CHAPTER XXXVIIIGONZALESMark plunged into the obscurity of the underground railway, cursing the impulse which had taken him to Pynsent's studio. Betty had suffered, but what was her suffering compared with his?He repeated this to himself again and again, as the train bore him eastward. Then he remembered Jim's phrase: "Our Betty is out of sight."Thinking of Jim, he got out at the Mansion House and walked to the Stock Exchange. Five minutes with Jim might blow some cobwebs out of his mind. He reached the huge building and called for James Corrance. The porter bade him wait near some glass swinging-doors through which hatless men were continually passing. Whenever these opened a dull roar of many voices fell on Mark's ear, a menacing growl as of an angry beast. In his present mood Mark welcomed any strange noise as a distraction from the buzzing of his own thoughts. This beast of the markets made itself heard. Mark wondered vaguely whether it drowned, to such men as Jim, all other sounds.While he stood, peering through the glass doors, a sharp thud, as of a mallet striking a panel of wood, smote his ears. In an instant, as if some wizard had waved a wand, silence fell upon the crowd within the building, a silence inexpressibly strange and awe-inspiring. Again the thud was heard, louder and more articulate. Mark guessed what was happening. A member of the Stock Exchange was about to be "hammered." The silence, Mark noted, was partially broken by a shuffling of innumerable feet, as men pressed forward to catch the name of the man who had failed. The hammer struck for the third and last time. Mark could see that every face was turned in one direction; upon each lay a grim expression of anxiety. Then a hoarse voice said in a monotone: "Mr. Caxton Bruno is unable to comply with his bargains." A roar of voices succeeded the announcement, as the crowd resumed the business of the minute. The glass doors swung open; and Jim Corrance appeared."You heard poor Bruno hammered," he said. "Dramatic—eh? It always thrills, because one never knows. That cursed hammer may sound the death knell of a dozen firms. Iamglad to see you——"Talking volubly, he insisted that Mark must lunch with him, although Mark protested that he had no appetite. But Jim, when he heard thatFenellawas accepted by Mrs. Perowne, declared that a bottle of champagne must be cracked. He carried Mark off to his City club, where scores of men were eating, drinking, and talking. Jim pointed out the celebrities."That fellow is a famous 'bear,'" he indicated a short, thick-set, rather unctuous-looking Jew. "In the long run the 'bears' have the best of it.""He doesn't look clever," said Mark."Clever? He's stupid as an owl outside his own special business. It isn't the clever ones who arrive. I know men with all the qualities essential to success, but the luck goes against 'em every time. They ought to get there with both feet, but they don't. You must have a glass of that old cognac, Mark. A play is not accepted every day, by Jove! I tell you what I'll do, my boy. I'll give a dinner in honour of the event. We'll get Pynsent, and Tommy Greatorex, and the rest of 'em. Why not nip over to Paris for it? Eh? What are you mumbling? All take and no give. What infernal rot! Well, I won't take no. As if it wasn't an honour to entertain so distinguished a gentleman."Mark's spirits began to rise. After all, the world was not such a bad place. And the luck which Jim spoke about had certainly changed. The play would be produced within the year. Thoroughly warmed by Jim's hospitality, and promising that he would reconsider his refusal to dine in Paris, he left the City to keep his appointment with Mrs. Perowne. But the atmosphere of the underground railway, raw, fetid, thick with smoke, brought back the misery and despair of the morning. He found himself reflecting that life after thirty was an underground procession, a nauseating vagabondage in semi-obscurity, stopping now and again at stations artificially illumined, garishly decorated, reeking with abominable odours, crowded with pale, troubled strangers jostling each other in their wild efforts to hurry on to some other place as detestable as the one they were leaving....As for the play upon which so much was staked, was he not a sanguine fool to take a woman's word that it would be produced? And production did not mean success. But here he paused. Production to him did mean success. It was good, good, good! It had thrilled two persons who knew. Greatorex, the cynic, the reader of innumerable plays, and the actress, the woman of genius.On this occasion Mrs. Perowne received him in her drawing-room: a conventional room, white-and-yellow, filled with absurd knick-knacks and too many flowers, principally exotics of overpowering perfume. She was wearing a large hat which overshadowed her face. Her dress and jacket of the plainest cloth and cut were trimmed with sable. Mark had passed her brougham, drawn up a few yards from the entrance of the building, and guessed that she was going out. She began to speak aboutFenella."Alfred Gonzales has read it.""What does he say?""He finds it too serious. He says there's no money in it."Mark gasped."But Alfred is not infallible," she added. "I mean to produceFenella. It may be wise to throw it first to the dog." This meant a first performance in the provinces. Mark burst into excited speech."Then you d-d-don't mean to ch-chuck me. You've raised me to the heights, Mrs. Perowne. Don't drop me! I m-m-mean that I'd sooner know the worst now. You said you were an impulsive woman. Perhaps your impulse overstepped the b-b-bounds of prudence, you know. And, if so, we'll call the thing off. But don't drop me later. I couldn't stand that. Am I speaking out too plainly? You've been very kind, very kind indeed; I shall always be grateful, b-b-but I can face disappointment better now than l-l-later.""Sit down," she said, smiling. "Why, what a boy you are. I-I like boys."He sat down, trembling, wiping the perspiration from his forehead."You are as emotional as I am," she murmured in a caressing voice. "Now, I've an appointment which I must keep. You can believe that I'd sooner spend the afternoon with you. I really mean it. I have to recite at a bazaar. Which bores me horribly. Now do you believe that I am your friend, that I like you, that you interest me? And will you be furious if I add that I like you better than your play—good though it is? I prefer the man to his work, the artist to his art."She paused, glancing at him through half-closed eyes. There was something feline about her expression and pose. Her voice had a purr in it. Mark did not know what to say or do."I should like to help you to a real success," she continued. "And why not? Your play might be made into a masterpiece. At present it is uneven, amateurish, crude in parts. Alfred put his finger on the weak spots. He says that the fourth act ought to be rewritten. Shall we rewrite it together? I mean, will you let me help you to make it just what it ought to be?""Why, of course," said Mark eagerly. "I am not fool enough to suppose that the thing can't be improved. Your help, your hints, your experience would be invaluable. I was counting on them at rehearsal.""But we haven't come to that yet. I don't hold with altering plays at rehearsals. After the first night or two, revision may be expedient. One never knows. Scenes may drag, or they may be too short. We needn't go into that now. But my point is that the thing should be as perfect as the author can make it, before it is read to the company. You agree with me—hein?"The foreign word of interrogation had a soothing sound. Mark placed himself in her hands unreservedly."I trust you," he said simply.She nodded, showing her lovely teeth in a smile. Then she pointed out that nothing could be done till the piece in which she was acting had been taken off. She expected to be quite free in a fortnight's time. After Easter she would appear in a rôle which required little preparation. During Lent she might go abroad. But all details could be settled later. Would he drink tea with her and talk everything over the day after to-morrow?He saw her into her brougham."Your play is in Alfred's hands," she said, as she bade him good-bye. "He is going to make some notes for us. Have you met him? Go and see him. He's at the theatre now."She murmured something he did not catch, as the brougham rolled silently away. She was right. He ought to see Gonzales. The business connected with the play, the contract and so forth, must be done through him. Doubtless that was what she meant when she urged him to go to the theatre. He took a 'bus to the Alcazar and sent up his card. Presently word came down through a tube that Mr. Gonzales would be disengaged in less than ten minutes. Mr. Samphire might care to look over the house? Mark assenting to this, a youth connected with the manager's department escorted him through the building, which had been built for Mrs. Perowne "regardless of expense," as the youth said, and "replete with every modern appliance." Mark wondered at the beauty of the decorations in parts of the theatre other than the auditorium, where lavishness was to be expected. The stage was already set, and the youth told Mark that the "Empire" furniture had adorned the palace of one of Napoleon's