"I don't know what you mean," he said, seeking to draw her out.
"Oh, things carry you away; and you like it. You don't want to get to a comfortable place and stay there. I'm not saying anything you mind?"
"No. I don't think so, at least."
She glanced at him full for a moment as she said,
"I never think anything you'd mind, Ashley." Then she went on hastily. "But you must be prepared to see Bertie Jewett in great prosperity—a big house and so on—and to know it might all have been yours."
"I'm prepared for that," he said absently. He did not at all realise the things he was abandoning.
"But of course you'll get on. You'll be something better than rich."
"Perhaps, if I don't—don't play the fool."
"You keep calling yourself a fool to-day. Why do you? You're not a fool."
"It's only a way of speaking and not quite my own way, really," he laughed. "It means if I don't enjoy life a little instead of spoiling it all by trying to get something that isn't particularly well worth having; it means, in fact, if I don't allow scope to my artistic temperament." It meant also if he did not spend more days in the country with Ora Pinsent; for though he did not (as he had hinted) call that folly to himself, he was now on his defence against a world which would call it folly with no doubtful voice, and would exhort him earnestly to imitate Lord Bowdon's decisive measures of self-protection. It was in the power of this clear-sighted girl thus to puthim on his defence, even in the full swing of his attraction towards Ora Pinsent; better than anyone, she could shew him the other side of the picture. He fell into a silence occupied with puzzled thoughts. She grew grave, except for a sober little smile; she was thinking that it was easy to be wise for others, for all the world except herself; while she was playing the judicial prudent friend to him, the idea of another part was in her head. There may be hope without expectation; it would not have been human in her to hope nothing from this talk in the garden, to build no fancies on it. But she rebuked her imagination; whatever it was that filled his mind—and his occasional air of distraction had caught her notice—she had little share in it, she knew that well.
"The talk at lunch wasà propos," she said presently. "I'm going to call on Miss Pinsent this afternoon."
"You're going to call—?" The surprise was plain in his voice. This sudden throwing of the two together seemed an odd trick of circumstances! His tone brought her eyes quickly round to him and she looked at him steadily.
"Why not? She asked me. I told you so," she said. Ashley could not deny it; he shrugged his shoulders. "Shan't I like her?"
"Everybody must like her, I think," he answered, awkward, almost abashed. But then there came on him a desire to talk about Ora, not so much to justify himself as to tell another what she was, to exhibit her charm, to infect a hearer with his own fever. He contrived to preserve a cool tone, aiming at what might seem a dispassionate analysis of a fascination which everybody admitted to exist; but he was at once too copious and too happy in his description and his images. The girl beside him listened with that little smile; it could not be merry,she would not let it grow bitter, but schooled it to the neutrality of polite attention. She soon saw the state of his mind and the discovery was hard for her to bear. Yet it was not so hard as if he had come to tell her of an ordinary attachment, of a decorous engagement to some young lady of their common acquaintance, and of a decorous marriage to follow in due course. Then she would have asked, "Why her and not me?" With Ora Pinsent no such question was possible. Neither for good nor for evil could any comparison be drawn. And another thought crept in, although she did not give it willing admittance. Ora was not only exceptional; she was impossible. Impossibility might be nothing to him now, but it could not remain nothing forever. The pain was there, but the disaster not irrevocable. Among the somewhat strange chances which had marked the life of Mr. Fenning there was now to be reckoned a certain shamefaced comfort which he all unwittingly afforded to Alice Muddock. But Alice was not proud of the alliance.
Ashley broke off in a mixture of remorse and embarrassment. His description could not be very grateful to its hearer; it must have come very near to betraying its utterer. Alice did not pretend that it left her quite in the dark; she laughed a little and said jokingly:
"One would think you were in love with her. I suppose it's that artistic temperament again. Well, this afternoon I'll look and see whether she's really all you say. The male judgment needs correction."
As their talk went on he perceived in her a brightening of spirits, a partial revival of serenity, a sort of relief; they came as a surprise to him. The lightness with which she now spoke of Ora appeared, to a large degree at least, genuine. He did not understand that sheattributed to him, in more sincerity than her manner had suggested, the temper which had formed the subject of their half-serious half-jesting talk. Her impression of him did not make him less attractive to her; he was not all of the temper she blamed and feared; he had, she persuaded herself, just enough of it to save him from the purely ribbon-selling nature and (here came the point to which she fondly conducted herself) to give her both hope and patience in regard to her own relations with him. She could not help picturing herself as the fixed point to which he would, after his veerings, return in the end; meanwhile his share of the temperament excused the veerings. Lady Kilnorton had forced the game with entire apparent success, but Alice's quick eyes questioned the real completeness of that victory. She would play a waiting game. There was no question of an orthodox marriage with the young lady from over the way or round the corner, an arrangement which would have been odious in its commonplace humiliation and heart-breaking in its orderly finality. But Ora Pinsent was not a finality, any more than she was the embodiment of an orderly arrangement. That fortunate impossibility which attached to her, by virtue of Jack Fenning's existence, forbade despair, just as her fascination and her irresistibility seemed to prevent humiliation and lessen jealousy. The thing was a transient craze, such as men fell into; it would pass. If she joined her life to Ashley Mead's she was prepared (so she assured herself) for such brief wanderings of allegiance, now and then; as time went on, they would grow fewer and fewer, until at last she conquered altogether the tendency towards them. "And she must be ten years older than I am," her reflections ended; that the real interval was but seven did not destroy the importance of the point.
Having offered Ashley a lift to Piccadilly, she went off to get ready, and presently Bowdon, who had called to pick up Irene, strolled into the garden for a cigarette.
"Hullo, what are you doing here? You ought to be making your living," he cried good-humouredly.
"I've been throwing it away instead," said Ashley. "Should you like to be a partner in Muddock and Mead?"
"A sleeping one," said Bowdon with a meditative pull at his moustache.
Ashley explained that he would have been expected to take an active part. Bowdon evidently thought that he ought to have been glad to take any part, and rebuked him for his refusal.
"Take the offer and marry the girl," he counselled. "She'd have you all right, and she seems a very good sort."
"I don't feel like settling down all of a sudden," said Ashley with a smile.
They walked side by side for a few paces; then Bowdon remarked,
"Depend upon it, it's a good thing to do, though."
