"Father," said Alice Robinson the next morning at the breakfast-table, "I want you to find some more portraits for us. This whole month has to be given up to the big thing for the Academy, and then we shall come to a stop for the present, at any rate so far as immediately remunerative work is concerned, and you must not forget we have a heavy rent to pay now."
"I shall certainly keep my weather eye open," declared Mr. Robinson, "and my ears too. Portraits in oils are rather the thing just now in the City, and I daresay we shall be able to find something for you."
"That is nice of you, father. I think I am just beginning to like you."
Mr. Robinson smiled, and looked across at her affectionately. "You know it is my greatest pleasure to work for you both," he said.
Alice bore his gaze heroically, sustained by the curious satisfaction she felt at having thus set the never-failing machinery in motion. But his trusting belief that all was well touched the tenderest chords of her nature. She longedto throw herself into his arms, to tell him the terrible truth. But why cause him suffering when she still hoped to avert it from everybody, and let the whole burden rest on her shoulders alone? She must do nothing abrupt, nothing to cause any trouble or scandal; above all, she must pay the most watchful regard to the peace of those around her.
For she had seen the quietest and simplest solution of the tangle; nobody but herself need suffer a single pang! Since she had endured so much, she might now as well offer herself for the sake of everybody else's happiness.
Such had been her dominating thought, as she had lain thinking through the night. And the moment had come when she held the solution clear in her mind. How glad she was that she had decided to live! Her parents had been spared a cruel grief, and her affianced husband would be left to his happiness without any alloy of remorse or tragic memories.
There was only one worthy and rational path before her. She must break with Wyndham and leave him free. Mr. Shanner wanted her; she would give herself to Mr. Shanner. His ashen figure, gray-clad, rose before her, wistful, pleading, pathetic. She remembered his touch of sentiment, his hint of deeper feeling—how he would have treasured her promise; how he would have looked forward to "the new light to shine in his household."He was good and honourable; full of kind actions. She knew that Mr. Shanner had not found felicity in his first marriage. After all, if she could bring somebody a little happiness she might as well do so; and she could make this ostensibly the ground for her action. She and Wyndham were unsuited to each other—could anything be truer? She had made a mistake, since she now found she cared for Mr. Shanner, who reciprocated the sentiment, and for whom, as regards upbringing and ideas, she would make so much more suitable a wife. That was less true, and, after her surrender of the evening before to her ignobler side, she now loathed the idea of playing a further part. But the fiction that she cared for Mr. Shanner, and her actual marriage with him, constituted in essence the sacrifice that the position demanded of her. To Mr. Shanner she could atone by incessant devotion—she would illumine the light in his household he had spoken of so yearningly; her parents would be spared all but the first painful surprise; to Wyndham the break would come as a splendid release. It would restore to him his honour and self-respect, since in his eyes, and in the world's eyes, she would be taking all the blame for his freedom.
Wyndham had told her that Lady Lakeden was leaving England indefinitely, and that he did not know when he was likely to see heragain. But Alice now did not believe that. That was part of the wall he had been building behind which to pursue his romance; she had tested things far enough to feel sure of it. And even if Lady Lakeden was really going to travel for a time, there would be correspondence between them, and their relations would be renewed on her return. Since he loved this woman he should be free to love her openly.
And all the world would be left at peace!
In the days before she had come into his consciousness, had she not longed and prayed in vain for the joy of helping him to rise again; had she not dreamed of stretching out a helping hand across the abyss that separated them, telling herself that that alone would mean supreme happiness for her? It now came strongly upon her that that mission had been granted her, and the knowledge that she had achieved it should help her to be strong! Had not her love for him held a perfect unselfishness? Was not her goal his happiness before everything? Ah, there was far too much self in the earthly love of woman for man. This note of self, at first so carefully suppressed, had yet asserted itself insidiously. Yes, that had been the cause of all her suffering—poignant, shattering, almost beyond human endurance. It had been wrong of her; she ought to have kept closer watch over herself. She had not meant to be a source of pain and embarrassmentto him. To burden his life with a marriage against his heart and true self were hate, not love. Let him mate with this brilliant, beautiful woman of his own world, who could tranquilly breathe the air of the great heights—of Society, of Art—in which his destiny had placed him. What more could she wish him than that he should find in life all that he desired?—all the joy, all the achievement, all the love! Was not this the supreme self-sacrifice of love?
And she must be content with the privilege of the high mission that had been hers, nay, she must be proud of it—to have entered into his life at his moment of blackest despair, and set him on the road to heaven! Let her go back into the darkness now with the ecstasy of sacrifice for a great love, keeping herself for such service to others as she might find to her hand.
