want to go out at all, she told him; if the kitchenmaid and
+Murcheson could find them something to eat she would much rather dine
+alone with him, like a regular old Darby and Joan pair--and afterwards
+she would play nice things to him, and John agreed.
+
+When she came down ready for dinner, she was radiant; she had put on a
+new and ravishing tea-gown and her grey eyes were shining with a winsome
+challenge, and her beautiful skin was brilliant with health and
+freshness. A man could not have desired a more delectable creature to
+call his own.
+
+John thought so and at dinner expanded and told her so. He was not a
+practised lover; women had played a very small part in his life--always
+too filled with work and the one dominating idea to make room for them.
+He had none of the tender graciousness ready at his command which
+Denzil would very well have known how to show. But he loved Amaryllis,
+and this was the first time he had permitted the expression of his
+emotion to appear.
+
+She became ever more fascinating, and at length unconscious passion grew
+in her glance. John said some rather clumsy but loving things, and when
+they went back to the library he slipped his arm round her, and drew her
+to his side.
+
+"I love to be near you, John," she whispered; "I like your being so tall
+and so distinguished-looking. I like your clothes--they are so well
+made--" and then she wrinkled her pretty nose--"and I adore the smell of
+the stuff you put on your hair! Oh! I don't know--I just want to be in
+your arms!"
+
+John kissed her. "I must give you a bottle of that lotion--it is supposed
+to do wonders for the hair. It was originally made by an old housekeeper
+of my mother's family in the still room, and I have always kept the
+receipt--there are cloves in it and some other aromatic herbs."
+
+"Yes, that is what I smell, like a clove carnation--it is divine. I
+wonder why scents have such an effect upon one--don't you? Perhaps I am a
+very sensuous creature--they can make me feel wicked or good--some
+scents make me deliciously intoxicated--that one of yours does--when I
+get near you--I want you to hold me and kiss me--John."
+
+Every fibre of John Ardayre's being quivered with pain. The cruel,
+ironical bitterness of things.
+
+"I've never smelt this same scent on any one else," she went on, rubbing
+her soft cheek up and down against his shoulder in the most alluring way.
+"I should know it anywhere for it means just my dear--John!"
+
+He turned away on the pretence of getting a cigarette; he knew that his
+eyes had filled with tears.
+
+Then Murcheson came into the room with the coffee, and this made a
+break--and he immediately asked her to play to him, and settled
+himself in one of the big chairs. He was too much on the rack to
+continue any more love-making then; "what might have been" caused too
+poignant anguish.
+
+He watched her delicate profile outlined against the curtain of green
+silk. It was so pure and young--and her long throat was white as milk. If
+this time next year she should have a child--a son--and he, not killed,
+but sitting there perhaps watching her holding it. How would he feel
+then? Would the certainty of having an Ardayre carry on heal the wild
+rebellion in his soul?
+
+"Ah, God!" he prayed, "take away all feeling--reward this sacrifice--let
+the family go on."
+
+"You don't think you will have really to go to the war, do you, John?"
+Amaryllis asked after she left the piano. "It will be all over, won't it,
+before the New Year, and in any case the Yeomanry are only for home
+defence, aren't they?" and she took a low seat and rested her head
+against his arm.
+
+John stroked her hair.
+
+"I am afraid it will not be over for a long time, Amaryllis. Yes, I
+think we shall go out and pretty soon. You would not wish to stop
+me, child?"
+
+Amaryllis looked straight in front of her.
+
+"What is this thing in us, John, which makes us feel that--yes, we
+would give our nearest and dearest, even if they must be killed? When
+the big thing comes even into the lives which have been perhaps all
+frivolous like mine--it seems to make a great light. There is an
+exaltation, and a pity, and a glory, and a grief, but no holding back.
+Is that patriotism, John?"
+
+"That is one name for it, darling."
+
+"But it is really beyond that in this war, because we are not going to
+fight for England, but for right. I think that feeling that we must give
+is some oblation of the soul which has freed itself from the chains of
+the body at last. For so many years we have all been asleep."
+
+"This is a rude awakening."
+
+They were silent for a little while, each busy with unusual thoughts.
+
+There was a sense of nearness between them--of understanding, new and
+dangerously sweet.
+
+Amaryllis felt it deliciously, sensuously, and took joy in that she was
+touching him.
+
+John thrust it away.
+
+"I must get through to-night," he thought, "but I cannot if this hideous
+pain of knowledge of what I must renounce conquers me--I must be strong."
+
+He went on stroking her hair; it made her thrill and she turned and bit
+one of his fingers playfully with a wicked little laugh.
+
+"I wish I knew what I am feeling, John," she whispered, and her eyes were
+aflame, "I wish I knew--"
+
+"I must teach you!" and with sudden fierceness he bent down and
+kissed her lips.
+
+Then he told her to go to bed.
+
+"You must be tired, Amaryllis, after your journey. Go like a good child."
+
+She pouted. She was all vibrating with some totally new and overmastering
+emotion. She wanted to stay and be made love to. She wanted--she knew not
+what, only everything in her was thrilling with passionate warmth.
+
+"Must I? It is only ten."
+
+"I have a frightful lot of business things to write tonight, Amaryllis.
+Go now and sleep, and I will come and wake you about twelve!" He looked
+lover-like. She sighed.
+
+"Ah! if you would only come now!"
+
+He kissed her almost roughly again and led her to the door. And he stood
+watching her with burning eyes as she went up the stairs.
+
+Then he came back and rang the bell.
+
+"I shall be very late, Murcheson--do not sit up, I will turn out the
+lights. Good-night."
+
+"Very good, Sir John."
+
+And the valet left the room.
+
+But John Ardayre did not write any business letters; he sank back into
+his great leather chair--his lips were trembling, and presently sobs
+shook him, and he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.
+
+Just before twelve had struck, he went out into the hall, and turned off
+the light at the main. The whole house would now be in absolute darkness
+but for an electric torch he carried. He listened--there was not a sound.
+
+Then he crept quietly up to his dressing room and returned with a bottle
+of the clove-scented hair lotion.
+
+"What a mercy she spoke of it," his thoughts ran. "How sensitive women
+are--I should never have remembered such a thing."
+
+Yes--now there was a sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Midnight had struck--and Amaryllis, sleeping peacefully, had been
+dreaming of John.
+
+"Oh! dearest," she whispered drowsily, as but half awakened, she felt
+herself being drawn into a pair of strong arms--"Oh!--you know I love
+that scent of cloves--Oh!--I love you, John!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+When Amaryllis awoke in the morning her head rested on John's breast, and
+his arm encircled her. She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him.
+He was still asleep--and his face was infinitely sad. She bent over and
+kissed him with shy tenderness, but he did not move, he only sighed
+heavily as he lay there.
+
+Why should he look so sad, when they were so happy?
+
+She thought of loving things he had said to her at dinner--and then the
+afterwards!--and she thrilled with emotion. Life seemed a glorious thing
+and--But John was sad, of course, because he must go away. The
+recollection of this fact came upon her suddenly like a blast of cold
+air. They must part. War hung there with its hideous shadow, and John
+must be conscious of it even in his dreams, that was why he sighed.
+
+The irony of things--now--when--Oh! how cruel that he must go.
+
+Then John awoke with a shudder, and saw her there leaning over him with a
+new soft love light in her eyes, and he realised that the anguish of his
+calvary had only just begun.
+
+She was perfectly exquisite at breakfast, a fresh and tender graciousness
+radiated in her every glance; she was subtle and captivating, teasing him
+that he had been so silent in the night. "Why wouldn't you talk to me,
+John? But it was all divine, I did not mind." Then she became full of
+winsome ways and caresses, which she had hitherto been too timid to
+express; and every fond word she spoke stabbed John's heart.
+
+Could she not come and stay somewhere near so as to be with him while he
+was in training? It was unbearable to remain alone.
+
+But he told her that this would be impossible and that she must go back
+to Ardayre.
+
+"I will get leave, if there is a chance, dear little girl."
+
+"Oh! John, you must indeed."
+
+After he had gone out to the War Office, she sang as she undid a bundle
+of late roses he had sent her from Soloman's, on his way.
+
+She must herself put them in water; no servant should have this pleasing
+task. Was it the thought of the imminence of separation which had altered
+John into so dear a lover? She went over his words there in the library.
+She relived the joy of his sudden fierce kiss, when he had said that he
+must teach her as to what her emotions meant.
+
+Ah! how good to learn, how all glorious was life and love!
+
+"Sweetheart," the word rang in her ears. He had never called her that
+before! Indeed, John rarely ever used any term of endearment, and never
+got beyond "Dear" or "Darling" before. But now it was an exquisite
+remembrance! Just the murmured word "Sweetheart!" whispered softly again
+and again in the night.
+
+John came back to lunch, but two of the de la Paule family dropped in
+also, and the talk was all of war, and the difficulty of getting money at
+the banks, and how food would go on, and what the whole thing would mean.
+
+But over Amaryllis some spell had fallen--nothing seemed a reality, she
+could not attend to ordinary things, she felt that she but moved and
+spoke as one still in a dream.
+
+The world, and life, and death, and love, were all a blended mystery
+which was but beginning to unravel for her and drew her nearer to John.
+
+The days went on apace.
+
+John in camp thanked God for the strenuous work of his training that it
+kept him so occupied that he had barely time to think of Amaryllis or the
+tragedy of things. When he had left her on the following afternoon, the
+seventh of August, she had returned to Ardayre alone and began the
+knitting and shirt-making and amateurish hospital committees which all
+well-meaning English women vaguely grasped at before the stern
+necessities brought them organised work to do. Amaryllis wrote constantly
+to John--all through August--and many of the letters contained loving
+allusions which made him wince with pain.
+
+Then the awful news came of Mons, then the Marne--and the Aisne--awful
+and glorious, and a hush and mourning fell over the land, and Amaryllis,
+like every one else, lost interest in all personal things for a time.
+
+A young cousin had been killed and many of her season's partners and
+friends, and now she knew that the North Somerset Yeomanry would shortly
+go out and fight as they had volunteered at once. She was very
+miserable. But when September grew, in spite of all this general sorrow,
+a new horizon presented itself, lit up as if by approaching dawn, for a
+hope had gradually developed--a hope which would mean the rejoicing of
+John's heart.
+
+And the day when first this possibility of future fulfilment was
+pronounced a certainty was one of almost exalted beatitude, and when
+Doctor Geddis drove away down the Northern Avenue, Amaryllis seized a
+coat from the folded pile of John's in the hall, and walked out into the
+park hatless, the wind blowing the curly tendrils of her soft brown hair,
+a radiance not of earth in her eyes. The late September sun was sinking
+and gilding the windows of the noble house, and she turned and looked
+back at it when she was far across the lake.
+
+And the whole of her spirit rose in thankfulness to God, while her soul
+sang a glad magnificat.
+
+She, too, might hand on this great and splendid inheritance! She, too,
+would be the mother of Ardayres!
+
+And now to write to John!
+
+That was a fresh pleasure! What would he say? What would he feel? Dear
+John! His letters had been calm and matter of fact, but that was his way.
+She did not mind it now. He loved her, and what did words matter with
+this glorious knowledge in her heart?
+
+To have a baby! Her very own--and John's!
+
+How wonderful! How utterly divine--!
+
+Her little feet hardly touched the moss beneath them, she wanted to
+skip and sing.
+
+Next May! Next May! A Spring flower--a little life to care for when
+war, of course, would have ended and all the world again could be happy
+and young!
+
+And then she returned by the tiny ancient church. She had the key of it,
+a golden one which John had given her on their first coming down. It hung
+on her bracelet with her own private key.
+
+The sun was pouring through the western window, carpeting the altar steps
+in translucent cloth of gold.
+
+Amaryllis stole up the short aisle, and paused when she came between the
+two tall canopied tombs of recumbent sixteenth century knights, which
+made so dignified a screen for the little side aisles--and then she moved
+on and knelt in the shaft of the sunlight there at the carved rails.
+
+And no one ever raised to God a purer or more fervent prayer.
+
+She stayed until the sun sunk below the window, and then she rose and
+went back to the house, and up to her cedar room. And now she must
+write to John!
+
+She began--once--twice--but tore up each sheet. Her news was a supreme
+happiness, but so difficult to transmit!
+
+At last she finished three sides of her own rather large sized
+note-paper, but as she read over what she had written, she was not quite
+content; it did not express all that she desired John to know.
+
+But how could a mere letter convey the wordless gladness in her heart?
+
+She wanted to tell him how she would worship their baby, and how she
+would pray that they should be given a son--and how she would remember
+all his love words spoken that last time they were together, and weave
+the joy of them round the little form, so that it should grow strong and
+beautiful and radiant, and come to earth welcomed and blessed!
+
+Something of all this finally did get written, and she concluded thus:
+
+"John, is it not all wonderful and blissful and mysterious, this coming
+proof of our love? And when I lie awake I say over and over again the
+sweet name you called me, and which I want to sign! I am not just
+Amaryllis any longer, but your very own 'Sweetheart'!"
+
+John received this letter by the afternoon post in camp. He sat down
+alone in his tent and read and re-read each line. Then he stiffened and
+remained icily still.
+
+He could not have analysed his emotions. They were so intermixed with
+thankfulness and pain--and underneath there was a fierce, primitive
+jealousy burning.
+
+"Sweetheart!" he said aloud, as though the word were anathema! "And must
+I call her that 'Sweetheart'! Oh! God, it is too hard!" and he clenched
+his hands.
+
+By the same post came a letter from Denzil, of whose movements he had
+asked to be kept informed, saying that the 110th Hussars were going out
+at once, so that they would probably soon meet in France.
+
+Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to
+freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it
+was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an
+answer to her tender, exalted words.
+
+"My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will
+disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is."
+
+He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign
+to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you,
+Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he said.
+
+And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when
+it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife
+asking her to meet him in Brook Street.
+
+"I must see her--I cannot bear it," he cried to himself.
+
+And late at night he wrote to Denzil--it was just that he should do this.
+
+"My wife is going to have a baby--if only it should be a son, then it
+will not so much matter if both of us are killed, at least the family
+will be saved, and be able to carry oh."
+
+He tried to make the letter cordial. Denzil had behaved with the most
+perfect delicacy throughout, he must admit, and although they had met
+once and exchanged several letters, not the faintest allusion to the
+subject of their talk in the library at Brook Street had ever been
+made by him.
+
+Denzil had indeed acted and written as though such knowledge between
+them did not exist. He--Denzil--in these last seven weeks had been
+extremely occupied, and while his forces were concentrated upon the
+exhilarating preparations for war, it would happen in rare moments
+before sleep claimed him at night that he would let his thoughts conjure
+a waking dream, infinitely, mystically sweet. And every pulse would
+thrill with ecstasy, and then his will would banish it, and he would
+think of other subjects.
+
+He could not face the marvel of his emotions at this period, nor dwell
+upon the romantically exciting aspect of some things.
+
+He was up in London upon equipment business on the very Saturday that
+John got leave, and he was due to dine at the Carlton with Verisschenzko
+who had that day arrived on vital matters bent.
+
+As they came into the hall, a man stopped to talk to the Russian, and
+Denzil's eyes wandered over the unnumerous and depressed looking company
+collected waiting for their parties to arrive. War had even in those
+early Autumn days set its grim seal upon this festive spot. People looked
+rather ashamed of being seen and no one smiled. He nodded to one or two
+friends, and then his glance fell upon a beautiful, slim, brown-haired
+girl, sitting quietly waiting in an armchair by the restaurant steps.
+
+She wore a plain black frock, but in her belt one huge crimson clove
+carnation was unostentatiously tucked.
+
+"What a lovely creature!" his thoughts ran, and Verisschenzko
+turning from his acquaintance that moment, he said to him as they
+started to advance:
+
+"Stepan, if you want to see something typically English and perfectly
+exquisite, look at that girl in the armchair opposite where the band used
+to be. I wonder who she is?"
+
+"What luck!" cried Verisschenzko. "That is your cousin, Amaryllis
+Ardayre--come along!"
+
+And in a second Denzil found himself being introduced to her, and being
+greeted by her with interested cordiality, as befitted their cousinly
+relationship.
+
+But Verisschenzko, whose eyes missed nothing, remarked that under his
+sunburn, Denzil had grown suddenly very pale. Amaryllis was enchanted to
+see her friend, the Russian. John had gone to the telephone, it
+appeared--and yes, they were dining alone--and, of course, she was sure
+John would love to amalgamate parties, it was so nice of Verisschenzko to
+think of it! There was John now.
+
+The blood rushed back to Denzil's heart, and the colour to his face--he
+had only murmured a few conventional words. Mercifully John would decide
+the matter--it was not his doing that he and Amaryllis had met.
+
+John caught sight of the three as he came along the balcony from the
+telephone, so that he had time to take in the situation; he saw that the
+meeting was quite _imprevu_, and he had, of course, no choice but to
+accept Verisschenzko's suggestion with a show of grace. At that very
+moment, before they could enter the restaurant, and re-arrange their
+tables, Harietta Boleski and her husband swept upon them--they were
+staying in the hotel. Harietta was enraptured.
+
+What a delightful surprise meeting them! Were they all just together,
+would they not dine with her?
+
+She purred to John, while her eyes took in with satisfaction Denzil's
+extraordinary good looks--and there was Stepan, too! Nothing could be
+more agreeable than to scintillate for them both.
+
+John hailed their advent with relief: it would relax the intolerable
+strain which both he and Denzil would be bound to have to experience. So
+looking at the rest of the party, he indicated that he thought they would
+accept. It suited Verisschenzko also for his own reasons. And any
+suggestion to enlarge the intimate number of four would have been
+received by Denzil with graciousness.
+
+He had not imagined that he would feel such profound emotion on seeing
+Amaryllis, the intensity of it caused him displeasure. It was altogether
+such a remarkable situation. He knew that it would have been of thrilling
+interest to him had it not been for the presence of John. His knowledge
+of what John must be suffering, and the knowledge that John was aware of
+what he also must be feeling, turned the whole circumstance into
+discomfort.
+
+As soon as he recalled himself to Madame Boleski they all went into the
+restaurant to the Boleski table, just inside the door, by the window on
+the right. Harietta put John on one side of her and Denzil at the other,
+and beyond were Verisschenzko and her husband, with Amaryllis between,
+who thus sat nearly opposite Denzil, with her back to the room.
+
+Harietta, when she desired to be, was always an inspiriting hostess,
+making things go. She intended to do her best to-night. The turn affairs
+had taken, England being at war, was quite too tiresome. It had spoilt
+all her country house visits and nullified much of the pleasure and
+profit she was intending to reap from her now secured position in this
+promised land.
+
+Stanislass, too, had been difficult, he had threatened to go back to
+Poland immediately, which he explained was his obvious duty to do--but
+she had fortunately been able to crush that idea completely with tears
+and scenes. Then he suggested Paris, but information from Hans gave her
+occasion to think this might not be a comfortable or indeed quite a safe
+spot, and in all cases if the Frenchmen were fighting for dear life they
+would not have leisure to entertain her, therefore, dull and gloomy as
+England had become, she preferred to remain.
+
+Hans, too, had given her orders. For the present London must be her home,
+and the lease of the Mount Lennard house in Grosvenor Square having
+expired, they had moved to the Carlton Hotel.
+
+The misery of war, the holocaust of all that was noblest, left her
+absolutely cold. It was certainly a pity that those darling young
+guardsmen she had danced with should have had to be killed, but there was
+never any use in crying over spilt milk--better look out for new ones
+coming on. She was quite indifferent as to which country won. It was
+still a great bother collecting information for her former husband, but
+he threatened terrible reprisals if she refused to go on, and as in her
+secret heart she thought that there was no doubt as to who would be
+victor, she felt it might be wiser to remain on good terms with the power
+she believed would win!
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre had been very helpful all the summer--he had moved from
+the Constantinople branch of his business to one in Holland and had just
+returned to England now; he was, in fact, coming to see her later on when
+she should have packed Stanislass safely off to the St. James' Club.
+
+Harietta had no imagination to be inflamed by terrible descriptions of
+things. She saw no actual horrors, therefore war to her was only a
+nuisance--nothing ghastly or to be feared. But it was a disgusting
+nuisance and caused her fatigue. She had continually to remember to
+simulate proper sympathy, and concern and to subdue her vivacity, and
+show enthusiasm for any agreeable war work which could divert her dull
+days. If she had not been more than doubtful of her reception in America,
+even as a Polish magnate's wife, she would have gone over there to escape
+as far as possible from the whole situation, and she had been bored to
+death now for several days. People were too occupied and too grieved to
+go out of their way now to make much of her, and she had been left alone
+to brood. Thus the advent of Verisschenzko, who thrilled her always, and
+a possible new admirer in Denzil, seemed a heaven-sent occurrence.
+Amaryllis and John were undesired but unavoidable appendages who had to
+be swallowed.
+
+Denzil's type particularly attracted her. There was an insouciance about
+him, a _debonnair sans gene_ which increased the charm of his good looks;
+he had everything of attraction about him which John Ardayre lacked.
+
+Amaryllis, against her will, before the end of the dinner, was conscious
+of the fact also, though Denzil studiously avoided any conversation with
+her beyond what the exigencies of politeness required. He devoted himself
+entirely to Harietta, to her delight, and Verisschenzko and Amaryllis
+talked while John was left to Stanislass. But the very fact of Denzil's
+likeness to John made Amaryllis look at him, and she resented his
+attraction and the interest he aroused in her.
+
+His voice was perhaps even deeper than John's, and how extraordinarily
+well his bronze hair was planted on his forehead; and how perfectly
+groomed and brushed and soldierly he looked!
+
+He seemingly had taken the measure of Madame Boleski, too, and was
+apparently enjoying with a cultivated subtlety the drawing of her out. He
+was no novice it seemed, and there was a whimsical light in his eyes and
+once or twice they had inadvertently met hers with understanding when
+Verisschenzko had made some especially cryptic remark. She knew that she
+would very much have liked to talk to him.
+
+Verisschenzko was observing Amaryllis carefully. There was a new
+expression in her eyes which puzzled him. Her features seemed to be drawn
+with finer lines and pale violet shadows lay beneath her grey eyes. Was
+it the gloom of the war which oppressed her? It could not be altogether
+that, because her regard was serene and even happy.
+
+"Did I not know that nothing could be more unlikely, I should say she was
+going to have a child. What is the mystery?" He found himself very much
+interested. Especially he was anxious to watch what impression Denzil
+made upon her. He saw, as the dinner went on, that Amaryllis was aware
+that he was an attractive creature.
+
+"There is the beginning of a chapter of necessary and
+expedient--romance--here," he decided. "If only Denzil is not killed."
+But what did his growing so pale on learning that she was his cousin
+mean...? that was not a natural circumstance--some deep undercurrents
+were stirred. And in what way was all this going to affect the lady
+of his soul?
+
+They could not have any intimate conversation at dinner; they spoke of
+ordinary things and the war and the horror of it. Russia was moving
+forward, but Verisschenzko did not appear to be very optimistic in spite
+of this. There were things in his country, he told Amaryllis, which might
+handicap the fighting.
+
+Stanislass Boleski looked extremely depressed. He had a hang-dog,
+strained mien and Verisschenzko's contemptuously friendly attitude
+towards him wounded him deeply. Once he had shone as a leader and chief
+in Stepan's life, and now after the stormy scene in the smoking-room at
+Ardayre, that he could greet him casually and not turn from him in anger,
+showed, alas! to where he had sunk in Verisschenzko's estimation--a thing
+of nought--not even worth his disapproval. The dinner to him was a
+painful trial.
+
+John also was far from content. He had been longing to see Amaryllis, and
+yet the sight of her and her fond and insinuating words and caresses had
+caused him exquisite suffering. His emotions were so varied and complex.
+His prayer had been answered, but apart from his natural loathing for all
+subterfuge, every new tenderness towards himself which Amaryllis
+displayed aroused some indefinable jealousy. She had been so glad to see
+him and he had been conscious himself that he had been even unusually
+stolid and self-contained towards her. He knew that she grew disappointed
+and that probably the exalted sentiment which her letter had indicated
+that she was feeling had been chilled before she could put it into words.
+
+All this distressed him, and yet he could not break through the reserve
+of his nature.
+
+And now to crown unfortunate things, there was Denzil brought by fate and
+no one's manoeuvring into Amaryllis' company! Of all things he had hoped
+that they need not meet before he and his cousin should go to the Front.
+And it was all brought about by his own action in insisting that they had
+better dine at a restaurant, as the kitchenmaid, who always remained at
+Brook Street, had gone to see a wounded brother.
+
+Amaryllis had sighed a little as she had consented, with the faint
+protest that they could have eaten something cold.
+
+But on their drive to the Carlton she had become fondly affectionate
+again, nestling close to him, and then she had pulled out the carnation
+from her belt and held it for him to smell.
+
+"I picked it in the greenhouse this morning, the last of them; I have had
+them all around me while there were any, because they remind me of you,
+dearest--and of everything divine."
+
+John felt that he should always now hate that clove stuff for the hair
+and could no longer bear to use it.
+
+He was perfectly aware that Denzil on his hostess' other hand was
+looking everything that a woman could desire, and that his easy
+casualness of manner would be likely to charm. He saw that Amaryllis,
+too, observed him with unconscious interest, and a feeling akin to
+despair filled his heart.
+
+Life for him had always been difficult, and he was accustomed to blows,
+but this one was particularly hard to bear, because he really loved
+Amaryllis and desired happiness with her which he knew could never really
+be attained.
+
+Only Harietta of the whole party was quite content. She intended to annex
+Stepan when they should be drinking coffee in the hall. She looked upon
+Denzil's conquest now as almost an accomplished fact, and so felt that
+she might let him talk to Amaryllis, since the Russian was her real
+object. His ugly rugged face and odd Calmuck eyes always attracted her.
+
+"Why aren't you staying in the hotel, darling Brute?'" she whispered to
+him as they left the restaurant. "If you had been--"
+
+"I am," said Verisschenzko, and leaving her for a moment he went and
+telephoned to his not unintelligent Russian servant at the Ritz to
+arrange about the transference of his rooms.
+
+"She requires the most careful watching--I must waste no time."
+
+And then he returned to the party in the hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre took up his letters which had been forwarded to him from
+the depot where he was stationed. He and Verisschenzko were passing
+through the hall of his mother's house, for a talk and a smoke in his
+sitting-room, after leaving the Carlton.
+
+The house was in St. James' Place, a small, old building, the ground
+floor of which was given over to Denzil whenever he was in London. His
+mother was absent at Bath, where she spent a long autumn cure.
+
+John's letter lay on the top, and Verisschenzko caught the look of
+interest which came into Denzil's face.
+
+"Don't mind me, my dear chap," he remarked, "read your letters." And they
+went on into the sitting-room.
+
+"I want just to look at this one--it is from John Ardayre whom we met
+to-night," and Denzil opened it casually--"I wonder what he is writing to
+me about, he did not say anything at dinner."
+
+He read the short communication and exclaimed: "Good God!" and then
+checked himself. He was obviously stirred, and Verisschenzko watched him
+narrowly. Anything to do with John must concern Amaryllis, and therefore
+was of profound interest to himself.
+
+"No bad news, I hope?" he said.
+
+Denzil was gazing into the fire, and there was a look of wonderment and
+even rapture upon his face.
+
+"Oh! No--rather splendid--" He felt quite the strangest emotion he had
+ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy
+flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to
+link certain things in his mind.
+
+"Tell me, what did you think of your cousin, Lady Ardayre?" he asked
+casually, as though the subject was irrelevant.
+
+"Amaryllis?" and Denzil almost started from a reverie. "Oh, yes, of
+course, she is a lovely creature, is not she, Stepan?"
+
+Verisschenzko narrowed his eyes.
+
+"I have told you that I adore her--but with the spirit--if it were
+not so, she would appeal very strongly to the flesh--Yes?--Did you
+not feel it?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"She is longing to understand life, she is groping; why do you not set
+about her education, Denzil?"
+
+"That is the husband's business."
+
+"Not in this case. I consider it is yours; you are the right mate
+for her. John Ardayre is a good fellow, but he stands for nothing in
+the affair. Why did you waste your time upon Harietta, when time is
+so short?"
+
+"I was given no choice."
+
+"But afterwards, in the hall?"
+
+It was quite evident to Verisschenzko that the mention of Amaryllis was
+causing his friend some unexplainable emotion.
+
+"You did not even exert yourself, then. Why, Denzil?"
+
+Denzil lit a cigarette.
+
+"I thought her awfully attractive--it is the first time I have ever seen
+her--as you know."
+
+"And that was a reason for remaining silent and as stiff as a poker in
+manner! You English are a strange race!"
+
+Denzil smiled--if Stepan only knew everything, what would he say!
+
+"You were made for each other. If I were you, I would not lose a
+second's time!"
+
+"My dear old boy, you seem quite to forget that the girl has a husband
+of her own!"
+
+"Not at all, it is for that reason--just because of that husband. I shall
+say no more, you are quite intelligent enough to understand."
+
+"You think it is all right then for a woman to have a lover?" Denzil
+smiled as he curled rings of smoke. "It is curious how the most
+honourable among us has not much conscience concerning such things."
+
+Verisschenzko knocked off his cigarette ash and spoke contemplatively:
+
+"The world would be an insupportable place for women, if he had! But
+whatever the moral aspect of the matter is in general, circumstances
+arise which alter the point, and that is where the absurd ticketing
+system hampers suitable action. A thing is ticketed 'dishonourable.'
+Pah! it is sometimes, and it is not at others--there is no hard and
+fast rule."
+
+Denzil stretched himself--he was always interested in Verisschenzko's
+reasonings and prepared to listen with enjoyment:
+
+"The general idea is that a man should not make love to another man's
+wife. Man professes this as a creed, and the law enforces it and punishes
+him if he is found out doing so. And if he acted up to this creed as he
+does about stealing goods and behaving like a gentleman over business
+matters, all might be well, but unfortunately that seldom occurs, because
+there is that strong; instinct which is the base of all things working in
+him, and which does not work in regard to any other point of
+honour--i.e., the unconscious desire to re-create his, species, so that
+this one particular branch of moral responsibility cannot be measured,
+judged, or criticised from the same standpoint as any other. No laws can.
+alter human nature, or really control a man's actions when a natural
+force is prompting him unless stern self-analysis discovers the truth to
+the man, and so permits his spirit to regain dominion. The best chance
+would be to resist the first feeling of attraction which a woman
+belonging to another man aroused before it had actually obtained a hold
+upon his senses--but the percentage of men who do this must be very
+small. Some resist--or try to resist the actual possession of the woman
+from moral motives, but many more from motives of expediency and fear of
+consequences. Then to salve conscience the mass of men ride a high moral
+stalking horse, and write and speak condemnation of every back-sliding,
+while their own behaviour coincides with the behaviour they are
+criticising. The hypocrisy of the thing sickens me; no one ever looks any
+question straight in the face, denuded of its man-made sophistries. And
+few realise that a woman is a creature to be fought for--it is
+prehistoric instinct, and if she can't be obtained in fair fight then you
+secure her by strategy. And if a man cannot keep her once he has secured
+her, it is up to him. If I had a wife, I should take good care that she
+_desired_ no other man--but if I bored her, or was a cold and bad lover,
+I should not expect the other men not to try and take her from
+me--because I should know this was a natural instinct with them--like
+taking food. It would probably be no temptation to most of us to steal
+gold lying about in a room, even if we were poor, but a hideous
+temptation to refrain from eating a tempting dish if we were starving
+with hunger and it was before us--and if a woman did succumb to some new
+passion I should blame myself, not her."
+
+Denzil agreed.
+
+"Jealousy is a natural instinct, though," he said, "and although there
+would be not much profit in trying to hold a woman who no longer cared,
+one could not help being mad about it."
+
+"Of course not--that is the sense of personal possession which is
+affronted. Vanity is deeply wounded, and so the power to analyse cause
+and result sleeps. But this attitude which men take up of neglecting a
+woman and then expecting her to be faithful still is quite ridiculous,
+and without logic; they are as usual fogged by convention and can't see
+straight."
+
+Verisschenzko's rough voice was keen--compelling.
+
+Denzil smiled.
+
+"Another of your windmills to fight!"
+
+"I am always fighting convention and shams. Get down to the meaning of a
+thing, and if its true significance coincides with the convention which
+surrounds it, then let that hold, but if convention is a super-imposed
+growth, then amputate it and study the thing without it."
+
+"I suppose a man marries a woman nine times out of ten because he cannot
+obtain her in any other way; then when he has become indifferent by
+possession, he still thinks that she should remain devoted to him. You
+are right, Stepan, it is very illogical."
+
+"Club the creature, or keep her in a cage if you want fidelity through
+fear, but don't expect it if you allow her to remain at large and
+neglected, and don't be such an ass as to imagine that your friends won't
+act just as you yourself would act were she some one's else wife. If a
+woman has that quality in her which arouses sex, married or single, I
+never have observed that men refrained from making love to her."
+
+"All this means that you consider I am quite at liberty to make love to
+Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Quite."
+
+Denzil threw his cigarette end into the fire:
+
+"Well, for once you are wrong, Stepan, in your usually perfect
+deductions," he got up from his chair. "There is a reason in this
+case which makes the thing an absolute impossibility; under no
+possible circumstance while John is alive could I make the smallest
+advance towards Amaryllis! There is another point of honour involved
+in the affair."
+
+Verisschenzko felt that here was some mystery which he had yet to
+elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then
+became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis
+that evening for the first time!
+
+"If this is so, then it is a very great pity," he announced, after a
+moment or two's thought. "Were the times normal, we might leave all to
+Fate and trust to luck, but if you are killed and John is killed, it
+will be a thousand pities for Ferdinand to be the head of the family.
+A creature like that will not enlist, he will be safe while you risk
+your lives."
+
+Denzil went over to the window, apparently to get out a fresh box of
+cigars which were in a cabinet near.
+
+"John writes to-night that there is the chance of an heir after all--so
+perhaps we need not worry," he said, his voice a little hoarse with
+feeling. "I was so awfully glad to hear this--we all loathe the thought
+of Ferdinand."
+
+Verisschenzko actually was startled, and also he was strangely moved.
+
+"When I saw my lady Amaryllis to-night that idea came to me, only as I
+believed it was quite an impossibility--I dismissed it--It is a war
+miracle then?" and he smiled enquiringly.
+
+"Apparently."
+
+The cigar box was selected and Denzil had once more resumed his seat in a
+big chair before either of them spoke again.
+
+"I perfectly understand that there is some mystery here, Denzil--and that
+you cannot tell me--and equally I cannot ask you any questions, but it
+may be that in the days that are coming I could be of assistance to you.
+I have some very curious information which I am holding concerning
+Ferdinand Ardayre in his activities. You can always count on me--"
+Verisschenzko rose from his chair, stirred deeply with the thoughts which
+were coursing through his brain.
+
+"Denzil--I love that woman--I am absolutely determined that I shall not
+do so in any way but in spirit--I long for her to be happy--protected.
+She has an exquisite soul--I would have given her to you with
+contentment. You are her counterpart upon this plane--"
+
+Denzil remained silent, he had never seen Stepan so agitated. The
+situation was altogether very unusual. Then he asked:
+
+"Do you think Ferdinand will make some protest then?"
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"But there is absolutely nothing to be said, the fact of there being a
+child refutes all the old rumours."
+
+"In law--"
+
+"In every way," a flush had mounted to Denzil's forehead.
+
+"You know Lemon Bridges?" Verisschenzko suggested.
+
+"Yes--why do you ask?"
+
+"He is a remarkably clever surgeon. It is said that he is also a
+gentleman; if this news surprises him he will not express his feelings
+probably."
+
+Stepan was observing his friend with the minutest scrutiny now, while he
+spoke lazily once more as though upon a casual topic bent, and he saw
+that a lightning flash of anxiety passed through Denzil's eyes.
+
+"I do not see how any one can have a word to say about the matter," and
+he lit his cigar deliberately. "John is awfully pleased--"
+
+"And so am I--and so are you, and so will be the lady Amaryllis. Thus we
+can only wish for general happiness, and not anticipate difficulties
+which may never occur. When is the event to happen?"
+
+"The beginning of next May," Denzil announced, without hesitation, and
+then the flush deepened, for he suddenly remembered that John had not
+mentioned any date in his letter!
+
+The subject was growing embarrassing, and he asked, so as to change it:
+
+"What is your friend, Madame Boleski, doing now, Stepan?"
+
+"She is receiving news from Germany which I shall endeavour to have her
+transmit to me, and I have some suspicion that she is transmitting any
+information which she can pick up here to Germany, but I cannot yet be
+sure. When I am, then I shall have no mercy. She would betray any country
+for an hour's personal pleasure or gain. I have not yet discovered who
+the man was at the Ardayre ball--I told you about it, did I not? Just
+then more important matters pressed and I could not follow up the clue."
+
+"She is certainly physically attractive, and all the things she says are
+so obvious and easy, she is quite a rest at a dinner, but Lord! think of
+spending one's life with a woman like that!" and Denzil smiled.
+
+"There are very few women whom it would be possible to contemplate in
+calmness spending one's life with, because one's own needs change, and
+the woman's also. The tie is a galling bond unless it can be looked at
+with common sense by both--but I think men are quite as illogical as
+women over it, and of such an incredible vanity! It is because we have
+mixed so much sentiment into such a simple nature-act that all the
+bothers arise, and men are unjust over every thing to do with women.
+All men think, for instance, that a woman must not deceive her lover
+and, at the same time that she is appearing to be his faithful
+mistress, take another for her pleasure and diversion in secret. A man
+would look upon this and rightly as a dishonourable betrayal because it
+would wound his vanity and lower his personal prestige. But the
+illogical part is that he would not hesitate to do the same thing
+himself, and would never see the matter in the light of a betrayal,
+because the Creator has happily equipped him with a rhinoceros hide
+which enables him never to feel stings of self-contempt when viewing
+his own actions towards the other sex."
+
+Denzil laughed aloud.
+
+"You are hard on us, Stepan, but I dare say you are right."
+
+"It is just custom and convention which make us think ourselves such
+gods. Had woman had the same chance always, who knows what she might not
+have become by now! Everything is ticketed, it is called by a name and
+put down under such and such a heading--women are 'weak' and 'illogical'
+and 'unreliable' and men are 'brave' and 'sound' and 'to be
+trusted'--tosh! in quantities of cases--and if so, why so? Women are
+wonderful beings in many ways--of a courage! The way they bear things so
+gladly for men--think of their suffering when they have children. You
+don't know about it probably, men take all this as a matter of
+course--but I saw my sister die--after hours of it--"
+
+Denzil moved his arm rather suddenly and upset the glass of lemon squash
+on a little table near.
+
+Verisschenzko observed this, but went on without a break:
+
+"It is agony for them under the best conditions, and sometimes they
+become divine over it. Amaryllis will be divine--I hope John will take
+care of her--"
+
+A look of concern came into Denzil's face, and Verisschenzko watched him.
+Could any one be more attractive as a splendid mate for Amaryllis, he
+thought. He crushed down all feeling of human jealousy. His intuition
+would probably reveal all the mystery to him presently, and meanwhile if
+he could forward any scheme which would be for the good of Amaryllis and
+the security of the family, he would do so.
+
+"I must leave you now, old man," he said, looking at his watch. "I have a
+rendezvous with Harietta. I shall have to play the part of an ardent
+lover and cannot yet wring her neck."
+
+When Denzil was alone, he stood gazing into the fire.
+
+"That John should take care of her?"--but John was going out to
+fight--and so was he--and they might both be killed--What then?
+
+"Stepan knows, I am certain," he thought, "and he is true as steel; he
+must stand by her if we don't come back."
+
+And then his thoughts flew to the vision of her sitting opposite him at
+the table, with her sweet eyes turned to his now and then, the faint
+violet shadows beneath them and the transparent exquisiteness of her skin
+telling their own story by the added, fragile beauty. Oh! what
+unutterable joy to hold her in his arms and whisper passionate love words
+in her little ears, to live again the dream of her dainty head lying
+prone there on his breast. Every pulse in his being throbbed to bursting,
+seeming almost to suffocate him.
+
+"Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he whispered aloud, and then started at his
+own voice.
+
+He paced up and down the room, clenching his hands. The family might go
+on, but the two members of it must endure the pain of renunciation.
+
+Which was the harder to bear, he wondered--his part of hopeless memory
+and regret, or John's of forced denial and abstinence?
+
+In all the world, no situation could be more strange or more cruel.
+
+He had felt deeply about it before he had seen Amaryllis. He thought of
+the myth of Eros and Psyche. His emotions had been much as Psyche's
+before she lit the lamp. And now the lamp had been lighted--his eyes had
+seen what his arms had clasped, the reality was more lovely than his
+dream, and passion was kindled a hundredfold. It swept him off his feet.
+
+He forgot war and the horror of the time, he forgot everything except
+that he longed for Amaryllis.
+
+"She is mine, absolutely mine," he said wildly. "Not John's."
+
+And then he remembered his promise, given before any personal equation
+had entered into the affair.
+
+Never to take advantage of the situation--afterwards!
+
+And what would the child be like? A true Ardayre, of course--they would
+say that it had harked back, perhaps, to that Elizabethan Denzil whom
+his father had told him was his exact portrait in the picture gallery
+at Ardayre.
+
+He could have laughed at the sardonic humour of everything if he had not
+been too overcome with passionate desire to retain any critical sense.
+
+Then he sat down and forced himself to realise what it meant--parenthood.
+Not much to a man, as a rule. He had looked upon those occult stirrings
+of the spirit of which he had read as romantic nonsense. It was a natural
+thing and all right if a man had a place for him to wish to have a
+son--but otherwise, sentimentality over such things was such rot!
+
+And yet now he found himself thrilling with sentiment. He would like to
+talk to Amaryllis all about it, and listen to her thoughts, too. And then
+he remembered the many discussions with Verisschenzko upon the theory of
+re-birth and of the soul's return again and again until its lessons are
+learned on this plane of existence, and he wondered what soul would
+animate the physical form of this little being who would be his and hers.
+
+And suddenly in his mental vision the walls of the room seemed to fade,
+and he was only conscious of a vastness of space, and knew that for this
+brief moment he was looking into eternity and realising for the first
+time the wonder of things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Verisschenzko had returned to the Carlton and was softly
+walking down the passage towards the Boleskis' rooms. The ante-room door
+was at the corner, and as he was about ten yards from it a man came out
+and strode rapidly towards the lift down the corridor at right angles,
+but the bright light fell upon his face for an instant, and Verisschenzko
+saw that it was Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He waited where he was until he heard the lift doors shut, and even then
+he paced up and down for a time before he entered the sitting-room. There
+must be no suspicion that he had encountered the late visitor.
+
+"Darling Brute, here you are!" Harietta cried delightedly, rising from
+her sofa and throwing herself into his arms. "I've packed Stanislass off
+to the St. James' to play piquet. I have been all alone waiting for you
+for the last hour--I began to fear you would not come."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her, with his cynical, humorous smile, whose
+meaning never reached her. He took in the transparent garments which
+hardly covered her, and then he bent and picked up a man's handkerchief
+which lay on a table near.
+
+"_Tiens_! Harietta!" he remarked lazily. "Since when has Stanislass taken
+to using this very Eastern perfume?" and he sniffed with disgust.
+
+The wide look of startled innocence grew in Madame Boleski's hazel eyes.
+
+"I believe Stanislass must have got a mistress, Stepan. I have
+noticed lately these scents on his things--as you know, he never used
+any before!"
+
+"The handkerchief is marked with 'F.A.' I suppose the _blanchisseuse_
+mixes them in hotels. Let us burn the memento of a husband's straying
+fancies then; the taste in perfumes of his inamorata is anything but
+refined," and Verisschenzko tossed the bit of cambric into the fire which
+sparkled in the grate.
+
+"I've lots of news to tell you, Darling Brute--but I shan't--yet! Have
+you come to England to see that bit of bread and butter--or--?"
+
+But Verisschenzko, with a fierce savagery which she adored, crushed her
+in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+On the Tuesday morning after the Carlton dinner, fate fell upon Denzil
+and Amaryllis in the way the jade does at times, swooping down upon
+them suddenly and then like a whirlwind altering the very current of
+their destiny. It came about quite naturally, too, and not by one of
+those wildly improbable situations which often prove truth to be
+stranger than fiction.
+
+Amaryllis was settled in an empty compartment of the Weymouth express at
+Paddington. She had said good-bye to John the evening before, and he had
+returned to camp. She was going back to Ardayre, and feeling very
+miserable. Everything had been a disillusion. John's reserve seemed to
+have augmented, and she had been unable to break it down, and all the
+new emotions which she was trembling with and longing to express, had
+grown chilled.
+
+Presumably John must be pleased at the possibility of having a son since
+it was his heart's desire; but it almost seemed as though the subject
+embarrassed him! And all the beautiful things which she had meant to say
+to him about it remained unspoken.
+
+He was stolidly matter-of-fact.
+
+What could it all mean?
+
+At last she had become deeply hurt and had cried with a tremour in her
+voice the morning before he left her:
+
+"Oh! John, how different you have become; it can't be the same you who
+once called me 'Sweetheart' and held me so closely in your arms! Have I
+done anything to displease you, dearest? Aren't you glad that I am going
+to have a baby?"
+
+He had kissed her and assured her gravely that he was glad--overjoyed.
+And his eyes had been full of pain, and he had added that he was stupid
+and dull, but that she must not mind--it was only his way.
+
+"Alas!" she had answered and nothing more.
+
+She dwelt upon these things as she sat in the train gazing out of the
+window on the blank side.
+
+Yes. Joy was turning into dead sea fruit. How moving her thoughts had
+been when coming up to meet him!
+
+The marvel of love creating life had exalted her and she had longed to
+pour her tender visionings into the ears of--her lover! For John had been
+thus enshrined in her fond imagination!
+
+The whole idea of having a child to her was a sacred wonder with little
+of earth in it, and she had woven exquisite sentiment round it and had
+dreamed fair dreams of how she would whisper her thoughts to John as she
+lay clasped to his heart; and John, too, would be thrilled with
+exaltation, for was not the glorious mystery his as well--not hers alone?
+
+Now everything looked grey.
+
+Tears rose in her eyes. Then she took herself to task; it was perhaps
+only her foolish romance leading her astray once more. The thought
+might mean nothing to a man beyond the pride of having a son to carry
+on his name. If the baby should be a little girl John might not care
+for it at all!
+
+The tears brimmed over and fell upon a big crimson carnation in her coat,
+a bunch of which John had ordered to be sent her, and which were now
+safely reposing in a card-board box in the rack above her head.
+
+Fortunately she had the carriage to herself. No one had attempted to get
+in, and they would soon be off. To be away from London would be a relief.
+
+Then her thoughts flew to Verisschenzko; he had told her that
+circumstances in his country might require his frequent presence in
+England for the next few months.
+
+She would see him again. What would he tell her to do now? Conquer
+emotion and look at things with common sense.
+
+The picture of the dinner at the Carlton then came back to her, and the
+face of Denzil across the table, so like, and yet so unlike John!
+
+If Denzil had a wife would he be cold to her? Was it in the nature of
+all Ardayres?
+
+At the very instant the train began to move the carriage was invaded by a
+man in khaki who bounded in and almost fell by her knees, and with a
+cheery 'Just done it, Sir!' the guard flung in a dressing-bag and slammed
+the door, and she realised with conscious interest that the intruder was
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"How do you do? By Jove. I am awfully sorry," and he held out his hand.
+"I nearly lost the train and I am afraid I have bundled in without asking
+leave. I am going down to Bath to say good-bye to my mother. I say, do
+forgive me if I startled you," and he looked full of concern.
+
+Amaryllis laughed; she was nervous and overstrung.
+
+"Your entrance was certainly sudden and in this non-stop to Westbury we
+shall have to put up with each other till then--shall you mind?"
+
+"Awfully--Must I say that the truth would be that I am enchanted!"
+
+Fortune had flung him these two hours. He had not planned them, his
+conscience was clear, and he could not help delight rushing through him.
+Two hours with her--alone!
+
+There are some blue eyes which seem to have a spark of the devil lurking
+in them always, even when they are serious. Denzil's were such eyes.
+Women found it difficult to resist his charm, and indeed had never tried
+very hard. Life and its living, knowledge to acquire, work to do, beasts
+to hunt, had not left him too much time to be spoiled by them
+fortunately, and he had passed through several adventures safely and had
+never felt anything but the most transient emotion, until now looking at
+Amaryllis sitting opposite him he knew that he was in love with this
+dream which had materialised.
+
+Amaryllis studied him while they talked of ordinary things and the war
+news and when he would go out. She felt some strong attraction drawing
+her to him. Her sense of depression left her. She found herself noticing
+how the sun which had broken through a cloud turned his immaculately
+brushed hair into bronze. She did a little modelling to amuse herself,
+and so appreciated balance and line.
+
+Everything in Denzil was in the right place, she decided, and above all
+he looked so peculiarly alive. He seemed, indeed, to be the reality of
+what her imagination had built up round the personality of John in the
+weeks of their separation. Denzil believed that he was talking quite
+casually, but his glance was ardent, and atmosphere becomes charged when
+emotions are strong no matter how insignificant words may be. Amaryllis
+_felt_ that he was deeply interested in her.
+
+"You know my friend Verisschenzko well, it seems," she said presently.
+"Is not he a fascinating creature? I always feel stimulated when I am
+with him, and as if I must accomplish great things."
+
+"Stepan is a wonder--we were at Oxford together--he can do anything he
+desires. He is a musician and an artist and is chock full of common
+sense, and there's not a touch of rot. He would have taken honours if he
+had not been sent down."
+
+Amaryllis wanted to know about this, and listened amazedly to the story
+of the mad freak which had so scandalised the Dons.
+
+She had recovered from her nervousness, she was natural and delightful,
+and although the peculiar situation was filling Denzil with excitement
+and emotion, he was too much a man of the world to experience any _gene_.
+So they talked for a while with friendliness upon interesting things.
+Then a pause came and Amaryllis looked out of the window, and Denzil had
+time to grow aware that he must hold himself with a tighter hand, a sense
+almost of intoxication had begun to steal over him.
+
+Suddenly Amaryllis grew very pale and her eyelids flickered a little; for
+the first time in her life she felt faint.
+
+He bent forward in anxiety as she leaned her head against the
+cushioned division.
+
+"Oh! what is it, you poor little darling! what can I do for you?" he
+exclaimed, unconscious that he had used a word of endearment; but even
+though things had grown vague for her Amaryllis caught the tenderly
+pronounced 'darling' and, physically ill as she felt, her spirit thrilled
+with some agreeable surprise. He came nearer and pushing up the padded
+divisions between the seats, he lifted her as though she had been a baby
+and laid her flat down. He got out his flask from his dressing bag and
+poured some brandy between her pale lips, then he rubbed her hands,
+murmuring he knew not what of commiseration. She looked so fragile and
+helpless and the probable reason of her indisposition was of such
+infinite solicitude to himself.
+
+"To think that she is feeling like that because--Ah!--and I may not even
+kiss her and comfort her, or tell her I adore her and understand." So his
+thoughts ran.
+
+Presently Amaryllis sat up and opened her eyes. She had not actually
+fainted, but for a few moments everything had grown dim and she was not
+certain of what had happened, or if she had dreamed that Denzil had
+spoken a love word, or whether it was true--she smiled feebly.
+
+"I did feel so queer," she explained. "How silly of me! I have never felt
+faint before--it is stupid"--and then she blushed deeply, remembering
+what certainly must be the cause.
+
+"I am going to open the window wide," he said, appreciating the blush,
+and let it down. "You ought not to sit with your back to the engine like
+that, let us change sides."
+
+He took command and drew her to her feet, and placed her gently in his
+vacant seat; then he sat down opposite her and looked at her with
+anxious eyes.
+
+"I sit that way as a rule because of avoiding the dust, but, of course,
+it was that. I am not generally such a goose though--it is the nastiest
+feeling that I have ever known."
+
+"You poor dear little girl," his deep voice said. "You must shut your
+eyes and not talk now."
+
+She obeyed, and he watched her intently as she lay back with her eyes
+closed, the long lashes resting upon her pale cheeks. She looked childish
+and a little pathetic, and every fibre of his being quivered with desire
+to protect her. He had never felt so profoundly in his life--and the
+whole thing was so complicated. He tried to force himself to remember
+that he was not travelling with _his_ wife whom he could take care of and
+cherish because she was going to have _his_ child, but that he was
+travelling with John's wife whom he hardly knew and must take no more
+interest in than any Ardayre would in the wife of the head of the family!
+
+He could have laughed at the extraordinary irony of the thing, if it had
+not been so moving.
+
+Verisschenzko, had he been there and known the circumstances, would have
+taken joy in analysing what nature was saying to them both!
+
+Amaryllis was only conscious that Denzil seemed the reality of her dream
+of John, and that she liked his nearness--and Denzil only knew that he
+loved her extremely and must banish emotion and remember his given word.
+So he pulled himself together when she sat up presently and began
+talking again, and gradually the atmosphere of throbbing excitement
+between them calmed. They spoke of each other's tastes and likings and
+found many to be the same. Then they spoke of books, and each discovered
+that the other was sufficiently well read to be able to discuss varied
+favourite authors.
+
+An understanding and sympathy had grown up between them before they
+reached Westbury, and yet Denzil was really trying to keep his word in
+the spirit as well as the letter.
+
+Amaryllis felt no constraint--she was more friendly than she would have
+been with any other man she knew so slightly. Were they not cousins, and
+was it not perfectly natural!
+
+They talked of Oxford and of the effect it had upon young men, and again
+they spoke of Stepan and of the dream he and Denzil shared.
+
+"You will go into Parliament, I suppose, when you come back from the
+war?" she remarked at last. "If you have dreams they should become
+realities...."
+
+"That is what I intend to do. The war may last a long time though--but it
+ought to teach one something, and England will be a vastly different
+place after it, and perhaps the younger men who have fought may have a
+greater chance."
+
+"You have pet theories, of course."
+
+"I suppose so--I believe that the first great step will be to give the
+people better homes--the housing question is what I am going to devote my
+energy to. I am sure it is the root of nearly every evil. Every man and
+woman who works should have the right to a good home. I have two supreme
+interests--that is one, and the other is elimination of the wastrels and
+the unfit. I am quite ruthless, perhaps, you will think. But there is
+such a sickening lot of mawkish sentiment mixed up with nearly every
+scheme to benefit workers. I agree with Stepan who always preaches: Get
+down to the commonsense point of view about a thing. Prune the convention
+and religion and sentimentality first and then you can judge."
+
+Amaryllis thought for a moment; her eyes became wide and dreamy, and her
+charmingly set head was a little thrown back. Denzil took in the line of
+her white throat and the curve of her chin--it was not weak. Why was it
+that women with the possibilities of this one always seemed to be some
+other man's property! He had never come across such charm in girls. Or
+was it that marriage developed charm?
+
+They neither of them spoke for a minute or two, each busy with
+speculation.
+
+"I want to do something," Amaryllis said at last, "not, only just make
+shirts and socks," and then the pink flushed her cheeks again suddenly as
+she remembered that she would not be fit for more strenuous work for
+quite a long time--and then the war would be over, of course.
+
+Denzil thought the same thing without the last qualification. He was
+under no delusions as to the speedy end of strife.
+
+He could not help visioning the wonderful interest the hope of a son
+would be to him if she really were his wife--how filled with supreme
+sympathy and tenderness would be the months coming on. How they would
+talk together about their wishes and the mystery and the glory of the
+evolution of life. And here she had blushed at some thought concerning
+it, and no words must pass between them about this sacred thing. He
+longed to ask her many questions--and then a pang of jealousy shook him.
+She would confide to John, not to him, all the emotions aroused by the
+thought of the child--then. He wondered what she would do in the winter
+all alone. Had she relations she was fond of? He wished that she knew his
+Mother, who was the kindest sweetest lady in the world. He said aloud:
+
+"I would like you to meet my Mother. She is going to be at Bath for a
+month. She is almost an invalid with rheumatism in her ankle where she
+broke it five years ago. I believe you would get on."
+
+"I should love to--it is not an impossible distance from us. I will go
+over to see her, if you will tell her about me--so that she won't think
+some stranger is descending upon her some day!"
+
+"She will be so pleased," and he thought that he would be happier knowing
+that they were friends.
+
+"Does she mean a great deal to you? Some mothers do," and she
+sighed--her own was less than emptiness--they had never been near, and
+now her stepfather and the step-family claimed all the affection her
+mother could feel.
+
+"She is a great dear--one of my best friends," and his eyes beamed. "We
+have always been pals--because I have no brothers and sisters I suppose
+she spoilt me!"
+
+"I daresay you were quite a nice little boy!" Amaryllis smiled--"and it
+must be divine to have a son--I expect it would be easy to spoil one."
+
+Denzil clasped his hands rather tightly--she looked so adorable as she
+said that, her eyes soft with inward knowledge of her great hope. How
+impossible it all was that they must remain strangers--casual cousins and
+nothing more.
+
+"It must be an awful responsibility to have children," he said, watching
+her. "Don't you think so?"
+
+The pink flared up again as she answered a rather solemn "Yes."
+
+Then she went on, a little hurriedly:
+
+"One would try to study their characters and lead them to the highest
+good, as gardeners watch over and train plants until they come to
+perfection. But what funny, serious things we are talking about," and she
+gave a little, nervous laugh--"Like two old grandfather philosophers."
+
+"It is rather a treat to talk seriously; one so seldom has the chance to
+meet any one who understands."
+
+"To understand!" and she sighed. "Alas--How quite perfect life would
+be--" and then she stopped abruptly. If she continued her words might
+contain a reflection upon John.
+
+Denzil bent forward eagerly--what had she been going to say?
+
+She saw his blue attractive eyes gazing at her so ardently and some
+delicious thrill passed through her. But Denzil recovered himself, and
+leaned back in his seat--while he abruptly changed the conversation by
+remarking casually:
+
+"I have never seen Ardayre. I would love to look at our common ancestors.
+My father used to say there was an Elizabethan Denzil who was rather like
+me. I suppose we are all stamped with the same brand."
+
+"I know him!" Amaryllis cried delightedly. "He is up at the end of the
+gallery in puffed white satin and a ruff. Of course, you must come and
+see him; he has exactly the same eyes."
+
+"The whole family are alive I believe--we were a tenacious lot!"
+
+"If you and John both get leave at Christmas you must come with him and
+spend it at Ardayre--I shall have made your Mother's acquaintance by
+then, and we must persuade her too."
+
+He gave some friendly answer--while he felt that John might not endorse
+this invitation. If the places were reversed, how would he himself act?
+Difficult as the situation was for him, it was infinitely harder for
+John. Then the train stopped at Westbury.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Denzil had got out to get some papers which he had been to hurried to
+secure at Paddington tipping the guard on the way, so that an old
+gentleman who showed signs of desiring to enter was warded off to another
+compartment. Thus when the train re-started, they were again left alone.
+
+Amaryllis had partially recovered and was looking nearly her usual self,
+but for the violet shadows beneath her eyes. She glanced at the papers
+which he handed to her, and Denzil retired behind the Times. He wanted
+to think; he must not let himself slip out of hand. He must resolutely
+stamp out all the emotion that she was causing him; he despised weakness
+of any sort.
+
+He thought of Verisschenzko's words about laws being powerless to control
+a man's actions, when a natural force is prompting him, unless he uses
+self-analysis, and so by gaining knowledge permits the spirit to conquer.
+He recollected that he had transgressed often without a backward thought
+in past days with other women, but now his honour was engaged even apart
+from his firm belief in Stepan's favourite saying, that a man must never
+sully the wrong thing. Then the argument they had often had about
+indulgences came to him, and the truth of the only possibility of their
+enjoyment being while they remained servants, not masters.
+
+He had had his indulgences in the two hours to Westbury, and had very
+nearly let it conquer him, more than once, and now he must not only curb
+all friendly words and delightful dalliance with forbidden topics, but he
+must _feel_ no more passion.
+
+He made himself read the war news and try to visualize the grim reality
+behind the official phrasing of the communiques. And gradually he became
+calm, and was almost startled when Amaryllis, who had been watching him
+furtively and had begun to wonder if he was really so interested in his
+paper, said timidly:
+
+"Will you pull the window up a little? It seems to be growing cold."
+
+She noticed that his lips were set firmly and that an abstracted
+expression had grown in his eyes.
+
+Then Denzil spoke, now quite naturally and about the war, and
+deliberately kept the conversation to this subject, until Amaryllis lay
+back again in her corner and closed her eyes.
+
+"I am going to have a little sleep," she said.
+
+She too had begun to realise that in more personal investigation of
+mutual tastes there lay some danger. She had become conscious of the fact
+that she was very interested in Denzil--and there he was, not really the
+least like John!
+
+They were silent for some time, and were nearing Frome when he spoke. He
+had been deliberating as to what he ought to do? Get out and leave her,
+to catch his connection to Bath, or sacrifice that and see her safely to
+her destination and perhaps hire a motor from Bridgeborough?
+
+This latter was his strong desire and also seemed the only chivalrous
+thing to do when she still looked so pale, but--
+
+"Here we are almost at Frome," he said.
+
+Her eyes rounded with concern. It would be horrid to be alone. She had
+left her maid in London for a few days' holiday.
+
+"You change here for Bath," she faltered a little uncertainly.
+
+He decided in a second. He could not be inhuman! Duty and desire were
+one!
+
+"Yes--but I am coming on with you. I shall not leave you until I see you
+safely into your own motor. I can hire one perhaps then, to take me on
+the rest of the way."
+
+She was relieved--or she thought it was merely relief, which made a
+sudden lifting in her heart!
+
+"How kind of you. I do feel as if I did not like the thought of being by
+myself, it is so stupid of me--But you can't hire a motor from
+Bridgeborough which would get you to Bath before dark! They are wretched
+things there. You must come with me to Ardayre; it is on the Bath road,
+you know--and we can have a late lunch, and and then I'll send you on in
+the Rolls Royce. You will be there in an hour--in time for tea."
+
+This was a tremendous fresh temptation. He tried to look at it as though
+it did not in reality matter to him more than the appearance suggested.
+Had there been no emotion in his interest in Amaryllis, he would not have
+hesitated, he knew.
+
+Then it was only for him to conquer emotion and behave as he would do
+under ordinary circumstances--it would be a good test of his will.
+
+"All right--that's splendid, and I shall be able to see Ardayre!"
+
+It was when they were in Amaryllis's own little coupe very close to each
+other that strong temptation assailed Denzil. He suddenly felt his
+pulses throbbing wildly and it was with the greatest difficulty he
+prevented himself from clasping her in his arms. He tried to look out of
+the window and take an interest in the park, which was entered very soon
+after leaving the station. He told himself Ardayre was something which
+deserved his attention and he looked for the first view of the house, but
+all his will could only keep his arms from transgressing, it could not
+control the riot of his thoughts.
+
+Amaryllis was conscious in some measure that he was far from calm, and
+her own heart began to beat unaccountably. She talked rather fast about
+the place and its history, and both were relieved when the front door
+came in sight.
+
+There was a welcoming smell of burning logs in the hall to greet them,
+and the old butler could not restrain an expression of startled curiosity
+when he saw Denzil, the likeness to his master was so great.
+
+"This is Captain Ardayre, Filson," Amaryllis said, "Sir John's cousin,"
+and then she gave the order about the motor to take Denzil on to Bath.
+
+They went through the Henry VII inner hall, and on to the green
+drawing-room, with its air of home and comfort, in spite of its great
+size and stateliness.
+
+There were no portraits here, but some fine specimens of the Dutch
+school, and the big tawny dogs rose to welcome their mistress and were
+introduced to their "new relation."
+
+She was utterly fascinating, Denzil thought, playing with them there on
+the great bear skin rug.
+
+"We shall lunch at once," she told him, "and then rush through the
+pictures afterwards before you start for Bath."
+
+They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before
+that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come
+into Amaryllis--nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than
+her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour
+glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted
+for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest.
+
+Denzil had the hardest fight he had ever been through, and he grew almost
+gruff in consequence. He was really suffering.
+
+He admired the way she acted as hostess, and the way the home was done.
+He hardly felt anything else, though apart from her he would have been
+interested in his first view of Ardayre, but she absorbed all other
+emotions, he only knew that he desired to make passionate love to her, or
+to get away as quickly as he could.
+
+"Are you going to remain here all the winter?" he asked her presently, as
+they rose from the table, "or shall you go to London? You will be awfully
+lonely, won't you, if you stay here?"
+
+"I love the country and I am growing to love and understand the place.
+John wants me to so much, it means more to him than anything else in the
+world. I shall remain until after Christmas anyway. But come now, I want
+just to take you into the church, because there are two such fine tombs
+there of both our ancestors, yours and mine. We can go out of the windows
+and come back for coffee in the cedar parlour."
+
+Denzil acquiesced; he wished to see the church. They reached it in a
+minute or two and Amaryllis opened the door with her own key and led him
+on up the aisle to the recumbent knights--and then she whispered their
+history to him, standing where a ray of sunlight turned her brown hair
+into gold.
+
+"I wonder what their lives were," Denzil said, "and if they lived and
+loved and fought their desires--as we do now--the younger one's face
+looks as though he had not always conquered his. Stepan would say his
+indulgences had become his masters, not his servants, I expect."
+
+"Verisschenzko is wonderful--he makes one want to be strong," and
+Amaryllis sighed. "I wonder how many of us even begin to fight our
+desires--"
+
+"One has to be strong always if one wants to attain--but sometimes it is
+only honour which holds one--and weaklings are so pitiful."
+
+"What is honour?" Her eyes searched his face wistfully. "Is it being true
+to some canon of the laws of chivalry, or is it being true to some higher
+thing in one's own soul?"
+
+Denzil leaned against the tomb and he thought deeply: then he looked
+straight into her eyes:
+
+"Honour lies in not betraying a trust reposed in one, either in the
+spirit or in the letter."
+
+"Then, when, we say of a man 'he acted honourably,' we mean that he did
+not betray a trust placed in him, even if it was only perhaps by
+circumstance and not by a person."
+
+"It is simply that'--keeping faith. If a man stole a sum of money from a
+friend, the dishonour would not be in the act of stealing, which is
+another offence--but in abusing his friend's trust in him by committing
+that act."
+
+"Dishonour is a betrayal then--"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Why would this knight"--and she placed her hand on the marble face,
+"have said that he must kill another who had stolen his wife, say, to
+avenge his 'honour'?"
+
+"That is the conventional part of it--what Stepan calls the grafting
+on of a meaning to suit some idea of civilisation. It was a nice way
+of having personal revenges too and teaching people that they could
+not steal anything with impunity. If we analysed that kind of honour
+we would find it was principally vanity. The dishonour really lay with
+the wife, if she deceived her husband--and with the other man if he
+was the husband's friend--if he was not, his abduction of the woman
+was not 'dishonourable' because he was not trusted, it was merely an
+act of theft."
+
+"What then must we do when we are very strongly tempted?" Her voice was
+so low he could hardly hear it.
+
+"It is sometimes wisest to run away," and he turned from her and moved
+towards the door.
+
+She followed wondering. She knew not why she had promoted this
+discussion. She felt that she had been very unbalanced all the day.
+
+They went back to the house almost silently and through the green
+drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William
+Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time,
+filling one vast wall at the turn.
+
+And so they reached the cedar parlour, and found coffee waiting and
+cigarettes.
+
+There was a growing tension between them and each guessed that the other
+was not calm. Amaryllis began showing him the view from the windows
+across the park, and then the old fireplace and panelling of the room.
+
+"We sit here generally when we are alone," she said. "I like it the best
+of all the rooms in the house."
+
+"It is a fitting frame for you."
+
+They lit cigarettes.
+
+Denzil had many things he longed to say to her of the place, and the
+thoughts it called up in him--but he checked himself. The thing was to
+get through with it all quickly and to be gone. They went into the
+picture gallery then, and began from the end, and when they came to the
+Elizabethan Denzil they paused for a little while. The painted likeness
+was extraordinary to the living splendid namesake who gazed up at the old
+panel with such interested eyes.
+
+And Amaryllis was thinking:
+
+"If only John had that something in him which these two have in their
+eyes, how happy we could be."