"It's a question of the best date," said Ashley, much amused at his companion. "Now at your age, Lord Bowdon—"
"Confound you, Ashley, I'm not a hundred! I say it's a good thing to do. And, by Jove, when it means a lump of money too!"
A pause followed; they walked and smoked in silence.
"Good creatures, women," remarked Bowdon.
Ashley did not find the remark abrupt; he traced its birth. Alice had left much the same impression behind her in his mind.
"Awfully," he answered; there was in his voice alsoa note of remorse, of the feeling that comes when we cannot respond to a kindness so liberally as it deserves.
"Of course they aren't all alike, though," pursued Bowdon, as though he were reasoning out an intricate subject and coming on unexpected conclusions. "In fact they differ curiously, wonderfully."
His thoughts had passed, or were passing, from Irene Kilnorton to Ora Pinsent; obedient to this guidance Ashley's followed in a parallel track from Alice Muddock to Ora Pinsent.
"They're charming in different ways," said he with a slight laugh. Bowdon shewed no signs of mirth; he was frowning a little and smoked rather fast.
"And men are often great asses," he observed a few moments later. Again Ashley had kept pace, but his face was more doubtful than his companion's and there was hesitation in his voice as he replied,
"Yes, I suppose they are."
This subterranean conversation, shewing above ground only faint indications of what it really meant to each of the talkers, had carried them to the end of the garden. Turning round at the fence, they saw Irene and Alice walking towards them, side by side. Both ladies were well dressed, Irene rather brilliantly, Alice with quiet, subdued good taste; both seemed attractive, Irene for her bright vivacity and merry kindness, Alice for her strength of regard and a fine steady friendliness. A man who was fortunate enough to gain either of them would win a wife of whom he might justly be proud when he talked with the enemy in the gate, and moreover would enjoy an unusually good prospect of being happy in his own house. The man who had won one, and the man who could, if he would, win the other, approached them in a slow leisurely stroll.
"Yes, great asses," repeated Bowdon in a reflective tone.
"I didn't say we weren't," protested Ashley Mead with an irritated laugh.
They would have found a most heartfelt endorsement of the view which they reluctantly adopted, had Sir James Muddock known how small a share of Ashley's visit had been honestly devoted to a consideration of the advantages of a partnership in Muddock and Mead, and how much larger a part had been given to a subject concerning which Sir James could have only one opinion.
When Alice Muddock reached Ora's little house in Chelsea and was shewn into the drawing-room, she found herself enjoying an introduction to Mr. Sidney Hazlewood and forced to shake hands with Babba Flint. Hazlewood struck her favourably; there was a repressed resolution about him, a suggestion of being able to get most of what he might happen to want; no doubt, though, his desires would be limited and mainly professional. Babba was, as usual, quite inexplicable to her and almost intolerable. The pair had, it seemed, come on business, and, after an apology, Ora went on talking business to them for fully a quarter of an hour. She was in a businesslike, even a commercial money-grubbing mood; so were the men; amid a number of technical terms which fell on Alice's ignorant ears the question of what they would make was always coming uppermost. There was indeed a touch of insincerity in Ora's graspingness; it did not seem exactly affectation, but rather like a part for which she was cast on this occasion and into which she threw herself with artistic zeal. She had to play up to her companions. There was in her neither the quiet absorption in the pecuniary aspect which marked Mr. Hazlewood, nor the tremulous eagerness with which Babba counted imaginary thousands, the fruit of presupposed successes. Hazlewood, a clean-shaven hard-lined man of close onfifty, and Babba with his long moustache, his smooth cheeks, his dandiness, and his youth, treated Ora exactly in the same way—first as a possible partner, then as a possible property. They told her what she would make if she became a partner and how much they could afford to pay her as a property if she would hire herself out to them. Ora had her alternative capacities clearly grasped and weighed their relative advantages with a knowing hand. Alice thought it a strange scene by which to make her first more intimate study of the irresistible impossible Miss Pinsent, the Miss Pinsent of uncontrollable emotions and unknowable whims. What images the world made of people! Yet somehow, in the end, had not the world a way of being just right enough to save its credit?
At last the conference appeared to be about to break up. Alice was almost sorry; she could have gone on learning from it.
"Only remember," said Mr. Hazlewood, "that if we do make a deal, why, it is a deal!"
Ora began to laugh; an agreement was an agreement, she remembered, and a deal, by parity of reasoning, a deal. Hazlewood's wrinkle clamoured for seriousness; hard money was at stake, and over that surely even genius could look grave.
"Oh, she won't want to cry off this," said Babba with a sagacious nod.
Alice had never known how Babba lived (any more than she knew why). It appeared now that he supported himself by speculations of this description; she fancied that he asserted himself so much because the other two seemed to consider him, in the end, rather superfluous; more than once he had to remind them that he was indispensable; they yielded the point good-naturedly.She was interrupted in her thoughts by Hazlewood, who made a suave remark to her and held out his hand with a low bow. Ora was chaffing Babba about a very large flower in his buttonhole.
"Is Miss Pinsent a good woman of business?" Alice asked in an impulse of curiosity.
Hazlewood glanced at Ora; she was entirely occupied with Babba.
"Miss Pinsent," said he, with his overworked but still expressive smile, "is just exactly what you happen to find her. But if you call often enough, there'll come a time when you'll find her with a good head on her shoulders."
Alice felt vaguely sorry for Mr. Hazlewood; it must be wearing to deal with such unstable quantities. She could imagine herself exchanging sympathy with him on the vagaries of the artistic temperament; would she grow a wrinkle, of brow or of heart, over Ashley Mead? Or had she grown one?
"Well, you've had a lot of experience of her, haven't you?" she asked, laughing, and wondering what he thought of Ora. His answer expressed no great affection.
"Good Lord, yes," he sighed, furrowing his brow again.
Ora darted up to him, put an arm through his, and clasped her hands over his sleeve.
"Abusing me?" she said, turning her face round to his. For a moment Alice thought that she was going to kiss him and hoped vaguely she would not; but she felt that she did not know the etiquette; it might be usual.
"Telling the truth," said Mr. Hazlewood with stout courage; then with pronounced gallantry he raised hisarm with Ora's hands on it and kissed one of the hands; his manner now was quite different from his business manner of a few moments ago; his eyes were different too, hardly affectionate, but very indulgent.
"He likes me really, you know, though I worry him dreadfully," said Ora to Alice.
Babba came up; he had been arranging the big flower before a mirror.
