"How ready people are with these eternal negatives," he thought as he sat down to his glass of wine.
Then he fell to speculating why Bowdon had told her about Jack Fenning and the thousand pounds, and why she had revealed that Bowdon had told her. To him the second question seemed the more difficult to answer, but he found an explanation, partly in her desire to defend or apologise for a certain bitterness towards Ora which she had betrayed, more perhaps in the simple fact that she was brimming over with the thing and could not restrain herself in the presence of one to whom her disclosure would be so interesting and significant. She had been tempted to show him that she knew more of the situation than he supposed, and must not be treated as an outsider when Ora and her affairs came up for discussion. Anyhow there the disclosure was, with its proof that, even although the eternal negative might be rashly asserted, for the time at all eventsOra had very materially affected other lives than his own.
"Of course I never expected to be where I am; at any rate not till much later."
Bertie Jewett was talking to Bowdon about his success and his new position; he talked unaffectedly enough, although perhaps it could hardly be said that he talked modestly. Perceiving that his remark had roused Ashley to attention, he went on, "Among other things, I've got to thank your dislike of a commercial life, Mead. That let me in, you see."
"Come, Ashley," laughed Bowdon, "here's something to your credit!"
"Really the exact train of circumstances that has resulted in putting me practically at the head of the concern is rather curious to consider," pursued Bertie. Bowdon listened with a tolerant, Ashley with a malicious smile. "It all seemed to be made so easy for me. I had only to wait, and all the difficulties cleared out of the way. I can talk of it because I had nothing to do with it, except taking what I was offered, I mean."
"Well, everybody's not equal to that, by any means," said Bowdon. "But certainly fortune's treated you well."
It was on Ashley's lips to say "You owe it all to Ora Pinsent." But the thing would have been absurd and quite inadmissible to say. Perhaps it was also rather absurd to think; he knew the trick he had of magnifying and extending his own whimsical view of events until it seemed to cover the whole field. None the less, an intimate knowledge of the circumstances, of the exact train of circumstances as Bertie put it, forbade him to rob Miss Pinsent of all credit for the result on which he and Bowdon were congratulating Mr. Jewett. Whyshould not poor Ora, towards whom so many people were bearing a grudge, have gratitude when she deserved it?
"The fact is," said Bowdon, tugging his moustache, "things happen very queerly in this world."
"After that startling observation, let's go into the garden and smoke," said Ashley, rising with a laugh.
In the garden Ashley talked to Lady Muddock, and had the opportunity of observing how a seventh heaven of satisfaction might be constructed without a single scrap of material which seemed to him heavenly. Such a spectacle should serve as a useful corrective for a judgment of the way of the world too personal and relative in character; it had on Ashley the perverse effect of increasing his discontent. If happiness were so easy a thing and placidity so simply come by, if nothing extraordinary were needed for them and nothing dazzling essential, why, what fools were people who went after the extraordinary and the dazzling, and yet in the end failed completely in their quest! And that you were a fool by your very nature was no comfort, but rather increased the hopelessness of the position.
"I can't help thinking how wonderfully everything has happened for the best," said Lady Muddock, her eyes resting on Alice and Bertie who were walking side by side, a few paces behind Bowdon and his wife.
"You're rather too optimistic for me," said Ashley with a laugh. "I think we do the world rough justice if we admit that most things happen for the second-best."
"We are taught—" Lady Muddock began.
"Yes, but, my dear Lady Muddock, we're most of us shocking bad pupils."
Lady Muddock made a few efforts to convert him to the creed of the best, in distinction from that of the second-best;but Ashley would not be persuaded. The idea of the second-best gained on him. What had happened to the little circle about him was certainly not ideal, yet it was not calamity; it could hardly claim to be tragedy, yet you were in danger of being brought up short by some sudden pang if you tried to laugh at it. It wanted then a formula to express its peculiar variety, its halting midway between prosperity and misfortune, between what one would have wished and what one might have had to take. The formula of the second-best seemed to suit it very well. Even his own individual position, of which he had not taken a sanguine view, fitted itself into the formula with just a little pressing and clipping and management. His life was not ruined; he found himself left with too many interests and ambitions, with too keen an appreciation of all that was going on about him, to yield to the hysteria of such a sentimental conclusion; but it was not, and now would not be, quite what he had once dreamed and even lately hoped. He took courage and decided that he need not fall below the formula of the second-best. And what of Ora? Would she also and her life fit into the formula? She had never fitted into any formula yet; here lay her charm, the difficulty and the hopelessness of her. But then the new formula was very elastic. She might find a second-best for herself, or accept one if it were offered to her.
In the notion that he has learnt or begun to learn the ways of the world and how to take it there lies a subtle and powerful appeal to a man's vanity. There is a delicate flavour in the feeling, surpassing the more obvious delights which may be gained from the proof of intellectual superiority or the consciousness of personal charm. It is not only that the idea makes himseem wiser than his fellows, for the conviction of greater wisdom would not appear to carry much pleasure; it makes him feel better-tempered, better-mannered, better-bred—if it may so be put, more of a gentleman. He is no longer one of the pushing jostling throng, eager to force a way into the front places, to have the best view of the show or the largest share of the presents which are to be distributed; he stands on the outskirts in cool leisureliness, smiling rather superciliously, not exactly happy, but convinced that any effort would turn his negative condition into a positive discomfort. Or the old metaphor of the banquet comes back into his mind; when the dish goes round he does not snatch at it; if it is long in coming, he feels and betrays no impatience; if it is finished before it reaches him, he waits for the next course, and meanwhile engages in polite conversation; he does not call out, nor make gestures, nor abuse the waiters (they are great folk in disguise). The rest of the company, who do all these things, commit gross breaches of taste; and although he may go home hungry he will be fed and warmed by the satisfaction of his graceful attitude and the glow of his suavity. Of course graceful attitudes are a little tiring and suavity is always more or less of a mask, but here it is that good-breeding finds its field and rewards him who displays it with its peculiar guerdon. Perhaps he would have liked the presents or the dishes, and he has not got them; but then his coat is not torn, his shirt is not crumpled, his collar is not limp. The successful betray all these unbecoming signs of a triumph in reality disgraceful; how have they the audacity to exhibit themselves red-faced, puffing, perspiring, hugging their prizes to their breasts and casting round furtive suspicious glances, fearful that they may still be robbed? Surelythe vulgarity of the means sticks to the end and soils that also?