+
+And Denzil was thinking:
+
+"I hope the child will reproduce the type." He felt it would be some kind
+of satisfaction to himself if she should have a son which should be his
+own image.
+
+"It is so strange," she remarked, "that you should be exactly like this
+Denzil, and yet resemble John who does not remind me of him at all,
+except in the general family look which every one of them share. This one
+might have been painted from you."
+
+He looked down at her suddenly and he was unable to control the
+passionate emotion in his eyes. He was thinking that yes, certainly, the
+child must be like him--and then what message would it convey to her?
+
+Amaryllis was disturbed, she longed to ask him what it was which she
+felt, and why there seemed some illusive remembrance always haunting her.
+She grew confused, and they passed on to another frame which contained
+the Lady Amaryllis who had had the sonnets written to her nut brown
+locks. She was a dainty creature in her stiff farthingale, but bore no
+likeness to the present mistress of Ardayre.
+
+Denzil examined her for some seconds, and then he said reflectively:
+
+"She is a Sweetheart--but she is not you!"
+
+There was some tone of tenderness in his voice when he said the word
+"Sweetheart" and Amaryllis started and drew in her breath. It recalled
+something which had given her joy, a low murmur whispered in the night.
+"Sweetheart!"--a word which John, alas! had never used before nor since,
+except in that one letter in answer to her cry of exaltation--her glad
+Magnificat. What was this echo sounding in her ears? How like Denzil's
+voice was to John's--only a little deeper. Why, why should he have used
+that word "Sweetheart"?
+
+No coherent thought had yet come to her, it was as though she had looked
+for an instant upon some scene which awakened a chord of memory, and then
+that the curtain had dropped before she could define it.
+
+She grew agitated, and Denzil turning, saw that her face was pale, and
+her grey eyes vague and troubled.
+
+"I am quite sure that it is tiring you, showing me all the house like
+this, we won't look at another picture--and really I must be getting on."
+
+She did not contradict him.
+
+"I am afraid that you ought to go perhaps, if you want to arrive by
+daylight."
+
+And as they returned to the green drawing-room she said some nice things
+about wanting to meet his mother, and she tried to be natural and at
+ease, but her hand was cold as ice when he held it in saying good-bye
+before the fire, when Filson had announced the motor.
+
+And if his eyes had shown passionate emotion in the picture gallery, hers
+now filled with question and distress.
+
+"Good-bye, Denzil--"
+
+"Good-bye, Amaryllis--" He could not bring himself to say the usual
+conventionalities, and went towards the door with nothing more.
+
+Her brain was clearing, terror and passion and uncertainty had come in
+like a flood.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+He turned to her side fearfully. Why had she called him now?
+
+"Denzil--?" her face had paled still further, and there was an anguish of
+pleading in it. "Oh, please, what does it all mean?" and she fell forward
+into his arms.
+
+He held her breathlessly. Had she fainted? No--she still stood on her
+feet, but her little face there lying on his breast was as a lily in
+whiteness and tears escaped from her closed eyes.
+
+"For God's sake, Denzil, have you not something to tell me? You cannot
+leave me so!"
+
+He shivered with the misery of things.
+
+"I have nothing to tell you, child." His voice was hoarse. "You are
+overwrought and overstrung. I have nothing to say to you but just
+good-bye."
+
+She held his coat and looked up at him wildly.
+
+"--Denzil--It was you--not--John!"
+
+He unclasped her clinging arms:
+
+"I must go."
+
+"You shall not until you answer me--I have a right to know."
+
+"I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the
+suffering of restraint.
+
+She clung to him again.
+
+"Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh!
+Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in
+uncertainty--tell me the truth or I shall die!"
+
+But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying
+protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course
+for him to follow--he must go, and the brutality of such action made him
+fierce with pain.
+
+She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He
+raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear
+seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really
+ill--?
+
+He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the
+more.
+
+"How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You
+dare not even pretend that you do not understand!"
+
+He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress.
+
+"Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go."
+
+"Denzil--" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops
+glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her--she looked
+but as a suffering child.
+
+"Denzil--if you knew everything, you could not possibly leave me--you
+don't know what has happened--But you must, you will have to
+since--soon--"
+
+He bowed his head and placed her two hands over his face with a
+despairing movement.
+
+"Hush--I implore you--say nothing. I do know, but I love you--I must
+go."
+
+At that she gave a glad cry and drew him close to her.
+
+"You shall not now! I do not care for conventions any more, or for laws,
+or for anything! I am a savage--you are mine! John must know that you are
+mine! The family is all that matters to him, I am only an instrument, a
+medium for its continuance--but Denzil, you and I are young and loving
+and living. It is you I desire, and now I know that I belong to you. You
+are the man and I am the woman--and the child will be our child!"
+
+Her spirit had arisen at last and broken all chains. She was
+transfigured, transformed, translated. No one knowing the gentle
+Amaryllis could have recognised her in this fierce, primitive creature
+claiming her mate!
+
+Furious, answering passion surged through Denzil; it was the supreme
+moment when all artificial restrictions of civilisation were swept away.
+Nature had come to her own. All her forces were working for these two of
+her children brought near by a turn of fate. He strained her in his arms
+wildly--he kissed her lips, and ears, and eyes.
+
+"Mine, mine," he cried, and then "Sweetheart!"
+
+And for some seconds which seemed an eternity of bliss they forgot all
+but the joy of love.
+
+But presently reality fell upon Denzil and he almost groaned.
+
+"I must leave you, precious dear one--even so--I gave my word of honour
+to John that I would never take advantage of the situation. Fate has done
+this thing by bringing us together; it has overwhelmed us. I do not feel
+that we are greatly to blame, but that does not release me from my
+promise. It is all a frightful price that we must pay for pride in the
+Family. Darling, help me to have courage to go."
+
+"I will not--It is shameful cruelty," and she clung to him, "that we must
+be parted now I am yours really--not John's at all. Everything in my
+heart and being cries out to you--you are the reality of my dream lover,
+your image has been growing in my vision for months. I love you, Denzil,
+and it is your right to stay with me now and take care of me, and it is
+my right to tell you of my thoughts about the--child--Ah! if you knew
+what it means to me, the joy, the wonder, the delight! I cannot keep it
+all to myself any longer. I am starving! I am frozen! I want to tell it
+all to my Beloved!"
+
+He held her to him again--and she poured forth the tenderest holy things,
+and he listened enraptured and forgot time and place.
+
+"Denzil," she whispered at last, from the shelter of his arms. "I have
+felt so strange--exalted, ever since--and now I shall have this ever
+present thought of you and love women in my existence--But how is it
+going to be in the years which are coming? How can I go on pretending to
+John?--I cannot--I shall blurt out the truth--For me there is only
+you--not just the you of these last days since we saw each other with our
+eyes--but the you that I had dreamed about and fashioned as my lover--my
+delight--Can I whisper to John all my joy and tenderness as I watch the
+growing up of my little one? No! the thing is monstrous, grotesque--I
+will not face the pain of it all. John gave you to me--he must have done
+so--it was some compact between you both for the family, and if I did not
+love you I should hate you now, and want to kill myself. But I love you,
+I love you, I love you!" and she fiercely clasped her arms once more
+about his neck. "You must take the consequences of your action. I did not
+ask to have this complication in my life. John forced it upon me for his
+own aims, but I have to be reckoned with, and I want my lover, I claim my
+mate." Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes flashed.
+
+"And your lover wants you," and Denzil wildly returned her fond caress,
+"but the choice is not left to me, darling, even if you were my wife, not
+John's. You have forgotten the war--I must go out and fight."
+
+All the warmth and passion died out of her, and she lay back on the
+pillows of the sofa for a moment and closed her eyes. She had
+indeed forgotten that ghastly colossus in her absorption in their
+own two selves.
+
+Yes--he must go out and fight--and John would go too--and they might both
+be killed like all those gallant partners of the season and her cousin,
+and those who had fallen at Mons and the battle of the Marne.
+
+No--she must not be so paltry as to think of personal things, even love.
+She must rise above all selfishness, and not make it harder for her man.
+Her little face grew resigned and sanctified, and Denzil watching her
+with burning, longing eyes, waited for her to speak.
+
+"It is true--for the moment nothing but you and my great desire for you
+was in my mind. But you are right, Denzil; of course, I cannot keep you.
+Only I am glad that just this once we have tasted a brief moment of
+happiness, and--Denzil, I believe our souls belong to each other, even if
+we do not meet again on earth."
+
+And when at last they had parted, and Amaryllis, listening, heard the
+motor go, she rose from the sofa and went out through the window to the
+lawn, and so to the church again, and there lay on the steps of the young
+knight's tomb, sobbing and praying until darkness enveloped the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko.
+The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very
+little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis,
+but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in
+him--the zest of going out to fight!
+
+Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the
+opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct
+things from so far.
+
+They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory
+fashion all through the _hors d'ouvres_ and the soup.
+
+"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel
+inclined to end it all sometimes."
+
+"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool,
+Stepan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the
+composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have
+another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again.
+It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it
+comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's
+just rot."
+
+"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne,
+while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.
+
+"They don't have decent vodka--but the brandy will do the trick," and in
+an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.
+
+"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like
+that--I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom
+and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the
+knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"
+
+"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I
+should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing
+before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed
+about you though, Stepan--you are fundamentally sane."
+
+"I am glad you think that--very few English understand us--"
+
+"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality
+and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to
+sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking
+like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half
+your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary
+to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his
+luck for the moment."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed outright.
+
+"Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!"
+
+"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"
+
+"I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+Denzil looked at him keenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--"
+
+"Then you know how she is?"
+
+"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are
+acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are
+aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off
+to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English,
+you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about
+it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the
+child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I!
+Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that
+is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the
+thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and
+protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions
+might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real
+truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards
+up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."
+
+Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth
+of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak
+all the same.
+
+"Tell me what you know, Stepan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not
+because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."
+
+"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the
+Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I
+feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves
+you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this
+miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen
+her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"
+
+Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko
+understand in a few words--the Russian's imagination filled in the
+details.
+
+He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke.
+
+"So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her--he must indeed be
+obsessed by the family!"
+
+"He is--he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozen
+Amaryllis from the first day."
+
+"My idea was always for this, directly I went to Ardayre. I felt that
+mysterious pull of the family there in that glorious house. I thought she
+would probably simplify things by just taking you for a lover, when you
+met, as you are her counterpart--a perfect mate for her. I had even made
+up my mind to suggest this to her, and influence her as much as I could
+to this end--but lo! the husband takes the matter out of our hands and
+devises a really unique accomplishment of our wishes. Gosh! Denzil! it's
+John who's got the common sense and the genius, not we!"
+
+"Yes, he has--so far, but he did not reckon with human emotion. He might
+have known that directly I should see Amaryllis I should fall in love
+with her, and he ought to have understood that that extraordinary thing,
+nature, might make her draw to me afterwards. Now the situation is
+tragic, however you look at it. John will have the hell of a life if he
+comes back; he can't help feeling jealous every time he sees the child,
+and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be
+great. Amaryllis is wretched--she is passionate and vivid as a humming
+bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human
+power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I
+absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I
+come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and
+I, and if the family makes all this suffering worth while? Perhaps it
+would have been better to leave it to fate!" Denzil sighed and forgot to
+notice a dish the waiter was handing.
+
+"It is perfectly certain," and Verisschenzko grew contemplative, "that
+the result of deliberately turning the current of events like that must
+have some momentous consequence. Mind you, I think you were right. I
+should have advised it as I have told you, because of that swine of a
+Turk, Ferdinand--but it may have deranged some plan of the Cosmos, and
+if so some of you will have to pay for it. I hate that it should be my
+lady Amaryllis. All her sorrow comes from your dramatically honourable
+promise. You can't make love to her now--because a man who is a
+gentleman does not break his word. Now if my plan had been followed, you
+would not have had this limitation and you could have had some joy--but
+who knows! A false position is a gall in any case, and it would have
+soiled my star, which now shines purely. So perhaps all is for the best.
+But have you analysed, now that we are on the subject, what it is 'being
+in love,' old boy?"
+
+"It is divine--and it is hell--"
+
+"All that! Amaryllis is the exact opposite to Harietta Boleski--in this,
+that she attracts as strongly as Harietta could ever do physically, and
+will be no disappointment in soul in the _entre actes_. _Being in love_
+is a physical state of exaltation; _loving_ is the merging of spirit
+which in its white heat has glorified the physical instinct for
+re-creation into a godlike beatitude not of earth. A man could be in love
+with Harietta, he could never love her. A man could always love
+Amaryllis, so much that he would not be aware that half his joy was
+because he was _in love_ with her also."
+
+"You know, Stepan, men, women and every one talk a lot of nonsense about
+other interests in life mattering more, and there being other kinds of
+really better happiness, but it is pure rot; if one is honest one owns
+that there is no real happiness but in the satisfaction of love. Every
+other kind is second best. It is jolly good often, but only a _pis aller_
+in comparison to the real thing.
+
+"And when people deny this, believing they are speaking honestly, it is
+simply because the real thing has not come their way, or they are too
+brutalised by transient indulgences to be able to feel exaltation.
+
+"So here's to love!" and Denzil emptied his glass. "The supreme God--"
+
+_"Ainsi soit il,"_ and Stepan drank in response. "Our toast before has
+always been to the Ardayre son, and now we drink to what I hope has been
+his creator!"
+
+They were silent for some moments, and then Verisschenzko went on:
+
+"When the state of being in love is waning, affection often remains, but
+then one is at the mercy of a new emotion. I'd be nervous if a woman who
+had loved me subsided into feeling affection!"
+
+"Then define loving?"
+
+"Loving throbs with delight in the flesh; it thrills the spirit with
+reverence. It glorifies into beauty commonplace things. It draws nearer
+in sickness and sorrow, and is not the sport of change. When a woman
+loves truly she has the passion of the mistress, the selfless tenderness
+of the mother, the dignity and devotion of the wife. She is all fire and
+snow, all will and frankness, all passion and reserve, she is
+authoritative and obedient--queen and child."
+
+"And a man?"
+
+"He ceases to be a brute and becomes a god."
+
+"Can it last, I wonder?" and again Denzil sighed.
+
+"It could if people were not such fools--they nearly always deliberately
+destroy the loved one's emotion by senseless stupidity--in not grasping
+the fact that no fire burns without fuel. They disillusionise each other.
+The joy once secured, they take no pains to keep it. A woman will do
+things when the lover is an acknowledged possession, which she would not
+have dreamed of doing while desiring to attract the man--and a man
+likewise--neither realising that the whole state of being in love is an
+intoxication of the senses, and that the senses are very easily wearied
+or affronted."
+
+"Stepan--what am I going to do about Amaryllis? If I come back, it will
+be hell--a continual longing and aching, and I want to accomplish
+something in life; it was never my plan to have the whole thing held and
+bounded by passion for a woman. A hopeless passion I can understand
+facing and crushing, but one which you know that the woman returns, and
+that it is only the law and promises you have made which separate you, is
+the most awful torment." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.
+His face was stern. "And her life too--how sickening. You say you are
+going down to Ardayre to see Amaryllis--you will tell me how you find
+her. I have not written--I am trying not to feel."
+
+"Are you interested about the coming child? I am never quite certain how
+much it matters to a man, whether we deceive ourselves and feel sentiment
+simply because we love the woman, whether the emotion is half vanity, or
+whether there is something in the actual state called parenthood? How do
+you feel?"
+
+Denzil thought of his musings upon this subject after he had seen
+Amaryllis at the Carlton.
+
+"It is hard to describe," he answered now, "it is all so interwoven with
+love for Amaryllis that I cannot distinguish which is which, or how I
+feel about the state in the abstract. Women have these mysterious
+emotions, I believe, but I do not think that they come to the average
+man, but if he loves it seems a fulfilment."
+
+"I have two children scattered in Russia, begotten before I had begun to
+think of things and their meanings. I have them finely educated--I loathe
+them. I sicken at the memory of the mothers; I am ashamed when I see in
+them some chance physical likeness to myself. But how will you feel
+presently when you see the child, adoring the mother as you do? What will
+it say to you, looking at you with your own eyes, perhaps? You'll long to
+have some hand in the training of it. You'll desire to watch the budding
+brain and the expanding soul. You'll be drawn closer and closer to
+Amaryllis--it will all pull you with an invisible nature chain--"
+
+"I know it,--that is the tragedy of the whole thing. Those delights will
+be John's--and I hate to think that Amaryllis will be alone for all these
+months--and yet I believe I would prefer that to her being with John. I
+am jealous when I remember that he has rights denied to me--so what must
+he feel, poor devil, when he remembers about me?"
+
+"It is quite a peculiar situation. I wonder what the years will
+develop it into."
+
+"If the child is a girl, the whole thing is in vain."
+
+"It won't be a girl--you will see I am right. When will you and John get
+leave, do you suppose?"
+
+"I don't know, but about Christmas, perhaps, if we are alive--"
+
+"Do you want to see her again, then?"
+
+"I long always to see her--but by Christmas--it would be nearly five
+months. I don't think I could keep my word and not make love to her--if I
+saw her--then."
+
+"You will wish to hear about her--?"
+
+"Always."
+
+After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed.
+Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his
+highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future
+hold? Only one--that of death for either of the men concerned. Well,
+death was busy with England's best--it was no unlikely possibility--and
+as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and
+living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood,
+crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years.
+
+"I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical,
+as was his habit, when he found himself moved.
+
+"I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new
+lover--Ferdinand Ardayre."
+
+"What a combination!"
+
+"Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace.
+Stanislass is quite a _gaga_--he spends his time packed off to play
+piquet at the St. James'--he has no _bosse des cartes_,--it is his
+burdensome duty."
+
+"He does not feel the war?"
+
+"He is numb."
+
+"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"
+
+"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a
+fitting end."
+
+"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.
+
+"My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes."
+
+Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the
+time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John,
+so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her.
+
+John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the
+iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but
+the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in
+self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made
+him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed--he felt
+it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious--they had grown from a girl's
+into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did--and
+then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this
+pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause--he knew that he
+had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He
+thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window
+until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had
+indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she
+reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility
+might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going
+to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the
+appointment, so they spoke at the ball.
+
+Would it have been better if he had let himself go and fondly kissed and
+netted Amaryllis? Or would that have been misleading and still more
+unkind? It was too late now, in any case. He must learn to take the only
+satisfaction which was left to him, the knowledge that there was the hope
+of a true Ardayre to carry on.
+
+He talked long to his wife of his desires for the child's education,
+should it prove a boy, and he should not return, and Amaryllis listened
+dutifully.
+
+Her mind was filled with wonder all the time. She had been through much
+emotion since the passionate outburst after Denzil had gone, but was
+quite calm now. She had classified things in her mind. She felt no
+resentment against John. He ought not to have married her perhaps, but it
+might be that at the time he did not know. Only she wondered when she
+looked at him sitting opposite her, talking gravely about the baby, in
+the library of Brook Street, how he could possibly be feeling. What an
+immense influence the thought of the family must have in his life. She
+understood it in a great measure herself. She remembered Verisschenzko's
+words upon the occasions when he had spoken to her about it, and of her
+duties towards it, and how she must uphold it. She particularly
+remembered that which he had said when they walked by the lake, and he
+had seemed to be transmitting some message to her, which she had not
+understood at the time. Did Verisschenzko know then that John must always
+be heirless and had he been suggesting to her that the line should go on
+through her? Some of the pride in it all had come to her before she had
+left the dark church after parting with Denzil. Perhaps she was
+fulfilling destiny. She must not be angry with John. She did not try to
+cease from loving Denzil. She had not knowingly been unfaithful to
+John--and now, she would be faithful to Denzil, he was her love and her
+mate. Indeed, even in the fortnight which elapsed between her farewell
+to him, and now when she was going to say farewell to John, she had many
+months of tender consolation in the thought of the baby--Denzil's son.
+She could revive and revel in that exquisite exaltation which she had
+experienced at first and which John had withered. Denzil far surpassed
+even the imagined lover into which she had turned John. So now Denzil had
+become the reality, and John the dream.
+
+She felt sorry for her husband too. She was fine enough to understand and
+divine his difficulties.
+
+She found that she felt just nothing for him but a kindly affection. He
+might have been Archie de la Paule--or any of her other cousins. She knew
+that her whole being was given to Denzil--who represented her dream.
+
+She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before
+starting, the tears came to her eyes.
+
+Poor good, cold John!
+
+And when he had departed--all the de la Paule family had been there at
+Brook Street also--Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But
+what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that
+there might be a son!
+
+So both Denzil and John went to the war--and Amaryllis was alone.
+Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her--and it was the
+beginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up at
+Brook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.
+
+"Of course!" she said, and so he came.
+
+The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging
+flowers and cushions and such things--her rooms always breathed an air of
+home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the
+warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.
+
+She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had
+dined with her.
+
+"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea
+and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to
+tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested
+about it all."
+
+Amaryllis blushed a soft pink--he went on with perfect calm.
+
+"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules
+you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or
+discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with
+anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some
+self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has
+wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort
+in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to
+have a baby, do you not think so?"
+
+"Of course I do--" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She
+really wished to talk to her friend.
+
+"Who told you about it?" she asked.
+
+"Denzil."
+
+Amaryllis drew in her breath suddenly. Verisschenzko's eyes were looking
+her through and through.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+"Yes,--he is glad that there may be the possibility of a son for
+the family."
+
+"How do you feel about it? It is an enormous responsibility to have
+children."
+
+"I feel that--I want to do the wisest things from the beginning--"
+
+"You must take great care of yourself, and always remain serene. Never
+let your mind become agitated by speculation as to the _presently_, keep
+all thoughts fixed upon the now."
+
+Amaryllis looked at him a little troubled. What did he know? Something
+tangible, or were these views of his just applicable to any case? Her
+eyes were full of question and pleading.
+
+"What do you want to ask me?" His eyes narrowed in contemplating her.
+
+"I--I--do not know."
+
+"Yes, you want to hear of Denzil--is it not so?"
+
+She clasped her hands.
+
+"Yes--perhaps--"
+
+"He is well--I heard from him yesterday. He asked me to come to you. His
+mother is still at Bath--he wishes you to meet."
+
+Suddenly the impossibleness of everything seemed to come over Amaryllis.
+She rose quickly and threw out her hands:
+
+"Oh! if I could only understand the meaning of things, my friend! I am
+afraid to think!"
+
+"You love Denzil very much--yes?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"Sit down and let us talk about it, lady of my soul. I am your
+mother now."
+
+She sank into her seat beside him, among the green silk pillows--and he
+leaned back and watched her for a while.
+
+"He fulfils some imaginary picture, _hein?_ You had not seen him really
+until we all dined?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were bound to be drawn to him--he is everything a woman could
+desire--but it was not only that--tell me?"
+
+"He was what I had hoped John would be--the likeness is so great--"
+
+"It is much deeper than that--nature was drawing you unconsciously."
+
+She covered her face with her hands. It seemed as if Verisschenzko must
+know the truth. Had Denzil told him, or was it his wonderful intuition
+which was enlightening him now, or was it just her sensitive conscience?
+
+"You see custom and convention and false shames have so distorted most
+natural things that no one has been taught to understand them. Men were
+intended in the scheme of things to love women and to have children;
+women were meant to love men and to desire to be mothers. These instincts
+are primordial, the life of the world depends upon them. They have been
+distorted and abused into sins and vices and excesses and every evil by
+civilisation, so that now we rule them out of every calculation in
+judging of a circumstance; if we are 'nice' people they are taboo.
+Supposing we so suppressed and distorted and misused the other two
+primitive instincts, to obtain food and to kill one's enemy, the world
+would have ended long ago. We have done what we could to distort those
+also, but nothing to the extent to which we have debased the nobility of
+the recreative instinct!"
+
+Amaryllis listened attentively, and he went on:
+
+"It is admitted that we require food to live--and that if we are
+threatened with death from an enemy we have the right to kill him in
+self-defence. But it is never admitted that it is equally natural that we
+desire to recreate our species. Under certain circumstances of vows and
+restrictions, we are permitted to take one partner for life--and--if this
+person turns out to be a fraud for the purpose for which we made the
+promise, we may not have another. Supposing hungry savages were given
+covered dishes purporting to contain food, and upon lifting the cover one
+of them discovered his dish was empty--what would happen? He would bear
+it as long as he could, but when he was starving he would certainly try
+to steal some food from his neighbour--and might even knock him on the
+head and obtain it! Civilisation has controlled primitive instincts, so
+that a civilised man might perhaps prefer to die himself from starvation
+rather than kill or steal. He is master of his actions, _but he is not
+master of the effects of his abstinence--Nature wins these,_ and whatever
+would be the natural physical result of his abstinence occurs. Now you
+can reason this thought out in all its branches, and you will see where
+it leads to--"
+
+Amaryllis mused for some moments--and she saw the justice of his
+reflections.
+
+"But for hundreds of years there have been priests and nuns and companies
+of ascetics," she remarked tentatively.
+
+"There have been hundreds of lunatics also--and madness is not on the
+decrease. When you destroy nature you always produce the abnormal, when
+life survives from your treatment."
+
+"You think that it is natural that one should have a mate then?"--she
+hesitated.
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"It is more important than the keeping of vows?"
+
+"No, the spirit is degraded by the knowledge of broken vows--only one
+must have intelligence to realise what the price of keeping them will be,
+and then summon strength enough to carry out whatever course is best for
+the soul, or best for the ideal one is living for. Sometimes that end
+requires ruthlessness, and sometimes that end requires that we starve in
+one way or another, so _we must_ be prepared for sacrifice perhaps of
+life, or what makes life worth living, if we are strong enough to keep
+vows which we have been short-sighted enough to make too hastily."
+
+Amaryllis gazed in front of her--then she asked softly:
+
+"Do you think it is wicked of me to be thinking of Denzil--not John?"
+
+"No--it is quite natural--the wickedness would be if you pretended to
+John that you were thinking of him. Deception is wickedness."
+
+"Everything is so sad now. Both have gone to fight. I do not dare to
+think at all."
+
+"Yes, you must think--you must think of your child and draw to it all the
+good forces, so that it may come to life unhampered by any weakness of
+balance in you. That must be your constant self-discipline. Keep serene
+and try to live in a world of noble ideals and serenity. Now I am going
+to play to you--"
+
+Amaryllis had never heard Verisschenzko play. He arranged the sofa
+cushions and made her lie comfortably among them, then he went to the
+piano--and presently it seemed to her that her soul was floating upward
+into realms of perfect content. She had never even dreamed of such
+playing. It was like nothing she had ever heard before, the sounds
+touched all the highest chords in her spirit. She did not ask whose was
+the music. She seemed to know that it was Verisschenzko's own, which was
+just talking to her, telling her to be calm and brave and true.
+
+He played for a whole hour--and at last softly and yet more softly, and
+when he finished he saw that she was quietly asleep.
+
+A smile as tender as a mother's came into his rugged face, and he stole
+from the room noiselessly, breathing a blessing as he passed.
+
+And somewhere in France, Denzil and John were thinking of her too, each
+with great love in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Harietta Boleski was growing dissatisfied with her life. England was of
+no amusement to her, and yet Hans insisted upon her staying on. She
+wanted to go to Paris. The war altogether was a supreme bore and upset
+her plans!
+
+She had been so successful in her obvious stupid way that Hans had been
+enabled to transmit the most useful information to his country, which had
+assisted to foil more than one Allied plan. Harietta saw numbers of old
+gentlemen who pulled strings in that time, and although they wearied her,
+she found them easier to extract news from than the younger men. Her
+method was so irresistible: a direct appeal to the senses, and it hardly
+ever failed. If only Hans would consent to her returning to Paris, with
+the help of Ferdinand Ardayre, who was now her slave, she promised
+wonderful things.
+
+Hans, as a Swedish philanthropic gentleman, had been over to give her
+instructions once or twice, and at last had agreed to her crossing
+the Channel.
+
+She told this good news to Ferdinand one afternoon just before Christmas,
+when he came in to see her in London.
+
+"I'm going to Paris, Ferdie, and you must come too. There's no use in
+your pretending that England matters to you, and you are of such use to
+us with your branch business in Holland like that. If I'd thought in the
+beginning that there was a chance to knock out Germany, I would have been
+right on this side, because there's no two ways about it, England's the
+place to have a good time in, but I've information which makes it certain
+that we shall take Calais in the Spring, and so I guess it's safer to
+cling to Kaiser Bill--and get it all done soon, then we can enjoy
+ourselves again. I do pine for a tango! My! I'm just through with this
+dull time!"
+
+Ferdinand was a rest to her, almost as good as Hans. She had not to be
+over-refined--she knew that he was on the same level as herself. He
+amused her too in several ways.
+
+He looked sulky now. It did not suit his plans to go to Paris yet. He was
+trying to collect information for a game of his own. But where Harietta
+went he must go, he was besotted about her, and knew that he could not
+trust her a yard.
+
+He protested a little that they were very well where they were, but as
+she never allowed any one's wishes to interfere with her plans she
+only smiled.
+
+"I'm going on Saturday. We have secured a suite at the Universal this
+time, now that the Rhin is shut up, and it is such a large hotel, you can
+quite well stay there; Stanislass won't notice you among the crowd."
+
+Ferdinand agreed unwillingly--and just then Verisschenzko came in. He had
+not seen Madame Boleski since the night at the Carlton, having taken care
+not to let her know of his further visits to England since.
+
+He looked at Ferdinand Ardayre as though he had been some bit of
+furniture, and he took up Fou-Chow who was cowering beneath a chair. He
+did not speak a word.
+
+Harietta talked for every one for a little while, and then she began to
+feel nervous.
+
+Verisschenzko smiled lazily--he was trying an experiment. The interview
+could not go on like this; Ferdinand Ardayre would certainly have to go.
+
+Now that Verisschenzko had come, Harietta ardently wished that he would.
+
+The most venomous hate was arising in Ferdinand's resentful soul. He felt
+that here was a rival to be dreaded indeed. He saw that Harietta was
+nervous; he had never seen her so before. He shut his teeth and
+determined to stay on.
+
+Verisschenzko continued his disconcerting silence. Harietta felt that
+she should presently scream! She took Fou-Chow from Stepan and pinched
+him cruelly in her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed
+him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if
+she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet
+sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female
+friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when
+she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed
+out of her way.
+
+He showed evident fear of her and ran from her always, so that when
+she wanted to make a picture with him, she was obliged to carry him
+in her arms.
+
+Verisschenzko raised one bushy eyebrow, and a sardonic smile came
+into his eyes.
+
+Madame Boleski saw that she had made a mistake in showing her temper to
+the dog; it would have given her pleasure then to wring its neck!
+
+The two men sat on. She began to grow so uncomfortable that she could
+endure it no more.
+
+"You are coming back to dinner, Mr. Ardayre," she remarked at length,
+"and I want you to get me gardenias to wear, if you will be so kind, and
+I am afraid you will have to hurry as the shops close soon."
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre rose, rage showing in his mean face, but as he had no
+choice he said good-bye. Harietta accompanied him to the door, pressing
+his hand stealthily, then she returned to the Russian with flaming eyes.
+He had not uttered a word.
+
+"How dare you make me so nervous, sitting there like a log! I won't stand
+for such treatment--you Bear!"
+
+"Then sit down. Why do you have that Turk with you at all?"
+
+"He is not a Turk; he's an Englishman and a friend of mine. Why, he is
+the brother of your precious John Ardayre--and they have behaved
+shamefully to him, poor dear boy."
+
+She was still enraged.
+
+"He is not even a pure Turk--some of them are gentlemen. He is just the
+scum of the earth, and no blood relation to John Ardayre."
+
+"He will let them know whether he is or not some day! I hear that your
+bit of bread and butter is going to have a child, and as Ferdie says it
+can't be John's, I suppose it is yours!"
+
+Verisschenzko's face looked dangerous.
+
+"You would do well to guard your words, Harietta. I do not permit you to
+make such remarks to me--and it would be more prudent if you warned your
+friend that he had better not make such assertions either--do you
+understand?"
+
+Harietta felt some twinge of fear at the strange tone in the Russian's
+voice, but she was too out of temper to be cowed now.
+
+"Puh!" and she tossed her head. "If the child is a boy Ferdie will have
+something to say--and as for Amaryllis--I hate her! I'd like to kill her
+with my own hands."
+
+Verisschenzko rose and stood before her--and there was a look in his eyes
+which made her suddenly grow cold.
+
+"Listen," he said icily. "I have warned you once and you know me well
+enough to decide whether I ever speak lightly. I warn you again to be
+careful of your words and your deeds. I shall warn you no more--if you
+transgress a third time--then I will strike."
+
+Harietta grew pale to her painted lips.
+
+How would he strike? Not with a stick as Hans would have done, but
+in some much more deadly way. She changed her manner instantly and
+began to laugh.
+
+"Darling Brute!"
+
+Verisschenzko knew that he had alarmed her sufficiently, so he sat down
+in his chair again and lit a cigarette calmly--then he sniffed the air.
+
+"Your mongrel friend uses the same perfume as Stanislass' mistress!"
+
+"Stanislass' mistress?" she had forgotten for the moment.
+
+"Yes--don't you remember we burnt his scented handkerchief the last time
+we met, because we did not like her taste in perfumes?"
+
+Harietta's ill humour rose again; she was annoyed that she had forgotten
+this incident. Her instinct of self-preservation usually preserved her
+from committing any such mistakes. She felt that it was now advisable to
+become cajoling; also there was something in the face of Verisschenzko
+and his fierceness which aroused renewed passion in her--it was absurd
+to waste time in quarrelling with him when in an hour Stanislass might be
+coming in, so she went over behind his chair and smoothed back his thick
+dark hair.
+
+"You know that I adore you, darling Brute!"
+
+"Of course--" he did not even turn his head towards her. "Have you had
+your heart's desire here in England?"
+
+"Before this stupid war came--yes--now I'm through with it. I'm for
+Paris again."
+
+"I suppose I must have been mistaken, but I thought I caught sight of
+your handsome German friend in the hall just now?"
+
+"German friend--who?"
+
+"Your _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball. I have forgotten his name."
+
+"And so have I."
+
+At that instant Marie appeared at the door and Fou-Chow came from under
+the chair where he was sheltering and pattered towards her with a glad
+tiny whine. The maid's eyes rounded with dislike as she looked at her
+mistress; she realised that the little creature had been roughly treated
+again. She picked him up and could hardly control her voice into a tone
+of respectfulness as she spoke:
+
+"Monsieur Insborg demands if he can see Madame in half an hour. He
+telephoned to Madame but received no reply."
+
+For a second Harietta's eyes betrayed her; they narrowed with alarm, and
+then she said suavely: "I suppose the receiver was off. No, say I am
+dining early for the theatre--but to-morrow at five."
+
+The maid inclined her head and left the room silently, carrying
+Fou-Chow, but as she did so her eyes met Verisschenzko's and their
+expression suggested to him several things:
+
+"Marie loves the dog--so she hates Harietta. Good--we shall see."
+
+Thus his thoughts ran, but aloud he asked what Harietta meant to do with
+her life in Paris, and who had been her lovers here?
+
+"You do say such frightful things to me, Stepan," and she tossed her
+head. "You think that because I took you, I take others! Pah!--and if I
+do--these Englishmen are peaches, just like little school boys--they'd
+not harm a fly. But I only love you, Darling Brute--even though we have
+had a row."
+
+"I know that, of course. I am not jealous, only you have not given me any
+proofs lately, so I am going to retire from the field. I came to say
+good-bye."
+
+He looked adorably attractive, Harietta thought--he made her blood run.
+Ferdinand Ardayre was but an instructed weakling, when one had come
+through his intricacies there was nothing in him. As a lover he was not
+worth the Russian's little finger, and the more Verisschenzko eluded
+her, the higher her passion for him grew; and here he was after months
+of absence and suggesting that he would leave her for ever! This was not
+to be borne!
+
+The enraging part was that she would not dare to try to keep him with
+Hans again upon the scene. She hated Hans once more as she had hated him
+at the Ardayre ball!
+
+Verisschenzko did not attempt to caress her; he sat perfectly still, nor
+did he speak.
+
+Harietta could not think how to cope with this new mood; her weariness
+with the gloom of England and the absence of amusement seemed to render
+Stepan more than ever desirable. He represented the wild, the strong, the
+primitive, the only thing she felt that she desired at that moment--and
+if she let him go to-day he was capable of never coming back to her
+again. It was worth using any means to keep him on. She knew that she
+could obtain some show of love from him if she bribed him with bits of
+news. It would serve Hans right too for daring to turn up so
+inconveniently!
+
+So she came from behind his chair and sat down on Verisschenzko's knee
+and commenced to whisper in his ear.
+
+"Now I am beginning to think that you love me again," he announced
+presently,--"and of course I must always pay for love!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were seated by the fire in two armchairs when Stanislass came in
+from the Club before dinner at eight. Harietta had not even remembered
+that she must dress, so intoxicated with re-awakened passion for
+Verisschenzko had she become. A man for her must be in the room; her
+affection could not keep alight in absence. She had revelled in the joy
+of finding again a complete physical master. She loved him as a tigress
+may love her tamer, the man with the whip; and the knowledge that she was
+deceiving Hans and her husband and Ferdinand added a fillip to her
+satisfaction. But how was she going to be sure to see Stepan again--that
+was the question which still agitated her. Verisschenzko wished to
+further examine Ferdinand Ardayre, and so decided to make every one
+uncomfortable once more by staying on. Stanislass, very nervous with him
+now, talked fast and foolishly. Harietta fidgeted, and in a moment or two
+Ferdinand Ardayre was announced.
+
+He reddened with annoyance to see the Russian had not gone; the flowers
+which he had brought were in a parcel in his hand.
+
+Harietta took them disdainfully without a word of thanks. What a nuisance
+the creature was after all!--and Stanislass was--and everything and
+anything was which kept her from being alone with Verisschenzko!
+
+"When are you coming to see me again, Stepan?" she asked, determined not
+to let him part without some definite future meeting settled.
+
+"I will come back and take coffee with you to-night," he answered
+unexpectedly.
+
+Harietta was enchanted, she had not hoped for this.
+
+"No one bothers so much about dressing now, stay and dine as you are."
+
+"Yes, do," chimed in Stanislass timidly in Russian, "we should be
+so charmed."
+
+"Very well--I will dine--but I must change. I shall not be long though.
+Begin dinner without me, I will join you before the fish." And with no
+further waste of words he left them.
+
+Harietta pushed Stanislass gently from the room with an injunction to be
+quick--and then she returned and held out her arms to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"Now you must not be jealous, Ferdie pet, about Verisschenzko," and she
+patted him. "It is business--I must talk to him to-night; he has an idea
+that you and I are not favourable to the Allies," and she laughed
+delightedly, "and I must get him off this notion!"
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre looked sullen; he was burning with jealousy.
+
+"Will you make it up to me afterwards?"
+
+"But, of course, in the usual way!" and with one of her wonderful kisses
+Harietta went laughing from the room.
+
+Left alone, the young man gave himself a morphine _piqure_, and then sat
+down and held his head in his hands.
+
+He had heard, as he had told Harietta earlier in the afternoon, that his
+brother's wife was going to have a child, and he could find no way of
+proving legally that it could not be John's, so his venom had grown with
+his impotence.
+
+His mother had said to him once:
+
+"The accursed English will always beat us, my son. Thy real father would
+have put poison in their coffee. We can only hope for revenge some day. I
+fear we shall never gain our desires. The old fool whom thou callest
+father must be sucked dry of everything while he lives, because no
+quarter will be given us once the breath is out of his body."
+
+Was this true? Must the English always beat him? He remembered his hatred
+of Denzil while at Eton, and the dog's life he had often led there. Well,
+he would hit back with an adder's sting when the chance came to him. He
+would like to see both Ardayres ruined and England herself in the dust,
+numbed and conquered. All his English life and education had never made
+him anything but an alien in thought and appearance.
+
+It was his powerlessness which enraged him, but surely the day must come
+when he could make some of them suffer.
+
+Harietta had not appeared in the hall when Verisschenzko returned
+dressed, and she even kept all three men waiting for about ten minutes,
+and then swept in resplendent in yellow brocade and the gardenias, when
+the clock had struck nine and most of the other diners were having
+their coffee.
+
+The atmosphere of restraint and depression was a constant source of
+resentment to her. It was all very well to be dignified and refined for
+some definite end, like securing an unquestioned position, but it was a
+weariness of the flesh to have to keep up this role month after month
+with no excitement or reward, and every now and then she felt that she
+must break out even in small ways by wearing too gorgeous and unsuitable
+raiment. She wished that Germany would be quick about winning, then
+things could settle down and she could begin her social career again.
+
+"It don't amount to a row of pins to the people who want to enjoy
+themselves, as I do, if their country is beaten or not; it'll all be the
+same six months after peace is declared, so I'm all for knocking
+whichever seems feeblest out quickly," she had said to Ferdinand, "and
+Paris will always be top of the world for clothes and things that one
+wants, so what do old politics matter?"
+
+She derived some pleasure out of the sensation she created when she went
+into a restaurant, and she really looked extraordinarily handsome.
+
+The dinner amused her, too; it was entertaining to make Ferdinand
+jealous. The emotions of Stanislass had ceased to count to her in any way
+whatsoever.
+
+Verisschenzko had discovered what he required in regard to Ferdinand
+Ardayre before they went into the hall for coffee--there was nothing
+further to be gained by having another tete-a-tete with Harietta, so he
+sat down by Stanislass and suggested that the other two should go on to
+the Coliseum without them, and Harietta was obliged to depart reluctantly
+with Ferdinand, having arranged that Stepan should let her know, directly
+he arrived in Paris, whither he was going in a day or two also.
+
+When she had left them Stanislass Boleski turned melancholy eyes to his
+old friend, but remained silent.
+
+"Has it been worth it?" Verisschenzko asked, with certain feeling--they
+had relapsed into Russian.
+
+Stanislass sighed deeply.
+
+"No--far from it--I am broken and finished, Stepan, she has devoured
+my soul--"
+
+"Why don't you kill her! I should."
+
+The Pole clenched one of his transparent looking hands:
+
+"I cannot--I desire her so--she is an obsession. I cannot work--she
+leaves me neither time nor brain. But I want her always, she is a burning
+torment, and a blast, and a sin. I see visions of the chance that I have
+missed, and then all is obliterated by her voluptuous kisses. I die each
+day with jealousy and shame. She withholds herself, and I would pay with
+the blood from my veins to possess her again!"
+
+"You have no longer any delusions about her--you see her as a curse and
+a vampire?"
+
+Stanislass reddened.
+
+"I see everything, but I know only desire. Stepan, she has dragged me
+through every degradation. I am a witness of her unfaithfulness. She
+gives herself to this Turk with hardly a pretence of concealment--I know
+it--I burn with rage, and I can do nothing. She returns to my arms and I
+forget everything. I am a most unhappy man and only death can release me,
+and yet I wish to live because I love her. Each day is fierce longing for
+her--each night away from her hell--" Tears sprang to his hopeless black
+eyes and his voice broke with emotion.
+
+Verisschenzko looked at him and a rough pity tempered his contempt.
+
+Here was a case where an indulgence having become master was exacting a
+hideous toll. But the net was drawing closer and when all the strands
+were in his hands he would act without mercy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+When Amaryllis knew that John was going to get a few days' leave at
+Christmas a strange nervousness took possession of her. The personality
+of Denzil had been growing more real to her ever since they had parted,
+in spite of her endeavours to discipline her mind and control all
+emotion. The thought of him and the thought of the baby were inseparable
+and were seldom absent from her consciousness. All sorts of wonderful
+emotions held her, and exalted her imagination until she felt that Denzil
+was part of her daily life--and with the double interest her love for him
+grew and grew.
+
+She had only seen John during the day when he had come to bid her
+good-bye before leaving for the Front, and most of the time they had been
+surrounded by the de la Paule family. But now she would have to face the
+fact of living with him again in an intimate relationship.
+
+The thought appeared awful to her. There was something in her nature
+which resembled that of the bride of King Caudaules. She could not
+support the idea of belonging now to John; it seemed to her that he must
+have no rights at all. She had written to him dutifully each week letters
+about the place and her Committees in the County. She had not once
+mentioned the coming child.
+
+Denzil's mother had been ill and the visit to Bath had been postponed,
+and after a fortnight alone at Ardayre she had come up to London. She had
+too much time to think there.
+
+Stepan had left her a list of books to get and she had been steadily
+reading them.
+
+How horribly ignorant she had been! She realised that what knowledge she
+had possessed had never been centralised or brought to any use. She had
+known isolated histories of Europe, and never had studied them
+collectively or contemporarily to discover their effect upon human
+evolution. She had learned many things, and then never employed her
+critical faculties about them. A whole new world seemed to be opening to
+her view. She had determined not to be unhappy and not to look ahead, but
+in spite of these good resolutions she would often dream in the firelight
+of the joy of being clasped in Denzil's arms.
+
+When she thought of John it was with tolerance more than affection. What
+did he really mean to her, denuded of the glamour with which she herself
+had surrounded him?
+
+Practically nothing at all.
+
+She was quite aware that her state of being was rendering all her mental
+and emotional faculties particularly sensitive, and she did her utmost to
+remember all Verisschenzko's counsel to discipline herself and remain
+serene. The morning John was expected to arrive she had a hard fight with
+herself. She felt very nervous and ill at ease. Above all things, she
+must not be unkind.
+
+He was bronzed and looked well, he was more expansive also and plainly
+very glad to see her.
+
+He held her close to him and bent to kiss her lips; but some undefined
+reluctance came over her, and she moved her head aside.
+
+Something in her resented the caress. Her lips were now for Denzil and
+for no other man. It was she who was recalcitrant and turned the
+conversation into everyday things.
+
+The de la Paule family had been summoned for luncheon and the
+afternoon passed among them all, and then the evening and the
+tete-a-tete dinner came.
+
+John knocked at the door of her room while she was dressing. Her maid had
+just finished her hair and she wondered at herself that she should
+experience a sense of shyness and have to suppress an inclination to
+refuse to let him come in. And once any of these little intimate
+happenings would have given her joy!
+
+She kept Adams there, and hurried into her tea-gown and then walked
+towards the door.
+
+John had not spoken much, but stood by the fire.
+
+How changed things were! Once he had to be persuaded and enticed to stay
+with her at such moments, and it was he who now seemed to desire to do
+so, and it was she who discouraged his wishes!
+
+In Amaryllis' mind an agitation grew. What could she say to him
+presently--if he suggested coming to sleep in her room?
+
+The knowledge in her breast rose as an insurmountable barrier
+between them.
+
+During dinner she kept the conversation entirely upon his life at the
+Front--which indeed really interested her. She was not cold or stiff in
+her manner, but she was unconsciously aloof.
+
+Then they went back into the library, each feeling exceedingly depressed.
+
+When coffee had come and they were quite alone Amaryllis felt she could
+not stand the strain, and went to the piano. She played for quite a long
+time all the things she remembered that John liked best. She wanted the
+music to calm her, and she wanted to gain time. John sat in one of the
+monster chairs and gazed into the fire. He seemed to see pictures in the
+glowing coals.
+
+The strange relentless fate which had pursued him always as far as
+happiness was concerned!
+
+He remembered what his mother had said to him when she lay a-dying with a
+broken heart.
+
+"John, we cannot see what God means in it all. There must be some
+explanation because He cannot be unjust. It is because we have missed the
+point of some lesson, probably, and so are given it again to learn. Do
+not ever be rebellious, my son, and perhaps some day light will come."
+
+He had read an article in some paper lately ridiculing the theory that we
+have had former lives, but, after all, perhaps there was some foundation
+for the belief. Perhaps he was paying in this one for sins in a previous
+birth. That would account for the seeming inexorableness of the
+misfortunes which fell upon him now, since common sense told him that in
+this life such cruel blows were undeserved.
+
+Amaryllis glanced at his face from the piano as she played. It was
+infinitely sad.
+
+A great pity grew in her heart. What ought she to do not to be unkind?
+
+Presently she finished a soft chord and got up and came to his side.
+
+They were both suffering cruelly--but John was going back to fight. She
+must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France
+at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth,
+and she could not let him go again into danger with this black shadow
+between them.
+
+He looked up at her and rose from his chair.
+
+"You play so beautifully," he said hastily. "You take one out of
+oneself. Now it is late and the day has been long. Let us go to bed,
+dearest child."
+
+Amaryllis stiffened suddenly--the moment that she dreaded had come.
+
+"I would rather that you slept in your dressing-room. I have ordered that
+to be prepared--"
+
+He looked at her startled--and then he took her hand.
+
+"Amaryllis--tell me everything. Why are you so changed?"
+
+"I'm trying not to be, John."
+
+"You are trying--that proves that you are, if you must try. Please tell
+me what this means."
+
+She endeavoured to remain calm and not become unhinged.
+
+"It was you yourself who altered me. I came to you all loving and human
+and you froze me. There is nothing to be done."
+
+"Yes, there is. You know that I love you."
+
+"Perhaps you do, but the family matters more to you than I do, or
+anything else in the world."
+
+"That may have been so once, but not now," his voice throbbed with
+feeling.
+
+"Alas!" was all she answered and looked down. John longed to appeal to
+her--but he was too honest to seek to soften her through the link of the
+child. Indeed, the thought of it had grown hateful to him. He only knew
+that he had played for a stake which now seemed worthless. Amaryllis and
+her love mattered more than any child.
+
+He clenched his hands tightly; the pain of things seemed hard to bear.
+
+Why had he not broken the thongs of reserve which held him long days ago
+and made love to her in words? But that would have been dishonest. He
+must at least be true; and he realised now that he had starved her--no
+matter what his motive had been.
+
+"Amaryllis, tell me everything, please," and he held out his hands and
+drew her to the sofa and sat down by her side.
+
+She could not control her emotion any longer, and her voice shook as she
+answered him:
+
+"I know that it was not you--but Denzil, John--and the baby is his,
+not yours."
+
+His face altered. He had not been prepared to hear this thing and he
+was stunned.
+
+"Ferdinand is an awful possibility to contemplate there at Ardayre, if
+you have no son--" She went on, trying to be calm, "but do you not think
+that you might have told me? Surely a woman has the right to select the
+father of her child."
+
+John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.
+
+"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken
+with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you--it was an easy
+transition to find that I loved him--because I was only loving the
+imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not
+make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby,
+that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must
+just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as
+we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."
+
+"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.
+
+"No--it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."
+
+"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again
+'Sweetheart'!"
+
+"No, he did not--he used the word simply in speaking of a picture--but I
+recognised his voice then immediately--it is a little deeper than yours."
+
+"When did you see Denzil?"
+
+She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming to
+Ardayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.
+
+"He would never have spoken to me--it was fate which sent him into the
+train, and then I made him speak--I could not bear it. After I
+recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame.
+He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since.
+It is I alone who must be counted with, John--Denzil will try never to
+see me again."
+
+John groaned aloud.
+
+"Oh God--the misery of it all!"
+
+"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these
+things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to
+me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt
+the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him--I found
+myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to
+me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John--I
+had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and
+living a lie."
+
+Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down
+his cheeks.
+
+He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.
+
+What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to
+have used her for his own aims, however high?
+
+"Amaryllis--you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."
+
+But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the
+piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment.
+She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she
+stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.
+
+"Of course, I forgive you, John--but I cannot cease from loving Denzil,
+that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I
+never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences.
+John dearest, let us be friends--and live as friends, then everything
+won't be so hard."
+
+He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering
+acutely--must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
+
+"But I love you, Amaryllis--I love you, dearest child--"
+
+And now again she said "Alas!"--and that was all.
+
+"Amaryllis--this is a frightful sacrifice to me--must you insist upon
+it?"
+
+Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose--and she
+stood up and faced him.
+
+"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up,
+conventional girl--milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will--I
+had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a
+savage"--her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,--"I
+_could not_ belong to two men--it would utterly degrade me, then I do not
+know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul--and while he
+lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to
+me--fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I
+must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family,
+and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the
+only terms I can offer you now."
+
+John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
+
+Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his
+brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
+
+"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And
+when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must
+love it because it is mine and an Ardayre--and the comfort of that must
+fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for
+the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of
+life--perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."
+
+John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow
+and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips--those he told himself he
+must renounce for evermore.
+
+"Amaryllis,"--his voice was husky still, "yes--I will be your friend,
+darling--and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but
+it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and
+living--and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped
+against hope--and then when I knew that everything was impossible--I
+felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't
+know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I
+gratified all your wishes perhaps--Ah!--I see it was very cruel. Darling,
+I would have told you the truth--presently--but then the war came, and
+the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."
+
+She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes--her one idea was now to
+comfort him since she need no longer fear.
+
+"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me--I do not know, perhaps
+I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family
+pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand--or his children which may
+be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented--I cannot be sure. But
+somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual
+things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must
+be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant
+yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid--I don't know really. I have
+only been wondering--but perhaps there are powerful currents connected
+with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force
+of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."
+
+They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear
+her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his
+emotion at last.
+
+"It may be so--"
+
+"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on,
+"then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir--and now--if the
+child is a boy--"
+
+John started.
+
+"We neither of us thought of that."
+
+"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist--it is
+only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too--but surely the
+war cannot go on long now?"
+
+John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or
+whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a
+speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not
+to agitate her mind--events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.
+
+He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows;
+he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened
+interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come
+to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future,
+and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and
+took her hand:
+
+"Go to bed now, dear girl,--and to-morrow I shall have quite conquered
+all the feelings which could disturb you, and just remember always that I
+am indeed your friend."
+
+She understood at last the greatness of his sacrifice and the fineness of
+his soul, and she fell into a passion of weeping and ran from the room.
+
+But John, left alone, sank down into the same chair as he had done once
+before on the night he was waiting for Denzil, and, as then, he buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The next day they met at breakfast. John had not slept at all and was
+very pale and Amaryllis's eyes still showed the deepened violet shadows
+from much weeping. But they were both quite calm.
+
+She came over to John and kissed his forehead with gentle tenderness and
+then gave him his tea. They tried to talk in a friendly way as of old
+before any new emotions had come into their lives. And gradually the
+strain became lessened.
+
+They arranged to go out shopping, and John bought Amaryllis a new
+emerald ring.
+
+"Green is the colour of hope," she said. "I want green, John,
+because it will make me think of the springtime and nature, and all
+beautiful things."
+
+They lunched at a restaurant and in the afternoon went down to Ardayre.
+John had many things to attend to and would be occupied all the
+following day.
+
+There had been no Christmas feasting, but there were gifts to be
+distributed and various other duties and ceremonies to be gone through,
+although they had missed the Christmas day. Amaryllis tried in every way
+to be helpful to her husband, and he appreciated her stateliness and
+sweet manners with all the tenants and people on the estate.
+
+So the four days passed quite smoothly, and the last night of the old
+year came.
+
+"I don't think that you must sit up for it, dear," John said after
+dinner. "It will only tire you, and it is always a rather sad moment
+unless one has a party as we always had in old days."
+
+Amaryllis went obediently to her room and stayed there; sleep was far
+from her eyes. What was the rest of her life going to be without Denzil?
+And what of John? Would they settle down into a real quiet friendship
+when he came back, and the child was born? Or would she have always to
+feel that he loved her and was for ever suffering pain?
+
+The more she thought the less clear the issue became, and the deeper the
+sadness in the atmosphere.
+
+At last she slipped down onto the big white bear-skin rug and
+began to pray.
+
+But when the clock struck midnight, and the New Year bells rang out, a
+dreadful depression fell upon her, a sense of foreboding and fear.
+
+She tried to tell herself that she was foolish, and it was all caused
+only because she was so highly strung and sensitive now, on account of
+her state. But the thought would persist that danger threatened some one
+she loved. Was it Denzil, or John?
+
+Amaryllis tried to force herself from her unhappy impressions by thinking
+of what she could do presently in the summer, when she would be quite
+well again, though her greatest work must always be to try to make John
+happy, if by then he had come home.
+
+She heard him go into his room at about one o'clock, and then she crept
+noiselessly to her great gilt bed.
+
+John had waited for the New Year by the cedar parlour fire. The room was
+so filled with the radiance of Amaryllis that he liked being there.
+
+And he, too, was thinking of what their new life would be should he
+chance to come through. The ache in his heart would gradually subside, he
+supposed, but how would he bear the long years, knowing that Amaryllis
+was thinking of Denzil--and longing for him--and if fate made them
+meet--what then?
+
+How could he endure to know that these two beings were suffering?
+
+There seemed no clear outlook ahead. But, as he knew only too well death
+could hardly fail to intervene, and if it should claim Denzil, then he
+must console Amaryllis' grief. But if happily it could be he who were
+taken, then their future path would be clear.
+
+He could not forget the third eventuality, that he and Denzil might both
+be killed. He thought and thought over them all, and at last he decided
+to add a letter to his will. If he should be killed he would ask Denzil
+to marry Amaryllis immediately, without waiting for the conventional
+year. The times were too strenuous, and she must not be left
+unprotected--alone with the child.
+
+He got up and began the letter to his lawyer, and so the
+instructions ran:
+
+"I request my cousin Denzil Benedict Ardayre to marry Amaryllis, my wife,
+as soon as possible after my death, if he can get leave and is still
+alive. I confide her to his care and ask them both not to let any
+conventional idea of mourning stand in the way of these, my urgent last
+commands. And I ask my cousin Denzil, if he lives through the war, to
+take great care of the bringing up of the child."
+
+He read thus far, and when he came to "the child" he scratched it out
+and wrote "my child" deliberately, and then he went on to add his wishes
+for its education, should it be a boy. The will had already amply
+provided for Amaryllis, so that she would be a rich woman for the rest
+of her days.
+
+When all this was clearly copied out and sealed up in an envelope
+addressed to his lawyer, the clock struck twelve.
+
+The silence in the old house was complete; there was no revelry for the
+first time for many years, even the servants far off in their wing had
+gone to rest.
+
+It seemed to John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from
+him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He
+could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was
+it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after
+all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of
+sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and
+was soon in bed.
+
+And then he slept soundly until late in the morning, and awoke refreshed
+and serene on New Year's day.
+
+His leave was up on the third of January and he returned to London,
+but he would not let Amaryllis undergo the fatigue of accompanying
+him. He said good-bye to her there at Ardayre. She felt extremely sad
+and unhappy.
+
+Had she done well, after all, to have told John the truth? Should she
+have borne things as they were and waited until the end of the war? But
+no, that would have been impossible to her nature. If she might not have
+Denzil for her lover, she would have no other man.
+
+John's cheerfulness astonished her--it was so uniform, it could not be
+assumed. Perhaps she did not yet understand him, perhaps in his heart he
+was glad that all pretences had come to an end.
+
+They had the most affectionate parting. John never was sentimental, and
+he went off with brave, cheery words, and every injunction that she was
+to take the greatest care of herself.
+
+"Remember, Amaryllis, that you are the most precious thing on earth to
+me--and you must think also of the child."
+
+She promised him that she would carry out all his wishes in this
+respect and remain quietly at Ardayre until the first of April, when
+perhaps he could get leave again and then she would go to London for
+the birth of the baby.
+
+John turned and waved his hand as he went off down the avenue, and
+Amaryllis watched the motor until it was out of sight, the tears slowly
+brimming over and running down her cheeks.
+
+She noticed that at the turn in the avenue a telegraph boy passed the car
+and came straight on. The wire was not for John evidently, so she would
+wait at the door to see. It proved to be for her, and from Denzil's
+mother, saying that she was en route for Dorchester, motoring, and would
+stop at Ardayre on the chance of finding its mistress at home. Amaryllis
+felt suddenly excited; she had often longed for this and yet in some way
+she had feared it also. What new emotions might the meeting not arouse?
+
+It was quite early after luncheon that Mrs. Ardayre was announced.
+Amaryllis had waited in the green drawing room, thinking that she would
+come. She was playing the piano at the far end to try and lighten her
+feeling of depression, when the door opened, and to her astonishment
+quite a young, slight woman came into the room. She was a little lame,
+and walked with a stick. For a moment Amaryllis thought she must be
+mistaken, and rose with a vague, but gracious look in her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre held out her hand and smiled:
+
+"I hope you got my telegram in time," she said cordially. "I felt I must
+not lose the opportunity of making your acquaintance. My son has been so
+anxious for us to meet."
+
+"You--you can't be Denzil's mother, surely!" Amaryllis exclaimed. "He is
+much too old to be your son!"
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled again--while Amaryllis made her sit down on the sofa
+beside her and helped her off with her furs. "I am forty-nine years old,
+Amaryllis--if I may call you so--but one ought never to grow old in body.
+It is not necessary, and it is not agreeable to the eye!"
+
+Amaryllis looked at her carefully in the full side light. It was the
+shape of her face, she decided, which gave her such youth. There were no
+unsightly bones to cause shadows and the skin was smooth and ivory--and
+her eyes were bright brown; their expression was very humorous as well as
+kindly, and Amaryllis was drawn to her at once.
+
+They talked about their desire to know one another and about the family,
+and the place, and the war--and at last they spoke of Denzil, and Mrs.
+Ardayre told of what his life was, and his whereabouts now, and then grew
+retrospective.
+
+"He is the dearest boy in the world," she said. "We have been friends
+always, and now he will not allow me to be anxious about him. I really
+think that as far as the frightfulness of things will let him be, he
+is actually enjoying his life! Men are such queer creatures, they like
+to fight!"
+
+Amaryllis asked what was her latest news of him, and where he was, and
+listened interestedly to Mrs. Ardayre's replies:
+
+"The cavalry have not had very much to do lately, fortunately," she
+remarked. "My husband has just gone back, but I suppose if there is a
+shortage of men for the trenches, they will be dismounted perhaps."
+
+"I expect so--then we shall have to use all our courage and control
+our fears."
+
+Amaryllis turned the conversation back to Denzil again, and drew his
+mother out. She would like to have heard incidents of his childhood and
+of how he looked when he was a little boy, but she was too timid to ask
+any deliberate questions. She felt drawn to this lady, she looked so
+young and human. Perhaps she was not so wonderful in evening dress, but
+her figure was boyish in its slim spareness--in these serge travelling
+clothes she hardly looked thirty-five!
+
+She wondered what Denzil had told his mother about her--probably that she
+was going to have a child, but nothing more.
+
+They talked in the most friendly way for half an hour, and then Amaryllis
+asked her guest if she would like to come and see the house and
+especially the picture gallery and the Elizabethan Denzil hanging there.
+
+"It is just my boy!" Mrs. Ardayre cried, when they stood in front of it.
+"Eyes and all, they are bold and true and so loving. Oh! my dear child,
+you can't think what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has
+adored him--the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and
+my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when
+he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a
+tree. I daresay I am the silliest of them all!"
+
+Amaryllis listened, enchanted.
+
+"You see he has not one touch of me in him," Mrs. Ardayre went on, "but I
+was so frantically in love with my husband when he was born, he naturally
+was all Ardayre. Does it not interest you, Amaryllis, to wonder what your
+little one, when it comes, will look like? It ought to be pronouncedly of
+the family, your being also an Ardayre."
+
+"Indeed yes, I am very curious. And how we all hope that it will
+be a son!"
+
+"Is there a portrait of your husband here? Denzil says they are alike."
+
+"There is one in my sitting room; it is going to be moved in here
+presently, when mine is done next year. It is by Sargent, almost the last
+portrait he painted. Let us go there now and see it."
+
+"But there is no likeness," Mrs. Ardayre exclaimed presently, when they
+had gone to the cedar parlour and were examining the picture of John.
+"Can you discover it?"
+
+"I thought they were very alike once--but I do not altogether see it
+now."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with
+my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of
+the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I
+have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my
+husband and delighted in being the mother of his son."
+
+"There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and
+the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet
+know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather
+think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the
+child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the
+man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though."
+
+Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did
+not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a
+fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, passionately in love with
+him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child!
+Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing
+any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John!
+
+Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that
+she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy
+on her face.
+
+There was some mystery here.
+
+She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis.
+It was not a great deal. He had arrived at Bath that time looking very
+stern and abstracted, and had mentioned rather shortly that he had come
+down with the head of the family's wife in the train, and had gone on to
+Ardayre with her, after meeting them the previous night at dinner for the
+first time.
+
+He had not been at all expansive, but later in the evening when they had
+sat by her sitting room fire, he had suddenly said something which had
+startled her greatly:
+
+"Mum--I want you to know Amaryllis Ardayre. I am madly in love with
+her--she is going to have a baby, and she seems to be so alone."
+
+It must be one of those sudden passions, and the idea seemed in some way
+to jar a little. Denzil to have fallen in love with a woman whom he knew
+was going to have a child!
+
+She had said something of this to him, and he had turned eyes full of
+pain to her and even reproach.
+
+"Mum--you always understand me--I am not a beast, you know--I haven't
+anything more to say, only I want you to be really kind to her--and get
+to know her well."
+
+And he had not mentioned the subject again, but had been very preoccupied
+during all his three days' visit, which state she could not account for
+by the fact of the war--Denzil, she knew, was an enthusiastic soldier,
+and to be going out to fight would naturally be to him a keen joy. What
+did it all mean? And here was this sweet creature speaking of divine love
+mysteries and looking up at the portrait of her dull, unattractive
+husband with melancholy eyes, whereas they had sparkled with interest
+when Denzil was the subject of conversation! Could she, too, have fallen
+in love with Denzil in one night at dinner and a journey in the train!
+
+It was all very remarkable.
+
+They had tea together in the green drawing room, and by that time they
+had become very good friends.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre told Amaryllis of the little old manor home she had in
+Kent--The Moat, it was called, and of her garden and the pleasure it
+was to her.
+
+"I had about twelve thousand a year of my own, you know," she said, "and
+ever since Denzil was born I have each year put by half of it, so that
+when he was twenty-one I was able to hand over to him quite a decent sum
+that he might be independent and free. It is so humiliating for a man to
+have to be subservient to a woman, even a mother, and I go on doing the
+same every year. All the last years of his life my husband was very
+delicate--he was so badly wounded in the South African War, you know--so
+we lived very quietly at The Moat and in my tiny house in London. I hope
+you will let me show you them both one day."
+
+Amaryllis said she would be delighted, and added:
+
+"You will come and see me, won't you? I am going up to our house in Brook
+Street at the beginning of April, and I am praying that I may have a
+little son about the first week in May."
+
+Just before Mrs. Ardayre went on to Dorchester, she asked Amaryllis if
+she had any message to send Denzil--she wanted to watch her face. It
+flushed slightly and her deep soft voice said a little eagerly:
+
+"Yes--tell him I have been so delighted to meet you, and you are just
+what he said I should find you!--and tell him I sent him all sorts of
+good wishes--" and then she became a little confused.
+
+"I should so love a photograph of you--would you give me one, I wonder?"
+the elder woman asked quickly, to avoid any pause, and while Amaryllis
+went out of the room to get it, she thought:
+
+"She is certainly in love with Denzil. It could not have been the first
+time he had seen her--at the dinner--and yet he never tells lies." And
+she grew more and more puzzled and interested.
+
+When Amaryllis was alone after the motor with Mrs. Ardayre in it had
+departed, an uncontrollable fit of restlessness came over her. The visit
+had stirred up all her emotions again; she could not grieve any more
+about the tragedy of John; her whole being was vibrating with thoughts
+of Denzil and desire for his presence--she could see his face and feel
+the joy of his kisses.
+
+At that moment she would have flung everything in life away to rush
+into his arms!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Denzil was wounded at Neuve Chapelle on March 10th, 1915, though not
+seriously--a flesh wound in the side. He had done most gallantly and was
+to get a D.S.O. He had been in hospital for two weeks and was almost well
+when Amaryllis came up to Brook Street, on the first of April. She had
+read his name in the list of wounded, and had telegraphed to his mother
+in great anxiety, but had been reassured, and now she throbbed with
+longing to see him.
+
+To know that soon he would be going back again to the Front, was almost
+more than she could bear. She was feeling wonderfully well herself. Her
+splendid constitution and her youth made natural things cause her little
+distress. She was neither nervous nor fretful, nor oppressed with fancies
+and moods. And she looked very beautiful with her added dignity of mien
+and perfectly chosen clothes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre came at once to see her the morning after her arrival, and
+suggested that Denzil should come when out driving that afternoon.