marshals.Further details, setting forth the thousands lavished upon scenery and costumes, gave Mark a dismal impression that the play itself was the least part of a modern theatrical performance; this impression was deepened when he met the manager, whom he disliked at the first glance. Gonzales, it was said, had lured Mrs. Perowne from her husband, holding out the bait of fame. She first appeared in one of his adaptations from the French, a melodrama built about a head of red hair. Mrs. Perowne's red hair had been the feature of posters six yards long, designed by Cheret. In America, the yellow press had asserted that Gonzales was in the habit of dragging his pupil across her room by her flaming locks. Her screams echoed from Maine to California, and filled every theatre with curious crowds, who believed the stories when they saw the red hair.Gonzales was big and burly, with a close-clipped black beard, through which protruded a red lower lip. His face indicated power, cruelty, and a brutal self-assurance. He was smoking a very thick cigar, which he held, when he spoke, between white, fat fingers. His voice, however, was charming; melodious, persuasive, with the intonations and inflections characteristic of the Latin races; and his eyes, heavily lidded, were finely formed and of a clear umber in colour. He began to praise Mark's play with an insincerity which revolted. Mark, sensible of an overpowering desire to escape, listened to interminable phrases."You are soaping the ways," he said, when Gonzales paused. "I understood from Mrs. Perowne that you saw no m-money in the thing. You can tell me frankly what you think of it. I am not thin-skinned, and I hope you d-don't take me for a f-fool."Gonzales showed his teeth."One has to be careful with authors," he said. "I write myself, trifles," he shrugged his shoulders, "adaptations, as you know, which have had a measure of success. And I can't bear to have them criticised, these adopted children of mine. I think them perfect, perfect. But you—you are of colder blood—and you say you prefer the truth which I speak sometimes," he smiled disagreeably. "Well, then, in my opinion, you have just missed a big thing. There's dramatic power in every line ofFenella, and in Paris it might catch on, but here tragedy is played—out. Still, I don't say that with judicious cutting, and a slight strengthening of the love interest, and—in short I told Mrs. Perowne that we could make something of it, if you gave us a free hand. Oh, there's plenty of action, and a freshness of treatment, but look here——" He made a couple of suggestions, so admirable, so luminous of his insight into dramatic possibilities, that Mark admitted at once the man's cleverness and knowledge of what was good work. But when he had, so to speak, given this sample of his ability, he added with an odious sneer: "After all the public, our public, asks for something absolutely different. For example, I am in treaty now for a comedy in four acts. Mrs. Perowne will wear eight dresses, furnished by the four leading dressmakers of Paris.Entre nous, these confections will cost us nothing, not asou. They will be an immense 'ad' for the dressmakers and for us. The comedy must be constructed round these dresses. As an artist I deplore such methods, but a successful manager is forced to employ them."Mark curtly stated the object of his visit. Gonzales shrugged his shoulders."The contract? Is it not early to talk of that?"Words flowed like a stream of milk from his mouth. In the "profession," he explained, one could not move in haste. Mrs. Perowne had engagements to be filled. It was absurd to talk of producing a play on a certain day. It was bad business to take off a paying piece. And Rejane might lease the Alcazar. No, no, he gave Mr. Samphire credit for a certain delicacy. He was dealing, remember, with a lady, whose judgment—the truth was best—he had taken by storm. As her manager, he had implored her again and again to read no plays till he, the speaker, had looked them over. Finally, Mark took his leave, conscious that he had been defeated, that this man of many words could warp him to his will. He carried away with him, moreover, a conviction that Gonzales was his enemy, and that the stories about him and Mrs. Perowne were true.CHAPTER XXXIXAT THE MIRAFLORESDuring the fortnight that followed Mark saw Mrs. Perowne every day. The actress exercised over him strange powers of attraction and repulsion, which he tried to analyse: sensible that the repulsion was subtle and negative, whereas the attraction was obvious and positive. She had a score of charms; but beneath them lay something secret and hateful; possibly a cruelty not alien to red hair and red lips. By chance, one day, Mark said that strong smelling-salts held beneath the nose of a bulldog would make him relax his grip of another dog when more violent measures had failed. The actress had a Chow for whom she expressed extravagant affection. Before Mark could interfere, she had called the dog to her side and thrust beneath its sensitive nostrils some strong spirits of ammonia. The poor animal snuffed at them, and was almost strangled by the fumes. Mark, furious at such unnecessary cruelty, made hot protest and then got up to leave the room. Mrs. Perowne entreated forgiveness, pleading ignorance and thoughtlessness. Mark saw tears in her eyes; suborned witnesses, no doubt, but deemed honest by an honest man."I loathe cruelty," said Mark."Gonzales is cruel," she replied irrelevantly."But you like him?""I hate him—sometimes."He divined in her a desire to talk about Gonzales."I hate him always," said Mark. "I don't want to hear his name mentioned. I know he is a beast.""Would you like me to dismiss him?" she asked softly.He stared at her in astonishment."Could you? I understood that he was in—indispensable, as actor and manager.""No man is indispensable to—me," she said angrily. Then her face changed and softened, suffused by an extraordinary radiance of youth and vitality. "I mean to say," she murmured, "that no man,yet, has proved himself indispensable, but——"She looked at Mark, who got up and began to pace the room, much agitated. Her lips were parted, revealing the small, white, resolute-looking teeth. She was reflecting, not without a sense of humour, that Mark was the first man of the many she liked who refused to dance to her piping. The fact allured her."I must go," he said abruptly."But you will come to-morrow?"He hesitated, blushing like a girl, but on the morrow he came and found her friendly, genial, the "good sort": a rôle she could sustain to perfection. Mark, on the other hand, felt himself to be dull and irritable. Even the all-absorbingFenellafailed to quicken his wits or pulses. He answered absently some suggestions in regard to the fourth act, staring at the speaker's eyes, as if trying to read their message instead of that of the lips."Why do you look at me like that?" she asked in a tone absolutely free from sentiment."I am trying to find the real Sybil.""Sybils are mysteries," she said lightly. "Besides you come here to talk about the play—hein? not about me.""I come here to talk about the play," he answered slowly, "but I go away to think about you.""And the thoughts are not always pleasant ones?""Not always.""You are truthful.""Am I?""Most men are such liars. Gonzales, for example—ah, well, we won't talk of him. But the others—oh, the humbugs!"In fluent, even tones, she began to speak of the men she knew intimately, the higher Bohemians of art and literature. It was impossible not to be amused by her sketches."This is caricature," said Mark."Studies from life.""I'm glad I don't know those—gentlemen.""You are a man of limitations; and you see others not as they are but as you would like them to be. That is why your books do not sell. Your characters are strongly drawn, but their strength is a reproach and an exasperation to readers of weaker clay. In books, as in real life, we like to meet people no better and perhaps worse than ourselves. You are handicapped by ideals, which bankrupt your ideas...."On this theme she spoke volubly for some minutes. Mark listened, amazed at her perceptions, at her grasp of life as it is lived in London, at her audacity in dealing with problems."You look astonished," she concluded, "but nowadays revolt is a synonym of intelligence. As for me I revolt against stupid traditions and conventions. They are to me like those hideous horse-hair sofas and chairs upon which our grandfathers sat so stiffly. What? Good wear in them? I dare say they served their purpose, but now they are banished to obscure lodging-houses."Mark repeated some of her phrases to Tommy Greatorex."She's as clever as she can stick," Tommy admitted, "but it's surface cleverness, like surface water, tricklings from a thousand sources more or less polluted. She's interested in you because you are different from—the others. Of course you're not interested in her—apart from her profession, I mean. I sent you to her because I knew you would be proof against her sorceries—the witch. Hullo!"Mark was scarlet."I say—you're not interested, are you? She's a wrong 'un. I warned you.""She has good in her."Greatorex laughed."Good? A needle in a haystack. Seriously, Mark, you mustn't burn your fingers. Lord! I was so sure of you. I foresaw