Here were very ingenious arguments to prove that the second-best was in a true view the best; so treated and managed, the formula should surely assume new attractions?
But if a man be very hungry? The argument is not fairly put. He gets fed, though not on his favourite delicacy. But if he cannot eat rough fare? Well, in that case, so much the worse for him; he should not have a dainty stomach.
It is a long way from Kensington Palace Gardens to Charing Cross; there is time for many philosophical reflexions as a man walks from one to the other on a fine night. But at the end, when he has arrived, should his heart beat and his hand dart out eagerly at the sight of an envelope bearing an American postage stamp? Does such a paradox impugn his conclusions or merely accuse his weakness? Human nature will crop out, and hunger is hunger, however it may be caused. Perhaps these backslidings must be allowed; they come only now and then; they will not last, will at least come more seldom. The emptiness will not always vent angry abuse on the good manners which are the cause of it.
The letter was a long one, or looked long because it covered many pages—it was understamped, a circumstance prettily characteristic—but Ora wrote large, and there was not really a great deal in it. What there was was mostly about the play and the part, the flattering reception, the killing work, the unreasonableness of everybody else. All this was just Ora, Ora who was neither to be approved of, nor admired, nor imitated, but who was on no account to be changed. Ashleyread with the same smile which had shewn itself on his face when he commended the formula of the second-best to Lady Muddock's candid consideration. He came near the end. Would there be no touch of the other Ora, of his own special secret Ora, the one he knew and other people did not? There was hardly a touch; but just on the last page, just before the "yours, Ora," there came, "Oh, my dear, if only you were with me! But I seem to have got into another world. And I'm lonely, Ashley dear."
The great clock down at Westminster struck one, the hum of the town ran low, the little room was quiet. Perhaps moments like these are not the fittest for the formula of the second-best. Does it not, after all, need an audience to smile pleased and appreciative applause of it? Is it as independent, as grandly independent, as it sounds? Does it comfort a man when he is quite alone? Is it equal to fighting the contrasts between what is and what might have been?
"I seem to have got into another world. And I'm lonely, Ashley dear."
Heavens, how many worlds were there, that all his friends should be getting into others and leaving him alone in his?
By reason of the Government's blunders or of the Opposition's factiousness—the point awaits the decision of a candid historian in case he should deem it worth his attention—Parliament had to assemble in the autumn of this year; the Bowdons were back in town in November, the Commission met to wind up its work, and Ashley Mead was in dutiful attendance. Before this Irene had made up her mind that things were going tolerably, would go better, and in the end would turn out as well as could reasonably be expected. The recuperative effect of a vagrant autumn had produced a healthier state of feeling in her. She had begun to be less fretful about herself, less nervous and inquisitive about her husband; she had resigned herself to the course of events in a hopeful temper. Bowdon's bearing towards her was all that she could desire; it was losing that touch of exaggerated chivalry which had smacked of apology and remorse; it was assuming the air of a genuine and contented comradeship. She was inclined to think that their troubles were over. If one or two other things were over with the troubles, the principle of compensation must be accepted manfully. After all, love's alternate joy and woe is not the stuff to make a permanently happy home or the bestsetting for a useful public career; on the other hand, these can co-exist with a few memories of which one does not speak and a cupboard or two kept carefully locked.
Having brought herself to this point, and feeling both praiseworthy and sensible in attaining so much, she allowed herself some astonishment at Ashley Mead, who seemed to have started in an even worse condition and yet to have achieved so much more. He appeared to have passed a complete Act of Oblivion for himself, and to have passed it with a rapidity which (from one or other of the reasons above referred to) would have been quite impossible to the Legislature. Surely in him, if in anybody, the period of convalescence should have been long? Resolution is good, so is resignation, so are common-sense and strength of will; but there is a decency in things, and to recover too quickly from a folly confirms the charge of levity and instability incurred by its original commission. Ashley should not be behaving just for all the world as though nothing had happened; such conduct was exasperating to persons who had reason to know and to feel how much really had happened. To be cheerful, to be gay, to be prospering greatly, to be dining out frequently, to have suppressed entirely all hint of emotions lately so acute and even overpowering, was not creditable to him, and cheated his friends of a singularly interesting subject for observation and comment, as well as of a sympathetic melancholy to which they had perhaps allowed themselves to look forward. It was no defence that Irene herself aimed at what he appeared to have achieved, as at a far-off ideal; she had not been, to the knowledge of all London, desperately in love with Ora Pinsent; she had not thrown up brilliant business prospects, lost an admirable match, and seriously impairedher reputation in the eyes of all respectable people. Neither had she bribed Jack Fenning to go away at the cost of a thousand pounds.
"Surely all men aren't like that?" she cried with marked indignation.
She broke out on Ashley once when he came to tea and they chanced to be alone; he met her in a way which increased her annoyance.
"Well, what has happened after all?" he asked, leaning back in his chair and smiling at her. "I don't see that anything has. Ora has gone on a visit to America; from what I hear, a very successful visit. Presently, I suppose, she'll come back. A visit to America doesn't in these days mean a final separation from all one holds dear in the old country. I believe one almost always finds the man who lives next door in London dining at the same table in New York; then one makes his acquaintance."
"Do you ever hear from her? I never do."