"Seen Lady Kilnorton lately? She's brought it off with Bowdon, I hear," he said to Alice.
"She's engaged to Lord Bowdon," said Alice stiffly.
"Deuced lucky woman," observed Babba, blind to the rebuke which lay in Alice's formality of phrase.
"Take him away," Ora commanded Mr. Hazlewood. "We've done with him and we don't want him any more. We aren't sure we like him."
"Oh, come now, I ain't a bad chap, Miss Pinsent," pleaded Babba piteously.
"We're not at all sure we like him," said Ora inexorably. "Take him away at once, please, Mr. Hazlewood." And Hazlewood led him out, protesting bitterly.
For a moment or two Ora moved about, touching the furniture into the places in which she wanted it, and fingering the flowers in the vases. Then she came quickly to Alice, sat down by her side, and cried expansively,
"It's really charming of you to come. And you're like—you're like something—Oh, I don't know! I mean you're a lovely change from those men and their business and their money."
"I like Mr. Hazlewood."
"Oh, so do I. But my life's so much Mr. Hazlewood. Why did you come?"
"You asked me," said Alice.
"Yes, I know, but I hardly thought you'd come." She darted back to the previous conversation. "I'm going to make a lot of money, though, and then I'm going to have a long holiday, and a villa somewhere in Italy."
"Oh, they won't let you rest long."
"It won't be very long really, because I shall spend all the money," Ora explained with a smile. "Let's have some tea."
She rang, and tea was brought by a very respectable middle-aged woman. Ora addressed her maid as Janet and gave her a series of orders; Janet listened to them with a non-committal air, as though she would consider whether they were reasonable or not, and act according to her conclusion. Alice noticed that she called her mistress "Ma'am;" the reference to Mr. Fenning was very indirect, but it was the first that Alice had ever heard made in Ora's presence. It seemed to her also that Janet laid some slight emphasis on the designation, as though it served, or might be made to serve, some purpose besides that of indicating the proper respect of a servant. She found herself wondering whether Janet dated from the time when Mr. Fenning was still a present fact and formed a member of the united Fenning household (which, by the way, was an odd entity to contemplate). If that were the case, a conversation with Janet might be very interesting; knowledge might be gained about the bulwark; Alice had begun to look on Mr. Fenning as a bulwark—and to tell herself that she did no such thing.
A large number of photographs stood on the mantel-piece and about the room, most of them signed by their originals. Many were of men; one might be of Mr.Fenning. A silver frame stood on a little table just by the sofa. Alice's intuitive perception told her that here was Ora's favourite place; her traditions caused her to conclude that the frame (its back was towards her) held Mr. Fenning's portrait. She was not undiplomatic, only less diplomatic than many other women; she took a tour of inspection, saying how pretty the room was and declaring that she must look closer at the photograph of an eminent tragedian on the opposite wall. Her return movement shewed her the face of the portrait which she had guessed to be Mr. Fenning's; it was that of her friend Ashley Mead.
"Yes," said Ora, "he sent me that yesterday. I was so glad to have it."
"You gave him a return?" asked Alice with a careless laugh, the laugh appropriate to the moment.
"He chose one and I wrote on it. Sugar, Miss Muddock?"
Alice took sugar.
"You've known him ever so long, haven't you?" asked Ora, handing the cup.
"Ages, ever since we were children. He's very nice and very clever."
"I've only known him quite a little while." Ora paused and laughed. "Some people would say that's why his picture's in the place of honour."
"You like change?" asked Alice. Ashley liked change also. But Ora made her old defence.
"People change, so of course I change to them." The explanation did not quite satisfy herself. "Oh, I don't know," she said impatiently. "Anyhow I haven't left off liking Ashley yet. I may, you know."
Alice, conscious that she herself in her hostess' position would have said "Mr. Mead," tried to make the obviousallowances; it was just like that clasping of the hands round Hazlewood's arm, just like the air of expecting to be kissed. Fully aware of insurgent prejudices, she beat them down with a despotic judgment; she would not follow in the wake of her stepmother nor adopt the formulas of Minna Soames. Curiously enough Ora was in somewhat the same or a parallel state of mind, although she did not realise it so clearly. She too was struggling to understand and to appreciate. She was sure she would be friends with Miss Muddock, if she could get within her guard; but why did people have guards, or why not drop them when other people shewed themselves friendly? You might have to keep the Babba Flints at their distance, no doubt, but even that was better done by ridicule than by stiffness.
"We still see a good deal of him," said Alice, "although he has an immense lot of engagements. He generally comes to lunch on Sunday."
Ora reflected that he had not followed his usual practice on one Sunday. Alice went on to give a brief description of Ashley's general relation to the Muddock family, and referred to her father's wish that he should enter the business.
"He came to talk to me about it to-day," she said, "but it wouldn't suit him in the least, and I told him so."
"Oh, no, it wouldn't," cried Ora. "I'm so glad you told him right."
Their eyes met in a sudden glance. Did they both know so much of Ashley Mead, of his tastes, his temper, and what would suit him? An embarrassment arrested their talk. Alice was conscious that her hostess' eyes rested on her with an inquisitive glance; it had just occurred to Ora that in meeting this girl she hadencountered a part of the life of Ashley Mead hitherto unknown to her. "What part? How much?" her eyes seemed to ask. She was not jealous of Alice Muddock, but she was inclined to be jealous of all that life of Ashley's of which she knew nothing, which her visitor had shared. With a sudden longing she yearned for the inn parlour where he had no other life than a life with her; the sudden force of the feeling took her unawares and set her heart beating.
She came again to Alice and sat down by her; silence had somehow become significant and impossible.
"I like your frock," she said, gently fingering the stuff. "At least I like it for you. I shouldn't like it for me."
The relativity of frocks, being, like that of morals, an extensive and curious subject, detained them for a few moments and left them with a rather better opinion of one another. Incidentally it revealed a common scorn of Minna Soames, who dressed as though she were stately when she was only pretty; this also knit them together. But they progressed nearer to liking than to understanding one another. Small points of agreement, such as the unsuitability of the business to Ashley and the inappropriateness of her gowns to Minna Soames, made intercourse pleasant but could not bridge the gulf between them; they were no more than hands stretched out from distant banks.
Alice began to talk of Irene Kilnorton and Bowdon. While attributing to them all proper happiness and the finality of attachment incidental to their present position, she told Ora, with a laugh, that they had all seen how much Bowdon had been struck with her.