But her mission was not yet complete. She thought of his inadequate resources, of the uncertainty of the future, if his exhibition pictures were not successful with the Press and the public. She wished to see him embarked on the full tide of success before she retired, so that all joy should flow to him at once. Her retirement must cause him some little emotion, but the intoxication of success would soon thrust that aside, and the lapse of a day would find him in full appreciation of his freedom. The projected period of their engagement had of itself three full months to run; there was time to withdraw at any moment she chose. And these months that remained should be devoted to her finding more work for him, so that he should be left with a substantial balance at his bankers.
She thus attached some importance to his not yet suspecting any change; so she decided to go across to Tite Street at tea-time, and see him, and do things below stairs just as on a normal day. But she feared to face theexperience alone; she did not trust her own sangfroid. As the afternoon proved a fine one, she pressed her mother to join her in the journey across town, throwing out the inducement that they would look at the shops in townen route.
They found Wyndham putting his brushes in order after his long day. He had risen early, he explained, and had started work with the light. A month was not too long to finish off this great picture; he really saw a year's work yet to be done on it! So therefore he was making a tremendous effort and giving himself up to it, body and soul.
"And I'm afraid I must claim your indulgence. If I appear neglectful, you will really understand, and put up with me. I shall make it up to you afterwards," he added, smiling.
Alice was surprised at her calm, once she had mastered the first tremor at the moment of arrival. It gave her confidence, too, for the future, since it was good to know she could trust herself.
And this strange, almost inhuman, calm which had succeeded to the tempests that had swept through her of late did not desert her. She knew that the storms had worn themselves out, and that she had found a strange, an almost baffling peace.
Wyndham, for his part, only rejoiced that she seemed so contented and happy; so readyto overlook his shortcomings in the rôle of affianced husband. Poor child, how good and devoted she was! If only out of his brotherly tenderness for her, and appreciation and gratitude for all she had planned and done to smoothe his life, he would take care that his promise to Lady Betty should be carried out, not grudgingly and according to the letter, but in a generously full and human way.
Perhaps now, in this last critical month, when every stroke of the brush seemed a stroke of fate, he threw more frenzy into his work than ever before. His mind struck deep roots in it, so that the passion of it was ever in him. Yet a sense of suffering and defeat stirred sometimes in him, so that he dared not be alone with himself. He spent some of his evenings in coteries where art and other things were hotly debated, and this, too, helped him, furnishing food for reflection and sending him to books as an interested reader in search of enlightenment and suggestion.
Thus the month flew away with almost unprecedented rapidity. Show Sunday arrived, and the great picture (on which he had worked till the last moment) was revealed to the world at large. The house was thrown open, the empty dining-room improvised into a commodious buffet, and the great studio arranged as a gallery, with the new portraits and the best of the old work all brilliantly framed and liningthe walls. Alice's portrait, which had been brought across for the occasion, occupied a central place of honour immediately facing the masterpiece.
The function was eminently successful, and a great many people of the very pink of fashion came to lend it the light of their countenances. The Robinsons had worked hard the previous fortnight preparing for it, and had arranged the house and buffet, and had seen to the framing of the pictures, and attended to the catering arrangements, without taking a moment of the precious time away from Wyndham. Everybody said the house was charming and the pictures works of genius. People could be overheard asking each other, "Well, what do you think of it all?" and then eyes would be turned up in ecstasy, and faces would glow with enthusiasm, and the long-drawn "Beautiful," full of conviction, was the epithet most largely utilised. There was in the air the dominant note of triumph, the unmistakable feeling of Success. Alice, who flitted about quietly, showing herself as much as good taste demanded, yet by no means in the centre of the world's eye, was keenly sensitive to the prevailing spirit of the afternoon, feeling closely the pulse of the assembly, and she knew at last that Wyndham's barque was to sail in full career.
Mary, too, was there, immensely important as the host's sister, conducting special friends ofher own round the walls, and talking ubiquitously in an unusual glow of zest and animation. If for Alice the occasion happily revealed the future, for Mary that future had emphatically arrived already!
And in the midst of all the crush Sadler arrived, extraordinarily smart in an immaculate frock-coat and a beautifully embroidered tie, his big powerful face shining with friendliness. "Gee! What a swell affair you've got on!" he shouted in Wyndham's ear. "I thought there'd be something of the kind, you old brute, so I rigged myself out."
"You are certainly fascinating," smiled Wyndham.
"Yes, it's a jolly good coat!" declared Sadler, glancing down at himself. "I gave the tailor hell over it. Gee! you've fetched them this time! We shan't be able to squeeze past your damned picture at the Academy!"
The crowd still kept surging up the stairs, and Sadler was swept aside. But Wyndham was not only receiving his visitors; with great address he was here and there, pointing out his Exhibition pictures, explaining his ideas and motives, accepting choruses of laudation. He had good reason to be elated with this afternoon of tribute and foreshadowing!