+Amaryllis tried to accept this suggestion calmly, and not show her joy,
+and Mrs. Ardayre left, promising to bring her son about four.
+
+Denzil had said to his Mother when he knew that Amaryllis was coming
+to London:
+
+"Mum, I want to see Amaryllis--please arrange it for me. And Mum, don't
+ask me anything about it; just leave me there when we drive and come and
+fetch me when I must go in again."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre was a very modern person, but she could not help exclaiming
+in a half voice while she sat by her son's bed:
+
+"You know she is going to have a baby in a month, dear boy, perhaps she
+won't care to see you now."
+
+A flush rose to Denzil's forehead: "Yes, I do know," he said a little
+hurriedly, "but we are not conventional in these days. I wish to see her;
+please, darling Mother, do what I ask."
+
+And then he had turned the conversation.
+
+So his mother had obediently arranged matters, and at about four in the
+afternoon left him at the Brook Street door.
+
+Early as it was, Amaryllis had made the tea, and expected to see both
+Denzil and his mother. The room was full of hyacinths and daffodils, and
+she herself looked like a spring flower, as she sat on the sofa among the
+green silk cushions, wrapped in a pale parma violet tea-gown.
+
+The butler announced "Captain Ardayre," and Denzil came in slowly, and
+murmured "How do you do?"
+
+But as soon as the door was closed upon him, he started forward,
+forgetting his stiff side.
+
+He covered her hands with kisses, he could not contain his joy; and
+then he drew back and looked at her with worship and reverence in his
+blue eyes.
+
+The most mysterious, quivering emotions were coursing through him, mixed
+with triumph, as he took in the picture she made. This delicate,
+beautiful creature! And to see her--so!
+
+Amaryllis lowered her head in a sweet confusion; her feelings were no
+less aroused. She was thrilling with passionate welcome and delicious
+shyness. Nature was indeed ruling them both, and with a glad "Darling
+Angel!" Denzil sat down beside her and clasped her in his arms. Then for
+a few seconds delirious pleasure was all that they knew.
+
+"Let me look at you again, Sweetheart," he ordered presently, with a tone
+of command and possession in his very deep voice, which caused Amaryllis
+delight. It made her feel that she really belonged to him.
+
+"To me you have never been so beautiful--and every scrap of you is mine."
+
+"Absolutely yours."
+
+"I had to come--I cannot help whether it is right or wrong. I must go
+back to the Front as soon as I am fit, and I could not have borne to go
+without seeing you, darling one."
+
+They had a hundred things to say to each other about themselves--and
+about the baby, and the next hour was very sacred and wonderful.
+Denzil was a superlatively perfect lover and knew the immense value of
+tender words.
+
+He intoxicated Amaryllis' imagination with the moving things he said.
+
+Alas! how many worthy men miss themselves, and make their loved ones
+miss the best part of life's joys by their mulish silence and refusal
+to gratify this desire of all women to be _told_ that they are loved,
+to have the fact expressed in passionate speech! No deeds make up for
+this omission.
+
+Denzil had none of these limitations; he said everything which could
+cajole and excite the imagination. He murmured a hundred affecting
+tendernesses in her ears. He caressed her--he commanded and mastered her,
+and then assured her that he was her slave. He was arrogant and
+humble--arrogant when he claimed her love, humble in his worship. He
+spoke of the child and what it meant to him that it should be his and
+hers. He caused her to feel that he was strong and protective and that
+she was to be cherished and adored. He made pictures of how it would be
+if he could spend a whole day and night with her presently in June, when
+she would be quite well, and of how thrilled with interest he would be to
+see the baby, and that, of course, it _must_ be exactly like himself! And
+Amaryllis' eyes, all soft and swimming with emotion answered him.
+
+Naturally, since she loved him so passionately, it would be his image!
+Had not his own mother accounted for his pronounced Ardayre stamp by her
+having been so in love with his father--so, of course, this would
+re-occur! It was all dear to think about!
+
+They spent another hour of divine intoxication, and then the clock
+struck six.
+
+It sounded like a knell.
+
+Amaryllis gave a little cry.
+
+"Denzil, it is altogether unnatural that you should have to go. To
+think that you must leave me, and may not even welcome your son! To
+think that by the law we are sinning, because I am sitting here clasped
+in your arms! To think that I may not have the joy of showing you the
+exquisite little clothes, and the pink silk cot--all the things which
+have given me such pleasure to arrange.... It is all too cruel! You
+know that eighteenth century engraving in the series of Moreau le
+Jeune, of the married lovers playing with the darling, teeny cap
+together! Well, I have it beside my bed, and every day I look at it and
+pretend it is you and me!"
+
+"Darling--Darling!"--and Denzil fiercely kissed her, he was so
+deeply moved.
+
+"It is all holy and beautiful, the coming to earth of a soul. It only
+makes me long to be good and noble and worthy of this wonderful thing.
+But for us--we who love truly and purely, it has all been turned into
+something forbidden and wrong."
+
+"Heart of me--I must have some news of you. I cannot starve there in the
+trenches, knowing that all the letters that should be mine are going to
+John. My mother is really trustworthy, will you let her be with you as
+often as you can, that she may be able to tell me how you are, precious
+one? When the seventh of May comes I shall go perfectly mad with suspense
+and anxiety. I will arrange that my mother sends me at once a telegram."
+
+"Denzil!" and Amaryllis clung to him.
+
+"It is an impossible situation," and he gave a great sigh. "I shall tell
+John that I have seen you--I cannot help it, the times are too precarious
+to have acted otherwise. And afterwards, when the war is over, we must
+face the matter and decide what is best to be done."
+
+"_I_ cannot live without you, Denzil, and that I know."
+
+They said good-bye at last silently, after many kisses and tears, and
+Denzil came out into the darkening street to his mother in the motor,
+with white, set face.
+
+"I am a little troubled, dearest boy," she whispered, as they went along.
+"I feel that there is something underneath all this and that Amaryllis
+means some great thing in your life--the whole aspect of everything fills
+me with discomfort. It is unlike your usual, sensitive refinement,
+Denzil, to have gone to see her--now--"
+
+"I understand exactly what you mean, Mother. I should say the same thing
+myself in your place. I can't explain anything, only I beg of you to
+trust me. Amaryllis is an angel of purity and sweetness; perhaps some day
+you will understand."
+
+She took his hand into her muff and held it:
+
+"You know I have no conventions, dearest, and my creed is to believe what
+you say, but I cannot account for the situation because of your only
+having met Amaryllis so lately for the first time. I could understand it
+perfectly if you had been her lover, and the child was your child, but
+she has not been married a whole year yet to John!"
+
+Denzil answered nothing--he pressed his mother's hand.
+
+She returned the pressure:
+
+"We will talk no more about it."
+
+"And you will go on being kind?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Before they reached the hospital door in Park Lane Mrs. Ardayre had been
+instructed to send an immediate telegram the moment the baby was born,
+and to comfort and take care of Amaryllis, and tell her son every little
+detail as to her welfare and about the child.
+
+"I will try not to form any opinion, Denzil; and some day perhaps things
+will be made plain, for it would break my heart to believe that you are a
+dishonourable man."
+
+"You need not worry, Mum dearest. Indeed, I am not that. It is just a
+tragic story, but I cannot say more. Only take care of Amaryllis, and
+send me news as often as you can."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The telegram to say that Amaryllis had a little son came to John Ardayre
+on the night before he went into the trenches again at the second battle
+of Ypres on May 9th, 1915. He had been waiting in feverish impatience
+and expectancy all the day, and, in fact, for three days for news.
+
+His whole inner life since that New Year's night had been strangely
+serene, in spite of its frightful outward turmoil and stress. He had
+taken the tumult of Neuve Chapelle calmly, and had come through it and
+all the beginning of the Ypres battle without a scratch. He had felt that
+he was looking upon it all from some detached standpoint, and that it in
+no way personally concerned him.
+
+He had seen Denzil do the splendid thing and he had felt a distinct
+distress when he had seen him fall wounded.
+
+Denzil was just back now and in the trenches again with the rest of the
+dismounted cavalry. They might meet in the attack at dawn.
+
+When John read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion
+was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the
+billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must
+have received bad news.
+
+Then it seemed as though he went mad!
+
+The repression of his life appeared to fall from him, he became as a new
+man. All his comrades were astonished at him, and a Scotch Corporal was
+heard to remark that it was "na canny--the Captain was fey."
+
+The Ardayres were saved! The family would carry on!
+
+Fondest love welled up in his heart for Amaryllis. If he only came
+through he would devote his life to showing her his gratitude and
+showering everything upon her that her heart could desire--and
+perhaps--perhaps the joy of the baby would make up for the absence of
+Denzil. This thought stayed with him and comforted him.
+
+Lady de la Paule had wired:
+
+"A splendid little son born 11:45 A.M. seventh May--Amaryllis
+well--all love."
+
+And an hour or two before this Denzil had also received the news from his
+Mother. He, too, had grown exalted and thanked God.
+
+So the day that the Germans were to fail at Ypres, and destiny was to
+accomplish itself for these two men--dawned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of what use to write of that terrible fight and of the gas and the horror
+and the mud? John Ardayre seemed to bear a charmed life as he led his men
+"over the top." For an hour wild with exaltation and gladness, he rallied
+them and cheered them on. The scene of blood and carnage has been too
+often repeated on other fateful days, and as often well described, when
+acts of glorious heroism occurred again and again. John had rushed
+forward to succour a wounded trooper when a shell crashed near them, and
+he fell to the ground. And then he know what the great thing was the New
+Year had promised him. For death was going to straighten out
+matters--John was going beyond. Well, he had never been rebellious, and
+he knew now that light had come. But the sky above seemed to be darkening
+curiously, and the terrible noise to be growing dim, when he was
+conscious that a man was crawling towards him, dragging a leg, and then
+his eyes opened wildly for an instant, and he saw that it was Denzil all
+covered with blood.
+
+"Are we both going West, Denzil?" he demanded faintly. "At least I am--"
+then he gasped a little, while a stream of scarlet flowed from his
+shattered side.
+
+"I've asked you in a letter to marry Amaryllis immediately--if you get
+home. I hope your number is not up, too, because she will be all alone.
+Take care of her, Denzil, and take care of the child...." His voice grew
+lower and lower, and the last words came in spasms: "There is an Ardayre
+son, you know--so it's all right. The family is saved from Ferdinand and
+I am very glad to die."
+
+Denzil tried to get out his flask, but before he could reach John's lips
+with it he saw that it would be of no avail--for Death had claimed the
+head of the Family. And above his mangled body John's face wore a look of
+calm serenity, and his firm lips smiled.
+
+Then things became all vague for Denzil and he remembered nothing more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was more than two months before Denzil was well enough to be brought
+from Boulogne, and then he had a relapse and for the whole of July was
+dangerously ill. At one moment there seemed to be no hope of saving his
+leg, and his mother ate her heart out with anxiety.
+
+And Amaryllis, back at Ardayre with the little Benedict, wept many tears.
+
+John's death had deeply grieved her. She realised his steadfast kindness
+and affection for her. He had written her a letter just before the battle
+had begun--a short epistle telling her calmly that the chances would be
+perhaps even for any man to come out of it alive--and assuring her of his
+greatest devotion.
+
+"I know that Denzil went to see you, my dear little girl. He has told me
+about it. And I know that you love each other. There is only one chance
+for us in the future--and that lies with the child. It may be that when
+it comes to you it may fill your life and satisfy you. This is my
+prayer--otherwise we must see what can be arranged about things; because
+I cannot allow you to be unhappy. You were an innocent factor in all
+this, and it would be unjust that you should be hurt."
+
+How good and generous John had always been.
+
+And his letter to his lawyers! To make things smooth for her--and for
+Denzil--how marvellously kind!
+
+Her mourning for John was real and deep, as it would have been for a
+brother. But during the month of intense anxiety about Denzil everything
+else was numbed, even her interest in her son.
+
+By the end of August he was out of danger, although little hope was
+entertained that he would ever walk easily. But this was a minor
+thing--and gradually it began to be some consolation to the two women who
+loved him to know that he was safely wounded and would probably not be
+fit for active service again for a very long time.
+
+They wrote letters to one another, but they decided not to meet.
+Six months must elapse at least, they both felt--even in spite of
+John's commands.
+
+Another shell must have fallen not far off, for his body was never
+found--only his field glasses, broken and battered. And there would have
+been no actual information about his death had not Denzil seen him die.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Harietta Boleski and Stanislass and Ferdinand Ardayre had remained in
+Paris, with visits to Fontainebleau.
+
+When John had been killed, Harietta had been extremely perturbed.
+
+"Now Stepan will be able to marry that odious bit of bread and butter,
+and he is sure to do it after the year!" This thought rankled with her
+and embittered everything. Nothing pleased her. She grew more than ever
+rebellious at the dullness she had to live in. War was an imposition
+which ought not to be tolerated and she often told Hans so. At last she
+grew to take quite an interest in her spying for lack of more agreeable
+things to do.
+
+And so the months went by and November came, and a madness of jealousy
+was gradually augmenting in Harietta for Amaryllis Ardayre.
+
+Verisschenzko had gone to Russia in September, and she was convinced
+that he loved Amaryllis and that the child was his child. She could not
+conceive of a spiritual devotion, and something had altered all Stepan's
+ways. From the moment he returned to Paris until he had left she had
+tried and been unable to invoke any response in him, and she had felt
+like a foiled tigress when another has eaten her prey.
+
+As the impossibility of moving him forced itself upon her unwilling
+understanding, so the wildest passion for him grew, and when he left in
+September she was quite ill for a week with chagrin; then she became
+moody and more than ever capricious, and made Stanislass' life a hell,
+while Ferdinand Ardayre had little less misery to endure.
+
+An incident late in November caused her jealousy to burst into flame.
+
+She heard that Verisschenzko had returned from Russia and she went to his
+rooms to see him. The Russian servant who was accustomed to receive her
+was there waiting for his master who had not yet arrived. Without a word
+she passed the old man when he opened the door, and made her way into the
+sitting room, and then into the bedroom beyond. She did not believe that
+Stepan was not there and wanted to make sure. It was empty but a light
+burned before an Ikon, the doors of which were closed.
+
+Curiosity made Harietta go close and examine it. She knew the room so
+well and had never seen it there before. The table beneath it was
+arranged like an altar, and the Ikon was let in to the carved boiserie of
+the wall. It must have been since he had parted with her that this
+ridiculous thing had been done! She had not entered his _appartement_
+since June. She felt angry that the shrine should be closed and that she
+could not look upon it, for it must certainly be something which
+Verisschenzko prized.
+
+She bent nearer and shook the little doors; they resisted her, and her
+temper rose. Then some force seemed to propel her to commit sacrilege.
+She shook and shook and tore at the golden clasp, her irritation giving
+strength and cunning to her hands; and at last the small bolt came undone
+and the doors flew open--and an exquisitely painted modern picture of the
+Virgin disclosed itself, holding the Christ child in her arms. But for
+all the saintliness in the eyes of Mary, the face was an exact portrait
+of Amaryllis Ardayre!
+
+A frenzy of rage seized Harietta. Her rival reigned now indeed! This was
+positive proof to her, not of spiritual meaning--not of the mystic,
+abstract aloofness of worship which lay deep in Stepan's nature and had
+caused him to have Amaryllis transfigured into the symbol of purity, a
+daily reminder that she must always be for him the lady of his soul--such
+things had no meaning for Harietta. The Ikon was merely a material proof
+that Verisschenzko loved Amaryllis--and, of course, as soon as the year
+of mourning should be over he would make her his wife.
+
+She trembled with passionate resentment. Nothing had ever moved her so
+forcibly. She took out her pearl hatpin and stabbed out the eyes of the
+Virgin, almost shaking with passion, and scratched and obliterated the
+face of the Christ child. This done, she extinguished the little lamp and
+slammed to the doors.
+
+She laughed savagely as she went back into the sittingroom.
+
+"The Virgin indeed!--and _his_ child!--well, I've taught him!" and she
+flung past the Russian servant with a look which was a curse, so that the
+old man crossed himself and quickly barred the entrance door, when she
+stamped off down the stairs.
+
+Arrived in her gilded salon at the Universal, she would like to have
+wrung some one's neck. She had never been so full of rage in her life.
+She did find a little satisfaction in a kick at Fou-Chow, who fled
+whining to his faithful Marie who had come in to carry away her mistress'
+sable cloak.
+
+The maid's face became thunderous. A look of sullen hate gleamed in her
+dark eyes.
+
+"She will kick thee, my angel, just once too often," she murmured to the
+wee creature when she had carried him from the room. "And then we shall
+see, thy Marie knows that which may punish her some day soon!"
+
+Harietta, quite indifferent to these matters, telephoned immediately to
+Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He must come to her instantly without a moment's delay! And she
+stamped her foot.
+
+A plan which might give her some satisfaction to execute had evolved
+itself in her brain.
+
+He was in his room in another part of the building, and hastened to obey
+her command. She was livid with anger and seemed to have grown old.
+
+She went over and kissed him voluptuously and then she began:
+
+"Ferdie," and she whispered hoarsely, "now you have got to do something
+for me. You are not going to let the child of Verisschenzko be master of
+Ardayre! We are going to gain time and perhaps some day be able to do
+away with it. Now I have got a plan which will lighten your heart."
+
+She knew that she could count upon him, for since the birth of the
+little Benedict and the death of John, Ferdinand had stormed with threats
+of vengeance, while knowing his impotency.
+
+His life with Harietta had grown a torment and a hell--but with every
+fresh unkindness and pang of jealousy she caused him, his low passion for
+her increased. He knew that she loved Verisschenzko, whom he hated with
+all his might--and if she now proposed to hurt both his enemies, he would
+assist her joyfully.
+
+"Tell it me," he begged.
+
+So she drew him to the sofa and picked up a block and pencil.
+
+"Do you possess any of the writing of your dead brother, John, or if you
+don't, can you get some from anywhere?"
+
+Ferdinand's face blazed with excitement. What was she going to suggest?
+
+"I always keep one letter--in which he ordered me never to address him
+and told me I was not of his blood but was a mongrel Turk."
+
+"That is splendid--where is it? Have you got it here?"
+
+"Yes, in my despatch box. I'll go and fetch it now."
+
+"Very well. I will get rid of Stanislass for the evening and we can have
+some hours alone--and you will see if I don't help you to worry them
+hideously, Ferdie, even if that is all we can do!"
+
+And when he had left her presence, she paced the room excitedly.
+
+"It will prevent Stepan's marrying her at all events for; a long time."
+
+The thought that she had lost Verisschenzko completely unbalanced her.
+It was the first time in her life that she had had to relinquish a man.
+She hated to have to realise how highly he must hold Amaryllis. He seemed
+the only thing she wanted now in life, and she knew that he was quite
+beyond her, and that indeed he had never been hers; the one human being
+whom she had attracted and yet never been able to intoxicate and draw
+against his will. She went over all their past meetings. With what
+supreme insolence he had invariably treated her--even in moments when he
+permitted himself to feel passion! And how she adored him! She would have
+crawled to him now on the ground. She had not known she could feel so
+much. Every animal, sensual desire made her throb with rage. She would
+have torn the flesh from Amaryllis' face had she been there, and thrust
+her hatpin into her real eyes.
+
+But the spoke should be put in the wheel of Verisschenzko's marrying her!
+And perhaps some other revenge would come. Hans?--Hans should be made to
+carry the scheme through--Hans and Ferdinand. She dug her nails into the
+palms of her hands. No wild animal in its cage could have felt more rage.
+
+Then when Ferdinand returned with John's letter, she controlled herself
+and sat down at the table beside him and supervised his attempts at
+copying the writing, while she unfolded the details of her scheme.
+
+"You know John's body was never found," she informed him presently. "I
+heard all the details from a man who was there--they only picked up his
+glasses and his boot. He could very well have been taken prisoner by the
+Germans and be in hospital there, too ill to have written for all this
+time. Now think how he ought to word his first letter to his precious
+bread and butter wife!"
+
+"There must only be the fewest words, because I don't know what
+terms they were on. I think a postcard, if we get one, would be the
+best thing."
+
+"Of course?--I have some one who can see to that--it will be worth
+waiting the week for--we'll procure several, and meanwhile you must
+practise his hand."
+
+At the end of half an hour a very creditable forgery had been secured,
+and the two jealous beings felt satisfied with their work for the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It had been arranged that Denzil and his mother should spend Christmas
+with Amaryllis at Ardayre. Both felt that it was going to be the most
+wonderful moment when they should meet. There were no obstacles now to
+their happiness and everything promised to be full of joy. The months
+which had gone by since John's death had been turning Amaryllis into a
+more serene and forceful being. The whole burden of the estate had
+fallen upon her young shoulders and she had endeavoured to carry it with
+dignity and success--and yet have time to spare for her war
+organisations in the county. She had developed extraordinarily and had
+grown from a very pretty girl into a most beautiful young woman. What
+would Denzil think of her? That was her preoccupation--and what would he
+think of the baby Benedict?
+
+The great rooms at Ardayre were shut up except the green drawing room,
+and she lived in her own apartments, the cedar parlour being her chief
+pleasure. It was now filled with her books and all the personal
+belongings which expressed her taste. The nurseries for the heir were
+just above.
+
+Her guests were to be there on the twenty-third of December, and when the
+hour came for the motor to arrive from the station Amaryllis grew hot and
+cold with excitement. She had made herself look quite exquisite in a soft
+black frock, and her heart was beating almost to suffocation when she
+heard the footsteps in the hall. Then the green drawing room door opened
+and Colonel and Mrs. Ardayre were announced and were immediately greeted
+by the great tawny dogs and then by their mistress. A pang contracted her
+heart when she caught sight of Denzil--he was so very pale and thin, and
+he walked painfully and slowly with a stick. It was only a wreck of the
+splendid lover who had come to Ardayre before. But he was always Denzil
+of the ardent eyes and the crisp bronze hair!
+
+They were people of the world, and so the welcoming speeches went off
+easily, and they sat round the tea-table with its singing kettle and its
+delectable buns and Devonshire cream, and Amaryllis was gracious and
+radiant and full of dignity and charm. But inwardly she felt deliciously
+shy and happy.
+
+They had neither met nor written any love letters since the April day
+when they had parted in Brook Street, which now seemed to be an age away.
+
+Her attraction for Denzil had increased a hundredfold. He thought as she
+sat there pouring out the tea, of how he would woo her with subtlety
+before he would claim her for his own. He was stimulated by her sweet
+shyness and her tender aloofness. The tea seemed to him to be
+interminably long and he wished for it to end.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre behaved with admirable tact; she spoke of all sorts of light
+and friendly things, and then asked about the baby. Was he not wonderful,
+now at seven months old!
+
+The lovely vivid pink deepened in Amaryllis' smooth velvet cheeks, and
+her grey eyes became soft as a doe's.
+
+"You shall see him in the morning--he will be asleep now. Of course, to
+me he is wonderful, but I daresay he is only an ordinary child."
+
+She had peeped at Denzil and had seen that his face fell a little as she
+said they should only see the baby the next day, and she had felt a wave
+of joy. She knew that she meant to take him up quietly presently--just he
+and she alone!
+
+After they had finished tea, Mrs. Ardayre suggested that she should go
+to her room.
+
+"I am tired, Amaryllis, my dear," she announced cheerily,--"and I shall
+rest for an hour before dinner."
+
+"Come then and I will show you both your rooms."
+
+They came up the broad staircase with her, Denzil a step at a time,
+slowly, and at the top she stopped and said to him:
+
+"Perhaps you will remember that is the door of the cedar parlour at
+the end of the passage--you will find me there when I have installed
+your mother comfortably. Your room is next to hers," and she pointed
+to two doors through the archway of the gallery. Then she went on with
+Mrs. Ardayre.
+
+Some contrary nervousness made her remain for quite a little while.
+
+Was Cousin Beatrice sure that she was comfortable? Had she everything she
+wanted? Her maid was already unpacking, and all was warm and fresh
+scented with lavender and bowls of violets on the dressing table.
+
+"My dear child, it is Paradise, and you are a perfect angel--I shall
+revel in it after the cold journey down."
+
+So at last there was no excuse to stay longer, and Amaryllis left the
+room; but in the passage it seemed as though her knees were trembling,
+and as she passed the top of the staircase she leaned for a second or two
+on the balustrade.
+
+The longed for moment had come!
+
+When she opened the door of the cedar parlour, with its soft lamps and
+great glowing logs, she saw Denzil was already there, seated on the sofa
+beside the fire.
+
+She ran to him before he could rise, the movement she knew was pain to
+him--and she sank down beside him and held out her hands.
+
+"Beloved darling!" he whispered in exaltation, and she slipped forward
+into his arms.
+
+Oh! the bliss of it all! After the months of separation, and the horrible
+trenches and the battles and the suffering, the days and nights of
+agonising pain! It seemed to Denzil that his being melted within
+him--Heaven itself had come.
+
+They could not speak coherently for some moments, everything was too
+filled with holy joy.
+
+"At last! at last!" he cried presently. "Now we shall part no more!"
+
+Then he had to be assured that she loved him still.
+
+"It is I who must take care of you now, Denzil, and I shall love to do
+that," she cooed.
+
+"I have not thought much of the hurt," he answered her, "for all these
+months I have just been living for this day, and now it has come,
+darling one, and I can hardly believe that it is true, it is so
+absolutely divine--"
+
+They could not talk of anything but themselves and love for an hour,
+they told each other of their longings and anxieties--and at last they
+spoke of John.
+
+"He was so splendid," Denzil said, "unselfish to the very end," and then
+he described to Amaryllis how he actually had died, and of his last
+words, and their thought for her.
+
+"If he could see us, I think that he would be glad that we are happy."
+
+"I know that he would," but the tears had gathered in her eyes.
+
+Denzil stroked her hand gently; he did not make any lover's caress, and
+she appreciated his understanding, and after a little she leaned
+against his arm.
+
+"Denzil--when we live here together, we must always try to carry out all
+that John would have wished to do. It meant his very soul--and you will
+help me to be a worthy mother of the Ardayre son."
+
+She had not spoken of the child before--some unaccountable shyness had
+restrained her, even in their fondest moments. And yet the thought had
+never been absent from either. It had throbbed there in their hearts. It
+was going to be so exquisite to whisper about it presently!
+
+And Denzil had waited until she mentioned this dear interest. He did not
+wish to assume any rights, or take anything for granted. She should be
+queen, not only of his heart, but of everything, until she should herself
+accord him authority.
+
+But his eyes grew wistful now as he leaned nearer to her.
+
+"Darling, am I not going to be allowed to see--my son!"
+
+Then, with a cry, Amaryllis bent forward and was clasped in his arms. All
+her wayward shyness melted, and she poured forth her delight in the
+baby--their very own!
+
+"You will see that he is just you, Denzil,--as we knew that he would be,
+and now I will go and fetch him for you and bring him here, because the
+stairs up to the nursery are so steep they might hurt you to climb."
+
+She left him swiftly, and was not long gone, and Denzil sat there
+by the fire trembling with an emotion which he could not have
+described in words.
+
+The door opened again and Amaryllis returned with the tiny sleeping form,
+in its long white nightgown and wrapped in a great fleecy shawl.
+
+She crept up to him very softly. The little one was sound asleep. She
+made a sign to Denzil not to rise, and she bent down and placed the
+bundle tenderly in his arms.
+
+Then they gazed at the little face together with worshipping eyes.
+
+It was just a round pink and white cherub like thousands of others in the
+world; the very long eyelashes, sweeping the sleep-flushed cheeks, and
+minute rings of bronze-gold hair curling over the edge of the close
+cambric cap; but it seemed to those two looking at it to be unique, and
+more beautiful than the dawn.
+
+"Isn't he perfect, Denzil!" whispered Amaryllis, in ecstasy.
+
+"Marvellous!" and Denzil's voice was awed.
+
+Then the wonder and the divinity of love and its spirit of creation came
+over them both and a mist of deep feeling grew in both their eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At dinner they were all so happy together. Mrs. Ardayre was a note of
+harmony anywhere. She had gradually grown to understand the situation in
+the months of her son's recovering from his wounds and although no actual
+words had passed between them Denzil felt that his mother had divined the
+truth and it made things easier.
+
+Afterwards, in the green drawing room, Amaryllis played to them and
+delighted their ears, and then they went up to the cedar parlour and sat
+round the fire and talked and made plans.
+
+If it should be quite hopeless that Denzil could ever return to the
+front, or be of service behind the lines, he meant to enter Parliament.
+The thought that his active soldiering was probably done was very bitter
+to him, and the two women who loved him tried to create an enthusiasm for
+the parliamentary idea. The one certainty was that his adventurous spirit
+would never remain behind in the background, whatever occurred.
+
+They would be married at the beginning of February, they decided. The
+whole of their world knew of John's written wishes, and no unkind
+comments would be likely to arise.
+
+And when Beatrice Ardayre left them alone to say good-night to each
+other, Denzil drew Amaryllis back to his side!
+
+"I think the world is going to be a totally new place, darling--after the
+war. If it goes on very long the gradual privation and suffering and
+misery will create a new order of things, and all of us should be ready
+to face it. Only fools and weaklings cling to past systems when the
+on-rolling wave has washed away their uses. Whatever seems for the real
+good of England must be one's only aim, even if it means abandoning what
+was the ideal of the Family for all these hundreds of years. You will
+advance with me, Sweetheart, will you not, even if it should seem to be a
+chasm we are crossing?"
+
+"Denzil, of course I will."
+
+He sighed a little.
+
+"The old order made England great--but that cycle is over for all the
+world--and what we shall have to do is to stand steady and try to
+direct the new on-rush, so that it makes us greater and does not sweep
+civilisation into darkness, as when Rome fell. It may be a fairly easy
+matter because, as Stepan says, we have got such fundamental common
+sense. It would be much less hard if the people at the top were really
+courageous and unhampered by trying to secure votes, or whatever it is,
+which makes them wobble and surrender at the wrong moment. If the
+politicians could have that dogged, serene steadfastness which the
+Tommies, and almost every man has in the trenches, how supreme we
+should be--!"
+
+"I hope so, but one must have vision as well so that one can look right
+ahead and not stumble over retained old prejudices; people so often want
+a thing and yet have not will enough to eliminate qualities in themselves
+which must obviously prevent their obtaining their desire."
+
+Denzil was not looking at her now, he was gazing ahead with his blue
+eyes filled with light, and she saw that there was something far beyond
+the physical magnetism which drew her to him, and a pride and joy filled
+her. She would indeed be his helpmate in all his undertakings and
+striving for noble ends. They talked for some time of these things and
+their plans to aid in their fulfilment, and then they gradually spoke of
+Verisschenzko and Amaryllis asked what was the latest news--he was in
+Russia, she supposed.
+
+"Stepan will be arriving in London next week. I heard from him to-day.
+Won't you ask him down, darling, to spend the New Year with us here--it
+would be so good to see the dear old boy again."
+
+This was agreed upon, and then they drifted back to lovers' whisperings,
+and presently they said a fond good-night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Christmas Day of 1915, and the weeks which followed were like some happy
+dream for Denzil and Amaryllis. Each hour seemed to discover some new
+aspect which caused further understanding and love to augment. They spent
+long late afternoons in the cedar parlour dipping into books and a
+delicious pleasure was for Amaryllis to be nestled in Denzil's arms on
+the sofa while he read aloud to her in his deep, magnetic voice.
+
+Beatrice Ardayre at this period was like a pleased mother cat purring in
+the sun while her kittens gambol. Her well-beloved was content, and she
+was satisfied. She always seemed to be there when wanted and yet to leave
+the lovers principally to themselves.
+
+Another of their joys was to motor about the beautiful country, exploring
+the old, old churches and quaint farmhouses and manors with which North
+Somerset abounds; and they went all over the estate also and saw all the
+people who were their people and their friends. The union was thoroughly
+approved of, and although the engagement was not to be officially
+announced until after the New Year it was quite understood, as the
+tenants had all heard of John's instructions in his will. But perhaps the
+most supreme joy of all was when they could play with the baby Benedict
+together alone for half an hour before he went to bed. Then they were
+just as foolish and primitive as any other two young things with their
+firstborn. He was a very fine and forward baby and already expressed a
+spirit and will of his own, and it always gave Denzil the very strangest
+thrill when he seized and clung firmly to one of his fingers with his
+tiny, strong, chubby hand. And over all his qualities and perfections his
+parents then said wonderful things together!
+
+Every subtle and exquisite pleasure, mystical, symbolical and material,
+which either had ever dreamed of as connected with this living proof of
+love, was realised for them. And to know that soon, soon, they would be
+united for always--wedded--not merely engaged. Oh! that was
+glorious--when passion need be under no restraint--when there need be no
+good-night!
+
+For in this the chivalry of Denzil never failed--and each day they grew
+to respect each other more.
+
+Verisschenzko was to arrive in time for dinner on the last day of
+the old year. That afternoon was one of even unusually perfect
+happiness--motoring slowly round the park and up on to the hills in
+Amaryllis' little two-seater which she drove herself. They got out at the
+top and leaned upon a gate from which they seemed to be looking down over
+the world. Peaceful, smiling, prosperous England! Miles and miles of her
+fairest country lay there in front of them, giving no echo of war.
+
+"If we had been born sixty years ago, Denzil, what different thoughts
+this view would be creating in our minds. We would have no
+speculation--no uncertainty--we should feel just happy that it is ours
+and would be ours for ever! The world was asleep then!"
+
+"Stepan would say that it was resting before the throes of struggle must
+begin. Now we are going to face something much greater than the actual
+war in France, but if we are strong we ought to come through. We have
+always been saner than other peoples, so perhaps our upheaval will be
+saner too."
+
+"Whatever there is to face, we shall be together, Denzil, and nothing
+can really matter then--and we must make our little Benedict armed
+for the future, so that he will be fitted to cope with the conditions
+of his day."
+
+"Look there at the blue distance, darling, could anything be more
+peaceful? How can anyone in the country realise that not two hundred
+miles away this awful war is grinding on?"
+
+Denzil put an arm round her and drew her close to him and clasped
+her fondly.
+
+"But just for a little we must try to forget about it. I never dreamed of
+such perfect happiness as we are having, Sweetheart,--my own!"
+
+"Nor I, Denzil,--I am almost afraid--"
+
+But he kissed her passionately and bade this thought begone. Afraid of
+what? Nothing mattered since they would always be together. February
+would soon come, and then they would never part again.
+
+So the vague foreboding passed from Amaryllis' heart, and in fond
+visionings they whispered plans for the spring and the summer and the
+growing years. And so at last they returned to the house and found the
+after-noon post waiting for them. Filson had just brought it in and
+Amaryllis' letters lay in a pile on her writing table.
+
+There happened to be none for Denzil and he went over to the fireplace
+and was stroking the head of Mercury, the greatest of the big tawny dogs,
+when he was startled by a little ominous cry from his Beloved, and on
+looking up he saw that she had sunk into a chair, her face deadly pale,
+while there had fluttered to the floor at her feet a torn envelope and a
+foreign looking postcard.
+
+What could this mean?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Verisschenzko had come straight through from Petrograd to England. He had
+been delayed and had never returned to Paris since September. He knew
+nothing of Harietta's sacrilege as yet. But he had at last accumulated
+sufficient proof against her to have her entirely in his hands.
+
+He thought over the whole matter as he came down in the train to Ardayre.
+She was a grave danger to the Allies and had betrayed them again and
+again. He must have no mercy. Her last crimes had been against France,
+her punishment would be easier to manage there.
+
+The strain of cruelty in his nature came uppermost as he reviewed the
+evil which she had done. Stanislass' haunted face seemed to look at him
+out of the mist of the half-lit carriage. What might not Poland have
+accomplished with such a leader as Boleski had been before this baneful
+passion fell upon him! Then he conjured up the? imaged faces of the brave
+Frenchmen who were betrayed by Harietta to Hans, and shot in Germany.
+
+A spy's death in war time was not an ignoble one, and they had gone there
+with their lives in their hands. Had Harietta been true to that side, and
+had she been acting from patriotism, he could have desired to save her
+the death sentence now. But she had never been true; no country mattered
+to her; she had given to him secrets as well as to Hans! Then he laughed
+to himself grimly. So her _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball was the first
+husband! The man who used to beat her with a stick--and who had let her
+divorce him in obedience to the higher command!
+
+How clever the whole thing was! If it had not all been so serious, it
+would have been interesting to allow her to live longer to watch what
+next she would do, but the issues at stake were too vital to delay. He
+would not hesitate; he would denounce her to the French authorities
+immediately on his return to Paris, and without one qualm or regret. She
+had lived well and played "crooked"--and now it was meet that she should
+pay the price.
+
+Filson announced him in the green drawing room when he reached Ardayre,
+but only Denzil rose to greet him and wrung his hand. He noticed that his
+friend's face looked stern and rather pale.
+
+"I'm so awfully glad that you have come, Stepan," and they exchanged
+handshakes and greetings. "You are about the only person I should want to
+see just now, because you know the whole history. Something unprecedented
+has happened. A communication has come apparently from John to Amaryllis
+from a prisoners' camp in Germany, and yet as far as one can be certain
+of anything I am certain that I saw him die--"
+
+Verisschenzko was greatly startled. What a frightful complication it
+would make should John be alive!
+
+"The letter--merely a postcard enclosed in an envelope--came by this
+afternoon's post--and as you can understand, it has frightfully upset us
+all. It is a sort of thing about which one cannot analyse one's feelings.
+John had a right to his life and we ought to be glad--but the idea of
+giving up Amaryllis--of having all the suffering and the parting
+again--Stepan, it is cruelly hard."
+
+Verisschenzko sat down in one of the big chairs, and Euterpe, the lesser
+tawny dog, came and pushed her nose into his hand. He patted her silky
+head absently. He was collecting his thoughts; the shock of this news was
+considerable and he must steady his judgment.
+
+"John wrote to her himself, you say? It is not a message through a third
+person--no?"
+
+"It appears to be in his own writing." Denzil stood leaning on the
+mantelpiece, and his face seemed to grow more haggard with each word.
+"Merely saying that he was taken prisoner by the enemy when they made the
+counter attack, and that he had been too ill to write or speak until now.
+I can't understand it--because they did not make the counter attack until
+after I was carried in--and even though I was unconscious then, the
+stretcher bearers must have seen John when they lifted me if he had been
+there. Nothing was found but his glasses and we concluded another shell
+had burst somewhere near his body after I was carried in. Stepan, I swear
+to God I saw him die."
+
+"It sounds extraordinary. Try to tell me every detail, Denzil."
+
+So the story of John's last moments was gone over again, and all the most
+minute events which had occurred. And at the end of it the two solid
+facts stood out incontrovertibly--John's body was never found, but Denzil
+had seen him die.
+
+"How long will it take to communicate with him, I wonder? We can through
+the American Ambassador, I suppose, because he gives no address. It must
+be awful for him lying there wounded with no news. I say this because I
+suppose I must accept his own writing, but I, cannot yet bring myself to
+believe that he can be alive."
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a moment, then he asked:
+
+"May I see my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+"Yes, she told me to bring you to her as soon as I should have explained
+to you the whole affair. Come now."
+
+They went up the stairs together, and they hardly spoke a word. And
+when they reached the cedar parlour Denzil let Verisschenzko go in in
+front of him.
+
+"I have brought Stepan to you," he told Amaryllis. "I am going to leave
+you to talk now."
+
+Amaryllis was white as milk and her grey eyes were disturbed and very
+troubled. She held out her two hands to Verisschenzko and he kissed them
+with affectionate worship.
+
+"Lady of my Soul!"
+
+"Oh! Stepan,--comfort me--give me counsel. It is such a terrible moment
+in my life. What am I to do?"
+
+"It is indeed difficult for you--we must think it all out--"
+
+"Poor John--I ought to be glad that he is alive, and I am--really--only,
+oh! Stepan, I love Denzil so dearly. It is all too awfully complicated.
+What so greatly astonishes me about it is that John has not written
+deliriously, or as though he has lost his memory, and yet if we had
+carried out his instructions and wishes we should be married now, Denzil
+and I,--and he never alludes to the possibility of this! It is written as
+though no complications could enter into the case--"
+
+"It sounds strange--may I see the letter?"
+
+She got up and went over to the writing table and returned with a packet
+and the envelope which contained the card. It was not one which prisoners
+use as a rule; it had the picture of a German town on it and the
+postmark on the envelope was of a place in Holland. Verisschenzko read it
+carefully:
+
+"I have been too ill to write before--I was taken prisoner in the counter
+attack and was unconscious. I am sending this by the kindness of a nurse
+through Holland. Everyone must have believed that I was dead. I am
+longing for news of you, dearest. I shall soon be well. Do not worry. I
+am going to be moved and will write again with address.
+
+"All love,--
+
+"JOHN."
+
+The writing was rather feeble as a very ill person's would naturally be,
+but the name "John" was firm and very legible.
+
+"You are certain that it is his writing?"
+
+"Yes"--and then she handed him another letter from the packet--John's
+last one to her. "You can see for yourself--it is the same hand."
+
+Stepan took both over to the lamp, and was bending to examine them when
+he gave a little cry:
+
+"Sapristi!"--and instead of looking at the writings he sniffed strongly
+at the card, and then again. Amaryllis watched him amazedly.
+
+"The same! By the Lord, it is the work of Ferdinand. No one could mistake
+his scent who had once smelt it. The muskrat, the scorpion! But he has
+betrayed himself."
+
+Amaryllis grew paler as she came close beside him.
+
+"Stepan, oh, tell me! What do you mean?"
+
+"I believe this to be a forgery--the scent is a clue to me. Smell
+it--there is a lingering sickly aroma round it. It came in an envelope,
+you see,--that would preserve it. It is an Eastern perfume, very
+heavy,--what do you say?"
+
+She wrinkled her delicate nose:
+
+"Yes, there is some scent from it. One perceives it at first and then it
+goes off. Oh, Stepan, please do not torture me. Can you be quite sure?"
+
+"I am absolutely certain that whether it is in John's writing or not,
+Ferdinand, or some one who uses his unique scent, has touched that card.
+Now we must investigate everything."
+
+He walked up and down the room in agitation for a few moments; talking
+rapidly to himself--half in Russian--Amaryllis caught bits.
+"Ferdinand--how to his advantage? None. What then? Harietta?
+Harietta--but why for her?"
+
+Then he sat down and stared into the fire, his yellow-green eyes blazing
+with intelligence, his clear brain balancing up things. But now he did
+not speak his thoughts aloud.
+
+"She is jealous. I remember--she imagined that it is my child. She
+believes I may marry Amaryllis. It is as plain as day!"
+
+He jumped up and excitedly held out his hands.
+
+"Let us fetch Denzil," he cried joyously. "I can explain everything."
+
+Amaryllis left the room swiftly and called when she got outside his door:
+
+"Denzil--do come."
+
+He joined them in a second or two--there as he was, in a blue silk
+dressing gown, as he had just been going to dress for dinner.
+
+He looked from one face to the other anxiously and Stepan
+immediately spoke.
+
+"I think that the card is a forgery, Denzil. I believe it to have been
+written by Ferdinand Ardayre--at the instigation of Harietta Boleski.
+She would have means to obtain the postcard, and have it sent through
+Holland too."
+
+"But why--why should she?" Amaryllis exclaimed in wonderment. "What
+possible reason could she have for wishing to be so cruel to us. We were
+always very nice to her, as you know."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed cynically.
+
+"She was jealous of you all the same. But Denzil, I track it by the
+scent. I know Ferdinand uses that scent," he held out the card. "Smell."
+
+Denzil sniffed as Amaryllis had done.
+
+"It is so faint I should not have remarked it unless you had told me--but
+I daresay if it was a scent one had smelt before, one would be struck by
+it! But how are you going to prove it, Stepan? We shall have to have
+convincing proof--because I am the only witness of poor John's death, and
+it could easily be said that I am too deeply interested to be reliable.
+For God's sake, old friend, think of some way of making a certainty."
+
+"I have a way which I can enforce as soon as I reach Paris. Meanwhile say
+nothing to any one and put the thought of it out of your heads. The
+evidence of your own eyes convinced you that John is dead; you found it
+difficult to accept that he was alive even when seeing what appeared to
+be his own writing, but if I assure you that this is forged you can be at
+peace. Is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis' lips were trembling; the shock and then this counter
+shock were unhinging her. She was horrified at herself that she
+should not catch at every straw to prove John was alive, instead of
+feeling some sense of relief when Verisschenzko protested that the
+postcard was a forgery.
+
+Poor John! Good, and kind, and unselfish. It was all too agitating. But
+was just life such a very great thing? She knew that had she the choice
+she would rather be dead than separated now from Denzil. And if John were
+really to be alive--what misery he would be obliged to suffer, knowing
+the situation.
+
+"Quite apart from what to me is a convincing proof, the scent,"
+Verisschenzko went on, "the card must be a forgery because of John's
+seeming oblivion of the possibility that you two might have already
+carried out his wishes. All this would have been very unlike him. But if
+it is, as I think, Ferdinand's and Harietta Boleski's work, they would
+not be likely to know that John had desired that Denzil should marry you,
+Amaryllis, and so would have thought a short card with longings to see
+you would be a natural thing to write. Indeed you can be at rest. And now
+I will go and dress for dinner, and we will forget disturbing thoughts."
+
+Amaryllis and Denzil will always remember Stepan's wonderful tact and
+goodness to them that evening; he kept everything calm and thrilled them
+all with his stories and his conversation and his own wonderfully
+magnetic personality. And after dinner he played to them in the green
+drawing room and, as Mrs. Ardayre said, seemed to bring peace and healing
+to all their troubled souls.
+
+But when he was alone with Denzil late, after the two women had retired
+to bed, he sunk into a deep chair in the smoking room and suddenly burst
+into a peal of cynical laughter.
+
+"What the devil's up?" demanded Denzil, astonished.
+
+"I am thinking of Harietta's exquisite mistake. She believes the baby is
+mine! She is mad with a goat's jealousy; she supposes it is I who will
+marry Amaryllis--hence her plot! Does it not show how the good are
+protected and the evil fall into their own traps!"
+
+"Of course! She was in love with you!"
+
+"In love! Mon Dieu! you call that love! I mastered her body and was
+unobtainable. She was never able to draw me more than a person could to
+whom I should pay two hundred francs. She knew that perfectly--it enraged
+her always. The threads are now completely in my hands. Conceive of it,
+Denzil! The man at the Ardayre ball was her first husband for whom she
+always retained some kind of animal affection--because he used to beat
+her. They married her to Stanislass just to obtain the secrets of Poland,
+and any other thing which she could pick' up. Her marvellous stupidity
+and incredible want of all moral restraint has made her the most
+brilliant spy. No principles to hamper her--nothing. She has only tripped
+up through jealousy now. When she felt that she had lost me she grew to
+desire me with the only part of her nature with which she desires
+anything, her flesh--then she became unbalanced, and in September before
+I left, gave the clue into my hands. I shall not bore you with all the
+details, but I have them both--she and Ferdinand Ardayre. The first
+husband has gone back to Germany from Sweden, but we shall secure him,
+too, presently. Meanwhile I shall hand Harietta to the French
+authorities--her last exploits are against France. She has enabled the
+Germans to shoot six or seven brave fellows, besides giving information
+of the most important kind wormed from foolish elderly adorers and above
+all from Stanislass himself."
+
+"She will be shot, I suppose."
+
+"Probably. But first she shall confess about the postcard from the
+prison camp. I shall go to Paris immediately, Denzil; there must be
+no delay."
+
+"You will not feel the slightest twinge because she was your mistress, if
+she is shot, Stepan? I ask because the combination of possible emotions
+is interesting and unusual."
+
+"Not for an instant--" and suddenly Verisschenzko's yellow-green eyes
+flashed fire and his face grew transfigured with fierce hate. "You do not
+know the affection I had for Stanislass from my boyhood--he was my
+leader, my ideal. No paltry aims--a great pioneer of freedom on the
+sanest lines. He might have altered the history of our two countries--he
+was the light we need, and this foul, loathsome creature has destroyed
+not only his soul and his body, but the protector and defender of a
+conception of freedom which might have been realised. I would strangle
+her with my own hands."
+
+"Stanislass must have been a weakling, Stepan, to have let her destroy
+him. He could never have ruled. It strikes me that this is the proof of
+another of your theories. It must be some debt of his previous life that
+he is paying to this woman. He was given his chance to use strength
+against her and failed."
+
+The hate died out of Verisschenzko's face--and the look of calm
+reasoning returned.
+
+"Yes, you are right, Denzil. You are wiser than I. So I shall not give
+her up, for punishment of her crimes. I shall only give her up because of
+justice--she must not be at large. You see, even in my case,--I who pride
+myself on being balanced, can have my true point of view obsessed by
+hate. It is an ignoble passion, my son!"
+
+"You will catch Ferdinand too?"
+
+"Undoubtedly--he is just a rotten little snipe, but he does mischief as
+Harietta's tool--and through his business in Holland."
+
+"He loathes the English--that is his reason, but Madame Boleski has no
+incentive like that."
+
+"Harietta has no country--she would be willing to betray any one of them
+to gratify any personal desire. If she had been a patriot exclusively
+working for Germany, one could have respected her, but she has often
+betrayed their secrets to me--for jewels--and other things she required
+at the moment. No mercy can be shown at all."
+
+"In these days there is no use in having sentiment just because a spy is
+a woman--but I am glad it is not my duty to deliver her up."
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"I cannot help my nature, Denzil,--or rather the attributes of the nation
+into which in this life I am born. I shall hand Harietta over to justice
+without a regret."
+
+Then they parted for the night with much of the disturbance and the
+complex emotions removed from Denzil's heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+When Verisschenzko reached Paris and discovered the desecration of the
+Ikon, an icy rage came over him. He knew, even before questioning his old
+servant, that it could only be the work of Harietta. Jealousy alone would
+be the cause of such a wanton act. It revealed to him the certainty of
+his theory that she had imagined the little Benedict to be his child. No
+further proof that the postcard was a forgery was really needed, but he
+would see her once more and obtain extra confirmation.
+
+His yellow-green eyes gleamed in a curious way as he stood looking at the
+mutilated picture.
+
+That her ridiculous and accursed hatpin should have dared to touch the
+eyes of his soul's lady, and scratch out the face of the child!
+
+But he must not let this emotion of personal anger affect what he
+intended in any case to do from motives of justice. In the morning he
+would give all his proofs of her guilt to the French authorities, and let
+the law take its course--but to-night he would make her come there to his
+apartment and hear from him an indictment of her crimes.
+
+He sat down in the comfortable chair in his own sitting room and
+began to think.
+
+His face was ominous; all the fierce passions of his nation and of his
+nature held him for a while.
+
+His dog, an intelligent terrier whom he loved, sat there before the fire
+and watched him, wagging his stump of a tail now and then nervously, but
+not daring to approach. Then, after half an hour had gone by, he rose and
+went to the telephone. He called up the Universal and asked to be put
+through to the apartment of Madame Boleski, and soon heard Harietta's
+voice. It was a little anxious--and yet insolent too.
+
+"Yes? Is that you Stepan! Darling Brute! What do you want?"
+
+"You--cannot you come and dine with me to-night--alone?"
+
+His voice was honey sweet, with a spontaneous, frank ring in it, only his
+face still looked as a fiend's.
+
+"You have just arrived? How divine!"
+
+"This instant, so I rushed at once to the telephone. I long for
+you--come--now."
+
+He allowed passion to quiver in the last notes--he must be sure that she
+would be drawn.
+
+"He cannot have opened the doors of the Ikon," Harietta thought. "I will
+go--to see him again will be worth it anyway!"
+
+"All right!--in half an hour!"
+
+"_Soit_,"--and he put the receiver down.
+
+Then he went again to the Ikon and examined the doors; by slamming them
+very hard and readjusting one small golden nail, he could give the
+fastening the appearance of its having been jammed and impossible to
+open. He ordered a wonderful dinner and some Chateau Ykem of 1900.
+Harietta, he remembered, liked it better than Champagne. Its sweetness
+and its strength appealed to her taste. The room was warm and
+delightful with its blazing wood fire. He looked round before he went
+to dress, and then he laughed softly, and again Fin nervously wagged
+his stump of a tail.
+
+Harietta arrived punctually. She had made herself extremely beautiful.
+Her overmastering desire to see Verisschenzko had allowed her usually
+keen sense of self-preservation partially to sleep. But even so,
+underneath there was some undefined sense of uneasiness.
+
+Stepan met her in the hall, and greeted her in his usual abrupt way
+without ceremony.
+
+"You will leave your cloak in my room," he suggested, wishing to give her
+the chance to look at the Ikon's jammed doors and so put her at her ease.
+
+The moment she found herself alone, she went swiftly to the shrine. She
+examined it closely--no the bolt had not been mended. She pulled at the
+doors but she could not open them, and she remembered with relief that
+she had slammed them hard. That would account for things. He certainly
+could not yet know of her action. The evening would be one of pleasure
+after all! And there was never any use in speculating about to-morrows!
+
+Verisschenzko was waiting for her in the sitting-room, and they went
+straight in to dinner. A little table was drawn up to the fire; all
+appeared deliciously intimate, and Harietta's spirits rose.
+
+To her Verisschenzko appeared the most attractive creature on earth.
+Indeed, he had a wonderful magnetism which had intoxicated many women
+before her day. He was looking at her now with eyes unclouded by glamour.
+He saw that she was painted and obvious, and without real charm. She
+could no longer even affect his senses. He saw nothing but the reality,
+the animal, blatant reality, and in his memory there remained the pierced
+out orbs of the Virgin and the scratched face of the Christ child.
+
+Everything fierce and cunning in his nature was in action--he was
+glorying in the torture he meant to inflict, the torture of jealousy and
+unsatisfied suspicion.
+
+He talked subtly, deliberately stirring her curiosity and arousing her
+apprehension. He had not mentioned Amaryllis, and yet he had conveyed to
+her, as though it were an unconscious admission, that he had been in
+England with her, and that she reigned in his soul. Then he used every
+one of his arts of fascination so that all Harietta's desires were
+inflamed once more, and by the time she had eaten of the rich Russian
+dishes and drank of the Chateau Ykem she was experiencing the strongest
+emotion she had ever known in her life, while a sense of impotence to
+move him augmented her other feelings.
+
+Her eyes swam with passion, as she leaned over the table whispering words
+of the most violent love in his ears.
+
+Verisschenzko remained absolutely unstirred.
+
+"How silly you were to send that postcard to Lady Ardayre," he remarked
+contemplatively in the middle of one of her burning sentences. "It was
+not worthy of your usual methods--a child could see that it was a
+forgery. If you had not done that I might have made you very happy
+to-night--for the last time--my little goat!"
+
+"Stepan--what card? But you are going to make me happy anyway, darling
+Brute; that is what I have come for, and you know it!"
+
+Her eyes were not so successfully innocent as usual when she lied. She
+was uneasy at his stolidity, some fear stayed with her that perhaps he
+meant not to gratify her desires just to be provoking. He had teased her
+more than once before.
+
+Verisschenzko went on, lighting his cigarette calmly:
+
+"It was a silly plot--Ferdinand Ardayre wrote it and you dictated it; I
+perceived the whole thing at once. You did it because you were jealous of
+Lady Ardayre--you believe that I love her--"
+
+"I do not know anything about a card, but I _am_ jealous about that
+hateful bit of bread and butter," and her eyes flashed. "It is so unlike
+you to worry over such a creature--I'm what you like!"
+
+He laughed softly. "A man has many sides--you appeal to his lowest.
+Fortunately it is not in command of him all the time--but let me tell you
+more about the forgery. You over-reached yourselves--you made John ignore
+something which would have been his first thought, thus the fraud was
+exposed at once."
+
+Her jealousy blazed up, so that she forgot herself and prudence.
+
+"You mean about the child--your child--"
+
+The ominous gleam came into Verisschenzko's eyes.
+
+"My child--you spoke of it once before and I warned you--I never
+speak idly."
+
+She got up from the table and came and flung her arms round his neck.
+
+"Stepan, I love you--I love you! I would like to kill Amaryllis and the
+child--I want you--why are you so changed?"
+
+He only laughed scornfully again, while he disengaged her arms.
+
+"Do you know how I found out? By the perfume--the same as you told me
+must be that of Stanislass' mistress--on the handkerchief marked 'F.A.'
+The whole thing was dramatically childish. You thought to prove her
+husband was still alive, would stop my marriage with Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Then you are going to marry her!"
+
+Harietta's hazel eyes flashed fire, her face had grown distorted with
+passion and her cheeks burned beyond the rouge.
+
+She appeared a most revolting sight to Stepan. He watched her with cold,
+critical eyes. As she put out her hands he noticed how the thumbs turned
+right back. How had he ever been able to touch her in the past! He
+shivered with disgust and degradation at the thought.
+
+She saw his movement of repulsion, and completely lost her head.
+
+She flung herself into his arms and almost strangled him in her furious
+embrace, while she threw all restraint to the winds and poured out a
+torrent of passion, intermingled with curses for one who had dared to try
+and rob her of this adored mate.
+
+It was a wonderful and very sickening exhibition, Verisschenzko thought.
+He remained as a statue of ice. Then when she had exhausted herself a
+little, he spoke with withering calm.
+
+"Control yourself, Harietta; such emotion will leave ugly lines, and you
+cannot afford to spoil the one good you possess. I have not the least
+desire for you--I find that you look plain and only bore me. But now
+listen to me for a little--I have something to say!" His voice changed
+from the cynical callousness to a deep note of gravity: "You need not
+even tell me in words that you sent the forgery--you have given me ample
+proof. That subject is finished--but I will make you listen to the
+recital of some of your vile deeds." The note grew sterner and his eyes
+held her cowed. "Ah! what instruments of the devil are such women as
+you--possessing the greatest of all power over men you have used it only
+for ill--wherever you have passed there is a trail of degradation and
+slime. Think of Stanislass! A man of fine purpose and lofty ideals. What
+is he now? A poor lifeless semblance of a man with neither brain nor
+will. You have used him--not even to gratify your own low lust, but to
+betray countries--and one of them your husband's country, which ought to
+have been your own."
+
+She sank to her knees at his side; he went on mercilessly. He spoke of
+many names which she knew, and then he came to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"They tell me he is drinking and sodden with morphine, and raves wildly
+of you. Think of them all--where are they now? Dead many of them--and you
+have survived and prospered like a vampire, sucking their blood. Do you
+ever think of a human being but your own degraded self? You would
+sacrifice your nearest and dearest for a moment's personal gain. You are
+not caught and strangled because the outside good natures come easily to
+you. It makes things smooth to smile and commit little acts of showy
+kindness which cost you nothing. You live and breathe and have your being
+like a great maggot fattening on a putrid corpse. I blush to think that I
+have ever used your body for my own ends, loathing you all the time. I
+have watched you cynically when I should have wrung your neck."
+
+She sobbed hoarsely and held out her hands.
+
+"For all these things you might still have gone free, Harietta--and fate
+would punish you in time, but you have committed that great crime for
+which there can be no mercy. You have acted the part of a spy. A wretched
+spy, not for patriotism but for your own ends--you have not been faithful
+to either side. Have you not often given me the secrets of your late
+husband Hans? Do you care one atom which country wins? Not you. The
+whole sordid business has had only one aim--some personal gratification."
+
+He paused--and she began to speak, now choking with rage, but he motioned
+her to be silent.
+
+"Do you think so lightly of the great issues which are shaking the world
+that you imagine that you can do these things with impunity? I tell you
+that soon you must pay the price. I am not the only one who knows of
+your ways."
+
+She got up from the floor now and tossed her head. Important things had
+never been to her realities--her fear left her. What agitated her now was
+that Stepan, whom she adored, should speak to her in such a tone. She
+threw herself into his arms once more, passionately proclaiming her love.
+
+He thrust her from him in shrinking disgust, and the cruel vein in his
+character was aroused.
+
+"Love!--do not dare to desecrate the name of love. You do not know what
+it means. I do--and this shall always remain with you as a remembrance. I
+love Amaryllis Ardayre. She is my ideal of a woman--tender and restrained
+and true--I shall always lay my life at her feet. I love her with a love
+such beings as you cannot dream of, knowing only the senses and playing
+only to them. That will be your knowledge always, that I worship and
+reverence this woman, and hold you in supreme contempt."
+
+Harietta writhed and whined on the sofa where she had fallen.
+
+"Go," he went on icily. "I have no further use for you, and my car is
+waiting below. You may as well avail yourself of it and return to your
+hotel. In the morning the last proof of the interest I have taken in you
+may be given, but to-night you can sleep."
+
+Harietta cried aloud--she was frightened at last. What did he mean? But
+even fear was swallowed up in the frantic thought that he had done with
+her, that he would never any more hold her in his arms. Her world lay in
+ruins, he seemed the one and only good. She grovelled on the floor and
+kissed his feet.
+
+"Master, Master! Keep me near you--I will be your slave--"
+
+But Verisschenzko pushed her gently aside with his foot and going to a
+table near took up a cigarette. He lighted it serenely, glancing
+indifferently at the dishevelled heap of a woman still crouching on
+the floor.
+
+"Enough of this dramatic nonsense," and he blew a ring of smoke. "I
+advise you to go quietly to bed--you may not sleep so softly on
+future nights."
+
+Fear overcame her again--what could he mean? She got up and held on to
+the table, searching his face with burning eyes.
+
+"Why should I not sleep so softly always?" and her voice was thick.
+
+He laughed hoarsely.
+
+"Who knows? Life is a gamble in these days. You must ask your interesting
+German friend."
+
+She became ghastly white--that there was real danger was beginning
+to dawn upon her. The rouge stood out like that on the painted face
+of a clown.
+
+Verisschenzko remained completely unmoved. He pressed the bell, and his
+Russian servant, warned beforehand, brought him in his fur coat and hat,
+and assisted him to put them on.
+
+"I will take Madame to get her cloak," he announced calmly. "Wait here
+to show us out."
+
+There was nothing for Harietta to do but follow him, as he went towards
+the bedroom door. She was stunned.
+
+He walked over to the Ikon, and slipping a paper knife under them opened
+wide the doors; then he turned to her, and the very life melted within
+her when she saw his face.
+
+"This is your work," and he pointed to the mutilations, "and for that and
+many other things, Harietta, you shall at last pay the price. Now come, I
+will take you back to your lover, and your husband--both will be waiting
+and longing for your return. Come!"
+
+She dropped on the floor and refused to move so that he was obliged to
+call in the servant, and together they lifted her, the one holding her
+up, while the other wrapped her in her cloak. Then, each supporting her,
+they made their way down the stairs, and placed her in the waiting motor,
+Verisschenzko taking the seat at her side--and so they drove to the
+Universal. She should sleep to-night in peace and have time to think over
+the events of the evening. But to-morrow he must no longer delay about
+giving information to the authorities.
+
+She cowered in the motor until they had almost reached the door, when she
+flung her arms round his neck and kissed him wildly again, sobbing with
+rage and terror:
+
+"You shall not marry Amaryllis; I will kill you both first."
+
+He smiled in the darkness, and she felt that he was mocking her, and
+suddenly turned and bit his arm, her teeth meeting in the cloth of his
+fur-lined coat.
+
+He shook her off as he would have done a rat:
+
+"Never quite apropos, Harietta! Always a little late! But here we have
+arrived, and you will not care for your admirers, the concierge, and the
+lift men, to see you in such a state. Put your veil over your face and go
+quietly to your rooms. I will wish you a very good-night--and farewell!"
+
+He got out and stood with mock respect uncovered to assist her, and she
+was obliged to follow him. The hall porter and the numerous personnel of
+the hotel were looking on.
+
+He bowed once more and appeared to kiss her hand:
+
+"Good-bye, Harietta! Sleep well."
+
+Then he re-entered the car and was whirled away.
+
+She staggered for a second and then moved forward to the lift. But as she
+went in, two tall men who had been waiting stepped forward and joined
+her, and all three were carried aloft, and as she walked to her salon she
+saw that they were following her.
+
+"There will be no more kicks for thee, my Angel!" the maid, peeping
+from a door, whispered exultingly to Fou-Chow! "Thy Marie has saved
+thee at last!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Verisschenzko again reached his own sitting room he paced up and
+down for half an hour. He was horribly agitated, and angry with himself
+for being so.
+
+Denzil had been right; when it came to the point, it was a ghastly thing
+to have to do, to give a woman up to death--even though her crimes amply
+justified such action.
+
+And what was death?
+
+To such a one as Harietta what would death mean?
+
+A sinking into oblivion for a period, and then a rebirth in some sphere
+of suffering where the first lessons of the meanings of things might be
+learned? That would seem to be the probable working of the law--so that
+she might eventually obtain a soul.
+
+He must not speculate further about her though, he must keep his nerve.
+
+And his own life--what would it now become? Would the spirit of freedom,
+stirring in his beloved country, arrive at any good? Or would the red
+current of revolution, once let loose, swamp all reason and flow in
+rivers of blood?
+
+He would be powerless to help if he let weakness overmaster him now.
+
+The immediate picture looked black and hopeless to his far-seeing eyes.
+
+But his place must be in Petrograd now, until the end. His activities,
+which had obliged him to be away from Russia, were finished, and new ones
+had begun which he must direct, there in the heart of things.
+
+"The world is aching for freedom, God," his stormy thoughts ran, "but we
+cannot hope to receive it until we have paid the price of the aeons of
+greed and self-seeking which have held us, the ignorance, the low
+material gain. We must now reap that sowing. The divine Christ--one
+man--was enough as a sacrifice in that old period of the world's day--but
+now there must be a holocaust of the bravest and best for our
+purification."
+
+He threw himself into his chair and gazed into the glowing embers. What
+pictures were forming themselves there? Nations arising glorified by a
+new religion of common sense, education universally enjoyed, the great
+forces studied, and Nature's fundamental principles reckoned with and
+understood.
+
+To hunt his food.
+
+To recreate his species.
+
+_And to kill his enemy._
+
+A bright blade sheathed but ready, a clear judgment trained and used,
+ideals nobly striven for, and Wisdom the High Priest of God.
+
+These were the visions he saw in the fire, and he started to his feet and
+stretched out his arms.
+
+"Strength, God! Strength!" that was his prayer.
+
+"That we may go--
+Armoured and militant,
+New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps
+To those great altitudes whereat the weak
+Live not, but only the strong
+Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve."
+
+Then he sat down and wrote to Denzil.
+
+"I have all the needed proofs, my friend. Marry my soul's lady in peace
+and make her happy. There come some phases in a man's life which require
+all his will to face. I hope I am no weakling. I return to Russia
+immediately. Events there will enable me to blot out some disturbing
+memories.
+
+"The end is not yet. Indeed, I feel that my real life is only just
+beginning.
+
+"Ferdinand Ardayre is deeply incriminated with Harietta; it is only a
+question of a little time and he will be taken too. Then, Denzil, you, in
+the natural course of events, would have been the Head of the Family. You
+will need all your philosophy never to feel any jar in the situation with
+your son as the years go on. You will have to look at it squarely, dear
+old friend, and know that it is impossible to have interfered with
+destiny and to have gone scott free. Then you will be able to accept
+title affair with common sense and prize what you have obtained, without
+spoiling it with futile regrets. You have paid most of your score with
+wounds and suffering, and now can expect what happiness the agony of the
+world can let a man enjoy.
+
+"My blessings to you both and to the Ardayre son.
+
+"And now adieu for a long time."
+
+He had hardly written the last line when the telephone rang, and the
+frantic voice of Stanislass, his ancient friend, called to him!
+
+Harietta had been taken away to St. Lazare--her maid had denounced her.
+What could be done?
+
+A great wave of relief swept over Stepan. So he was not to be the
+instrument of justice after all!
+
+How profoundly he thanked God!
+
+But the irony of the thing shook him.
+
+Harietta would pay with her life for having maltreated a dog!
+
+Truly the workings of fate were marvellous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The days in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of
+frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe that
+she was to die.
+
+Stanislass and Ferdinand, and even Verisschenzko, would save her!
+
+She loathed the hard bed at St. Lazare, and the discomfort, and the
+ugliness, and the Sister of Charity!
+
+She spent hours tramping her cell like a wild beast in a cage. She would
+roar with inarticulate fury, and cry aloud to her husband, and her
+lovers, one after another, and then she would cower in a corner, shaking
+with fear.