that you would excite her curiosity and interest; I knew that she would like you, as I said, better than your play. In a word I pulled the strings, but I thought I should make her dance, not you.""She has been very kind to me.""What have you been to her? Tell me to mind my own business, if you like. It's not worth minding, but that doesn't matter.""I am going to ask Mrs. Perowne to marry me," Mark replied slowly."Phew-w-w!"Instantly, Mark took his hat and marched out of the room. Tommy bit his nails till it occurred to him to light a pipe. Then he tried to continue his work, a special article, but he found it impossible to write a line. Mark's face and eyes disturbed him. Finally, he flung down his pen in a rage."I thought I knew him," he muttered, "I thought I knew him. This is the bottomless pit, and I led him blindfold to the edge of it."Suddenly he bethought himself of Pynsent. Pynsent knew Mrs. Perowne, had painted her portrait—a revelation of character in colour. Accordingly he wired to Pynsent, asking him to dine at a small restaurant in Baker Street, and mentioning that a subject of importance was to be discussed. Pynsent wired back an acceptance for the same evening, and the men met at eight o'clock. They sat down to sharpen their appetites upon some excellent salted fillets of herring. Not till themarmitewas swallowed did Greatorex give his perplexity words. Then he said abruptly—"You painted Mrs. Perowne?""You bet I did—inside and out.""Did she make love to you?""N-n-no," Pynsent replied, not quite readily."Why not be frank? I can hold my tongue.""I think," Pynsent admitted cautiously, "that she expected me to make love to her, but I didn't. I took a dislike to the woman. And it came out in the picture. Unpleasant things were said about it at the time, but she liked it. She told me I had succeeded. And—Great Scott!—so I had.""She has captivated and is captivated by Mark Samphire. He is going to marry her.""What?""It is partly my fault, but I was so sure of—him." He told the story at length. "And now what are we to do?""Mark—Mark!" Pynsent kept repeating stupidly. "It is incredible. Mark Samphire—and Sybil Perowne!""She has never denied herself anything.""She'll suck every ounce of good blood from his body. It would be kindness to knock him on the head.""It would be pleasure to knock her on the head," said Tommy gloomily."We can do nothing," said Pynsent, at length, as he lit one of his Caporal cigarettes, which he smoked between the courses. "There was Maiden. When I studied at the Beaux Arts, Maiden was the coming man. By Jove! he had come. I remember his big picture in the Salon of '79. Crowds stood in front of it, jabbering like monkeys. It was great, great. And France bought it. It hangs in the Luxembourg to-day. Well, Maiden had a model, a queer little devil of a girl with huge black eyes whom he stuck into all his pictures. He bought her from her mother out of a slum, the Rue du Haut-Pavé, close to the cabaret du Soleil d'Or, and she followed him about like a spaniel, all over Normandy and Brittany. We wondered what would happen when the child became a woman. Gad! we might have guessed for a year and a day and never hit the truth. Maiden married her! He, the wit, the scholar, the gentleman, married that guttersnipe. And he hasn't painted a picture for fifteen years! I tell you, Tommy, that it's impossible to predict what any man will do when he comes in contact with the wrong woman.""Or with the right one," said Greatorex, frowning.They drank their coffee, and by mutual consent went to the Miraflores Music Hall, feeling that anything which might distract their thoughts from Mark would prove a relief. The place was crowded as usual, and Pynsent, pulling out a pencil, began to draw heads upon a piece of paper placed in his hat, while Tommy watched his facile fingers, much amused by the remarks which punctuated every line."People must relax," the painter was saying. "These places would be empty if we lived normal lives. A self-respecting savage would be bored to death here.""True," said Tommy. "If you want to find sense nowadays you must hunt for it in the South Pacific, in the islands which Captain Cook and Mr. Thomas Cook did not find. Hullo, there's Jim Corrance.""Why not tell him," said Pynsent quickly. "He's Mark's oldest friend; he'd do anything for Mark; and he's a practical sort of chap, too."Jim joined them with alacrity, obviously glad to see Pynsent, who, of late, had dropped out of his file. The three secured a table in the corner of the foyer, where they could talk without fear of being overheard, for the noise—the shrill laughter of the women, the deep notes of the men, the blare of the band—was deafening. Jim, however, not knowing Mrs. Perowne, save by reputation, was unable to realise the gravity of the situation."Aren't you fellows making a mountain of a molehill?" he asked. "And, besides, what can old Mark offer Sybil Perowne?""A new sensation," said Tommy grimly. His face impressed Corrance. Pynsent nodded gloomily."There's David Ross," said Jim."The Bishop of Poplar?""At one time Mark and he were hand-in-glove. He used to be a wonder-worker.""Oh, he is still," said Greatorex. "I thought we should get something out of you, Corrance.""But a parson——" began Pynsent doubtfully."He was the amateur middleweight champion before he took Orders," said Corrance, "and it's the pugilist in him, not the parson, which has made him the man he is. He'll tackle Mark, never fear. He tackles me—periodically, but all the same, if this thing is serious he will accomplish nothing.""That is what I say," Pynsent added.But Tommy, the smallest and weakest of the three, doggedly persisted. Finally he persuaded Corrance to seek out the Bishop of Poplar. Having extracted a promise to this effect, he took leave of the others, for his article, due on the morrow, had to be finished that night. Pynsent and Corrance remained together. As the little man plunged into the crowd, Pynsent said: "Tommy Greatorex would cut off his right hand for Mark, but I've heard men call him selfish and self-centred."Corrance at once began to analyse this indisputable fact, sticking out his chin, and talking with an aggressive frankness which much amused the painter, who said presently:"We may as well admit, Jim, that we're cold-blooded, you and I——""For the sake of argument—yes. Go on!""Partly because of that we've succeeded. I can't see myself, or you, my boy, chucking our work to help others, although after the work was done we might write a cheque—eh?""You had better have another whisky and potass.""Thanks. I will."They watched the Miraflores ballet from a couple of balcony stalls. Fabulous sums had been spent upon the costumes of the dancers, who represented flowers and butterflies. Pynsent became absorbed in the spectacle of light and colour and movement. Now and again he jogged Corrance with his elbow, calling his attention to this effect and that, muttering inarticulate exclamations. The lights in the theatre were turned low, so that the stage, a blaze of golden splendour, attracted all eyes. Then, suddenly, like a sun in eclipse, the stage itself was obscured. One saw luminous shadows through which floated spirits of the air, mysterious winged beings; the butterflies seeking the flowers at the approach of night. Impenetrable darkness succeeded as the band stopped playing. In the foyer, men and women crowded together craned their heads in one direction, awaiting the supreme moment. It came. Out of the darkness glided a dazzling creature, veiled in what seemed to be a tissue of diamonds. From her alone emanated light, a myriad sparkles. She advanced slowly with white, outstretched arms, a smile upon her face. At the edge of the stage she poised herself for flight. Not a sound broke the silence, but one felt the throb and thrill of a thousand hearts. Then a faint strain of music suffused the air, as the creature took wing. She soared upward and forward, following the curve of an ellipse. Thus soaring, she scattered flowers which fell everywhere, filling the house with perfume. In the dome of the building she vanished. A sigh of pleasure escaped the lips of the spectators. The vision reappeared, gliding forward as before out of obscurity. Once more, for the last time, she soared upward and vanished."Let us go," said Pynsent. "That was the immortal spirit of Love. And she vanished—no wonder—in this temple of——" He shut his lips, for his neighbours were staring at him.Corrance rose, muttering: "The expenses must be stupendous; but Miraflores shares are at 219. I bought a nice little block at 127 eighteen months ago.""Shut up, you miserable materialist!""I can't afford to be anything else—nor can Mark, poor devil!""I beg your pardon," said Pynsent hurriedly.They pushed their way through the crowd, pausing at the top of the broad stairs which led to the street below. The atmosphere, charged with odours of musk and patchouli and reeking of strong cigars, was overpoweringly oppressive. But on almost every face, pale beneath the glare of the electric light, flamed a curious satisfaction, curious because with rare exceptions it was artificial. The exception may be mentioned. A thick-set man, remarkable by reason of his white hair and pink smooth face, stood at the entrance, bowing and beaming. The habitués knew