"I hear from her every now and then. Oh, I admit at once what your look means; yes, not so often as at first." He laughed at the flush of vexation on Lady Bowdon's face. "I write seldomer too; I can do anything for a friend except carry on a correspondence."
"I expect every day to hear of Alice Muddock's engagement."
"Do you really think about it every day?" he asked, raising his brows. "What an eye you keep on your acquaintances!"
Was he genuine? Or was he only perfectly, coolly, securely on his guard? Irene felt baffled and puzzled; but it was bad enough that he should be able even to pretend so well to her; pretending that nothing had happened was not always easy.
"Do you think Ora will come back?" she asked. "If she's successful she may stay."
"Oh, she'll come," he nodded. "We shall have her back in Chelsea before six months are out."
"And when she does?"
Irene's curiosity had overcome her, but Ashley laughed again as he answered, "Ascribe what emotions you like to me, Lady Bowdon; but I haven't heard that Jack Fenning's health's failing."
There was some pretence about the attitude so puzzling and exasperating to Irene Bowdon, but more of reality. The passing of the months had brought a sense of remoteness; it was intensified by a gradual cessation of the interchange of letters. Ora had told him that she seemed to have got into another world and was lonely; she was, without doubt, still in another world; whether still lonely he could not tell. She was in all senses a long way off; what he had chosen, or at least accepted as the lesser evil, was happening; she and her life were diverging from him and his life. He recognised all this very clearly as he ate his chop at the club that evening. She had found him living one life; she had given him another while she was with him; she left him a third different from either of the other two. That evening, whether from some mood of his own or because of what Irene had said, she seemed irrevocably departed and separated from him. But even in that hour she was to come back to him so as to be very near in feeling though still across the seas in fact.
As he turned into his street about ten o'clock and approached the door of his house, he perceived a man walking slowly up and down, to and fro. There was something familiar in the figure and the gait; an indecision, a looseness, a plaintive weakness. UnconsciouslyAshley quickened his step; he had a conviction which seemed absurd and was against all probability; a moment would prove or disprove its truth. The man came under the gas lamp, stopped, and looked up at Ashley's windows. His face was plain to see now. "By God, it is!" whispered Ashley Mead, with a frown and a smile. A little more slinking, a little more slouching, a little more altogether destitute of the air which should mark a self-respecting man, but unchanged save for these intensifications of his old characteristics, Jack Fenning stood and looked up at the house whence he had once come out richer by a thousand pounds than when he went in. He seemed to regard the dingy old walls with a maudlin affection.
It was a pretty bit of irony that she should come back in this way; that this aspect of her, this side of her life, should be thrust before Ashley's eyes when all that he loved of her and longed for was so far away. Ashley walked up to Jack Fenning with lips set firm in a stiff smile.
"Well, Mr. Fenning, what brings you here?" he asked. "I've no more thousands about me, you know."
"I—I thought you might give me a drink for old friendship," said Jack. "They said you were out, and wouldn't let me sit in your room. So I said I'd come back; but I've been waiting all the time."
"If you don't mind what the drink's for, I'll give it you. Come along." He loathed the man, but because the man in a sense belonged to Ora he would not turn him away; curiosity, too, urged him to find out the meaning of an appearance so unexpected. With Ora in America, how could it profit Jack to make a nuisanceof himself in England? There was nothing to be got by that.
When they were upstairs and Jack had been provided with the evidence of friendship which he desired, Ashley lit his pipe, sat down by the fire, and studied his companion in silence for a few moments. Jack grew a little uncomfortable under the scrutiny; he was quite aware that he did not and could not stand investigation. But Ashley was thinking less of him than of what he represented. He had been just one of those stupid wanton obstacles, in themselves so unimportant, which serve to wreck fair schemes; he seemed to embody the perversity of things, and to make mean and sordid the fate that he typified.
"What do you want?" Ashley asked suddenly and abruptly. "I've got no more money for you, you know."
No doubt Jack was accustomed to this style of reception. It did not prevent him from telling his story. He lugged out a cheap broken-backed cigar from his breast-pocket and lit it; it increased the feeble disreputableness of his appearance.
"I'll tell you all about it, Mr. Mead," he said. "It may be worth your while to listen." But the sudden confidence of these last words died away quickly. "I hope to God you'll do something for me!" he ended in a whining voice.
This man was Ora Pinsent's husband.
"Go on," muttered Ashley, his teeth set hard on the stem of his pipe.
The story began, but proceeded very haltingly; Ashley had to draw it out by questions. The chief point of obscurity was as regards Jack's own intentions and motives. Why he had come to England remained invagueness; Ashley concluded that the memory of the thousand pounds had drawn him with a subtle retrospective attraction, although reason must have told him that no second thousand would come. But on the matter of his grievances and the sad treatment he had suffered from others Jack was more eloquent and more lucid. Everybody was against him, even his wife Ora Pinsent, even his own familiar friend Miss Daisy Macpherson. For Miss Macpherson had deserted him, had gone over to the enemy, had turned him out, and for lucre's sake had given information to hostile emissaries. And his wife ("My own wife, Mr. Mead," said Jack mournfully) was trying to get rid of him for good and all.
Ashley suddenly sat up straight in his seat as the narrative reached this point.
"To get rid of you? What do you mean?" he asked.
"There's a fellow named Flint—" said Jack between gulps at his liquor.
Of course there was! A fellow who did not despise nosings! That bygone talk with Babba leapt lifelike to Ashley's mind.
The fellow named Flint, aided by the basest treachery on the part of Miss Macpherson—why had she not denied all compromising facts?—had landed Mr. Fenning in his present predicament.
"What in the world is it you mean?" groaned Ashley.
"They've begun divorce proceedings," said Jack, with a desperate pull at the broken-backed leaky cigar. "My own wife, Mr. Mead."
"Upon my soul, you're a much-wronged man," said Ashley.