+
+The greatest pain of all was the thought that Stepan and Amaryllis would
+marry and be happy. Once or twice foam gathered at the corners of her
+lips when she thought of this.
+
+If she could have reached Marie, that would have given her some
+satisfaction--to tear out her eyes! For Ferdinand Ardayre had told her
+how Marie had given her up, working quietly until she had all necessary
+proofs, and then denouncing her.
+
+When Stanislass had returned from the Club, whither she had despatched
+him for the evening, so that she might be free to dine with
+Verisschenzko, he found that she had already been taken away.
+
+The shock, when he discovered that nothing could be done, had nearly
+killed him--he now lay dangerously ill in a Maison de Sante, happily
+unconscious of events.
+
+For Ferdinand Ardayre the blow had fallen with crushing force. The one
+strong thing in his weak nature was his passion for Harietta--and to be
+robbed of her in such a way!
+
+He battled impotently against fate, unable even to try to use any means
+in his possession to get the death sentence commuted, because he was too
+deeply implicated himself to make any stir.
+
+He saw her in the prison after the trial, with the bars between and the
+warders near. And the awful change in Tier paralysed him with grief. On
+the morrow she was to die--the usual death of a spy.
+
+Her hair was wild and her face without rouge was haggard and wan.
+
+She implored him to save her.
+
+The frightful pain of knowing that he could do nothing made Ferdinand
+desperate, and then suddenly he became inspired with an idea.
+
+He could at all events remove some of the agony of terror from her, and
+enable her to go to her death without a hideous scene. He remembered "La
+Tosca"--the same method might serve again!
+
+He managed to whisper to her in broken sentences that she would certainly
+be saved. The plan was all prepared, he assured her. The rifles would
+contain blank cartridges, and she must pretend to fall--and afterwards he
+would come, having bribed every one and made the path smooth.
+
+He lied so fervently that Harietta was convinced, her material brain
+catching at any straw. She must dress herself and look her best, he told
+her, so as to make an impression upon all the men concerned; and then,
+when he had to leave her, he arranged with the prison doctor that she
+might receive a strong _piqure_ of morphine, so that she would be
+serene. She spent the night dreaming quite happily and at four o'clock
+was awakened and began to dress.
+
+The drug had calmed all her terrors and her dramatic instinct held
+full sway.
+
+She arranged her toilet with the utmost care, using all her arts to
+beautify herself. In her ears were Stanislass' ruby earrings and she wore
+Stepan's ring and brooch.
+
+Death to her was an impossibility--she had never seen any one die.
+
+It was a wonderfully fine part she would have to play, with Ferdinand
+there really going to save her! That was all! She must even be sweet at
+last to the poor sister, whom she had snarled at hitherto.
+
+If she could only have seen Stepan once more! Stanislass and his broken
+life and fond devotion never gave her a thought or troubled her at all.
+After she was free, she would find some means to pay out Hans! She hated
+him. If it had not been for Hans and his tiresome old higher command
+with their stupid intrigues, she would still be free. That she had
+betrayed countries--that she was guilty in any way never presented
+itself to her mind.
+
+All Verisschenzko's passionate indictment had fallen upon unheeding ears.
+The morphine now left her only sufficiently conscious for fundamental
+instincts to act.
+
+She felt that she was a beautiful woman going to be the chief figure in a
+wonderfully dramatic scene. Nothing solemn had touched her. Her brain was
+light and now only filled with cunning and _coqueterie_; she meant to
+charm her guards and executioners to the last man! And ready at length,
+she walked nonchalantly out of the prison and into the waiting car which
+was to carry her to Vincennes.
+
+Now the end of all this is best told in the words of a young French
+soldier who was an eye witness and wrote the whole thing down. To pen the
+hideous horror I find too difficult a task.
+
+"Sunday--11 in the evening.
+
+"We had only returned at that moment from our day's leave, when the
+Lieutenant came to us to announce that we should be of the _piquet_
+to-morrow morning for the execution of Madame Boleski, the spy.
+
+"He said this to us in his monotonous voice as though he had been saying
+'To-morrow--_Revue d'Armes_'--but for us, after a whole day passed far
+from barracks, it was a rather brusque return to military realities!
+
+"At once it became necessary that we look through our accountrements for
+the show. No small affair! and for more than an hour there was brushing
+and polishing of straps and buckles. It was nearly two o'clock in the
+morning before we could turn in.
+
+"Many of us could not sleep--we are all between eighteen and nineteen
+years old, and the idea to see a woman killed agitated us. But little by
+little the whole band dozed."
+
+"Monday morning.
+
+"At four o'clock--reveille. We dress in haste in the dark. Ten minutes
+later we all find ourselves in the courtyard.
+
+"'_A droit alignement couvres sur deux_.'
+
+"The Lieutenant made the call."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The detachment moves off in the night, marching in slow cadence--that
+step which so peculiarly gives the impression of restrained force and
+condensed power.
+
+"We leave the fort and gain the artillery butts--true landscape of the
+front! Trenches, stripped trees, abandoned wagons!
+
+"And in the middle of all that--our silhouettes of carbines,
+casques and sacs.
+
+"Absolute silence.
+
+"We stop--we advance--and suddenly in the dawn which has begun, we arrive
+at our destination--the execution ground.
+
+"'_Cannoniers--halte! Couvres sur deux. A droite alignement_.'"
+
+"A rattle of arms. And there in front of us, at hardly fifteen yards, we
+catch sight of the post.
+
+"Up till now we had scarcely felt anything--just startled impressions,
+almost of curiosity, but now I begin to experience the first strong
+sensation.
+
+"The post! Symbol of all this sinister ceremony. A short post--not higher
+than one's shoulder! There it stands in front of the shooting butts. And
+to think that nearly every Monday--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now the troops from the Square, which is in reality rectangular, the
+shooting butt constituting one of its sides. Then in the grim dawn we
+wait quietly for what is to come. One after another, we see several
+automobiles approach, and each time we ask ourselves, 'Is not this the
+condemned?'
+
+"No--they are journalists--officers--_avocats_--and presently a hearse,
+out of which is lifted the coffin.
+
+"The undertakers' men, who presently will proceed to the business of
+placing the body there, laugh and talk together as they sit and smoke.
+They are old _habitues!_"
+
+"One was cold standing still! It begins to be quite light. The condemned
+one may arrive at any moment, because the execution has been fixed for
+exactly at the rising of the sun.
+
+"The men of the platoon load their rifles. The number of them is
+twelve--four sergeants, four corporals, four soldiers.
+
+"And then there are the _Chasseurs a pied_."
+
+"All of a sudden, two more cars appear, escorted by a company of
+dragoons.
+
+"This time it is She.
+
+"They stop--out of the first one, officers descend. The Commissaire of
+the Government who has, condemned Madame Boleski to death and who had
+gone a little more than an hour ago to awake her in her cell. The
+Captain, reporter, and two other Captains. The door of the second auto
+opens, two gendarmes get out--a Sister of St. Lazare (what a terrible
+_metier_ for her!)--and then Harietta Boleski!
+
+"And at once, accompanied by the nun and followed by the gendarmes, she
+penetrates into the square of men.
+
+"Until now we have been enduring a period of waiting, we have been asking
+ourselves if it will have an effect upon us--but now we have no more
+doubt. The effect has begun!
+
+"'Present arms!'
+
+"All together we render honour to the dead woman--for one considers a
+person condemned as already dead. And the bugles begin to play the
+March--_Do sol do do Sol do do, Mi mi mi_--
+
+"They play slowly--very softly and in the minor key.
+
+"Harietta Boleski walks quickly, the sister can hardly keep by her side.
+She is tall, beautiful, very elegant. A large hat with floating lace veil
+thrown back and splendid earrings. A dark dress--pretty shoes.
+
+"She looks at the troops and the _piquet d'execution_ a little
+disdainfully, and then she smiles gaily--it is almost a titter. The
+sister taps her gently on the shoulder, as if to recall her to a sense of
+order, but she makes one careless gesture and walks up to the post.
+
+"The bugles are sounding plaintively, slowly and more slowly all the
+time.
+
+"She pauses in front of us--and with us it is now, 'Does this make us
+feel something?' We must hold ourselves not to grow faint.
+
+"To see this woman go by with the trumpets sounding ever. To say to
+ourselves that in sixty seconds she will be no more. There will be no
+life in that beautiful body. Ah! that is an emotion, believe me!
+
+"Never has the great problem been brought more forcibly before my spirit.
+
+"It is during the second when she passes before me that I receive
+the most profound impression, more even than at the actual moment of
+the firing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is beside the post. The bugles stop their mournful
+sound. They tie her to it, but not tightly, only so that her fall may not
+be too hard. A gendarme presents her with a bandeau for her eyes, which
+she pushes aside with scorn.
+
+"And when an officer reads the sentence, Harietta Boleski smiles."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"At twelve yards the platoon is lined up. The sentence has been read.
+
+"Madame Boleski embraces the Sister of Charity, who is very overcome.
+She even whispers a few words to comfort her. They stand back from the
+post. The adjutant who commands the platoon raises his sword--the rifles
+come in into position--two seconds--and the sword falls!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"A salute!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is no more.
+
+"The fair body drops to earth and immediately an Adjutant of
+Dragoons goes swiftly to the post, revolver pointed, and gives the
+_coup de grace_.
+
+"_'Arme sur l'epaule--Droit. A droit. En avant. Marche!'_
+
+"And we file past the corpse while the trumpets recommence to sound.
+
+"Harietta Boleski is lying down. She seems to be only reposing, so
+beautiful she looks.
+
+"The ball had entered her heart (we knew this later) so that her death
+has been instantaneous.
+
+"All the troops have defiled before her now.
+
+"We regain our quarters.
+
+"But as we file into the courtyard the sun gilds the highest window of
+the fortress. The day has begun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus perished Harietta Boleski in the thirty-seventh year of her age--in
+the midst of the zest of life. The times are to strenuous for sentiment.
+
+So perish all spies!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
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+Title: The Price of Things
+
+Author: Elinor Glyn
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9809]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THINGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+                             BY ELINOR GLYN
+
+                                  1919
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+I wrote this book in Paris in the winter of 1917-18--in the midst of
+bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch,
+and only primitive instincts seemed to stand out distinctly.
+
+Life appeared brutal, and our very fashion of speaking, the words we
+used, the way we looked at things, was more realistic--coarser--than in
+times of peace, when civilization can re-assert itself again. This is why
+the story shocks some readers. I quite understand that it might do so;
+but I deem it the duty of writers to make a faithful picture of each
+phase of the era they are living in, that posterity may be correctly
+informed about things, and get the atmosphere of epochs.
+
+The story is, so to speak, rough hewn. But it shows the danger of
+breaking laws, and interfering with fate--whether the laws be of God
+or of Man.
+
+It is also a psychological study of the instincts of two women, which the
+strenuous times brought to the surface. "Amaryllis," with all her
+breeding and gentleness, reacting to nature's call in her fierce fidelity
+to the father of her child--and "Harietta," becoming in herself the
+epitome of the age-old prostitute.
+
+I advise those who are rebuffed by plain words, and a ruthless analysis
+of the result of actions, not to read a single page.
+
+[Signature: Elinor Glyn]
+
+
+
+
+THE PRICE OF THINGS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane,"
+said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish
+all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things,
+one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one
+discovers hope lying at the bottom of it."
+
+"What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre's
+large grey eyes opened in a puzzled way. She was on her honeymoon in
+Paris at a party at the Russian Embassy, and until now had accepted
+things and not speculated about them. She had lived in the country and
+was as good as gold.
+
+She was accepting her honeymoon with her accustomed calm, although it was
+not causing her any of the thrills which Elsie Goldmore, her school
+friend, had assured her she should discover therein.
+
+Honeymoons! Heavens! But perhaps it was because Sir John was dull. He
+looked dull, she thought, as he stood there talking to the Ambassador. A
+fine figure of an Englishman but--yes--dull. The Russian, on the
+contrary, was not dull. He was huge and ugly and rough-hewn--his eyes
+were yellowish-green and slanted upwards and his face was frankly
+Calmuck. But you knew that you were talking to a personality--to one who
+had probably a number of unknown possibilities about him tucked away
+somewhere.
+
+John had none of these. One could be certain of exactly what he would do
+on any given occasion--and it would always be his duty. The Russian was
+observing this charming English bride critically; she was such a perfect
+specimen of that estimable race--well-shaped, refined and healthy. Chock
+full of temperament too, he reflected--when she should discover herself.
+Temperament and romance and even passion, and there were shrewdness and
+commonsense as well.
+
+"An agreeable task for a man to undertake her education," and he wished
+that he had time.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre asked again:
+
+"How can one not think? I am always thinking."
+
+He smiled indulgently.
+
+"Oh! no, you are not--you only imagine that you are. You have questioned
+nothing--you do right generally because you have a nice character and
+have been well brought up, not from any conscious determination to uplift
+the soul. Yes--is it not so?"
+
+She was startled.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Do you ever ask yourself what things mean? What we are--where we are
+going? What is the end of it all? No--you are happy; you live from day
+to day--and yet you cannot be a very young ego, your eyes are too
+wise--you have had many incarnations. It is merely that in this one life
+the note of awakening has not yet been struck. You certainly must have
+needed sleep."
+
+"Many lives? You believe in that theory?"
+
+She was not accustomed to discuss unorthodox subjects. She was
+interested.
+
+"But of course--how else could there be justice? We draw the reflex of
+every evil action and of every good one, but sometimes not until the next
+incarnation, that is why the heedless ones cannot grasp the truth--they
+see no visible result of either good or evil--evil, in fact, seems
+generally to win if there is a balance either way."
+
+"Why are we not allowed memory then, so that we might profit by
+our lessons?"
+
+"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our
+faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of
+our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds
+us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the
+desire is no more."
+
+"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems
+a paradox."
+
+She was a little disturbed.
+
+"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must
+banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of
+people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at
+all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to
+the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
+But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness;
+there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."
+
+"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be
+happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."
+
+"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the
+sleep was not deep."
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds passing and re-passing in those
+stately rooms.
+
+"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one
+with the fair hair in jade green--she looks radiantly happy."
+
+"And is--she is frankly an animal--exquisitely preserved, damnably
+selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a
+harem houri--and the tenacity of a rat."
+
+"You are severe."
+
+"Not at all. Harietta Boleski is a product of that most astonishing
+nation across the Atlantic--none other could produce her. It is the
+hothouse of the world as regards remarkable types. Here for immediate
+ancestry we have a mother, from heaven knows what European refuse heap,
+arrived in an immigrant ship--father of the 'pore white trash' of the
+south--result: Harietta, fine points, beautiful, quite a lady for
+ordinary purposes. The absence of soul is strikingly apparent to any
+ordinary observer, but one only discovers the vulgarity of spirit if one
+is a student of evolution--or chances to catch her when irritated with
+her modiste or her maid. Other nations cannot produce such beings. Women
+with the attributes of Harietta, were they European, would have surface
+vulgarity showing--and so be out of the running, or they would have real
+passion which would be their undoing--passion is glorious--it is aroused
+by something beyond the physical. Observe her nostril! There is simple,
+delightful animal sensuality for you! Look also at the convex curve below
+the underlip--she will bite off the cherry whether it is hers by right or
+another's, and devour it without a backward thought."
+
+"Boleski--that is a Russian name, is it not?"
+
+"No, Polish--she secured our Stanislass, a great man in his
+country--last year in Berlin, having divorced a no longer required,
+but worthy German husband who had held some post in the American
+Consulate there."
+
+"Is that old man standing obediently beside her your Stanislass?--he
+looks quite cowed."
+
+"A sad sight, is it not? Stanislass, though, is not old, barely forty. He
+had a _b�guin_ for her. She put his intelligence to sleep and bamboozled
+his judgment with a continuous appeal to the senses; she has vampired him
+now. Cloying all his will with her sugared caprices, she makes him scenes
+and so keeps him in subjection. He was one of the Council de l'Empire for
+Poland; the aims of his country were his earnest work, but now ambition
+is no more. He is tired, he has ceased to struggle; she rules and eats
+his soul as she has eaten the souls of others. Shall I present her to
+you? As a type, she is worthy of your attention."
+
+"It sounds as if she had the evil eye, as the Italians say," Amaryllis
+shuddered.
+
+"Only for men. She is really an amiable creature--women like her. She
+is so frankly simple, since for her there are never two issues--only to
+be allowed her own desires--a riot of extravagance, the first
+place--and some one to gratify certain instincts without too many
+refinements when the mood takes her. For the rest, she is kind and
+good-natured and 'jolly,' as you English say, and has no notion that
+she is a road to hell. But they are mostly dead, her other spider
+mates, and cannot tell of it."
+
+"I am much interested. I should like to talk to her. You say that she
+is happy?"
+
+"Obviously--she is an elemental--she never thinks at all, except to plan
+some further benefit for herself. I do not believe in this life that she
+can obtain a soul--her only force is her tenacious will."
+
+"Such force is good, though?"
+
+"Certainly. Even bad force is better than negative Good. One must first
+be strong before one can be serene."
+
+"You are strong."
+
+"Yes, but not good. Hardly a fit companion for sweet little English
+brides with excellent husbands awaiting them."
+
+"I shall judge of that."
+
+"_Tiens!_ So emancipated!"
+
+"If you are bad, how does your theory work that we pay for each action?
+Since by that you must know that it cannot be worth while to be bad."
+
+"It is not--I am aware of it, but when I am bad I am bad deliberately,
+knowing that I must pay."
+
+"That seems stupid of you."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I take very severe exercise when I begin to think of things I should not
+and I become savage when I require happiness--now is our chance for
+making you acquainted with Harietta, she is moving our way."
+
+Madame Boleski swept towards them on the arm of an Austrian Prince and
+the Russian Verisschenzko said, with suave politeness:
+
+"Madame, let me present you to Lady Ardayre. With me she has been
+admiring you from afar."
+
+The two women bowed, and with cheery, disarming simplicity, the American
+made some gracious remarks in a voice which sounded as if she smoked too
+much; it was not disagreeable in tone, nor had she a pronounced
+American accent.
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre found herself interested. She admired the superb
+attention to detail shown in Madame Boleski's whole person. Her face was
+touched up with the lightest art, not overdone in any way. Her hair, of
+that very light tone bordering on gold, which sometimes goes with hazel
+eyes, was quite natural and wonderfully done. Her dress was
+perfection--so were her jewels. One saw that her corseti�re was an
+artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken
+off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand--it was well-shaped, save
+that the thumb turned back in a remarkable degree.
+
+"So delighted to meet you," Madame Boleski said. "We are going over to
+London next month and I am just crazy to know more of you delicious
+English people."
+
+They chatted for a few moments and then Madame Boleski swept onwards. She
+was quite stately and graceful and had a well-poised head. Amaryllis
+turned to the Russian and was startled by the expression of fierce,
+sardonic amusement in his yellow-green eyes.
+
+"But surely, she can see that you are laughing at her?" she exclaimed,
+astonished.
+
+"It would convey nothing to her if she did."
+
+"But you looked positively wicked."
+
+"Possibly--I feel it sometimes when I think of Stanislass; he was a very
+good friend of mine."
+
+Sir John Ardayre joined them at this moment and the three walked towards
+the supper room and the Russian said good-night.
+
+"It is not good-bye, Madame. I, too, shall be in your country soon and I
+also hope that I may see you again before you leave Paris."
+
+They arranged a dinner for the following night but one, and said
+au revoir.
+
+An hour later the Russian was seated in a huge English leather chair in
+the little salon of his apartment in the rue Cambon, when Madame Boleski
+very softly entered the room and sat down upon his knee.
+
+"I had to come, darling Brute," she said. "I was jealous of the English
+girl," and she fitted her delicately painted lips to his. "Stanislass
+wanted to talk over his new scheme for Poland, too, and as you know that
+always gets on my nerves."
+
+But Verisschenzko threw his head back impatiently, while he
+answered roughly.
+
+"I am not in the mood for your chastisement to-night. Go back as you
+came, I am thinking of something real, something which makes your
+body of no use to me--it wearies me and I do not even desire your
+presence. Begone!"
+
+Then he kissed her neck insolently and pushed her off his knee.
+
+She pouted resentfully. But suddenly her eyes caught a small case lying
+on a table near--and an eager gleam came into their hazel depths.
+
+"Oh, St�pan! Is it the ruby thing! Oh! You beloved angel, you are going
+to give it to me after all! Oh! I'll rush off at once and leave you, if
+you wish it! Good-night!"
+
+And when she was gone Verisschenzko threw some incense into a silver
+burner and as the clouds of perfume rose into the air:
+
+"Wough!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"What are you doing in Paris, Denzil?"
+
+"I came over for a bit of racing. Awfully glad to see you. Can't we dine
+together? I go back to-morrow." Verisschenzko put his arm through Denzil
+Ardayre's and drew him in to the Caf� de Paris, at the door of which they
+had chanced to meet.
+
+"I had another guest, but she can be consoled with some of Midas' food,
+and I want to talk to you; were you going to eat alone?"
+
+"A fellow threw me over; I meant to have just a snack and go on to a
+theatre. It is good running across you--I thought you were miles away!"
+
+Verisschenzko spoke to the head waiter, and gave him directions as to the
+disposal of the lovely lady who would presently arrive, and then he went
+on to his table, rather at the top, in a fairly secluded corner.
+
+The few people who were already dining--it was early on this May
+night--looked at Denzil Ardayre--he was such a refreshing sight of health
+and youth, so tall and fit and English, with his brown smooth head and
+fearless blue eyes, gay and debonnaire. One could see that he played
+cricket and polo, and any other game that came along, and that not a
+muscle of his frame was out of condition. He had "soldier" written upon
+him--young, gallant, cavalry soldier. Verisschenzko appreciated him;
+nothing complete, human or inanimate, left him unconscious of its
+meaning. They knew one another very well--they had been at Oxford and
+later had shot bears together in the Russian's far-off home.
+
+They talked for a while of casual things, and then Verisschenzko said:
+
+"Some relations of yours are here--Sir John Ardayre and his particularly
+attractive bride. Shall we eat what I had ordered for Collette, or have
+you other fancies after the soup?"
+
+Denzil paid only attention to the first part of the speech--he looked
+surprised and interested.
+
+"John Ardayre here! Of course, he married about ten days ago--he is the
+head of the family as you are aware, but I hardly even know him by sight.
+He is quite ten years older than I am and does not trouble about us, the
+poor younger branch--" and he smiled, showing such good teeth. "Besides,
+as you know, I have been for such a long time in India, and the leaves
+were for sport, not for hunting up relations."
+
+Verisschenzko did not press the matter of his guest's fancies in food,
+and they continued the menu ordered for Collette without further delay.
+
+"I want to hear all that you know about them, the girl is an exquisite
+thing with immense possibilities. Sir John looks--dull."
+
+"He is really a splendid character though," Denzil hastened to assure
+him. "Do you know the family history? But no, of course not, we were too
+busy in the old days enjoying life to trouble to talk of such things!
+Well, it is rather strange in the last generation--things very nearly
+came to an end and John has built it all up again. You are interested in
+heredity?"
+
+"Naturally--what is the story?"
+
+"Our mutual great-grandfather was a tremendous personage in North
+Somerset--the place Ardayre is there. My father was the son of the
+younger son, who had just enough to do him decently at Eton, and enable
+him to scrape along in the old regiment with a pony or two to play with.
+My mother was a Willowbrook, as you know, and a considerable heiress,
+that is how I come out all right, but until John's father, Sir James,
+squandered things, the head of the family was always very rich and full
+of land--and awfully set on the dignity of his race. They had turned the
+cult of it into regular religion."
+
+"The father of this man made a _gaspillage_, then--well?"
+
+"Yes, he was a rotter--a hark-back to his mother's relations; she was a
+Cranmote--they ruin any blood they mix with. I am glad that I come from
+the generation before."
+
+Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
+fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so John
+seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early, she had
+had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away everything he
+could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a tutor at home, for
+some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about thirteen when she died
+and at seventeen went straight into the city. He was determined to make a
+fortune, it has always been said, and redeem the mortgages on
+Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"
+
+Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.
+
+"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a Bulgarian
+snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople! You may well
+smile"--for Verisschenzko had raised his eyebrows in a whimsical
+way--this did sound such a highly coloured incident!
+
+"It was an unusual sort of thing to do, I admit, but the tale grows more
+lurid still, when I tell you that five months after the wedding she
+produced a son by the Lord knows who, one of her own tribe probably, and
+old Sir James was so infatuated with her that he never protested, and
+presently when he and John quarrelled like hell he pretended the little
+brute was his own child--just to spite John."
+
+Verisschenzko's Calmuck eyes narrowed.
+
+"And does this result of the fusion of snake charmers figure in the
+family history? I believe I have met him--his name is Ferdinand, is it
+not, and he is, or was, in some business in Constantinople?"
+
+"That is the creature--he was brought up at Ardayre as though he were the
+heir, and poor John turned out of things. He came to Eton three years
+before I left, but even there they could not turn him into the outside
+semblance of a gentleman. I loathed the little toad, and he loathed
+me--and the sickening part of the thing is that if John does not have a
+son, by the English law of entail Ferdinand comes into Ardayre, and will
+be the head of the family. Old Sir James died about five years ago,
+always protesting this bastard was his own child, though every one knew
+it was a lie. However, by that time John had made enough in the city to
+redeem Ardayre twice over. He had tremendous luck after the South African
+War, so he came into possession and lives there now in great state--I do
+really hope that he will have a son."
+
+"You, too, have the instinct of the family, then--this pride in
+it--since it cannot benefit you either way."
+
+"I believe it is born in us, and though I have never seen Ardayre, I
+should hate this mongrel to have it. I was brought up with a tremendous
+reverence for it, even as a second cousin."
+
+"Well, the new Lady Ardayre looks young enough and of a health to have
+ten sons!"
+
+"Y-es," Denzil acquiesced in a tentative tone.
+
+"Not so?" Verisschenzko glanced up surprised, and then gave his attention
+to the waiter who had brought some Burgundy and was pouring it out into
+his glass.
+
+"Not so you would say?"
+
+"I don't know, I have never seen her--but in the family it is whispered
+that John--poor devil--he had an accident hunting two or three years
+ago. However, it may not any of it be true--here, let us drink to the
+Ardayre son!"
+
+"To the Ardayre son!" and Verisschenzko filled his friend's glass with
+the decanted wine and they both drank together.
+
+"Your cousin is like you," he said presently. "A fatiguing likeness, but
+the same height and make--and voice--strange things these family
+reproductions of an exact type. I have no family, as you know--we are of
+the people, arisen by trade to riches. Could I go beyond my immediate
+parents, could I know cousins and uncles and brothers, should I find this
+same peculiar stamp of family among us all? Who knows? I think not."
+
+"I suppose there is something in it. My father has told me that in
+the picture gallery at Ardayre they are as like as two pins the whole
+way down."
+
+"The concentration upon the idea causes it. In people risen like my
+father and myself, we only resemble a group--a nation; if I have children
+they will resemble me. It is strength in the beginning when an individual
+rises beyond the group, which produces a type. One says 'English' to look
+at you, and then, if one knows, one says 'Ardayre' at once; one gets as
+far as 'Calmuck' with me, that is all, but in years to come it will have
+developed into 'Verisschenzko.'"
+
+"How you study things, St�pan; you are always putting new ideas into my
+head whenever I see you. Life would be just a routine, for all the joy of
+sport, if one did not think. I am going to finish my soldiering this
+autumn and stand for Parliament. It seems waste of time now, with no wars
+in prospect, sticking to it; I want a vaster field."
+
+"You think there can be no wars in prospect--no? Well, who can prophesy?
+There are clouds in the Southeast, but for the moment we will not
+speculate about them--and they may affect my country and not yours. And
+so you will settle down and become a reputable member of Parliament?"
+Then, as Denzil would have spoken perhaps upon the subject of war clouds,
+Verisschenzko hastily continued:
+
+"Will you dine to-morrow night at the Ritz to meet your cousin and his
+wife? They are honouring me."
+
+"I wish I could, but I am off in the morning. What is she like?"
+
+Verisschenzko paid particular attention to the selection of a quail, and
+then he answered:
+
+"She is of the same type as the family, Denzil,--that is, a good
+skeleton--bones in the right place, firm white flesh, colouring as
+yours--well bred, balanced, unawakened as yet. Was she a relation?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so--a cousin of a generation even before mine. I wish I
+could have dined, I would awfully like to have met them; I shall have
+to make a chance in England. It is stupid not to know one's own family,
+but our fathers quarrelled and we have never had a chance of mending
+the break."
+
+"They were at the Russian Embassy last night; the throng admired Lady
+Ardayre very much."
+
+"And what are you doing in Paris, St�pan? The last I heard of you, you
+were on your yacht in the Black Sea."
+
+"I was cruising near countries whose internal affairs interest me for the
+moment. I returned to my _appartement_ in Paris to see a friend of mine,
+Stanislass Boleski--he also has a lovely wife. Look, she has just come
+in with him. She is in the devil of a temper--observe her. If I sit back,
+the pillar hides me--I do not wish them to see me yet."
+
+Denzil glanced down the room; two people were taking their seats by the
+wall. The mask was off Harietta Boleski's face for the moment; it looked
+silly with its raised eyebrows and was full of ill temper and spite. The
+husband had an air of extreme worry on his clever, intellectual face, but
+that he was solicitous to gratify his wife's caprices, any casual
+observer could have perceived.
+
+"You mean the woman with the wonderful _cigrettes_--she is good-looking,
+isn't she? I wonder who it is she has caught sight of now, though? Look
+at the eagerness which has come into her eyes--you can see her in the
+mirror if you want to."
+
+But Verisschenzko had missed nothing, and he bent forward to endeavour
+to identify the person upon whom Madame Boleski's gaze had turned. There
+was nothing to distinguish any individual--the company were of several
+nations--German and Austrian and Balkan and Russian scattered about here
+and there among the French and American _habitu�s_. The only plan would
+be to continue to watch Harietta--but although he did this throughout the
+dinner, not a flicker of her eyelids gave him any further clue.
+
+Denzil was interested--he felt something beyond what appeared on the
+surface was taking place, so he waited for his friend to speak.
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a little, and then he casually gave a r�sum�
+of the character and place of Madame Boleski and her husband, a good deal
+more baldly expressed, but in substance much the same as he had given to
+Amaryllis at the Russian Embassy the night before.
+
+He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.
+
+"Look at her well--she is capable of mischief. Her extreme
+stupidity--only the brain of a rodent or a goat--makes her more
+difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can
+never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays
+is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite
+natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all.
+Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or
+personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves
+even me--I, who am no poor diviner--confused as to whether she is
+telling a lie or the truth."
+
+"What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.
+
+"An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko
+continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of
+the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times,
+and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not
+for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different
+jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information,
+obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital
+importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a
+mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."
+
+"She has lovers?"
+
+"Has had many; her r�le now is that of a great lady and so all is of a
+respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of
+self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she
+would commit b�tises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is
+hidden with the cunning of a fox."
+
+"Who did you say the first husband was--?"
+
+"A German of the name of Von Wendel--he used to beat her with a stick, it
+is said--so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until
+she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any
+one who stood in her way."
+
+"Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty �puis�--one feels sorry
+for the poor man."
+
+Then, as ever, at the mention of the d�bacle of Stanislass,
+Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.
+
+"She has crushed the hope of Poland--for that, indeed, one day she
+must pay."
+
+"But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"
+Denzil remarked.
+
+"Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices--and
+Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our
+Northern world."
+
+His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of
+Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had
+always been drawn to St�pan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the
+Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a
+mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm
+heart of a generous child--capable of every frenzy and of every
+sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the
+one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered
+over many lands--and as they sat there in the Caf� de Paris, the thoughts
+of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in
+Russia and in India between.
+
+"They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said
+presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of
+what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon
+and stars--and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"
+
+"Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,
+St�pan? Twenty-nine years old!"
+
+Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the
+two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced
+Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski
+all smiles and flattering cajoleries now--and then they said
+good-night and went out.
+
+But as St�pan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned
+forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a
+jealous hate.
+
+"Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she
+loves--not the pig-fool who we gave her to--one day I shall kill him--"
+and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"
+
+That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois,
+and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Arm�nonville.
+Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The
+circumstances were interesting--a bride of ten days, and the environment
+so illuminating--and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and
+not saying _anything!_ She did not like people who chattered--and she
+could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid
+respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic
+background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded
+some show of emotion!
+
+John loved her she supposed--of course he did--or he never would have
+asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She
+could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its
+beginning was only three months back!
+
+They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then
+they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she
+could not remember any love-making--she could not remember any of those
+warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was
+propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in
+demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon
+the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and
+restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a
+worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked
+at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons
+and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone
+further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the
+dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.
+
+She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love
+was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies
+had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than
+that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had
+indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once
+supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect
+_something_, and here was nothing--just nothing!
+
+The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He
+had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of
+refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her
+intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not
+too congenial home.
+
+She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of
+some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless
+young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to
+strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours
+as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in
+herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a
+girl, luck did not come her way.
+
+When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of
+marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear,"
+and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned
+over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf
+ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her
+forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or
+gave her any thrill!
+
+"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a
+fellow, but I will try."
+
+Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most
+every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every
+one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and
+petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in
+a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of
+excitement in the whole conventional thing!
+
+There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most
+reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very
+well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked
+well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond
+talking on general subjects!
+
+This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down
+the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and
+polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense
+to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest
+flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really
+interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.
+
+He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew
+to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its
+honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person
+could ever do.
+
+She almost became jealous of it all.
+
+Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece
+had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.
+
+Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's,
+Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not
+allow her stepfather to give her away.
+
+Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an
+Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and
+prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome,
+stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the
+Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids.
+Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!
+
+And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is
+the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the
+altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."
+
+The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in
+the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent
+by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of
+the honeymoon."
+
+This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her
+aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would
+begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not.
+For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and
+been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was
+not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too
+unrefined in the expression of its private affairs and too indiscreet for
+any maiden to remain in ignorance now.
+
+It is true John did kiss her once or twice, but there was no real warmth
+in the embrace, and when, after an excellent dinner her heart began to
+beat with wonderment and excitement, she asked herself what it meant.
+Then, all confused, she murmured something about "Good-night," and
+retired to the magnificent state suite alone.
+
+When she had left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine
+and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but
+an anguish almost of despair in his eyes.
+
+Amaryllis thought of that night--and of other nights since--as she sat
+there at Arm�nonville, in the luminous sensuous dusk.
+
+So this was being married! Well, it was not much of a joy--and why, why
+did John sit silent there? Why?
+
+Surely this is not how the Russian would have sat--that strange Russian!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was nearing sunset in the garden below the Trocad�ro. A tall German
+officer waited impatiently not far from the bronze of a fierce bull in a
+secluded corner under the trees; he was plainly an officer although he
+was clothed in mufti of English make. He was a singularly handsome
+creature in spite of his too wide hips. A fine, sensual, brutal male.
+
+He swore in his own language, and then, through the glorious light,
+a woman came towards him. She wore an unremarkable overcoat and a
+thick veil.
+
+"Hans!" she exclaimed delightedly, and then went on in fluent German with
+a strong American accent.
+
+He looked round to be sure that they were alone, and then he clasped her
+in his arms. He held her so tightly that she panted for breath; he kissed
+her until her lips were bruised, and he murmured guttural words of
+endearment that sounded like an animal's growl.
+
+The woman answered him in like manner. It was as though two brute
+beasts had met.
+
+Then presently they sat upon a seat and talked in low tones. The woman
+protested and declaimed; the man grumbled and demanded. An envelope
+passed between them, and more crude caresses, and before they parted the
+man again held her in close embrace--biting the lobe of her ear until she
+gave a little scream.
+
+"Yes--if there was time--" she gasped huskily. "I should adore you like
+this--but here--in the gardens--Oh! do mind my hat!"
+
+Then he let her go--they had arranged a future meeting. And left alone,
+he sat down upon the bench again and laughed aloud.
+
+The woman almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting
+taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder
+puff, and red greases for her lips.
+
+"My goodness! I can't say that's a mosquito!" and she examined her ear.
+"How tiresome and imprudent of Hans! But Jingo, it was good!--if there
+only had been time--"
+
+Then she, too, laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at
+the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the
+telltale ear.
+
+But on encountering her maid, she was carrying her minute Pekinese dog in
+her arms and was beating him well.
+
+"Regardez, Marie! la vilaine b�te m'a mordu l'oreil!"
+
+"Tiens!" commented the affronted Marie, who adored Fou-Chou. "Et le cher
+petit chien de Madame est si doux!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stanislass Boleski was poring over a voluminous bundle of papers when his
+wife, clad in a diaphanous wrap, came into his sitting room. They had a
+palatial suite at the Rhin. The affairs of Poland were not prospering as
+he had hoped, and these papers required his supreme attention--there was
+German intrigue going on somewhere underneath. He longed for Harietta's
+sympathy which she had been so prodigal in bestowing before she had
+secured her divorce from that brute of a Teutonic husband, whom she
+hated so much. Now she hardly ever listened, and yawned in his face when
+he spoke of Poland and his high aims. But he must make allowances for
+her--she was such a child of impulse, so lovely, so fascinating! And here
+in Paris, admired as she was, how could he wonder at her distraction!
+
+"Stanislass! my old Stannie," she cooed in his ear, "what am I to wear
+to-night for the Montivacchini ball? You will want me to look my best, I
+know, and I just love to please you."
+
+He was all attention at once, pushing the documents aside as she put her
+arms around his neck and pulled his beard, then she drew his head back to
+kiss the part where the hair was growing thin on the top--her eyes fixed
+on the papers.
+
+"You don't want to bother with those tiresome old things any more; go and
+get into your dressing-gown, and come to my room and talk while I am
+polishing my nails,--we can have half an hour before I must dress. I'll
+wait for you here--I must be petted to-night, I am tired and cross."
+
+Stanislass Boleski rose with alacrity. She had not been kind to him for
+days--fretful and capricious and impossible to please. He must not lose
+this chance--if it could only have been when he was not so busy--but--
+
+"Run along, do!" she commanded, tapping her foot.
+
+And putting the papers hastily in a drawer with a spring lock, he went
+gladly from the room.
+
+Her whole aspect changed; she lit a cigarette and hummed a tune, while
+she fingered a key which dangled from her bracelet.
+
+No one eclipsed Madame Boleski in that distinguished crowd later on.
+Her clinging silver brocade, and the one red rose at the edge of the
+extreme d�colletage, were simply the perfection of art. She did not wear
+gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except
+a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to
+refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh!
+they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one
+finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band of homely
+gold! Never!"
+
+Stanislass had argued in those early days--he seldom argued now.
+
+"My love!" he cried, as she burst upon his infatuated vision, when ready
+for the ball, "let me admire you!"
+
+She turned about; she knew that she was perfection.
+
+Her husband kissed her fingers, and then he caught sight of the ruby
+ring. He examined it.
+
+"I had not seen this ruby before," he exclaimed in a surprised voice,
+"and I thought I knew all your jewel case!"
+
+She held out her hand while her big, stupid, appealing hazel eyes
+expressed childish innocence.
+
+"No--I'd put it away, it was of other days--but I do love rubies, and so
+I got it out to-night, it goes with my rose!"
+
+He had perceived this. Had he not become educated in the subtleties of a
+woman's apparel? For was it not his duty often, and his pleasure
+sometimes, to have to assist at her toilet, and to listen for hours to
+discussions of garments, and if they could suit or not. He was even
+accustomed now to waiting in the hot salons in the Rue de la Paix, while
+these stately perfections were being essayed. But the ruby ring worried
+him. Why had she asked him to give her just such a one only last month,
+if she already possessed its fellow?... He had refused because her
+extravagance had grown fantastic, but he had meant to cede later. Every
+pleasure of the senses he always had to secure by bribes.
+
+"I do not understand why?--" he began, but she put her hand over his
+mouth and then kissed him voluptuously before she turned and shrilly
+cried to Marie to bring her ermine cloak.
+
+The maid's eyes were round and sullen with resentment; she had not
+forgotten the beating of Fou-Chou! "As for the ear of Madame!" she said,
+clasping the tiny dog to her heart, as she watched her mistress go
+towards the lift from the sitting-room, "as for that maudite ear, thy
+teeth are innocent, my angel! But I wish that he who is guilty had bitten
+it off!" Then she laughed disdainfully.
+
+"And look at the old fool! He dreams of nothing! And if he dreamed, he
+would not believe--such _insens�s_ are men!"
+
+Meanwhile the Boleskis had arrived at the hotel of the Duchesse di
+Montivacchini, that rich and ravishing American-Italian, who gave the
+most splendid and exclusive entertainments in Paris. So, too, had arrived
+Sir John and Lady Ardayre, brought on from the dinner at the Ritz by
+Verisschenzko.
+
+Denzil had left that morning for England, or he would have had the
+disagreeable experience of meeting his _soi-disant_ cousin, to whom he
+had applied the epithet "toad." For Ferdinand Ardayre had just reached
+the gay city from Constantinople, and had also come to the ball with a
+friend in the Turkish Embassy.
+
+He happened to be standing at the door when the Boleskis were announced,
+and his light eyes devoured Harietta--she seemed to him the ideal of
+things feminine--and he immediately took steps to be presented. Assurance
+was one of his strongest cards. He was a fair man--with the fairness of a
+Turk not European--and there was something mean and chetive in his
+regard. He would have looked over-dressed and un-English in a London
+ball-room, but in that cosmopolitan company he was unremarkable. He had
+been his mother's idol and Sir James had left him everything he could
+scrape from his highly mortgaged property. But certain tastes of his own
+made a Continental life more congenial to him, and he had chosen early to
+enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He
+was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by
+himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm.
+
+The one burning bitterness in his spirit was the knowledge that Sir John
+Ardayre had never recognised him as a brother. During Sir James' lifetime
+there had been silence upon the matter, since John had no legal reason
+for denying the relationship, but once he had become master of Ardayre he
+had let it be known that he refused to believe Ferdinand to be his
+father's son. On the rare occasions when he had to be mentioned, John
+called him "the mongrel" and Ferdinand was aware of this. A silent,
+intense hatred filled his being--more than shared by his mother who,
+until the day of her death, two years before, had always plotted
+vengeance--without being able to accomplish anything. Either mother or
+son would willingly have murdered John if a suitable and safe method had
+presented itself. And now to know that John had married a beautiful
+far-off cousin and might have children, and so forever preclude the
+possibility of his--Ferdinand's--own inheritance of Ardayre was a further
+incentive to hate! If only some means could be discovered to remove John,
+and soon! But while Ferdinand thought these things, watching his
+so-called brother from across the room, he knew that he was impotent.
+Poisons and daggers were not weapons which could be employed in civilised
+Paris in the twentieth century! If they would only come to
+Constantinople!
+
+Amaryllis Ardayre had never seen a Paris ball before. She was enchanted.
+The sumptuous, lofty rooms, with their perfect Louis XV gilt _boiseries_,
+the marvellous clothes of the women, the gaiety in the air! She was
+accustomed to the new weird dances in England, but had not seen them
+performed as she now saw them.
+
+"This orgie of mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as
+he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the
+fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle
+of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the
+skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted--all are
+feverish--all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the
+eve of a cataclysm--it is a dance Macabre."
+
+Amaryllis turned, startled, to look at him, and she saw that his eyes
+were full of melancholy, and not mocking as they usually were.
+
+"A dance Macabre! You do not approve of these tangoes then?"
+
+He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, which was his only form of
+gesticulation.
+
+"Tangoes--or one steps--I neither approve nor disapprove--dancing should
+all have its meaning, as the Greek Orchises had. These dances to the
+Greeks would have meant only one thing--I do not know if they would have
+wished this to take place in public, they were an aesthetic and refined
+people, so I think not. We Russians are the only so-called civilised
+nation who are brutal enough for that; but we are far from being
+civilised really. Orgies are natural to us--they are not to the French or
+the English. Savage sex displays for these nations are an acquired taste,
+a proof of vicious decay, the middle note of the end."
+
+"I learned the tango this Spring--it is charming to dance," Amaryllis
+protested. She was a little uncomfortable--the subject, much as she
+was interested in the Russian's downright views, she found was
+difficult to discuss.
+
+"I am sure you did--you counted time--you moved your charming form this
+way and that--and you had not the slightest idea of anything in it beyond
+anxiety to keep step and do the thing well! Yes--is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis laughed--this was so true!
+
+"What an incredibly false sham it all is!" he went on. "Started by
+niggers or Mexicans for what it obviously means, and brought here
+for respectable mothers, and wives, and girls to perform. For me a
+woman loses all charm when she cheapens the great mystery-ceremonies
+of love--"
+
+"Then you won't dance it with me?" Amaryllis challenged smilingly--she
+would not let him see that she was cast down. "I do so want to dance!"
+
+His eyes grew fierce.
+
+"I beg of you not! I desire to keep the picture I have made of you since
+we met--later I shall dance it myself with a suitable partner, but I do
+not want you mixed with this tarnished herd."
+
+Amaryllis answered with dignity:
+
+"If I thought of it as you do I should not want to dance it at all." She
+was aggrieved that her expressed desire might have made him hold her less
+high--"and you have taken all the bloom from my butterfly's wing--I will
+never enjoy dancing it again--let us go and sit down."
+
+He gave her his arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into
+conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose
+movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring.
+
+"There is your friend, Madame Boleski--she dances--and so well!"
+
+"Harietta is an elemental--as I told you before--it is right that she
+should express herself so. She is very well aware of what it all means
+and delights in it. But look at that lady with the hair going grey--it is
+the Marquise de Saint Vrilli�re--of the bluest blood in France and of a
+rigid respectability. She married her second daughter last week. They all
+spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till
+dark--mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian
+Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses--clasped in the arms of incredible
+scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New
+York--decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers
+before this madness set in!"
+
+"And you say it is a dance Macabre? Tell me just what you mean."
+
+They had reached a comfortable sofa by now in a salon devoted to bridge,
+which was almost empty, the players, so eager to take part in the
+dancing, that they had deserted even this, their favourite game.
+
+"When a nation loses all sense of balance and belies the traditions of
+its whole history, and when masses of civilised individuals experience
+this craze for dancing and miming, and sex display, it presages some
+great upheaval--some calamity. It was thus before the revolution of 1793,
+and since it is affecting England and America and all of Europe it seems,
+the cataclysm will be great."
+
+Amaryllis shivered. "You frighten me," she whispered. "Do you mean some
+war--or some earthquake--or some pestilence, or what?"
+
+"Events will show. But let us talk of something else. A cousin of your
+husband's, who is a very good friend of mine, was here yesterday. He went
+to England to-day, you have not met him yet, I believe--Denzil Ardayre?"
+
+"No--but I know all about him--he plays polo and is in the Zingari."
+
+"He does other things--he will even do more--I shall be curious to hear
+what you think of him. For me he is the type of your best in England.
+We were at Oxford together; we dreamed dreams there--and perhaps time
+will realise some of them. Denzil is a beautiful Englishman, but he is
+not a fool."
+
+A sudden illumination seemed to come into Amaryllis' brain; she felt how
+limited had been all her thoughts and standpoints in life. She had been
+willing to drift on without speculation as to the goal to be reached.
+Indeed, even now, had she any definite goal? She looked at the Russian's
+strong, rugged face, his inscrutable eyes narrowed and gazing ahead--of
+what was he thinking? Not stupid, ordinary things--that was certain.
+
+"It is the second evening, amidst the most unlikely surroundings, that
+you have made me speculate about subjects which never troubled me before.
+Then you leave me unsatisfied--I want to know--definitely to know!"
+
+"Searcher after wisdom!" and he smiled. "No one can teach another very
+much. Enlightenment must come from within; we have reached a better stage
+when we realise that we are units in some vast scheme and responsible for
+its working, and not only atoms floating hither and thither by chance.
+Most people have the brains of grasshoppers; they spring from subject to
+subject, their thoughts are never under control. Their thoughts rule
+them--it is not they who rule their thoughts."
+
+They were seated comfortably on their sofa, and Verisschenzko leaning
+forward from his corner, looked straight into her eyes.
+
+"You control your thoughts?" she asked. "Can you really only let them
+wander where you choose?"
+
+"They very seldom escape me, but I consciously allow them indulgences."
+
+"Such as?"
+
+"Visions--day dreams--which I know ought not to materialise."
+
+Something disturbed her in his regard; it was not easy to meet, so full
+of magnetic emanation. Amaryllis was conscious that she no longer felt
+very calm--she longed to know What his dreams could be.
+
+"Yes--but if I told you, you would send me away."
+
+It seemed that he could read her desire. "I shall order myself to be
+gone presently, because the interest which you cause me to feel would
+interfere with work which I have to do."
+
+"And your dreams? Tell them first?" she knew that she was playing
+with fire.
+
+He looked down now, and she saw that he was not going to gratify her
+curiosity.
+
+"My noblest dream is for the regeneration of a nation--on that I have
+ordered my thoughts to dwell. For the others, the time is not yet for me
+to tell you of them--it may never come. Now answer me, have you yet seen
+your new home, Ardayre?"
+
+"No, but why should you be interested in that? It seems strange that you,
+a Russian, should even know that there is such a place as Ardayre!"
+
+"Continue--I know that it is a wonderful place, and that your husband
+loves it more than his life."
+
+Amaryllis pouted slightly.
+
+"He does indeed! Perhaps I shall grow to do so also when I know it; it is
+the family creed. Sir James--my late father-in-law--was the only
+exception to this rule."
+
+"You must uphold the idea then, and live to do fine things."
+
+"I will try--if only--" then she paused, she could not say "if only John
+would be human and unfreeze to me, and love me, and let us go on the road
+together hand in hand!"
+
+"It is quite useless for a family merely to continue from generation to
+generation piling up possessions, and narrowing its interests. It must do
+this for a time to become solid, and then it should take a vaster view,
+and begin to help the world. Nearly everything is spoiled in all
+civilisation because of this inability to see beyond the nose, this poor
+and paltry outlook."
+
+"People rave vaguely," Amaryllis argued, "about one's duty and vast
+outlooks and those things, but it is difficult to get any one to give
+concrete advice--what would you advise me to do, for instance?"
+
+"I would advise you first to begin asking yourself the reason of
+everything, each day, since Pandora's box has been opened for you in any
+case. 'What caused this? What caused that?' Search for causes--then
+eradicate the roots, if they are not good, do not waste time on trying to
+ameliorate the results! Determine as to why you are put into such and
+such a place, and accomplish what you discover to be the duty of the
+situation. But how serious we have become! I am not a priest to give you
+guidance--I am a man fighting a tremendously strong desire to take you in
+my arms--so come, we will return to the ball room, and I will deliver you
+to your husband."
+
+Amaryllis rose and stood facing him, her heart was beating fast. "If I
+try to do well--to climb the straight road of the soul's advancement,
+will you give me counsel should I need it by the way?"
+
+"Yes, this I will do when I have complete control, but for the moment you
+are causing me emotions, and I wish to keep you a thing apart--of the
+spirit. Hermits and saints subdue the flesh by abstinence and fasting;
+they then become useless to the world. A man can only lead men while he
+remains a man, with a man's passions, so that he should not fight in this
+beyond his strength--only he should _never sully the wrong thing_. Come!
+Return to the husband--and I shall go for a while to hell."
+
+And presently Amaryllis, standing safely with John, saw Verisschenzko
+dancing the maddest one-step with Madame Boleski, their undulations
+outdoing all others in the room!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The day after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis
+had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her
+husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which led from her room.
+
+They would breakfast cosily there, she had arranged, and nothing was
+wanting in the setting of a love scene. The bride wore the most alluring
+cap and daintiest Paris n�glig�, and her fair and pure skin gleamed
+through the diaphanous stuff.
+
+How she longed for John to notice it all, and make love to her! She had
+apprehended a number of delightful possibilities in Paris, none of which
+had materialised, alas! in her case.
+
+John was the same as ever--quiet, dignified, polite and unmoved. She had
+taken to turning out the light before he came to her at night, to hide
+the disappointment and chagrin which she felt might show in her eyes. It
+would be so humiliating if he should see this. There would soon be
+nothing left for her to do but pretend that she was as cold as he was, if
+this last effort of _froufrous_ left him as stolid as usual.
+
+She smoothed out the pale chiffon draperies with a tender hand. She got
+up and looked at herself in the mirror. It was fortunate that the
+reflection of snowy nose and throat and chin, and the pink velvet cheeks,
+required no art to perfect them; it was all natural and quite nice, she
+felt. What a bore it must be to have to touch up like Madame Boleski!
+
+But what was the meaning of all the imputations she had read of in those
+interesting French novels in Paris?--the languors and lassitudes and
+tremors of breakfasting love! There was just such a scene as this in one
+she had devoured on the boat. A _d�jeuner_ of _amants--_certainly they
+had not been married, there was that want of resemblance, but surely this
+could not matter? For a fortnight, three weeks, a month, surely even a
+husband could be as a lover--especially to a mistress who took such pains
+to please his eye!
+
+Would Elsie Goldmore spend such dull breakfasts when she espoused Harry
+Kahn? Elsie Goldmore was a Jewess, perhaps that made the difference,
+perhaps Jews were more expansive--But the people in the novels were not
+Jews. Of course, though, they were French, that must be it! Could it be
+that all Englishmen, to their wives, were like John? This she must
+presently find out.
+
+Meanwhile she would try--oh, try so hard to entice him to be lovely to
+her! He was her own husband; there was absolutely no harm in doing this.
+And how glorious it would be to turn him into a lover! Here in this
+perfectly divine old house! John was so good-looking, too, and had the
+most attractive deep voice, but heavens! the matter-of-factness of
+everything about him!
+
+How long would it all go on?
+
+John came in presently with _The Times_ under his arm. He was
+immaculately dressed in a blue serge suit. Amaryllis had hoped to see
+him in that subduedly gorgeous dressing gown she had persuaded him to
+order at Charvets during their first days. It would have been so
+suitable and intimate and lover-like. But no! there was the blue serge
+suit--and _The Times_.
+
+A shadow fell upon her mood. Her own pink chiffons almost seemed
+out of place!
+
+John glanced at them, and at the glowing, living, delicious bit of young
+womanhood which they adorned. He saw the rebellious ripe cherry of a
+mouth, and the warm, soft tenderness in the grey eyes, and then he
+quickly looked out of the window--his own blue ones expressionless, but
+the hand which held the newspaper clenched rather hard.
+
+"Amn't I a pet!" cooed Amaryllis, deliberately subduing the chill of her
+first disappointment. "Dearest, see I have kept this last and loveliest
+set of garments for the morning of our home-coming--and for you!" and she
+crept close to him and laid her cheek against his cheek.
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her calmly.
+
+"You look most beautiful, darling," he said. "But then, you always do,
+and your frills are perfection. Now I think we ought to have breakfast;
+it is most awfully late."
+
+She sat down in her place and she felt stupid tears rise in her eyes.
+
+She poured out the tea and buttered herself some toast, while John was
+apparently busy at a side table where dwelt the hot dishes.
+
+He selected the daintiest piece of sole for her, and handed her
+the plate.
+
+"I am not hungry," she protested, "keep it for yourself."
+
+He did not press the matter, but took his place and began to talk quietly
+upon the news of the day--in a composed fashion between glances at _The
+Times_ and mouthfuls of sole.
+
+Amaryllis controlled herself. She was too proud and too just to make a
+foolish scene. If this was John's way and her little effort at enticement
+was a failure, she must put up with it. Marriage was a lottery she had
+always heard, and it might be her luck to have drawn a blank. So she
+choked down the rising emotion and answered brightly, showing interest in
+her husband's remarks--and she even managed to eat some omelette, and
+when the business of breakfast was quite over she went to the window and
+John followed her there.
+
+The view which met their eyes was exquisite.
+
+Beyond the perfect stately garden, with its quaint clipped yews and
+masses of spring flowers and velvet lawns, there stretched the vast park
+with its splendid oaks and browsing deer. It was a possession which any
+man could feel proud to own.
+
+John slipped his arm round her waist and drew her to him.
+
+"Amaryllis," he said, and his voice vibrated, "to-day I am going to show
+you everything I love here at Ardayre--because I want you to love it
+all, too. You are of the family, so it must mean something to you, dear."
+
+Amaryllis kindled with re-awakening hope.
+
+"Indeed, it will mean everything to me, John."
+
+He kissed her forehead and murmured something about her dressing quickly,
+and that he would wait for her there in the cedar room. And when she
+returned in about a quarter of an hour in the neatest country clothes, he
+placed her hand on his arm and led her down the great stairs and on
+through the hall into the picture gallery.
+
+It was a wonderful place of green silk and chestnut wainscoting, and all
+the walls of its hundred feet of length were hung with canvases of
+value--portraits principally of those Ardayres who had gone on. Face
+after face looked down on Amaryllis of the same type as John's and her
+own--the brown hair and eyes of grey or blue. Some were a little fairer,
+some a little darker, but all unmistakably stamped "Ardayre."
+
+John pointed out each individual to her, while she hung fondly on his
+arm, from some doubtful crude fourteenth century wooden panels of Johns
+and Denzils, on to Benedict in a furred Henry VII. gown. Then came Henrys
+and Denzils in Elizabethan armour and puffed white satin, and through
+Stuart and Commonwealth to Stuart again, and so to William and Mary
+numbers of Benedicts, and lastly to powdered Georgian James' and Regency
+Denzils and Johns. And the name Amaryllis recurred more than once in
+stately dame or damsel, called after that fair Amaryllis of Elizabeth's
+days who had been maid of honour to the virgin Queen, and had sonnets
+written to her nut brown locks by the gallants of her time.
+
+"How little the women they married seem to have altered the type!" the
+young living Amaryllis exclaimed, when they came nearly to the end. "It
+goes on Ardayre, Ardayre, Ardayre, ever since the very first one. Oh!
+John, if we ever have a son he ought to be even more so--you and I being
+of the same blood--" and then she hesitated and blushed crimson. This was
+the first time she had ever spoken of such a thing.
+
+John held her arm very tightly to his side for a second, and his voice
+was uncertain as he answered:
+
+"Amaryllis, that is the profound desire of my heart, that we should
+have a son."
+
+A strange feeling of exaltation came over Amaryllis, half-innocent,
+wholly ignorant as she was.
+
+She had been stupid--French novels were all nonsense. Marriages in real
+life were always like this--of course they must be--since John said
+plainly and with such deep feeling that his profoundest desire was that
+they should have a son! That meant that she would surely have one. This
+was perfectly glorious, and it must simply be those silly books and Elsie
+Goldmore's too uxorious imagination which had given her some ridiculously
+romantic exaggerated ideas of what love hours would be. She would now be
+contented and never worry again. She nestled closer to her husband and
+looked up at him with eyes sweet and fond, the brown, curly lashes wet
+with tender dew.
+
+"Oh!--darling, when, when do you think we shall have a son?"
+
+Then, for the first time in their lives, John Ardayre clasped her in his
+arms passionately and held her to his heart.
+
+"Ah, God," he whispered hoarsely, as he kissed her fresh young lips.
+"Pray for that, Amaryllis--pray for that, my own."
+
+Then he restrained himself and drew her on to the four last pictures at
+the end of the room. They were of his grandfather and grandmother, and
+his father and mother. And then there was a blank space, and the brighter
+colour of the damask showed that a canvas had been removed.
+
+"Who hung there, John?"
+
+"The accursed snake charmer woman whom my father disgraced the family
+with by bringing home. She was his wife by the law, and a Frenchman
+painted her. It was a fine picture with the bastard Ferdinand in her
+arms--the proof of our shame. I had it taken down and burnt the day the
+place was mine."
+
+Amaryllis was receiving surprises to-day--John's face was full of
+emotion, his eyes were sparkling with hate as he spoke. How he must love
+everything connected with his home, and its honour, and its name--he
+could not be so very cold after all!
+
+She thought of the Russian's words about a family--the uselessness of its
+going on for generations, piling up possessions and narrowing its
+interests. What had the aims been of all these handsome men? She knew the
+earlier history a little, for even though she was of a distant branch
+they had been proud of the connection, and treasured the traditions
+belonging to it. But these were just dry facts of history which she knew,
+so now she asked:
+
+"John, what did any of them do? Did they accomplish great deeds?"
+
+He took her back to the beginning again and began to tell her of the
+achievements of each one. There would be three perhaps, one after
+another, who had filled high posts in the State, and indeed had been
+worthy of the name. Then would come one or two quiet plodding ones, who
+seemed to have done little but sit still and hold on.
+
+Then Denzil Ardayre, knight of Elizabeth's time, pleased Amaryllis most
+of all--though there had been greater soldiers, and more able politicians
+than he later on, culminating in Sir John Ardayre of George IV. days,
+who had hammered against pocket boroughs and corruption until he died an
+old man, the hour the Reform Bill swept aside abuses and the road to
+freedom was won.
+
+"How strange it seems that different ages produce more accentuated stamps
+of breeding than others," Amaryllis said, "even in the same families
+where the blood is all blue. Look, John! that Denzil and the rest of the
+Elizabethans are the most refined, aristocratic creatures you could
+imagine, in their little ruffs. Absolutely intellectual and cultivated
+faces and of old race--and then comes a James period, less intelligent,
+more round featured. And a Cavalier one, gay and gallant, aristocratic
+and chiselled also, but not nearly so clever looking as the Elizabethan.
+Then we get cadaverous William and Mary ones, they might be lawyers or
+business men, not that look of great gentlemen, and the Anne's and the
+first George's are really bucolic! And then that wonderfully refined,
+cultivated, intellectual finish seems to crop up in the later eighteenth
+century again. Have you noticed this, John? You can see it in every
+collection of miniatures and portraits even in the museums."
+
+John responded interestedly:
+
+"The Elizabethans were supremely cultivated gentlemen--no wonder that
+they look as they do--and their lives were always in their hands which
+gives them that air of insouciance."
+
+When the history of the family achievements had been told her down to
+John's father, she paused, still clinging to his arm, and said:
+
+"I am so glad that they did splendid things, aren't you? And we shall not
+drift either. You must teach me to be the most perfect mistress of
+Ardayre, and the most perfect wife for the greatest of them all--because
+your achievement is the finest, John, to have won it all back and
+redeemed it by the work of your own brain."
+
+He pressed the hand on his arm.
+
+"It was hard work--and the home times were ugly in those days, Amaryllis,
+though the goal was worth it, and now we must carry on...." And then his
+reserve seemed to fall upon him again, and he took her through the other
+rooms, and kept to solid facts, and historic descriptions, and his bride
+had continuously the impression that he was mastering some emotion in
+himself, and that this stolidity was a mask.
+
+When lunch time came the usual relations of obvious and commonplace
+goodfellowship had been fully restored between them, and that atmosphere
+of aloofness which seemed impossible to banish enveloped John once more.
+
+Amaryllis sighed--but it was too soon to despair she thought, after the
+hope of John's words, and with her serene temperament she decided to
+leave things as they were for the present and trust to time.
+
+But as her maid brushed out the soft brown hair that night, an unrest and
+longing for something came over her again--what she knew not, nor could
+have put into words. She let herself re-live that one moment when John
+had pressed herewith passion to his heart. Perhaps, perhaps that was the
+beginning of a change in him--perhaps--presently--
+
+But the clock in the long gallery had chimed two, and there was yet no
+sound of John in the dressing-room beyond.
+
+Amaryllis lay in the great splendid gilt bed in the warm darkness, and at
+last tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+What could keep him so long away from her? Why did he not come?
+
+The large Queen Anne windows were wide open, and soft noises of the night
+floated in with the zephyrs. The whole air seemed filled with waiting
+expectancy for something tender and passionate to be.
+
+What was that? Steps upon the terrace--measured steps--and then silence,
+and then a deep sigh. It must be John--out there alone!--when she would
+have loved to have stayed with him, to have woven sweet fancies in the
+luminous darkness, to have taken and given long kisses, to have buried
+her face in the honeysuckle which grew there, steeped in dew. But he had
+said to her after their stately dinner in the great dining-hall:
+
+"Play to me a little, Amaryllis, and then go to bed, child--you must be
+tired out."
+
+And after that he had not spoken more, but pushed her gently towards the
+door with a solemn kiss on the forehead, and just a murmur of
+"Good-night." And she had deceived herself and thought that it meant that
+he would come quickly, and so she had run up the stairs.
+
+But now it was after two in the morning, and would soon be growing
+towards dawn--and John was out there sighing alone!
+
+She crept to the window and leaned upon the sill. She thought that she
+could distinguish his tall figure there by the carved stone bench.
+
+"John!" she called softly, "I am, so lonely--John, dearest--won't
+you come?"
+
+Then she felt that her ears must be deceiving her, for there was the
+sound of a faint suppressed sob, and then, a second afterwards, her
+husband's voice answering cheerily, with its usual casual note:
+
+"You naughty little night bird! Go back to bed--and to sleep--yes--I am
+coming immediately now!"
+
+But when he did steal in silently from the dressing-room an hour later in
+a grey dawn, Amaryllis, worn out with speculation and disappointment, had
+fallen asleep.
+
+He looked down upon her charming face--the long, curly brown lashes
+sweeping the flushed cheek, and at the rounded, beautiful girlish
+form--all his very own to clasp and to kiss and to hold in his arms--and
+two scalding tears gathered in his blue eyes, and he took his place
+beside her without making a sound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Here are the papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense.
+What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all
+these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness
+since the beginning--and now if it wasn't for them we could have a
+glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet
+you under Stanislass' nose. None of the others I have ever had are as
+good in the way of a lover as you."
+
+The man swore in German under his breath.
+
+"Of a lightness always, Harietta! No _d�vouement_, no patriotism....
+Should I have agreed to the divorce, loving your body as I do, had it not
+been a serious matter? The pig-dog who now owns you must be sucked dry of
+information--and then I shall take you back again."
+
+A cunning look came into Madame Boleski's hazel eyes. She had not the
+slightest intention of permitting this--to go back to Hans! To the
+difficulty of making both ends meet! Even though he did cause every inch
+of her well-preserved body to tingle! They had suggested her getting the
+divorce for their own stupid political ends, to be able to place her in
+the arms of Stanislass Boleski, and there she meant to stay! It was
+infinitely more agreeable to be a grande dame in Paris, and presently in
+London, than to be the spouse of Hans in Berlin, where, whatever his
+secret power might be with the authorities, he could give her no great
+social position; and social position was the goal of all Harietta
+Boleski's desires!
+
+She could attract lovers in any class of life--that had never been her
+difficulty. Her trouble had been that she could never force herself into
+good American society, even after she had married Hans, and they had
+dwelt there for a year or more. Her own compatriots would have none of
+her, and so she wanted triumph in other lands. She hated to remember her
+youth of humiliation, trying to play a social game on the earnings of any
+work that she could pick up, between discreet outings with--friends who
+failed to suggest matrimony. Hans, on some secret mission to San
+Francisco, where she had gone as companion to a friend, had seemed a
+veritable Godsend and Prince Charming, when, in her thirtieth year, he
+actually offered legal marriage, completely overcome by her great
+physical charm. But although she loved Hans with whatever of that emotion
+such a nature could be capable of, five years of him and more or less
+genteel poverty had been enough, and now she was free of that, and could
+still enjoy surreptitiously the pleasure of his passion, and reign as a
+_persona grata_ wife of one of the richest men in Poland at the same
+time. That those in authority who had arranged the divorce required of
+her certain tiresome obligations in return for their services, was one of
+those annoying parts of life! She took not the slightest interest in the
+affairs of any country. Nothing really mattered to her, but herself. Her
+whole force was concentrated upon the betterment of the position and
+physical pleasure of Harietta Boleski.
+
+It was this instinct alone which had prompted her to acquire a smattering
+of education--and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had
+been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic
+talent--no mean one--to gain her ends. She was now playing the r�le of a
+lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew--and here was Hans back again,
+and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he
+required from Stanislass she should return to him!
+
+"Tra la la!" she said to herself, there in the room at the Hotel Astoria,
+where she had gone to meet him, "think this if it pleases you! It will
+keep you quiet and won't hurt me!"