In the last two or three weeks, moreover, Mr. Robinson had been drumming up the further commission for which his daughter had enlistedhis good services. He had heard that one of the great joint-stock banks meditated presenting their retiring general manager with his portrait; the gift to be made with full ceremonial at the next meeting of the shareholders. Mr. Robinson was himself an important shareholder, and two of the directors were his personal friends, but although they worked strongly on his side, he had a far more difficult task than usual in achieving his purpose. He was forced to expend his choicest diplomacy and pull enough strings for a piece of international politics, but the majority of the directors, who knew what was appropriate to the dignity of the bank, wanted a full-blown Royal Academician, and were strongly in favour of following the lead of another great institution, which, under the like circumstances, had approached one of the most learned of the body Academic, and had honoured him and themselves with their command. There were dissensions at several board meetings, but the opposition, sedulously fanned by Mr. Robinson, could not be beaten down. Academicians, they argued, sometimes went down woefully in the sale-room only a few years after their demise. Surely it was better to choose a genius, the connection with whom would be everlastingly honourable to the bank, whose insight might become historic. In the end a small sub-committee was appointed to investigate and report on the matter. The members of thissub-committee were invited to Tite Street for Show Sunday, arrived together, were received by Wyndham with charming urbanity, had every attention showered on them, and were greatly impressed by this society gathering. They were enchanted at their reception, and, being kept and marshalled together, stimulated each other's enthusiasm. This great display of Wyndham's work astonished and dazzled them. Above all, the amazingpièce de résistanceof the afternoon won their obeisance to the genius. They stared at the vast canvas in wonder, at once conquered by this crowd of tattered labour intermingled with the silk hats and frock-coats of Bond Street, the smart brougham rolling along with its aristocratic occupant and her poodle, the pillared structure in the background, the vista of roadway, the trees and the foliage. At the buffet they talked it over among themselves, and presently Wyndham himself appeared again, and with a discreet introduction here and there to people of social importance, he quietly and swiftly sealed his victory. Such civility indeed was the only part that had fallen on him in the matter, and the commission was well obtained at that outlay of trouble, he told himself, since, with so fairly an expensive place on his hands, he could not yet despise so solid a piece of business. But with the new little heap of guineas to accrue from the month's work or thereabouts that would be involved, he felt hecould face marriage and the beginnings of housekeeping with dignity, and yet carry out any artistic schemes he might next conceive. And he welcomed the work, too, as likely to keep him busily occupied during the time his great picture was in the balance at the Academy.
When Alice reached home after the reception, with the full confidence of his success in her heart, she realised the end was now fast approaching. The afternoon had excited and unnerved her again, and she had once more to reassure herself that she had the strength to go through with the coming breach. Since her memorable secret visit to the studio she had borne up with firm strength, but to-night she felt frail and broken! A storm of sobbing shook her, but when at last she had controlled herself she knew that she would never weep again for her lost dream of happiness.
And now all things began to go incredibly well with Wyndham. No sooner was he flourishing and doing work that was well paid for, than every other horizon opened out before him. The Academy received both his portrait of Miss Robinson and his great piece of allegory; and a couple of the other paid portraits found a niche in the New Gallery. The Salon, too, presently notified him of their acceptance of Lady Betty's portrait, but that he had really been counting on with an almost fatalistic confidence.
On varnishing day he was delighted that both his Academy exhibits were hung on the line. His Press, too, was unmistakably good; the critics seemed all to conspire to hail him as the man of the year. At the clubs those who knew him accosted him enthusiastically, came thronging round and pressing hospitality upon him. There were so many anxious to "get" him for this and that occasion, to take possession of him, and have the honour of dragging him here and there. New names and faces bombarded him, and even his own special coterie were anxious to intensify their various degrees of intimacy with him, contending for the privilege of entertaining him, of being able to boast of an almost proprietorial friendship. In Society, too, he felt himself the object of a curiousempressement; on all sides he was courted and flattered, and rival dealers were inquiring the price he set on his wares. It was the stampede of the world to acclaim Success!
Well might his eyes be dazzled by all this glare of sunshine! Was not this success as persistent as the failure that had been his lot previously? It made him think of the run of red that sometimes followed a run of black at roulette. He was indeed a public personage now! And rolling in prosperity to boot!
A touch of worldly bitterness indeed lingered with him; there was the remembrance of the lean years behind him. But his nature was toomercurial, too affable and genial, to dwell on that aspect of his career for long. He took all this homage very seriously, and thought tremendously well of himself as an artist, walking through the world with elastic step and as one of the elect of the earth.
Yet in the still moments when he sat alone at night with his lamp for sole company, he would lose himself in reverie; and then he would feel saddened ineffably by the ironic side of the case, since the more brilliant the success that came to him, the deeper his sense of the mockery of things! How splendid if the woman he loved were by his side to share it all with him! How near too he had come to attainment, yet destiny had played him this shameful, this merciless trick!
And just as his absorption in work had helped him hitherto in the situation, so now this new excitement of business and the world coloured his everyday demeanour and conversation; wrapped the Robinsons, too, in the whirl of busy interests, and carried him safely towards the inevitable time when he must seriously discuss the date of the wedding.