him, and nodded carelessly as they passed by. Some exchanged a few words. The man seemed to be counting: reckoning the numbers present, computing gains."That's old Harry," said Corrance to the painter. "He runs this place. Hullo, Harry, how are you? Big house to-night.""Big house every night," said Harry complacently. "You know that, Mr. Corrance. It's prime—prime. I never get tired of watching it."He rubbed his plump white hands together, beaming like an aged cherub."Holy Moses!" exclaimed Pynsent. "You never get tired of watching—this?" He indicated the promenade in a derisive gesture."Never," said Harry, opening his blue eyes in childish astonishment at such a question. "Why this is my show. I planned it. I stand here every night.""It's meat and drink, old chap, isn't it?" said Corrance."I've got just where I wanted to be," Harry said solemnly. "The boys call me king of the music-halls.""Good-night, your majesty," said Corrance, beginning to descend the stairs. "There's one that's happy and content," he added, as Pynsent and he strolled down the corridor."We're saprophytes," burst out Pynsent."I don't know what that means," said Jim, "but it sounds something nasty."CHAPTER XL"COME!"True to his promise, Corrance sought out the Bishop of Poplar, and delivered himself of his message. David Ross nodded, but his fine eyes were troubled."What's happened to Mark?" said Corrance irritably. "D——n it all—I beg your pardon, David, but Mark would make you swear, bishop though you are.""I'll see him," said David; "but I—I don't know—I fear——" He broke off abruptly. Then his eyes flashed. "What's happened to Mark?"As for me," said Jim, "I can see, but Mark, the blind fool, wants a nurse or a keeper. He's half child, half lunatic. I'll go now. You're up to your nose in work, and so am I. I suppose you want money, you shameless beggar?""All I can get and all I can't get.""I shall have to send you a cheque," Jim growled. "I tell everybody you're the dearest friend I've got. Good-bye."He retreated hastily, fearing a lecture. David returned to an enormous correspondence with which his secretary was endeavouring to cope. The poor man nearly burst into tears when his chief told him that he might be absent for several hours. David put on his hat, deaf to a score of protests."I'm going fishing," he said, "and, confound it! I've no bait."Corrance had told him that Mark lunched at the Scribblers. To that club the Bishop took his way. There he learned that Mark was writing in the silence room. David walked in, unannounced, holding out his hand, which Mark refused to take."You went to Betty," he said fiercely."No.""She failed me.""Yes; she failed you, thank God.""What brings you here?""You know perfectly well.""But this is intolerable, this interference! Will you understand, Ross, that I insist upon your leaving me alone?""That is impossible, Mark. Why, I want you to come and stay with me for a month.""I wonder they ordained you a bishop," said Mark. "I thought they made a point of choosing men of—tact.""I've any amount of tact," said David cheerfully. "Mark, you're a madman, and in your soul you know it.""Tommy Greatorex sent you on this fool's errand?""Yes; Greatorex and Jim and Pynsent. Your friends love you well, Mark. Have you no love for them?""I'll tell you something, Ross; it may save you time and trouble. The love I had for you fellows is dead—dead." Then, as a gesture of dismay escaped the Bishop, Mark added: "I cannot love anybody. If it could come back, if—but it won't. That's why I've kept away from most of you. You—you all bore me. Oh, it's my fault, I know. I've become a one-idea'd man. I can think of nothing but my play and the woman who is going to produce it, to give it life. She's become part of it, do you understand, part of me—me. I can't lie to you; but I'd like you to try to realise that the Mark Samphire you once knew is dead. Who killed Cock Robin?" he laughed. "I can't answer that question.""You mean you won't," said the Bishop steadily. "Well, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. You will come to life again, Mark Samphire, but not at my touch."He moved towards the door."David!"The familiar name thrilled upon the air. It was Mark, the old Mark, speaking. In an instant the hands of the two friends were locked."I can't let you go like that," said Mark. "For all you have done and would do, I—thank you."A few days passed without incident. Spring was abroad in the fields and woods, hailed by twittering birds and white blossoms. Mark felt her caress, and was sensible of that amazing calm which succeeds and precedes any strenuous effort. He let himself drift with the current, lulled almost to sleep by the lilt of the stream which bore him to the troubled waters beyond his ken.Someone has said that a fine quality in a human being may become the source of disaster as well as triumph. One might go further, and add that a fine quality denied its triumph, may be wrecked in disaster. That love for others with which Mark had been endowed would have increased and multiplied in marriage. The man had the best qualities or a husband and father. He apprehended this with his reason, even as Betty apprehended it intuitively. But such manifest destiny had been denied him, as in like manner it was denied to his friend David Ross. But David had been given his triumph. His power of loving, purged from the taint of selfish emotion, had expanded enormously, incredibly, suffusing itself, divinely fluid, over vast areas, transmuting everything it touched, producing and reproducing with inexhaustible energy and fertility. Mark's love might have flowed into as many and diverse channels had it not been dammed by its bastard brother passion—hate.Now, standing (as Greatorex had put it) on the brink of the bottomless pit, he was conscious that not only was love, the higher love, dead, but that hate also was moribund. He could think of Archibald as of one at an immeasurable distance—a shadowy figure, a blur upon the horizon. And since his meeting with Betty in Pynsent's studio, she also had faded, and becomeunreal, a phantom of the past, flitting from him into impenetrable shades.This feeling of remoteness from the persons whose lives had been so interwoven with his own underwent a crucial test that same afternoon. In theGlobeMark read that the see of Parham had been offered to and accepted by Archibald Samphire. His brother had reached the apex of his ambitions; he was the bishop-designate of a famous diocese in the North of England! Lower down, in the same column, was another paragraph—"Mrs. Perowne is leaving London for the Continent. The famous actress, we are given to understand, has accepted a play by one of our rising novelists, a play which those who have read it declare to be quite out of the common."Mark recognised the finger of Tommy in this, as well as the long arm of coincidence. Upon the page opposite the column of personal paragraphs was a sketch of his brother's life and labours. Mark laughed. The Bishop of Parham. A spiritual peer! And what a leg for a gaiter! He laughed again, reflecting that other paragraphs might be printed concerning a famous actress and a rising novelist. My lord would read them with horror.Next day theTimeshad a long leader about the Chrysostom of Chelsea. The late Bishop of Parham, an old infirm man, had distinguished himself as scholar, and then extinguished himself as prelate, lacking those powers of organisation which do not, perhaps, lend themselves to biblical exegesis and the Higher Criticism. His diocese—of great extent—had of late years increased enormously in population. The discovery of coal and a certain kind of clay had brought about an upheaval: the pastoral industries, which supported a few farmers and shepherds, still flourished, but side by side with colossal commercial enterprises. Towns, black with the smoke from a thousand factories, had sprung up like mushrooms upon turf that had never known a plough; railroads ravaged the face of the landscape with indelible lines; half a dozen fishing villages bade fair to become seaports of importance. With these new and complex conditions, the aged scholar had tried in vain to cope. Upon his death, at an advanced age, it was felt at headquarters that a young man must be selected to grapple with them: an athlete of tried physical strength, an abstainer (for the statistics in regard to drunkenness were appalling), an organiser, and above all things an eloquent preacher. For such a task no better nor abler man than Archibald Samphire could be found in the kingdom. The Prime Minister had made a wise selection, which the Dean and Chapter of Parham would, doubtless, approve and confirm.And so forth....Mark bought other journals and read what was written about Parham and its bishop-designate. In each a few lines were accorded to the wife, who, by happy chance, was descended from the most ancient and distinguished of the border families. One paper contained the following:—
CHAPTER XXXVIII
GONZALES
Mark plunged into the obscurity of the underground railway, cursing the impulse which had taken him to Pynsent's studio. Betty had suffered, but what was her suffering compared with his?
He repeated this to himself again and again, as the train bore him eastward. Then he remembered Jim's phrase: "Our Betty is out of sight."