"I think he did like me," said Ora with a ruminative smile. "He's safe now, isn't he?" she added a momentlater. The thought had been Alice's own, but it needed an effort for her to look at it from Ora's point of view. To be a danger and to know yourself to be a danger, to be aware of your perilousness in a matter-of-fact way, without either exultation or remorse, was a thing quite outside Alice's experience. On the whole to expect men to fall in love with you and to be justified in this anticipation by events would create a life so alien from hers that she could not realise its incidents or the state of mind it would create.
"I like Lord Bowdon," said Ora. "But—" she paused and went on, laughing, "He's rather too sensible for me. He'll just suit Irene Kilnorton. But really I must write and tell him to come and see me. I haven't seen him since the engagement."
"You'd much better not," was on the tip of Alice's tongue, but she suspected that the impulse to say it was born of her still struggling prejudices. "Ask them together," she suggested instead.
"Oh, no," said Ora pathetically. "He'd hate it."
Alice did not see exactly why he should hate it. Engaged people always went about together; surely always?
"Were you ever engaged?" Ora went on.
"Never," said Alice with a laugh.
"I've been—well, of course I have—and I hated it."
With curiosity and pleasure Alice found herself on the threshold of the subject of Mr. Fenning. But Ora turned aside without entering the hidden precincts.
"And I'm sure I should hate it worse now. You wouldn't like it, would you?"
"I should like it very much, if I cared for the man."
"Well," Ora conceded, "he might make it endurable,if he treated it properly. Most men look so solemn over it. As soon as they've got you, they set to work to make you think what a tremendous thing you've done. As if that was the way to enjoy yourself!" She paused, seemed to think, smiled out of the window, and then, turning to Alice, said with an innocence evidently genuine, "Ashley Mead would make it rather pleasant, I think."
The trial was sudden; Alice had no time to put on her armour; she felt that her face flushed. Again their eyes met, as they had when it was agreed that the business would not suit Ashley. The glance was longer this time, and after Alice turned away Ora went on looking at her for several moments. That was it, then; Irene Kilnorton had not spoken idly or in ignorant gossip. What she had said fell short of truth, for she had spoken of an alliance only, not of love. Now Ora knew why the girl talked so much of Ashley; now she knew also why the girl shewed such interest in herself. Yes, the rich Miss Muddock would be Ashley's wife if she were wooed; besides being rich she was pleasant and clever, and knew how to dress herself. (This last moral quality ranked high in Ora's list.) Such an arrangement would be in all ways very beneficial to Ashley. She wondered whether Ashley knew how entirely the game was in his own hands. She felt a sudden and sore pity for Alice, who had been so cordial and so pleasant and whose secret she had heedlessly surprised. The cordiality seemed very generous; there was in it a challenge to counter-generosity. In an instant the heroic idea of giving him up to Alice flashed through her brain. This fine conception was hardly born before she found herself asking wrathfully whether he would consent to leave her.
Alice was herself again; she said that she thought Mr. Mead might make an engagement very pleasant, but that such a relation to him would perhaps not be very exciting to her, since she had known him all her life. This suppression of emotion was not to Ora's taste; it burked a scene to which her instinct had begun to look forward. But as generosity would be at this point premature (even if it should ever become tolerable) she was forced to acquiesce. A little later Alice took her leave with increased friendliness and a pressing invitation to Ora to come and see her at Kensington Palace Gardens when there was no party and they could have another quiet talk together.
Surrender—or the inn parlour? Generosity or joy? As an incidental accompaniment, correctness or incorrectness of conduct? These alternatives presented themselves to Ora when she was left alone. Therôleof renunciation had not only obvious recommendations but also secret attractions. How well she could play it! She did not exactly tell herself that she could play it well—the temperament has its decent reticences—but she pictured herself playing it well and wished for an opportunity to play it. She would have played it beautifully for Irene Kilnorton's benefit, had that lady asked her assistance instead of taking the matter into her own resolute hands. She would have sent Bowdon away with an exhortation to see his own good and to forget her, with a fully adequate, nay, a more than ample, confession of the pain the step was causing her, but yet with a determination which made the parting final and Irene's happiness secure. All this vaguely rehearsed itself in her brain as she lay on the sofa beside Ashley Mead's portrait in its silver frame. And her subsequent relations both with Irene and withBowdon would have been touched with an underlying tenderness and sweetened by the common recollection of her conduct; even when he had become quite happy with Irene, even when he had learnt to thank herself, he would not quite forget what might have been.
Having arrived at this point, Ora burst into a laugh at her own folly. All that went very well, so very smoothly and effectively, grouped itself so admirably, and made such a pretty picture. But she took up the photograph in the silver frame and looked at it. It was not Bowdon's likeness but Ashley Mead's; the question, the real question, was not whether she should give up Bowdon; fate was not complaisant enough to present her with a part at once so telling and so easy. It was not Bowdon with whom she had spent a day in the country, not Bowdon who had been with her in the inn parlour, not Bowdon who, Alice Muddock thought, might make an engagement very pleasant. The grace of self-knowledge came to her and told her the plain truth about her pretty picture.
"What a humbug I am!" she cried, as she set down the photograph.
For the actual opportunity was very different from the imagined, as rich in effect perhaps, but by no means so attractive. She still liked her part, but the rest of the cast was not to her taste; she could still think of the final interview with a melancholy pleasure, but, with this distribution of characters, how dull and sad and empty and intolerable life would be when the final interview was done! The subsequent relations lost all their subdued charm; underlying tenderness and common recollections became flat and unprofitable.
"An awful humbug!" sighed Ora with a plaintive smile.
Why were good things so difficult? Because this thing would be very good—for him, for poor Alice, for herself. A reaction from the joy of Sunday came over her, bringing a sense of fear, almost of guilt. She recollected with a flash of memory what she had said to Jack Fenning when they parted in hot anger. "You needn't be afraid to leave me alone," she had cried defiantly, and up to now she had justified the boast. She had been weary and lonely, she had been courted and tempted, but she had held fast to what she had said. Her anger and her determination that Jack should not be in a position to triumph over her had helped to keep her steps straight. Now these motives seemed less strong, now the loneliness was greater. If she sent Ashley away the loneliness would be terrible; but this meant that the danger in not sending him away was terrible too, both for him and for her. As she sank deeper and deeper in depression she told herself that she was born to unhappiness, but that she might at least try not to make other people as unhappy as she herself was doomed to be.