+
+For the moment she wanted Hans--the man, and was determined to waste no
+further time on useless discussion. So she began her blandishments,
+taking pride in showing him her beautiful garments, and her string of big
+pearls; each thing exhibited between her voluptuous kisses, until Hans
+grew intoxicated with desire, and became as clay in her hands.
+
+"It is not thy pig-dog of a husband I wish to kill!" he said, after one
+hour had gone by in inarticulate murmurings. "Him I do not fear--it is
+the Russian, Verisschenzko, who fills me with hate--we have regard of
+him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the
+rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be
+unpleasantness for you, my little cat--thy Hans will twist his bear's
+neck, and thine also, if need be!"
+
+"Verisschenzko!" laughed Harietta, "why, I hardly know him; he don't
+amount to a row of pins! He's Stanislass' friend--not mine."
+
+Then she smoothed back Hans' rather fierce, fair moustache from his lips
+and kissed him again--her ruby ring flashing in a ray of sunlight.
+
+"Look! isn't this a lovely jewel, Hans! My old Stannie gave it to me only
+some days ago--it is my new toy--see--"
+
+Hans examined it:
+
+"Thou art a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil
+qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me
+and to all men--the only good thing in thee is thy body--and for that all
+men let thee lie."
+
+Harietta pouted.
+
+"I can't understand when you talk like that, Hans--it's all warbash, as
+we said out West. What are qualities? What is there but the body anyway?
+Great sakes! that's enough for me, and the devil is only in story books
+to frighten children--I'm just like every other woman and I want to have
+a good time."
+
+"I hear that you are going to London soon," said Hans, dropping the
+tutoyage and growing brutally severe, "to conquer new lovers and to wear
+more dresses? But there you will be of great use to me. Your instructions
+will be all ready in cypher by Tuesday night, when you must meet me at
+whatever point is convenient to you, after nine o'clock--here, perhaps?"
+
+Harietta frowned--she had other views for Tuesday night.
+
+"What shall I gain by coming, or by going on with this spying on Stan?
+I'm tired of it all; it breaks my head trying to take in your horrid old
+cypher. I don't think I'll do it any more."
+
+The Prussian's face grew livid and his mouth set like an iron spring. He
+looked at her straight between the eyes, as a lion tamer might have done,
+and he took a cane from where it laid on a bureau near.
+
+"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I
+have done before--if you fail us in a single thing--and do not think we
+are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose
+your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"
+
+Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear--she had felt that
+stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She
+knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of
+the things she had adored in him--but to be degraded and exposed, as well
+as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken
+to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all
+these old papers were, she would have to go on--but since he threatened
+her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so
+there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come
+from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially
+when menaced with a stick?
+
+She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind
+of humour.
+
+Hans crushed her in his arms.
+
+"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"
+
+Harietta became cajoling--no one could have looked more frank or simple,
+as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them
+and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice,
+and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not
+clever like they!
+
+"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and
+always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of
+course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."
+
+She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite
+real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new
+cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.
+
+"To business then, _mein liebchen_--attend carefully to every word. In
+England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the
+highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are
+indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It
+is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers
+are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft,
+and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to
+use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my
+wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands
+clasped behind him--he would have been a very handsome man but for his
+too wide hips.
+
+Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice
+this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful
+quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except
+Verisschenzko--Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to
+him--Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared--much more
+than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but
+she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only
+when--and because--he wanted to, not for the reason that she had
+conquered him.
+
+"Of great use to our country, Harietta, my wife," Hans murmured again,
+clearing his throat.
+
+"I am not your wife, my pretty Hans!" and she raised her eyebrows, and
+curled one corner of her upper lip. "You gave me up at the bidding of the
+higher command--I am your mistress now and then, when I feel
+inclined--but I am Stanislass' wife. I like a man better when I am his
+mistress; there are no tiresome old duties along with it."
+
+Hans growled, he hated to realise this.
+
+"You must be more careful with your speech, Harietta. When you get to
+England you must not say 'along with it'--after the pains I have taken
+with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and
+even a literal translation of another language--but bad grammar--common
+phrases--pah! that is to give the show away!"
+
+Harietta reddened--her vanity disliked criticism.
+
+"I take very good care of my language when it is necessary in the
+world--I am considered to have a lovely voice--but when I'm with you I
+guess I can enjoy a holiday--it's kind of a rest to let yourself go," her
+pronunciation lapsed into the broadest American, just to irritate him,
+and she stood and laughed in his face.
+
+He caught her in his arms. She never failed to appeal to his senses; she
+had won him by that force and so held his brute nature even after five
+years. This was always the reason of whatever success she secured. A man
+had no smallest doubt as to why he was drawn; it was a direct appeal to
+the most primitive animal nature in him. The birth of Love is ever thus
+if we would analyse it truly, but the spirit fortunately so wraps things
+in illusion that generally both participants really believe that the
+mutual attraction is because of higher emotions of the mind, and so they
+are doomed to disappointment when passion is sated, unless the mind
+fulfills the ideal. But if the reality fails to make good, the refined
+spirit turns in disgust from the material, unconsciously resentful in
+that it has suffered deception. With Harietta this disappointment could
+never occur, since she created no illusion that she was appealing to the
+mind at all, and so a man if he were attracted faced no unknown quality,
+but was aware that it was only the animal in him which was drawn, and if
+his senses were his masters, not his servants, her victory was complete.
+
+After some more fierce caresses had come to an end--there was no delicacy
+about Harietta--Hans continued his discourse.
+
+"There has come here to Paris a young man of the name of
+Ardayre--Ferdinand Ardayre--he is slippery, but he can be of the greatest
+value to us. See that you become friends--you can reach him through Abba
+Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his
+brother's wife--for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste
+time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe
+he hates the English--there is a slur on him."
+
+"I have already met him," and Harietta's eyes sparkled. "I hate the wife
+also for my own reasons--yes--how can I help you with this?"
+
+"It is Ferdinand you must concentrate on; I am not concerned with the
+brother or his wife, except in so far as his hate for them can be used to
+our advantage. Do not embark upon this to play games of your own for your
+hate--you may be foolish then and upset matters."
+
+"Very well." The two objects could go together, Harietta felt; she never
+wasted words. It would be a pleasure one day, perhaps, to be able to
+injure that girl whom Verisschenzko certainly respected, if he was not
+actually growing to love her. Harietta did not desire the respect of men
+in the abstract; it could be a great bore--what they thought of her never
+entered her consideration, since she was only occupied with her own
+pleasure in them and how they affected herself. Respect was one of the
+adjuncts of a good social position; and of value merely in that aspect.
+But as Verisschenzko respected no one else, as far as she knew, that must
+mean something annoyingly important.
+
+Seven o'clock struck; she had thoroughly enjoyed being with Hans, he
+satisfied her in many ways, and it was also a relaxation, as she need not
+act. But the joys of the interview were over now, and she had others
+prepared for later on, and must go back to the Rhin to dress. So she
+kissed Hans and left, having arranged to meet him on the Tuesday night
+here in his rooms, and having received precise instructions as to the
+nature of the information to be obtained from Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+Life would be a paradise if only it were not for these ridiculous and
+tiresome political intrigues. Harietta had no taste for actual intrigue,
+its intricacies were a weariness to her. If she could have married a rich
+man in the beginning, she always told herself, she would never have mixed
+herself up in anything of the kind, and now that she _had_ married a rich
+man, she would try to get out of the nuisance as soon as possible.
+Meanwhile, there was Ferdinand--and Ferdinand was becoming in love with
+her--they had met three times since the Montivacchini ball.
+
+"He'll be no difficulty," she decided, with a sigh of relief. It would
+not be as it had been with Verisschenzko, whom she had been directed to
+capture. For in Verisschenzko she had found a master--not a dupe.
+
+When she reached the beautiful Champs-Elys�es, she looked at her diamond
+wrist watch. It was only ten minutes past seven, the dinner at the
+Austrian Embassy was not until half-past eight. Dressing was a serious
+business to Harietta, but she meant to cut it down to half an hour
+to-night, because there was a certain apartment in the Rue Cambon which
+she intended to visit for a few minutes.
+
+"What an original street to have an apartment in!" people always said to
+Verisschenzko. "Nothing but business houses and model hotels for
+travellers!" And the shabby looking _porte-coch�re_ gave no evidence of
+the old Louis XV. mansion within, converted now into a series of offices,
+all but the top flooring looking on to the gardens of the _Minist�re_.
+
+Verisschenzko had taken it for its situation and its isolation, and had
+converted it into a thing of great beauty of panelling and rare pictures
+and the most comfortable chairs. There was absolute silence, too, there
+among the tree tops.
+
+Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no
+lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant,
+was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken
+through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a
+richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk.
+
+Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured
+Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski
+pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair.
+
+"No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, St�pan,
+you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say."
+
+"Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing
+and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some
+cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one.
+
+Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now.
+
+"You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly
+amazed!"
+
+Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in
+the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that
+was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the
+crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself.
+
+She nodded, and that was all.
+
+Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green
+eyes full of a mocking light.
+
+"I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's
+just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it
+might be yours."
+
+Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee.
+
+"You perfect angel, St�pan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the
+caresses at all, but just ordered:
+
+"Now talk."
+
+She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words
+and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her
+own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not,
+because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test
+the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch.
+
+"She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing
+less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can
+have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German
+correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she
+has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's
+brain. Now is the time to obtain the most."
+
+He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous
+brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and
+the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to
+the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a
+cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she
+meant to communicate was exposed.
+
+"You imagine things, my child," he scoffed. "I would have to have
+proof--and then if it all should be as you say. Why, that brooch must be
+yours--for I know that it is out of real love for me that you talk, and I
+always pay lavishly for--love."
+
+"Indeed, you know that I adore you, St�pan--and that brooch is just what
+I want. Stanislass has been niggardly beyond words to me lately, and I am
+tired of all my other things."
+
+"Bring me some proof to the reception to-night. I am not dining, but I
+shall be there by eleven for a few moments."
+
+She agreed, and then rose to go--but she pouted again and the convex
+_obstin�_ curve below her under lip seemed to obtrude itself.
+
+"She has gone back to England--your precious bride--I suppose?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"We shall all meet there in a week or so--Stanislass is going to see some
+of his boring countrymen in London--the conference you know about--and
+we have taken a house in Grosvenor Square for some months. I do not know
+many people yet--will you see to it that I do?"
+
+"I will see that you have as many of these handsome Englishmen as will
+completely keep your hands full."
+
+She laughed delightedly.
+
+"But it is women I want; the men I can always get for myself."
+
+"Fear nothing, your reception will be great."
+
+Then she flung herself into his arms and embraced him, and then moved
+towards the door.
+
+"I will telephone to Cartier in the morning," and Verisschenzko opened
+the door for her, "if you bring me some interesting proof of your love
+for me--to-night."
+
+And when she had gone he took up his letter again
+and looked at the address,
+
+_To_
+Lady Ardayre,
+_Ardayre Chase,
+North Somerset,
+Angleterre_.
+
+"I must keep to the things of the spirit with you, precious lady. And
+when I cannot subdue it, there is Harietta for the flesh--wough! but she
+sickens me--even for that!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre could not get any more leave for a considerable time and
+remained quartered in the North, where he played cricket and polo to his
+heart's content, but the head of the family and his charming wife went
+through the feverish season of 1914 in the town house in Brook Street.
+Ardayre was too far away for week-end parties, but they had several
+successful London dinners, and Amaryllis was becoming quite a capable
+hostess, and was much admired in the world.
+
+Very fine of instinct and apprehension at all times she was developing by
+contact with intelligent people--for John had taken care that she only
+mixed with the most select of his friends. The de la Paule family had
+been more than appreciative of her and had guided her and supervised her
+visiting list with care.
+
+Everything was too much of a rush for her to think and analyse things,
+and if she had been asked whether she was happy, she would have thought
+that she was replying with honesty when she affirmed that she was. John
+was not happy and knew it, but none of his emotions ever betrayed
+themselves, and the mask of his stolid content never changed.
+
+They had gone on with their matter-of-fact relations, and when they
+returned to London after a week at Ardayre, all had been much easier,
+because they were seldom alone--and at last Amaryllis had grown to accept
+the situation, and try not to speculate about it. She danced every night
+at balls and continued the usual round, but often at the Op�ra, or the
+Russian ballet, or driving back through the park in the dawn, some wild
+longing for romance would stir in her, and she would nestle close to
+John. And John would perhaps kiss her quietly and speak of ordinary
+things. He went everywhere with her though, and never failed in the
+kindest consideration. He seldom danced himself, and therefore must often
+have been weary, but no suggestion of this ever reached Amaryllis.
+
+"What does he talk to his friends about, I wonder?" she asked herself,
+watching him from across a room, in a great house after dinner one night.
+
+John was seated beside the American Lady Avonwier, a brilliant person who
+did not allow herself to be bored. He appeared calm as usual, and there
+they sat until it was time to go on to a ball.
+
+Everything he said was so sensible, so well informed--perhaps that was a
+nice change for people--and then he was very good-looking and--but oh!
+what was it--what was it which made it all so disappointing and tame!
+
+A week after they had come up to Brook Street, the Boleskis arrived at
+the Mount Lennard House which they had taken in Grosvenor Square, armed
+with every kind of introduction, and Harietta immediately began to dazzle
+the world.
+
+Her dresses and jewels defied all rivalry; they were in a class alone,
+and she was frank and stupid and gracious--and fitted in exactly with
+the spirit of the time.
+
+She restrained her movements in dancing to suit the less advanced English
+taste; she gave to every charity and organized entertainments of a
+fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded
+with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she
+played with them all--ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by
+her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and
+good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one--while
+the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have insured
+any hostess's success!
+
+Harietta had never been so happy in all the thirty-six years of her life.
+This was her hour of triumph. She was here in a country which spoke her
+own language--for her French was deplorably bad--she had an unquestioned
+position, and all would have been without flaw but for this tiresome
+information she was forced to collect.
+
+Verisschenzko had been detained in Paris. The events of the twenty-eighth
+of June at Serajevo were of deep moment to him, and it was not until the
+second week in July that he arrived at the Ritz, full of profound
+preoccupation.
+
+Amaryllis had been to Harietta's dinners and dances, and now the Boleskis
+had been asked down to Ardayre in return for the three days at the end of
+the month, when the coming of age of the young Marquis of Bridgeborough
+would give occasion for great rejoicings, and Amaryllis herself would
+give a ball.
+
+"You cannot ask people down to North Somerset in these days just for the
+pleasure of seeing you, my dear child," Lady de la Paule had said to her
+nephew's wife. "Each season it gets worse; one is flattered if one's
+friends answer an invitation to dinner even, or remain for half an hour
+when it is done. I do not know what things are coming to, etiquette of
+all sorts went long ago--now manners, and even decency have gone. We are
+rapidly becoming savages, openly seizing whatever good thing is offered
+to us no matter from whom, and then throwing it aside the instant we
+catch sight of something new. But one must always go with the tide unless
+one is strong enough to stem it, and frankly _I_ am not. Now
+Bridgeborough's coming of age will make a nice excuse for you to have a
+party at Ardayre. How many people can you put up? Thirty guests and their
+servants at least, and seven or eight more if you use the agent's house."
+
+So thus it had been arranged, and John expressed his pleasure that his
+sweet Amaryllis should show what a hostess she could be.
+
+None but the most interesting people were invited, and the party promised
+to be the greatest success.
+
+Two or three days before they were to go down, Amaryllis coming in late
+in the afternoon, found Verisschenzko's card.
+
+"Oh! John!" she cried delightedly, "that very thrilling Russian whom we
+met in Paris has called. You remember he wrote to me some time ago and
+said he would let us know when he arrived. Oh! would not it be nice to
+have him at our party--let us telephone to him now!"
+
+Verisschenzko answered the call himself, he had just come in; he
+expressed himself as enchanted at the thought of seeing her--and
+yes--with pleasure he would come down to Ardayre for the ball.
+
+"We shall meet to-night, perhaps, at Carlton House Terrace at the German
+Embassy," he said, "and then we can settle everything."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why she felt rather excited as she walked up the
+stairs--she had often thought of Verisschenzko, and hoped he would come
+to England. He was vivid and living and would help her to balance
+herself. She had thought while she dressed that her life had been one
+stupid rush with no end, since that night when they had talked of
+serious things at the Montivacchini h�tel. She had need of the counsel
+he had promised to give her, for this heedless racket was not adding
+lustre to her soul.
+
+Verisschenzko seemed to find her very soon--he was not one of those
+persons who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing
+when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign
+fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he
+had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in his
+advance towards this goal.
+
+He looked at her critically for an instant when they were seated in the
+soft gloom.
+
+"You are changed, Madame. Half the soul is awake now, but the other half
+has gone further to sleep."
+
+"--Yes, I felt you would say that--I do not like myself," and she sighed.
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"I seem to be drifting down such a useless stream--and it is all so mad
+and aimless, and yet it is fun. But every one is tired and restless and
+nobody cares for anything real--I am afraid I am not strong enough to
+stand aside from it though, and I wonder sometimes what I shall become."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her earnestly--he was silent for some seconds.
+
+"Fate may alter the atmosphere. There are things hovering, I fear, of
+which you do not dream, little protected English bride. Perhaps it is
+good that you live while you can."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"Sorrows for the world. But tell me, have you seen Harietta Boleski in
+her London r�le?"
+
+"Yes--she is the greatest success--every one goes to her parties; she is
+coming to mine at Ardayre."
+
+Verisschenzko raised his eyebrows, and nothing could have been more
+sardonically whimsical than his smile.
+
+"I saw Stanislass this morning--he is almost _gaga_ now--a mere
+cypher--she has destroyed his body, as well as his soul."
+
+"They are both coming on the twenty-third."
+
+"It will be an interesting visit I do not doubt--and I shall see the
+Family house!"
+
+"I hope you will like it--I shall love to show it to you, and the
+pictures. It means so much to John."
+
+"Have you met your cousin Denzil yet?".
+
+Verisschenzko was studying her face; it had gained something, it was
+a little finer--but it had lost something too, and there was a shadow
+in her eyes.
+
+"Denzil Ardayre? No--What made you mention him now?"
+
+"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like--your
+husband, you know."
+
+The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
+Russian's unusual views.
+
+"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited
+it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be
+almost as _d�s�quilibr�_ as the rest of the world."
+
+"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something
+dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."
+
+"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot
+be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems
+feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of
+sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to
+the top; we are at the period when this has occurred--we can but
+wait--and watch."
+
+"If we had a new religion?"
+
+"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."
+
+"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary
+things divine!"
+
+"Certainly when they are emplanted upon a true basis. I said
+'make-believe'--that is what kills all good things--make-believe. Most
+of the present-day leaders are throwing dust in their followers' eyes--or
+their own. Priests and politicians, lawyers and financiers--all of them
+are afraid of the truth. Every one lives in a stupid atmosphere of
+self-deception. The religion of the future will teach each individual to
+be true to himself, and when that is accomplished the sixth root race
+will be born. Look at that man over there talking to a woman with haggard
+eyes--can you see them in the gloom? They have all the ugly entities
+around them, the spirits of morphine and nicotine--drawing misfortune and
+bodily decay. Every force has to have its congenial atmosphere, or it
+cannot exist; fishes cannot breathe on land."
+
+Amaryllis looked at the pair; they were well-known people, the man
+celebrated in the literary and artistic section of the world of
+fashion--the woman of high rank and of refined intelligence.
+
+Verisschenzko looked also. "I do not know either of their names," he
+said, "I am simply judging by the obvious deductions to be made by their
+appearances to any one who has developed intuition."
+
+"How I wish I could learn to have that!"
+
+"Read Voltaire's 'Zadig.' Deductive methods are shown in it useful to
+begin upon--observe everything about people, and then having seen
+results, work back to causes, and then realise that all material things
+are the physical expression of an etheric force, and as we can control
+the material, we need thus only attract what etheric waves we desire."
+
+Amaryllis looked again at the pair--both were smoking idly, and she
+remembered having heard that they both "took drugs." It was a phrase
+which had meant nothing to her until now.
+
+"You mean that because they smoke all the time, and it is said they take
+morphine _piq�res_, that they are not only hurting their bodies, but
+drawing spiritual ills as well."
+
+"Obviously. They have surrounded themselves with the drab demagnetising
+current which envelops the body when human beings give up their wills. It
+would be very difficult for anything good to pierce through such
+ambience. Have you ever remarked the strange ends of all people who take
+drugs? They seldom die natural, ordinary deaths. The evil entities which
+they have drawn round them by their own weakness, destroy them at last."
+
+"I do not like the idea that there are these 'entities,' as you call
+them, all around us."
+
+"There are not, they cannot come near us unless we allow them--have I not
+told you that the atmosphere must be congenial? Our own wills can create
+an armour through which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness
+and drifting which are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable
+for the vampires beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You
+represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You
+must fulfil this r�le. I represent a leader of certain thought in my
+country. My soul is given to this--I must only indulge in through
+which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness and drifting which
+are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable for the vampires
+beyond to exist on."
+
+"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
+yet repelled.
+
+"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
+No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
+become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
+what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
+could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
+ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
+Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
+coloured lights."
+
+"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
+smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
+
+"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
+
+He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
+bring something bad?"
+
+"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
+nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
+make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
+
+They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
+
+"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
+and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
+and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
+you make me feel that I want to be good."
+
+His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
+
+"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
+break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
+may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
+as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
+apart from earthly things."
+
+Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
+her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
+expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
+
+"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
+to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
+
+Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
+thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
+
+"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
+conventional air.
+
+Verisschenzko laughed.
+
+"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
+proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
+with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
+life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
+
+Amaryllis felt a number of things.
+
+"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
+
+"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
+it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent
+an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil
+this r�le. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul
+is given to this--I must only indulge in that over which I am master.
+Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained
+dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and
+for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is _'plus fort que
+vous'_--then you had better throw up the sponge--you have lost the fight,
+and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."
+
+"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"
+
+"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they
+dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings
+afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back
+than the sensualists--what are they accomplishing? They have withered
+nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what
+plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best
+of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to
+alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere
+altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal
+presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which,
+should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will
+end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."
+
+"You reason in this in the same way that you did about the smoking."
+
+"Naturally--that is the only form of sensible reasoning. You must keep
+your judgment perfectly balanced and never let it be obscured by
+prejudice, tradition, custom, or anything but the actual common-sense
+view of the case."
+
+"I think we English like that better than any other quality in
+people--common sense."
+
+Verisschenzko looked away from her to a new stream of guests who had come
+out on the terrace--a splendid-looking group of tall young men and
+exquisite women.
+
+"With all your faults you are a great nation, because although these
+latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the
+individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had
+become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the
+community--you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here.
+Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by
+patriotism and gallantry like the French, some by superstition and
+ignorance worked on by mystic religion, as in my country--some by
+ruthless materialism like Germany; but that dull, solid sense of duty is
+purely English--and it is really a glorious thing."
+
+Amaryllis thought how John represented it exactly!
+
+"I feel that I want to do my duty," she said softly, "but..."
+
+"Continue to feel that and Fate will show you the way. Now I must take
+you back to your husband whom I see in the distance there--he is with
+Harietta Boleski. I wonder what he thinks of her?"
+
+"I have asked him! He says that she is so obvious as to be innocuous, and
+that he likes her clothes!"
+
+Verisschenzko did not answer, and Amaryllis wondered if he agreed
+with John!
+
+They had to pass along a corridor to reach the staircase, upon the
+landing of which they had seen Sir John and Madame Boleski leaning over
+the balustrade, and when they got there they had moved on out of sight,
+so Verisschenzko, bowing, left Amaryllis with Lady de la Paule.
+
+As he retraced his steps later on he saw Sir John Ardayre in earnest
+conversation with Lemon Bridges, the fashionable rising surgeon of the
+day. They stood in an alcove, and Verisschenzko's alert intelligence was
+struck by the expression on John Ardayre's face--it was so sad and
+resigned, as a brave man's who has received death sentence. And as he
+passed close to them he heard these words from John: "It is quite
+hopeless then--I feared so--"
+
+He stopped his descent for a moment and looked again--and then a
+sudden illumination came into his yellow-green eyes, and he went on
+down the stairs.
+
+"There is tragedy here--and how will it affect the Lady of my soul?"
+
+He walked out of the House and into Pall Mall, and there by the Rag met
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"We seem doomed to have unexpected meetings!" cried that young man
+delightedly. "Here I am only up for one night on regimental business, and
+I run into you!"
+
+They walked on together, and Denzil went into the Ritz with
+Verisschenzko and they smoked in his sitting-room. They talked of many
+things for a long time--of the unrest in Europe and the clouds in the
+Southeast--of Denzil's political aims--of things in general--and at last
+Verisschenzko said:
+
+"I have just left your cousin and his wife at the German Embassy; they
+have now gone on to a ball. He makes an indulgent husband--I suppose the
+affair is going well?"
+
+"Very well between them, I believe. That sickening cad Ferdinand is
+circulating rumours--that they can never have any children--but they are
+for his own ends. I must arrange to meet them when I come up next time--I
+hear that the family are enchanted with Amaryllis--"
+
+"She is a thing of flesh and blood and flame--I could love her wildly did
+I think it were wise."
+
+Denzil glanced sharply at his friend. He had not often known him to
+hesitate when attracted by a woman--
+
+"What aspect does the unwisdom take?"
+
+"Certain absorption--I have other and terribly important things to do.
+The husband is most worthy--one wonders what the next few years will
+bring. Their temperaments must be as the poles.
+
+"No one seems to think of temperament when he marries, or heredity, or
+anything, but just desire for the woman--or her money--or something
+quite outside the actual fact." Denzil lit another cigarette. "Marriage
+appears a perfect terror to me--how could one know one was going to
+continue to feel emotion towards some one who might prove to be the most
+awful physical or mental disappointment on intimate acquaintance? I
+believe _affaires de convenance_ selected with thought-out reasoning are
+the best."
+
+Verisschenzko shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That is not necessary. If the brain is disciplined, it is in a condition
+to use its judgment, even when in love, and ought therefore to be able to
+resist the desire to mate if the woman's character or tendencies are
+unsuitable, but most men's brains are only disciplined in regard to
+mental things, and have no real control over their physical desires. I
+have been this morning with Stanislass Boleski--there is a case and a
+warning. Stanislass was a strong man with a splendid brain and immense
+ambition, but no dominion over his senses, so that Succubus has
+completely annihilated all force in him. He should have strangled her
+after the first _etreinte_ as I should have done, had I felt that she
+could ever have any power over me!"
+
+Denzil smiled--St�pan was such a mixture of tenderness and
+complete savagery.
+
+"I always thought the Russian character was the most headstrong and
+undisciplined in the world, and took what it desired regardless of costs.
+But you belie it, old boy!"
+
+"I early said to myself on looking at my countrymen--and especially my
+countrywomen--these people are half genius, half fool; they have all
+the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters
+to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced
+and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he
+not attain!"
+
+"And you have attained."
+
+"I am on the road, but did not affairs of vital importance occupy me at
+the moment I might be capable of ancient excess!"
+
+"It is as well for the head of the Ardayre family that you are occupied
+then!" and Denzil smiled, and then he said, his thoughts drifting back to
+what interested him most:
+
+"You think Europe will be blazing soon, St�pan? I have wondered myself in
+the last month if this hectic peace could continue."
+
+"It cannot. I am here upon business with great issues, but I must not
+speak of facts, and what I say now is not from my knowledge of current
+events, but from my study of etheric currents which the thoughts and
+actions of over-civilised generations have engendered. You do not cram a
+shell with high explosives and leave it among matches with impunity."
+
+The two men looked at one another significantly, and then Denzil said:
+
+"I think I will not retire from the old regiment yet--I shall wait
+another year."
+
+"Yes--I would if I were you."
+
+They smoked silently for a moment--Verisschenzko's Calmuck face fixed and
+inscrutable and Denzil's debonnaire English one usually grave.
+
+"Some one told me that your friend, Madame Boleski, was having a
+tremendous success in London. I wish I could have got leave, I should
+like to have seen the whole thing."
+
+"Harietta is enjoying her luck-moment; she is in her zenith. She has
+baffled me as to where she receives her information from--she is capable
+of betraying both sides to gain some material, and possibly trivial, end.
+She is worth studying if you do come up, for she is unique. Most
+criminals have some stable point in immorality; Harietta is troubled by
+nothing fixed, no law of God or man means anything to her, she is only
+ruled by her sense of self-preservation. Her career is picturesque."
+
+"Had she ever any children?"
+
+Verisschenzko crossed himself.
+
+"Heaven forbid! Think of watching Harietta's instincts coming out in a
+child! Poor Stanislass is at least saved that!"
+
+"What a terrible thought that would be to one! But no man thinks of such
+things in selecting a wife!"
+
+"You will not marry yet--no?"
+
+"Certainly not, there is no necessity that I should. Marriage is only an
+obligation for the heads of families, not for the younger branches."
+
+"But if Sir John Ardayre has no son, you are--in blood--the next
+direct heir."
+
+"And Ferdinand is the next direct heir-in-law--that makes one sick--"
+
+Verisschenzko poured his friend out a whisky and soda and said smiling:
+
+"Then let us drink once more to the Ardayre son!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Lady de la Paule really felt proud of her niece; the party at Ardayre was
+progressing so perfectly. The guests had all arrived in time for the ball
+at Bridgeborough Castle on the twenty-third of July and had assisted next
+day at the garden party, and then a large dinner at Ardayre, and now on
+the last night of their stay Amaryllis' own ball was to take place.
+
+All the other big country houses round were filled also, and nothing
+could have been gayer or more splendidly done than the whole thing.
+
+John Ardayre had been quite enthusiastic about all the arrangements,
+taking the greatest pride in settling everything which could add lustre
+to his Amaryllis' success as a hostess.
+
+The quantities of servants, the perfectly turned-out motors--the
+wonderful chef--all had been his doing, and when most of the party had
+retired to their rooms for a little rest before dinner on the
+twenty-fifth, the evening of the ball, Lady de la Paule and John's
+friend, Lady Avonwier, congratulated him, as he sat with them, the last
+ladies remaining, under the great copper beech tree on the lawn which led
+down to the lake.
+
+"Everything has been perfect, has it not, Mabella?" Lady Avonwier said.
+"I have even been converted about your marvellous Madame Boleski! I
+confess I have avoided her all the season, because we Americans are far
+more exclusive than you English people in regard to whom we know of our
+own countrywomen, and no one would receive such a person in New York, but
+she is so luridly stupid, and such a decoration, that I quite agree you
+were right to invite her, John."
+
+"She seems to me charming," Lady de la Paule confessed. "Not the least
+pretension, and her clothes are marvellous. You are abominably severe,
+Etta. I am quite sure if she wanted to she could succeed in New York."
+
+"Mabella, you simple creature! She just cajoles you all the time--she has
+specialised in cajoling important great ladies! No American would be
+taken in by her, and we resent it in our country when an outsider like
+that barges in. But here, I admit, since she provides us with amusement,
+I have no objection to accepting her, as I would a new nigger band, and
+shall certainly send her a card for my fancy ball next week."
+
+John Ardayre chuckled softly.
+
+"That sound indicates?"--and Etta Avonwier flashed at him her lovely
+clever eyes.
+
+John Ardayre did not answer in words, but both women joined in his smile.
+
+"Yes, we are worldlings," Lady Avonwier admitted, "just measuring people
+up for what they can give us, it is the only way though when the whole
+thing is such a rush!"
+
+"I am so sorry for the poor husband," and Lady de la Paule's fat voice
+was kindly. "He does look such a wretched, cadaverous thing, with that
+black beard and those melancholy black eyes, and emaciated face. Do you
+think she beats him when they are alone?"
+
+"Who knows? She is so primitive, she may be capable even of that!"
+
+"Her clothes are not primitive," and John Ardayre lighted a cigarette.
+"I don't think she really can be such a fool."
+
+"I never suggested that she was a fool at all!" Lady Avonwier was
+decisive. "No one can be a fool who is as tenacious as she is--fools
+are vague people, who let things go. She is merely illiterate and
+stupid as an owl."
+
+"I like your distinction between stupidity and foolishness!" John Ardayre
+often argued with Lady Avonwier; they were excellent friends.
+
+"A stupid person is often a great rest and arrives--a fool makes one
+nervous and loses the game. But who is that walking with Amaryllis at the
+other side of the lake?"
+
+John Ardayre looked up, and on over the water to the glory of the beech
+trees on the rising slope of the park, and there saw moving at the edge
+of them his wife and Verisschenzko, accompanied by two of the great
+tawny dogs.
+
+"Oh! it is the interesting Russian whom we met in Paris, where all the
+charming ladies were supposed to be in love with him. He was to have come
+down for the whole three days. I suppose these Russian and Austrian
+rumours detained him, he has only arrived for to-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And across the lake Amaryllis was saying to Verisschenzko in her soft
+voice, deep as all the Ardayre voices were deep:
+
+"I have brought you here so that you may get the best view of the
+house. I think, indeed, that it is very beautiful from over the water,
+do not you?"
+
+Verisschenzko remained silent for a moment. His face was altered in this
+last week; it looked haggard and thinner, and his peculiar eyes were
+concentrated and intense.
+
+He took in the perfect picture of this English stately home, with its
+Henry VII centre and watch towers, and gabled main buildings, and the
+Queen Anne added Square--all mellowed and amalgamated into a whole of
+exquisite beauty and dignity in the glow of the setting sun.
+
+"How proud you should be of such possessions, you English. The
+accumulation of centuries, conserved by freedom from strife. It is no
+wonder you are so arrogant! You could not be if you had only memories, as
+we have, of wooden barracks up to a hundred and fifty years ago, and
+drunkenness and orgies, and beating of serfs. This is the picture our
+country houses call up--any of the older ones which have escaped being
+burnt. But here you have traditions of harmony and justice and
+obligations to the people nobody fulfilled." And then he took his hat off
+and looked up into the golden sky:
+
+"May nothing happen to hurt England, and may we one day be as free."
+
+A shiver ran through Amaryllis--but something kept her silent; she
+divined that her friend's mood did not desire speech from her yet. He
+spoke again and earnestly a moment or two afterwards.
+
+"Lady of my soul--I am going away to-morrow into a frenzied turmoil. I
+have news from my country, and I must be in the centre of events; we do
+not know what will come of it all. I come down to-day at great sacrifice
+of time to bid you farewell. It may be that I shall never see you again,
+though I think that I shall; but should I not, promise me that you will
+remain my star unsmirched by the paltriness of the world, promise me that
+you will live up to the ideal of this noble home--that you will develop
+your brain and your intuition, that you will be forceful and filled with
+common sense. I would like to have moulded your spiritual being, and
+brought you to the highest, but it is not for me, perhaps, in this
+life--another will come. See that you live worthily."
+
+Amaryllis was deeply moved.
+
+"Indeed, I will try. I have seen so little of you, but I feel that I have
+known you always, and--yes--even I feel that it is true what you said,"
+and she grew rosy with a sweet confusion--"that we were--lovers--I am so
+ignorant and undeveloped, not advanced like you, but when you speak you
+seem to awaken memories; it is as though a transitory light gleamed in
+dark places, and I receive flashes of understanding, and then it grows
+obscured again, but I will try to seize and hold it--indeed, I will try
+to do as you would wish."
+
+They both looked ahead, straight at the splendid house, and then
+Amaryllis looked at Verisschenzko and it seemed as though his face were
+transfigured with some inward light.
+
+"Strange things are coming, child, the cauldron has boiled over, and we
+do not know what the stream may engulf. Think of this evening in the days
+which will be, and remember my words."
+
+His voice vibrated, but he did not look at her, but always across the
+lake at the house.
+
+"Whenever you are in doubt as to the wisdom of a decision between two
+courses--put them to the test of which, if you follow it, will enable you
+to respect your own soul. Never do that which the inward You despises."
+
+"And if both courses look equally good and it is merely a question of
+earthly benefit?"
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"Never be vague. There is an Arab proverb which says: Trust in God but
+tie up your camel."
+
+The setting sun was throwing its last gleams upon the windows of the high
+tower. Nothing more beautiful or impressive could have been imagined than
+the scene. The velvet lawn sloping down to the lake, with a group of
+trees to the right among which nestled the tiny cruciform ancient church,
+while in the distance, on all sides, stretched the vast, gloriously
+timbered park.
+
+Verisschenzko gazed at the wonder of it, and his yellow-green eyes were
+wide with the vision it created in his brain.
+
+No--this should never go to the bastard Ferdinand, whose life in
+Constantinople was a disgrace. This record of fine living and achievement
+of worthy Ardayres should remain the glory of the true blood.
+
+He turned and looked at Amaryllis at his side, so slender, and strong,
+and young--and he said:
+
+"It is necessary above all things that you cultivate a steadiness and
+clearness of judgment, which will enable you to see the great aim in a
+thing, and not be hampered by sentimental jingo and convention, which is
+a danger when a nature is as good and true, but as undeveloped, as yours.
+Whatever circumstance should arise in your life, in relation to the trust
+you hold for this family and this home, bring the keenest common sense to
+bear upon the matter, and keep the end, that you must uphold it and pass
+it on resplendent, in view."
+
+Amaryllis felt that he was transmitting some message to her. His eyes
+were full of inspiration and seemed to see beyond.
+
+What message? She refrained from asking. If he had meant her to
+understand more fully he would have told her plainly. Light would come in
+its own time.
+
+"I promise," was all she said.
+
+They looked at the great tower; the sun had left some of the windows and
+in one they could see the figure of a woman standing there in some light
+dressing-gown.
+
+"That is Harietta Boleski," Verisschenzko remarked, his mood changing,
+and that penetrating and yet inscrutable expression growing in his
+regard. "It is almost too far away to be certain, but I am sure that it
+is she. Am I right? Is that window in her room?"
+
+"Yes--how wonderful of you to be able to recognise her at that distance!"
+
+"Of what is she thinking?--if one can call her planning thoughts! She
+does not gaze at views to appreciate the loveliness of the landscape;
+figures in the scene are all which could hold her attention--and those
+figures are you and me."
+
+"Why should we interest her?"
+
+"There are one or two reasons why we should. I think after all you must
+be very careful of her. I believe if she stays on in England you had
+better not let the acquaintance increase."
+
+"Very well." Amaryllis again did not question him; she felt he knew best.
+
+"She has been most successful here, and at the Bridgeborough ball she
+amused herself with a German officer, and left the other women's men
+alone. He was brought by the party from Broomgrove and was most
+_empress�;_ he got introduced to her at once--just after we came in. I
+expect they will bring him to-night. He and she looked such a magnificent
+pair, dancing a quadrille. It was quite a serious ball to begin with!
+None of those dances of which you disapprove, and all the Yeomanry wore
+their uniforms and the German officer wore his too."
+
+"He was a fine animal, then?"
+
+"Yes--but?"
+
+"You said _a pair_--only an animal could make a pair with Harietta!
+Describe him to me. What was he like? And what uniform did he wear?"
+
+Amaryllis gave a description, of height, and fairness, and of the blue
+and gold coat.
+
+"He would have been really good-looking, only that to our eyes his hips
+are too wide."
+
+"It sounds typically German--there are hundreds such there--some ordinary
+Prussian Infantry regiment, I expect. You say he was introduced to
+Harietta? They were not old friends--no?"
+
+"I heard him ask Mrs. Nordenheimer, his hostess, who she was, in his
+guttural voice, and Mrs. Nordenheimer came up to me and presented him and
+asked me to introduce him to my guest. So I did. The Nordenheimers are
+those very rich German Jews who bought Broomgrove Park some years ago.
+Every one receives them now."
+
+"And how did Harietta welcome this partner?"
+
+"She looked a little bored, but afterwards they danced several times
+together."
+
+"Ah!"--and that was all Verisschenzko said, but his thoughts ran: "An
+infantry officer--not a large enough capture for Harietta to waste time
+on in a public place--when she is here to advance herself. She danced
+with him because _she was obliged to_. I must ascertain who this man is."
+
+Amaryllis saw that he was preoccupied. They walked on now and round
+through the shrubbery on the left, and so at last to the house again.
+Amaryllis could not chance being late.
+
+Verisschenzko recovered from his abstraction presently and talked of
+many things--of the friendship of the soul, and how it can only thrive
+after there has been in some life a physical passionate love and fusion
+of the bodies.
+
+"I want to think that we have reached this stage, Lady mine. My mission
+on this plane now is so fierce a one, and the work which I must do is so
+absorbing, that I must renounce all but transient physical pleasures. But
+I must keep some radiant star as my lodestone for spiritual delights, and
+ever since we met and spoke at the Russian Embassy it seems as though
+step by step links of memory are awakening and comforting me with
+knowledge of satisfied desire in a former birth, so that now our souls
+can rise to rarer things. I can even see another in the earthly relation
+which once was mine, without jealousy. Child, do you feel this too?"
+
+"I do not know quite what I feel," and Amaryllis looked down, "but I will
+try to show you that I am learning to master my emotions, by thinking
+only of sympathy between our spirits."
+
+"It is well--"
+
+Then they reached the house and entered the green drawing-room in the
+Queen Anne Square, by one of the wide open windows, and there Amaryllis
+held out her two slim hands to Verisschenzko.
+
+"Think of me sometimes, even amidst your turmoil," she whispered, "and I
+shall feel your ambience uplifting my spirit and my will."
+
+"Lady of my Soul!" he cried, exalted once more, and he bent as though to
+kiss her hands, but straightened himself and threw them gently from him.
+
+"No! I will resist all temptations! Now you must dress and dine, and
+dance, and do your duty--and later we will say farewell."
+
+Harietta Boleski stamped across her charming chintz chamber in the great
+tower. She was like an angry wolf in the Zoo, she burst with rage.
+Verisschenzko had never walked by lakes with her, nor bent over with that
+air of devotion.
+
+"He loves that hateful bit of bread and butter! But I shall crush her
+yet--and Ferdinand Ardayre will help me!"
+
+Then she rang her bell violently for Marie, while she kicked aside
+Fou-Chow, who had travelled to England as an adjunct to her beauty,
+concealed in a cloak. His minute body quivered with pain and fear, and he
+looked up at her reproachfully with his round Chinese idol's eyes, then
+he hid under a chair, where Marie found him trembling presently and
+carried him surreptitiously to her room.
+
+"My angel," she told him as they went along the passage, "that she-devil
+will kill thee one day, unless happily I can place thee in safety first.
+But if she does, then I will murder for myself! What has caused her fury
+tonight, some one has spoilt her game."
+
+In the oak-panelled smoking room, deserted by all but these two,
+Verisschenzko spoke to Stanislass, hastily, and in his own tongue.
+
+"The news is of vital importance, Stanislass. You must return with me to
+London; of all things you must show energy now and hold your men
+together. I leave in the morning. You hesitate!--impossible!--Harietta
+keeps you! Bah!--then I wash my hands of you and Poland. Weakling! to
+let a woman rule you. Well; if you choose thus, you can go by yourself
+to hell. I have done with you." And he strode from the room, looking
+more Calmuck and savage than ever in his just wrath. And when he had
+gone the second husband of Harietta leant forward and buried his head in
+his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The picture Gallery made a brilliant setting for that gallant company! A
+collection of England's best, dancing their hardest to a stirring band,
+which sang when the tune of some popular R�vue chorus came in.
+
+"The Song of the Swan," Verisschenzko thought as he observed it all in
+the last few minutes before midnight. He must go away soon. A messenger
+had arrived in hot haste from London, motoring beyond the speed limit,
+and as soon as his servant had packed his things he must return and not
+wait for the morning. All relations between Austria and Servia had been
+broken off, the conflagration had begun, and no time must be wasted
+further. He must be in Russia as soon as it was possible to get there. He
+blamed himself for coming down.
+
+"And yet it was as well," he reflected, because he had become awakened in
+regard to possible double dealing in Harietta. But where were his host
+and hostess--he must bid them farewell.
+
+John Ardayre was valsing with Lady Avonwier and Harietta Boleski
+undulated in the arms of the tall German who had come with the party from
+Broomgrove--but Amaryllis for the moment was absent from the room.
+
+"If I could only know who the beast is before I go, and where she has met
+him previously!" Verisschenzko's thoughts ran. "It is more than ever
+necessary that I master her--and there is so little time."
+
+He waited for a few seconds, the dance was almost done, and when the
+last notes of music ceased and the throng of people swept towards him, he
+fixed Harietta with his eye.
+
+Her evening so far had not been agreeable. She had not been able to have
+a word with St�pan, who had been far from her at the banquet before the
+ball. She was torn with jealousy of Amaryllis; and the advent of Hans,
+when she would have wished to have been free to re-grab Verisschenzko,
+was most unfortunate. It had not been altogether pleasant, his turning up
+at Bridgeborough, but at any rate that one evening was quite enough! She
+really could not be wearied with him more!
+
+His new instructions to her from the higher command were most annoyingly
+difficult too--coming at a time when her whole mind was given to
+consolidating her position in England,--it was really too bad!
+
+If only the tiresome bothers of these stupid old quarrelsome countries
+did not upset matters, she just meant to make Stanislass shut up his ugly
+old Polish home, and settle in some splendid country house like this,
+only nearer London. Now that she had seen what life was in England, she
+knew that this was her goal. No bothersome old other language to be
+learned! Besides, no men were so good-looking as the English, or made
+such safe and prudent lovers, because they did not boast. If any
+information she had been able to collect for Hans in the last year had
+helped his Ober-Lords to stir up trouble, she was almost sorry she had
+given it--unless indeed, ructions between those ridiculous southern
+countries made it so that she could remain in England, then it was a good
+thing. And Hans had assured her that England could not be dragged in.
+Then she laughed to herself as she always did if Hans coerced her--when
+she recollected how she had given his secrets away to Verisschenzko and
+that no matter how he seemed to compel her obedience, she was even with
+him underneath!
+
+She looked now at the Russian standing there, so tall and ugly, and
+weirdly distinguished, and a wild passionate desire for him overcame her,
+as primitive as one a savage might have felt. At that moment she almost
+hated her late husband, for she dared not speak to Verisschenzko with
+Hans there. She must wait until Verisschenzko spoke to her. Hans could
+not prevent that, nor accuse her of disobeying his command. So that it
+was with joy that she saw the Russian approach her. She did not know that
+he was leaving suddenly, and she was wondering if some meeting could not
+be arranged for later on, when Hans would be gone.
+
+"Good evening, Madame!" Verisschenzko said suavely. "May I not have the
+pleasure of a turn with you; it is delightful to meet you again."
+
+Harietta slipped her hand out of Hans' arm and stood still, determined to
+secure St�pan at once since the chance had come.
+
+Verisschenzko divined her intention and continued, his voice serious with
+its mock respect:
+
+"I wonder if I could persuade you to come with me and find your husband.
+You know the house and I do not. I have something I want to talk to him
+about if you won't think me a great bore taking you from your partner,"
+and he bowed politely to Hans.
+
+Harietta introduced them casually, and then said archly:
+
+"I am sure you will excuse me, Captain von Pickelheim. And don't forget
+you have the first one-step after supper!" So Hans was dismissed with a
+ravishing smile.
+
+Verisschenzko had watched the German covertly and saw that with all his
+forced stolidity an angry gleam had come into his eyes.
+
+"They have certainly met before--and he knows me--I must somehow make
+time," then, aloud:
+
+"You are looking a dream of beauty to-night, Harietta," he told her as
+they walked across the hall. "Is there not some quiet corner in the
+garden where we can be alone for a few minutes. You drive me mad."
+
+Harietta loved to hear this, and in triumph she raised her head and drew
+him into one of the sitting-rooms, and so out of the open windows on into
+the darkness beyond the limitations of the lawn.
+
+Twenty minutes afterwards Verisschenzko entered the house alone, a grim
+smile of satisfaction upon his rugged countenance. Jealousy, acting on
+animal passion, had been for once as productive of information as a ruby
+ring or brooch--and what a remarkable type Harietta! Could there be
+anything more elemental on the earth! Meanwhile this lady had gained the
+ball-room by another door, delighted with her adventure, and the thought
+that she had tricked Hans!
+
+"Have you seen our hostess, Madame?" the Russian asked, meeting Lady de
+la Paule. "I have been looking for her everywhere. Is not this a
+charming sight?"
+
+They stayed and talked for a few minutes, watching the joyous company of
+dancers, among whom Amaryllis could now be seen. Verisschenzko wished to
+say farewell to her when the one-step should be done. They would all be
+going into supper, and then would be his chance. He could not delay
+longer--he must be gone.
+
+He was paying little attention to what Lady de la Paule was saying--her
+fat voice prattled on:
+
+"I hope these tiresome little quarrels of the Balkan peoples will settle
+themselves. If Austria should go to war with Servia, it may upset my
+Carlsbad cure."
+
+Then he laughed out suddenly, but instantly checked himself.
+
+"That would be too unfortunate, Madame, we must not anticipate such
+preposterous happenings!"
+
+And as he walked forward to meet Amaryllis his face was set:
+
+"Half the civilised world thinks thus of things. The sinister events in
+the Balkans convey no suggestions of danger, and only matter in that
+they could upset a Carlsbad cure! Alas! how sound asleep these splendid
+people are!"
+
+He met Amaryllis and briefly told her that he must go. She left her
+partner and came with him to the foot of the staircase, which led
+to his room.
+
+"Good-bye, and God keep you," she said feelingly, but she noticed that he
+did not even offer to take her hand.
+
+"All blessings, my Star," and his voice was hoarse, then he turned
+abruptly and went on up the stairs. But when he reached the landing above
+he paused, and looked down at her, moving away among the throng.
+
+"Sweet Lady of my Soul," he whispered softly. "After Harietta I could not
+soil--even thy glove!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Events moved rapidly. Of what use to write of those restless, feverish
+days before the 4th of August, 1914? They are too well known to all the
+world. John, as ever, did his duty, and at once put his name down for
+active service, cajoled a medical board which would otherwise probably
+have condemned him and trained with the North Somerset Yeomanry in
+anticipation of being soon sent to France. But before all this happened,
+the night War was declared; he remained in his own sitting-room at
+Ardayre, and Amaryllis wondered, and towards dawn crept out of bed and
+listened in the passage, but no sound came from within the room.
+
+How very unsatisfactory this strange reserve between them was becoming!
+Would she never be able to surmount it? Must they go on to the end of
+their lives, living like two polite friendly acquaintances, neither
+sharing the other's thoughts? She hardly realised that the War could
+personally concern John. The Yeomanry, she imagined, were only for home
+defence, so at this stage no anxiety troubled her about her husband.
+
+The next day he seemed frightfully preoccupied, and then he talked to her
+seriously of their home and its traditions, and how she must love it and
+understand its meaning. He spoke too of his great wish for a child--and
+Amaryllis wondered at the tone almost of anguish in his voice.
+
+"If only we had a son, Amaryllis, I would not care what came to me. A
+true Ardayre to carry on! The thought of Ferdinand here after me drives
+me perfectly mad!"
+
+Amaryllis knew not what to answer. She looked down and clasped her hands.
+
+John came quite close and gazed into her face, as if therein some comfort
+could be found; then he folded her in his arms.
+
+"Oh! Amaryllis!" he said, and that was all.
+
+"What is it? Oh! what does everything mean?" the poor child cried. "Why,
+why can't we have a son like other people of our age?"
+
+John kissed her again.
+
+"It shall be--it must be so," he answered--and framed her face in
+his hands.
+
+"Amaryllis--I know you have often wondered whether I really loved you.
+You have found me a stupid, unsatisfactory sort of husband--indeed, I am
+but a dull companion at the best of times. Well, I want you to know that
+I do--and I am going to try to change, dear little girl. If I knew that I
+held some corner of your heart it would comfort me."
+
+"Of course, you do, John. Alas! if you would only unbend and be loving to
+me, how happy we could be."
+
+He kissed her once more. "I will try."
+
+That afternoon he went up to London to his medical board, and Amaryllis
+was to join him in Brook Street on the following day.
+
+She was stunned like every one else. War seemed a nightmare--an
+unreality--she had not grasped its meaning as yet. She thought of
+Verisschenzko and his words. What was her duty? Surely at a great crisis
+like this she must have some duty to do?
+
+The library in Brook Street was a comfortable room and was always their
+general sitting-room; its windows looked out on the street.
+
+That evening when John Ardayre arrived he paced up and down it for
+half an hour. He was very pale and lines of thought were stamped
+upon his brow.
+
+He had come to a decision; there only remained the details of a course of
+action to be arranged.
+
+He went to the telephone and called up the Cavalry Club. Yes, Captain
+Ardayre was in, and presently Denzil's voice said surprisedly:
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I heard by chance that you were in town. I suppose your regiment will be
+going out at once. It is your cousin, John Ardayre, speaking, we have not
+met since you were a boy. I have something rather vital I want to say to
+you. Could you possibly come round?"
+
+The two voices were so alike in tone it was quite remarkable, each was
+aware of it as he listened to the other.
+
+"Where are you, and what is the time?".
+
+"I am in our house in Brook Street, number 102, and it is nearly seven.
+Could you manage to come now?"
+
+There was a second or two's pause, then Denzil said:
+
+"All right. I will get into a taxi and be with you in about five
+minutes," and he put the receiver down.
+
+John Ardayre grew paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were
+trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang
+the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to bring him
+some brandy.
+
+Murcheson was an old and valued servant, and he looked at his master with
+concern, but he knew him too to make any remark. If there was any one in
+the world beyond the great surgeon, Lemon Bridges, who could understand
+the preoccupations of John Ardayre, Murcheson was the man.
+
+He brought the old Cognac immediately and retired from the room a
+moment or two before Denzil arrived. Very little trace of emotion
+remained upon the face of the head of the family when his cousin was
+shown in, and he came forward cordially to meet him. Standing opposite
+one another, they might have been brothers, not cousins, the
+resemblance was so strong! Denzil was perhaps fairer, but their heads
+were both small and their limbs had the same long lines. But where as
+John Ardayre suggested undemonstrative stolidity, every atom of the
+younger man was vitally alive.
+
+His eyes were bluer, his hair more bronze, and exuberant perfect health
+glowed in his tanned fresh skin.
+
+Both their voices were peculiarly deep, with the pronunciation of the
+words especially refined. John Ardayre said some civil things with
+composure, and Denzil replied in kind, explaining how he had been
+most anxious to meet John and Amaryllis and heal the breach the
+fathers had made.
+
+John offered him a cigar, and finally the atmosphere seemed to be
+unfrozen as they smoked. But in Denzil's mind there was speculation. It
+was not for just this that he had been asked to come round.
+
+John began to speak presently with a note of deep seriousness in his
+voice. He talked of the war and of his Yeomanry's going out, and of
+Denzil's regiment also. It was quite on the cards that they might both be
+killed--then he spoke of Ferdinand, and the old story of the shame, and
+he told Denzil of his boyhood and its great trials, and of his
+determination to redeem the family home and of the great luck which had
+befallen him in the city after the South African War--and how that the
+thought of worthily handing on the inheritance in the direct male line
+had become the dominating desire of his life.
+
+At first his manner had been very restrained, but gradually the intense
+feeling which was vibrating in him made itself known, and Denzil grew
+to realise how profound was his love for Ardayre and how great his
+family pride.
+
+But underneath all this some absolute agony must be wringing his soul.
+
+Denzil became increasingly interested.
+
+At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his
+narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the
+room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.
+
+"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more
+than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will
+confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very
+carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine.
+It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the bastard, Ferdinand, the
+snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the
+coming time."
+
+Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words
+portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice
+sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.
+
+Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life
+letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was
+not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would
+consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had
+been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's
+unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting
+attitude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he
+listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and
+concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to
+him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and
+stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and
+illumination on his strong, good-looking face.
+
+"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything
+quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable--and however
+much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were
+my father's son. You are the next real heir--Ferdinand could not be; my
+father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and
+the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no
+question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear
+him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It
+was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman,
+but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that
+Ferdinand was no Ardayre."
+
+"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a
+Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in
+his body!"
+
+"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should
+take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"
+
+Denzil clenched his hands.
+
+"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously
+before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has
+been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge
+towards me--and now we--you and I--have the right to save the family and
+its honour and circumvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man.
+Oh!--can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of
+Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to--Oh!--my
+God, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me--tell me that you look at it in
+the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which
+Ferdinand would depose--the disgrace would be yours then, since if
+Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."
+
+The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were
+pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful
+new emotion, as they looked at John.
+
+"Very well," he said, and held out his hand. "I appreciate the tremendous
+faith you have placed in me, and on my word of honour as an Ardayre, I
+will not abuse it, nor take advantage of it afterwards. My regiment will
+go out at once, I suppose, the chances are as likely that I shall be
+killed as you--"
+
+They shook hands silently.
+
+"We must lose no time."
+
+Then John poured out two glasses of brandy, and the toast they drank was
+unspoken. But suddenly Denzil remembered as a strange coincidence that he
+was drinking it for the third time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amaryllis arrived from Ardayre the next afternoon, after John's medical
+board had been squared into pronouncing him fit for active service--and
+he met his wife at the station and was particularly solicitous of her
+well-being. He seemed to be unusually glad to see her, and put his arm
+round her in the motor driving to Brook Street. What would she like to
+do? They could not, of course, go to the theatre, but if she would rather
+they could go out to a restaurant to dine--there were going to be all
+kinds of difficulties about food. Amaryllis, who responded immediately to
+the smallest advance on his part, glowed now with fond sweetness. She had
+been so miserable without him; so crushed and upset by the thought of
+war, and his possible participation in it. All the long night, alone at
+Ardayre, she had tried to realise what it all would mean. It was too
+stupendous, she could not grasp it as yet, it was just a blank horror.
+And now to be in the motor and close to him, and everything ordinary and
+as usual seemed to drive the hideous fact further and further away. She
+would not face it for to-night, she would try to be happy and banish the
+remembrance. No one knew what was happening, nor if the Expeditionary
+Force had or had not crossed to France. John asked her again what she
+would like to do.
+
+She did not want to go out at all, she told him; if the kitchenmaid and
+Murcheson could find them something to eat she would much rather dine
+alone with him, like a regular old Darby and Joan pair--and afterwards
+she would play nice things to him, and John agreed.
+
+When she came down ready for dinner, she was radiant; she had put on a
+new and ravishing tea-gown and her grey eyes were shining with a winsome
+challenge, and her beautiful skin was brilliant with health and
+freshness. A man could not have desired a more delectable creature to
+call his own.
+
+John thought so and at dinner expanded and told her so. He was not a
+practised lover; women had played a very small part in his life--always
+too filled with work and the one dominating idea to make room for them.
+He had none of the tender graciousness ready at his command which
+Denzil would very well have known how to show. But he loved Amaryllis,
+and this was the first time he had permitted the expression of his
+emotion to appear.
+
+She became ever more fascinating, and at length unconscious passion grew
+in her glance. John said some rather clumsy but loving things, and when
+they went back to the library he slipped his arm round her, and drew her
+to his side.
+
+"I love to be near you, John," she whispered; "I like your being so tall
+and so distinguished-looking. I like your clothes--they are so well
+made--" and then she wrinkled her pretty nose--"and I adore the smell of
+the stuff you put on your hair! Oh! I don't know--I just want to be in
+your arms!"
+
+John kissed her. "I must give you a bottle of that lotion--it is supposed
+to do wonders for the hair. It was originally made by an old housekeeper
+of my mother's family in the still room, and I have always kept the
+receipt--there are cloves in it and some other aromatic herbs."
+
+"Yes, that is what I smell, like a clove carnation--it is divine. I
+wonder why scents have such an effect upon one--don't you? Perhaps I am a
+very sensuous creature--they can make me feel wicked or good--some
+scents make me deliciously intoxicated--that one of yours does--when I
+get near you--I want you to hold me and kiss me--John."
+
+Every fibre of John Ardayre's being quivered with pain. The cruel,
+ironical bitterness of things.
+
+"I've never smelt this same scent on any one else," she went on, rubbing
+her soft cheek up and down against his shoulder in the most alluring way.
+"I should know it anywhere for it means just my dear--John!"
+
+He turned away on the pretence of getting a cigarette; he knew that his
+eyes had filled with tears.
+
+Then Murcheson came into the room with the coffee, and this made a
+break--and he immediately asked her to play to him, and settled
+himself in one of the big chairs. He was too much on the rack to
+continue any more love-making then; "what might have been" caused too
+poignant anguish.
+
+He watched her delicate profile outlined against the curtain of green
+silk. It was so pure and young--and her long throat was white as milk. If
+this time next year she should have a child--a son--and he, not killed,
+but sitting there perhaps watching her holding it. How would he feel
+then? Would the certainty of having an Ardayre carry on heal the wild
+rebellion in his soul?
+
+"Ah, God!" he prayed, "take away all feeling--reward this sacrifice--let
+the family go on."
+
+"You don't think you will have really to go to the war, do you, John?"
+Amaryllis asked after she left the piano. "It will be all over, won't it,
+before the New Year, and in any case the Yeomanry are only for home
+defence, aren't they?" and she took a low seat and rested her head
+against his arm.
+
+John stroked her hair.
+
+"I am afraid it will not be over for a long time, Amaryllis. Yes, I
+think we shall go out and pretty soon. You would not wish to stop
+me, child?"
+
+Amaryllis looked straight in front of her.
+
+"What is this thing in us, John, which makes us feel that--yes, we
+would give our nearest and dearest, even if they must be killed? When
+the big thing comes even into the lives which have been perhaps all
+frivolous like mine--it seems to make a great light. There is an
+exaltation, and a pity, and a glory, and a grief, but no holding back.
+Is that patriotism, John?"
+
+"That is one name for it, darling."
+
+"But it is really beyond that in this war, because we are not going to
+fight for England, but for right. I think that feeling that we must give
+is some oblation of the soul which has freed itself from the chains of
+the body at last. For so many years we have all been asleep."
+
+"This is a rude awakening."
+
+They were silent for a little while, each busy with unusual thoughts.
+
+There was a sense of nearness between them--of understanding, new and
+dangerously sweet.
+
+Amaryllis felt it deliciously, sensuously, and took joy in that she was
+touching him.
+
+John thrust it away.
+
+"I must get through to-night," he thought, "but I cannot if this hideous
+pain of knowledge of what I must renounce conquers me--I must be strong."
+
+He went on stroking her hair; it made her thrill and she turned and bit
+one of his fingers playfully with a wicked little laugh.
+
+"I wish I knew what I am feeling, John," she whispered, and her eyes were
+aflame, "I wish I knew--"
+
+"I must teach you!" and with sudden fierceness he bent down and
+kissed her lips.
+
+Then he told her to go to bed.
+
+"You must be tired, Amaryllis, after your journey. Go like a good child."
+
+She pouted. She was all vibrating with some totally new and overmastering
+emotion. She wanted to stay and be made love to. She wanted--she knew not
+what, only everything in her was thrilling with passionate warmth.
+
+"Must I? It is only ten."
+
+"I have a frightful lot of business things to write tonight, Amaryllis.
+Go now and sleep, and I will come and wake you about twelve!" He looked
+lover-like. She sighed.
+
+"Ah! if you would only come now!"
+
+He kissed her almost roughly again and led her to the door. And he stood
+watching her with burning eyes as she went up the stairs.
+
+Then he came back and rang the bell.
+
+"I shall be very late, Murcheson--do not sit up, I will turn out the
+lights. Good-night."
+
+"Very good, Sir John."
+
+And the valet left the room.
+
+But John Ardayre did not write any business letters; he sank back into
+his great leather chair--his lips were trembling, and presently sobs
+shook him, and he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.
+
+Just before twelve had struck, he went out into the hall, and turned off
+the light at the main. The whole house would now be in absolute darkness
+but for an electric torch he carried. He listened--there was not a sound.
+
+Then he crept quietly up to his dressing room and returned with a bottle
+of the clove-scented hair lotion.
+
+"What a mercy she spoke of it," his thoughts ran. "How sensitive women
+are--I should never have remembered such a thing."
+
+Yes--now there was a sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Midnight had struck--and Amaryllis, sleeping peacefully, had been
+dreaming of John.
+
+"Oh! dearest," she whispered drowsily, as but half awakened, she felt
+herself being drawn into a pair of strong arms--"Oh!--you know I love
+that scent of cloves--Oh!--I love you, John!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+When Amaryllis awoke in the morning her head rested on John's breast, and
+his arm encircled her. She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him.
+He was still asleep--and his face was infinitely sad. She bent over and
+kissed him with shy tenderness, but he did not move, he only sighed
+heavily as he lay there.
+
+Why should he look so sad, when they were so happy?
+
+She thought of loving things he had said to her at dinner--and then the
+afterwards!--and she thrilled with emotion. Life seemed a glorious thing
+and--But John was sad, of course, because he must go away. The
+recollection of this fact came upon her suddenly like a blast of cold
+air. They must part. War hung there with its hideous shadow, and John
+must be conscious of it even in his dreams, that was why he sighed.
+
+The irony of things--now--when--Oh! how cruel that he must go.
+
+Then John awoke with a shudder, and saw her there leaning over him with a
+new soft love light in her eyes, and he realised that the anguish of his
+calvary had only just begun.
+
+She was perfectly exquisite at breakfast, a fresh and tender graciousness
+radiated in her every glance; she was subtle and captivating, teasing him
+that he had been so silent in the night. "Why wouldn't you talk to me,
+John? But it was all divine, I did not mind." Then she became full of
+winsome ways and caresses, which she had hitherto been too timid to
+express; and every fond word she spoke stabbed John's heart.
+
+Could she not come and stay somewhere near so as to be with him while he
+was in training? It was unbearable to remain alone.
+
+But he told her that this would be impossible and that she must go back
+to Ardayre.
+
+"I will get leave, if there is a chance, dear little girl."
+
+"Oh! John, you must indeed."
+
+After he had gone out to the War Office, she sang as she undid a bundle
+of late roses he had sent her from Soloman's, on his way.
+
+She must herself put them in water; no servant should have this pleasing
+task. Was it the thought of the imminence of separation which had altered
+John into so dear a lover? She went over his words there in the library.
+She relived the joy of his sudden fierce kiss, when he had said that he
+must teach her as to what her emotions meant.
+
+Ah! how good to learn, how all glorious was life and love!
+
+"Sweetheart," the word rang in her ears. He had never called her that
+before! Indeed, John rarely ever used any term of endearment, and never
+got beyond "Dear" or "Darling" before. But now it was an exquisite
+remembrance! Just the murmured word "Sweetheart!" whispered softly again
+and again in the night.
+
+John came back to lunch, but two of the de la Paule family dropped in
+also, and the talk was all of war, and the difficulty of getting money at
+the banks, and how food would go on, and what the whole thing would mean.
+
+But over Amaryllis some spell had fallen--nothing seemed a reality, she
+could not attend to ordinary things, she felt that she but moved and
+spoke as one still in a dream.
+
+The world, and life, and death, and love, were all a blended mystery
+which was but beginning to unravel for her and drew her nearer to John.
+
+The days went on apace.
+
+John in camp thanked God for the strenuous work of his training that it
+kept him so occupied that he had barely time to think of Amaryllis or the
+tragedy of things. When he had left her on the following afternoon, the
+seventh of August, she had returned to Ardayre alone and began the
+knitting and shirt-making and amateurish hospital committees which all
+well-meaning English women vaguely grasped at before the stern
+necessities brought them organised work to do. Amaryllis wrote constantly
+to John--all through August--and many of the letters contained loving
+allusions which made him wince with pain.
+
+Then the awful news came of Mons, then the Marne--and the Aisne--awful
+and glorious, and a hush and mourning fell over the land, and Amaryllis,
+like every one else, lost interest in all personal things for a time.
+
+A young cousin had been killed and many of her season's partners and
+friends, and now she knew that the North Somerset Yeomanry would shortly
+go out and fight as they had volunteered at once. She was very
+miserable. But when September grew, in spite of all this general sorrow,
+a new horizon presented itself, lit up as if by approaching dawn, for a
+hope had gradually developed--a hope which would mean the rejoicing of
+John's heart.
+
+And the day when first this possibility of future fulfilment was
+pronounced a certainty was one of almost exalted beatitude, and when
+Doctor Geddis drove away down the Northern Avenue, Amaryllis seized a
+coat from the folded pile of John's in the hall, and walked out into the
+park hatless, the wind blowing the curly tendrils of her soft brown hair,
+a radiance not of earth in her eyes. The late September sun was sinking
+and gilding the windows of the noble house, and she turned and looked
+back at it when she was far across the lake.