Thinking of Jim, he got out at the Mansion House and walked to the Stock Exchange. Five minutes with Jim might blow some cobwebs out of his mind. He reached the huge building and called for James Corrance. The porter bade him wait near some glass swinging-doors through which hatless men were continually passing. Whenever these opened a dull roar of many voices fell on Mark's ear, a menacing growl as of an angry beast. In his present mood Mark welcomed any strange noise as a distraction from the buzzing of his own thoughts. This beast of the markets made itself heard. Mark wondered vaguely whether it drowned, to such men as Jim, all other sounds.
While he stood, peering through the glass doors, a sharp thud, as of a mallet striking a panel of wood, smote his ears. In an instant, as if some wizard had waved a wand, silence fell upon the crowd within the building, a silence inexpressibly strange and awe-inspiring. Again the thud was heard, louder and more articulate. Mark guessed what was happening. A member of the Stock Exchange was about to be "hammered." The silence, Mark noted, was partially broken by a shuffling of innumerable feet, as men pressed forward to catch the name of the man who had failed. The hammer struck for the third and last time. Mark could see that every face was turned in one direction; upon each lay a grim expression of anxiety. Then a hoarse voice said in a monotone: "Mr. Caxton Bruno is unable to comply with his bargains." A roar of voices succeeded the announcement, as the crowd resumed the business of the minute. The glass doors swung open; and Jim Corrance appeared.
"You heard poor Bruno hammered," he said. "Dramatic—eh? It always thrills, because one never knows. That cursed hammer may sound the death knell of a dozen firms. Iamglad to see you——"
Talking volubly, he insisted that Mark must lunch with him, although Mark protested that he had no appetite. But Jim, when he heard thatFenellawas accepted by Mrs. Perowne, declared that a bottle of champagne must be cracked. He carried Mark off to his City club, where scores of men were eating, drinking, and talking. Jim pointed out the celebrities.
"That fellow is a famous 'bear,'" he indicated a short, thick-set, rather unctuous-looking Jew. "In the long run the 'bears' have the best of it."
"He doesn't look clever," said Mark.
"Clever? He's stupid as an owl outside his own special business. It isn't the clever ones who arrive. I know men with all the qualities essential to success, but the luck goes against 'em every time. They ought to get there with both feet, but they don't. You must have a glass of that old cognac, Mark. A play is not accepted every day, by Jove! I tell you what I'll do, my boy. I'll give a dinner in honour of the event. We'll get Pynsent, and Tommy Greatorex, and the rest of 'em. Why not nip over to Paris for it? Eh? What are you mumbling? All take and no give. What infernal rot! Well, I won't take no. As if it wasn't an honour to entertain so distinguished a gentleman."
Mark's spirits began to rise. After all, the world was not such a bad place. And the luck which Jim spoke about had certainly changed. The play would be produced within the year. Thoroughly warmed by Jim's hospitality, and promising that he would reconsider his refusal to dine in Paris, he left the City to keep his appointment with Mrs. Perowne. But the atmosphere of the underground railway, raw, fetid, thick with smoke, brought back the misery and despair of the morning. He found himself reflecting that life after thirty was an underground procession, a nauseating vagabondage in semi-obscurity, stopping now and again at stations artificially illumined, garishly decorated, reeking with abominable odours, crowded with pale, troubled strangers jostling each other in their wild efforts to hurry on to some other place as detestable as the one they were leaving....
As for the play upon which so much was staked, was he not a sanguine fool to take a woman's word that it would be produced? And production did not mean success. But here he paused. Production to him did mean success. It was good, good, good! It had thrilled two persons who knew. Greatorex, the cynic, the reader of innumerable plays, and the actress, the woman of genius.
On this occasion Mrs. Perowne received him in her drawing-room: a conventional room, white-and-yellow, filled with absurd knick-knacks and too many flowers, principally exotics of overpowering perfume. She was wearing a large hat which overshadowed her face. Her dress and jacket of the plainest cloth and cut were trimmed with sable. Mark had passed her brougham, drawn up a few yards from the entrance of the building, and guessed that she was going out. She began to speak aboutFenella.
"Alfred Gonzales has read it."
"What does he say?"
"He finds it too serious. He says there's no money in it."
Mark gasped.
"But Alfred is not infallible," she added. "I mean to produceFenella. It may be wise to throw it first to the dog." This meant a first performance in the provinces. Mark burst into excited speech.
"Then you d-d-don't mean to ch-chuck me. You've raised me to the heights, Mrs. Perowne. Don't drop me! I m-m-mean that I'd sooner know the worst now. You said you were an impulsive woman. Perhaps your impulse overstepped the b-b-bounds of prudence, you know. And, if so, we'll call the thing off. But don't drop me later. I couldn't stand that. Am I speaking out too plainly? You've been very kind, very kind indeed; I shall always be grateful, b-b-but I can face disappointment better now than l-l-later."
"Sit down," she said, smiling. "Why, what a boy you are. I-I like boys."
He sat down, trembling, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
"You are as emotional as I am," she murmured in a caressing voice. "Now, I've an appointment which I must keep. You can believe that I'd sooner spend the afternoon with you. I really mean it. I have to recite at a bazaar. Which bores me horribly. Now do you believe that I am your friend, that I like you, that you interest me? And will you be furious if I add that I like you better than your play—good though it is? I prefer the man to his work, the artist to his art."
She paused, glancing at him through half-closed eyes. There was something feline about her expression and pose. Her voice had a purr in it. Mark did not know what to say or do.
"I should like to help you to a real success," she continued. "And why not? Your play might be made into a masterpiece. At present it is uneven, amateurish, crude in parts. Alfred put his finger on the weak spots. He says that the fourth act ought to be rewritten. Shall we rewrite it together? I mean, will you let me help you to make it just what it ought to be?"
"Why, of course," said Mark eagerly. "I am not fool enough to suppose that the thing can't be improved. Your help, your hints, your experience would be invaluable. I was counting on them at rehearsal."
"But we haven't come to that yet. I don't hold with altering plays at rehearsals. After the first night or two, revision may be expedient. One never knows. Scenes may drag, or they may be too short. We needn't go into that now. But my point is that the thing should be as perfect as the author can make it, before it is read to the company. You agree with me—hein?"
The foreign word of interrogation had a soothing sound. Mark placed himself in her hands unreservedly.
"I trust you," he said simply.
She nodded, showing her lovely teeth in a smile. Then she pointed out that nothing could be done till the piece in which she was acting had been taken off. She expected to be quite free in a fortnight's time. After Easter she would appear in a rôle which required little preparation. During Lent she might go abroad. But all details could be settled later. Would he drink tea with her and talk everything over the day after to-morrow?
He saw her into her brougham.
"Your play is in Alfred's hands," she said, as she bade him good-bye. "He is going to make some notes for us. Have you met him? Go and see him. He's at the theatre now."
She murmured something he did not catch, as the brougham rolled silently away. She was right. He ought to see Gonzales. The business connected with the play, the contract and so forth, must be done through him. Doubtless that was what she meant when she urged him to go to the theatre. He took a 'bus to the Alcazar and sent up his card. Presently word came down through a tube that Mr. Gonzales would be disengaged in less than ten minutes. Mr. Samphire might care to look over the house? Mark assenting to this, a youth connected with the manager's department escorted him through the building, which had been built for Mrs. Perowne "regardless of expense," as the youth said, and "replete with every modern appliance." Mark wondered at the beauty of the decorations in parts of the theatre other than the auditorium, where lavishness was to be expected. The stage was already set, and the youth told Mark that the "Empire" furniture had adorned the palace of one of Napoleon's marshals.