While she still lay on the sofa, in turns pitying, reproaching, and exhorting herself, Janet came in.
"A letter, ma'am," said Janet. "Your dinner will be ready in ten minutes, ma'am."
"Thanks, Janet," said Ora, and took the letter. The handwriting was not known to her; the stamp and postmark were American; Bridgeport, Conn., the legend ran. "I don't know anybody in Bridgeport, or in Conn.—Conn.?—Oh, yes, Connecticut," said Ora.
The silver frame stood crooked on the table. Ora set it straight, looked at the face in it, smiled at some thought, sighed at the same or some other thought, and lazily opened the letter from Bridgeport, Conn.; shesupposed it was a communication of a business kind, or perhaps a request for a photograph or autograph.
"My dear Ora, I have had an accident to my hand, so get a friend to write this for me. I am here in a merchant's office, but have had a bit of luck on Wall Street and am in funds to a modest extent. So I am going to take a holiday. I shall not come to England unless you give me leave; but I should like to come and see you again and pay you a visit. How long I stayed would depend on circumstances and on what we decided after we had met. A letter will find me here for the next month. I hope you will send one inviting me to come. I would write more if I could write myself; as it is I will only add that I am very anxious to see you and am sure I can set right any mistakes that there have been in the past. Write as soon as you can. Yours affectionately, Jack."
She turned back to the envelope:—"Miss Ora Pinsent." The friend who wrote Jack's letter probably did not know that he was writing to Jack's wife. Janet knew Jack's writing, but not the writing of Jack's friend. In secrecy and privacy Jack's letter had come. She laid it down beside the portrait in the silver frame, and lay back again quietly with wide-opened eyes. The clock ticked away ten minutes; dinner was ready; she lay still.
Had people a right to rise from the dead like this? Were they justified, having gone out of life, in coming back into it under cover of a friend's handwriting and a postage stamp? They had parted for ever, Jack and she, most irrevocably, most eagerly, most angrily. A few lines on a sheet of note paper could not change all that. He had been dead and gone; at least he had existed only as a memory and as—she hardly liked tosay an encumbrance—as a check, as a limiting fact, as a difficulty which of necessity barred her from ordering her doings just as she might have liked to order them. Now he proposed suddenly to become a fact, a presence, a part of her again, and stole a hearing for this proposal in the insidious disguise of a friend's handwriting. How he chose his time too! In wild fancy she imputed to him a knowledge of the curious appositeness of his letter's arrival. It came just when she was unhappy, torn with doubts, feeling low, yes, and feeling guilty; just after the revelation of Alice Muddock's feelings, just after the day in the country, just while she was saying that, for weal or woe, she could not send Ashley Mead away. At such a moment she would not have opened the letter had she known it for his; but he had had an accident to his hand and the unknown writing had gained him access.
Janet came in again.
"Your dinner is ready, ma'am," she said, and went on, "These have come for you, ma'am," laying a nosegay of roses on the little table beside the portrait in the silver frame, and the letter from Bridgeport, Conn.
Ora nodded; there was no need to ask whence the roses came; they were of the colour she had declared her favourite by the river bank on Sunday. "I'll come to dinner directly," she said, and seeing Janet's eye on the letter, she forgot that it was in a friend's handwriting and pushed it under the nosegay till the roses hid it. There was nothing to be seen on the table now but the roses of the colour she loved, and the picture in its silver frame.
To toy with material symbols of immaterial realities is pretty enough work for the fancy or the pen. The symbols are docile and amenable; the letter can bepushed under the roses till their blooms utterly conceal it, and neither you nor anybody else can see that it is there. The picture you do not care about can be locked away in the drawer, the one you love placed on the little table by your elbow as you sit in your favourite seat. Unhappily this artistic arrangement of the symbols makes no difference at all to the obstinate realities. They go on existing; they insist on remaining visible or even obtrusive; audible and even clamorous. The whole thing is a profitless trick of the fancy or the pen. Although the letter was pushed under the roses, Jack Fenning was alive in Bridgeport, Conn., with a desire to see his wife in his heart, and his passage money across the Atlantic in his pocket.
As Ora drove down to the theatre that night, she moaned, "How am I to play with all this worrying me?" But she played very well indeed. And she was sorry when the acting was over and she had to go back to her little house in Chelsea, to the society of the letter and the roses. But now there was another letter: "I am coming to-morrow at 3. Be at home. A. M."
"What in the world am I to do?" she asked with woeful eyes and quivering lip. It seemed to her that much was being laid on the shoulders of a poor young woman who asked nothing but to be allowed to perfect her art and to enjoy her life. It did not occur to her that the first of these aims is accomplished by few people, that at any rate a considerable minority fail in the second, and that the fingers of two hands may count those who in any generation succeed in both. The apparent modesty of what she asked of fortune entirely deceived her. She sat in her dressing-gown and cried a little before she got into bed.
Ashley Mead did not take the week's consideration which Sir James had pressed on him. The same evening he wrote a letter decisively declining to assume a place at the helm in Buckingham Palace Road. Sir James, receiving the letter and handing it to Alice, was disappointed to meet with no sympathy in his expressed views of its folly. He was nearly angry with his daughter and frankly furious against Ashley. He was proud of his daughter and proud of his business; the refusal left him very sore for both. As soon as he reached his office he gave vent to his feelings by summoning Bertie Jewett to his presence and offering him the position to whose attractions Ashley had been so culpably blind.
Here there was no refusal. A slim, close-built, dapper little fellow, with a small fair moustache and small keen blue eyes, full of self-confidence, perfectly self-controlled, almost sublimely industrious, patiently ambitious, Bertie turned away from no responsibilities and let slip no opportunities. He knew himself Bob Muddock's superior in brains; he had known of, and secretly chafed against, the proposed intrusion of Ashley Mead. Now he was safe, and fortune in his hands. But to Bertie the beauty of firm ground was not that you can stand still on it and be comfortable, but that it affords a good "take-off" when you want to clear an obstacle which lies between you and a place even more desirablein your eyes. Sir James explained the arrangements he proposed to make, his big share, Bob's moderate share, Bertie's small share; the work, as is not unusual, was to be in an inverse ratio to the share. Then the old man approached the future. When he was gone there was a sum of money and a big annuity for Lady Muddock; subject to that, Bob was to have two-fifths of his father's share to add to his own; the rest was to be Alice's. In that future time Alice's share would be nearly as big as Bob's; the addition of another small share would give it preponderance. Bertie's blue eye was very keen as he examined the nature of the ground he had reached and its capacities in the way of "take-off." But on going forth from Sir James' office, he could at first do little but marvel at the madness of Ashley Mead; for he knew that Ashley might have taken what he had just received, and he suspected that the great jump he had begun to meditate would have been easy to Ashley. For incontestably Alice had shown favour to Ashley—and had not shown favour to Bertie Jewett.