One morning early, towards the end of May, Alice sat down at her desk, and wrote the following brief letter to Mr. Shanner.
"My Dear Friend,—I owe you an acknowledgment. When you ventured to raise the question of the wisdom of my engagement to Mr. Wyndham, you were right in one respect. He is in every way a man of honour, and I have nothing against him. But, as the time goes by, it grows upon me more and more that he and I have made a mistake, as you were first to see, and that we are not suited to each other. His world and his ideas of life are not mine, and I have decided that it is wiser for me not to attempt to adapt myself to them. I recognise this before it is too late, and I have determined, not lightly, but after full and serious consideration, to draw back. I promised you that I should let you know if ever I arrived at such a conclusion. I now carry out my promise."
She directed it to his office, carefully marking it "Personal and Confidential." Shortly after noon she was startled by the rat-tat of atelegraph boy. "Approve of your decision with all my heart. Please remember that I am the first applicant for the privilege." Such was the answer he had flashed back the moment her letter had reached him, and the perusal of it gave her the satisfaction that accompanies the realisation step by step of an elaborate purpose. "So be it," she exclaimed. "To-day I shall ask for my release."
Wyndham was expecting her to join him at the studio. They were to dine together, then go to a Paderewski recital. But now she decided she would not go. What good to face him personally? Besides, it was easier to feel that she had already seen him for the last time. She went back to her desk, and began the laborious composition of a long letter. On and on she wrote, breaking off only to join her mother at lunch, and returning to her desk at the earliest moment. She had covered several sheets, when brusquely she changed her mind. Perhaps this was not really fair to him, and, besides, he might feel he ought to come to the house to see her again. Surely they might at least shake hands and part as friends. So she tore up the letter, and went to prepare herself for the journey to Chelsea. "I have been brave all through," she murmured; "and I mustn't spoil it at the end by turning coward. I am taking all the blame—let me be strong enough to take it face to face with him."
And now she was impatient to have done with it all. Her mission was ended. So, although he would not be looking for her yet, she would descend on him, even at the risk of disturbing him. The commission from the bank had already been completed, and at present he was making cartoons and sketches for new pictures. But he would be all the more grateful afterwards that she had not delayed her coup.
She got into a hansom, which, choosing its route through unobstructed back streets, arrived at her goal wonderfully soon. She got down firmly, paid the driver, and walked up the steps unfalteringly. She felt her calm and self-control as a great blessing; she had so long schooled herself for this moment, and it was splendid to feel how actual a fact was her resignation, how completely ingrained in her this acceptance of the inevitable.
She let herself in with her key for the last time, and put it on the hall table lest she should forget to leave it afterwards. Then she went upstairs, and tapped gently at the door of the studio, though it stood half open. She found Wyndham in a mood that was even a shade more affable than usual. Indeed, he seemed almost light-hearted to-day as he came forward with a friendly alertness to greet her, and pressed his lips affectionately to her forehead, and wheeled forward a chair for her. She was in a close-fitting coat and skirt, of a heliotropeshade, and there were roses in her hat. But, in spite of this burst of spring gaiety, her face retained the marked pallor that had characterised it of late. He indeed observed it for the first time.
"You must have a little of this light Chambery," he said. "It clears the head and nerves. I remembered I used to have a glass at the Café des Lilas in the old days whenever I felt done up, so I laid in a few bottles."
"Do I seem so unusually flurried?" she asked.
She smiled, but he saw at once that the note was forced, and began to suspect that something was amiss.
"It's rather close to-day—the heat has come upon us all of a rush. It's sure to be crowded and stuffy at the concert to-night. Now do try my remedy, child."
"If you don't mind, we'll not go to the concert."
"By all means," he agreed. "We'll dine early, take a stroll on the Embankment, and if there's a boat going up or down, it doesn't matter which, we'll get on, and see where it takes us. Not a bad idea, little girl, eh?"
"I'm sorry," she said, "but I meant that we were not to pass the evening together at all. I came now, instead of later on, to see you and talk to you."
He looked at her hard. "You rather mystify me."
"I'm sorry," she said again. "I sat down to write you a long letter to-day," she resumed, after an almost imperceptible hesitation. "In fact, I really began it, or rather I wrote a good many pages, and then I thought it would be fairer and braver to come here to you at once instead."
He leaned up against the table for support. "My dear child, I don't in the least understand your drift—I am bewildered."
She smiled wanly; yet the smile of one about to set forth in a cool, reasonable way a case that needed exposition, and that necessarily must carry conviction. "I was writing to ask you a favour. Now I have come to ask for it in person."
"It is yours to command." He inclined his head graciously and gallantly.
"You are sweet to me, as always," she returned. "But, as you will see, I am quite undeserving of your graciousness on this present occasion."
He laughed. "Modest as usual, my dear child! I'm afraid it's going to be one of the tasks of my life to impress you with a sense of your own merits."