Further details, setting forth the thousands lavished upon scenery and costumes, gave Mark a dismal impression that the play itself was the least part of a modern theatrical performance; this impression was deepened when he met the manager, whom he disliked at the first glance. Gonzales, it was said, had lured Mrs. Perowne from her husband, holding out the bait of fame. She first appeared in one of his adaptations from the French, a melodrama built about a head of red hair. Mrs. Perowne's red hair had been the feature of posters six yards long, designed by Cheret. In America, the yellow press had asserted that Gonzales was in the habit of dragging his pupil across her room by her flaming locks. Her screams echoed from Maine to California, and filled every theatre with curious crowds, who believed the stories when they saw the red hair.
Gonzales was big and burly, with a close-clipped black beard, through which protruded a red lower lip. His face indicated power, cruelty, and a brutal self-assurance. He was smoking a very thick cigar, which he held, when he spoke, between white, fat fingers. His voice, however, was charming; melodious, persuasive, with the intonations and inflections characteristic of the Latin races; and his eyes, heavily lidded, were finely formed and of a clear umber in colour. He began to praise Mark's play with an insincerity which revolted. Mark, sensible of an overpowering desire to escape, listened to interminable phrases.
"You are soaping the ways," he said, when Gonzales paused. "I understood from Mrs. Perowne that you saw no m-money in the thing. You can tell me frankly what you think of it. I am not thin-skinned, and I hope you d-don't take me for a f-fool."
Gonzales showed his teeth.
"One has to be careful with authors," he said. "I write myself, trifles," he shrugged his shoulders, "adaptations, as you know, which have had a measure of success. And I can't bear to have them criticised, these adopted children of mine. I think them perfect, perfect. But you—you are of colder blood—and you say you prefer the truth which I speak sometimes," he smiled disagreeably. "Well, then, in my opinion, you have just missed a big thing. There's dramatic power in every line ofFenella, and in Paris it might catch on, but here tragedy is played—out. Still, I don't say that with judicious cutting, and a slight strengthening of the love interest, and—in short I told Mrs. Perowne that we could make something of it, if you gave us a free hand. Oh, there's plenty of action, and a freshness of treatment, but look here——" He made a couple of suggestions, so admirable, so luminous of his insight into dramatic possibilities, that Mark admitted at once the man's cleverness and knowledge of what was good work. But when he had, so to speak, given this sample of his ability, he added with an odious sneer: "After all the public, our public, asks for something absolutely different. For example, I am in treaty now for a comedy in four acts. Mrs. Perowne will wear eight dresses, furnished by the four leading dressmakers of Paris.Entre nous, these confections will cost us nothing, not asou. They will be an immense 'ad' for the dressmakers and for us. The comedy must be constructed round these dresses. As an artist I deplore such methods, but a successful manager is forced to employ them."
Mark curtly stated the object of his visit. Gonzales shrugged his shoulders.
"The contract? Is it not early to talk of that?"
Words flowed like a stream of milk from his mouth. In the "profession," he explained, one could not move in haste. Mrs. Perowne had engagements to be filled. It was absurd to talk of producing a play on a certain day. It was bad business to take off a paying piece. And Rejane might lease the Alcazar. No, no, he gave Mr. Samphire credit for a certain delicacy. He was dealing, remember, with a lady, whose judgment—the truth was best—he had taken by storm. As her manager, he had implored her again and again to read no plays till he, the speaker, had looked them over. Finally, Mark took his leave, conscious that he had been defeated, that this man of many words could warp him to his will. He carried away with him, moreover, a conviction that Gonzales was his enemy, and that the stories about him and Mrs. Perowne were true.
CHAPTER XXXIX
AT THE MIRAFLORES
During the fortnight that followed Mark saw Mrs. Perowne every day. The actress exercised over him strange powers of attraction and repulsion, which he tried to analyse: sensible that the repulsion was subtle and negative, whereas the attraction was obvious and positive. She had a score of charms; but beneath them lay something secret and hateful; possibly a cruelty not alien to red hair and red lips. By chance, one day, Mark said that strong smelling-salts held beneath the nose of a bulldog would make him relax his grip of another dog when more violent measures had failed. The actress had a Chow for whom she expressed extravagant affection. Before Mark could interfere, she had called the dog to her side and thrust beneath its sensitive nostrils some strong spirits of ammonia. The poor animal snuffed at them, and was almost strangled by the fumes. Mark, furious at such unnecessary cruelty, made hot protest and then got up to leave the room. Mrs. Perowne entreated forgiveness, pleading ignorance and thoughtlessness. Mark saw tears in her eyes; suborned witnesses, no doubt, but deemed honest by an honest man.
"I loathe cruelty," said Mark.
"Gonzales is cruel," she replied irrelevantly.
"But you like him?"
"I hate him—sometimes."
He divined in her a desire to talk about Gonzales.
"I hate him always," said Mark. "I don't want to hear his name mentioned. I know he is a beast."
"Would you like me to dismiss him?" she asked softly.
He stared at her in astonishment.
"Could you? I understood that he was in—indispensable, as actor and manager."
"No man is indispensable to—me," she said angrily. Then her face changed and softened, suffused by an extraordinary radiance of youth and vitality. "I mean to say," she murmured, "that no man,yet, has proved himself indispensable, but——"
She looked at Mark, who got up and began to pace the room, much agitated. Her lips were parted, revealing the small, white, resolute-looking teeth. She was reflecting, not without a sense of humour, that Mark was the first man of the many she liked who refused to dance to her piping. The fact allured her.
"I must go," he said abruptly.
"But you will come to-morrow?"
He hesitated, blushing like a girl, but on the morrow he came and found her friendly, genial, the "good sort": a rôle she could sustain to perfection. Mark, on the other hand, felt himself to be dull and irritable. Even the all-absorbingFenellafailed to quicken his wits or pulses. He answered absently some suggestions in regard to the fourth act, staring at the speaker's eyes, as if trying to read their message instead of that of the lips.
"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked in a tone absolutely free from sentiment.
"I am trying to find the real Sybil."
"Sybils are mysteries," she said lightly. "Besides you come here to talk about the play—hein? not about me."
"I come here to talk about the play," he answered slowly, "but I go away to think about you."
"And the thoughts are not always pleasant ones?"
"Not always."
"You are truthful."
"Am I?"
"Most men are such liars. Gonzales, for example—ah, well, we won't talk of him. But the others—oh, the humbugs!"
In fluent, even tones, she began to speak of the men she knew intimately, the higher Bohemians of art and literature. It was impossible not to be amused by her sketches.
"This is caricature," said Mark.
"Studies from life."
"I'm glad I don't know those—gentlemen."
"You are a man of limitations; and you see others not as they are but as you would like them to be. That is why your books do not sell. Your characters are strongly drawn, but their strength is a reproach and an exasperation to readers of weaker clay. In books, as in real life, we like to meet people no better and perhaps worse than ourselves. You are handicapped by ideals, which bankrupt your ideas...."
On this theme she spoke volubly for some minutes. Mark listened, amazed at her perceptions, at her grasp of life as it is lived in London, at her audacity in dealing with problems.
"You look astonished," she concluded, "but nowadays revolt is a synonym of intelligence. As for me I revolt against stupid traditions and conventions. They are to me like those hideous horse-hair sofas and chairs upon which our grandfathers sat so stiffly. What? Good wear in them? I dare say they served their purpose, but now they are banished to obscure lodging-houses."
Mark repeated some of her phrases to Tommy Greatorex.
"She's as clever as she can stick," Tommy admitted, "but it's surface cleverness, like surface water, tricklings from a thousand sources more or less polluted. She's interested in you because you are different from—the others. Of course you're not interested in her—apart from her profession, I mean. I sent you to her because I knew you would be proof against her sorceries—the witch. Hullo!"
Mark was scarlet.
"I say—you're not interested, are you? She's a wrong 'un. I warned you."
"She has good in her."
Greatorex laughed.
"Good? A needle in a haystack. Seriously, Mark, you mustn't burn your fingers. Lord! I was so sure of you. I foresaw that you would excite her curiosity and interest; I knew that she would like you, as I said, better than your play. In a word I pulled the strings, but I thought I should make her dance, not you."
"She has been very kind to me."