Bob and Bertie lunched together at Bob's club that day, the occasion allowing a little feasting and relaxation from toil. The new project touching Alice was not even distantly approached, but Bertie detected in Bob a profound dissatisfaction with Ashley Mead. Ashley's refusal seemed to Bob a slur on the business, and concerning the business he was very sensitive. He remarked with mingled asperity and satisfaction that Ashley had "dished himself all round." The "all round" indicated something besides the big block in Buckingham Palace Road, and so was significant and precious to Bertie Jewett.
"Naturally we aren't pleased," Bob said, assuming toexpress the collective views of the family. "Fact is, Ashley's got a bit too much side on, you know."
Bertie Jewett laughed cautiously.
"He doesn't like the shop, I suppose!" Bob pursued sarcastically.
"I'm sorry Sir James is so much annoyed about it," remarked Bertie with apparent concern.
"He'll see what a fool he's made of himself some day," said Bob. Alice was in his mind, but went unmentioned.
Bob's opinion was shared in its entirety by Irene Kilnorton, who came over to express it to Alice as soon as the news reached her through Bowdon. Bowdon had heard it from Ashley himself, they being together on the business of the Commission. Irene was amazed to find Alice on Ashley's side and would allow no merit to her point of view.
"Oh, no, it's all wrong," she declared. "It would have been good for him in every way; it would have settled him."
"I don't want him settled," said Alice. "Oh, if you knew how tired I get of the business sometimes! Besides it will make Mr. Jewett so happy. He takes Ashley's place, you know, though father won't give him as big a share as he'd have given Ashley."
"Well, I shall tell Mr. Mead what I think of him." She paused, hesitating a moment as to whether she should say a disagreeable thing or not. But she was annoyed by Alice's attitude and decided to say it. "Not that he'll care what I say or what anybody says, except Ora Pinsent," she ended.
"Won't he?" asked Alice. She felt bound to interject something.
"What a creature she is!" cried Irene. "When Iwent to see her this morning, I found her in tears. What about? Oh, I don't know. But I spoke to her sensibly."
"Poor Miss Pinsent!"
"I said, 'My dear Ora, I suppose you've done something silly and now you're sorry for yourself. For goodness' sake, though, don't ask me to be sorry for you.'"
"Had she asked you?" said Alice with a smile. Lady Kilnorton took no notice of the question.
"I suppose," she went on scornfully, "that she wanted to be petted. I wasn't going to pet her."
"I think I should have petted her. She'd be nice to pet," Alice remarked thoughtfully.
Irene seemed to lose patience.
"You don't mean to say that you and she are going to make friends?" she exclaimed. "It would be too absurd."
"Why shouldn't we? I liked her rather; at least I think so."
"I wish to goodness that husband of hers would come back and look after her. What's more, I said so to her; but she only went on crying more and more."
"You don't seem to have been very pleasant," Alice observed.
"I suppose I wasn't," Irene admitted, half in remorse. "But that sort of person does annoy me so. As I was saying to Frank, you never know where to have them. Oh, but Ora doesn't mind it from me."
"Then why did she cry more and more?"
"I don't know—unless it was because I reminded her of Mr. Fenning's existence. I think it's a good thing to do sometimes."
"Perhaps. I'm not sure, though, that I shouldn't leave it to Mr. Fenning himself."
"My dear, respectability goes for something. The man's alive, after all."
Alice knew that he was alive and in her heart knew that she was glad he was alive; but she was sorry that Ora should be made to cry by being invited to remember that he was alive. Irene was, presumably, happy with the man she had chosen; it was a good work leaning towards supererogation (if such were possible) when she took Ora's domestic relations under her wing. She hinted something of this sort.
"Oh, that's what Ashley Mead says; we all know why he says it," was Irene's mode of receiving the good advice.
A pause followed; Irene put her arm through Alice's and they began to walk about the garden. Lady Muddock was working at her embroidery at the open window; she was pronouncedly anti-Ashleyan, taking the colour of her opinions from her husband and even more from Bob.
"Where's Lord Bowdon?"
"Oh, at his tiresome Commission. He's coming to tea afterwards. I asked Mr. Mead, but he won't come."
"You'll be happier alone together."
Irene Kilnorton made no answer. She looked faintly doubtful and a trifle distressed. Presently she made a general remark.
"It's an awful thing," she said, "to undertake—to back yourself, you know—to live all your life with a man and never bore him."
"I'm sure you couldn't bore anybody."
"Frank's rather easily bored, I'm afraid."
"What nonsense! Why, you're making yourself unhappy just in the same way that Miss Pinsent—"
"Oh, do stop talking about Ora Pinsent!" cried Irene fervently. Then she gave a sudden apprehensive glance at her companion and blushed a little. "I simply meant that men wanted such a lot of amusing," she ended.
In recording her interview with Ora, Irene had somewhat exaggerated her brutality, just as in her reflexions about her friend she exaggerated her own common-sense. Ora drove her into protective measures; she found them in declaring herself as unlike to Ora as possible. In reality common-sense held no disproportionate or disagreeable sway in her soul; if it had, she would have been entirely content with the position which now existed, and with her relations towards Bowdon. There was nothing lacking which this vaunted common-sense could demand; it was stark sentimentality, and by consequence such folly as Ora herself might harbour and drop tears about, which whispered in her heart, saying that all was nothing so long as she was not for her lover the first and only woman in the world, so long as she still felt that she had seized him, not won him, so long as the mention of Ora's name still brought a look to his face and a check to his talk. It was against herself more than against Ora that she had railed in the garden; Ora had exasperated her because she knew in herself a temper as unreasonable as Ora's; she harped on Ora's husband ill-naturedly—as she went home, she confessed she had been ill-natured—because he who was to be her husband had dreamt of being Ora's lover. Even now he dared not speak her name, he dared not see her, he could not trust himself. The pledge his promised bride had wrung from him was safeso long as he did not see or let himself think of Ora. It was thus that Irene read his mind.