"Please don't say any more nice things to me," she implored. "Your kindness hurts me."
He looked hard at her again, then passed his hand across his face. "Let me see," he said; "where were we? I confess I'm rather confused.Ah, yes, you said you preferred that we shouldn't go to the concert."
She drew her breath hard; her bosom palpitated. "Because I want you to set me free altogether." Her face was suddenly on fire, but an exultation thrilled through her. At last the words had been spoken; she was near the end.
But she felt his eyes upon her; she saw his face set in a strange expression, half-vacant, half-surprised. "To set you free?" he murmured.
"To break off our engagement," she launched out. "Oh, I know it is horrible of me," she went on quickly, feeling herself giving way at this moment of trial, despite all her fortitude and all her schooling. She saw that his lips made as if he were about to speak, but, dreading to hear him yet, she gathered up her force and hurried on piteously. "Please don't think that I have anything against you, that you are in the least to blame. You have been chivalrous and kind throughout. The responsibility must all rest on my shoulders."
He winced at the pain she was visibly enduring, the expression of her eyes, the convulsive catch of her breath.
"But what on earth has come between us?" he exclaimed, in a sort of dull despair. He felt no joyous glow at the return of his liberty. The occasion seemed too miserably tragic, andhis human association with her had made him care for her enough to be deeply distressed at the agony under which she was labouring. Even now, if it could have made her happy, if it could have induced her to withdraw all she had said, he would have taken her hand tenderly, and melted away every cloud between them. "Yesterday all was well, and to-day——" He gave a gesture of blank bewilderment.
"I have arrived at the conviction that we are not suited for each other, that I am not the sort of woman to make your life all that it should be."
"Oh, come," he said. "I am surprised to find such morbid nonsense running in your head."
She was taken aback at this resistance on his part; and she rightly set it down to pure fraternal consideration for her. She let herself go now; best to give her explanation at full length.
"It is not a sudden impulse I have yielded to, or a passing wave of depression," she urged, trying to conjure up the ghost of a smile again. "Believe me, I have seen the right path before me only after the deepest consideration."
He interrupted her with a gesture.
"But what has come between us?" he insisted again. "You do not say you have ceased to love me."
With a great effort she looked straight at him. "Yes," she said with steady voice, and nophysical flinching. "I have ceased to love you. I searched into my heart before it was too late, and I found my affections had gone to another."
A flash of understanding seemed to come to him. "Mr. Shanner!" he exclaimed.
She averted her eyes. "He was my friend before I knew you," she pleaded, as if driven to defence.
"I see now you are perfectly serious," he murmured, hurt at last, and firmly believing her. "Does love come and go in women with such momentary capriciousness?"
"Perhaps," she said with a weird dreaminess. "It comes and goes like the blossoming of a flower in the sunlight—beautiful for the day or two it lives. My love for you is dead. I should not be happy with you, so why make the pretence? I should not ask you to forgive me, only I am not worth your remembrance for any reason. Let us shake hands and part not too bitterly."
He stood silent, his head bowed. There was no thought in his mind, only a sense of shame and of poignant regret.
"Believe me, it is for the best," she resumed, trying to smile. "And be assured, the guilty party alone shall be condemned, should the world discuss us!" She held out her hand. He took it and held it gently, in sign that he bore her no ill-will.
In the first profound depression into which this unforeseen occurrence had plunged him, Wyndham remained totally indifferent to his freedom. His thought in a feeble way reached out, recalling her words, lingering on her crowning confession. Suddenly he laughed out aloud. How much greater the irony of his life than even he had imagined! For the second time he and Lady Betty had come together, only voluntarily to part that they might not disturb the happiness of this other life! How they had tortured themselves; how Lady Betty had sought deliberate martyrdom, staying near him only long enough to school him to perfect loyalty to Alice! "Whilst I was fretting my heart away," his lips murmured, "lest I should wound her with a chance word, she was vibrating again towards her own kind, and was planning her retreat. Surely the gods are pulling the strings and making us poor puppets dance for their amusement!"
And then he thought of the Hampstead street miles away, where he had passed so many yearsof his life in suffering and degradation; and the sense of its distance helped him. Were he still in the old studio, the sense of the Robinsons' house within a stone's throw would have been intolerable. He would hardly have dared to set foot out of doors for fear of the painful accident of stumbling up against one of the family. He desired no further explanations and apologies. He shuddered at the very idea. Here at least he could take shelter silently within his own pride.
And the thought of his pride made him rise up again, and pace to and fro vigorously. It was beneath him to admit that that had been wounded. But he came to a standstill, and the blood rushed to his temples at the abrupt remembrance that all the prosperity and success that must still remain his had come to him through the Robinsons. Were not the humiliating evidences here before his eyes? This charming house and studio, the successful pictures hung in the galleries, the money at his bankers, the promise of unlimited treasure yet to flow into his coffers, the acclamation of the world and his social lionising—how much of all this would have been achieved without the timely co-operation of the Robinsons? He staggered in moral agony under the burden of good they had heaped on him so lavishly.