"What have you been to her? Tell me to mind my own business, if you like. It's not worth minding, but that doesn't matter."
"I am going to ask Mrs. Perowne to marry me," Mark replied slowly.
"Phew-w-w!"
Instantly, Mark took his hat and marched out of the room. Tommy bit his nails till it occurred to him to light a pipe. Then he tried to continue his work, a special article, but he found it impossible to write a line. Mark's face and eyes disturbed him. Finally, he flung down his pen in a rage.
"I thought I knew him," he muttered, "I thought I knew him. This is the bottomless pit, and I led him blindfold to the edge of it."
Suddenly he bethought himself of Pynsent. Pynsent knew Mrs. Perowne, had painted her portrait—a revelation of character in colour. Accordingly he wired to Pynsent, asking him to dine at a small restaurant in Baker Street, and mentioning that a subject of importance was to be discussed. Pynsent wired back an acceptance for the same evening, and the men met at eight o'clock. They sat down to sharpen their appetites upon some excellent salted fillets of herring. Not till themarmitewas swallowed did Greatorex give his perplexity words. Then he said abruptly—
"You painted Mrs. Perowne?"
"You bet I did—inside and out."
"Did she make love to you?"
"N-n-no," Pynsent replied, not quite readily.
"Why not be frank? I can hold my tongue."
"I think," Pynsent admitted cautiously, "that she expected me to make love to her, but I didn't. I took a dislike to the woman. And it came out in the picture. Unpleasant things were said about it at the time, but she liked it. She told me I had succeeded. And—Great Scott!—so I had."
"She has captivated and is captivated by Mark Samphire. He is going to marry her."
"What?"
"It is partly my fault, but I was so sure of—him." He told the story at length. "And now what are we to do?"
"Mark—Mark!" Pynsent kept repeating stupidly. "It is incredible. Mark Samphire—and Sybil Perowne!"
"She has never denied herself anything."
"She'll suck every ounce of good blood from his body. It would be kindness to knock him on the head."
"It would be pleasure to knock her on the head," said Tommy gloomily.
"We can do nothing," said Pynsent, at length, as he lit one of his Caporal cigarettes, which he smoked between the courses. "There was Maiden. When I studied at the Beaux Arts, Maiden was the coming man. By Jove! he had come. I remember his big picture in the Salon of '79. Crowds stood in front of it, jabbering like monkeys. It was great, great. And France bought it. It hangs in the Luxembourg to-day. Well, Maiden had a model, a queer little devil of a girl with huge black eyes whom he stuck into all his pictures. He bought her from her mother out of a slum, the Rue du Haut-Pavé, close to the cabaret du Soleil d'Or, and she followed him about like a spaniel, all over Normandy and Brittany. We wondered what would happen when the child became a woman. Gad! we might have guessed for a year and a day and never hit the truth. Maiden married her! He, the wit, the scholar, the gentleman, married that guttersnipe. And he hasn't painted a picture for fifteen years! I tell you, Tommy, that it's impossible to predict what any man will do when he comes in contact with the wrong woman."
"Or with the right one," said Greatorex, frowning.
They drank their coffee, and by mutual consent went to the Miraflores Music Hall, feeling that anything which might distract their thoughts from Mark would prove a relief. The place was crowded as usual, and Pynsent, pulling out a pencil, began to draw heads upon a piece of paper placed in his hat, while Tommy watched his facile fingers, much amused by the remarks which punctuated every line.
"People must relax," the painter was saying. "These places would be empty if we lived normal lives. A self-respecting savage would be bored to death here."
"True," said Tommy. "If you want to find sense nowadays you must hunt for it in the South Pacific, in the islands which Captain Cook and Mr. Thomas Cook did not find. Hullo, there's Jim Corrance."
"Why not tell him," said Pynsent quickly. "He's Mark's oldest friend; he'd do anything for Mark; and he's a practical sort of chap, too."
Jim joined them with alacrity, obviously glad to see Pynsent, who, of late, had dropped out of his file. The three secured a table in the corner of the foyer, where they could talk without fear of being overheard, for the noise—the shrill laughter of the women, the deep notes of the men, the blare of the band—was deafening. Jim, however, not knowing Mrs. Perowne, save by reputation, was unable to realise the gravity of the situation.
"Aren't you fellows making a mountain of a molehill?" he asked. "And, besides, what can old Mark offer Sybil Perowne?"
"A new sensation," said Tommy grimly. His face impressed Corrance. Pynsent nodded gloomily.
"There's David Ross," said Jim.
"The Bishop of Poplar?"
"At one time Mark and he were hand-in-glove. He used to be a wonder-worker."
"Oh, he is still," said Greatorex. "I thought we should get something out of you, Corrance."
"But a parson——" began Pynsent doubtfully.
"He was the amateur middleweight champion before he took Orders," said Corrance, "and it's the pugilist in him, not the parson, which has made him the man he is. He'll tackle Mark, never fear. He tackles me—periodically, but all the same, if this thing is serious he will accomplish nothing."
"That is what I say," Pynsent added.
But Tommy, the smallest and weakest of the three, doggedly persisted. Finally he persuaded Corrance to seek out the Bishop of Poplar. Having extracted a promise to this effect, he took leave of the others, for his article, due on the morrow, had to be finished that night. Pynsent and Corrance remained together. As the little man plunged into the crowd, Pynsent said: "Tommy Greatorex would cut off his right hand for Mark, but I've heard men call him selfish and self-centred."
Corrance at once began to analyse this indisputable fact, sticking out his chin, and talking with an aggressive frankness which much amused the painter, who said presently:
"We may as well admit, Jim, that we're cold-blooded, you and I——"
"For the sake of argument—yes. Go on!"
"Partly because of that we've succeeded. I can't see myself, or you, my boy, chucking our work to help others, although after the work was done we might write a cheque—eh?"
"You had better have another whisky and potass."
"Thanks. I will."
They watched the Miraflores ballet from a couple of balcony stalls. Fabulous sums had been spent upon the costumes of the dancers, who represented flowers and butterflies. Pynsent became absorbed in the spectacle of light and colour and movement. Now and again he jogged Corrance with his elbow, calling his attention to this effect and that, muttering inarticulate exclamations. The lights in the theatre were turned low, so that the stage, a blaze of golden splendour, attracted all eyes. Then, suddenly, like a sun in eclipse, the stage itself was obscured. One saw luminous shadows through which floated spirits of the air, mysterious winged beings; the butterflies seeking the flowers at the approach of night. Impenetrable darkness succeeded as the band stopped playing. In the foyer, men and women crowded together craned their heads in one direction, awaiting the supreme moment. It came. Out of the darkness glided a dazzling creature, veiled in what seemed to be a tissue of diamonds. From her alone emanated light, a myriad sparkles. She advanced slowly with white, outstretched arms, a smile upon her face. At the edge of the stage she poised herself for flight. Not a sound broke the silence, but one felt the throb and thrill of a thousand hearts. Then a faint strain of music suffused the air, as the creature took wing. She soared upward and forward, following the curve of an ellipse. Thus soaring, she scattered flowers which fell everywhere, filling the house with perfume. In the dome of the building she vanished. A sigh of pleasure escaped the lips of the spectators. The vision reappeared, gliding forward as before out of obscurity. Once more, for the last time, she soared upward and vanished.
"Let us go," said Pynsent. "That was the immortal spirit of Love. And she vanished—no wonder—in this temple of——" He shut his lips, for his neighbours were staring at him.
Corrance rose, muttering: "The expenses must be stupendous; but Miraflores shares are at 219. I bought a nice little block at 127 eighteen months ago."
"Shut up, you miserable materialist!"
"I can't afford to be anything else—nor can Mark, poor devil!"
"I beg your pardon," said Pynsent hurriedly.