In the next few moments he came near to repenting his sarcastic words. Repentance would indeed havebeen absurd; but if every one were kicking the creature it was hard and needless to add another kick. He found some sorrow and disapprobation for the conduct of Miss Daisy Macpherson; it was ungrateful in her who had liked to be known as Mrs. Foster in private life.
"Babba Flint got round your friend, did he?" he asked. "Well, I suppose you've no defence?"
"I've got no money, Mr. Mead."
"That's the same thing, you know," said Ashley. "Well, what's the matter? How does it hurt you to be divorced?"
"I never tried to divorce her," moaned Jack.
"Never mind your conduct to your wife; we can leave that out."
"I was very fond of Miss Pinsent; but she was hard to me."
"I've nothing to do with all that. What do you want to resist the divorce for?" His tone was savage; how dare this creature tell him that he had been very fond of Ora Pinsent? Must her memory be still more defiled? Should he always have to think of this man when he thought of her? Jack shrank lower and lower in his chair under the flash of severity; his words died away into confused mutterings; he stretched out his hand towards the whiskey bottle.
"You're half drunk already," said Ashley. Jack looked at him for an instant with hazy eyes, and then poured out some liquor; Ashley shrugged his shoulders; his suggested reason had, he perceived, no validity. Jack drank his draught and leant forward towards his entertainer with a fresh flicker of boldness.
"I know what their game is, Mr. Mead," he said. "Daisy let it all out when we had our row."
"Whose game?"
"Why, Ora's, and that damned Flint's, and Hazlewood's."
"Will you oblige me in one point? If you will, you may have some more whiskey. Tell the story without mentioning Miss Pinsent."
Jack smiled in wavering bewilderment. Why shouldn't he mention Ora? He took refuge in an indeterminate "They," which might or might not include his wife.
"They mean to get rid of me, then their way's clear," he said with a nod.
"Their way to what?"
"To marrying her to Hazlewood," said Jack with a cunning smile. He waited an instant; his smile grew a little broader; he took another gulp. "What do you say to that, Mr. Mead?" he asked.
Several moments passed, Jack still wearing his cunning foolish smile, Ashley smoking steadily. What did he say to that? Babba had offered him the service of nosings; would he not, in an equally liberal spirit, put them at the disposal of Mr. Hazlewood? Hazlewood was a good fellow, but he would not be squeamish about the nosings. So far there was no improbability. But Ora? Was she party to the scheme? Well, she would gladly—great heavens, how gladly!—be rid of this creature; and the other thing would be held in reserve; it would not be pressed on her too soon. The same mixture of truth and pretence which had marked his talk with Irene Bowdon displayed itself in his answer to Jack Fenning.
"The most natural thing in the world," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Jack's face fell, disappointment and dismay were painted on it. His next remark threw some light on the hopes which had brought him to England.
"I thought you'd be obliged to me for the tip," he said mournfully.
Tips and nosings—nosings and tips!
"Good God, have you any notion at all of the sort of creature you are?" asked Ashley.
Jack giggled uncomfortably. "We're none of us perfect," he said. "I don't see that I'm worse than other people." He paused, and added again, "I thought you'd be obliged to me, Mr. Mead."
Ashley had fallen to thinking; now he asked one question.
"Does Miss Pinsent know you came here before?"
"Daisy gave away the whole thing," murmured Jack forlornly. "All about my being here and what you did; and Hazlewood saw me here, you know." He paused again, and resumed, "It's all pretty rough on me; I don't want to be troublesome, but they ought to do something for me."
"And they wouldn't, so you came to me?"
Jack wriggled about and finished his glass.
"Well, I won't, either," said Ashley.
"I've only got thirty shillings. There's a cousin of mine in Newcastle who might do something for me if I had a bit of money, but—"
"What have you done with the thousand?"
"Daisy clawed the lot," moaned Mr. Fenning.
It was surely a delusion which made Ashley feel any responsibility for the man; he had no doubt prevented Jack from rejoining his wife, but no good could have come of the reunion. Nevertheless, on the off-chance of there being a moral debt due, he went to the drawer of his writing-table and took out two bank-notes. It occurred to him that the proceeding was unfair to the cousin in Newcastle, but in this world somebody must suffer. Heheld out the notes to Jack. "Go," he said. Jack's eyes glistened as he darted out his hand. "Never come back. By heaven, I'll throw you downstairs if you ever come back."
Jack laughed weakly as he looked at the notes and thrust them into his pocket. He rose; he could still stand pretty steadily. "You understand? Never come back or—the stairs!" said Ashley, standing opposite to him and smiling at him.
"I won't trouble you again, Mr. Mead," Jack assured him.
"It's a case where the trouble would be a pleasure, but don't come all the same. You'd be a poor sort of man to be hanged for, you know."
Jack laughed more comfortably; he thought that he was establishing pleasant relations; but he was suddenly relegated to fright and dismay, for Ashley caught him by the shoulder and marched him quickly to the door, saying, "Now, get out." Jack glanced round in his face. "All right, I'm going, I'm going, Mr. Mead," he muttered. "Don't be angry, I'm going." He darted hastily through the door and stood for one instant at the top of the stairs, looking back over his shoulder with a scared expression. Ashley burst into a laugh and slammed the door; the next moment he heard Jack's shuffling steps going down.
"I must have looked quite melodramatic," he said as he flung himself down on his sofa. His heart was beating quick and the sweat stood on his brow. "Good God, what an ass I am!" he thought. "But I only just kept my hands off the fellow. How infernally absurd!" He got up again, relit his pipe, and mixed himself some whiskey-and-water. His self-respect demanded an immediate and resolute return to the planeof civilised life; an instinct to throw Jack Fenning downstairs, combined with a lively hope that his neck would be broken, was not civilised.