Nothing of course could be undone. Wisest to acquiesce silently, and start forward afreshfrom the point at which he stood. But since it was now only the end of May, and the best of the season was yet to follow, he felt that to stay in London would be intolerable.
The world seemed to swarm with people, all intent on chattering about his affairs, on discussing and misunderstanding this sensation in the life of the lion of the season. A lovely titbit for the social gossips to relish! He could not possibly meet people, shake their hands, answer their stupid questions, listen to the hateful sympathy of the more intimate. He must shut up the house and fly from London. But where could he hide himself for the time?
He resumed his pacing to and fro, sometimes perambulating the studio to vary his movement. So far he was under the influence of the first excitement attendant on the rupture. Whatever his astonishment at having been ousted in the affections of a woman by a man whom he had more or less despised, whose rivalry he had brushed aside as easily as a cobweb; the bare idea that a broken engagement should figure in his life was so distasteful that it made the wound to his mere vanity a secondary matter. He could not at once extricate his mind from the contemplation of these immediate bearings of the event. His relation to Lady Betty, indeed, was present to him, but he had not yet turned the flood of his thought in that direction.
In the reaction of feeling, however, when the first sting and shock had somewhat lightened, it was natural for his whole soul to turn to Lady Betty longingly; not with the joyous impulse of one unexpectedly free to claim his true comrade, but like a bruised child to find relief for his hurt. But how to reach her again he did not know. So thorough had been their sacrifice that he had even promised never to write to her. Besides, letters would only follow her if sent through a certain banker, whose name she had withheld from him. And though now he felt that circumstances absolved him from the promise, he did not care that such a letter as he must write, once he put pen to paper, should go to her father's deserted house, and thence be tossed about the world in perhaps a futile pursuit, with the possible fate of being read in a dead-letter office, and finally returned to him. He would wait awhile. Perhaps, if the gossip got abroad, it might by some circuitous route arrive even as far as Lady Betty's ears, and then no doubt she would announce her whereabouts to him. The pressing problem before him was to decide on his own plans for the immediate present.
How stale and tired he was! How terribly he had toiled these past months, sustained by he knew not what mysterious energy. It seemed almost as if he had exerted a supernatural strength, and the work he had accomplishedmight well have claimed double the period. And now, something had suddenly gone snap. He was finished; a mere hollow shell of a man.
His mind turned again towards other climes and other skies. It seemed so long since he had crossed the Channel; so many years indeed that it was hateful to count them. It reminded him too much of the big slice of his life, the years of his prime, that had been so miserably sterile.
But his face brightened as his thought played again amid the haunts of his early manhood. Ah, those were happy times—the work in the schools, the discussions in the café, the pleasant camaraderie, the freedom to laugh, to feel master of one's own soul. The brilliance and green avenues of Paris beckoned him; his blood beat pleasurably. And then of course there was his portrait of Lady Betty in the Salon. What better shrine for a pilgrimage!
He would linger a little in Paris, then proceed further South. He was not of the great crowd that refuses to venture in those regions during the summer. He knew well how to adapt himself to the conditions, and the lands of the South would be soon in their full glory. His imagination dwelt on the prospect, and sunshine broke in on his mood. Perhaps, too, there was the hope, deep in his heart, that he might encounter Lady Betty somewhere—by some charmingtrain of events! Heigho for the orange trees, for the old Italian palaces, the Venetian canals, the coast-line of Salerno! He would make a leisurely progression, working a little as he went—just a few distinguished sketches, odd impressions of light and beauty caught on the wing! Late in the year when time had done its work, when the wretched affair was forgotten, and himself recovered from the sordid experience, he might return to London. But never here to this studio again!
The prospect of departure stirred him! "Here I cannot breathe another day!" he kept murmuring to himself.
Then why not start this very evening?
He glanced at his watch; it was not yet four. There would be time to dash round to a local bank and provide himself with funds for the start. But on investigation he found he had enough to take him to Paris, so he could devote the whole time to his preparations and necessary correspondence.
And no sooner was the decision arrived at than he adjusted his outlook to it as an accomplished fact. Without any further delay, he got ready his trunk and dressing-case, and started his packing in earnest.
The train left at nine that evening. He had five good hours to catch it. So he worked deliberately and carefully, overlooking nothing in the haste of departure. Lady Betty's wizard,his most cherished possession, went down deep into the trunk, and he did not forget his cheque-book and his private papers. Otherwise, everything was in such excellent order that his task was comparatively simple. Whatever he lacked for his journey he could count on purchasing in Paris, where also he could renew his funds for travelling.