+
+And the whole of her spirit rose in thankfulness to God, while her soul
+sang a glad magnificat.
+
+She, too, might hand on this great and splendid inheritance! She, too,
+would be the mother of Ardayres!
+
+And now to write to John!
+
+That was a fresh pleasure! What would he say? What would he feel? Dear
+John! His letters had been calm and matter of fact, but that was his way.
+She did not mind it now. He loved her, and what did words matter with
+this glorious knowledge in her heart?
+
+To have a baby! Her very own--and John's!
+
+How wonderful! How utterly divine--!
+
+Her little feet hardly touched the moss beneath them, she wanted to
+skip and sing.
+
+Next May! Next May! A Spring flower--a little life to care for when
+war, of course, would have ended and all the world again could be happy
+and young!
+
+And then she returned by the tiny ancient church. She had the key of it,
+a golden one which John had given her on their first coming down. It hung
+on her bracelet with her own private key.
+
+The sun was pouring through the western window, carpeting the altar steps
+in translucent cloth of gold.
+
+Amaryllis stole up the short aisle, and paused when she came between the
+two tall canopied tombs of recumbent sixteenth century knights, which
+made so dignified a screen for the little side aisles--and then she moved
+on and knelt in the shaft of the sunlight there at the carved rails.
+
+And no one ever raised to God a purer or more fervent prayer.
+
+She stayed until the sun sunk below the window, and then she rose and
+went back to the house, and up to her cedar room. And now she must
+write to John!
+
+She began--once--twice--but tore up each sheet. Her news was a supreme
+happiness, but so difficult to transmit!
+
+At last she finished three sides of her own rather large sized
+note-paper, but as she read over what she had written, she was not quite
+content; it did not express all that she desired John to know.
+
+But how could a mere letter convey the wordless gladness in her heart?
+
+She wanted to tell him how she would worship their baby, and how she
+would pray that they should be given a son--and how she would remember
+all his love words spoken that last time they were together, and weave
+the joy of them round the little form, so that it should grow strong and
+beautiful and radiant, and come to earth welcomed and blessed!
+
+Something of all this finally did get written, and she concluded thus:
+
+"John, is it not all wonderful and blissful and mysterious, this coming
+proof of our love? And when I lie awake I say over and over again the
+sweet name you called me, and which I want to sign! I am not just
+Amaryllis any longer, but your very own 'Sweetheart'!"
+
+John received this letter by the afternoon post in camp. He sat down
+alone in his tent and read and re-read each line. Then he stiffened and
+remained icily still.
+
+He could not have analysed his emotions. They were so intermixed with
+thankfulness and pain--and underneath there was a fierce, primitive
+jealousy burning.
+
+"Sweetheart!" he said aloud, as though the word were anathema! "And must
+I call her that 'Sweetheart'! Oh! God, it is too hard!" and he clenched
+his hands.
+
+By the same post came a letter from Denzil, of whose movements he had
+asked to be kept informed, saying that the 110th Hussars were going out
+at once, so that they would probably soon meet in France.
+
+Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to
+freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it
+was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an
+answer to her tender, exalted words.
+
+"My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will
+disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is."
+
+He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign
+to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you,
+Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he said.
+
+And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when
+it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife
+asking her to meet him in Brook Street.
+
+"I must see her--I cannot bear it," he cried to himself.
+
+And late at night he wrote to Denzil--it was just that he should do this.
+
+"My wife is going to have a baby--if only it should be a son, then it
+will not so much matter if both of us are killed, at least the family
+will be saved, and be able to carry oh."
+
+He tried to make the letter cordial. Denzil had behaved with the most
+perfect delicacy throughout, he must admit, and although they had met
+once and exchanged several letters, not the faintest allusion to the
+subject of their talk in the library at Brook Street had ever been
+made by him.
+
+Denzil had indeed acted and written as though such knowledge between
+them did not exist. He--Denzil--in these last seven weeks had been
+extremely occupied, and while his forces were concentrated upon the
+exhilarating preparations for war, it would happen in rare moments
+before sleep claimed him at night that he would let his thoughts conjure
+a waking dream, infinitely, mystically sweet. And every pulse would
+thrill with ecstasy, and then his will would banish it, and he would
+think of other subjects.
+
+He could not face the marvel of his emotions at this period, nor dwell
+upon the romantically exciting aspect of some things.
+
+He was up in London upon equipment business on the very Saturday that
+John got leave, and he was due to dine at the Carlton with Verisschenzko
+who had that day arrived on vital matters bent.
+
+As they came into the hall, a man stopped to talk to the Russian, and
+Denzil's eyes wandered over the unnumerous and depressed looking company
+collected waiting for their parties to arrive. War had even in those
+early Autumn days set its grim seal upon this festive spot. People looked
+rather ashamed of being seen and no one smiled. He nodded to one or two
+friends, and then his glance fell upon a beautiful, slim, brown-haired
+girl, sitting quietly waiting in an armchair by the restaurant steps.
+
+She wore a plain black frock, but in her belt one huge crimson clove
+carnation was unostentatiously tucked.
+
+"What a lovely creature!" his thoughts ran, and Verisschenzko
+turning from his acquaintance that moment, he said to him as they
+started to advance:
+
+"St�pan, if you want to see something typically English and perfectly
+exquisite, look at that girl in the armchair opposite where the band used
+to be. I wonder who she is?"
+
+"What luck!" cried Verisschenzko. "That is your cousin, Amaryllis
+Ardayre--come along!"
+
+And in a second Denzil found himself being introduced to her, and being
+greeted by her with interested cordiality, as befitted their cousinly
+relationship.
+
+But Verisschenzko, whose eyes missed nothing, remarked that under his
+sunburn, Denzil had grown suddenly very pale. Amaryllis was enchanted to
+see her friend, the Russian. John had gone to the telephone, it
+appeared--and yes, they were dining alone--and, of course, she was sure
+John would love to amalgamate parties, it was so nice of Verisschenzko to
+think of it! There was John now.
+
+The blood rushed back to Denzil's heart, and the colour to his face--he
+had only murmured a few conventional words. Mercifully John would decide
+the matter--it was not his doing that he and Amaryllis had met.
+
+John caught sight of the three as he came along the balcony from the
+telephone, so that he had time to take in the situation; he saw that the
+meeting was quite _impr�vu_, and he had, of course, no choice but to
+accept Verisschenzko's suggestion with a show of grace. At that very
+moment, before they could enter the restaurant, and re-arrange their
+tables, Harietta Boleski and her husband swept upon them--they were
+staying in the hotel. Harietta was enraptured.
+
+What a delightful surprise meeting them! Were they all just together,
+would they not dine with her?
+
+She purred to John, while her eyes took in with satisfaction Denzil's
+extraordinary good looks--and there was St�pan, too! Nothing could be
+more agreeable than to scintillate for them both.
+
+John hailed their advent with relief: it would relax the intolerable
+strain which both he and Denzil would be bound to have to experience. So
+looking at the rest of the party, he indicated that he thought they would
+accept. It suited Verisschenzko also for his own reasons. And any
+suggestion to enlarge the intimate number of four would have been
+received by Denzil with graciousness.
+
+He had not imagined that he would feel such profound emotion on seeing
+Amaryllis, the intensity of it caused him displeasure. It was altogether
+such a remarkable situation. He knew that it would have been of thrilling
+interest to him had it not been for the presence of John. His knowledge
+of what John must be suffering, and the knowledge that John was aware of
+what he also must be feeling, turned the whole circumstance into
+discomfort.
+
+As soon as he recalled himself to Madame Boleski they all went into the
+restaurant to the Boleski table, just inside the door, by the window on
+the right. Harietta put John on one side of her and Denzil at the other,
+and beyond were Verisschenzko and her husband, with Amaryllis between,
+who thus sat nearly opposite Denzil, with her back to the room.
+
+Harietta, when she desired to be, was always an inspiriting hostess,
+making things go. She intended to do her best to-night. The turn affairs
+had taken, England being at war, was quite too tiresome. It had spoilt
+all her country house visits and nullified much of the pleasure and
+profit she was intending to reap from her now secured position in this
+promised land.
+
+Stanislass, too, had been difficult, he had threatened to go back to
+Poland immediately, which he explained was his obvious duty to do--but
+she had fortunately been able to crush that idea completely with tears
+and scenes. Then he suggested Paris, but information from Hans gave her
+occasion to think this might not be a comfortable or indeed quite a safe
+spot, and in all cases if the Frenchmen were fighting for dear life they
+would not have leisure to entertain her, therefore, dull and gloomy as
+England had become, she preferred to remain.
+
+Hans, too, had given her orders. For the present London must be her home,
+and the lease of the Mount Lennard house in Grosvenor Square having
+expired, they had moved to the Carlton Hotel.
+
+The misery of war, the holocaust of all that was noblest, left her
+absolutely cold. It was certainly a pity that those darling young
+guardsmen she had danced with should have had to be killed, but there was
+never any use in crying over spilt milk--better look out for new ones
+coming on. She was quite indifferent as to which country won. It was
+still a great bother collecting information for her former husband, but
+he threatened terrible reprisals if she refused to go on, and as in her
+secret heart she thought that there was no doubt as to who would be
+victor, she felt it might be wiser to remain on good terms with the power
+she believed would win!
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre had been very helpful all the summer--he had moved from
+the Constantinople branch of his business to one in Holland and had just
+returned to England now; he was, in fact, coming to see her later on when
+she should have packed Stanislass safely off to the St. James' Club.
+
+Harietta had no imagination to be inflamed by terrible descriptions of
+things. She saw no actual horrors, therefore war to her was only a
+nuisance--nothing ghastly or to be feared. But it was a disgusting
+nuisance and caused her fatigue. She had continually to remember to
+simulate proper sympathy, and concern and to subdue her vivacity, and
+show enthusiasm for any agreeable war work which could divert her dull
+days. If she had not been more than doubtful of her reception in America,
+even as a Polish magnate's wife, she would have gone over there to escape
+as far as possible from the whole situation, and she had been bored to
+death now for several days. People were too occupied and too grieved to
+go out of their way now to make much of her, and she had been left alone
+to brood. Thus the advent of Verisschenzko, who thrilled her always, and
+a possible new admirer in Denzil, seemed a heaven-sent occurrence.
+Amaryllis and John were undesired but unavoidable appendages who had to
+be swallowed.
+
+Denzil's type particularly attracted her. There was an insouciance about
+him, a _d�bonnair sans g�ne_ which increased the charm of his good looks;
+he had everything of attraction about him which John Ardayre lacked.
+
+Amaryllis, against her will, before the end of the dinner, was conscious
+of the fact also, though Denzil studiously avoided any conversation with
+her beyond what the exigencies of politeness required. He devoted himself
+entirely to Harietta, to her delight, and Verisschenzko and Amaryllis
+talked while John was left to Stanislass. But the very fact of Denzil's
+likeness to John made Amaryllis look at him, and she resented his
+attraction and the interest he aroused in her.
+
+His voice was perhaps even deeper than John's, and how extraordinarily
+well his bronze hair was planted on his forehead; and how perfectly
+groomed and brushed and soldierly he looked!
+
+He seemingly had taken the measure of Madame Boleski, too, and was
+apparently enjoying with a cultivated subtlety the drawing of her out. He
+was no novice it seemed, and there was a whimsical light in his eyes and
+once or twice they had inadvertently met hers with understanding when
+Verisschenzko had made some especially cryptic remark. She knew that she
+would very much have liked to talk to him.
+
+Verisschenzko was observing Amaryllis carefully. There was a new
+expression in her eyes which puzzled him. Her features seemed to be drawn
+with finer lines and pale violet shadows lay beneath her grey eyes. Was
+it the gloom of the war which oppressed her? It could not be altogether
+that, because her regard was serene and even happy.
+
+"Did I not know that nothing could be more unlikely, I should say she was
+going to have a child. What is the mystery?" He found himself very much
+interested. Especially he was anxious to watch what impression Denzil
+made upon her. He saw, as the dinner went on, that Amaryllis was aware
+that he was an attractive creature.
+
+"There is the beginning of a chapter of necessary and
+expedient--romance--here," he decided. "If only Denzil is not killed."
+But what did his growing so pale on learning that she was his cousin
+mean...? that was not a natural circumstance--some deep undercurrents
+were stirred. And in what way was all this going to affect the lady
+of his soul?
+
+They could not have any intimate conversation at dinner; they spoke of
+ordinary things and the war and the horror of it. Russia was moving
+forward, but Verisschenzko did not appear to be very optimistic in spite
+of this. There were things in his country, he told Amaryllis, which might
+handicap the fighting.
+
+Stanislass Boleski looked extremely depressed. He had a hang-dog,
+strained mien and Verisschenzko's contemptuously friendly attitude
+towards him wounded him deeply. Once he had shone as a leader and chief
+in St�pan's life, and now after the stormy scene in the smoking-room at
+Ardayre, that he could greet him casually and not turn from him in anger,
+showed, alas! to where he had sunk in Verisschenzko's estimation--a thing
+of nought--not even worth his disapproval. The dinner to him was a
+painful trial.
+
+John also was far from content. He had been longing to see Amaryllis, and
+yet the sight of her and her fond and insinuating words and caresses had
+caused him exquisite suffering. His emotions were so varied and complex.
+His prayer had been answered, but apart from his natural loathing for all
+subterfuge, every new tenderness towards himself which Amaryllis
+displayed aroused some indefinable jealousy. She had been so glad to see
+him and he had been conscious himself that he had been even unusually
+stolid and self-contained towards her. He knew that she grew disappointed
+and that probably the exalted sentiment which her letter had indicated
+that she was feeling had been chilled before she could put it into words.
+
+All this distressed him, and yet he could not break through the reserve
+of his nature.
+
+And now to crown unfortunate things, there was Denzil brought by fate and
+no one's manoeuvring into Amaryllis' company! Of all things he had hoped
+that they need not meet before he and his cousin should go to the Front.
+And it was all brought about by his own action in insisting that they had
+better dine at a restaurant, as the kitchenmaid, who always remained at
+Brook Street, had gone to see a wounded brother.
+
+Amaryllis had sighed a little as she had consented, with the faint
+protest that they could have eaten something cold.
+
+But on their drive to the Carlton she had become fondly affectionate
+again, nestling close to him, and then she had pulled out the carnation
+from her belt and held it for him to smell.
+
+"I picked it in the greenhouse this morning, the last of them; I have had
+them all around me while there were any, because they remind me of you,
+dearest--and of everything divine."
+
+John felt that he should always now hate that clove stuff for the hair
+and could no longer bear to use it.
+
+He was perfectly aware that Denzil on his hostess' other hand was
+looking everything that a woman could desire, and that his easy
+casualness of manner would be likely to charm. He saw that Amaryllis,
+too, observed him with unconscious interest, and a feeling akin to
+despair filled his heart.
+
+Life for him had always been difficult, and he was accustomed to blows,
+but this one was particularly hard to bear, because he really loved
+Amaryllis and desired happiness with her which he knew could never really
+be attained.
+
+Only Harietta of the whole party was quite content. She intended to annex
+St�pan when they should be drinking coffee in the hall. She looked upon
+Denzil's conquest now as almost an accomplished fact, and so felt that
+she might let him talk to Amaryllis, since the Russian was her real
+object. His ugly rugged face and odd Calmuck eyes always attracted her.
+
+"Why aren't you staying in the hotel, darling Brute?'" she whispered to
+him as they left the restaurant. "If you had been--"
+
+"I am," said Verisschenzko, and leaving her for a moment he went and
+telephoned to his not unintelligent Russian servant at the Ritz to
+arrange about the transference of his rooms.
+
+"She requires the most careful watching--I must waste no time."
+
+And then he returned to the party in the hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Denzil Ardayre took up his letters which had been forwarded to him from
+the d�p�t where he was stationed. He and Verisschenzko were passing
+through the hall of his mother's house, for a talk and a smoke in his
+sitting-room, after leaving the Carlton.
+
+The house was in St. James' Place, a small, old building, the ground
+floor of which was given over to Denzil whenever he was in London. His
+mother was absent at Bath, where she spent a long autumn cure.
+
+John's letter lay on the top, and Verisschenzko caught the look of
+interest which came into Denzil's face.
+
+"Don't mind me, my dear chap," he remarked, "read your letters." And they
+went on into the sitting-room.
+
+"I want just to look at this one--it is from John Ardayre whom we met
+to-night," and Denzil opened it casually--"I wonder what he is writing to
+me about, he did not say anything at dinner."
+
+He read the short communication and exclaimed: "Good God!" and then
+checked himself. He was obviously stirred, and Verisschenzko watched him
+narrowly. Anything to do with John must concern Amaryllis, and therefore
+was of profound interest to himself.
+
+"No bad news, I hope?" he said.
+
+Denzil was gazing into the fire, and there was a look of wonderment and
+even rapture upon his face.
+
+"Oh! No--rather splendid--" He felt quite the strangest emotion he had
+ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy
+flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to
+link certain things in his mind.
+
+"Tell me, what did you think of your cousin, Lady Ardayre?" he asked
+casually, as though the subject was irrelevant.
+
+"Amaryllis?" and Denzil almost started from a reverie. "Oh, yes, of
+course, she is a lovely creature, is not she, St�pan?"
+
+Verisschenzko narrowed his eyes.
+
+"I have told you that I adore her--but with the spirit--if it were
+not so, she would appeal very strongly to the flesh--Yes?--Did you
+not feel it?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"She is longing to understand life, she is groping; why do you not set
+about her education, Denzil?"
+
+"That is the husband's business."
+
+"Not in this case. I consider it is yours; you are the right mate
+for her. John Ardayre is a good fellow, but he stands for nothing in
+the affair. Why did you waste your time upon Harietta, when time is
+so short?"
+
+"I was given no choice."
+
+"But afterwards, in the hall?"
+
+It was quite evident to Verisschenzko that the mention of Amaryllis was
+causing his friend some unexplainable emotion.
+
+"You did not even exert yourself, then. Why, Denzil?"
+
+Denzil lit a cigarette.
+
+"I thought her awfully attractive--it is the first time I have ever seen
+her--as you know."
+
+"And that was a reason for remaining silent and as stiff as a poker in
+manner! You English are a strange race!"
+
+Denzil smiled--if St�pan only knew everything, what would he say!
+
+"You were made for each other. If I were you, I would not lose a
+second's time!"
+
+"My dear old boy, you seem quite to forget that the girl has a husband
+of her own!"
+
+"Not at all, it is for that reason--just because of that husband. I shall
+say no more, you are quite intelligent enough to understand."
+
+"You think it is all right then for a woman to have a lover?" Denzil
+smiled as he curled rings of smoke. "It is curious how the most
+honourable among us has not much conscience concerning such things."
+
+Verisschenzko knocked off his cigarette ash and spoke contemplatively:
+
+"The world would be an insupportable place for women, if he had! But
+whatever the moral aspect of the matter is in general, circumstances
+arise which alter the point, and that is where the absurd ticketing
+system hampers suitable action. A thing is ticketed 'dishonourable.'
+Pah! it is sometimes, and it is not at others--there is no hard and
+fast rule."
+
+Denzil stretched himself--he was always interested in Verisschenzko's
+reasonings and prepared to listen with enjoyment:
+
+"The general idea is that a man should not make love to another man's
+wife. Man professes this as a creed, and the law enforces it and punishes
+him if he is found out doing so. And if he acted up to this creed as he
+does about stealing goods and behaving like a gentleman over business
+matters, all might be well, but unfortunately that seldom occurs, because
+there is that strong; instinct which is the base of all things working in
+him, and which does not work in regard to any other point of
+honour--i.e., the unconscious desire to re-create his, species, so that
+this one particular branch of moral responsibility cannot be measured,
+judged, or criticised from the same standpoint as any other. No laws can.
+alter human nature, or really control a man's actions when a natural
+force is prompting him unless stern self-analysis discovers the truth to
+the man, and so permits his spirit to regain dominion. The best chance
+would be to resist the first feeling of attraction which a woman
+belonging to another man aroused before it had actually obtained a hold
+upon his senses--but the percentage of men who do this must be very
+small. Some resist--or try to resist the actual possession of the woman
+from moral motives, but many more from motives of expediency and fear of
+consequences. Then to salve conscience the mass of men ride a high moral
+stalking horse, and write and speak condemnation of every back-sliding,
+while their own behaviour coincides with the behaviour they are
+criticising. The hypocrisy of the thing sickens me; no one ever looks any
+question straight in the face, denuded of its man-made sophistries. And
+few realise that a woman is a creature to be fought for--it is
+prehistoric instinct, and if she can't be obtained in fair fight then you
+secure her by strategy. And if a man cannot keep her once he has secured
+her, it is up to him. If I had a wife, I should take good care that she
+_desired_ no other man--but if I bored her, or was a cold and bad lover,
+I should not expect the other men not to try and take her from
+me--because I should know this was a natural instinct with them--like
+taking food. It would probably be no temptation to most of us to steal
+gold lying about in a room, even if we were poor, but a hideous
+temptation to refrain from eating a tempting dish if we were starving
+with hunger and it was before us--and if a woman did succumb to some new
+passion I should blame myself, not her."
+
+Denzil agreed.
+
+"Jealousy is a natural instinct, though," he said, "and although there
+would be not much profit in trying to hold a woman who no longer cared,
+one could not help being mad about it."
+
+"Of course not--that is the sense of personal possession which is
+affronted. Vanity is deeply wounded, and so the power to analyse cause
+and result sleeps. But this attitude which men take up of neglecting a
+woman and then expecting her to be faithful still is quite ridiculous,
+and without logic; they are as usual fogged by convention and can't see
+straight."
+
+Verisschenzko's rough voice was keen--compelling.
+
+Denzil smiled.
+
+"Another of your windmills to fight!"
+
+"I am always fighting convention and shams. Get down to the meaning of a
+thing, and if its true significance coincides with the convention which
+surrounds it, then let that hold, but if convention is a super-imposed
+growth, then amputate it and study the thing without it."
+
+"I suppose a man marries a woman nine times out of ten because he cannot
+obtain her in any other way; then when he has become indifferent by
+possession, he still thinks that she should remain devoted to him. You
+are right, St�pan, it is very illogical."
+
+"Club the creature, or keep her in a cage if you want fidelity through
+fear, but don't expect it if you allow her to remain at large and
+neglected, and don't be such an ass as to imagine that your friends won't
+act just as you yourself would act were she some one's else wife. If a
+woman has that quality in her which arouses sex, married or single, I
+never have observed that men refrained from making love to her."
+
+"All this means that you consider I am quite at liberty to make love to
+Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Quite."
+
+Denzil threw his cigarette end into the fire:
+
+"Well, for once you are wrong, St�pan, in your usually perfect
+deductions," he got up from his chair. "There is a reason in this
+case which makes the thing an absolute impossibility; under no
+possible circumstance while John is alive could I make the smallest
+advance towards Amaryllis! There is another point of honour involved
+in the affair."
+
+Verisschenzko felt that here was some mystery which he had yet to
+elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then
+became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis
+that evening for the first time!
+
+"If this is so, then it is a very great pity," he announced, after a
+moment or two's thought. "Were the times normal, we might leave all to
+Fate and trust to luck, but if you are killed and John is killed, it
+will be a thousand pities for Ferdinand to be the head of the family.
+A creature like that will not enlist, he will be safe while you risk
+your lives."
+
+Denzil went over to the window, apparently to get out a fresh box of
+cigars which were in a cabinet near.
+
+"John writes to-night that there is the chance of an heir after all--so
+perhaps we need not worry," he said, his voice a little hoarse with
+feeling. "I was so awfully glad to hear this--we all loathe the thought
+of Ferdinand."
+
+Verisschenzko actually was startled, and also he was strangely moved.
+
+"When I saw my lady Amaryllis to-night that idea came to me, only as I
+believed it was quite an impossibility--I dismissed it--It is a war
+miracle then?" and he smiled enquiringly.
+
+"Apparently."
+
+The cigar box was selected and Denzil had once more resumed his seat in a
+big chair before either of them spoke again.
+
+"I perfectly understand that there is some mystery here, Denzil--and that
+you cannot tell me--and equally I cannot ask you any questions, but it
+may be that in the days that are coming I could be of assistance to you.
+I have some very curious information which I am holding concerning
+Ferdinand Ardayre in his activities. You can always count on me--"
+Verisschenzko rose from his chair, stirred deeply with the thoughts which
+were coursing through his brain.
+
+"Denzil--I love that woman--I am absolutely determined that I shall not
+do so in any way but in spirit--I long for her to be happy--protected.
+She has an exquisite soul--I would have given her to you with
+contentment. You are her counterpart upon this plane--"
+
+Denzil remained silent, he had never seen St�pan so agitated. The
+situation was altogether very unusual. Then he asked:
+
+"Do you think Ferdinand will make some protest then?"
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"But there is absolutely nothing to be said, the fact of there being a
+child refutes all the old rumours."
+
+"In law--"
+
+"In every way," a flush had mounted to Denzil's forehead.
+
+"You know Lemon Bridges?" Verisschenzko suggested.
+
+"Yes--why do you ask?"
+
+"He is a remarkably clever surgeon. It is said that he is also a
+gentleman; if this news surprises him he will not express his feelings
+probably."
+
+St�pan was observing his friend with the minutest scrutiny now, while he
+spoke lazily once more as though upon a casual topic bent, and he saw
+that a lightning flash of anxiety passed through Denzil's eyes.
+
+"I do not see how any one can have a word to say about the matter," and
+he lit his cigar deliberately. "John is awfully pleased--"
+
+"And so am I--and so are you, and so will be the lady Amaryllis. Thus we
+can only wish for general happiness, and not anticipate difficulties
+which may never occur. When is the event to happen?"
+
+"The beginning of next May," Denzil announced, without hesitation, and
+then the flush deepened, for he suddenly remembered that John had not
+mentioned any date in his letter!
+
+The subject was growing embarrassing, and he asked, so as to change it:
+
+"What is your friend, Madame Boleski, doing now, St�pan?"
+
+"She is receiving news from Germany which I shall endeavour to have her
+transmit to me, and I have some suspicion that she is transmitting any
+information which she can pick up here to Germany, but I cannot yet be
+sure. When I am, then I shall have no mercy. She would betray any country
+for an hour's personal pleasure or gain. I have not yet discovered who
+the man was at the Ardayre ball--I told you about it, did I not? Just
+then more important matters pressed and I could not follow up the clue."
+
+"She is certainly physically attractive, and all the things she says are
+so obvious and easy, she is quite a rest at a dinner, but Lord! think of
+spending one's life with a woman like that!" and Denzil smiled.
+
+"There are very few women whom it would be possible to contemplate in
+calmness spending one's life with, because one's own needs change, and
+the woman's also. The tie is a galling bond unless it can be looked at
+with common sense by both--but I think men are quite as illogical as
+women over it, and of such an incredible vanity! It is because we have
+mixed so much sentiment into such a simple nature-act that all the
+bothers arise, and men are unjust over every thing to do with women.
+All men think, for instance, that a woman must not deceive her lover
+and, at the same time that she is appearing to be his faithful
+mistress, take another for her pleasure and diversion in secret. A man
+would look upon this and rightly as a dishonourable betrayal because it
+would wound his vanity and lower his personal prestige. But the
+illogical part is that he would not hesitate to do the same thing
+himself, and would never see the matter in the light of a betrayal,
+because the Creator has happily equipped him with a rhinoceros hide
+which enables him never to feel stings of self-contempt when viewing
+his own actions towards the other sex."
+
+Denzil laughed aloud.
+
+"You are hard on us, St�pan, but I dare say you are right."
+
+"It is just custom and convention which make us think ourselves such
+gods. Had woman had the same chance always, who knows what she might not
+have become by now! Everything is ticketed, it is called by a name and
+put down under such and such a heading--women are 'weak' and 'illogical'
+and 'unreliable' and men are 'brave' and 'sound' and 'to be
+trusted'--tosh! in quantities of cases--and if so, why so? Women are
+wonderful beings in many ways--of a courage! The way they bear things so
+gladly for men--think of their suffering when they have children. You
+don't know about it probably, men take all this as a matter of
+course--but I saw my sister die--after hours of it--"
+
+Denzil moved his arm rather suddenly and upset the glass of lemon squash
+on a little table near.
+
+Verisschenzko observed this, but went on without a break:
+
+"It is agony for them under the best conditions, and sometimes they
+become divine over it. Amaryllis will be divine--I hope John will take
+care of her--"
+
+A look of concern came into Denzil's face, and Verisschenzko watched him.
+Could any one be more attractive as a splendid mate for Amaryllis, he
+thought. He crushed down all feeling of human jealousy. His intuition
+would probably reveal all the mystery to him presently, and meanwhile if
+he could forward any scheme which would be for the good of Amaryllis and
+the security of the family, he would do so.
+
+"I must leave you now, old man," he said, looking at his watch. "I have a
+rendezvous with Harietta. I shall have to play the part of an ardent
+lover and cannot yet wring her neck."
+
+When Denzil was alone, he stood gazing into the fire.
+
+"That John should take care of her?"--but John was going out to
+fight--and so was he--and they might both be killed--What then?
+
+"St�pan knows, I am certain," he thought, "and he is true as steel; he
+must stand by her if we don't come back."
+
+And then his thoughts flew to the vision of her sitting opposite him at
+the table, with her sweet eyes turned to his now and then, the faint
+violet shadows beneath them and the transparent exquisiteness of her skin
+telling their own story by the added, fragile beauty. Oh! what
+unutterable joy to hold her in his arms and whisper passionate love words
+in her little ears, to live again the dream of her dainty head lying
+prone there on his breast. Every pulse in his being throbbed to bursting,
+seeming almost to suffocate him.
+
+"Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he whispered aloud, and then started at his
+own voice.
+
+He paced up and down the room, clenching his hands. The family might go
+on, but the two members of it must endure the pain of renunciation.
+
+Which was the harder to bear, he wondered--his part of hopeless memory
+and regret, or John's of forced denial and abstinence?
+
+In all the world, no situation could be more strange or more cruel.
+
+He had felt deeply about it before he had seen Amaryllis. He thought of
+the myth of Eros and Psyche. His emotions had been much as Psyche's
+before she lit the lamp. And now the lamp had been lighted--his eyes had
+seen what his arms had clasped, the reality was more lovely than his
+dream, and passion was kindled a hundredfold. It swept him off his feet.
+
+He forgot war and the horror of the time, he forgot everything except
+that he longed for Amaryllis.
+
+"She is mine, absolutely mine," he said wildly. "Not John's."
+
+And then he remembered his promise, given before any personal equation
+had entered into the affair.
+
+Never to take advantage of the situation--afterwards!
+
+And what would the child be like? A true Ardayre, of course--they would
+say that it had harked back, perhaps, to that Elizabethan Denzil whom
+his father had told him was his exact portrait in the picture gallery
+at Ardayre.
+
+He could have laughed at the sardonic humour of everything if he had not
+been too overcome with passionate desire to retain any critical sense.
+
+Then he sat down and forced himself to realise what it meant--parenthood.
+Not much to a man, as a rule. He had looked upon those occult stirrings
+of the spirit of which he had read as romantic nonsense. It was a natural
+thing and all right if a man had a place for him to wish to have a
+son--but otherwise, sentimentality over such things was such rot!
+
+And yet now he found himself thrilling with sentiment. He would like to
+talk to Amaryllis all about it, and listen to her thoughts, too. And then
+he remembered the many discussions with Verisschenzko upon the theory of
+re-birth and of the soul's return again and again until its lessons are
+learned on this plane of existence, and he wondered what soul would
+animate the physical form of this little being who would be his and hers.
+
+And suddenly in his mental vision the walls of the room seemed to fade,
+and he was only conscious of a vastness of space, and knew that for this
+brief moment he was looking into eternity and realising for the first
+time the wonder of things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Verisschenzko had returned to the Carlton and was softly
+walking down the passage towards the Boleskis' rooms. The ante-room door
+was at the corner, and as he was about ten yards from it a man came out
+and strode rapidly towards the lift down the corridor at right angles,
+but the bright light fell upon his face for an instant, and Verisschenzko
+saw that it was Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He waited where he was until he heard the lift doors shut, and even then
+he paced up and down for a time before he entered the sitting-room. There
+must be no suspicion that he had encountered the late visitor.
+
+"Darling Brute, here you are!" Harietta cried delightedly, rising from
+her sofa and throwing herself into his arms. "I've packed Stanislass off
+to the St. James' to play piquet. I have been all alone waiting for you
+for the last hour--I began to fear you would not come."
+
+Verisschenzko looked at her, with his cynical, humorous smile, whose
+meaning never reached her. He took in the transparent garments which
+hardly covered her, and then he bent and picked up a man's handkerchief
+which lay on a table near.
+
+"_Tiens_! Harietta!" he remarked lazily. "Since when has Stanislass taken
+to using this very Eastern perfume?" and he sniffed with disgust.
+
+The wide look of startled innocence grew in Madame Boleski's hazel eyes.
+
+"I believe Stanislass must have got a mistress, St�pan. I have
+noticed lately these scents on his things--as you know, he never used
+any before!"
+
+"The handkerchief is marked with 'F.A.' I suppose the _blanchisseuse_
+mixes them in hotels. Let us burn the memento of a husband's straying
+fancies then; the taste in perfumes of his inamorata is anything but
+refined," and Verisschenzko tossed the bit of cambric into the fire which
+sparkled in the grate.
+
+"I've lots of news to tell you, Darling Brute--but I shan't--yet! Have
+you come to England to see that bit of bread and butter--or--?"
+
+But Verisschenzko, with a fierce savagery which she adored, crushed her
+in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+On the Tuesday morning after the Carlton dinner, fate fell upon Denzil
+and Amaryllis in the way the jade does at times, swooping down upon
+them suddenly and then like a whirlwind altering the very current of
+their destiny. It came about quite naturally, too, and not by one of
+those wildly improbable situations which often prove truth to be
+stranger than fiction.
+
+Amaryllis was settled in an empty compartment of the Weymouth express at
+Paddington. She had said good-bye to John the evening before, and he had
+returned to camp. She was going back to Ardayre, and feeling very
+miserable. Everything had been a disillusion. John's reserve seemed to
+have augmented, and she had been unable to break it down, and all the
+new emotions which she was trembling with and longing to express, had
+grown chilled.
+
+Presumably John must be pleased at the possibility of having a son since
+it was his heart's desire; but it almost seemed as though the subject
+embarrassed him! And all the beautiful things which she had meant to say
+to him about it remained unspoken.
+
+He was stolidly matter-of-fact.
+
+What could it all mean?
+
+At last she had become deeply hurt and had cried with a tremour in her
+voice the morning before he left her:
+
+"Oh! John, how different you have become; it can't be the same you who
+once called me 'Sweetheart' and held me so closely in your arms! Have I
+done anything to displease you, dearest? Aren't you glad that I am going
+to have a baby?"
+
+He had kissed her and assured her gravely that he was glad--overjoyed.
+And his eyes had been full of pain, and he had added that he was stupid
+and dull, but that she must not mind--it was only his way.
+
+"Alas!" she had answered and nothing more.
+
+She dwelt upon these things as she sat in the train gazing out of the
+window on the blank side.
+
+Yes. Joy was turning into dead sea fruit. How moving her thoughts had
+been when coming up to meet him!
+
+The marvel of love creating life had exalted her and she had longed to
+pour her tender visionings into the ears of--her lover! For John had been
+thus enshrined in her fond imagination!
+
+The whole idea of having a child to her was a sacred wonder with little
+of earth in it, and she had woven exquisite sentiment round it and had
+dreamed fair dreams of how she would whisper her thoughts to John as she
+lay clasped to his heart; and John, too, would be thrilled with
+exaltation, for was not the glorious mystery his as well--not hers alone?
+
+Now everything looked grey.
+
+Tears rose in her eyes. Then she took herself to task; it was perhaps
+only her foolish romance leading her astray once more. The thought
+might mean nothing to a man beyond the pride of having a son to carry
+on his name. If the baby should be a little girl John might not care
+for it at all!
+
+The tears brimmed over and fell upon a big crimson carnation in her coat,
+a bunch of which John had ordered to be sent her, and which were now
+safely reposing in a card-board box in the rack above her head.
+
+Fortunately she had the carriage to herself. No one had attempted to get
+in, and they would soon be off. To be away from London would be a relief.
+
+Then her thoughts flew to Verisschenzko; he had told her that
+circumstances in his country might require his frequent presence in
+England for the next few months.
+
+She would see him again. What would he tell her to do now? Conquer
+emotion and look at things with common sense.
+
+The picture of the dinner at the Carlton then came back to her, and the
+face of Denzil across the table, so like, and yet so unlike John!
+
+If Denzil had a wife would he be cold to her? Was it in the nature of
+all Ardayres?
+
+At the very instant the train began to move the carriage was invaded by a
+man in khaki who bounded in and almost fell by her knees, and with a
+cheery 'Just done it, Sir!' the guard flung in a dressing-bag and slammed
+the door, and she realised with conscious interest that the intruder was
+Denzil Ardayre!
+
+"How do you do? By Jove. I am awfully sorry," and he held out his hand.
+"I nearly lost the train and I am afraid I have bundled in without asking
+leave. I am going down to Bath to say good-bye to my mother. I say, do
+forgive me if I startled you," and he looked full of concern.
+
+Amaryllis laughed; she was nervous and overstrung.
+
+"Your entrance was certainly sudden and in this non-stop to Westbury we
+shall have to put up with each other till then--shall you mind?"
+
+"Awfully--Must I say that the truth would be that I am enchanted!"
+
+Fortune had flung him these two hours. He had not planned them, his
+conscience was clear, and he could not help delight rushing through him.
+Two hours with her--alone!
+
+There are some blue eyes which seem to have a spark of the devil lurking
+in them always, even when they are serious. Denzil's were such eyes.
+Women found it difficult to resist his charm, and indeed had never tried
+very hard. Life and its living, knowledge to acquire, work to do, beasts
+to hunt, had not left him too much time to be spoiled by them
+fortunately, and he had passed through several adventures safely and had
+never felt anything but the most transient emotion, until now looking at
+Amaryllis sitting opposite him he knew that he was in love with this
+dream which had materialised.
+
+Amaryllis studied him while they talked of ordinary things and the war
+news and when he would go out. She felt some strong attraction drawing
+her to him. Her sense of depression left her. She found herself noticing
+how the sun which had broken through a cloud turned his immaculately
+brushed hair into bronze. She did a little modelling to amuse herself,
+and so appreciated balance and line.
+
+Everything in Denzil was in the right place, she decided, and above all
+he looked so peculiarly alive. He seemed, indeed, to be the reality of
+what her imagination had built up round the personality of John in the
+weeks of their separation. Denzil believed that he was talking quite
+casually, but his glance was ardent, and atmosphere becomes charged when
+emotions are strong no matter how insignificant words may be. Amaryllis
+_felt_ that he was deeply interested in her.
+
+"You know my friend Verisschenzko well, it seems," she said presently.
+"Is not he a fascinating creature? I always feel stimulated when I am
+with him, and as if I must accomplish great things."
+
+"St�pan is a wonder--we were at Oxford together--he can do anything he
+desires. He is a musician and an artist and is chock full of common
+sense, and there's not a touch of rot. He would have taken honours if he
+had not been sent down."
+
+Amaryllis wanted to know about this, and listened amazedly to the story
+of the mad freak which had so scandalised the Dons.
+
+She had recovered from her nervousness, she was natural and delightful,
+and although the peculiar situation was filling Denzil with excitement
+and emotion, he was too much a man of the world to experience any _g�ne_.
+So they talked for a while with friendliness upon interesting things.
+Then a pause came and Amaryllis looked out of the window, and Denzil had
+time to grow aware that he must hold himself with a tighter hand, a sense
+almost of intoxication had begun to steal over him.
+
+Suddenly Amaryllis grew very pale and her eyelids flickered a little; for
+the first time in her life she felt faint.
+
+He bent forward in anxiety as she leaned her head against the
+cushioned division.
+
+"Oh! what is it, you poor little darling! what can I do for you?" he
+exclaimed, unconscious that he had used a word of endearment; but even
+though things had grown vague for her Amaryllis caught the tenderly
+pronounced 'darling' and, physically ill as she felt, her spirit thrilled
+with some agreeable surprise. He came nearer and pushing up the padded
+divisions between the seats, he lifted her as though she had been a baby
+and laid her flat down. He got out his flask from his dressing bag and
+poured some brandy between her pale lips, then he rubbed her hands,
+murmuring he knew not what of commiseration. She looked so fragile and
+helpless and the probable reason of her indisposition was of such
+infinite solicitude to himself.
+
+"To think that she is feeling like that because--Ah!--and I may not even
+kiss her and comfort her, or tell her I adore her and understand." So his
+thoughts ran.
+
+Presently Amaryllis sat up and opened her eyes. She had not actually
+fainted, but for a few moments everything had grown dim and she was not
+certain of what had happened, or if she had dreamed that Denzil had
+spoken a love word, or whether it was true--she smiled feebly.
+
+"I did feel so queer," she explained. "How silly of me! I have never felt
+faint before--it is stupid"--and then she blushed deeply, remembering
+what certainly must be the cause.
+
+"I am going to open the window wide," he said, appreciating the blush,
+and let it down. "You ought not to sit with your back to the engine like
+that, let us change sides."
+
+He took command and drew her to her feet, and placed her gently in his
+vacant seat; then he sat down opposite her and looked at her with
+anxious eyes.
+
+"I sit that way as a rule because of avoiding the dust, but, of course,
+it was that. I am not generally such a goose though--it is the nastiest
+feeling that I have ever known."
+
+"You poor dear little girl," his deep voice said. "You must shut your
+eyes and not talk now."
+
+She obeyed, and he watched her intently as she lay back with her eyes
+closed, the long lashes resting upon her pale cheeks. She looked childish
+and a little pathetic, and every fibre of his being quivered with desire
+to protect her. He had never felt so profoundly in his life--and the
+whole thing was so complicated. He tried to force himself to remember
+that he was not travelling with _his_ wife whom he could take care of and
+cherish because she was going to have _his_ child, but that he was
+travelling with John's wife whom he hardly knew and must take no more
+interest in than any Ardayre would in the wife of the head of the family!
+
+He could have laughed at the extraordinary irony of the thing, if it had
+not been so moving.
+
+Verisschenzko, had he been there and known the circumstances, would have
+taken joy in analysing what nature was saying to them both!
+
+Amaryllis was only conscious that Denzil seemed the reality of her dream
+of John, and that she liked his nearness--and Denzil only knew that he
+loved her extremely and must banish emotion and remember his given word.
+So he pulled himself together when she sat up presently and began
+talking again, and gradually the atmosphere of throbbing excitement
+between them calmed. They spoke of each other's tastes and likings and
+found many to be the same. Then they spoke of books, and each discovered
+that the other was sufficiently well read to be able to discuss varied
+favourite authors.
+
+An understanding and sympathy had grown up between them before they
+reached Westbury, and yet Denzil was really trying to keep his word in
+the spirit as well as the letter.
+
+Amaryllis felt no constraint--she was more friendly than she would have
+been with any other man she knew so slightly. Were they not cousins, and
+was it not perfectly natural!
+
+They talked of Oxford and of the effect it had upon young men, and again
+they spoke of St�pan and of the dream he and Denzil shared.
+
+"You will go into Parliament, I suppose, when you come back from the
+war?" she remarked at last. "If you have dreams they should become
+realities...."
+
+"That is what I intend to do. The war may last a long time though--but it
+ought to teach one something, and England will be a vastly different
+place after it, and perhaps the younger men who have fought may have a
+greater chance."
+
+"You have pet theories, of course."
+
+"I suppose so--I believe that the first great step will be to give the
+people better homes--the housing question is what I am going to devote my
+energy to. I am sure it is the root of nearly every evil. Every man and
+woman who works should have the right to a good home. I have two supreme
+interests--that is one, and the other is elimination of the wastrels and
+the unfit. I am quite ruthless, perhaps, you will think. But there is
+such a sickening lot of mawkish sentiment mixed up with nearly every
+scheme to benefit workers. I agree with St�pan who always preaches: Get
+down to the commonsense point of view about a thing. Prune the convention
+and religion and sentimentality first and then you can judge."
+
+Amaryllis thought for a moment; her eyes became wide and dreamy, and her
+charmingly set head was a little thrown back. Denzil took in the line of
+her white throat and the curve of her chin--it was not weak. Why was it
+that women with the possibilities of this one always seemed to be some
+other man's property! He had never come across such charm in girls. Or
+was it that marriage developed charm?
+
+They neither of them spoke for a minute or two, each busy with
+speculation.
+
+"I want to do something," Amaryllis said at last, "not, only just make
+shirts and socks," and then the pink flushed her cheeks again suddenly as
+she remembered that she would not be fit for more strenuous work for
+quite a long time--and then the war would be over, of course.
+
+Denzil thought the same thing without the last qualification. He was
+under no delusions as to the speedy end of strife.
+
+He could not help visioning the wonderful interest the hope of a son
+would be to him if she really were his wife--how filled with supreme
+sympathy and tenderness would be the months coming on. How they would
+talk together about their wishes and the mystery and the glory of the
+evolution of life. And here she had blushed at some thought concerning
+it, and no words must pass between them about this sacred thing. He
+longed to ask her many questions--and then a pang of jealousy shook him.
+She would confide to John, not to him, all the emotions aroused by the
+thought of the child--then. He wondered what she would do in the winter
+all alone. Had she relations she was fond of? He wished that she knew his
+Mother, who was the kindest sweetest lady in the world. He said aloud:
+
+"I would like you to meet my Mother. She is going to be at Bath for a
+month. She is almost an invalid with rheumatism in her ankle where she
+broke it five years ago. I believe you would get on."
+
+"I should love to--it is not an impossible distance from us. I will go
+over to see her, if you will tell her about me--so that she won't think
+some stranger is descending upon her some day!"
+
+"She will be so pleased," and he thought that he would be happier knowing
+that they were friends.
+
+"Does she mean a great deal to you? Some mothers do," and she
+sighed--her own was less than emptiness--they had never been near, and
+now her stepfather and the step-family claimed all the affection her
+mother could feel.
+
+"She is a great dear--one of my best friends," and his eyes beamed. "We
+have always been pals--because I have no brothers and sisters I suppose
+she spoilt me!"
+
+"I daresay you were quite a nice little boy!" Amaryllis smiled--"and it
+must be divine to have a son--I expect it would be easy to spoil one."
+
+Denzil clasped his hands rather tightly--she looked so adorable as she
+said that, her eyes soft with inward knowledge of her great hope. How
+impossible it all was that they must remain strangers--casual cousins and
+nothing more.
+
+"It must be an awful responsibility to have children," he said, watching
+her. "Don't you think so?"
+
+The pink flared up again as she answered a rather solemn "Yes."
+
+Then she went on, a little hurriedly:
+
+"One would try to study their characters and lead them to the highest
+good, as gardeners watch over and train plants until they come to
+perfection. But what funny, serious things we are talking about," and she
+gave a little, nervous laugh--"Like two old grandfather philosophers."
+
+"It is rather a treat to talk seriously; one so seldom has the chance to
+meet any one who understands."
+
+"To understand!" and she sighed. "Alas--How quite perfect life would
+be--" and then she stopped abruptly. If she continued her words might
+contain a reflection upon John.
+
+Denzil bent forward eagerly--what had she been going to say?
+
+She saw his blue attractive eyes gazing at her so ardently and some
+delicious thrill passed through her. But Denzil recovered himself, and
+leaned back in his seat--while he abruptly changed the conversation by
+remarking casually:
+
+"I have never seen Ardayre. I would love to look at our common ancestors.
+My father used to say there was an Elizabethan Denzil who was rather like
+me. I suppose we are all stamped with the same brand."
+
+"I know him!" Amaryllis cried delightedly. "He is up at the end of the
+gallery in puffed white satin and a ruff. Of course, you must come and
+see him; he has exactly the same eyes."
+
+"The whole family are alive I believe--we were a tenacious lot!"
+
+"If you and John both get leave at Christmas you must come with him and
+spend it at Ardayre--I shall have made your Mother's acquaintance by
+then, and we must persuade her too."
+
+He gave some friendly answer--while he felt that John might not endorse
+this invitation. If the places were reversed, how would he himself act?
+Difficult as the situation was for him, it was infinitely harder for
+John. Then the train stopped at Westbury.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Denzil had got out to get some papers which he had been to hurried to
+secure at Paddington tipping the guard on the way, so that an old
+gentleman who showed signs of desiring to enter was warded off to another
+compartment. Thus when the train re-started, they were again left alone.
+
+Amaryllis had partially recovered and was looking nearly her usual self,
+but for the violet shadows beneath her eyes. She glanced at the papers
+which he handed to her, and Denzil retired behind the Times. He wanted
+to think; he must not let himself slip out of hand. He must resolutely
+stamp out all the emotion that she was causing him; he despised weakness
+of any sort.
+
+He thought of Verisschenzko's words about laws being powerless to control
+a man's actions, when a natural force is prompting him, unless he uses
+self-analysis, and so by gaining knowledge permits the spirit to conquer.
+He recollected that he had transgressed often without a backward thought
+in past days with other women, but now his honour was engaged even apart
+from his firm belief in St�pan's favourite saying, that a man must never
+sully the wrong thing. Then the argument they had often had about
+indulgences came to him, and the truth of the only possibility of their
+enjoyment being while they remained servants, not masters.
+
+He had had his indulgences in the two hours to Westbury, and had very
+nearly let it conquer him, more than once, and now he must not only curb
+all friendly words and delightful dalliance with forbidden topics, but he
+must _feel_ no more passion.
+
+He made himself read the war news and try to visualize the grim reality
+behind the official phrasing of the communiqu�s. And gradually he became
+calm, and was almost startled when Amaryllis, who had been watching him
+furtively and had begun to wonder if he was really so interested in his
+paper, said timidly:
+
+"Will you pull the window up a little? It seems to be growing cold."
+
+She noticed that his lips were set firmly and that an abstracted
+expression had grown in his eyes.
+
+Then Denzil spoke, now quite naturally and about the war, and
+deliberately kept the conversation to this subject, until Amaryllis lay
+back again in her corner and closed her eyes.
+
+"I am going to have a little sleep," she said.
+
+She too had begun to realise that in more personal investigation of
+mutual tastes there lay some danger. She had become conscious of the fact
+that she was very interested in Denzil--and there he was, not really the
+least like John!
+
+They were silent for some time, and were nearing Frome when he spoke. He
+had been deliberating as to what he ought to do? Get out and leave her,
+to catch his connection to Bath, or sacrifice that and see her safely to
+her destination and perhaps hire a motor from Bridgeborough?
+
+This latter was his strong desire and also seemed the only chivalrous
+thing to do when she still looked so pale, but--
+
+"Here we are almost at Frome," he said.
+
+Her eyes rounded with concern. It would be horrid to be alone. She had
+left her maid in London for a few days' holiday.
+
+"You change here for Bath," she faltered a little uncertainly.
+
+He decided in a second. He could not be inhuman! Duty and desire were
+one!
+
+"Yes--but I am coming on with you. I shall not leave you until I see you
+safely into your own motor. I can hire one perhaps then, to take me on
+the rest of the way."
+
+She was relieved--or she thought it was merely relief, which made a
+sudden lifting in her heart!
+
+"How kind of you. I do feel as if I did not like the thought of being by
+myself, it is so stupid of me--But you can't hire a motor from
+Bridgeborough which would get you to Bath before dark! They are wretched
+things there. You must come with me to Ardayre; it is on the Bath road,
+you know--and we can have a late lunch, and and then I'll send you on in
+the Rolls Royce. You will be there in an hour--in time for tea."
+
+This was a tremendous fresh temptation. He tried to look at it as though
+it did not in reality matter to him more than the appearance suggested.
+Had there been no emotion in his interest in Amaryllis, he would not have
+hesitated, he knew.
+
+Then it was only for him to conquer emotion and behave as he would do
+under ordinary circumstances--it would be a good test of his will.
+
+"All right--that's splendid, and I shall be able to see Ardayre!"
+
+It was when they were in Amaryllis's own little coup� very close to each
+other that strong temptation assailed Denzil. He suddenly felt his
+pulses throbbing wildly and it was with the greatest difficulty he
+prevented himself from clasping her in his arms. He tried to look out of
+the window and take an interest in the park, which was entered very soon
+after leaving the station. He told himself Ardayre was something which
+deserved his attention and he looked for the first view of the house, but
+all his will could only keep his arms from transgressing, it could not
+control the riot of his thoughts.
+
+Amaryllis was conscious in some measure that he was far from calm, and
+her own heart began to beat unaccountably. She talked rather fast about
+the place and its history, and both were relieved when the front door
+came in sight.
+
+There was a welcoming smell of burning logs in the hall to greet them,
+and the old butler could not restrain an expression of startled curiosity
+when he saw Denzil, the likeness to his master was so great.
+
+"This is Captain Ardayre, Filson," Amaryllis said, "Sir John's cousin,"
+and then she gave the order about the motor to take Denzil on to Bath.
+
+They went through the Henry VII inner hall, and on to the green
+drawing-room, with its air of home and comfort, in spite of its great
+size and stateliness.
+
+There were no portraits here, but some fine specimens of the Dutch
+school, and the big tawny dogs rose to welcome their mistress and were
+introduced to their "new relation."
+
+She was utterly fascinating, Denzil thought, playing with them there on
+the great bear skin rug.
+
+"We shall lunch at once," she told him, "and then rush through the
+pictures afterwards before you start for Bath."
+
+They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before
+that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come
+into Amaryllis--nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than
+her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour
+glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted
+for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest.
+
+Denzil had the hardest fight he had ever been through, and he grew almost
+gruff in consequence. He was really suffering.
+
+He admired the way she acted as hostess, and the way the home was done.
+He hardly felt anything else, though apart from her he would have been
+interested in his first view of Ardayre, but she absorbed all other
+emotions, he only knew that he desired to make passionate love to her, or
+to get away as quickly as he could.
+
+"Are you going to remain here all the winter?" he asked her presently, as
+they rose from the table, "or shall you go to London? You will be awfully
+lonely, won't you, if you stay here?"
+
+"I love the country and I am growing to love and understand the place.
+John wants me to so much, it means more to him than anything else in the
+world. I shall remain until after Christmas anyway. But come now, I want
+just to take you into the church, because there are two such fine tombs
+there of both our ancestors, yours and mine. We can go out of the windows
+and come back for coffee in the cedar parlour."
+
+Denzil acquiesced; he wished to see the church. They reached it in a
+minute or two and Amaryllis opened the door with her own key and led him
+on up the aisle to the recumbent knights--and then she whispered their
+history to him, standing where a ray of sunlight turned her brown hair
+into gold.
+
+"I wonder what their lives were," Denzil said, "and if they lived and
+loved and fought their desires--as we do now--the younger one's face
+looks as though he had not always conquered his. St�pan would say his
+indulgences had become his masters, not his servants, I expect."
+
+"Verisschenzko is wonderful--he makes one want to be strong," and
+Amaryllis sighed. "I wonder how many of us even begin to fight our
+desires--"
+
+"One has to be strong always if one wants to attain--but sometimes it is
+only honour which holds one--and weaklings are so pitiful."
+
+"What is honour?" Her eyes searched his face wistfully. "Is it being true
+to some canon of the laws of chivalry, or is it being true to some higher
+thing in one's own soul?"
+
+Denzil leaned against the tomb and he thought deeply: then he looked
+straight into her eyes:
+
+"Honour lies in not betraying a trust reposed in one, either in the
+spirit or in the letter."
+
+"Then, when, we say of a man 'he acted honourably,' we mean that he did
+not betray a trust placed in him, even if it was only perhaps by
+circumstance and not by a person."
+
+"It is simply that'--keeping faith. If a man stole a sum of money from a
+friend, the dishonour would not be in the act of stealing, which is
+another offence--but in abusing his friend's trust in him by committing
+that act."
+
+"Dishonour is a betrayal then--"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Why would this knight"--and she placed her hand on the marble face,
+"have said that he must kill another who had stolen his wife, say, to
+avenge his 'honour'?"
+
+"That is the conventional part of it--what St�pan calls the grafting
+on of a meaning to suit some idea of civilisation. It was a nice way
+of having personal revenges too and teaching people that they could
+not steal anything with impunity. If we analysed that kind of honour
+we would find it was principally vanity. The dishonour really lay with
+the wife, if she deceived her husband--and with the other man if he
+was the husband's friend--if he was not, his abduction of the woman
+was not 'dishonourable' because he was not trusted, it was merely an
+act of theft."
+
+"What then must we do when we are very strongly tempted?" Her voice was
+so low he could hardly hear it.
+
+"It is sometimes wisest to run away," and he turned from her and moved
+towards the door.
+
+She followed wondering. She knew not why she had promoted this
+discussion. She felt that she had been very unbalanced all the day.
+
+They went back to the house almost silently and through the green
+drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William
+Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time,
+filling one vast wall at the turn.
+
+And so they reached the cedar parlour, and found coffee waiting and
+cigarettes.
+
+There was a growing tension between them and each guessed that the other
+was not calm. Amaryllis began showing him the view from the windows
+across the park, and then the old fireplace and panelling of the room.
+
+"We sit here generally when we are alone," she said. "I like it the best
+of all the rooms in the house."
+
+"It is a fitting frame for you."
+
+They lit cigarettes.
+
+Denzil had many things he longed to say to her of the place, and the
+thoughts it called up in him--but he checked himself. The thing was to
+get through with it all quickly and to be gone. They went into the
+picture gallery then, and began from the end, and when they came to the
+Elizabethan Denzil they paused for a little while. The painted likeness
+was extraordinary to the living splendid namesake who gazed up at the old
+panel with such interested eyes.
+
+And Amaryllis was thinking:
+
+"If only John had that something in him which these two have in their
+eyes, how happy we could be."
+
+And Denzil was thinking:
+
+"I hope the child will reproduce the type." He felt it would be some kind
+of satisfaction to himself if she should have a son which should be his
+own image.
+
+"It is so strange," she remarked, "that you should be exactly like this
+Denzil, and yet resemble John who does not remind me of him at all,
+except in the general family look which every one of them share. This one
+might have been painted from you."
+
+He looked down at her suddenly and he was unable to control the
+passionate emotion in his eyes. He was thinking that yes, certainly, the
+child must be like him--and then what message would it convey to her?
+
+Amaryllis was disturbed, she longed to ask him what it was which she
+felt, and why there seemed some illusive remembrance always haunting her.
+She grew confused, and they passed on to another frame which contained
+the Lady Amaryllis who had had the sonnets written to her nut brown
+locks. She was a dainty creature in her stiff farthingale, but bore no
+likeness to the present mistress of Ardayre.
+
+Denzil examined her for some seconds, and then he said reflectively:
+
+"She is a Sweetheart--but she is not you!"
+
+There was some tone of tenderness in his voice when he said the word
+"Sweetheart" and Amaryllis started and drew in her breath. It recalled
+something which had given her joy, a low murmur whispered in the night.
+"Sweetheart!"--a word which John, alas! had never used before nor since,
+except in that one letter in answer to her cry of exaltation--her glad
+Magnificat. What was this echo sounding in her ears? How like Denzil's
+voice was to John's--only a little deeper. Why, why should he have used
+that word "Sweetheart"?
+
+No coherent thought had yet come to her, it was as though she had looked
+for an instant upon some scene which awakened a chord of memory, and then
+that the curtain had dropped before she could define it.
+
+She grew agitated, and Denzil turning, saw that her face was pale, and
+her grey eyes vague and troubled.
+
+"I am quite sure that it is tiring you, showing me all the house like
+this, we won't look at another picture--and really I must be getting on."
+
+She did not contradict him.
+
+"I am afraid that you ought to go perhaps, if you want to arrive by
+daylight."
+
+And as they returned to the green drawing-room she said some nice things
+about wanting to meet his mother, and she tried to be natural and at
+ease, but her hand was cold as ice when he held it in saying good-bye
+before the fire, when Filson had announced the motor.
+
+And if his eyes had shown passionate emotion in the picture gallery, hers
+now filled with question and distress.
+
+"Good-bye, Denzil--"
+
+"Good-bye, Amaryllis--" He could not bring himself to say the usual
+conventionalities, and went towards the door with nothing more.
+
+Her brain was clearing, terror and passion and uncertainty had come in
+like a flood.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+He turned to her side fearfully. Why had she called him now?
+
+"Denzil--?" her face had paled still further, and there was an anguish of
+pleading in it. "Oh, please, what does it all mean?" and she fell forward
+into his arms.
+
+He held her breathlessly. Had she fainted? No--she still stood on her
+feet, but her little face there lying on his breast was as a lily in
+whiteness and tears escaped from her closed eyes.
+
+"For God's sake, Denzil, have you not something to tell me? You cannot
+leave me so!"
+
+He shivered with the misery of things.
+
+"I have nothing to tell you, child." His voice was hoarse. "You are
+overwrought and overstrung. I have nothing to say to you but just
+good-bye."
+
+She held his coat and looked up at him wildly.
+
+"--Denzil--It was you--not--John!"
+
+He unclasped her clinging arms:
+
+"I must go."
+
+"You shall not until you answer me--I have a right to know."
+
+"I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the
+suffering of restraint.
+
+She clung to him again.
+
+"Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh!
+Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in
+uncertainty--tell me the truth or I shall die!"
+
+But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying
+protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course
+for him to follow--he must go, and the brutality of such action made him
+fierce with pain.
+
+She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He
+raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear
+seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really
+ill--?
+
+He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the
+more.
+
+"How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You
+dare not even pretend that you do not understand!"
+
+He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress.
+
+"Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go."
+
+"Denzil--" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops
+glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her--she looked
+but as a suffering child.
+
+"Denzil--if you knew everything, you could not possibly leave me--you
+don't know what has happened--But you must, you will have to
+since--soon--"
+
+He bowed his head and placed her two hands over his face with a
+despairing movement.
+
+"Hush--I implore you--say nothing. I do know, but I love you--I must
+go."
+
+At that she gave a glad cry and drew him close to her.
+
+"You shall not now! I do not care for conventions any more, or for laws,
+or for anything! I am a savage--you are mine! John must know that you are
+mine! The family is all that matters to him, I am only an instrument, a
+medium for its continuance--but Denzil, you and I are young and loving
+and living. It is you I desire, and now I know that I belong to you. You
+are the man and I am the woman--and the child will be our child!"
+
+Her spirit had arisen at last and broken all chains. She was
+transfigured, transformed, translated. No one knowing the gentle
+Amaryllis could have recognised her in this fierce, primitive creature
+claiming her mate!
+
+Furious, answering passion surged through Denzil; it was the supreme
+moment when all artificial restrictions of civilisation were swept away.
+Nature had come to her own. All her forces were working for these two of
+her children brought near by a turn of fate. He strained her in his arms
+wildly--he kissed her lips, and ears, and eyes.
+
+"Mine, mine," he cried, and then "Sweetheart!"
+
+And for some seconds which seemed an eternity of bliss they forgot all
+but the joy of love.
+
+But presently reality fell upon Denzil and he almost groaned.
+
+"I must leave you, precious dear one--even so--I gave my word of honour
+to John that I would never take advantage of the situation. Fate has done
+this thing by bringing us together; it has overwhelmed us. I do not feel
+that we are greatly to blame, but that does not release me from my
+promise. It is all a frightful price that we must pay for pride in the
+Family. Darling, help me to have courage to go."
+
+"I will not--It is shameful cruelty," and she clung to him, "that we must
+be parted now I am yours really--not John's at all. Everything in my
+heart and being cries out to you--you are the reality of my dream lover,
+your image has been growing in my vision for months. I love you, Denzil,
+and it is your right to stay with me now and take care of me, and it is
+my right to tell you of my thoughts about the--child--Ah! if you knew
+what it means to me, the joy, the wonder, the delight! I cannot keep it
+all to myself any longer. I am starving! I am frozen! I want to tell it
+all to my Beloved!"
+
+He held her to him again--and she poured forth the tenderest holy things,
+and he listened enraptured and forgot time and place.
+
+"Denzil," she whispered at last, from the shelter of his arms. "I have
+felt so strange--exalted, ever since--and now I shall have this ever
+present thought of you and love women in my existence--But how is it
+going to be in the years which are coming? How can I go on pretending to
+John?--I cannot--I shall blurt out the truth--For me there is only
+you--not just the you of these last days since we saw each other with our
+eyes--but the you that I had dreamed about and fashioned as my lover--my
+delight--Can I whisper to John all my joy and tenderness as I watch the
+growing up of my little one? No! the thing is monstrous, grotesque--I
+will not face the pain of it all. John gave you to me--he must have done
+so--it was some compact between you both for the family, and if I did not
+love you I should hate you now, and want to kill myself. But I love you,
+I love you, I love you!" and she fiercely clasped her arms once more
+about his neck. "You must take the consequences of your action. I did not
+ask to have this complication in my life. John forced it upon me for his
+own aims, but I have to be reckoned with, and I want my lover, I claim my
+mate." Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes flashed.
+
+"And your lover wants you," and Denzil wildly returned her fond caress,
+"but the choice is not left to me, darling, even if you were my wife, not
+John's. You have forgotten the war--I must go out and fight."
+
+All the warmth and passion died out of her, and she lay back on the
+pillows of the sofa for a moment and closed her eyes. She had
+indeed forgotten that ghastly colossus in her absorption in their
+own two selves.
+
+Yes--he must go out and fight--and John would go too--and they might both
+be killed like all those gallant partners of the season and her cousin,
+and those who had fallen at Mons and the battle of the Marne.
+
+No--she must not be so paltry as to think of personal things, even love.
+She must rise above all selfishness, and not make it harder for her man.
+Her little face grew resigned and sanctified, and Denzil watching her
+with burning, longing eyes, waited for her to speak.
+
+"It is true--for the moment nothing but you and my great desire for you
+was in my mind. But you are right, Denzil; of course, I cannot keep you.
+Only I am glad that just this once we have tasted a brief moment of
+happiness, and--Denzil, I believe our souls belong to each other, even if
+we do not meet again on earth."
+
+And when at last they had parted, and Amaryllis, listening, heard the
+motor go, she rose from the sofa and went out through the window to the
+lawn, and so to the church again, and there lay on the steps of the young
+knight's tomb, sobbing and praying until darkness enveloped the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko.
+The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very
+little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis,
+but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in
+him--the zest of going out to fight!
+
+Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the
+opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct
+things from so far.
+
+They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory
+fashion all through the _hors d'ouvres_ and the soup.
+
+"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel
+inclined to end it all sometimes."
+
+"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool,
+St�pan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the
+composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have
+another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again.
+It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it
+comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's
+just rot."
+
+"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne,
+while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.
+
+"They don't have decent vodka--but the brandy will do the trick," and in
+an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.
+
+"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like
+that--I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom
+and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the
+knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"
+
+"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I
+should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing
+before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed
+about you though, St�pan--you are fundamentally sane."
+
+"I am glad you think that--very few English understand us--"
+
+"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality
+and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to
+sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking
+like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half
+your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary
+to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his
+luck for the moment."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed outright.
+
+"Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!"
+
+"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"
+
+"I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+Denzil looked at him keenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--"
+
+"Then you know how she is?"
+
+"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are
+acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are
+aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off
+to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English,
+you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about
+it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the
+child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I!
+Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that
+is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the
+thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and
+protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions
+might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real
+truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards
+up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."
+
+Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth
+of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak
+all the same.
+
+"Tell me what you know, St�pan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not
+because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."
+
+"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the
+Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I
+feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves
+you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this
+miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen
+her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"
+
+Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko
+understand in a few words--the Russian's imagination filled in the
+details.
+
+He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke.
+
+"So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her--he must indeed be
+obsessed by the family!"
+
+"He is--he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozen
+Amaryllis from the first day."
+
+"My idea was always for this, directly I went to Ardayre. I felt that
+mysterious pull of the family there in that glorious house. I thought she
+would probably simplify things by just taking you for a lover, when you
+met, as you are her counterpart--a perfect mate for her. I had even made
+up my mind to suggest this to her, and influence her as much as I could
+to this end--but lo! the husband takes the matter out of our hands and
+devises a really unique accomplishment of our wishes. Gosh! Denzil! it's
+John who's got the common sense and the genius, not we!"