And was it grateful? His stiff smile came again as he declared that he ought to consider himself obliged to Jack and that the bank-notes were no more than a proper acknowledgment of services rendered. Jack's reappearance and Jack's news gave the fitting and necessary cap to the situation; they supplied its demands and filled up its deficiencies, they forbade any foolish attempt to idealise it, or to shut eyes to it, or to kick against the pricks. He had elected to have nothing to do with nosings; then he could not look to enjoy the fruits of nosing. The truth went deeper than that; he had been right in his calm bitter declaration that the thing of which Jack came to warn him was the most natural thing in the world. Ora, being in another world and being lonely, turned to the companionship her new world gave; like sought like. The thing, while remaining a little difficult to imagine—because alien memories crossed the mirror and blurred the image—became more and more easy to explain on the lines of logic, and to justify out of his knowledge of the world, of women and of men. It was natural, indeed he caught the word "inevitable" on the tip of his tongue. The whole affair, the entire course of events since Ora Pinsent had come on the scene, was of a piece; the same laws ruled, the same tendencies asserted themselves; against their sway and their force mere inclinations, fancies, emotions, passions—call them what you would—seemed very weak and transient, stealing their moment of noisy play, but soon shrinking away beaten before the steady permanent strength of these opponents. The problem worked out to its answer, the pieces fitted into the puzzle,until the whole scheme became plain. As Bowdon to his suitable wife, as Alice Muddock to her obvious husband, so now Ora Pinsent to the man who was so much in her life, so much with her, whose lines ran beside her lines, converging steadily to a certain point of meeting. Yes, so Ora Pinsent to Sidney Hazlewood. It would be so; memories of days in the country, of inn parlours, of sweet companionship, could not hinder the end; the laws and tendencies would have their way. The sheep had tried to make a rush, to escape to pleasant new browsing-grounds, the dog was on them in an instant and barked them back to their proper pens again.
"Only I don't seem to have a pen," said Ashley Mead.
When a thing certainly is, it is perhaps waste of time to think whether it is for the best, and what there may be to be said for and against it. But the human mind is obstinately plagued with a desire to understand and appreciate things; it likes to feel justified in taking up an amiable and acquiescent attitude towards the world in which it finds itself, it does not love to live in rebellion nor even in a sullen obedience. Therefore Ashley tried to vindicate the ways of fate and to declare that the scheme which was working itself out was very good. Even for himself probably a pen would be indicated presently, and he would walk into it. On a broader view the pen-system seemed to answer very well and to produce the sort of moderate happiness for which moderately sensible beings might reasonably look. That was the proper point of view from which to regard the matter; anything else led to an uncivilised desire to throw Jack Fenning downstairs.
Thus Jack Fenning vanished, but in the next dayor two there came the letter from Ora, the letter which was bound to come in view of the new things she had learnt. Ora was not exactly angry, but she was evidently puzzled. She gave him thanks for keeping Jack away from her, out of her sight and her knowledge. "But," she wrote, "I don't understand about afterwards; because you found out from Mr. Hazlewood things that might have made, oh, all the difference, if you'd told them to me and if you'd wanted them to. I don't understand why you didn't tell me; we could have done what's being done now and I should have got free. Didn't you want me free? I can't and won't think that you didn't really love me, that you wouldn't really have liked to have me for your own. But I don't know what else I can think. It does look like it. I wish I could see you, Ashley, because I think I might perhaps understand then why you acted as you did; I'm sure you had a reason, but I can't see what it was. When we were together, I used to know how you thought and felt about things, and so perhaps, if we were together now, you could make me understand why you treated me like this. But we're such a long way off from one another. Do you remember saying that I should begin to come back as soon as ever I went away, and that every day would bring me nearer to you again? It isn't like that; you get farther away. It's not only that I'm not with you now, but somehow it comes to seem as if I'd never been with you—not as we really were, so much together. And so I don't know any more how you feel, and I can't understand how you did nothing after what you found out from Mr. Hazlewood. Because it really would have made all the difference. I don't want to reproach you, but I just don't understand. I shall be travelling abouta lot in the next few weeks and shan't have time to write many letters. Good-bye."
It was what she must think, less by far than she might seem to have excuse for saying. He had no answer to it, no answer that he could send to her, no answer that he could carry to her, without adding a sense of hurt to the bewilderment that she felt. Of course too she forgot how large a share the play and the part, with all they stood for, had had in the separation and distance between them which she deplored as so sore a barrier to understanding. She saw only that there had been means by which Jack Fenning might have been cleared out of the way, means by which he was in fact now being cleared out of the way, and that Ashley had chosen to conceal them from her and not to use them himself. Hence her puzzled pain, and her feeling that she had lost her hold on him and her knowledge of his mind. Reading the letter, he could not stifle some wonder that her failure to understand was so complete. He would not be disloyal to her; anything that was against her was wrung from him reluctantly. But had she no shrinking from what was being done, no repugnance at it, no sense that she was soiled and a sordid tinge given to her life? No, she had none of these things; she wanted to be free; he could have freed her and would not; now Sidney Hazlewood and Babba Flint were setting her at liberty. He was far off, they were near; he was puzzling, their conduct was intelligible. She felt herself growing more and more separated from him; was she not growing nearer and nearer to them? The law ruled and the tendency worked through such incidents as these; in them they sprang to light and were fully revealed, their underlying strength became momentarily open and manifest. Theywould go on ruling and working, using the puzzle, the wound, the resentment, the separation, the ever-growing distance, the impossibility of understanding. These things blotted out memories, so that his very face would grow blurred for her, the tones of his voice dim and strange, the touch of his lips alien and forgotten. She would be travelling a lot in the next few weeks and would not have time to write many letters. He knew, as he read, that she would write no more letters at all, that this was the last to come from her to him, the last that would recall the intimate and sweet companionship whose ending it deplored with poor pathetic bewilderment. She did not see how they came to be so far apart and to be drifting farther and farther apart; she saw only the fact. Was it any easier for him to bear because he seemed to see the reason and the necessity?