At last everything was ready, and he had ample time for his correspondence. This was speedily disposed of, since his letters were mostly to cry "off" from invitations already accepted. Only one was of a more intimate character, and that was to his sister Mary. But even that was brief and to the point. "Dearest Mary," he wrote,—"I regret I have rather disagreeable news for you, but I trust you will not take too serious a view of it. Alice asked me to release her to-day, and of course I had no alternative but to accede to her wishes. I cannot bear to stay in London just now, so I leave this evening for a long stay abroad. Forgive this brief note, forgive me also for not coming to kiss you goodbye, but, as you may guess, I am off on impulse, time is short, and there were a few matters to arrange. Perhaps you may be able to join me later when your vacation comes, and then we shall have a happy time together. I am all right, so please don't worry about me. I shall write to you soon, and keep you posted as to my adventures."
He took out the batch of letters to the post, picking up a cab on his way back. In a few minutes his traps were on the roof, and he was being driven to the station.
It was a serene summer night, and the crossing was ideal. As he promenaded the deck, and looked into the spacious darkness, and let the breeze play free about his face, the sense of strain and fatigue, all the broken feeling that remained from the stress of his tussle with the world, seemed to be swept away. His early manhood, when he had gone to and fro as he listed, began to stir in him again, and the consciousness of mature power and ripe experience which were now added to it awakened an almost overweening sense of well-being and confidence.
The episode of his broken engagement already began to look absurd rather than tragic in this new spirited mood of his. The whole thing seemed beneath his dignity. Of course, in some ways, he would always look back upon it as a bitterly unpleasant incident; but, in this life, you were necessarily called upon to be a stoic in some degree. The point was to choose the degree yourself. In face of unpleasant things stoicism was no doubt the wisest; but where good things were concerned it was best to preserve all the fresh feelings of the natural human being.
The Robinsons were already receding into themists of distance. Despite the reality and the closeness of his connection with them, they were taking their place among the shadows that peopled the past. His own vision was turned forward—ever forward!
"Strange," he thought, "how things and people cease to have any consequence, once you have turned your back upon them!"
The night passed like a dream. In the train from Calais to Paris he dozed lightly, and woke only at dawn. The sky was cloudless and wonderfully blue, but the sun shone as yet coldly over the landscape, and the fat fields sparkled with dew. Save for the quiet herds of cattle, the world was deserted. Immediately all his faculties were pleasurably alert again. He noticed with delight the hamlets and sleeping villages, the still wayside stations where moustachioed old women, who surely dated from the Revolution, stood on guard with flags at the cross-ways. At last they were running through the environs of the capital, and Wyndham tasted the sensation of entering the great city of light and intellect as keenly as in his jubilant boyhood.
The drive through Paris in the early morning was exhilarating and enchanting. At that hour the streets at first were surprisingly thronged, the roadway sometimes blocked with a heavy traffic of carts all converging to the Halles. But soon they were passing through quieter neighbourhoods, through stately avenues lined by vasthotels with far-stretching lines of shuttered windows. Wyndham surrendered himself to the charm of steeping himself again in this atmosphere, drawing freer breaths, subtly attuned to it, aided by golden memories.
The brisk buxom matron, who was already at her post in the hotel bureau, recognised her old client, and welcomed him with a cry of joy. Her face beamed with pleasure as he shook hands with her, and he had a joyous sense of home-coming!
"But one has not seen you for eternities," she exclaimed. "We had thought that you had quite abandoned us!"
"The loss has been more mine than yours, madame," he returned. "I should have announced my arrival beforehand, if I had not left London so suddenly."
Presently he took possession of his room, and, as it was not yet seven, he sank into an arm-chair and dozed for a time. At nine he awoke, washed, changed into more civilised clothes, then strolled out cheerfully on to the Boulevards, and had his morning coffee at a little table in the open, with a budget of French papers to look through, and the spectacle of the passing world in the sunshine for his entertainment.
He sat on for a long while in leisurely enjoyment, then proceeded to stroll by way of the Place de la Concorde (which looked vaster andfiner than it had ever appeared to him) round to the great Palace of Art off the Champs Elysées. It had sprung up during these years of his absence, and he wandered round it delightedly, examining all the façades, familiarising himself with all the points of view.
At last he entered through the nearest turnstile and went straight to see how Lady Betty's portrait was hung.
But Wyndham did not linger in Paris as he had intended. He had found Lady Betty beautifully placed on the line, and had returned to her daily, not to gaze at the painting, but at the features of the woman he loved. And then there surged in him a fever of impatience. He had not the least hope of finding her here in Paris—he took it for granted she had long since seen the Salon, and he had the strangely settled belief—he did not know why—that she was not then in France at all. And somehow he was unable to conceive of himself now save as actively in search of her. All the first impulsion towards holiday and repose that had swept him headlong across the Channel had mysteriously died away, to give place to this haunting, this imperious, idea of a mission. He must push on with it at once!
He chose his route largely haphazard, yet zigzagging through her favourite cities. His heart thrilled with hope as he was borne again through the outskirts, and Paris lay behind him. In this dash through Europe, the happy chance might perhaps befall him! He knew the quest in that way was wholly irrational, but it had its charm. He might pass within a stone's throw of her a score of times, and yet remain unconscious of the proximity. A billion to one at least against him!