She read it rightly—to his own sorrow and remorse—rightly. He was surprised too. About taking the decisive step he had hesitated; except for circumstances rather accidentally provocative, perhaps he would not have taken it. But its virtue and power, if and when taken, he had not doubted. He had thought that by binding his actions with the chain of honour he would bind his feelings with the chain of love, that when his steps could not wander his fancy also would be tethered, that he could escape longing by abstinence, and smother a craving for one by committing himself to seem to crave for another. The maxims of that common-sense alternately lauded and reviled by Irene had told him that he would be successful in all this; he found himself successful in none of it. Ora would not go; her lure still drew him; as he sat at his Commission opposite to his secretary at the bottom of the table, he was jealous of his secretary. Thus he was restless, uncomfortable, contemptuous of himself. But he was resolute too. He was not a man who broke faith or took back his plighted word. Irene was to be his wife, was as good as his wife since his pledge was hers; he set himself to an obstinate fulfilment of his bargain, resolved that she should see in him nothing but a devoted lover, ignorant that she saw in him the thing which above all he wished to hide. Such of Ora's tears as might be apportioned to the unhappiness she caused to others were just now tolerably well justified, whatever must be thought of those which she shed on her own account. Here was Bowdon restless and contemptuous of himself, Irene bitter and ashamed, Alice with no surer, no more honest, comfort than the precarious existence of Mr. Fenning,Sir James Muddock (Ora was no doubt partly responsible here also) grievously disappointed and hurt; while the one person who might be considered to owe her something, Mr. Bertie Jewett, was as unconscious of his debt as she of his existence; both would have been surprised to learn that they had anything in the world to do with one another. But after all most of Ora's tears were for herself. Small wonder in face of that letter from Bridgeport, Connecticut!
Bowdon wished to be married very soon; why wait, he asked; he was not as young as he had been; it would be pleasant to go to the country in August man and wife. In fine the chain of honour gave signs of being strained, and he proposed to tie up the other leg with the fetters of law; he wanted to make it more and more impossible that he should give another thought to anybody except his affianced wife. In marriage attachment becomes a habit, daily companionship strengthens it; surely that was so? And in the country, or, better still, on a yacht in mid-ocean, how could anything remind him of anybody else? But Irene would not hasten the day; she gave many reasons to countervail his; the one she did not give was a wild desire that he should be her lover before he became her husband. So on their feigned issues they discussed the matter.
"The end of July?" he suggested. It was now mid-June.
"Impossible, Frank!" she cried. "Perhaps November."
In September and October Ora would be away. Two months with Ora away, absolutely away, perhaps forgotten! Irene built hopes high on these two months.
"Not till November!" he groaned. The groansounded well; but it meant "Don't leave me free all that time. Tie me up before then!"
"Ashley Mead seems obstinate in his silly refusal of Sir James Muddock's offer," she said, anxious to get rid of the conflict.
"Why should he take it?" asked Bowdon. "He can get along very well without it; I don't fancy him at the counter."
"Oh, it's so evidently the sensible thing."
"I've heard you tell him yourself not to go and sell ribbons."
How exasperating are these reminders!
"I've grown wiser in ever so many ways lately," she retorted with a smile.
There was an opening for a lover here. She gave it him with a forlorn hope of its acceptance.
"Yes; but I'm not sure it's a good thing to grow so very wise," he said. Then he came and sat by her.
"You mustn't be sentimental," she warned him. "Remember we're elderly people."
He insisted on being rather sentimental; with a keen jealousy she assessed his sincerity. Sometimes he almost persuaded her; she prayed so hard to be convinced; but the wish begot no true conviction. Then she was within an ace of throwing his pledge back in his face; but still she clung to her triumph with all its alloy and all its incompleteness. She had brought him to say he loved her; could she not bring him in very truth to love? Why had Ora but to lift a finger while she put out all her strength in vain? It would not have consoled her a whit had she been reminded of Ora's tears. Like most of us, she would have chosen to win and weep.
As Bowdon strolled slowly back through the Park,repeating how charming Irene was and how wise and fortunate he himself was, he met Ashley Mead. Ashley was swinging along at a good pace, his coat-tails flying in the wind behind him. When Bowdon first saw him he was smiling and his lips were moving, as though he were talking to himself in a pleasant vein. In response to his friend's hail, he stopped, looked at his watch, and announced that he had ten minutes to spare.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" asked Bowdon. Ashley looked openly happy; he had an air of being content with life, of being sure that he could make something satisfactory out of it, and of having forgotten, for the time being at all events, any incidental drawbacks which might attend on it. Bowdon was smitten with an affectionate envy, and regarded the young man with a grim smile.
"Going to see a lady," said Ashley.
"You seem to be making a day of it," observed Bowdon. "In the morning you refuse a fortune, in the afternoon—"
"Oh, you've heard about the fortune, have you? I've just been down to Buckingham Palace Road, to congratulate young Jewett on being in—and myself on being out. Now, as I mentioned, Lord Bowdon—"
"Now you're on your way to see Miss Pinsent?"
"Right; you've guessed it, my lord," laughed Ashley.
"You don't seem to be ashamed of yourself."
"No, I'm not."
"You know all about Mr. Fenning?"
"Well, as much as most of us know about him. But I don't see why I shouldn't take tea with Miss Ora Pinsent."
Bowdon turned and began to walk slowly along beside Ashley; Ashley looked at his watch again and resignedhimself to another five minutes. He owed something to Bowdon; he could spare him five of Ora's minutes; to confess the truth, moreover, he was a little early, although he had made up his mind not to be.
"Jewett's the ablest little cad, I know," said Ashley. "At least I think he's a cad, though I can't exactly tell you why."
"Of course he's a cad," said Bowdon, who had dined with Bob Muddock to meet him.
"There's no salient point you can lay hold of," mused Ashley; "it's pervasive; you can tell it when you see him with women, you know; that brings it out. But he's got a head on his shoulders."
"That's more than can be said for you at this moment, my friend."
"I'm enjoying myself very much, thank you," said Ashley with a radiant smile.
"You won't be for long," retorted Bowdon, half in sorrow, half in the involuntary malice so often aroused by the sight of gay happiness.
"Look here, you ought to be idiotic yourself just now," Ashley remonstrated. Then out came his watch again. The sight of it relieved Bowdon from the fear that he had betrayed himself; evidently he occupied no place at all in his companion's thoughts.