+
+"Yes, he has--so far, but he did not reckon with human emotion. He might
+have known that directly I should see Amaryllis I should fall in love
+with her, and he ought to have understood that that extraordinary thing,
+nature, might make her draw to me afterwards. Now the situation is
+tragic, however you look at it. John will have the hell of a life if he
+comes back; he can't help feeling jealous every time he sees the child,
+and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be
+great. Amaryllis is wretched--she is passionate and vivid as a humming
+bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human
+power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I
+absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I
+come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and
+I, and if the family makes all this suffering worth while? Perhaps it
+would have been better to leave it to fate!" Denzil sighed and forgot to
+notice a dish the waiter was handing.
+
+"It is perfectly certain," and Verisschenzko grew contemplative, "that
+the result of deliberately turning the current of events like that must
+have some momentous consequence. Mind you, I think you were right. I
+should have advised it as I have told you, because of that swine of a
+Turk, Ferdinand--but it may have deranged some plan of the Cosmos, and
+if so some of you will have to pay for it. I hate that it should be my
+lady Amaryllis. All her sorrow comes from your dramatically honourable
+promise. You can't make love to her now--because a man who is a
+gentleman does not break his word. Now if my plan had been followed, you
+would not have had this limitation and you could have had some joy--but
+who knows! A false position is a gall in any case, and it would have
+soiled my star, which now shines purely. So perhaps all is for the best.
+But have you analysed, now that we are on the subject, what it is 'being
+in love,' old boy?"
+
+"It is divine--and it is hell--"
+
+"All that! Amaryllis is the exact opposite to Harietta Boleski--in this,
+that she attracts as strongly as Harietta could ever do physically, and
+will be no disappointment in soul in the _entre actes_. _Being in love_
+is a physical state of exaltation; _loving_ is the merging of spirit
+which in its white heat has glorified the physical instinct for
+re-creation into a godlike beatitude not of earth. A man could be in love
+with Harietta, he could never love her. A man could always love
+Amaryllis, so much that he would not be aware that half his joy was
+because he was _in love_ with her also."
+
+"You know, St�pan, men, women and every one talk a lot of nonsense about
+other interests in life mattering more, and there being other kinds of
+really better happiness, but it is pure rot; if one is honest one owns
+that there is no real happiness but in the satisfaction of love. Every
+other kind is second best. It is jolly good often, but only a _pis aller_
+in comparison to the real thing.
+
+"And when people deny this, believing they are speaking honestly, it is
+simply because the real thing has not come their way, or they are too
+brutalised by transient indulgences to be able to feel exaltation.
+
+"So here's to love!" and Denzil emptied his glass. "The supreme God--"
+
+_"Ainsi soit il,"_ and St�pan drank in response. "Our toast before has
+always been to the Ardayre son, and now we drink to what I hope has been
+his creator!"
+
+They were silent for some moments, and then Verisschenzko went on:
+
+"When the state of being in love is waning, affection often remains, but
+then one is at the mercy of a new emotion. I'd be nervous if a woman who
+had loved me subsided into feeling affection!"
+
+"Then define loving?"
+
+"Loving throbs with delight in the flesh; it thrills the spirit with
+reverence. It glorifies into beauty commonplace things. It draws nearer
+in sickness and sorrow, and is not the sport of change. When a woman
+loves truly she has the passion of the mistress, the selfless tenderness
+of the mother, the dignity and devotion of the wife. She is all fire and
+snow, all will and frankness, all passion and reserve, she is
+authoritative and obedient--queen and child."
+
+"And a man?"
+
+"He ceases to be a brute and becomes a god."
+
+"Can it last, I wonder?" and again Denzil sighed.
+
+"It could if people were not such fools--they nearly always deliberately
+destroy the loved one's emotion by senseless stupidity--in not grasping
+the fact that no fire burns without fuel. They disillusionise each other.
+The joy once secured, they take no pains to keep it. A woman will do
+things when the lover is an acknowledged possession, which she would not
+have dreamed of doing while desiring to attract the man--and a man
+likewise--neither realising that the whole state of being in love is an
+intoxication of the senses, and that the senses are very easily wearied
+or affronted."
+
+"St�pan--what am I going to do about Amaryllis? If I come back, it will
+be hell--a continual longing and aching, and I want to accomplish
+something in life; it was never my plan to have the whole thing held and
+bounded by passion for a woman. A hopeless passion I can understand
+facing and crushing, but one which you know that the woman returns, and
+that it is only the law and promises you have made which separate you, is
+the most awful torment." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.
+His face was stern. "And her life too--how sickening. You say you are
+going down to Ardayre to see Amaryllis--you will tell me how you find
+her. I have not written--I am trying not to feel."
+
+"Are you interested about the coming child? I am never quite certain how
+much it matters to a man, whether we deceive ourselves and feel sentiment
+simply because we love the woman, whether the emotion is half vanity, or
+whether there is something in the actual state called parenthood? How do
+you feel?"
+
+Denzil thought of his musings upon this subject after he had seen
+Amaryllis at the Carlton.
+
+"It is hard to describe," he answered now, "it is all so interwoven with
+love for Amaryllis that I cannot distinguish which is which, or how I
+feel about the state in the abstract. Women have these mysterious
+emotions, I believe, but I do not think that they come to the average
+man, but if he loves it seems a fulfilment."
+
+"I have two children scattered in Russia, begotten before I had begun to
+think of things and their meanings. I have them finely educated--I loathe
+them. I sicken at the memory of the mothers; I am ashamed when I see in
+them some chance physical likeness to myself. But how will you feel
+presently when you see the child, adoring the mother as you do? What will
+it say to you, looking at you with your own eyes, perhaps? You'll long to
+have some hand in the training of it. You'll desire to watch the budding
+brain and the expanding soul. You'll be drawn closer and closer to
+Amaryllis--it will all pull you with an invisible nature chain--"
+
+"I know it,--that is the tragedy of the whole thing. Those delights will
+be John's--and I hate to think that Amaryllis will be alone for all these
+months--and yet I believe I would prefer that to her being with John. I
+am jealous when I remember that he has rights denied to me--so what must
+he feel, poor devil, when he remembers about me?"
+
+"It is quite a peculiar situation. I wonder what the years will
+develop it into."
+
+"If the child is a girl, the whole thing is in vain."
+
+"It won't be a girl--you will see I am right. When will you and John get
+leave, do you suppose?"
+
+"I don't know, but about Christmas, perhaps, if we are alive--"
+
+"Do you want to see her again, then?"
+
+"I long always to see her--but by Christmas--it would be nearly five
+months. I don't think I could keep my word and not make love to her--if I
+saw her--then."
+
+"You will wish to hear about her--?"
+
+"Always."
+
+After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed.
+Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his
+highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future
+hold? Only one--that of death for either of the men concerned. Well,
+death was busy with England's best--it was no unlikely possibility--and
+as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and
+living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood,
+crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years.
+
+"I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical,
+as was his habit, when he found himself moved.
+
+"I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new
+lover--Ferdinand Ardayre."
+
+"What a combination!"
+
+"Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace.
+Stanislass is quite a _gaga_--he spends his time packed off to play
+piquet at the St. James'--he has no _bosse des cartes_,--it is his
+burdensome duty."
+
+"He does not feel the war?"
+
+"He is numb."
+
+"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"
+
+"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a
+fitting end."
+
+"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.
+
+"My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes."
+
+Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the
+time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John,
+so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her.
+
+John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the
+iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but
+the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in
+self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made
+him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed--he felt
+it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious--they had grown from a girl's
+into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did--and
+then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this
+pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause--he knew that he
+had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He
+thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window
+until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had
+indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she
+reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility
+might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going
+to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the
+appointment, so they spoke at the ball.
+
+Would it have been better if he had let himself go and fondly kissed and
+netted Amaryllis? Or would that have been misleading and still more
+unkind? It was too late now, in any case. He must learn to take the only
+satisfaction which was left to him, the knowledge that there was the hope
+of a true Ardayre to carry on.
+
+He talked long to his wife of his desires for the child's education,
+should it prove a boy, and he should not return, and Amaryllis listened
+dutifully.
+
+Her mind was filled with wonder all the time. She had been through much
+emotion since the passionate outburst after Denzil had gone, but was
+quite calm now. She had classified things in her mind. She felt no
+resentment against John. He ought not to have married her perhaps, but it
+might be that at the time he did not know. Only she wondered when she
+looked at him sitting opposite her, talking gravely about the baby, in
+the library of Brook Street, how he could possibly be feeling. What an
+immense influence the thought of the family must have in his life. She
+understood it in a great measure herself. She remembered Verisschenzko's
+words upon the occasions when he had spoken to her about it, and of her
+duties towards it, and how she must uphold it. She particularly
+remembered that which he had said when they walked by the lake, and he
+had seemed to be transmitting some message to her, which she had not
+understood at the time. Did Verisschenzko know then that John must always
+be heirless and had he been suggesting to her that the line should go on
+through her? Some of the pride in it all had come to her before she had
+left the dark church after parting with Denzil. Perhaps she was
+fulfilling destiny. She must not be angry with John. She did not try to
+cease from loving Denzil. She had not knowingly been unfaithful to
+John--and now, she would be faithful to Denzil, he was her love and her
+mate. Indeed, even in the fortnight which elapsed between her farewell
+to him, and now when she was going to say farewell to John, she had many
+months of tender consolation in the thought of the baby--Denzil's son.
+She could revive and revel in that exquisite exaltation which she had
+experienced at first and which John had withered. Denzil far surpassed
+even the imagined lover into which she had turned John. So now Denzil had
+become the reality, and John the dream.
+
+She felt sorry for her husband too. She was fine enough to understand and
+divine his difficulties.
+
+She found that she felt just nothing for him but a kindly affection. He
+might have been Archie de la Paule--or any of her other cousins. She knew
+that her whole being was given to Denzil--who represented her dream.
+
+She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before
+starting, the tears came to her eyes.
+
+Poor good, cold John!
+
+And when he had departed--all the de la Paule family had been there at
+Brook Street also--Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But
+what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that
+there might be a son!
+
+So both Denzil and John went to the war--and Amaryllis was alone.
+Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her--and it was the
+beginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up at
+Brook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.
+
+"Of course!" she said, and so he came.
+
+The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging
+flowers and cushions and such things--her rooms always breathed an air of
+home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the
+warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.
+
+She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had
+dined with her.
+
+"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea
+and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to
+tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested
+about it all."
+
+Amaryllis blushed a soft pink--he went on with perfect calm.
+
+"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules
+you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or
+discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with
+anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some
+self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has
+wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort
+in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to
+have a baby, do you not think so?"
+
+"Of course I do--" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She
+really wished to talk to her friend.
+
+"Who told you about it?" she asked.
+
+"Denzil."
+
+Amaryllis drew in her breath suddenly. Verisschenzko's eyes were looking
+her through and through.
+
+"Denzil--?"
+
+"Yes,--he is glad that there may be the possibility of a son for
+the family."
+
+"How do you feel about it? It is an enormous responsibility to have
+children."
+
+"I feel that--I want to do the wisest things from the beginning--"
+
+"You must take great care of yourself, and always remain serene. Never
+let your mind become agitated by speculation as to the _presently_, keep
+all thoughts fixed upon the now."
+
+Amaryllis looked at him a little troubled. What did he know? Something
+tangible, or were these views of his just applicable to any case? Her
+eyes were full of question and pleading.
+
+"What do you want to ask me?" His eyes narrowed in contemplating her.
+
+"I--I--do not know."
+
+"Yes, you want to hear of Denzil--is it not so?"
+
+She clasped her hands.
+
+"Yes--perhaps--"
+
+"He is well--I heard from him yesterday. He asked me to come to you. His
+mother is still at Bath--he wishes you to meet."
+
+Suddenly the impossibleness of everything seemed to come over Amaryllis.
+She rose quickly and threw out her hands:
+
+"Oh! if I could only understand the meaning of things, my friend! I am
+afraid to think!"
+
+"You love Denzil very much--yes?"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"Sit down and let us talk about it, lady of my soul. I am your
+mother now."
+
+She sank into her seat beside him, among the green silk pillows--and he
+leaned back and watched her for a while.
+
+"He fulfils some imaginary picture, _hein?_ You had not seen him really
+until we all dined?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were bound to be drawn to him--he is everything a woman could
+desire--but it was not only that--tell me?"
+
+"He was what I had hoped John would be--the likeness is so great--"
+
+"It is much deeper than that--nature was drawing you unconsciously."
+
+She covered her face with her hands. It seemed as if Verisschenzko must
+know the truth. Had Denzil told him, or was it his wonderful intuition
+which was enlightening him now, or was it just her sensitive conscience?
+
+"You see custom and convention and false shames have so distorted most
+natural things that no one has been taught to understand them. Men were
+intended in the scheme of things to love women and to have children;
+women were meant to love men and to desire to be mothers. These instincts
+are primordial, the life of the world depends upon them. They have been
+distorted and abused into sins and vices and excesses and every evil by
+civilisation, so that now we rule them out of every calculation in
+judging of a circumstance; if we are 'nice' people they are taboo.
+Supposing we so suppressed and distorted and misused the other two
+primitive instincts, to obtain food and to kill one's enemy, the world
+would have ended long ago. We have done what we could to distort those
+also, but nothing to the extent to which we have debased the nobility of
+the recreative instinct!"
+
+Amaryllis listened attentively, and he went on:
+
+"It is admitted that we require food to live--and that if we are
+threatened with death from an enemy we have the right to kill him in
+self-defence. But it is never admitted that it is equally natural that we
+desire to recreate our species. Under certain circumstances of vows and
+restrictions, we are permitted to take one partner for life--and--if this
+person turns out to be a fraud for the purpose for which we made the
+promise, we may not have another. Supposing hungry savages were given
+covered dishes purporting to contain food, and upon lifting the cover one
+of them discovered his dish was empty--what would happen? He would bear
+it as long as he could, but when he was starving he would certainly try
+to steal some food from his neighbour--and might even knock him on the
+head and obtain it! Civilisation has controlled primitive instincts, so
+that a civilised man might perhaps prefer to die himself from starvation
+rather than kill or steal. He is master of his actions, _but he is not
+master of the effects of his abstinence--Nature wins these,_ and whatever
+would be the natural physical result of his abstinence occurs. Now you
+can reason this thought out in all its branches, and you will see where
+it leads to--"
+
+Amaryllis mused for some moments--and she saw the justice of his
+reflections.
+
+"But for hundreds of years there have been priests and nuns and companies
+of ascetics," she remarked tentatively.
+
+"There have been hundreds of lunatics also--and madness is not on the
+decrease. When you destroy nature you always produce the abnormal, when
+life survives from your treatment."
+
+"You think that it is natural that one should have a mate then?"--she
+hesitated.
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"It is more important than the keeping of vows?"
+
+"No, the spirit is degraded by the knowledge of broken vows--only one
+must have intelligence to realise what the price of keeping them will be,
+and then summon strength enough to carry out whatever course is best for
+the soul, or best for the ideal one is living for. Sometimes that end
+requires ruthlessness, and sometimes that end requires that we starve in
+one way or another, so _we must_ be prepared for sacrifice perhaps of
+life, or what makes life worth living, if we are strong enough to keep
+vows which we have been short-sighted enough to make too hastily."
+
+Amaryllis gazed in front of her--then she asked softly:
+
+"Do you think it is wicked of me to be thinking of Denzil--not John?"
+
+"No--it is quite natural--the wickedness would be if you pretended to
+John that you were thinking of him. Deception is wickedness."
+
+"Everything is so sad now. Both have gone to fight. I do not dare to
+think at all."
+
+"Yes, you must think--you must think of your child and draw to it all the
+good forces, so that it may come to life unhampered by any weakness of
+balance in you. That must be your constant self-discipline. Keep serene
+and try to live in a world of noble ideals and serenity. Now I am going
+to play to you--"
+
+Amaryllis had never heard Verisschenzko play. He arranged the sofa
+cushions and made her lie comfortably among them, then he went to the
+piano--and presently it seemed to her that her soul was floating upward
+into realms of perfect content. She had never even dreamed of such
+playing. It was like nothing she had ever heard before, the sounds
+touched all the highest chords in her spirit. She did not ask whose was
+the music. She seemed to know that it was Verisschenzko's own, which was
+just talking to her, telling her to be calm and brave and true.
+
+He played for a whole hour--and at last softly and yet more softly, and
+when he finished he saw that she was quietly asleep.
+
+A smile as tender as a mother's came into his rugged face, and he stole
+from the room noiselessly, breathing a blessing as he passed.
+
+And somewhere in France, Denzil and John were thinking of her too, each
+with great love in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Harietta Boleski was growing dissatisfied with her life. England was of
+no amusement to her, and yet Hans insisted upon her staying on. She
+wanted to go to Paris. The war altogether was a supreme bore and upset
+her plans!
+
+She had been so successful in her obvious stupid way that Hans had been
+enabled to transmit the most useful information to his country, which had
+assisted to foil more than one Allied plan. Harietta saw numbers of old
+gentlemen who pulled strings in that time, and although they wearied her,
+she found them easier to extract news from than the younger men. Her
+method was so irresistible: a direct appeal to the senses, and it hardly
+ever failed. If only Hans would consent to her returning to Paris, with
+the help of Ferdinand Ardayre, who was now her slave, she promised
+wonderful things.
+
+Hans, as a Swedish philanthropic gentleman, had been over to give her
+instructions once or twice, and at last had agreed to her crossing
+the Channel.
+
+She told this good news to Ferdinand one afternoon just before Christmas,
+when he came in to see her in London.
+
+"I'm going to Paris, Ferdie, and you must come too. There's no use in
+your pretending that England matters to you, and you are of such use to
+us with your branch business in Holland like that. If I'd thought in the
+beginning that there was a chance to knock out Germany, I would have been
+right on this side, because there's no two ways about it, England's the
+place to have a good time in, but I've information which makes it certain
+that we shall take Calais in the Spring, and so I guess it's safer to
+cling to Kaiser Bill--and get it all done soon, then we can enjoy
+ourselves again. I do pine for a tango! My! I'm just through with this
+dull time!"
+
+Ferdinand was a rest to her, almost as good as Hans. She had not to be
+over-refined--she knew that he was on the same level as herself. He
+amused her too in several ways.
+
+He looked sulky now. It did not suit his plans to go to Paris yet. He was
+trying to collect information for a game of his own. But where Harietta
+went he must go, he was besotted about her, and knew that he could not
+trust her a yard.
+
+He protested a little that they were very well where they were, but as
+she never allowed any one's wishes to interfere with her plans she
+only smiled.
+
+"I'm going on Saturday. We have secured a suite at the Universal this
+time, now that the Rhin is shut up, and it is such a large hotel, you can
+quite well stay there; Stanislass won't notice you among the crowd."
+
+Ferdinand agreed unwillingly--and just then Verisschenzko came in. He had
+not seen Madame Boleski since the night at the Carlton, having taken care
+not to let her know of his further visits to England since.
+
+He looked at Ferdinand Ardayre as though he had been some bit of
+furniture, and he took up Fou-Chow who was cowering beneath a chair. He
+did not speak a word.
+
+Harietta talked for every one for a little while, and then she began to
+feel nervous.
+
+Verisschenzko smiled lazily--he was trying an experiment. The interview
+could not go on like this; Ferdinand Ardayre would certainly have to go.
+
+Now that Verisschenzko had come, Harietta ardently wished that he would.
+
+The most venomous hate was arising in Ferdinand's resentful soul. He felt
+that here was a rival to be dreaded indeed. He saw that Harietta was
+nervous; he had never seen her so before. He shut his teeth and
+determined to stay on.
+
+Verisschenzko continued his disconcerting silence. Harietta felt that
+she should presently scream! She took Fou-Chow from St�pan and pinched
+him cruelly in her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed
+him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if
+she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet
+sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female
+friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when
+she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed
+out of her way.
+
+He showed evident fear of her and ran from her always, so that when
+she wanted to make a picture with him, she was obliged to carry him
+in her arms.
+
+Verisschenzko raised one bushy eyebrow, and a sardonic smile came
+into his eyes.
+
+Madame Boleski saw that she had made a mistake in showing her temper to
+the dog; it would have given her pleasure then to wring its neck!
+
+The two men sat on. She began to grow so uncomfortable that she could
+endure it no more.
+
+"You are coming back to dinner, Mr. Ardayre," she remarked at length,
+"and I want you to get me gardenias to wear, if you will be so kind, and
+I am afraid you will have to hurry as the shops close soon."
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre rose, rage showing in his mean face, but as he had no
+choice he said good-bye. Harietta accompanied him to the door, pressing
+his hand stealthily, then she returned to the Russian with flaming eyes.
+He had not uttered a word.
+
+"How dare you make me so nervous, sitting there like a log! I won't stand
+for such treatment--you Bear!"
+
+"Then sit down. Why do you have that Turk with you at all?"
+
+"He is not a Turk; he's an Englishman and a friend of mine. Why, he is
+the brother of your precious John Ardayre--and they have behaved
+shamefully to him, poor dear boy."
+
+She was still enraged.
+
+"He is not even a pure Turk--some of them are gentlemen. He is just the
+scum of the earth, and no blood relation to John Ardayre."
+
+"He will let them know whether he is or not some day! I hear that your
+bit of bread and butter is going to have a child, and as Ferdie says it
+can't be John's, I suppose it is yours!"
+
+Verisschenzko's face looked dangerous.
+
+"You would do well to guard your words, Harietta. I do not permit you to
+make such remarks to me--and it would be more prudent if you warned your
+friend that he had better not make such assertions either--do you
+understand?"
+
+Harietta felt some twinge of fear at the strange tone in the Russian's
+voice, but she was too out of temper to be cowed now.
+
+"Puh!" and she tossed her head. "If the child is a boy Ferdie will have
+something to say--and as for Amaryllis--I hate her! I'd like to kill her
+with my own hands."
+
+Verisschenzko rose and stood before her--and there was a look in his eyes
+which made her suddenly grow cold.
+
+"Listen," he said icily. "I have warned you once and you know me well
+enough to decide whether I ever speak lightly. I warn you again to be
+careful of your words and your deeds. I shall warn you no more--if you
+transgress a third time--then I will strike."
+
+Harietta grew pale to her painted lips.
+
+How would he strike? Not with a stick as Hans would have done, but
+in some much more deadly way. She changed her manner instantly and
+began to laugh.
+
+"Darling Brute!"
+
+Verisschenzko knew that he had alarmed her sufficiently, so he sat down
+in his chair again and lit a cigarette calmly--then he sniffed the air.
+
+"Your mongrel friend uses the same perfume as Stanislass' mistress!"
+
+"Stanislass' mistress?" she had forgotten for the moment.
+
+"Yes--don't you remember we burnt his scented handkerchief the last time
+we met, because we did not like her taste in perfumes?"
+
+Harietta's ill humour rose again; she was annoyed that she had forgotten
+this incident. Her instinct of self-preservation usually preserved her
+from committing any such mistakes. She felt that it was now advisable to
+become cajoling; also there was something in the face of Verisschenzko
+and his fierceness which aroused renewed passion in her--it was absurd
+to waste time in quarrelling with him when in an hour Stanislass might be
+coming in, so she went over behind his chair and smoothed back his thick
+dark hair.
+
+"You know that I adore you, darling Brute!"
+
+"Of course--" he did not even turn his head towards her. "Have you had
+your heart's desire here in England?"
+
+"Before this stupid war came--yes--now I'm through with it. I'm for
+Paris again."
+
+"I suppose I must have been mistaken, but I thought I caught sight of
+your handsome German friend in the hall just now?"
+
+"German friend--who?"
+
+"Your _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball. I have forgotten his name."
+
+"And so have I."
+
+At that instant Marie appeared at the door and Fou-Chow came from under
+the chair where he was sheltering and pattered towards her with a glad
+tiny whine. The maid's eyes rounded with dislike as she looked at her
+mistress; she realised that the little creature had been roughly treated
+again. She picked him up and could hardly control her voice into a tone
+of respectfulness as she spoke:
+
+"Monsieur Insborg demands if he can see Madame in half an hour. He
+telephoned to Madame but received no reply."
+
+For a second Harietta's eyes betrayed her; they narrowed with alarm, and
+then she said suavely: "I suppose the receiver was off. No, say I am
+dining early for the theatre--but to-morrow at five."
+
+The maid inclined her head and left the room silently, carrying
+Fou-Chow, but as she did so her eyes met Verisschenzko's and their
+expression suggested to him several things:
+
+"Marie loves the dog--so she hates Harietta. Good--we shall see."
+
+Thus his thoughts ran, but aloud he asked what Harietta meant to do with
+her life in Paris, and who had been her lovers here?
+
+"You do say such frightful things to me, St�pan," and she tossed her
+head. "You think that because I took you, I take others! Pah!--and if I
+do--these Englishmen are peaches, just like little school boys--they'd
+not harm a fly. But I only love you, Darling Brute--even though we have
+had a row."
+
+"I know that, of course. I am not jealous, only you have not given me any
+proofs lately, so I am going to retire from the field. I came to say
+good-bye."
+
+He looked adorably attractive, Harietta thought--he made her blood run.
+Ferdinand Ardayre was but an instructed weakling, when one had come
+through his intricacies there was nothing in him. As a lover he was not
+worth the Russian's little finger, and the more Verisschenzko eluded
+her, the higher her passion for him grew; and here he was after months
+of absence and suggesting that he would leave her for ever! This was not
+to be borne!
+
+The enraging part was that she would not dare to try to keep him with
+Hans again upon the scene. She hated Hans once more as she had hated him
+at the Ardayre ball!
+
+Verisschenzko did not attempt to caress her; he sat perfectly still, nor
+did he speak.
+
+Harietta could not think how to cope with this new mood; her weariness
+with the gloom of England and the absence of amusement seemed to render
+St�pan more than ever desirable. He represented the wild, the strong, the
+primitive, the only thing she felt that she desired at that moment--and
+if she let him go to-day he was capable of never coming back to her
+again. It was worth using any means to keep him on. She knew that she
+could obtain some show of love from him if she bribed him with bits of
+news. It would serve Hans right too for daring to turn up so
+inconveniently!
+
+So she came from behind his chair and sat down on Verisschenzko's knee
+and commenced to whisper in his ear.
+
+"Now I am beginning to think that you love me again," he announced
+presently,--"and of course I must always pay for love!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were seated by the fire in two armchairs when Stanislass came in
+from the Club before dinner at eight. Harietta had not even remembered
+that she must dress, so intoxicated with re-awakened passion for
+Verisschenzko had she become. A man for her must be in the room; her
+affection could not keep alight in absence. She had revelled in the joy
+of finding again a complete physical master. She loved him as a tigress
+may love her tamer, the man with the whip; and the knowledge that she was
+deceiving Hans and her husband and Ferdinand added a fillip to her
+satisfaction. But how was she going to be sure to see St�pan again--that
+was the question which still agitated her. Verisschenzko wished to
+further examine Ferdinand Ardayre, and so decided to make every one
+uncomfortable once more by staying on. Stanislass, very nervous with him
+now, talked fast and foolishly. Harietta fidgeted, and in a moment or two
+Ferdinand Ardayre was announced.
+
+He reddened with annoyance to see the Russian had not gone; the flowers
+which he had brought were in a parcel in his hand.
+
+Harietta took them disdainfully without a word of thanks. What a nuisance
+the creature was after all!--and Stanislass was--and everything and
+anything was which kept her from being alone with Verisschenzko!
+
+"When are you coming to see me again, St�pan?" she asked, determined not
+to let him part without some definite future meeting settled.
+
+"I will come back and take coffee with you to-night," he answered
+unexpectedly.
+
+Harietta was enchanted, she had not hoped for this.
+
+"No one bothers so much about dressing now, stay and dine as you are."
+
+"Yes, do," chimed in Stanislass timidly in Russian, "we should be
+so charmed."
+
+"Very well--I will dine--but I must change. I shall not be long though.
+Begin dinner without me, I will join you before the fish." And with no
+further waste of words he left them.
+
+Harietta pushed Stanislass gently from the room with an injunction to be
+quick--and then she returned and held out her arms to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"Now you must not be jealous, Ferdie pet, about Verisschenzko," and she
+patted him. "It is business--I must talk to him to-night; he has an idea
+that you and I are not favourable to the Allies," and she laughed
+delightedly, "and I must get him off this notion!"
+
+Ferdinand Ardayre looked sullen; he was burning with jealousy.
+
+"Will you make it up to me afterwards?"
+
+"But, of course, in the usual way!" and with one of her wonderful kisses
+Harietta went laughing from the room.
+
+Left alone, the young man gave himself a morphine _piq�re_, and then sat
+down and held his head in his hands.
+
+He had heard, as he had told Harietta earlier in the afternoon, that his
+brother's wife was going to have a child, and he could find no way of
+proving legally that it could not be John's, so his venom had grown with
+his impotence.
+
+His mother had said to him once:
+
+"The accursed English will always beat us, my son. Thy real father would
+have put poison in their coffee. We can only hope for revenge some day. I
+fear we shall never gain our desires. The old fool whom thou callest
+father must be sucked dry of everything while he lives, because no
+quarter will be given us once the breath is out of his body."
+
+Was this true? Must the English always beat him? He remembered his hatred
+of Denzil while at Eton, and the dog's life he had often led there. Well,
+he would hit back with an adder's sting when the chance came to him. He
+would like to see both Ardayres ruined and England herself in the dust,
+numbed and conquered. All his English life and education had never made
+him anything but an alien in thought and appearance.
+
+It was his powerlessness which enraged him, but surely the day must come
+when he could make some of them suffer.
+
+Harietta had not appeared in the hall when Verisschenzko returned
+dressed, and she even kept all three men waiting for about ten minutes,
+and then swept in resplendent in yellow brocade and the gardenias, when
+the clock had struck nine and most of the other diners were having
+their coffee.
+
+The atmosphere of restraint and depression was a constant source of
+resentment to her. It was all very well to be dignified and refined for
+some definite end, like securing an unquestioned position, but it was a
+weariness of the flesh to have to keep up this r�le month after month
+with no excitement or reward, and every now and then she felt that she
+must break out even in small ways by wearing too gorgeous and unsuitable
+raiment. She wished that Germany would be quick about winning, then
+things could settle down and she could begin her social career again.
+
+"It don't amount to a row of pins to the people who want to enjoy
+themselves, as I do, if their country is beaten or not; it'll all be the
+same six months after peace is declared, so I'm all for knocking
+whichever seems feeblest out quickly," she had said to Ferdinand, "and
+Paris will always be top of the world for clothes and things that one
+wants, so what do old politics matter?"
+
+She derived some pleasure out of the sensation she created when she went
+into a restaurant, and she really looked extraordinarily handsome.
+
+The dinner amused her, too; it was entertaining to make Ferdinand
+jealous. The emotions of Stanislass had ceased to count to her in any way
+whatsoever.
+
+Verisschenzko had discovered what he required in regard to Ferdinand
+Ardayre before they went into the hall for coffee--there was nothing
+further to be gained by having another t�te-�-t�te with Harietta, so he
+sat down by Stanislass and suggested that the other two should go on to
+the Coliseum without them, and Harietta was obliged to depart reluctantly
+with Ferdinand, having arranged that St�pan should let her know, directly
+he arrived in Paris, whither he was going in a day or two also.
+
+When she had left them Stanislass Boleski turned melancholy eyes to his
+old friend, but remained silent.
+
+"Has it been worth it?" Verisschenzko asked, with certain feeling--they
+had relapsed into Russian.
+
+Stanislass sighed deeply.
+
+"No--far from it--I am broken and finished, St�pan, she has devoured
+my soul--"
+
+"Why don't you kill her! I should."
+
+The Pole clenched one of his transparent looking hands:
+
+"I cannot--I desire her so--she is an obsession. I cannot work--she
+leaves me neither time nor brain. But I want her always, she is a burning
+torment, and a blast, and a sin. I see visions of the chance that I have
+missed, and then all is obliterated by her voluptuous kisses. I die each
+day with jealousy and shame. She withholds herself, and I would pay with
+the blood from my veins to possess her again!"
+
+"You have no longer any delusions about her--you see her as a curse and
+a vampire?"
+
+Stanislass reddened.
+
+"I see everything, but I know only desire. St�pan, she has dragged me
+through every degradation. I am a witness of her unfaithfulness. She
+gives herself to this Turk with hardly a pretence of concealment--I know
+it--I burn with rage, and I can do nothing. She returns to my arms and I
+forget everything. I am a most unhappy man and only death can release me,
+and yet I wish to live because I love her. Each day is fierce longing for
+her--each night away from her hell--" Tears sprang to his hopeless black
+eyes and his voice broke with emotion.
+
+Verisschenzko looked at him and a rough pity tempered his contempt.
+
+Here was a case where an indulgence having become master was exacting a
+hideous toll. But the net was drawing closer and when all the strands
+were in his hands he would act without mercy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+When Amaryllis knew that John was going to get a few days' leave at
+Christmas a strange nervousness took possession of her. The personality
+of Denzil had been growing more real to her ever since they had parted,
+in spite of her endeavours to discipline her mind and control all
+emotion. The thought of him and the thought of the baby were inseparable
+and were seldom absent from her consciousness. All sorts of wonderful
+emotions held her, and exalted her imagination until she felt that Denzil
+was part of her daily life--and with the double interest her love for him
+grew and grew.
+
+She had only seen John during the day when he had come to bid her
+good-bye before leaving for the Front, and most of the time they had been
+surrounded by the de la Paule family. But now she would have to face the
+fact of living with him again in an intimate relationship.
+
+The thought appeared awful to her. There was something in her nature
+which resembled that of the bride of King Caudaules. She could not
+support the idea of belonging now to John; it seemed to her that he must
+have no rights at all. She had written to him dutifully each week letters
+about the place and her Committees in the County. She had not once
+mentioned the coming child.
+
+Denzil's mother had been ill and the visit to Bath had been postponed,
+and after a fortnight alone at Ardayre she had come up to London. She had
+too much time to think there.
+
+St�pan had left her a list of books to get and she had been steadily
+reading them.
+
+How horribly ignorant she had been! She realised that what knowledge she
+had possessed had never been centralised or brought to any use. She had
+known isolated histories of Europe, and never had studied them
+collectively or contemporarily to discover their effect upon human
+evolution. She had learned many things, and then never employed her
+critical faculties about them. A whole new world seemed to be opening to
+her view. She had determined not to be unhappy and not to look ahead, but
+in spite of these good resolutions she would often dream in the firelight
+of the joy of being clasped in Denzil's arms.
+
+When she thought of John it was with tolerance more than affection. What
+did he really mean to her, denuded of the glamour with which she herself
+had surrounded him?
+
+Practically nothing at all.
+
+She was quite aware that her state of being was rendering all her mental
+and emotional faculties particularly sensitive, and she did her utmost to
+remember all Verisschenzko's counsel to discipline herself and remain
+serene. The morning John was expected to arrive she had a hard fight with
+herself. She felt very nervous and ill at ease. Above all things, she
+must not be unkind.
+
+He was bronzed and looked well, he was more expansive also and plainly
+very glad to see her.
+
+He held her close to him and bent to kiss her lips; but some undefined
+reluctance came over her, and she moved her head aside.
+
+Something in her resented the caress. Her lips were now for Denzil and
+for no other man. It was she who was recalcitrant and turned the
+conversation into everyday things.
+
+The de la Paule family had been summoned for luncheon and the
+afternoon passed among them all, and then the evening and the
+t�te-�-t�te dinner came.
+
+John knocked at the door of her room while she was dressing. Her maid had
+just finished her hair and she wondered at herself that she should
+experience a sense of shyness and have to suppress an inclination to
+refuse to let him come in. And once any of these little intimate
+happenings would have given her joy!
+
+She kept Adams there, and hurried into her tea-gown and then walked
+towards the door.
+
+John had not spoken much, but stood by the fire.
+
+How changed things were! Once he had to be persuaded and enticed to stay
+with her at such moments, and it was he who now seemed to desire to do
+so, and it was she who discouraged his wishes!
+
+In Amaryllis' mind an agitation grew. What could she say to him
+presently--if he suggested coming to sleep in her room?
+
+The knowledge in her breast rose as an insurmountable barrier
+between them.
+
+During dinner she kept the conversation entirely upon his life at the
+Front--which indeed really interested her. She was not cold or stiff in
+her manner, but she was unconsciously aloof.
+
+Then they went back into the library, each feeling exceedingly depressed.
+
+When coffee had come and they were quite alone Amaryllis felt she could
+not stand the strain, and went to the piano. She played for quite a long
+time all the things she remembered that John liked best. She wanted the
+music to calm her, and she wanted to gain time. John sat in one of the
+monster chairs and gazed into the fire. He seemed to see pictures in the
+glowing coals.
+
+The strange relentless fate which had pursued him always as far as
+happiness was concerned!
+
+He remembered what his mother had said to him when she lay a-dying with a
+broken heart.
+
+"John, we cannot see what God means in it all. There must be some
+explanation because He cannot be unjust. It is because we have missed the
+point of some lesson, probably, and so are given it again to learn. Do
+not ever be rebellious, my son, and perhaps some day light will come."
+
+He had read an article in some paper lately ridiculing the theory that we
+have had former lives, but, after all, perhaps there was some foundation
+for the belief. Perhaps he was paying in this one for sins in a previous
+birth. That would account for the seeming inexorableness of the
+misfortunes which fell upon him now, since common sense told him that in
+this life such cruel blows were undeserved.
+
+Amaryllis glanced at his face from the piano as she played. It was
+infinitely sad.
+
+A great pity grew in her heart. What ought she to do not to be unkind?
+
+Presently she finished a soft chord and got up and came to his side.
+
+They were both suffering cruelly--but John was going back to fight. She
+must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France
+at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth,
+and she could not let him go again into danger with this black shadow
+between them.
+
+He looked up at her and rose from his chair.
+
+"You play so beautifully," he said hastily. "You take one out of
+oneself. Now it is late and the day has been long. Let us go to bed,
+dearest child."
+
+Amaryllis stiffened suddenly--the moment that she dreaded had come.
+
+"I would rather that you slept in your dressing-room. I have ordered that
+to be prepared--"
+
+He looked at her startled--and then he took her hand.
+
+"Amaryllis--tell me everything. Why are you so changed?"
+
+"I'm trying not to be, John."
+
+"You are trying--that proves that you are, if you must try. Please tell
+me what this means."
+
+She endeavoured to remain calm and not become unhinged.
+
+"It was you yourself who altered me. I came to you all loving and human
+and you froze me. There is nothing to be done."
+
+"Yes, there is. You know that I love you."
+
+"Perhaps you do, but the family matters more to you than I do, or
+anything else in the world."
+
+"That may have been so once, but not now," his voice throbbed with
+feeling.
+
+"Alas!" was all she answered and looked down. John longed to appeal to
+her--but he was too honest to seek to soften her through the link of the
+child. Indeed, the thought of it had grown hateful to him. He only knew
+that he had played for a stake which now seemed worthless. Amaryllis and
+her love mattered more than any child.
+
+He clenched his hands tightly; the pain of things seemed hard to bear.
+
+Why had he not broken the thongs of reserve which held him long days ago
+and made love to her in words? But that would have been dishonest. He
+must at least be true; and he realised now that he had starved her--no
+matter what his motive had been.
+
+"Amaryllis, tell me everything, please," and he held out his hands and
+drew her to the sofa and sat down by her side.
+
+She could not control her emotion any longer, and her voice shook as she
+answered him:
+
+"I know that it was not you--but Denzil, John--and the baby is his,
+not yours."
+
+His face altered. He had not been prepared to hear this thing and he
+was stunned.
+
+"Ferdinand is an awful possibility to contemplate there at Ardayre, if
+you have no son--" She went on, trying to be calm, "but do you not think
+that you might have told me? Surely a woman has the right to select the
+father of her child."
+
+John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.
+
+"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken
+with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you--it was an easy
+transition to find that I loved him--because I was only loving the
+imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not
+make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby,
+that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must
+just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as
+we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."
+
+"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.
+
+"No--it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."
+
+"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again
+'Sweetheart'!"
+
+"No, he did not--he used the word simply in speaking of a picture--but I
+recognised his voice then immediately--it is a little deeper than yours."
+
+"When did you see Denzil?"
+
+She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming to
+Ardayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.
+
+"He would never have spoken to me--it was fate which sent him into the
+train, and then I made him speak--I could not bear it. After I
+recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame.
+He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since.
+It is I alone who must be counted with, John--Denzil will try never to
+see me again."
+
+John groaned aloud.
+
+"Oh God--the misery of it all!"
+
+"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these
+things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to
+me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt
+the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him--I found
+myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to
+me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John--I
+had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and
+living a lie."
+
+Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down
+his cheeks.
+
+He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.
+
+What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to
+have used her for his own aims, however high?
+
+"Amaryllis--you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."
+
+But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the
+piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment.
+She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she
+stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.
+
+"Of course, I forgive you, John--but I cannot cease from loving Denzil,
+that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I
+never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences.
+John dearest, let us be friends--and live as friends, then everything
+won't be so hard."
+
+He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering
+acutely--must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
+
+"But I love you, Amaryllis--I love you, dearest child--"
+
+And now again she said "Alas!"--and that was all.
+
+"Amaryllis--this is a frightful sacrifice to me--must you insist upon
+it?"
+
+Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose--and she
+stood up and faced him.
+
+"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up,
+conventional girl--milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will--I
+had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a
+savage"--her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,--"I
+_could not_ belong to two men--it would utterly degrade me, then I do not
+know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul--and while he
+lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to
+me--fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I
+must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family,
+and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the
+only terms I can offer you now."
+
+John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
+
+Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his
+brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
+
+"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And
+when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must
+love it because it is mine and an Ardayre--and the comfort of that must
+fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for
+the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of
+life--perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."
+
+John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow
+and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips--those he told himself he
+must renounce for evermore.
+
+"Amaryllis,"--his voice was husky still, "yes--I will be your friend,
+darling--and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but
+it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and
+living--and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped
+against hope--and then when I knew that everything was impossible--I
+felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't
+know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I
+gratified all your wishes perhaps--Ah!--I see it was very cruel. Darling,
+I would have told you the truth--presently--but then the war came, and
+the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."
+
+She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes--her one idea was now to
+comfort him since she need no longer fear.
+
+"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me--I do not know, perhaps
+I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family
+pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand--or his children which may
+be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented--I cannot be sure. But
+somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual
+things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must
+be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant
+yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid--I don't know really. I have
+only been wondering--but perhaps there are powerful currents connected
+with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force
+of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."
+
+They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear
+her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his
+emotion at last.
+
+"It may be so--"
+
+"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on,
+"then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir--and now--if the
+child is a boy--"
+
+John started.
+
+"We neither of us thought of that."
+
+"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist--it is
+only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too--but surely the
+war cannot go on long now?"
+
+John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or
+whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a
+speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not
+to agitate her mind--events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.
+
+He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows;
+he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened
+interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come
+to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future,
+and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and
+took her hand:
+
+"Go to bed now, dear girl,--and to-morrow I shall have quite conquered
+all the feelings which could disturb you, and just remember always that I
+am indeed your friend."
+
+She understood at last the greatness of his sacrifice and the fineness of
+his soul, and she fell into a passion of weeping and ran from the room.
+
+But John, left alone, sank down into the same chair as he had done once
+before on the night he was waiting for Denzil, and, as then, he buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The next day they met at breakfast. John had not slept at all and was
+very pale and Amaryllis's eyes still showed the deepened violet shadows
+from much weeping. But they were both quite calm.
+
+She came over to John and kissed his forehead with gentle tenderness and
+then gave him his tea. They tried to talk in a friendly way as of old
+before any new emotions had come into their lives. And gradually the
+strain became lessened.
+
+They arranged to go out shopping, and John bought Amaryllis a new
+emerald ring.
+
+"Green is the colour of hope," she said. "I want green, John,
+because it will make me think of the springtime and nature, and all
+beautiful things."
+
+They lunched at a restaurant and in the afternoon went down to Ardayre.
+John had many things to attend to and would be occupied all the
+following day.
+
+There had been no Christmas feasting, but there were gifts to be
+distributed and various other duties and ceremonies to be gone through,
+although they had missed the Christmas day. Amaryllis tried in every way
+to be helpful to her husband, and he appreciated her stateliness and
+sweet manners with all the tenants and people on the estate.
+
+So the four days passed quite smoothly, and the last night of the old
+year came.
+
+"I don't think that you must sit up for it, dear," John said after
+dinner. "It will only tire you, and it is always a rather sad moment
+unless one has a party as we always had in old days."
+
+Amaryllis went obediently to her room and stayed there; sleep was far
+from her eyes. What was the rest of her life going to be without Denzil?
+And what of John? Would they settle down into a real quiet friendship
+when he came back, and the child was born? Or would she have always to
+feel that he loved her and was for ever suffering pain?
+
+The more she thought the less clear the issue became, and the deeper the
+sadness in the atmosphere.
+
+At last she slipped down onto the big white bear-skin rug and
+began to pray.
+
+But when the clock struck midnight, and the New Year bells rang out, a
+dreadful depression fell upon her, a sense of foreboding and fear.
+
+She tried to tell herself that she was foolish, and it was all caused
+only because she was so highly strung and sensitive now, on account of
+her state. But the thought would persist that danger threatened some one
+she loved. Was it Denzil, or John?
+
+Amaryllis tried to force herself from her unhappy impressions by thinking
+of what she could do presently in the summer, when she would be quite
+well again, though her greatest work must always be to try to make John
+happy, if by then he had come home.
+
+She heard him go into his room at about one o'clock, and then she crept
+noiselessly to her great gilt bed.
+
+John had waited for the New Year by the cedar parlour fire. The room was
+so filled with the radiance of Amaryllis that he liked being there.
+
+And he, too, was thinking of what their new life would be should he
+chance to come through. The ache in his heart would gradually subside, he
+supposed, but how would he bear the long years, knowing that Amaryllis
+was thinking of Denzil--and longing for him--and if fate made them
+meet--what then?
+
+How could he endure to know that these two beings were suffering?
+
+There seemed no clear outlook ahead. But, as he knew only too well death
+could hardly fail to intervene, and if it should claim Denzil, then he
+must console Amaryllis' grief. But if happily it could be he who were
+taken, then their future path would be clear.
+
+He could not forget the third eventuality, that he and Denzil might both
+be killed. He thought and thought over them all, and at last he decided
+to add a letter to his will. If he should be killed he would ask Denzil
+to marry Amaryllis immediately, without waiting for the conventional
+year. The times were too strenuous, and she must not be left
+unprotected--alone with the child.
+
+He got up and began the letter to his lawyer, and so the
+instructions ran:
+
+"I request my cousin Denzil Benedict Ardayre to marry Amaryllis, my wife,
+as soon as possible after my death, if he can get leave and is still
+alive. I confide her to his care and ask them both not to let any
+conventional idea of mourning stand in the way of these, my urgent last
+commands. And I ask my cousin Denzil, if he lives through the war, to
+take great care of the bringing up of the child."
+
+He read thus far, and when he came to "the child" he scratched it out
+and wrote "my child" deliberately, and then he went on to add his wishes
+for its education, should it be a boy. The will had already amply
+provided for Amaryllis, so that she would be a rich woman for the rest
+of her days.
+
+When all this was clearly copied out and sealed up in an envelope
+addressed to his lawyer, the clock struck twelve.
+
+The silence in the old house was complete; there was no revelry for the
+first time for many years, even the servants far off in their wing had
+gone to rest.
+
+It seemed to John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from
+him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He
+could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was
+it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after
+all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of
+sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and
+was soon in bed.
+
+And then he slept soundly until late in the morning, and awoke refreshed
+and serene on New Year's day.
+
+His leave was up on the third of January and he returned to London,
+but he would not let Amaryllis undergo the fatigue of accompanying
+him. He said good-bye to her there at Ardayre. She felt extremely sad
+and unhappy.
+
+Had she done well, after all, to have told John the truth? Should she
+have borne things as they were and waited until the end of the war? But
+no, that would have been impossible to her nature. If she might not have
+Denzil for her lover, she would have no other man.
+
+John's cheerfulness astonished her--it was so uniform, it could not be
+assumed. Perhaps she did not yet understand him, perhaps in his heart he
+was glad that all pretences had come to an end.
+
+They had the most affectionate parting. John never was sentimental, and
+he went off with brave, cheery words, and every injunction that she was
+to take the greatest care of herself.
+
+"Remember, Amaryllis, that you are the most precious thing on earth to
+me--and you must think also of the child."
+
+She promised him that she would carry out all his wishes in this
+respect and remain quietly at Ardayre until the first of April, when
+perhaps he could get leave again and then she would go to London for
+the birth of the baby.
+
+John turned and waved his hand as he went off down the avenue, and
+Amaryllis watched the motor until it was out of sight, the tears slowly
+brimming over and running down her cheeks.
+
+She noticed that at the turn in the avenue a telegraph boy passed the car
+and came straight on. The wire was not for John evidently, so she would
+wait at the door to see. It proved to be for her, and from Denzil's
+mother, saying that she was en route for Dorchester, motoring, and would
+stop at Ardayre on the chance of finding its mistress at home. Amaryllis
+felt suddenly excited; she had often longed for this and yet in some way
+she had feared it also. What new emotions might the meeting not arouse?
+
+It was quite early after luncheon that Mrs. Ardayre was announced.
+Amaryllis had waited in the green drawing room, thinking that she would
+come. She was playing the piano at the far end to try and lighten her
+feeling of depression, when the door opened, and to her astonishment
+quite a young, slight woman came into the room. She was a little lame,
+and walked with a stick. For a moment Amaryllis thought she must be
+mistaken, and rose with a vague, but gracious look in her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre held out her hand and smiled:
+
+"I hope you got my telegram in time," she said cordially. "I felt I must
+not lose the opportunity of making your acquaintance. My son has been so
+anxious for us to meet."
+
+"You--you can't be Denzil's mother, surely!" Amaryllis exclaimed. "He is
+much too old to be your son!"
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled again--while Amaryllis made her sit down on the sofa
+beside her and helped her off with her furs. "I am forty-nine years old,
+Amaryllis--if I may call you so--but one ought never to grow old in body.
+It is not necessary, and it is not agreeable to the eye!"
+
+Amaryllis looked at her carefully in the full side light. It was the
+shape of her face, she decided, which gave her such youth. There were no
+unsightly bones to cause shadows and the skin was smooth and ivory--and
+her eyes were bright brown; their expression was very humorous as well as
+kindly, and Amaryllis was drawn to her at once.
+
+They talked about their desire to know one another and about the family,
+and the place, and the war--and at last they spoke of Denzil, and Mrs.
+Ardayre told of what his life was, and his whereabouts now, and then grew
+retrospective.
+
+"He is the dearest boy in the world," she said. "We have been friends
+always, and now he will not allow me to be anxious about him. I really
+think that as far as the frightfulness of things will let him be, he
+is actually enjoying his life! Men are such queer creatures, they like
+to fight!"
+
+Amaryllis asked what was her latest news of him, and where he was, and
+listened interestedly to Mrs. Ardayre's replies:
+
+"The cavalry have not had very much to do lately, fortunately," she
+remarked. "My husband has just gone back, but I suppose if there is a
+shortage of men for the trenches, they will be dismounted perhaps."
+
+"I expect so--then we shall have to use all our courage and control
+our fears."
+
+Amaryllis turned the conversation back to Denzil again, and drew his
+mother out. She would like to have heard incidents of his childhood and
+of how he looked when he was a little boy, but she was too timid to ask
+any deliberate questions. She felt drawn to this lady, she looked so
+young and human. Perhaps she was not so wonderful in evening dress, but
+her figure was boyish in its slim spareness--in these serge travelling
+clothes she hardly looked thirty-five!
+
+She wondered what Denzil had told his mother about her--probably that she
+was going to have a child, but nothing more.
+
+They talked in the most friendly way for half an hour, and then Amaryllis
+asked her guest if she would like to come and see the house and
+especially the picture gallery and the Elizabethan Denzil hanging there.
+
+"It is just my boy!" Mrs. Ardayre cried, when they stood in front of it.
+"Eyes and all, they are bold and true and so loving. Oh! my dear child,
+you can't think what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has
+adored him--the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and
+my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when
+he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a
+tree. I daresay I am the silliest of them all!"
+
+Amaryllis listened, enchanted.
+
+"You see he has not one touch of me in him," Mrs. Ardayre went on, "but I
+was so frantically in love with my husband when he was born, he naturally
+was all Ardayre. Does it not interest you, Amaryllis, to wonder what your
+little one, when it comes, will look like? It ought to be pronouncedly of
+the family, your being also an Ardayre."
+
+"Indeed yes, I am very curious. And how we all hope that it will
+be a son!"
+
+"Is there a portrait of your husband here? Denzil says they are alike."
+
+"There is one in my sitting room; it is going to be moved in here
+presently, when mine is done next year. It is by Sargent, almost the last
+portrait he painted. Let us go there now and see it."
+
+"But there is no likeness," Mrs. Ardayre exclaimed presently, when they
+had gone to the cedar parlour and were examining the picture of John.
+"Can you discover it?"
+
+"I thought they were very alike once--but I do not altogether see it
+now."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with
+my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of
+the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I
+have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my
+husband and delighted in being the mother of his son."
+
+"There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and
+the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet
+know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather
+think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the
+child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the
+man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though."
+
+Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did
+not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a
+fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, passionately in love with
+him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child!
+Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing
+any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John!
+
+Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that
+she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy
+on her face.
+
+There was some mystery here.
+
+She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis.
+It was not a great deal. He had arrived at Bath that time looking very
+stern and abstracted, and had mentioned rather shortly that he had come
+down with the head of the family's wife in the train, and had gone on to
+Ardayre with her, after meeting them the previous night at dinner for the
+first time.
+
+He had not been at all expansive, but later in the evening when they had
+sat by her sitting room fire, he had suddenly said something which had
+startled her greatly:
+
+"Mum--I want you to know Amaryllis Ardayre. I am madly in love with
+her--she is going to have a baby, and she seems to be so alone."
+
+It must be one of those sudden passions, and the idea seemed in some way
+to jar a little. Denzil to have fallen in love with a woman whom he knew
+was going to have a child!
+
+She had said something of this to him, and he had turned eyes full of
+pain to her and even reproach.
+
+"Mum--you always understand me--I am not a beast, you know--I haven't
+anything more to say, only I want you to be really kind to her--and get
+to know her well."
+
+And he had not mentioned the subject again, but had been very preoccupied
+during all his three days' visit, which state she could not account for
+by the fact of the war--Denzil, she knew, was an enthusiastic soldier,
+and to be going out to fight would naturally be to him a keen joy. What
+did it all mean? And here was this sweet creature speaking of divine love
+mysteries and looking up at the portrait of her dull, unattractive
+husband with melancholy eyes, whereas they had sparkled with interest
+when Denzil was the subject of conversation! Could she, too, have fallen
+in love with Denzil in one night at dinner and a journey in the train!
+
+It was all very remarkable.
+
+They had tea together in the green drawing room, and by that time they
+had become very good friends.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre told Amaryllis of the little old manor home she had in
+Kent--The Moat, it was called, and of her garden and the pleasure it
+was to her.
+
+"I had about twelve thousand a year of my own, you know," she said, "and
+ever since Denzil was born I have each year put by half of it, so that
+when he was twenty-one I was able to hand over to him quite a decent sum
+that he might be independent and free. It is so humiliating for a man to
+have to be subservient to a woman, even a mother, and I go on doing the
+same every year. All the last years of his life my husband was very
+delicate--he was so badly wounded in the South African War, you know--so
+we lived very quietly at The Moat and in my tiny house in London. I hope
+you will let me show you them both one day."
+
+Amaryllis said she would be delighted, and added:
+
+"You will come and see me, won't you? I am going up to our house in Brook
+Street at the beginning of April, and I am praying that I may have a
+little son about the first week in May."
+
+Just before Mrs. Ardayre went on to Dorchester, she asked Amaryllis if
+she had any message to send Denzil--she wanted to watch her face. It
+flushed slightly and her deep soft voice said a little eagerly:
+
+"Yes--tell him I have been so delighted to meet you, and you are just
+what he said I should find you!--and tell him I sent him all sorts of
+good wishes--" and then she became a little confused.
+
+"I should so love a photograph of you--would you give me one, I wonder?"
+the elder woman asked quickly, to avoid any pause, and while Amaryllis
+went out of the room to get it, she thought:
+
+"She is certainly in love with Denzil. It could not have been the first
+time he had seen her--at the dinner--and yet he never tells lies." And
+she grew more and more puzzled and interested.
+
+When Amaryllis was alone after the motor with Mrs. Ardayre in it had
+departed, an uncontrollable fit of restlessness came over her. The visit
+had stirred up all her emotions again; she could not grieve any more
+about the tragedy of John; her whole being was vibrating with thoughts
+of Denzil and desire for his presence--she could see his face and feel
+the joy of his kisses.
+
+At that moment she would have flung everything in life away to rush
+into his arms!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Denzil was wounded at Neuve Chapelle on March 10th, 1915, though not
+seriously--a flesh wound in the side. He had done most gallantly and was
+to get a D.S.O. He had been in hospital for two weeks and was almost well
+when Amaryllis came up to Brook Street, on the first of April. She had
+read his name in the list of wounded, and had telegraphed to his mother
+in great anxiety, but had been reassured, and now she throbbed with
+longing to see him.
+
+To know that soon he would be going back again to the Front, was almost
+more than she could bear. She was feeling wonderfully well herself. Her
+splendid constitution and her youth made natural things cause her little
+distress. She was neither nervous nor fretful, nor oppressed with fancies
+and moods. And she looked very beautiful with her added dignity of mien
+and perfectly chosen clothes.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre came at once to see her the morning after her arrival, and
+suggested that Denzil should come when out driving that afternoon.
+Amaryllis tried to accept this suggestion calmly, and not show her joy,
+and Mrs. Ardayre left, promising to bring her son about four.
+
+Denzil had said to his Mother when he knew that Amaryllis was coming
+to London:
+
+"Mum, I want to see Amaryllis--please arrange it for me. And Mum, don't
+ask me anything about it; just leave me there when we drive and come and
+fetch me when I must go in again."
+
+Mrs. Ardayre was a very modern person, but she could not help exclaiming
+in a half voice while she sat by her son's bed:
+
+"You know she is going to have a baby in a month, dear boy, perhaps she
+won't care to see you now."
+
+A flush rose to Denzil's forehead: "Yes, I do know," he said a little
+hurriedly, "but we are not conventional in these days. I wish to see her;
+please, darling Mother, do what I ask."
+
+And then he had turned the conversation.
+
+So his mother had obediently arranged matters, and at about four in the
+afternoon left him at the Brook Street door.
+
+Early as it was, Amaryllis had made the tea, and expected to see both
+Denzil and his mother. The room was full of hyacinths and daffodils, and
+she herself looked like a spring flower, as she sat on the sofa among the
+green silk cushions, wrapped in a pale parma violet tea-gown.
+
+The butler announced "Captain Ardayre," and Denzil came in slowly, and
+murmured "How do you do?"
+
+But as soon as the door was closed upon him, he started forward,
+forgetting his stiff side.
+
+He covered her hands with kisses, he could not contain his joy; and
+then he drew back and looked at her with worship and reverence in his
+blue eyes.
+
+The most mysterious, quivering emotions were coursing through him, mixed
+with triumph, as he took in the picture she made. This delicate,
+beautiful creature! And to see her--so!
+
+Amaryllis lowered her head in a sweet confusion; her feelings were no
+less aroused. She was thrilling with passionate welcome and delicious
+shyness. Nature was indeed ruling them both, and with a glad "Darling
+Angel!" Denzil sat down beside her and clasped her in his arms. Then for
+a few seconds delirious pleasure was all that they knew.
+
+"Let me look at you again, Sweetheart," he ordered presently, with a tone
+of command and possession in his very deep voice, which caused Amaryllis
+delight. It made her feel that she really belonged to him.
+
+"To me you have never been so beautiful--and every scrap of you is mine."
+
+"Absolutely yours."
+
+"I had to come--I cannot help whether it is right or wrong. I must go
+back to the Front as soon as I am fit, and I could not have borne to go
+without seeing you, darling one."
+
+They had a hundred things to say to each other about themselves--and
+about the baby, and the next hour was very sacred and wonderful.
+Denzil was a superlatively perfect lover and knew the immense value of
+tender words.
+
+He intoxicated Amaryllis' imagination with the moving things he said.
+
+Alas! how many worthy men miss themselves, and make their loved ones
+miss the best part of life's joys by their mulish silence and refusal
+to gratify this desire of all women to be _told_ that they are loved,
+to have the fact expressed in passionate speech! No deeds make up for
+this omission.
+
+Denzil had none of these limitations; he said everything which could
+cajole and excite the imagination. He murmured a hundred affecting
+tendernesses in her ears. He caressed her--he commanded and mastered her,
+and then assured her that he was her slave. He was arrogant and
+humble--arrogant when he claimed her love, humble in his worship. He
+spoke of the child and what it meant to him that it should be his and
+hers. He caused her to feel that he was strong and protective and that
+she was to be cherished and adored. He made pictures of how it would be
+if he could spend a whole day and night with her presently in June, when
+she would be quite well, and of how thrilled with interest he would be to
+see the baby, and that, of course, it _must_ be exactly like himself! And
+Amaryllis' eyes, all soft and swimming with emotion answered him.
+
+Naturally, since she loved him so passionately, it would be his image!
+Had not his own mother accounted for his pronounced Ardayre stamp by her
+having been so in love with his father--so, of course, this would
+re-occur! It was all dear to think about!
+
+They spent another hour of divine intoxication, and then the clock
+struck six.
+
+It sounded like a knell.
+
+Amaryllis gave a little cry.
+
+"Denzil, it is altogether unnatural that you should have to go. To
+think that you must leave me, and may not even welcome your son! To
+think that by the law we are sinning, because I am sitting here clasped
+in your arms! To think that I may not have the joy of showing you the
+exquisite little clothes, and the pink silk cot--all the things which
+have given me such pleasure to arrange.... It is all too cruel! You
+know that eighteenth century engraving in the series of Moreau le
+Jeune, of the married lovers playing with the darling, teeny cap
+together! Well, I have it beside my bed, and every day I look at it and
+pretend it is you and me!"
+
+"Darling--Darling!"--and Denzil fiercely kissed her, he was so
+deeply moved.
+
+"It is all holy and beautiful, the coming to earth of a soul. It only
+makes me long to be good and noble and worthy of this wonderful thing.
+But for us--we who love truly and purely, it has all been turned into
+something forbidden and wrong."
+
+"Heart of me--I must have some news of you. I cannot starve there in the
+trenches, knowing that all the letters that should be mine are going to
+John. My mother is really trustworthy, will you let her be with you as
+often as you can, that she may be able to tell me how you are, precious
+one? When the seventh of May comes I shall go perfectly mad with suspense
+and anxiety. I will arrange that my mother sends me at once a telegram."
+
+"Denzil!" and Amaryllis clung to him.
+
+"It is an impossible situation," and he gave a great sigh. "I shall tell
+John that I have seen you--I cannot help it, the times are too precarious
+to have acted otherwise. And afterwards, when the war is over, we must
+face the matter and decide what is best to be done."
+
+"_I_ cannot live without you, Denzil, and that I know."
+
+They said good-bye at last silently, after many kisses and tears, and
+Denzil came out into the darkening street to his mother in the motor,
+with white, set face.
+
+"I am a little troubled, dearest boy," she whispered, as they went along.
+"I feel that there is something underneath all this and that Amaryllis
+means some great thing in your life--the whole aspect of everything fills
+me with discomfort. It is unlike your usual, sensitive refinement,
+Denzil, to have gone to see her--now--"
+
+"I understand exactly what you mean, Mother. I should say the same thing
+myself in your place. I can't explain anything, only I beg of you to
+trust me. Amaryllis is an angel of purity and sweetness; perhaps some day
+you will understand."
+
+She took his hand into her muff and held it:
+
+"You know I have no conventions, dearest, and my creed is to believe what
+you say, but I cannot account for the situation because of your only
+having met Amaryllis so lately for the first time. I could understand it
+perfectly if you had been her lover, and the child was your child, but
+she has not been married a whole year yet to John!"
+
+Denzil answered nothing--he pressed his mother's hand.
+
+She returned the pressure:
+
+"We will talk no more about it."
+
+"And you will go on being kind?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Before they reached the hospital door in Park Lane Mrs. Ardayre had been
+instructed to send an immediate telegram the moment the baby was born,
+and to comfort and take care of Amaryllis, and tell her son every little
+detail as to her welfare and about the child.
+
+"I will try not to form any opinion, Denzil; and some day perhaps things
+will be made plain, for it would break my heart to believe that you are a
+dishonourable man."
+
+"You need not worry, Mum dearest. Indeed, I am not that. It is just a
+tragic story, but I cannot say more. Only take care of Amaryllis, and
+send me news as often as you can."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The telegram to say that Amaryllis had a little son came to John Ardayre
+on the night before he went into the trenches again at the second battle
+of Ypres on May 9th, 1915. He had been waiting in feverish impatience
+and expectancy all the day, and, in fact, for three days for news.
+
+His whole inner life since that New Year's night had been strangely
+serene, in spite of its frightful outward turmoil and stress. He had
+taken the tumult of Neuve Chapelle calmly, and had come through it and
+all the beginning of the Ypres battle without a scratch. He had felt that
+he was looking upon it all from some detached standpoint, and that it in
+no way personally concerned him.
+
+He had seen Denzil do the splendid thing and he had felt a distinct
+distress when he had seen him fall wounded.
+
+Denzil was just back now and in the trenches again with the rest of the
+dismounted cavalry. They might meet in the attack at dawn.
+
+When John read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion
+was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the
+billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must
+have received bad news.
+
+Then it seemed as though he went mad!
+
+The repression of his life appeared to fall from him, he became as a new
+man. All his comrades were astonished at him, and a Scotch Corporal was
+heard to remark that it was "na canny--the Captain was fey."
+
+The Ardayres were saved! The family would carry on!
+
+Fondest love welled up in his heart for Amaryllis. If he only came
+through he would devote his life to showing her his gratitude and
+showering everything upon her that her heart could desire--and
+perhaps--perhaps the joy of the baby would make up for the absence of
+Denzil. This thought stayed with him and comforted him.
+
+Lady de la Paule had wired:
+
+"A splendid little son born 11:45 A.M. seventh May--Amaryllis
+well--all love."
+
+And an hour or two before this Denzil had also received the news from his
+Mother. He, too, had grown exalted and thanked God.
+
+So the day that the Germans were to fail at Ypres, and destiny was to
+accomplish itself for these two men--dawned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of what use to write of that terrible fight and of the gas and the horror
+and the mud? John Ardayre seemed to bear a charmed life as he led his men
+"over the top." For an hour wild with exaltation and gladness, he rallied
+them and cheered them on. The scene of blood and carnage has been too
+often repeated on other fateful days, and as often well described, when
+acts of glorious heroism occurred again and again. John had rushed
+forward to succour a wounded trooper when a shell crashed near them, and
+he fell to the ground. And then he know what the great thing was the New
+Year had promised him. For death was going to straighten out
+matters--John was going beyond. Well, he had never been rebellious, and
+he knew now that light had come. But the sky above seemed to be darkening
+curiously, and the terrible noise to be growing dim, when he was
+conscious that a man was crawling towards him, dragging a leg, and then
+his eyes opened wildly for an instant, and he saw that it was Denzil all
+covered with blood.
+
+"Are we both going West, Denzil?" he demanded faintly. "At least I am--"
+then he gasped a little, while a stream of scarlet flowed from his
+shattered side.
+
+"I've asked you in a letter to marry Amaryllis immediately--if you get
+home. I hope your number is not up, too, because she will be all alone.
+Take care of her, Denzil, and take care of the child...." His voice grew
+lower and lower, and the last words came in spasms: "There is an Ardayre
+son, you know--so it's all right. The family is saved from Ferdinand and
+I am very glad to die."