Yet he pursued his journey feverishly; passing through Belgium swiftly, thence to Dresden by stages, then hurrying down to Munich, next on to Vienna, and passing further southwards; vibrating off the beaten path at every turn; staying here a day, there a night, rarely anywhere longer; guided by no principle, but darting about at random, often doubling back on his track, and yielding to every fantastic impulse that rose in him.
At Belgrade, where he found himself some four weeks after leaving Paris (though the days, packed with changing scenes and impressions, had seemed to run into months), he had an inspiration, and abruptly took the train straight back again. Might not Lady Betty gravitate once more to the portrait, before the Salon closed its doors for the season? Even though it was to be her own possession in the end, she might well desire to pay it that tribute.Had it not given them their brief companionship in avowed affection? He would haunt the Salon daily; he would wait and watch for her. He journeyed all day, all night, and all the next day, impelled by the same fever of impatience, which now oppressed him tenfold. He stepped out of the train in the evening amid the bustle and lights of the terminus. He was in Paris again! He breathed with relief as at a goal accomplished.
One blue summer morning, Wyndham, for the twentieth time at least, entered the Salon through his customary turnstile, and stood in the great central court, under the crystal roof, amid the gleaming display of statuary. There was already a goodly number of people about; not yet a crowd, but enough for the costumes and hats of the fair sex to colour the whole place like a flower-garden. He moved about among them for awhile, his eye keen and ready; then ascended the staircase, and entered the nearest doorway. He spent an hour or two in leisurely progression through the galleries, long since familiar with all the pictures, and staying only before the interesting ones, yet with attention ever on the alert.
At last he had set foot in the particular room, which was to him the shrine, the inner sanctuary, of this Temple of the Arts. It was already crowded here, and his first impression was of a mass of silk hats and beflowered millinery rather than of pictures. He hesitated in the doorway an instant, then began the slowtour of the room, pausing before every picture in turn, so as to indulge in the pleasurable make-believe of coming on Lady Betty again suddenly. Gradually he worked his way along and it was not till he had come again within reach of his starting-point that his own frame gleamed on his vision. He manoeuvred through a bevy of ladies, and then found himself side by side with a girlish figure in a light flowered muslin costume and a pretty hat trimmed with violets. He had stepped quite close to her out of the crowd, by which she had been entirely hidden; but, his eyes drawn imperiously to the portrait of Lady Betty, he was merely aware of his neighbour as one of the crowd, and he did not even look at her definitely. He saw just her gloved hand holding her catalogue, and, in a vague way, he wondered what she was thinking of the picture. He felt rather than saw that his neighbour had stepped back a little, as if naturally to make way for him. Then some mysterious impulse made him turn, and their eyes met. In all those winter days that were past he had never seen her so bright and gracious as she appeared now, clad for the summer, and in this sparkling universe. Never before had those violet eyes shone with so perfect a light, as of the full freshness of childhood. Yet her face was pallid and awestruck as she gazed at him. But a wild joy sang at his heart, and he felt his bloodpulsing with a glad note that seemed to be at one with the note that sang to him from horizons of enchantment opening before him; at one, too, with the note that sang to him out of all this exquisite Paris!
"I am free," he whispered. "Do you understand? Free!"
"Free?"
He divined rather than heard the breathed exclamation from the movement of her lips—read the amazed questioning of her eyes.
"I have not broken my promise to you!" The crowd surged round them, struggling to see his picture, ejaculating banal words of admiration. "You do not doubt!" he whispered tensely.
The blood came back to her face at last. "No! But the how?—the why?"
"She sought her release!"
"She suspected the truth!" She was pale again.
"We cheated ourselves. She cared for one of her own kind. Our renunciation was an irony."
Lady Betty bent her head. Her brow was wrinkled for a moment in thought, and her hand trembled visibly.
"An irony—no," she said gently. "We were true to ourselves—the future lies the fairer before us."
The press around them grew closer.
"Mais c'est chic ça!"
"Un beau talent!"
"C'est exquis!"
She took his arm, as if seeking freer air, and they moved through the throng that continued its compliments, unsuspecting of the proximity of either artist or subject. They stood at last on the great balcony, and looked down on the splendid court agleam with sculpture and greenery.
"I have searched Europe for you!" he said.
"This great change in our lives—it is too wonderful to grasp all at once," she murmured musingly.
"I do not see why we should not stroll round to the Embassy now, and inquire," he suggested stoutly.
"Inquire about what?" she asked, her deep absent look changing to bewilderment.
"As to when they can marry us, of course!"
"Oh, I see," she said, with a quick smile; but her glance was inward again.
"You don't think me precipitate?" he asked uneasily.
"I am thinking of Alice," she returned. "I could have sworn she was the soul of constancy."