So, "Good-bye," she ended; and it was the end.
He put the letter away in the drawer whence he had taken the bank-notes for Jack Fenning, drew a chair up to the table and, sitting down, untied the red tape round a brief which lay there. He began to read but broke off when he had read a few lines and sat for a moment or two, looking straight in front of him.
"Yes," he said, "there's an end of that." And he went on with the brief. It was indeed the most natural thing in the world.
"One unbroken round of triumph from the hour we landed to the hour we left," said Babba Flint. He was off duty, had dined well, and come on to Mrs. Pocklington's rather late; although perfectly master of himself, he was not inclined at this moment to think less well of the world than it deserved.
"Including the legal proceedings?" asked Irene Bowdon, studying the figure on her French fan.
"Well, we put them through all right; pretty sharp too." Babba looked at his companion with a droll air. "Fact is," he continued, "some of us thought it as well to fix the thing while we were on the other side; complications might have arisen here, you know."
"Oh, I know what you mean. It's her own look-out; I daresay Mr. Hazlewood will make a very good husband."
"He won't make much difference except in business matters," observed Babba composedly. "We all know that well enough." Babba did not seem to deplore the state of affairs he indicated.
"Does he—the man himself?" Her curiosity was natural enough.
"Lord love you, yes, Lady Bowdon. It's not like the other affair, you see. That wasn't business; thisis." He eyed Irene's face, which was rather troubled. "Best thing, after all," he added.
"I suppose so," said Irene, looking up with a faint smile.
"Oh, mind you, I'm sorry in a way. But if you won't pay the price, you don't acquire the article, that's all. I did it for Hazlewood, I'd have done it for Mead. But if you don't like being in large letters in the bills and the headlines, and being cross-examined yourself, and having her cross-examined, and having everybody—"
"In short, if you don't like going through the mud—"
"You've got to stay on the near side of the ditch. Precisely."
Irene sighed. Babba fixed his eye-glass and took a view of the room.
"I'm not Mead's sort," he continued, his eye roving round the while, "but I know how it struck him. Well, it didn't strike Sidney that way and I suppose it didn't strike her. Therefore—" He broke off, conceiving that his meaning was clear enough. "She's coming here to-night," he went on a moment later.
"And he's here."
"Situation!" murmured Babba, spreading his hands out.
"Oh dear no," said Irene scornfully. "We don't go in for situations in society, Mr. Flint. Isn't that Alice Muddock over there?"
"It is; and Jewett with her. Still no situation?" He smiled and twisted the glass more firmly in his eye. As he spoke Ashley Mead came up to Alice and Bertie, shook hands with both, talked to them for a moment and then passed on, leaving them alone together. Alicelooked after him for an instant with a faint smile and then turned her face towards her companion again.
"Your husband here?" asked Babba of Lady Bowdon.
"Yes, my husband's here," answered Irene. She nearly said, "My husband's here too," but such emphatic strokes were not needed to define a situation to Babba's professional eye. "He's somewhere in the crowd," she added.
"That's all right," said Babba, whether mirthfully or merely cheerfully Irene could not determine. Her next question seemed to rise to her lips inevitably:
"And what's become of Mr. Fenning?"
"Nobody knows and nobody cares," said Babba. "He doesn't count any longer, you see, Lady Bowdon. We've marked Jack Fenning off. Bless you, I believe Miss Pinsent's forgotten he ever existed!"
"She seems good at forgetting."
"What? Oh, yes, uncommon," agreed Babba rather absently; a pretty girl had chanced to pass by at the minute.
Irene was inclined to laugh. With all his eye for the situation Babba reduced it to absolutely nothing but a situation, a group, atableau, a pose of figures at which you stopped to look for a moment and passed on, saying that it was very effective, that it carried such and such an impression, and would hold the house for this or that number of seconds. It was no use for life to ask Babba to take it with the tragic seriousness which Irene had at her disposal.
"I wonder if she'll have forgotten me," she said.
"She always remembers when she sees you again," Babba assured her.
"Ought that to be a comfort to me?"
"Well, it would be good enough for me," said Babba, and he began to hum a tune softly. "After a year, you know, it's something," he broke off to add.
"Have you really been away a year?"
"Every hour of it, without including the time I was seasick," said Babba with a retrospective shudder. "Ah, here she comes!" he went on, and explained the satisfaction which rang in his tones by saying, "I see her most days, but she's always a good sight, you know."
As Irene watched Ora Pinsent pass up the room responding gaily to a hundred greetings, it occurred to her that Babba's was perhaps the truest point of view from which to regard her old acquaintance, her friend and enemy. In personal intercourse Ora might be unsatisfactory; perhaps it was not well to let her become too much to you; it was no doubt imprudent to rely on becoming or remaining very much to her. But considered as a "good sight," as an embellishment of the room she was in, of the society that knew and the world that held her, as an increase of beauty on the earth, as a fountain of gaiety, both as a mirror to picture and as a magnet to draw forth fine emotions and great passions, she seemed to justify herself. This was not to call her "nice" in Lady Muddock's sense; but it was really the way to take her, the only way in which she would fit into Irene's conception of an ordered universe. Ashley Mead had not, it seemed, been content to take her like that. Was the man who walked a few yards behind her, with his tired smile and his deep wrinkle, his carefully arranged effective hair, and his fifty years under decent control—was her new husband content to take her like that and to accept for himself the accidental character which she had the knack of imparting to her domestic relations? He was more respectable and more presentablethan Jack Fenning. Jack Fenning counted for nothing now; in truth did Mr. Hazlewood count for much more? Except, of course, as Babba had observed, in business matters.
Irene looked up with a little start; there had been a movement by her; she found Babba Flint gone and Ashley Mead in his place. His eyes left Ora and turned to her.
"Splendid, isn't she?" he said in a spontaneous unintended outburst.