+
+Denzil tried to get out his flask, but before he could reach John's lips
+with it he saw that it would be of no avail--for Death had claimed the
+head of the Family. And above his mangled body John's face wore a look of
+calm serenity, and his firm lips smiled.
+
+Then things became all vague for Denzil and he remembered nothing more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was more than two months before Denzil was well enough to be brought
+from Boulogne, and then he had a relapse and for the whole of July was
+dangerously ill. At one moment there seemed to be no hope of saving his
+leg, and his mother ate her heart out with anxiety.
+
+And Amaryllis, back at Ardayre with the little Benedict, wept many tears.
+
+John's death had deeply grieved her. She realised his steadfast kindness
+and affection for her. He had written her a letter just before the battle
+had begun--a short epistle telling her calmly that the chances would be
+perhaps even for any man to come out of it alive--and assuring her of his
+greatest devotion.
+
+"I know that Denzil went to see you, my dear little girl. He has told me
+about it. And I know that you love each other. There is only one chance
+for us in the future--and that lies with the child. It may be that when
+it comes to you it may fill your life and satisfy you. This is my
+prayer--otherwise we must see what can be arranged about things; because
+I cannot allow you to be unhappy. You were an innocent factor in all
+this, and it would be unjust that you should be hurt."
+
+How good and generous John had always been.
+
+And his letter to his lawyers! To make things smooth for her--and for
+Denzil--how marvellously kind!
+
+Her mourning for John was real and deep, as it would have been for a
+brother. But during the month of intense anxiety about Denzil everything
+else was numbed, even her interest in her son.
+
+By the end of August he was out of danger, although little hope was
+entertained that he would ever walk easily. But this was a minor
+thing--and gradually it began to be some consolation to the two women who
+loved him to know that he was safely wounded and would probably not be
+fit for active service again for a very long time.
+
+They wrote letters to one another, but they decided not to meet.
+Six months must elapse at least, they both felt--even in spite of
+John's commands.
+
+Another shell must have fallen not far off, for his body was never
+found--only his field glasses, broken and battered. And there would have
+been no actual information about his death had not Denzil seen him die.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Harietta Boleski and Stanislass and Ferdinand Ardayre had remained in
+Paris, with visits to Fontainebleau.
+
+When John had been killed, Harietta had been extremely perturbed.
+
+"Now St�pan will be able to marry that odious bit of bread and butter,
+and he is sure to do it after the year!" This thought rankled with her
+and embittered everything. Nothing pleased her. She grew more than ever
+rebellious at the dullness she had to live in. War was an imposition
+which ought not to be tolerated and she often told Hans so. At last she
+grew to take quite an interest in her spying for lack of more agreeable
+things to do.
+
+And so the months went by and November came, and a madness of jealousy
+was gradually augmenting in Harietta for Amaryllis Ardayre.
+
+Verisschenzko had gone to Russia in September, and she was convinced
+that he loved Amaryllis and that the child was his child. She could not
+conceive of a spiritual devotion, and something had altered all St�pan's
+ways. From the moment he returned to Paris until he had left she had
+tried and been unable to invoke any response in him, and she had felt
+like a foiled tigress when another has eaten her prey.
+
+As the impossibility of moving him forced itself upon her unwilling
+understanding, so the wildest passion for him grew, and when he left in
+September she was quite ill for a week with chagrin; then she became
+moody and more than ever capricious, and made Stanislass' life a hell,
+while Ferdinand Ardayre had little less misery to endure.
+
+An incident late in November caused her jealousy to burst into flame.
+
+She heard that Verisschenzko had returned from Russia and she went to his
+rooms to see him. The Russian servant who was accustomed to receive her
+was there waiting for his master who had not yet arrived. Without a word
+she passed the old man when he opened the door, and made her way into the
+sitting room, and then into the bedroom beyond. She did not believe that
+St�pan was not there and wanted to make sure. It was empty but a light
+burned before an Ikon, the doors of which were closed.
+
+Curiosity made Harietta go close and examine it. She knew the room so
+well and had never seen it there before. The table beneath it was
+arranged like an altar, and the Ikon was let in to the carved boiserie of
+the wall. It must have been since he had parted with her that this
+ridiculous thing had been done! She had not entered his _appartement_
+since June. She felt angry that the shrine should be closed and that she
+could not look upon it, for it must certainly be something which
+Verisschenzko prized.
+
+She bent nearer and shook the little doors; they resisted her, and her
+temper rose. Then some force seemed to propel her to commit sacrilege.
+She shook and shook and tore at the golden clasp, her irritation giving
+strength and cunning to her hands; and at last the small bolt came undone
+and the doors flew open--and an exquisitely painted modern picture of the
+Virgin disclosed itself, holding the Christ child in her arms. But for
+all the saintliness in the eyes of Mary, the face was an exact portrait
+of Amaryllis Ardayre!
+
+A frenzy of rage seized Harietta. Her rival reigned now indeed! This was
+positive proof to her, not of spiritual meaning--not of the mystic,
+abstract aloofness of worship which lay deep in St�pan's nature and had
+caused him to have Amaryllis transfigured into the symbol of purity, a
+daily reminder that she must always be for him the lady of his soul--such
+things had no meaning for Harietta. The Ikon was merely a material proof
+that Verisschenzko loved Amaryllis--and, of course, as soon as the year
+of mourning should be over he would make her his wife.
+
+She trembled with passionate resentment. Nothing had ever moved her so
+forcibly. She took out her pearl hatpin and stabbed out the eyes of the
+Virgin, almost shaking with passion, and scratched and obliterated the
+face of the Christ child. This done, she extinguished the little lamp and
+slammed to the doors.
+
+She laughed savagely as she went back into the sittingroom.
+
+"The Virgin indeed!--and _his_ child!--well, I've taught him!" and she
+flung past the Russian servant with a look which was a curse, so that the
+old man crossed himself and quickly barred the entrance door, when she
+stamped off down the stairs.
+
+Arrived in her gilded salon at the Universal, she would like to have
+wrung some one's neck. She had never been so full of rage in her life.
+She did find a little satisfaction in a kick at Fou-Chow, who fled
+whining to his faithful Marie who had come in to carry away her mistress'
+sable cloak.
+
+The maid's face became thunderous. A look of sullen hate gleamed in her
+dark eyes.
+
+"She will kick thee, my angel, just once too often," she murmured to the
+wee creature when she had carried him from the room. "And then we shall
+see, thy Marie knows that which may punish her some day soon!"
+
+Harietta, quite indifferent to these matters, telephoned immediately to
+Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+He must come to her instantly without a moment's delay! And she
+stamped her foot.
+
+A plan which might give her some satisfaction to execute had evolved
+itself in her brain.
+
+He was in his room in another part of the building, and hastened to obey
+her command. She was livid with anger and seemed to have grown old.
+
+She went over and kissed him voluptuously and then she began:
+
+"Ferdie," and she whispered hoarsely, "now you have got to do something
+for me. You are not going to let the child of Verisschenzko be master of
+Ardayre! We are going to gain time and perhaps some day be able to do
+away with it. Now I have got a plan which will lighten your heart."
+
+She knew that she could count upon him, for since the birth of the
+little Benedict and the death of John, Ferdinand had stormed with threats
+of vengeance, while knowing his impotency.
+
+His life with Harietta had grown a torment and a hell--but with every
+fresh unkindness and pang of jealousy she caused him, his low passion for
+her increased. He knew that she loved Verisschenzko, whom he hated with
+all his might--and if she now proposed to hurt both his enemies, he would
+assist her joyfully.
+
+"Tell it me," he begged.
+
+So she drew him to the sofa and picked up a block and pencil.
+
+"Do you possess any of the writing of your dead brother, John, or if you
+don't, can you get some from anywhere?"
+
+Ferdinand's face blazed with excitement. What was she going to suggest?
+
+"I always keep one letter--in which he ordered me never to address him
+and told me I was not of his blood but was a mongrel Turk."
+
+"That is splendid--where is it? Have you got it here?"
+
+"Yes, in my despatch box. I'll go and fetch it now."
+
+"Very well. I will get rid of Stanislass for the evening and we can have
+some hours alone--and you will see if I don't help you to worry them
+hideously, Ferdie, even if that is all we can do!"
+
+And when he had left her presence, she paced the room excitedly.
+
+"It will prevent St�pan's marrying her at all events for; a long time."
+
+The thought that she had lost Verisschenzko completely unbalanced her.
+It was the first time in her life that she had had to relinquish a man.
+She hated to have to realise how highly he must hold Amaryllis. He seemed
+the only thing she wanted now in life, and she knew that he was quite
+beyond her, and that indeed he had never been hers; the one human being
+whom she had attracted and yet never been able to intoxicate and draw
+against his will. She went over all their past meetings. With what
+supreme insolence he had invariably treated her--even in moments when he
+permitted himself to feel passion! And how she adored him! She would have
+crawled to him now on the ground. She had not known she could feel so
+much. Every animal, sensual desire made her throb with rage. She would
+have torn the flesh from Amaryllis' face had she been there, and thrust
+her hatpin into her real eyes.
+
+But the spoke should be put in the wheel of Verisschenzko's marrying her!
+And perhaps some other revenge would come. Hans?--Hans should be made to
+carry the scheme through--Hans and Ferdinand. She dug her nails into the
+palms of her hands. No wild animal in its cage could have felt more rage.
+
+Then when Ferdinand returned with John's letter, she controlled herself
+and sat down at the table beside him and supervised his attempts at
+copying the writing, while she unfolded the details of her scheme.
+
+"You know John's body was never found," she informed him presently. "I
+heard all the details from a man who was there--they only picked up his
+glasses and his boot. He could very well have been taken prisoner by the
+Germans and be in hospital there, too ill to have written for all this
+time. Now think how he ought to word his first letter to his precious
+bread and butter wife!"
+
+"There must only be the fewest words, because I don't know what
+terms they were on. I think a postcard, if we get one, would be the
+best thing."
+
+"Of course?--I have some one who can see to that--it will be worth
+waiting the week for--we'll procure several, and meanwhile you must
+practise his hand."
+
+At the end of half an hour a very creditable forgery had been secured,
+and the two jealous beings felt satisfied with their work for the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It had been arranged that Denzil and his mother should spend Christmas
+with Amaryllis at Ardayre. Both felt that it was going to be the most
+wonderful moment when they should meet. There were no obstacles now to
+their happiness and everything promised to be full of joy. The months
+which had gone by since John's death had been turning Amaryllis into a
+more serene and forceful being. The whole burden of the estate had
+fallen upon her young shoulders and she had endeavoured to carry it with
+dignity and success--and yet have time to spare for her war
+organisations in the county. She had developed extraordinarily and had
+grown from a very pretty girl into a most beautiful young woman. What
+would Denzil think of her? That was her preoccupation--and what would he
+think of the baby Benedict?
+
+The great rooms at Ardayre were shut up except the green drawing room,
+and she lived in her own apartments, the cedar parlour being her chief
+pleasure. It was now filled with her books and all the personal
+belongings which expressed her taste. The nurseries for the heir were
+just above.
+
+Her guests were to be there on the twenty-third of December, and when the
+hour came for the motor to arrive from the station Amaryllis grew hot and
+cold with excitement. She had made herself look quite exquisite in a soft
+black frock, and her heart was beating almost to suffocation when she
+heard the footsteps in the hall. Then the green drawing room door opened
+and Colonel and Mrs. Ardayre were announced and were immediately greeted
+by the great tawny dogs and then by their mistress. A pang contracted her
+heart when she caught sight of Denzil--he was so very pale and thin, and
+he walked painfully and slowly with a stick. It was only a wreck of the
+splendid lover who had come to Ardayre before. But he was always Denzil
+of the ardent eyes and the crisp bronze hair!
+
+They were people of the world, and so the welcoming speeches went off
+easily, and they sat round the tea-table with its singing kettle and its
+delectable buns and Devonshire cream, and Amaryllis was gracious and
+radiant and full of dignity and charm. But inwardly she felt deliciously
+shy and happy.
+
+They had neither met nor written any love letters since the April day
+when they had parted in Brook Street, which now seemed to be an age away.
+
+Her attraction for Denzil had increased a hundredfold. He thought as she
+sat there pouring out the tea, of how he would woo her with subtlety
+before he would claim her for his own. He was stimulated by her sweet
+shyness and her tender aloofness. The tea seemed to him to be
+interminably long and he wished for it to end.
+
+Mrs. Ardayre behaved with admirable tact; she spoke of all sorts of light
+and friendly things, and then asked about the baby. Was he not wonderful,
+now at seven months old!
+
+The lovely vivid pink deepened in Amaryllis' smooth velvet cheeks, and
+her grey eyes became soft as a doe's.
+
+"You shall see him in the morning--he will be asleep now. Of course, to
+me he is wonderful, but I daresay he is only an ordinary child."
+
+She had peeped at Denzil and had seen that his face fell a little as she
+said they should only see the baby the next day, and she had felt a wave
+of joy. She knew that she meant to take him up quietly presently--just he
+and she alone!
+
+After they had finished tea, Mrs. Ardayre suggested that she should go
+to her room.
+
+"I am tired, Amaryllis, my dear," she announced cheerily,--"and I shall
+rest for an hour before dinner."
+
+"Come then and I will show you both your rooms."
+
+They came up the broad staircase with her, Denzil a step at a time,
+slowly, and at the top she stopped and said to him:
+
+"Perhaps you will remember that is the door of the cedar parlour at
+the end of the passage--you will find me there when I have installed
+your mother comfortably. Your room is next to hers," and she pointed
+to two doors through the archway of the gallery. Then she went on with
+Mrs. Ardayre.
+
+Some contrary nervousness made her remain for quite a little while.
+
+Was Cousin Beatrice sure that she was comfortable? Had she everything she
+wanted? Her maid was already unpacking, and all was warm and fresh
+scented with lavender and bowls of violets on the dressing table.
+
+"My dear child, it is Paradise, and you are a perfect angel--I shall
+revel in it after the cold journey down."
+
+So at last there was no excuse to stay longer, and Amaryllis left the
+room; but in the passage it seemed as though her knees were trembling,
+and as she passed the top of the staircase she leaned for a second or two
+on the balustrade.
+
+The longed for moment had come!
+
+When she opened the door of the cedar parlour, with its soft lamps and
+great glowing logs, she saw Denzil was already there, seated on the sofa
+beside the fire.
+
+She ran to him before he could rise, the movement she knew was pain to
+him--and she sank down beside him and held out her hands.
+
+"Beloved darling!" he whispered in exaltation, and she slipped forward
+into his arms.
+
+Oh! the bliss of it all! After the months of separation, and the horrible
+trenches and the battles and the suffering, the days and nights of
+agonising pain! It seemed to Denzil that his being melted within
+him--Heaven itself had come.
+
+They could not speak coherently for some moments, everything was too
+filled with holy joy.
+
+"At last! at last!" he cried presently. "Now we shall part no more!"
+
+Then he had to be assured that she loved him still.
+
+"It is I who must take care of you now, Denzil, and I shall love to do
+that," she cooed.
+
+"I have not thought much of the hurt," he answered her, "for all these
+months I have just been living for this day, and now it has come,
+darling one, and I can hardly believe that it is true, it is so
+absolutely divine--"
+
+They could not talk of anything but themselves and love for an hour,
+they told each other of their longings and anxieties--and at last they
+spoke of John.
+
+"He was so splendid," Denzil said, "unselfish to the very end," and then
+he described to Amaryllis how he actually had died, and of his last
+words, and their thought for her.
+
+"If he could see us, I think that he would be glad that we are happy."
+
+"I know that he would," but the tears had gathered in her eyes.
+
+Denzil stroked her hand gently; he did not make any lover's caress, and
+she appreciated his understanding, and after a little she leaned
+against his arm.
+
+"Denzil--when we live here together, we must always try to carry out all
+that John would have wished to do. It meant his very soul--and you will
+help me to be a worthy mother of the Ardayre son."
+
+She had not spoken of the child before--some unaccountable shyness had
+restrained her, even in their fondest moments. And yet the thought had
+never been absent from either. It had throbbed there in their hearts. It
+was going to be so exquisite to whisper about it presently!
+
+And Denzil had waited until she mentioned this dear interest. He did not
+wish to assume any rights, or take anything for granted. She should be
+queen, not only of his heart, but of everything, until she should herself
+accord him authority.
+
+But his eyes grew wistful now as he leaned nearer to her.
+
+"Darling, am I not going to be allowed to see--my son!"
+
+Then, with a cry, Amaryllis bent forward and was clasped in his arms. All
+her wayward shyness melted, and she poured forth her delight in the
+baby--their very own!
+
+"You will see that he is just you, Denzil,--as we knew that he would be,
+and now I will go and fetch him for you and bring him here, because the
+stairs up to the nursery are so steep they might hurt you to climb."
+
+She left him swiftly, and was not long gone, and Denzil sat there
+by the fire trembling with an emotion which he could not have
+described in words.
+
+The door opened again and Amaryllis returned with the tiny sleeping form,
+in its long white nightgown and wrapped in a great fleecy shawl.
+
+She crept up to him very softly. The little one was sound asleep. She
+made a sign to Denzil not to rise, and she bent down and placed the
+bundle tenderly in his arms.
+
+Then they gazed at the little face together with worshipping eyes.
+
+It was just a round pink and white cherub like thousands of others in the
+world; the very long eyelashes, sweeping the sleep-flushed cheeks, and
+minute rings of bronze-gold hair curling over the edge of the close
+cambric cap; but it seemed to those two looking at it to be unique, and
+more beautiful than the dawn.
+
+"Isn't he perfect, Denzil!" whispered Amaryllis, in ecstasy.
+
+"Marvellous!" and Denzil's voice was awed.
+
+Then the wonder and the divinity of love and its spirit of creation came
+over them both and a mist of deep feeling grew in both their eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At dinner they were all so happy together. Mrs. Ardayre was a note of
+harmony anywhere. She had gradually grown to understand the situation in
+the months of her son's recovering from his wounds and although no actual
+words had passed between them Denzil felt that his mother had divined the
+truth and it made things easier.
+
+Afterwards, in the green drawing room, Amaryllis played to them and
+delighted their ears, and then they went up to the cedar parlour and sat
+round the fire and talked and made plans.
+
+If it should be quite hopeless that Denzil could ever return to the
+front, or be of service behind the lines, he meant to enter Parliament.
+The thought that his active soldiering was probably done was very bitter
+to him, and the two women who loved him tried to create an enthusiasm for
+the parliamentary idea. The one certainty was that his adventurous spirit
+would never remain behind in the background, whatever occurred.
+
+They would be married at the beginning of February, they decided. The
+whole of their world knew of John's written wishes, and no unkind
+comments would be likely to arise.
+
+And when Beatrice Ardayre left them alone to say good-night to each
+other, Denzil drew Amaryllis back to his side!
+
+"I think the world is going to be a totally new place, darling--after the
+war. If it goes on very long the gradual privation and suffering and
+misery will create a new order of things, and all of us should be ready
+to face it. Only fools and weaklings cling to past systems when the
+on-rolling wave has washed away their uses. Whatever seems for the real
+good of England must be one's only aim, even if it means abandoning what
+was the ideal of the Family for all these hundreds of years. You will
+advance with me, Sweetheart, will you not, even if it should seem to be a
+chasm we are crossing?"
+
+"Denzil, of course I will."
+
+He sighed a little.
+
+"The old order made England great--but that cycle is over for all the
+world--and what we shall have to do is to stand steady and try to
+direct the new on-rush, so that it makes us greater and does not sweep
+civilisation into darkness, as when Rome fell. It may be a fairly easy
+matter because, as St�pan says, we have got such fundamental common
+sense. It would be much less hard if the people at the top were really
+courageous and unhampered by trying to secure votes, or whatever it is,
+which makes them wobble and surrender at the wrong moment. If the
+politicians could have that dogged, serene steadfastness which the
+Tommies, and almost every man has in the trenches, how supreme we
+should be--!"
+
+"I hope so, but one must have vision as well so that one can look right
+ahead and not stumble over retained old prejudices; people so often want
+a thing and yet have not will enough to eliminate qualities in themselves
+which must obviously prevent their obtaining their desire."
+
+Denzil was not looking at her now, he was gazing ahead with his blue
+eyes filled with light, and she saw that there was something far beyond
+the physical magnetism which drew her to him, and a pride and joy filled
+her. She would indeed be his helpmate in all his undertakings and
+striving for noble ends. They talked for some time of these things and
+their plans to aid in their fulfilment, and then they gradually spoke of
+Verisschenzko and Amaryllis asked what was the latest news--he was in
+Russia, she supposed.
+
+"St�pan will be arriving in London next week. I heard from him to-day.
+Won't you ask him down, darling, to spend the New Year with us here--it
+would be so good to see the dear old boy again."
+
+This was agreed upon, and then they drifted back to lovers' whisperings,
+and presently they said a fond good-night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Christmas Day of 1915, and the weeks which followed were like some happy
+dream for Denzil and Amaryllis. Each hour seemed to discover some new
+aspect which caused further understanding and love to augment. They spent
+long late afternoons in the cedar parlour dipping into books and a
+delicious pleasure was for Amaryllis to be nestled in Denzil's arms on
+the sofa while he read aloud to her in his deep, magnetic voice.
+
+Beatrice Ardayre at this period was like a pleased mother cat purring in
+the sun while her kittens gambol. Her well-beloved was content, and she
+was satisfied. She always seemed to be there when wanted and yet to leave
+the lovers principally to themselves.
+
+Another of their joys was to motor about the beautiful country, exploring
+the old, old churches and quaint farmhouses and manors with which North
+Somerset abounds; and they went all over the estate also and saw all the
+people who were their people and their friends. The union was thoroughly
+approved of, and although the engagement was not to be officially
+announced until after the New Year it was quite understood, as the
+tenants had all heard of John's instructions in his will. But perhaps the
+most supreme joy of all was when they could play with the baby Benedict
+together alone for half an hour before he went to bed. Then they were
+just as foolish and primitive as any other two young things with their
+firstborn. He was a very fine and forward baby and already expressed a
+spirit and will of his own, and it always gave Denzil the very strangest
+thrill when he seized and clung firmly to one of his fingers with his
+tiny, strong, chubby hand. And over all his qualities and perfections his
+parents then said wonderful things together!
+
+Every subtle and exquisite pleasure, mystical, symbolical and material,
+which either had ever dreamed of as connected with this living proof of
+love, was realised for them. And to know that soon, soon, they would be
+united for always--wedded--not merely engaged. Oh! that was
+glorious--when passion need be under no restraint--when there need be no
+good-night!
+
+For in this the chivalry of Denzil never failed--and each day they grew
+to respect each other more.
+
+Verisschenzko was to arrive in time for dinner on the last day of
+the old year. That afternoon was one of even unusually perfect
+happiness--motoring slowly round the park and up on to the hills in
+Amaryllis' little two-seater which she drove herself. They got out at the
+top and leaned upon a gate from which they seemed to be looking down over
+the world. Peaceful, smiling, prosperous England! Miles and miles of her
+fairest country lay there in front of them, giving no echo of war.
+
+"If we had been born sixty years ago, Denzil, what different thoughts
+this view would be creating in our minds. We would have no
+speculation--no uncertainty--we should feel just happy that it is ours
+and would be ours for ever! The world was asleep then!"
+
+"St�pan would say that it was resting before the throes of struggle must
+begin. Now we are going to face something much greater than the actual
+war in France, but if we are strong we ought to come through. We have
+always been saner than other peoples, so perhaps our upheaval will be
+saner too."
+
+"Whatever there is to face, we shall be together, Denzil, and nothing
+can really matter then--and we must make our little Benedict armed
+for the future, so that he will be fitted to cope with the conditions
+of his day."
+
+"Look there at the blue distance, darling, could anything be more
+peaceful? How can anyone in the country realise that not two hundred
+miles away this awful war is grinding on?"
+
+Denzil put an arm round her and drew her close to him and clasped
+her fondly.
+
+"But just for a little we must try to forget about it. I never dreamed of
+such perfect happiness as we are having, Sweetheart,--my own!"
+
+"Nor I, Denzil,--I am almost afraid--"
+
+But he kissed her passionately and bade this thought begone. Afraid of
+what? Nothing mattered since they would always be together. February
+would soon come, and then they would never part again.
+
+So the vague foreboding passed from Amaryllis' heart, and in fond
+visionings they whispered plans for the spring and the summer and the
+growing years. And so at last they returned to the house and found the
+after-noon post waiting for them. Filson had just brought it in and
+Amaryllis' letters lay in a pile on her writing table.
+
+There happened to be none for Denzil and he went over to the fireplace
+and was stroking the head of Mercury, the greatest of the big tawny dogs,
+when he was startled by a little ominous cry from his Beloved, and on
+looking up he saw that she had sunk into a chair, her face deadly pale,
+while there had fluttered to the floor at her feet a torn envelope and a
+foreign looking postcard.
+
+What could this mean?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Verisschenzko had come straight through from Petrograd to England. He had
+been delayed and had never returned to Paris since September. He knew
+nothing of Harietta's sacrilege as yet. But he had at last accumulated
+sufficient proof against her to have her entirely in his hands.
+
+He thought over the whole matter as he came down in the train to Ardayre.
+She was a grave danger to the Allies and had betrayed them again and
+again. He must have no mercy. Her last crimes had been against France,
+her punishment would be easier to manage there.
+
+The strain of cruelty in his nature came uppermost as he reviewed the
+evil which she had done. Stanislass' haunted face seemed to look at him
+out of the mist of the half-lit carriage. What might not Poland have
+accomplished with such a leader as Boleski had been before this baneful
+passion fell upon him! Then he conjured up the? imaged faces of the brave
+Frenchmen who were betrayed by Harietta to Hans, and shot in Germany.
+
+A spy's death in war time was not an ignoble one, and they had gone there
+with their lives in their hands. Had Harietta been true to that side, and
+had she been acting from patriotism, he could have desired to save her
+the death sentence now. But she had never been true; no country mattered
+to her; she had given to him secrets as well as to Hans! Then he laughed
+to himself grimly. So her _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball was the first
+husband! The man who used to beat her with a stick--and who had let her
+divorce him in obedience to the higher command!
+
+How clever the whole thing was! If it had not all been so serious, it
+would have been interesting to allow her to live longer to watch what
+next she would do, but the issues at stake were too vital to delay. He
+would not hesitate; he would denounce her to the French authorities
+immediately on his return to Paris, and without one qualm or regret. She
+had lived well and played "crooked"--and now it was meet that she should
+pay the price.
+
+Filson announced him in the green drawing room when he reached Ardayre,
+but only Denzil rose to greet him and wrung his hand. He noticed that his
+friend's face looked stern and rather pale.
+
+"I'm so awfully glad that you have come, St�pan," and they exchanged
+handshakes and greetings. "You are about the only person I should want to
+see just now, because you know the whole history. Something unprecedented
+has happened. A communication has come apparently from John to Amaryllis
+from a prisoners' camp in Germany, and yet as far as one can be certain
+of anything I am certain that I saw him die--"
+
+Verisschenzko was greatly startled. What a frightful complication it
+would make should John be alive!
+
+"The letter--merely a postcard enclosed in an envelope--came by this
+afternoon's post--and as you can understand, it has frightfully upset us
+all. It is a sort of thing about which one cannot analyse one's feelings.
+John had a right to his life and we ought to be glad--but the idea of
+giving up Amaryllis--of having all the suffering and the parting
+again--St�pan, it is cruelly hard."
+
+Verisschenzko sat down in one of the big chairs, and Euterpe, the lesser
+tawny dog, came and pushed her nose into his hand. He patted her silky
+head absently. He was collecting his thoughts; the shock of this news was
+considerable and he must steady his judgment.
+
+"John wrote to her himself, you say? It is not a message through a third
+person--no?"
+
+"It appears to be in his own writing." Denzil stood leaning on the
+mantelpiece, and his face seemed to grow more haggard with each word.
+"Merely saying that he was taken prisoner by the enemy when they made the
+counter attack, and that he had been too ill to write or speak until now.
+I can't understand it--because they did not make the counter attack until
+after I was carried in--and even though I was unconscious then, the
+stretcher bearers must have seen John when they lifted me if he had been
+there. Nothing was found but his glasses and we concluded another shell
+had burst somewhere near his body after I was carried in. St�pan, I swear
+to God I saw him die."
+
+"It sounds extraordinary. Try to tell me every detail, Denzil."
+
+So the story of John's last moments was gone over again, and all the most
+minute events which had occurred. And at the end of it the two solid
+facts stood out incontrovertibly--John's body was never found, but Denzil
+had seen him die.
+
+"How long will it take to communicate with him, I wonder? We can through
+the American Ambassador, I suppose, because he gives no address. It must
+be awful for him lying there wounded with no news. I say this because I
+suppose I must accept his own writing, but I, cannot yet bring myself to
+believe that he can be alive."
+
+Verisschenzko was silent for a moment, then he asked:
+
+"May I see my Lady Amaryllis?"
+
+"Yes, she told me to bring you to her as soon as I should have explained
+to you the whole affair. Come now."
+
+They went up the stairs together, and they hardly spoke a word. And
+when they reached the cedar parlour Denzil let Verisschenzko go in in
+front of him.
+
+"I have brought St�pan to you," he told Amaryllis. "I am going to leave
+you to talk now."
+
+Amaryllis was white as milk and her grey eyes were disturbed and very
+troubled. She held out her two hands to Verisschenzko and he kissed them
+with affectionate worship.
+
+"Lady of my Soul!"
+
+"Oh! St�pan,--comfort me--give me counsel. It is such a terrible moment
+in my life. What am I to do?"
+
+"It is indeed difficult for you--we must think it all out--"
+
+"Poor John--I ought to be glad that he is alive, and I am--really--only,
+oh! St�pan, I love Denzil so dearly. It is all too awfully complicated.
+What so greatly astonishes me about it is that John has not written
+deliriously, or as though he has lost his memory, and yet if we had
+carried out his instructions and wishes we should be married now, Denzil
+and I,--and he never alludes to the possibility of this! It is written as
+though no complications could enter into the case--"
+
+"It sounds strange--may I see the letter?"
+
+She got up and went over to the writing table and returned with a packet
+and the envelope which contained the card. It was not one which prisoners
+use as a rule; it had the picture of a German town on it and the
+postmark on the envelope was of a place in Holland. Verisschenzko read it
+carefully:
+
+"I have been too ill to write before--I was taken prisoner in the counter
+attack and was unconscious. I am sending this by the kindness of a nurse
+through Holland. Everyone must have believed that I was dead. I am
+longing for news of you, dearest. I shall soon be well. Do not worry. I
+am going to be moved and will write again with address.
+
+"All love,--
+
+"JOHN."
+
+The writing was rather feeble as a very ill person's would naturally be,
+but the name "John" was firm and very legible.
+
+"You are certain that it is his writing?"
+
+"Yes"--and then she handed him another letter from the packet--John's
+last one to her. "You can see for yourself--it is the same hand."
+
+St�pan took both over to the lamp, and was bending to examine them when
+he gave a little cry:
+
+"Sapristi!"--and instead of looking at the writings he sniffed strongly
+at the card, and then again. Amaryllis watched him amazedly.
+
+"The same! By the Lord, it is the work of Ferdinand. No one could mistake
+his scent who had once smelt it. The muskrat, the scorpion! But he has
+betrayed himself."
+
+Amaryllis grew paler as she came close beside him.
+
+"St�pan, oh, tell me! What do you mean?"
+
+"I believe this to be a forgery--the scent is a clue to me. Smell
+it--there is a lingering sickly aroma round it. It came in an envelope,
+you see,--that would preserve it. It is an Eastern perfume, very
+heavy,--what do you say?"
+
+She wrinkled her delicate nose:
+
+"Yes, there is some scent from it. One perceives it at first and then it
+goes off. Oh, St�pan, please do not torture me. Can you be quite sure?"
+
+"I am absolutely certain that whether it is in John's writing or not,
+Ferdinand, or some one who uses his unique scent, has touched that card.
+Now we must investigate everything."
+
+He walked up and down the room in agitation for a few moments; talking
+rapidly to himself--half in Russian--Amaryllis caught bits.
+"Ferdinand--how to his advantage? None. What then? Harietta?
+Harietta--but why for her?"
+
+Then he sat down and stared into the fire, his yellow-green eyes blazing
+with intelligence, his clear brain balancing up things. But now he did
+not speak his thoughts aloud.
+
+"She is jealous. I remember--she imagined that it is my child. She
+believes I may marry Amaryllis. It is as plain as day!"
+
+He jumped up and excitedly held out his hands.
+
+"Let us fetch Denzil," he cried joyously. "I can explain everything."
+
+Amaryllis left the room swiftly and called when she got outside his door:
+
+"Denzil--do come."
+
+He joined them in a second or two--there as he was, in a blue silk
+dressing gown, as he had just been going to dress for dinner.
+
+He looked from one face to the other anxiously and St�pan
+immediately spoke.
+
+"I think that the card is a forgery, Denzil. I believe it to have been
+written by Ferdinand Ardayre--at the instigation of Harietta Boleski.
+She would have means to obtain the postcard, and have it sent through
+Holland too."
+
+"But why--why should she?" Amaryllis exclaimed in wonderment. "What
+possible reason could she have for wishing to be so cruel to us. We were
+always very nice to her, as you know."
+
+Verisschenzko laughed cynically.
+
+"She was jealous of you all the same. But Denzil, I track it by the
+scent. I know Ferdinand uses that scent," he held out the card. "Smell."
+
+Denzil sniffed as Amaryllis had done.
+
+"It is so faint I should not have remarked it unless you had told me--but
+I daresay if it was a scent one had smelt before, one would be struck by
+it! But how are you going to prove it, St�pan? We shall have to have
+convincing proof--because I am the only witness of poor John's death, and
+it could easily be said that I am too deeply interested to be reliable.
+For God's sake, old friend, think of some way of making a certainty."
+
+"I have a way which I can enforce as soon as I reach Paris. Meanwhile say
+nothing to any one and put the thought of it out of your heads. The
+evidence of your own eyes convinced you that John is dead; you found it
+difficult to accept that he was alive even when seeing what appeared to
+be his own writing, but if I assure you that this is forged you can be at
+peace. Is it not so?"
+
+Amaryllis' lips were trembling; the shock and then this counter
+shock were unhinging her. She was horrified at herself that she
+should not catch at every straw to prove John was alive, instead of
+feeling some sense of relief when Verisschenzko protested that the
+postcard was a forgery.
+
+Poor John! Good, and kind, and unselfish. It was all too agitating. But
+was just life such a very great thing? She knew that had she the choice
+she would rather be dead than separated now from Denzil. And if John were
+really to be alive--what misery he would be obliged to suffer, knowing
+the situation.
+
+"Quite apart from what to me is a convincing proof, the scent,"
+Verisschenzko went on, "the card must be a forgery because of John's
+seeming oblivion of the possibility that you two might have already
+carried out his wishes. All this would have been very unlike him. But if
+it is, as I think, Ferdinand's and Harietta Boleski's work, they would
+not be likely to know that John had desired that Denzil should marry you,
+Amaryllis, and so would have thought a short card with longings to see
+you would be a natural thing to write. Indeed you can be at rest. And now
+I will go and dress for dinner, and we will forget disturbing thoughts."
+
+Amaryllis and Denzil will always remember St�pan's wonderful tact and
+goodness to them that evening; he kept everything calm and thrilled them
+all with his stories and his conversation and his own wonderfully
+magnetic personality. And after dinner he played to them in the green
+drawing room and, as Mrs. Ardayre said, seemed to bring peace and healing
+to all their troubled souls.
+
+But when he was alone with Denzil late, after the two women had retired
+to bed, he sunk into a deep chair in the smoking room and suddenly burst
+into a peal of cynical laughter.
+
+"What the devil's up?" demanded Denzil, astonished.
+
+"I am thinking of Harietta's exquisite mistake. She believes the baby is
+mine! She is mad with a goat's jealousy; she supposes it is I who will
+marry Amaryllis--hence her plot! Does it not show how the good are
+protected and the evil fall into their own traps!"
+
+"Of course! She was in love with you!"
+
+"In love! Mon Dieu! you call that love! I mastered her body and was
+unobtainable. She was never able to draw me more than a person could to
+whom I should pay two hundred francs. She knew that perfectly--it enraged
+her always. The threads are now completely in my hands. Conceive of it,
+Denzil! The man at the Ardayre ball was her first husband for whom she
+always retained some kind of animal affection--because he used to beat
+her. They married her to Stanislass just to obtain the secrets of Poland,
+and any other thing which she could pick' up. Her marvellous stupidity
+and incredible want of all moral restraint has made her the most
+brilliant spy. No principles to hamper her--nothing. She has only tripped
+up through jealousy now. When she felt that she had lost me she grew to
+desire me with the only part of her nature with which she desires
+anything, her flesh--then she became unbalanced, and in September before
+I left, gave the clue into my hands. I shall not bore you with all the
+details, but I have them both--she and Ferdinand Ardayre. The first
+husband has gone back to Germany from Sweden, but we shall secure him,
+too, presently. Meanwhile I shall hand Harietta to the French
+authorities--her last exploits are against France. She has enabled the
+Germans to shoot six or seven brave fellows, besides giving information
+of the most important kind wormed from foolish elderly adorers and above
+all from Stanislass himself."
+
+"She will be shot, I suppose."
+
+"Probably. But first she shall confess about the postcard from the
+prison camp. I shall go to Paris immediately, Denzil; there must be
+no delay."
+
+"You will not feel the slightest twinge because she was your mistress, if
+she is shot, St�pan? I ask because the combination of possible emotions
+is interesting and unusual."
+
+"Not for an instant--" and suddenly Verisschenzko's yellow-green eyes
+flashed fire and his face grew transfigured with fierce hate. "You do not
+know the affection I had for Stanislass from my boyhood--he was my
+leader, my ideal. No paltry aims--a great pioneer of freedom on the
+sanest lines. He might have altered the history of our two countries--he
+was the light we need, and this foul, loathsome creature has destroyed
+not only his soul and his body, but the protector and defender of a
+conception of freedom which might have been realised. I would strangle
+her with my own hands."
+
+"Stanislass must have been a weakling, St�pan, to have let her destroy
+him. He could never have ruled. It strikes me that this is the proof of
+another of your theories. It must be some debt of his previous life that
+he is paying to this woman. He was given his chance to use strength
+against her and failed."
+
+The hate died out of Verisschenzko's face--and the look of calm
+reasoning returned.
+
+"Yes, you are right, Denzil. You are wiser than I. So I shall not give
+her up, for punishment of her crimes. I shall only give her up because of
+justice--she must not be at large. You see, even in my case,--I who pride
+myself on being balanced, can have my true point of view obsessed by
+hate. It is an ignoble passion, my son!"
+
+"You will catch Ferdinand too?"
+
+"Undoubtedly--he is just a rotten little snipe, but he does mischief as
+Harietta's tool--and through his business in Holland."
+
+"He loathes the English--that is his reason, but Madame Boleski has no
+incentive like that."
+
+"Harietta has no country--she would be willing to betray any one of them
+to gratify any personal desire. If she had been a patriot exclusively
+working for Germany, one could have respected her, but she has often
+betrayed their secrets to me--for jewels--and other things she required
+at the moment. No mercy can be shown at all."
+
+"In these days there is no use in having sentiment just because a spy is
+a woman--but I am glad it is not my duty to deliver her up."
+
+Verisschenzko smiled.
+
+"I cannot help my nature, Denzil,--or rather the attributes of the nation
+into which in this life I am born. I shall hand Harietta over to justice
+without a regret."
+
+Then they parted for the night with much of the disturbance and the
+complex emotions removed from Denzil's heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+When Verisschenzko reached Paris and discovered the desecration of the
+Ikon, an icy rage came over him. He knew, even before questioning his old
+servant, that it could only be the work of Harietta. Jealousy alone would
+be the cause of such a wanton act. It revealed to him the certainty of
+his theory that she had imagined the little Benedict to be his child. No
+further proof that the postcard was a forgery was really needed, but he
+would see her once more and obtain extra confirmation.
+
+His yellow-green eyes gleamed in a curious way as he stood looking at the
+mutilated picture.
+
+That her ridiculous and accursed hatpin should have dared to touch the
+eyes of his soul's lady, and scratch out the face of the child!
+
+But he must not let this emotion of personal anger affect what he
+intended in any case to do from motives of justice. In the morning he
+would give all his proofs of her guilt to the French authorities, and let
+the law take its course--but to-night he would make her come there to his
+apartment and hear from him an indictment of her crimes.
+
+He sat down in the comfortable chair in his own sitting room and
+began to think.
+
+His face was ominous; all the fierce passions of his nation and of his
+nature held him for a while.
+
+His dog, an intelligent terrier whom he loved, sat there before the fire
+and watched him, wagging his stump of a tail now and then nervously, but
+not daring to approach. Then, after half an hour had gone by, he rose and
+went to the telephone. He called up the Universal and asked to be put
+through to the apartment of Madame Boleski, and soon heard Harietta's
+voice. It was a little anxious--and yet insolent too.
+
+"Yes? Is that you St�pan! Darling Brute! What do you want?"
+
+"You--cannot you come and dine with me to-night--alone?"
+
+His voice was honey sweet, with a spontaneous, frank ring in it, only his
+face still looked as a fiend's.
+
+"You have just arrived? How divine!"
+
+"This instant, so I rushed at once to the telephone. I long for
+you--come--now."
+
+He allowed passion to quiver in the last notes--he must be sure that she
+would be drawn.
+
+"He cannot have opened the doors of the Ikon," Harietta thought. "I will
+go--to see him again will be worth it anyway!"
+
+"All right!--in half an hour!"
+
+"_Soit_,"--and he put the receiver down.
+
+Then he went again to the Ikon and examined the doors; by slamming them
+very hard and readjusting one small golden nail, he could give the
+fastening the appearance of its having been jammed and impossible to
+open. He ordered a wonderful dinner and some Ch�teau Ykem of 1900.
+Harietta, he remembered, liked it better than Champagne. Its sweetness
+and its strength appealed to her taste. The room was warm and
+delightful with its blazing wood fire. He looked round before he went
+to dress, and then he laughed softly, and again Fin nervously wagged
+his stump of a tail.
+
+Harietta arrived punctually. She had made herself extremely beautiful.
+Her overmastering desire to see Verisschenzko had allowed her usually
+keen sense of self-preservation partially to sleep. But even so,
+underneath there was some undefined sense of uneasiness.
+
+St�pan met her in the hall, and greeted her in his usual abrupt way
+without ceremony.
+
+"You will leave your cloak in my room," he suggested, wishing to give her
+the chance to look at the Ikon's jammed doors and so put her at her ease.
+
+The moment she found herself alone, she went swiftly to the shrine. She
+examined it closely--no the bolt had not been mended. She pulled at the
+doors but she could not open them, and she remembered with relief that
+she had slammed them hard. That would account for things. He certainly
+could not yet know of her action. The evening would be one of pleasure
+after all! And there was never any use in speculating about to-morrows!
+
+Verisschenzko was waiting for her in the sitting-room, and they went
+straight in to dinner. A little table was drawn up to the fire; all
+appeared deliciously intimate, and Harietta's spirits rose.
+
+To her Verisschenzko appeared the most attractive creature on earth.
+Indeed, he had a wonderful magnetism which had intoxicated many women
+before her day. He was looking at her now with eyes unclouded by glamour.
+He saw that she was painted and obvious, and without real charm. She
+could no longer even affect his senses. He saw nothing but the reality,
+the animal, blatant reality, and in his memory there remained the pierced
+out orbs of the Virgin and the scratched face of the Christ child.
+
+Everything fierce and cunning in his nature was in action--he was
+glorying in the torture he meant to inflict, the torture of jealousy and
+unsatisfied suspicion.
+
+He talked subtly, deliberately stirring her curiosity and arousing her
+apprehension. He had not mentioned Amaryllis, and yet he had conveyed to
+her, as though it were an unconscious admission, that he had been in
+England with her, and that she reigned in his soul. Then he used every
+one of his arts of fascination so that all Harietta's desires were
+inflamed once more, and by the time she had eaten of the rich Russian
+dishes and drank of the Ch�teau Ykem she was experiencing the strongest
+emotion she had ever known in her life, while a sense of impotence to
+move him augmented her other feelings.
+
+Her eyes swam with passion, as she leaned over the table whispering words
+of the most violent love in his ears.
+
+Verisschenzko remained absolutely unstirred.
+
+"How silly you were to send that postcard to Lady Ardayre," he remarked
+contemplatively in the middle of one of her burning sentences. "It was
+not worthy of your usual methods--a child could see that it was a
+forgery. If you had not done that I might have made you very happy
+to-night--for the last time--my little goat!"
+
+"St�pan--what card? But you are going to make me happy anyway, darling
+Brute; that is what I have come for, and you know it!"
+
+Her eyes were not so successfully innocent as usual when she lied. She
+was uneasy at his stolidity, some fear stayed with her that perhaps he
+meant not to gratify her desires just to be provoking. He had teased her
+more than once before.
+
+Verisschenzko went on, lighting his cigarette calmly:
+
+"It was a silly plot--Ferdinand Ardayre wrote it and you dictated it; I
+perceived the whole thing at once. You did it because you were jealous of
+Lady Ardayre--you believe that I love her--"
+
+"I do not know anything about a card, but I _am_ jealous about that
+hateful bit of bread and butter," and her eyes flashed. "It is so unlike
+you to worry over such a creature--I'm what you like!"
+
+He laughed softly. "A man has many sides--you appeal to his lowest.
+Fortunately it is not in command of him all the time--but let me tell you
+more about the forgery. You over-reached yourselves--you made John ignore
+something which would have been his first thought, thus the fraud was
+exposed at once."
+
+Her jealousy blazed up, so that she forgot herself and prudence.
+
+"You mean about the child--your child--"
+
+The ominous gleam came into Verisschenzko's eyes.
+
+"My child--you spoke of it once before and I warned you--I never
+speak idly."
+
+She got up from the table and came and flung her arms round his neck.
+
+"St�pan, I love you--I love you! I would like to kill Amaryllis and the
+child--I want you--why are you so changed?"
+
+He only laughed scornfully again, while he disengaged her arms.
+
+"Do you know how I found out? By the perfume--the same as you told me
+must be that of Stanislass' mistress--on the handkerchief marked 'F.A.'
+The whole thing was dramatically childish. You thought to prove her
+husband was still alive, would stop my marriage with Amaryllis Ardayre!"
+
+"Then you are going to marry her!"
+
+Harietta's hazel eyes flashed fire, her face had grown distorted with
+passion and her cheeks burned beyond the rouge.
+
+She appeared a most revolting sight to St�pan. He watched her with cold,
+critical eyes. As she put out her hands he noticed how the thumbs turned
+right back. How had he ever been able to touch her in the past! He
+shivered with disgust and degradation at the thought.
+
+She saw his movement of repulsion, and completely lost her head.
+
+She flung herself into his arms and almost strangled him in her furious
+embrace, while she threw all restraint to the winds and poured out a
+torrent of passion, intermingled with curses for one who had dared to try
+and rob her of this adored mate.
+
+It was a wonderful and very sickening exhibition, Verisschenzko thought.
+He remained as a statue of ice. Then when she had exhausted herself a
+little, he spoke with withering calm.
+
+"Control yourself, Harietta; such emotion will leave ugly lines, and you
+cannot afford to spoil the one good you possess. I have not the least
+desire for you--I find that you look plain and only bore me. But now
+listen to me for a little--I have something to say!" His voice changed
+from the cynical callousness to a deep note of gravity: "You need not
+even tell me in words that you sent the forgery--you have given me ample
+proof. That subject is finished--but I will make you listen to the
+recital of some of your vile deeds." The note grew sterner and his eyes
+held her cowed. "Ah! what instruments of the devil are such women as
+you--possessing the greatest of all power over men you have used it only
+for ill--wherever you have passed there is a trail of degradation and
+slime. Think of Stanislass! A man of fine purpose and lofty ideals. What
+is he now? A poor lifeless semblance of a man with neither brain nor
+will. You have used him--not even to gratify your own low lust, but to
+betray countries--and one of them your husband's country, which ought to
+have been your own."
+
+She sank to her knees at his side; he went on mercilessly. He spoke of
+many names which she knew, and then he came to Ferdinand Ardayre.
+
+"They tell me he is drinking and sodden with morphine, and raves wildly
+of you. Think of them all--where are they now? Dead many of them--and you
+have survived and prospered like a vampire, sucking their blood. Do you
+ever think of a human being but your own degraded self? You would
+sacrifice your nearest and dearest for a moment's personal gain. You are
+not caught and strangled because the outside good natures come easily to
+you. It makes things smooth to smile and commit little acts of showy
+kindness which cost you nothing. You live and breathe and have your being
+like a great maggot fattening on a putrid corpse. I blush to think that I
+have ever used your body for my own ends, loathing you all the time. I
+have watched you cynically when I should have wrung your neck."
+
+She sobbed hoarsely and held out her hands.
+
+"For all these things you might still have gone free, Harietta--and fate
+would punish you in time, but you have committed that great crime for
+which there can be no mercy. You have acted the part of a spy. A wretched
+spy, not for patriotism but for your own ends--you have not been faithful
+to either side. Have you not often given me the secrets of your late
+husband Hans? Do you care one atom which country wins? Not you. The
+whole sordid business has had only one aim--some personal gratification."
+
+He paused--and she began to speak, now choking with rage, but he motioned
+her to be silent.
+
+"Do you think so lightly of the great issues which are shaking the world
+that you imagine that you can do these things with impunity? I tell you
+that soon you must pay the price. I am not the only one who knows of
+your ways."
+
+She got up from the floor now and tossed her head. Important things had
+never been to her realities--her fear left her. What agitated her now was
+that St�pan, whom she adored, should speak to her in such a tone. She
+threw herself into his arms once more, passionately proclaiming her love.
+
+He thrust her from him in shrinking disgust, and the cruel vein in his
+character was aroused.
+
+"Love!--do not dare to desecrate the name of love. You do not know what
+it means. I do--and this shall always remain with you as a remembrance. I
+love Amaryllis Ardayre. She is my ideal of a woman--tender and restrained
+and true--I shall always lay my life at her feet. I love her with a love
+such beings as you cannot dream of, knowing only the senses and playing
+only to them. That will be your knowledge always, that I worship and
+reverence this woman, and hold you in supreme contempt."
+
+Harietta writhed and whined on the sofa where she had fallen.
+
+"Go," he went on icily. "I have no further use for you, and my car is
+waiting below. You may as well avail yourself of it and return to your
+hotel. In the morning the last proof of the interest I have taken in you
+may be given, but to-night you can sleep."
+
+Harietta cried aloud--she was frightened at last. What did he mean? But
+even fear was swallowed up in the frantic thought that he had done with
+her, that he would never any more hold her in his arms. Her world lay in
+ruins, he seemed the one and only good. She grovelled on the floor and
+kissed his feet.
+
+"Master, Master! Keep me near you--I will be your slave--"
+
+But Verisschenzko pushed her gently aside with his foot and going to a
+table near took up a cigarette. He lighted it serenely, glancing
+indifferently at the dishevelled heap of a woman still crouching on
+the floor.
+
+"Enough of this dramatic nonsense," and he blew a ring of smoke. "I
+advise you to go quietly to bed--you may not sleep so softly on
+future nights."
+
+Fear overcame her again--what could he mean? She got up and held on to
+the table, searching his face with burning eyes.
+
+"Why should I not sleep so softly always?" and her voice was thick.
+
+He laughed hoarsely.
+
+"Who knows? Life is a gamble in these days. You must ask your interesting
+German friend."
+
+She became ghastly white--that there was real danger was beginning
+to dawn upon her. The rouge stood out like that on the painted face
+of a clown.
+
+Verisschenzko remained completely unmoved. He pressed the bell, and his
+Russian servant, warned beforehand, brought him in his fur coat and hat,
+and assisted him to put them on.
+
+"I will take Madame to get her cloak," he announced calmly. "Wait here
+to show us out."
+
+There was nothing for Harietta to do but follow him, as he went towards
+the bedroom door. She was stunned.
+
+He walked over to the Ikon, and slipping a paper knife under them opened
+wide the doors; then he turned to her, and the very life melted within
+her when she saw his face.
+
+"This is your work," and he pointed to the mutilations, "and for that and
+many other things, Harietta, you shall at last pay the price. Now come, I
+will take you back to your lover, and your husband--both will be waiting
+and longing for your return. Come!"
+
+She dropped on the floor and refused to move so that he was obliged to
+call in the servant, and together they lifted her, the one holding her
+up, while the other wrapped her in her cloak. Then, each supporting her,
+they made their way down the stairs, and placed her in the waiting motor,
+Verisschenzko taking the seat at her side--and so they drove to the
+Universal. She should sleep to-night in peace and have time to think over
+the events of the evening. But to-morrow he must no longer delay about
+giving information to the authorities.
+
+She cowered in the motor until they had almost reached the door, when she
+flung her arms round his neck and kissed him wildly again, sobbing with
+rage and terror:
+
+"You shall not marry Amaryllis; I will kill you both first."
+
+He smiled in the darkness, and she felt that he was mocking her, and
+suddenly turned and bit his arm, her teeth meeting in the cloth of his
+fur-lined coat.
+
+He shook her off as he would have done a rat:
+
+"Never quite apropos, Harietta! Always a little late! But here we have
+arrived, and you will not care for your admirers, the concierge, and the
+lift men, to see you in such a state. Put your veil over your face and go
+quietly to your rooms. I will wish you a very good-night--and farewell!"
+
+He got out and stood with mock respect uncovered to assist her, and she
+was obliged to follow him. The hall porter and the numerous personnel of
+the hotel were looking on.
+
+He bowed once more and appeared to kiss her hand:
+
+"Good-bye, Harietta! Sleep well."
+
+Then he re-entered the car and was whirled away.
+
+She staggered for a second and then moved forward to the lift. But as she
+went in, two tall men who had been waiting stepped forward and joined
+her, and all three were carried aloft, and as she walked to her salon she
+saw that they were following her.
+
+"There will be no more kicks for thee, my Angel!" the maid, peeping
+from a door, whispered exultingly to Fou-Chow! "Thy Marie has saved
+thee at last!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Verisschenzko again reached his own sitting room he paced up and
+down for half an hour. He was horribly agitated, and angry with himself
+for being so.
+
+Denzil had been right; when it came to the point, it was a ghastly thing
+to have to do, to give a woman up to death--even though her crimes amply
+justified such action.
+
+And what was death?
+
+To such a one as Harietta what would death mean?
+
+A sinking into oblivion for a period, and then a rebirth in some sphere
+of suffering where the first lessons of the meanings of things might be
+learned? That would seem to be the probable working of the law--so that
+she might eventually obtain a soul.
+
+He must not speculate further about her though, he must keep his nerve.
+
+And his own life--what would it now become? Would the spirit of freedom,
+stirring in his beloved country, arrive at any good? Or would the red
+current of revolution, once let loose, swamp all reason and flow in
+rivers of blood?
+
+He would be powerless to help if he let weakness overmaster him now.
+
+The immediate picture looked black and hopeless to his far-seeing eyes.
+
+But his place must be in Petrograd now, until the end. His activities,
+which had obliged him to be away from Russia, were finished, and new ones
+had begun which he must direct, there in the heart of things.
+
+"The world is aching for freedom, God," his stormy thoughts ran, "but we
+cannot hope to receive it until we have paid the price of the �ons of
+greed and self-seeking which have held us, the ignorance, the low
+material gain. We must now reap that sowing. The divine Christ--one
+man--was enough as a sacrifice in that old period of the world's day--but
+now there must be a holocaust of the bravest and best for our
+purification."
+
+He threw himself into his chair and gazed into the glowing embers. What
+pictures were forming themselves there? Nations arising glorified by a
+new religion of common sense, education universally enjoyed, the great
+forces studied, and Nature's fundamental principles reckoned with and
+understood.
+
+To hunt his food.
+
+To recreate his species.
+
+_And to kill his enemy._
+
+A bright blade sheathed but ready, a clear judgment trained and used,
+ideals nobly striven for, and Wisdom the High Priest of God.
+
+These were the visions he saw in the fire, and he started to his feet and
+stretched out his arms.
+
+"Strength, God! Strength!" that was his prayer.
+
+"That we may go--
+Armoured and militant,
+New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps
+To those great altitudes whereat the weak
+Live not, but only the strong
+Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve."
+
+Then he sat down and wrote to Denzil.
+
+"I have all the needed proofs, my friend. Marry my soul's lady in peace
+and make her happy. There come some phases in a man's life which require
+all his will to face. I hope I am no weakling. I return to Russia
+immediately. Events there will enable me to blot out some disturbing
+memories.
+
+"The end is not yet. Indeed, I feel that my real life is only just
+beginning.
+
+"Ferdinand Ardayre is deeply incriminated with Harietta; it is only a
+question of a little time and he will be taken too. Then, Denzil, you, in
+the natural course of events, would have been the Head of the Family. You
+will need all your philosophy never to feel any jar in the situation with
+your son as the years go on. You will have to look at it squarely, dear
+old friend, and know that it is impossible to have interfered with
+destiny and to have gone scott free. Then you will be able to accept
+title affair with common sense and prize what you have obtained, without
+spoiling it with futile regrets. You have paid most of your score with
+wounds and suffering, and now can expect what happiness the agony of the
+world can let a man enjoy.
+
+"My blessings to you both and to the Ardayre son.
+
+"And now adieu for a long time."
+
+He had hardly written the last line when the telephone rang, and the
+frantic voice of Stanislass, his ancient friend, called to him!
+
+Harietta had been taken away to St. Lazare--her maid had denounced her.
+What could be done?
+
+A great wave of relief swept over St�pan. So he was not to be the
+instrument of justice after all!
+
+How profoundly he thanked God!
+
+But the irony of the thing shook him.
+
+Harietta would pay with her life for having maltreated a dog!
+
+Truly the workings of fate were marvellous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The days in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of
+frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe that
+she was to die.
+
+Stanislass and Ferdinand, and even Verisschenzko, would save her!
+
+She loathed the hard bed at St. Lazare, and the discomfort, and the
+ugliness, and the Sister of Charity!
+
+She spent hours tramping her cell like a wild beast in a cage. She would
+roar with inarticulate fury, and cry aloud to her husband, and her
+lovers, one after another, and then she would cower in a corner, shaking
+with fear.
+
+The greatest pain of all was the thought that St�pan and Amaryllis would
+marry and be happy. Once or twice foam gathered at the corners of her
+lips when she thought of this.
+
+If she could have reached Marie, that would have given her some
+satisfaction--to tear out her eyes! For Ferdinand Ardayre had told her
+how Marie had given her up, working quietly until she had all necessary
+proofs, and then denouncing her.
+
+When Stanislass had returned from the Club, whither she had despatched
+him for the evening, so that she might be free to dine with
+Verisschenzko, he found that she had already been taken away.
+
+The shock, when he discovered that nothing could be done, had nearly
+killed him--he now lay dangerously ill in a Maison de Sant�, happily
+unconscious of events.
+
+For Ferdinand Ardayre the blow had fallen with crushing force. The one
+strong thing in his weak nature was his passion for Harietta--and to be
+robbed of her in such a way!
+
+He battled impotently against fate, unable even to try to use any means
+in his possession to get the death sentence commuted, because he was too
+deeply implicated himself to make any stir.
+
+He saw her in the prison after the trial, with the bars between and the
+warders near. And the awful change in Tier paralysed him with grief. On
+the morrow she was to die--the usual death of a spy.
+
+Her hair was wild and her face without rouge was haggard and wan.
+
+She implored him to save her.
+
+The frightful pain of knowing that he could do nothing made Ferdinand
+desperate, and then suddenly he became inspired with an idea.
+
+He could at all events remove some of the agony of terror from her, and
+enable her to go to her death without a hideous scene. He remembered "La
+Tosca"--the same method might serve again!
+
+He managed to whisper to her in broken sentences that she would certainly
+be saved. The plan was all prepared, he assured her. The rifles would
+contain blank cartridges, and she must pretend to fall--and afterwards he
+would come, having bribed every one and made the path smooth.
+
+He lied so fervently that Harietta was convinced, her material brain
+catching at any straw. She must dress herself and look her best, he told
+her, so as to make an impression upon all the men concerned; and then,
+when he had to leave her, he arranged with the prison doctor that she
+might receive a strong _piq�re_ of morphine, so that she would be
+serene. She spent the night dreaming quite happily and at four o'clock
+was awakened and began to dress.
+
+The drug had calmed all her terrors and her dramatic instinct held
+full sway.
+
+She arranged her toilet with the utmost care, using all her arts to
+beautify herself. In her ears were Stanislass' ruby earrings and she wore
+St�pan's ring and brooch.
+
+Death to her was an impossibility--she had never seen any one die.
+
+It was a wonderfully fine part she would have to play, with Ferdinand
+there really going to save her! That was all! She must even be sweet at
+last to the poor sister, whom she had snarled at hitherto.
+
+If she could only have seen St�pan once more! Stanislass and his broken
+life and fond devotion never gave her a thought or troubled her at all.
+After she was free, she would find some means to pay out Hans! She hated
+him. If it had not been for Hans and his tiresome old higher command
+with their stupid intrigues, she would still be free. That she had
+betrayed countries--that she was guilty in any way never presented
+itself to her mind.
+
+All Verisschenzko's passionate indictment had fallen upon unheeding ears.
+The morphine now left her only sufficiently conscious for fundamental
+instincts to act.
+
+She felt that she was a beautiful woman going to be the chief figure in a
+wonderfully dramatic scene. Nothing solemn had touched her. Her brain was
+light and now only filled with cunning and _coqueterie_; she meant to
+charm her guards and executioners to the last man! And ready at length,
+she walked nonchalantly out of the prison and into the waiting car which
+was to carry her to Vincennes.
+
+Now the end of all this is best told in the words of a young French
+soldier who was an eye witness and wrote the whole thing down. To pen the
+hideous horror I find too difficult a task.
+
+"Sunday--11 in the evening.
+
+"We had only returned at that moment from our day's leave, when the
+Lieutenant came to us to announce that we should be of the _piquet_
+to-morrow morning for the execution of Madame Boleski, the spy.
+
+"He said this to us in his monotonous voice as though he had been saying
+'To-morrow--_Revue d'Armes_'--but for us, after a whole day passed far
+from barracks, it was a rather brusque return to military realities!
+
+"At once it became necessary that we look through our accountrements for
+the show. No small affair! and for more than an hour there was brushing
+and polishing of straps and buckles. It was nearly two o'clock in the
+morning before we could turn in.
+
+"Many of us could not sleep--we are all between eighteen and nineteen
+years old, and the idea to see a woman killed agitated us. But little by
+little the whole band dozed."
+
+"Monday morning.
+
+"At four o'clock--reveille. We dress in haste in the dark. Ten minutes
+later we all find ourselves in the courtyard.
+
+"'_A droit alignement couvres sur deux_.'
+
+"The Lieutenant made the call."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The detachment moves off in the night, marching in slow cadence--that
+step which so peculiarly gives the impression of restrained force and
+condensed power.
+
+"We leave the fort and gain the artillery butts--true landscape of the
+front! Trenches, stripped trees, abandoned wagons!
+
+"And in the middle of all that--our silhouettes of carbines,
+casques and sacs.
+
+"Absolute silence.
+
+"We stop--we advance--and suddenly in the dawn which has begun, we arrive
+at our destination--the execution ground.
+
+"'_Cannoniers--halte! Couvres sur deux. A droite alignement_.'"
+
+"A rattle of arms. And there in front of us, at hardly fifteen yards, we
+catch sight of the post.
+
+"Up till now we had scarcely felt anything--just startled impressions,
+almost of curiosity, but now I begin to experience the first strong
+sensation.
+
+"The post! Symbol of all this sinister ceremony. A short post--not higher
+than one's shoulder! There it stands in front of the shooting butts. And
+to think that nearly every Monday--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now the troops from the Square, which is in reality rectangular, the
+shooting butt constituting one of its sides. Then in the grim dawn we
+wait quietly for what is to come. One after another, we see several
+automobiles approach, and each time we ask ourselves, 'Is not this the
+condemned?'
+
+"No--they are journalists--officers--_avocats_--and presently a hearse,
+out of which is lifted the coffin.
+
+"The undertakers' men, who presently will proceed to the business of
+placing the body there, laugh and talk together as they sit and smoke.
+They are old _habitu�s!_"
+
+"One was cold standing still! It begins to be quite light. The condemned
+one may arrive at any moment, because the execution has been fixed for
+exactly at the rising of the sun.
+
+"The men of the platoon load their rifles. The number of them is
+twelve--four sergeants, four corporals, four soldiers.
+
+"And then there are the _Chasseurs � pied_."
+
+"All of a sudden, two more cars appear, escorted by a company of
+dragoons.
+
+"This time it is She.
+
+"They stop--out of the first one, officers descend. The Commissaire of
+the Government who has, condemned Madame Boleski to death and who had
+gone a little more than an hour ago to awake her in her cell. The
+Captain, reporter, and two other Captains. The door of the second auto
+opens, two gendarmes get out--a Sister of St. Lazare (what a terrible
+_m�tier_ for her!)--and then Harietta Boleski!
+
+"And at once, accompanied by the nun and followed by the gendarmes, she
+penetrates into the square of men.
+
+"Until now we have been enduring a period of waiting, we have been asking
+ourselves if it will have an effect upon us--but now we have no more
+doubt. The effect has begun!
+
+"'Present arms!'
+
+"All together we render honour to the dead woman--for one considers a
+person condemned as already dead. And the bugles begin to play the
+March--_Do sol do do Sol do do, Mi mi mi_--
+
+"They play slowly--very softly and in the minor key.
+
+"Harietta Boleski walks quickly, the sister can hardly keep by her side.
+She is tall, beautiful, very elegant. A large hat with floating lace veil
+thrown back and splendid earrings. A dark dress--pretty shoes.
+
+"She looks at the troops and the _piquet d'ex�cution_ a little
+disdainfully, and then she smiles gaily--it is almost a titter. The
+sister taps her gently on the shoulder, as if to recall her to a sense of
+order, but she makes one careless gesture and walks up to the post.
+
+"The bugles are sounding plaintively, slowly and more slowly all the
+time.
+
+"She pauses in front of us--and with us it is now, 'Does this make us
+feel something?' We must hold ourselves not to grow faint.
+
+"To see this woman go by with the trumpets sounding ever. To say to
+ourselves that in sixty seconds she will be no more. There will be no
+life in that beautiful body. Ah! that is an emotion, believe me!
+
+"Never has the great problem been brought more forcibly before my spirit.
+
+"It is during the second when she passes before me that I receive
+the most profound impression, more even than at the actual moment of
+the firing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is beside the post. The bugles stop their mournful
+sound. They tie her to it, but not tightly, only so that her fall may not
+be too hard. A gendarme presents her with a bandeau for her eyes, which
+she pushes aside with scorn.
+
+"And when an officer reads the sentence, Harietta Boleski smiles."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"At twelve yards the platoon is lined up. The sentence has been read.
+
+"Madame Boleski embraces the Sister of Charity, who is very overcome.
+She even whispers a few words to comfort her. They stand back from the
+post. The adjutant who commands the platoon raises his sword--the rifles
+come in into position--two seconds--and the sword falls!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"A salute!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Harietta Boleski is no more.
+
+"The fair body drops to earth and immediately an Adjutant of
+Dragoons goes swiftly to the post, revolver pointed, and gives the
+_coup de grace_.
+
+"_'Arme sur l'�paule--Droit. A droit. En avant. Marche!'_
+
+"And we file past the corpse while the trumpets recommence to sound.
+
+"Harietta Boleski is lying down. She seems to be only reposing, so
+beautiful she looks.
+
+"The ball had entered her heart (we knew this later) so that her death
+has been instantaneous.
+
+"All the troops have defiled before her now.
+
+"We regain our quarters.
+
+"But as we file into the courtyard the sun gilds the highest window of
+the fortress. The day has begun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus perished Harietta Boleski in the thirty-seventh year of her age--in
+the midst of the zest of life. The times are to strenuous for sentiment.
+
+So perish all spies!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn
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