"Be off," he said with rueful good-nature. "Only don't say I didn't tell you."
Ashley laughed, nodded carelessly, and set off again at his round pace. But presently the round pace became intolerably slow, and he hailed a hansom. He was by way of being economical about hansoms, often pointing out how fares mounted up; but he took a good many. He was soon landed at the little house in Chelsea.
Ora was not in the room when Janet ushered him in. "I'll tell my mistress, sir," said Janet gravely, taking up a smelling-bottle which stood on Ora's little table and carrying it off with her. Blind to this subtle indication that all was not well in the house, Ashley roamed about the room. He noticed with much satisfaction his portrait in the silver frame and his roses in a vase; then he looked at the photographs on the mantel-piece; falling from these, his eyes rested for a moment in idleness on a letter which bore the postmark "Bridgeport, Conn."
"Ah, here she is!" he cried, as a step sounded and the door-handle was turned. Ora entered and closed the door; but she did not advance towards him; the smelling-bottle was in her hand.
"I wrote you a note telling you not to come," she said.
"Thank heaven I didn't get it," he answered cheerfully. "I haven't been home since the morning. You can't send me away now, can you?"
Ora walked slowly towards the sofa; he met her half-way and held out both his hands; she gave him one of hers in a listless despairing fashion.
"Oh, I know!" said he. "You've been making yourself unhappy?"
She waved him away gently, and sat down.
"What was in the note you wrote me?" he asked, standing opposite to her.
"That I could never see you again," she said.
"Oh, come!" Ashley expostulated with a laugh. "That's rather summary, isn't it? What have I done?"
"Irene Kilnorton has been here."
"Ah! And was she disagreeable? She is sometimes—from a sense of duty or what she takes for it."
"Yes, she was disagreeable."
"If that's all—" he began, taking a step forward.
"That's not all," Ora interrupted. "Are my eyes red?"
"You've not been crying?"
"Yes, I have," she retorted, almost angrily. "Oh, why did I go with you on Sunday? Why did you make me go?"
She seemed to be conscience-stricken; he drew up a chair and sat down by her. She did not send him away now but looked at him appealingly. She had something of the air that she had worn in the inn parlour, but there joy had been mingled with her appeal; there was no joy in her eyes now.
"We didn't do much harm on Sunday," he said.
"I believe I'm preventing you doing what you ought to do, what all your friends wish for you, what would be best for you. It's just like me. I can't help it."
"What are you preventing me from doing?"
"Oh, you know. Irene says you are quite getting to like her. And she's so nice."
"But Lady Kilnorton's engaged already."
"You know I don't mean Lady Kilnorton. Don't make fun now, Ashley, don't."
Ashley leant forward suddenly and kissed her cheek.
"Oh, that's not the least use," she moaned disconsolately. "If that was all that's wanted, I know you'd do it." A mournful smile appeared on her lips. "But it only makes it worse. I've made up my mind to something."
"So have I. I've made up my mind that you're the most charming woman in the world, and that I don't care a hang about anything else."
"But you must, you know. We must be reasonable."
"Oh, I see Irene Kilnorton's been very disagreeable!"
"It's not Irene Kilnorton."
"Is it my true happiness, then?"
"No," said Ora, with another fugitive smile. "It's not exactly your true happiness."
"Well, then, I don't know what it is."
Ora was silent for a moment, her dark eyes filled with woe.
"There's a letter on the mantel-piece," she said. "Will you give it to me?"
He rose and took the letter. "This one from America?" he asked. "I say, you're not going off there, starring, are you? Because I shall have to come too, you know."
"No, I'm not going there." She took the letter out of its envelope. "Read it," she said, and handed it to him.
Somehow, before he read a word of it, the truth flashed into his mind. He looked at her and said one word: "Fenning?"
She nodded and then let her head fall back on the sofa. He read the letter carefully and jealously; that it was written by a friend's hand no doubt prevented Jack Fenning from saying more, as he himself hinted; yet the colourlessness and restraint of what he wrote were a comfort to Ashley.
He laid the letter down on the table and looked for a moment at his own picture. Ora's eyes were on him; he leant forward, took her hand, and raised it to his lips.
"Poor dear!" said he. Then he folded the letter, put it in its envelope, laid the envelope on the mantel-piece, read Bridgeport, Conn., again on the postmark, and, turning, stood looking down on her. He had not got quite home to the heart of the situation. All that day long, as it seemed to him, there had been ineffectual efforts tostop him, to turn him from his path, and to rescue him from the impulses which were carrying him along. The Buckingham Palace Road proposal, Irene Kilnorton's hints, Alice Muddock's presence, had all been as it were suggestions to him; he had not heeded the suggestions. Now came something more categorical, something which must receive attention and insisted on being heeded. Mr. Fenning had suddenly stepped out of vagueness into definiteness, out of a sort of hypothetical into a very real and pressing form of existence. He was now located in space at Bridgeport, Connecticut; he was palpable in his written message; he became urgent for consideration by virtue of his proposal. Ashley had, in his heart, not taken Mr. Fenning very seriously; now Mr. Fenning chose to upset his attitude in that respect in a most decisive fashion. For whatever Ora decided to do, there must from now be a difference; Ashley could not doubt that. She might accept her husband's proposal; in that case her whole life was changed and his with it. She might refuse to have anything to do with it; but then would not the discarded but legitimate claimant on her affections and her society force her and him out of the compromise under which they now sheltered themselves? Either way, Jack Fenning must now be reckoned with; but which was to be the way?
With a curious sense of surviving ignorance, with an uncomfortable recognition that he was only at the beginning of the study and on the outskirts of a knowledge of the woman whom he already loved and held nearest to him of anybody in the world, Ashley discovered that he had no idea in which way Ora would face the situation, what would be her temper, or what her decision. For the first time in their acquaintance a flash of discomfort, almost of apprehension, shot across his mind.Was she as alien, as foreign, as diverse from him as that? But he would not admit the feeling, would not have it or recognise it; it was absurd, he told himself, to expect to foresee her choice, when he knew so little of the factors which must decide it. Did he know Fenning, had he been privy to their married life? Not in her but in the nature of the case lay the puzzle. He dismissed his doubt and leant down towards the sad beautiful face beside him.
"Well, dear?" he asked, very gently.
"I'm going to tell him to come," said she.