"Yes; but—" Irene's fan moved almost imperceptibly, but its point was now towards Sidney Hazlewood. "Would you like it?" she asked in a half-whisper.
Ashley made no answer; his regard was fixed on Ora Pinsent. Ora was in conversation and did not perceive the pair who watched her so attentively. They heard her laugh; her face was upturned to the man she talked to in the old way, with its old suggestion of expecting to be kissed. Sidney Hazlewood had disappeared into the throng; yes, he seemed decidedly accidental, as accidental as Jack Fenning himself.
"There's my husband," said Irene, as Bowdon appeared from among the crowd and went up to Ora.
After a moment he pointed to where they were, and he and Ora came towards them together.
"Prepare to receive cavalry," said Irene with a nervous little laugh; the next instant her hands were caught in Ora's outstretched grasp. "What an age since I've seen you!" Ora cried, and kissed her very affectionately. She remembered Irene when she saw her again, as Babba had foretold.
The two women talked, the two men stood by and listened. Ora's greeting to Ashley had been friendly but quite ordinary; she did not say that it was an agesince she had seen him, but met him as though they had parted yesterday. The situation seemed to fade away; the sense that after all nothing had happened recurred to Irene's mind. Sidney Hazlewood instead of Jack Fenning—that was all! But a passing glance at Ashley's face changed her mood; the smile with which he regarded Ora was not the smile he used to have for her. He was admiring still (how should he not?), but now he was analysing also; he was looking at her from the outside; he was no longer absorbed in her.
"Oh, my trip all seems like a dream," said Ora. "A lovely dream! You must come and see the piece when we play it here."
They all declared that they would come and see the play; it and it alone seemed to represent her trip to Ora's mind; the legal proceedings and Mr. Hazlewood were not thought of.
"I had lots of fun and no trouble," said Ora.
Ashley Mead gave a sudden short laugh. It made Irene start and she fell to fingering her fan in some embarrassment; Bowdon's smile also was uncomfortable. Ora looked at Ashley with an air of surprise.
"He's laughing at me for something," she said to Irene. "I don't know what. Will you tell me if I come down to supper with you, Ashley?"
She still called him Ashley; Irene was definitely displeased; she thought the use of his first name decidedly unseemly under the circumstances.
"I'll try," said Ashley. Ora took his arm and waved a gay adieu. "Come and see me very soon," she called, and, as she turned away, she shot a glance at Bowdon. "You come too; you haven't been for—" She paused and ended with a laugh. "Well, for almost longer than I can remember."
The supper-room was not very full; they got a little table to themselves and sat down. It was away in a corner: they were in effect alone.
"What were you laughing at? Me?"
"Yes, of course," answered Ashley.
She looked at him with a rather distrustful and inquisitive glance.
"How funnily everything has turned out," she began rather timidly. It was just as he had expected her to begin.
"Funnily? Oh, I don't see that. I call it all very natural," he said.
"Natural!" Ora repeated, lifting her brows. Ashley nodded, and drank some champagne.
Ora seemed disappointed to find him taking that view. The expression of her face set him smiling again.
"I don't think I like you to laugh," she said. "It seems rather unkind, I think."
He raised his eyes to hers suddenly. "Then I won't laugh," he said, in a lower tone. "But I wasn't laughing in that way at all, really." He had, at all events, grown grave now; he pushed his chair a little back and leant his elbow on the table, resting his head on his hand.
"If I told you all about how it happened—" she began.
"Your letter told me," he interrupted. "I don't want you to tell me again."
Her eyes grew affectionate. She laid a hand on his arm.
"Was it hard, dear Ashley?" she whispered.
"I knew how it would be from the moment you went away," was his answer.
"Then why did you let me go?" she asked quickly, and, as he fancied, rather reproachfully. She seemed to snatch at a chance of excusing herself.
"You wanted to go."
Ora looked a little troubled; she knit her brows and clasped her hands; she seemed to be turning what he said over in her mind. She did not deny its truth, but its truth distressed her vaguely.
"It's no use bothering ourselves trying to explain things," Ashley went on more lightly. "It's all over now, anyhow." He was conscious of the old weakness—he could not cause her pain. His impulse even now was to make her think that she had been in all things right.
"Yes." Her dark eyes rested on his face a moment. "You liked it while it lasted?"
"Very much," he admitted, smiling again for a moment. "But it's over. I'm sorry it's over, you know."
"Are you, Ashley? Really sorry?" He nodded. "So am I," she said with a sigh.
He rose to his feet and she followed his example; but she would not let him take her back to where the people were, but made him sit down in a recess in the passage outside the drawing-room. She seemed to have fallen into a pensive mood; he was content to sit by her in silence until she spoke again.
"Sidney was very kind, and very helpful to me," she said at last. "I got to like him very much." She was pleading with Ashley in her praise of Hazlewood.
"Oh, yes, I know," he murmured. "Good heavens, you don't think I'm blaming you?"
He had said that to her before; she did not accept it so readily now.
"Yes, you are," she said, with a little temper."You've set me down for something—as some sort of person. I know you have. You may say that's not blaming, but it's just as bad."
He was surprised at her penetration.
"I suppose you always felt like that really, down in your heart," she added thoughtfully. "But you used to like me."
"I should rather think I did," said Ashley.
"You don't now?"
"Yes, I do."
"Not so much? Not in the same way?" A touch of urgency had come into her tone.
"Should you expect that? And I'm sure you wouldn't wish it."
"Some people go on caring always—whatever happens."
He leant forward towards her and spoke in a low serious voice.
"I shall never be able to think of my life without thinking of you," he told her. After a pause he added, "That's the truth of it, but I don't know exactly how much it comes to. A good deal, I expect; more than generally happens in such cases."
"You'll marry somebody!" The prospect did not seem to please her.