They pushed their way through the crowd, pausing at the top of the broad stairs which led to the street below. The atmosphere, charged with odours of musk and patchouli and reeking of strong cigars, was overpoweringly oppressive. But on almost every face, pale beneath the glare of the electric light, flamed a curious satisfaction, curious because with rare exceptions it was artificial. The exception may be mentioned. A thick-set man, remarkable by reason of his white hair and pink smooth face, stood at the entrance, bowing and beaming. The habitués knew him, and nodded carelessly as they passed by. Some exchanged a few words. The man seemed to be counting: reckoning the numbers present, computing gains.
"That's old Harry," said Corrance to the painter. "He runs this place. Hullo, Harry, how are you? Big house to-night."
"Big house every night," said Harry complacently. "You know that, Mr. Corrance. It's prime—prime. I never get tired of watching it."
He rubbed his plump white hands together, beaming like an aged cherub.
"Holy Moses!" exclaimed Pynsent. "You never get tired of watching—this?" He indicated the promenade in a derisive gesture.
"Never," said Harry, opening his blue eyes in childish astonishment at such a question. "Why this is my show. I planned it. I stand here every night."
"It's meat and drink, old chap, isn't it?" said Corrance.
"I've got just where I wanted to be," Harry said solemnly. "The boys call me king of the music-halls."
"Good-night, your majesty," said Corrance, beginning to descend the stairs. "There's one that's happy and content," he added, as Pynsent and he strolled down the corridor.
"We're saprophytes," burst out Pynsent.
"I don't know what that means," said Jim, "but it sounds something nasty."
CHAPTER XL
"COME!"
True to his promise, Corrance sought out the Bishop of Poplar, and delivered himself of his message. David Ross nodded, but his fine eyes were troubled.
"What's happened to Mark?" said Corrance irritably. "D——n it all—I beg your pardon, David, but Mark would make you swear, bishop though you are."
"I'll see him," said David; "but I—I don't know—I fear——" He broke off abruptly. Then his eyes flashed. "What's happened to Mark?
"As for me," said Jim, "I can see, but Mark, the blind fool, wants a nurse or a keeper. He's half child, half lunatic. I'll go now. You're up to your nose in work, and so am I. I suppose you want money, you shameless beggar?"
"All I can get and all I can't get."
"I shall have to send you a cheque," Jim growled. "I tell everybody you're the dearest friend I've got. Good-bye."
He retreated hastily, fearing a lecture. David returned to an enormous correspondence with which his secretary was endeavouring to cope. The poor man nearly burst into tears when his chief told him that he might be absent for several hours. David put on his hat, deaf to a score of protests.
"I'm going fishing," he said, "and, confound it! I've no bait."
Corrance had told him that Mark lunched at the Scribblers. To that club the Bishop took his way. There he learned that Mark was writing in the silence room. David walked in, unannounced, holding out his hand, which Mark refused to take.
"You went to Betty," he said fiercely.
"No."
"She failed me."
"Yes; she failed you, thank God."
"What brings you here?"
"You know perfectly well."
"But this is intolerable, this interference! Will you understand, Ross, that I insist upon your leaving me alone?"
"That is impossible, Mark. Why, I want you to come and stay with me for a month."
"I wonder they ordained you a bishop," said Mark. "I thought they made a point of choosing men of—tact."
"I've any amount of tact," said David cheerfully. "Mark, you're a madman, and in your soul you know it."
"Tommy Greatorex sent you on this fool's errand?"
"Yes; Greatorex and Jim and Pynsent. Your friends love you well, Mark. Have you no love for them?"
"I'll tell you something, Ross; it may save you time and trouble. The love I had for you fellows is dead—dead." Then, as a gesture of dismay escaped the Bishop, Mark added: "I cannot love anybody. If it could come back, if—but it won't. That's why I've kept away from most of you. You—you all bore me. Oh, it's my fault, I know. I've become a one-idea'd man. I can think of nothing but my play and the woman who is going to produce it, to give it life. She's become part of it, do you understand, part of me—me. I can't lie to you; but I'd like you to try to realise that the Mark Samphire you once knew is dead. Who killed Cock Robin?" he laughed. "I can't answer that question."
"You mean you won't," said the Bishop steadily. "Well, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. You will come to life again, Mark Samphire, but not at my touch."
He moved towards the door.
"David!"
The familiar name thrilled upon the air. It was Mark, the old Mark, speaking. In an instant the hands of the two friends were locked.
"I can't let you go like that," said Mark. "For all you have done and would do, I—thank you."
A few days passed without incident. Spring was abroad in the fields and woods, hailed by twittering birds and white blossoms. Mark felt her caress, and was sensible of that amazing calm which succeeds and precedes any strenuous effort. He let himself drift with the current, lulled almost to sleep by the lilt of the stream which bore him to the troubled waters beyond his ken.
Someone has said that a fine quality in a human being may become the source of disaster as well as triumph. One might go further, and add that a fine quality denied its triumph, may be wrecked in disaster. That love for others with which Mark had been endowed would have increased and multiplied in marriage. The man had the best qualities or a husband and father. He apprehended this with his reason, even as Betty apprehended it intuitively. But such manifest destiny had been denied him, as in like manner it was denied to his friend David Ross. But David had been given his triumph. His power of loving, purged from the taint of selfish emotion, had expanded enormously, incredibly, suffusing itself, divinely fluid, over vast areas, transmuting everything it touched, producing and reproducing with inexhaustible energy and fertility. Mark's love might have flowed into as many and diverse channels had it not been dammed by its bastard brother passion—hate.
Now, standing (as Greatorex had put it) on the brink of the bottomless pit, he was conscious that not only was love, the higher love, dead, but that hate also was moribund. He could think of Archibald as of one at an immeasurable distance—a shadowy figure, a blur upon the horizon. And since his meeting with Betty in Pynsent's studio, she also had faded, and becomeunreal, a phantom of the past, flitting from him into impenetrable shades.
This feeling of remoteness from the persons whose lives had been so interwoven with his own underwent a crucial test that same afternoon. In theGlobeMark read that the see of Parham had been offered to and accepted by Archibald Samphire. His brother had reached the apex of his ambitions; he was the bishop-designate of a famous diocese in the North of England! Lower down, in the same column, was another paragraph—
"Mrs. Perowne is leaving London for the Continent. The famous actress, we are given to understand, has accepted a play by one of our rising novelists, a play which those who have read it declare to be quite out of the common."
Mark recognised the finger of Tommy in this, as well as the long arm of coincidence. Upon the page opposite the column of personal paragraphs was a sketch of his brother's life and labours. Mark laughed. The Bishop of Parham. A spiritual peer! And what a leg for a gaiter! He laughed again, reflecting that other paragraphs might be printed concerning a famous actress and a rising novelist. My lord would read them with horror.
Next day theTimeshad a long leader about the Chrysostom of Chelsea. The late Bishop of Parham, an old infirm man, had distinguished himself as scholar, and then extinguished himself as prelate, lacking those powers of organisation which do not, perhaps, lend themselves to biblical exegesis and the Higher Criticism. His diocese—of great extent—had of late years increased enormously in population. The discovery of coal and a certain kind of clay had brought about an upheaval: the pastoral industries, which supported a few farmers and shepherds, still flourished, but side by side with colossal commercial enterprises. Towns, black with the smoke from a thousand factories, had sprung up like mushrooms upon turf that had never known a plough; railroads ravaged the face of the landscape with indelible lines; half a dozen fishing villages bade fair to become seaports of importance. With these new and complex conditions, the aged scholar had tried in vain to cope. Upon his death, at an advanced age, it was felt at headquarters that a young man must be selected to grapple with them: an athlete of tried physical strength, an abstainer (for the statistics in regard to drunkenness were appalling), an organiser, and above all things an eloquent preacher. For such a task no better nor abler man than Archibald Samphire could be found in the kingdom. The Prime Minister had made a wise selection, which the Dean and Chapter of Parham would, doubtless, approve and confirm.And so forth....
Mark bought other journals and read what was written about Parham and its bishop-designate. In each a few lines were accorded to the wife, who, by happy chance, was descended from the most ancient and distinguished of the border families. One paper contained the following:—