"Very likely," he answered. "What difference does that make? Whatever happens, you're there. You put yourself there, and you can't take yourself away again."
"I don't want to," said Ora, with all her old sincerity in the avowal of her feelings.
"Of course you don't," he said, with a faint smile. She had spoken seriously, almost pathetically, as though she were asking to be allowed to stay with him in somesuch way as he had hinted at; for the first time he recognised the look of appeal once so familiar. It brought to him mingled pain and pleasure; it roused a tenderness which made him anxious above all to say nothing that would hurt her, and to leave her happy and content with herself when they parted; this also was quite in the old fashion.
"Why, you'll stand for the best time and the best thing in my life," he said. "You'll be my holiday, Ora. But we can't have holidays all the time."
"We had some lovely days together, hadn't we? I'm not sure the first wasn't best of all. You remember?"
"Oh, yes, I remember."
"You're laughing again." But now Ora laughed a little herself. The cloud was passing away; she was regaining the serenity of which too much self-examination had threatened to rob her, and the view of herself as the passive subject of occurrences at which she, in common with the rest of the world, was at liberty to sigh or smile in a detached irresponsibility.
A man passed by and bowed, saying, "How do you do, Mrs. Hazlewood?"
"Isn't that funny?" asked Ora. "Nobody thinks of calling me Mrs. Hazlewood."
"I certainly shan't think of calling you anything of the kind," said Ashley.
She laughed, seemed to hesitate a little, but then risked her shot.
"You wouldn't have expected me to be called Mrs. Mead, would you?" she asked.
"No, I shouldn't," he answered with a smile. The whole case seemed to be stated in her question. She not only would not have been called, but she would not really have been, Mrs. Mead—not in any sense whichwas of true importance. Neither had she been Mrs. Fenning; neither was she Mrs. Hazlewood; she was and would remain Ora Pinsent.
"Of course I don't mind it," Ora went on, with a smile whose graciousness was for both her actual husband in the drawing-room and her hypothetical husband in the recess. "But somehow it always sounds odd." She laughed, adding, "I suppose some people would call that odd—your friend Alice Muddock, for instance."
"I haven't the least doubt that Alice Muddock would call it very odd."
"She never liked me really, you know."
"Well, perhaps she didn't."
"But she did like you, Ashley."
"She certainly doesn't," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Oh, you'd never have got on with her," said Ora scornfully. Then she jumped up suddenly, crying, "There's Babba, I want to speak to him." But before she went, she said one word more. "You were the truest finest friend, Ashley. And I wasn't worthy." She looked at him in appeal. "No, not worthy," she repeated. "I think Alice Muddock's right about me." She threw out her hands in the saddest little protest, dumbly accusing the Power that had made her what she was. "I think you could still break my heart by being unhappy," said Ashley Mead. She gave him a little wistful smile, shook her head, and walked quickly away. Her voice rose gaily the next moment, crying, "Babba, Babba!" And that was all Babba's situation came to.
There was in fact no situation; there was only a state of things; so Ashley decided as he sat on alone. Perhaps rather a strange state of things, but certainly no more than that. Her being here in town, liable to bemet, having to be spoken to, being again a presence as well as a memory—all this made his position different from what it had been while she was over seas. But stranger still was the knowledge that, however often she were met and spoken to, the presence would be and would rest different from the memory. He had recognised the possibility that all which had come to him in the months of separation would vanish again at her living touch and that the old feelings would revive in their imperious exclusive sway. He had known that this might happen; he had not known whether he hoped or feared its happening; because, if it happened, there was no telling what else might happen. Now he became aware that it would not happen, and (perhaps this was strangest of all) that the insuperable obstacle came from himself and not from her. She had not ceased, and could not cease, to attract, amuse, and charm, or even to be the woman with whom out of all women he would best like to be. But here the power of her presence stopped; it owned limits; it had not a boundless empire; that belonged now only to the memory of her. It was then the memory, not the presence, which he would always think of when he thought of his life, which would be the great thing to him, which would abide always with him, unchanged, unweakened, unspoilt either by what she was now or in the future might be. She was beyond her own power; herself, as she had been to him, she could neither efface nor mar. He had idealised her; he was rich in the possession of the image his idealising had made; but the woman before his eyes was different or seen with different eyes. As this came home to his mind, a sense of relief rose for a moment in him; he hailed its appearance with eagerness; but its appearance was brief; it was drowned in a sense ofloss. He was free; that was the undoubted meaning of what he felt; but he was free at a great cost. It was as though a man got rid of his fetters by cutting off the limb that carried them.
He strolled back into the drawing-room. The throng had grown thin. Alice Muddock and Bertie Jewett were gone; Alice had kept out of Ora's way. Babba Flint was just saying good-bye; the Bowdons, Ora, and Hazlewood were standing in a group together in the middle of the room. He noticed that Hazlewood shifted his position a little so as to present a fullback view. Really Hazlewood need not feel uncomfortable. Hazlewood as an individual was of such very small importance. However Ashley did not thrust his presence on him, but went off and talked for a few moments with his hostess. Meanwhile the group separated; Ora came towards Mrs. Pocklington, Hazlewood following. Ashley hastily said his own farewell and sauntered off; Ora waved her hand to him with her lavish freedom and airy grace of gesture, calling, "Good-night, Ashley!" Hazlewood exchanged a nod with him; then the pair passed out.
In the hall Bowdon suggested that they should walk a little way together, the night being fine. Irene knew well why they wanted to walk together, but got into her carriage without objection; she had no more to fear from Ora. As for Ashley, so for her Ora's work lay in the past, not in the present or the future. The difference in her life, as in his, had been made once and for all; nothing that came now could either increase it or take it away. Her fears, her jealousy, her grudge, were for the memory, not for the presence.
The two men who had wanted to talk to one another walked in silence, side by side. But presently the silence seemed absurd, and they spoke of trivial matters. Then came silence again.